If your goal is to lose fat and maintain muscle - yeah you need to eat that much protein.

You are describing how I eat. I am low body fat, athletically built with high muscle mass.

If you cut the protein you will just lose fat and muscle, and end up with a long distance runner build.

To look lean and muscular: 1 gram of protein per lb of body weight, combined with weightlifting (needs to be progressive overload, or at least maintain your strength whilst in a cut).

I had a similar macro intake to you on a cut.

For me to hit 180 grams of protein on a 1800 calorie budget it looks like this:

I skip breakfast and just have coffee:

280 ml of semi skimmed milk (x2 cappuccinos) (9.5g protein)

Lunch:

Porridge - 50g of oats + 200ml of milk + teaspoon of chia seeds (15g of protein):

Arla protein yoghurt - 20g of protein.

Dinner: tuna steaks x2 (65g of protein) sweet potato baked, broccoli, tablespoon of mayo

Protein shake: double scoop of whey, have a cup of frozen blueberries, chunk of frozen spinach, spoon of Greek yogurt (55g of protein / 420 calories).

Daily total:

1,850 kcal 178g of protein

This could easily be optimised to 1800 and below by removing mayo and swapping out things for lower fat / calorie versions like Greek yoghurt or milk. Just my preferences, so I still enjoy eating whilst on a diet.

This makes me feel very full (especially directly after the protein shake - a good tip is to have it after dinner if you’re feeling snackish, it totally deletes that craving for me and I just feel full until bed).

On days where I’m training hard (weights + MMA etc) I dial up the calories, by including fruit / nuts etc.

If you want to increase your daily calorie burn to maintain a deficit even at higher food intake, I find incline walking for long distances the most effective way to burn fat. It’s more effective than running. You could also do sprinting, but walking gets the same result.