If you've been trying to lose weight, you might have also noticed that you're losing muscle.
One of the trickiest balances of exercise is maintaining (and growing) muscle strength while losing weight.
Research has shown the importance of weight lifting, as it helps you burn calories, speeds up your metabolism, and aids in weight loss.
An study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that whey protein supplementation protects against some of the loss of muscle that happens while dieting and exercise.
Researchers randomized 40 people to receive a 14-day, low-calorie diet that was supplemented with whey protein, soy protein, or an addition of carbohydrates.
Researchers assessed myofibrillar protein synthesis (a measure of muscle maintenance), during fasting and following a meal, before and after the two-week diets.
Researchers found that all groups experienced a decline in myofibrillar protein while fasting.
How can this help preserve muscle mass as you're trying to lose weight?
Listen in as Dr. Mike explains this study and suggests ways that you can lose weight but still have muscle.
Selected Podcast
Preserve Muscle During Weight Loss
Transcription:
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk with Dr. Michael Smith | Original Air Date: May 29, 2015
Host: Mike Smith, MD
Anti-aging and disease prevention radio is right here on RadioMD. Here is author, blogger, lecturer and national medical media personality, Dr. Michael Smith, M.D. with HealthyTalk.
DR. MIKE: You know if you are trying to lose weight getting ready for summer or looking good in your bathing suit during summer, whatever, or just even for a wedding or for a big event, what have you. If you are trying to lose weight, it is important that you preserve muscle mass. Think of it this way, muscle is your most metabolically active tissue. What do I mean by that? I just mean muscle uses sugar and makes energy out of it better than any other tissue. If you want to support metabolism while you try to lose weight, you’ve got to keep your muscle mass up. It’s that simple. If you are losing weight, you are losing fat, that sounds good. But you are also losing muscle. At some point, your metabolism is going to drop so much all of your efforts are going to be reversed because metabolism is going to crash because you are losing muscle. It is just not healthy to lose muscle, either. When you lose muscle, that is associated with a lot of risks. Risks for metabolic diseases. Risk for heart issues. It goes on and on. We want to make sure that whatever weight loss plan that you are on that you preserve muscle tissue. We want to make sure that we prevent muscle loss when we are losing weight. How can we go about this? I am going to read you this article. It came out of the Journal of Nutrition and it reports the outcome of a trial of overweight and obese individuals and “found a protective role for whey protein supplementation against some of the loss of muscle that occurs with dieting.” Again, this comes from the Journal of Nutrition, 2014. “Researchers randomized 40 subjects to receive” - that’s a decent size – “a 14-day, low calorie diet supplemented with whey protein, soy protein or the addition of carbohydrate providing a number of calories equal to that of the protein supplement.” Basically, you have 40 people, 14 days, a third of them were on a low calorie diet with whey protein, a third were on a low calorie diet with soy protein and a third of them were on a low calorie diet with the addition of a carbohydrate in the same number of calories as the soy or the whey protein groups. Basically, a whey, soy and an extra carbohydrate group – three groups. They looked at a measure of muscle maintenance that is known as myofibrillar protein synthesis – you can actually assess this. They looked at this myofibrillar protein synthesis, this measurement of muscle maintenance while fasting, and following a meal, before and after the two-week diet. They measured this muscle synthesis essentially before to give it a baseline and afterwards. “Prior to the start of the diet, this myofibrillar protein synthesis was found to be more stimulated following whey consumption in comparison to the soy or carbohydrate ingestion. While all groups experienced a similar decline,” dieting is going to cause you to lose some muscle mass unless you are exercising,” the decrease in muscle mass was less among those who received whey versus the soy or that extra carbohydrate.” Whey does seem to be a way, if you are dieting to preserve some of that muscle mass; to prevent some of that muscle wasting and loss that we see when people are trying to lose weight. I have a note here, the editors did say something. “Among those who received carbohydrates, the decrease in the protein synthesis averaged 31% in comparison with only 9% in the group that received whey protein and soy.” The worst thing you could do is load up on carbs, I guess, when you are losing weight. You definitely want to increase protein intake is what the editors are saying here. You definitely want to increase protein when you are trying to lose some weight if you want to prevent the muscle loss and whey seems to be the better one to do. You can take a whey protein shake or something. That is important. Should we start recommending a whey protein shake for anybody on any diet? I don’t know. There may be something to it. It is pretty well known that most Americans aren’t getting enough protein anyway, so for all of us to do a little extra whey or soy protein or whatever kind of protein you want is probably not a bad idea anyways. Doing some whey protein when you are dieting, in my opinion, based on, at least this preliminary data, is really important to preventing muscle loss.
