Blog

6

1

I imagine that this could be a bit off topic but I found myself plateauing after going from 289 to 261 over the course of 6 weeks. After doing some research and talking to some friends I discovered
PSMF .

For those people who don't feel like clicking the link PSMF is, in short, reducing your calorie intake to around 1200 while you are in ketosis (your body is burning fat instead of carbs) of only fat, protein and green vegetables.

Along with this I am taking a multi vitamin and flax seed oil.

I am doing this to break what i felt was a plateau and to encourage myself to keep going with the diet.

Does anyone have any experience with this? What were your experiences with it both during and after the time you were on it?

I hope this isn't off topic. This is my first question here.

flag
what's your general diet like? you might not have to do a fast with a few small tweaks on paleo to get it started again. if you are eating fruit you could replace it with more veggies. if you are eating butter id switch that to lard or coconut oil. see if weight loss continues. also if you are working out your plateau might be just muscle building with fat lost. take waist measures regularly and looking in the mirror helps monitor that. – MikeD Sep 22 2010 at 17:00
Usually eggs for breakfast, meat of some kind for lunch and more meat for dinner. Lots of fruit throughout the day to keep me going. I have noticed that I am just as awake through drinking lots of water throughout the day in place of the fruit. I will look to swap the fruit out for veggies when the fast is over. – TedB Sep 22 2010 at 20:07
6 
 Stop the fruit. – Patrik♦ Sep 22 2010 at 23:10
1 
 Absolutely drop the fruit. – Stephen-Aegis Sep 22 2010 at 23:18
To clarify; the fruit seriously cramps fast weight loss by spiking insulin and putting you in storage mode rather than burn. – Stephen-Aegis Sep 23 2010 at 13:50
show 3 more comments

6 Answers

6

I used PSMF appx 1000 calories once a day to radically shred the end of my subcutaneous fat

I've had several friends use it to similar great results

It sucks if you're not fat adapted... Bad

Drink Lots of water.

If you are doing any strenuous activity, you will want to do a refeed. During standard weight loss and not get shredded state, I'd eat a 5000 calorie day once a week(coincided with extreme exercise)

Low intensity steady state exercise (walking) is your friend while on this strict calorie shortage

However, I highly recommend doing resistance exercise 3-4x a week at moderate intensity. Muscle is use it or lose it. Tell your body that you Need the muscle and it will rip the fat off..

105lbs and kept it off.. With lowcarb Paleo

link|flag
2 
 When you return to big meals, ramp up slowly – Stephen-Aegis Sep 22 2010 at 18:43
Thanks Stephen. That's around how much I am looking to lose. Great advice on the water I have been sucking down around 2 gallons a day. Good advice on the "refeed" I will work that in. – TedB Sep 22 2010 at 20:04
I'm not getting the picture of this diet. You eat only 1000 calories per day ? For how long ? All calories come from protein ? Please add some details your version of PSMF. Thank you. – Ikco Sep 23 2010 at 20:08
1 
 all 1000 daily calories come from protein with a very small amount of lettuce mixed in for some leafy greens to help digestion. 4 day cycles with one day refeed. – TedB Sep 23 2010 at 20:20
2 
 Mine was real meat, eggs and grassfed beef... So a decent amount of fat in the mix. The general basis is eat very small that your body goes to ketosis/fat burn, yet enough protein that you don't catabolize your muscles. This is also why it's good to workout during. The refeeds are for muscle glycogen, preventing rabbit starvation, fuel for your hormones etc. – Stephen-Aegis Sep 24 2010 at 10:40
5

I have done three stints with ketogenic diets around 1200 calories, although they had occasional refeeds.

  • You might want to switch to fish oil because of flax seeds' low conversion rate to useful EFAs.
  • A PSMF after such a large weight loss might not be optimal because of adrenal fatigue, etc.
  • My energy levels were okay on the diet, but only because I had refeeds. I would not personally recommend PSMF for long periods without a refeed every couple weeks.

