There’s nothing like a big occasion looming on the calendar (where you’ll be the center of attention, no less) to get you paying closer attention to your diet.
For me, that was much of 2023. I was excitedly planning my fall wedding and wondering what might help me look and feel my best on the big day. One of those things was protein. Like many of us, I had absorbed all the Big Protein buzz filling the airwaves: It will help you lose weight! Gain muscle! Have more energy! Become the human who talks endlessly about their macros!
Whether it was valid science or impressive marketing, I decided to be a bit more intentional about my protein intake — just to see what kind of impact it had. I set a rough benchmark: 100 grams of protein per day, more days of the week than not. I tracked it for a few weeks until I felt like I had a good handle on things, then I went on vibes. I didn’t overly stress or obsess, but over time without really realizing it, hitting my goal (or close to it) became the default, not the exception.
Let me tell you, what started as a “let’s try this for a few months” has turned into a fundamental shift I’m still following today. Being intentional about hitting higher daily protein targets has had impossible-to-ignore effects, like way less brain fog and more sustained energy. I think I sleep better, and I know I get better workouts in. It has also simplified the “What should I make to eat?” mental load that used to plague my every meal.
And best of all? It really wasn’t as hard (or as hardcore) as social media gurus would have you believe.
Here’s what was going on in my body that whole time.
What Protein Actually Does
While you don’t need to convert completely to the protein craze that has taken over society (by all means, take a hard pass on Kloud by Kardashian popcorn), it is worth knowing why researchers are so bullish on this macro.
You probably already know that protein helps build muscle, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. “Muscle isn’t just about strength or aesthetics — it’s metabolically active tissue that protects us,” says Candice Knight, MD, MPH, a longevity-focused integrative medicine doctor and chief medical officer of Knight Wellness.
Case in point: A 2024 JAMA study of more than 8,000 people over 10 years found higher protein intake was associated with lower death rates, particularly in older age.
That protection is rooted in how amino acids (particularly one called leucine) activate the mTOR pathway, which stimulates a process called muscle protein synthesis. It’s a process that is in constant flux because muscle proteins are also being broken down and cleared out, so we need to keep replenishing them.
“When we eat protein, the amino acids it contains are absorbed by our body and taken up by skeletal muscle, where they switch on the machinery that builds and repairs muscle tissue,” explains Emily Lantz, PhD, assistant professor of nutrition sciences and health behavior at The University of Texas Medical Branch.
Which also leads protein to play a uniquely powerful role in your metabolism, says Knight. It helps promote satiety and reduces cravings by modulating appetite hormones (like ghrelin and GLP-1), helps stabilize blood glucose and insulin levels, and preserves lean body mass — aka the strongest determinant of your resting metabolic rate.
“Muscle is the most mitochondria-rich tissue in the body, and mitochondria act as the body’s cellular ‘batteries,’” explains Knight. “More muscle means more energy production, better fat burning, and metabolic flexibility. And protein is the raw material for this system.”
All of this is happening whether you’re a regular in the weight room or not. In fact, there’s promising evidence that dietary protein can help preserve muscle during times when you’re not able to exercise: A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis, for example, found protein and amino acid supplementation reduced muscle atrophy in joint replacement patients.
And more: New data shows higher protein intake can prevent muscle loss in people taking the medication semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy).
That’s just from eating protein, not being any more active than before.
That’s been a particularly helpful reframing for me. Right now, I’ve got some “life stuff” keeping me from exercising like I normally like to. Keeping my daily totals in that 100-gram range helps me feel like I’m doing something rather than feeling like all hope is lost.
Why You Might Need More Protein Than You Think
The current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram (or 2.2 pounds) of body weight per day. That’s about 55 grams a day for a 150-pound adult.
But it’s important to understand what that number represents. The RDA was established and designed to prevent deficiency — and reflects the minimum amount needed to meet the basic nutritional requirements of the majority of healthy people.
“It was not designed to make recommendations for optimizing protein intake to support skeletal muscle health, which becomes especially important as we get older,” says Lantz. It’s not just your daily totals that you want to keep an eye on, either. Remember that whole “muscle protein synthesis” stuff? “There must be a sufficient amount of specific amino acids in the meal to trigger and sustain this response, typically around 25 to 30 grams of high-quality protein.”
“We naturally experience a process called anabolic resistance, where our bodies become less responsive to the muscle-building signals of protein and resistance training,” explains Knight. “This means we actually need more high-quality protein to achieve the same effect we had in our younger years.”
The current (and growing) body of research overwhelmingly suggests that most of us — older adults, women, anyone not actively strength training — could benefit from upping our daily totals.
A January 2025 study revealed middle-aged and older adults with type 2 diabetes and low fitness who ate 1.2-1.5 g/kg of protein daily for 12 weeks showed significant improvements in handgrip strength and physical performance compared to a group consuming less protein (0.8-1 g/kg daily), who saw declines.
And a recent eight-week resistance training study showed that women with high-protein intake (2.5 g/kg) gained triple the muscle and lost fat compared to those with low-protein intake (0.9 g/kg), despite similar strength increases in both groups.
