LogmaProtein advice online is a mess of round numbers. “Eat 1 gram per pound.” “Just have more chicken.” None of that tells you what your body actually needs.
The real answer scales with your body weight in kilograms, and it changes depending on your goal. This guide gives you the ranges, a table you can act on, and a worked example so you can do the math for yourself.
Why protein is measured per kg of body weight
Protein needs scale with lean mass, not with how much food feels like “a lot.” A person who weighs 90 kg needs more protein than a person who weighs 55 kg, even if they eat the same meals. That is why nutrition guidance uses grams per kilogram of body weight instead of a flat number.
This also means the same target looks different for everyone. Two people on the same plan, the same app, the same meals, still end up with different daily protein numbers once you convert their weight.
The basic ranges
The RDA (recommended dietary allowance) for protein is 0.8 grams per kg of body weight. That number is the minimum to prevent deficiency in a mostly sedentary adult. It is not a target for anyone who trains, is losing weight, or wants to hold onto muscle.
For people who train with the goal of building or keeping muscle, the useful range is 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kg. Going higher than that rarely adds benefit. Going lower usually means you are leaving muscle retention on the table, especially while in a calorie deficit.
Protein targets by goal (grams per kg)
| Goal | Protein target (g per kg) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sedentary, general health | 0.8 | The RDA minimum, not a performance target |
| Fat loss, preserving muscle | 1.8 to 2.2 | Higher end protects muscle during a deficit |
| Muscle gain, in a surplus | 1.6 to 2.0 | Enough to support growth without excess |
| Maintenance, active but not training hard | 1.2 to 1.6 | A middle ground for general activity |
| Older adults (any goal) | 1.2 to 1.6 minimum | Muscle retention gets harder with age |
Pick the row that matches your actual goal, not the one that sounds the most ambitious. More protein than your goal needs just displaces other food without added benefit.
Worked example: a 75 kg person
Say you weigh 75 kg and your goal is fat loss while keeping the muscle you have. Using the 1.8 to 2.2 g per kg range:
- Low end: 75 x 1.8 = 135 grams of protein per day
- High end: 75 x 2.2 = 165 grams of protein per day
So a reasonable target sits between 135 and 165 grams a day. At 4 kcal per gram, that is 540 to 660 kcal from protein alone, which you then build the rest of your meals around.
If the same person shifts to a muscle gain phase instead, the range becomes 1.6 to 2.0 g per kg:
- Low end: 75 x 1.6 = 120 grams
- High end: 75 x 2.0 = 150 grams
Notice the ranges overlap. Somewhere around 130 to 150 grams a day works for most goals at 75 kg, which is useful if your goal shifts over time and you do not want to recalculate constantly.
The same math works for any body weight. Multiply your weight in kg by the low end and the high end of your goal’s range, and you get a target window instead of a single rigid number. That window gives you room to hit your target on busy days without feeling like you failed.
Spreading protein through the day
Hitting a daily number matters more than exactly how you space it out, but there is a practical reason to spread it. Most people can only absorb and use so much protein in one sitting, so 3 to 4 meals with 30 to 50 grams each tends to work better than one huge meal.
This is also where tracking friction shows up the most. If logging a meal takes two minutes of scrolling through search results, most people give up on hitting a specific gram target and just guess. That is one of the reasons we built Logma: you say what you ate, it estimates the protein along with the calories, in about 3 seconds.
Protein and the rest of your diet
A few common mistakes push people’s actual intake far from their target:
- Estimating protein from memory instead of tracking it, which studies consistently show leads to underestimating intake
- Counting a food as “high protein” without checking the actual grams (a wrap or a smoothie can vary a lot)
- Using bodyweight in pounds instead of kg, which doubles the apparent gap between current intake and target
- Chasing the highest number in a range “to be safe” instead of picking what matches the actual goal
If you are not sure where your calories and protein currently land, start with the free calorie calculator to get a baseline TDEE, then build your protein target on top of that. Our post on how many calories to lose weight walks through that math in more detail if fat loss is the goal.
Protein does not exist on its own. Once you have a target in grams, the rest of your calories split between carbs and fat based on preference and training needs. Carbs and protein both run about 4 kcal per gram, fat runs about 9 kcal per gram, so a higher protein target does not have to mean a lower calorie target overall.
If your main goal is losing fat, keep in mind that a safe pace is about 0.5 to 1 percent of body weight per week. Hitting your protein number matters more at a faster pace, since a bigger deficit puts more pressure on muscle. For the deficit side of the math, see our guide on tracking calories without weighing your food, since portion estimation habits affect protein accuracy just as much as calorie accuracy.
None of this needs to be complicated to work. Pick a target range from the table, log your meals consistently, and adjust every few weeks based on how your weight and strength are actually trending, not based on how precise any single day felt.
FAQ
Do I need to hit my protein target exactly every single day?
No. Weekly averages matter more than any one day. Being 10 to 15 grams off on a given day will not change your results if the rest of the week is on target.
Is more protein always better for fat loss?
Not past a point. Going above about 2.2 g per kg rarely adds extra fat loss or muscle retention benefit, it just displaces carbs or fat in your plan without a clear upside.
Should I use my current weight or goal weight to calculate protein?
Use your current weight in most cases. If you have a large amount of fat to lose, some coaches use a number closer to your goal weight instead, since that keeps the protein target from becoming unrealistically high.
How do I know how much protein is actually in my meals?
Logging each meal as you eat it is the most reliable way, since memory alone tends to miss sauces, oils, and true portion sizes. A voice first log takes a few seconds and estimates protein along with calories for you.