Lettuce. Dressing. One cheese slice. Less than 200 calories.

  • howrar@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    While the facts are correct, the interpretation isn’t.

    • Protein itself can’t be stored. That doesn’t mean that the excess is useless. They’re converted into glucose, which your body can use directly or store for later as fat or glycogen.
    • This process happens in the liver, so if you consume more protein, the liver does more work. The question you should be asking here is whether or not that’s a problem. And it isn’t, unless you already have liver problems to begin with.

    And while it’s true that the average person needs very little protein, there’s also a large distribution of protein needs even after normalizing for your size/sex, so you can’t prescribe a hard number based on this information alone.

    • ParabolicMotion@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      Your body turns carbohydrates into glucose first for energy. If carbohydrates aren’t readily available, then it utilizes fat in the diet. Your body does not turn to protein first, or even second. You would have to have most of your calories coming from protein and not be over on calorie count to make your body utilize protein.

      • howrar@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        There’s no such prioritization on your body. Everything happens concurrently. It’s constantly turning glucose into fat and fat back into glucose. It’s constantly breaking down amino acids and reforming them. Different processes will just occur at different rates depending on the concentration of reactants and products. So going from amino acids to glucose happens a lot slower when you have other energy sources, but it still happens.

        I also don’t see how your comment supports your claim. Even if this prioritization takes place, the protein you consume still serves the purpose of being an energy source. That’s very different from being unable to burn amino acids for energy at all as you said earlier.

        • ParabolicMotion@lemmy.worldOP
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          7 months ago

          I don’t know. All I know is that a couple of biology teachers and one dietitian have told me that the body converts carbohydrates to glucose first. I haven’t conducted any of my own experiments, but then again I believed my biology teachers about Punnet squares with regard to blood types of offspring, too. Ask my AB+ ex boyfriend where all of our non-existent children, prior to 2009, are.