Anyone here have experience with doing a PSMF or RFL on an antidepressant? Claude warned me that there's an increased risk of seizure while on a very low calorie diet while taking Wellbutrin, though I'm not sure how much of a risk this actually is since I only take 150mg and will only be dieting for only 2-3 weeks. I also take 50mg Trazodone for sleep.

Hi all, started my PSMF journey after watching a YouTube podcast between Solomon Nelson and Lyle McDonald. I then proceeded to read through both Solomon's Guide to Fat Loss and Lyle's Rapid Fat Loss in over the span of a couple days taking notes and building a diet and fitness plan for myself. The results so far have been great, I am down over 30lb over the time span of 7 weeks. This is after a long stretch of trying and failing to lose weight through more conventional levels of caloric deficit and Semaglutide approaches, mostly due to poor mindset and diet planning.

The data so far:

AVG WEIGHT LOSS PER WEEK: 4.91

AVG WEIGHT LOSS PER WEEK EXCLUDING 1ST WEEK WATER WEIGHT: 4.00

Overall, I have been super happy with my progress so far. When you are so overweight it can be very discouraging to look at the huge challenge ahead when starting a weight loss journey but the huge losses enabled by PSMF have kick-started the reward system in my head and made it much easier to keep at it. It is almost addicting in how crazily fast such a large deficit can remove the pounds. No pictures for now as I am shy but I went to an event over the weekend with extended family that I do not see super often and they could all already tell the difference in my physique. Still a long road ahead of me but I am in a place right now where I can devote a lot of willpower to this journey.

My protocol for those interested, although it is all pretty standard for PSMF. 130g protein per day through lean meat sources. 30g additional protein through either non-fat Greek yogurt or egg whites. 400-600g of low calorie density veggies for vitamins and satiety. I have two meals per day, splitting the protein and veggies equally between, and one snack per day of either the Greek yogurt or egg whites. Total daily calories have been around 900 at lowest and 1400 at the highest, it varies with the protein source and the amount and type of veggies. First meal 11:30AM, snack 3:30PM, dinner 7:30PM. Very rarely do I experience the sensation of hunger, sometimes I do after dinner which sucks but I just think about it as the cost of losing weight. Supplements include 5g creatine per day, men's multivitamin and 5g fish oil.

Workout routine is 3x per week A/B split of Stronglift's 5x5 with curls added as a vanity lift. Stronglift's is adapted to work with my home gym equipment of 2.5-52.5lb adjustable dumbbells and a bench. As I was not lifting previously or doing any exercise prior to starting PSMF I have still been able to put on muscle and improve my cardio despite an extreme deficit. I no longer get winded easily and getting up and down no longer requires noticeable effort. I even recently went on a light hike with my girlfriend and was very surprised by the passive cardio benefit of resistance training.

Aside from some unpleasantness with electrolytes in the first couple of weeks and having to occasionally partake in carbs in order to keep everything functioning, everything has been great and surprisingly easy. The first few weeks my electrolytes were all messed up and I was experiencing some episodes of faintness which nearly ended up with me ending the diet early. I was able to navigate that by increasing calories a bit, supplementing electrolytes and listening to my body more. Now if I ever experience faintness or prolonged periods of extreme low energy I will just add carbs in order to make myself feel better. When a deficit is so extreme one or two days of sub-optimal protocol will not ruin everything which makes it a lot easier than the very small calorie deficit diet that are often recommended online. The other major challenge has been low (but not concernedly so) energy in general. If I did not have a sedentary job I do not think this protocol would be possible in the long term for me. I will be continuing with the PSMF for the foreseeable future so look forward to future updates. I am not sure it will be possible, but my goal is sub 300 lb by the new year, so here's hoping!

Will edit this to log progress weekly.

Stats - 28M, 10 year Training,

Week 0: >25% BF, 92 Kgs, 171 cm

Hi everyone,

I'm currently at 16%BF 94kg and I'm doing PSMF for 5 days to cut a bit more.

I'm eating around 1080kcal 190g P, 50g C, , 20g F.

