3 ms·

Are you saying as long as you eat the same amount of protein you won't lose muscle no matter how many calories you eat?

adrian_b 3y ago
If you eat much less calories than necessary, e.g. 1000 kcal/day or even less, you will also lose muscle mass. However, if you do not eat enough proteins, you will lose muscular mass and the albumin amount in blood will diminish, regardless how many kcal are provided by your food. So for preserving muscular mass, both enough proteins and a minimum intake of kcal per day, which varies between people, but it is typically somewhere between 1500 and 2000 kcal/day, are required. Nevertheless, usually only the amount of proteins requires special care, because it is extremely easy to eat enough kcal per day when you eat enough proteins. Normally a great effort is required to diminish the amount of kcal of the food that contains enough proteins, especially if it is of vegetable origin or of dairy origin. The only natural source of proteins without extra kcal is lean meat, like turkey breast or chicken breast or cod fillet. Fat meat, most dairy and raw vegetables have a kcal content that is usually more than double of what corresponds to their protein content. For example, when the easy method of eating lean meat is excluded, enough proteins for a male of average size could be provided by eating 500 g of wheat flour and 167 g of lentils per day. That alone would provide 2235 kcal/day, which is too much for someone with a sedentary life. Preserving the amount of proteins and also allowing the eating of other food besides that, without using industrial methods of protein extraction that are expensive and require energy and chemicals, could be achieved by making dough from the flour and washing it to remove most of the starch. This example is meant to show that unless you eat only turkey breast or the like, as long as you eat enough proteins you normally have no need to worry about eating enough kcal.
icegreentea2 3y ago
No. Enough protein intake is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Your body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle tissue (and all other tissue). The amount that it rebuilds is effected by many things like protein availability, and (basically) how much you have been using the muscle. This is why staying active is important. In addition, since your body has a limit of how quickly it can metabolize fat, even if you had sufficient protein intake and sufficient activity to signal to your body to retain muscle mass, if your caloric deficit is large enough, your body may still be forced to burn protein (ie directly or indirectly reduce muscle mass) to stay alive. These are factors that you can usually manage around with some careful, but relatively straight forward planning. EDIT: Note that the 'careful but straight forward planning' is basically exactly the same planning for "a diet". Traditionally, you'd see diets aim for no more than a 300-500kcal deficit for this exact reason. It's not just a question of keeping the food reduction minimal to help your brain stick to the plan, but also as your calorie deficit becomes larger, it becomes much more difficult to fit in all of your proteins (amongst other things).
halfcat 3y ago
I’ve always heard it expressed as: * Carbs should have a ceiling * Protein should have a floor * Fat is a lever to adjust based on your goal (lower for weight loss, increase for weight gain) But there are still edge cases, like if you get zero carbs and a ton of protein your body will compensate by converting protein to carbs (glucose, via gluconeogenisis)

If you eat much less calories than necessary, e.g. 1000 kcal/day or even less, you will also lose muscle mass. However, if you do not eat enough proteins, you will lose muscular mass and the albumin amount in blood will diminish, regardless how many kcal are provided by your food. So for preserving muscular mass, both enough proteins and a minimum intake of kcal per day, which varies between people, but it is typically somewhere between 1500 and 2000 kcal/day, are required. Nevertheless, usually only the amount of proteins requires special care, because it is extremely easy to eat enough kcal per day when you eat enough proteins. Normally a great effort is required to diminish the amount of kcal of the food that contains enough proteins, especially if it is of vegetable origin or of dairy origin. The only natural source of proteins without extra kcal is lean meat, like turkey breast or chicken breast or cod fillet. Fat meat, most dairy and raw vegetables have a kcal content that is usually more than double of what corresponds to their protein content. For example, when the easy method of eating lean meat is excluded, enough proteins for a male of average size could be provided by eating 500 g of wheat flour and 167 g of lentils per day. That alone would provide 2235 kcal/day, which is too much for someone with a sedentary life. Preserving the amount of proteins and also allowing the eating of other food besides that, without using industrial methods of protein extraction that are expensive and require energy and chemicals, could be achieved by making dough from the flour and washing it to remove most of the starch. This example is meant to show that unless you eat only turkey breast or the like, as long as you eat enough proteins you normally have no need to worry about eating enough kcal.

icegreentea2 3y ago

No. Enough protein intake is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Your body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle tissue (and all other tissue). The amount that it rebuilds is effected by many things like protein availability, and (basically) how much you have been using the muscle. This is why staying active is important. In addition, since your body has a limit of how quickly it can metabolize fat, even if you had sufficient protein intake and sufficient activity to signal to your body to retain muscle mass, if your caloric deficit is large enough, your body may still be forced to burn protein (ie directly or indirectly reduce muscle mass) to stay alive. These are factors that you can usually manage around with some careful, but relatively straight forward planning. EDIT: Note that the 'careful but straight forward planning' is basically exactly the same planning for "a diet". Traditionally, you'd see diets aim for no more than a 300-500kcal deficit for this exact reason. It's not just a question of keeping the food reduction minimal to help your brain stick to the plan, but also as your calorie deficit becomes larger, it becomes much more difficult to fit in all of your proteins (amongst other things).

halfcat 3y ago

I’ve always heard it expressed as: * Carbs should have a ceiling * Protein should have a floor * Fat is a lever to adjust based on your goal (lower for weight loss, increase for weight gain) But there are still edge cases, like if you get zero carbs and a ton of protein your body will compensate by converting protein to carbs (glucose, via gluconeogenisis)