Lose weight without losing muscle

Double up



In a recent report, scientists have shown that consuming twice the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of protein while adhering to a diet and exercise plan prevents the loss of muscle mass and promotes fat loss. Tripling the RDA of protein, however, failed to provide additional benefits.

To make this discovery, Stefan Pasiakos PH.D (a researcher involved in the work from the Military Nutrition Division at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, MA) and colleagues; assigned young men and women controlled diets for 31 days that provided dietary protein at three different levels:

1) the recommended daily allowance,
2) twice the recommended daily allowance, and
3) three times the recommended daily allowance.

Volunteers were given adequate total calories to maintain constant body weight for the first 10 days to allow their metabolism to adapt to the dietary protein level, and then for the following three weeks, weight loss was induced by restricting the total calories and increasing daily exercise sufficiently to elicit an average two-pound weight loss per week.
All meals were prepared and administered by research staff and exercise was highly controlled.

Body composition and measurements of muscle protein metabolism were performed at the end of both the stable weight maintenance and weight loss phases of the study.
The results of this study demonstrated that there are limits to the protective effect of extra protein. As such, these data suggest an optimal, and perhaps maximal, level of protein for young, active adults who may undergo short-term periods of intentional or unintentional weight loss.
This study essentially confirms what body builders have shown us for a long time -- a high protein diet helps prevent muscle loss when trying to lose fat.

Although eating a well balanced diet is still necessary for health and weight maintenance, upping one's protein intake when dieting might be a useful tool in the short term.