i ate a whole dog

PSMF – Fin

// Jimmy // June 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Oops. Just realised I never completed the diet journal.

I ended up pushing through to the end. The pain must have been a lovely little side effect from getting boozed in the middle of a high intensity diet.

Alcohol Verdict: Not recommended

Rest of that final week was pretty standard compared with the rest of the PSMF. Ramping back to normal intake was a bit of a fail, with probably too much indulgence for the first couple of days off the diet.

First day back at the gym was awesome. Lifted exactly what I did when I went into the PSMF. Zero loss at all in the gym. Probably a little muscle loss overall, as that’s ridiculously hard to avoid, but having retained as much as I did was AWESOME. Overall bodyfat percentage was down around 3.5%. End result was 12.9% but there’s no way I am that low, so I am just using -3.5% as the benchmark.

Bounce back afterwards was about +3kg in water, giving an overall loss of 4kg in 3 weeks. ALL fat. Very happy with the results. Might do another short PSMF again soon

PSMF – Day 12 Through 17 – Getting Bad

// Jimmy // May 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

It’s probably my own fault, but the diet is starting to get BAD. Originally, it was only going to span two weeks. I decided on an extra week because of wanting a little extra results, and because Saturday night (day 15) was a big boozing night for 4 of my friend’s birthdays in one party – wasn’t missing that. So refeed was on Thursday night and the ‘cheat meal’ was more of a cheat night on the booze and finishing up with drunken McDonalds.

The result was that I felt like ass all Sunday, but way different to a normal hangover. While all of me felt fine, my stomach feels like what it would with a mild dose of food poisoning. I chalked it up to the booze and my own fault, so I’d just deal with it. After breakfast this morning though, it’s the same feeling. Really effing yuck. Like yesterday, the idea of egg white or chicken makes me feel yuck and I’d much rather just have protein drinks all day. If this is a result of the drinking I’m not sure but it’s fairly probable. Booze probably just has weird effects when on a diet this intense.

Another day of this and it will be quit time. Something is obviously wrong and both work and personal time are suffering majorly. The original goal is already beat so I’m not too worried, I’ll just do a week long ramp back up to maintenance instead of the original two day ramp I was planning.

PSMF – Day 7 through 11

// Jimmy // May 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Well the diet sucks, but I’m getting used to it. That’s not to say I’m not hungry, just that it’s now a dull background pain that I have just come to accept. Kind of getting sick of satisfying my hunger through tons of water and some diet coke. The worse part though is the change in energy levels. The weekend just gone I would have been quite content to spend both Friday and Saturday nights at home watching a movies, when normally I’d be jumping out of my skin trying to get some fun in.

Friday night was cheat meal night. I was expecting Burger Urge to kill some cravings since it was built up all week. Instead it was like going into a movie with over the top expectations. It just ends up being average cause of the hype you generated.

So I’m on day 11 now, just over halfway of my new goal of three weeks. I realised last night that my multivitamin provides 50mg of Calcium a day versus the RDI for my age of 1000mg. Oops.

Averaging around 900cal a day so far. Weighed in at 83.8kg this morning. Body fat test over the weekend was down 2% on the weekend prior. And was only slightly weaker at gym, probably more due to the fact I have no energy to drive anything, although it does look like my arms are shrinking away. Goin’ pretty well I reckon.

PSMF – Day 6 – Refeed

// Jimmy // May 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Getting up is harder and harder every day thanks to no energy. Normally I’m the oone bouncing around as soon as I get up and have to wake Kate up. Now she is up and making my breakfast before I even manage to get out of bed.

Forgot to weight in again. After breakfast I was 85.5kg, so I’ll guess 85.1 or 85.2 before eating and drinking. The diet is already starting to get a bit depressing. Either that, or I just think I’m sad since I have no energy.

