Where To After V-Diet?

Diet and Nutrition
21

[quote]Tampa-Terry wrote:
Good question, jthsiao! When you diet, your metabolism slows down. When you bulk, you rev up your metabolism. Eating at maintenance calories for one month in between the two gives your body a chance to “reset” its metabolism.

If you’ve been dieting and then start bulking with no transition period, you’re going to put on more fat than you need to.

If you’ve been bulking and then start dieting with no transition period, you’re going to lose more muscle than you need to.
[/quote]
Thanks for the reply, Tampa-Terry.

I understand staying in maintenance for a while after going on a bulking diet or cutting diet when one changes the objective (direction in weight) of their diets. This gives the body some time to get used to the new weight to prevent gaining fat or losing muscle.

However, perhaps I read the statement incorrectly the first time, but I’m referring to finishing a cutting diet (in this case the Velocity Diet) and moving on to another cutting diet, so the change weight remains in the same direction. Is a resetting period still suggested?

I understand the part about metabolism slowing down. However, would ramping the calories back up to maintenance (even slowly) contribute to weight gain, at least until one’s metabolism catches up? I assume the second round of a cutting diet would be that much more effective with one’s metabolism level back up, but at the cost of gaining some weight back? Is this bit of a yo-yo’ing worth it in the long run?

This begs another related question, what is the suggested time frame for a cutting diet when taking one’s metabolism in consideration? I think Dr. Berardi suggested 6-12 weeks every 2 years for his Get Shredded Diet. This suggest that one can continue to cut for up to another 8 weeks after being on the Velocity Diet for 4 weeks, correct?

Again, thanks for all the insight you have provided. I really appreciate your help!

22

Interesting, well I am just updating, like I have said this diet has done wonders for my eating habits. I fell off the diet for a few days, because I have now broken my wrist, hopefully a week or two and I will be good to go again.

In the meantime any suggestions, I will be doing a lot more core work, continuting leg work on lowerbody days, and throwing in whatever upperbody workouts I can on my upperbody days with my core without aggravating my wrist.

Thing is I have always had bigger legs and I was developing a nice V-taper, I don’t want to throw that off balance. Any good upper-body workouts I can do without aggravating my wrist. Pisses me off cause I have been on a roll. Then this happened.

23

jthsiao, thanks for clarifying. No, you don’t HAVE to have a transition period before continuing on with another cutting diet, but whatever diet you do transition to should not be as restrictive; i.e., you should eat more fibrous green veggies, fruit and beans and your results should come more slowly. The Velocity Diet was only intended to be done for short, finite periods of time.

Part of the reason for the transition is that you’ll need to establish what your NEW maintenance calories are. It’s a given that at a lower body weight, the number of calories required to maintain that weight is going to be less.

The suggested time frame for cutting is inversely proportional to the severity of the caloric restriction. In other words, think of a see-saw. If you have a severe caloric restriction, the time spent on that diet should be short. If you have a mild caloric restriction, you can go for much longer periods of time … indefinitely, even.

R-Range, I am so sorry to hear about your wrist!!! Talk about throwing a monkey wrench into things. (shaking head from side to side)

Any time you experience a trauma or injury, it’s a good idea to back off of your diet a bit. Make sure you’re eating a wide variety of fibrous green veggie as a bare minimum. Adding in some fruit and beans would be even better. There are times where body composition goals have to take a back seat to health, or in your case, healing and repair. Along with needing all the building blocks (vitamins and minerals) and benefiting from higher antioxidant intake, cortisol levels are going to be higher post-injury. You don’t have to go all the way back to maintenance. Just ease off of the caloric deficit a bit and focus on healthful eating. A good analogy might be driving a car and letting off of the gas pedal because you saw something ahead and needed to slow down a bit.

Don’t worry. You won’t lose all the progress you’ve made. Promise!!!

24

[quote]Tampa-Terry wrote:
jthsiao, thanks for clarifying. No, you don’t HAVE to have a transition period before continuing on with another cutting diet, but whatever diet you do transition to should not be as restrictive; i.e., you should eat more fibrous green veggies, fruit and beans and your results should come more slowly. The Velocity Diet was only intended to be done for short, finite periods of time.

Part of the reason for the transition is that you’ll need to establish what your NEW maintenance calories are. It’s a given that at a lower body weight, the number of calories required to maintain that weight is going to be less.

