5 protein mistakes that make you FATTER, less muscular, and less aesthetic. Find out if you're eating enough protein or too much protein. These are the worst protein diet mistakes for building muscle. Find out what happens when you don't eat enough or eat too much protein.
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Eating more protein can boost your metabolism, help you pack on muscle, and reduce body fat. This makes protein seem like a cheat code in the world of dieting making most people think simply: protein good, fats bad, and carbs extra bad. Not only is this untrue, but there are actually many ways that protein can lead to fat gain, dissatisfaction with your diet, and decreased athletic performance. So let's go over 5 major mistakes that can lead to slower fat loss, and even gaining body fat due to unknowingly messing up the one macronutrient that you thought you were safe with... protein.
The first mistake is eating too many high-calorie, processed foods that are marketed as high-protein or weight-loss-friendly. A couple examples include protein cookies, protein chips, peanut butter, and even protein bars. Although all these foods can be part of your diet, it can be easy to eat too many cookies, or protein bars, or protein chips if you're not careful. For example, protein bars can be excellent for building muscle and burning fat. However, many protein bars are loaded with added sugars, artificial ingredients, and preservatives, which can contribute to excess calorie intake and ultimately make you gain fat. This doesn't mean that you can't have one protein bar every single day and improve your body composition in the process. But keep in mind that the average protein bar has around 200 calories. Meanwhile, a Milky Way bar has about 250 calories. So if you eat 4 protein bars in a day you're going to take in a similar amount of calories as 4 milkyway bars. Overeating will lead to fat gain regardless of whether you're eating protein bars or milky ways. So keep in mind that you can't just go from eating too many regular cookies to simply eating too many high-protein cookies, it won't work. Protein is not a cheat code.
This brings me to my next point most people don't think that protein can be converted into fat instead they believe that it's only used by your body to build muscle. And there's no denying that there are good reasons to prioritize protein in your diet since it helps satisfy hunger, build muscle, and it has a much higher thermic effect compared to carbs and fats leading to about 20 to 30 percent of the calories from the protein source consumed to get burnt off just while breaking down and digesting it. But even with these advantages if you exceed your total daily calorie requirements by eating too much protein you will gain body fat in the same way as if you ate too many carbs. In fact, through a metabolic process known as gluconeogenesis, your body will convert the excess amino acids from protein into glucose, which is the simplest form of carbohydrates. Even though this glucose can then be used for immediate energy or stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen, if you're exceeding your daily calories your glycogen stores will most likely already be full. So then the excess glucose will get converted into fatty acids and stored as triglycerides in fat tissue, leading to fat accumulation.
Another issue is that many people think they need more protein than they actually do. Planning a diet too high in protein will limit the amount of carbs and fats you can add to your diet. Cutting calories to burn fat is tough enough as it is, you want to be able to eat the carbs that satisfy your sweet tooth like fruit, and the fats that make your meals taste better, like butter and oil. This is usually due to overestimating how much protein you need to build muscle. You only need about 3/4 of a gram of protein per pound of body weight daily to maximize the rate of protein synthesis. Once you do that there's no need for more protein you can save the rest of your daily calories for the carbs and fats that you're craving. This will allow you to have more variety making your diet more sustainable.
Even though protein is great at building muscle, it is not your body's preferred energy source by any means. If we were to look at an extreme example and pretend that you're only eating protein without any carbs or fats at all, your performance levels would obviously drop rapidly. This is because nutrients outside of protein like carbohydrates are preferred sources of energy for your body. Specifically, carbs are very important for high-intensity activities like weightlifting due to their efficient conversion into glucose, which fuels muscle contractions. Unlike fats and proteins, carbohydrates can also be rapidly metabolized, providing quick bursts of energy during intense workout sessions. Unfortunately, it so happens that many w