[Hannibal]

Hey guys, I often see a lot of questions on this forum about getting leaner. No one enjoys a cutting phase, so the way I see it, it should be done as fast as possible. This minimizes strength loss and maximizes the amount of productive time you can spend in the gym while in an anabolic state (aka on a bulk).

The standard advice to get leaner seems to be to cut out carbs, sweets, alcohol, and sugary soft drinks and then stack on a shitload of cardio. Or, if you go on bb.com a lot, you'll see the general approach is to keep training and eat at a daily 500 calorie deficit. Fuck all that, it's too much work and it's boring as hell. I like having a social life and I'm too lazy for cardio. With that, I bring you The Rapid Fat Loss Diet Handbook by Lyle McDonald.



What is the Rapid Fat Loss Diet?
It is what it sounds like. A diet designed to have you lose fat as fast as possible.

Sounds like bullshit. How does it work?
The rapid fat loss diet employs dietary ketosis. Ketosis is not for everyone, but for reasonably healthy adults (not diabetic or anything), it should be safe. In ketosis, the body learns how to utilize ketones for fuel. You basically burn fat for energy instead of carbs.
Instead of eating fat for fuel, however, you'll be burning up your body's existing fat stores. This is known as a protein sparing modified fast. You are literally in starvation mode, except that you eat enough protein (and essential vitamins/fats) to stave off your body's tendency to cannibalize it's own muscle tissue.

What exactly do you eat on this diet?
Lyle recommends a whole foods approach. It's going to look like a lot of leaner cuts of meat, unlimited non-starchy vegetables, diet soda, coffee, and vitamin supplements.
I was lazy so I simply drank protein shakes and ate vitamins like this guy.

All I had in a day was
8 scoops of Syntrax Matrix 5.0 whey protein
6 psyllium husk fiber tablets (for obvious reasons)
10 fish oil capsules (about 10g of fish oil fat)
One multivitamin (I like Animal Pak, beware though, it's 11 pills)

Everything you see here, you can get off Amazon.

Unfortunately I can't post exactly how much you should be eating, you'll have to buy the book. On the upside, once you buy the book, Lyle McDonald created an online calculator that will tell you exactly how much you should eat and what to do based on your activity levels. You get the password for the calculator when you buy the book. I can't in good conscience tell you what the password is, but I'm sure someone posted it somewhere on the Internet.

What sort of results can you expect with it?
The results for most guys, depending on how big they are, is a half a pound to a pound of fat lost a day. A handful of big fat dudes have lost 100 lbs in three months. After a few weeks on the diet, your rate of fat loss will slow down. I lost 10 pounds of fat in three weeks and I'm currently in my second run at it. That's about three times faster than a regular cut for anyone keeping count. I've projected an 18 lb loss of blubber in six to seven weeks. The generally accepted approach is a 500 calorie deficit for a regular cut. Right now I'm sitting at a 2000 calorie a day deficit.

I don't feel like posting my own before/after pictures so I'll post a few from online reviews.


This guy lost 50 lbs over the course of a year with RFL and Flexible Dieting.


Here's a guy who actually lifts that did it. His review is great, as well.



Apparently it also works for chicks.

Can you lift weights during this diet?
Short answer, yes. It's highly recommended to take a couple grams of BCAA's, about 5 g of fast acting carbs before the workout and 20-30g of carbs during the workout. I simply measured out 30g of Gatorade powder and sipped it during my workout.
Lyle recommends two workouts a week during the cut, heavy compound lifts for 2-3 sets per body part. I just did this
Backsquat 2 sets of 6 reps
Bench 3 sets of 6
Deadlift 1 set of 6

I might have lost 5% of my strength in the last month. I'm sure it will come right back.

Do you have to lift weights?
It's recommended, but you sure don't have to.

What about cardio?
The only cardio I recommend is walking or banging.

