Protein Calculator
How much protein you actually need in a day, and how to split it across your meals so you hit it.
What that looks like in real food
| Food | Serving | Protein |
|---|
Your day, built
| Meal | Target |
|---|
Targets are set per pound of body weight: around 1.1g in a deficit to protect lean mass, 0.9g at maintenance, and 1.0g while building. Training volume and age push the number up, because older lifters need more protein per meal to trigger the same muscle-building response. If you are carrying a lot of fat, calculate from your goal weight rather than your current weight. General fitness information, not medical advice.
How much protein do you actually need?
Protein is the one macronutrient you cannot fake your way around. Carbohydrate and fat are fuel and you have some flexibility in how you split them. Protein is building material. Miss it for long enough and you will lose muscle in a deficit, fail to build it in a surplus, and spend a year wondering why the work is not showing.
The number, plainly
Around one gram per pound of body weight per day covers almost everyone who lifts. It goes up when you are in a calorie deficit, because protein is what stops your body from breaking down muscle for energy. It goes up again past fifty, because older muscle is less responsive and needs a bigger dose per meal to get the same signal. This calculator adjusts for both.
Spreading it out beats loading it up
Your body can only use so much protein for muscle building in one sitting. Thirty to fifty grams per meal, three to five times a day, does more than two hundred grams dumped into dinner. The practical rule is simple: every meal gets a palm-sized portion of a real protein source before anything else goes on the plate.
Where it actually comes from
Six ounces of chicken breast is about fifty four grams. Six ounces of lean beef is forty eight. A cup of Greek yogurt is twenty three. Three whole eggs are nineteen. A scoop of whey is twenty five. Once you know four or five of those numbers by heart you stop needing an app. Most people who say they cannot hit their protein are eating two real protein servings a day and hoping the rest shows up.
If you have a lot of weight to lose
Calculate from your goal weight rather than your current weight. Protein feeds lean tissue, and fat mass does not need feeding. Someone at 300 pounds aiming for 220 should be eating for 220, not 300.
Common questions
Can you eat too much protein? For a healthy person who lifts, going over the target is wasteful rather than harmful — the excess is simply used as energy. If you have existing kidney issues, that is a conversation for your doctor, not a calculator.
Does protein timing matter? Far less than the daily total. Hit the number and spread it across the day; the anabolic window is hours wide, not minutes.
Do I need a shake? No. A shake is a convenient way to hit a number, nothing more. If you can hit it with food, hit it with food.
Next: Set your calories and macros → | Check your body fat percentage → | All calculators
