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The myth of 1 g/lb: Optimal protein intake for

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Protein. It’s every bodybuilder’s favorite macronutrient and for good reason. Protein is
extremely essential, super satiating and amazingly anabolic. Protein is awesome… but you’re
* Messenger consuming too much of it.

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Like most myths, the belief that you should take in 1g/lb of body weight has become so

6 More deeply entrenched in the tness world that its validity is rarely questioned. Strangely, very few
people think it’s a bit too accidental that the optimal amount of protein your body
can assimilate in a day is exactly 1g/lb. 2.2g/kg doesn’t sound as right, does it? Of course, I
know you read my articles for their scienti c merit, so let’s look at the literature on the effects
of daily protein intake to nd out if 1g/lb really is the optimal amount of protein intake for
maximum muscle gains.

Studies on the optimal protein intake

All values in the bullet point list below are expressed as grams of protein per pound of body
weight per day. All of these studies controlled for energy intake, either based on individual
requirements or by setting energy intake to be equal in all experimental conditions, so that
only the proportion of protein in the diet varied between groups. If the studies were based on
unreliable methods such as nitrogen balance, a marker of lean body mass changes, I only
included them if they controlled for sweating and dietary adaptation periods.

•    Tarnopolsky et al. (1992) observed no differences in whole body protein synthesis or
indexes of lean body mass in strength athletes consuming either 0.64g/lb or 1.10g/lb over a
2 week period. Protein oxidation did increase in the high protein group, indicating a nutrient
overload.
•    Walberg et al. (1988) found that 0.73g/lb was su cient to maintain positive nitrogen
balance in cutting weightlifters over a 7 day time period.
•    Tarnopolsky et al. (1988) found that only 0.37g/lb was required to maintain positive
nitrogen balance in elite bodybuilders (over 5 years of experience, possible previous use of
androgens) over a 10 day period. 0.45g/lb was su cient to maintain lean body mass in
bodybuilders over a 2 week period. The authors suggested that 0.55g/lb was su cient for
bodybuilders.
•    Lemon et al. (1992) found no differences in muscle mass or strength gains in novice
bodybuilders consuming either 0.61g/lb or 1.19g/lb over a 4 week period. Based on nitrogen
balance data, the authors recommended 0.75g/lb.
•    Hoffman et al. (2006) found no differences in body composition, strength or resting
hormonal concentrations in strength athletes consuming either 0.77g/lb or >0.91g/lb over a
3 month period.

Over 20 other studies have consistently failed to nd any bene ts of more than 1.6g/kg/d of
protein. See e.g. here and here.  The Bayesian Research team has also performed its own
scienti c study in collaboration with the University of Cambridge to research if higher protein
intakes bene t recovery in the days after a hard workout. It didn’t.

To check if maybe there still isn’t a slight bene t of going higher in protein that all these
studies couldn’t nd, I co-authored a meta-analysis with some of the world’s leading tness
researchers. We again found a cut-off point at exactly 1.6g/kg/d beyond which no further
bene ts for muscle growth or strength development are seen: see the results below.

Our meta-analysis found that the bene ts of protein topped off at 1.6 g/kg/d of total
bodyweight for increases in fat-free mass (‘muscle’).

Based on the sound research, many review papers have concluded 0.82g/lb is the upper limit
at which protein intake bene ts body composition (Phillips & Van Loon, 2011). This
recommendation often includes a double 95% con dence level, meaning they took the
highest mean intake at which bene ts were still observed and then added two standard
deviations to that level to make absolutely sure all possible bene ts from additional protein
intake are utilized. As such, this is already overdoing it and consuming 1g/lb ”˜to be safe’
doesn’t make any sense. 0.82g/lb is already very safe.

The picture below summarizes the literature. As you can see, 1.8g/kg (0.82g/lb) is the point
at which additional protein intake ceases to yield any bene ts.

But I train harder!

If you still think you need more than 0.82g/lb because you think you train harder than these
test subjects, think again. Lemon et al. (1992) studied bodybuilders training 1.5 hours per
day, 6 days per week and still concluded 0.75g/lb is the highest intake at which body
composition bene ts could occur.

But I’m more advanced than these geeks!

