How much protein to keep muscle while losing weight

Graciecandance

I’m 5’5 and 127 pounds. I have around 27 percent body fat. how much protein should i be having a day to hold onto as much muscle as possible and just lose fat? I’m trying to lose 1.5 pounds a week, stopping at 121 pounds,

Lillymoo01

If you want to preserve muscle mass your first step should be to reduce your loss to only 0.5 pounds a week. Secondly, as you are already a healthy weight for your height, you would be much more satisfied with the end result if you went down the path of a recomp rather than weight loss. This thread will tell you all you need to know about doing a recomp. https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1

However, if you are determined to go down the path of weight loss then eat at least 0.8 gms of protein per pound of weight and start doing a progressive lifting program.

yirara

Just eating more protein would not preserve muscle mass. Your body can only burn a certain amount of fat for energy every day, and if you go over this will be primarily from muscle. Your body just doesn't say: ok, burned so much fat, I should munch on muscles now. Oh, but there's protein; lets not do that. Mind you, every weight loss involves burning of fat AND muscle. That means you need a muscle building programme to at least preserve muscle.

hipari

You are way too small to be losing 1.5 pounds a week. You are already normal weight and aiming for a weight that's at the lower end of the healthy weight range. Also, your profile says you're female. The healthy body fat percentage range for females is about 21-35%. You are already within that range.

I don't know you personally and don't know how you look like, but this sounds like your weight loss motivation might be about appearance and wanting to look more toned, instead of a health-related concern. If that's the case, recomposition might be a good option for you - that's the process of building more muscle and losing some fat, but essentially staying at the same weight. There's plenty of recomp threads on these forums with lots of knowledgeable people.

If you still want to lose weight instead of recomping, go slow. I mean, 0,5lbs per week.