How much protein per day?

Protein is the one macronutrient that gets the most attention, and for good reason. It builds and repairs muscle, supports your immune system, makes enzymes and hormones, and keeps you fuller than carbs or fat for the same number of calories. But the question of how much you actually need each day has a wide range of answers depending on whose goal you are chasing.

This guide walks through the numbers that come up most often in nutrition and sports-science research. These are general guidelines from studies on healthy adults, not personal medical advice. Individual needs vary with your bodyweight, training, age, and goals, and the right number for you may sit anywhere across a fairly wide band. If you have kidney disease or another medical condition, follow the advice of your doctor or a registered dietitian instead of a general article.

The baseline: the RDA

The widely cited recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is about 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day. That figure is set to cover the basic needs of most sedentary adults, meaning it is the amount that prevents a deficiency, not the amount that is optimal for performance or body composition. It is a public-health minimum, derived to keep the large majority of healthy but inactive people out of protein shortfall, and it carries an unspoken assumption: that you are not training, not dieting, and not particularly old.

For a 70 kg person, the RDA works out to roughly 56 grams of protein a day. That is a genuinely low bar. It is enough to stop you from losing muscle and to keep basic processes running, but it was never meant to describe the intake that helps an active person recover from training or hold onto muscle while losing fat. Treating the RDA as a goal is a common mistake. It is the level you do not want to fall below, not the level you are trying to reach.

Higher ranges for active people and dieters

Once you are training regularly, the picture changes. Sports-nutrition literature commonly points to a range of roughly 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day for active people. The exact number within that band depends on how hard and how often you train, your age, and whether you are eating at maintenance or in a deficit.

For anyone training to build or preserve muscle, especially while dieting, the commonly referenced range climbs a little higher, to around 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram per day. The reason it goes up during a calorie deficit is straightforward: when you are eating less overall, your body becomes more willing to break down lean tissue for fuel, and a higher protein intake helps protect that muscle so that more of the weight you lose comes from fat rather than from the tissue you are trying to keep. Protein also has the highest satiety of the three macronutrients and a higher thermic effect, so eating more of it tends to make a deficit easier to sustain. If you want to understand why that deficit matters in the first place, see calorie deficit, explained.

Why protein needs rise with age

Age is the other reason the floor moves up. From middle age onward, most people gradually lose muscle and strength, a process called sarcopenia, and older adults appear to respond less efficiently to a given dose of protein than younger ones. To trigger the same muscle-building response, an older body generally needs a somewhat larger amount per meal. For that reason many researchers suggest older adults aim above the RDA, often toward 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram or more when health allows, paired with some resistance training. Preserving muscle into later life is not a vanity goal, it underpins balance, mobility, and independence.

A worked example for a 70 kg person

Putting those ranges next to one real bodyweight makes them easier to read. For someone who weighs 70 kg:

• RDA, sedentary: 0.8 g/kg gives about 56 g per day.
• Active, general fitness: 1.2 to 2.0 g/kg gives about 84 to 140 g per day.
• Building or preserving muscle, often while dieting: 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg gives about 112 to 154 g per day.

A practical target for most active people who lift or train and want to keep things simple is somewhere around 1.6 to 1.8 grams per kilogram, which for this 70 kg example lands near 112 to 126 grams a day. That is high enough to support training and a deficit without being difficult to hit from normal meals. One useful note on bodyweight: if you carry a lot of excess fat, scaling protein to your total weight can overshoot, since fat tissue has little protein turnover. In that case a target based on a goal weight or lean body mass is often more sensible.

How to find your protein target

Spreading protein across your meals

How you distribute protein through the day matters more than the precise minute you eat it. Rather than loading most of your protein into one large dinner, research generally favours spreading it across the day, so that several meals each deliver a meaningful amount. The thinking is that each protein-containing meal stimulates muscle protein synthesis up to a point, and a portion below roughly 25 grams may not fully switch that response on, while very large single doses do not add much beyond a certain threshold. A common rule of thumb is to aim for somewhere in the region of 25 to 40 grams of protein per meal across three to four meals, depending on your total target and bodyweight.

