One concrete data point for the thread. If you are tracking this properly: same scanner, same time of day, same hydration, at least six months apart, and read grip strength or a lift number alongside it. Function is the outcome; the scan is the proxy.

Following on from Dr.ObesityMed — 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?

jason_paloalto said:

If you are tracking this properly: same scanner, same time of day, same hydration, at least six months apart, and read grip strength or a lift number…

Coming at jason_paloalto’s question from a different direction. The intervention that works is boring and well evidenced: resistance training two to three times a week at a genuine effort, protein at 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg of reference body weight, and not making the deficit larger than the training can support. Cardio does not protect lean mass and in a deep deficit competes with recovery.

Worth separating that from lean-mass preservation, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

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

Front-loading was the answer. Same total intake, same drug, but two thirds of the protein before midday and I am hitting the target most days now.

DebRD_ATL said:

The intervention that works is boring and well evidenced: resistance training two to three times a week at a genuine effort, protein at 1.4 to 2.0…

Agreed on the target, with the caveat that reference weight and current weight are different numbers. Using current weight at the start of a large loss produces a target that is both unachievable and unnecessary.

Worth separating that from lean-mass preservation, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

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