Let’s talk about some other ways, though, that you can prevent the loss of muscle when you are on a diet. Number one, don’t cut your calories too drastically. Ten, fifteen or twenty percent. Maybe that is going to be your goal. Cutting out 10, 15 or 20% of your total calorie intake, but you do that slowly over time. Drastic and sudden drops in calorie intake will result in more muscle loss. Not only that – I coined this term called “diet shock”. I think I have talked about it on the show before. Diet shock is where you cut your calories so much that you may lose weight initially but the calorie loss is so profound to the body, the body actually thinks that you are starving. It shocks itself into a starvation mode and it crashes metabolism. Cut your calories. Aim for about 10-20% of a decrease in total calorie intake. But do it slowly over time. Maybe the first week on a diet you only cut your calories 5% and do that for a couple of weeks. Then, you drop it 10%. Do that for a couple of more weeks. Eventually, you get to 15% but do it slowly. Your goal might be eating 20% less calories a day, but don’t start there. Number one, you are going to be really hungry. You are going to want to cheat anyways, and it is not good. You are more prone to lose muscle when you cut calories too quick. Eat to meet your protein need. That is really important. Most people need around 72 milligrams and, basically, it is a gram of protein per kilogram of weight. So, let me say that again because I messed that up. It is a gram of protein for kilogram of weight. You want to stick with that no matter what you are doing, whether you are trying to lose weight or not. Make sure you are getting enough protein and if you need to, add some whey. Do a whey shake or something. Cut calories slowly over time. I don’t like fad diets. I don’t like crash diets. You are going to lose muscle and go into what I call diet shock. Do it slowly and make sure you are getting enough protein every day. Number three, exercise. That is one of the best ways to prevent muscle loss is to exercise. We can talk about whey protein. I have some other suggestions here: fish oil, hydrazine, carnitine, branch chain amino acid, medium chain tryglcerides. These are all things you can take to preserve lean muscle mass but if you are dieting and doing this stuff and you are not exercising, then you are not doing right anyways. Cut your calories slowly, get your protein needs and exercise. Eat less and burn more. That is the best way to keep metabolism balanced and that is going to lead to lasting, successful weight loss. If you are dieting, at least get some whey protein, based on this study published in the Journal of Nutrition, 2014.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I’m Dr. Mike. Stay well.
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk with Dr. Michael Smith | Original Air Date: May 29, 2015
Host: Mike Smith, MD
Anti-aging and disease prevention radio is right here on RadioMD. Here is author, blogger, lecturer and national medical media personality, Dr. Michael Smith, M.D. with HealthyTalk.
DR. MIKE: You know if you are trying to lose weight getting ready for summer or looking good in your bathing suit during summer, whatever, or just even for a wedding or for a big event, what have you. If you are trying to lose weight, it is important that you preserve muscle mass. Think of it this way, muscle is your most metabolically active tissue. What do I mean by that? I just mean muscle uses sugar and makes energy out of it better than any other tissue. If you want to support metabolism while you try to lose weight, you’ve got to keep your muscle mass up. It’s that simple. If you are losing weight, you are losing fat, that sounds good. But you are also losing muscle. At some point, your metabolism is going to drop so much all of your efforts are going to be reversed because metabolism is going to crash because you are losing muscle. It is just not healthy to lose muscle, either. When you lose muscle, that is associated with a lot of risks. Risks for metabolic diseases. Risk for heart issues. It goes on and on. We want to make sure that whatever weight loss plan that you are on that you preserve muscle tissue. We want to make sure that we prevent muscle loss when we are losing weight. How can we go about this? I am going to read you this article. It came out of the Journal of Nutrition and it reports the outcome of a trial of overweight and obese individuals and “found a protective role for whey protein supplementation against some of the loss of muscle that occurs with dieting.” Again, this comes from the Journal of Nutrition, 2014. “Researchers randomized 40 subjects to receive” - that’s a decent size – “a 14-day, low calorie diet supplemented with whey protein, soy protein or the addition of carbohydrate providing a number of calories equal to that of the protein supplement.” Basically, you have 40 people, 14 days, a third of them were on a low calorie diet with whey protein, a third were on a low calorie diet with soy protein and a third of