by Jared Miller
Lifestyle-Friendly Fat Loss
This T Nation member modified the popular high-protein diet to his specific needs. His results and insights are eye-opening.
The Velocity Diet always sounded intriguing: just drink protein shakes most of the day. Your calories are reduced for rapid fat loss (without having to count them), the shakes help you retain or even gain some muscle while preserving your metabolic rate, and the overall effect “rewires” your taste buds, eating habits, and unhealthy cravings so you can keep the fat off after the diet.
But I’m a family man, and meals are a family gathering. I’m not going to skip that important social time. I also want to serve as a positive nutritional model. I didn’t want them to see me drinking the majority of my nutrition; I wanted them to observe more normal eating habits. They’ve seen enough “extreme” from me!
But then the Velocity Diet 4.0 added a healthy solid meal (HSM), which covers dinner with my family. After talking to the diet’s creator in the T Nation Community, I realized I could modify the plan to fit my needs.
I must emphasize I wasn’t trying to lose fat! I mainly wanted to simplify life.
Here’s what I did and what I experienced along the way.
The Velocity Diet: My Way
First, I wanted to have breakfast with my kid, so I made one of my Metabolic Drive (Buy at Amazon) shakes into “oatmeal.” I mixed the protein powder with some heated riced cauliflower, cinnamon, and a little water.
I also chose to keep the plan fairly low in carbs. The shakes are already low, so all I had to do was keep my meal at night low-carb.
The Velocity Diet is four shakes per day. I decided to split my breakfast shake up. I train at dark o’clock on weekdays and didn’t want to train fasted. So I started my day with one scoop of Metabolic Drive in water along with a Flameout (Buy at Amazon) and Micellar Curcumin (Buy at Amazon). I trained, then had the other 1.5 scoops as “oatmeal” with my kid. I also used that second mealtime to make a mixed beverage of green tea, Superfood (Buy at Amazon), a serving of creatine (Buy at Amazon), and a scoop of sugar-free Metamucil.
For the first week, I maintained compliance with the schedule and waited until lunch for my next shake, then had my mid-day shake, the HSM, then my bedtime shake. I was VERY hungry leading up to lunch and found myself practically forcing that mid-day shake. So I pivoted and made my mid-day shake a mid-morning shake, skipped the midday, and went from lunch to the HSM. That worked well.
Two or three days per week, I’d also have a second HSM at lunch when my wife was available. She’s beautiful and amazing and the highlight of my world, so I’m going to go have lunch with her. On these days, I made this more of a real HSM, and then, come dinner time, I’ll stick primarily with small portions of lean proteins with minimal fats and carbs.
On weekends, I’m with my family the whole time, so it’s three solid meals per day plus two shakes (one for bedtime and one somewhere else in the day). I still took in my Flameout and Micellar Curcumin. I also used Alpha Male, Elitepro (Buy at Amazon), and I started Indigo-3G (Buy at Amazon) with this diet as well. I usually take Indigo-3G before the evening HSM.
On Saturday, I have one enjoyable meal with my family where I eat what I like. This was amazing from a social healing perspective, and it’s fun sharing “fun food” with my family, like nachos or Panda Express. But man, for two or three hours afterward, I felt like I’d been hit by a bomb. The Indigo-3G really got put to the test there! (Given its nutrient partitioning effects, I think of it as an awesome “insurance policy” for those big meals.) For the rest of the weekend, I kept carbs low.
Finally, I also added salt to all of my shakes. In the first few days of the diet, I frequently got lightheaded. Followers of my log know that my blood pressure is stupid low, as is my resting heart rate. Before starting the diet, I aggressively salted all my food to help with the blood pressure. I realized that, in the absence of solid food, I’d lost a salt avenue, so I salted the shakes. The salt actually enhances the sweetness, as any baker knows.
So How Did All This Work?
Twenty-two days into the plan, I’d lost just over 8 pounds. After 29 days, I was 11 pounds down. The original plan is only 28 days long, but it became a lifestyle thing for me. It was just too easy to adopt.
After 42 days, I’d lost over 13 pounds. Not long after, I was 15 pounds down. Dropping that last 2 pounds just speaks to some of the magic in this. I felt like it really just reset my body, got my metabolism humming at an impossible rate, and primed me for change.
I’ve moved off the program as I write this, but I’m down another 2.5 pounds. Seems like it really set my metabolism up for success.
Again, my main goal wasn’t to lose weight; it was to simplify my life. And I didn’t even follow the full V-Diet plan. (Imagine if I had?)
My performance in the gym hasn’t suffered at all through this, and I’m holding onto much more muscle than I previously did when I would diet down.
I’m getting crazy lean, and with summer around the corner, that’s pretty awesome.
What I’ve Learned
I’ve really enjoyed this period of experimentation; it’s been incredibly eye-opening. Some thoughts:
- As a non-calorie counter, this is such a fantastic protocol. There’s no thinking, nor is there any doubt: just drink the shakes, dummy! I know I’m getting enough protein to spare my muscles, and I know fat loss is going to happen.
- The diet was even more “family man friendly” than I realized. I no longer spend so much time cooking, cleaning, eating, and voiding my bowels. (I’ve had digestion issues in the past.) It’s also been awesome not having to shop at four different grocery stores, playing Tetris in my fridge with meal prep containers, and not bringing a cooler of food with me wherever I go. When I “packed lunch” for work, I just brought a bag of Metabolic Drive and a shaker bottle. I’ll definitely do this for work trips. Seriously, if you travel, make it a Velocity Diet week.
- The inclusion of Superfood (Buy at Amazon) and Flameout (Buy at Amazon) is an unappreciated genius. Before the diet, I was eating a lot of vegetables. I’m very health focused. A shake-focused diet tends to go against that, but knowing I’m taking in a TON of healthy vitamins, minerals, and nutrients with Superfood gave me the necessary insurance to continue onward. And Flameout answers the “where are the fats?” question, especially given that they’re omega 3s. Also, this dietary fat helps slow the digestion of the shakes, which aids in the feeling of satiety.
- When it comes to feeling full, Metabolic Drive (Buy at Amazon) needs to be appreciated. I’ve known folks that have tried this diet out using only whey protein, and they crash hard out of hunger. Whey, on its own, is a fast-digesting protein, which can serve a specific function, sure, but when it digests so quickly, you get hungry fast. With the Metabolic Drive shakes, after waiting the 20 minutes that the Velocity Diet Plan talks about, I’m satisfied until the next one. Must be that micellar casein.
- My relationship with food significantly improved. I became very appreciative of food in several ways. Flavors became magnified, and I’m experiencing food as a joy. I also no longer overeat before bed. Metabolic Drive even keeps me from waking up hungry during the night.
- Setting an example is huge. Kids are ALWAYS watching and always learning. Sometimes, we teach some awful lessons. I love that my kid can watch me eat well at dinner, enjoy myself, and be fit and active. Prior to having a kiddo, I remember cutting weight for powerlifting and having meltdowns in front of my wife around Pop-Tarts and desserts. That wasn’t cool at all. That wasn’t me being her knight in shining armor. The fact that I lost fat effortlessly and without mental toil is just nuts.
- This quickly became my favorite nutritional protocol. It even freed up my mental bandwidth. (I actually have more time to think.) I have zero mental reservations about my weekly cheat meal because each week I get leaner and leaner. I can see keeping the Velocity idea as a baseline approach for the foreseeable future. I’ll keep evolving, learning, and growing. This modified-for-me Velocity Diet has become my fat-slaying default strategy.
Note: Get all the details and follow the rest of Jared’s journey. And be sure to drop in on his epic training log.
Check out the original V-Diet HERE.
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