so as promised, here’s my new log that i’ll use to monitor progress during my fat loss phase.
for those who didn’t read my previous topics: i’ll be using lyle mcdonald’s “modified psmf” diet, which you can find in his rapid fat loss book.
this diet will only last 13 days but it’ll be quite brutal. training-wise, i’ll keep doing ct’s best damn workout plan.
so here it is:
DAY 1
Tuesday
Weight: 78.7 kg
TRAINING
Back Squat (Double Rest/Pause) 97 kg x 5 3 2
Chest Press Machine (Double Rest/Pause) 80 kg x 9 3 2
Seated Lateral Raise (6-8-10 Dropset) 7 6 4 kg
Overhead Cable Extension (Multi-Hold Technique) 30 kg x 20 s + 10 + 15 s + 8 + 10 s + 9
NUTRITION
Breakfast: 300 g egg whites, 80 g bresaola, 150 g low-fat cottage cheese
Lunch: 200 g chicken breast
30 min prior to workout: 5 g highly branched cyclic dextrin, 1.5 scoop whey protein
During workout: 15 highly branched cyclic dextrin, 15 g hydrolized casein
Dinner: 120 g tuna, 125 g shrimp, 300 g spinach
Before bed: 150 g low-fat cottage cheese
so obviously today i felt pretty normal. didn’t have any cravings despite going from 400 g carbs a day to virtually none, but we’ll see.
Day 2
Wednesday
TRAINING
Cable Row (Double Rest/Pause) 75 kg x 8 4 5
Cable Pullover (mTOR Technique) 40 kg x 10
Leg Curl (Myo Reps) 35 kg x 14 + 5 x 3
Cable Curl (Multi-Hold Technique) 30 kg x 10 8 8
NUTRITION
Breakfast: 300 g egg whites, 150 g low fat cottage cheese, 140 g chicken
Lunch: 70 g smoked salmon, 125 g shrimp, spinach, cucumber
Pre workout: 40 g whey
Intra workout: 10 g cyclic dextrin, 15 g hydrolyzed casein
Dinner: 120 g tuna, 125 g shrimp, spinach
Pre bed: 150 g low fat cottage cheese
Day went by without much trouble. I didn’t have much spare time so I didn’t think about food.
I noticed a funny thing tho: When I started planning for this diet, I chose foods that I typically liked like tuna or shrimp. Now I realize that what I actually like is the rice I put them in. Like seriously, eating dry tuna with shrimp and spinach all mixed together is disgusting.
What’s even funnier is that instead of making the whole thing more difficult, it’s actually making it easier: Since I’m eating stuff I hate, I am by no means looking forward to the meals, and when it’s time to eat I just shove it all down my throat as fast as possible. So during the day I don’t even think about eating.
Well, apart from that smoked salmon. I was about to start crying when I finished it.
Anyway, training was decent. We’ll see in the next days.
Day 3
Thursday
TRAINING
Leg Extension (Myo Reps) 75 kg x 14 + 3 3 3 3 3 2
Smith-Machine Guillotine Press (mTOR Technique) 42 kg x 10
Seated DB OHP (Double Rest/Pause) 28 kg x 5 2 1
Neutral-Grip Chest Press (Double Rest/Pause) 73 kg x 7 2 1
NUTRITION
basically the same as the last 2 days
Day 4
Friday
TRAINING
Leg Curl (mTOR Technique) 30 kg x 9
Pronated Lat Pulldown (Myo Reps) 57 kg x 14 + 3 3 3 2
Chest-Supported DB Row (mTOR Technique) 22 kg x 8
Rope Curl (6-8-10 Dropset) 35 30 25 kg
NUTRITION
still eating same things day in and day out.
tomorrow i’ll be at a friend’s birthday and i’ll concede myself a slice of pizza. nothing crazy tho. tomorrow morning will have a cardio session so i’ll finally be able to try out ct’s “ab shredder” workout.
meanwhile, here’s a little bit of a physique update pic
could be worse
peace
Saturday
Day 5
No training today.
