Enter your weight and what you're training for. Optionally switch to a lean-mass basis, which is the more sensible reference at higher body-fat percentages.
Grams per kilogram of body weight per day.
| Goal | g/kg per day | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 0.8–1.0 | RDA baseline — prevents deficiency, not an optimum |
| Generally active | 1.2–1.4 | Light training raises repair and turnover needs |
| Building muscle | 1.6–2.2 | Common resistance-training range in the literature |
| Cutting | 1.8–2.4 | Higher intake helps preserve muscle in a deficit |
| Endurance | 1.2–1.6 | Repair from high training volume, less hypertrophy demand |
It depends on what you're doing with your body, not just how much you weigh. The baseline RDA for a sedentary adult is about 0.8 g per kg of body weight — a minimum to prevent deficiency, not an optimum. People doing regular resistance training are commonly advised something closer to 1.6–2.2 g per kg, and people eating in a calorie deficit are often advised the high end or slightly above, because adequate protein helps preserve muscle while losing fat.
For most people at a typical body composition, total body weight is simpler and close enough. Lean body mass becomes the more sensible basis at higher body-fat percentages, because fat tissue has little protein requirement — using total weight there can overstate the target substantially. Switch the basis toggle above to use lean mass and enter your body-fat percentage.
For healthy adults with normal kidney function, intakes in the ranges shown here are generally considered safe in the research literature, and there's no strong evidence they harm healthy kidneys. Very high intakes mostly displace other nutrients and calories rather than causing direct harm. People with existing kidney or liver disease are a genuine exception and should have protein intake set by their doctor, not by a calculator.
Far less than total daily intake. Hitting your daily target is what matters most; spreading it across roughly 3–5 meals of 25–40 g each is a reasonable practical default because it's easier to reach the total that way — not because a narrow post-workout window is critical. The old idea of a 30-minute "anabolic window" has been substantially walked back by later research.
Protein provides 4 calories per gram, so a 160 g daily target is 640 calories — a meaningful share of most people's intake, which is why protein is usually set first and carbs and fat fill the remainder. The calculator shows this figure so you can slot it into a wider calorie budget rather than treating protein in isolation.
Worked example: an 80 kg person building muscle lands in the 1.6–2.2 g/kg band, so 128–176 g a day, with a midpoint of 152 g — about 608 calories from protein, or roughly 38 g at each of four meals. If that same person is 20% body fat and switches to a lean-mass basis, lean mass is 64 kg and the same band gives 102–141 g instead.
Need the calorie budget this protein fits inside? Use the TDEE Calculator for daily burn, or the Macro Calculator for a full protein/carb/fat split. To estimate the lean-mass figure this page can use as a basis, try the Lean Body Mass Calculator or the Body Fat Calculator. For the other two macronutrients, see the Fat Intake Calculator and the Macro Calculator.
Grams per kilogram, not per pound. Protein targets in the research are almost always expressed per kilogram of body weight — roughly 1.6 to 2.2 g/kg for someone training seriously — so a figure in pounds has to be converted before it means anything. The equivalent range in pounds is about 0.7 to 1.0 g/lb; the kg to pounds converter handles the step in either direction.