These are just anecdotes:
- My friend's brother stopped going to the gym, and his body went fatter than before. He claimed that it's because the protein shakes.
- Another friend of mine has a housemate who is a bodybuilder. He looked good and in decent shape before the vacation. After vacation (and supposedly because of the COVID-19 situation), he looked so chubby. My friend observed he has a full carton of protein shakes too and guess the protein intakes have to do something with it.
I'm a bodybuilder as well, though I'm just into it for 2 years. Everytime I buy a new package of proteins, my friends told me the same thing: those proteins will make you fat! They sometimes told me that I'm getting fatter as well, but I believe those are just muscle gains, but I don't know. I also tend to think getting fatter is irrelevant to protein intake, but here is one valid argument by my friend:
High dietary protein intake => Increasing insulin resistance => Higher chance of diabetes type-2 => Blood sugar control failure => Increasing hunger / desire to eat.
I'm Male, 179cm, 85kg, ~17% fat (using scale tho). Now I feel insecure: does protein really make you fat? Or is it just because of the lifestyle / dietary, and are they related to protein intake as well?