this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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The avg person expending 2000 Calories a day means an ~850 Calorie deficit. 2550 deficit over the course of 3days. That allows about 3lbs of muscle (700C) loss or almost 1lb of fat (3000-3500C)loss.
Up the calories expended via being active and you could reach the 5lb goal. With such severe caloric deficit nost of the weight loss would be muscle unfortunately.
Isn't there enough protein in that diet to maintain the muscle?
If caloric intake was higher sure. Muscle breakdown is easier than fat so is a prime target in starvation diets to get energy. Results in long-lasting problems for people who have experienced famine or eating disorders. More moderate caloric deficits are healthier for a reason but obviously takes longer to lose weight.
There's a lot of variability in nutrition that can impact things but generally protein in the diet helps maintain and grow muscle but doesn't affect that when your body is starving for energy muscle tends to go more than fat.
Nutritional fads including the current lots of protein one are likely bunk or only for certain lifestyles.
I'm not familiar with this so am interested; presumably there's a calorie deficit where more fat is consumed than muscle? Where does it switch?
It is complex, precise dietary requirements vary person to person (even mouse to mouse but less for lab strains). As a generality women have lower caloric requirements, men higher. Age, height, weight, activity level, genetics, etc all have impacts.
The timeline of caloric restriction matters. Muscle breakdown occurs first because muscles store glycogen which is a much faster energy source than fat. Fat breakdown can go on for longer as it has a higher density of energy. Simple short-term reduction in calories thus results in muscle before fat. Higher protein intake mitigates or prevents muscle loss in longer-term diets compared to lower protein intake as the muscle cells are used to process/use the protein. Exercise is the best at keeping or growing muscle as it turns them from energy providers to energy users.
Resistance training. When on a calorie deficit while doing weight training, you will lose less muscle. You'll still lose some, but your body will try to rebuild the muscle using proteins and stored nutrients.