Gluconeogenesis, excess protein and your personal experience

Kristi31

Ok...so let's try and clarify this whole "excess protein converts to glucose" thing.

I don't believe excess protein converts to glucose because it just takes too much energy from the body to do all that work and it will only do so if it really needs to raise glucose levels in the blood, if too low. I COULD DEFINETLY BE WRONG. THIS IS JUST MY OPINION. Grin

Also, I remember losing the most weight and being really thin when loading up on protein and eating moderate amounts of fat. That was back when I was mostly eating organ meats and some coconut oil. I was eating up to 1 kilo a day of protein. I later gained weight when increasing fat intake and lowering protein although the change in weight was probably due to other factors. My point is that if excess protein was converted to glucose then why did I lose the most weight when eating high protein, should be the other way around, no?

And what about the Kimkins diet where people ate lean protein and probably lots of it because it was so lean? How come the fat loss was so substantial on it and later harder on higher-fat, lower protein diets?

Something doesn't add up or maybe I'm overlooking something.

Your opinions, personal experiences would be much appreciated. Eventually, we may discover something...who knows?

There is no right or wrong here, just information sharing and healthy discussion.

Carnation

Wasn't the kimkins crowd ultra-low calorie as well?

Elli

I think so. It was low-carb and low-fat. I remember seeing the sample menuds: pure protein shakes and grilled skinless chicken breast. It's kind of menus that is hard to be calorically high; two of the three macronutrients have been severely lowered.

Many of the Kimkins followers suffered from serious health problems so I don't think high protein diet is to be recommended unless it's paired with high-carb or high-fat. Well, at least moderately high-fat. I don't want you to risk your health, K Sad

Though I know you won't be doing extremely low-fat version.

nola · glucogenesis

Hi Kristelle

I think glucogenesis does happen when there is excess protein which has no where to go and is not being used.
I know that when my carbs are very low I need to eat extra protein to compensate (for energy for exercise and general well-being)- fat does not fill the gap. My feeling is that my body does use glucogenisis to compensate when carbs are insufficient. I am still in GDM..
I think a persons sensitivity to glucogenesis in terms of how it affected their blood sugar could be related to their level carb senstivity.
I think doing lots of exercise creates a need for either more carb or more protein

I think your weight loss with lots of meat and coconut oil has other factors that make it work regardless of glucogenesis or not;
coconut oil initiates weight loss for some
maybe overall calories were less on this diet than when you added more fat
even if your body was converting the extra protein to glucose via glucogenesis- maybe your body was using all this glucose for bodily functions and not needing to store it as fat as there was not really excess.
if your carbs were very low- some of the converted protein would have been used to fill the gaps where glucose was needed..
(am i making sense?)
maybe higher protein is more suited to you; I believe everybody has slightly different needs- some do better with more fat, and some with more protein
maybe decent amounts of meat/protein and some fat is your ideal diet..

kimkins works because it is basically a very low calorie diet

the other side of eating lots of protein is that it is thermogenic (according to Tom Venuto and some others);ie, the body requires quite a lot of energy to digest/process the protein; and it burns up a decent percentage of calories in doing so

nola

Avalon

adwred

Yes, protein is converted to glucose above and beyond your blood sugar needs if it there is no room in the muscles for the excess glucose (because you either eat too much protein or you don't exercise enough). I've seen it happen in my own body many times on ZC, since I started taking my BG.

Unfortunately, although this is a great question, asking people's experience with this will not give you the most reliable answers unless they're actually checking BG - otherwise, there is no way to tell what's going on with BG. But yes, weight gain can be an indicator. Likely when you were eating higher protein and lower fat, your calories were just lower than when you increased fat by a lot, Kristelle, and that's why your weight was lower.

