How many calories an adult needs per day

• Protein is essential for building muscle, but health experts warn eating too much can pose health risks.
• The current recommended dietary allowance (RDA) is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.
• Endurance or strength athletes should take 1.2 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily.

Protein may be a buzzword in wellness and bodybuilding, but it’s also essential. So, in some ways, one nutrition expert doesn’t mind that people are paying attention to grams of protein on nutrition labels.

“Protein is the building block for muscles,” said Anupama Chawla, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist at at Stony Brook Medicine.

Indeed, research from 2018Trusted Source indicates that muscle protein breaks down in the human body. Consuming more protein is essential to rebuilding — and even building more — muscle.

As you might expect, consuming adequate protein in conjunction with strength training helps you build muscle. And that’s part of the reason why people are honing in on this nutrient when purchasing food.

“It has become a fad because of the significant [focus] on weight loss and muscle building,” Chawla told Healthline. “It’s become an ‘in thing’ where everybody is reading the protein content.”

But pump the breaks before pouring an entire tub of protein powder into tomorrow morning’s breakfast smoothie. Experts and research indicate that there is such a thing as too much protein.

Though Chawla is glad protein is getting attention because of its importance to the human diet, she cautioned against going to extremes, such as consuming an all-meat diet. “Too little is not good, and too much is not good,” Chawla said.

How much should you be consuming? That depends. Here’s what the research, health experts, and guidelines say.

The minimum recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams of proteinTrusted Source per kilogram of body weight per day. Most people actually need more, especially those who exercise regularly. This means how much protein you should eat daily varies from person to person.

“A person weighing 140 pounds needs [at least] 51 grams of protein per day, and another person weighing 200 pounds needs [at least] 73 grams of protein per day,” Dana Ellis Hunnes, PhD, a senior dietitian with UCLA Medical Center, told Healthline.

Trista Best, a registered dietitian at Balance One Supplements, adds that this number equates to about 10 to 35% of our daily recommended caloric intake.