Rapid Fat Loss vs. V-Diet

Nutrition
241

Ok I’m in.

I’m almost done reading RFL and just went through this thread.
I did decide to bulk but at the moment I’m a lot more interested in getting my BF% right down - what can I say, as a FFB I’m a sucker for ‘hawt abz’.

I’ve estimated my BF% to be in the region of 12-15%, on a good day where I’m not retaining a fuckton of water I can see my top two rows of abs. Either way I’m doing RFL as a category 1.

So this thread shall be my new first stop. Thanks to all who have shared their experiences so far.

As lame as it sounds I don’t have access to scales at the moment so I’m going to chart my progress visually, maybe with an arm measurement so I’ve at least got some kind of figure to go by.

I’m yet to plan my meals but it seems very straightforward, I just have some fruit to finish off and I’ll be kicking off the diet in the next few days after I’ve been shopping.

Let the games begin… o.O

242

well mid way thrrough my second week had to up my calories some days as our gym has tons of guys fighting shortly so having to jmp in on more training and sparring session thatn I had paln but so far so good

243

So I have a few questions/issues to raise if I may -

Firstly, I’ve set my daily protein figure at 280g, equalling 1120 calories.
Splitting this up into ‘meals’ comes out as

3 x 373 cals w/ 90g protein
or
4 x 280 cals w/ 70g protein

This seems pretty damn high but it seems unrealistic to split it up into more than 4 meals.

Another query of mine is this - I’ve got 1120 cals worth of protein, now do I actually bother counting cals/carbs from the fibrous veggies and ADD that to the 1120 or should I reduce protein and incorporate my veggies into the 1120? I know McDonald calls them ‘free’ but I just wanted to clarify.

Also, I want to make my last meal of the day 1 cup cottage cheese w/ 1 cup frozen berries and this totals:

32g Protein
3g Fat
25g Carbs

Which seems like a substantial amount of carbs - 100 calories’ worth.
Is this a bad idea? Particularly before bed?
And again, how do I work those 100 calories into my daily total?

I do apologise is these questions have been answered in the book, I’ve read through once and skimmed a second time but I’m still uncertain on these points.

Many thanks in advance!

244

El Sonido- Count everything. There were days I ate over a pound of broccoli and it adds up to ~300 calories (not all digestible). The fiber from the veggies will do you good and you’ll definitely lack 10 servings a day so get a multivitamin.

If you must have your pre-bed snack, stick to the cottage cheese. The total carbs should be <50g a day. Make sure the cottage cheese is fat free or very low fat. The fructose/other sugars in your snack won’t raise blood sugar very much, but the calories will prevent you from getting the full Rapid Fat Loss effect. I know for a fact Lyle would say no to it altogether.

245

[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
El Sonido- Count everything. There were days I ate over a pound of broccoli and it adds up to ~300 calories (not all digestible). The fiber from the veggies will do you good and you’ll definitely lack 10 servings a day so get a multivitamin.

If you must have your pre-bed snack, stick to the cottage cheese. The total carbs should be <50g a day. Make sure the cottage cheese is fat free or very low fat. The fructose/other sugars in your snack won’t raise blood sugar very much, but the calories will prevent you from getting the full Rapid Fat Loss effect. I know for a fact Lyle would say no to it altogether.[/quote]

I just meant having the CC + berries as my last ‘meal’ of the day, staying within my caloric limit. I get 1% CC and that’s the lowest I can get hold of in the area unfortunately but it should hopefully do the trick.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Lyle would say no to what exactly?
Eating so soon before bed? The additional calories?

246

[quote]El Sonido wrote:
phatkins187 wrote:

I just meant having the CC + berries as my last ‘meal’ of the day, staying within my caloric limit. I get 1% CC and that’s the lowest I can get hold of in the area unfortunately but it should hopefully do the trick.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Lyle would say no to what exactly?
Eating so soon before bed? The additional calories?[/quote]

both to having that many carbs from a pure carb source, and especially to having them right before bed. The point is to minimize dietary energy sources (carbs + fats) as much as possible. If you must have your blueberries, have them in the first half of the day where the carbs can be used instead of stored. My typical pre-bed meal (non-dieting) is 2% fat CC, 1 scoop choc Metabolic Drive (or any casein protein), and 1-2 tbls of natty pb. For this diet you could easily drop the PB and get FF CC.