Another frequently heard objection is that people need more protein because they are more
experienced than the studied populations. Well, Tarnopolsky et al. (1988) used elite
bodybuilders and found that less protein was needed than in novice bodybuilders.

In fact, the nding that the more experienced you are, the less protein you need, has been
replicated in several studies (Rennie & Tipton, 2000; Hartman, Moore & Phillips, 2006; Moore
et al., 2007).

In everyone there is both constant protein synthesis and breakdown. Resistance training
causes both breakdown and synthesis to increase, normally with a favorable balance
towards synthesis. As you progress in your training, the body becomes more e cient at
stopping the breakdown of protein resulting from training. Since less protein now needs to be
replenished, this increase in nitrogen retention means less protein is subsequently needed
for optimal growth.

Secondly, the more advanced you are, the less protein synthesis increases after training. As
you become more muscular and you get closer to your genetic limit, less muscle is built after
training. This is very intuitive. The slower you can build muscle, the less protein is needed for
optimal growth. It wouldn’t make any sense if the body needed more protein to build less
muscle, especially considering that the body becomes more e cient at metabolizing protein.

But what about when cutting?

A nal objection that is often heard is that these values may be true during bulking or
maintenance periods, but cutting requires more protein to maintain muscle mass. Walberg et
al. (1988) studied cutting weightlifters and they still found 0.73g/lb was su cient to maintain
lean body mass.

A perhaps even more telling study is by Pikosky et al. in 2008. The researchers took a group
of endurance trained subjects and had them consume either 0.41 or 0.82g/lb of protein per
day. They also added a thousand calories worth of training on top of their regular exercise.
So these guys were literally running on a 1000 calorie de cit while drastically increasing their
training volume. Talk about a catabolic state… Of course the nitrogen balance in the low
protein group plummeted. However, the protein intake of 0.82g/lb in the other group
completely protected the subjects from muscle loss. Nitrogen balance, whole-body protein
turnover and protein synthesis remained unchanged.

A further review of the literature on the optimal protein intake in a de cit can be found in this
article of the research on protein by Eric Helms.

Also, the supposed difference in nitrogen sparing effects of carbs and fat are negligible
(McCargar et al. 1989; Millward, 1989). Neither actually spares protein though. Only protein
spares protein. I think the protein sparing idea came from a wrong interpretation of the
nitrogen balance literature showing more lean mass is lost in more severe caloric de cits. A
simple explanation for that nding is that the more total mass you lose, the more lean mass
you lose. No surprises there.

As such, there is simply no empirically substantiated reason to think we need more than
0.82g/lb of protein per day when cutting. If anything, you could reason the body should be
able to use more protein during bulking periods, because more muscle is being built and a lot
of other nutrients are ingested that may enable more protein to be used.

The only people that may actually need more protein than 0.82g/lb are people with unusually
high levels of anabolic hormones. Androgen or growth hormone users de nitely fall into this
category, but I don’t exclude the possibility that some adolescents do too. If you reach peak
testosterone production while still growing (in height), your unusually high levels of growth
hormone and testosterone might increase your protein requirements. Or not. There’s no
research to support it. Those rare individuals with amazing bodybuilding genetics could also
qualify, but unless your father happens to be a silverback gorilla, you are most likely just like
other humans in this regard.

The 1g/lb Myth’s Origin

Why is it then that everybody says you need to consume 1g/lb? Aside from the facts that
there don’t need to be any good reasons for why people believe in a myth, that myths tend to
perpetuate themselves via conformism and tradition, and that the tness industry is ooded
with myths, here are some plausible grounds for the “confusion”.

•    People copy the dietary practices of pro bodybuilders on androgens. Steroids enable you
to build muscle protein far more rapidly than natural trainees.
•    People based their recommendations on the awed nitrogen balance studies back from
when the world was still at.
•    The more is better heuristic. There are so many studies showing protein is good for you,
it’s hard not to think more of it is even better.
•    Supplement companies have an obvious nancial incentive to make you want to believe
you need more protein than you really do. There are actually several industry-sponsored
studies showing absolutely miraculous bene ts of consuming more protein (see for example
the studies by Cribb).
•    People can’t be bothered with decimals and just round up to the nearest convenient
integer, which so happens to be an easy to remember 1.

Often, more is better, but at some point it’s just too much.

