VELOCITY DIET EXPERIENCES AND THOUGHTS SO FAR
I weigh 8.5lbs lighter today than I was 22 days ago. During that period, I radically shifted my nutrition away from “eating to survive Super Squats” to what I’ve dubbed the “family-man edition” of the Velocity diet. I’ve really enjoyed this period of experimentation, as its been incredibly eye opening, and I wanted to jot down some of my thoughts now while they’re still fresh.
@TrainForPain , wanted to flag you in on this as well, since you’re going through a similar journey.
FAMILY MAN?
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What kept me away from the diet for so long being a father and husband. Specifically: I have a family that I’m going to spend my time with, and meals are a social/family gathering. In addition, I want to serve as a positive nutritional model for my kid. This meant I didn’t want them to see me drinking the majority of my nutrition: I wanted them to observe more normal eating habits. The Velocity Diet is exactly what it’s supposed to be: a diet that allows you to lose bodyfat while building muscle at the fastest, healthiest rate. And when we do things as fast as possible, we tend to do them extremely, whereas I need my kid to observe moderation and balance…primarily because they’ve seen enough “extreme” from me, haha.
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The most current Velocity Diet added a daily healthy solid meal, which already had me leaning toward it more than in the past, when it was all shakes. This would cover dinners with the family. However, reading the “cool tips” section of the Velocity Diet write-up finally had me convinced when it talked about making the shake into a pudding: with just a slight degree of modification, I turned that into oatmeal…and now I had a breakfast I could eat with my kid. Instead of pure water, I used a VERY small amount of riced cauliflower, heated in the microwave, in order to create some heat and added texture, then mixed in Metabolic Drive and a very small amount of water to create an oatmeal consistency. Rock on.
OTHER DEVIATIONS
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I’m running this intentionally low-carb. As is, it’s already not a high-carb diet (I mean, protein is the ONLY thing that’s high), but the HSM is where this decision can get made, and I’m keeping my carbs as low as possible outside of a small window on 1 day of the weekend (details to follow). I’ve even gone as far as picking the Vanilla flavor since it has 1 fewer gram of carb than the chocolate…but I also just plain like it more.
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As readers of my log know: I train at o’dark stupid on weekdays. The Velocity Diet protocol is 4 shakes a day: breakfast, lunch, midday and bedtime. Breakfast with my kid was crucial, so I asked @Chris_Shugart which was more important: keeping the shake serving (2.5 scoops), which would mean training fasted and then having the meal post training, or avoiding fasted training, which would require me to split the shake. He informed me his opinion was it was better to avoid fasted training, so I start my day with 1 scoop of Metabolic Drive in water along with a Flameout and 2 Micellar Curcumins, train, then have the other 1.5 scoops as an oatmeal with my kid. I actually mix in a little cinnamon with this oatmeal as well, partially to continue the “charade”, but also because cinnamon has some health benefits. I also use that second meal time to make a mixed beverage of green tea, 2 scoops of Superfood, a serving of creatine, and a scoop of sugar free Metamucil.
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Alongside that, since I’m up so early training and eating, by 0900 I am ready to eat again. For the first week, I maintained compliance with the schedule and waited until lunch for my next shake, then had my mid-day shake, then the HSM, then bedtime shake. I would be VERY hungry leading up to lunch, and found myself practically forcing that mid-day shake, so from week 2 on I pivoted and made my mid-day shake a mid-morning shake, skipped the midday and went from lunch to the HSM. That’s been working well.
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Regarding lunch, here’s where we have a significant deviation: 2-3 times a week, I will actually have a second HSM at lunch. This is because my wife teleworks 2 days a week, which means 3 days a week she’s available to meet for lunch. And she’s beautiful and amazing and the highlight of my world, so I’m going to go have a lunch with her. Here, I steal from Jamie Lewis of Chaos and Pain/Plague of Strength fame and his “Apex Predator Diet”, which, in turn, stole heavily from the Velocity Diet anyway. On these days, I’ll make this more a real HSM, and then, come dinner time, I’ll stick primarily with small portions of lean proteins with minimal fats and carbs, making the dinner meal like a solid food protein shake.
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“Family man” REALLY shines through on the weekends. I’m with family the whole time, so it’s 3 solid meals this day. I’m also sleeping in, so no AM training to contend with. I still get in a 2-4 minute fasted conditioning session first thing, but otherwise people have seen my crazy mid-afternoon weekend trainings. I’ll still get in 2 shakes on this day (one for bedtime and one somewhere else in the day), and I still get in my Flameout and Micellar Circumins. While talking supplements, I’m also using Alpha Male, ElitePro Minerals, and I started Indigo-3G with this diet as well. The Indigo-3G is usually consumed before the evening HSM.