I did this diet in the past, with a protein allotment of 250g. I found it was easiest to just make this 5 meals of 50g, although some days i’d even do 6 meals of ~40g. to me it wasn’t so bad having meals that small, but it all comes down to personal preference. Drinking lots of water also helps you feel full.

Some meal examples (cals/fat/cho/prot):
3/4 cups egg whites, 1/4 cup FF cheddar cheese, 2 slices “eating right” turkey bacon:
210/2/5/39

7 oz tuna packet, veggies (broccoli or asparagus)
230/3/6(net)/46

4 oz chicken breast with 1/4 cup FF cheddar melted on top
210/3/2/44

1/2 cup FF cottage cheese, 1 scoop Metabolic Drive, 1/2 tbl natty pb:
240/5/8/39

and around workouts I’d do:
30 mins before: 15g BCAA
start of workout: sip on 1/2 serving Surge
post workout: 30g whey, although I’d like to do this diet in the future with 15g casein hydrolysate here.

for cardio I’d just do the BCAA, maybe a 15g whey shake or more BCAA afterwards.

hope that helps man

247

^^ What he said. Money food ideas. I’ve mentioned the Protein Pancakes earlier in the thread and with some low sugar alcohol syrup they are great.

Veggies with FF cheese melted are awesome…use as many spices as you feel are necessary.

Pickles are a great snack too.

Meals can be delicious with a couple chicken breasts and a big serving of veggies.

248

[quote]spadesofaces wrote:
El Sonido wrote:
phatkins187 wrote:

I just meant having the CC + berries as my last ‘meal’ of the day, staying within my caloric limit. I get 1% CC and that’s the lowest I can get hold of in the area unfortunately but it should hopefully do the trick.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Lyle would say no to what exactly?
Eating so soon before bed? The additional calories?

both to having that many carbs from a pure carb source, and especially to having them right before bed. The point is to minimize dietary energy sources (carbs + fats) as much as possible. If you must have your blueberries, have them in the first half of the day where the carbs can be used instead of stored. My typical pre-bed meal (non-dieting) is 2% fat CC, 1 scoop choc Metabolic Drive (or any casein protein), and 1-2 tbls of natty pb. For this diet you could easily drop the PB and get FF CC.

I did this diet in the past, with a protein allotment of 250g. I found it was easiest to just make this 5 meals of 50g, although some days i’d even do 6 meals of ~40g. to me it wasn’t so bad having meals that small, but it all comes down to personal preference. Drinking lots of water also helps you feel full.

Some meal examples (cals/fat/cho/prot):
3/4 cups egg whites, 1/4 cup FF cheddar cheese, 2 slices “eating right” turkey bacon:
210/2/5/39

7 oz tuna packet, veggies (broccoli or asparagus)
230/3/6(net)/46

4 oz chicken breast with 1/4 cup FF cheddar melted on top
210/3/2/44

1/2 cup FF cottage cheese, 1 scoop Metabolic Drive, 1/2 tbl natty pb:
240/5/8/39

and around workouts I’d do:
30 mins before: 15g BCAA
start of workout: sip on 1/2 serving Surge
post workout: 30g whey, although I’d like to do this diet in the future with 15g casein hydrolysate here.

for cardio I’d just do the BCAA, maybe a 15g whey shake or more BCAA afterwards.

hope that helps man
[/quote]

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions, that really helps a lot - much appreciated!

I’ll just ditch the berries altogether as I want the conditions to be as optimal as they can be.

Unfortunately I can’t afford any supps like BCAA’s, casein or even whey at the moment so I’m going to have to rely solely on food. I’ll do my best to get hold of potassium and magnesium though. It seems like it will be much easier if I just eat the same thing everyday - something like one tuna meal, one chicken meal, one CC meal and so on.
I don’t tolerate dairy well at all so I’m putting the CC at the end of the day as this seems to work for me, I guess any bloating and water retention has subsided by the morning.

Regarding calcium, does it seem realistic that cottage cheese and greens like broccoli and spinach will provide sufficient amounts? I know the calcium in broccoli and spinach isn’t very bioavailable so I assume supplementation would be the wisest course of action - I’m just really struggling with the finances at the moment so I’m trying to cut as many costs out of the equation as I can.

