As far as I can tell all fitness blogs say you have to eat lots of protein to build muscle (with exercise). But why protein specifically? If excess calories from any macro can be converted to fat by the body, why do we need protein to build muscle? Couldn’t the body just use excess from any macro combined with weight lifting exercises to build muscle ?
In: Biology
The TLDR is that we can, mostly.
Proteins are actually broken down into amino acids before we absorb them as protins are incredibly complex structures. There is, however, a few amino acids we can’t make in our bodies, but plants and first order consumers (think herbivores) can. We eat them, we get the amio acids, we can turn those into proteins, proteins build muscle cells, we build muscle.
The reason that we require a calorie surplus is that the protein is first used to fuel the body and fulfil various functions before more cells are made. The body takes care of what exists before it makes more.
Bonus info, while theres only a few dozen amino acids, there’s thousands of different protein structures.
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