How Much Protein Do You Actually Need? Work It Out in 30 Seconds
Your daily protein target is one multiplication, and most people get it wrong in both directions. Put in your weight and your goal, then see the gap between that number and what you already eat.
A 70 kg man who lifts needs about 112 grams of protein a day. Count what you actually ate yesterday and the answer is usually closer to 45.
That gap is the whole subject. Not whether protein is good, not which brand, just how many grams you are short and what the cheapest way to close it is.
Put your weight and your goal into the calculator below and it will tell you both numbers in about thirty seconds.
Work out your number
Your daily protein target, and what the gap costs
Where the research shows gains plateau
An ordinary Indian vegetarian day lands near 45 g. Move this if you know yours.
Your target
123 g
a day
The gap
78 g
about 3.0 scoops
Cost to close it
₹354
a day, at our cheapest whey
Food first. 78 g is roughly 12 eggs, or 150 g of dry soya chunks, or 433 g of paneer. Powder is the convenient version of the same thing, priced at our cheapest live cost per gram of protein.
Now the reasoning behind it, because the number only helps if you trust where it came from.
- ·ICMR-NIN sets the adult requirement at 0.83 g per kg a day. That is a floor, not a target
- ·For building muscle the research plateaus near 1.6 g per kg
- ·Above about 2.2 g per kg, extra protein has not been shown to add anything
- ·Vegetarians should add roughly a tenth, because plant protein digests less completely
- ·A normal Indian vegetarian day lands near 45 g, which is where the gap comes from
- ·Breakfast is where most people lose the most grams
ICMR says 0.83. Your trainer says 2. Both can be right.
These two numbers get shouted at each other constantly, and they are answering different questions.
0.83 g per kg is the ICMR-NIN recommended dietary allowance for Indian adults. It is the amount that meets the needs of almost everyone in a healthy population. It is a floor designed to prevent deficiency, not a target designed to build anything.
1.6 g per kg comes from a different question: how much protein maximises the muscle you gain from resistance training. A 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine pooled 49 studies and 1,863 participants and found that the benefit of extra protein flattened out at about 1.62 g per kg per day, with the confidence interval reaching around 2.2.
So ICMR is right that you will not be deficient at 0.83, and your trainer is right that you will not build optimally there either. The one who is wrong is whoever told you to eat 3 g per kg, because above roughly 2.2 the pooled evidence shows no further gain.
What that works out to at your weight
| Body weight | Healthy adult 0.83 g/kg | Building muscle 1.6 g/kg | Losing fat 1.8 g/kg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 kg | 46 g | 88 g | 99 g |
| 60 kg | 50 g | 96 g | 108 g |
| 65 kg | 54 g | 104 g | 117 g |
| 70 kg | 58 g | 112 g | 126 g |
| 75 kg | 62 g | 120 g | 135 g |
| 80 kg | 66 g | 128 g | 144 g |
| 85 kg | 71 g | 136 g | 153 g |
Vegetarians should add roughly 10 percent to the middle and right columns. The left column is the ICMR-NIN requirement and already accounts for a mixed Indian diet.
If you are carrying extra weight, use a different number
Protein targets scale with the tissue that needs it, and body fat does not need protein. So multiplying a very high body weight by 1.6 gives you a number you do not need and will struggle to eat.
A practical fix: use a realistic goal weight instead of your current one. Someone at 95 kg aiming for 75 kg would get 152 g from their current weight and 120 g from their goal weight. The lower number is both easier to hit and closer to what the research supports.
A normal Indian day already gives you about 45 g
This is the part people are surprised by. Volume of food and grams of protein are barely related on an Indian plate.
| A normal vegetarian day | Protein |
|---|---|
| Breakfast: 2 parathas with curd | 9 g |
| Mid morning: tea and biscuits | 2 g |
| Lunch: rice, 1 katori dal, sabzi, 1 roti | 14 g |
| Evening: tea and a snack | 3 g |
| Dinner: 3 rotis, sabzi, dal | 15 g |
| Total | 43 g |
Protein values are approximate and based on Indian food composition data. Portions vary a lot, so treat this as a shape rather than your exact day.
Forty three grams. For a 70 kg person training, that is a shortfall of around 70 g, which is not a rounding error. It is most of the target.
