If there's one question we get more than any other it's some variation of this: Yeah, but how much protein do I actually need?

We understand the confusion. In what seems like a decade long ramp up to even M&S salads prioritizing protein qty on labels, it feels like it might be the ur-question in nutrition.

Most governmental guidelines are between 0.75 and 0.83 g/kg. So just over 50g per day for a 70kg adult. The issue with this is that it's the minimum recommended intake, not optimum.

If you're unlucky enough to spend too much time on line and the algorithm has decided you're a good fit then you'll have seen people consuming raw offal and pushing past 2.5g/kg, claiming it's the minimum for performance. Performance of what, we're not sure.

Then we have the podcasts with high level performance coaches all advocating for over 2g/kg. But then it's unlikely you fall into the world class athlete bracket, these people have very different requirements and lifestyles to the rest of us, despite what we'd like to believe.

So where does that leave the majority of us. The ones that move as much as possible, derive joy from fitness and health and try to fit it all around a regular lifestyle? The most cited and trusted paper is from 2020. It was a meta analysis of 49 randomised control studies of 1863 people in total who were assigned a resistance training program. 

We'll link it at the bottom if you want to go deep, but the headline is that 1.62 g/kg seems to be the best estimate. Though for the confidence range around this goes from 1.03 - 2.2 g/kg which means there could be variation, it's not an exact number. But it feels safe to use 1.6 as a guideline.

There are a few caveats to the study. There weren't many people over 45 and where there was the supplementary protein was low and there were less women than men in the study. Plus the average study was 13 weeks long, so very short in terms of lifestyle changes. These points aside it's the best guide we have on this, so far.

It did support what we always say about overall intake being more important than timing. So don't stress about when you get it, just hit the target over the day. It also made apparent something else we always point out. They are a supplement and in no way can replace training or a good diet. The resistance training was the key to the increase in fat free mass. The supplement added approx 27% of what resistance training added.

So there you have it, aim for 1.6 g/kg. And don't forget to move. Apart from anything else, it's the fun part.

Full study here.