I like to get drunk. Can you drink on this diet?
Yes, you can. I highly recommend diet sodas as mixers with hard liquors or really, really dry wine. You can have about 30g of carbs a day on this diet while remaining in ketosis, so a couple of light beers won't kill you either. To put that in perspective, a 12 oz Coors Light has 5 grams of carbs in it.

I usually drank after my cheat meals and refeeds, but a couple drinks here and there isn't the end of the world.

All that happens is your body will work to burn the alcohol, then once it's done you will go back to ketosis. It will slow down your fat loss, but it will only be a problem if you regularly drink 10+ drinks in a sitting.

Beware, in a caloric deficit, one drink will feel like three. I got fucking hammered off six drinks, much of that was a lack of water retention.

What is a cheat meal/refeed?
Depending on how fat you are (the book will tell you), you'll get some combination of a cheat meal and/or a refeed during the week. The cheat meal is for compliance to the diet, but it's not a good idea to skip them.

A cheat meal is what you would consider a regular meal. It's not a binge. A cheat meal could be
1) A normal sized plate of spaghetti
2) About half a medium pizza
3) A dozen BBQ wings and a few light beers
4) Not a trip to the local Chinese buffet

A refeed is literally a 5 hour stretch where you binge carbs so your body's metabolism lives to fight another week. The book is not terribly clear on what it is. After much googling, I found a post on Lyle McDonald's forum about refeed rules.
1) You take your bodyweight x 3 to figure out how many carbs to eat in 5 hours (or a bit more). If you weigh 180 lbs, you should try to eat about 540 grams of carbs.
2) You shouldn't eat more than 100 g of sugar. Don't expect to binge donuts for your health.
3) You shouldn't eat more than 50g of fructose for the same reason. If you don't know what that looks like, it's like 7 medium sized bananas.
4) Your refeed should be above your maintenance caloric intake. If you don't know what that is, a good guess is to take your bodyweight (in lbs) and multiply it by 15. An 180lb dude should eat over 2700 calories in that day. The refeed is essential (for certain dieters) to regulate your body's hormones, without it your metabolism will be fucked in short order. Your weight loss will stall and you will feel like shit without it.

What do you do after the diet?
Eat maintenance calories for a week. Again, that's bodyweight (in lbs) x 15 for your calories, so a 180 lb dude eats 2700 calories every day. If you don't lift, it's probably less than that. After that week, your hormones will have re-regulated themselves and you can continue bulking. If you decide to bulk straight away, you run of the risk of storing all those extra calories as fat. The body is a mystery sometimes.

If you're fat, give the diet a shot. If you want to see some abs for the summer, run it for a month or two in the spring. If you like the traditional bulking/cutting approach, this book is for you. Once you have everything figured out (the book answers the majority of your questions), this diet is easy as fuck. It takes me 10 minutes a day to mix up shakes and throw chicken in the oven. You don't even have to exercise if you don't want to.

Let me know if you guys have any questions. I'm not an expert, obviously, but I read the book in great detail and did some research.

[RexImperator]

This is cool to hear about. I've read Tom's PTW blog and I've thought about trying this.

[samsamsam]

[Benoit]

Very interesting to see someone else getting results from this. Long-term diet compliance has always been the hardest part for me.

I bought and read the book a while ago and have been planning on running a PSMF soon, too much active stuff on at the moment to do it properly.

What effects did you notice on your mood and energy levels?

[Repo]

"The standard advice to get leaner seems to be to cut out carbs, sweets, alcohol, and sugary soft drinks"

. . .book proceeds to promote diet cutting out carbs, sweets, and surgary soft drinks.

Sorry, this just reads like an advertisement. . . 2000 calorie deficit and only 5% loss of strength? I'm skeptical to say the least. Of course you will lose a ton of weight at a 2kcal deficit a day, don't need a book to tell me that..

[Hades]

(07-12-2015 02:23 PM)Repo Wrote:  

"The standard advice to get leaner seems to be to cut out carbs, sweets, alcohol, and sugary soft drinks"

. . .book proceeds to promote diet cutting out carbs, sweets, and surgary soft drinks.

