PSMF! Anyone?

[3Diva]

Hey amiga, sorry I haven't answered your questions yet. Minor family emergency. I'll get to it soon.

[ddailey320]

Hope you don't mind me jumping in here!! I read Lyle's book over the weekend. It is primarily what I have been doing (carb cycling/low cals), but as I found out without enough protein. So I am now upping my protein intake to ~100g protein/day.

In his new book he does include an ecercise book which just explains the benefits of aerobic/resistance/interval training and how you can incorporate it into the rapid fat loss program. He recommends that most people (catagory 2 and 3) do MAXIMUM 2-3 days weights/light resistance and limit light aerobic activity to a 30 minutes walks, jogs, etc a few times a week. Outlines a few weight training exercises you can do at home (pushups, tricept dips, 1 arm rows, squats, etc) and how to use jugs of water/sand if you don't have weights.

As of this morning I have dropped 5.5 pounds in 5 days....granted there is some water weight in there but I'll take it and that's after a free meal yesterday. Here is my menu for today. Please let me know how it looks/how it can be improved! Thanks

EAS Advantage low carb shake w/ 1 scoop Protein Powder

2 egg whites w/ 2 slices FF cheese

1/2 C 1% cotage cheese with 1/2 scoop protein powder and 2 oz strawberries

3 oz Lemon Chicken w/ 3/4C steamed broccoli and 1/2C Carb Countdown F milk

Totals 600 calories 9g F/ 19gC/ 101gP

[Fifi]

Hi! Today is my very first day of PSMF. I am Cat 2. I don't plan on a RF or FM until Sunday. I'm looking forward to learning from the rest of you, and getting to know you!

[amiga74]

thanks ddailey for the info! it sounds similar but a bit more specific than the earlier version.
i think your menu looks pretty good for psmf!
good luck fifi!

[Fifi]

Thanks, Amiga.

Day 1 was tough. I did see the scale go down 2 pounds though. I'm liking that, but I know better than to expect that daily...although how nice would that be....

[ddailey320]

Same as yesterday morning, but I worked out last night so muscles may be retaining a bit. Here's my planned menu for today:

1) EAS shake w/ scoop PP
2) 2 egg whites w/ celery sticks
3) 3/4C Egg Beaters w/ .5 oz onion (use Pam)
4) 4 oz ground turkey w/ 2 C romain, 1 oz tomato and 1/4 C salsa, 1/2 cheese stick
5) Mock Cheese Cake (1/2C egg beaters, 1T FF cream cheese, vanilla-microwave)

Totals: 593 calories 8 F/14 C/105 P

Fif~ what part did you struggle with- the food??? Believe it or not, after a few days you'll actually have trouble eating enough to get all your protein in. I do at least!! Keep at it!!

[3Diva]

Hi Fifi, hey amiga! Hello other new people

Sorry, I've been away, my basement foundation is a crumbling and my parents sewer line blew up and they have been staying here, with contractors running all over between our houses and my 21 month old learned how to escape from the crib and the pack and play.

I've been on plan the past few days, but I have been HUNGRY!!!!!

That's weird. I've been struggling to stay at 1000 calories and normally I could do between 700-800 standing on my head. I think being more lax about carbs (between 20-30g vs 10-20g makes a big difference in hunger control for me)

Anyways, I am seriously considering a refeed unless I have an amazing weigh-in/measure-in this Friday (which will mark my 3rd week). I am borderline category 2/3, but up until now I've been afraid to try it because it just seems like diet destruction. I'm such an low carb fanatic that trying it is very hard for me to psychologically warm to, even though I understanding the reasoning behind it.

Like, what... you want me to eat human flesh????

j/k I'll check back in later

[3Diva]

Originally Posted by ddailey320

Same as yesterday morning, but I worked out last night so muscles may be retaining a bit. Here's my planned menu for today:

1) EAS shake w/ scoop PP
2) 2 egg whites w/ celery sticks
3) 3/4C Egg Beaters w/ .5 oz onion (use Pam)
4) 4 oz ground turkey w/ 2 C romain, 1 oz tomato and 1/4 C salsa, 1/2 cheese stick
5) Mock Cheese Cake (1/2C egg beaters, 1T FF cream cheese, vanilla-microwave)

Totals: 593 calories 8 F/14 C/105 P

Fif~ what part did you struggle with- the food??? Believe it or not, after a few days you'll actually have trouble eating enough to get all your protein in. I do at least!! Keep at it!!

