Most adults need between 1.2 and 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. For a 150-pound person, that works out to roughly 82 to 109 grams daily. The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recently updated this recommendation, raising it 50 to 100% above the old minimum of 0.8 grams per kilogram that had been the standard for decades.
That old number, 0.8 g/kg, is still what you’ll see listed as the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). But it was always meant as a floor to prevent deficiency, not a target for optimal health. The newer range reflects a growing body of evidence that most people benefit from eating more protein than that bare minimum, whether the goal is preserving muscle, losing fat, or simply aging well.
How to Calculate Your Number
The simplest method: divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms, then multiply by your target range. A 170-pound adult weighs about 77 kilograms. At the updated range of 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg, that person needs 92 to 123 grams of protein per day. Someone who weighs 130 pounds (59 kg) would aim for 71 to 94 grams.
Where you fall within that range depends on your activity level, age, and goals. A sedentary office worker can stay closer to the 1.2 end. Someone doing regular strength training or actively trying to lose weight while preserving muscle should aim for the higher end, around 1.4 to 1.6 g/kg.
Protein Needs for Building Muscle
If you’re doing resistance training and want to maximize muscle growth, the evidence points to 1.4 to 1.6 grams per kilogram per day. For a 180-pound lifter, that translates to about 115 to 131 grams daily. Going significantly above this range doesn’t appear to produce additional muscle-building benefits for most people.
How you spread that protein across the day matters nearly as much as the total. Muscle protein synthesis, the process your body uses to repair and build muscle tissue, responds best when you consume 30 to 45 grams of protein per meal. Eating roughly equal amounts at breakfast, lunch, and dinner stimulates more total muscle building over 24 hours than the common pattern of skimping at breakfast (10 grams), eating a moderate lunch (15 grams), and loading up at dinner (65 grams). Even though the daily total is the same, the even distribution produces a measurably better result.
This doesn’t mean you need to obsess over hitting exactly 30 grams at every meal. But if your breakfast is currently toast and coffee, adding eggs, Greek yogurt, or a protein-rich smoothie can make a meaningful difference in how your body uses the protein you eat throughout the rest of the day.
Protein for Weight Loss
When you’re eating fewer calories than you burn, your body doesn’t just pull from fat stores. It breaks down muscle too. Higher protein intake is the most effective dietary tool for minimizing that muscle loss. The research is consistent: 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg per day preserves lean mass and improves body composition during weight loss across all age groups, compared to the standard 0.8 g/kg.
Below 1.0 g/kg per day during a calorie deficit, the risk of losing muscle mass increases. Above 1.3 g/kg, people tend to actually gain muscle even while losing overall weight. Protein also helps with satiety, keeping you fuller longer on fewer total calories, which makes the deficit itself easier to sustain.
Higher Needs After 65
Muscle loss accelerates with age. Starting around your 30s, you lose a small percentage of muscle mass each decade, and the rate picks up after 65. This gradual decline, called sarcopenia, increases the risk of falls, fractures, and loss of independence. The body also becomes less efficient at using dietary protein to build and repair muscle as it ages, which means older adults need more protein to get the same effect.
Current recommendations for adults over 65 are 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram per day. For a 160-pound older adult, that’s 73 to 87 grams daily. Many older adults fall well short of this, partly because appetite naturally decreases with age and partly because meals tend to become lighter and more carbohydrate-heavy. Prioritizing a protein source at every meal is one of the simplest interventions for maintaining strength and mobility in later life.
Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
Protein needs rise during pregnancy, but the increase is modest in the first trimester: only about 1 extra gram per day. The real jump comes later. In the second trimester, you need roughly 9 additional grams per day above your normal intake, and in the third trimester, that climbs to 28 to 31 extra grams per day. For a woman who normally needs around 75 grams, that means roughly 100 to 106 grams daily in late pregnancy.
During breastfeeding, the additional need is about 19 grams per day for the first six months, dropping to around 13 grams once the baby starts eating solid foods and breastfeeding becomes partial. These numbers are on top of your baseline needs, not replacements for them.
Can You Eat Too Much Protein?
More than 2 grams per kilogram per day is generally considered excessive. For a 170-pound person, that’s over 154 grams. At these levels, the kidneys have to work harder to process the byproducts of protein metabolism. For people with healthy kidneys, this extra workload doesn’t appear to cause lasting damage. But for anyone with existing kidney disease or a predisposition to it, high protein intake poses a real risk of accelerating kidney decline.
There’s another practical concern: many high-protein foods, particularly red and processed meats, are also high in saturated fat. People who push their protein intake very high through these sources may inadvertently raise their blood lipids and cardiovascular risk. The protein itself isn’t the problem so much as the package it comes in. Varying your sources across poultry, fish, legumes, dairy, and eggs helps avoid this trap.
Putting It Into Practice
A chicken breast has roughly 30 grams of protein. A cup of Greek yogurt has 15 to 20. Two eggs provide about 12 grams. A can of black beans has around 25. A palm-sized portion of salmon delivers about 25 grams. These aren’t numbers you need to memorize, but getting a rough sense of what’s in your regular meals helps you gauge whether you’re in the right range without weighing everything on a food scale.
For most adults, hitting 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg per day means including a solid protein source at each of your three meals. If you’re strength training, over 65, losing weight, or pregnant in your third trimester, aim for the higher end of that range and spread it as evenly across meals as you can. The 30 to 45 gram per meal target is a useful benchmark: enough to fully stimulate muscle repair at each sitting, without needing to cram your entire day’s protein into a single meal.