The suggested time frame for cutting is inversely proportional to the severity of the caloric restriction. In other words, think of a see-saw. If you have a severe caloric restriction, the time spent on that diet should be short. If you have a mild caloric restriction, you can go for much longer periods of time … indefinitely, even.
[/quote]
Thanks for your update R-Banger and your feedback Tampa-Terry. I really appreciate them!

So far, I think the Velocity Diet has given me a good jump start to my summer cutting plan. I don’t think I’ll get to my target goal (~8% bodyfat) on the Velocity Diet alone, so I think I’ll adapt something T-Dawg-ish when transitioning to solid food. Hopefully, I’ll continue to lose some excess fat, albeit at a slower pace, and reach my goal by summer.

25

jthsiao, things can be adjusted and tweaked along the way. Just make sure you weigh and/or measure once a week and look at trends. If things slow down too much, I’d be glad to help you fine-tune things a bit.

26

The R-Banger is back!!! What can I say I am a quick healer, gonna be doing another X-ray to make sure it’s all good. Now I have finally worked my way back up to maintenance. Tampa-Terry I want you to take a look at this typical workout days diet, something just doesn’t feel right to me.

Meal 1
5 Eggs
1 cup Broccoli
.25 cup Cheese

Meal 2
5 Eggs
1 cup Broccoli
1 oz Havarti Cheese

Meal 3
2 scoops Metabolic Drive
6g Fish Oil
5g BCAAs

Meal 4
2 cups Chocolate Milk (Sipped during workout)

Meal 5
Turkey Chili (1 cup beans, 8oz Ground Turkey)
2 Tbsp Sour Cream

Meal 6
2 cans Tuna
2 tbsp Mayo

Meal 7
2 Scoops Metabolic Drive
6g Fish Oil

The days Macros resulted in the following.

Calories Eaten Today
grams cals %total
Total: 3020
Fat: 139 1248 42%
Sat: 45 403 14%
Poly: 27 241 8%
Mono: 34 306 10%
Carbs: 146 491 17%
Fiber: 23
Protein: 304 1216 41%

All the carbs come from the serving of beans, Metabolic Drive and veggies. Just feels excessive to me. Let me know what you think? I am thinking of doing sort of a small clean bulk till I can hit the V-diet again. I am hoping to gain muscle by clean bulking to help my body composition. Then shred down nice and good with another go on the V-diet. I appreciate all the help so far.

27

The part that’s probably feeling a bit excessive is the caloric intake. Using a body weight of 190 and shooting for 2,000 calories initially (and from there 2,500 and then from there 3,000), I’d make the following recommendations/observations:

Protein is coming in a bit high. I’d like to see you at 190g of protein per day (1g of protein per pound of body weight). That will cut 440 calories off of that 3020 total caloric intake.

A good number for fat intake at 190 pounds is 76g of fat per day. The way I get that is multiplying 0.4g x TBW. You’re coming in at almost double that number; i.e., 139g of fat.

Carb intake looks pretty good. Drop it to 140g and you’d be golden.

190g of protein, 76g of fat and 140g of carbs will bring you in right at that 2,000 calorie per day number. When you’re ready to raise calories to 2500, I’d recommend that you add in another 125g of carbs.

On days you do resistance training, you’ll come in at a higher number of calories. Your body needs 'em and will benefit from them, and they won’t go to fat! If you’re eating 27g of protein per meal (27gP x 7 = 189gP/day), you should have 55g of starchy carbs in your PWO meal. That’s 55 extra grams of carbohydrates on that day. Calories and carbs on days you do resistance training will come in higher.

Questions? (grin)

28

I think I am misunderstanding you. I worked at 2000 calories for a week, then 2500 calories for two weeks (some bad cheat days on the second week when I broke my arm, and now am at my maintenance as of yesterday. You want me to drop back down?

Also my body doesn’t respond that well to carbs, the more I limit them the better, you probably know better, but I just wanted to let you know that from my experience low carbs has worked best for me. I do a lot better in ketosis I have noticed than if I am consuming high carbs. As far as trimming up goes. I am at a higher bf probably around 15-16% right now. I would like to get that as low as I can while building muscle, so that my final hit on the V-diet can get me into the single digits in body fat for the first time in my life.

I figure that my weight may go back up while clean bulking but if I am putting on muscle faster than fat then my body composition should still lean out right. I workout 4 days a week two upperbody and two lowerbody days. 200g of protein sounds awful low at 3000 calories, I thought to get the right macros of atleast 40% protein I would need at the very least 300g. Sorry for so much info and questions, I just want to better my understanding so I can finally be lean, and live the lifestyle properly not half-assed. I have genetically been pretty well off as far as muscle building in my family, I am just more of an endomorph whereas my brother is a mesomorph, I figured I will put on some more lean mass before I cut hardcore.

