Amount of protein to eat in order to lose fat vs muscle?

ravensoundslikejoy
ravensoundslikejoy Posts: 18 Member
in Getting Started
I'm wondering how much protein to eat so that the weight I'm losing is from fat and not muscle.
Right now my calories are set at 1550, so about a deficit of 500 per day, and I'm eating around 116 grams of protein.
I'm just concerned that my macros aren't correct and I'm not losing fat.

Replies

  • bclarke1990
    bclarke1990 Posts: 287 Member
    The amount of protein you eat isn't going to change the amount of fat you lose; your caloric deficit is.
  • campbell3913
    campbell3913 Posts: 64 Member
    If you're exercising you need to eat enough protein that you don't loose muscle instead of fat. I don't know what that number is. You might want to do some reading.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    3 legs to the table/chair/stool (whatever has 3 legs) of helping to retain muscle mass.

    Reasonable deficit for amount to lose and activity and stress in life.
    Resistance training whole body.
    Enough protein, go for 0.8 g per lb bodyweight as simple goal - more probably won't help.

    Balance between those 3 legs.
    Like you may personally get by with bigger deficit if eating more protein and more strength training (then again for your body genetically - maybe not - why risk?)

    500 cal deficit if more than 10-15 lbs to lose would be reasonable - unless your body has disease too and some other big stress.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,225 Member
    edited May 2016
    Yes, your calorie deficit leads to fat loss, but I assume you're asking how you can minimize muscle loss along the way. Best chances by:
    • Strength training while losing,
    • Not losing too rapidly (one rule of thumb is no more than 1% of your bodyweight per week - which means you should slow your loss rate as you have less remaining to lose), and
    • Getting enough protein, as you mention. People argue about this, but 1g or more per pound of goal weight (or some say lean body mass) seems to be advocated by many bodybuilders, 0.6g-0.8g per pound of goal weight is more middle-of-the-road advice, and some (USDA, and seemingly a lot of vegans) say 40-50g a day is enough for women. I'm a middle-of-the-road-er, myself.

    (edited to correct typos)
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    Your weight in kilos is the number to use for the target grams of protein in your diet. I'm guessing that 116 is a plenty good number for you.
    Take photographs of yourself soon and often. Use them to document your progress.
    The best you can do is provide your body with plenty of protein. You can easily achieve this with your calorie level.

    If you care a lot about your body fat %, purchase fat calipers. http://www.amazon.com/AZMED-Skinfold-Caliper-Measure-Included/dp/B0112WR9JE/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1452141483&sr=8-1&keywords=body+fat+caliper&linkCode=sl1&tag=tdeecalcb-20&linkId=ffe04a667d52cf9fd6d5b45a5fe770e3

    As you lose weight, you lose both fat and muscle. Simply, you are lighter and have less need of muscles to move yourself around. After you lose weight, you can use progressive resistance weightlifting and a calorie surplus to build muscle.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Why would one wait until after they have lost weight, and from what you said, both fat and muscle - just to spend time later building more muscle but also fat by eating in surplus?

    Bad idea - strength training from the start - lose as little as possible - don't have to lose any actually.
  • ravensoundslikejoy
    ravensoundslikejoy Posts: 18 Member
    Thank you for all the advice everyone! I was just concerned because I saw a few times now people say you should eat about .8-1g of protein per lb of body weight, didn't know they meant lbm or around a goal weight, haha.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    1g/lb goal bodyweight is a pretty reasonable target for most people.
    Keep in mind that resistance training is a critical component of this.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    The 0.8 is per kilo of body weight, the US recommendation. The 1.0 is also per kilo of body weight, the EU recommendation. If you are using 'per pound', your target is off by a factor of 2.2
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    edited May 2016
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    The 0.8 is per kilo of body weight, the US recommendation. The 1.0 is also per kilo of body weight, the EU recommendation. If you are using 'per pound', your target is off by a factor of 2.2

    The 0.8 g/lb of goal weight which gets thrown around in different forms is from studies on weight lifters trying to bulk where they analyzed at what point adding more protein does not increase gains any further.

    The recommendations you quote are minimum RDAs, this is supposed to be the maximum benefit.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,225 Member
    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    The 0.8 is per kilo of body weight, the US recommendation. The 1.0 is also per kilo of body weight, the EU recommendation. If you are using 'per pound', your target is off by a factor of 2.2

    If the referback was to my 0.6-0.8g of protein per pound of goal weight, then "no". I definitely meant pounds, not kilos, for the reasons @rankinsect said. Yes, you are correct about the RDAs. But those are the low end of the common range of recommendations one sees here.
  • MelaniaTrump
    MelaniaTrump Posts: 2,694 Member
    My goal is 70 grams a day.
    Losing weight.
  • cecsav1
    cecsav1 Posts: 714 Member
    Yes! Above answers are excellent, and I love love LOVE that you know the difference between losing weight and losing fat! This is exactly why the rote answers of "calories in vs calories out," "all you need is a calorie deficit," and "macros don't matter" burn me up! :)
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    But calorie deficit is the biggest low-hanging fruit of losing fat weight.
    So depends on perspective of conversation.
    But that must be accomplished first - or your macro make-up eating at maintenance or surplus matters naught.

    Enough protein is about hanging on to the muscle you got, and perhaps satiety to adhere to that deficit.

    I'd love to see an actual "macros don't matter" comment in context - never seen that.

    But the topic of this was specific to keeping the muscle - so protein is of course paramount - deficit was already stated as being done, so no need for the rote answers that are true but being done already.

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