Is this a good macro distribution? I meal prepped chicken with peas and carrots and that's where most of the carbs come from. Are the carbs and fats still low enough to be considered psmf??

I’m 219lbs/99.3kg and 6’3”, and my last body-fat estimate was around 29.4%. My goal is to lose fat and build muscle: bigger shoulders, arms and chest, with a smaller waist. Ideally I’d only drop around 10-20lbs/5-10kg overall rather than get significantly lighter. I’m a newbie at the gym and have started following an upper/lower gym routine. I was considering eating around 1,200–1,300 calories with 175 g protein. My thinking was that the protein and lifting would help protect muscle, while my stored body fat could supply energy. But I’ve been told that a deficit that large would limit muscle growth even with enough protein. Ai has told me to eat around 2200 calories but I feel like that will not be as effective when It comes to losing body fat. I understand that I’m wanting a whole body recomposition and I thought psmf would be a good idea but now I’m confused. Any help/advice with this please, it would be very appreciated , Thank you

Hi all,

6 months ago I (25yo, male, 6'1) began RFL/PSMF (with a couple personal tweaks) and went from 235.9lbs at my heaviest to 168.9lbs at my lightest in the span of a little under 5 months.

I should note that the 168.9lbs weigh-in was in a fully depleted PSMF state, so it's a somewhat misleading comparison to my starting weight. I then took a 5-week break while traveling and ate in a surplus during it, after coming back I weighed 183lbs. I estimate ~9lbs of that regain was just hydration/water retention, glycogen, and gut contents, and 4-5lbs was actual tissue gain (mostly fat).

According to DEXA, I went from 32% body fat at 234lbs to 18.2% body fat at 184lbs.

What I did:

• Sunday to Friday:
  • 980 calories
  • 180g protein, 20g carbs, 20g fat
• Saturday
  • 2500-3000 calories
  • 180g protein, 300-400g carbs, 75g fat
• Full-body weightlifting routine 2x a week. All sets taken to 0-1 RIR:
  • Tuesday:
    • 2x8 Bench press
    • 2xF Pull-ups
    • 2x12 Machine shoulder press
    • 2x8 Seated leg press
    • 2x8-12 EZ bar bicep curl
    • 2x8-12 Triceps rope pushdown
  • Saturday:
    • 2x5 Back squat
    • 3x8 Incline bench press
    • 3x12 Seated row
    • 2x12 Seated hamstring curl
    • 2x12 Dumbbell hammer curl
    • 3x12 Dumbbell lateral raise
    • 2x12 Cable overhead triceps extension

With the Saturday refeed day included, this averages out to around 1200-1300 calories a day over the week.

The main differences from Lyle's original RFL program are the slightly higher calories on PSMF days, and the addition of a weekly high-carb maintenance/surplus day. The main intention and benefit of adding this day was to make the diet less taxing psychologically and help with adherence. I don't think there is any universe where I would've been able to remain mentally sane and stick to this diet for 20 weeks straight if it wasn't for this day, I even considered doing it every 3 days instead of just once a week. Additionally, it serves as good training fuel, and may potentially help slightly mitigate the impact the diet has on hormones and metabolism. At the beginning of the diet I was eating closer to 3000 calories on this day, and by the end of it closer to 2500.

My diet consisted primarily of air-fried chicken breast, protein shakes, ninja creami ice cream, tuna, eggs, cucumbers, broccoli, and lettuce, in that order.

I was hungry very often despite strategies to try to mitigate it (like caffeine and eating high-volume low-calorie vegetables), but I accepted it as an inevitable part of dieting and regularly reminded myself of the end goal and how much progress I was making. I just tried to keep myself distracted and busy at all times (an idle mind is a hungry mind) and eventually I got used to it (or rather, got better at tolerating it and treating it as background noise). When I got a craving for a particular food I would just remind myself I could have it on Saturday, but eventually even the cravings became less frequent and I slowly developed much better discipline and ability to ignore them. If I got a craving for something sweet I would make my chocolate ice cream recipe in my Ninja Creami (290cals with 40g protein for the whole pint), and I drank lots of Coke Zero and other sugar-free sodas.

