Dr.ReproEndo 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.

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

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. It helps to say which part of this you are uncertain about. A precise question gets a precise answer; a general one gets everybody’s favourite anecdote.

Following on from jason_paloalto — 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.

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