LibrarianMeg said:

Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing.

I will push back on the powder-first advice. It works and it also trains people out of eating food, and when the drug stops the habits are what remain. Getting protein from meals is slower and holds up better afterwards.

The figures, for anyone assembling their own picture. Keep the original post as written when you update it, and add the correction underneath. An edited-away mistake is invisible to the next person who makes it.

If somebody has the primary source to hand I would rather cite it than paraphrase it.

SarahChen_PharmD said:

I will push back on the powder-first advice.

Coming at SarahChen_PharmD’s question from a different direction. If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not. That is answerable; arguing about which sounds more plausible is not.

I would rather be corrected than agreed with, if it comes to it.

Following on from alex_tucson — and this may be the naive question:

How people are hitting a protein target on a genuinely suppressed appetite, because volume is the binding constraint rather than willingness?

Closing the loop on my own question.

Reporting back — setting the target on reference weight rather than current weight turned an impossible number into a boring one.