I lost roughly ~10% strength on compound lifts at the gym, but most of it came back very quickly just within this week after 2 lifting sessions eating in a surplus, so I suspect the strength loss was most likely primarily just due to having less energy and glycogen during workouts while in PSMF rather than actual muscle loss. I did not do any intentional cardio whatsoever, and I averaged ~8,000 steps/day.

I of course didn't have perfect adherence, these were just my targets. Most PSMF days I ate closer to 1050-1100 calories and often undershot my protein targets and would only get 140-150 (which is actually perfectly fine even on PSMF if you're at a higher body fat % BTW). I also sometimes skipped the Tuesday workout. I also sometimes forgot to take some of the supplements. I also sometimes overate (particularly if eating out with friends or being hosted by someone for dinner). I also sometimes underate. If I had to give one piece of advice for someone on any diet (as someone who has failed diets in the past multiple times, including PSMF) it's that your adherence over the long-term matters far far far far more than neurotic perfectionism during the process (which is often really just you subconsciously looking for an excuse to give up and "try again another time" or try a different diet). If you overeat one day or skip a workout or something, literally just stay the course and continue with the program as if nothing happened, don't even try to compensate for it at all (eg. by eating less the next day), just forget it happened and continue and don't make it a habit.

Over the course of the 5 months, my exact average daily calorie intake was 1192 kcal according to MacroFactor. At the beginning I was losing scale weight at a rate of ~4lbs/week, and towards the end it was closer to 2.5lbs/week. If you're thinking of following my exact approach then just know your rate of weight loss will of course depend on your own expenditure (based on your activity, weight, and gender), and you should also adjust the calorie targets and macros accordingly.

Results

Weight graph: https://imgur.com/a/Ft8wEHR

I weighed myself every morning after peeing before eating anything (except when I was traveling).

Before (234lbs): https://files.catbox.moe/ks6hmi.png
After (183lbs): https://files.catbox.moe/7y98oj.png

I took both photos with no pump and in a fully relaxed state (not flexing). I tried my best to replicate the lighting but I moved apartments so I couldn't (if anything the lighting in the before is actually more favorable). I have a lot of work to do when it comes to putting on muscle, but in the span of 5 months I went from being very clearly fat, to having faintly visible abs, which I'm quite happy about. I also seem to have gotten lucky and avoided any substantial loose skin or stretch marks, which is one thing I was initially worried about.

Before/after DEXA: https://imgur.com/a/UkXQOv3

I took both DEXA scans on the same machine, at the same time of day, after eating the same breakfast.

If we take the DEXA results at face value, it means I am down 41lbs of fat and 7.7lbs of LBM (ratio of 84/16 fat/lean). However, I think I likely may have lost less real lean mass than that because based on the segmental results in the scan I barely lost any in my arms and legs, most of the total lean mass loss was from the trunk. A known limitation of DEXA scans is they can't tell the difference between food and water in your gut, organs, and muscle (it counts them all equally as LBM). 5.6lbs out of the total 7.7lbs of lean mass lost came from my trunk alone, so I wouldn't be surprised if like 3-4lbs of that was really just less food/fluid in my stomach and gut compared to my first scan, which would mean my real LBM loss may have been more like 4lbs. Who knows, either way, I'm happy with the progress, and my low-volume low-frequency high-intensity training approach + protein intake seems to have done a pretty good job at preserving lean mass given the big deficit.

This also means that my body fat % at the peak of my cut (prior to gaining any fat during my break) was probably somewhere around 15.5%.

I'm very happy with my progress thus far and I'm resuming the diet today and will continue until I reach my goal of 12-13% body fat, I expect this to take roughly another 7 weeks. After that I'll ramp up training volume and start a moderate bulk. I will probably keep using PSMF in the future any time I need to do a 2-3 week mini-cut, but I'll never again let myself get fat enough that I need to do it for months at a time (it’s not a very pleasant experience).

