Your protein needs depend on your body weight, activity level, age, and goals. The baseline recommendation is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, but that number is a minimum for sedentary adults and underestimates what most people actually need. A 150-pound (68 kg) person following that baseline would eat about 54 grams of protein daily, which is enough to prevent deficiency but not necessarily enough to maintain muscle, support fat loss, or fuel an active lifestyle.
Figuring out your real number means starting with that baseline and adjusting for what your body is actually doing.
The Baseline: 0.8 Grams per Kilogram
The international Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein is 0.8 g per kg of body weight, regardless of age. This was designed to meet the minimum needs of 97.5% of the healthy sedentary population. It’s the floor, not the ceiling. To use it, convert your weight to kilograms (divide pounds by 2.2), then multiply by 0.8. A 180-pound person weighs about 82 kg, giving a baseline of roughly 65 grams per day.
Most nutrition researchers now consider this number too low for anyone who exercises regularly, is trying to lose weight, or is over 65. The 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans shifted to prioritizing high-quality protein at every meal, reflecting a broader recognition that earlier guidelines underemphasized protein relative to carbohydrates.
How Exercise Changes the Number
If you run, cycle, swim, or do other endurance exercise regularly, your protein needs rise to between 1.0 and 1.6 g per kg per day, depending on how hard and how long you train. A recreational jogger falls toward the lower end. Someone training for a marathon sits closer to the top.
Strength and power athletes need more: 1.6 to 2.0 g per kg per day. For that same 180-pound person, this translates to roughly 130 to 164 grams of protein daily. These ranges come from the International Society of Sports Nutrition and reflect the extra protein required to repair and build muscle tissue after resistance training. If you lift weights three or four times a week with real intensity, aiming for at least 1.6 g per kg is a reasonable starting point.
Protein Needs During Weight Loss
When you eat fewer calories than you burn, your body doesn’t just pull energy from fat. It also breaks down muscle. The single most effective nutritional strategy to limit that muscle loss is increasing your protein intake above the baseline. Research on body composition during calorie restriction recommends at least 1.0 to 1.2 g per kg for sedentary dieters and above 1.2 g per kg for those who exercise while losing weight.
Spreading that protein evenly across meals matters too. Muscle protein synthesis responds to protein in a dose-dependent way up to about 20 grams per meal. Eating 60 grams at dinner and 10 at breakfast is less effective than distributing your intake into three or four roughly equal portions throughout the day. This even distribution helps your body use the protein for muscle maintenance rather than simply burning it for energy.
Why Protein Needs Increase After 65
Aging muscles become less responsive to protein. The same 15-gram serving that triggers robust muscle repair in a 30-year-old produces a weaker response in a 70-year-old, a phenomenon researchers call “anabolic resistance.” To overcome this, older adults need a higher dose per meal: roughly 25 to 30 grams of high-quality protein at each meal, which works out to 75 to 90 grams spread across three meals as a practical minimum.
This approach targets sarcopenia, the gradual loss of muscle mass and strength that accelerates after 65 and increases fall risk, disability, and loss of independence. Rather than simply raising total daily protein across the board, the more useful strategy for older adults is making sure each individual meal contains enough protein to cross the threshold that triggers muscle repair. That threshold appears to be about 3 to 4 grams of leucine, an amino acid found in high concentrations in eggs, dairy, meat, and fish, which corresponds to those 25 to 30 grams of protein per sitting.
Adjustments for Pregnancy
Protein needs increase progressively across pregnancy. During the first trimester, the additional requirement is minimal: less than 1 extra gram per day. By the second trimester, that jumps to about 10 additional grams daily. In the third trimester, the body needs roughly 31 extra grams per day on top of your normal intake. For a woman whose baseline is around 50 grams, that means aiming for approximately 80 grams per day in late pregnancy.
Using Body Weight vs. Lean Body Mass
All the standard recommendations use total body weight, which works well for people at a moderate body fat percentage. But if you carry a significant amount of extra body fat, calculating protein off total weight can inflate the number, since fat tissue doesn’t require the same protein support that muscle does.
An alternative approach is to base your calculation on lean body mass, which is your total weight minus your fat mass. If you know your body fat percentage (from a DEXA scan, a bioimpedance scale, or even a rough estimate), you can calculate lean mass. For example, a 220-pound person at 35% body fat carries about 143 pounds (65 kg) of lean mass. Research on athletes suggests effective protein intake falls between 0.83 and 1.77 g per kg of lean body mass. Using lean mass as the anchor gives a more tailored estimate, particularly for people in larger bodies.
If you don’t know your body fat percentage, a simple workaround is to use your goal body weight or an “ideal” weight for your height as the reference point, then multiply by the g/kg range that matches your activity level.
Not All Protein Is Equal
The source of your protein affects how much of it your body can actually use. Scientists measure this with a score called DIAAS (Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score), which rates how completely your gut absorbs the essential amino acids in a food. Pork, eggs, casein (the main protein in cheese and milk), and surprisingly, potato protein all score as “excellent quality” with DIAAS values above 100. Whey and soy score as “high quality.” Most other plant proteins, including pea, rice, hemp, oat, and fava bean, fall below the threshold for a quality claim on their own.
This doesn’t mean plant-based diets can’t meet your protein needs. It means you may need to eat a somewhat higher total amount and combine sources strategically. Soy, pea, and potato proteins can complement grains and other lower-scoring plants. Pairing rice and beans, for example, fills the amino acid gaps each has individually. If you eat exclusively plant-based protein, adding 10 to 20% more total protein to your daily target is a practical way to account for lower digestibility.
Is There an Upper Limit?
For healthy people with normal kidney function, high protein intakes, even up to 2.0 g per kg, have not been linked to kidney decline. The large-scale Nurses’ Health Study found no association between high protein intake and loss of kidney function in women with healthy kidneys. However, in people with existing mild kidney disease, higher protein intake was associated with faster decline. If you have kidney concerns, getting your function tested before adopting a high-protein diet is worthwhile.
There’s no formally established upper limit, but intake above 2.0 g per kg per day offers diminishing returns for most people. Your body can only use so much protein for muscle building in a given period, and the excess gets converted to energy or excreted.
A Quick Way to Find Your Number
Start with your weight in kilograms. Then pick the multiplier that fits your situation:
- Sedentary, no specific goals: 0.8 g/kg
- Recreationally active: 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg
- Endurance training: 1.0 to 1.6 g/kg
- Strength training or building muscle: 1.6 to 2.0 g/kg
- Losing weight while exercising: 1.2 to 1.5 g/kg
- Over 65: at least 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg, with 25 to 30 g per meal
- Third trimester of pregnancy: your baseline plus about 31 g/day
Once you have a daily number, divide it across three or four meals. Hitting 25 to 30 grams per meal is a practical benchmark that maximizes your body’s ability to use the protein you eat, regardless of your age or training status. Tracking for even a few days with a food app can reveal whether you’re hitting that target or falling short, which most people are at breakfast.