[yawaworht1978]

Required Protein intake depends on many other factors. Carbs are protein preserving. If someone does a lot of weight lifting and or really hard cardio and is on a low carb diet, they will have an elevated protein requirement, else the body will simply consume its own proteins, aka muscle and tendon tissue, you don't want that. For the average Joe with a sitting job and zero sports activity and a regular no care diet, yeah, they don't need 2lbs of red meat every other day.

But protein is the macro nutritient which is least likely to get you fat, too much fat, you will gain fat if you don't work out and are in a calorie surplus, same for carbs. Too much protein is hard to achieve consistently and will give you flatulence, but not much else.

Too many scenarios and factors to sum up all in a one size fits all statement.

If someone is trying to lose weight, protein intake should be bit higher, to preserve the muscle tissue.

[lumost]

I’m a bit dubious of the articles core claim that excess protein is wasteful - the alternative of excess fat/carbs is wasteful and harmful.

I don’t use any sports supplements but I do try to prioritize my diet in terms of protein > fat > carbs. It’s tough to find unprocessed protein sources that aren’t at least somewhat healthy. Even red meat provides a great iron source at 1 8 oz filet every week or 2.

[alistairSH]

Why are you claiming the alternative to excess protein is excess fat/carb? Why not a calorie neutral diet with the correct macros?

[lumost]

Aiming for strict calorie neutrality is fairly difficult in my experience. Unless you are tracking, it's pretty easy in the US to slip up on empty carbs or processed fats.

Sit anyone down in front of their local pizza joint and tell them to eat a calorically neutral diet without a tracker and see what happens. Compare this to what happens when someone is sat in front of roast chicken and a high fiber vegetable like asparagus/spinach etc.

Odds are you'll get closer to calorie neutrality and balanced macros in the latter scenario than the former.

[yawaworht1978]

Don't worry, all the healthy fats and slow released carbs are much worse than the worst protein source.

Excess protein might be wasteful to the wallet and the environment, but at least it will not get you as fat.

[slothtrop]

Calories get you fat. It's CICO. Protein is satiating, which is a major advantage if weight-loss is a goal. But then again, so is fiber. Many people have successfully lost weight on a high fiber diet.

[yawaworht1978]

But why not the combination of both?

Losing weight and losing fat is not always the same, a diet with insufficient protein intake might cause muscle loss and thus, decrease metabolic rate(muscle metabolism rate is less than people think, but over a year, it makes a big difference).

However, i understand that not everyone cares about preserving muscle on a diet, some people just want to be slimmer, fair enough.

[slothtrop]

Well there's no reason it has to be "insufficient" and having too little protein is certainly a bad idea. If you consume a source of protein at every meal, whatever the makeup, you can easily hit 16%+ as part of your macros. Even vegetables like broccoli and peas have protein.

[glecedric]

I read somewhere that the human intestines are not well fitted to digest protein (as we are omnivorous). They start to "rot" as soon as digestive fluids attack them. So the proteins are correctly absorbed in the first meters. After that, the proteins are just wastes going downward (can't find the source back sr).

That's why carnivorous have short but large intestines: they digest proteins as quickly as possible before they turn useless.

Maybe a key point is to span a large amount of proteins intake across several hours (as bodybuilders do, if I am not mistaken).

[dtech]

I highly doubt that without a reliable source. Proteins don't "rot", they fall apart into amino acids which are absorbed. I have never heard amino acids becoming unusable due to long digestion tracts.

The reason I've always heard about carnivores having shorter digestive tracks is that animal matter is much easier to digest than fiber-and-cellulose-laden plant material. In most organisms (expect humans) digestion takes the most % of energy so shortening the digestive tract if it's not necessary is a no-brainer for evolution.

[Retric]

Excess protein gets you just as fat as excess carbs or fat does. The only difference is people tend to think of protein as more essential even if it’s just being used as energy.

1000 of each isn’t obviously excessive of any one but without exercise you will get fat.

[yawaworht1978]

Well, not really. This all depends on other factors as well. For example, how much glucose is stored at the moment of the food intake. If you are full of glucose, any fat will go straight to the fat deposits. Carbs, if the stores are full, will be converted to body fat in a calorie surplus, up to 25percent, depending on genetics. If glucogen stores are empty, fat won't get stored easily. And carbs will not be converted to fat until the stores are full. And the most important, carbs are metabolized very fast, especially sugars. Fats are relatively slow, protein takes forever and gives you a fullness sensation much sooner than the other macros. Try to eat 500gramm of cake(400grams of carbs give or take) and then try to eat 1.3 kilos of tuna in water, 400gramms of protein, give or take.

[Retric]

The perceptual differences between different energy sources are one thing, but in the end energy is energy. Take a perfectly healthy and balanced diet without weight gain or weight loss, then add just 100 calories per day of extra protein and you will gain weight.

[yawaworht1978]

But the body does not work like that. Metabolism is an ongoing mechanism with very fast adaptions and it cares a great deal about macros. Sugars will cause blood sugar spikes and release many hormones to trigger hunger soon again. In the strictest sense, a calorie is a calorie, but you can't expect that someone who eats a protein scoop a day and the remainder comes from oil and beer will have the same results and body composition as someone who eats mostly protein, some rice and a bit of fats and no junk food at all, then that's wrong.

There is a reason why olímpica athletes have special diets.

[Retric]

> a calorie is a calorie

See that voice in the back of your head is a little cognitive dissonance. People’s behavior changes based on their diet, but outside of starvation metabolism doesn’t speed up with extra calories they just result in weight gain.

Look all kinds of stuff happens when you go to extremes. But, the human diet has a lot of flexibility which is why we don’t have the one true diet despite a lot of research. At the middle of the healthy range +/- a few percent doesn’t do anything. That’s why so much nutrition research is inconclusive we can’t optimize for an ideal peak of perfect nutrition because close enough gives identical results.

Which is what I am talking about. Take a perfectly reasonable heathy diet that wouldn’t result in long term weight gain or loss and then toss in 100 calories of protein and you get weight gain the same way adding 100 of any other macronutrients or even an even split of all three. That’s true because a perfectly reasonable diet is far from the limits on how much protein you can digest per day.

[kiba]

It's more costly to turn protein into glucose, though.

[Retric]

Efficiency isn’t that important. An extra 100 calories per day of protein, fat, or carbs is largely interchangeable assuming an otherwise balanced diet. In other words if your in a balanced diet with 33% of each and you add 100 calories of any of them you will gain weight.

[timwaagh]

Weightlifting concerns aside (I think a man's need to look good is a very legitimate concern) very high protein is linked to decreased life expectancy and cancer. So even if it doesn't cause belly flop it's still not healthy.

[slothtrop]

Doesn't that depend on the type of protein? Specifically, too much muscle-tissue protein.

[timwaagh]

I couldn't tell you. Usually these kinds of population surveys don't make such detailed distinctions.