On a nal note, there’s nothing inherently wrong or unhealthy about consuming more protein
than your body can use to build muscle. The excess will simply be used as energy. However,
protein sources tend to be expensive compared to other energy sources and variety generally
beats monotony with regards to your health, so satiety and food preferences are the only
reasons I can think of why somebody would want to over-consume protein.

Take Home Messages

•    There is normally no advantage to consuming more than 0.82g/lb (1.8g/kg) of protein per
day to preserve or build muscle for natural trainees. This already includes a mark-up, since
most research nds no more bene ts after 0.64g/lb.
•    Optimal protein intake decreases with training age, because your body becomes more
e cient at preventing protein breakdown resulting from training and less protein is needed
for the increasingly smaller amount of muscle that is built after each training session.

Interested in more information like this? Have a look at the online Henselmans PT Course.

Effect of protein intake on strength, body composition and endocrine changes in

strength/power athletes. Hoffman JR, Ratamess NA, Kang J, Falvo MJ, Faigenbaum AD. J Int
Soc Sports Nutr. 2006 Dec 13;3:12-8.

Tarnopolsky, M. A., Atkinson, S. A., MacDougall, J. D., Chesley, A., Phillips, S., & Schwarcz, H.
P. (1992). Evaluation of protein requirements for trained strength athletes. Journal of Applied
Physiology, 73(5), 1986-1995.

Macronutrient content of a hypoenergy diet affects nitrogen retention and muscle function in
weight lifters. Walberg JL, Leidy MK, Sturgill DJ, Hinkle DE, Ritchey SJ, Sebolt DR. Int J Sports
Med. 1988 Aug;9(4):261-6.

Protein requirements and muscle mass/strength changes during intensive training in novice
bodybuilders. Lemon PW, Tarnopolsky MA, MacDougall JD, Atkinson SA. J Appl Physiol. 1992
Aug;73(2):767-75.

In uence of protein intake and training status on nitrogen balance and lean body mass.
Tarnopolsky MA, MacDougall JD, Atkinson SA. J Appl Physiol. 1988 Jan;64(1):187-93.

Dietary protein for athletes: From requirements to optimum adaptation. Phillips SM, Van Loon
LJ. J Sports Sci. 2011;29 Suppl 1:S29-38.

Protein and amino acid metabolism during and after exercise and the effects of nutrition.
Rennie MJ, Tipton KD. Annu Rev Nutr. 2000;20:457-83.

Hartman, J. W., Moore, D. R., & Phillips, S. M. (2006). Resistance training reduces whole-body
protein turnover and improves net protein retention in untrained young males. Applied
Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, 31, 557-564.

Moore, D. R., Del Bel, N. C., Nizi, K. I., Hartman, J. W., Tang, J. E., Armstrong, D. et al. (2007).
Resistance training reduces fasted- and fed-state leucine turnover and increases dietary
nitrogen retention in previously untrained young men. Journal of Nutrition, 137, 985-991.

Effects of exercise on dietary protein requirements. Lemon PW. Int J Sport Nutr. 1998
Dec;8(4):426-47.

Effects of high-calorie supplements on body composition and muscular strength following

resistance training. Rozenek R, Ward P, Long S, Garhammer J. J Sports Med Phys Fitness.
2002 Sep;42(3):340-7.

Increased protein maintains nitrogen balance during exercise-induced energy de cit. Pikosky
MA, Smith TJ, Grediagin A, Castaneda-Sceppa C, Byerley L, Glickman EL, Young AJ. Med Sci
Sports Exerc. 2008 Mar;40(3):505-12.

Dietary carbohydrate-to-fat ratio: in uence on whole-body nitrogen retention, substrate

utilization, and hormone response in healthy male subjects. McCargar LJ, Clandinin MT,
Belcastro AN, Walker K. Am J Clin Nutr. 1989 Jun;49(6):1169-78.

Macronutrient Intakes as Determinants of Dietary Protein and Amino Acid Adequacy.

Millward, DJ. J. Nutr. June 1, 2004 vol. 134 no. 6 1588S-1596S.

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About the author

Menno Henselmans
Formerly a business consultant, I've traded my company car to follow my
passion in strength training. I'm now an online physique coach, scientist
and international public speaker with the mission to help serious trainees
master their physique.

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