If your target is 120 grams a day and you eat three main meals, that is roughly 40 grams per meal, which is very achievable from ordinary food. Split it across three meals and a snack and each sitting needs even less. The point is not to be rigid about it. Several moderate doses tend to be easier to use and easier to hit than one enormous one, and a typical breakfast is where most people fall short, so adding eggs, yoghurt, or a similar source to the morning often does the most to balance the day.

Does timing matter?

For most people, timing matters far less than the daily total. The idea of a narrow "anabolic window" right after a workout has been overstated. As long as you are hitting your total protein for the day and eating reasonably spaced meals, the exact clock time of each one is a detail, not the main event. Get the daily number right first, then worry about distribution, and only then think about timing.

Good food sources of protein

You do not need powders or special products to reach these numbers, though they can help when convenient. Whole foods do most of the work. The figures below are approximate, since exact protein content varies by cut, brand, and portion, but they give a feel for how quickly ordinary food adds up:

• Chicken breast: about 30 to 35 g in a 120 g cooked portion.
• Fish (salmon, cod, tuna): roughly 20 to 25 g in a 100 g cooked fillet.
• Eggs: about 6 g each, so a three-egg meal lands near 18 g.
• Greek yoghurt: around 10 g per 100 g, so a 170 g pot is roughly 17 g.
• Cottage cheese: about 11 g per 100 g, near 28 g in a 250 g tub.
• Whey protein: roughly 20 to 25 g in a typical scoop.
• Tofu: about 12 to 15 g per 100 g of firm tofu.
• Lentils: around 9 g per 100 g cooked, plus useful fibre.

Beyond that core list, lean beef and pork, turkey, milk, edamame, tempeh, seitan, chickpeas, beans, and to a lesser degree nuts, seeds, and wholegrains all contribute. Protein yoghurts and bars can fill a gap when you are short on time or appetite, but they are a convenience, not a requirement.

Plant versus animal protein

Animal proteins are generally complete, meaning they contain all nine essential amino acids in good amounts and in a form the body absorbs readily. Most individual plant proteins are lower in one or two of those amino acids: grains tend to be short on lysine, while many legumes are lower in methionine. That single-food gap is the grain of truth behind the old idea of carefully combining foods at every meal. In practice you do not need to engineer each plate, because eating a variety of plant proteins across the day, beans with grains, soy, nuts, and seeds, covers the full amino acid profile comfortably. Soy and quinoa are themselves fairly complete. A well-planned plant-based or mixed diet hits the same targets perfectly well, though plant eaters may want to aim toward the upper part of their range to account for slightly lower digestibility.

Where more stops helping

Protein is useful, but more is not endlessly better. The upper end of these ranges shows diminishing returns: beyond roughly 2.2 grams per kilogram, the extra protein does little for muscle in most people, and very high intakes are simply not necessary for the average person. Pushing far past that range mostly displaces other foods and adds cost without adding benefit. The popular belief that you must eat extreme amounts to make progress is a myth. For most people, the gap between a poor protein intake and a good one matters far more than the gap between a good one and an enormous one.

On safety, the evidence in healthy adults is reassuring. The long-standing worry that higher protein harms healthy kidneys or bones has not held up in research on people who start with normal kidney function. The picture is different for anyone who already has kidney disease, where protein intake is something to manage closely with a clinician. Staying hydrated and keeping the rest of the diet balanced, with enough fibre, vegetables, and varied sources, is sensible at any intake.

Turning a target into something you can track

Once you have picked a number that fits your bodyweight and goal, the job becomes hitting it consistently. That is where logging comes in. Knowing the protein in each meal and watching the daily total build up takes the guesswork out, and it quickly teaches you which of your usual meals are protein-heavy and which need a boost. If you are new to it, our guide on how to track macros covers the workflow, counting calories accurately helps you trust those numbers, and if you want your protein target to sit inside a sensible calorie budget, start with what is TDEE, and how to calculate it.

In short: use about 0.8 g/kg as the floor, aim somewhere in the 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg range if you are active or trying to keep muscle while losing fat, spread it across your meals, lean on whole-food sources, and do not bother chasing extreme intakes. Hit the daily total most days and the rest is detail.