JessicaH_TX 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. 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.

LabKate said:

I will push back on the powder-first advice.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then measure again under the same conditions.

One thing that is still open after pete_nash’s answer:

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

Reporting back.

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