How much protien can your body use at once?

[T-Bar]

In other words, what's the max amount of protien you should eat at one meal? 50 grams? 60? This is something I've always heard conflicting advice on.

[YellowJacket]

And you will hear more conflicting advice because there is no one single answer.

[dez/null]

Around 2-25 grams per meal....this has been proven... but its dependant on the person really.

[jweave23]

I have seen this question asked many, many times on several boards and no one has ever come up with a specific answer that can be applied to the general population, let alone bodybuilders. If anyone has a detailed study, please post it, I'm hoping we can avoid the speculation that usually goes with this question.

Bottom line: too many variables, can't answer it unless you state the parameters so specifically that it doesn't apply to you anyway IMO.

[Biggs]

Really, it's almost a moot point IMO anyway, because the real question is how much protein should I take *daily*, depending on how my macronutrient ratios look, and then how many grams per meal should that equate to, how many meals etc to make sure the req's are met... even if you're a huge mother****er, say 280 lean , and eat your lb weight in grams of protein daily per six "meals", that's only about 45g per meal... can your body actually assimilate that? If you're able to keep a consistent weight of 280 and you don't increase bf, lower muscle, etc, I'd say so. I'm not sure there will ever be anything but the broadest of guidelines on this topic when individual variance is sooo great.

[Biggs]

Did some searching within the "ignorant, biased" medical community ...want to share some findings with y'all. For strength athletes, the *general* concensus for the average sized male is obviously varied, though the range that I see continually recurring is about 1.5-2.0g/kg... taken from the high end of the range, this does seem to indicate close to the 1g/1lb of bodyweight ideal, which most people will concur is adequate benchmark to start from, for all times other than serious calorie depravation (hardcore cutting, and whatnot)... keep in mind these findings below are general, and they are all for strength athletes, which is about as close as we can assumably get to serious bb eh?


1.4-2.4g protein/kg (1)

1.5-2.0 g protein/kg (2)

1.2-1.7 g protein/kg (3)

1.8-2.0 g protein/kg (4)

1.4-1.8 g protein/kg (5)

since 1kg = 2.2lbs, even a 280lb (127kg) man (using the average from the high end of all 5 studies mentioned above, 1.98g/kg) is still theoretically eating ****loads of protein (251g), divided into the appropriate number of meals... shouldn't be a problem assimilating X number of grams depending on your goals as I stated above... so it makes more sense to worry that you've divided your daily protein up properly, don't skip meals, ensure proper post workout nutrition, etc... remember too that it only makes sense to increase protein even more when calorie cutting... I doubt too many serious studies can be found in this regard, because most people do not calculatedly starve themselves while training as intensively as bb'ers do... rather, they compensate by upping their ratios...hope this was some help.


1. J Appl Physiol 1992 Nov;73(5):1986-95

2. Int J Sport Nutr 1991 Jun;1(2):127-45

3. J Sports Sci 1991 Summer;9 Spec No:53-70

4. Sports Med 1984 Nov-Dec;1(6):474-84

5. Int J Sport Nutr 1995 Jun;5 Suppl:S39-61