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Going further into the weekends, 1 day of this week (typically Saturday) I do a carb-up cheat meal. Again, stealing from Jamie Lewis here. He dubs this a “Rampage Day”, but since this is “family man edition”, this is simply an enjoyable meal out with the family where I’m not on a diet: I’m eating what I like. This has honestly been amazing from a social healing perspective and it’s been fun sharing fun food with my family…but man, for 2-3 hours afterwards I feel like I’ve been hit by a bomb. My insulin sensitivity is most likely jacked to the max (still using apple cider vinegar: thanks CT!) and I am SUPER carb sensitive, so I spike and then crash HARD when it’s done. The first such meal was a big plate of nachos alongside some chips and dip at a Mexican Place, and the meal last week was Orange Chicken, Honey Walnut Shrimp and half of my fried rice at Panda Express. Curious to see what this week will bring. The Indigo-3G REALLY gets put to the test here. Otherwise, we have a hearty family breakfast and healthy meals together for the rest of the weekend, which I keep low carb just out of habit.
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I also add salt to all of my shakes. In the first few days on the diet, I found myself getting lightheaded frequently. Followers of my log know that my blood pressure is stupid low, as is my resting heart rate, which my doctor explained is a recipe for lightheadedness under exertion. Prior to starting the diet, I was aggressively salting all my food to help with the blood pressure. I realized that, in the absence of the food, I’d lost a salt avenue…so I salt the shakes. The salt actually enhances the sweetness, as any baker knows. I’ve also taken to adding salt to my coffee, which I’ll discuss momentarily. And I have Gatorade powder mixed in water post training as well.
MY EXPERIENCE/OBSERVATIONS
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As a non-calorie counter, this is such a fantastic protocol. There’s no thinking nor is there any doubt: drink the shakes dummy! I KNOW I’m getting enough protein to spare my muscles and I know fat loss is going to happen unless I eat the STUPIDEST HSM possible, at which point I’ve most likely dropped the “H” from it.
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Alongside this, the diet was even more “family man friendly” than I realized. Primarily because I’m no longer spending SO much of my time cooking, cleaning, eating and voiding my bowels. I should really speak to that last part a bit, because my digestion is the best it’s been in YEARS. It’s fantastic to not feel bloated and gassy all the time, nor to be on the toilet 4-6 times a day. But it’s also awesome not having to shop at 4 different grocery stores, not to play tetris in my fridge with a bunch of meal prep containers, not bringing a cooler of food with me wherever I go, etc. I “packed lunch” for work on week 1, and it was bringing a bag of Metabolic Drive and a shaker bottle. I definitely see me doing this for work trips for the future as well. Seriously: if you travel, make it a “Velocity Diet week”.
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I vary between 2-2.5 scoops per shake, based off what my HSM is going to be, if I’m going to have 2 HSMs that day, and what sort of training I’m anticipating. The morning shake is always 2.5, primarily because I’m splitting it, and the evening can frequently be 2.5, but not always. On the days where I’m following the diet legit (only 1 HSM), I tend to go with 2.5 scoops each time.
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The inclusion of Superfood and Flameout is unappreciated genius. Prior to the diet, I was eating a LOT of various vegetables. I am very health focused. A shake only diet tends to go against that, but knowing I’m taking in a TON of healthy vitamins, minerals and nutrients with the Superfood gives me the necessary insurance to continue onward. The Flameout answers the “where are the fats?!” question, ESPECIALLY given they are Omega 3s, which allows me to have HSMs that are a little more varied (not eating fish all the time, but some fowl and bison as well). But what I think is really genius about the Flamout is that it the dietary fat will help slow down the digestion of the shake, which aids in the feeling of satiety when living on a high liquid diet.
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On that satiety feeling, Metabolic Drive being a blended protein needs to be appreciated. I’ve known folks that have wanted to try 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 quick. I used to have a whey shake in between my lifting and conditioning workouts, and would be starving for breakfast once conditioning was over. With the Metabolic Drive shakes, after waiting the 20 minutes that the Velocity Diet Plan thread talks about, I’m satisfied until the next one.
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My relationship has significantly improved as a result of this approach, which is definitely the “null hypothesis” of such a diet. It’s easy to think that a shake based diet will force one to view food mechanically. “Fuel the machine with shakes”. Instead, I have become VERY appreciative of food in several ways. Food SMELLS amazing, food is savory, food excites the palate. Flavors have become magnified and I’m experiencing food as a joy. And not in a hedonistic sense but in a very “human” sense. While I was running Super Squats, I spent more of my waking hours eating vs not eating, and it just became a job. Now, it’s an experience.