I had a chronically high BG on a zero-carb diet because I wasn't yet exercising the way I do now, and the glucose had nowhere to go if I consumed more than about 80 g protein a day. Now that I weightlift, my body needs more like 130 g of protein to support my lean mass, but if I exceed that, I get high BG, even with exercise, (unless I do something especially vigorous or lengthy, like do a 2-hour hike, etc.).

ecrivain

Avalon

TINKERBELL! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! SAY IT AINT SOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Viking Dan

58% of protein does turn to glucose, but first 25-30% of it gets spent in the cost of digesting it.

So...when the smoke clears only 42% gets gluconized.

*This has been a public service announcement from a man who reads WAY too much.*

jl53563

adwred

From the looks of my BG after eating, it looks like it's total protein, not excess protein.

Nicola

As Kristi mentioned; this forum - "Charles" has some good information:

http://www.livinlowcarbdiscussion...showthread.php?tid=488&page=1

Perhaps "Charles" would be helpfull on the topic of protein / insulin?

Nicola

jl53563

Ok, from my own experience: Last year I did a one week experiment. It was high calorie, high fat, hight protein.....high everything, except carbs, of course.

I averaged over 4100 calories per day and about 270g of protein. It's hard to imagine that this was not excess protein. The result? I lost 2 pounds! If the protein, even only the excess, had been converted to glucose, that is alot of glucose. Surely some of it would have been stored as either fat or glycogen. This was apparetnly not the case.

Here is a summary and a link.....

Well, the results are in. I didn't plan on reporting this at 7 AM, but I couldn't sit on this all day.

Weight 162

I lost 2 pounds!!!
I averaged 4138 calories per day.
That's an extra 1300 calories per day
An extra 9300 calories for the week
I "should" have gained a llittle over 2.5 pounds.

The average breakdown of macronutrients looks something like this.
65% fat
26% protein
8% alchohol
1% carb

It's interesting to note that I consumed alcohol every day, about 2 glasses of dry red wine on average.

Ok, does somebody with more technical knowledge than me want to take a stab at explaining all of this?

http://magicbus.myfreeforum.org/j..._Calorie_Experiment_about621.html

adwred

Without measuring your BG, Jeff, it's difficult to know what was going on there. You do have a lot of LM and are active (even if you weren't working out during that week), so chances are your muscles had lots of room for extra glucose. Also, alcohol (wine in particular) lowers BG, so that may have had an effect.

jl53563

Trem

jl53563

adwred

It did to me. Dunno

Not during my 'binge' week or excess calories and protein and fat, but the week immediately following, actually. I think a week isn't necessarily long enough to tell much of anything.

Erasmus

If I recall, GNG is halted in the presence of alcohol.

-E

adwred

Well whaddya know!

jl53563

adwred

Well, again - it did with me. So Dunno

jl53563

jl53563

Erasmus

adwred

jl53563

jl53563

adwred

Yeah, but you're likely having them with your biggest meal, correct?

jl53563

jl53563

Also, GNG can come from glycerol and lactate, among other things.

http://www.med.unibs.it/~marchesi/gluconeo.html

Maybe some really smart person could go to that link and go to the part that covers Regulation of Gluconeogenesis, and translate it into English. Laugh

adwred

Not necessarily. Alcohol isn't burned off that quickly. And GNG starts within 2-3 hours of eating, according to the way MY BG reacts. And if you had enough room in your muscles for the excess glucose, (which you did, since you're muscular and not consuming any carbs that might be stored as glycogen) chances are there wasn't a whole lot of excess glucose floating around in your body, anyway, especially after the wine with dinner. So your insulin was never triggered, meaning little to no fat storage.

However, a person who doesn't have the lean mass you have or isn't as active as you will experience a raised blood sugar from protein. In fact, so do you - for a period. It gets absorbed back into your muscles within an hour, but there is probably an initial small-ish rise. And if there is excess protein and the sugar doesn't have anywhere to go because you don't have enough de-saturated muscle, then the glucose just hangs around in your blood. The next time you eat too much protein, more builds up ... etc. until you have enough to trigger insulin, which will in turn will cause the glucose to be stored as fat. Sometimes even one meal's worth is enough to trigger insulin, depending on how much you eat, how de-saturated your muscles are, how much you exercise, how much fat you eat with your meal, etc.