Sorry, this just reads like an advertisement. . . 2000 calorie deficit and only 5% loss of strength? I'm skeptical to say the least. Of course you will lose a ton of weight at a 2kcal deficit a day, don't need a book to tell me that..

Just because it reads like an advertisement doesn't mean it's misleading.

I've been doing the rapid fat loss diet and it works exactly as promised.

You can also have some sugar and significant carbs during your refeeds. I like to eat about a dozen toasted waffles with sugar free syrup and maybe eight dinner rolls during my carb ups, any remaining carbs get substituted in with rice.

[Repo]

@ Hades

Yeah maybe I was overly harsh, I'll butt out, sorry.

[Felix 5000]

samurai power

[scorpion]

(07-12-2015 02:41 PM)Hades Wrote:  

I've been doing the rapid fat loss diet and it works exactly as promised.

I'd be interested in hearing more details about your experience with this diet. What were you eating specifically? Meal timing? Were you doing the 2x a week workouts with carb reloads afterward? Were you hungry and feeling low-energy most of the time? What have your results been like?

[Beyond Borders]

(07-12-2015 05:32 PM)JamesRodri Wrote:  

(07-12-2015 02:23 PM)Repo Wrote:  

2000 calorie deficit and only 5% loss of strength? I'm skeptical to say the least. Of course you will lose a ton of weight at a 2kcal deficit a day, don't need a book to tell me that..

I agree. Whenever I cut, if I'm benching 100kg when I start I quickly start maxing my sets out at 85kg or less when I'm down to my target weight. Loss of muscle/strength is the biggest problem when cutting. Losing weight is so easy I don't see why people have a problem doing it.

Maintaining muscle mass whilst doing so, now that's the problem.

The diet is designed to get a specific rare result. That's the entire premise. And there are people who claim it gets that result, including long-term, repped members of the Forum.

Therefore, writing it off completely because it gets the strange result it was designed to get (without further examination) is a little self defeating, no?

Why not just look into it more and see if there's something to it?

It's also short enough to read in a night if you really want to challenge your skepticism by seeing what the man has to say.

[samsamsam]

(07-12-2015 08:19 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(07-12-2015 02:41 PM)Hades Wrote:  

I've been doing the rapid fat loss diet and it works exactly as promised.

I'd be interested in hearing more details about your experience with this diet. What were you eating specifically? Meal timing? Were you doing the 2x a week workouts with carb reloads afterward? Were you hungry and feeling low-energy most of the time? What have your results been like?

The 2nd example he posted - that guy had a pretty good write up and talked about how he timed his cheat and refeed with his lift days.

Quote:

Post Workout Nutrition
Because of my diet category as a lifter, I got one free meal per week and one refeed per week. I ALWAYS used these post-workout on Monday and Friday. I honestly feel like this is a key adjustment to make. Though nutrient timing isn’t generally that important in a more balanced diet, on RFL, I think selectively providing that influx of carbs and other nutrients post-workout can go a long ways towards muscle mass maintenance. It certainly worked well for me.

The guy also mentions his lifts before and after losing the weight.

Quote:

Dates: Jan 1st, 2014 to Mar 18th, 2014 (10 weeks)
Body Composition:
Bodyweight: 200lbs to 169lbs
Waist: 37.25” to 33”
Neck: 17.25” to 16.25”
BF%: ~21.1% to ~14.5%
LBM: ~157lbs to ~146lbs (keep in mind ~5-7lbs of water loss)

Lifts:
Squat: ~405 to 429
Bench: ~250 to 242
Deadlift: ~455 to 452
Total: ~1100 to 1124

[Felix 5000]

samurai power

[Hades]

(07-12-2015 08:19 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(07-12-2015 02:41 PM)Hades Wrote:  

I've been doing the rapid fat loss diet and it works exactly as promised.

