Most healthy adults need between 0.8 and 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (0.4–1.0 g/lb), depending on activity level and goal. Sedentary adults sit near the low end for general health; people who train regularly or are trying to lose fat while keeping muscle should aim for the upper end. This also answers the broader question of how much protein you need per day: multiply your body weight in kilograms by the multiplier that matches your goal, and that’s your daily gram target.
The rest of this guide breaks that number down by goal and body weight, explains where it comes from, and gives you a table you can check yourself against in a few seconds.
Quick Answer
Most healthy adults need 0.8–2.2 g of protein per kg of body weight per day (0.4–1.0 g/lb).
- General health, sedentary: 0.8–1.2 g/kg (0.4–0.5 g/lb)
- Regular resistance training / muscle building: 1.6–2.2 g/kg (0.7–1.0 g/lb)
- Fat loss / calorie deficit: 2.0–2.4 g/kg (0.9–1.1 g/lb)
- Adults 50+: 1.2–1.6 g/kg (0.5–0.7 g/lb), even without training
For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult, that’s roughly 56 g at the minimum and up to 154–168 g at the higher end, with most active people landing between 112 and 154 g per day.
If you’d rather not do the multiplication yourself, our protein calculator converts your weight, activity level, and goal into a personalized daily gram target instantly.
Protein Per Kg by Body Weight: Quick-Reference Table
Use the row closest to your current body weight and the column that matches your goal.
| Body weight | Health | Muscle | Fat loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 kg | 40–60 g | 80–110 g | 100–120 g |
| 60 kg | 48–72 g | 96–132 g | 120–144 g |
| 70 kg | 56–84 g | 112–154 g | 140–168 g |
| 80 kg | 64–96 g | 128–176 g | 160–192 g |
| 90 kg | 72–108 g | 144–198 g | 180–216 g |
| 100 kg | 80–120 g | 160–220 g | 200–240 g |
Column key: Health = 0.8–1.2 g/kg · Muscle = 1.6–2.2 g/kg · Fat loss = 2.0–2.4 g/kg
Don’t see your exact weight? Multiply your body weight in kilograms by the low and high end of your goal’s multiplier to get your own range — or use the protein calculator for an exact figure.
Why Protein Needs Are Measured Per Kilogram, Not as a Flat Number
“How much protein should I eat?” is one of the most common nutrition questions there is, and it’s also one of the most frequently answered incorrectly. Type it into any search engine and you’ll often get a flat number — 100 grams, 150 grams, 200 grams — as if every body needs the same amount regardless of size. That ignores the single most important variable: body weight.
Protein’s primary structural role is building and repairing tissue — muscle, skin, enzymes, immune cells — and the amount of tissue your body has to maintain is directly proportional to how much you weigh. A larger body has more tissue turnover happening at any given moment, so it needs more raw material to keep up. This is why sports nutrition researchers and dietitians express recommendations in grams per kilogram of body weight (g/kg) — or equivalently grams per pound (g/lb) — rather than as a flat daily figure. A 50 kg person and a 100 kg person have fundamentally different protein requirements even if they do identical workouts.
How Much Protein Per Kg You Need, By Goal
General Health and Sedentary Adults
The baseline figure most people have heard of, 0.8 g/kg (0.4 g/lb), comes from the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) set by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences. This number is deliberately conservative: it’s calculated to prevent nitrogen deficiency in the vast majority of sedentary adults, not to optimize athletic performance or body composition. Nutrition scientists have been clear for years that 0.8 g/kg is a floor for avoiding deficiency, not a target for anyone with performance or physique goals. Most sedentary adults who simply want general health support are well covered at 0.8–1.2 g/kg (0.4–0.5 g/lb).
Muscle Building and Regular Training
Once exercise enters the picture, requirements shift upward. Resistance training creates repeated, small amounts of muscle protein breakdown that must be repaired and, ideally, over-repaired into new muscle tissue — a process called muscle protein synthesis. Feeding that repair process adequately requires substantially more protein than the sedentary baseline. This is why the International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position stand on protein and exercise recommends 1.4–2.0 g/kg (0.6–0.9 g/lb) for most exercising individuals, with the upper portion of that range, 1.6–2.2 g/kg (0.7–1.0 g/lb), being the sweet spot most consistently associated with maximizing muscle growth in the research literature.
Weight Loss and Fat-Loss Phases
If you’re in a calorie deficit trying to lose fat, your protein needs actually go up relative to your maintenance needs, not down, because adequate protein intake is one of the most effective tools for protecting lean muscle mass while eating less overall. Many dietitians recommend leaning toward 2.0–2.4 g/kg (0.9–1.1 g/lb) during aggressive fat-loss phases specifically to counteract the increased risk of muscle loss that comes with calorie restriction. This is higher than the range typically recommended for muscle gain alone.
Older Adults (50+)
Age matters too, though it’s a more nuanced adjustment. Research on sarcopenia — the age-related loss of muscle mass — suggests that adults over roughly 50 to 60 years old experience “anabolic resistance,” meaning their muscles respond less efficiently to a given dose of protein than a younger person’s would. Because of this, some geriatric nutrition guidelines recommend older adults target 1.2–1.6 g/kg (0.5–0.7 g/lb) even without heavy training, simply to counteract natural muscle loss that accelerates with age.