Nutrition was kinda the same apart from having a couple slices of pizza at my friend’s birthday.
From next day everything resumed as before.
Sunday
Day 6
TRAINING
Leg Press (mTOR Technique) 140 kg x 6
Incline DB Press (6-8-10 Dropset) 32, 24, 20 kg
Incline Lateral Raise (mTOR Technique) 7 kg x 10
V bar Pushdown (6-8-10 Dropset) 50, 45, 35 kg
NUTRITION
ended up eating protein powder as snacks and chicken with broccoli both at lunch and dinner (had dinner at my gf’s place and i didn’t have the heart to tell her parents i had already had the same exact dish earlier that day haha)
Monday
Day 7
TRAINING
Romanian Deadlift (Double Rest/Pause) 107 kg x 6, 3, 2
Neutral Grip Lat Pulldown (Double Rest/Pause) 65 kg x 9 4 2
Rear Delt Raise (6-8-10 Dropset) 10, 8, 7 kg
Standing BB Curl (Double Rest/Pause) 35 kg x 7, 2, 3
NUTRITION
so a couple of days ago i was at the gym and talking with a bro about this diet. said i couldn’t stand canned tuna at every meal anymore, and he mentioned smoked tuna.
i already knew about it as i’d eaten it in the past, but i somehow managed to remove that from my memory.
i went off to the store and bought some. this stuff is awesome!
same macros as canned tuna, except this actually tastes good!
god bless that guy for reminding me about it
i know what i’ll be eating for the remainder of this diet haha
Hunger is getting harder to cope with… Just gonna suck it up, 3 more days to go.
Will update with the last days of the diet tonight.
Tuesday
Day 8
TRAINING
Back Squat (Double Rest/Pause) 97 kg x 5, 3, 2
Chest Press Machine (Double Rest/Pause) 85 kg x 6 3 1
Seated Lateral Raise (6-8-10 Dropset) 7 6
5 3 kg
Overhead Cable Extension (Multi-Hold Technique) 32 kg x 20 s + 10 + 15 s + 8 + 10 s + 3
nutrition pretty much the same, shooting for 250 g of protein and as little of everything else as possible
Wednesday
Day 9
Cable Row (Double Rest/Pause) 80 kg x 6 3 3
Cable Pullover (mTOR Technique) 42 kg x 8
Leg Curl (Myo Reps) 37 kg x 14 + 3 3 3 3 2
Cable Curl (Multi-Hold Technique) 30 kg x 10 8 4
Thursday
Day 10
TRAINING
Leg Extension (Myo Reps) 80 kg x 14 + 3 3 3
Smith-Machine Guillotine Press (mTOR Technique) 47 kg x 7
Seated DB OHP (Double Rest/Pause) 28 kg x 7 3 2 (PR)
Neutral-Grip Chest Press (Double Rest/Pause) 70 kg x 7 2 1
NUTRITION
breakfast: 100 g chicken, 50 g whey
lunch: smoked tuna, octopus (100 g each)
snack: 37.5 g whey
pre workout: 37.5 g whey
intra workout: 15 g peptopro, 10 g cyclic dextrin
dinner: 100 g smoked tuna, 100 g tomatoes
pre bed: 150 g low fat cottage cheese
so hunger has definitely kicked in, but it’s nothing i can’t control. workouts are GREAT, nowhere near as bad as i was expecting them to be. i’m feeling as strong as if i were eating tons of carbs.
in regard to actual scale weight, i’m kind of disappointed. when i started i was 80 kg and the lowest i’ve been since i started the diet was around 76.5 kg, getting back to as much as 77.4 kg at the end of the day. not sure what’s going on as i’m currently eating 1,300 cal a day at most.
we’ll see after the diet is over though.
@JamesBrawn007 how much weight did you lose when you did this diet, give or take?
Looking at my log, does it look like I’m doing anything wrong in your opinion?