I'd be interested in hearing more details about your experience with this diet. What were you eating specifically? Meal timing? Were you doing the 2x a week workouts with carb reloads afterward? Were you hungry and feeling low-energy most of the time? What have your results been like?

I'm still a little drunk from last night but I'll roll with this.

On an average day I'd have two protein shakes (three scoops apiece) and 8.5 ounces of chicken with chopped lettuce and a few radishes. I had a digital scale to weigh everything out.

Usually I'd do three workouts centered around the refeeds. Since a 5 hour refeed is the minimum time frame (oftentimes my carbups would take 12 hours simply becuase 600 grams of carbs is hard to eat) I'd work out after doing some carb up (maybe two hours in) just to kill time between eating waffles with sugar free syrup and rice. At the very end of the carb up I'd usually go back to the gym again and smash weights for entertainment. Immediately after the free meal I'd go to the gym. I also get drunk right at my carb refeed, strictly because lite beer and whiskey are not particularly carb heavy. I'm a category II dieter, of course.

Meal timing is pretty standard, I'd wake up, have a shake, go to work, have lunch and dinner, etc. Some nights it was hard to sleep feeling so hungry but after a while you get used to eating just 800-1000 calories a day. If I'm at home trying to sleep and just have to eat something, I'll have an ounce of cheese and a little glass of a dry wine with a cigarette. That doesn't fuck up the diet too badly. A massive caloric deficit is still a massive caloric deficit.

Overall energy levels are great. I actually feel pretty good and have suffered no low energy despite being on my feet all day at work. If I get tired or pissy usually I'll have a little salt and a diet coke.

Don't be terribly surprised if you get very horny on this diet. Even though I'd go to the bars and have nothing but Diet Cokes and cigarettes my game has never been better lol.

Even on days I'm not supposed to lift I'll do a few pushups or overhead press my dumbbell for a few sets of 15-20. During my refeeds I'll go lift and usually do OK, this diet spares muscle so all my lifts don't suffer much. Pullups and dips get easy as fuck once you cut a little weight. I've PR'd on bodyweight stuff every time I walk in.

For supplements I'd do ten fish oil tabs daily, animal pak, and a magnesium and calcium supplement.

The results are nothing short of amazing. I lost ten pounds of fat in like two weeks and for the 4th of July (I had a diet break scheduled for then) I went out to a swimming pool to show off my new (visible) obliques. I literally can't recommend the rapid fat loss diet enough. My gut that I've always had is completely gone and all my clothes fit great.

Edit: I did this diet for three weeks in June and timed my "full diet break" for the week of the 4th of July, and now I'm doing another two or three week cut with the exact same diet until I get the leanness I want.

[Beyond Borders]

I think I may try it. Need to find some decent protein powder first. Might have to wait for Bangkok.

If I do I'll write a blog post with before and after pics.

[Hades]

(07-13-2015 08:12 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

I think I may try it. Need to find some decent protein powder first. Might have to wait for Bangkok.

If I do I'll write a blog post with before and after pics.

Yep I almost forgot to add. I bought 22 pounds of powder from a company called Myprotein for 160 bucks, which is excellent. It's probably the best and lowest carb protein powder I've found. I'm pretty sure they ship internationally. They have great discounts too.

[s3k]

This is just a watered down version of leangains. I'm kind of pissed at lyle for releasing this so soon. I feel lyle could have waited a bit longer for martin to get on board. None the less the ketosis part is good but not longer than 6 months. I went carbless/very low carbs on non-training days and damn near became diabetic due prolonged insulin levels. It takes your body time for ypur hormones to level back out to normal ranges. If you do go the ketosis path, test your blood sugar twice a month.

[Benoit]

(07-13-2015 03:59 PM)s3k Wrote:  

This is just a watered down version of leangains. I'm kind of pissed at lyle for releasing this so soon. I feel lyle could have waited a bit longer for martin to get on board. None the less the ketosis part is good but not longer than 6 months. I went carbless/very low carbs on non-training days and damn near became diabetic due prolonged insulin levels. It takes your body time for ypur hormones to level back out to normal ranges. If you do go the ketosis path, test your blood sugar twice a month.

