Humour me for a moment

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emmab0902
emmab0902 Posts: 2,337 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
If it is true that when consuming protein, the thermic effect is up to 30%, does this mean that hypothetically if someone ate all protein and was aiming for 1500 calories a day (this is definitely not me!) they would need to consume just over 2000 actual calories worth of protein to offset the thermic effect??

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  • DavidOfOz
    DavidOfOz Posts: 225
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    You've lost me.
  • Squible
    Squible Posts: 359 Member
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    A man walked into a bar and said 'ow'


    Humoured you :) as I did not understand your post at all sorry!
  • QueenSamira
    QueenSamira Posts: 7
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    Oh, this is very interesting ... would like to hear informed responses!

    For those that don't get it: it's reported in some circles that you only consume 70% of the calories you take in from protein, since 30% of them have to be used to digest them and make them energy available; so, for example, if you ate 100kcal of protein, you would "burn" 30kcal digesting it and only actually "net" 70kcal. Thus, what OP is saying is: if you're on a diet of 1500kcal net a day of pure protein, would you need to eat 2000kcal (30% more) to offset this thermic effect of digestion and "net" 1500kcal?
  • BarefootBrendan
    BarefootBrendan Posts: 58
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    Ok I will have a go at it. The thermic effect of food is the amount of energy expenditure above the resting metabolic rate due to the cost of processing food for use and storage.Basically you asking if you eat only protein will you burn more calories. From the research I have done to determine if diets higher in protein result in an increased weight loss and fat loss as compared to diets lower in protein, I can not find any published medical journals that have consistently shown this to be true.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    I've never seen any data that shows a TEF of protein at 30%. if you've got some from a credible source, go ahead and post it, but TEF is not a significant amount in total daily intake.

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