Protein calculator
Schoenfeld and Aragon reviewed the per-meal literature and concluded that about 0.4 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per meal, across at least four meals, is what reaches a daily 1.6 g/kg while keeping each dose inside the range the muscle can use. For a 75 kg person that is 30 grams a meal, which is why the panel defaults to four meals. Four servings of 30 g does more than one of 120.
General guidance for healthy adults. Anyone with kidney disease should take protein advice from a doctor, not from a calculator.
Protein needs are set per kilogram of bodyweight, not as a percentage of calories. The RDA minimum is 0.8 g/kg; resistance training moves it to roughly 1.6 g/kg, and a calorie deficit is the case for going higher. A 75 kg lifter on the 1.6 setting gets 120 grams a day, or 30 grams across each of four meals.
How much protein to eat
The 0.8 g/kg on nutrition labels is a deficiency threshold, set to cover the requirements of almost everyone who is not training. It was never an optimum. The International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand puts 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg/day as sufficient for building and holding muscle in most exercising people, and a meta-analysis of 49 randomised trials found that supplementing beyond a total of about 1.62 g/kg/day produced no further gain in fat-free mass. Those two figures are close enough that 1.6 is a reasonable default, which is why it is the one this panel starts on.
The deficit case is the one that gets misreported, including on earlier versions of this page. The same ISSN position stand states that higher intakes, 2.3 to 3.1 g/kg/day, may be needed to maximise retention of lean mass in resistance-trained people eating below maintenance. So the 2.2 g/kg setting here is not a ceiling on what is useful; for a trained lifter in a genuine deficit it sits at the bottom of the range the evidence supports. The row labelled 2.2 g/kg is the highest option on this panel, and nothing more than that.
Distribution is where most of the practical benefit is. Reviewing the per-meal literature, Schoenfeld and Aragon concluded that a target of about 0.4 g/kg per meal across a minimum of four meals reaches 1.6 g/kg for the day while keeping each dose within what the muscle can use; taking the upper daily figure of 2.2 g/kg over the same four meals implies about 0.55 g/kg each. For a 75 kg person that is 30 grams a meal at the lower end and 41 at the upper. Four meals of 30 does more than one of 120, and the panel divides by your meal count for exactly that reason.
One caveat on the arithmetic: everything above is expressed per kilogram of total bodyweight, which is how the position stands are written. At high body fat percentages, bodyweight overstates the tissue that responds to protein, and a target based on lean mass is the better instrument.
What people use it for
- Setting a protein target for a training block
- Planning meals to hit a daily number
- Working out a per-meal target from a daily one
- Deciding whether a shake is closing a real gap
- Protecting lean mass while dieting
- Raising the target for a cutting phase and seeing what it costs per meal
Questions
0.8 g/kg is the RDA minimum. Around 1.6 g/kg covers most people doing resistance training, and a calorie deficit is the case for going above it.
No. It is the highest setting on this panel. The ISSN position stand puts 2.3 to 3.1 g/kg as potentially useful for trained lifters holding lean mass during a deficit, so the top row here is the bottom of that range rather than a cap.
High intakes are well tolerated by healthy kidneys, and the trial evidence on that is reassuring. The practical limits are appetite, cost, and the calories that protein displaces from the rest of the diet.
Spread matters more than timing around a workout. Roughly 0.4 g/kg per meal across four meals is the recommendation the per-meal literature converges on.
Not nothing, but less. Doses above roughly 20 to 25 grams of fast protein stop adding much to the muscle-building response in young adults, though slower proteins eaten with other foods extend that. Spreading the intake sidesteps the question entirely.
No. It is a convenient way to close a gap and nothing more. The meta-analysis that produced the 1.6 g/kg figure was measuring total intake, not powder specifically.
At sufficient total intake, yes. Plant sources tend to be lower in leucine and less complete individually, so slightly higher totals and more variety across the day close the difference.
It raises it. The meta-analysis found the effect of extra protein on lean mass shrank with increasing age, which is one argument for older adults sitting at the higher end of the range rather than the lower.
Only to show protein as a share of the day. It does not affect the gram target, which is computed from bodyweight alone.