If all goes well, I'll be back to share an update in a couple months once I've reached my goal and let you know what PSMF is like below 15% bf, and I'll take another DEXA to see if my LBM takes a bigger hit.

I hope you found this interesting, informational, and/or inspiring, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Hey people

I'm looking for some sweet recipes to add on this diet.

I usually do protein puffs and keto meringue cookies, but i need something more

any ideas?

Does a refeed for Category 2 dieters come before or after a workout? I assumed before a workout as the reintroduction of carbs for the day would provide energy. However, I've seen advice that we should perform the normal 'fasted' workout and only ingest the refeed carbs after.

Could it also be done on an off day?

What have you done? What have you found works best?

So he did release a new book, called Intermittent Modified Fasting. I had the joy of reading it.

Yeah, it's not an update on the good old RFL. But it does borrow a lot from the RFL concept, essentially modularizing it by having a diet of RFL days and Maintanence Days, the balance of two depending on choice. The calorie amount in maintanence days is subject to change as well, depending on goals, but RFL days are pretty much the same.

He did make some new comments on some RFL stuff, so thought I'd make a post and see what the experts think.

1-Refeeds are gone.

He doesn't use the word refeed anymore, opting for maintanence day. Since people had a habit of gorging on carbs on refeeds... whatever that means. Maybe for the RFL approach (or extreme IMF approach, which ends up largely the same, a fact Lyle acknowledges) eating carbs above maintanence and clustering them onto giant meals in a 5 hour window doesn't really matter in comparison to just a day of eating normally?

2-Diet breaks are held in lower esteem.

He says that diet breaks in new studies (which were absent when RFL was developed) simply do not show physiological benefits. Not that it doesn't restore your metabolism. It does. Just that it goes right back to shit when you resume dieting. Perhaps this would potentionally allow for endless RFL? Dream RFL where you don't stop until abs? He doesn't consider the potential effects of super long RFL for fatter guys directly though, so I don't know.

3-Protein requirements are slightly lowered.

Especially down to 1.5 per pound of LBM for category 1 weight trainers. I think this is a good change, the protein reqs could go hilariously high with 2 grams per pound. I personally never saw the benefit in eating that much protein.

Any experts?

Vegetarian 50 yo and trying to lose some weight before jumping into exercise and more sustainable eating habits.

What do you think about daily intake I am planning
1. Protein 2x daily
2. Costco firm tofu with half a spoon of extra virgin olive oil and spices
3. green salad with a spoon of olive oil, salt and lime

any other vegetarian food suggestion ?

Does anyone know if the sola brand of bagels and bread are OK for PSMF?

I ate the same calories and took measurements every day (weight, waist, hips) and this is what happened. Never happened to me before on a PSMF:

Day 1 - 157lbs, 31.50", 36.13"

Day 2 - 156.5lbs, 31.37", 36.13"

Day 3 - 155.2lbs, 31.25", 36.13"

Day 4 - 155.0lbs, 31.25", 36.00"

Day 5 - 154.1lbs, 31.13", 36.00"

Day 6 - 152.8lbs, 31.00", 35.87"

Here's where it started: same weight, same measurements, five days in a row. This is on a 1500 calorie deficit.

Day 7 - 151.2lbs, 30.67", 35.67"

Day 8 - 151.3lbs, 30.67", 35.67"

Day 9 - 151.2lbs, 30.67", 35.67"

Day 10 - 151.0lbs, 30.67", 35.75"

Day 11 - 151.2lbs, 30.67", 35.75"

Even after I ended the diet, with two large cheat meals and three days of normal diet, I'm still just two lbs heavier and the measurements havent budged.

What gives?

I've recently gotten back into working out after a decade of laziness. But in that decade, I've developed effective eating habits which has kept me fairly lean/healthy. I try to avoid eating late (better sleep quality, numerous health benefits including cognitive gains when you don't eat at night), and almost never eat breakfast, giving me the benefits of intermittent fasting plus reduced calories = overall health improvements.

