Rationale. Recent guidelines state that pulmonary rehabilitation should be part of integrated care of patients with COPD and not limited to end stage disease. The investigators hypothesize that clinically stable COPD patients muscle atrophy, irrespective of the severity of airflow obstruction, show more pronounced long-term improvement in physical functioning and cardiometabolic risk profile after a rehabilitation programme including nutritional intervention (supplementation and counseling) than after a pulmonary rehabilitation programme without nutritional intervention, at acceptable costs. Nutritional supplementation focuses on enhancing the efficacy of the exercise training. Nutritional counseling aims at maintaining energy balance and modulating cardiovascular disease risk.