You must see that ZC isn't working for some people and there must be some reason why. Otherwise, this forum would never have anyone arguing on it and everyone would be signed up for life and loving it. For me, the GNG thing makes total sense as to why ZC isn't necessarily a cure-all for obesity.

jl53563

It could be wrong, but I"ve always heard that alcohol is burnt off at the rate of about one "drink" per hour. One drink being a glass of wine, 12 ounces of beer, or one ounce of hard liquor. So based on that, 2 glasses of wine could be gone by the time GNG begins. And that's assuming protein gets turned to glucose, which I'm not sure has been established.

While there is much information stating that protein is converted to glucose, some very smart people, including Dr. Eades and Bear, say that GNG takes place only as needed.

adwred

You're so right. I'm going to throw away my blood glucose monitor and go back on zero carb, despite the weight gain. How can I argue with 'smarts'? Laugh

jl53563

jl53563

I found this.

adwred

So one of the 'options' even describes exactly what I was suggesting is going on, for me:

jl53563

jl53563

adwred

I don't doubt it. But it doesn't mean that they're abnormal or that they should expect something to work and keep trying forever, when it doesn't. Hormonal 'problems' seem to be pretty common if low-carb message boards are any indication. For both men and women.

The fact is that people get accused of 'cheating' with carbs or binges when they're not losing weight when they are absolutely not cheating. Or they are accused of not trying hard enough or long enough at something when they have been following a diet to the letter. Zero-carb didn't work for me. I wanted it to work. Desperately. I preached it, even without having great results. I'm finally willing to see that.

Do I think a high carb diet is good? No. Do I think that means all dietary carbohydrate must be eliminated from the diet in order to be healthy or to attain a normal weight? No. Do I think ZC is not good for anyone? No. I think it obviously works great for some people, including you, Jeff.

If something is going to work for you, you should know it pretty soon and not have to stick it out for years before anything happens. Those people for whom any diet works perfectly are very lucky and, unfortunately, in the minority. And those who preach a WOE as being 'the' answer who have never even been significantly overweight, themselves ... well I think we all know what I think of them. Laugh

Erasmus

Jumping back in...

About Jeff's XS protein being converted to glycogen and stored as a reason why he didn't gain weight...

It is widely held that glycogen storage is accompanied by water retention to the tune of 4g water to 1g glycogen. If he was storing glycogen his weight would have skyrocketed, at least until his tanks were full.

----

As to why blood glucose may increase after a ZC meal... I suggest that it is POSSIBLE that the body is using a small amount of glycogen to pump up the energy level to handle the load of digestion. This idea is just a guess.

-E

adwred

Jeff is probably burning a lot of glycogen in a day, considering how active he is. His weight wouldn't skyrocket from 20 - 30 g or so of glucose from protein. People eat that much in carb in a day all the time and still consider themselves low-carb. It doesn't mean that protein isn't converted to glucose through GNG, beyond the needs of keeping a stable BG.

jl53563

adwred

jl53563

Red, I really do agree with what you just said. But really, it's all just speculation. Even with you monitoring your BG, GNG can be generated from any number of different substrates, not just protein.

adwred

By 'I don't want to argue it forever', I mean that I've beaten my dead horse back to life and will stop now - not that others can't continue to discuss it, btw!

Erasmus

Seems to me an experiment is in order. Evil

Perhaps you could, over the course of a few days, do an isocaloric meal of say 400kcal (or whatever you like) start day one at 0g P, then bump it up 20g/day until you are near 100% P. I'm only talking about altering one of your meals a day and the sample size would be 1 so it would hardly be conclusive. But it's a start.

-E

Avalon

I eat... nevermind Roll Eyes

on second thought...

