How Much Protein Powder Can You Have Per Day?
One of the most common questions we get is how much protein powder is too much protein powder? One scoop of whey per day is probably fine, right? But what about 2 scoops? 3 scoops? 4?
I’ve seen dozens of muscle-building studies where the researchers give participants upwards of 60 or even 90 grams of protein per day for several months in a row, measuring what effects it has on muscle growth.
There are other studies looking directly at how much protein powder you can safely have per day.
How Much Protein Powder Should You Have Per Day?
Most lifters try to eat around 1 gram of protein per pound bodyweight per day (2.2g/kg/day). That builds in a fairly hefty margin. Most research shows you can maximize your rate of muscle growth with as little as 0.7 grams of protein per pound per day (1.5g/kg/day). So, someone who weighs 150 pounds should be able to maximize their rate of muscle growth with around 105 grams of protein per day (study).
You can get that protein by eating regular foods, or you could get it by supplementing with protein powder, such as whey protein. Whey protein is especially popular during the “anabolic window” right after working out, but you can have it at any time of day.
So let’s imagine you’re aiming for 105 grams of protein, but you currently eat 75 grams. To get that missing 30 grams, you could have an extra serving of chicken breast, snack on some cottage cheese, or have a serving of protein powder.
Once you’ve hit that minimum target, there isn’t much of a reason to keep having more protein. There’s nothing wrong with having more protein, but it won’t give you much extra benefit, either. Most people don’t need 2–3 scoops of protein powder per day.
But let’s go deeper.
Getting Enough Vitamins and Minerals
Different foods contain different vitamins and minerals. When you eat a varied diet, you get a wider variety of vitamins and minerals. There are many ways to increase the variety of nutrients in your diet. You could snack on trail mix instead of peanuts. You could cook with more ingredients and spices. You could add more meals to your rotation. You could start blending up nutritious smoothies.
The same principle holds true with protein. In an ideal world, you’d get your protein from a variety of different sources, including fish, chicken, meat, legumes, whole grains, soy, nuts, seeds, and dairy. It’s okay to be vegetarian or vegan. It’s okay if you’re allergic to dairy. Choose from among the protein sources that suit you.
Protein powder has fewer vitamins and minerals than most other protein sources. You shouldn’t eat so much of it that it takes over your diet. However, if you’re eating protein powder in addition to what you’re already eating, then this isn’t a problem. It’s extra. Most of us are bulking, so no worry there.
How Much Protein Powder Is Too Much?
The next concern is that consuming too much protein powder could cause some sort of overdose. For example, many foods contain trace amounts of heavy metals, such as lead or mercury. When you eat too much of any one food, you increase the risk of overeating those trace minerals. It’s possible to consume too many fat-soluble vitamins and minerals (such as the vitamin A found in offal). That’s why eating a balanced diet is so important. You get little bits of lots of things instead of too much of any one thing.
As far as protein powder goes, heavy metals come from the soil, so you find more of them in plant-based protein powders (study). Still, that study concluded that you can have 3 servings of plant-based protein powder per day without any risk of overdoing it. (Note that serving sizes vary. They estimated the average serving size to be about 43 grams.)
If you’re having whey protein, think of it like a dairy product. If you’re lactose intolerant or allergic to dairy, you can run into problems when you have too much of it. The main symptom to watch out for is diarrhea. If you’re getting the runs, you’re having too much.
High-Protein Studies
There are many, many studies where participants consume 60–90 grams of protein powder per day for several months in a row. It’s the easiest way for researchers to ensure the participants get enough protein to maximize their rate of muscle growth. They tend to be just fine.
For example, in a study by Jose Antonio and colleagues, they gave the participants free access to whey protein for a full year, then told them to eat 1–1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day (study). Many of the participants wound up consuming several servings of whey protein every day for an entire year. The researchers couldn’t find any negative health effects.
Bulking Isn’t Forever
In your day-to-day life, I’d strive for balance. Maybe you have a few servings of protein powder per week. Maybe you have a serving or two after your workouts. Maybe you have none at all.
But as my father likes to say, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” To gain weight, build muscle, and bulk up, we need to eat more food than we’re used to eating. It’s not sustainable in the long run, but it needs to be sustainable for a few months. Protein powder often helps with that. Then, when you finish your bulk, you can ease back and find balance again.
We aren’t so different from those study participants. We need to find a way to eat enough protein (and calories) to maximize our rate of muscle growth. If we can’t get that protein from our diets, it might make sense, in the short term, to have 1–3 servings of protein powder per day.
Conclusion
In the longer term, you should try to eat a wide and varied diet, including a nice mix of protein sources: meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains, and soy. It’s okay if some of that protein comes from protein powder.
In the short term, if you’re embarking on a bulking challenge, it’s okay to increase your intake of protein powder. 1–3 servings per day is considered a “normal” intake (study). It’s very common among powerlifters, bodybuilders, and recreational lifters. It also seems to be safe.
During my earlier bulks, while I was gaining my first 40 pounds, I would have 2–3 servings of protein powder during my workouts and the occasional protein shake on rest days. I was training 3x per week, so that averaged out to about 1–2 servings of protein powder per day.
So, how much protein powder can you have per day? Probably as much as 3 servings. If you wanted to be more moderate, you could have 1 serving per day. The most conservative approach would be to have a serving after your workouts.
Alright, that’s it for now. If you want more muscle-building information, we have a free muscle-building newsletter. Or, if you want us to walk you through the entire process of bulking up, check out our Bony to Beastly Program. It includes a customizable workout routine, a bulking diet guide, a recipe book, and support from us in our online community.
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Shane Duquette is the founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, each with millions of readers. He's a Certified Conditioning Coach (CCC), has gained seventy pounds, and has over a decade of experience helping more than ten thousand naturally thin people build muscle. He also has a degree in fine arts, but those are inversely correlated with muscle growth.
