Protein on Foundayo: What People Say About How Much They Need
Start Foundayo (orforglipron) and the conversation about food changes quickly. Hunger goes quiet, plates get smaller, and a word that most people barely thought about before, protein, becomes the thing everyone in the forums is counting.
What the numbers should be, how anyone is meant to reach them when food barely appeals, and whether the whole preoccupation has been blown out of proportion are all questions that public threads return to again and again. The accounts below are personal experiences, not evidence of what anyone needs or of what causes what.
Here is how it sounds in people's own words: the targets they were handed, the arguments about where those figures come from, the practical workarounds, and the worry about muscle that sits underneath it all.
A Target That Meets a Quiet Appetite
Some people arrive with a protein figure already in hand, from a dietitian, a coach or an earlier diet. Then the appetite shrinks, and a number that once felt routine becomes hard work. For one person in their second week, the obstacle was fullness rather than hunger.
"I used to be able to eat enough protein (at least 1.5 times my weight), but since started the medication I have been struggling with that. Especially because high protein meals makes you very full and there are days I am already full naturally."
– Smart-Toe-8752
The gap between the target and the plate can be wide. Eight days in, another writer had been given a daily figure that was reached on only a handful of days, and the taste of the obvious fix did not help.
"The one thing I struggle with is protein. I'm supposed to be eating 162.2 grams daily. I struggle hitting that number. I'd say i'd hit that number 3 times. Most days I get about 110 grams. Maybe 120. It's the first thing I eat. I am not a fan of protein shakes. The taste is terrible. Wheaty, chalky or both."
– cupofj47
Shakes are a common suggestion in these threads, and not everyone gets on with them. Someone on day three, who describes being a poor eater long before treatment, had already been through several brands.
"I am not good at getting in my protein. I've tried numerous protein shakes and have yet to find one that I can tolerate."
– SillyReplacement54
None of these writers is sure the figure they have been handed is the right one, and the threads soon turn to exactly that.
Whose Number Is It?
Ask how much protein is enough and the answers scatter. In a thread about a rule of one and a half grams per kilogram of body weight, one reader wanted to know where the idea came from, having been given something more modest.
"Where did the idea about 1 and 1/2 times your weight of protein come from? I was told to get about 100 g or so. I weigh 199 lbs."
– HalleFreakinLujah
On another thread, a single contributor had collected so many versions of the formula that the spread became the point.
"I was told to calculate based on my goal weight not my current weight. On Reddit I have been told everything from 75% of my weight in grams (so 200 lbs would be 150g) to over 125%, so the same 200lb person would eat 250g."
– JadedAd3191
That mismatch, between a formula and what people are actually told in practice, leads some to doubt the whole exercise.
Pushing Back Against the Hype
A few contributors have lost patience with the numbers altogether, and are blunt about who they think is promoting them.
"Perhaps controversial take: most of the people telling you to eat that much protein are influencers or fitness people who aren’t actual doctors or dietitians and you don’t need as much as is hyped […]"
– darkblueshapes
Others offer reassurance of a quieter kind, aimed at someone who had worried that their intake was too low. The reply sets that figure against a much lower one of their own.
"At 110, you are more than fine. I strive for 80. I am a vegetarian, and don’t understand what you mean by adding proteins. Beans, tofu, nuts, quinoa, eggs, so much protein. with fiber built right in!"
– Alternative-Pear9096
At the far end are people whose appetite never went away, and who report that the question barely crosses their mind.
"My appetite is still good, so I don't really think about protein. I eat beans or chicken, eggs. Probably get more than I need to."
– OriginalStuff8044
For those who do struggle, the practical question is how to get food in when it holds little appeal.
Getting It In
The workarounds are inventive. Where shakes are disliked, the protein goes somewhere else, and one person with a heavy coffee habit found it a natural home.
"So I started putting chocolate protein drink in my coffee instead of creamer or whatever. I don't like the shakes on their own, but it is amazing in coffee, and I drink a LOT of coffee."
