In previous posts, I’ve discussed my version of the Peasant Diet. Check out How I Used the Peasant Diet to Lean Out which was posted a year ago. In that post, I covered how I used a diet of high-volume unprocessed food – mostly carbs – to drop from 222 to 200 pounds without feeling hunger.
I strongly believe that if you design a diet that minimizes hunger, you will minimize the risk of regaining the weight.
After an inactive winter due to an injury, it would have been normal for me to gain some weight back. But I didn’t. By April, I was down to 197. That is when I declared victory.
I had lost weight without experiencing hunger and I was able to maintain that loss for a year even during a period where I was sidelined with an injury. I consider 197 to be the upper bound of my ideal weight.
The Peasant Diet was a great tool to get to that point, but as I recovered from my injury, I knew my activity would increase. I’d likely regain some muscle and get leaner. As you get leaner, you need higher levels of protein to preserve lean muscle mass. This was discussed in my P-Ratio post.
So starting in July, I began increasing protein and scaling back on potatoes. It is working. I’m down to 192 and look great. I know winter is coming, but I think I’m ready for it, just like I was last year. The skills I learned from the Peasant Diet easily apply to the higher-protein version (Bodybuilder).
Seattle fall photo I took years ago.
Darin
Sep 14, 2018 — 9:52 am
I’ve started following Ray Peat’s diet of a minimum of 2 quarts of milk a day an cheese and eggs and the fat has fallen off and I’ve become ripped with daily sports and weight lifting which I love.
I was following a low carb diet with not much changing in my body but I was in good shape. Milk, eggs, cheese and sugar(!) and I’m ripped and have much more energy for basketball, racquetball, hiking and weights.
I wish I had a legitimate claim for a lawsuit against those who convinced me that sugar was bad. Processed foods are bad… sugar added to my coffee gives me energy and the weight continues to fall off! Fruit and ice cream… has made my day so much more enjoyable…
I’m such a sucker….
Geoff
Sep 14, 2018 — 5:07 pm
Interesting MAS and congratulations on your continued success. About how much did you shift your carb/protein balance when you moved to the “bodybuilder diet” ?
MAS
Sep 14, 2018 — 7:23 pm
@Darin – I like to look at diet choices like investments. Undervalued and overvalued. I can see that for you – an active person following a LC diet – that switching to Ray Peat would be like adding fuel to a fire. On the other hand, a less active person that was already consuming a fair amount of dairy and sugar would likely get less benefit from that same diet.
Which is sort of the point of this post for me. The leaner I got, the more undervalued protein became in relation to carbs.
@Geoff – Great question. I don’t have an exact number, but the way I am aproaching it is how I start my meals. With the peasant, I started many meals with boiled potatoes. With my belly full, I didn’t want other foods, including protein rich foods. Now, I am starting more and more meals with protein. This crushes my appetite and the result is I want fewer carbs.