I just finished a 14-week blast and was eating about 4000 cal a day. My maint is 2900.
Needless to say I’ve lost my abs and my ass has an inch deep layer of fat on it. Funny my arms legs neck and face did not put any fat on. Crazy.
So my plan is to try veggie juicing with some fruit for taste and to get my protein I would do whey shakes, greek yogurt and maybe cottage cheese. My plan is to try this for about 2 weeks. Calories target ~2000/24hours.
Why juicing vegetables instead of eating more vegetables as part of a more basic diet? The biggest benefit of juicing is getting more vegetables into your diet, but that’s partly counteracted by the reduced fiber you’re actually getting.
More importantly, how? 2,000 calories from whey shakes (presumably mixed in water), vegetable juices, and some Greek yogurt and cottage cheese is a lot of calories from not-very-calorie-dense foods.
What’s your height and current weight? How much weight did you gain in the 14 weeks?
5’9" #194 I gained about 12 pounds during my cycle.
I’ve choose juicing to reduce the amount of fiber.
One can eat more veggies if you don’t have to deal with all that fiber.
Yes I know fiber is good helps keep one regular but there is a limit.
Just questioning. Like I said, I’m not totally sure from a practical standpoint how you’d hit 2,000 calories on whey protein, vegetables, Greek yogurt, and cottage cheese unless the yogurt and cottage cheese were the diet staples as opposed to secondary.
Not to pile on the questions, but why increase vegetable intake if you don’t want the fiber? Just for the phytonutrients? That’s not the worst idea, just a little odd. Without the fiber, you’re not going to get the same satiety, so that won’t be a big benefit.
Protein-sparing modified fasts (very low calorie, protein-focused diets) can definitely work, but they can be torturous and are usually very short-term, like the two-week window you’re looking at.
The juicing thing is worth a shot I guess. Or something like the V-Diet that’s 4 protein shakes and a solid meal a day, or a short-term carnivore diet, or a Green Faces approach.
The biggest thing is to not let it turn into a prototypical crash diet that reduces bodyweight and then rebounds right after. The macros during the diet will be one key there (keeping protein high), as will the transition off the diet (specifically, not jumping right back into a carb-dense plan).
I’m confused. I’m guessing by “cycle” that you mean stuff in the pharma section. You gained 12 lbs in 14 weeks which is a pretty slow rate of growth (a good one, too). A slow rate of gain while on pharma led to fat gain? I’ve never used, but if I were to use then it would be to avoid that exact scenario. Eat to grow, add pharma stuff to keep it lean.
Do you have something planned in two weeks that requires you to suffer as opposed to taking a slower approach?
I’m also curious about the juicing choice. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it; it’s just different. I think you might fare better with the Velocity Diet as Chris suggested.
Thanks everyone for your questions and ideas. I got a new computer and it took me awhile to get all my accounts loaded. Ever try to remember 30 different user names and passwords. OMG what an ordeal.
So I got my abs back and lost most of the fat off my ass. I was not able to stick to the juice/ yogurt / whey diet. I ended up Juicing my breakfast and lunch then eating a normal lean meat (steak,chicken breast, fish) with rice or sweet potato. I got my abs back in about 7 days. Did I lose any muscle from the blast I don’t know. I’m still as strong and the wife seem to think I look
bigger. Can’t really use a tape measure because the body fat doesn’t count so you will look smaller.
Anyway I do enjoy juicing and I will continue to experiment just for something new to try.