How Much Protein Per Day?

Most people either guess their protein intake or copy a number off a fitness account. Here is how the actual guidelines work, and how to turn them into a figure for yourself.

The baseline number

Health Canada’s Dietary Reference Intakes set the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein at 0.80 g per kg of body weight per day for adults aged 19 and over — expressed as 56 g per day for the reference adult. Protein should make up 10–35% of total energy intake.

One thing that gets missed: the RDA is the amount sufficient to meet the requirement of nearly all healthy people. It is a floor designed to prevent deficiency, not a performance target.

If you train

The joint position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine recommends 1.2 to 2.0 g per kg per day for athletes, with higher intakes potentially indicated during intensified training or while restricting energy.

Work out your own number

Multiply your body weight in kilograms by the figure in the middle column. That is your daily target, not a per-meal one.

A worked example: a 65 kg person who lifts three times a week sits somewhere around 1.4 g per kg, which is roughly 91 g per day. Split across four meals that is about 23 g each — achievable without any powder at all, but easy to miss at breakfast.

Three mistakes that make the number wrong

• Using the RDA as a target: It is a minimum for general health, not a figure optimised for training or for maintaining muscle as you age.
• Counting food weight instead of protein weight: 100 g of cooked chicken is not 100 g of protein. Read the nutrition panel, not the scale.
• Front-loading nothing and back-loading everything: A day with 10 g at breakfast and 60 g at dinner hits the same total as an even split, but it is not the same plan.

Spreading it across the day

Hitting the total matters most, but nutrient and distribution help. The same position stand suggests 0.25–0.3 g per kg per meal — roughly 15 to 25 g for most people — taken every 3 to 5 hours across several meals.

In practice that usually means adding protein to breakfast, which is where most people fall short, rather than stacking it all into dinner.

If you eat mostly plants

Plant-based protein sources differ from one another in digestibility and in their amino acid patterns, which is why the FAO recommends evaluating protein quality rather than protein quantity alone.

Practically, that means variety matters: a diet built on a single plant protein source is a weaker plan than one that mixes them, and a complete protein such as soy makes hitting your targets much easier. If you are weighing dairy against plant sources, check out our comparison on soy versus whey.

Where a protein powder fits

Food first is sound advice, but a scoop of protein powder solves a specific problem: the meal where you are 20 g short and have no time to cook. That is what it is good at, and it is the reason the taste matters — a powder you avoid drinking contributes nothing.

This article is general information and not individual dietary advice.