Protein To Sugar Conversion Question

Serge

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Hi, this is my first post/thread. I have a question - we're told that once the body runs out of sugar, it begins turning protein into it, which leads to tissue wasting. But why use tissue, not dietary protein? We simply do not consume that much protein, or there's some other reason?
Thanks!

PS I didn't find a thread for simple short questions like this, otherwise I wouldn't start this one. If such exists, please point me to it.
 

redsun

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Hi, this is my first post/thread. I have a question - we're told that once the body runs out of sugar, it begins turning protein into it, which leads to tissue wasting. But why use tissue, not dietary protein? We simply do not consume that much protein, or there's some other reason?
Thanks!

PS I didn't find a thread for simple short questions like this, otherwise I wouldn't start this one. If such exists, please point me to it.

It uses whatever protein is immediately available at the time. If you haven't digested amino acids recently it will pull glycogen and make glucose. Otherwise cortisol comes in to break down amino acids into glucose, whether it eats a noticeable amount of your muscle over time or not is dependent on you not being chronically low in glucose.

Your body tries very hard to only break down muscle if it absolutely has to, and you get increase FFA in the blood to prevent more loss as well as other mechanisms to spare glucose for the brain and red blood cells. Basically worrying about how much sugar you make from protein is irrelevant if you are eating a decent amount of carbs and protein in evenly spaced out meals.
 
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Serge

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If you haven't digested amino acids recently it will pull glycogen and make glucose.

Are you saying the body prefers recently digested amino acids to glycogen as a glucose source?
 

redsun

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Are you saying the body prefers recently digested amino acids to glycogen as a glucose source?

No it doesn't. It always uses glycogen if available first, then everything else after. Once glycogen is out, then does it try to make glucose from amino acids.
 

tankasnowgod

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Hi, this is my first post/thread. I have a question - we're told that once the body runs out of sugar, it begins turning protein into it, which leads to tissue wasting. But why use tissue, not dietary protein? We simply do not consume that much protein, or there's some other reason?
Thanks!

PS I didn't find a thread for simple short questions like this, otherwise I wouldn't start this one. If such exists, please point me to it.

If you are in a state of constant gluconeogenesis, it's going to be mighty hard to maintain muscle/organs, while getting adequate glucose. Even low carb gurus say the body needs at least 130g of glucose a day at minimum.

This keto blog suggests you need about 1.6g of protein to make 1g of glucose-

Gluconeogenesis: A Scary-Sounding Word For An Awesome Keto Effect.

  • Glucogenic amino acids (aka protein): Amino acids can be divided into ketogenic (stimulate ketone production), glucogenic (stimulate glucose production), or both. Every single amino acid can be turned into glucose except for lysine and leucine, which are exclusively ketogenic. The main amino acids used for gluconeogenesis are alanine and glutamine. On average, you need 1.6 g of amino acids to make 1 g of glucose, which is expensive. That’s one of the reasons your body uses ketones during a ketogenic diet instead of amino acid-derived glucose. More on that later.
So on a zero carb diet, and to hit Peat's low end of protein at 80g for simple maintenance of muscle and tissues, you would need 208 plus 80 grams of protein, coming out to about 288g of protein. Are most low carbers hitting that number? It's pretty high.

If you consume 70g of carbs, a general cutoff for low carb diets, and assuming all other numbers are the same, you would need 96 plus 80 = 176g of protein a day, just to maintain.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to be dipping into muscle and organ reserves of protein on a low carb diet. Even if you "only" averaged 10g of protein a day from muscle, over a year, that would be losing 3.65 kg (or 8 pounds) of muscle. Yikes.
 
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Serge

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Seems like it would be pretty easy to be dipping into muscle and organ reserves of protein on a low carb diet. Even if you "only" averaged 10g of protein a day from muscle, over a year, that would be losing 3.65 kg (or 8 pounds) of muscle. Yikes.

Thanks for the info! My question was purely technical for my better understanding, as far as keto is concerned, I realised pretty quickly that I was going nowhere with it.
BUT I will never forget that first week in ketosis, I guess I was running on sooo much cortisol, I was just making circles and circles around the town as if I were on some drugs :) Euphoria went away by the second week though...
 

Motif

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Sorry for using this thread for that, but -

Heavy sugar cravings could be protein deficiency, right?

I‘m a muscular guy and I never really tried to get much protein. Maybe a mistake.
What would this cause long term?
 

milkboi

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Your body tries very hard to only break down muscle if it absolutely has to

This, to a degree, is dependent on anti-catabolic hormones like Test, Progesterone etc. right? Are there other important mechanisms that prevent the body from breaking down itself?
 

MitchMitchell

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Sorry for using this thread for that, but -

Heavy sugar cravings could be protein deficiency, right?

I‘m a muscular guy and I never really tried to get much protein. Maybe a mistake.
What would this cause long term?

yes. If into lifting weights consider the now ‘standard’ value of .8 g/lb (standard on a high carb diet) AND THEN if on a low to very low carb diet add the extra ~150-200g of protein for GNG. I’d still always drink some juice preworkout

For me at 190lbs very lean I like 300g/day at least. Which is a lot of meat or fish or chicken. Below 200 I shed hair lose sleep etc. I think that more fruit is a better option.
 

Vinny

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For me at 190lbs very lean I like 300g/day at least.
Sorry, this may sound like a dumb question, but how do you calculate the actual amount of stakes, chops, eggs, fish or whatever protein you need, to reach your 300g/day?
 

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