“The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook”

[Robert Beckett]

I tried it about a year ago for maybe 13 days. I lost 11 lbs but I quit because I lost too much strength too quickly. I think I ate too few calories and worked out too infrequently, twice a week. I may try it again soon. If I do, here are the changes I'll make:

• Eat more. I may have got the numbers right on paper, but didn't actually eat the prescribed amt. It's hard to force yourself to eat protein shakes made w/ water, or egg white & ham (cheeseless) "omellettes" for very long
• Do an IF-style eating schedule, and eat more real food. I think it will be easier to eat a couple of big, actual meals per day rather than try to come up with a variety of multiple small all-protein snack-type meals.
• Work out more frequently, but not too much volume per workout. Something like a "full-body" workout every other day (Squats+Chins, Rest,DL+Bench, Rest, Squats+Pullups, Rest,PC+Press, Rest). This would give me 7 lifts per week vs the 9 in the SS program. Maybe reduce to two sets of five instead of three sets if I HAVE to.
• Strategically scale back my poundages, ie deliberately take 2.5 lbs off my lifts every WO or two. I don't WANT to lose strength, but if I give a little ground in a controlled way I'm thinking I can maintain the RFL program while minimizing strength loss
• If the WO falls on a carb day, add a Tabata rowing or running session. My metcon is really weak, but I'd rather not lose what little I have

On the plus side, I found I was rarely if ever hungry (probably the ephedrine helped) and I discovered that cod fillets baked in the toaster oven w/ a little lemon juice is a quick & tasty meal. On the downside, I lost strength and just basically got "off-track" and it took me a while to get back to where I was. I don't blame the RFL diet - I think I just lost focus and thus stopped eating the right amount. And since I only worked out twice a week, it was harder to make course corrections based on missed reps. Also, I didn't approach the carb refeed days & free meals very responsibly.

One thing I will say; it was really difficult to find edible stuff that was all-protein. Even "protein" bars have too many carbs for this diet.

I was a novice-level lifter and I started at about 25% bodyfat.

[Craig B.]

Check out Dan John's writings on the velocity diet- macros are roughly the same as the RFL, VD is just 95% shakes. He did very well at keeping his strength up. Personally the VD would bore me senseless.

I'd suggest (though you didn't ask) that you first try a straight Very Low Carb diet with less limitations. Sub 28 grams a day of (net) carbs, only from green veggies, more fat than the RFL and a LOT of protein. I was able to lose a ton of weight in my 30's this way after a long period of bulking w/o much strength loss. I think Alwyn Cosgrove calls this "green face"- you can eat any green veggies as much as you like, and anything that had a face. Works.

[lint]

I did it for 7 weeks while following (loosely) 5/3/1. I followed the diet plan pretty much textbook and originally scaled down my workouts to 2x a week, but didn't really feel any adverse effects so I went back to the 3x/week I was doing before. I would say that strength was maintained or perhaps dropped a little, but it wasn't significant given the low calories. It's difficult to get a true measure as I never really test out 1rms, and while on the diet anything over 5 reps was a struggle. I cut out the accessory work to limit volume, but I wouldn't have been able to maintain it anyways. Before RFL, I could hit 30 dips on my 5th set as accessory work, but during RFL I could barely manage 15 dips on my first set. Adding the 30g of quick acting carbs (I used juice and jellybeans) while working out helps. Oh, and during that 7 weeks, I dropped 25lbs of fat.

[PMDL]

The two keys to staying on the RFL/PSMF diet are stimulants and veggies.

The IF strategy is a good one as well. If you get in the habit of not eating that first meal or two to begin with, you can just load up on caffeine and ephedrine if you've got access to it.

When you start eating, veggies are a life-saver. There's only so much meat and egg whites you can eat, and shakes by themselves just make you hungry. I was eating spinach and mushrooms with everything. Add some hot sauce and mustard and you've got a meal. A strange meal, but it will be oddly appealing with the amount of food you're getting.

[Craig B.]

PMDL- sounds like what I did! I couldn't handle being hungry, but a pound or two of meat a day with the same amount (or more) of greenery was fine. Saurkraut is a good thing as well.

[lylemcd]

The severe caloric deficit scares me, I'd hate to lose months of strength training. .

People who actually do what the book says (in terms of both the diet AND training) lose very little if not no strength when they follow the diet.

People who decide to mess with it and do other things (e.g. not eat enough, not follow my training advice and try to maintain a high volume, frequency or both) get fucked.

There's a lesson in there.

Lyle

[Cmanuel]

People who actually do what the book says (in terms of both the diet AND training) lose very little if not no strength when they follow the diet.

People who decide to mess with it and do other things (e.g. not eat enough, not follow my training advice and try to maintain a high volume, frequency or both) get fucked.

There's a lesson in there.

Lyle

Gotcha. Thanks for the input. I haven't actually read the book yet, so maybe I should wait to pass judgement on the diet until I've read it.

Its great having you here on the forum though, I'm a big fan of your work, especially the ketogenic diet (i use it as a reference book all the time)
-CM

[Robert Beckett]

People who decide to mess with it and do other things (e.g. not eat enough, not follow my training advice and try to maintain a high volume, frequency or both) get fucked.

There's a lesson in there.

Lyle

I can't argue with this. In fact, I'm planning on giving it a go again and paying a little more attention to what I'm doing this time.

Lyle, you give a sample training plan in the Home Exercise Handbook, but what is your opinion of using a more SS-style plan based around 5-ish reps of the Big Lifts for 2 or 3 sets?

Nevermind I just reread the RFL Handbook and you answer me there.

[PMDL]

As I said, I used it in the early phases of training for my last meet. It worked well enough, no issues with strength because I was keeping volume in check and only lifting twice a week.

Strength was actually going up (though bear in mind I'm a 'muscle memory' case where most of you freshmen types aren't).

[mcsquared]

The whole concept of abdominal circumference testing in the military is understandable but frustrating. They're trying to curtail incidents of heart disease, diabetes, etc, but via an arbitrary test. This is just I mean, waist circumference can change based on how the test is done and the time of day, just like weight measurement.

I'm active-duty USAF and I'm on my novice progression with plenty of room to still grow and get stronger. However, just like the OP was sayin', some dude has the chance to ruin my career with a tape-measure if I don't keep my waist circumference in check. I'll definitely keep these options in mind cause I'm gonna run into this problem later, more likely than not.