I really liked the V-diet cause results came fast and I saw the results each week. Makes things easier for me. Hope this helps, any suggestions?

29

R-Ranger, I guess I’m the one who misunderstood. I gotcha now.

You did great on executing, R-Ranger, going up in your calories in 500-calorie increases. What I need to find out from you, though, is how the scale has responded over the last 2 or 3 weeks. If this whole month you maintained your scale weight of 189, then the 500 calorie increases were PERFECT.

If you lost additional weight, we should have gone up a bit more in calories than the 500-calorie increases. If you gained additional scale weight, we should have stayed put and not gone up in calories when the new week rolled around or even possibly dropped calories a tad. It’s an interactive process.

That’s how you find maintenance calories for your new and improved, post-V-Diet scale weight.

By the way, have you looked at the Anabolic Diet? It sounds like it would be right up your alley, with lower carbs during the week (<30g/day) and higher carbs on the weekend. It can be used for cutting or bulking.

30

Thanks for your help so far. I actually in the first week at 2500 dropped weight, got to 186.5, then I broke my wrist, I kinda ate whatever for 4 days, mostly cause I was injured and had a lot of schooling going on, also tight on money so I couldn’t afford to down all my metabolic drives.

In short my weight went up a couple pounds, but I feel like it was just water weight coming back. I am going to the gym to do my cardio right now and will weigh up and get current numbers, so I can guage this week at 3000 and see what the results are.

Also I have looked up the Anabolic diet which I was going to do, never found too much detail on this website, just kept getting referred to a book.

Also since I have been off the V-diet for a little under a month that will bump me up to almost 2 months on HOT-ROX I am taking my dosing down to 1 pill twice a day for tihs week and go off them. Which sucks they are an awesome product, but if I plan to do the V-diet again in a month or two from now, I need to cycle off for now.

I will be back with current weight in a little bit, thanks for all your help so far Tampa-Terry.

31

Went and weighed in today at 188.5lbs. We shall see after a week of proper eating where this will take me. Today is my off day besides cardio first thing in the morning, so nothing but protein, fat, and veggies. Basically probably 40g of carbs at the most all the rest will come from fat and protein. I will get a typical off day diet on here. I am thinking 3 HIIT sessions a week I have been doing around 1 or two, sometimes I just couldn’t get it in. I usually do 3 cycles but upping to 4 cycles of one minute sprint, two minute jog, and a 6 minute warmup and 4 minute cooldown. With four cycles will put me at around 22 minutes HIIT 3 times a week. I will get the macros up for the day probably later, but expect like a 42/15/43 f/c/p protein ratio, all the carbs will come from veggies.

32

Wow I never realized how much fat I will be taking in on my no carb days. Most fat comes from eggs, meat (I actually had some breakfast sausage with my eggs today, don’t know if that is okay or not, just seems like a calorie dense food), some fish oil, or mayo.

Alot of the calories came from eggs atleast 1/3 of them, I had around 15 eggs. Let me know what you think, the carbs come from 2 cups broccoli, and 8g are from a Metabolic Drive shake before bed. The rest comes from the meat and whatnot that I eat throughout the day. Here is a layout of the days and how I train so we know when I ingest carbs and when I don’t. I don’t want to caues my body to put on fat cause of the carbs I take in on workouts.

Monday - Cardio
Tuesday - Upper Body/Cardio (140-150g carbs)
Wednesday - Lower Body/Cardio (140-150g carbs)
Thursday - Cardio
Friday - Upper Body/Cardio (140-150g carbs)
Saturday - Lower Body/Cardio (140-150g carbs)
Sunday - off

Now I probably won’t be doing cardio that much, my goal is 3 HIIT sessions, and 2 slow pace cardio days first thing in the morning after my lower body days. That is a little optimistic given I am still in school and I am a pilot so sometimes I fly early in the morning on short notice.4 days of cardio is probably where I will really be at.

What do you think? Like I have said respond well to lower carbs, and cardio in the morning has always worked well for me, cause so far I haven’t had a problem gaining size. I just want to gain muscle without slamming on fat, maybe if I can get myself up to 195 on clean bulk for the next month and a half before I hit the V-diet again and really shred down.

I don’t know if it is optimistic to drop 2-3%bf in the next two months while I clean bulk, and then let the V-diet take over from there. Thanks for sticking with me so far Tampa-Terry.

