How much protein, and does timing matter

Protein is the most over-discussed and under-executed variable in nutrition. The useful guidance fits in a paragraph; the industry around it does not.

The number

Roughly 1.6 g per kg of bodyweight per day is where the benefit for muscle growth largely plateaus in the research. Going to 2.2 g/kg is not harmful and buys a small margin, which is why it is often recommended — it is insurance against underestimating your intake, not a higher ceiling.

If you are in a calorie deficit, sit at the higher end. Protein does more work when total energy is scarce: it protects muscle you would otherwise lose, and it is the most satiating of the three macronutrients.

For a 75 kg person that is about 120 g a day, or 150 g while dieting.

What matters much less than you were told

Timing. The “anabolic window” — the idea that you must eat protein within an hour of training — does not survive contact with the better-controlled studies. Daily total dominates. If you have eaten protein at some point in the several hours around training, you have captured essentially all of the available effect.

Per-meal distribution. Spreading intake across three or four meals is modestly better than one enormous serving, mostly because it is easier to hit the total that way. The effect is real and small. Do not reorganise your life around it.

Source. Animal proteins are more complete and more leucine-dense per gram, so they do the job with less food. Plant proteins work perfectly well; you eat somewhat more, and you vary the sources. Both routes arrive.

Powder. A convenient food, not a supplement. It has no properties that chicken lacks. Use it if it helps you hit the number, skip it if it doesn’t.

The actual difficulty

Almost nobody’s problem is knowing the number. The problem is that people consistently overestimate what they eat, often by 30 to 50 percent.

If you have never counted, count for one week. Not forever — just long enough to calibrate what 120 g actually looks like on a plate. Most people discover they are at 70 g and had been confident they were fine.

After that week you can stop weighing things and simply keep the pattern: a substantial protein source at each meal. The point of measuring is to learn what the target looks like, not to measure permanently.

In one line

Hit roughly 1.6–2.2 g/kg daily, from whatever sources you like, spread over the meals you were going to eat anyway. Everything else about protein is detail.