PSMF by Lyle McDonald and GB

[David Birchall]

I have used this diet before successfully to drop fat and no strength loss. I weigh 210lbs now and I cant stand my body fat level. The diet is a protein sparing modified fast. His recommendations are to train twice a week, full body 2-3 sets per body part 6-8 reps a set.

Bench 2-3*6-8

Squat 2-3 *6-8

BB Rows 2-3 *6-8

Leg Curls 2-3 *6-8

Bicep curls 1-2 * 10-12

Tricep pull downs 1-2 * 10-12

Ab crunch 2-3 * 6-8

Was the workout I used as per his recommendation in his book. I want to know how I should train on the diet as it is only 1000-1400 cala per day and I only have experience with weights twice a week on the diet being successful with no strength loss.

Would I be ok doing statics every day still as it is mostly neurological strength gains?

He said in his book skill work would be fine so I can still do handstands daily I imagine at least?

As the GB rep range is 3-5 should I alter the number of sets and how should I modify the training program in general now I am only doing body weight strength training?

I was thinking 2x a week still doing:

FSP warmup

Pulling FBE 3x3-5

Pushing FBE 3x3-5

Leg FBE 3x3-5

Core FBE 3x3-5

Handstands, FL, BL, LS every day

I don't want any lectures about fast weight loss please I've done this diet properly and maintained it before. This year diet has not been on my agenda due to a multitude of personal stuff.

[Joshua Naterman]

Note to OP: While you may not care to hear anything, I have a responsibility to everyone who reads this thread. That responsibility is to make sure they don't read something I post and think that I somehow endorse what you're doing, because I don't. Having said that, feel free to skip the blue text to get to the stuff that is specific to your request. I think the red is worth reading also, but you can skip that as well if you like.

A point against everything you just said: You are unhappy with how fat you are, despite having run this diet several times in the past. That's your own words. To me this says that your diet may not be as sustainable as you want to believe, nor are the results with your current plan. If they were, you would probably not be in your current situation. That may be slightly unfair, as life can absolutely interfere with proper maintenance as I know well enough myself, but not to the point where you look at the mirror and can't stand what you see. Regardless, if you have to stay on such a low calorie diet to maintain your body fat % then something is very wrong with your body. I don't know if that's what you did to maintain or not, but if so I will recommend that you consider finding a good sport nutritionist who is an RD.

For everyone's information: One of the unavoidable things that happens with low calorie diets is that your T3 thyroid hormone levels drop dramatically, and this makes it very hard to maintain any fat loss that happens once you resume any kind of reasonable eating unless you are careful to A) maintain activity levels and B) slowly taper back up, taking 4-6 months or more to build back up to the right amount of calories for your size. Hence the common bounce-back that people see after such diets over a 12-24 month period of loosening up restrictions. In the end, the majority end up fatter than they were before. This is, in large part, due to people not following the protocol I just listed to allow their bodies to undo the thyroid crash without putting on unnecessary fat...

Regardless, the less you eat the more important it is to have pulses of 20-30g of protein every 2-3 hours. It is also important to train heavy with short sets.

In my opinion it is very important that you rely as much as possible on the creatine system. None of your work sets should last more than 10 seconds. You are going to be glycogen depleted all the time anyways, and there is no sense in burning any sugar that you don't have to. This will avoid some catabolism and also give your muscles a large mechanical stimulus which will help convince your body to hang on to the lean tissue.

Skill work can burn a substantial amount of calories, so if you're going to be doing that you need to limit your sets to 3-5 as Coach generally suggests for beginners. I would also stick to things that are pretty easy, like a 5 out of 10 on a subjective effort scale

My suggestion would be to pick GB exercises that are similar to the exercises, and program a similar total volume per training day. I would not drop weighted squats. You may need to do weighted pull ups and dips to get the intense stimulation that you really need during a diet like this.

I will also suggest that, for at least 6 hours PWO on each of your two workouts, that you completely ignore the low calorie stuff and get around 200-250 kcal per hour for 5-6 hours. After that, go ahead and drop back to what you normally do on that "diet." Do not fast to make up for the calories, they are there to support protein synthesis.

Good luck, I hope you get what you want.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

Josh, one question about 2-3 hourly protein intake. Is there any means of getting 2-3 hours worth of protein outside of whey and casein and whey and meat combinations (as in whey for quick absorption and casein or meat for slow absorption)? It's pretty inconvenient to eat meat every few hours, so I was thinking that whey+casein would be a good choice. I was also thinking about taking it before bed too. Poliquin recommends pre-bed protein so I was thinking about trying it out for a few weeks and see out if feels.

I have Dr. Bernardot's "Advanced Sports Nutrition" (2nd edition) but haven't got a chance to do anything but skim the first chapter so far because of uni classes.

[Joshua Naterman]

Josh, one question about 2-3 hourly protein intake. Is there any means of getting 2-3 hours worth of protein outside of whey and casein and whey and meat combinations (as in whey for quick absorption and casein or meat for slow absorption)? It's pretty inconvenient to eat meat every few hours, so I was thinking that whey+casein would be a good choice. I was also thinking about taking it before bed too. Poliquin recommends pre-bed protein so I was thinking about trying it out for a few weeks and see out if feels.

I have Dr. Bernardot's "Advanced Sports Nutrition" (2nd edition) but haven't got a chance to do anything but skim the first chapter so far because of uni classes.

Well, properly mixed beans and seeds and grains work pretty well also. I'd try to get every other protein serving from meat if you can, but I agree... all 6-8 can be a giant pain. Always default to whatever A) works with your schedule and B) includes as much whole food as you reasonably can within the context of A.

[Nic Branson]

I have to side with Josh on this completely. Diet is how you eat all the time. We all have bus time and stress and things go off from our plans, but if your diet is in tune with your body and what you do then it is really easy to manipulate without anything seeming drastic.

As for your training during it. Josh gave ya some good info. Not going to add anything else there. Best of luck.