Does Excess Protein Turn to Fat? An Anatomy Lesson
 

I was trying to find an example which would explain to my b-friend how excess protein can be converted into fat (a long process, but it is a fact). He's convinced that high fat diets are bad and high protein diets are good. I found this site, and it explains perfectly. I thought I'd share it with the rest of the class....

http://1stholistic.com/Nutrition/ho...turn-to-fat.htm

<b>Does Excess Protein Turn to Fat? An Anatomy Lesson</b>
<i>By Maia Appleby</i>

Everyone knows that overeating leads to excess weight. This concept comes in many flavors these days, though. Some people think that carbohydrates are the culprit. Others think it's sugar. Some people think that eating lots of protein couldn't possibly make them gain weight. Hmmm...

The only way to determine the answer to this enigma is to go inside the human body and take a look at how fat gets there in the first place. Let's follow a bite of pepperoni pizza and see what happens to its sugar, fat and protein. Open wide!

<b><i>The food enters your mouth: </b></i>

Saliva contains enzymes that break any starch in the food down to sugar.

This, along with any fat and water in the food, travel to the stomach, which churns them up.

Pepsin (an enzyme that digests protein) and hydrochloric acid further break down the food, turning it into a substance called chyme.

The mixture enters the duodenum, (the place where the gall bladder secretes its bile).

This bile dissolves the fat in water, thinning it out and making it easier to absorb.

Enzymes from the pancreas enter the duodenum and further break down the sugar, fat and protein.

Now everything is dissolved and is in fluid form, so it is absorbed through the lining of the small bowel. Fat, sugar and protein wave good-bye to each other and go their separate ways.

<b><i>What happens to the sugar: </b></i>

It also goes directly into the blood stream, and several different organs take the sugar they need as it passes by.

Some is stored in the liver as glycogen.

Whatever is left is converted to fat and stored in fat cells with the excess fat above.

<b><i>What happens to the fat: </b></i>

First, it goes into the blood stream and travels to the liver.

The liver burns some of the fat, converts some to other substances (one is cholesterol) and sends the rest to fat cells, where they wait until they are needed.

<b><i>What happens to the protein: </b></i>

It is broken down into building blocks known as peptides.

Then, it is further broken down and it becomes amino acids.

The amino acids are absorbed through the small intestine's lining and enter the blood stream.

From here, some of the amino acids build the body's protein stores.

Excess amino acids are converted to fats and sugars and follow the paths described above.

This is such a simple concept, but many people still believe that consuming lots and lots of protein will put muscle on their bones. Don't be fooled by this notion! <u>Even excess protein turns to fat. </u>

Here is a picturesque illustration of the real cause of weight gain. Eating too much food! Dietary fat is obviously the substance most often stored as fat in the ends, but no matter what you eat, your body takes whatever it can't use and sends it to fat cells. If you don't burn it off or expel it, it hangs around in your fat cells, no matter what it consists of.

Maybe this is why Atkins recomends not eating more than 6 oz of protein at one meal. I bet this is what messes a lot of people up on Atkins, they get so caught up in the all you can eat faddy aspect of it and lose touch with reality. The sentences in the book where he states things like no more than 6 oz of protein at one meal and admits that obviously a person who also controls their calories will lose more weight than one who dosent are vastly underadvertised. People are led to believe it's a fast weight loss eat all you can type of diet. I think if a survey was taken of people who have been on Atkins for some time - there would be about a 25/75 split on the opinion (ok my split guess is not perfect but I didn't take time to figure it out - sorry) what I see from reading a lot of posts and journals is that some people lose while consuming a huge amount of calories but many more lose by limiting both carbs and calories - the calories are more than what would be allowed on a really low cal diet and they have a lot more fat than a low cal/low fat diet - but they are still limiting their calories. I know this is a really sensitive issue on this forum and I am not aiming to start a war - I just think that those who are always advising others to eat higher calories and Read The Book should also go back to the book and find those couple of sentences so that when this issue comes up they will remember what was actually said. I'm not denying that some people will lose on high calorie diets - just saying it dosent work for all and it's not really what Atkins is trying to promote. I don't have the book beside me right now but if anyone does not believe what I am saying I will be more than happy to thumb through it and quote the page number where these things are discussed.

Once again I am not trying to start a nasty war here, just what's in the book.

Yes excess protein does turn into fat
 

I good hooked up into that whole 2g per pound of bodyweight protein in 2000.

My bodyweight was at 205 pounds and after taking in around 250g of protein a day, i was able to hit 225, but a sure thing i was very massive, but i did gain some good fat too, around the waist.

My diet looked like this

7am protein bar 40g protein, 6g carbs but there was sugar in it.

9am breakfast usually eggs with toast and bacon i did have around 30g of protein in there

12 noon protein shake 50g of protein 3g of carbs and some flax oil

3pm another protein bar same has morning 40g protein

6pm supper patatoes and steak, around 30g

9pm another protein shake 50g protein 3g carbs.

All thoses supplements and the protein bars cost a lot of money.

High protein diets work if you do keep your protein intake at around 150g to 200g, i am over 200 pounds, well i guess that would mean 0.8 per pound of bodyweight.

Atkins works a lot better in terms of losing weight, high protein diets wont get you into ketosis, your excess protein will produce glycogen preventing that, so your fatloss will be less.