– JGonzoX3
Dietary limits narrow the options further. For someone who cannot eat dairy, the search runs through the fish counter instead of the shake aisle.
"I struggle with protein intake as well. I eat fish lately, my grocery store sells big bags of frozen tilapia fillets. A four ounce fillet has 22 grams of protein so I eat two. I cannot eat dairy at all."
– KonaHonu
Others build whole days around it, with small portions timed from the moment they wake. One long routine stretches from first thing in the morning to a bedtime snack.
"When I started I more or less forced myself to have a small handful of walnuts or pecans and a banana and clementine when I get up. I take my pill and some supplements with coffee next. Next is some oatmeal with fruit and nuts and seeds and kefir or yogurt on top. For lunch I try to get some type of beans, peas or lentils – for instance, as burritos, soup or bean salad. Then a little bit of whatever my wife cooks for dinner. On workout days I have a smoothie with added protein as I finish my workout, and lowfat cottage cheese with fruit and chia as a before-bedtime snack."
– StudsMcLovin
Not every fix survives contact with the body, though. A change that works for one person can bring its own trouble for another, and the humour in the following account is hard to miss.
"I tried adding boiled eggs, but they now give me real bad heartburn since I started my dose. I add ground flax seed to my oatmeal. That helps some. Adding nuts as a snack helps. When I’m cooking rice, I’ll cut up pork and add it to the rice in the rice cooker. And whopper Wednesday is always good."
– Mathamagician77
Beyond the grams, there is the matter of what ends up on the plate.
The Worry Underneath: Muscle
Behind the counting sits a shared concern about what weight loss might take with it. For people already training, it arrives before the first dose.
"The one thing I’m concerned about is sagging skin and muscle loss. I generally go to the gym currently three or four times a week and mostly do resistance training."
– FrontApplication30
Some are trying to track it rather than guess. One writer planning periodic body-composition scans hopes to lose fat while keeping lean mass, and says plainly that they expect the result to be imperfect.
"I'm really curious if I can manage to lose a significant amout of fat mass without also cratering my lean mass, which is inevitable with rapid weight loss unless you're getting a lot of protein and consistently doing significantly difficult weight training. I'm guessing I'll still lose some lean mass but I'm going to do my best not to!"
– GoodProbsToHave
Regret appears too, and it comes from experience rather than anticipation. In a reply to someone with limited mobility, one person offers a cautionary account of their own.
"Whatever you can do is better than nothing and resistance training is key or you mayvlose substantial muscle with a lot of weight loss and then you will be thin but weak. That’s what happened to me and I regret it every day."
– AITMmom
What these accounts share is not a confident answer but a determination to be watching for the problem.
When Protein Changes the Plate
Not everyone describes the focus on protein as a burden. For some it has reshaped what eating is for, replacing an urge to quiet hunger with a question about what the food will do.
"most of my energy is now being spent on choosing what food will fuel me, like increasing protein and vegetables and fruit, and not what food will quiet that screaming voice to eat most."
– TerriblePost4661
Others have settled on a figure that feels workable, though protein is not the only thing being counted.
"I've been tracking both protein and fiber and trying to get about 80 grams of protein a day which seems doable by just eating two meals with meat. Fiber has been much harder"
– UnfairCriticism7658
What Does Medino's Pharmacist Think?
"What stands out is how personal the protein question becomes. Some people are working to a figure they were given, some have decided that figure is overblown, and some simply eat what their appetite allows. These are individual accounts, and every person's circumstances differ."
– Alessandro Grenci, Pharmacist at Medino
Many Numbers, One Shared Preoccupation
Read together, these threads describe a stage of treatment in which protein stops being an afterthought. For some it is a target to be met with shakes, coffee and fish; for others, something that takes care of itself.
What the accounts do not settle is how much anyone needs. They disagree on the figure, on where it comes from and on whether it matters as much as the internet says, yet they agree that, with a smaller appetite, food has to be thought about in a way it was not before.