I eat, therefore I yam Grin

Nicola

Charles opinion:

http://www.livinlowcarbdiscussion...howthread.php?tid=488&page=25

Nicola

jl53563

Nicola

From the Raw Paleo Diet Forum:

An example to illustrate my point: you can find studies that measure levels of glycogen in muscles
of animals, such as:
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/01121.2007v1
But the amount of glycogen in the muscles is so small, that it is an insignificant contribution to the diet
if the animal is killed and its muscles are eaten.
(i.e. muscle meat has almost zero carbs).

Nicola

jl53563

adwred

I did a mini experiment yesterday. Did a ZC day and with dinner had a glass (7 oz) of white wine. My BG didn't go up at the 3 hour mark - it went up from 81 to 93 at the 6 hour mark, instead. I wonder if alcohol just delays protein GNG and doesn't actually prevent it. Or maybe it had to do with a blood glucose cascade - not sure. It's so hard to know exactly what's going on there.

jl53563

Ain't that the truth!! Laugh

adwred

My calories were a lot lower than usual (1400 vs 2000), so it could have been a cascade. God only knows.

Kristi31

Thanks to everyone for their input. This is very interesting indeed... Yup

Elli

I just got the parcel containing my new bloog glucose testing machine; last one was defective. I have lot less LM than Red or Jeff and lot more sedantary as well so it can be assumed that it's more likely to see effects of GNG if it happens. I'm working a lot this week that I can't possibly eat a hugh protein-based meal and keep checking my bg at the workplace. I'll do the experiment over the weekend and post the result.

By the way, should it be lean protein or fatty protein or doesn't matter as long as there's more than enough protein? I know that protein shakes and bars are more easily and quickly absorbed, but I would rather eat my food than to drink my food Embarassed

Something like 40-50g in a sitting will show some result.

adwred

Lean would show quicker results, but don't eat just lean protein on account of an experiment. Your first priority should be your health. Yup

Elli

Elli

Funny enough, dad just brought like two pounds of alaskan king crab. Would've been perfect for the experiment, however, don't really want to wake up two in the morning for the sake of measuring BG.

I just love king crabs. Too bad that they are almost always sold pre-cooked and also almost always too heavily salted. I have a cut in my finger right now and all that salty crab water didn't help much Sad

adwred

Had another ZC day. Ate dinner at 8:30 - 12 oz salmon (raw weight), which is about 73 g protein. That's all. Nothing to drink but mineral water. BG was 86 before eating. Now, 3 hours later it's 104. That's insulin territory. No ketones in my urine. Despite 3 days VLC. That's a GNG rate of roughly 29% of total protein (not 58%), but still way higher than my BG needs. Note I did not work out today, but I did yesterday.

jl53563

adwred

Yes, 104 is higher than is necessary. Above 100, insulin is engaged. Why would the body naturally raise the BG to a point where insulin is likely to store the extra, especially when there is too much fat on the body? A person on a low carb shouldn't have a BG that goes above about 95 (and TG aren't being burned above 80). Plus, it was a lean meal - one mostly made up of protein. I'm not saying it came entirely from protein, but when I eat a meal of only fat, my BG does not increase AT ALL. In fact, it lowers. That's why I know this is about protein.

Nicola

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/diabetics-should-eat-fat.html

Insulin is needed to digest protein.

Nicola

adwred

Totally agree with that article, Nicola, and it matches with my experience - although my BG does go up after eating protein. Not as much as carbs, of course, but it does indeed rise.

meatISawesome369

whats the least amount of protein one can get by on? I know you've mentioned this before Red but I've forgot. How much protein does a 6ft. 200 pound man need to mantain his muscle mass and get the rest of his energy from fat?

Stephen

adwred

Totally depends on your amount of LM and how much you move. It also depends on whether or not you want to have your muscles fueled by ketones, rather than glucose.