Where I’m living for the duration of this diet, there is a lake just a 10 minute walk down the road (or just a few minutes’ glide on the bicycle) and the timing is perfect because it’s just hot enough now to swim in there. I’ve been in there the past two days and it’s wonderful stuff, it’s pretty deep once you get past the gross reeds and mud and I find that just the effort of keeping myself afloat for long enough provides a nice light aerobic workout - then it’s an uphill cycle on the way back.

This will do nicely for my cardio - if I can man up enough when I get up (5-6am) then I’ll go down there before breakfast but I guess the water will be much colder than when the sun has been on it all day. I just hope my heart doesn’t disagree too much!

I jotted down an exercise schedule for the 12 days:

1 - High rep depletion workout
2
3 - AM swimming
4 - Heavy lifting, I will have to think about the set/rep structure
5
6 - AM swimming
7 - AM swimming
8 - AM swimming
9 - Heavy lifting
10
11 - AM swimming
12 - Heavy lifting before beginning refeed (if I can contain myself!)

I’ll probably end up doing a bit of swimming in the PM on most days providing it’s warm enough but that’ll likely be more along the lines of NEPA.

Anyway, this post is getting just a little self-indulgent so I’ll cut it off here.

Thanks again for the tips!

249

If you start feeling burned out, sluggish, headaches, overall shitty after a week, I’d cut out the cardio and focus on the diet. The diet is seriously 99% of the fat loss since the calories provide such a massive deficit. Any further deficit doesn’t improve the results and may hurt in terms of muscle catabolism.

The calcium in your cheeses should suffice but it’s worth it to take a calcium supplement as well…the more the better! Also, egg whites and shrimp should be added as lean protein sources.

250

I’m only two meals in and I’m HUNGRYYYYY!!!

I’ll just keep reciting the mantra - “The hunger is the fat leaving my body!”.

On day nine I have to travel from Montreal to London which, including taxis and train journey, totals around 18 hours for the journey. I’m REALLY not looking forward to that so I’ll have to make sure I’m nicely caffeinated and I’ll be packing sandwich bags of broccoli and tubs of something like a CC+Tuna combo to slowly graze on through the day. I just hope I don’t crack when they bring round the meals on the plane. I hate junky airline food but… well, it’s still food! (Just about.)

I know the first few days will likely be the hardest, I remember starting the anabolic diet.
Despite this, based on how I feel right now I think I was naive to include so much cardio in my plan, I will do a little swimming and walking just in an attempt to stave off the hunger pangs but I won’t be doing anything close to what I initially thought.

…the hunger is the fat leaving my body the hunger is the fat leaving my body the hunger is the fat leaving my body…

251

Konnyaku noodles are a God send in this diet… A pack of konnyaku noodles plus some tomato sauce, ground lean beef/chicken breast and FF cheese will take care most of your pasta cravings. And protein powder ice-cream…

252

[quote]Taufiq wrote:
Konnyaku noodles are a God send in this diet… A pack of konnyaku noodles plus some tomato sauce, ground lean beef/chicken breast and FF cheese will take care most of your pasta cravings. And protein powder ice-cream…[/quote]

Care to share your recipes for those?

253

noodles that fit into this diet? sign me up.

edit–
I looked them up. They’re noodles made out of Glucomannan, which is just soluble fibre and that’s all. You can get them here, http://www.miraclenoodle.com/

254

[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
Taufiq wrote:
Konnyaku noodles are a God send in this diet… A pack of konnyaku noodles plus some tomato sauce, ground lean beef/chicken breast and FF cheese will take care most of your pasta cravings. And protein powder ice-cream…

Care to share your recipes for those?[/quote]

Lol, what you see is all the ingredients that I put, I’m not a good cook ;p. You can add some oregano or basil if you like. You can stir fry them with chicken and veggies as well if you want some chinese food, just use a light and low sodium soy sauce, I like adding some wasabi and orange zest for a nice kick.

A common complain about the noodles is their smell, when you open the pack they have this fishy smell. To get rid of them, you just need to blanch it once or twice. Some people don’t like the texture as well, they’re a bit too bouncy. If you can find it, try some konnyaku noodles that are made with a bit of soy flour, they’re the closest thing to real noodles you can get.

