How much protein do you actually need for muscle building?
According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition's 2017 position stand, the recommendation for muscle building is 0.7-1g of protein per pound of body weight per day. For a 180-pound person, that's 126-180g of protein daily.
The real challenge is consistency
But hitting that number consistently is the real challenge. A 2022 MyFitnessPal Nutrition IQ survey found that 91% of Americans have no idea how much protein, fiber, carbs, sugar, and salt they actually consume daily. Hitting 150g+ of protein requires intentional planning at every meal - not just adding a protein shake and hoping for the best.
Why is macro tracking so tedious?
Traditional macro tracking means logging every ingredient, every meal, every day. Apps like MyFitnessPal require you to search for each food, verify the serving size, and manually enter quantities.
The math on tracking time
A single home-cooked meal with 8 ingredients can take 5-10 minutes to log. Over a week, that's an hour of data entry just for tracking. Most people start strong and quit within 2-3 weeks because the friction is too high. The tracking itself becomes harder than the cooking. If your goal is weight loss rather than muscle gain, the case against manual tracking is even stronger.
How does AI meal planning handle macros automatically?
MealThinker takes a different approach. Instead of tracking after the fact, it plans forward.
How it works
- Tell it your macro targets (or let it calculate them from your profile)
- It generates meals that hit those numbers
- When you confirm you ate it, nutrition is logged automatically
There's no manual entry. If you're short 40g of protein at dinner, MealThinker knows and suggests a high-protein option to close the gap. The tracking happens as a byproduct of the planning, not as extra work.
Plan tonight's dinner in 30 seconds
AI meal planning that remembers your kitchen and preferences.
What does a full day of muscle-building meals look like?
A typical AI-planned muscle-building day might look like this:
- Breakfast - Tofu scramble with spinach, nutritional yeast, and whole wheat toast (32g protein, 450 cal)
- Lunch - Lentil and black bean burrito bowl with avocado and quinoa (44g protein, 620 cal)
- Snack - Protein smoothie with banana, peanut butter, and hemp seeds (30g protein, 380 cal)
- Dinner - Seitan stir-fry with sweet potato and roasted broccoli (48g protein, 580 cal)
- Evening snack - Protein pudding with chia seeds (26g protein, 200 cal)
Total: 180g protein, 2,230 calories. The key is that MealThinker builds this using ingredients you actually have, not aspirational grocery lists.
Can AI adapt a meal plan to your specific kitchen?
This is where MealThinker differs from generic meal plans you find online. It knows your pantry.
Real-time adaptation
If you're out of tofu, it swaps breakfast for a tempeh hash with peppers and onions - same protein target, different ingredients. If you bought lentils in bulk, it prioritizes using them before the black beans that don't expire until next month.
Every plan is built around what's actually in your kitchen right now, which means less shopping, less waste, and more meals that you can actually cook tonight. See how vegan protein planning works in detail.