Avalon

yeah and stuff Yup

jl53563

adwred

Yes, normal for someone on a carb-inclusive diet or protein-driven diet (which still includes carbs), who is likely to be engaging insulin regularly and daily. Mary doesn't recommend a ZC diet for anyone, remember? Even her keto-driven diet includes a minimum of 20-25 carbs a day for proper fatty acid metabolism.

Let me get this straight. You're arguing a ZC diet or VLC diet doesn't cause GNG-related glucose spikes and that it will correct obesity in the absence of 'hormonal problems' because insulin and glucose aren't available for fat storage, correct? I'm pretending that Mary doesn't exist right now and am testing ZC to see, solely, if GNG raises blood glucose more than a couple of points. Which it very clearly seems to.

Or are you saying that GNG does raise BG beyond what is desired if not keto-adapted, but for some reason doesn't raise blood glucose beyond what is ideal when your muscles are adapted to ketones?? And if so, why?

jl53563

Believe it or not, I'm really not arguing anything. I'm just trying to sort through lots of conflicting opinions and information.

I still think what Mary said about normal BG applies. She said it was normal for all scenarios other than when the muscles are adapted to ketones.

If I recall correctly, Bear said his BG was in the low 100's.

adwred

Well, whether or not one thinks it's ideal to have a BG of 104 is debatable. If GNG isn't an issue, then why is my BG rising at all? 83 is a perfectly 'normal' level. What would be the advantage of having GNG bring my BG up like that, so close to insulin-ville, but keep it in the 'normal' range?

I don't think it's ideal to have a BG where insulin is being secreted in order to store that glucose. My BG drops quickly after it gets above around 105 ... more quickly than it would just from having my brain burn it naturally. I suspect it's insulin being secreted and shuttling the glucose away. Do I know that for a fact? No ... but all signs point to fat ass.

My BG has gone above 110 from eating ZC - it's gone as high as 117 (and that's just since I've been monitoring it). I imagine it probably went higher than that, even, after particularly large protein meals. Maybe that's 'normal', too. But I don't think so. That glucose is being shuttled somewhere. And I sure as shit wasn't losing weight, like some people do. I went from 138 lbs to 155 over 20 months on ZC.

Erasmus

Over on the Bus, Lex (who seems to have gone missing) showed a stable 100 or so on his BG except for a dip down to the 80's just before meal time.

Perhaps it is your 80 that is the "unusual" figure and not the 100.

I'm just say'n, not really arguing the point, like Jeff, just trying to make sense of it all. Happy

-E

Avalon

Red Wrote:

Avalon

Ever heard of this?

http://www.nowfoods.com/?action=itemdetail&item_id=73515

Vinegar lowers blood sugar

Avalon

I'm sorry, I think this is interesting no matter what you eat-

adwred

Avalon

Okay, last post Laugh

I just read that lemon juice also lowers blood sugar...

... and I just read that Malt Vinegar is 0 Salicylates Happy

http://www.amazon.com/Sarsons-Malt-Vinegar-10oz-Bottle/dp/B000Q3VYKQ

okay I'm done. I'm sorry. Okay, I'm going...

adwred

Lauren

adwred

No, I'm not a MB member. But the discussion went on at the SatFatforhealth group. Not sure where that netted out before he vanished. He's never been a member here, I don't think.

Avalon

Okay last last post of the night.

DOHHH!!! I forgot about Gluten! Roll Eyes

I tested my blood 3 hours after dinner and I was 101. Couldn't post until now because neighbor and I watched 'Untraceable'. Except for the Yolk, I'd say it was a pretty carby meal Dunno

http://xetaprime.blogspot.com/200...u-breakfast-vegetarian-beans.html

I'm curious now to see what my readings might be after eating Salmon. I usually eat it alone anyways or with a little Mayo.

Could it be as with many things that different people react differently even when it comes to insulin response? If I take away the yolk will my numbers go up? What if you dip raw or cooked Salmon in Yolk or, Hollandaise Sauce? Hmmm that sounds good Yup

adwred

Oh, my salmon did have skin, btw. Yup

Centre was cooked to medium doneness.

