Protein Calculator – Calculate Your Daily Protein Intake

What is protein?

Protein is one of the three macronutrients your body needs daily, alongside carbohydrate and fat. It is built from amino acids, which your body uses to build and repair muscle, support bone, produce hormones and enzymes, maintain skin, hair and nails, run the immune system, and recover after exercise.

Unlike fat, the body has no dedicated protein store to draw on. There is no reserve tank — the "store" is your own muscle tissue. That is why intake matters daily rather than weekly, and why protein becomes more important, not less, when you are eating fewer calories.

How much protein do you need?

It depends on your body weight, age, how much you train, and what you are training for. The published ranges look like this:

The lowest figure is the UK reference nutrient intake of 0.75 g/kg. It is worth being clear about what that number is: a floor set to prevent deficiency in sedentary adults, not a target for anyone who trains. Sports nutrition guidance has recommended considerably more than the RDA for decades.

Notice that weight loss carries the highest range on the table. That surprises people, but it follows directly — when you eat less, protein is what stops the body meeting the shortfall by breaking down muscle.

Is more protein better?

Up to a point, and then no.

Once you are inside the range for your goal, adding more protein does not add more muscle. The evidence for muscle growth plateaus at roughly 1.6–2.2 g/kg for healthy adults doing resistance training, and beyond that the extra protein is simply used as energy or excreted. It is not harmful for healthy people — it is just expensive and displaces other food.

Protein is also only one of four things muscle growth needs. Progressive resistance training, enough total calories, and adequate sleep are the others, and a shortfall in any of them cannot be fixed by eating more chicken.

Should you eat protein at every meal?

It helps, for two separate reasons.

The practical one is arithmetic: 140g of protein is daunting as one evening task and unremarkable as four portions of 35g. Most people who miss their target miss it because they left too much of it until dinner.

The physiological one is that muscle protein synthesis responds to a meaningful dose of protein and then returns to baseline, so several well-sized servings across the day stimulate it more often than one large one. Roughly 25–40g per meal is the usual guidance for adults, a little higher for older adults.

If breakfast is where your protein disappears, our guide to hitting your protein goals every day and our list of high-protein breakfasts are the practical fixes.

Protein for weight loss

Protein is not just for people trying to get bigger. It is arguably most useful when you are eating less.

• It is the most filling of the three macronutrients, so the same calories go further against hunger
• It preserves lean mass in a deficit, so more of what you lose is fat
• It costs more energy to digest than carbohydrate or fat, a small effect but a real one
• It protects your resting metabolic rate by protecting the muscle that drives it

That last point matters more than it sounds. Weight lost as muscle lowers the rate at which you burn energy, which is part of why aggressive low-protein dieting tends to be followed by regain. Pair a higher protein intake with the calorie deficit calculator and some resistance training, and the composition of what you lose changes.

Protein for building muscle

Resistance training causes small amounts of damage to muscle fibres. The body repairs them using amino acids from the protein you eat, and adapts by building slightly more than was there before.

Without enough protein that repair is limited, and consistent training produces less than it should. Without the training, extra protein has nothing to build. The combination is what works:

• Progressive strength training — adding weight or reps over time
• Enough total calories; muscle gain is difficult in a deficit
• 1.6–2.2 g/kg of protein, spread across the day
• Sleep, which is when most of the repair happens

Mealiv's high-protein meal planner builds weeks around a protein target, and the high-protein meal plan guide shows what that looks like in practice.

Protein in common foods

Approximate protein per 100g, as eaten. Use it to sanity-check whether a meal is anywhere near the per-meal figure the calculator gave you.

Two things worth noticing. Cooked weights are higher per 100g than raw ones because water is lost, so 100g of raw chicken is not 31g of protein. And figures per 100g are not the same as figures per portion — pumpkin seeds beat chicken per 100g, but nobody eats 100g of pumpkin seeds. Check a real recipe with the recipe nutrition calculator rather than working from this table alone.

Protein-rich foods by category

Meat and poultry

Chicken and turkey breast are the leanest options at around 29–31g per 100g cooked. Lean beef mince, pork loin and lamb sit between 25 and 27g and bring more iron, zinc and B12.

Fish and seafood

Tuna, salmon, cod and prawns all land between 23 and 25g per 100g. Oily fish such as salmon and mackerel come with long-chain omega-3, which is a reason to include them beyond the protein.

Dairy and eggs

Greek yoghurt, skyr and cottage cheese are the highest-protein options relative to calories, at 10–11g per 100g. Eggs give about 6g each. Cheese is protein-dense but also energy-dense, so it counts differently in a deficit.

Vegetarian

Eggs, dairy, tofu, tempeh, Quorn and pulses cover protein needs comfortably. Quorn and tempeh are the highest-protein of the meat alternatives at 15–19g per 100g.

Vegan

Tofu, tempeh, seitan, lentils, chickpeas, beans, edamame, nuts and seeds all contribute. Individual plant foods vary in their amino acid profile, which is where the "incomplete protein" idea comes from — but eating a variety across the day resolves it without any need to combine foods within a single meal.

Common protein myths

"You can only absorb 30g of protein in one sitting"

Not true as stated. Muscle protein synthesis does appear to respond to a dose of roughly that size, which is probably where the number came from — but absorption and muscle-building are different things. Protein beyond that is still digested and still used, for every other job protein does. Larger meals just do more of it more slowly.

"High protein damages your kidneys"

There is no good evidence of harm to healthy kidneys from higher protein intakes. This one comes from advice given to people with existing kidney disease, where protein restriction genuinely is appropriate, and was then generalised to everyone. If you have kidney disease or another condition affecting protein metabolism, follow your clinician's guidance.

"Plant protein isn't good enough"

Plant proteins can meet needs perfectly well. Individual sources vary in amino acid profile, so variety matters more than it does on an omnivorous diet, and total intake may need to sit a little higher — but the idea that you must carefully combine foods at each meal was abandoned decades ago.

"You need protein powder"

No. Powder is a convenience, not a requirement — useful if you find protein hard to hit, travel a lot, or simply prefer a shake to another chicken breast. Whole foods bring fibre, vitamins and minerals that powder does not.

Turn your protein target into real meals

Knowing you need 145g of protein is useful. Knowing what to eat to get there is the part that actually changes anything.

That is the gap Mealiv fills. It builds personalised meal plans around your protein target, suggests recipes that fit it, tracks intake as you log, analyses the rest of your nutrition alongside it, generates shopping lists from the plan, and adjusts when your goals change.

Instead of doing the arithmetic yourself every week, you get a plan that already adds up.

Important information

These protein targets are general estimates and do not constitute medical or dietary advice. Individual needs vary. Consult a qualified healthcare professional before making significant changes to your diet.