Maria Emmerich's high protein/PSMF diet

(Bob M) #1

My wife started Maria Emmerich’s high protein/PSMF (protein sparing modified fast) diet. It comes with a quite large “book” you print out. Lots of recipes, entire meal plans in fact. It’s a high protein plan with lower fat and intermittent PSMFs (lower calorie days).

I’m not sure if you can get to it through here:

But probably so.

My wife has lost about 10 pounds on this after not that long (a week? two weeks?). She was losing weight very slowly on keto.

She chose the option where you pay a certain amount (which I don’t know what that was) and is in the “March challenge”. You also get access to a facebook page.

My wife is not exercising (in fact, injured her knee and can’t do much right now), and is in premenopause. So, it’s not “exercise” that’s causing weight loss.

If you’re stuck and want one more thing to try, this provides an option.

Edit2: WARNING: There is a lot of cooking involved to do this correctly. A ton of egg whites. And my wife tried to make “cloud donuts” with a box of egg whites (instead of buying eggs and tossing the yolks, or having me eat them), but they didn’t puff up. No “cloud”. My wife is cooking all the time.

#2

When I used to (still sometimes do) the original PSMF from Lyle McDonald, the weight used to drop very quickly, but he’s very upfront that is plan is very much a crash diet and only a tool to break through plateaus, quick fat loss for other reasons etc. Sounds like Emmerich is making it a real WOE?

Very likely she’s like lots of us where the protein needs to be high and the fat needs to be lower, that’s what you do as well right? Definitely made a huge difference for me.

My friend was official “diagnosed” as starting pre menopause, was destoying her. I put her with my doc…no more pre menopause ahahahahaha. (I’m all about cheating the rules) :+1:

(Bob M) #3

I’ll know more when I try it next week. This week, I’m trying to get rid of some of the 1/2 pig we bought, and I’m eating higher fat (fresh ham and bacon.) Her plan is a time commitment, though, because – at least initially – you have to make a lot of your own meals. It is more of a way of eating, at least for some time period, with some PSMFs thrown in. It is basically calorie-controlled, however, as they list what you should eat. (Which has breakfast; not sure what I’ll do with that, since I haven’t eaten breakfast in many years.)

As for what I’ve been doing, I’ve been trying all kinds of things. I moved toward higher protein a long time ago, in general.

But I’ve tried higher animal fat, and that seemed to provide more energy. On the other hand, it’s hard to find animal fat I like (don’t really like suet), and I have a bit of trouble digesting fat.

I’ve tried some TKD, with 50g of carbs in rice noodles, only on the days I have done body weight training. I’ve also eaten very low carb on the same days.

I had to start a different drug, though, and I noticed MUCH higher blood sugar, fasting insulin, etc., numbers. So, I went back to more keto to try to “reverse” that. Unfortunately, it’s super difficult tracking this using pin-prick meters, to figure out what’s happening. I’ll get 106 for blood sugar one morning and well over 120 the next morning. That can’t be true.

Anyway, her plan appears to be high protein, low fat; some calorie restriction (or at least a limited amount of what you should eat); some PSMFs when you can do them. And tons of egg whites. Tons of them. All the bread, “desserts”, etc., are basically egg-white based. Lots of chicken breast. My wife has made some wings and some soup, though, that I thought were great. I’d rather eat beef, and there are recipes there, too, for lower fat ground beef and lean beef.

I’ll fill in more once I review the materials.

Unfortunately, my wife probably has to have knee surgery. We were to watch two dogs, and we didn’t realize how our dog has become more aggressive when guarding “her stuff”. One of the other dogs came into our bedroom, and our dog went after that dog. We think our dog was saying “this is my room and my bed, and not yours”, but my wife got in between them, while in an awkward position. She injured her knee. I’m hopeful she can continue what she’s doing, but having surgery can be brutal on your life.

#4

Now I try to comment again :slight_smile: I mean, I wrote something first but I am so much against starvation diets (and it totally is that to me as it is starvation level calories… if those days aren’t all the time as it seems, it’s still brutal to people like me, fasting is easier!) that even with careful and curious wording, I was afraid my tone isn’t right. Or my wording as I may try but I can fail… And sometimes I get enough of my words and abandon comments anyway. I could add something useful, that’s sure, I was just wondering.

But why is it so time consuming? The meals are so super difficult?
I cooked most of my food even when I worked late and I am way more experienced now…
But of course, the PSMF limitations are tricky. I couldn’t do it in any way but I can’t handle severe undereating or low-fat food. But a bunch of lean stuff, why is it that hard to cook?

