Research
Macro partitioning
Higher protein intake (1.3-1.6 g/kg body weight) during caloric restriction preserves or increases lean muscle mass and strength, whereas standard protein intakes may fail to prevent muscle loss.
If you are trying to lose weight while maintaining your muscle, aim for 1.3 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight each day. Combine this with resistance training. This higher protein intake helps ensure that the weight you lose comes from fat, not muscle, and can even help you get stronger during your diet.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Evidence points to a higher protein intake in combination with resistance exercise as being efficacious in allowing preservation, and on occasion increases, in skeletal muscle mass with dietary energy restriction aimed at the promotion of weight loss.
Why this rating
Based on multiple clinical trials cited (Josse et al., Garthe et al.).
Source
A Brief Review of Critical Processes in Exercise-Induced Muscular Hypertrophy
Stuart M. Phillips · Sports Medicine · 2014
DOI 10.1007/s40279-014-0152-3
narrative_reviewCited 266×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Supplementation with glutamine or arginine does not enhance muscle protein synthesis or hypertrophy in healthy, well-nourished individuals performing resistance or endurance exercise.Strong
- Post-exercise ingestion of rapidly digested, high-leucine protein (e.g., whey) maximizes muscle protein synthesis rates more effectively than slow-digesting proteins (e.g., casein) or lower-leucine proteins (e.g., soy).Good
Related findings · Macro partitioning
- Total daily protein intake of 1.6 g/kg/day is sufficient for maximizing resistance training-induced muscle gains, with an upper confidence interval of 2.2 g/kg/day.Strong
- Resistance exercise training combined with sufficient dietary protein intake acts synergistically to maximize skeletal muscle hypertrophy, with protein intake saturating around 1.6 g/kg/day for general populations and potentially requiring 2.0-2.2 g/kg/day for resistance-trained individuals.Strong
- Trans fats should be completely eliminated from the diet, as they increase LDL cholesterol, decrease HDL cholesterol, and are directly associated with increased coronary risk.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →