A 240-pound man needs between 87 and 196 grams of protein per day, depending on activity level and goals. That range is wide because a sedentary person and a serious lifter have very different demands. Your actual target depends on whether you’re trying to maintain your current body, build muscle, or lose fat while preserving the muscle you have.
Baseline for a 240-Pound Man
The standard recommendation for basic health is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. At 240 pounds (about 109 kilograms), that works out to roughly 87 grams per day. This is the minimum to maintain nitrogen balance, meaning your body isn’t breaking down more protein than it’s building. For a man who works a desk job and doesn’t exercise regularly, 87 grams is technically sufficient.
That said, many nutrition researchers consider 0.8 g/kg a floor rather than a target. It’s the amount needed to prevent deficiency, not the amount needed for optimal health, body composition, or performance. Most men at 240 pounds will benefit from eating more.
Protein Targets by Activity Level
If you exercise regularly, your protein needs increase substantially. Here’s how the numbers break down for a 240-pound man:
- Sedentary or lightly active: 87–109 grams per day (0.8–1.0 g/kg)
- Endurance training (running, cycling, swimming): 131–153 grams per day (1.2–1.4 g/kg)
- Resistance training (weightlifting, bodyweight training): 131–185 grams per day (1.2–1.7 g/kg)
- Serious strength or power athletes: 153–196 grams per day (1.4–1.8 g/kg)
For most 240-pound men who lift weights a few times a week, a practical target falls in the range of 150 to 185 grams per day. You don’t need to hit the upper end unless you’re training hard and specifically trying to maximize muscle growth.
If You’re Trying to Lose Weight
Protein becomes even more important when you’re eating fewer calories than you burn. In a calorie deficit, your body looks for energy wherever it can find it, and that includes breaking down muscle tissue. Eating more protein helps protect your lean mass so that the weight you lose comes primarily from fat.
If you’re a 240-pound man cutting calories, aim for the higher end of the range: around 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram, which translates to roughly 131 to 175 grams per day. There’s an important nuance here, though. If you’re carrying a significant amount of body fat, basing your protein calculation on your goal weight or lean body mass (rather than your total weight) can give you a more accurate number. A 240-pound man at 30% body fat, for example, might calculate protein needs based on a lean mass of roughly 168 pounds (76 kg), which would put the target around 91 to 122 grams per day using the same multipliers. Either approach works. The key is eating enough protein that you feel full, recover from workouts, and don’t lose muscle along with the fat.
How to Spread It Across the Day
Your body can only use so much protein in one sitting for muscle repair. Research suggests the effective range is about 20 to 40 grams per meal. Eating 80 grams of protein at dinner and 15 at breakfast is less effective than distributing it evenly. One study found that muscle building was about 25 percent greater when protein was spread across meals rather than concentrated at lunch and dinner.
The reason comes down to a specific amino acid called leucine. Your muscles need roughly 3 grams of leucine in a single meal to fully activate the repair and growth process. That’s the amount found in about 30 grams of high-quality protein from sources like meat, eggs, dairy, or soy. Until you hit that threshold, your body stays in a breakdown state rather than a building state.
For a 240-pound man aiming for 160 grams per day, a simple approach is four meals with 40 grams of protein each. That could look like eggs and Greek yogurt at breakfast, a chicken breast at lunch, a protein shake after a workout, and salmon or beef at dinner. You don’t need to be exact, but the general principle of spreading intake across three to four eating occasions makes a measurable difference.
What 40 Grams of Protein Looks Like
Hitting higher protein targets is easier when you have a sense of portion sizes. About 40 grams of protein is found in roughly 5 to 6 ounces of cooked chicken, beef, or fish. Two cups of Greek yogurt get you close. Three whole eggs plus a cup of cottage cheese will also get you there. Protein shakes made with whey or plant-based powder typically deliver 25 to 30 grams per scoop, making them a convenient way to fill gaps.
Animal proteins like meat, fish, eggs, and dairy tend to have higher leucine content per gram than most plant sources. If you eat mostly plant-based protein, you may need slightly higher total amounts to get the same muscle-building effect. Combining sources like beans with rice, or tofu with nuts, helps round out the amino acid profile.
Is High Protein Intake Safe?
For healthy people, high-protein diets are not known to cause kidney problems or other medical issues. This is a persistent concern, but the evidence doesn’t support it for people with normal kidney function. The risk changes if you already have kidney disease, because your body may struggle to process the waste products from protein breakdown. If you have kidney disease, diabetes, or another chronic condition, that’s a conversation worth having with your doctor before significantly increasing your intake.
There’s no officially established upper limit for protein, but most research on athletes and active adults tops out at around 1.8 g/kg (about 196 grams for a 240-pound man). Going beyond that doesn’t appear to cause harm, but it also doesn’t provide additional muscle-building benefits. The extra protein simply gets used for energy or stored, and you’re better off spending those calories on other nutrients your body needs.