them were on a low calorie diet with the addition of a carbohydrate in the same number of calories as the soy or the whey protein groups. Basically, a whey, soy and an extra carbohydrate group – three groups. They looked at a measure of muscle maintenance that is known as myofibrillar protein synthesis – you can actually assess this. They looked at this myofibrillar protein synthesis, this measurement of muscle maintenance while fasting, and following a meal, before and after the two-week diet. They measured this muscle synthesis essentially before to give it a baseline and afterwards. “Prior to the start of the diet, this myofibrillar protein synthesis was found to be more stimulated following whey consumption in comparison to the soy or carbohydrate ingestion. While all groups experienced a similar decline,” dieting is going to cause you to lose some muscle mass unless you are exercising,” the decrease in muscle mass was less among those who received whey versus the soy or that extra carbohydrate.” Whey does seem to be a way, if you are dieting to preserve some of that muscle mass; to prevent some of that muscle wasting and loss that we see when people are trying to lose weight. I have a note here, the editors did say something. “Among those who received carbohydrates, the decrease in the protein synthesis averaged 31% in comparison with only 9% in the group that received whey protein and soy.” The worst thing you could do is load up on carbs, I guess, when you are losing weight. You definitely want to increase protein intake is what the editors are saying here. You definitely want to increase protein when you are trying to lose some weight if you want to prevent the muscle loss and whey seems to be the better one to do. You can take a whey protein shake or something. That is important. Should we start recommending a whey protein shake for anybody on any diet? I don’t know. There may be something to it. It is pretty well known that most Americans aren’t getting enough protein anyway, so for all of us to do a little extra whey or soy protein or whatever kind of protein you want is probably not a bad idea anyways. Doing some whey protein when you are dieting, in my opinion, based on, at least this preliminary data, is really important to preventing muscle loss.
Let’s talk about some other ways, though, that you can prevent the loss of muscle when you are on a diet. Number one, don’t cut your calories too drastically. Ten, fifteen or twenty percent. Maybe that is going to be your goal. Cutting out 10, 15 or 20% of your total calorie intake, but you do that slowly over time. Drastic and sudden drops in calorie intake will result in more muscle loss. Not only that – I coined this term called “diet shock”. I think I have talked about it on the show before. Diet shock is where you cut your calories so much that you may lose weight initially but the calorie loss is so profound to the body, the body actually thinks that you are starving. It shocks itself into a starvation mode and it crashes metabolism. Cut your calories. Aim for about 10-20% of a decrease in total calorie intake. But do it slowly over time. Maybe the first week on a diet you only cut your calories 5% and do that for a couple of weeks. Then, you drop it 10%. Do that for a couple of more weeks. Eventually, you get to 15% but do it slowly. Your goal might be eating 20% less calories a day, but don’t start there. Number one, you are going to be really hungry. You are going to want to cheat anyways, and it is not good. You are more prone to lose muscle when you cut calories too quick. Eat to meet your protein need. That is really important. Most people need around 72 milligrams and, basically, it is a gram of protein per kilogram of weight. So, let me say that again because I messed that up. It is a gram of protein for kilogram of weight. You want to stick with that no matter what you are doing, whether you are trying to lose weight or not. Make sure you are getting enough protein and if you need to, add some whey. Do a whey shake or something. Cut calories slowly over time. I don’t like fad diets. I don’t like crash diets. You are going to lose muscle and go into what I call diet shock. Do it slowly and make sure you are getting enough protein every day. Number three, exercise. That is one of the best ways to prevent muscle loss is to exercise. We can talk about whey protein. I have some other suggestions here: fish oil, hydrazine, carnitine, branch chain amino acid, medium chain tryglcerides. These are all things you can take to preserve lean muscle mass but if you are dieting and doing this stuff and you are not exercising, then you are not doing right anyways. Cut your calories slowly, get your protein needs and exercise. Eat less and burn more. That is the best way to keep metabolism balanced and that is going to lead to lasting, successful weight loss. If you are dieting, at least get some whey protein, based on this study published in the Journal of Nutrition, 2014.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I’m Dr. Mike. Stay well.