The new sweet spot many experts recommend is 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight — or 80 to 110 grams per day for someone weighing 150 pounds. Though that range could be higher depending on your goals.
“I personally find that my clients feel and function better when their daily protein intake is above the RDA,” says Simone Gmuca, a New York City-based diet and fitness counselor and on-campus dietitian at St. John's University. “I’ve seen individuals eat as much as 1 gram per pound of bodyweight (2.2 g/kg) with great results in increased muscle mass, fat loss, and reduced hunger.”
The one caveat to make here is what we’re referring to as “body weight” for these equations. For adults who are overweight or have obesity, you’ll want to avoid using your current scale weight.
“Because fat mass is less metabolically active and less relevant in supporting muscle anabolism, clinicians commonly advocate the use of an ideal body weight or adjusted body weight rather than current total weight,” explains Jessica McAllister, RD, a performance dietitian in Hawaii. “This practice helps ensure that protein recommendations are not overestimated. A meal plan must allow for a calorie deficit without compromising the intake of high-quality protein needed for muscle retention and overall function.”
That means eating protein as a higher percentage of total calories, not adding to your daily calorie total.
Can you eat too much protein? High-protein diets have been linked to negative outcomes like kidney damage, increased insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes risk, and decreased bone density. However, a July 2025 review of research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that the evidence in these claims was weak or the outcomes weren’t related to protein itself. Researchers found “no compelling evidence that, in otherwise healthy humans, there is an upper level of protein intake where the conjectured harms of [high protein] intake have been demonstrated.”
So for “otherwise healthy humans,” upping your protein intake into the 1.2-1.5g/kg/day range or even a little higher will likely be just fine. If you’re concerned, speak with your doctor.
The bottom line? Whatever your goal, whatever your life stage, think of RDA as a floor, not a ceiling. If you want to thrive and not just survive — especially as you get older — it’s worth taking a closer look at your daily protein intake.
Making It Work Every Day
Look, if you’re someone who loves logging every morsel of food that passes your lips into a tracker, more power to you. That’s not the life I’m looking to live. And honestly? It doesn’t have to be that precise to make a meaningful difference.
Board-certified family medicine doctor and popular health educator Mikhail Varshavski, DO (aka “Dr. Mike”) tells his patients to aim for that 1 gram per pound of body weight per day, “but don't hold yourself to that as a hard and fast rule.”
“I get patients to download a fitness tracker just to understand on average what's in their food so that they're not surprised,” he says. “Getting that basic knowledge – not necessarily constantly counting your macros as if you're a bodybuilder – of how much protein is in this much chicken or how much protein is in this cheese that I eat very often. Getting a sense of things, I think, is valuable.”
I couldn’t agree more. Today I really only track under two conditions: if I've gotten way off base with my regular routine and want a helpful reset; or if I'm trying out new combos of foods and want to gauge how they work together for my daily totals.
But I did find tracking to be really enlightening and honestly helpful. It fundamentally changed the way I shop for groceries, the midday snacks I grab without thinking, and how I portion out my meals. For example, I make a delicious, thick bolognese-esque pasta sauce (it’s packed with lean protein and high-fiber vegetables, but feels rich and restaurant-worthy). I used to think of sauce as nothing but a topping to a big bowl of pasta. Now? I serve up my sauce first roughly a half cup for every 20-ish grams of protein I want — and top it off with a smaller serving of pasta. The sauce is the star because the protein is the star.
Struggling to find enough high-protein foods you like? If whole foods don’t always get you across the finish line, it’s OK to get a little help.
“It's much easier to drink a whey, casein, or egg protein shake and get that protein in through supplemental means if you're not meeting your daily requirements,” says Brad Schoenfeld, PhD, professor of exercise science at Lehman College and renowned researcher in hypertrophy and performance. “As you get older, taste buds start to dissipate. Some older individuals have difficulty chewing, too. Women, too. It seems that women often also are not programmed to take protein as much. It's just very easy to do through protein shakes if you're not going to be able to do it through whole foods.”
Plant protein also works well. A study of more than 3,700 middle-age women found that, overall, higher protein intake was associated with healthier aging, but the participants eating plant protein saw the greatest benefits.
The goal of adding more protein to your daily diet is not built around perfection, nor is it meant to be a crash course or fad diet. The goal is to create a mostly effortless habit over time, like brushing your teeth twice a day.
The Right Protein Intake Is Personal
“Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding is that protein needs are static or one-size-fits-all,” says Knight. “In reality, they vary dramatically.”
The truth is, while the growing body of research feels pretty clear (and compelling), how you apply that science is up to you.
“Look, my biggest hobby horse in life is to promote the importance of evidence-based practice,” says Schoenfeld. “But it’s not simply deferring to research. Research is virtually never going to tell you what to do, particularly in the applied sciences like exercise and nutrition. It will get you into the ballpark; it will give you general strategies to use. You then need to take this to the individual: What is their lifestyle? Their stress level? Their sleep? Their genetics?”
In other words, protein isn’t magic. But it is powerful. And now that you understand the “why” and the “how,” you’ve got everything you need to start figuring out what works best for you.
