Why protein targets differ by goal
Protein does two jobs that calories alone can't: it supplies the raw material for building muscle, and it protects the muscle you already have when calories drop. That's why the right target depends on what you're doing. A sedentary person maintaining weight needs relatively little; a lifter in a calorie deficit needs the most — dieting raises protein needs precisely when you're eating less of everything.
This calculator uses bodyweight-based ranges, in grams per kilogram per day:
| Situation | Range (g/kg/day) |
|---|---|
| Sedentary, maintaining | 0.8 – 1.2 |
| Training, maintaining | 1.4 – 1.6 |
| Building muscle | 1.6 – 2.2 |
| Fat loss while training | 1.8 – 2.4 |
The research ranges
These numbers aren't gym folklore. The International Society of Sports Nutrition's position stand recommends 1.4–2.0 g/kg for building and maintaining muscle in most exercising people, with higher intakes (up to ~2.3–3.1 g/kg of lean mass) useful when dieting to preserve muscle. And a 2018 meta-analysis of 49 resistance-training studies (Morton et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine) found that the muscle-building benefit of extra protein plateaus at roughly 1.6 g/kg per day on average — with the upper confidence limit around 2.2 g/kg, which is why "1.6–2.2" is the standard muscle-gain range.
In other words: more protein helps up to a point, that point is lower than supplement marketing suggests, and eating at the top of your range is insurance, not waste — it costs you nothing but food budget.
One refinement: if your body-fat percentage is high (above ~30%), total bodyweight overstates your needs, because fat tissue needs almost no protein. Enter your body fat above and the calculator shows a lean-mass-based target alongside the standard one.
Spreading protein across the day
Muscle protein synthesis responds best to repeated doses of ~0.4 g/kg per meal — for most people that's 25–45 g of protein, 3–5 times a day. The calculator's per-meal number assumes four meals; three bigger ones or five smaller ones work too. What you're avoiding is the classic pattern of 10 g at breakfast, 15 g at lunch and a 90 g dinner scramble.
To make the gram counts concrete, here's what common foods deliver:
| Food | Protein |
|---|---|
| Chicken breast | 31 g per 100 g |
| Egg | 6 g each |
| Greek yogurt | ~10 g per 100 g |
| Whey protein | ~24 g per scoop |
| Tofu | 8 g per 100 g |
A 150 g day, for example, is a 3-egg breakfast with Greek yogurt, a chicken-breast lunch, a whey shake after training and a normal protein-centred dinner. Ordinary food, deliberately arranged.
Hitting it without obsessing
Protein is the macro most people miss without noticing — carbs and fat find their own way into your day, protein has to be planned. The fix is boring and effective: anchor every meal on a protein source first, weigh food for two weeks to calibrate your eye, and check your daily total instead of guessing. Once your target is set, pair it with your full macro split using the macro calculator.
Tracking is where most plans quietly die, which is why the CoachRight client app makes logging near-instant — snap a nutrition label and the AI scanner fills in the numbers, so your coach sees your real protein average, not your optimistic memory of it. If you're a coach setting targets for a roster of clients, start a free 14-day trial and track everyone's intake from one screen.