Wow, your menu is tight. I remember being that disciplined.... LOL

[janamonkey]

Hi everyone I started a round of psmf yesterday. I am down 2 pounds of water weight today, I was seriously carbed up from my family weekend. I ate out almost every meal! Now that it's all over with I can get back to the groove again.

i'm planning on doing 14 days this round, then a week diet break if I need it. My mini-goal is 139.8. That would be a new low for me.

3Diva - I'm sorry for all your stress! That is a lot going on!

I hope you guys don't mind I am going to keep a daily log of my weight in this thread. It helps me stay accountable .

1 144.2
2 142.2

[Fifi]

Hi everyone! Thanks for the welcomes!

Ddailey: The food isn't so much the problem, it is breaking my habit of coming home for a glass of wine / beer to relax while dinner is cooking. I like your point of having too much food to eat, though! Love that idea!

Keep up the good work, all!

[amiga74]

wow, now that this thread is active i am seriously considering doing a round of psmf. i'm category 2. i have been eating very poorly since saturday.

Suzan-way to stay on track with all the stuff you have going on!
you could do a 5 hour refeed and get 150-200g carbs.

Hey Fifi, Ddailey, Jana! keep up the good work!

[Lioness0455]

This is going to be pretty long, so I hope you guys don't mind.

I started another round of PSMF yesterday. So I'm very glad to see this thread. I have Meniere's which makes me considerably less active than the average person, and general low carb with it's high fat just doesn't work for me. It did when I was younger, before I had the kind of health issues I have now. But not anymore. I lost something like only 2 pounds on Atkins Induction. Maybe 5 pounds the first month or two. Then completely stalled within 3 months.

So I next did a modified version of Kimkins. I had no problems with the diet, in fact I felt really great on it, whereas I felt simply terrible on Atkins. Haven't had any trouble keeping the weight off, but like everyone else, when the crap hit the fan, I bailed, ran back to Atkins with my tail between my legs even though KK was working well for me, and I had no health issues from it. I wasn't eating 500 calories though, I was eating more around 800 to 900. But then, that's how many calories I was eating on Atkins too. Until I started cooking for the boy's home here in town. I was then able to up things to 1000.

I used to wonder "how" people were able to cheat and get away with it, because if I had even a single slice of bread I'd stall for over a month and it would take me something like 2 weeks just to get myself back into Ketosis. Course, I didn't understand the science behind Ketostix then, so I probably "was" in Ketosis, I just didn't know it.

Since I was never cheating, eventually I reached a point where I crashed. I was "freezing" all the time (body temp only 96 something), I was hungry, and I started craving sugary/carby foods that had never bothered me (nor did I want them) before. I started focusing on food, and thinking about food waaaay too much, where before it had become just fuel to me. I became very very depressed. Weepy. And just felt like total crap.

That's about the time when someone commented on my blog about how they'd had to do a few refeeds and then raise their carbs a bit. That keeping things at Induction levels of 20 net for months on end seriously catches up with you eventually. So I upped my carbs to 30 and did a bit better, but even that wasn't enough to help me crash through what appeared to be a setpoint. It was the exactly same place (size 14) that I'd crashed and burned on Weight Watchers many years ago.

I started reading everything I could on refeeds, cycling, free meals, and diet breaks. Found Lyle's web forum, and read every single post over there. Discussed some of those things with my husband, who kept saying how much sense it all made to him.

So for Valentine's Day, my husband took me out for pizza. My favorite food. I was really scared though. Literally terrified because at Christmas, I was still basically eating low carb, I was just eating a tiny bit more than I was before and maintained my weight really nicely. But I didn't know what doing a refeed was going to do to me.

Well...I decided that "one" weekend wasn't going to cause me to gain back all of the weight I'd lost over the last year, (about 80 lbs), and that I wasn't going to know if refeeds work if I didn't just buckle down and do one. I knew I had to do something drastic, that I wasn't going to reach my goals with low carb. I just wasn't. And the info on leptin being lowered from extremely low carb made sense.