255

To take care of my jam on toast cravings, I use a rye wholewheat Ryvita (20 calories per slice, 4g carb, 0.2g fat) with low fat cream cheese and protein powder “jam”. I just mix a tbspn of cream cheese with 2/3rd scoop of protein powder (any flavour will do) then spread them on a heated ryvita. I used to make fun of my housemate for falling for the ryvita diet, so I can only have these when he’s not home.

256

[quote]OctoberGirl wrote:

MiM!

How are things going for you? How long are you planning on giving this a go? The first 3 days were hard for me and I almost wish I hadn’t had a refeed.

[/quote]

Hey!

Thanks for thinking of me :stuck_out_tongue:
I quit the first week in! It wasn’t worth feeling like crap…I traded this diet for two 24 hr fasts per week instead…this way I can still eat ‘normally,’ the rest of the time…The caloric deficit is still pretty high, and I average a 1-2lb loss per fast anyway! I only lost 1 net lb the week I was on RFL…
on the RFL diet, I had a terrible time recovering from the free meal and refeed on the weekend…felt hungover the next day! Plus, I LOVE TO TRAIN!! I felt down and depressed that I couldn’t or shouldn’t go to the gym…

Good luck to everyone else!!

257

[quote]El Sonido wrote:
spadesofaces wrote:
El Sonido wrote:
phatkins187 wrote:

I just meant having the CC + berries as my last ‘meal’ of the day, staying within my caloric limit. I get 1% CC and that’s the lowest I can get hold of in the area unfortunately but it should hopefully do the trick.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Lyle would say no to what exactly?
Eating so soon before bed? The additional calories?

both to having that many carbs from a pure carb source, and especially to having them right before bed. The point is to minimize dietary energy sources (carbs + fats) as much as possible. If you must have your blueberries, have them in the first half of the day where the carbs can be used instead of stored. My typical pre-bed meal (non-dieting) is 2% fat CC, 1 scoop choc Metabolic Drive (or any casein protein), and 1-2 tbls of natty pb. For this diet you could easily drop the PB and get FF CC.

I did this diet in the past, with a protein allotment of 250g. I found it was easiest to just make this 5 meals of 50g, although some days i’d even do 6 meals of ~40g. to me it wasn’t so bad having meals that small, but it all comes down to personal preference. Drinking lots of water also helps you feel full.

Some meal examples (cals/fat/cho/prot):
3/4 cups egg whites, 1/4 cup FF cheddar cheese, 2 slices “eating right” turkey bacon:
210/2/5/39

7 oz tuna packet, veggies (broccoli or asparagus)
230/3/6(net)/46

4 oz chicken breast with 1/4 cup FF cheddar melted on top
210/3/2/44

1/2 cup FF cottage cheese, 1 scoop Metabolic Drive, 1/2 tbl natty pb:
240/5/8/39

and around workouts I’d do:
30 mins before: 15g BCAA
start of workout: sip on 1/2 serving Surge
post workout: 30g whey, although I’d like to do this diet in the future with 15g casein hydrolysate here.

for cardio I’d just do the BCAA, maybe a 15g whey shake or more BCAA afterwards.

hope that helps man

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions, that really helps a lot - much appreciated!

I’ll just ditch the berries altogether as I want the conditions to be as optimal as they can be.

Unfortunately I can’t afford any supps like BCAA’s, casein or even whey at the moment so I’m going to have to rely solely on food. I’ll do my best to get hold of potassium and magnesium though. It seems like it will be much easier if I just eat the same thing everyday - something like one tuna meal, one chicken meal, one CC meal and so on.
I don’t tolerate dairy well at all so I’m putting the CC at the end of the day as this seems to work for me, I guess any bloating and water retention has subsided by the morning.

Regarding calcium, does it seem realistic that cottage cheese and greens like broccoli and spinach will provide sufficient amounts? I know the calcium in broccoli and spinach isn’t very bioavailable so I assume supplementation would be the wisest course of action - I’m just really struggling with the finances at the moment so I’m trying to cut as many costs out of the equation as I can.

