How much protein should I eat on Wegovy or Ozempic?

The short answer: during active weight loss on a GLP-1, the 2025 joint advisory from four American nutrition and obesity societies proposes 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight a day, or, more simply, an absolute target of 80 to 120 grams a day.¹ For most people that is more than they are eating now, on an appetite that has just shrunk. This page is about how to get there, and why it matters more than the calories.

Why protein matters more than calories here

These medications take the appetite away. The calories look after themselves for most people; the trials show that. What does not look after itself is where the weight comes from.

In the STEP 1 body composition substudy, people on semaglutide lost 15 percent of their weight over 68 weeks. Fat mass went down by about 19 percent and lean mass, which is mostly muscle, by about 10 percent.² The advisory puts the same finding another way: of the average 13.6 kilograms lost, 8.3 was fat and 5.3, or 38 percent, was lean body mass.¹ The tirzepatide substudy from SURMOUNT-1 reads similarly: roughly three quarters of the weight lost was fat and one quarter was lean.³

Some lean mass loss comes with any large weight loss. The point is that the medication does not choose which kind of weight goes. What tilts the balance toward fat is what you eat and whether you use your muscles, and the first of those is protein.

The number, and how to land on yours

Take your weight in kilograms and multiply by 1.2 and by 1.6. That is your range. A person of 75 kilograms lands between 90 and 120 grams a day.

Two honest complications. The advisory itself says it is unclear whether the calculation should use your actual weight, an adjusted weight, or your fat-free mass,¹ so if you are heavier the per-kilogram number can run high. That is why it also offers the absolute target of 80 to 120 grams, which is the one most people can use. And it sets a ceiling: prolonged intake at or above 2 grams per kilogram is to be avoided.¹

So in practice: aim for 100 grams a day, give or take twenty, unless your prescriber or a dietitian has given you a different number. If you have kidney disease or any condition that affects how you handle protein, theirs is the only number that counts.

What 100 grams looks like

Protein grams are not food grams. A hundred grams of chicken is about 31 grams of protein. Rough figures for common foods:

• Two eggs: about 12 g.
• 150 g of Greek yogurt: about 15 g.
• 100 g of cottage cheese: about 11 g.
• 100 g of chicken or turkey breast: about 31 g.
• 100 g of white fish or tinned tuna, drained: about 22 to 25 g.
• 100 g of cooked lentils: about 9 g; of tofu: about 8 g.
• One scoop of whey or a plant-based shake: about 20 to 25 g.

A day of 100 grams is not heroic. Yogurt and two eggs at breakfast, a chicken salad at lunch, fish and something at dinner, and a shake somewhere in between gets you there. The difficulty on a GLP-1 is not the food, it is that you are full after half of it.

Protein first, on a small appetite

This is the one habit that does most of the work. When the plate arrives, eat the protein first. The fullness comes early on these medications and it comes hard, so whatever you eat first is what you get. If the chicken goes before the rice and the yogurt before the toast, a half-eaten meal is still a protein meal.

A few more that people who log their days keep coming back to:

• Spread it out. Four smaller protein hits of 25 to 30 grams land better than two big ones, and a stomach that is emptying slowly copes with them better.
• Drink some of it. A cold shake is the easiest protein there is on a day when nothing appeals. It is also the day 2 friend: liquid, cold, sipped.
• Keep the plain ones in the fridge. Boiled eggs, cottage cheese, plain yogurt, a tin of tuna. When the appetite opens for ten minutes, the protein should already be there.
• Watch the fat that comes with it. Fat slows the stomach further and brings the nausea. Lean protein sits better than fatty protein, especially early in the week.

The other half: use the muscle

The advisory is blunt about this. Increased protein alone is likely inadequate to preserve muscle without structured strength training, and it recommends strength training at least three times a week, plus 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity.¹ Protein is the material; lifting, pushing and carrying things is the instruction to keep it. Bodyweight at home counts. It does not have to be a gym.

What to track, and what to ignore

Track the grams of protein a day and whether you hit them. That is the number that decides how you look and feel at the end of this. Ignore the calorie total for a while; the medication is handling it, and staring at it is how the streaks-and-guilt apps made you miserable.

Tilly puts protein on the end of every meal line, keeps a ring of the day’s total against your target, and the report for your doctor says how many days you reached it. It never tells you what dose to take, and it does not set your protein target; you and your prescriber do. It just makes the number easy to hit.