And notice where it is lost. Breakfast and the two tea breaks contribute 14 g between them while taking up a third of the day's eating.
Breakfast is where most people lose 15 g
An Indian breakfast is usually carbohydrate with a little fat: poha, paratha, idli, bread, upma. Delicious, and almost protein free.
Fixing one meal is easier than fixing a whole diet. Some swaps that cost little:
- Two eggs with your usual breakfast, for about 12 g
- A bowl of curd instead of tea, for about 6 g in 200 g
- Besan cheela instead of paratha, for around 10 g
- Sprouted moong chaat as the mid morning snack rather than biscuits
- Adding paneer to the sabzi you were already making
A 112 g target splits comfortably as roughly 30 g at breakfast, 35 g at lunch, 15 g as a snack and 32 g at dinner. Most people are close on lunch and dinner, and nowhere near it at breakfast.
Why vegetarians need more grams for the same result
Protein is not a single substance, it is a supply of amino acids, and sources differ in how completely they are digested and how well their amino acid profile matches what your body needs.
Animal proteins generally score higher on both. Plant proteins, particularly cereals and pulses eaten alone, score lower. The practical effect is that 112 g on paper from a purely lacto-vegetarian diet behaves more like 100 g.
Two things fix most of it, and neither requires a supplement. Combine cereals with pulses across the day, which is what dal chawal and rajma chawal already do. And include the higher quality vegetarian sources: dairy, soya and eggs if you eat them.
If dairy does not suit you, we compared the alternative in whey vs fermented yeast protein.
What closing the gap actually costs
Here is the part almost nobody puts in writing. Once you know your gap in grams, the cost is a multiplication.
| Closing a 40 g gap with | Per gram of protein | Per day |
|---|---|---|
| Soya chunks | ₹0.29 | ₹12 |
| Toor dal | ₹0.73 | ₹29 |
| Eggs | ₹1.11 | ₹44 |
| Paneer | ₹2.22 | ₹89 |
| Fermented yeast protein, cheapest | ₹2.59 | ₹104 |
| Whey, cheapest we track | ₹4.54 | ₹182 |
| Whey, dearest we track | ₹9.75 | ₹390 |
Whey and fermented yeast figures are from our live tracking across 19 Indian retailers, checked on 16 September 2026. Food figures use indicative retail prices, which vary by city and season: soya chunks at ₹150/kg, toor dal at ₹160/kg, eggs at ₹7 each, paneer at ₹400/kg. Substitute your own prices, the arithmetic is the same.
Soya chunks close the same gap for about a fifteenth of what the cheapest whey costs. That is not an argument against powder, it is an argument for knowing what you are buying. We took that comparison apart properly in dal, paneer, eggs or a scoop.
When food stops being enough
Powder is not better protein. It is faster protein, and speed has real value when the alternative is skipping the meal.
A scoop is a median of 26 g across the whey we track. So a 40 g gap is about a scoop and a half, or two eggs plus a bowl of curd, or 80 g of dry soya chunks. All three work. The question is which one you will actually do every day for a year.
Reasonable reasons to use a tub: you cannot eat breakfast, you travel constantly, your target is high enough that food alone means eating uncomfortably, or you are vegetarian and running out of options you enjoy.
Bad reason: because everyone at the gym has one. If you buy one, buy it on cost per gram of protein, which is the point of why protein powder costs what it does in India and protein powders under 2,000 rupees.
Is a high protein diet bad for your kidneys?
In healthy adults, the evidence does not show harm. A 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis pooling 28 studies and 1,358 adults without kidney disease found that higher protein intakes did not change kidney function compared with normal or lower intakes.
The targets on this page sit at or below the intakes those studies tested. We went through the detail, including what ICMR-NIN actually says about supplements, in whether protein powder damages your kidneys.
- ·You have kidney disease, or reduced kidney function of any kind
- ·You have diabetes or long standing high blood pressure
- ·You have one kidney, or a transplant
- ·You are pregnant or breastfeeding, where requirements change and should be set individually
- ·You are over 60 and managing another health condition
- ·You are working out a target for someone under 18
Three things to change this week
- 1Write down one honest dayEverything, including the tea and the two biscuits. You cannot fix a gap you have not measured.
