Protein dosing and timing

You shouldn't worry about this if you're a beginner.

You will have a target protein goal for the day, which you should hit. However, the distribution of that intake matters as well.

While your body can absorb any amount of protein, the amount that is used for muscle building (what we care about) is limited. I recommend trying to have your protein intake eventually spread across 3 meals at the very minimum. Having 4-5 meals is likely more optimal, and having more than 5 very likely has no benefit.

So if you have 140g of protein for the day, and you will have 4 protein feedings, you would eat 35g in each meal. There is some evidence that you may need a bigger protein dose at bed-time. If you want to do that, that’s also acceptable.

You can have the last meal with 0.55g of protein per kg, and divide the rest evenly. It’s likely best if this protein is a slow-digesting one, such as protein from dairy (casein is great). In the previous example, for someone 80kg (176lbs), that would be 45g of protein. Thus we have 95 remaining to divide across 3 meals, which gives us 31g.

Beginners should not worry about this, just aim to hit your overall protein intake and have several protein feedings per day.