Today I was scheduled for a 5 hour refeed – essentially a period of higher carbs and fat, aimed at reducing metabolic slowdown which happens in most diets. The peanut butter sandwich before gym and the two chicken wraps (with sauce OMG!) after gym were like eating gold. Tasty gold.

PSMF – Rest Of Day 4 and Day 5

// Jimmy // May 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Oh wow. Day 4 got much worse after I wrote the last post. While the feeling of intense hunger had diminished to a sort of constant dull discomfort, I got ridiculously irritable, had little to no mental focus and was tired as hell. Despite getting to work late, I left early and went home for a sleep for a litte bit before Kate got home. That fixed me up a lot and I was at least a bit normal for the rest of the night. Easily the most painful day so far.

Weighed in at 85.3kg on day 5 (-5kg) and had a pretty standard day, although mental awareness and energy levels are MUCH less than normal. But obviously that is going to happen. It sucks when you have a job that requires you to think all day. Poo.

The worst part of day 5 came in the middle of the night when I woke up suddenly with some intense pain or cramps or something in my guts. Maybe cause I never have to do a number 2 any more haha. After about 10 minutes it went away pretty much as suddenly as it came on. Weird.

PSMF – Day 3 and 4

// Jimmy // May 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Day 3 was another standard day and getting through the work day was not nearly as hard as I expected. With the water weight I’m losing plus all the extra fluids I’m taking in, I had to piss dead set 20 times on day 3. Insane.

It was also the first gym day. Had a pretty intense session, and felt like throwing up after the first deadlift set, but after that it wasn’t too bad. Ended up doing:

Deadlift: 2×5 85% 1RPM
Bench: 3×5 85% 1RPM
Pullups: 3×8 on +6kg (just less than normal, but also down 4kg in bodyweight)
Tri Extensions: 3×8 on about 5% less than normal

Got home and had more energy then a teenage girl at a Robert Pattinson meet and greet. Pretty unexpected. Kim and I agreed a wrap wouldn’t be out of the question, so I could get some carbs in after training. I’ve never been so excited over a f*cking sandwich.

Totalled 200g protein, less than 10g in fat and about 35 carbs thanks to the wrap. Around 1050cal.

Day 4

Waking up, something was pretty wrong. Felt about 5 times as tired as what’s normal, and was grumpy as hell. Forgot to weight myself before breakfast and weighed in at 96.1kg. I’ll guess that before eating I was around 95.8, which is only -.1 on yesterday I let Kate go to work and had an extra half of sleep which helped a ton. Still very weak at 10am. I think my body is mad because I haven’t given it anything to rebuild muscles with after gym.

Rest of today should be pretty standard.

Overall so far: -4kg, average calorie intake around 900cal/day. Kate reckons she can see some results in the face etc. I’ll decide when I can think straight.

PSMF – Day 2

// Jimmy // May 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Down to 86kg from the original 90.3 and not nearly as hungry as I thought I would be. I actually had to make a shake to hit the goal of 200g of protein because I hadn’t eaten enough. Downing heaps of water and a fair bit of pepsi max to keep me sane and to try and put something in my stomach to make it shut up.

Mixed in some scrambled egg whites with a little Tabasco sauce for breakfast and some steak and salad for dinner, so the meals aren’t all that bad.  Totalled about 190g protein, sub 10g carbs and almost 20 in fat thanks to the steak. The gf is helping out heaps too and being awesomely supportive. We spent the afternoon at Shadow Lounge where everyone was smashing cheap Mai Tai’s, plates of chips and fondue. And right at bloody dinner time with my stomach screaming at me the whole time. Kate did her best to hide her eating from me and buy me diet coke at $4.50 a pop… wtf.

Today is the first day on this thing where I’ll be at work. Even after a big breakfast, at work I’m usually starving by 10am.

This should be fun

PSMF: A Side Note

// Jimmy // May 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Since I’ve had a couple of questions about this diet, just gotta make a couple of things clear. I’ll give a full description at the end once I’m all done.

