Alternative to V-Diet?

Diet and Nutrition
1

Ok, I did some research on this, I read the articles (very informative), and got all fired up to get this done, and then I looked at the supplements and added up the price and from my estimates it would cost me $996. and some change to do this diet.

I know, you can’t put a price tag on your health, No pain no gain, You only get out what you put in…on and on…

I have a family, five children, three growing boys and two beautiful girls. I simply can not afford to spend that much on just me.

My question is, what are the alternatives? Now, let me make it clear, I don’t eat poorly, my wife is a sugar nazi. She does not allow sodas in the house or anything else. If it contains corn anything, she starts going into shock. Yet, I just can not seem to lose weight.

I’ve tried the zone diet, the runners diet, ripped fuel, and many, many other diets and diet tools. You all were very helpful with your info on my workouts and energy issues. I think part of the problem with my workouts starts with the diet.

I know I need 1500 to 2000 calories a day. This is by using the formula for the V-Diet. It actually comes out to 2010.3 for regular days, and 2412.36 for lifting days. Now if I want to lose over 35 lbs, then it would be 1608.24 for regular days and 1929.8 for lifting days.

I figured if I go with the 1500-2000 calories then I just need to get a meal plan. Can anyone suggest a computer program which I can use to build a good diet. I need to be able to look at the calendar and see what I need for each meal. I can’t go with the ok, you have 500 calories for lunch, now build your menu around that.

I guess what i’m looking for is a program that I just enter the info and it kicks out a menu for the coming week/month, which is already taking into account the caloric needs. Or, if anyone knows of a good program. I have read a lot of good info on here but no one really puts out what the menu’s were that they were using.

2

i dont know of any menu generating programs, but I use fitday to plan out my meals for the next day. It has worked well for me. I can develop and tweak the ratios until I have the macro ratio’s that i am looking for.

Once you have gotten a couple days worked out, its fairly easy to keep going as it you just copy and paste in. Its also nice cause when the wife is going grocery shopping and asks me what i need. I can just go to my program, then look at the fridge and tell her what I am running low on.

3

[quote]Bigd1970 wrote:
Ok, I did some research on this, I read the articles (very informative), and got all fired up to get this done, and then I looked at the supplements and added up the price and from my estimates it would cost me $996. and some change to do this diet.[/quote]

There were some threads that talked about this before:
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/diet_performance_nutrition_bodybuilding_velocity/vdiet_for_a_broke_man

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/diet_performance_nutrition_bodybuilding_velocity/v_diethow_to_afford

But I’d definitely double-check your math. I’ve never heard of it costing anywhere near $996. It’s usually in the $400-$600 range, with the basics, for the 6-week plan (V-Diet and transition), and that’s instead of what you’d normally spend on whole foods, meals out, snacks on the run, etc.

… … … and how’d you do with any of those? What was the problem with them?

If you’re not doing the V-Diet, it’s goofy to use the V-Diet calculations. Every plan is designed differently and will suggest different numbers.

Fitday.com is an online calorie tracker, but it doesn’t tell you exactly what to eat, you tell it what you’ve eaten and it charts the numbers. If you spend a few hours one weekend, you could most likely whip up your own meals, figure out the numbers, and plan them out accordingly.

I’d consider starting with either the 28 Days plan (a step-by-step process to build good habits, rather than a “system”) 28 Days, 14 Missions, 1 Ripped Physique

or The V-Diet Lite (two shakes a day, instead of five or six) All Articles - T NATION

Regardless of the plan, it’s going to take some work on your part, though I understand the appeal of having it as automated as possible, and you can make it that way with a bit of planning.

As an aside, what’s your workout plan to drop these 35 pounds?

4

Fitday rules. Get the program if you have PC. If you have a mac, get windows for your mac then get the fitday desktop program. worlds better than the online version as you have to keep reloading the page every time you make a change. to me, this was a huge pain in the ass. there is another one called calorieking, but the food database on it blows. once again: fitday desktop

5

Eat clean and lift weights?

What a concept.

6

[quote]msd0060 wrote:
Eat clean and lift weights?

What a concept.[/quote]

yeah, that kind of makes sense :wink:

7

I don’t like that you can’t separate foods into “meals” on FitDay online.

I want to be able to look at the list and tell when I ate what food.

8

[quote]PonceDeLeon wrote:
I don’t like that you can’t separate foods into “meals” on FitDay online.

I want to be able to look at the list and tell when I ate what food.[/quote]

That’s part of the reason the online sucks. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

CT’s Refined Physique Transformation:

I am not a big fan of shake-based diets, but dieting with good clean food, namely protein, healthy fats, and vegetables, costs a good bit of money too. There are a million threads on this site about saving money on food bills that may help.

To compare cost fairly, though, you have to benchmark it against the cost of what you are eating now. It’s not zero.

It’s more complicated to factor in the future cost of NOT losing weight, but consider that too.

I am surprised that the Zone diet did not work, and I’d like to hear more detail about that. The Zone is NOT just macros for the day (or even each meal) coming out to 40-30-30.

It’s keeping insulin fairly low by eating a good-sized portion of protein, small amounts of starchy carbs, mainly low-glycemic-load ones, vegetables, and healthy fat, 5 meals a day.

10

The Zone Diet was working fairly well, until my wife stopped preping the meals. I don’t have a lot of freetime in my schedule:

0400-0500 Work out
0500 to 0600, get ready for work
0600-0700 Drive to work (Depending on Traffic)
0700-1730 Work
1730-1830 Drive Home (Traffic)
1830-2030 Children’s Schedule (Two Teenage Boys, One Six Year old Boy, and Two Girls) or School Work/Study Time
2030-2100 Family Scripture Study/Prayer and Goto Bed.

I don’t have a lot of time to plan out and prepare the next days meals, let alone planning for an entire weeks worth of meals. My wife used to help prep meals and prepared them, which was great but then she felt under appreciated and stopped doing that. Now, she flat out refuses to do it. So, I put together what ever I find for the day, which is usually healthy food becuase she is also a helth food freak.

So, again my predicament is finding a way to plan for meals for a week/month and then takeing the time to prep the meals for the next day the night before, because the next morning is already going when I get up.

11

Lowfat cottage cheese is a fairly cheap source of protein and should be high-quality protein.

If you could manage to find the liquid whey fed to cows, that probably is really cheap.

Just as a couple of ideas: I’ve tried the first, not the second.

12

I do use cottage cheese mixed with fruit and nuts for breakfast. Quick, and easy to prepare.