Go back and read the first post, because you appear to be responding to something else.

[samsamsam]

I thought you go diabetic if your blood sugar is too high?

But without many carbs, you shouldn't have a problem.

I have done atkins before and never had any blood sugar issues.

[samsamsam]

This diet when you do protein shakes reminds me of the Velocity Diet from T-nation. It is a 28 day program.

Here is a link to the free pdf file. You need to fill in some info to get it.
https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/velocity-diet

[Hannibal]

(07-12-2015 02:23 PM)Repo Wrote:  

"The standard advice to get leaner seems to be to cut out carbs, sweets, alcohol, and sugary soft drinks"

. . .book proceeds to promote diet cutting out carbs, sweets, and surgary soft drinks.

Sorry, this just reads like an advertisement. . . 2000 calorie deficit and only 5% loss of strength? I'm skeptical to say the least. Of course you will lose a ton of weight at a 2kcal deficit a day, don't need a book to tell me that..

Depending on your diet category, you can get drunk and eat icecream twice a week. In fact, a little junk food on your cheat days is encouraged. The other five days of the week, yeah all you eat is basically protein. I know that kind of diet is hard for a lot of people. Get a good tasting protein powder, it helps.

And no, it's not "weight" you're losing. It's fat. It's all fat and about five pounds of water. I might have lost a pound or two of muscle so far, most cutting diets are far more miserable than this one. If you were to just straight up run a 2k calorie a day deficit, you'd end up looking like Christian Bale out of the Machinist.

The trick to help maintain your strength is that you only do a few heavy sets per body part, maybe twice a week. That's more than adequate. Every time I go to the gym, I'll sip about 30g of Gatorade and that gives me just enough energy to go through my workout. Then I'll go home and sleep for ten hours.

[samsamsam]

Hannibal,

When did you start doing your weekly free meal and refeed?

After you got through your first week?

If anyone is curious this guy seemed to do well while still having a few drinks 2 to 3 times a night. However, he did seem to take a lot of supplements.

http://forums.lylemcdonald.com/showthread.php?t=21899

[Hannibal]

(07-12-2015 06:41 AM)Benoit Wrote:  

Very interesting to see someone else getting results from this. Long-term diet compliance has always been the hardest part for me.

I bought and read the book a while ago and have been planning on running a PSMF soon, too much active stuff on at the moment to do it properly.

What effects did you notice on your mood and energy levels?

Feel free to PM me and I can help you out with it.

To answer your question.

My mood was fairly stable, but beware. A diet like this tends to drop your dopamine levels. You might get a case of the blues if you get a lot of pleasure from food. My guilty pleasure in these dark times has been diet coke, coffee, and cigarettes. Libido went up, as well.

If you smoke cigarettes or like to have a drink or two, expect that to get a bit worse. Everyone responds to this shit differently, though, so your results may vary.

As far as energy levels, mine were fairly stable (on the days I'd be eating nothing but protein). They would tend to seesaw on my cheat/refeed days. I'll show you what my schedule looked like.

Day 1 : Shakes and chicken. Pretty hungry halfway through the day. Nothing a diet coke or a spinach salad can't fix.

Day 2 : Shakes and steaks. Hunger stabilized, food is fuel at this point.

Day 3: Shakes and chicken, go lift, eat a cheat meal (usually wings and beer). Sometimes I'd get a bit drunk.

Day 4: Shakes and fish. If I was hungry after work I'd eat a couple ounces of cheese so I could sleep.

Day 5: Shakes and chicken. No problem with energy levels.

Day 6: Shakes and steaks. Might have a glass of dry wine with the steak.

Day 7: Shakes and chicken, hit the gym, do a 5 hour refeed

Later in the day : Question all the decisions I ever made after eating 550 grams of carbs in five hours. Energy levels would go way up, then crash immensely. I usually end up doing more of an 8 hour refeed to avoid the problems I got with a five hour refeed (ridiculous bloating, seesaw energy levels, etc). Your body's temperature goes up during the refeed. It's like carb fever, I'd break a sweat eating breadsticks.

