Thursday 27 August 2009

Is it possible to get fat from too much protein?

A fortnight gone I was having dinner at our local Outback, when I overheard the following in the booth behind me : "My coach claims that if you eat too much protein, it will turn to fat." Did you catch that? And if somebody posed that suggestion to you, how would you respond? This is a great exercise in logic, so let's take a look at it for a 2nd : First, is it really possible to become fat by eating too much protein? Sure, in the same way it is of course possible to die by getting hit by lightning while you are being eaten alive by a shark. 2nd , is it likely that you will get too fat from eating too much protein? Well again, it's about as likely as getting hit by lightning while you are being eaten alive by a shark. To be barely more heavy, let's do a bit of thermodynamic arithmetic : If your caloric needs are say, 2500 calories every day, and you eat a high protein diet composed from 7500 calories per day, you can definitely get fat- that is my educated guess. let's inspect the unlikely mechanics of eating this much protein for a second.

If we are saying that your 7500-calorie diet is eighty % protein, this indicates that you are getting 6000 calories from protein per day, which equates to 1500 grams of protein.

Further, if a 6-ounce chicken escallop contains 40 grams of protein, you'll have to eat 37 chicken fillets a day to hit that number. Or to use another food source, you'd need to consume about 37 protein shakes each day ( presuming each shake contained forty grams of protein ) are you able to Get Fat By Eating too much Protein? OK that is clearly ludicrous so let's tweak the first example to a somewhat rather more likely eventuality : Using stern thermodynamics, you would have to consume about 3600 calories per week ( or about 5 hundred a day ) above and outside your normal caloric necessities, to gain a pound of excess bodyfat in that very same period. So if your caloric needs are 2500 per day, we are now assuming you are eating 3k calories every day, where eighty % of those calories come from protein. Now you are eating six hundred grams of protein every day, or fifteen chicken escallops or shakes a day.

Unlikely? Well OK, not as not likely as getting hit by lightning while you are being eaten alive by a shark, but have you eaten fifteen chicken fillets in 24 hours ( or equivalent to it ) ? I never have, not even once.

Now I have eaten the same caloric equivalent in fats and / or carbohydrates - in fact many times. And I bet you have too. In truth, 3k calories in non-protein form is surprisingly simple to consume.

Here are some possible options you could consider :

* two & pints of Haagen Daz ice cream ( this would be my first choice )
* A 14-inch All Natural Pepperoni Pan Pizza
* ( six ) Starbucks Venti Caramel Frappuccino's with full milk
* Or you might mix & match. For instance :
* ( one ) Pint of Haagen Daz, ( two ) pieces of pizza, and ( two ) Starbucks

anyway, it should be clear that it's much more likely to become fat eating fats and / or carbohydrates than it is to get from eating too much protein. So with that under consideration, what is the concept for statements like the one I overheard at Outback? What incentivizes people to assert stuff like this, given how preposterously improbable they are? Is it straightforward ignorance? Or maybe many of us have some form of PETA-inspired loathing of protein? I would really like your thoughts on this, so please push the comments link below and share your experiences and insights!

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