What is protein and what does it actually do?
Proteins are chains of amino acids. Your body breaks them apart during digestion, then reassembles the pieces into muscle, enzymes, hormones and antibodies. That construction site never closes, whether you train or not.
Of the twenty or so amino acids the human body uses, nine are classed as essential. Your body can't make them: they have to come from food, every single day. Leucine, one of those essential amino acids, directly switches on muscle protein synthesis after a session.
Protein does a job that carbs and fat don't. Those two mainly supply energy; protein is structural material. That's why a long-running shortfall shows up first in your muscle mass and your recovery.
One thing people forget: the body doesn't store protein the way it stores fat. Whatever isn't used during the day gets burned or converted. Hence the case for regular intake rather than one big plate at night.
How much protein per day for your profile?
The reference figure is always grams per kilo of body weight, never an absolute number. A 60 kg lifter and a 95 kg lifter don't need the same amount of protein, even doing the exact same session.
France's food safety agency (ANSES) puts the figure at 0.83 g per kilo per day for a healthy sedentary adult. That's a physiological floor, not a performance target. As soon as training becomes regular, the number climbs.
How much protein per day for women
A sedentary 60 kg woman covers her needs at around 50 g. If she trains three or four times a week in the gym, a realistic target sits between 1.4 and 1.8 g per kilo, so 84 to 108 g. There's no biological reason to aim lower than a man at the same body weight and training load.
After 50, things shift. Age-related muscle loss speeds up and the body makes poorer use of the protein it takes in. Geriatric guidelines move up to 1.0 to 1.2 g per kilo, and higher still for anyone doing strength work.
How much protein per day for men
Same logic, bigger absolute numbers because body mass is bigger too. An 80 kg man lifting three times a week is looking at 112 to 144 g a day. Below 100 g, strength progress tends to stall out eventually, even with solid training.
How much protein per day for athletes
The type of effort matters. In endurance work you're around 1.2 to 1.6 g per kilo: protein mostly repairs micro-damage and limits breakdown. For strength sports, the range recommended by sports nutrition bodies runs from 1.6 to 2.2 g per kilo.
An athlete doing two sessions a day sits at the top of the range. Someone training twice a week stays at the bottom. It's not about motivation, it's about the work volume you actually put in.
How much protein per day for lifting and bulking
For standard resistance training, the useful amount settles around 1.6 g per kilo. Meta-analyses show the extra gain becomes marginal past 2.2 g per kilo in a natural lifter. Eating 250 g at 75 kg body weight doesn't build more muscle, it just costs more.
When bulking, protein is almost never the limiting factor: total calorie surplus is. You can put away 180 g of protein a day, but with no energy surplus the muscle won't show up. Carbs and fat have a real job here as fuel.
In practice, nine out of ten lifters stuck on a bulk aren't short on protein: they're just not eating enough, full stop.
Another thing: the training load has to keep up. High protein with no progression on the bar produces nothing. It's mechanical stimulus plus building material that grows a muscle, in that order.
This is exactly where the structure of your week decides everything. If you don't have a readable session plan, no plate of food will make up for it. Our goal-based training programmes set the volume, the sets and the progression for every cycle.
| Goal | g/kg per day | Example at 70 kg |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary | 0.83 | 58 g |
| Endurance | 1.2 to 1.6 | 84 to 112 g |
| Lifting, maintenance | 1.6 | 112 g |
| Bulking | 1.8 to 2.2 | 126 to 154 g |
| Cutting | 2.0 to 2.4 | 140 to 168 g |
How much protein per day to lose weight
It sounds backwards, but protein intake should go up as calories come down. In a deficit the body digs into its reserves, muscle included. A high intake limits that loss and protects lean mass.
The range used on a cut runs from 2.0 to 2.4 g per kilo of body weight. For someone at 65 kg, that's 130 to 156 g a day. If you're carrying a lot of body fat, base the calculation on target weight rather than current weight.
Protein is also the most filling of the three macronutrients by some distance. A 30 g protein breakfast kills the 11 a.m. hunger far better than a pastry with the same calories. Digesting it burns more energy than digesting carbs, too.
How much protein per day for women losing weight
A 62 kg woman in a moderate deficit is aiming for roughly 124 to 140 g. In practice the obstacle isn't the number, it's the spread: plenty of women load their protein into dinner and are only at 40 g by 6 p.m. Splitting it across three or four servings changes the outcome at the same total.
- Breakfast: eggs, quark, skyr
- Lunch: fish, poultry, pulses
- Snack: Greek yoghurt, a handful of almonds
- Dinner: lean meat, tofu, lentils
Which foods contain protein?
Animal protein sources cover meat, fish, eggs and dairy. They deliver all nine essential amino acids in favourable proportions and are well absorbed. One egg has about 6 g; a 150 g chicken breast gives you close to 33.
Plant protein comes from pulses, whole grains, tofu, tempeh and nuts and seeds. Some of these have a limiting amino acid: lentils are short on methionine, rice on lysine. Pairing a pulse with a grain over the course of the day settles it.
So the difference between animal and plant protein comes down mainly to amino acid profile and density. You need roughly twice the volume of food from plants to hit the same protein total. Soy and quinoa are the exceptions: their profile is complete.
- Chicken breast: 22 g per 100 g
- Canned tuna: 25 g per 100 g
- Cooked lentils: 9 g per 100 g
- Firm tofu: 15 g per 100 g
- Fat-free quark: 8 g per 100 g
A vegetarian or vegan diet covers high requirements perfectly well, as long as you aim about 10% higher and vary your sources. Vegan lifters hit 1.8 g per kilo without much trouble using tofu, seitan, peas and a pea or rice protein supplement.
How to spread your intake across the day
Muscle protein synthesis fires up again at every serving that carries enough leucine. So it works better to aim for 25 to 40 g per meal, three or four times a day, than to pile it all into one sitting. Total intake is still the main lever, but the spread adds a few points.
The famous thirty-minute anabolic window has been heavily walked back. What counts is getting a protein-rich meal in within two to three hours of the session. If you train fasted, pull that serving in closer.
A serving before bed, around 30 to 40 g of casein or quark, improves overnight recovery for people who train in the evening. It's not essential, but it's an easy lever when the daily total is hard to reach.
Powders aren't some separate category: they're concentrated food. One scoop of whey gives you about 24 g for 120 kcal, which saves a busy day. They never replace full meals, which also bring fibre, vitamins and minerals.
Is too much protein a risk?
In someone with normal kidney function, no serious study has shown damage at intakes up to 2.5 g per kilo over several months. The kidneys filter more urea; they don't wear out for it. Anyone with existing kidney disease needs medical supervision and these numbers don't apply to them.
The real downsides are more mundane. A very high intake takes up room on the plate and mechanically squeezes out carbs, which hurts your energy in the gym. Decent hydration, in the region of 35 ml per kilo, is worth sticking to as well.
One last useful rule: measure before you correct. Log your intake for seven days, compare it to your target, then adjust one variable at a time. The same method applies to your working weights, which is what session-by-session progress tracking is for.
If you want to test this over a real cycle rather than a single week, the trial covers a full mesocycle.