Day after refeed : I'd feel fucking amazing. Expect to take at least five shits.

I started at 193 lbs @ 20% bodyfat, around May 28th.
On July 6th (this was after my week off from the diet) I weighed in at
181 lbs @ 15% bodyfat.

Pretty fucking good for one month. I'm currently a week into my second run at it. My goal is to diet down to 10% BF, then continue bulking. If the weight is too stubborn I'll simply run a bodybuilding program, get swoler and do the diet later in the winter.

(07-14-2015 09:20 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

Hannibal,

When did you start doing your weekly free meal and refeed?

After you got through your first week?

If anyone is curious this guy seemed to do well while still having a few drinks 2 to 3 times a night. However, he did seem to take a lot of supplements.

http://forums.lylemcdonald.com/showthread.php?t=21899

It's funny you mention it, that thread is the reason I started RFL. I like to have a couple drinks, haha.

The way my schedule is set up is the exact way I did it, right from the start.
I work weird hours, so it was fine for me.

Remember, the refeed is to fire up your metabolism for the rest of the week. If you don't do it or you half ass it because you think you'll bolster weight loss, you won't. You'll be fucked. Your weight loss will grind to a half and you'll feel like shit all the time.

The cheat meal is simply for compliance. Feasibly, you could have your cheat meal Friday, a couple whiskey's on the rocks Saturday, and refeed Sunday and it wouldn't be a problem. I don't work regular daytime hours.

[cascadecombo]

So you lose the weight fast, and then promptly put it back on?

Diets are meant to be lifestyle choices. That's also the point of diets that take a longer time to produce results vs this drop weight quick stuff. The dude who loses a few pounds a month while still eating what he wants and maintains a lifestyle that he enjoys is going to far more likely to continue living that healthy lifestyle vs someone who radically changes there diet just to see quick results and then slips back into the shitty diet afterwards.

With that said, and after reading a bunch of the posts. I am curious how this sort of diet would affect me. I may give it a whirl for a month. Intermittent fasting had worked wonders for me, but I am always open to trying new things.

[Beyond Borders]

(07-17-2015 11:46 PM)cascadecombo Wrote:  

So you lose the weight fast, and then promptly put it back on?

Diets are meant to be lifestyle choices. That's also the point of diets that take a longer time to produce results vs this drop weight quick stuff. The dude who loses a few pounds a month while still eating what he wants and maintains a lifestyle that he enjoys is going to far more likely to continue living that healthy lifestyle vs someone who radically changes there diet just to see quick results and then slips back into the shitty diet afterwards.

With that said, and after reading a bunch of the posts. I am curious how this sort of diet would affect me. I may give it a whirl for a month. Intermittent fasting had worked wonders for me, but I am always open to trying new things.

^ No, that isn't the point.

There's a maintenance component included in the book too.

Why would you assume it hadn't occurred to everyone to not put the weight promptly back on and then suggest in the next paragraph you might give the diet a shot yourself?

Give us some credit here. Surely you realize most members here understand that diets are meant to be lifestyle choices...

Anyhow, the book covers the dangers and pitfalls extensively for such a short book.

[Hannibal]

@cascadecombo

You'll lose fat rapidly while sparing your muscle tissue. That's the deal.

I can bulk without too much restriction, then when I can't see abs I'll do a RFL run for a couple weeks (to get lean) so that I can get back to making gains on another bulk. Plenty of guys do it on Lyle's forum, none of these ideas are new.

It beats the hell out of counting calories to get a 500 calorie daily deficit, then dieting for months and months, all the while making zero gains in strength just so you can have pretty abs for the summer.

Yeah, we can all make better lifestyle choices, but this is an option for folks who want this shit done fast. When I get to more advanced strength levels, then yeah I'll do a more moderate approach.