The baseline recommendation for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. That’s the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for healthy adults, and for a 70 kg (154 lb) person, it works out to about 56 grams daily. But that number is a minimum to prevent deficiency, not necessarily what’s optimal. Depending on your age, activity level, and goals, you likely need more.
What the Baseline RDA Actually Means
The 0.8 g/kg figure is designed to meet the basic protein needs of 97.5% of healthy, sedentary adults. It keeps you from losing muscle and maintains normal body functions, but it wasn’t set with fitness goals, aging, or weight loss in mind. The World Health Organization frames it slightly differently, recommending that protein make up 10 to 15% of total daily calories, which translates to roughly 50 to 75 grams for someone eating 2,000 calories a day.
The 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans have shifted the general recommendation upward to 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram per day for adults. This range reflects growing evidence that most people benefit from more protein than the old RDA suggests, even without intense exercise.
Recommendations by Goal and Activity Level
Building Muscle
If you regularly lift weights or do resistance training, the well-supported range is 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram per day. For a 75 kg person, that’s 90 to 128 grams of protein. The higher end of this range is most relevant when you’re actively trying to add muscle mass or training at high volume. Going beyond 1.7 g/kg doesn’t appear to produce additional muscle-building benefits for most people.
Endurance Training
Runners, cyclists, and other endurance athletes need 1.2 to 1.4 grams per kilogram daily. Endurance exercise causes ongoing muscle tissue breakdown, and without enough protein to support repair, you can gradually lose lean mass. That loss directly affects performance over time, even if it doesn’t show up as soreness or injury.
Losing Weight
Protein becomes especially important during a caloric deficit because your body is more likely to break down muscle for energy when calories are scarce. The recommendation for preserving muscle while losing fat is approximately 1.5 to 2.2 grams per kilogram (or about 0.7 to 1.0 grams per pound) of body weight. This is higher than most other recommendations because the stakes are different: you’re trying to ensure the weight you lose comes primarily from fat, not muscle. If you’re significantly overweight, using your goal body weight or lean mass for the calculation gives a more realistic target.
Adults Over 65
Age-related muscle loss, called sarcopenia, begins as early as your 30s but accelerates after 65. Nearly half of all protein in the body is found in muscle, and as that muscle declines, protein needs increase. Researchers recommend older adults aim for 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram daily, well above the old 0.8 g/kg baseline. This higher intake helps slow muscle loss and supports the ability to stay mobile and independent.
Older adults also appear to need more protein per meal to get the same muscle-building response as younger people. Research suggests that meals containing at least 25 to 30 grams of protein are needed to effectively stimulate muscle repair in aging bodies, compared to roughly 20 grams for younger adults.
Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
During pregnancy and lactation, the RDA rises to 1.1 grams per kilogram per day. That increase supports fetal growth, placental development, expanded blood volume, and later, milk production. For a 68 kg (150 lb) woman, this means roughly 75 grams of protein daily at minimum.
How to Spread Protein Throughout the Day
Your body can only use so much protein at once for muscle repair. Research on muscle protein synthesis suggests that 20 to 40 grams of protein per meal is the effective range for most adults, with the higher end being more important for older individuals and larger-bodied people. Eating 80 grams of protein in one meal and very little the rest of the day is less effective than distributing that same amount across three or four meals.
The key driver is an amino acid called leucine, which acts as a trigger for muscle repair. Most high-quality protein sources (meat, dairy, eggs, soy) contain enough leucine per serving to activate this process, but you need roughly 2.5 to 3 grams of leucine per meal. That’s roughly what you’d get from 25 to 30 grams of animal-based protein, or slightly more from plant-based sources.
Upper Limits and Kidney Safety
For people with healthy kidneys, intakes in the 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg range are considered safe. Higher intakes, up to about 2.0 g/kg, are commonly consumed by athletes without apparent harm, though the long-term research thins out at these levels. The concern isn’t that protein is toxic; it’s that the kidneys do the work of filtering protein byproducts, and very high intakes sustained over years could strain kidneys that are already compromised.
If you have existing kidney disease or reduced kidney function, high-protein diets can accelerate damage. Cleveland Clinic nephrologists recommend against “extreme” protein intake even for healthy individuals, suggesting that balance is the safest long-term approach. If you’re unsure about your kidney health, a simple blood test for creatinine and a urine test can give you a baseline before increasing your protein significantly.
Quick Reference by Body Weight
- 60 kg (132 lb): 48 g (RDA minimum), 72–96 g (active/older adults), 102–120 g (muscle building)
- 75 kg (165 lb): 60 g (RDA minimum), 90–120 g (active/older adults), 128–150 g (muscle building)
- 90 kg (198 lb): 72 g (RDA minimum), 108–144 g (active/older adults), 153–180 g (muscle building)
These ranges give you a practical starting point. If you’re trying to lose fat, build muscle, or you’re over 65, the old 0.8 g/kg recommendation is almost certainly too low. For most active adults, landing somewhere between 1.2 and 1.6 g/kg covers the majority of goals without pushing into territory that raises safety questions.