For most adults who train, published guidance puts daily protein between roughly 0.65 and 0.90 grams per pound of bodyweight. The government RDA of 0.36 grams per pound is a different number answering a different question, and confusing the two is why this topic stays muddled.
Here are the ranges, where each one comes from, and what actually moves you within them.
What is the RDA for protein, and why is it so low?
The Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day, which is about 0.36 grams per pound. For a 170 pound adult that is roughly 62 grams.
That number is not wrong, but it answers a narrow question: how much protein prevents deficiency in a generally healthy, sedentary adult. It was never intended as the amount that supports training adaptation, and it is routinely quoted as though it were.
This single distinction explains most of the confusion online. Someone citing 0.36 grams per pound and someone citing 0.9 are usually both reporting accurately. They are answering different questions.
How much protein do you need if you train?
The International Society of Sports Nutrition's position stand on protein and exercise states that 1.4 to 2.0 grams per kilogram per day, which is about 0.65 to 0.90 grams per pound, "is sufficient for most exercising individuals" for building and maintaining muscle mass.
For that same 170 pound adult, this is roughly 110 to 155 grams a day. Somewhere between 1.8 and 2.5 times the RDA.
Where you sit inside that range depends on how much you train, how hard, and whether you are eating at maintenance or in a deficit. The bottom of the range is a reasonable floor for someone lifting a few times a week. The top is more relevant to someone training most days or eating fewer calories than they burn.
Does the number change when you are eating in a deficit?
Yes, and this is the part most guidance skips.
When calories are restricted, protein requirements go up rather than down, because the body has less total energy available and protein is what protects lean tissue. A systematic review of resistance-trained lean athletes in caloric restriction concluded that intakes of 2.3 to 3.1 grams per kilogram of fat-free mass are appropriate, and that the figure should be "scaled upwards with severity of caloric restriction and leanness."
Read that unit carefully, because it is the most useful thing in this article: per kilogram of fat-free mass, not per kilogram of bodyweight. Fat-free mass is everything you are made of other than fat. Two people who weigh the same can have very different amounts of it, which means the same bodyweight-based protein target can be roughly right for one of them and meaningfully off for the other.
The ISSN position stand adds that intakes above 3.0 grams per kilogram per day may have positive effects on body composition in resistance-trained individuals.
Why does fat-free mass matter more than bodyweight?
Because muscle is what responds to protein, and bodyweight is a poor proxy for how much muscle you are carrying.
A scale gives you one number that combines muscle, fat, water and everything else. A body composition measurement separates them. Once you know your fat-free mass, the deficit guidance above becomes a real number rather than an estimate built on an estimate.
This is the practical argument for measuring body composition rather than weight, and it is why Project LeanNation includes an InBody scan with a PLN+ membership rather than treating the scale as the measurement. It is also the honest reason: not because the number is motivating, but because several of the recommendations that matter are expressed in units a scale cannot give you.
How much protein can you use in one sitting?
The ISSN position stand recommends doses of 0.25 grams per kilogram of bodyweight, or an absolute dose of 20 to 40 grams, to maximise the muscle protein synthesis response, and suggests including 700 to 3000 milligrams of leucine alongside a full range of essential amino acids.
It also recommends spreading those doses evenly, every three to four hours, across the day.
In practice that is the part people get wrong more often than the daily total. Three meals where one is a 70 gram protein dinner and two are near zero adds up to the same daily number as four balanced meals, and the evidence favours the distribution.
Do protein needs change as you get older?
Guidance for older adults sits above the general RDA. The US Administration for Community Living reports that researchers recommend older adults consume 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram, roughly 0.45 to 0.55 grams per pound, citing work from the PROT-AGE study group.
That is still below the range for people who train, which is the point worth taking away: age raises the floor, training raises it further, and the two stack rather than compete.
What does this look like in actual food?
Twenty to forty grams of protein per sitting, three to four times a day, is more food than most people picture. A chicken breast is roughly 30 to 40 grams. Three eggs is roughly 18. A cup of Greek yoghurt is roughly 20.
This is the real reason protein targets get missed, and it is not motivation. It is that hitting 130 grams a day requires either planning or a system, and most people are doing neither at 6pm on a Tuesday. Project LeanNation's macro-tracked prepared meals exist to remove that arithmetic, which is a convenience argument rather than a nutritional one, and it is worth being clear about which is which.
A necessary caveat
Every figure above is general population guidance from published position stands, not advice for you specifically. Protein needs can differ with kidney function, pregnancy, certain medications and a range of medical conditions. Project LeanNation is a nutrition retail and coaching business, not a medical provider. If you have a condition that affects how you process protein, that conversation belongs with your doctor or a registered dietitian before it belongs with anyone selling meals.
