How much protein per day?
Three questions, your grams of protein for the day, your share at each meal, and your day filling up meal by meal. Plus what that looks like in chicken, eggs or lentils.
Your day, meal by meal
A 47 g meal, for example
Just one of these foods for the whole meal. Protein per 100 g: the Ciqual food composition table from ANSES (France), the same one the app uses.
How it's calculated
- The questions: your weight, your goal (the app's three) and your number of meals. Nothing else: the app doesn't change your protein by sport or by the day's session, it's your carbs that follow your training.
- Your daily protein, the app's calculation: 2 g per kilogram of body weight (0.91 g per pound), the app's starting setting, rounded to the gram. “Lean out” raises that floor to 2.2 g/kg (1 g/lb) to protect your muscle while calories drop (the International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand even cites 2.3 to 3.1 g/kg for strength athletes in a calorie deficit: R. Jäger et al., Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2017). In the app, this setting can be changed from 1.2 to 3.0 g/kg.
- “Build muscle” doesn't go higher: beyond about 1.6 g/kg a day, extra protein no longer adds muscle with training (R. Morton 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”, British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018: 49 studies, 1,863 people). In the app, your calorie surplus goes to carbs, the fuel for your sessions.
- The useful range: 1.6 to 2.2 g per kilogram a day (0.73 to 1 g per pound), the low and high ends B. Schoenfeld and A. Aragon drew from the research (2018); the ISSN gives 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg for most athletes. These are ranges: nobody knows your exact need to within a few grams. For comparison, the reference for an adult who doesn't train is 0.83 g/kg (European Food Safety Authority, 2012).
- Your share per meal (added by the tool, the app doesn't do this): your daily target split evenly across your meals, to the gram, with any leftover grams going to the first meals. The benchmark comes from B. Schoenfeld and A. Aragon (“How much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building? Implications for daily protein distribution”, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2018): 0.4 g/kg per meal, and up to 0.55 g/kg for 2.2 g/kg spread over four meals. Below 0.4 g/kg, the tool says “meals too light”. Above 0.55 g/kg, “a lot at once”: it isn't wasted (a big serving makes the effect last longer: J. Trommelen et al., Cell Reports Medicine, 2023), but one more meal spreads it better. The ISSN recommends regular servings, every 3 to 4 hours.
- Your animated day: meal times are just markers (for example 8 am, 12:30 pm and 7:30 pm for three meals), not a rule. Each bar is one meal's share, the green band the useful range of 0.4 to 0.55 g/kg, the gauge on the right what you've eaten since morning, up to your daily target.
- The foods: how much of a single food makes up a whole meal's share, based on its protein per 100 g in the ANSES Ciqual food composition table (2020), the one built into the app, rounded to the gram as in the app. Amounts rounded to the nearest half ounce (or 10 g); a medium egg without its shell counts as 55 g (1.9 oz), the reference in the app's food catalog.
- The limits: the calculation starts from your total body weight. If you carry a lot of body fat, it overestimates your need: use your healthy weight instead. Protein from bread, pasta or vegetables counts toward your day too. If you have kidney disease, ask your doctor before increasing your protein.
Frequently asked questions
How much protein per day to build muscle?
Between 1.6 and 2.2 g per kilogram of body weight a day (0.73 to 1 g per pound): beyond that, studies see no extra muscle. The Cadevia app starts at 2 g/kg, about 141 g a day for a 155 lb person. To gain weight, it's the calorie surplus that counts, and the app puts it into carbs.
How much protein per meal?
About 0.4 g per kilogram (0.18 g per pound), up to 0.55 g/kg (Schoenfeld and Aragon, 2018): 28 to 39 g for a 155 lb person. At 141 g a day, that's 4 meals of about 36 g; with 3 meals, each carries about 47 g, and a snack would spread it better.
How much protein to lose fat without losing muscle?
A bit more than usual: the Cadevia app raises your protein to 2.2 g per kilogram (1 g per pound) when you lean out, about 155 g a day for a 155 lb person, to protect your muscle while calories drop.
How much protein is in chicken breast?
30 g per 100 g (8.5 g per ounce) of pan-fried chicken breast, according to the Ciqual food table from ANSES (France). For comparison, per 100 g: 27 g in canned tuna in water, 14 g in hard-boiled eggs, 13 g in tofu, 10 g in cooked lentils, 8 g in fromage blanc.