As mentioned, scale weight was almost 14lbs down after my experiment. Although there are some caveats: I started after a few days of binge eating and the food weight and excessive water retention probably made me appear fatter than I actually was. The reality is, there is only so much fat you can lose in two weeks regardless of how aggressive your cut is. Remember you need around a 3,500 weekly energy deficit to achieve 1lbs fat loss. I am speculating that at 1,200 kcals a day, you are about at a 7,000 kcals weekly deficit - or around 2lbs. Therefore, at the end of two weeks you should shed around 4lbs of fat, and maybe double that in terms of water.
In terms of your plan, there is nothing glaringly obvious. Personally I think 1,200 kcals should be the absolute limit. I think McDonald is inconsistent in his book where he mentions on several occasions most people will be on 600-800 kcals. Yet, when you calculate your protein needs you end up around the 1,200 mark. I tried to stick to 1,000 or so (as low as possible).
Couple of other small things, I would have the cyclic dextrin pre-WO instead of intra. The idea is to give it time to work before you exercise. This will yield a small energy kick and help to stave off protein breakdown as you train. I would also consider going hard the final few days by, e.g. skipping breakfast and/or swapping out a solid meal with a shake.
I have personally gained much better results since running my own version of PSMF following some research. For the past three weeks, it has been PSMF Mon-Fri (circa 1,000 kcals) and back to my usual keto diet at weekends (where kcals end up above maintenance although ideally I would like to try and address this and get away from the binge and purge cycles these types of diets reinforce). The upshot is I am in better shape now. Again, even this has a shelf life and you can only do it for short ‘mini cut’ periods. But it is another option assuming you can control the weekends.
Yeah I had noticed that too, but I thought the 600-800 kcal mention was more geared towards inactive people (cat 2 and 3).
Yeah I’m 3 days out and I’ll try and lower cals a bit more. Thoughts about doing some low intensity cardio at this point? I know mcdonald doesn’t really like it in this diet, but I’m feeling good energy wise
Care to share some more details? Would love to hear more about this. Thank you!
Friday
Day 11
TRAINING
Leg Curl (mTOR Technique) 30 kg x 8
Pronated Lat Pulldown (Myo Reps) 58 kg x 13 + 3 3 3 3 2
Cable Row (mTOR Technique) 65 kg x 7
Rope Curl (6-8-10 Dropset) 35 30 25 kg
Eating was the same as the previous days.
Saturday
Day 12
No training today. Lowered the calories to about 1000.
Hey @JamesBrawn007
If you don’t mind, I’d really love to get some details on the diet you mentioned last month here. You said 5 days a week you’re doing a PSMF, whereas on weekends you are refeeding.
I’m currently in my last mass gaining phase of the season—I’ve got about 4 weeks to go, and when I get to May I’ll start my fat loss phase.
I want to get to June 1st as lean as I can possibly be without losing muscle, and I want to do it in 4 weeks. So I figured the most effective way to do this would be with the plan you mentioned: I really like it!
Do you think I can achieve good fat loss with such a plan in just under a month?
I’m thinking about eating about 950 cals (225 g of protein + incidental carbs and fat) during weekdays and eating to roughly maintenance during weekends.
I’m currently eating 3.5k cals a day (wasn’t gaining weight at 3.3k), so my maintenance could be roughly 3,000 to 3,200 cals (I’m actually amazed because I thought it’d be much lower, but since I’m not gaining weight…) so to account for metabolic adaptations and the loss of weight itself, I’m thinking maybe I could do 2,800 cals a day on weekends. What do you think?
Also as far as training, what do you suggest? I’d rather not keep doing BDW, and I believe it’d be best to train on the following days:
Monday cardio
Tuesday training
Wednesday cardio
Thursday training
Friday off
Saturday training
Sunday training
Since the refeeds are on weekends. Do you have any suggestions?
I’m also considering buying hot-rox or an equivalent fat burner for cardio days (I want to do the ab Shredder workout on cardio days).
Thank you.
