[gassiss]

> In fact, people who ONLY eat red meat will find it LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to be overweight.

This is such an absurd statement. There's many factors around gaining weight, but it all boils down to simple how many calories you spent vs how much you eat. There's no magical "eat however much you want" diet that it's impossible to gain weight on

[jagraff]

I'm not sure if it applies to red meat, which usually has more fat, but certainly you'll starve to death if you eat only lean meat. It's colloquially known as rabbit starvation, because if you only eat rabbit and nothing else, you'll starve to death. Doesn't matter how many calories you consume - your body cannot process the calories, so you starve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

[jononomo]

It does not apply to red meat generally. The larger an animal is the higher a percentage of fat it contains. A blue whale has 35% body fat, a cow is roughly 25% body fat, and a squirrel/rabbit is roughly 5% body fat.

Also, I render my own tallow from beef suet and often add it to ground beef. I also slow-cook roasts in tallow.

[User23]

jononomo's claim is factually correct. It's been experimentally proven in metabolic ward studies that dietary protein is never stored as body fat. While hypothetically it appears that since there is a protein to glucose pathway and a glucose to lipid pathway that excess protein could conceivably be stored as body fat, what actually happens is the kidneys just eliminate the excess nitrogen. Again, that's not a theoretical result. It has been observed repeatedly in metabolic ward studies. For those who aren't aware, a metabolic ward study is run in what is effectively a prison. The study participants are physically deprived access to any food or beverage except that which the experimenters provide. Needless to say these studies are extremely expensive, since people expect to be well compensated for being imprisoned for weeks or even months.

Incidentally, when it comes to health, weight gain and weight loss are of relatively minor importance compared to body composition. Gaining weight in your musculoskeletal system is a good for survivability and quality of life! Denser muscles and bones are not a bad thing. It's excess body fat, in particular visceral body fat, that causes morbidity and mortality. If you get fat enough your body will start storing those lipids in your vital organs, and that's a recipe for inflammation, early cancer, and other kinds of death.

Edit: here’s a fun story about a normal guy trying a high protein diet: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rock-dwayne-johnson...

[jononomo]

Great comment! I agree with all of it.

[gassiss]

Do you have a link to these studies?

[User23]

I'm not your personal librarian. Go to your local university library, or if that fails try scholar.google.com. Be sure and search specifically for metabolic ward studies on protein intake and nutrient partitioning. I found this data for myself many years ago. Sadly I didn't save the references and unfortunately digging through research like this isn't as simple as searching for the latest movie show times. I wish I had, but if so I'd have already included them. Feel free to believe me or not.

[jononomo]

You’re just wrong on this. The calories-in-calories-out thing doesn’t work since the nutrient profiles of different kinds of calories effect the body’s calorie-burn-rate.

But you wouldn’t be the first one to tell me I’m wrong without actually trying the diet and seeing for yourself whether you gain or lose weight on it.

Also, consider the fact that some calories will result in hormonal signals in your body that increase your hunger, whereas other calories will result in hormonal signals that decrease your hunger.

Your body needs nutrients, not just calories — that’s why we can’t just drink gasoline and call it a day.

Actually, that’s a good question for you — why is it that people can’t just drink gasoline, since it contains calories?

Do you think a person would gain weight if they only drank gasoline and didn’t exercise enough? Do you think a person would feel hungry again just a couple hours after drinking some gasoline?