First let me say well done Chris, very well written and educational series of articles. Now - where are the bloody pictures!!! :)

Shugs,

Very interesting article. It's sort of T-Nation version of the Morgan Spurlock Film "Super Size Me."

What I'd be interested to know is if you can keep this weight off. I'm pretty sure you're going to go back to regularly consuming solid meals and I'd like to hear the effect.

The reason being is that I have experimented with diets like this to try to "peak" and I worked. Sadly, a true peak is followed by a steap valley and I ended gaining back almost all of the weight I lost.

If you can keep it off, I'd like to hear the strategies you used.

Chris, I cant wait to try this diet. I to have been blessed with the fat gene and have to watch my diet very closely. Last year I got down to 195 but hit a major wall. I'm going to use this diet when I get to that point, to get rreally lean.

thx

swerven wrote:
First let me say well done Chris, very well written and educational series of articles. Now - where are the bloody pictures!!! :)



I addressed the pics issue in Part I, but here goes one more time: I want to use the article replies for feedback and to help those who try the V-Diet. Posting pics will lead to two things.

1) If the troll thinks I look better than him: accusations of Photoshop, liposuction, steroid/drug use, using a different person in the second set of pics, etc.

2) If the troll thinks he looks better than me: accusations of not using steroids/drugs and therefore not being "hardcore," being attacked for not being as big as Ronnie Coleman, needing a tan, etc.

Either leads to massive, all-caps thread hijacking by14 year old fat kids and 30 year olds who live in their mom's basement. Don't post pics: get accused of lying. Post pics: get accused of faking, drugs, etc. There's no way to win, so I'm not going to bother with it.

I'm ripped. If someone doesn't believe it, then he can go eat ice cream and cry.

Robert Monti wrote:
What I'd be interested to know is if you can keep this weight off. I'm pretty sure you're going to go back to regularly consuming solid meals and I'd like to hear the effect.

If you can keep it off, I'd like to hear the strategies you used.



I'm following the coming off plan listed in the article above pretty closely, though I've probably sped it up a little. For example, I started having mostly solid meals faster than I'd planned. (I had planned to go 50/50 for a longer period of time.)

I've gained one pound in 8 days off the diet. Just some water weight coming back, so that's cool. See my Velocity Transition blog for the blow-by-blow: http://www.t-nation.com/...ic.do?id=559702

I'll keep everyone interested updated in the web log. There's also a lot of extra tips there that just couldn't fit in the article.

Excellent article! I can't wait to try it!

When is Surge going to be back in stock? I need to get some to start!

-Machine

Thanks for posting your progress!

I plan to buy some milled flax seeds soon. When you mix them in your shakes, do you use a blender, or can they just be mixed in with a spoon/shaker?

Nice going chris. For those on the diet I have a few recommendations. Diet ice tea mix is great for helping curb hunger desire. Though I watered mine down more than the recommended ammounts. With 5 calories a serving and no carbs, sugars, anything else, it was pretty ideal to help mix things up. Chewing gum helped as well.

adamkn wrote:
I plan to buy some milled flax seeds soon. When you mix them in your shakes, do you use a blender, or can they just be mixed in with a spoon/shaker?

I prefer to use a blender, mainly because I like to add ice to make it extra cold. But it'll work with a spoon or shaker. You may get some extra flax in the last bite or two of your shake, but I actually kinda like that.

Just be sure to put the flax seeds in the fridge after opening.

How did you reach your calorie limits with only 5 shakes per day...isnt that only 550 calories?

Great series, man. I've got to tell you, I've been bulking for quite some time and I love it. I've been seeing great results, getting bigger and stronger all the time. I dreaded the thought of having to cut later. But, after reading what you've accomplished, I'm actually looking forward to it.

Thanks for being a lab rat for us.

Renegade60 wrote:
How did you reach your calorie limits with only 5 shakes per day...isnt that only 550 calories?

Each shake contained two scoops of Low-Carb Grow!, plus most contained milled flax seeds. The salmon oil caps made up the rest on non-training days and the post-workout drink make them up on the weight training day.

Where did you get the milled flax seeds? I'm not too familiar with it...


Cheat Meal: Salad... Lettuce... Some of that funny lettuce that looks like weeds.. Spinach, carrots possibly sprouts. Vinegar and oil until I can wean myself off it. Eaten everyday at lunch. Comments... Good idea... Bad idea...?

I plan on taking a 1-2 week sting on the Velocity diet along with a week long taper. Coming up mid-march ;)

Garrett W. wrote:
Where did you get the milled flax seeds? I'm not too familiar with it...


You can get them anywhere: grocery store, GNC, health food store, etc. The ones I use come from either GNC or Wal-Mart. I've found no difference in brands.

Cheat Meal: Salad... Lettuce... Some of that funny lettuce that looks like weeds.. Spinach, carrots possibly sprouts. Vinegar and oil until I can wean myself off it. Eaten everyday at lunch. Comments... Good idea... Bad idea...?


Add some protein. Count the calories. See if it fits.

Protein... Hmm... Looks like I might end up sucking down a 1 scoop shake right after when I head back to my room.


Being in school, the caf kinda limits the options we have. Salads in endless supply. Meat is spotty and usally super greasy and gross.

Maybe I'll just take some lettuce back to my room and grind it up... Or maybe I'll just do the diet the good old fashioned way.


Appreciate the timely response.

"take in at least six grams of DHA and EPA per day"

Sorry for the extremely dumb question, but I just want to clarify this once for all. Does this mean 6 grams of fish oil, or 6 grams of DHA/EPA?

