A little while ago, I posted this article about simplifying protein intake. And even that post was fairly complex. Part of the reason why is that, as I stated, there is just so much conflicting information out there. Another reason is that it is hard to be straightforward when discussing protein. It is convoluted and every answer prompts about six more questions or points to discuss. Today, I’d like to take one of the topics I hinted at in the previous article and discuss it more thoroughly: the protein and calorie tango.
Calories are the energy containing components of our food and drink. It is common knowledge that we should be restricting or counting calories if weight loss is a goal. However, I think it is less common knowledge that calories are important. Without calories we aren’t able to do, well, anything. This is why in extreme calorie restriction states we feel so tired and crummy.
If you have clicked around here before, you’ll know calories come from the three macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Carbohydrates and proteins each provide our bodies with four calories per gram. Fat provide nine calories per gram. And here starts the dance of calories and protein…
Our bodies prefer to use the three macronutrients differently. Carbohydrates are our main energy source. Yes, contrary to current popular belief, carbs are not the evil enemy. Carbohydrates are all broken down to simple glucose by the body. Of course, what type of carbohydrate you consume determines how fast this transformation happens. If you are eating whole grains (brown rice, oatmeal, etc.) and veggies then the conversion takes a bit. If you are eating fruit or simpler carbs like white pasta, the conversion happens quicker. And if you are eating straight up sugar, your body basically doesn’t have to do anything.
Fat is our fuel when there isn’t enough glucose present. Or if we are exercising for a long time (at least 20 minutes). We can either pull apart the fats in our foods or from our own fat stores to start a long chain of events to break them down into glucose. It actually takes a lot of calories to do this and our body doesn’t want to if it doesn’t have to. It involves more physiological byproducts and much more hormone regulation. Thus the popularity of low carb diets and intermittent fasting protocols for weight loss.
And this brings me to protein. The human body prefers to use protein for growth and repair. Yes, protein does come with some calorie pay off, but what our body really wants are the amino acids. These bad boys are the building blocks of just about every structure in our body. And our body structures are constantly being remodeled. So we always need protein. But growth and repair also requires a lot of caloric energy.
Guess what? During exercise, you are creating microtrauma in your body. Yep, little tears and small scale tissue damage that your body needs to fix. In fact, it is during this repair process that your body gets better/faster/stronger/leaner/whatever. So you have an increased caloric demand from both the activity and from the need to repair.
But here’s the rub. It doesn’t matter if you are consuming enough protein if you aren’t consuming enough calories. Calories run the show and if you don’t have enough fuel in the tank, your body is going to break down the protein to meet calorie needs first.
Now this interplay is goal dependent. If your goal is weight loss, you need to be in a caloric deficit. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, thermodynamics will not be denied. If you are strength training during this process (and you should be) this deficit should be moderate (i.e. not more than 500 calories per day). Why? Because any bigger deficit than that and you run the risk of using protein for calories and not to repair your muscles. This particular situation means that weight loss may be slower, however, it is much more sustainable.
If you are trying to maintain weight and perhaps just see a change in body composition, you should aim for a caloric balance. Meaning you are consuming roughly the same number of calories you are using throughout the day. If this is your goal, strength training is a must. But, as long as you are in calorie balance, your body should use the amino acids to repair muscle tissue.
If weight gain, and especially hypertrophy, is the end goal, you should be in caloric excess. To stimulate muscle growth, you need to be strength training at a pretty high intensity. But, again, growth and repair require calories. For hypertrophy goals, protein is not enough. You need to be consuming more calories, within reason. About 500 more per day. You want every single gram of protein you ingest to be used to grow new muscle cells and not to create a calorie balance or excess.
Bodybuilders and power lifters (i.e. exercisers with the goals of leanness and hypertrophy) have known about this relationship for years. But it has only been recently that protein and its role in recovery has been discussed for the average exerciser. And that has given rise to the idea of counting macros. Macro counting can be used to assist in any exercise and nutrition related goal and there are plenty of good estimating tools available on the interwebs.
Tell us in the comments what your goal is and if you track both calories and protein!