I expected it very much but is it important? One can do low fat high protein without them.

And if one strongly dislikes that stupid texture (and needs a tad more fat)? There are some great lean pork, why wouldn’t that work? Surely it would, one just wouldn’t lose will to live in the process… Erm sorry I can’t do it without extra focus. I did eat okay, tasty (due to the sauce or something), moist chicken breast. Pork is still better but yeah, I did. All the time it wouldn’t be fun though… Even if my body (and mind) would be fine with super low-fat.

I can’t test high protein low fat even without serious calorie restriction but I am curious how I would feel. I suppose satiation would be plain impossible and I would crave fat like crazy as that happens when I miraculously eat a low-fat meal. But it would be really interesting to try for a whole day. Maybe I can bring myself to try it one day. I survived even the horrible egg fast too for 9 whole hours! And had an extreme low-fat day once. Experiments are fun if they don’t last long and aren’t too crazy (like the egg fast, that felt bad).

Oh so lean meat of any kind is okay? Thought so :slight_smile:

So… There are some super low-cal PSMF days here and there (it’s like the 5:2 that there are normal and strict days, just the 5 is strict too, to some extent?) and the others are just high protein low fat. What low fat means there, for the normal days? It’s very very low for the PSMF ones, right? But I can look that part up (I did it before, long ago just forgot).

Oh :frowning: I wish her the least pain and quickest recovery!!!

(Edith) #5

I think there really is a reason when bodybuilders want to get really lean, they eat high protein and very little fat. Probably the equivalent of a PSMF. I also do believe that if one gets all their fat from their diet, why would they need to tap into their own fat stores. This may be especially true as we get down to those last 10-20 pounds to lose.

#6

And a lot of carbs as they need the calories… Starvation isn’t good for muscles (especially not when the extra body fat is little) and most bodybuilder have similar days when cutting so they eat a decent amount every day. Well they usually have a not very low energy need too so even when cutting, there is a need for plenty of fat or carbs and they typically choose carbs though some do the low-carb higher-fat version. Protein is a priority, of course but that doesn’t provide much energy, not even with a minimum amount of fat (whatever that is. 30-40g for a normal person? never cared about it much as it’s a small miracle if I go below 80g and rarely read about it. I always just knew that we need a little).

(Bob M) #7

@Shinita You’re making everything. Everything. And for our family, this means we’re making two meals, one for us (I’m going on the diet next week) and one for the kids.

Also, even we typically buy foods that we can reheat and eat, like pulled pork from Costco. On this diet, we can’t do that.

And a lot of her recipes involve egg whites. She uses these for puddings, “breads”, “bagels”, “donuts”, etc. All made from egg whites.

@VirginiaEdie My guess is the following (top most is most likely, bottom is least likely):

1- Protein provides a satiety effect
2- Protein takes more energy to digest
3- You’re on a diet and therefore are following the diet
4- She has you eating lower calorie
5- You might tap into your body fat

Personally, I’m not a big “if you eat less fat, you’ll tap into your body fat” believer. There are quite a few people (Amber O’Hearn, Siobhan Huggins) who eat high animal fat and yet have lost weight. For these folks, there’s something fat does that causes them to lose weight. What that is, I don’t know.

I’d probably argue that because you’re eating higher protein, you’re increasing insulin, so you should actually be gaining fat, not losing it. So, it’s unclear to me how this works.

I also think “low calorie” is a poor indicator of anything. I don’t think the idea of “calories” is a useful one. But you’re most likely limiting what you’re eating, which will have some effect.

I’m not a believe in #1 much, either. While I think there is a satiety effect of protein, I don’t think protein cures obesity. If I was to have ice cream cake after eating high protein, low fat during the day, I’d still eat two pieces of ice cream cake and want a third.

I’ve gotten to the point where I think the body is so complex that I’ve given up trying to figure out how we lose or gain weight. I honestly don’t know any more. (For instance, could eating higher protein, lower fat mean you’re eating less mass, and that’s what’s causing weight loss? This is the “MIMO”, mass in, mass out theory, which I think actually makes sense. Doesn’t explain hormones though.)

But I’ll report back after I get done with a week.

(Edith) #8

It seems to me you shouldn’t have to make puddings, “breads”, “bagels”, etc to follow the diet as long as you get the protein to fat ratios correct. I bet those recipes are there to appeal to people who don’t want to give up those kinds of things.

Not sure about this one either since eating high protein with very little fat over time causes rabbit starvation which I would think would result in weight loss if it went on long enough. So, if eating almost pure protein does raise insulin, I can imagine it wouldn’t be enough to cause weight gain if fat content was low enough.

