Damnit 
You'll be arguing about glutamine next! Good discussion tho.
You guys really seem to know your shit, even if you don't agree. Howzabout something every bb worries about:
Protein requirements are determined by bodyweight and the necessary to maintain proper nitrogen blalance. I want to make three things very clear about protein: it is a really lousy energy source, it is bad for health because the by-products of it's metabolisation are toxic and their systemic elimination is troublesome, and finally that you cannot force your body to utilize any more protein that it needs. The only way to stimulate an increase in muscle mass is by stimulating muscle protein synthesis and protein does not have the capacity to do that. Protein is merely one of the many raw materials that the body utilizes to synthesize muscle, but it does not increase this process. The only way to utilize excess protein is by increasing protein synthesis, something that only drugs like anabolic steroids can do. Testosterone and other anabolic androgenic steroids work so well because they go inside the muscle cells' mitochondria and stimulate your DNA to syntheisize more muscle tisssue by increasing inta-cellular levels of the enzyme RNA-transcryptase. RNA is essentially a copy of your DNA that orders amino acids to be arranged in specific ways to make new proteins. Steroids and other anabolic drugs do that; supplements, including extra protein, don't. believe me that the best supplements that you can take are ascorbic acid and DL-Alpha Tocoferol, which scavenge damage done by the infalmmation process after exercise, increase levels of prostaglandins and decrease plasma levels of corticosteroids. No supplement works at increasing anabolism, but a small numbers of supplements have a very mild anti-catabolic effect. Besides vitamins C and E, the amino acids glutamine and leucine does show some mild anti-catabolic actions at extremely high doses. Is it worth it? Again, considering that the effect is mild and that you need lots of either to get it, it is up to you and your budget.
If you eat an excess of protein beyond what your body needs for protein synthesis, one of the two things will happen: it will get burned as fuel or stored as bodyfat. Now, it is unlikely that it will get stored as bodyfat, because the systemic metabolisation is so calorically costly that you would need huge amounts of protein to get it stored as bodyfat. If you eat an excess of protein, the amino acids will be broke down by protease and will be send to the liver. there, through and extremely complicated biochemical process called gluconogenesis, the Carbon atoms attached to the amino acids will be re-assembled into glucose molecules that wil be sent to your bloodstream. If the glucose is too much, it gets further converted into bodyfat and stored. The other by-products of the amino acid break down, such as ammonia, urea and Sulphur, are extremely toxic to the body and must be eliminated. This process of sytemic clearance puts further drain on the liver and also in the kidneys. In other words, eating alot of protein will: not stimulate and increase in muscle massand put a huge amount of metabolic stress o your body, both to transform the amino acids in energy as well as to eliminate the toxic wastes of protein.
As for how much protein you need, studies done with patients who suffer from severe muscle wasting disorders, like Duchenne's muscular atrophy, show that they require no more than 0.7 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight to maintain popoer nitrogen balance. And elt me tell you that wasting disorders, like AIDS, Duchenne, having third degree burns, etc, increase protein need far more than working out with weight do. I know that this is not what you want to hear, but the protein requirments of bodybuilders is not much highert than that of sedentary folks. Now, the caloric and carbohdrate needs of bodybuilders are greater because you need glycogen to fuel your workouts. However, the protein needs are only those necessary to maintain nitrogen balance and to fuel the little extra that the body needs to build to build more muscle. Everything else is pseudo-science used to sell protein supplements. Ask yoursel: did including whey protein to your daily diet make you bigger? Probably not, because eating more protein does not increase protein synthesis. As to what break-down you need between proteins, fats and carbs, this is very simple to determine. First, multiply your weight in pounds by 0.7. If you weight 200 lbs, then that means 140 grams of protein a day. that gives you about 560 calories a day from protein. Now, assume that you need 2500 calories a day for maintanance, and you want to gain muscle. Well, then you will need to increase your caloric intake by 300 calories a day above maintenance, thus yielding 2800 calories a day. So you deduct 560 from 2800, yielding 2240. Now, you need to get 20% of your daily calories from fats, so that's another 560 calories. So you will be eating about 1680 calories a day from carbs - preferably those with low glycemic index -, or about 60% of your daily claories. Hope this helps.
SUCKMYMUSCLE
