Dr.ObesityLA 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. 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.

kate.chem said:

I will push back on the powder-first advice.

Adding the part of the answer the thread has not reached. There is also a quality change that the scan cannot see. Weight loss shifts fiber-type distribution toward Type I and improves mitochondrial density and insulin-stimulated glucose uptake per fiber — so the muscle you keep is metabolically better even though there is less of it. That does not make the loss irrelevant, but it explains why function often holds up better than the number suggests.

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

One thing that is still open after LeilaHI’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.