Muscle retention on a GLP-1: Ozempic and Wegovy (semaglutide), Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide).
In GLP-1 trials, up to 30–40% of the weight people lose is lean mass. Not because the drug attacks muscle, because appetite collapses and they stop eating enough to keep it. That part is fixable.
A GLP-1 is very good at creating a deficit. That shifts your risk from overeating to under-eating protein, under-training, and losing weight too fast. These are the three levers that decide whether the loss comes from fat or from you.
Past roughly 1% of body weight a week, amino acid oxidation climbs and the body starts pulling from contractile tissue. Every plan here is capped at 0.5–1%.
In a deficit, protein gets diverted to making glucose. You have to overshoot baseline, spread across the day, in doses big enough to trigger synthesis each time.
Mechanical tension is the message that says this muscle is still load-bearing, don't recycle it. Lighten the weight and you've sent the opposite one.
A few answers set your safe weekly pace, your daily and per-meal protein targets, and which recipes we show you. Everything stays in your browser.
These set your safe pace and your protein target.
We'll only show recipes that fit. Tap all that apply.
Lean mass is the best basis for a protein target, it's the tissue you're actually defending. No scan? Skip it; we'll anchor to your goal weight instead.
Each of these is a tool, not an article. They read your plan, so you only enter your numbers once.
93 recipes with full macros, built for a plate you cannot finish. Plus 9,792 buildable combinations, flagged for leucine and for the fibers that are risky on a slowed gut.
Open → TrainingThe three rules, a program builder that adapts to your equipment and injuries, and a strength log that imports your Hevy or Strong history and tells you if muscle is going.
Open → TrackingThe scale tells you that you lost. A rolling 28-day rate against the 0.5–1% band tells you what.
Open → Hair lossTelogen effluvium: when it starts, when it stops, why it reverses, and why biotin is both useless and, before a blood test, unsafe.
Read → Original data57 foods ranked by cost per 30g. Protein powder is no longer the cheap option, and cheapest-per-gram is the wrong metric when calories are the constraint.
Read → The endgameYour appetite comes back before your habits do. How hard that lands was decided on the way down.
Read →Body weight is fat plus muscle plus water. A fast drop feels like progress but usually means you're spending tissue you'll want back, and muscle is the tissue that keeps the weight off after the medication stops.
Two people lose the same number of pounds. Only one of them still has the muscle.
Muscle is metabolically costly. In a deficit, downregulating it is a survival feature, not a bug. Everything here exists to override that default.
Protein supplies the raw material; heavy loading supplies the reason to use it. Either alone leaks muscle. Together they hold nearly all of it.
Trying to lose "as much as possible" is the behavior that costs people muscle. Setting a cap, and staying under it, is what protects it.