I take fish oil capsules with a 30% content of EPA/DHA. I presume that this means I'd have to swallow 20 of them daily on the Velocity diet?

Just wanted to comment about flaxseed.

I got mine in bulk at Hy-Vee, for 99 cents a pound, milled. I was worried that it was not chilled in the bulk section, but it is a small container and assume it is cycled through well. Also I can?t find it cheaper anywhere else.

Interestingly they have regular unmilled flaxseeds for slightly more.

When I drank the shakes, I either stirred it before each sip so that I didn't drink the most at the end, or if I used a shaker, would give it a little shake before each drink.

A tough question for you if you don't mind: How drastically would you recommend changing the diet if HOT-ROX wasn't available? How many extra calories, different amounts of macros etc...

I'm not thinking about dieting for a while but this sounds great for the future. Student debts could prevent me buying supps for quite some time lol!

Thanks for all the effort you've put into this adventure and for keeping us all updated - it's been a fun read.

Hey Shugs, how often should someone go on the V-Diet? My gut tells me probably no more than twice a year, but that is just a guess.

Great series and very thorough. Two articles, two blog threads, and numerous replies to reader questions. Thanks for the dedication, time, and shared knowledge. This is one reason why this site is so great.

The Mage wrote:
Just wanted to comment about flaxseed.

I got mine in bulk at Hy-Vee, for 99 cents a pound, milled."

Hy-Vee ehh? Must live near good ole Iowa! I got a small box of the milled stuff for 79 cents! not too shabby!

loppar wrote:
"take in at least six grams of DHA and EPA per day"

Sorry for the extremely dumb question, but I just want to clarify this once for all. Does this mean 6 grams of fish oil, or 6 grams of DHA/EPA?

I take fish oil capsules with a 30% content of EPA/DHA. I presume that this means I'd have to swallow 20 of them daily on the Velocity diet?

The six gram recommendation comes from Dr. Berardi, and yes, I'm pretty sure he means 6 grams of DHA/EPA. Yep, that usually means swallowing around 20 capsules a day, a few with each meal. Brands differ and usually the more expensive ones are more concentrated so you can take less caps.

Coromega makes a paste that's a nice alternative to capsules. (Do a search, I reviewed this product in an old "Stuff We Like" article.) Might be pricey compared to fish capsules though.

Breakdown wrote:
A tough question for you if you don't mind: How drastically would you recommend changing the diet if HOT-ROX wasn't available? How many extra calories, different amounts of macros etc...

I'm not thinking about dieting for a while but this sounds great for the future. Student debts could prevent me buying supps for quite some time lol!

Thanks for all the effort you've put into this adventure and for keeping us all updated - it's been a fun read.


That's tough to say. All I can really do is suggest raising the calories a little. Without HOT-ROX, results will be slower, hunger will be increased, and you should keep an eye out for potential muscle loss.

I chose all the supplements for the V-Diet with great care and it's hard to guarantee results when one or more isn't used. But hey, I've been to college and know how broke it can leave a guy.

If I were forced by gunpoint to cut one supplement from the V-Diet, I would not use Surge and instead replace it with a solid meal containing carbs or perhaps even fat free or low fat chocolate milk. (Listen to the T-Radio interview with Dr. Berardi about this.) So, I'd keep the HOT-ROX over Surge if forced to make a choice.

By the way, as I wrote in Part I, yes, the supplement bill is pricey for this diet, but your grocery bill is nonexistent, so it's not as bad as it seems.

djohns wrote:
Hey Shugs, how often should someone go on the V-Diet? My gut tells me probably no more than twice a year, but that is just a guess.

Hopefully it wouldn't be needed very often. If it was, then the person should examine his overall lifestyle and dietary habits. (We don't want to fall into a never ending yo-yo syndrome.)

I think most of us tend to add some fat during the winter so a once-per-year jumpstart on summer fat loss would be ideal. However, the V-Diet could be used on a short term basis before trips to the beach, etc.

Example: Guy loses 20 pounds on the diet and mostly maintains it. But as the summer months pass he slowly gains back 5 pounds of fat. He could do a 10-14 day V-Diet and get rid of that before it gets out of hand.

I see the V-diet as a quick-start to an overall lifestyle change, especially for the diet or training newbie. It'll provide that near-instant gratification so many have to have, but it should only be a first step into year 'round healthy eating. The behavior changes most experience during the diet should really help in that aspect.

Short answer: four weeks per year, with maybe a week or two long "tune up" if needed later on.

If a person needs to diet longer than four weeks, he should use the V-Diet as a kick-start, then go to something like the T-Dawg 2.0 plan or Berardi's "Don't Diet" plan.

Chris-

Thanks for the article! I have to be honest in that I'm a HUGE fan of 98% of T-Nation but very skeptical of the Velocity Diet from a lean body mass retention standpoint. We know that Christian Thib lost considerable BF while retaining nearly all his LBM during the Mutation Series. So, we generally know that high protein diets can preserve LBM if calories are adequate and carbs are rotated. But, then again, we each have our own unique biochemistry to figure out...

More specifically with the Velocity Diet, did you get skin folds and/or other methods of BF testing to know about where your LBM was at before and after??? After all, it's not out of the question to gain some strength while losing some muscle mass. It all depends on the workout and if you introduced something relatively new that you neurologically adapted to. Granted, a few pounds of muscle lost while dieting is a given in most cases. Most body builders would gladly give up 3 pounds of lean tissue if they can lose 25 pounds of pure fat. Therefore, any statistics for us "anal number crunchers" would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks Chris,

TopSirloin