Let's go through five, popular, protein myths that you might come across, as you navigate the diet world. Notice that I have purposely left out gluconeogenesis, because I have described that process multiple times before and I don't want to devote this post to it.
1. "Excess" protein turns into body fat.
You will hear this statement repeated, ad nauseum, everywhere. Even legitimate sources will repeat this fallacy, from dietitians to nutritionists, to even doctors. In fact, if you do any research, on this topic, you will see it over and over again: 'excess protein turns into body fat'. But, like I have stated before, repetition does not make things true, it just makes them redundant. The reality is that the available research does not support this claim and there is plenty of research on it, many of it quite recent.
Biochemically, the body has the capacity of turning protein into fat, but it never does it. Just like biochemically the body has the capacity to live to 130 years, but it never does. No one has yet seen protein being converted to fat, in any human study, even when protein was overfed by 4 to 5 times the necessary daily values. So, no one yet knows how high protein must go for this biochemical process, that turns it into fat, to kick in. The only thing that has been seen in people, who were overfed protein, was an increase in body weight from the building of lean body mass. Body fat never increased.
In fact, the body seems to be so adamant against turning protein into body fat, that it prefers to starve to death than do so. That's why a rare form of malnutrition exists known as "rabbit starvation", which occurs when the body has enough dietary protein, but no dietary fat to accompany it. You would think the body would convert some of this dietary protein into fat, so it won't starve, but it doesn't. The result is death, not the body turning all of that great protein into fat for survival.
But wait, why doesn't it turn all that protein into glucose and then convert all that glucose into fat? Because the body doesn't do that either. The protein it can convert to glucose is just not enough to create fat. In order to get fat off glucose, you have to eat it, not make it.
For this reason, legitimate sources will make the reasonable claim that "no benefit has been seen in consuming more protein than 2.0 grams per kilogram of ideal body weight a day", rather than "excess protein turns into body fat", because it absolutely does not. As far as "no benefit has been seen" goes, well, that can be left up for debate, but we can say with certainty that no damage has ever been seen and certainly no fat gain.
To be clear, you don't want to lose weight. Weight is a combination of water, muscle and fat. If you cut off a limb, you will weigh less. What you want to lose is body fat, because it's body fat that perpetuates obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Obesity is high body fat, not high body weight. You don't want to lose mass from your connective tissue, circulatory system, bone density, muscle, hair, nails and organs. You want to keep all of those, because if you start losing them now, you will only get fatter, by volume, as you get older. Fat people get fatter, not leaner. Lean people stay lean. Young people are lean, with plenty of lean muscle mass. Old people are weak, with plenty of fat mass. Nothing is more vibrant and youthful than plenty of lean muscle mass and little fat mass. Losing lean muscle mass does not equate to longevity, it equates to eminent demise and a terrible quality of life while waiting for it.
Because no one knows the "magic number" of when protein turns into fat, it is extremely difficult to know just how much protein is truly needed. This is why you see a very wide range of recommendations from different sources. Everyone is simply guessing and, in my opinion, the guesses are all on the low side. Protein is just one of those things that the body uses, if it has it, and adapts when it doesn't. This adaptation is so wide ranging that protein has to become extremely low before the body shows signs of a deficiency, while not working optimally in the interim. Protein deficiencies are more clearly seen in children, rather than adults, because children are still growing and need to not only replace lean muscle mass, but build more of it. For adults, a deficiency is much harder to identify.
The symptoms of low protein (hypoproteinemia) can vary from mild to severe and may include:
- Fatigue, weakness, frequent infections, thinning or falling out hair, loss of muscle, brittle nails and dry skin, cravings and constant hunger, poor thyroid function, feeling cold or inability to regulate body temperature, edema of the extremities
2. Protein intake is just as fattening as carbohydrate and fat.
- Carbohydrates stimulate both bolus (after a meal) and basal (fasting) insulin levels to store glucose as fat, due to erratic blood glucose fluctuations.
- Fat stimulates basal insulin levels for storage and prevents further fat loss.
- Protein stimulates bolus insulin to build lean body mass, not body fat. Basal insulin levels return to normal and that's what you want, because insulin should never be above normal if there's nothing to metabolize.
