Six weeks into a lean-out: 4 lifting days, 2 short rows, 180g protein, 2,300 kcal. Weight 84.2 to 81.0kg. Problem: appetite is basically gone by dinner, so I'm forcing Greek yogurt and chicken. Recent labs: ferritin 31, TSH 1.9, HbA1c 5.3, creatinine 1.12. Lifts stalled on bench maybe 2.5kg down.
Is this just high protein plus training suppressing hunger, or am I under-eating carbs/fats? Curious what others saw around week 6.
High protein never kills my appetite unless carbs are low. How many grams on lifting days?
Ferritin 31 stnads out. Mine was 28 and my appetite and bench went flat.
Was it ferritin or just under-eating? Your calories look low for 4 lifts plus rows.
Fasted cardio wrecks mine too, but only for a few hours. Sleep makes me skip meals.
Under 6h sleep and I can forget lunch. Adding 40g carbs pre/post brought hunger back.
I'd look at total intake before pinning it all on protein. At 81kg and four lifting days plus rows, 2,300 kcal can be a decent deficit.
My appetite vanished around week six too; I was at 175g protein but only 45g fat, and sleep was 5.5h. Adding 40g carbs pre/post and one rest day brought hunger back, but bench didn't rebound until I held calories steady for two weeks.
180g protein is only 720 kcal, so it can't be the whole story. What are your fats and weekly weight-loss rate?
Dropped 3.1kg in 7 weeks at basically your intake and my bench fell 5kg around week 5, then clawed back to within 1kg by week 9 without touching a single macro — the early dip was glycogen and water, not muscle, and my waist was down 4cm the whole stretch so the scale wasn't lying about fat loss. What actually fixed the dead-appetite-by-dinner thing for me was flipping the day: I moved about 450 kcal into breakfast and a rice-heavy lunch right after lifting, let dinner be small and boring, and hunger came back inside two weeks because I wasn't staring down 600g of yogurt at 9pm anymore.
So my contrarian take is that 180g probably isn't your villain, the back-loaded day is. Two things worth watching: use a 7-day weigh-in average instead of the single number, and check whether squat and deadlift are holding while only bench sags, since bench is usually first to tank when you're flat on carbs and short on sleep.
Six weeks is about when I stopped trusting daily numbers and started logging weekly averages instead — on paper I was "2,300" but the log said 1,950 on training days and 3,100 on Saturdays, so the weekday hole was way deeper than the plan implied, and that's the first thing I'd check before blaming protein. The counterintuitive part for me: I was getting 60g in before noon and then couldn't face dinner, so I moved 30-40g of it to post-workout and actual hunger showed up aain around 7pm.
Last thing worth a look is your fat number — the two weeks I was under 50g (all chicken, yogurt, rice) my appetite went completely flat and food felt like a chore, and putting olive oil and full-fat yogurt back at lunch fixed dinner without really changing the calories. Are you tracking fat at all, or just protein and total?
Six weeks at 180g put me in the same hole at 85kg — what fixed it wasn’t more protein, it was less. I dropped to 165g, moved those 60 calories into rice and olive oil, and my bench came back 4kg in 12 days.
At your weight, 180g is already overkill unless you’re actively cutting to single digits; the appetite kill is probably low fat, not high protein. Your ferritin at 31 is also low-ish for a lifter — that alone can tank training drive before dinner even hits.
Try two weeks at 160g protein, 70g fat minimum, and see if you’re not force-feeding yogurt by Thursday.
At 81kg and 2,300 kcal, 180g protein is ~31% of calories—not insane, but if you're front-loading it, dinner becomes a chore. I hit the same wall at 6 weeks: 50g at breakfast, 50g at lunch, then couldn't face chicken.
I started splitting dinner into a small plate, then a second 90 min later if hunger showed up. Also swapped some chicken for cottage cheese + fruit or edamame. Lifts came back when total intake stayed steady and meal volume dropped.
Are you actually hungry at breakfast/lunch, or are you just hitting a number early and paying for it at night?
Cafe owner here. Tasting all shift—sauce spoons, pastry trims, latte foam—was quietly killing my dinner appetite.
