Jim KwikFounder, Kwik Brain · Brain Coach

Dietary recommendations for muscle growth 💪 @DrGabrielleLyon

1 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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In a concise interview, Jim Kwik asks Dr. Gabrielle Lyon about dietary strategies to optimize muscle health across the lifespan. Dr. Lyon explains that young individuals have greater flexibility, but as we age skeletal muscle becomes increasingly anabolic‑resistant, requiring higher protein intake to stimulate growth. She recommends consuming roughly 1.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight (about 1 g per pound of ideal body weight) and emphasizes that protein must be delivered in discrete, substantial servings at each meal—approximately five ounces of chicken, lean beef, fish, or an equivalent amount of lean yogurt—to effectively trigger muscle protein synthesis.

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What are your key dietary recommendations for optimizing muscle health? How does this differ across various life stages or ages?
When you are young, you have a ton of dietary flexibility, and our muscle is very primed for development early on. And as we age, something changes in skeletal muscle, and it becomes more anabolically resistant. It is more resistant to stimulus, and the 2 main drivers of stimulus The 2 things that stimulate more muscle are resistance training, exercise, contraction, and dietary protein. We end up requiring more dietary protein as we age, which is counterintuitive. What I recommend is either 1.6 per kg or closer to 1 gram per pound ideal body weight. And the body requires dietary protein at a discrete meal. That would be 5 ounces of a chicken. It could be lean yogurt. It could be lean beef. It could be fish at one time to stimulate skeletal muscle tissue.