Most adults need at least 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, which works out to about 54 grams for a 150-pound person. But that baseline number is a minimum to prevent deficiency, not an optimal target. Your actual needs depend on your age, activity level, body composition goals, and whether you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. Here’s how to find your number.
Start With the Baseline
The Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, or 0.36 grams per pound. For a 180-pound person, that’s about 65 grams per day. This figure was set to meet the minimum needs of 97.5% of healthy, sedentary adults. It keeps you from losing muscle or becoming deficient, but it’s not designed to help you build muscle, lose fat, or stay strong as you age.
To calculate your baseline: multiply your weight in pounds by 0.36 (or your weight in kilograms by 0.8). That’s your floor. Most people benefit from eating above it.
Adjusting for Your Goals
Building Muscle or Training Hard
If you lift weights, play sports, or do any form of regular resistance training, your protein needs roughly double compared to a sedentary person. The range most supported by research is 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram per day (0.73 to 1.0 grams per pound). A 170-pound person aiming for muscle growth would target roughly 124 to 170 grams daily. The sweet spot for most people is around 1.6 g/kg, with the higher end of the range offering diminishing returns rather than dramatic extra gains.
Losing Weight
When you’re eating fewer calories than you burn, protein becomes even more important. It preserves lean muscle mass that would otherwise break down during a calorie deficit, and it keeps you fuller for longer by increasing satiety and slightly boosting the calories your body burns during digestion. Research on energy-restricted diets shows that intakes above 1.05 g/kg per day (about 0.48 g per pound) consistently produce better fat loss and muscle preservation than lower-protein approaches. Diets in the range of 25 to 40% of total calories from protein have outperformed diets at 12 to 24% protein in studies lasting six months or longer.
Higher protein also helps after the weight comes off. People who kept protein at 18 to 30% of calories during maintenance regained about 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds) less than those eating 10 to 15% protein. If you’re actively dieting, aim for at least 0.55 to 0.73 grams per pound of body weight.
Staying Strong After 60
Age-related muscle loss, called sarcopenia, starts gradually in your 30s and accelerates after 60. The standard 0.8 g/kg recommendation appears insufficient for older adults. Research on women over 65 found that those eating 1.2 g/kg per day saw significant improvements in muscle strength and body composition compared to those eating the standard 0.8 g/kg. Current evidence points to at least 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg per day for adults over 60, which is 0.45 to 0.55 grams per pound. For a 160-pound older adult, that’s 72 to 88 grams per day as a minimum target.
Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
Protein needs rise gradually during pregnancy. In the first trimester, the increase is negligible (about 1 extra gram per day). During the second trimester, you need roughly 9 to 10 additional grams daily, and by the third trimester, that climbs to 17 to 31 extra grams per day depending on the guideline you follow. During breastfeeding, plan on an additional 19 to 23 grams per day for the first six months, dropping to about 13 grams extra once you introduce solid foods. In practical terms, a pregnant woman’s needs shift from around 0.8 g/kg early on to about 1.0 g/kg by late pregnancy.
How to Spread It Across the Day
Your body can only use so much protein at once to build and repair muscle. The trigger point is about 2.5 to 3.0 grams of leucine (an amino acid), which corresponds to roughly 30 to 35 grams of high-quality protein in a meal. Once that threshold is hit, muscle protein synthesis stays elevated for about two and a half hours. Eating 70 or 90 grams of protein in a single sitting doesn’t produce a bigger muscle-building response than 30 to 40 grams.
This means spreading your protein across three to four meals is more effective than loading it all into dinner, which is what many people do. If your target is 120 grams per day, aim for 30 grams at each of four meals rather than 15 at breakfast, 15 at lunch, and 90 at dinner. For older adults, this per-meal minimum of 30 grams is especially important because aging muscles need a stronger signal to start the repair process.
Body Weight vs. Lean Body Mass
All the standard recommendations use total body weight, which works well for most people. But if you carry a significant amount of extra body fat, calculating based on total weight can overshoot your needs since fat tissue doesn’t require much protein. In that case, you have two options: use your goal weight instead of your current weight, or estimate your lean body mass (everything except fat) and calculate from there. If you’re 250 pounds and estimate 35% body fat, your lean mass is about 163 pounds, and you’d base your calculation on that number instead.
For people at a healthy body fat percentage, the difference between the two methods is small enough not to worry about.
Does Protein Source Matter?
Animal proteins (meat, fish, eggs, dairy) contain all the essential amino acids in the proportions your body needs, and they score higher on digestibility metrics than most plant proteins. Plant proteins from beans, lentils, nuts, and grains are lower in one or more essential amino acids and tend to be slightly less digestible. This doesn’t mean plant-based diets can’t meet your protein needs. It does mean that if you eat exclusively plant-based, you benefit from eating a variety of protein sources throughout the day and may want to aim for the higher end of whatever range applies to you.
The 2025 U.S. Dietary Guidelines emphasize including high-quality protein at every meal from a mix of sources: eggs, poultry, seafood, red meat, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, and soy.
A Quick Reference by Situation
- Sedentary adult: 0.36 g per pound (0.8 g/kg)
- Active adult or recreational exerciser: 0.45–0.73 g per pound (1.0–1.6 g/kg)
- Muscle building or intense training: 0.73–1.0 g per pound (1.6–2.2 g/kg)
- Weight loss while preserving muscle: 0.55–0.73 g per pound (1.2–1.6 g/kg)
- Adults over 60: 0.45–0.55 g per pound (1.0–1.2 g/kg)
- Late pregnancy: roughly 1.0 g/kg, or about 17–31 g extra per day
- Breastfeeding: about 19–23 g extra per day above your normal needs
What About Eating Too Much?
For healthy people with normal kidney function, there’s no established toxic upper limit for protein. Intakes up to 2.0 g/kg per day are well-studied and consistently safe. Some athletes go higher without problems. The concern about protein damaging kidneys applies primarily to people who already have chronic kidney disease, where extra protein forces the kidneys to work harder to filter waste products. If you have existing kidney issues, your intake should be guided by your nephrologist. For everyone else, the practical ceiling is more about cost, appetite, and digestive comfort than safety.