- 2Fix breakfast before anything elseIt is usually the emptiest meal, and it is the easiest to change without cooking differently.
- 3Only then decide about a tubIf food gets you there, you have saved yourself several thousand rupees a year.
The bottom line
Your target is your weight times a number between 0.83 and 1.8, depending what you are doing, plus about a tenth if you are vegetarian. That is the whole calculation.
The useful output is not the target, it is the gap. And the gap is almost always smaller than people fear and cheaper to close than they expect.
If you do decide a tub helps, compare cost per gram of protein before you buy, and best protein powder for beginners covers what a sensible first one looks like. If you are already taking one and seeing nothing, why your protein is not working is usually the answer.
This article is general nutrition information and is not medical or dietetic advice, a diagnosis or a personalised plan. It has not been written or reviewed by a registered dietitian or medical practitioner. The targets here are population level figures from published guidance and research, not a prescription for any individual. Speak to a qualified professional before making significant dietary changes, particularly if any of the conditions listed above apply to you. The 0.83 g per kg per day adult requirement comes from ICMR-NIN. The 1.62 g per kg plateau comes from Morton and colleagues, a systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of 49 studies and 1,863 participants published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2018. The kidney evidence comes from Devries and colleagues, a meta-analysis of 28 studies and 1,358 participants published in The Journal of Nutrition in 2018. Food protein values are approximate, drawn from Indian food composition data, and vary with portion size and preparation. Food prices are indicative retail prices that vary by city, brand and season, and are stated so you can substitute your own. Supplement prices and protein figures are from our live tracking and the brands' own declared nutrition panels, checked on 16 September 2026. Whey2Much sells nothing, takes no commission and accepts no payment from any brand or retailer for inclusion, ranking or placement.
Common questions
It depends what you are doing. The ICMR-NIN requirement for a healthy adult is 0.83 g per kg, so about 58 g. If you lift weights and want to build muscle, the research points to around 1.6 g per kg, so roughly 112 g. If you are a vegetarian, add about a tenth to account for lower digestibility, which takes it near 125 g.
About 1.6 g per kg of body weight a day. A 2018 meta-analysis in the British Journal of Sports Medicine pooled 49 studies and 1,863 participants and found that gains from extra protein plateaued near 1.62 g per kg, with the confidence interval extending to about 2.2. Eating more than that does not appear to add anything.
Slightly higher than for maintenance, usually around 1.6 to 1.8 g per kg. In a calorie deficit your body will take some of the shortfall from muscle, and a higher protein intake plus resistance training is what limits that. Protein also keeps you full, which is what makes the deficit survivable.
The same target, plus roughly a tenth. Plant proteins are generally less completely digested than animal ones and score lower on amino acid quality, so a pure lacto-vegetarian eating 112 g on paper is closer to about 100 g in practice. Adding around 10 percent to the target is a reasonable adjustment.
For most Indian adults, comfortably. It is well above the ICMR-NIN requirement for anyone under 120 kg, and it is close to the training target for someone around 62 kg. If you are 85 kg and lifting seriously, 100 g is a little short of the 136 g that 1.6 g per kg would give you.
Roughly 3 g in a medium roti and about 5 to 7 g in a standard katori of cooked dal, depending how thick it is. That is why a plate of dal chawal with two rotis lands near 15 g rather than the 25 g people assume. The volume looks like a meal, the protein does not.
Not in people with healthy kidneys, on the available evidence. A 2018 meta-analysis of 28 studies in adults without kidney disease found higher protein intakes did not change kidney function. If you have kidney disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or a single kidney, speak to your doctor before raising your intake.
Yes, that is a normal amount for someone with a high target. Across the whey we track a serving is a median of 26 g, so two scoops is about 52 g, which is roughly half of a 112 g target. The rest should come from food, because a diet built mainly on powder is missing everything else food provides.
Aapke weight aur goal par depend karta hai. Ek healthy adult ke liye ICMR-NIN ka figure hai 0.83 gram per kg. Agar aap gym jaate hain aur muscle banana chahte hain, to research 1.6 gram per kg ke aas paas point karti hai. 70 kg ke aadmi ke liye woh takreeban 112 gram hota hai, aur vegetarian hain to thoda zyada.
Written by
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