But, I look forward to hearing how it goes.

#9

Yes, I make everything I eat, with almost zero exception since ages ago. Many people does I am sure. I don’t even make my own butter or yogurt :smiley: Some people do! Some people make their bread from whole seeds! We buy flour. I don’t even make my own gluten, just buy it… But apart from single ingredients, I buy few items and could live without them. (Easier than without my 80-260g fat a day for sure.)
I cook my high-carber SO’s food too, I learned how to be effective (if the other person isn’t super choosy). I bake his bread. I bake his morning cakes. It takes time but many, many people spend at least as much time with cooking as they make super complicated things unlike I do. (I still spend ages in the kitchen but it’s on me, my experiments, my attachment with my kitchen and too much time being at home).
I made my own coconut milk too, not like it’s hard but I had to come up with recipes for the leftover, not so tasty coconut…

Oh yes, I saw egg white recipes :slight_smile: Egg white is wonderful, I made egg white biscuits for myself - but they would be quite bad without all the fatty cheese in them :wink: Not much but fatty… I think I tried a very egg white-y bread once? It wasn’t good. No keto bread where the recipe wasn’t mine wasn’t good, except the egg+almond thing, that was tasty, obviously as the ingredients are tasty.
But I can make a low-fat bread with lots of gluten, that’s pretty good after some years…

It’s not for very busy people who doesn’t even enjoy being in the kitchen, indeed. But many people do it.

Has your wife has some really nice egg white bread? Or they are just out of necessity? Egg white is nice, it just has no flavor or I barely taste any so it really needs some extra flavor. I never was forced to think about really low-fat options so I only can use fatty ones, with moderation but still… I would like to know some tasty for egg white “flavorings”… Sometimes I use a tiny yolk, that is the lowest-fat I can do. But when I am done with a tasty egg white things, it isn’t very low-fat. Just less fatty than my other items. Bread doesn’t need much fat but it does need something else that egg white…

But maybe it just doesn’t worth the trouble and one should just eat the egg whites of boiled eggs (it’s what I love most. I always eat my boiled eggs with more whites than yolks. I could eat plenty of boiled egg whites without yolk, even. it probably would get old quickly but we know low-fat isn’t for me).

Only with a lot of fat for me. But yes. High protein low fat has a better chance even in my case than low protein with almost any amount of fat (except the non-sustainable fat fast, that is something else). I have tried a few times. Nope, protein is the main key for my satiation. Not just any though, chicken alone doesn’t work. Many people experienced the same: protein aren’t the same satiation wise (and satiation is very individual).

It just shows that high protein doesn’t necessarily causes long term satiation on the level that you can’t eat anything else :smiley: That would be a tall order :wink: I need some serious OMAD meal to trigger that.
I would be happy if high protein low fat could keep me satiated if I stay away from carbs! If I get satiated by a big carni meal and eat some carbs, I easily can get hungry again. I just shouldn’t eat the carbs when I know it’s wrong and I am nicely satiated… :wink: Even I can do that most of the time.
But if I could eat high protein low fat during the day… I probably would get hungry due to the lack of energy. It depends how low was my fat. Once I did pretty low on a day with 250g protein. But I doubt I could repeat that. Many of us just get hungry if we have a too big calorie deficit, no wonder. The body needs the energy, it may not get it from our reserves.
But not everyone is like that.

IDK why people talk about this so much. It’s not very realistic. No people in their right mind do that. It requires super low fat, I am not sure if people doing long term PSMF (no one should, it’s starvation, rabbit or not) are on that level but some normal low fat high protein diet gives enough fat for the body to work properly.
People eating ONLY lean wild rabbits or dead fellow humans who died of hunger, without marrow, they eat on that level and suffer the consequences of not even digesting the protein well as fat is needed for everything… Or something like that, I am not knowledgeable enough to know the details.
Of course it’s possible to eat too low fat for too long but one need to be very reckless and ignorant, with no proper body feedback (or ignoring it). It’s serious like normal starvation.

And of course we can’t make fat from nothing (or rather negative calories). We need to eat the energy to put fat into cells, no matter what some people may imagine…

(Edith) #10

It can occur and it has occurred and I was just using it as an example that if eating too much protein caused an insulin spike it most likely wouldn’t cause weight gain especially in a low fat environment.

And yes, I do think you are correct that we can’t make fat from nothing. The little bit of reading I did on rabbit starvation said that some people who died from it had full stomachs so they did not “starve” from lack of food.