A PSMF is, essentially, paleo. It just happens to be a paleo diet with no carbs. So everything on this site applies qutie well I think. However, unless you need to lose weight that 15% faster, it might be good to slow down and enjoy the ride a little more. Like maybe do intermittent fasting with a low-medium carb paleo diet.

link|flag
I never knew the fish oil is better than flax seed oil. Thanks for the tip! – TedB Sep 22 2010 at 20:10
1 
 good tip, the flax oil myth needs to die. – MikeD Sep 23 2010 at 14:01
2

To put it simply, its basically a starve yourself without starving yourself temporary diet, and it works wonderfully at maintaining muscle mass (if your using them), AND having you lose fat. You can always shoot for 1 day per week of this and if the rest of your diet is dialed in right, plan on losing the last 5 lbs of fat in 5 weeks or less.

link|flag
0

The PSMF doesn't include fat or any but the most fibrous and otherwise carb-free vegetables. It is sometimes dubbed "Protein Solely My Friend", or the "MF" can be somewhat crasser. It is expected that you will be using your own body fat, so that it wouldn't have the deleterious effect of a non-fat diet.

I haven't done it myself, but read a lot about it when considering it at one time. Lyle McDonald is probably the foremost expert on it, and you should definitely read what he has to say about it before trying it. As the others who have answered, he also advocates refeeds.

Are you using flax seed oil for omega-3? I don't have a reference on hand, but I've read that fishoil is much superior in this regard. In general, adding good fat is probably a good kind of modification, but, of course, would cost you that much fat loss, if it works as McDonald and others believe.

On the other hand, a diet of just meat and fat is very satiating, and also would probably break your stall without being so unpleasant. That's what I ended up doing, and it's working great!

link|flag
Yeah, I'd agree. Going lowcarb is probably going to work well also, plus it'd probably be more pleasant. – Eva Sep 23 2010 at 4:17
1 
 It's about how fast you want results. I saved PSMF for making abs visible... Which is painfully slow on just lowcarb if at all – Stephen-Aegis Sep 23 2010 at 13:52
1 
 Just low-carb did not work for me. I had to cut fat very, very low and eat mostly protein and the very least caloric green veg. I could also eat small amounts of strawberries and a SMALL apple now and again. – Nicole Sep 23 2010 at 19:30
1 
 I was wondering about that, Stephen. I have lost almost all the weight I would like to lose, and might have to do more to get the last of the ab cover off, such as PSMF, or IF/ADF. Are you saying you did PSMF to make abs visible, and then went back to VLC and maintained the visible abs? That would be my hope. – Ambimorph Sep 25 2010 at 19:39
0

There is very little information on the wiki page. Please correct me if I understood it wrongly: you eat almost no carbs, the minimum necessary of protein and how much fat? It looks like the protein stays on typical level, so is it only fat that is reduced in order to lower till 1200 calories?

What is the system of using it? Is it to be used like IF between regular days, or for a longer time?

link|flag
It's basically a ketogenic diet without the fat. You eat your daily protein needs and nothing else. – Ambimorph Sep 23 2010 at 0:09
isn't that dangerous? unless it's very short term? – Yoannah_offca Sep 23 2010 at 0:47
I ate 150g of protein per day, which is about 21oz. of very lean meat, piles of greens like lettuce, cucumber, spinach, cabbage and radish and virtually no fat. – Nicole Sep 23 2010 at 19:32
0

Sounds like a 'rabbit fever' type diet.

link|flag
I think this is a valid comment. "Rabbit starvation" is supposed to happen when you eat only lean. It also smacks of Kimkins. However, I think it can be done intelligently. See Lyle McDonald's writings. A recent n=1 experiment at forum.dirtycarnivore.com/index.php/… showed that at least one person can eat just lean for a week without nasty effects, which is admittedly short-term. – Ambimorph Sep 23 2010 at 13:44
Lyle McDonald's "Rapid Fat Loss Handbook" is what I followed. – Nicole Sep 23 2010 at 19:34
1 
 That's exactly where my worries came from. Eating mainly lean protein with some veggies and no fat is unhealthy. Maybe if it's short-term, like instead of IF, in between other, regular feedings? – Yoannah_offca Sep 24 2010 at 2:43
I don't see the issue. Your body doesn't care where it gets calories. If you have 80,000kcal of fat on your body and eat protein and low-calorie, nutrient dense foods you still burn your normal 2-3k calories a day, 1000k from fat of the internal sort. Rabbit starvation happens when you run out of body fat and are only eating lean protein. At least that's how I understood it. – Satchmo May 30 at 23:07

Your Answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.