Protein intake calculator

How much protein you need in a day, worked out from your lean mass rather than your total bodyweight — which is why the answer differs from calculators that just multiply what you weigh.

Milo
Body fat

Worked out from your BMI, which is rough: it can’t tell a lean 90kg from a heavy 90kg. Pick Measure if you have a tape measure.

Your target will appear here.

How this is worked out

Protein requirements track the tissue that actually uses it, so this works from lean body mass: your weight minus your fat mass. There are three ways to get your body fat here, and they are not equally good. Entering a figure you’ve had measured is best. Failing that, Measure it uses the US Navy tape method, which needs your neck and waist (and hips, for women) and lands within a few points for most people. The BMI estimate is the fallback, and it’s the weakest of the three because it can’t tell a lean 90kg from a heavy one.

lean mass = weight × (1 − body fat %) → protein = lean mass × 1.8 to 2.6g

The range moves with what you’re doing. Cutting sits at the top, 2.2 to 2.6g per kg of lean mass, because protein is what stops a deficit eating muscle along with fat. Maintaining or building sits lower, 1.8 to 2.2g, where the limiting factor is training rather than protein.

This is the same basis Milo uses to set your target in chat, so the numbers agree.

The number is the easy part

Any calculator can hand you a figure. The hard bit is the next three months: eating roughly to it, noticing when it stops working, and changing it. Milo is a coach you text like a friend. You log what you ate in a sentence, and it learns your patterns, notices when your weight stalls, and adjusts the target from what you actually did rather than from a formula.

See how Milo works

Common questions

How accurate is the tape method?

The Navy formula typically lands within about 3 to 4 percentage points of a DEXA scan, which is plenty for setting a protein target. Consistency matters more than absolute accuracy: measure at the same time of day, relaxed, tape snug but not compressing. Tracking the change over weeks is more useful than the number itself.

Why lean mass instead of bodyweight?

Because fat tissue doesn’t need feeding with protein. Multiplying total bodyweight overshoots badly for someone carrying a lot of fat — the same calculation can produce targets 40 or 50 grams apart for two people who weigh the same.

Does it matter when I eat it?

Far less than the daily total. Spreading it across three or four meals is marginally better than one enormous serving, mostly because it’s easier to hit the total that way. The anabolic window is not the narrow thing it was once claimed to be.

Is more protein better?

Only up to a point, and past it you’re just displacing other food. Going well beyond this range hasn’t shown extra benefit in healthy people, and high intakes aren’t harmful for normal kidney function — but they do get expensive and monotonous.

What if I'm vegetarian or vegan?

The target is the same; hitting it takes more planning because plant sources are less protein-dense and less complete. Legumes, tofu, tempeh, seitan and a protein powder cover it. If you’re landing consistently short, that’s worth knowing early rather than three months in.

Other calculators

These are estimates from population averages, not measurements of you. Individual metabolism varies by roughly ±10% around any formula. Nothing here is medical advice — if you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are under 18, talk to a healthcare professional before changing how you eat or train.