Daily protein target

Why protein gets attention here

Muscle does more than move you around, because it supports the joints it crosses and it protects you against falls. It also decides something larger than either of those, which is whether you can keep doing ordinary things on your own as you age. People with inflammatory arthritis lose muscle more easily than other people do, and three things drive that: the inflammation itself, doing less during a flare, and in some cases corticosteroid treatment.

Protein on its own doesn't build muscle, and that's the point most often missed in this conversation. Protein supports muscle when you pair it with resistance training, and without the training most of the extra protein simply goes to waste in the end. So the exercise is the main thing you're doing, and the protein is what makes it possible.

What changes your own target

A single number doesn't fit everybody, and several things move it in one direction or the other. Body size is the obvious one, since a target is usually set against your weight rather than as a flat amount. Age moves it up, because older muscle responds more weakly to a given amount of protein, so the amount you need rises with age rather than falling.

Activity moves it as well, and somebody doing regular resistance training needs more than somebody who isn't. Corticosteroid treatment breaks muscle down faster, which raises what you need for as long as the treatment lasts. Kidney function is the one thing that moves the target down, and anyone with long-term kidney disease needs a personal target from the clinicians looking after their kidneys rather than from a general rule.

Reaching a target without rebuilding your diet

Most people who fall short of a protein target fall short at breakfast, and fixing that one meal closes a good part of the gap. A breakfast of toast or cereal on its own gives you very little protein. Adding eggs, Greek yogurt, or cottage cheese changes it considerably, and the meal is still the meal you were going to eat, which is why this change is the easiest one to make stick.

Spreading protein across the day seems to help as well. Muscle responds to protein at each meal rather than to a daily total eaten mostly at dinner. The useful sources are ordinary and mostly cheap, and fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, beans, tofu, and tempeh all work, with oily fish giving you omega-3 alongside.

Protein powders are handy rather than necessary, and they're worth thinking about if your appetite is poor. They're also worth it if hand pain makes cooking difficult on a bad day. Neither of those is a reason to reach for them by default, and neither is a reason to avoid them.

When this is harder than it sounds

Tiredness and joint pain both make cooking harder than the advice usually assumes. Some of that advice takes for granted that you can cook three balanced meals a day, which ignores what this disease is like from the inside. Canned fish counts, and so does frozen edamame, pre-cooked lentils, and a cooked chicken from the store.

Using any of those isn't a failure of effort on your part, and nobody serious thinks otherwise. Making the thing easier beats raising the standard and then missing it. That's true of a good deal of the advice on this site, and it's especially true of this page.

Appetite also drops during a flare and with some medicines, and that's when protein tends to fall and muscle loss speeds up. Eating smaller amounts more often works better than forcing large meals down. If you're losing weight without meaning to, that's worth telling your rheumatology team rather than treating as a side benefit.