Ask ten people how much protein to eat and you’ll get ten answers, most of them either vague or wrong. So here’s the plain version. If you’re training and want to keep or build muscle, aim for roughly 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of your bodyweight per day. For a 180-pound person, that’s somewhere around 130 to 180 grams. You don’t need to be exact. You need to be in the range, most days.
Why most people fall short
Protein takes effort. It usually means cooking, or at least choosing deliberately, while carbs and fats show up on their own. When your day is busy, meals get skipped or grabbed on the run, and protein is almost always what’s missing. That’s why people can eat what feels like plenty and still slowly lose muscle: they’re getting calories, just not the right kind.
You will almost never accidentally eat enough protein. It takes intention, every day.
The hand-portion shortcut
You don’t have to weigh food or log grams to get this right. The way I teach it is the hand-portion method: a palm-sized serving of protein at every meal. Men aim for two palms per meal, women one. Your palm scales to your body and travels everywhere, so it works at home, at a restaurant, or in an airport. If you want it mapped out, my portion calculator lays out the full plate.
Spread it across the day
Your body uses protein best when you give it a steady supply rather than one giant dinner. Aim for a solid serving at each meal instead of loading it all at night. Three meals with a palm or two of protein each will get most people into the right range without any math.
The bottom line
Protein is the raw material your muscle is built from, and it’s the easiest thing to get wrong when you’re busy. Anchor every meal around a protein source, use your hand to size it, and you’ve solved most of your nutrition without a single spreadsheet. For why this matters so much after thirty, read why you lose muscle after 30.