So I took the plunge. I did a refeed which turned into a large carb fest for 4 days. Thursday (Valentines Day) through Sunday.

The odd thing was, after downing 4 pieces of an extra-large supreme pizza on Thursday evening, the kind with everything on it, plus a big bowl of ice cream later on that night, I had so much "energy" I didn't know what to do with it all. I seriously hadn't cheated throughout my whole dieting experience up to this point, over 13 months, except for one mistake at Cracker Barrel and one chinese meal.

As a result, I was literally up at 2 and 3 am doing dishes and laundry. I felt so good, I just couldn't sleep.

I didn't gain a single pound from it either.

In fact, it wasn't until Sunday morning that I actually gained anything. My body was simply USING all of those carbs. My gain for the entire weekend was "less" than 5 pounds! I think it was something like 3 to 4.

So that's when I began experimenting with some of the PSMF principles and ideas I'd been reading about at the time, to see if it was going to work any before buying anything. I couldn't see how doing a free meal + refeeding every single weekend (category 2) was going to net me a fat loss. I was surprised though, just "how" well it worked. I was losing about 2 pounds a week, net, but then mid-week on week 3, I seriously crashed and burned.

That's because I didn't take a break before doing the PSMF. I just moved from my Atkins/Kimkins diet to the PSMF. Plus I didn't know "what" to do for a hypoglycemic episode. So at that point I went on a real diet break. Bought both The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook and Flexible Dieting, and read them several times. Studied them thoroughly during my diet break before going back onto the PSMF yesterday.

So I've been doing a diet break for the past month. A real one, not what I tried last December for the holidays. Because at that time, I was just too afraid to do anything even remotely close to what I've been doing for the past month. It's crazy but...even though Kimkins made me severely afraid of fat, Atkins made me severely afraid of carbs!!!

I've been maintaining just fine though. Gained only the average minimal glycogen/water amount, something like 5 pounds, and that's on over 2100 calories, 100 to 150 carbs, and not watching my fat intake at all. I'm short too, around 5ft tall.

I was soooo shocked, I couldn't believe it, because I thought I'd destroyed my metabolism, since I wasn't able to eat over 1000 calories and 60 grams of fat on Atkins without gaining. But here I was eating all of this stuff and maintaining just fine.

Crazy, but you really DO have to completely knock yourself out of ketosis by
overeating carbs. You can't raise your metabolism back to normal or reset your hormones (thyroid/leptin, etc.) on anything less. You really can't.

I'm down 3.4 pounds since yesterday by the way.

But the other thing is...I have NO CLUE as to just what my body fat percentage really is. So I have no idea what category I really am. Lyle's calculator says 42% body fat, but my Tanita-like scale says I'm only 30.

I'm thinking at the moment, since I'm carrying LOTS of belly fat, to just try doing a category 3 and see what happens, because I might have just needed a diet break, not a weekly refeed, since I'd been low carbing for all of that time at the 20 net carb level or less. If I need to do a refeed, then I'll do one, since I now know what a drop in Leptin feels like.

[Jean@125]

Hi Vickie,
I have Meniere's also. Have you had any treatment for the meniere's that has been helpful?
Jeanie

[Fifi]

Hi everyone! Welcome Vickie and Jeanie! Vickie - you are doing so great! I hope you both will continue to post!

I'm down 2 pounds again today. I know, I know: water weight. But I don't care! I'm happy! Movement like this is going to make me stick to this plan, for sure!

Here's my menu for today:

B: egg white omlette, coffee
L: salad greens topped with cottage cheese, diet coke
D: chicken and veg (but not certain yet)
Water throughout the day, but not over doing it.

Can't wait to read everyone else's update!

[Lioness0455]

Originally Posted by Jean@125

Hi Vickie,
I have Meniere's also. Have you had any treatment for the meniere's that has been helpful?
Jeanie

Not really. I couldn't even get "officially" diagnosed when we lived in Southern California.

They put me on Meclizine and sent me to doc after doc after doc who basically didn't know anything. My Personal Care Physician got scared when the state wanted to send me to one of their doctors for a standard 3-month disability review. He wanted to see that doctor's notes since that doctor told me this was never going to go away...ever. When they refused to release those notes to him, he stopped filling out my disability papers and told me to go back to work because he wasn't going to consider me disabled anymore until a specialist told him I was disabled.