33

At caloric intake of 2500 calories, you lost a little weight, so yes, you were right to go up to 3,000. But once again, protein and fat stay the same, whether you are bulking or cutting. The variable you play with is the amount, type and timing of your carb intake.

If you’re taking in 190g of protein (760 calories) and 76g of fat (684 calories), that leaves 1,556 calories in the form of carbs if you want to get in your 3,000 calories. That’s 389g of carbs. Now let’s say that you consume 389g of carbs and you gain weight (above 190 pounds), well then you would not raise your caloric intake to the next level. You might even go down slightly. You would raise and lower that number until you found the number of grams of carbs that allowed you to maintain a scale weight of 190 pounds.

Honestly, what USED to be maintenance calories for you may not be maintenance calories at your new, post-V-Diet scale weight of 190 pounds. It may be something above 2500 calories, but less than 3,000.

Carbs serve a purpose … a very USEFUL purpose. I’m not suggesting you eat bad carbs. Eat predominantly veggies, fruit and beans. Make sure you’re getting your Surge after your workout. From there, add in oatmeal at your first meal of the day. From there add in some brown rice or sweet potatoes in the second meal of the day. Carbs like I listed above, that are starchier in nature, will help you get the number up to where you want it.

With fibrous green veggies, beans and fruit as the foundation, you’ll still be able to increase the number of grams of carbs you are eating and hit your numbers. You muscles will be full of glycogen. You will not be gaining scale weight. And truth be told, if you’re increasing glycogen (and the water stored with it), not only is recovery going to be better, protein synthesis higher, energy levels better, FAT MASS WILL BE DROPPING!!!

If you limit scale weight and go up slowly in the number of carbs you’re taking in, you’re refilling muscle glycogen AT THE EXPENSE OF FAT MASS!!! And the reason I say that is because glycogen is stored in the muscle with 2 or 3 units of water for every glycogen molecule.

So when you go on the V-Diet again, what do you think happens? You reduce carbs and reduce glycogen stores and lose water weight and get those really fast results you got the last time. (grin)

Don’t be afraid of carbs, R-Ranger. You’re right that we’re all highly individual in our ability to handle carbs, but the precision with which you’re approaching things pretty well guarantees a good result.

Questions? (grin)

34

Okay that sounds great. Thank you so much. I will give the carbs some faith. Just a little timid cause I have always been fat, and I have always crashed when I started leaning out.

Would it be okay if I kept my protein intake up? 190g seems awfully low, I always see people taking in at the very least 1.5 grams for every pound they weigh. I thought 300 grams would sit me in the right place?

I threw together some quick numbers just to see how my macros would play out at 3000. This is with a lower protein intake but it is still above 190g. The fat will not be all unhealthy like I have here, like I said I just threw in some numbers to see what the calculations would be.

Are those really the ratios that I would want to shoot for? The protein intake seems so low, and the carbs so high. (Sorry if I sound timid, just wanting to make sure I do everything perfectly, along with understand everything I am doing)If so should I take it back down to 2500 and up my carb intake and see where that gets me after a week?

Calories Eaten Today
grams cals %total
Total: 2940
Fat: 74 662 26%
Carbs: 330 892 35%
Protein:243 972 38%

35

Ratios and percentages can be very different for different people. We’re all biochemically unique. We all have different metabolisms. The ratios and percentages will be very different when you’re on V-Diet compared to when you are bulking. I know it’s an act of faith on your part, but what matters far more than the ratios and percentages is that you are getting enough protein to protect LBM and/or add to it. A certain amount of fat is needed for health, and a lack of it will INHIBIT weight and fat loss, believe it or not. That leaves carbs. Carbs are raised and lowered to suit our purposes.

The 1.5g you see is for LBM. I used to use that multiple. I use 1g x TBW because it doesn’t require constant measuring of LBM. Two different approaches, but they both work. (grin)

Your fear is that you are going to elicit an insulin response and that calories and carbs are going to be converted to fat. The flip side to that (i.e., the counter argument) is that carbs are one of the more anabolic hormones in the body. Even though it’s a hormone that needs to be managed/controlled, you can use it to advantage to help you achieve your goals.

An excess of food (calories) and poor food choices (“bad carbs” i.e, fast food, pizza, alcohol, chips, sweets, etc.) is what was responsible for your gaining weight. That’s very different from how you’re eating now and how you’re approaching things now. Carbs aren’t the devil. They’re a tool to help you achieve your goals. Just like a knife can be a useful (and even NECESSARY) tool, improperly used, you end up hurting yourself. Carbs aren’t that different. And believe me, Ranger, I understand. I’m not a person that processes carbs well. Managing the type, timing and amount of carbs I take in is something I am constantly managing and evaluating and testing.

