Excess protein doesn't get stored in muscle for later — where does it go
There's a belief that the body can only absorb and use a limited amount of protein for muscle growth per meal (often cited around 20–30 grams), with anything eaten beyond that supposedly 'wasted' or turned into fat. More recent research, including work using isotope tracing to follow specific amino acids, doesn't support this: excess amino acids from a large single protein meal aren't pointlessly excreted — the body uses them differently, as an energy source, for synthesizing other proteins in the body, or stores them with some delay, rather than within a narrow multi-hour window.
The rate protein gets absorbed from a single meal is genuinely limited — a large protein portion takes longer to digest and release amino acids into the blood, spreading the availability of muscle-building material over many hours instead of a sharp spike, which in practice can even be useful for sustaining elevated protein synthesis over the day.
Turning excess protein specifically into fat requires a significant overall calorie surplus in the first place — a single high-protein meal by itself, within a normal daily calorie total, doesn't create that kind of surplus. Practical takeaway: you don't need to split protein into strictly equal portions every few hours — total daily protein matters more than the exact distribution across meals.