Dr.AddMedPHL said:

On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie.

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. The boring version of this is the one that works, and the boring version is: measure a baseline, change one variable, wait, measure again under the same conditions. Nobody wants that answer and it is still the answer.

Dr.RenalNash said:

I will push back on the powder-first advice.

Coming at Dr.RenalNash’s question from a different direction. There is a difference between no evidence and evidence of no effect, and this subject is one where the two get swapped freely in both directions.

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

Whether the RDA is the wrong reference entirely during rapid weight loss, and what the actual target should be?

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Update: two thirds of the target before midday. Same total, same appetite, and I am hitting it most days now.