How Much Protein Should I Eat a Day?

How much protein should I eat a day? The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans set a protein goal of 1.2–1.6 g per kilogram of body weight a day. A 70 kg (154 lb) adult lands on 84–112 g. The Guidelines add one condition, which is to adjust it to your calorie needs. The older 0.8 g/kg figure is a floor, not a target.

How much protein should I eat a day for my body weight?

Take your weight in kilograms and use 1.2 for the low end and 1.6 for the high end. The Dietary Guidelines use the same two multipliers. Pounds work too: divide by 2.2 first. I ran the numbers for three body weights and put the old 0.8 g/kg minimum in the first column, so you can see the gap.

Body weight	Minimum (0.8 g/kg)	Low end (1.2 g/kg)	High end (1.6 g/kg)
55 kg (121 lb)	44 g	66 g	88 g
70 kg (154 lb)	56 g	84 g	112 g
90 kg (198 lb)	72 g	108 g	144 g

Where you land depends on how hard you train and how much you eat. The Guidelines say to adjust the range to your calorie needs but give no formula for doing it, so any rule here is a judgment call. For myself, I stay near the low end when I eat to maintain my weight and don’t train hard, and I move toward the high end when I eat less or lift.

Per kilogram the range is the same for women and men, so the grams differ only because the weights do. Daily protein intake for women and daily protein intake for men work that out at typical body weights.

Your weight sits between two rows? Each extra 10 kg adds 12 g at the low end and 16 g at the high end of the Guidelines’ range. A 60 kg adult gets 72–96 g.

The evidence doesn’t give a single number: studies use different methods, and people differ in age and training. The Guidelines’ range is 0.4 g/kg wide, which is 28 g a day for a 70 kg adult, about 90 g of cooked chicken breast.

To get a number from your own weight, use the protein calculator. It applies the same 1.2–1.6 g per kg range to a reference weight and never returns less than 60 g.

Does the number change as I get older?

The Guidelines give no separate range by age. They do say that some older adults need fewer calories but still require equal or greater amounts of protein, so the same grams take a bigger share of a smaller day. Take a 70 kg adult who eats 1,700 kcal, a figure I picked for the example. The low end of 84 g is 336 kcal at 4 kcal per gram, which is 20% of the day. On 2,200 kcal the same 84 g is 15%.

Grams stay put while the percentage climbs. With a smaller appetite I put the protein food on the plate first and let the sides take whatever room is left.

Is the 0.8 g/kg figure enough, or only a minimum?

It is a minimum. The 0.8 g/kg figure is the US Recommended Dietary Allowance. A 2017 review in Advances in Nutrition describes it as the amount that prevents loss of body nitrogen, a figure essentially unchanged for more than 70 years. The authors argue it should be read as a recommended minimum.

The UK number is lower. The British Nutrition Foundation gives the adult Reference Nutrient Intake as 0.75 g/kg. That works out to 56 g a day for men and 45 g for women, using body weights of 75 kg and 60 kg. Its page was last reviewed in October 2023.

Both are minimums for healthy adults. The Guidelines’ range sits well above them.

How much protein do I need a day to lose weight?

Keep the same range and lean toward the high end, as the rule of thumb above says. My habit is to put the protein on the plate first and build the rest of the meal around it. At 70 kg and the top of the range, 112 g of protein is 448 kcal at 4 kcal per gram. On 1,600 kcal a day that is 28% of your energy, inside the 10–35% range. On 2,000 kcal it is 22%.

So the useful question is how much protein a food gives you per 100 kcal. I worked it out from USDA records such as this tuna entry. Weights are cooked where the record is cooked, and energy uses the specific Atwater factors where the record has them.

Food (state)	Portion	Protein	Energy	Protein per 100 kcal
Tuna, light, canned in water, drained	107 g (1 can)	20.3 g	96 kcal	21.1 g
Chicken breast, skinless, braised	100 g (3.5 oz)	32.1 g	166 kcal	19.3 g
Greek yogurt, plain, nonfat	156 g (1 container)	16.1 g	95 kcal	16.9 g
Cottage cheese, lowfat 2%	150 g	16.5 g	126 kcal	13.1 g
Tofu, raw, firm	126 g (half a cup)	21.8 g	181 kcal	12.0 g
Egg, whole, large	50.3 g (1 egg)	6.2 g	74 kcal	8.4 g
Lentils, boiled, no salt	198 g (1 cup)	17.9 g	230 kcal	7.8 g

Tuna and chicken give the most protein for the calories. Lentils give the least, but the same record shows 7.9 g of fiber per 100 g, and the tuna record reports none. Eating from one row gets dull fast. Mix them.

If you’re eating less, look at what you eat most often and check its row. Swapping a food from the bottom of the table for one at the top frees up calories for the same protein, and the swap costs you none of the grams you were counting on.

How much protein do I need if I lift weights?

A little more. A position stand from the International Society of Sports Nutrition puts most exercising people at 1.4–2.0 g/kg a day for building and keeping muscle. For a 70 kg lifter that is 98–140 g.

For a 90 kg lifter the same society range is 126–180 g, and the 1.62 g/kg point in the review below is 146 g.

A meta-analysis of 49 trials asked what happens above about 1.6 g/kg. In the Morton review, protein supplements stopped adding fat-free mass once total intake passed 1.62 g/kg a day. Age mattered too: the benefit of supplements shrank with age. The trials covered healthy adults doing resistance training for six weeks or longer, so the finding doesn’t speak to injury, illness or very old age.