The Research Behind These Numbers
The clearest evidence on protein-per-kilogram requirements comes from meta-analyses that pool results across dozens of individual studies, smoothing out the noise of any single small trial. The most frequently cited of these is a 2018 meta-regression published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by Morton and colleagues, which analyzed 49 studies involving over 1,800 participants doing resistance training. The analysis found that gains in muscle mass increased with protein intake up to approximately 1.6 g/kg (0.7 g/lb) per day, after which additional protein provided no statistically meaningful extra benefit for the average trainee. Some subgroups, particularly more advanced or leaner trainees, showed benefit extending toward 2.2 g/kg (1.0 g/lb), which is where the commonly cited upper bound of the “optimal range” comes from.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition’s formal position stand synthesizes this same body of evidence into practical guidance: 1.4–2.0 g/kg/day (0.6–0.9 g/lb/day) for most exercising adults, sometimes higher for individuals in a caloric deficit or those with especially high training volumes. Critically, the position stand also notes that distributing protein across meals — roughly 0.25–0.40 g/kg (0.11–0.18 g/lb) per meal, spread across 3–4 meals — appears to matter almost as much as the daily total, because muscle protein synthesis responds to each adequately-dosed meal rather than to your daily average alone.
Research specifically on fat loss supports the higher end of the per-kilogram range during dieting. Multiple controlled trials comparing higher-protein diets (around 2.0–2.4 g/kg, or 0.9–1.1 g/lb) against more moderate protein intakes (around 1.0–1.2 g/kg, or 0.5 g/lb) at matched calorie deficits have found that the higher-protein groups retain significantly more lean mass while losing a similar or greater amount of fat. This is one of the most consistent findings in dietary protein research and is a major reason cutting-phase recommendations differ from general maintenance advice.
On the safety side, a frequently repeated concern is that high protein-per-kilogram intakes damage kidney function. Systematic reviews of controlled studies in healthy individuals without pre-existing kidney disease have not found evidence of harm even at intakes exceeding 2.0–2.8 g/kg (0.9–1.3 g/lb) sustained over months, though researchers do note that individuals with diagnosed kidney disease process protein differently and should follow medical guidance specific to their condition rather than general fitness recommendations.
How to Calculate Your Own Protein-Per-Kg Target
- Weigh yourself and pick your multiplier. Use 0.8–1.2 g/kg (0.4–0.5 g/lb) if you’re sedentary and want general health support; 1.6–2.2 g/kg (0.7–1.0 g/lb) if you train regularly and want to build or maintain muscle; and 2.0–2.4 g/kg (0.9–1.1 g/lb) if you’re in a calorie deficit and want to protect muscle while losing fat.
- Multiply by your current body weight in kilograms (or pounds — divide the g/lb value by 2.2 if needed), not your goal weight. If you weigh 82 kg and are targeting 1.8 g/kg (0.8 g/lb), that’s 82 × 1.8 = 147.6 grams per day.
- Split the total across 3–4 meals, aiming for roughly 25–45 grams per sitting rather than concentrating it all into one meal.
- Recalculate after meaningful weight changes. A number calculated for 90 kg won’t stay accurate once you’ve lost 10 kg — revisit your target every few weeks during active cutting or bulking phases.
- Lean on whole foods first. Chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, tofu, and legumes should form the bulk of your intake, with protein powder used to fill gaps rather than replace real meals. If you’re deciding whether you need a supplement at all, see our guide to protein supplements for beginners.
If you’d rather skip manual math entirely, our protein calculator does this calculation instantly based on your weight, activity level, and goal, and our macro calculator can help you balance that protein number against your carbohydrate and fat targets for the day. If you also want to know your total daily energy needs alongside your protein target, the TDEE calculator is a useful companion tool. For the absolute-number version of this question rather than the per-kg version, see How Much Protein Do You Need Per Day?
Common Mistakes
Even people who know protein-per-kilogram is the right framework still trip up in predictable ways:
- Using goal weight instead of current weight. Calculating your target based on where you want to be rather than where you are overstates or understates your actual needs today.
- Applying the same multiplier regardless of goal. The 1.6 g/kg (0.7 g/lb) that’s appropriate for a lean bulk is too low for an aggressive cutting phase, where 2.0–2.4 g/kg (0.9–1.1 g/lb) protects muscle more effectively.
- Forgetting to recalculate after weight changes. Someone who has lost 15 kg over a few months but is still using their old, heavier body weight in the formula is now overshooting their real requirement.
- Ignoring meal distribution. Hitting your daily gram target with two enormous meals is less effective for muscle protein synthesis than spreading the same total across four moderate servings.
- Confusing kilograms and pounds in the formula. Multiplying pounds by a per-kilogram multiplier produces a wildly inflated number — always convert body weight to kilograms first (divide pounds by 2.2).
Worked Examples by Body Weight
Example 1 — Sedentary 60 kg adult, general health: At 0.8–1.0 g/kg (0.4–0.5 g/lb), this person’s target is roughly 48–60 grams of protein per day, distributed across normal meals without any special planning required.
Example 2 — Active 78 kg lifter, muscle gain goal: Training four times a week with a goal of steady muscle growth, this person should target 1.8 g/kg (0.8 g/lb), or about 140 grams per day, split into four 30–40 gram servings around breakfast, lunch, post-workout, and dinner.
Example 3 — 85 kg athlete in a cutting phase: To protect muscle while losing fat in a calorie deficit, this person should aim toward 2.2 g/kg (1.0 g/lb), or roughly 187 grams per day — noticeably higher than the muscle-gain example above, despite a similar body weight, because the calorie deficit changes the calculus.
Medical disclaimer: This article is intended for general educational purposes and is not a substitute for personalized medical or dietary advice. Individual protein requirements can vary based on kidney function, liver function, medications, pregnancy, and other health conditions. Consult a physician or registered dietitian before making significant changes to your protein intake, particularly if you have an existing medical condition.