Mike Molloy
Protein — one of the three macronutrients (alongside carbs and fat) that make up food — is essential for our health, and particularly important for those who are active or trying to lose fat.
It helps to repair and grow muscle after workouts and enables the body to retain muscle while losing fat. By making us feel fuller for longer, it can prevent us from overeating and in turn achieve a healthy weight.
In recent years, growing public awareness of the importance of protein has seen brands roll out products, sometimes spuriously, labeled "high protein." The worldwide market for protein is estimated to reach over $47.4 billion by 2032, up from 26 billion in 2021, according to Statista.
So how much protein should we eat? You may think to turn to the official US dietary guidelines for answers. But the recommended amount for protein is "the bare bones minimum" to avoid disease, Mike Molloy, a nutrition coach to elite athletes including Olympians and CrossFitters, told Business Insider.
The guidelines state that protein requirements vary according to a person's body size and how much they eat. It recommends someone who consumes 2,200 calories to include 170 grams of foods that contain protein per day, such as meat, eggs, and dairy products. However, that's not 170 grams of protein.
For men aged 31 to 50 consuming 2,200 calories a day, for example, that would amount to 56 grams.
"That is not even remotely close to what's an optimal intake for all of the things that we've talked about, like building muscle mass or retaining lean muscle mass, for satiety signals, for all of these other aspects that make it easier to stick to a high quality diet and to live a healthy life without disease," Molloy said.
Molloy explained how to calculate how much protein you need and how to up your intake if you'd benefit from consuming more.
Molloy advises people to eat about 0.75 grams of protein per pound of total body mass, or 1.6 grams per kilogram.
A 2022 study supports this, finding that 0.7 grams per pound of body weight was optimal for strength gains.
Molloy said as someone who weighs about 185 pounds, he aims to consume between 140 to 150 grams of protein per day.
"It's not some insurmountable amount where you're just sitting there eating chicken breasts all day long and chugging egg whites. It's an amount that I would say most people can learn to achieve," he said.
However, a person with a lot of weight to lose should calculate their protein intake based on their goal weight not their current weight, he said.
Otherwise a person who weighed 285 pounds eating 240 grams of protein daily "would be a relatively miserable experience," Molloy said.
Molloy's advice aligns with that of other dietitians and nutritionists.
If you want to increase your protein intake, Molloy advises looking at each of your meals in turn.
For example, if you usually have oats and fruit for breakfast, you might swap that for (or add in) some eggs and chicken sausages, Molloy said.
At lunchtime, you could add some chicken breast, shrimps, or lean fish to a simple salad, and have salmon or chicken breast in addition to your regular pasta dinner, he said.
"Once you've got those three meals sorted, you can start to look at other snacks throughout the day to try to increase your protein intake," Molloy said.
