The age-old question, at least for those of us who lift and workout! I see so many numbers and ranges online, so I wanted to share my personal recommendation based on years of research, a certification in fitness nutrition, another certification in prenatal and postpartum fitness, and being my own guinea pig for the last decade!

You’ll first need to know how much you weigh, I know, yuck. You’ll then need to know your body fat percentage. I recommend a seven-fold skin test with calipers. This is also how I recommend tracking progress once a week as well- the scale is purely awful so let’s avoid that as much as we can.

If you want to know what your body fat percentage is before your calipers arrive in the mail, I’ve linked a helpful chart for males and females!

Once you have your weight and body fat percentage, you’re ready to determine your protein goal for the day (this is going to be for someone at maintenance or cutting, I’ll discuss bulking numbers second).

You should be getting 1 – 1.2g per 1lb lean body mass. What does this mean? If you’re 100lbs at 20% body fat, that means you have 80lbs lean body mass. So you should be consuming 80 – 96g of protein a day. I know that’s a wide range, I personally like to stick to the upper part of the range because I like protein but as long as you’re in the range, you’re good. You should be updating this weekly based on your body’s changes!

If you’re bulking, let’s keep it super simple. 1g per 1lb. So the 100lb person above should aim for 100g of protein a day.

Ideally, you’re spacing that out between your meals. We don’t need anyone consuming 4lbs of steak at one meal, even though that sounds amazing!

If you’re struggling to hit your protein numbers, I highly suggest looking into supplementing with protein powder! It makes it super easy to hit your protein numbers for the day and can help break up the boringness that meat or eggs can bring!