I started a no-taste rule until final seasoning, and suddenly 150g chicken wasn’t a fight. Also, cold plain chicken and plain yogurt would make anyone gag; warm shredded chicken in broth or frozen yogurt bark with berries goes down way easier.
Quick one: is your ferritin 31 something your doc is watching? Mine floated low 30s and my bench felt flat, but that’s just my n=1.
Are you eating dinner at the cafe or at home?
Are you logging chicken/yogurt raw or cooked? 180g cooked chicken is ~55g protein; 180g raw is closer to 40g. I caught that while comparing $/30g protein and freezer stock—my “180” was actually 200+ some days.
If dinner is the issue, I’d check fiber/water: at 2,300 kcal I need 35g+ fiber and 3.5L water or appetite tanks. What’s your raw/cooked logging and fiber look like?
ferritin 31 is the more interesting number than the protein. I had low-30s ferritin, flat appetite, and a sagging bench; it wasn’t the 180g. What’s your CRP and transferrin saturation? Ferritin can read falsely reassuring when inflammation is in play. At 81kg/2,300 kcal, 180g protein is 2.2g/kg—not extreme.
I’d want to know fat and fiber intake: if fat is very low, satiety and energy often go sideways. Bench down 2.5kg after 3.2kg loss is also within glycogen/leverage noise. Are you tracking waist or arm, or just scale?
Tbh Hi, brand-new here and only on week one, so apologies if this is basic. Are you spreading your protein pretty evenly, or saving most of it for dinner?
I ask because my appetite vanishes at night when I front-load yogurt/eggs at breakfast and a shake after lifting. Also, how close is your last row or lift to dinner? When my sessions run late, even chicken feels like a chore. The bench dip would bug
not a doc but the thing that killed my dinner appetite was caffeine/liquid timing. i was doing soda swaps + late ranked queues, sipping diet dr pepper and coffee, then wondering why chicken was gross.
logging caffeine and moving my shake to breakfast got dinner back in like a week. what's your caffeine and sleep looking like? bench dipping 2.5kg at 3kg down might just be recovery, but late gaming sleep debt is sneaky.
Tbh Not the protein amount exactly, but timing/volume did this to me. When I front-loaded a big protein lunch and a huge salad, dinner felt physically impossible—no hunger, just pressure.
I started splitting it: some at breakfast, some post-lift, then a smaller dinner I actually wanted (soup + eggs, not plain chicken). Also, your bench dip plus appetite drop makes me wonder about sleep and total steps.
Are you sleeping worse or moving more than before? I track resting HR and it usually flags that before my appetite does.
Might be more useful than pushing more yogurt.
Daily weigher/trend-line nerd here. Your 6-week drop is 3.2 kg, about 0.53 kg/wk or ~0.65%/wk. That rate is the first thing I’d check. For me, once loss stays above ~0.5%/wk, dinner appetite disappears and bench stalls before I feel “too lean.” What’s your 7-day average delta over the last two weeks?
If it’s still ~0.5 kg/wk, the 180g protein may be a red herring—the deficit/training load is likely doing the suppressing
Math check: 3.2 kg over 6 weeks is ~0.53 kg/week, ~0.6% BW. That plus bench down 2.5 kg reads like recovery debt, not the protein number. What are your daily steps and sleep hours?
Mine tanked appetite when NEAT quietly rose—2,300 became a fake number. I’d track those for a week before changing macros. Also: are your carbs front-loaded? Saving most carbs for the post-lift meal made dinner stop feeling like a chore.
Systems-wise, appetite is a lagging indicator; check the inputs you aren’t logging.
Not a doc, but what’s your fat/carb split look like? I hit 180g protein on the road too, and when I was living off chicken, Greek yogurt, and shakes, my fats accidentally dropped into the 40s. Bench stalled and dinner felt like a chore.
Weird fix: hotel eggs/avocado/olive oil, plus rice or potatoes at lunch. Same protein, less “all lean protein all day.” Appetite came back enough that dinner wasn’t a force-feed. Are you tracking fats/carbs or just protein and cals?
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