Keto made easy

How Much Protein Per Meal?

Quick answer: Aim for about 25 to 30 grams of protein at each meal. Another way to say it is roughly 0.4 g per kilogram of body weight per meal, spread over at least three or four meals. For a 70 kg woman that's about 28 g a plate. Spreading it out matters more than hitting a perfect number, and it beats eating most of your day's protein in one big dinner.

In this article

The per-meal numbers the research uses

Different groups land in the same neighbourhood:

Links for each are in What the research says. The pattern is the useful part: a solid serving at each meal, several times a day.

Why spreading it out matters

Notice that every group above talks in doses, not just daily totals. The sports and ageing groups frame protein as something you take in servings spaced through the day, because that's how they studied and recommended it for keeping and building muscle.

Then there's hunger. Protein is one of the most satiating things you can eat; KetoDick says protein and fibre are the two most satiating parts of a diet (video 1JbK1_ClDmY). A protein-light breakfast and lunch followed by a huge steak at night means two meals that didn't hold you very long. Spreading it means every meal does some of that work.

So what you do is build each meal around a protein, then add vegetables, then let fat fill in the rest.

Doing the arithmetic for your own day

Take a woman who weighs 70 kg (about 154 lb).

Now compare that with KetoDick's own rule of thumb from his 2018 beginners' video: 80 g a day for most women, 100 g for men, plus 20 g if you're exceptionally tall and another 20 g if you train hard (video UygKGoP_BtA). Eighty grams over three meals is about 27 g each. His simple number and the per-meal research end up on the same plate.

If you weigh a lot more than your goal, the per-kilo maths can overshoot. That's its own question, covered in protein by body weight or lean mass.

Don't sweat precision. He calls arguing over 80 versus 82 g "silly" (from the video) and says to look at weekly averages, not single days (video UygKGoP_BtA).

What 25 to 30 grams looks like on a plate

KetoDick makes the point that a protein target means grams of protein on the label, not grams of meat: "100 g protein" is not 100 g of meat (video cTGYIFOTPl8). So check the label or your tracking app for the protein line of what you actually ate.

Practical ways to get a solid serving each time:

  1. Cook proteins in batches. He suggests cooking chicken and beef ahead and keeping a protein "tasting tray" in the fridge, because grazing is what gets most people (video hHFu6L-yedE).
  2. Start the day with protein, not just coffee. Eggs, leftover meat, or both.
  3. Pick the protein first when you plan a meal, then the vegetable, then the fat.
  4. Use simple snacks if a meal falls short. He names egg cups, string cheese and salami as easy grab-and-go options (video cTGYIFOTPl8).
  5. Check the week, not the day. If your average is low over several days, add a serving somewhere rather than overhauling everything.

What the research says

One honest caveat: most of these trials enrolled men or mixed groups, and none was specifically about women aged 30 to 60 on a low-carb diet. The per-meal numbers are a sensible starting point, not a finely tuned prescription for you.

If you have kidney disease, set your protein with your doctor rather than from a blog post. The main review of higher protein and kidney function looked at adults without kidney disease.

KetoDick's take

His position is that protein is a target, not a limit. He's said there's "a huge inappropriate fear of protein" in the keto community (from the video) and that you shouldn't fall for it (video UygKGoP_BtA). When a magazine described keto as capping protein at 100 g, his reply was that protein is "a target, not a limit" (from the video), and that he knows plenty of people in ketosis who eat more than that (video 1JbK1_ClDmY).

He also doesn't think beginners need to track protein closely in month one. His early advice was to count carbs and that most people get enough protein without tracking it (video DoSUgIr2rNo). The per-meal habit is a good way to make that true without a spreadsheet.

Key takeaways