GLP-1 Protein Calculator for Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound

1. Enter your body weight in pounds, kilograms or stones. The calculator multiplies the number you enter and does not adjust it.
2. Pick roughly how much you eat a day, and whether you are losing weight, losing weight with strength training, or keeping your weight stable.
3. Set how many meals you eat. If a body scan gives you a body-fat percentage, enter it to see a second target based on lean mass. If you add your height and your BMI is 30 or more, the calculator leads with the advisory’s lean-mass or flat target and shows the total-weight figure beside it.
4. Read your daily floor, the share of your calories it takes, the grams for each meal and the foods that carry the most protein per 100 calories, with the upper limit beside them.

The result shows the daily range, the per-meal split, the upper limit and, if you entered body fat, a lean-mass figure.

Daily protein in grams is your weight in kg multiplied by the g/kg range for the goal you chose. The per-meal figure is the daily floor divided by your number of meals, rounded up so the meals add up to at least the floor. The upper limit is your weight multiplied by 2.0, and the lean-mass figure is your fat-free mass multiplied by 1.5. Pounds are converted at 0.45359237 kg per lb (NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C).

For a 180 lb adult who is losing weight and eats four meals a day:

1. 180 × 0.45359237 = 81.6 kg.
2. 81.6 × 1.2 = 98 g and 81.6 × 1.6 = 131 g of protein a day.
3. 98 ÷ 4 = 24.5, shown as 25 g per meal.
4. 81.6 × 2.0 = 163 g a day is the upper limit.

The settings come from three published sources: the joint advisory of four US obesity and nutrition societies (Mozaffarian et al., 2025), the International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand (Jäger et al., 2017) and the PROT-AGE study group (Bauer et al., 2013).

The advisory does not set the 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg range itself. It reports that targets such as 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg "have also been proposed during active weight reduction" (Mozaffarian et al., 2025). The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, published in January 2026, now give the same 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg as the everyday protein goal (USDA and HHS, 2026).

For adults in general, the advisory says intake "should not fall below 0.4–0.5 g/kg/day" and that prolonged intake above 2 g/kg a day should be avoided (Mozaffarian et al., 2025). The calculator uses that 2 g/kg as its upper limit.

The ISSN calls 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg "sufficient for most exercising individuals" (Jäger et al., 2017). It adds that resistance-trained people eating below their energy needs may need 2.3 to 3.1 g/kg to keep the most lean mass. That is above the advisory’s 2 g/kg limit, so the strength-training setting stops at 2.0.

The weight-stable setting uses 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg, the minimum the PROT-AGE study group recommends for people over 65 (Bauer et al., 2013). A younger adult at a steady weight who wants the 2025–2030 US figure should pick the losing-weight setting, which uses the same 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg.

The per-meal split divides your daily floor evenly, rounded up to a whole gram. The ISSN’s single-meal figure, 0.25 g per kg or 20 to 40 g with meals "every 3–4 h", is printed separately (Jäger et al., 2017); at 81.6 kg it comes to 20 g. A 100 kg adult on the losing-weight setting who eats twice a day gets 60 g per meal (120 ÷ 2). Over four meals the same floor is 30 g each. Food ideas for each meal are in protein per meal on Ozempic.

The ranges above are for adults with healthy kidneys. The KDIGO 2024 kidney guideline suggests 0.8 g per kg a day for adults with chronic kidney disease stages G3 to G5, and says to avoid more than 1.3 g/kg in adults with chronic kidney disease at risk of progression (Levin et al., 2024). Choose "I have kidney disease" and the calculator uses KDIGO’s 0.8 g/kg in place of the ranges above, with 1.3 g/kg as the figure to stay under.

The joint advisory says that for people with obesity "it’s unclear whether these goals should be based on actual body weight, corrected (adjusted or ideal) body weight, or fat-free mass" (Mozaffarian et al., 2025). It adds that actual weight can significantly overestimate protein needs, and offers three alternatives: 1.2 to 2.0 g per kg of adjusted body weight during major weight loss, 1.5 g per kg of fat-free mass, or a flat 80 to 120 g a day.

The table runs one example through each basis: a 118 kg adult with 47% body fat, on the losing-weight setting.

The more of your weight is fat, the further the total-weight figure sits above the lean-mass one: 142 g against 94 g at the low end in this example. The advisory names adjusted body weight but publishes no formula for it, so the calculator does not produce an adjusted number. If your dietitian works from an ideal or adjusted weight, enter that weight instead. The GLP‑1 goal weight calculator shows the standard ideal-weight formulas for your height. Who set each published range, and why the ranges differ, is the subject of how much protein you need on a GLP‑1.

In a cross-sectional study of 60 adults who had used a GLP‑1 medicine for at least a month, 3-day food records showed a mean of 88.1 g of protein a day in men and 74.4 g in women (Johnson et al., 2025). Measured against adjusted body weight, 43% reached 1.2 g/kg a day, 10% reached 1.6 g/kg and 5% reached 2.0 g/kg. The study was published as an abstract in a journal supplement, measured intake at a single point in time, and was funded by the supplement retailer GNC, which employs all five authors.

AI food scanning in Pensday Plus estimates a meal’s protein from a photo, so the grams come from your plate rather than a guess.

In the SURMOUNT-1 body-composition sub-study, 26% of the weight lost on tirzepatide was lean mass, against 25% on placebo (Look et al., 2025). In STEP 1, 5.3 kg of an average 13.6 kg lost on semaglutide was lean mass; 5.3 ÷ 13.6 is 39%, which the advisory prints as 38% (Mozaffarian et al., 2025). Across the two trials, 25 to 39% of the loss is lean mass. What DXA counts as lean mass, and both trial scans in full, are in the Zepbound and Wegovy muscle comparison.

The same advisory says GLP‑1 treatment should come with a structured exercise program: strength training at least 3 times a week plus at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week (Mozaffarian et al., 2025). When appetite is low, it suggests eating the protein-rich food first in a meal "to increase the likelihood of sufficient consumption".