Category: Blog

I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I think there are many correct answers to this, but it really comes down to the person.

If you are the type of person who can be disciplined, and needs to see quick results then PSMF is a great option. A lot of diets you slowly lose weight, and for certain personality types this can be discouraging. If you are the type of person who likes to see results fast, then PSMF is for you, if not, then you might be better choosing something else.

The second part is discipline. This diet demands discipline. You have to keep to it, not just due to the calories, but the effect that any spikes in blood sugar will have on your body, that normally will induce overeating.

So really, PSMF boils down to calories in and out, with the added function of being depleted in fat stores. So you will see results fast. But you have to have a plan to come off the diet, as this is not a long-term way to eat. More on coming of the diet in another post.

Lyle McDonald recommends no exercise while on PSMF diet, but this is quite difficult if like me you are use to doing a little cardio or weights 3-4 times a week.

So I break the rules, and don’t notice any energy side-effects. I did to begin with but this was mainly due to my electrolytes being low. PSMF is a diuretic so you need to make sure you are getting your sodium, magnesium and potassium. When I didn’t I found I got headaches.

I tried to stick to the following amounts, and keep track via Cronometer.

Sodium: 5000-7000mg/day (in addition to amounts consumed naturally in food. Advice, salt everything you can while you eat)

Magnesium: 300-500mg/day. Easy to get through food but can find pill or powder forms.

Potassium: 1000-3500mg/day. Also easy to get via food. Or lite salt.

It is pretty hard to get these amounts in your daily food on PSMF, so I would use Lite Salt and supplements and vitamins. I have outlined the ones I used on this page. I found they not only helped during exercise but also helped me to sleep better. Hope this helps anyone looking to keeps up their cardio or weights while on PSMF.

It’s easy to say you will only weigh yourself once a week because daily weigh-ins will cause anxiety when weight goes up unexpectedly.

I would argue though that daily weigh-ins are essential on PSMF. I have had people contact me freaking out that they have gained 2lbs overnight. Firstly this is biologically impossible, and always turns out to be down to a few things, salt or carbs. An average male of 170lbs can easily gain 4lbs in water weight overnight from a combo of both of these.

So what daily weigh-ins allow you to do is understand your body a lot better. What causes weight gains and what causes water gains. When you measure weight daily you will see a zig-zag graph like mine below, but be able to understand when you had a binge or too much salt etc.

I think of PSMF of not only helping you lose weight but getting to know your body a lot better.

I get a lot of questions about my typical day on the PSMF Diet. For the most part I am pretty strict about eating white meats and fish to avoid any excess fat. But I thought I would share a day that I didn’t do this, and had some steak instead. Even with steak I was only 8g over my 20g fat limit and well below still for net carbs.

I think sometimes we can take the diet to strictly and for me this is when you fall off it. So if you can make it fit your macros, it will work. Below are my macros and everything I ate that day to give you some ideas with your daily routine.

We have all heard that calories in equals calories in, a fundamental law of thermodynamics. Well all things being equal this would be correct, the only problem is all food macros are not equal.

Different organs deal with excesses in macros in different ways. For instance, if you are eating a lot of carbs, the liver stores carbs as glycogen first, then when the glycogen stores get full, the liver converts the carbs to fat stored in the liver. When this gets maxed out the liver puts the extra fat into the blood stream with the result being high triglycerides.

Fat cells seek to maintain an equilibrium of in and out fat everyday, when more fat is coming in too often, you get fat. Equilibrium is in-effect broken.

PSMF works because the two easiest macros to store as fat, Fat Macro and Carb Macro, are greatly reduced to around 20g each. When you do this protein becomes the dominant macro which the body finds hard to convert to fat. When you keep your calories around 800 calories, then body is using every bit of energy (calories coming in) to burn and nothing is going into the reserve tank (fat).

Without carbs you arn’t getting the sugar highs and lows throughout the day that cause hunger pangs/binging.

So yes calories are important, but so to is limiting your fat and carbs for PSMF. This is not a long term diet, but you will quickly see the weight come off if you keep your calories, fat and carbs low.

To understand why the PSMF diet works as well as it does, it is really important to understand the role of carbs.

Carbs are the first thing that our bodies look for when looking for energy. As such they are the first thing to be burned, before fat. Unfortunately for fat loss, our bodies are able to store a lot of fat, but limited carbs, hence why we put fat on as fat.

Our bodies will burn what they have access to. If you eat just carbs, and meet your daily caloric needs then your body will just burn these carbs, the fat will not be touched.

When we cut carbs as we do in PSMF, are body then turns to our carb stores (aka Glycogen). We don’t store that much glycogen, so after that our bodies turn to fat burning.

In PSMF we limit our carbs and our fat, so when we cut calories, after the initial carb and then glycogen burn off we start burning our fat stores.

So what about glucose for our bodies main functions? Well this is where what is known as glycogen sparing comes in. Our bodies when at very low levels of Insulin as a result of carb reduction, will only use glucose for essential tasks, brain, organs etc.

So think of it this way, our bodies are always looking for fuel. First it goes to carbs. When no carbs, it goes for glycogen. When there is no glycogen it will look to convert fat. If you are not eating that much fat, typically less than 20g in psmf, then the body will look for fat stored, and this is where weight loss happens. Pretty simple.