When you lose weight, with or without weight loss surgery, your body wants to lose muscle tissue as well as fat tissue. It’s important to minimize muscle tissue loss in order to keep strength and a higher metabolism. A study recently found that by doubling the Recommended Dietary Allowances for protein (46 grams per day for women and 56 grams per day for men), muscle tissue loss was minimized and fat loss was promoted. Higher intakes of protein failed to provide additional benefits.
Your Barix Clinics nutritionist uses a different, individualized, method to calculate protein needs. Typical protein needs with this method are 0.8 grams of protein per kg of ideal body weight. To provide for additional protein to promote fat loss and minimize muscle loss, the equation 1.2 grams of protein per kg of ideal body weight is used for gastric bypass and gastric sleeve patients. Although this protein recommendation is lower (for most patients) than used in the study, most patients are able to easily meet this protein goal by eating six small high protein meals.
