Protein Intake Calculator
How many grams of protein should you actually eat? Enter your weight and goal to get a daily target, the recommended range behind it, a per-meal split, and what that much protein looks like in real food.
Your details
Spread across your meals
| Meal | Protein | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Fill in your details to see the split. | ||
What that looks like in food
| Food | Protein per serving | To hit your target |
|---|---|---|
| Fill in your details to see food equivalents. | ||
Protein values are typical USDA FoodData Central entries for the cooked or prepared form. Your brand and cooking method will move them a little.
This calculator gives general nutrition planning estimates, not medical advice. If you have kidney disease or another condition that affects protein handling, follow your clinician's guidance rather than this tool.
How Much Protein You Actually Need
Protein is the one macro where the standard advice and the useful advice have drifted apart. The official Recommended Dietary Allowance for adults is 0.8 g per kilogram of body weight — around 56 g a day for a sedentary 70 kg adult. That number is designed to prevent deficiency in someone eating enough calories. It is not the number that works best when you are cutting.
In a calorie deficit, protein does three jobs at once: it keeps you full, it costs more energy to digest than carb or fat, and it protects the lean tissue you would otherwise lose alongside the fat. That is why every serious recommendation for weight loss sits well above the RDA.
The ranges this calculator uses
| Situation | G per kg | G per lb | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sedentary, maintaining | 0.8–1.0 | 0.36–0.45 | RDA for adults (DRI / NIH Office of Dietary Supplements) |
| Age 65+ | 1.0–1.5 | 0.45–0.68 | PROT-AGE study group: older adults need more per kg to maintain muscle |
| Endurance training | 1.2–1.6 | 0.55–0.73 | ISSN position stand on protein and exercise |
| Fat loss, no lifting | 1.4–1.8 | 0.64–0.82 | Deficit raises the requirement for preserving lean mass |
| Fat loss + resistance training | 1.8–2.4 | 0.82–1.09 | ISSN position stand: energy-restricted, training athletes |
The calculator picks a default inside each range rather than the top of it. Going to the top is reasonable if you are lean, training hard, or running a large deficit; staying near the bottom is fine if you are not.
Body weight or lean mass?
The research is written in grams per kilogram of body weight, which is what the calculator uses by default. The catch: fat tissue needs very little protein, so for someone carrying a lot of body fat, a body-weight figure overestimates the true requirement — sometimes by 30 grams or more. If you know your body fat percentage, enter it and the calculator switches to lean mass:
lean mass (kg) = body weight × (1 − body fat % ÷ 100)
Daily target
daily target (g) = lean mass × grams per kg
You do not need a DEXA scan for this to help. A tape-measure estimate or a smart scale reading is close enough to make the number more sensible.
How to spread it through the day
Total intake matters most, but per-meal dose is not nothing. Muscle protein synthesis responds to a threshold — roughly 25–40 g per sitting for most adults — and then flattens out. That argues against the common pattern of a coffee for breakfast, a salad for lunch, and 80 g of protein at dinner. Three or four meals with a real protein source in each will use the same total more effectively, and it also keeps hunger quieter between them.
- Anchor each meal on a protein source first, then build the plate around it. This is the single easiest habit to apply to meal prep, because you decide it once on Sunday.
- Use the food table above as a shopping target. If your target is 130 g and chicken breast gives you 35 g per portion, that is under four portions — plus whatever yogurt, eggs, or beans you are already eating.
- Check the share of your calories. Protein at 25–35% of intake leaves room for carbohydrates and fiber. If it climbs past 45%, something else is getting squeezed out.
- Send the number onward. The Macro Calculator receives your gram target and calorie figure and fills in the remaining carbs and fat.
Want the recipes to go with it? See our high-protein meal prep recipes, or read the portion control guide for hitting these numbers without a scale.
Frequently asked questions
How much protein do I need per day to lose weight?
Most people in a calorie deficit do better with 1.6–2.4 g per kg of body weight per day, rather than the 0.8 g/kg RDA. The RDA is the amount needed to avoid deficiency in a sedentary adult eating enough calories; it is not the amount that best protects muscle while you are losing fat.
Can I eat too much protein?
For healthy adults, intakes up to about 2 g per kg of body weight per day have no demonstrated harm in the literature, and short-term studies go higher. Practical limits are different: protein is filling, so a very high target can crowd out the carbohydrates and fiber you also need. If you have kidney disease, follow your clinician's guidance rather than a calculator.
Should I use body weight or lean body mass?
Research recommendations are written in grams per kilogram of body weight. If you carry a lot of body fat, that body-weight figure overestimates your need, because fat tissue does not require much protein. Entering a body fat percentage lets the calculator use lean mass instead.
Does protein timing matter?
Total daily intake matters far more than timing. What has reasonable support is spreading protein across three or four meals at roughly 25–40 g each, rather than eating one large portion at dinner, because each meal needs to supply enough to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
Where these numbers come from
- NIH Office of Dietary Supplements — Protein fact sheet for health professionals (RDA of 0.8 g/kg).
- Jäger R, et al. — International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise (1.4–2.0 g/kg, higher in energy restriction).
- Bauer J, et al. — PROT-AGE study group recommendations on protein intake in older adults (1.0–1.2 g/kg and up).
- USDA FoodData Central — per-serving protein values used in the food table.
- Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — Protein — context on sources and overall intake patterns.