How much protein do you actually need?

The official number is a floor, not a target

The dietary reference intake most countries publish is around 0.8 grams per kilogram of body mass a day. That figure answers a specific question — how little protein can an average adult eat without going into deficiency — and it was never meant to describe the intake that builds the most muscle. Quoting it as a goal is how the argument gets confused: people defending it are talking about avoiding harm, and people attacking it are talking about training adaptation. Both are right about different questions.

Where the evidence actually flattens

The best answer to the training question comes from a 2018 meta-analysis of 49 randomised trials. Protein on top of resistance training did add lean mass and strength beyond training alone, and the size of that benefit rose with intake — up to roughly 1.6 grams per kilogram a day, after which the curve went flat. Eating 2.2 was not harmful in those trials; it simply did not buy more than 1.6 did.

For an 80 kg person that is about 128 grams a day, and the practical implication is unglamorous: if you already eat protein at most meals and you lift, you are probably close to the plateau already, and the protein coffee is buying you a flavour rather than an adaptation.

Who genuinely needs more than the floor

Two groups, for different reasons. People training hard, because the trials above were run in exactly that population and the extra intake is doing something measurable. And older adults, because the same dose of protein produces a smaller muscle-building response than it does at 25 — anabolic resistance — so the intake that maintains muscle rises with age rather than falling. Someone in their seventies eating the 0.8 floor is not protected by it in the way the number implies.

The part the trend gets wrong: total, not timing

Most of the energy in proteinmaxxing goes into timing and sources — the anabolic window, the shake within 30 minutes, whether the pea protein counts. The meta-analysis found the daily total is what moves the outcome, and distributing it sensibly across meals is a second-order detail. Chasing the window while sitting at 1.0 g/kg is optimising the wrong number by an order of magnitude.

What a ring can and cannot see here

It cannot see protein at all. What it can see is what a large late meal does regardless of composition: an active digestive tract raises overnight heart rate and slows the settle, and a 60-gram protein dinner is a large meal. If you have shifted most of your intake to the evening to hit a number, that shows up in the first half of the night.

The adaptation itself shows up on a much longer timescale, and not in a protein-shaped way — resting heart rate drifting down over months as training accumulates, and your own recovery from hard sessions arriving on schedule. Those are training signals, and protein is one input to them rather than something the ring reads directly.

Working out your own number

Take your body mass in kilograms, multiply by 1.2 if you are not training hard and 1.6 if you are, and treat that as the top of the useful range rather than a minimum to exceed. If you are also in a calorie deficit, protein is the macronutrient to protect — the same energy-expenditure equation that sets your maintenance calories says nothing about where those calories come from, and a deficit run on low protein costs muscle. Mark a period in Vitra when you change your intake and compare your resting heart rate and recovery against your own preceding weeks, all computed on your own machine. One practical note that is not medical advice: if you have reduced kidney function, a large protein increase is a conversation for your clinician rather than for the internet.

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