Avalon

Do you think insulin my be different for cooked versus Sashimi? I know AV thinks eating fish raw helps when it comes to mercury poisoning Shock

hell if I know. You know?

Gluten free malt Vinegar Smile

http://www.britishdelights.com/prod_s4.htm

Carnation

Nicola

Lex left the MB; some trouble with the owner...

He is not so happy about sticking to a plan like Mary and this may be why he is not posting...

He is on the Raw Paleo Diet Forum; I should think he will post when he has things worked out again.

Nicola

Lauren

Thanks Nicola. I was not happy with MB either and don't even check there anymore. It seems to be more of a dating service at this point.

Please let me know if Lex starts posting about his experiment. I really appreciate his scientific approach.

Lauren

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/journals/lex's-journal/

I just found this link to Lex's protein/fat experiment.

adwred, you've probably already seen this but his findings support your experience of excess protein causing insulin spikes and fat storage.

Avalon

I love experiments! Very interesting read. Makes me want to seriously get some data from my end Shock

I mean, get the poop so to speak... ehh scoop I mean Roll Eyes

DOHHH!!!

heh heh

Big Hug

back at ya Carni!

jl53563

Red, your 12 oz salmon meal from a couple of days ago got me thinking about something. This would also apply to Lex's experiment.

The idea of excess protein converting to glucose does not seem unreasonable to me. It's the only way it could be stored for later use. The question then becomes, what constitutes "excess protein"?

Your salmon contained about 73g of protein and was eaten all in one meal. While 73g of protein is probably a reasonable amount for you, perhaps the fact that it was eaten all at once was perceived by the body as being "excess". Maybe this is more than the body can handle in a short period of time, so the "excess" would convert to glucose and be stored either as glycogen or converted to fat and stored as such.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if you took that same amount of salmon and ate it in 3 or 4 well spaced meals thoughout the day.

Lex also consumed his protein all in one meal.

The "experts" consider a serving of meat to be 3 ounces. Maybe for once they are on to something. Laugh

adwred

Oh, it definetly doesn't rise as much if I eat it space out throughout the day. Although, if I eat more than a certain amount in a day (for me, it's about 120 - 130 g), regardless of how I space it out, my BG will creep up over the course of a few days and won't come down until I de-saturate my muscles with exercise. But on ZC, unless you don't mind eating tiny portions frequently throughout the day with lots of fat, you kind of have little choice but to eat large servings of protein, since you're not eating anything else (yes, there's fat, but fat, as you know takes up very little space, volume-wise and fat doesn't do a ton for me satiety-wise). I see people eating 1-lb steaks all the time on this board. I used to eat a 12-oz portion of meat all the time on ZC. And others on ZC report losing fat or never gaining, while eating huge portions of meat, shockingly.

My point is that ZC isn't a guarantee of having a low and steady BG and avoiding fat storage without additional tweaking. See, now we're understanding each other! Yup

Nicola

Lex still eats one meal a day (he didn't like having to eat twice or more; I don't like eating more because eating would put me off (work, sport...).

I wonder why some humans are healthy on meat and fat...

http://tinyurl.com/42nqhw

Nicola

Avalon

ohm... ohm... ohm...

Dunno

jl53563

adwred

Now, to find out what I SHOULD be eating ...

jl53563

adwred

K, one more post. Today, I fast until 2 pm. Then I had breakfast, consisting of 55 g protein and 20 g fat. Trace carbs. BG was 82. No BG rise at all, until just now, 2-1/2 hours later. Right now, I'm sitting at 100. And I'm hungry again!

Elli

Out of curiosity, do you think Bear was ever properly keto-adapted as in his muscles are using ketones as the primary fuel?

Avalon

I just heard he's switched to ethanol for fuel Yup

jl53563

Gluconeogenesis, excess protein and your personal experience

glucogenesis

Re: Gluconeogenesis, excess protein and your personal experi