JJ Virgin4x NYTimes Best Selling Author, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer

How Much Protein Should You Eat?

11 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:46

In this brief YouTube excerpt, a host asks about the appropriate amount of protein, and JJ Virgin explains that protein requirements are highly dependent on age and activity level. For people in their 20s who engage in regular resistance training, hormonal muscle protein synthesis allows them to maintain muscle with relatively lower protein intake. However, as individuals age, they generally need more protein and more resistance training because typical diets are low in protein and many lead sedentary lifestyles. Virgin emphasizes that the decline in muscle building is not an inevitable result of aging itself, but rather a consequence of insufficient protein consumption and lack of movement.

Chapters

people are really questioning like how much protein is enough, right? And I'm sure you've seen some people are saying you don't need that much.
Well, our bodies are really adaptive. What's interesting is, and it really depends on how old you are and what else you're doing. If you are someone who is in your 20s and you're doing a lot of resistance training, you can get away with a lot because you're triggering muscle protein synthesis by your hormone. But as you get older, and especially when you look at how few people are actually hitting the parameters for what we should be doing, and our parameters suck and they're really low. So you look at what you really need to do to build muscle as you age, it's not happening with a small amount of protein. So you need more protein as you age. You need more resistance training as you age, because as we age, left unchecked— and I don't believe it's happening because you're aging. I think it's happening because we're sitting and we're eating a low protein diet.