In humans, the glucogenic (able to be converted into glucose) amino acids are:
Glycine
Serine
Valine
Histidine
Arginine
Cysteine
Proline
Alanine
Glutamate
Glutamine
Aspartate
Asparagine
Methionine
Amino acids that are both glucogenic and ketogenic (able to be converted into ketone bodies):
Isoleucine
Threonine
Phenylalanine
Tyrosine
Tryptophan
Only leucine and lysine are not glucogenic.
100 grams of protein will be converted into approximately 57 grams of glucose because the conversion process isn't very efficient, this is why most of the studies that compare high protein and high carbohydrate diets end up showing greater fat loss with the high protein diet. Let me explain, most people assume that protein contains 4 calories per gram (which it does when burnt in a calorimeter) but our bodies are not calorimeters, we can't use all of the energy in a gram of protein. Protein can't be burned directly, instead it must be converted into glucose first and this conversion has a 57% efficiency rate.
What this means is that for every 100 calories of protein (25 grams) your body will only be able to actually make use of 57 of these calories, so instead of saying that protein provides 4 calories per gram it's more accurate to say that it provides approximately 2.3 calories per gram.
Now let's take a look at what they do in these studies, they might compare a diet containing 1000 calories from protein (250 grams) and 400 calories from carbohydrate (100 grams) to a diet containing 400 calories from protein (100 grams) and 1000 calories from carbohydrate (250 grams).
On paper it would appear as though both diets total 1400 calories (excluding calories from fat which is irrelevant), however in the real world the amount of calories your body can actually make use of from each diet is different, your body can only make use of 57% of the calories in protein.
- 1000 calories from protein (250 grams) + 400 calories from carbohydrate (100 grams) = 570 calories from protein, 400 from carbohydrate = 970 calories total.
- 400 calories from protein (100 grams) + 1000 calories from carbohydrate (250 grams) = 228 calories from protein, 1000 from carbohydrate = 1228 calories total.
There's a 258 calorie difference between the two diets even though both appear to provide 1400 calories on paper.
Protein does not provide 4 calories per gram (which is what you get when you burn a gram of protein in a calorimeter), it provides approximately 2.3 calories per gram because your body isn't able to burn protein directly but must instead convert it into glucose with a 57% efficiency rate.
This isn't considering the thermic effect of food, that's an entirely different discussion. Processing protein is more energy costly than processing carbohydrate, even after protein has been processed it still can only convert to glucose at a 57% efficiency rate so the TEF is not related to the 57% conversion rate.
There was a base 258 calorie difference between the high protein and low protein diets in my example, once we also factor in the TEF the actual net calorie difference between the two diets widens even further, not only does the high protein diet provide less calories overall, it also requires more calories to process the additional protein.
I should probably mention that the actual conversion process itself requires energy, so not only will protein only be converted into glucose with 57% efficiency but you'll also burn calories during the conversion process.
By the time you factor in the 57% conversion rate, the thermic effect of food, and the energy cost of the conversion process itself it becomes clear that protein is an extremely inefficient/poor source of calories, it's little wonder that people lose more fat on high protein diets, for every 1000 calories of protein they eat they're only providing their bodies with perhaps 300 net calories after all is said and done.
Gluconeogenesis usually only occurs when you eat excess protein or not enough carbohydrate, if you require 80 grams of protein to maintain your body and you only eat 80 grams of protein there won't be much gluconeogenesis taking place. If however you were to eat 160 grams of protein your body would convert the excess 80 grams into 45.6 grams of glucose via gluconeogenesis.
Low carbohydrate diets can increase your protein requirements, if you don't eat enough carbohydrate your body will convert protein into glucose, if you don't eat enough protein your body will start breaking down your muscles/organs to provide the amino acids it needs to produce glucose.
So yeah I was doing some number crunching in my head last night in regards to gluconeogenesis and my estimate of net 300 calories from 100 calories of protein (250 grams) I gave earlier is off the mark. The real calculation is:
- 1000 calories (250 grams) of protein ingested
- 570 calories worth of glucose produced during gluconeogenesis
So out of 1000 calories we now only have 570 useable calories, but it gets worse:
- 300 calories burned during digestion (the TEF of protein is around 30%)
- 190 calories burned during the conversion process itself (the cost of gluconeogenesis is 33% of the energy content of the produced glucose)
So after starting with 1000 calories from protein we're left with a whopping 80 calories. Eating 250 grams of protein (1000 calories) yields 80 useable net calories. Now here's something pretty cool, those 490 calories burned during digestion and the conversion process come from fat calories, what this means is that 490 calories of fat are burned to produce 570 calories of glucose.
Eating 250 grams of protein causes your body to burn 490 fat calories in order to produce 570 glucose calories (80 calorie net gain). I'm sure you can start to understand now just how powerful high protein diets are for fat loss.