Health & Wellness: The Protein Question
By Tony Mathews, MD, MPH, Sequoia Medical 360 in Bronxville
June 24, 2026: If you are joining us this week, below are links to the first six articles in this series.
Week 1: The Number on the Scale Is Lying to You - Two Things You Can Do This Week
Week 2: Your True North: How to Build a Real Health Baseline - Two Things You Can Do This Week
Week 4: The Calorie Question - Awareness Matters More Than Precision. Two Things You Can Do This Week
Week 5: The Metabolic Playbook
Week 6: What Chronic Stress Actually Does
This week's article below focuses on The Protein Question: Why the right amount depends on who you are.
Dr. Tony Matthews
You've added the protein shake to your morning. You read the grams on the label now. And somewhere along the way you picked up the rule that you need a gram of protein for every pound of body weight, nearly double what most people eat, and you wondered if you'd been getting it wrong. Or maybe you gave up counting, because the numbers never matched what you were chasing.
I see this constantly. Someone comes into my office convinced they have a protein problem, usually after a gym influencer told them they need far more. Here's the part that surprises them: most of the time, they don't. Most working-age adults already eat more protein than the official recommendation, and true deficiency is rare here. So if you've worried you're starving your muscles, you can set that worry down.
But "enough to not be deficient" and "enough to thrive" are two different numbers. The official recommendation, about 0.36 grams per pound of body weight, was set to keep a healthy person out of a deficit. Think of it as the minimum payment on a credit card. It keeps you out of trouble. It doesn't build anything. The real question isn't whether you're clearing the minimum. It's which version of "more than the minimum" applies to you.
For most people, the goal is preservation: holding onto the muscle you already have, especially while losing weight, because muscle is what keeps your metabolism humming. Landing around half a gram per pound does that well. If you're training, asking your body to build something new, you need more raw material, and the research settles near 0.7 grams per pound. Past that, the returns flatten. Piling protein higher doesn't build extra muscle. It mostly builds an expensive habit. The gram-per-pound rule isn't dangerous for healthy kidneys, but for most people it aims past the point the body can use. That "healthy kidneys" part does real work, though. Early kidney trouble is common and often silent, and it shows on routine bloodwork. If you're not sure where yours stand, find out before going high.
The third group is the one I worry about most, and nobody markets to it: people over fifty. With age, the body grows a little deaf to protein's signal, and muscle slips away year after year. This group often needs more, not less, and it's the one most likely to be eating toast for breakfast and calling it a meal.
Which brings up the thing that matters more than your daily total, and the part most people get wrong: timing. Your body can't bank protein the way an account banks money. It uses what it can in the moment and lets the rest go. Thirty grams at dinner and little else is not the same as spreading that protein across all three meals, even when the totals match. Most people load the back half of the day and leave the morning empty. That's the easiest fix there is.
One note on sources. When you can, keep your protein closer to the farm than the factory: eggs, fish, beans, yogurt, and meat bring along everything else your body expects. But don't let perfect crowd out done. A shake or a bar that gets you there beats an ideal plate you skip, and for many people, especially as cooking gets harder, that's how it happens.
Two things you can do this week
1. Put a real protein source at breakfast. If your morning is coffee and a banana, that's the meal leaking the most. An egg or two, some Greek yogurt, last night's leftovers, anything to anchor it. This matters even more if you're past fifty, when an empty morning is the most expensive meal you skip.
2. Stop chasing the number you saw online. Aim for a palm-sized portion at each meal and let the daily total take care of itself. You almost certainly don't need a food scale.
Protein is one of the few levers here you can pull without an app, a subscription, or a single gram counted. Pay attention at each plate and you're most of the way there. It gets worth a closer look only at the edges: if you're losing weight quickly, on a GLP-1 medication, well past fifty, or managing your kidneys, the right target shifts, and that's where a second set of eyes helps.
Up next: Muscle Is Medicine. Protein is the building material. Next we talk about the one thing that tells your body to actually use it.
This article is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for individualized medical advice. Dr. Tony Mathews is a longevity medicine physician and the founder of Sequoia Medical 360 based in Bronxville, NY.
