Hi PG,

Yes, I have the Curves book. He has a metabolism correction as well..it involves deliberately eating more calories in healthy manner for long enough to gain up to 5 pounds, then drop back to low cal and lose it all again, then repeat. He says that one will find that the length of time to gain the 5lbs back will increase over time, a sign that metabolsim is adjusting up. I don't have a clue if this is based on any actual data. As a result I am a bit more trusting of Lyle's recommendations for the simple reason that he has read everything known to man on this subject and knows how to critique research. He recommends eating maintenance with 100g carbs a day min. to upregulate hormones, then dropping back to deficit if you gain more than water weight.

The Curves diet looks like a good one for maintenance to me..I think calorie cycling is the way to go in the long run.

Val

I haven't been posting much to any of the forums since school started. Just too much beginning-of-year work to do right now. But I am reading posts on several forums.

I did PSMF the first week of August, but went to a diet break after that. I guess my change in activity level put too much of a demand on my body. I was STARVING all the time on PSMF that last week. So I've been around 1200 - 1500 cals on days that I've bothered to keep track. I hit 124.5 lbs as a low and with increased carbs I'm out of ketosis and have put back some liver and muscle glycogen, along with its stored water for about a 2-lb water gain.

Today I've had fewer carbs (about 100 g) than I've been eating. Too many carbs was giving me digestive discomfort (gassy bloating) and I have just been feeling "out of sorts". This week and upcoming weekend is going to be a haphazard one for meals and exercise, so I'm just going to make good choices and not worry about tracking anything. And I realized I was spending too much time with measuring foods when I was worried if the 3 1/2 inch grapefruit included a rind, and if it was a thin rind or a thick rind, or did I just measure the diameter of the flesh.......or did the weight of the grapefruit include the rind or not.....

It was time to take a break. I think I might try another week of PSMF (or close to it) after Labor Day to undo any weight creep that might occur this week or next.

PilotGal - I grew up in Miramar (lived in Broward and then N. Miami from 1955 to 1980) and my little brother still lives on Roosevelt St in Hollywood. Where abouts in Hollywood do you live?

Joan,

I wonder whether one shouldn't just do a few days of VLcal and then a few normal days to keep the body guessing, with carbs varying between say 40 and 100 as well.

Very funny about the grapefruit. I am not at all obsessive in that way..I just do kind of guesstimates. I use the 'palm of the hand' idea for a portion of protein (and my hand is small!) and that's about the extent of it. A couple of pieces of bread and piece of fruit would get the carbs up to 100. Also I think it would be nice to have the occasional bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. I think PSMF is great for an easy way to keep the lbs from creeping too much...a few days a week of it should do the trick.

But at least you are being vigilant about it...that way it won't get away with you.

Val

LOL about the grapefruit!

My Sunday refeed went very well......details will be in my journal.

Nancy, not to be a PITA, but your counts looked low to me. Generally, 1oz of protein or 1 egg=7g protein. So I entered 4oz cooked chicken breast and 2 med. eggs into MyPLAN:
Calories 314 100%
Carbohydrate, g 0.7 1%
Fiber, g 0.0
Starch, g 0.0 0%
Sugars, total, g 0.7 1%
Protein, g 45.8 61%
Total lipid (fat), g 12.7 38%

This isn't counting your turkey chili, so I think your protein for that day was higher than you thought.

Hmmm... Not sure what fit day did for the eggs. It doesn't look too far off from what I got though. Still, I would like to get around 100g of protein and I thought I was closer to that number!

As I try to track my fat/food intake via FitDay, I've noticed that most foods are listed with added butter or salt. I've had to put most of my grilled foods into Fitday, calling it "raw." Has anyone else noticed this?

Decided to have whole eggs this morning, sprayed pan with 0 fat spray. Had to list them as "poached."

Tagcaver, I sent you a PM. Don't think I should tell you all about Hollywood/Miramar/Sunny Isles on this thread! Email me, I'll tell you all about our city, and Hollywood's finest! LOLOL!

We're desperately wishing for rain here. Lawns are brown, so much dust, we're sneezing.. Can't do all this dry weather.

