Fine by me. I had wanted a stronger conclusion and there is not one available.
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Nutrition & Training · Protein & intake · continued
Tracking intake honestly when appetite is absent posts 61–90
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1 · go to the accepted answer.
Timing of protein: spreading protein intake across the day, with some at each meal, is more practical than trying to hit the whole target at one sitting on suppressed appetite.
The reasoning is more useful than the number, which is why I have shown it.
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Confirming post #62 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Marking my uncertainty on tracking intake explicitly. I am confident about the direction, much less confident about the size, and not confident at all that it generalises past the case in the first post.
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m.ferrand, post #45: Nothing here is medical or dietetic advice, and a dietitian is the professional this subcategory most often recommends. Go to post
I had written a reply contradicting post #62 and deleted it. Here is what survived.
If someone has run tracking intake properly I would rather read that than my own reconstruction of it. Posting mine only because the thread has gone quiet.
Published guidance on protein during weight loss is reasonably consistent and is easy to find, which makes this one of the better-evidenced practical questions here.
I would put a moderate confidence on that and no more.
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Meeting protein targets on suppressed appetite: this is where the practical difficulty lies. Eating more protein when appetite is suppressed is genuinely hard. Front-loading the day, prioritising density over volume, and accepting this is a problem worth solving all help.
It is the kind of thing that is obvious once and never again.
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isotonic_sheet, post #39: Adding the boring version of tracking intake, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right. Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does. Go to post
Post #64 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Where somebody reports losing strength, intake and training stimulus are the first two things to look at rather than the compound.
Where I would look next, rather than where I would stop.
vial_slope, post #55: Distribution across the day appears to matter less than total for most outcomes, and it matters practically because a single large meal is harder when appetite is reduced. Go to post
Tracking intake is well covered in the tag pages, and the older discussions are better than the recent ones because they were argued out properly. Worth twenty minutes before adding to this one.
Answering the question post #66 raises rather than the one it answers.
What I would want before treating tracking intake as settled: the method, the sample, and whether anyone tried to find the opposite result. Two of the three are usually missing.
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Where I part company with post #69, and it is a narrow parting.
Posting my tracking intake numbers with the method attached so they can be discounted properly. Uncontrolled, unblinded, and collected by someone who wanted a particular answer.
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Density matters more than quantity when total intake is limited. The same protein in a smaller volume is the whole game.
A weak preference rather than a position.
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NLoughran, post #57: Answering the question post #55 raises rather than the one it answers. Adding what did not work for me on tracking intake, since the failures never get written up and they are half the useful information. Go to post
Helpful, and short, which on this subject is harder than long.
Adding the measurement that post #72 says would settle it.
Distribution across the day appears to matter less than total for most outcomes, and it matters practically because a single large meal is harder when appetite is reduced.
Adding the caveat now so it does not have to be extracted later.
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Fibre: adequate fibre intake supports fullness and gut motility, both of which matter during the gastrointestinal effects of these compounds. High fibre on top of appetite suppression requires attention to hydration and gradual introduction.
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crossover_entry, post #68: Tracking intake is well covered in the tag pages, and the older discussions are better than the recent ones because they were argued out properly. Worth twenty minutes before adding to this one. Go to post
On post #74 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Protein supplements: whey, casein, and plant-based protein powders can help hit targets when whole-food intake is limited by appetite. Protein quality (all essential amino acids) matters more than form.
Speaking for myself and not for anyone else who has posted here.
Picking up post #77: that is the part I would want checked first.
The practical version of tracking intake is three sentences long. The rigorous version is three pages and reaches the same conclusion with the conditions attached.
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Fibre and fluid tend to fall alongside protein when intake drops, and the constipation reported here follows from that as much as from the mechanism.
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k.adeyemi, post #63: Confirming post #62 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person. Marking my uncertainty on tracking intake explicitly. I am confident about the direction, much less confident about the size, and not confident at all that it generalises past the case in the first post. Go to post
Micronutrient adequacy becomes a real question at very low total intake and is much less discussed than protein.
Take it as a starting point and not as a specification.
Self-reported intake is optimistic by a consistent margin in the published comparisons, which is worth applying to your own numbers.
That is what the documentation says. What happens in practice is usually close.
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i.coelho, post #73: Helpful, and short, which on this subject is harder than long. Go to post
The reason tracking intake keeps being re-asked is that the answer is conditional and people quote it without the condition. It is not that the answer is unknown.
Taking post #82 at face value and following it one step further.
Where intake has fallen a long way, protein is usually the first thing to fall because it is the least appealing macronutrient when appetite is reduced.
The confident version of this sentence would be wrong, so here is the hedged one.
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Post #84 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
Reading back through the tracking intake threads from last year, the same three questions come up every time and only one of them has ever been answered properly. That seems like a documentation gap rather than a knowledge gap.
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Renal considerations around higher protein intake apply to people with existing renal impairment and are frequently generalised beyond that population.
That is one dataset and I would not build a rule on it.
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Micronutrition alongside protein: eating protein foods that are also good sources of micronutrients (iron, B vitamins, zinc) solves two problems at once.
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Worth separating two things that post #89 runs together.
I would be cautious about generalising from the tracking intake example above. It is a good example. It is one example.
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