Marco Walker-Ng is the founder and strength coach of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell. He's a certified trainer (PTS) and nutrition coach (PN) with a Bachelor's degree in Health Sciences (BHSc) from the University of Ottawa. He has over 15 years of experience helping people gain muscle and strength, with clients including college, professional, and Olympic athletes.
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Hey Shane, great article as always!
I was wondering about a related question: is there a limit to the amount of protein your body can reasonably absorb in one sitting? For example, if you have four scoops in one shake, does your body “pee out” two of the scoops?
Thanks
Thanks, Manny!
There’s no real limit to how much food you can absorb in a sitting. If it fits in your stomach, it can pass through your digestive system, and your digestive system can extract the nutrients from it. Our bodies evolved to be very good at absorbing as many nutrients as possible from meals, even when those meals are irregular and oversized. That’s why intermittent fasting can work (for people who are trying to eat fewer calories). You can eat a full day’s worth of protein in a single meal (if your stomach is big enough).
With that said, there seems to be a benefit to spreading out your protein intake throughout the day. Instead of having 120 grams of protein in one meal, you’ll probably build a bit more muscle if you have 4 meals with 30 grams of protein in each. That won’t make or break your bulk, though. It’s just a lofty ideal.
Do you know where I can get some kind of insulated vessel to hold my protein shake?
Hah! Did you get one of the Bony to Beastly ones?
They look and sound great but I’ve got too many knocking around the pantry already.
Serious questions – is “scoop” a standard measurement across protein powders? I read and reread this article to try to find out what your scoop is, either in terms of volume, weight, or protein content to compare it to my powder (which is 22 grams of powder containing 15.5 grams of protein per included scoop).
What do you think about whey protein isolate as compared to plain old whey protein?
Lastly, you discuss protein shakes before and after workout, but any research on having a protein shake during a workout? I like to drink it over the course of my workout, as you mention you used to do (why did you stop?)
Keep up the good work
I should have clarified from the beginning. The most common type of protein is whey isolate, and the most common serving size is a scoop, so I was using “scoop” synonymously with serving size, which was a bad idea. I’ve fixed it. The article now says “serving size” instead of “scoop.”
Your scoop seems unusually small. Most servings of whey are about 30 grams with more like 24–27 grams of protein. For example, Optimum Nutrition has 31 grams per serving (1 scoop) with 24 grams of protein.
Isolate is great, but if you’re trying to bulk up, extra calories coming from other nutrients are hardly a problem. Normal whey (whey concentrate) is perfectly good.
Having a protein shake while working out is great! Before, during, or after should all yield the same results. We have an article on when to have a protein shake, too.
My wife uses Greek yogurt or whey protein when making our morning smoothies. That’s the only time I use protein powder nowadays. After I finish working out, I’ll have a solid meal instead. That might change if I start bulking up again, but right now I’m happy with my weight.
Hi Shane, thanks for this article. I did Boney to Beastly about a year and a half ago with great results. Ever since I started, I’ve been having at least one protein shake a day and often 2 for a total of 4 scoops per day. I’m 6’ 5“ and 235 lbs so I have a hard time getting enough protein in regular meals and snacks throughout the day without the protein powder. But I don’t want to continue that frequency for years to come if it’s not healthy. I’m still working out 3x per week. Do you think I should adjust the protein powder intake?
Woot! Congratulations, man! So happy to hear it.
Yeah, at your size, it makes sense to eat more of everything. 2–4 scoops for your is probably more like 1.5–3 scoops for the average guy. Are you having whey protein? That’s the most heavily studied protein powder. It seems safe to have in the doses you’re having it in.
You could also look to nuts, seeds, seafood, poultry, Greek yogurt, kefir, beans, lentils, cottage cheese, and so on. Maybe there are other places in your diet where you can add some extra whole food protein sources. If you have a protein source in each meal, it can add up to quite a lot by the end of the day.
And then, as mentioned in the article, you don’t need a full gram of protein per pound bodyweight per day. 165 grams per day (235×0.7) should be just as good. There’s nothing wrong with having more protein, but if that fourth scoop is bringing your from 165 to 200 grams, you don’t really need it.
Thanks Shane. The next comment from Josh was really helpful because that’s my case as well. I’m using pea protein so I’m have 2 servings per day (4 scoops). I’m gonna keep at it! Keep up the great content!
My pleasure, man! I fixed up the article to make it clearer.
Hi Shane,
I’m wondering what is meant by “1 scoop”, as scoop sizes vary depending on the protein powder. Does 1 scoop mean 1 serving of whatever powder we’re talking about? I use a plant based protein for which 1 serving (21 g protein) = 2 scoops, and I have 3-4 servings per day. If we’re talking about servings per day, that puts me right around the maximum recommended amount for plant protein mentioned in the article. But if we’re talking about individual scoops that puts me way over at 6-8 scoops per day.
Thanks
Most brands try to give a sensible amount of protein per serving. For whey protein isolate, that’s usually around 27 grams of protein (which is ideal for stimulating muscle growth), usually with fairly little else mixed in alongside it. For plant-based protein powders, there’s often more carbs/fat/fibre along with the protein, adding more bulk to it. So serving size can vary, but it’s usually a reasonable amount of protein, and it usually makes sense to listen to the serving size.
You’re making a good point. I checked the study that looked at plant-based protein powder. They tracked “servings” instead of scoop, acknowledging that serving size varies. They didn’t track how big the serving sizes were in each case. They suspect that the average serving size was about 43 grams. Some are bigger, some smaller.
I’ll change the article to say “3 servings” of plant-based protein powder.
Thanks for the clarification! That is helpful.