This is precisely why low fat diets restrict protein containing foods or require them to be "fat free". When you restrict protein containing foods, you can acquire temporary weight loss. This weight loss is mostly the result of lean muscle mass loss. Whatever small amount of fat loss occurs, is directly the result of restricting the fat that accompanies the protein foods, you are trying to avoid. The weight is then regained from the consequences of a chronically low protein diet, which causes edema and greater body fat storage in the long term.
What insulin does, in your body, is at the discretion of your neuroendocrine system, not at the discretion of its stimulation or presence. Insulin can either do good things in your body, or can wreak havoc in it. What it does is completely defined by what's on your plate, which instructs all of your metabolic hormones. All metabolic hormones work in feedback loops to regulate hunger and weight.
3. I restricted protein and started losing weight.
Congratulations! News flash, you're still fat because you lost weight from all the wrong places.
This is a little parlor trick that the conventional diet industry uses, but don't be a victim of it. Again, you are following their diet to lose body fat, not weight. But, because the diet industry thinks you are a fool, and they are banking on your ignorance, they like to point to your scale and tell you "See, you lost weight on my program!" All the while, you are as fat as ever.
The same goes for "low carb" diets and programs. They first tell you to restrict carbohydrate, but when that stops working, they quickly jump to the restriction of protein. The last thing they want to tell you is to restrict fat intake, since that's their money maker. You don't want to tell people, who are already pissed off at carbohydrate restriction, to restrict fat as well. After all, you lured them into accepting your protocol with the promise of ad libitum fat intake. Protein, on the other hand, won't be missed. It's not a good macronutrient to make "treats" out of, it's expensive, boring and people don't eat much of it anyways, so it becomes an easy target. These "low carb" people are very smart. Unfortunately, oftentimes, they are smarter than their clients. They know that if you restrict protein, the scale will start to move again, but why?
As stated above, restricting protein does not cause the loss of body fat. But, it does make you lose everything else, that also has "scale weight", and prevents you from rebuilding it. Lean mass includes circulatory system, organs, muscle/skeletal system, connective tissue, you know, everything you want to keep. It seems like you weigh less, when you stand on the scale, but just like with conventional diets, you are actually fatter. Fat is less dense than lean mass, so when you get fatter, you actually weigh less. Sneaky, sneaky "low carb" folks. A great shenanigan for the average fool to fall for, but won't work so well for those that know better.
4. Protein "putrefies" in the lower intestine (colon) and gives you cancer.
Simple biology disproves this, as animal protein is taken up by the small intestine and very little of it ever reaches the large intestine. The only studies that have shown an abnormal amount of undigested, "purified" protein, in the lower intestine, has been of plant protein. That's not surprising, considering that plant proteins are completely unusable by the human body. These proteins turn to waste, taking up space in your lower intestine, and causing all kinds of ailments besides "putrefaction".
5. Protein is insulinogenic.
Finally, one that's absolutely correct. This is because insulin is required to build lean body mass. Insulin is what delivers nutrients and energy, into the cells, so they can build and repair themselves. Insulin, though often described as an anabolic hormone, is actually also anti-catabolic. It prevents cellular breakdown. This is a good thing for lean body mass, as it preserves it, but a bad thing for fat mass as it also preserves it.
But, fat mass is not driven by "insulinogenic foods". Insulinogenic foods do not equate to pathology. The pathology is driven by insulin resistance, which is driven by abnormal blood glucose regulation. When your body is unable to regulate blood glucose properly, insulin is overexpressed for chronically long periods of time, which is what preserves fat mass. So, we can say that blood glucose dysregulation is pathologically insulinogenic. You know what affects blood glucose regulation most? Carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are therefore, pathologically insulinogenic because not only do they increase bolus insulin, but they keep basal insulin high through the dysregulation of blood glucose. This eventually leads to hyperinsulinemia and hyperglucagonemia, which create a vicious circle which dysregulate each other further, and you end up royally screwed. Don't blame the protein for what the carbohydrate did. Remove the carbohydrate and keep the protein, so you can begin correcting the problem.
You can begin correcting hyperinsulinemia by removing carbohydrates from your diet. You can begin correcting hyperglucagonemia by dividing your protein intake into two or three smaller meals, instead of one large one. Divide not restrict. As insulin sensitivity increases, glucagon dysregulation decreases and you will no longer have high blood glucose after protein intake.
If you are the type of person that likes/needs to track food intake, always use a calculator that is not severely restricting protein. Recommendations for macronutrient calculation can be viewed by clicking 'Macros' on this blog's sidebar.
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