"Protein is important, but if you have too much, the excess gets stored as fat," ?

"Protein is important, but if you have too much, the excess gets stored as fat," says Felicia Stoler, RD. "And high-protein shakes and bars tend to be sugary and fatty." Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC.
from: http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20841828_2,00.html
I am loving protein. It's filling me and keeps me from bingeing.
I seem to be having 80+ grams a day.
I do not exercise. But on my feet practically all day taking care of things.
I hate to give up my quick and easy protein shake. 140 cals. 3 grams of sugar.

I wonder how much is too much? Gets stored as fat? Could it be simply because a person is taking in too many calories? Could it be that simple?
These tidbit things never tell you the full story. They just scare people.

Replies

  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    Sugar = carbs
    Fat = fats
    Protein = protein

    Too many (where "too many" = more calories than you burn) of any of these = gaining fat on your body.
  • LKArgh
    LKArgh Posts: 5,178 Member
    All calories above your maintenance get stored as fat.What is surprising about this?
  • nordlead2005
    nordlead2005 Posts: 1,303 Member
    The statement is true. Granted, a simpler and more complete statement would be that too much energy intake gets stored as fat for future use.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    Which women?

    Average sedentary women? Large women? Small women? Women breast feeding? Women doing endurance cardio? Women who lift weights? Women on a calorie deficit?
  • ljk0615
    ljk0615 Posts: 160 Member
    I've been eating approximately 150g of protein (sometimes I've inadvertently eaten more than that) every day for months and months and months. I've lost almost 30 pounds. However I do work out a lot and weight train. My reasoning behind eating so much protein is to maintain my lean muscle mass. But I don't believe that your body will put on weight from too much protein, only from taking in more calories than you burn.
  • ahamm002
    ahamm002 Posts: 1,690 Member
    That quote from the health.com article you just linked is totally ridiculous. It's completely misleading and just plain wrong too. Optimal protein intake is based on your lean body mass and activity level. And it's much higher than 46 grams per day for most people.

    Furthermore, excess CALORIES from any source will get stores as fat. You could have hundreds of grams of protein per day, and as long your "calories in" were less than "calories out," none of it would be stored as fat. And protein is the least likely macronutrient to be consumed in excess. Fat and carbs are much easier to over eat than lean protein.
  • Sam_I_Am77
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
    ahamm002 wrote: »
    That quote from the health.com article you just linked is totally ridiculous. It's completely misleading and just plain wrong too. Optimal protein intake is based on your lean body mass and activity level. And it's much higher than 46 grams per day for most people.

    Furthermore, excess CALORIES from any source will get stores as fat. You could have hundreds of grams of protein per day, and as long your "calories in" were less than "calories out," none of it would be stored as fat. And protein is the least likely macronutrient to be consumed in excess. Fat and carbs are much easier to over eat than lean protein.

    Agree, that is very very misleading,

    "Protein is important, but if you have too much, the excess gets stored as fat," says Felicia Stoler, RD. "And high-protein shakes and bars tend to be sugary and fatty." Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    One, the source of protein must be considered. If somebody goes and gets shakes made at a smoothie shop or something for them and add in a scoop of Whey or something, good chance there's a ton of other craploa' in there as well that is the actually problem. Secondly, saying that women only need 46 grams of protein per day is absolutely frickin' ridiculous. You cannot generalize and give blanket-recommendations for one's calorie and macro-nutrient needs, simply can't. What the CDC is doing is taking some kind of average of whatever population of women they're analyzing and making a BS blanket statement. Granted, the topic of adequate protein consumption is very skewed as you'll find studies that say recreationally active people need anywhere from 1.40KG's per KG of body-weight to 2.3KG's per KG of body-weight but again that's better than saying you must eat "x".

    Secondly, there has been research done, no I don't have it at my finger-tips, regarding large surplus consumption of protein in the realm of 4KG's to 5KG's per KG of body-weight and the results suggestthat surplus protein alone does not cause weight gain. Which is shocking because it is surplus energy consumption and perhaps if it was more of a longitudinal study results would have been different, but the potential results are very much in-contrary to this BS and I would lean towards those studies before this random article.

    /rant
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,961 Member
    edited October 2015
    Sam_I_Am77 wrote: »
    ahamm002 wrote: »
    That quote from the health.com article you just linked is totally ridiculous. It's completely misleading and just plain wrong too. Optimal protein intake is based on your lean body mass and activity level. And it's much higher than 46 grams per day for most people.

    Furthermore, excess CALORIES from any source will get stores as fat. You could have hundreds of grams of protein per day, and as long your "calories in" were less than "calories out," none of it would be stored as fat. And protein is the least likely macronutrient to be consumed in excess. Fat and carbs are much easier to over eat than lean protein.