I do that too, Lynne. Its annoying they added fat to everything!

For scrambled eggs, try microwaving them sometime. I mix them with a bit of water, shake them up in a lidded container, then just nuke them for about 1-1.5 minutes until they make mountains. They come out very puffy and nice. I think the steam from the water makes them puffy.

The oddest thing happened. I made a Vietnamese soup, loaded with veggies, seaweed, tofu, and a little Dreamfield's pasta, and shortly after eating it, I got the heart palpitations. I just sat here and felt the body get warm, and the heart start to beat furiously.

What a strange feeling. And I have no idea what precipitated it.

Ah ha! I'm not the only one I guess. Maybe its the carbs in the Dreamfields? Some people react to them pretty much like regular pasta.

Are you all using Fitday PC? I'm using the online version and there is no fat in my broccoli Not sure what's up with that. Cucumber, tomatoe and green beans all zero fat 2. Wonder whats up with that.

Weight's back down to 279.6 almost at my psmf. I'm betting I see a new low again tomorrow. I've been running to the ladies room many more times than normal today. Tomorrow's cheat meal is Mexican food for lunch. I wonder if having it a lunch will make an impact on the next day rebound weight.

Well measuring my fat with calipers was hysterical. First of all, you have to find the spot to measure at one inch above the top of the hip bone. So here's me trying to find my hip bone under the fat!! Anyway, then you have to pull the skin away from the 'underlying muscle'..pulls away this huge chunk..(what underlying muscle?). So after all that, it measures 20 mm consistently, if it is possible to know that this is accurate..which according to their chart puts me at 32-33% BF.
What is interesting is that if I were 35, the same measure would be 30%..talk about ageism!! LOL The impedance gizmo at Curves measures me at 39%.

Scales back to 155.5 so that means I have gained and lost the same pound this past week. I didn't have any really high caloric meals apart from overeating lean beef one night to explain this. I think this is signalling that I am stalling so I have decided to go ahead with the refeed on Thursday and will do an all day one, with 400g carbs. After that back on the 1 free meal plus one 5 hr refeed a week plan until I go away and take a 2 week break anyway on the 7th.

PG, might there have been any MSG in anything in your soup??

Val

Cindy, if I put in 2 cups of broccoli in my fitday PC, I get 1g of fat.

LOL! Val, your calipers sound fun. At least you get the same reading consistently! Hmmm... maybe I'll get some. Is that the only spot they have you measure? I suppose you could measure other spots and track them, just to watch them shrink. I could caliper my inner thighs, they're pretty wobbly and jelly like. Definitely pull away from the muscle. Bleah!

Was at the g/f's house tonight, and jumped on her scale when I entered. Then I went to the bathroom, came back, jumped on the scale and was a lb heavier... That's the last time I weigh but once a week!!!

Rode my bike along the beach, leisurely for 2 hours, while she did an 8 mile walk. It was a lovely evening, indeed, and the beach was cleaned!!!

Val, I make my soup from scratch from all the dehydrated things I get in Chinatown. No chemicals. Even my tofu is high protein, with 0 carbs, 7 gr of fat, and 140 calories in 3oz. The stuff "empties" my intestines
Can't understand why the scale did that little jig!!!

Cindy, I use Fitday online, and it says 1 large stalk of broccoli has 1 gr of fat, 78 calories, 14 gr of carbs, 8 gr of protein, and 8 gr of fiber. Can you imagine what a large bowl of steamed broccoli would have?

PG, I wouldn't worry so much about the fat. If you aren't adding any fat or eating fatty things, then that's it. Fat that comes naturally in lean meat and in veg is fine. Avocados of course are to be had for free meals as they are fatty. The idea is to watch the calories and keep protein at or above a minimum level for your LBM as the priorities..the rest of it doesn't really matter a lot. The fat is kept restricted simply because of calories, not because it is 'fat.' So if your calories are below 900 you will lose.

Val

Nancy, with this set of calipers (Accu-measure...and I would recommend getting another kind that Lyle recommends which I couldn't get over here..don't ask, I can't remember) you measure in one place because they base their charts on that place.

At the end of the day, the best measures are the tight pants I guess!

V.