HPLC_Greg 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.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. Keep the original post as written when you update it, and add the correction underneath. An edited-away mistake is invisible to the next person who makes it.

LarryQC_SD said:

I will push back on the powder-first advice.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. The mental-health dimension is under-measured in the trial literature and the reports here are consistent enough to take seriously. On the positive side: reduced anxiety around food, better self-image, more confidence. On the difficult side: grief for the years lost, identity disruption, relationships built around eating, and the loss of food as a coping mechanism with nothing put in its place. Rarer but real: anhedonia and emotional flatness. Regulators have started asking for validated patient-reported outcomes in this class; the existing data gap is not evidence of absence.

Worth separating that from mood and mental health, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.

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

How people are hitting a protein target on a genuinely suppressed appetite, because volume is the binding constraint rather than willingness?

Reporting back.

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.