The two biggest things are that you really have to hit your target protein every day, and secondly you HAVE to do some weight training. These two things are pivotal to the success of the diet. Without these, your body will turn to protein as it’s secondary energy source since carbohydrates/glucose are not available. This lost protein will be in the form of muscle, which is a fail. It’s also recommended not to do any extra cardio for the same reason.

PSMF – Day 1

// Jimmy // May 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Pretty effing hungry. But that’s the point.

It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be though. Three meals with 250g of chicken in each is not so bad. You can make a pretty big salad with some balsamic vinegar (without the added sugar) and satisfy the sweet tooth by drowning in Pepsi Max (or coke Zero, whatever). The hardest part is staying away from the condiments. I am a condiment fiend. The kind that likes a little bit of food and mostly sauce. Everything tastes so shit when you aren’t putting sauce on it. At least for me.

The other hard bit is every time I feel a bit hungry, I’d normally go get a little snack. Now every time I have that feeling I just get sad and have water pepsi max instead.

Just went shopping to broaden the range of things I can eat. Picked up some incredibly lean Eye Round Steak and some celery to dip in Salsa for snacks. In the morning I was down 3kg on the 24 hours prior, but obviously that’s pretty much all water weight. Spent a lot of time pissing in the first day, and you definitely needed to know that.

Something that is going to make this diet a biut easier to stick to, is the incredibly quick results. Seeing minimal results on the scales is what demotivates so many people from dieting. Pretty much never the case here, with such insane results – very good motivation.

And it will be sauceless steak and salad for dinner. Awesome.

Extreme Measures – The Protein Sparing Modified Fast

// Jimmy // May 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Jimmy's Blog, Operation SAF, Protein Sparing Modified Fast

Yesterday I hit 90kg. That means I’ve undone about half of the hard work I put in to get from 103 down to 80 back in the day. That’s shit.
That was breaking point and I decided it’s time for drastic measures.

Enter the Protein Sparing Modified Fast, or PSMF for short. It’s a crash diet plus actual science. None of this negative calorie or soup diet crap. It’s a method of keeping your muscle while losing fat – whereas most other diets are are for ‘weight loss’. In other words, you lose a ton of weight, but half of it is muscle. A bit shit, really.

As the name suggests, a PSMF is essentially fasting, with the exception of protein. That makes it a sub 1000 calorie diet, which is often shunned by medical practicioners and diet professionals. Too bad this diet has seen results time and time again in the real world, the only problem is that it is ridiculously hard to stick to.

Come Monday, I think I’ll want to cry. I like eating a lot, just like most people. I have a pretty bad habit of eating when I’m bored, so what am I supposed to do now? I guess I’ll find out over the next couple of weeks. The best part of this diet is that it’s short term. Essential, comapred with a conventional diet, it’s more pain over a short time versus a little pain over a long time.

Just get it out of the way quickly.

Anyhoo, these is the diet details.

It’s 1.25g of protein per pund of lean body mass.

I’m 90kg at around 20% bodyfat = 72kg = 158.4lb
That means 198g of protein per day. This can only in the form of skinless chicken breast, extreme lean red meat, extreme low fat dairy, egg whites or protein shakes.

Lean red meat is hard to find and expensive, low fat dairy is shit and protein shakes.. I’d rather eat something thank you. The diet will be hard enough as it is. So chicken breast it is. With the help of calorieking.com.au, I found that equates to around 750g of chicken breast a day.

Other allowed intake is:
Unlimited zero calorie vegatbales (all except potato, pumpkin, peas, carrots, corn)
Coffee
Zero calorie salad dressings
Diet Softdrink/Soda
Lots and lots of water

And to round it off and make sure I get minerals, I’ll have a multivitamin and 6x1000mg fish oil tablets a day.

Exercise is actually nont recommended on this diet, which is a plus. That means I’ll have a pretty lazy couple of weeks, bar a couple of fairly intense gym sessions to convince my body to keep muscle instead of burning it for food.

Wish me luck