How much protein do I need as a vegan?
Enter your bodyweight. You get the number, in grams a day, and one plain sentence on why it is that and not more.
The rest of this page is where that protein comes from when you do not want to live on powder.
Your protein target
Enter your bodyweight. The target is 0.9g of protein per pound, or 2g per kilogram, so a 230lb / 104kg body lands at 210g a day.
Week 1 is free: this target, your Swaps, 21 Meals, 3 Sessions and a Grocery list.
Why 0.9g per pound
Most guidance you have read is not written for someone who lifts. The figure quoted for a sedentary adult is roughly 0.36g per pound. It keeps you from deficiency, and it is not enough to rebuild muscle you already lost.
The research on building muscle while losing fat clusters between 1.6g and 2.2g per kilogram of bodyweight. Our target sits near the top of that range, at 2g per kilogram or 0.9g per pound.
It sits high for one reason. Plant protein is absorbed and used a little less efficiently than animal protein, and it carries less leucine per gram. Eating more of it closes that gap, and nothing else needs to change.
That is a target, not a limit you must hit exactly. Landing within 15g most days does the work. Missing it by 60g on 3 days a week is why the last 2 years went the way they did.
Bread is not the enemy because it is bread. It is the enemy because it is 4g.
Where the protein is
The problem is rarely that plant food has no protein. It is that the plant food most of us eat all day has very little protein per calorie. That is the column that matters.
Read the right-hand column. Tofu and seitan give you roughly 12g of protein for every 100 calories. Tortilla chips give you 1g.
So a day built on bread, wraps, crackers and chips can hit your calories twice over and still leave you 80g short. Nothing about that is a failure of eating plant-based. It is arithmetic, and it is fixable in a week.
Grams of protein, rounded. Values vary by brand, so read your own label.
How to actually reach it
Split the target across the day rather than chasing it at dinner. 3 meals of 50g to 60g is easier than 2 of 40g and a panic. Put a protein anchor in each one before you think about the rest.
Breakfast is where most plant-based days are lost. Toast, oats with fruit and black coffee is a 10g start. Soy milk, tofu or a high-protein soy yoghurt turns the same meal into 30g.
Then attach lifting to the food. Protein without a progressing program mostly becomes calories. 3 Sessions a week is the floor that makes the target worth hitting.
Last, stop reading the scale weekly. A body adding muscle and losing fat can hold the same weight for a month while the waist drops 1.5in. Measure your waist at the navel instead, once a week, same time of day.
The number is the easy part.
Knowing you need 210g does not tell you what to cook on Tuesday. Plant-Based Gains turns your target into 21 Meals, a Grocery list and 3 Sessions, and rewrites next Week from what you actually ate and lifted.
Week 1 is free. The full 12-week Recomp Block is $79 once, with no subscription.
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