#11

It is very easy to cure rabbit starvation though as far as I know, one just need to eat some fat but most people do. Those people has little chance to get sick like that too, though.
I suppose it can be like with long term starvation, one may reach the damage that the body won’t be able to get the nutrients anyway, it’s just broken at that point. IDK if it happens with rabbit starvation but lack of fat is very serious, it may mess up people quickly enough… I really stop, I don’t know enough about these and this thread is about something healthier (even if I still see it as some level of starvation as it IS undereating) and it’s interesting how people do it and what is their result.

And it makes me motivated to try out lower fat days (without raising protein, nope, I want to lower it, actually but for some experimental day I am willing to raise it as long as I can avoid the fat raise. they like to be together, I can eat fat without much protein but the opposite is VERY hard).

(KM) #12

I do not understand the why of it either, but my experience is that I will not gain weight eating purely animal flesh (meaning muscle + fat + skin + sinew + whatever else.). It doesn’t matter if I eat 3 pounds, it doesn’t matter how fatty it is, by the time I’m ready to eat again my weight is back to base. If I eat a fat-dripping lamb breastplate one night I’ll revel in it but probably feel turned off from that the next night and want shrimp or lean steak next.

I’m somewhere between astonished about this and feeling like an enormous burden is off me, I’ve finally come home: entirely “mindless” eating that’s almost as natural (and easy) as breathing, as much as I want, when I’m ready for it. And yes, I think I finally understand what “listening to my body” means.

(Edith) #13

I just finished listening to this podcast with Dr. Robert Cywes. Unfortunately, I don’t have the timestamp for this part of the discussion. I will try to find it when I get home today, but he was talking about the possible effect of too much protein. It was about halfway through the podcast and they spent a fair bit of time on this topic, maybe 20-30 minutes.

He noticed that in some patients, their triglycerides, blood sugar, and hba1c tend to creep up over time. He thinks this might be because they are eating too much protein. He said that some of the excess protein gets converted in to glucose but that their insulin remains flat. This results in the blood sugar increasing. Increasing blood sugar results in increasing triglycerides.

I may be paraphrasing incorrectly, so you should definitely check it out if you have time.

Edit: Adding one more thing I almost forgot about.
In the discussion mentioned above, Dr. Cywes felt this lack of insulin response is why lean mass hyper responders have high LDL and why eating a slightly increased amount of carbs lowers their LDL. They need the carbs to illicit enough of an insulin response to lower their LDL (again possibly paraphrasing somewhat incorrectly) to what is considered more acceptable levels.

(Bob M) #14

My thoughts on rabbit starvation: it’s a misnomer. It’s not “starvation”; it’s eating too much protein.

I liken it to the following. You’re trekking across America several hundred years ago, burning 5000+ calories per day, and all you can eat are rabbits. Let’s assume this is the rabbit you’re getting:

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5000 cals/ 205 cals = 24.4 servings * 20.25g/serving of protein = 595 grams of protein per day. That’s a lot of protein. I think averaging this over any course of time means things will go downhill.

But for normal people eating normal diets, I think rabbit starvation is a myth.

My wife printed out 1 week of the diet for me. I think they’ve made it simple and it goes by height and sex. For me, the MAXIMUM calories I’ll be eating is 1,500; on the 1-2 PSMF days, this goes to just below 1000 calories.

At 1,500 calories of rabbit (which isn’t on the menu), that’s 221 grams of protein. On the actual menus, the protein is a lot less, about 130g I think, depending on the day. I forgot the stuff at home, unfortunately.

But what Maria provides is a meal plan where you make multiple servings, typically 4, of a food. You might have 1 serving 1 day; 1 the next day; 2 the following day. You eat twice a day. You typically combine things, like one serving of food you’ve made with some pudding (from another recipe that makes 4 or more servings) or maybe pudding and bread or 2 servings and bread.

So, it’s low calorie + higher protein. Some days have higher fat, so you’d use dark meat chicken for instance for a recipe. Most days have less fat, and a lot of “desserts” are based on egg whites.

It’s also dairy free.

It’s really a relatively simple way of looking at things, but planned out so you’re not doing a ton of thinking. There are recipes with beef too. Lean beef of course.

But it’s easiest to go with her plan for a while, as the recipes are good. All the ones I’ve tasted have been great.

Now, since the body is so complex, it’ll be interesting to see what happens. While I don’t believe exercise increases calories that much, I typically exercise 5 days a week. The days I exercise, I’m always hungrier. For instance, went jogging this morning with my pup, and I got hungry by 10 am. The days I don’t exercise, I last longer before getting hungry (though since I only have one work day where I don’t exercise, I usually fast all the way until dinner and only eat one meal; I’ll do this on Maria’s diet too, at least at first, but I’ll limit myself to the calories for that day).

