I'm intrigued, now that I've read more. I got Lyle MacDonald's e-book.

I'm going to deplete my supply of fatty meats and think about it over the weekend.

It certainly jives with how my appetite has been now that summer is here and I spend my work days trying not to puke from the heat. :P

Second week I only lost a pound. But primarily my fault. I had more social events than I had free meals. So I tried to be careful but I still got a pretty big, but fairly low calorie, dinner on Thursday.

The refeed was interesting... imagine trying to purposefully eat 250 g of carbs after years of low carbing.... Unfortunately my refeed had a refeed that evening. *sigh* I'm still such a junkie.

I'm going to try to make my refeed a little different next week. Surprisingly, I only gained 1 pound from it!

Hunger wasn't much of an issue in the second week. I also got some Calcium Casinate from True Protein to see if that's something I can use to help with the hunger. He mentions Casein in his book as being good for satisfying the appetite.

My typical menu is:

Breakfast 1.5 cups of FF cottage cheese with SF syrup and a few raspberries

Lunch Salad with broiled chicken breast, FF dressing

Snack Very low calorie/fat ham rolled around FF cream cheese, pickles.

Dinner chicken breast and veggies simmered in a low calorie spinach punjabi sauce (yum!).

Dessert Crystal lite slurpee from 7-11!

Maybe a high protein drink with FF Carb Countdown milk and SF Syrup

I think Ketosis keeps me pretty uninterested in food. The lack of variety doesn't bother me, as long as what I do eat tastes ok to me. The Free meals seem to keep me sane and I think the refeed actually helps with lowering my appetite for awhile. He says it resets various hormones to keep you out of "starvation mode".

Is it hard? Well... sometimes. This is definitely a diet, not a WOL. There's comfort in that thought. I know this will end either when I'm done losing weight or at least I'll get a break after 12 weeks and go into maintenance for awhile. I'll probably just use a low-carb but slightly less fat Atkins for maintenance. And if this works as it should, the pounds coming off will make up for the lack of appeal in the food area. So not really a bad trade-off.

Let me know if you decide to try it!

I'm in.

It's not going to be the precise Modified PSMF that he's written about, so I guess I'll be doing a Modified Modified Protein Sparing Modified Fast. Say that ten times fast!

My coffee with half-n-half is non-negotiable. I also have a "thing" against cooking sprays, so I will be using real coconut oil, albeit just enough to prevent sticking on the pan. My other modification is taking Udo's Choice oil instead of Fish caps. I'd hate to waste the twenty bucks I spent on it. Maybe I'll pick up some fish pills (yuck) anyway.

My biggest challenge, I think, will be trying to get veggies in with minimal fat. The only salad dressings I like are the creamy ones - the real ones, not FF.

• I made some homemade salsa the other day, so I can top them with that.
• I guess LF sour cream will go nicely, too, with veggies like cauliflower. I can make creamed mushrooms or spinach this way.
• I bought some ground beef, so I will probably turn it into taco meat and "scramble" peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms into it.
• I'll try daikon/zucchini hash browns and see if they're still good with the cooking fat drastically reduced.

Any other ideas? I think I'll skim the other forum for their recipe ideas.

One of the nice things is that you really lose that keen interest in food after awhile on this diet. Although I do regain it enough to plan something fun for my refeed and free meal.

You're probably in Category 1? Not sure what the rules are for you, but he did restate that for Category 2 we only get 1 free meal and 1 refeed. The book is wrong about that.

The main thing is calories, if you can keep the calories low enough, he has no issue with using fat. His goal is to make an enormous calorie deficit. He said that keeping fat low just helps keep the calories low because people more easily over eat on fat than on protein.

I actually did give up my half & half for coffee and use skim milk. All I can say is... yuck. After 2 weeks I'm still not liking it, but I do tolerate it. It's temporary, that's the mantra I repeat to myself. I can give up almost anything temporarily.

I've been living off Fat free cottage cheese for breakfast. I use syrups to make it palatable, and a few raspberries. Lunch is a salad with this chicken breast I get at Trader Joe's, it's been marinated and spiced up nicely. FF dressing to which I added just about 1T of olive oil to the bottle because... FF dressing makes salad squeek when you eat it.

Dinner is a little more enjoyable because I buy these yummy bottled sauces at Trader Joe's. So I make chicken that is cooked in the sauce along with throwing in tons and tons of veggies. They've also got frozen artichoke hearts and I love those after they've cooked in that sauce.

Sometimes I put a dollop of FF sour cream on top of the hot chicken stuff. Not bad at all.

My shopping list is:

FF low carb milk
Frozen, skinless, boneless chicken breasts
Tuna (for the occassional salad or emergency snack)
Bagged prewashed greens
Maybe some thin beef to broil for a treat
Bottles of sauce
Frozen, precooked ch0icken strips (unbreaded, broiled)
Protein Powder
FF sour cream
FF cottage cheese (lots)
FF yogurt
FF cream cheese
Low fat ham slices
pickles
Salsa
Cucumbers, red peppers, celery, whatever looks good.

Oh yeah, another thing that is a treat is, I get a bottle of FF ranch (I think it is hidden valley) and mix it with FF sour cream. It makes a great veggie dip!

Let me know if you discover anything yummy.

Oh yeah... lets think about dessert. I have been using a little fat-free yogurt with SF syrups or a little FF cool whip. Although, I don't really like the after taste the cool whip has. My favorite dessert is a Crystal Lite slurpee from 7-11. I think the clerk there is going to catch onto my obsession.

