I am so hungry, I just want a snickers bar.
It occurred to me this weekend that my stomach was just like my girlfriend’s five year old son when we go to the store and he wants something. He knows he wants a toy, but he doesn’t understand the value of money and thus does not know how much something is or how much we give him to pick the toy out. But he does understand quantity. He knows that 10 objects are greater than 1. So if we give him ten one dollar bills compared to one twenty dollar bill he thinks he has more with the one’s than with the twenty. It is easier for him to break down the worth of each dollar as opposed to holding a twenty.
When we’re hungry our body sends a signal to our brain telling our brain we are running low on something, i.e. energy, building blocks, liquid, etc. Our brain then interprets that signal into the message “feed me”. Our body might be telling our brain, “I need more protein and Zinc to build more muscle and up regulate my testosterone level”. But the brain interprets that signal as “feed me, now”. So we suddenly get a craving for sweets because our brain knows that ultimately all of our systems in our body run off simple sugar, i.e. glucose. Our bodies can break down any macronutrient and reassemle it into sugar. Sugar is actually the only nutrient we do not have to take in through our diets. So, candy bar it is. However, since your body and brain don’t really understand the value associated with nutrients (it’s not like your brain is telling your body that we need 30 grams of protein and 60 grams of carbs after a workout) it wants the easiest thing to break down, i.e. sugar. It’s already broken down a lot for us.
Side note: Your body understands how hard it is to break something down, i.e. fat is harder to break down then carbs. However, the end product (the amount of calories you get from that breakdown process) is unknown to your body. It just knows, “To break down this fat gram it will cost me 3 calories. To break down this protein gram it will cost me 1 calories.”. Nevermind the fact that the fat will provide more energy.
But, if you give your body some protein it will do the same thing with protein that it would do with the candy bar: metabolize it into sugar. The difference is it has to work a little bit harder to break down the protein, which in turn means that it will burn a little bit more calories. It also means that since protein is not easily stored as fat your body will only use as much as necessary to satiate its energy needs, i.e. if you give your body 300 calories of protein vs. 300 calories of sugar when it only needs 200 calories your body will metabolize all of the sugar and turn the excess 100 calories into fat, whereas the excess protein will be excreted or go towards tissue repair/regeneration.
Protein is a little bit harder to break down which will lead to less fat storage and more burning of calories than simple sugars, but since your body doesn’t know the value of nutrients…eat your protein. Just like a child doesn’t know the value of a twenty dollar bill, give him ten ones. You will save money and your kid will be happy. Win-WIN!
