Protein Targets: How Much You Actually Need

The one-gram-per-pound rule is a good default precisely because it is hard to get wrong. It lands high enough to protect muscle in almost every context, and low enough that you can still fit carbs and fats around it.

Where The Number Comes From

Most of the evidence clusters between 0.7 and 1.0g per pound of bodyweight for lifters. Below that, muscle retention starts to suffer in a deficit. Above it, the returns flatten out fast.

Context Changes The Floor

• Cutting. Hold the top of the range. A deficit is when protein does the most work.
• Maintaining. The middle is plenty. You are not fighting anything.
• Building. Surprisingly, you need less than people assume — the surplus does much of the lifting.

Set the floor once and stop renegotiating it every meal.