Let me put some primary points out that anyone doing resistance training needs to understand.
Programming
You need to follow an effective training program. Not some lifts you think are the right ones, not something out of a magazine. There are very well known strength training programs out there with solid track records: follow them. Understand where you are on internationally recognized strength standards, and aim to get to the intermediate level in all areas.
Diet
Directly answering your question, you should eat north of 260 grams of protein per day. This has been well studied, and most people advocating for more than 3.3g/kg are trying to sell you supplements. From Lyle McDonald:
... strength/power athletes should aim for 1.5 g/lb protein per day
(again, this is about 3.3 g/kg for the metrically inclined).
Personally, I shoot for 2.1 g/kg because I can accomplish that without severely altering my diet and don't have to eat chicken and whey seven times a day. The diet of a high level body builder is very different than what normal people eat. Planning, structuring, and preparing your meals is something that takes a lot of time, every day.
Ultimately I feel that a "pretty good" diet that you can actually stick with is better than the "perfect" diet which you can't effectively maintain.
Be Patient
There really are no shortcuts to physical fitness. Our bodies take a while to respond, and it is the steady, consistent, and regular effort that wins. Give yourself at least six months to see any changes in the mirror, and two years is a reasonable time for people to honestly not recognize you anymore. Again, that's two years of steadily following the right diet and following an effective program.
Protein Supplementation
Eating real food is much better than supplements. Your body needs fiber, fats, minerals, and nutrients that are not found in protein supplements.
- Find out the total amount of calories you need via a calculator. It's not going to be exact, but it will be close, and much closer than you guessing.
- Figure out your macronutrients also using a calculator.
- Start tracking your calories and macros. You know what you need (calories and macros) and now you can see what you're actually putting in. You should do this for at least a week, and anytime you can't honestly tell yourself down to the ~100 calorie mark how much you've had that day.
- Adjust your diet until you are meeting your macros and calories.
If this seems like a ton of work, you can start to see why everyone isn't walking around with 5% body fat and squatting 315lb.
But what you will probably find is that it is logistically tough and expensive to eat such a large amount of protein. Fats and carbs are cheap and easy to come by but protein is rare and expensive. This is the reason that people supplement with products like whey. Some proteins (like red meat) eaten on the regular have their own health problems as well.
Adjust your real-food diet as much as you can to target your macros. If and when you fall short, do exactly what the name implies: supplement.
Whey protein in particular is cheap, safe, and easy to prepare. A caveat to any supplementation (including whey) is consider the other ingredients as well. I personally have switched to the "natural" whey products without artificial sweeteners, because of the recently discussed link between those artificial sweeteners and dementia.
Especially if you're going to be taking a scoop or two of some product every day for years on end, you really want to know the safety of what you're consuming.
