Protein Myths Busted: Build Muscle without the Calories

Did you know you can build lean muscle and get your protein for recovery, but without the caloric impact? 

You can. There’s a whole science behind protein and calories that most people don’t know. Not understanding it has caused more problems than you'd think. 

Let me explain. 

When you consume 30g of protein from eggs, whey, chicken, or collagen, you think you get 30g of protein from each. 

But you’re not. Each protein source provides different amounts of protein and calories. 

That’s because no protein is used by your body in the form it arrives in. Instead, your body breaks it down into building blocks — amino acids. 

Your body then sifts through these amino acids to find the essential ones and makes new proteins from them. 

However, your body needs an exact ratio of essential amino acids (EAA) to do this: some of this one, more of that, less of this, and so on. It’s very precise. 

If you have extra amino acids above this ratio, they can't be used to build new protein. These unused amino acids are converted into calories. 

They’re either turned into sugar, body fat, or burned directly as energy — the actual calories of a protein source. 

That’s because your body doesn’t store amino acids like it does with fats and sugars. Amino acids stay in the bloodstream for about 2-3 hours before passing through the liver, where they’re converted to sugar, body fat, or burned as fuel — calories. 

And that’s the real problem: each protein and collagen source have a different amount of essential and non-essential amino acids. 

So, you get different amounts of amino acids that can be used to build new protein and collagen — and different amounts of calories. 

You heard that eggs are a “superior protein source,” and it’s true. This is why.  

They have a higher amount of usable EAAs and less unused amino acids. So, you get more protein and less calories from them than other protein sources.

But how do you get almost 100% utilization and next to no calories? You need to receive these EAAs in the exact ratio the human body needs for full utilization.