Most adults need about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, which works out to roughly 55 grams for a 150-pound person or 73 grams for someone weighing 200 pounds. That number is the baseline for healthy, relatively sedentary adults. But your actual target depends on your age, activity level, whether you’re pregnant, and whether you’re trying to lose weight or build muscle.
The Baseline for Most Adults
The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight represents the minimum needed to meet basic nutritional requirements and prevent deficiency. It was established using nitrogen balance testing, which measures whether your body is breaking down more protein than it’s building. To convert your weight: divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms, then multiply by 0.8.
Here’s how that shakes out at common body weights:
- 130 lbs (59 kg): ~47 g protein per day
- 150 lbs (68 kg): ~55 g protein per day
- 180 lbs (82 kg): ~65 g protein per day
- 200 lbs (91 kg): ~73 g protein per day
These numbers are enough to keep a sedentary person from losing muscle. They are not optimized for building muscle, staying full during a diet, or protecting against age-related muscle loss. Most people who are active or trying to improve their body composition will benefit from significantly more.
Higher Targets for Active People
If you exercise regularly, especially with resistance training, your muscles need more raw material to repair and grow. Most sports nutrition guidelines recommend 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight for active individuals. For a 170-pound person, that range spans from about 93 to 155 grams per day. People focused on building muscle typically aim for the higher end, while endurance athletes can stay closer to 1.2 to 1.4 grams per kilogram.
If you’re trying to lose fat while keeping muscle, protein becomes even more important. During a caloric deficit, your body is more likely to break down muscle tissue for energy. Eating toward the higher end of that range, around 1.6 to 2.0 grams per kilogram, helps preserve lean mass while the scale drops. Higher protein intake also increases satiety, making it easier to stick with a calorie-restricted diet because you feel full longer after meals.
Protein Needs After 65
Older adults lose muscle mass gradually, a process called sarcopenia, and their bodies become less efficient at using dietary protein to build new muscle tissue. The PROT-AGE study group, an international panel focused on nutrition in aging, recommends that adults over 65 eat at least 1.0 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram per day. That’s 25 to 50 percent more than the standard RDA.
For older adults who are physically active, the recommendation rises to at least 1.2 grams per kilogram. Those dealing with acute or chronic illness may need 1.2 to 1.5 grams per kilogram to prevent further muscle wasting and support recovery. A 160-pound person in this higher category would aim for roughly 87 to 109 grams daily.
The one exception: older adults with advanced kidney disease (specifically those with significantly reduced kidney filtration who are not on dialysis) may need to limit protein. This is a situation where a specific medical condition changes the math, and a nephrologist would set the target.
Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
Protein needs increase during pregnancy, but not evenly across trimesters. In the first trimester, the increase is minimal, only about 1 additional gram per day. By the second trimester, you need roughly 9 extra grams daily. The third trimester calls for the biggest jump: about 28 to 31 additional grams per day on top of your normal intake, depending on which guidelines you follow.
During breastfeeding, the additional requirement is about 19 grams per day for the first six months of exclusive nursing, dropping to around 13 grams per day once you introduce solid foods and breastfeed less frequently. For a 140-pound woman, this means going from a baseline of about 51 grams to roughly 70 to 80 grams during the third trimester and early breastfeeding.
How to Spread Protein Across Meals
Your body can only use so much protein at once for muscle building. Research consistently shows that about 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal is enough to trigger a strong muscle-building response in most adults. This threshold is partly driven by leucine, an amino acid that acts as a signal to start muscle repair. You need roughly 2 to 3 grams of leucine per meal to flip that switch, and most high-protein foods deliver that amount in a 20-to-30-gram protein serving.
For older adults, the threshold appears to be higher. Studies suggest that closer to 3 grams of leucine, and therefore slightly larger protein portions, may be needed to achieve the same muscle-building effect. This is one reason why spreading protein evenly across three or four meals tends to work better than eating most of it at dinner, which is what many people do by default.
If your daily target is 100 grams, for example, eating roughly 25 to 35 grams at each of three meals gets you there while keeping each dose in the range that your body can use most efficiently. Adding a protein-rich snack is another option if you struggle to hit your number in just three sittings.
Plant-Based Diets May Require More Total Protein
Not all protein sources are equal in terms of digestibility and amino acid completeness. Animal proteins like eggs, dairy, meat, and fish contain all essential amino acids in proportions that closely match what your body needs, and they’re highly digestible. Plant proteins from beans, lentils, grains, and nuts tend to be lower in one or more essential amino acids and are slightly harder for your body to absorb.
Diet modeling studies confirm that whole-food plant-based diets generally have lower protein quality and amino acid density compared to omnivorous or lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets. This doesn’t mean plant-based eaters can’t meet their protein needs. It does mean they may need to eat a greater total volume of protein and combine different plant sources throughout the day to compensate. Pairing legumes with grains, for instance, covers the amino acid gaps that each has individually. If you eat a fully plant-based diet, aiming for the higher end of your protein range is a practical way to ensure you’re getting enough usable protein.
When High Protein Intake Could Be a Concern
For people with healthy kidneys, there’s no strong evidence that protein intakes up to about 2.0 grams per kilogram cause harm. The kidneys filter the byproducts of protein metabolism, and healthy kidneys handle this workload without issue.
The picture changes with existing kidney disease. Current guidelines advise adults with mild chronic kidney disease (stages 1 and 2) to avoid protein intakes above 1.3 grams per kilogram per day. For more advanced kidney disease, the limits are stricter. If you’ve been told your kidney function is reduced, your protein target needs to be set with that in mind.
Outside of kidney concerns, very high protein intake can crowd out other important nutrients if it means you’re eating less fiber, healthy fats, or fruits and vegetables. Hitting your protein target matters, but so does the overall balance of your diet.