By now, you’ve heard about the power of protein. It’s an amazing macronutrient that helps you stay full and maintain muscle mass while you lose weight. You may be wondering, “How much protein do I need?” Well, we can help you figure that out.
The MyFitnessPal Protein Calculator is a simple, user-friendly tool designed to help you determine your approximate daily protein needs based on your unique lifestyle and health goals.
How to use the MyFitnessPal Protein Calculator
This tool takes some of the guesswork out of how much protein you should be eating. All you need to do is enter some basic information about yourself, including:
- age: Protein needs may vary with age, especially as muscle mass naturally declines over time.
- gender: Although this is just one consideration, men and women tend to have different protein needs.
- weight: Your weight helps determine your protein needs. It directly affects the amount your body needs to maintain and grow.
- Activity level: Whether you’re sedentary or highly active, your activity level plays a big role in determining how much protein your body uses.
- Fitness goals: Whether your goal is to lose weight, build muscle, or maintain your current health, the calculator will adjust your recommendations accordingly.
Protein is essential for building and repairing tissue, producing enzymes and hormones, and maintaining muscle mass. This calculator uses evidence-based guidelines to ensure your protein intake supports your goals without going overboard (1).
As always, these suggestions are just an informative guide for you. If you have any medical condition, you should always seek personalized advice from your physician or registered dietitian.
Recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein
For most adults, the RDA for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. However, this amount is minimum Amount needed to support basic body functions and prevent muscle loss (7).
The RDA amount may not be sufficient to meet the needs of active individuals or those with specific fitness goals. How much protein you need to build muscle or maintain muscle mass is another story.
Protein Intake Guidelines
Other organizations that issue recommendations, such as the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the International Society of Sports Nutrition, recommend 1.2 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. (1)
A person weighing 150 pounds needs 82 to 136 grams of protein per day. Plug your own numbers into the calculator to get a better idea of what would be a good protein target for you.
How to calculate protein intake in your diet
When you first see your protein goal for the day, it may seem high. Eating one meal and one snack at a time can help achieve this goal.
Here are two good strategies for calculating the amount of protein in each meal:
Read nutrition labels
Nutritional labels list the protein content per serving. Multiply this number by the number of servings you consume to calculate the total amount of protein you consume from packaged foods.
Use my workout buddy
With MyFitnessPal, tracking protein is easy. Simply log your meals in the app and it will calculate your daily protein intake to help you stay on track with your goals.
High protein food sources
Many everyday foods are rich in protein. Here are some of the most common foods that can help you achieve your protein and overall nutrition goals:
Risks of not eating enough or too much protein
Every cell in our body requires protein. Without it, muscle growth, development, and tissue repair cannot occur properly (2).
But it’s possible to have too much of a good thing. When you go all-in on protein, it can crowd out other nutritious foods. “It becomes more difficult to include all food groups, it becomes more difficult to vary and structure meals, and it becomes more difficult to balance carbohydrate and fat needs,” said Stephanie Nelson, chief nutritional scientist at MyFitnessPal. .
Achieving the right balance is key to avoiding these problems while optimizing your health.
FAQ
Use the MyFitnessPal protein calculator by entering your weight, age, activity level and goals.
Meals focus on protein-rich foods, such as eggs for breakfast, grilled chicken for lunch, and scrambled tofu for dinner.
Most people benefit from 1.2-1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight when losing weight (1).
Building new muscle and maintaining muscle mass requires a positive muscle protein balance. Research shows that resistance exercise combined with protein consumption stimulates muscle protein synthesis (muscle growth) (3).
This means it’s important to consume enough protein when lifting weights to build muscle while maintaining your current muscle mass. Although technically the body can use amino acid stores to build muscle, it is not ideal and has not been shown to be as effective, so protein intake recommendations are higher for physically active individuals than for sedentary individuals (4) .
While not consuming enough protein is not ideal, consuming too much protein can also have adverse effects. The kidneys filter the byproducts of protein intake, so anyone with altered kidney function should avoid eating large amounts of protein. Fluid is also required to break down and eliminate these byproducts, so hydration status is sometimes affected when protein is consumed in excess (5).
Remember, the source of your protein is just as important as the amount, and research shows that overconsumption of red and processed meat increases your overall risk of death. You may want to choose more protein sources such as fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, and low-fat dairy products (6).
Additional resources for further learning
- The Essential Guide to Optimal Healthy Protein
- Carbohydrate, Protein, and Fat Ratios: The Role of Macronutrients in Weight Loss
- Free Macro Calculator
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