Where I’m living for the duration of this diet, there is a lake just a 10 minute walk down the road (or just a few minutes’ glide on the bicycle) and the timing is perfect because it’s just hot enough now to swim in there. I’ve been in there the past two days and it’s wonderful stuff, it’s pretty deep once you get past the gross reeds and mud and I find that just the effort of keeping myself afloat for long enough provides a nice light aerobic workout - then it’s an uphill cycle on the way back.

This will do nicely for my cardio - if I can man up enough when I get up (5-6am) then I’ll go down there before breakfast but I guess the water will be much colder than when the sun has been on it all day. I just hope my heart doesn’t disagree too much!

I jotted down an exercise schedule for the 12 days:

1 - High rep depletion workout
2
3 - AM swimming
4 - Heavy lifting, I will have to think about the set/rep structure
5
6 - AM swimming
7 - AM swimming
8 - AM swimming
9 - Heavy lifting
10
11 - AM swimming
12 - Heavy lifting before beginning refeed (if I can contain myself!)

I’ll probably end up doing a bit of swimming in the PM on most days providing it’s warm enough but that’ll likely be more along the lines of NEPA.

Anyway, this post is getting just a little self-indulgent so I’ll cut it off here.

Thanks again for the tips![/quote]

The CC works perfectly as a pre-bed meal as the primary protein source in the CC is casein.

I’d do the workouts exactly as lyle suggests:
3-4 sets of 5-8 per bodypart.

When I did this diet I threw them as supersets just to increase metabolic demand a little bit, but I suspect its not that big a deal.

ex:
A1. Deadlift 3x6
A2. DB military press 3x6
B1. Leg press 3x6
B2. pullup 3x6
C1. tricep dips 3x6
C2. Barbell curl 3x6
D1. Calf raise 3x6
D2. Ab rollout 3x6

since you dont have access to any sort of liquid protein around your workout, just focus on getting a meal in as quick as possible afterwards. Dont take any fish oil at that meal, and eat your protein before any fibrous veggies. You want the protein to be digested as quickly as possible.

258

[quote]Taufiq wrote:
To take care of my jam on toast cravings, I use a rye wholewheat Ryvita (20 calories per slice, 4g carb, 0.2g fat) with low fat cream cheese and protein powder “jam”. I just mix a tbspn of cream cheese with 2/3rd scoop of protein powder (any flavour will do) then spread them on a heated ryvita. I used to make fun of my housemate for falling for the ryvita diet, so I can only have these when he’s not home.[/quote]

This man is a genius.
I’m so going to do this on my second bout of RFL, assuming I survive this first time, of course.

[quote]spadesofaces wrote:
The CC works perfectly as a pre-bed meal as the primary protein source in the CC is casein.

I’d do the workouts exactly as lyle suggests:
3-4 sets of 5-8 per bodypart.

When I did this diet I threw them as supersets just to increase metabolic demand a little bit, but I suspect its not that big a deal.

ex:
A1. Deadlift 3x6
A2. DB military press 3x6
B1. Leg press 3x6
B2. pullup 3x6
C1. tricep dips 3x6
C2. Barbell curl 3x6
D1. Calf raise 3x6
D2. Ab rollout 3x6

since you dont have access to any sort of liquid protein around your workout, just focus on getting a meal in as quick as possible afterwards. Dont take any fish oil at that meal, and eat your protein before any fibrous veggies. You want the protein to be digested as quickly as possible.[/quote]

Thank you for the advice, that clears up a few things nicely.

I had a bit of trouble sleeping last night but I’m feeling good so far and looking leaner already. This will definitely prove to be an interesting experience, going from roughly 3.3k cals to 1k cals.

Although my energy levels are lower they definitely appear to be more constant and I’ll get sudden moments of elevated energy and then return back to normal, but nothing I would call a ‘crash’.

259

I’m wondering about the content of egg whites.

I know Lyle mentions that 1 egg white holds around 3.5g protein and I think I remember reading on wikipedia (yeah yeah…) that it contains approx. 20 calories.

So 3.5 x 4 = 14 calories, so would the other 6 or so be made up of trace carbohydrate?

To be honest, I always thought the whites contained more like 5g or more of the protein but I guess Lyle knows what he’s talking about more than I could ever hope to!

260

I’m pretty sure he’s right. The whites are about half the protein in the egg. Your average egg has 6-7 grams of protein.