Protein Calculator
How much protein you need scales with body weight, and shifts depending on whether you are maintaining, losing or building — and on whether you are training. This calculator returns a range rather than a single number, because that is how the underlying guidance is expressed and a single figure would imply a precision the evidence does not support.
Your result
Fill in the fields on the left and your result appears here.
How the number is worked out
Protein requirements are conventionally stated in grams per kilogram of body weight, so the calculation is your weight multiplied by a figure appropriate to your situation. What changes between people is that multiplier.
Two things move it. Being in an energy deficit raises it, because when total intake falls the body draws more readily on lean tissue and adequate protein reduces how much of your weight loss comes from muscle. Resistance training raises it again, because training creates the demand that protein supplies the material for.
- The baseline recommended intake for sedentary adults sits at the bottom of the range and is designed to prevent deficiency, not to support training or preserve lean mass during weight loss.
- Losing weight moves the target up — the same absolute protein is a smaller share of a smaller intake.
- Regular resistance training moves it up again, and is what makes the protein useful rather than merely present.
- The per-meal figure matters more than the daily total in practice, because a daily number is hard to picture and easy to miss by a wide margin.
Track it, don't recalculate it.
Pep AI logs your weight, meals and protein alongside your schedule, so the numbers on this page turn into a trend instead of a one-off. Free on iOS and Android.
Why a range rather than one number
Published protein guidance is expressed as ranges because the evidence supports ranges. Individual requirements vary with age, body composition, training history and how much total energy you are eating, and none of those are captured by a weight-based formula.
The practical reading is that anywhere in the range is reasonable, the bottom is a floor rather than a target, and consistency matters more than precision. Hitting the lower end every day beats hitting the upper end twice a week.
One important exclusion: reduced kidney function changes this calculation entirely, and general protein guidance does not apply. If that describes you, the target your clinician sets is the one that counts.
Frequently asked questions
This calculator is general information for healthy adults, not medical or dietary advice. It applies published population formulas and cannot account for your clinical situation. Where a clinician has set you a target, that target replaces this one.
Built by the Pep AI team.