Here's How To Know If You're Eating Enough Protein

When searched on Instagram, the word “protein” garners 26.9 million results, many of which are influencers touting its benefits or tips for adding more to your day-to-day meals.

And these social media personalities are right — protein is good for you.

“Protein is a macronutrient that is essential for the growth, repair and maintenance of the tissues in the body,” said Albert Abayev, a registered clinical dietician from Cedars-Sinai Weight Management and Metabolic Health Center in California.

“Protein is important in a well-rounded diet to help maintain appetite satiety, it helps to promote muscle recovery, especially in people that are active or athletes, and it aids in the body’s ability to repair itself,” Abayev explained.

Just how much protein you need will vary depending on your gender, size, age and how much you exercise, experts say. But “we don’t need as much protein as many people believe” to maintain muscle tissue, said Braeden Yacobucci, a registered dietician at OnPoint Nutrition in Philadelphia.

Fitness and nutrition personalities on social media are quick to encourage protein-packed meals. But the reality is, if your goal is to maintain muscle tissue, you’re probably eating enough protein as-is without adding in things like protein bars and shakes.

“The minimum recommendation for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. So, for example, someone who weighs 180 pounds would need about 65 grams of protein per day,” Yacobucci said.

This isn’t actually that much, he noted — 65 grams of protein is roughly 10 ounces of animal protein each day. “So, take a chicken thigh, for example — that ranges to maybe 4 to 6 ounces,” Yacobucci said, so you’d need a little more than two chicken thighs in a whole