36

Alrighty I have my diet down for today, it will be an upper body day because tomorrow I will be too busy to hit the gym. Here is what I am eating during the day. Let me know how my timing and such looks. I bumped down to 2500 calories with higher carbs to see how my body responds to that.

Meal 1
4 hard boiled eggs

Meal 2
Half Cup Brown Rice
Tuna
2g fish oil

Meal 3
1 cup Oats
2 scoops Metabolic Drive
2g fish oil
5g BCAAs

Meal 4 (sipped during workout)
2 cups chocolate milk (66g carbs/18g protein)
2g fish oil
5g BCAAs

Meal 5 (1 hour PWO)
Chili
8oz lean ground Beef
1 cup beans
5g BCAAs

Meal 6 (Pre-bedtime)
6g Fish oil
2 scoops Metabolic Drive

Calories Eaten Today
grams cals %total
Total: 2606
Fat: 78 698 27%
Sat: 23 203 8%
Poly: 11 95 4%
Mono: 22 200 8%
Carbs: 260 922 36%
Fiber: 30 0 0%
Protein: 235 942 37%

What do you think of my intake there? Are my healthy fats and saturated fats good? What about my timing on the carbs and combos? Tried my best to separate my meals into P+F, P+C meals.

Also is whole wheat bread a good carb to take in for nutrients, lets say I had some wheat bread instead of brown rice with the tuna?

Thanks a bunch so far I will check back in a couple hours at school.

37

Very, very nice job, Ranger!!!

I’d like to see a piece of fruit on your first 3 meals of the day on days you don’t work out. Fruit is high in fructose, which is a type of sugar that will refill liver glycogen. The end result being that you will have better (more stable) energy levels. Shoot for 20 to 25g of carbs from fruit at each of those meals.

On days you do workout, you should have that fruit in meals 1, 2 and 5.

Switch meals 3 and 5. You need that oatmeal in your PWO meal. PWO starchy carbs should be consumed in a 2:1 ratio with protein, so if your per-meal protein requirements are ~30g, then you’d need ~60g of starchy carbs.

You don’t want to be consuming fat in your WO and PWO meals. Save your fish oil for P+F meals. You can break it up or take it all at once. It’s best to take your fish oil all in one dose at the first P+F meal. Oddly enough, fish oil is mentally stimulating. I used to take it before bed and couldn’t figure out why I was having trouble sleeping. (grin)

The only thing you need just a tad bit more of in fat is your polys. Either get some flax seed and grind it or get some liquid flaxseed oil. The liquid is a lot cheaper than capsule.

I have to admit that I have a bit of a bias against bread, but your program is so darn tight I’m inclinded to compromise on this one. Try to keep fat out of the meal you’re having bread in, and have it earlier in the day when your body tends to process carbs more efficiently.

Good logic on dropping to 2500 since you’re increasing carbs!!! (grin) You’re really good at this, Ranger! It’s really an awesome job of refining and tweaking your plan.

38

I have the same question, Has anyone heard of the power food diet from mens helath? I know its from mens health but the ad says its also 28 days long and burns on average 10 lbs of body fat. I think its something like 6 full meals a day?

I want to do a clean bulk goal to gain about 30 lbs of LBM after I get to about 12-15 BF% So maybe I should dop what I have in the past and just try to eat full clean meals instead of a set up diet.

39

Hey, there, DF85. You’re struggling with the same thing a lot of us are … diet or bulk, bulk or diet. If you have a lot of body fat you need to get rid of, then reducing your body fat first would be a good idea. If you’re just soft and haven’t been working out in a while, dieting in conjunction with starting to work out would allow you to put on some muscle and lose some fat. It’s a one-time gift called “newbie gains.”

I don’t know anything about the Men’s Health diet you’re talking about, so unfortunately, I’m not able to comment. But the 6 meals part I like. (grin)

40

Sounds good, I just bought myself a big old bag of granny smith apples. Would I be okay to take in an apple with the eggs in the morning? I ask cause the eggs carry some fair fat. I will add in an apple or maybe half. Seems like I am not getting that may low glycemic carbs? If I am taking in 3 apples a day that is 60g carbs. Beans are around 40g, brown rice is 76g, oats 55g, and 66g from chocolate milk. Will probably have to cut the brown rice serving in half to fall in calorie range. Does that sound okay? I thought apples are higher glycemic simpler sugars?