How much protein do you need per day?

Protein is the macro most people undereat, especially when they’re trying to lose weight. It keeps you full, protects muscle while you’re in a calorie deficit, and helps you build muscle when you train. Here’s how much you actually need, and how to get it without living on chicken breast.

The short answer

Your situation	Protein per kg of body weight per day
General health, not very active	0.8 g (the official minimum, or RDA)
Active, or over about 65	1.0–1.2 g
Losing weight	1.2–1.6 g, up to about 2 g if you’re lean and training hard
Building muscle with strength training	1.6–2.2 g

For a 70 kg person, that’s about 56 g a day at the minimum, roughly 85 to 110 g while losing weight, and 110 to 150 g while building muscle.

Where these numbers come from

• 0.8 g/kg is the Recommended Dietary Allowance: the amount that covers the needs of nearly all healthy, sedentary adults. It’s a floor, not an ideal.
• For people who lift weights, a 2018 meta-analysis of resistance-training studies (Morton and colleagues, British Journal of Sports Medicine) found muscle gains levelled off at around 1.6 g/kg a day, with the upper confidence limit near 2.2 g/kg. That’s why 1.6 g/kg is a good target and anything above about 2.2 g/kg brings little extra benefit.
• During a calorie deficit, higher protein helps you keep lean mass, so the 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg range is a sensible goal.

If you’re carrying a lot of extra weight, base the calculation on your goal weight rather than your current weight, or the target gets unrealistically high.

Spread it through the day

Your body uses protein better when it’s spread out rather than eaten in one big meal. A practical approach is 20 to 40 g at each of three or four meals:

• Breakfast: Greek yogurt with oats, eggs on toast, or paneer bhurji.
• Lunch and dinner: a palm-to-hand-sized portion of chicken, fish, tofu or paneer, or a big bowl of dal or beans.
• Snack: a protein shake, cottage cheese, a handful of almonds, or roasted chana.

How much protein is in common foods

Values for typical portions, from our food database:

Food	Portion	Protein	Calories
Chicken breast, cooked	1 breast (120 g)	37 g	198
Tuna, canned in water	1 can (142 g)	37 g	165
Salmon, cooked	1 fillet (154 g)	34 g	317
Cottage cheese, low-fat	1 cup (226 g)	25 g	221
Tofu, firm	½ block (126 g)	21 g	181
Lentils, cooked	1 cup (198 g)	18 g	230
Greek yogurt, plain	1 container (170 g)	17 g	100
Chickpeas, cooked	1 cup (164 g)	15 g	269
Paneer	100 g	18 g	296
Dal, cooked	1 katori (150 g)	11 g	174
Egg	1 large (50 g)	6 g	72
Almonds	28 g (about 23)	6 g	162

Two things stand out. Lean animal foods and Greek yogurt give a lot of protein for few calories. Plant proteins like lentils and chickpeas are great sources too, but bring more carbohydrate along, so they’re worth combining: dal with paneer, or chickpeas with yogurt.

Vegetarian? It’s very doable

Reaching 100 g a day on a vegetarian diet just takes a bit of planning. One example day:

• Breakfast: Greek yogurt (170 g) with 40 g oats: about 24 g
• Lunch: 2 katoris of dal with rice and a cup of curd: about 30 g
• Snack: a protein shake or 100 g paneer tikka: about 15 to 25 g
• Dinner: palak paneer (150 g) with 2 rotis: about 20 g

That’s roughly 90 to 100 g without any meat or eggs.

Is a lot of protein safe?

For healthy adults, intakes up to around 2 g/kg a day are considered safe in the research. If you have kidney disease or another medical condition, ask your doctor before increasing protein.

Track it alongside calories

Set a daily protein target next to your calorie goal and log your meals. Within a week you’ll see which meals are doing the heavy lifting and where an extra 20 g would fit easily. Real Calorie Tracker shows protein against your target on every day you log; start here.