Appetite gone after intervals: how do you hit 175g protein?

The dead appetite after hard bike intervals is a thing people hit with GLP-1s too. Common surprise: liquid egg whites plus whey in iced coffee lands 40g before you even notice it going down.

Coffee whey sonuds grim. Does it keep you full too long?

Not the coffee person, but Greek yogurt with cereal at 9pm saved my 160g target during marathon block. Took weeks to not hate it.

What finally worked for me was treating protein like a train schedule, not a hunger thing. I set two alarms: 10am and 1pm, and only ate 20-30g each time. Cold cottage cheese with berries, or 6oz Greek yogurt with a scoop of unflavored whey stirred in.

Weirdly, the cold texture went down way easier than shakes when my appetite was dead. Got from 145 to 168g without ever feeling hungry. The 10am one is still the hardest.

I stopped tracking total protein and started tracking what I call 'gap coverage' — how many grams I still owe after 2pm. At 3pm I'd look at the number and plan two 35g moves: 5oz chicken thigh at dinner plus a casein-ish pudding before bed.

The surprise was that my 9pm meal was doing nothing because I was too full from forcing shakes at noon. Moving 40g to 9pm fixed the average without more food volume.

My intervals wrecked my mornings, but the day after was a bottomless pit. So I shifted my protein target to the evening and day after intervals — 50g at 7pm, then 40g by 11am next day. Sounds backwards but my weekly average went from 148 to 171.

The fail was buying fancy protein bars; they sat in my desk drawer for a month because chewing felt like a chore.

Honestly, I'd question whether 175g is the right number for you right now.

I'm 5'9, 172, also on a slow cut, and dropping to 150g changed nothing in my lifts or waist over 8 weeks. The extra 25g was just stress and bloating. If you're hitting 140-155 consistently, maybe that's enough. What's your current waist trend? That told me more than my protein app ever did.

My appetite tanked more from bad sleep than training. Once I got 7.5 hours for 10 straight days, a morning yogurt went from forced to easy, and my waist dropped half an inch with the scale barely moving. If you're under 7 hours, I'd fix that before adding another shake.

I stopped fighting the no-appetite window and ate 2-9pm for a few weeks. Three meals at 55-60g: chicken rice veg, salmon potato, then Greek yogurt berries. Hit 175g by 8 without shakes. Weirdly my sleep improved because I wasn't stuffed at 10pm.

Are those intervals fasted? Morning intervals kill my appetite till 3pm. Moing them to late afternoon after a shake made the no-hunger window way shorter.

For solid-ish protein: 1 cup carton egg whites nuked with salsa is ~26g and goes down like soup. Cottage cheese with seasoning too. Also weigh meat cooked, not raw. I was undershooting by 20g/day. What time do you train?

I quit trying to make solid breakfast happen on interval days. Instead I sip a savory “protein soup” over an hour: bone broth + shredded chicken + egg whites + a little miso.

Easier than sweet shakes when my appetite is dead, and it gets ~45g without chewing. Then I count protein weekly, not daily—170g most days, 140g on interval days still averages out.

Daily weigh-ins go into my 10-day trend, and those low-appetite days haven’t moved the slope. Are you tracking weekly totals or just the daily number? That switch made it feel less like force-feeding.

I am a similar height and also track weekly averages rather than daily. What helped me was making interval days a different template: a savory sipped protein soup around 2pm (broth, blended cottage cheese, shredded chicken), then a normal dinner and a yogurt-ricotta bowl later.

It feels like food, not another shake, and got me from 150 to 172g without forcing breakfast. Are your two interval sessions both 60 minutes, or could one be shorter and lower intensity?

That might soften the appetite crash enough to fit one solid protein meal earlier. Also, are you counting protein from oats, bread, or vegetables? Those bonus grams added up for me when appetite was low.

Airport/hotel trick that saved my brain on interval days: I stopped trying to eat a Real Meal before 2 and build a “pantry plate” in my room at night instead. Single-serve tuna or chicken packets, microwave brown rice, roasted edamame snack bags.

Weirdly, cold grocery-store roast chicken goes down way easier than a shake when I’m still not hungry. I also keep a tiny fork in my laptop bag because hotel forks have vanished into the void.

Do you count plant proteins like oats and edamame toward your 175g, or only the heavy hitters? That changed my math.

Not timing, but session type. My spreadsheet shows my 2pm appetite tanked only on threshold/interval days, not Z2.

So I moved intervals to after my last solid meal (6pm) and treat the evening as liquid-only: 40g casein in milk, 200g 0% Greek yogurt, 30g peanut butter powder. Cold, no smell, easy. Solid lunch is cold chicken + mustard.

The smell of reheated meat is what kills me. What’s your interval HR/zone? If you’re doing 4x4s vs steady 60, that might explain the dead appetite more than when you do them.

What’s your interval intensity? I lift 4x too, and 60-min intervals nuked my appetite until ~1:30. What worked was treating interval days as 3 feeds: 45g shake + Greek yogurt around 2pm, then 50–60g real food at 5 and 8. Not elegant, but it broke my 140g ceiling.

Also, my sleep gets wrecked if intervals are late, and that tanks appetite the next day. Are you doing them on lifting days or separate?

I’m 57, kids launched. My appetite trick: I make a batch of savory egg bites with cottage cheese and smoked salmon, freeze them.

On interval mornings I eat one cold, standing at the counter—no cooking, minimal chewing. Two = about 24g. Then I stop negotiating with breakfast. The other thing that helped was a 10-min walk after intervals; it often brings a little hunger back by 11.

Does your appetite return for lunch, or is it a full no-go till dinner?

Cafe owner here, so I’m around carbs all day. What finally helped on interval days was treating 2pm as my “first meal” but making it a 45g anchor: rotisserie chicken, cottage cheese, edamame, chili crisp. Then two 30g mini-meals at 5 and 8.

Also, I front-load 30–40g the night before because I know next-day appetite will be trash. Are you tracking by meal or just end-of-day total? Seeing the 2pm anchor as non-negotiable made the math way less miserable.

That dead-until-2pm stretch is familiar. One thing that helped me was treating evening as my protein anchor instead of fighting the morning: dinner gets 50–60g, then a cold snack later, like cottage cheese with berries or shredded chicken with salsa.

Cold and savory goes down more easily than hot food when appetite is low. I’d also ask: does your hunger return by dinner, or stay flat all evening?

If it returns, shifting your target later may feel less forced than a morning shake.

Fellow road warrior here. On interval days I don’t fight the dead-appetite window; I pack a hotel-room protein picnic: pre-cooked chicken packets, shelf-stable cottage cheese, roasted edamame, and smoked salmon. I graze 30–40g around 4, 6, and 8pm.

Zero-cook, TSA-friendly, and way easier than chewing when nothing sounds good. Sharp question: do you count collagen or protein coffee toward your 175g?

I used to, then realized my actual food protein was way lower than I thought.