How much protein to lose fat and keep muscle
A practical protein target for men in a calorie deficit, why the number is per kilo of bodyweight, and how to hit it without weighing rice on a kitchen scale.
- nutrition
- protein
Losing fat means eating less than you burn. Keeping muscle while you do it is mostly two things: keep lifting heavy, and eat enough protein. The second is the one men get wrong, usually by a wide margin.
The number
Commonly cited targets for men in a deficit land around 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. Higher within that band is the safer side when the deficit is aggressive or you are already lean.
For a 90 kg man that is roughly 145 to 200 g a day. If you are carrying a lot of fat, work from a target bodyweight rather than your current one, or the number gets unrealistic.
Why protein specifically
In a deficit the body is looking for tissue to break down. Training tells it to keep the muscle; protein gives it the material to repair what training damaged. Cut either one and the scale still moves, but a larger share of the loss is the tissue you were lifting to keep.
Protein also does more for fullness per calorie than carbohydrate or fat, which makes the deficit easier to hold for the eight or twelve weeks it needs.
Hitting it without a spreadsheet
The practical version is coarser than the math:
- Anchor every meal with a protein source. Three meals with 40 to 50 g each gets most men most of the way there.
- Know your four or five staples by heart. A chicken breast, a tin of tuna, 200 g of Greek yoghurt, four eggs, a scoop of whey. Portions, not grams.
- Fix the gap in the evening. Count what you have had by mid-afternoon and close the difference at dinner.
- Do not chase the last 10 g. Precision below that is noise.
The scale is not the tool
Weighing every ingredient works until the day it does not, and then logging stops entirely. The goal is a number you hit most days for months, not a perfect number you hit for nine days.
What it looks like in GreekBody
Say the meal out loud and it is logged. The Fuel tab shows protein and calories against the day’s targets and what is left of both, so the evening question — how much steak fits — has an answer in portions rather than percentages.
Eating targets are not medical advice. If you have a condition that affects what you should eat, talk to a doctor first.