eating
Protein without a chore
Why protein matters most exactly when eating is hardest, and the low-effort ways members actually get it in — no meal prep, no lectures, no shakes unless you want them.
A floor, never a ceiling
Protein and fluid floor
A rough daily protein and fluid floor, so that the number you are aiming at is a minimum to reach rather than a limit to stay under.
Updated 30 May 2026Runs in your browser only
Read the framing before the number, because the framing is the point. This tool gives you a floor: a rough amount of protein and fluid to get at least, not a budget to stay within. Nothing on this site sets a limit on what anybody eats and nothing here is a target for a body.
It exists because appetite reduction makes protein and fluid the two things that quietly slide, and because members repeatedly discover, months later, that they had been running well under both. Ren's version of this is that strength is the part you keep, and that protein is how you keep it.
The arithmetic is a common clinical rule of thumb and nothing more. It cannot see you, it does not know your kidney function, and anybody with kidney disease, liver disease, heart failure or a fluid restriction should ignore it entirely and ask their own clinician instead.
How to use a number like this well
Get most of it most days and stop thinking about it. Members who treat the figure as a daily pass-or-fail test tend to stop using it within a fortnight; members who treat it as a rough direction of travel are still using it two years later.
Front-load it. Almost everybody here finds the morning is the easiest part of the day to get protein in, and that by evening the appetite that was going to arrive has not arrived. Protein without a chore is the least preachy version we could write, the plant-based version is here, and the fluid side is at hydration and electrolytes.
Guides that go with it
eating
Hydration and electrolytes
Thirst goes quiet along with appetite, and most early headaches and cramps in this community trace back to fluid. What is sensible, and where the supplement talk goes wrong.
eating
Vegan and vegetarian protein
Getting enough protein without meat when your stomach holds four mouthfuls and pulses are giving you trouble — from members who have solved it.
movement
Keeping your strength through a loss phase
When intake falls quickly the body draws on muscle as well as fat — what the evidence actually shows about that, what protects it, and which parts are still argued over.
movement
Protein and strength: the basics
What protein is actually for during a loss phase, roughly how much the research points at, and why the whole thing gets harder exactly when it starts to matter.
symptoms
Muscle cramps and electrolytes
Night cramps, twitching calves and the electrolyte question — what is plausible, what is guesswork, and which cramps mean a blood test rather than a banana.