My second week report wasn't great, but still... the scale DID move. I lost 1 pound.

Hi Nancy. Cat 2. I figured that. I'm being a little more strict on the carbs than the fat. I'm sure I've improved my insulin resistance to an extent, but I don't want to tempt fate. I agree. I did it long enough. Mine was more like a latte, I put so much milk in it. I love cottage cheese. I eat it plain. I could almost eat the whole carton.

Thanks for the shopping list. This weekend, I picked up:
- frozen pollock fillets
- ground beef
- lean turkey Italian sausages (which I took out of the casings and made into patties, drained off the fat)
- a package of lean roast beef deli meat
- pickles
- FF cottage cheese
- FF cheese slices
- berries
- cod liver oil - it was cheaper than the capsules, and it's orange flavoured. Not bad.
- veggies - cauliflower, rep peppers, mushrooms... the usual. Like you said, whatever looks good. Right now at my farmers market, the spinach, radishes and asparagus are excellent - and cheap! That's a great idea! I bet it would be good on chicken. Chicken and mushrooms. I highly recommend Tamarian's Inverted Shepherd's Pie. I made it last night and just drained and rinsed the beef before using; and used FF cheese. There are very few foods that make me want to overeat just because it's so good, and this is one of them. I love the slurpees, too! My nearest 7-11 is a good 15 minute walk from here, but it's right across from work. I've been treating myself to one on work nights because there's no air conditioning there and I'm dyin'. I think that, and sugar-free jello are going to be my only desserts. I'm too lazy to make anything else. My protein shakes are dessert-y enough for me. I add berries, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, and/or extra sweetener to make them tastier. Good luck this week.

Well, this week is looking like it should be a good one. I did gain 1 pound from my free meal on Saturday, but it is gone today! That is great, only 1 day of lingering weight from a free meal, versus the several I had last week. That gives me 4 good days of low calorie until my next refeed, which should be on Thursday. Now, it is closing in on TOM for me, so it could foul me up, but perhaps not. Hope springs eternal.

I even went a little nuts on beef jerky yesterday, I ate a whole 4.5 oz bag of it.

So I am hoping to reach a new PSMF low this week.

Those crystal lite slurpees are a little rare in my town. I went to 3 other 7/11's last night looking for them, one had them but their machine hadn't frozen them up. 2 others didn't have them! I live in a rather poorish section of town, although there are nice neighborhoods there, but I think there isn't a lot of disposable income on things like SF slurpee for adults.

I feel so incredibly stuffed after having one of these slurpees. And I always feel like I've just had a massive cheat.

So Nancy what would be a typical cheat meal for you? is it still low carb? or anything you want? and refeeds are 5 hour carb fest right?

Jason

Free meal is anything really. Its there for psychological purposes. Makes having a social life possible. I'm finding it is getting harder to cram much in there because my tummy is shrinking down. This weekend I had my free meal as brunch on Saturday. We had pancakes, egg casserole, low carb coffee cake (I made that), fruit, and mudd pie and a chocolate Ganache. Unfortunately I was so full from other stuff, I only had a teeny slice of the chocolate ganache.

I generally save my free meal for a social occassion. If I have more than one a week, then I have a restrained free-meal, where I try to keep the calories and carbs as low as possible. Of course, that doesn't help the weight loss at all!

Refeed is described as 5 hours of 3 meals. I think the carbs are something like 1.25 per pound of body weight. I don't have the book in front of me. Its supposed to be mostly things like potatoes, rice, starchy stuff... not so much sucrose.... although I did have some sugary stuff. But it made me feel a bit yucky. This next time I'll not do the sugary stuff so much on my refeed. I'm going to hit this bread bakery for my refeed, get a sandwich from their breads, a dessert and that'll be pretty good. I'll probably follow up with english muffins a bit later, and perhaps some granola.

Last refeed I felt pretty uncomfortable, so I'm going to try to go a little easier this time. I've only had one refeed so far, so I don't have much experience with them.

The whole idea of the refeed terrified me because I've seen people slip into using any excuse to cheat and calling it that. But so far I haven't really felt like it caused me any compulsions and I think I'm ok with it as long as I leave temptations well out of easy reach.

When are you starting, Kristine?

You're tempting me to try this. I've been stalled since December and it sucks

Debbie

Debbie, make sure you get and read Lyle McDonald's book (Rapid Fat Loss Diet) before you start or you could really endanger yourself. This diet is similar to the Stillman diet from years ago (liquid protein) where several people died from not consuming the right type of protein. Other than that, it's tough, it's boring, it's got rules to follow, but it works.

Here's the link: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/

Joan

I agree, read the book. But I don't think its dangerous really. The liquid protein diet people died from was because they weren't using a good source of protein and were eating nothing but that. This is nothing like that.

Basically you're eating very low calorie, low fat, low carb. You're allowed unlimited low carb veggies. The part that isn't so obvious is figuring out how much protein to have, there's a minimum. And then your "free meals" and doing the refeed, if you're in the right category.

You want to do it right though so you don't lose more LBM than you absolutely must. The refeeds and free meals keep you sane and the refeed resets your hormones and helps keep you out of "starvation mode".

Supplements are a must since you really can't get enough vitamins eating less than 1000 calories a day.

Sounds tougher than it is. After awhile the ketosis dulls your appetite and interest in food.

If I do decide to try it I will read the book, promise I already have the site bookmarked at home

Debbie

Cool! I'm eager for some other people to try it.

My pants are definitely looser!

So does this work? And how do you do this while keeping in line with Atkins guidelines?