Those trials added powder on top of food, so the finding is about total protein. Food counts toward the same total, gram for gram. A 32 g serving of whey-based protein powder gives 25.0 g of protein for 113 kcal. Handy for filling a gap on a busy day.

If you train, I’d treat 1.6 g/kg (112 g at 70 kg) as a sound ceiling for a plan, and the Guidelines’ own top end agrees. The society’s range runs to 2.0 g/kg. The extra 28 g costs about 145 kcal of braised chicken, and the meta-analysis shows no muscle gain from supplements beyond 1.62 g/kg. The society also gives 2.3–3.1 g/kg for lean, resistance-trained people eating fewer calories, a case this guide doesn’t cover. How much protein to build muscle goes through the lifting numbers in full.

What does 85 grams of protein look like in a day?

Four ordinary servings. Here is a day built for a 70 kg adult aiming at 1.2 g/kg, which is 84 g. I used the USDA records linked in the table, such as the chicken entry, and added the grams up myself.

Meal	Food and grams	Protein	Energy
Breakfast	2 large eggs, 100.6 g	12.5 g	148 kcal
Snack	Greek yogurt, 156 g	16.1 g	95 kcal
Lunch	Boiled lentils, 198 g	17.9 g	230 kcal
Dinner	Braised chicken breast, 120 g	38.5 g	199 kcal
Total		85.0 g	672 kcal

The four servings add up to 85 g of protein and 672 kcal. Most of the day’s calories are still open for rice, vegetables, fruit, oil and everything else you eat. One dinner portion of braised chicken carried nearly half the protein, so if you struggle to reach your number, breakfast and lunch are where to look.

A vegetarian version of this day needs a little more food. Swap the chicken for 126 g of firm tofu (21.8 g of protein, 181 kcal) and add 150 g of lowfat cottage cheese (16.5 g, 126 kcal). The day comes to 84.8 g of protein and 780 kcal, about 108 kcal more than the chicken version for the same protein. Plant foods and cottage cheese are fine. They just carry fewer grams of protein per calorie.

The same day scales. At 55 kg the low end is 66 g, and dropping the lentils leaves 67.1 g. At 90 kg the low end is 108 g. Adding 126 g of firm tofu brings the total to 106.8 g, and one more egg finishes the job. Days with bigger targets, built meal by meal, are collected under protein.

One trap spoils this kind of sum: the state you weigh. Raw chicken breast has 22.5 g of protein per 100 g, while the braised breast in the table has 32.1 g. The raw record holds 74.8 g of water per 100 g and the braised one 65.3 g, so cooking concentrates the protein. Log 120 g of cooked chicken as raw and you undercount by about 30%. Weigh the food in the state the record describes.

What does a day with no animal foods look like?

The Guidelines list protein-rich foods such as beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds, tofu or tempeh, and they name protein among the nutrients vegan diets often fall short on. They also advise varying the plant sources. Here is a day for the same 70 kg adult at 84 g that uses no animal food at all. I built it from the USDA records linked below and added the grams up myself.

Meal	Food and grams	Protein	Energy
Breakfast	2 slices whole-wheat bread, 64 g	8.0 g	161 kcal
Snack	Edamame, frozen, prepared, 155 g	18.5 g	188 kcal
Lunch	Boiled lentils, 198 g	17.9 g	230 kcal
Dinner	Firm tofu, 126 g	21.8 g	181 kcal
Dinner	Cooked tempeh, 100 g	19.9 g	195 kcal
Total		86 g	955 kcal

That is 283 kcal more than the 672 kcal of the first day for about the same protein, and 175 kcal more than the vegetarian version. On a 1,600 kcal budget the plant-only day takes 60% of the energy, against 42% for the chicken day. Tofu and tempeh together carry 41.7 g, nearly half of the day’s 86 g.

So a vegan day at this target leaves less room for everything else, and eating less makes that tighter. Beans and lentils are cheap and filling, but I would still keep one dense row such as tempeh or tofu in the day. The Guidelines also name iron, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium and iodine as the nutrients to monitor on a vegan diet. That is a conversation for your doctor or a dietitian, and this table doesn’t cover it.

How do I use this number safely this week?

A few people should skip these numbers. Kidney disease changes the arithmetic, so a doctor has to set the target before any calculator is used. During pregnancy or while nursing, your midwife or doctor sets the figure. Under 18? This guide isn’t written for you.

For everyone else, the planning ceiling is 35% of calories. That is the top of the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range, 10–35%, which the Advances in Nutrition review converts to 1.05–3.67 g/kg a day for a reference adult. I treat it as the edge of a plan and never set a target there. The Guidelines’ 1.2–1.6 g/kg sits well inside it. What happens above the ceiling is covered in how much protein is too much.

Start from the first table, which follows the Guidelines’ range, and pick the row nearest your weight. Then log a stretch that includes a weekend. Weigh the foods that carry the most protein, such as meat, fish, yogurt and tofu, and write down grams, not cups. Then compare your daily average with your target. I round targets to the nearest 5 g and call a week a hit when the average lands within 10% of the number. A day 20 g off either way is normal. If you’re under by more than a fifth, add one serving from the top rows of the density table. Put it in the meal with the biggest gap.

In Calsa each entry lands in the right meal by the time you ate it, with protein shown next to the calories, so the check takes one look at the day.