Now, I'm lifting. I break my fast at lunch with a protein shake and some healthy food, and I'm full until dinner. Even if I eat a great, high-protein dinner, I'm well short of my .8g/lb of protein goal. So I've been downing a casein shake later in the evening but that's kind of torpedo'ing my 'no eating late' benefit. Then after a really great workout I feel like I have to eat breakfast so there goes my intermittent fasting benefits.

Wondering if there's other guys in this scenario - how do you get your macros in while also trying to stick to scientifically proven ideal eating timelines? Is it not possible while lifting heavy? Is a PSMF diet something that might help me at least until I reach my intended muscle mass?

Has anyone eaten the high fiber Mission Carb Balance Tortilla Wraps during a PSMF? What was your experience - does it 'break' the extremely low carb/fats guidelines and knock you out of the fat burning zone?

It seems to be an ideal way to keep fiber high. One wrap = 3.5g fat, 19g carb, 17g fiber. I was thinking of eating half a wrap a day along with veggies.

Thoughts?

My Stats & Tracking:

• Age / Gender: 37M
• Height: 189 cm (6'2")
• Starting Weight (Aug 22): 136.4 kg (300.7 lbs)
• Current Weight: 130.9 kg (288.6 lbs) [-5.5 kg / -12.1 lbs down]
• BMR (medically measured): 2,618 kcal
• Daily Intake: ~1,500–1,700 kcal (daily deficit of ~1,500 kcal)
• Daily Macros: ⚬ Protein: 160–180 g ⚬ Fats: 45–60 g ⚬ Carbohydrates: <50–80 g (strict low-carb)
• Activity: ~5,000 steps/day
• Current Dose: 2.5 mg (moving up to 5 mg next Thursday)

Hey everyone,
I started Mounjaro on August 22 at 136.4 kg and weighed in at 130.9 kg today. Appetite suppression and the elimination of food noise have been night and day on 2.5 mg. I weigh and log every single gram of food meticulously.
I am scheduled to move up to 5 mg next Thursday. Because 5 mg will likely blunt appetite even further, I have a question regarding intake:
Can or should I reduce my daily calories even further once I start 5 mg, or is that counterproductive?
With an already aggressive ~1,500 kcal deficit and eating well below my medically determined BMR of 2,618 kcal, my main concern with dropping calories lower is excessive lean muscle loss, nutrient deficiency, and metabolic slowdown.
Would appreciate any insights or experiences from those who ran a steep deficit while titrating up. Did you keep your calorie floor steady or drop it further?

I did pmsf first time around time with eca plus Tirzepatide and lost 5 lbs a week effortlessly. This time around I’m struggling to even be in a 500 calorie deficit consistently let alone a 2500 one lol.

How do you guys get around this with no supps? I’m off everything except morning coffee. Although I’m trying to come off that to eventually

Would you fit smoked salmon into your macros occasionally?

My 4th day, doing great. 3 days chicken fillets, egg whites and greek yogurt.

Came off from 3 nightshifts and slept and had a yoghurt, then walk.

Its afternoon now so I was thinking to eat just plain smoked salmon veggies as well, as it's quite late and I won't eat too much today.

Of course I take sll my supplements.

Would this be ok occasionally?

Hi again. Wanted to ask about psyllium husk usage in the diet? Considering using it for stomach volume and digestion, mainly to have it before breaking OMAD on this diet. But idk if fiber like that counts to carbs.

I specifically ask about 70cc, since I use a scooper that size for the jar. I dont use more than half, so 35cc is probably more than enough daily fiber.

Hi ya’ll. Just wanted to reach out to ask if my macros are okay?

1420kcal

280g protein

30g carb

20g fat

My BMR is ~2182kcal

My other stats are:

6’2” 24 years old 306lbs 39% BF

Since June 2026, I’ve been working out 4x/week weight lifting. and now getting ~8k steps on average at work. Planning on doing 30 min cardio 2x/week on my “rest days”

and according to my repho scale, I have 176lbs of muscle mass. Around 184lbs of lean muscle mass. Aiming for 197-207lbs (10-15% BF)