Read the primary source rather than the write-up and the two do not agree, so here is what is actually in it.
Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing. Roughly 25 to 40g per sitting with enough leucine to trigger synthesis, three or four times a day, is more effective than the same total in one enormous evening meal — and on a suppressed appetite the enormous evening meal is the one you will not finish anyway.
Where I think it is weakest: the completion rate deserves as much attention as the headline, because a large effect among those who finished is a different claim from a large effect among those enrolled.
What I am after is whether the RDA is the wrong reference entirely during rapid weight loss, and what the actual target should be. Happy to be told the question itself is wrong.
Figures above are from the primary publication rather than the press summary. If a number here disagrees with one you have, post yours and we will work out which of us is reading a secondary source.
PeptideSynthNJ said:Distribution matters less than total but it is not nothing.
No disagreement with PeptideSynthNJ. One condition attached. On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie. Isolate powders, Greek yoghurt and cottage cheese, egg whites, lean fish, and tinned tuna all deliver a lot of protein in a small physical volume. Front-load it: appetite is usually least suppressed in the first hours after waking and worst on the day or two after dosing, so get the majority in early in the day and early in the week.
PeptideSynthNJ 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.
That is the short version; the long version is somebody else's post.
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Shop Reference StandardsThis one has a reasonably settled answer, so here it is. The RDA is the wrong reference and it is worth understanding why. 0.8 g/kg is the intake at which nitrogen balance is not negative in healthy weight-stable adults — a floor for deficiency prevention, not an optimum, and derived in a population that is not in a deficit. In a substantial energy deficit, protein requirement rises because amino acids are being oxidised for energy and because muscle protein synthesis is blunted. The literature on preserving lean mass during weight loss lands around 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg of reference body weight, which is roughly two to two and a half times the RDA.
JennaRN said:On a suppressed appetite the winning strategy is protein density per unit of volume, not per calorie.
Agreed, and for anyone with an eating-disorder history this needs a clinician in the loop rather than a forum. The same drug can be therapeutic in binge-eating disorder and actively harmful in a restrictive disorder.