You Are Eating the Same Protein You Were at 30... Your Body After 40 Now Needs More!

At some point in your forties, things start to feel slightly harder to maintain. You are training. You are watching what you eat. On paper, not much has changed from a decade ago. But the results feel stickier. The muscle is harder to hold onto. Recovery takes a little longer. The body does not seem to respond the same way to the same inputs.

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Most people chalk this up to getting older and leave it there. A few start training harder. A fewer still start looking at whether the inputs themselves need to change.

The protein target is one of the inputs that almost certainly needs to change. And most people over 40 have not updated it.

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The government recommended daily allowance for protein in the UK is 0.75 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. For someone who weighs 80 kilograms, that is 60 grams of protein per day. That figure is set at a level sufficient to prevent deficiency in sedentary people. It is not a performance target. It is not a muscle retention target. It is not a target designed with someone who trains three times a week in their late forties in mind.

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Research in the area of protein requirements for older adults consistently recommends higher intakes. A 2013 consensus statement from an international group of nutrition and geriatrics researchers recommended 1.0 to 1.2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight for healthy older adults as a baseline, rising to 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram for those dealing with illness or acute physical stress. More recent work has pushed those lower bounds higher still, particularly for people doing regular resistance training.

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The gap between 0.75 and 1.2 grams per kilogram is not trivial. For an 80-kilogram person, it is the difference between 60 grams of protein per day and 96 grams per day. Many people over 40 eating a reasonably healthy diet are sitting somewhere in the middle of that range, eating enough to feel fine but not enough to support the muscle retention their body is working harder to maintain.

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The mechanism behind this is something researchers call anabolic resistance.

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After the age of roughly 40, the muscle-building signalling pathway in the body becomes less sensitive to protein. A younger person eating 25 grams of high-quality protein in a meal will produce a strong muscle protein synthesis response. An older person eating the same 25 grams will produce a blunted response. The signal is quieter. The machinery that reads the signal has become less responsive.

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This does not mean older adults cannot build or maintain muscle. They absolutely can, and research is clear that resistance training combined with adequate protein produces meaningful muscle adaptation well into the 70s and 80s. But the dose required to produce that adaptation increases with age. What worked at 30 produces a smaller response at 45, and a smaller response still at 55. The target has to move to keep up.

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There are two practical implications of anabolic resistance that are worth understanding.

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First, the per-meal protein dose needs to be higher. Where a younger person might stimulate a near-maximal synthesis response with 20 grams of protein at a meal, the research suggests older adults may need closer to 30 to 40 grams per meal to produce the same response. The ceiling shifts. You need more in each serving to get the same signal.

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Second, the total daily target rises. If the per-meal dose needs to be higher and the body is less efficient at converting dietary protein into muscle protein, the daily requirement is higher than the standard guidance accounts for. The 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram range that is often quoted for active people becomes, for someone over 40 doing resistance training, closer to a minimum than an upper bound.

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Resistance training is not optional here. It is the other half of the equation.

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Protein alone does not drive muscle protein synthesis. The stimulus from training is what opens the door, and the protein is what walks through it. For someone over 40 dealing with anabolic resistance, the combination of adequate protein and consistent resistance training is what the research shows preserves muscle mass and function across the years. Either one without the other produces a fraction of the benefit.

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This is particularly important during a caloric deficit, which is when muscle loss is most likely to occur. At Priority 6, we see members who want to lose fat and are cutting calories, sometimes significantly. The risk in that scenario is that the protein goes down with the calories. Keeping protein high during a deficit is the primary lever for preserving the muscle that determines the shape of the body and the rate at which it burns calories at rest. Over 40, with anabolic resistance in play, the target during a deficit should be at the higher end of the recommended range rather than the lower.

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If you are in your 40s or 50s and have not revisited your protein target since your 30s, the starting point is to recalculate it based on your current weight and the appropriate range for your age and activity level.

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For most people over 40 doing three or more resistance training sessions per week, a practical target is 1.8 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. For someone who weighs 75 kilograms, that is 135 to 150 grams per day. For someone who weighs 85 kilograms, it is 153 to 170 grams per day. Spread across three or four meals, each containing 35 to 45 grams.

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Those are not extreme numbers. They are achievable numbers. But for most people over 40 who have not specifically thought about this, they represent a meaningful increase from what they are currently eating. That increase, combined with consistent resistance training, is what the research shows makes the difference between maintaining muscle mass into your 50s and 60s and losing it year on year.

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The body you are training for is built on what you eat every single day. The target changes as you age. The work is updating the target.

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Book a free No Sweat Intro at priority6.co.uk to talk through what that looks like for you specifically. Click here

Priority 6 | Abingdon's longest-standing independent gym | Crossfit, Weight Loss, Fat Loss, Strength, Performance, Longevity www.priority6.co.uk | @priority6 | ollie@priority6.co.uk

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About the Author

Ollie Campbell is a British strength and conditioning coach, specialist fat loss coach, author of Build The Chain, nutrition coach, and founder of Priority 6 in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

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