PSMF - Summary ... and what's next?

I promised you guys a summary of my two-weeks on the PSMF diet and here it is.

The PSMF permitted me to eat 85 - 90g of protein a day, and unlimited fibrous vegetables. No meal could contain more than 5g carb or 5g fat. On an average day I ate between 600 - 700 calories.

On > January 8th I set out on my journey at 140.2lb.

During the first week, I was amazed by the almost instant results and stuck to the diet well, no cheat foods (at all) and kept my meals clean and simple. By the end of the first week I was down to 134.8lb. Very few cravings.

After my first refeed, I saw my weight jump back to 138.0lb overnight! (Due to water retention from higher carb intake)

The second week was an uphill struggle from the get-go because of this. I felt like I was working so hard to lose weight that I had 'already lost', and started eating foods like sugar-free jam, sugar-free jello, and other foods that aren't technically permitted on the diet but weren't against the rules. (They were 0g carbs/fat)I also started guzzling diet soda like a madwoman because I craved sweet things.

All signs pointed to an impending meltdown, which is exactly what happened at the end of the second week and what prompted me to stop. I binge-ate the ENTIRE day. From 7am til midnight, I just non-stop ate all the things I was depriving myself of. I wasn't physically hungry, but felt so psychologically drained that it was like trying to fill a black hole. I kept on telling myself, "I'll eat whatever I want today, and go back on the PSMF tomorrow." and this just lead to more and more consumption. In the end, I felt physically sick, and told myself that I would stop the diet and just eat like a normal person. That seemed to quell the raging beast. After a rough estimate I think I ate between 8000 - 12000calories that day.

But back to the PSMF.

The Pros:
- rapid results in the first week due to body's ketosis and loss of water retention
- never feeling hungry because of so much protein
- heightened mental awareness (I experience this with any low-cal diet, maybe it's because I try so hard to NOT think about food during the day that I manage to concentrate more on work and school)
- mostly fat loss, very little muscle loss (I have a scale that measures body fat %)
- if taking the proper supplements, (10g fish oils, 2 multi-vitamins, calcium, magnesium, fibre) should not experience nutritional deficiency

The Cons:
- extreme constipation due to lack of fibre (I'm not sugar-coating it for you here) by the second week, this one caveat made me consider giving up every day
- dehydration (I felt dehydrated ALL THE TIME, the worst being in the morning upon waking up, I felt like I could drink water forever and still be thirsty)
- lack of energy (while I wasn't physically hungry, I was out of breath climbing up just a few flights of stairs, I couldn't walk very fast)

In summary, I think the PSMF is the most efficient low-cal diet out there. After all, it's medically prescribed to treat obese patients. You could technically eat less calories, but then you start to burn away at your lean muscle which is never a good thing. While there were several physiological cons, none of them were enough to deter me from the diet had I not binged. I would recommend this diet to people who are looking for a quick (and safe) way to lose a few lbs before a big event, or to just jump start their healthy eating habits. I would not recommend this diet to anyone who has binging tendencies or eating disorders.

So I weighed myself this morning (3 days after diet) and was 137.5. This means during two weeks on the diet I lost 3lb. (Keep in mind I over consumed 2-3lb worth of calories on that one binge day.) A potential 6lb weight loss over 2 weeks is pretty darned good!

The gears in my head are already ticking about what's next. Stay tuned for details!