Today i still take in 2 shakes of whey protein a day, thats around 32g of protein in the 2 shakes, and my total protein intake is around 100g to 150g thats all i need, i dont feel bloated, i cut out all the dairy products too, cheese and milk.

You can see that the body is retain a lot less water with the low carb.

Your Boyfriend might wanna try both diets, i did and got better results with atkins.

During induction it is advisable not to count cals, but once induction is over counting cals while incorporating more cabs into your diet is important. I'm not sure if this is because you need the added cals as fuel during the induction phase, when keeping below 20 grams a day, which I suspect to be the case. grabbed this off the Atkin's site...

<i><b>I'm used to counting calories. How many am I allowed on Induction?</b>
There is no need to count calories. The Atkins Nutritional Approach counts grams of carbohydrates instead of calories. In Induction, you are allowed 20 grams of carbohydrates. When you progress to Ongoing Weight Loss, you gradually add carbohydrates in 5-gram increments as you move toward Pre-Maintenance, and finally to the Lifetime Maintenance phases of Atkins. Although there is no need to count calories, they do count. Gaining weight results from taking in more calories than you expend through exercise, thermogenesis (the body’s own heat production) and other metabolic functions. Research has shown that on a controlled carbohydrate program, more calories are burned than on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, so there is a certain metabolic advantage to the controlled carb approach. But understand that this does not give you a license to gorge.

If you are used to counting calories and it makes you uneasy to not do so, know that women usually can safely consume 1,800 calories a day and still lose weight; men can typically take in 2,000 calories, and in some cases more.</b></i>

On another note, I do believe that it is important that we get most of our fat from foods which don't contain a large amount of protein. I, for one, am a big fan of olive oil because it is rich in essential fatty oils, another thing our body needs, not high in protein.

I'm not saying that protein is bad. Just that unless you work out quite a lot and and burn the excess off, it might just work against you in a high fat diet. I'm no expert, this is just my understanding based on the material I've read.

Calories count more for some than others. Unfortunately, for me, calories count A LOT. I lost most of my weight from July to December (56 lbs) and have been struggling mightily this year with only a ten pound loss since January. I know some of the reasons for this are that I am not exercising enough, I am eating too much protein, nuts, etc., and that I am eating too many calories. I need to keep my caloric intake less than 1600 per day, which I am finding hard to do at this time. When I go over that, I stop loosing or gain weight.

Although I am convinced Atkins is the right food plan for me, I am very discouraged at the moment. I am engaging in self-destructive eating behaviors and finding it difficult to get back on track. I am finding it very difficult to find the self-discipline I need.

Although I admire Dr. Atkins very much, I think he should probably address the issue of calories and protein consumption more clearly and directly, especially for people like me whose metabolisms require less fuel to operate.

BTW, I do take synthroid, in case anyone was tempted to mention a sluggish thyroid as one of my problems.

I am convinced that I will need to get back to induction and stay there for awhile, in order for my weight loss to continue. Also, I need to exercise more.

So, what is a safe number of grams of protein you should have in one day? My days vary on protein grams. I take L-glutamine and thats supposed to help with not losing muscle when losing weight.
I usually vary from 60-100g a day....is that too many?
Vicky

You can figure out minimum protein requirements in the book Protein Power. I believe a 5 foot tall woman with no weight to lose needs a minimum of 60 grams of protein--each ounce of meat has about 7 grams in it.

That same person could easily have twice that amount or more with no ill effects.

Beth

Good question. To get less CALs, lets say under 1800 a day, I'd have to take in more protein and carbs (obviously, since fat is higher in calories). But if I want to stay within the recommended ratio, I find that I need to keep my protein around 135 grams (26%) carbs under 20 grams (4%), and fat around 151 grams (70%). This puts my CALs in the 1900+ range. I guess it comes down to what works for you. I think what I'm doing works for me fine, and I don't really worry about CALs just as long as everything else falls into place. Again.. just my humble opinion. :D

I don't have any figures to support this, but I know the metabolic cycles that convert protein to sugar are very complicated and ineffecient. The body does NOT want to waste protein when it has sugar and fat to use instead. If the diet has enough fat then it will use fat for energy, rather than protein. The Zone diet has charts that say how much protein to eat per day, based on body mass and amount of daily exercise. Getting enough protein should be all you need but as long as the carb level is low you should be able to lose while eating fat.

All-protein diets cause weight loss because the body does not easily convert protein to energy. I've read that people have died of starvation when forced to eat only protein.

If you wanna get into science
 

For L-Glutamine , this amino acid is great but most of it is lost in the small intestin true digestion, i used to take glutamine but stopped because of that.

A good thing to take with Glutamine and your protein shake or meals that would help transport all of this into the muscles would be ALA alpha-lionic-acid, and would avoid fat spillovers.

ALA is quit good in many things, it helps the heart, and is a transporter, taken with Vitamine C-E and Selenium its the best antioxidant out there.

I used to do the CKD and on the weekends i took ALA, you can feel your muscles fill up with glycogen, ALA really works.

It helps stabilise blood sugar too and many more.

Protein requirments are different for everyone, so people should experiment with different numbers and see.

On atkins the requieremnts are low, fat is the main foods of choice, too much protein turns into glycogen and you wont be able to reach ketosis.

Monitoring is the key, how much fat, calories, protein and carbs where eating, was i bloated, felt mood swings etc etc.

And how much weight was lost.

Thats it for now i guess.