HST + PSMF = me dead tired...

tjframe

New Member
Hey folks,

Today I started my first day back after a 13 day SD, but the thing is for a week I've been on the PSMF diet which is basically 800-1200 calories of protein and essentially trace carbs and fat.. so needless to say my energy levels are LOW.. I find it easier to diet hardcore like this than even introduce the temptation of more carbs into my diet - carbs are a slippery slope! ... and it seems to be the absolute fastest way to lose fat and maintain muscle if you have the willpower to stay on it


So tonight I started up on HST, skipping the 15's which didnt really do squat for me last time, and I went straight for the 12s (I do a 12,10,10,8,5,5 weekly breakdown) and although I started out preety strong.. my energy levels quickly went to almost nothing.. even the warmup sets I did really sapped my energy. In fact I could't complete my whole body (Since I need more upper body work I start with that then finish with lower)

So what's the ebst way to handle this situation.. I realize that I wont be getting much stronger or bigger on such a limited diet.. but hell I can't even finish the dang thing unless I cranked back the weights a huge amount.. At least once the dieting is done I can go back to growing and eating again..

So my question is this.. whats the next best step?

A) reduce the weight a whole lot and try to finish the whole body anyway.. I get the feeling that keeping my gains would be best served by finding a way to NOT have to do that - I'd like to at least maintain my weights from the last HST cycle. After the last HST my strength went through the roof - no more room for plates on the hammer chest and row machine, have to pile on freeweights for peck-deck, pushdowns, lat pulls etc. I want to keep that stength if I can, even if it's just a dumb ego thing.

B) Since I cant train 2 times per day due to work issues, what about a upper/lower/rest and repeat routine? I know it's not the ideal whole-body every other day set up, but wouldnt it be better than nothing? I could do upper/lower/upper/lower etc. but then the CNS would never get any rest..

Thoughts in this please.. and since I'm firm on doing the PSMF, please dont suggest "Increase your carbs dude" becuase that's not an option..

Thanks for the help,

- TJ
 
Your body has got to hate you dude. I have no clue since "up the carbs" is what I think you should do.

My only (unwise) suggestion is to drink a caffeinated beverage while lifting. I know, this is terrible advise, but I can't really agree with what you're doing as it is...

If that type of thing doesn't work, and you're trainign to failure EVERY workout, lower the weights I guess. Failure training all the time will lead to overtraining, and I'd say you don't want that atop of everything else!
 
You said you were on a PSMF during the last week and also said that you had just finished a 13 day SD. I'm assuming then that you were doing the diet during your second week of SD, which is a bad idea. When you're not training your body doesn't have as much of a reason to hang on to muscle, especially on a severely restricted calorie diet. I hate to say it, but you may have lost muscle and strength gone down considerably. Don't be too concerned if this has happened though b/c likely you can regain it quickly in the future. As for right now, I would split up your routine so you're either doing a upper/lower six day split or push/pull six day split to help you manage getting through the workout. You can also try to stay well away from failure and use clusters to try to manage your cns since your calories are so low.
 
Tjframe, what is your current volume, bodyfat %, and are you doing cardio?
Try the 20 calorie, 5 grams of carbs, diabetic glucose pill that Lyle Mcdonald mentioned in his Crash diet book 5-10 minutes before your trainning. Refeeds help especially if you are really lean. Maybe throw in 1- 2 cheat meals per week. Plus the EC stack works wonders as far as appetite suppression and helps me get through the workouts on such a low calorie level.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys :)

Based on my lifts yesterday.. I didn't really lose any size or strength, I just ran out of gas and felt deflated. I'm a meso-endo so I easily keep what I gain, so I'm not worried about the week of SD + diet , but regardless it's of course much better to be lifting while on it.

But the downside of being meso-endo is that I can't eat unlimited amounts of food for years at a time and since I took a 5 year layoff, my bodyfat has slowly grown to the low 20s So I'm planning on losing about 60 pounds and getting down to a lean and mean 225 before I start to ramp up again..

I'm not doing any cardio, or going to failure, and yesterday I did 4 work set for back, 3 for chest, 3 for bis/tris/2 for shoulders. I may have to reduce that by half to just stay alive while I'm dieting :)

ttboyy2k, I'll try a few pre-workout carsb and some cheat meals - good suggestion

ejones, So you favor a 6 day split huh? I will have to really reduce my volume and or poundages to survive the week.

HST seems to be geared to the fastest way to make new gains, which might not necessarily be the most efficent way to hold onto those gains, so I guess my general question is: which is better to MAINTAIN your gains on a limited diet: Higher frequency with lower poundages or slightly lower frequency with heavier poundages?
 
You guys are absolutely crazy... and I love it!
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Please keep us posted on how this works, I'd really like to see the results.
 
I think your way of cutting is radical
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. It's insane. I would never be able to live without carbs. I'm also a meso-endo. I am doing the 6x aweek training and its working out pretty well. Basically i have about 8 workouts full body each day, while on below maintenance calories + moderate carbs. Vicious has sugessted to me that i can have a carb refeed day whenever I feel like fatigue or burnout is creeping up on me. Personally, i don't think its that hard. I'll be doing this until the end of my 15s. i was 17%ish trying to get down to around 12-15%ish. If i feel like it's getting too hard while going into the 10s and 5s I'll simply go to 3x week HST + Steady State cardio 30-45 mins on off days.

Obviously if you start off with higher bf% you'll lose it faster. I've bugged Vicious numerous times about cutting and he suggests that 6x week or 2 a days (3xweek) would be most beneficial for getting lean. Also on these you don't have to worry about adjusting volume and etc, just keep it constant ie, 1x15, 2x10,3x5 and your set. But if you insist on what you're doing go for it :) . Post your updates, I'd also like to see the results.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys.. yea I guess this IS a bit hardcore.. but as long as I'm taking fiber, multivitamins, Omega-3 oil, and refeeding every once in a while to stimulate my BMR there's no reason not to do it while on HST.. mental wekaness is no excuse.

Sure I could do things slower and less extreme.. but I've spent so many years looking big and thick and being told "man if you got lean you'd look awesome. etc. " that I just wanted to radically transform myself once and for all..

I'll post pics once I hit my target weight :)

- TJ
 
The PSMF manual describes what sort of training should be done on a diet such as this. Doing full blown HST you will run into problems.
 
TJ

Sounds like you are desperate to loose that fat.

Howa, simpathize with you mate, I have a similar problem, although I used to think of myself as ecto with a bit of mesomorph.

I took protein powder for my last two cycles twice a day, plus the normal daily meals, grew nicely but...my darn gut
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also grew an inch, bringing my BF level back to 13,69%, not what I wanted at all.

For your situation, I can see the problem there being lack of carbs to sustain the energy levels during training, but if you are not expecting to grow that much at least HST will keep you from loosing a lot of LBM, which is a good thing.

Taking the lesser evil route, if you are taking protein powders, add some flower to them before a workout, that will increase your carbs before training, but they end up being used for the training, so no loss to your goals, I think
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Whichever way you do it, you will have to increase carb intake before training, that will be at least 1 hour before so that they sit in the muscles when you need them. This then would be the only time tyou adding extra carbs to the diet, with a purpose.

Better than that, have a look at what Lyle McDonald recommends for your situation.

Fausto
 
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