Well...The whole thing was silly because when I needed to get a copy of the Neurologist's notes for my work insurance company, Meniere's Disease was clearly at the bottom, separated from the other notes, and even CIRCLED to call the doc's attention to it. That's how I knew what to start studying for myself on the Internet.

My doc wasn't "buying" that diagnosis though. I know that because when I took him in a bunch of stuff on Meniere's, he wouldn't LISTEN to me, (that I "was" suffering with all of those symptoms listed in the papers I'd brought) and kept telling me that Meniere's is a bunch of various symptoms not just vertigo. And that he wanted to send me to the Internist Department, since that's the actual specialty the state doc was.

We packed up, moved here to Utah, because without disability insurance I wasn't going to be able to afford health insurance anymore, and at that time we were paying for both our own residence there in California, and my father in law's here in Utah. We could no longer afford to do that, so we decided to move here where the air is cleaner and life for me could be simpler. That has done more for my Meniere's than almost anything else, except chiropractic care. Chiropractic care has helped a whole lot. I've gone from being an invalid to just a cripple now lol.

Don't have medical insurance still, so I'm just doing what I can for it myself.
Thank goodness for the Internet. And all of the info that's there. Because they didn't even put me on a low sodium, allergy free, low carb diet. They just medicated me with the meclizine, and kept increasing the dosage until I hit the 75g per day maximum. In fact, the ENT told me to "quit being lazy", go back to work, and just learn to live with it.

I was a floor supervisor for a developmentally disabled adult workshop. You're on your feet running, packing, lifting, etc., 7 out of every 8 hour shift. My boss just started laughing when I told her what I was told. Then she said: "This ISN'T a sit down job!!!" No duh. So I lost my job, lost my disabilty...it's been one hell of a ride.

[ddailey320]

Hi all...glad to see so many more people on here!!

Welll, 1 week in and down 7 pounds... actually i have only been doing PSMF strictly for 4-5 days but what I was doing prior was very similar but without enough protein as I found out!

Vickie~ like you, I was doing KimKins and carb cycling before which believe it or not I really did enjoy. I have always prefered low carb/lowfat/lowcal- it just works for me. Like many others, I was booted off the Kimkins website for speaking my mind about all the secretive sh@t going on. So until I came upon Lyle's RFWL book I couldn't really find any support group. So glad I stumbled upon the book and all of you! Congrats on your loses so far! Looks like this is just what your body needed

Fifi~ looking at your menu, are you getting in all your required protein?? Looks like such a little amount. Personally struggle to get all of mine in I am at around 103g Protein per day according to Lyle's calculator thing.

Today is a workout day (weights). I just got the Jillian Michaels' 30 day shred dvd so I am going to give that a try tonight since it combines strength training/cardio/abs. I also just started the EC stack today. Felt like I was a criminal being booked as I had to show ID, sign this, initial that just to get my hands on some ephedrine(Bronckaid) at Rite Aid last night. I am starting off with a low dose and building on that.

[ddailey320]

Ohhh...wanted to add, I made some Protein Gummy Worms today. Found the recipe on another site. They actually came out really good. Here it is in case anyone is interested:

Ingredients:
2 envelopes SF jello
2 envelopes Knox unflavored geletin
1 Cup boiling water

Combine all until well dissolved. Pour into a small sheet pan sprayed with a touch of Pam. Sets in refrigerator in about 20 minutes. use cookie cutters or kitchen shears to cut up into worms.
***I poured mine into some candy molds that I had and they came out awsome!!****
Total Recipe: 120 cals 0g Fat/ 0g Carbs/ 28g Protein.
When you break it down it comes out to 20 cals 0f/0c/4.66p PER OUNCE (28g)

My menu today:
1) 2EW and 3 slices Jenn-o turkey bacon
2) 1 Cup CC fat free milk w/ 1 scoop protein powder
3) 1.5 oz Turkey, .5 oz tomato, 2 slices turkey bacon, 2 tsp Light Miracle Whip in Romain leaf 5.5oz Protein shake w/ 1/2 scoop PP
4) 3 oz chicken, 3/4C broccoli
5)Mock Danish
Totals: 600 calories 10f/14c/103p

[Fifi]

Ddailey ~ Awesome job for one week! May I ask your weight when you started (prior to the 7 pound loss)?

