How much protein do you need per day?

From a 2018 meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which pooled 49 studies covering 1,863 participants to find the point at which extra protein stopped producing extra muscle and strength in people doing resistance training. That point sat at 1.62 g per kilogram of body weight per day, which is where the widely quoted 1.6 g/kg comes from.

Two things are worth being precise about. The figure is per kilogram of body weight, not lean mass, so it is straightforward to apply. And it is a plateau, not a ceiling: the analysis found no benefit above it, not harm above it.

In imperial terms 1.6 g/kg works out at roughly 0.73 g per pound, which is where the familiar “about 0.7 g per pound” guidance comes from.

Then 1.6 g/kg is more than you need for muscle purposes, because the figure describes the ceiling on training-induced gains. General reference intakes for healthy adults sit far lower, around 0.8 g/kg, and that is a minimum to avoid deficiency rather than a target to aim at.

Most people land somewhere in between for reasons that have little to do with muscle. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient per calorie, which makes a moderately high intake genuinely helpful in a calorie deficit, and adequate protein while losing weight helps preserve lean tissue that would otherwise go with the fat.

Less than the internet suggests. The POUNDS LOST trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009, assigned 811 overweight adults to diets with markedly different fat, protein and carbohydrate ratios and found similar weight loss across all of them at two years once calories were matched.

The practical reading is that the calorie total does the work, protein protects lean mass and appetite, and the split of what remains between carbohydrate and fat is mostly a question of what you will actually stick to. That is why FitQuota's Macro Calculator sets protein from your body weight, takes fat as a share of calories, and gives the remainder to carbohydrate. That order reflects how much each decision actually matters.

Far less than the daily total. The older advice about a narrow post-workout window has not held up well; total intake across the day is the dominant factor. Spreading protein across three or four meals rather than loading it into one is a reasonable default, mostly because it is easier to hit a large total that way than to eat 120 g at dinner.

If you are healthy and have no kidney condition, intakes in this range are well tolerated. If you do have kidney disease, protein intake is something to set with your doctor rather than from a calculator.