I’ll give you an example of how complex the body is. On Threads, I’m following a muscular, lean male who eats carnivore. He decided he would use a calculator to figure out what his daily calorie requirement is supposed to be, then add a bunch of calories (2,000?) to that. He’s forcing himself to eat at or above 4,000 calories per day.

He’s only 5 days or so into it. The result? He lost 5 pounds.

It’s an example of (1) a male who is (2) insulin sensitive and (3) working out. The simplistic idea that somebody can eat 2,000 “extra” calories a day and this will result in X pounds of fat gain just does not work in this scenario. And I don’t think it works in many scenarios. (An older who is obese and highly insulin resistant and not exercising might gain weight, though how much is an open question.)

I’ll report back after my first week.

(Edith) #15

Yes, I’ve seen it referred to as protein toxicity.

#16

That’s most probably true for me as well… But I can’t eat purely animal flesh to begin with. Even if I just eat carnivore, I can’t regularly overeat to the extent where I gain. I think. It’s not like I actively tried… :wink: But if I choose my food well (mostly fresh meat)? I probably don’t even overeat. (Non-animal) carbs mess things up and I eat much more fat (or I did in the past). So fat-gain is possible albeit it was super slow in the past (thanks to my genetics).
Meat typically has a stop sign, it’s very good against overeating - at least if I don’t eat too many times but I would get bored of eating then (on a pure meat diet). I only need to be careful with fatty meat because I eat so much fat from eggs and dairy already (but it’s for fat-loss, not against fat gain).

But maybe it is? The body can’t use the protein right without some fat. The digestion doesn’t go so well or something? So it is kind of starving, there is food but the body can’t get all what it needs.
In any way, it’s a better word than “fast” for fat fast or egg fast and the like…

Thanks for the numbers, they are helpful! I still don’t know how much fat and protein is on the plan… (I probably could look that up though.)

What kind of rabbit is that? It seems a pretty fatty one (8.4% fat? far from being a really lean meat) so a domesticated fat rabbit? (Okay, not overweight, just… it have visible fat all around its body…) Wild rabbits must be much leaner.

600g protein IF the body can digest it (I should look up what almost no fat does with this) is more than enough to cause problems merely due to excessive protein but lack of fat brings its own set of problems. As far as I know, it’s not so great for satiation either. But maybe it varies…? Never ate like that and it must be individual to some extent. I really can miss fat.

221g protein can work, it depends on the person. I only have that level occasionally (because minimizing protein is my mission. I easily could eat that much but maybe not every day…? never tried but possible that my body would notice it is much and would stop wanting it…?), it feels pretty good but my average is below 180g.

Another reason I couldn’t last for a day :smiley:
Why? To help people who has problems with dairy? But what about the ones who don’t? I know dairy mostly brings fat (in my case, at least) but I can imagine leaner dairy items helping with variety on a high protein diet… I could eat quark, for example, that’s very lean, only 7% fat (low-fat quark is a tasteless abomination but if one likes it, even better).

I like to do a lot of thinking if it keeps me from feeling miserable. I like flexible things. We are all different. Lower fat high protein sounds an interesting, somewhat helpful experiment for me but I would need my own recipes and food items.

Even the egg white breads? It’s possible I suppose as egg whites are neutral, not bad and a bread doesn’t need to be fatty but when I saw a thread about such bread, the people weren’t so happy. Maybe there are tricks in her recipes. I know that sometimes a tiny little addition changes the taste and texture, A LOT! I had it with my keto breads.

As far as I know from people’s stories, it’s individual. I usually am less hungry if I have light exercise (well… walking :D). Harder exercise and food shopping may change things :wink: And of course, there are quite a few factors like how and when I ate the previous days… My SO has a tabula rasa every morning, I don’t exactly but the previous days still don’t have as a huge impact as they have for some other people. Exercise doesn’t affect his hunger either and he can do pretty much sometimes.

It (okay, more like 1000 kcal but I am a short, not active woman) didn’t work even for me on high-carb… It’s way too simplistic, not true at all in many cases. I had a month (that was on low-carb though but not on keto) where I ate 1000 kcal more than before (I maintained before). Nothing happened in one month. I was satiated the same, I felt the same, my weight stayed the same. CICO perfectly worked as always but it wasn’t a super simplistic version but the real, complex, mysterious one.

Thanks, I am curious! I said it before, I like that you do these experiments I can’t do, I am curious what happens. But I do get motivated to eat lower-fat (that I need anyway). And it’s always good to have some lean options…