    Agree, that is very very misleading,

    "Protein is important, but if you have too much, the excess gets stored as fat," says Felicia Stoler, RD. "And high-protein shakes and bars tend to be sugary and fatty." Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    One, the source of protein must be considered. If somebody goes and gets shakes made at a smoothie shop or something for them and add in a scoop of Whey or something, good chance there's a ton of other craploa' in there as well that is the actually problem. Secondly, saying that women only need 46 grams of protein per day is absolutely frickin' ridiculous. You cannot generalize and give blanket-recommendations for one's calorie and macro-nutrient needs, simply can't. What the CDC is doing is taking some kind of average of whatever population of women they're analyzing and making a BS blanket statement. Granted, the topic of adequate protein consumption is very skewed as you'll find studies that say recreationally active people need anywhere from 1.40KG's per KG of body-weight to 2.3KG's per KG of body-weight but again that's better than saying you must eat "x".

    Secondly, there has been research done, no I don't have it at my finger-tips, regarding large surplus consumption of protein in the realm of 4KG's to 5KG's per KG of body-weight and the results suggestthat surplus protein alone does not cause weight gain. Which is shocking because it is surplus energy consumption and perhaps if it was more of a longitudinal study results would have been different, but the potential results are very much in-contrary to this BS and I would lean towards those studies before this random article.

    /rant

    I can't resist... but holy cow that's a lot of protein! *kg* tee hee.

    Agreed that blanket statements are never sufficient!

    One must keep in mind that there is such a thing as too much protein also. Which likely will cause damage to your kidneys.
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    Which women?

    Average sedentary women? Large women? Small women? Women breast feeding? Women doing endurance cardio? Women who lift weights? Women on a calorie deficit?

    That's the minimum required protein for an average weight sedentary woman on maintenance.
  • Sam_I_Am77
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
    VeryKatie wrote: »
    One must keep in mind that there is such a thing as too much protein also. Which likely will cause damage to your kidneys.

    Yeah, though I'm not really sure what that point would be. The research I've seen always used a population with healthy renal function and impairment to that function as a result of the protein consumption was never found to be true. Now if you take somebody would poor renal function then yeah it could be a different story.
  • Sam_I_Am77
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
    rankinsect wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    Which women?

    Average sedentary women? Large women? Small women? Women breast feeding? Women doing endurance cardio? Women who lift weights? Women on a calorie deficit?

    That's the minimum required protein for an average weight sedentary woman on maintenance.

    For a sedentary women on maintenance of what weight level?? A sedentary woman on maintenance at 5'5" is going to be far different than a 4'10" woman or a 5'10" woman. Let's say that 1.4KG's / KG of BW is used as a multiple for protein consumption, then 46gm's of protein would represent the maintenance for a 75lb woman.
  • Cherimoose
    Cherimoose Posts: 5,208 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    Which women?

    Average sedentary women? Large women? Small women? Women breast feeding? Women doing endurance cardio? Women who lift weights? Women on a calorie deficit?

    The CDC was quoting the National Academy of Sciences, which said: "RDAs are set to meet the needs of almost all (97 to 98 percent) individuals"
    https://iom.nationalacademies.org/~/media/Files/Activity Files/Nutrition/DRIs/DRI_Macronutrients.pdf

    The 46 grams was based on data of 235 people:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12499330

    Seems like a tiny number of people to study, but i'm not a statistician.
  • Sam_I_Am77
    Sam_I_Am77 Posts: 2,093 Member
    Cherimoose wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC

    Which women?

    Average sedentary women? Large women? Small women? Women breast feeding? Women doing endurance cardio? Women who lift weights? Women on a calorie deficit?

    The CDC was quoting the National Academy of Sciences, which said: "RDAs are set to meet the needs of almost all (97 to 98 percent) individuals"
    https://iom.nationalacademies.org/~/media/Files/Activity Files/Nutrition/DRIs/DRI_Macronutrients.pdf

    The 46 grams was based on data of 235 people:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12499330

    Seems like a tiny number of people to study, but i'm not a statistician.

    235 people, wow! Yeah, that's a good recommendation from the CDC.
    NOTE: The table is adapted from the DRI reports, see www.nap.edu. It represents Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) in bold type, Adequate
    Intakes (AIs) in ordinary type followed by an asterisk (*). RDAs and AIs may both be used as goals for individual intake. RDAs are set to meet the needs of
    almost all (97 to 98 percent) individuals in a group. For healthy breastfed infants, the AI is the mean intake. The AI for other life stage and gender groups is
    believed to cover the needs of all individuals in the group, but lack of data prevent being able to specify with confidence the percentage of individuals
    covered by this intake.

    Note that last sentence. Since the CDC is an international body, I wonder what their population sourcefor this would cover.

    Based on work done in 1985? I would say this information is quite out-dated.
  • riveragirl15
    riveragirl15 Posts: 48 Member
    THAT STATEMENT IS NOT TRUE. Carbs and fats can get stored as fats (or used as energy, or as waste). Protein is the only thing that cant be stored at fat. Only going towards muscle or out as waste!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

    Like everything is said above... there is other stuff in chicken and protein drinks.. that can be stored as fat.