March 28, 2024

A couple of days ago my son was not eating his dinner and my daughter piped in

“Jaiden eat the chicken, it has protein, it will give you energy”

I cringed a little but this myth has gotten legs over the years. If you are tired and need energy nothing can beat a big steak.

Protein or Carbs or Fat for Energy?

In fact this idea is not at all true. Carbohydrates are the choice of energy sources in the body the fact is that the simpler the carb the more likely your body is to break it down and use it.

The way that I look at energy sources your body will use the following in order; glycogen stores in your muscles, sugar, starch, and then equally protein and fat.

Many people on a diet will try to cut down on all of their carbs and will try to lose weight. This works initially because the body uses up all of the easy to get carbs and then will then move on to eating away at fat and protein.

After a while you will get tired as your body will be really craving some kind of simple carbs for energy and it is a struggle for your body to use protein and fat as quick energy sources.

This problem is even more of a problem when you exercise as there are no easy ways to get energy for your workouts.

So now you see why I am always writing about how important it is to get protein in your diet, not for the energy but more to counteract your body eating away at the protein in your muscles as well as the fat on your body when trying to lose weight.

Your goal should be to look healthy not to look starved and muscleless (is that even a word?).

So yes your body can use protein for energy buy mostly as a last resort. The problem is that when losing your body will use the protein in your muscles for energy as well as the fat in your body. But it will not use that steak right away.

9 thoughts on “Protein For Energy

  1. All i can say is this guy seems like an idiot. Carbs are the worste form of energy and the biggest contributer to body fat. Carbs are fast burning energy and must b absorbed straight away where as protien is slow release and is used to biuld lean muscle mass. Before you post things on the internet you should research and know what your saying to not make youself sound like and idiot.

  2. oversimplified tripe.

    In a world of science, citation is needed. Not just some pointless anecdotes from your dinner table which you present as fact

  3. It could be mental, but as soon as I was on my high protein diet my energy has increased by 50% and I was able to maintain it for two months. This isn’t exactly prof that protein was a major factor but my energy has increased since then.

  4. Oh, and get plenty of rest. If you don’t sleep enough, or rest your body enough after exercise, you end up putting too much strain on your liver. Seing as the liver is the one that regulates your fat burning hormones and their effects on metabolism, if you don’t get enough rest your metabolism will be sluggish and fat storing will occur.

  5. Yeah, protein is important for effective lean muscle preserving loss but don’t forget that priming your fat burning hormones is ALSO important. So please get your quota of Fish oil capsules or even cod liver oil caps will aid young folks even better.
    So try to introduce fish proteins too like Tuna, Salmon steak or even sardines too.

  6. To Gail.

    It’s funny you question the validity of the posters’ claims and suggest they be backed by studies.

    Where are yours?

  7. Wow! The errors in your post abound AND they are severely over-simplified. Perhaps if you were to post recent evidence (studies), you would find yourself willing to offer more complete answers, or you may find yourself chaning your opinions.

    Perhaps you are talking about someone who wants to loose 10 lbs. If so, it makes little difference that your post distorts. It’s accurate enough for them. But if you are talking to someone who wants to loose 100 lbs, whose insulin resistance is so high that two slices of bread is enough to cause him/her to go to sleep (gets no energy from carbs), and who has abundant fat stores to draw upon when carbs and sugars are used up, the answer is very different. The answer is very different for a teenager (with abundant HGH) than it is for a 50 year old, yet you seem to deny this.

    Also – with respect to exercise – a person on a low-carb diet should be concentrating on anaerobic exercises. This builds muscle that aerobic exercises will too often destroy (when done in excess).

    There are huge advantages for many people who take advantage of low-carb diets. Not only does blood pressure and bad cholesterol gow down, but good cholesterol and other healthy hormones go up. A low carb diet is being shown to be an effective treatment for depression and anxiety and a host of other chemical imbalances that were once called “emotional disorders”.

    FINALLY: Energy increases dramatically after being on a low-carb diet for three days, and your claim that energy goes down is blatently false. If you are going to serve as an authority, it is time for you to update your education.

Leave a Reply to Diane Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Clicky