Short Version:
John Berardi’s Get Shredded Diet( The Get Shredded Diet ) or Lyle Mcdonald’s Ultimate Diet 2.0 (Don’t have a link)?
Long Version:
I just finished CT’s Beast Building during Sep/Oct/Nov and I took Dec off just eating what I want and not really following any programs. So basically I put on heaps of muscle, weight and strength with beast building (great program) but coupled with my my rather lax December regime and the fact that there’s heaps of food still to come over the xmas period I’m also looking at quite a bit of excess fat. I used to be around 11-12%BF but now I think I’m more like 15-16%.
I’m looking to start a 6 week program in January to cut some fat. I’ve searched around the forums and read heaps of the diets and I think either John Berardi’s Get Shredded Diet or Lyle Mcdonald’s Ultimate Diet 2.0 would be best for me. I mean, ideally I would love to do the V-Diet but I live in New Zealand and especially with the weak dollar at the moment it’s way too expensive. So I was looking for something that relies on whole (cheap) food but is also kind of near the extremeness of the V-Diet.
Has anyone had any experiences with either diet?
I love John Berardi’s philosiphy on eating and training but I’m a bit put off by the fact that there is a 14 page discussion on the diet and he hasn’t answered any of the questions posted (mainly because I fell like this implies he gave up with this type of diet, i dunno).
I’ve heard that Lyle McDonald is a very respected nutritionist among a lot of bodybuilding circles but I’m having a hard time finding results and ‘after’ pictures of people who have done the diet.
I’ve done both multiple times. I would have to say that I got better results doing UD 2.0, but I had more fun doing Get Shredded (mainly due to the liberal cheat day).
UD 2.0 requires a lot more discipline than Get Shredded. The depletion workouts are hell - plain and simple, and doing them on 1,200-ish calories a day compounds the hell. Also, the recomposition phase is a pain in the ass if you follow it to the letter (eating every 2 hours, sticking to the types/amounts of carbs).
My main complaint with Get Shredded is that it didn’t outline any specifics for working out, although it doesn’t really matter as long as you’re following a solid routine. In addition, I found that it was too hard to control my cheat days. I would literally spend over half my cheat day nauseous and comatose from all the cals/carbs, and I would feel like crap the following day as well (dry mouth, bloated, gas, etc). I did get pretty good results.
I would have thought that UD2.0 would be easier since you get to eat big pretty much twice a week once preapring to load up on carbs, and second time when you’re actually loading up(haven’t gotten the book yet, but this is what I got from reading around). As opposed to GSD where you have a cheat meal once every 14 days.
Before my log, I started the UD as a trial I found it dropped about 1/lb to .5lb a week, and my lifts pretty much stayed the same. However, there was no way I could do it during classes.
Be warned: you have to be really really strict with the UD schedule, also be prepared for 4 days at around 12-1300 calories.
The carb ups are fun, but keep in mind they have to be ultra low fat
Elusive, I think, did a run on the diet, you could search that as well.
I’ve done both. My best advice is try them out, pick one and roll with it. I logged my short experience on the UD 2.0 (as hexx mentioned). Search Lyle Mcdonald UD 2.0 or something along those lines. I cut about twice a year and have gotten lean numerous times now. I’ve found that the best diet is often the one that is most maintainable in the long term. I personally felt that the UD 2.0 was too drastic and complicated than it needed to be.
Mondays-Thursdays SUCKED and Fridays were a TON of fun. I got results from it, but I’d now rather do a diet that has less swings in calories/carbs/energy levels ect. Either one will work if you adhere to it though. Let us know what you choose and maybe log your experience, I know many people would appreciate that (I would).