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Protein calculator
A range, not a single magic number. With the sources.
Pick how you train and get a daily protein range in grams, based on published research. It runs in your browser and sends nothing anywhere.
Enter your weight and your range appears here. Nothing you type leaves this page.
Your daily protein
An estimate, not medical advice. If you have kidney disease or another medical condition, ask your doctor before raising your protein.
Want an app that tracks your protein against this number every day? Vital is free to start, with no ads.
Join the Android betaWhat the research says
- Not training much: 0.8 g per kg a day. This is the US Recommended Dietary Allowance for adults. It is set to meet the needs of nearly all healthy adults, which makes it a floor, not a goal for people building muscle.
- Exercising regularly: about 1.4 to 2.0 g per kg a day. The International Society of Sports Nutrition's 2017 position stand says this range is enough for most exercising people to build and keep muscle.
- Lifting to build muscle: 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg a day. A 2018 meta-analysis of 49 trials with 1,863 people found that gains in fat-free mass leveled off at about 1.6 g per kg a day. The upper end of the confidence interval was 2.2 g per kg, which is where this range stops.
Good to know
- Per kilogram of body weight, not of lean mass. If you carry a lot of extra body fat, ranges based on total weight can run high; a dietitian can tailor it.
- In a calorie deficit, the same position stand notes that lean, resistance-trained people may need more, about 2.3 to 3.1 g per kg a day, to hold on to muscle. That evidence is for people who already lift, and this calculator does not go there.
- More is not always better. Gains level off, and protein also has to fit with the rest of what you eat.
- Spreading protein across your meals is fine, but the studies above found total daily intake matters most.
These ranges are for healthy adults. They are not advice for pregnancy, kidney disease, or anyone under a doctor's care for diet.
Sources
- Institute of Medicine. Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. National Academies Press, 2005. doi:10.17226/10490
- Jager R, Kerksick CM, Campbell BI, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 2017;14:20. doi:10.1186/s12970-017-0177-8
- Morton RW, Murphy KT, McKellar SR, et al. A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults. Br J Sports Med 2018;52(6):376-384. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2017-097608
More: How much protein do you need? and the calorie and macro calculator.