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In that regard, I’m finding myself also experimenting and experiencing things I had written off before. The big one is coffee. I used to not drink the stuff, being a “strict energy drink man”, mainly because I’m a 37 year old child and wouldn’t enjoy the bitter taste (Spike still rocks though, and I have 1 a day, because they’re awesome). Now, I’m having a black coffee at least once a day and find it very enjoyable. The hot liquid, flavor and aroma are all a wonderful experience. I also consume a LOT of green tea.
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My “animal fat phobia” has also subsided. I had an LDL scare in 2020 that had me go WAY too crazy in writing off a lot of dietary fats from my diet, and though I made a lot of healthFUL decisions, they were not executed in a healtHY way. With the majority of my nutrition coming from Metabolic Drive shakes, I, in turn, know that the majority of my nutrition is NOT coming from animal fats. Which means, when I have my HSM: I allows myself those fats. I had real provolone cheese last night in some low-carb tuna melts the Mrs made for dinner. I had sworn off cheese prior to this moment, primarily because I was “abusing” it, but now: it’s just something I can enjoy on occasion. To say nothing of the animal fat I’m taking in from chicken thighs/drumsticks/wings or the ribs I eat. I know I can eat these things because I know when I’m NOT eating them.
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This diet has also been eye opening in just how much “clean garbage” I was eating. One of the biggest offenders was “keto bread”, which is absolutely an oxymoron, and I totally used them for those tuna melts I just talked about, but that’s the thing: it’s now a once or twice a week thing, while enjoying a meal with the family. But I was eating about 4 slices a day, alongside a “low carb burrito”, alongside “keto breakfast cereal”, alongside keto peanut butter cups. I keep falling for this trap and I only have myself to blame, but when I’m only eating 1 solid food meal a day, suddenly I realize what’s important, and it’s not any of that junk. Justin Harris said “if you can’t grow it or hunt it, don’t eat it”, and that’s outstanding advice. When a time comes where I’m eating more solid food meals, I’m definitely taking these lessons learned. I’ve also learned a significant difference between what I “need” to eat vs what I want to eat. I was putting away a TON of food before bed, thinking it was necessary for me to get a full night’s sleep without waking up from hunger. I’ve discovered that a Metabolic Drive shake/oatmeal answers the mail just fine.
THEORIES AND IDEAS
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As far as training goes during this time, I’ve been running Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 Krypteia Phase 1 program. It seemed like the perfect answer to Super Squats. I think it’s a great program to pair with this protocol as well, because, again, the thinking is done for you and it keeps you moving. However, I understand that you need to buy a book to run that program, and not everyone likes/can do the squat, bench, deadlift and press overhead, or do they train in facilities that will be ok with the frequent supersets. Given that the prescription for the Velocity Diet is 28 days, I think a great program pairing for it would be Dan John’s 10k swing challenge
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It’s ALSO 28 days long, and is SUPER simple to follow. Given that I’ve been championing the “high speed/low drag” nature of the diet, a matching program would be fantastic. Think of the mental bandwidth you’d free up having your nutrition AND training sorted out for the next 28 days. And that is something I meant to touch on: I’ve had SO much more opportunity to think now that my mind is freed up on this diet, which explains why this short blurb of a post has spiraled into a novel. But the 10k challenge is also renown for producing transformative physique results, so what better pairing?
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Continuing even further, if you wanted to make your HSM’s stupid easy: channel your inner “The Hound” from Game of Thrones and get 2 rotisserie chickens from Costco each week and you’ll probably be good, depending on how big of a human you are. If you keep this low carb, you can make a meals out of drumsticks, thighs, wings and breast meat. If you need veggies, pick up one of the spinach or mixed salad containers while you’re there. You’re out like $17 for the week: that’s outstanding. Which is yet another pro to this diet: it is STUPID cheap to follow. I know there is some sticker shock at the initial cost of the supplements, but when you break it down in a “cost per day/per shake” format and consider how much money you AREN’T spending on groceries/eating out, it’s ridiculous. This week has been a rotisserie chicken week for me and it’s been amazing how simple it’s been. Pro-tip: eat as much of the bone as you can as well. Lots of good stuff there.
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If I wanted to make this a Biotest based weight gaining diet, I think I’d make use of a few strategically placed Finibars. Pre-training would make the most sense, and then maybe alongside the HSM. I’m actually planning on having one as part of my carb-up meal, because I feel like those carbs will settle a bit easier than all the processed stuff I’ve been taking in.
HOLY COW this grew huge! And I’m technically not even done with the diet yet, but I also see myself keeping the shell/baseline of it for the foreseeable future, so I’ll keep evolving, learning and growing.
Thanks for reading! Please leave some questions and comments.