As for the protein - I have been "just" hitting the target. I'm supposed to have 99g per day. Tonight I'm doing lite grocery shopping and will pick up more chicken & turkey to add to my omlettes and salads. Thanks for asking!

I haven't started the EC yet - I'll be interested to see what you have to say about it - or anyone else already using it.

[Fivekidmom]

Hello everyone. I am new here. I have been looking for a support group that I can feel comfortable with...I'd love to join in.

I am having a terrible time trying to stick with anything and have been struggling to lose now for too long. I have blamed the weight gain on 5 pregnancies, but my youngest is now 10, so enough is enough. I really think low carb is the way to go. My biggest problem I think is my busy schedule and taking care of everyone with no time left for me....so "one more day of bad eating, then I will do something" turns into months and months, well years actually for me and that "next day" has yet to come. I'm so upset with how I look and here I am another year with summer approaching and once again I look like a cow.
Okay, no more excuses...I really want this to work...so hope you can put up with me.
My name is Randi

[ddailey320]

Randi~ I think many of us can sympathize with the dreaded weight gain from pregnancies...my youngest is turning 2 the June. I think that's why I have really been head strong this time! Summer is always a motivator in itself! Have you read up on PSMF (many of us have read Lyle McDonald's Rapid Fat Weight Loss Book) just so you know what you are getting into?? It may not be easy at first , but is certainly do-able and worth doing if you are commited to it

Fifi~ Since I am being open and honest I'll tell- but everyone else look away from the screen for a moment (198.5- 5'6" relatively muscular build, loose size 12 pants) it has been up and down the same 10 pounds for the past few months, but I am determined to get it off for good. I would be happy at around 145-150 at which point I can usually wear a size 4/6

[Lioness0455]

Boye...can I ever relate to feeling misplaced without any support group! That's pretty much why I've been sortta silent on this forum as of late. KK is certainly a bad word around here, which unfortunately spills over into low-fat, low-cal, low-carb, even though it works well for a lot of us.

I was soooo grateful to find Lyle's forum and finally get the "truth" about a lot of these things. As well as get my head back on straight so that I could see the scale move downwards again.

This morning I was down another .8 of a pound, so that's a total of 4.2 so far.

If anyone is interested in my menus (and my wacky life) I generally post them to my sister blog. The link is on the right-hand side of my main blog, at the top, and the link for my main blog is here in my sig. Kickin' is more of a generalized low carb blog and Sharing the Magic is more personalized. But I'll certainly be doing a lot of posting here too.

Starting Weight, Day 1: 180.4
Day 2: 177
Today: 176.2

[ddailey320]

For those of you that have been doing this for a little bit, can you describe what you have had on some of your "free meals"? On my one and only free day was on Sunday, I had gone to Ruby Tuesday, so I had the salad bar- complete with higher carb veggies , small scoop of pasta salad and of course crutons!! I also had the mini burgers with ketchup which I ate MAYBE half of the bread and about 4 fries.

It's hard to wrap your mind around not feeling guilty eating "off limit" foods. But far less punishing then when you do it unplanned! I am planning my next free meal for either Friday or Saturday as I am taking my kiddos to my mom's house for a long weekend!

[janamonkey]

Hi everyone, its good to see so many people posted on this thread I too can simpathize about support groups. After the kk disaster last summer/fall I have been very very hesitant to post anything about how I eat. Hopefully we can all be a great support to one another.

ddailey320- for my free meals- I always do my FM on Wednesday and refeed on sat- I like to eat whatever it is that I'm craving. That is what makes this diet livable for me. Well, not livable for life, but at least two weeks I find it best to have FM not at home if possible, or if you do it at home, then make only enough for the meal. Left-overs spell disaster for me. Also, being disciplined to stop eating when I'm full, is another key. The only thing I really try to stay away from is alcohol. It really affects my willpower.

My update:
1 144.2
2 142.2
3 141.6 FM and work out


And HELLO everyone new!

[Jean@125]

Is kimkins really that similar to psmf?