Well here goes nothing. This is my Velocity Diet Experience
I have never considered myself much of a writer but hopefully this log will keep me on track and help others who may ever dare to try this diet. I still consider myself a newbie so feel free to throw in advice and anything else beneficial to this post. After talking to Chris S. a few times I figured it would be best to make this a weekly log. So look for updates and hopefully someone in the future may find this useful to them. First off, about me. I am a 23 year old male currently deployed to Kosovo (if you have ever heard of it) as a combat medic an infantry unit. I have been in the Army National Guard for almost 4 years now. I am 5,6 169 lbs currently, but have gotten up to 182 during this deployment. When this deployment started I was weighing in at a whopping 144! I have been athletic my entire life playing any sport I could even though I was never a born athlete. I was very chubby as a kid growing up. Short and chubby, nothing like buying ?husky? size pants!!! I never let the fact that I was smaller and not as gifted stop me in sports however. I was our high school starting middle linebacker weighing in at 140, and did pretty damn well I may add. I have always put 110% in to what I have done athletically. Unfortunately I was VERY uneducated about training and diet during high school. Our weightlifting class composed of bench, incline, squats, curls, dips and pull-ups, 3X10 everyday and we had 45 min to do it. I was never really taught proper form or anything beneficial about lifting. The best ?shape? that I was ever in was during wrestling season when I would starve myself down to about 125-130, or of course those 9 weeks of basic training!
I started working out appx. 2 months before this deployment, so that would be just over a year now. I was VERY fortunate that the first time I went into a supplement store I found my favorite little vixen of all time. She was the first REALLY fit women I had ever met. I?m drooling all over my keyboard now! Oh damn, anyways. Her name is Amber and she is a fellow T-nationer, I won?t say her log name but she knows who she is. I owe a lot of what I have to her; she has always been there for help, advice, and anything else. She is the one who introduced my to the T-Nation family! And I wouldn?t be where I am today without her or a lot of people here at T-Nation.
Time to cut it up. Like I said earlier, at the beginning of this deployment I was pretty athletic but I was tiny as hell, and I had NO definition I weighed 144 and was about 15-16% bf guessing. So my goal while being deployed was to learn as much about training and diet as possible and put it to use. I still consider myself a newbie as the first 6 mo or so I lifted I still didn?t have a great idea what I was doing, but I was in there busting my ass and trying to eat well. Thanks to T-Nation I learned and I was always improving my diet and training. I had gone from 144 to a max weight of 182 staying around 15-16% bf. My strength and size had dramatically changed!!! Now I still have a long ways to go for my long term goals, so don?t think I am done! When I went home on leave I was constantly complimented. This motivated the hell out of me! So now here I am. We have appx. 3 months until we are back home and I wanted to shred off my fat. I know many T-nationers may be screaming because even at 169 I am tiny compared to a lot of you. But hey, this is my goal. I have never really had a muscular frame, now I have the start of one, and damnit I want to burn off the fat for when I go home! I want to get bigger and never stop growing?..but for now, I want to see abs, something I have never been able to see on myself. The V-diet seemed perfect because it would let me keep my strength, hopefully, only have 3 days in the gym, (missions throw a HUGE kink in training) and the meals are easy. A lot of people have a hard time doing a tough diet normally, now factor in a fast op-tempo, no set schedule, constant 3-5 day missions in the field, and the only source of food is what they have at the chow hall, and you might see why I think the V-diet will work perfectly. Planning your training and diet around missions is hard, now factor in that most he time we have an hours notice of a mission! I figure that on long missions I can simply take my supps with me, it may be a pain but I would have to take food out anyways, mmmmmmmm M.R.E.?s I can do some sort of cardio almost anywhere, and damn I am burned out on the food here at the chow hall!!! The only thing that I am worried about is if the low calorie amount will hinder me in my missions, will I be low on energy??? That is my biggest fear. So let’s start and see what happens.
The Diet: With all my goodies now in I have set up a close replica of Chris?s diet and workout. I think it will work very well for my goals. I had done 10X3 during this deployment and had great results with it, so I am excited to see it on here. You can find it all on his V-diet link. I have a perfect understanding of it all and have set my goals. My min goal is to get down to 155 and keep my strength; my max goal is to reach 150 with all my strength intact. So we will see how it goes. I have my before pics, damn I have no idea how to pose as you can see!!! But it will give us a starting point. My usual weight was around 172-175 but I have been trying to cut down for about 2 weeks now just by diet manipulation and currently sit at 169, though it seemed I had already lost some of my strength. My maxes are currently (hold laughter until the end please) Deadlift 385, Bench 235, Decline 255, W. Dip 70, Squat 305. Now I really never maxed out when I first started lifting but let me say I was no where near my current numbers. I have NO definition in my arms, legs, back?? I could barely even see my biceps!! So here we go…
See you next Monday, hopefully the pics and my guide pages will come out!Thank you all.
Dastang
Day 1: As you will see I will not sugar coat anything. This is the first time that I have had Low Carb Grow or Hot Rox. I know, I know, but it takes forever to get stuff over here and shipping sucks, so the tax free PX makes for a decent option. Damn, even in the army 6:00 comes early, our sleep schedule is always jacked up anyways though. I woke up had my Hot Rox, and went of for my cardio. Now in Chris?s diet he went walking, I changed this a bit because I hate walking and roadmarching, have done way too many already! I am also in pretty good cardiovascular shape, not saying anyone else isn?t, so I figured that I would go for a different. I picked the stair climber for the first day, I used to laugh at people who used this machine, until one day I tried it??my god, it can whoooop your ass if you do it right!!! So I let it do its thing to me for about 25 min with a 5 min cool down on the bike and that was that. Already I was hungry so I waited about 30 min and then drank my first shake. Now I said I wasn?t going to sugar coat anything so this is no lie, I am kicking myself in the ass for never buying Low Carb Grow before!!! Damn this stuff is good!!! I went around to all the other guys making them take a little powder, hahahah my Grow, not yours!!! Now the only thing that we had ordered that had not come was our flax seed grinder. We though no big deal, we will just chew it up, should be just as good until the grinder comes. Now it isn?t too bad but I am sure that after doing this 4 times a day I will be happy to see that little grinder!!! So time for the workout. I am not going to lie, I was getting hungry about 30-45 min between shakes, but I figured that it might be due to the fact that I only had 1 Hot Rox Capsule per serving (since I had not yet taken it) or my body just not used to it, no biggie, we will see what tomorrow brings. I was for sure though that my workout would suck because of the hunger. I was wrong though, we went and there and just kicked the weights ass, I don?t know if it was the Hot Rox, we were more focused, the diet, a good day, or what, but we both had a great workout! Where we used to struggle on the last sets we didn?t, we had plenty of energy, the weights just seemed to go easier, so we will see with a few more workouts if this was a fluke or maybe something due to the diet plan. So after the workout we slammed our Surge, damn, also quite tasty I might add, still kicking my self in the ass. We then took some Z.M.A before bed and will see what tomorrow brings.
Day2: Damn 6:00 here already. My lifting partner hates the mornings and with the mix of frequent night missions im sure I will be doing cardio alone a lot, but it is ok. One thing I will tell you that doing this diet with someone else does make it easier. We talk about it, drool over food we both smell lol. 2 days and I already miss food, even the chow hall smelled good today! But I got the will power. I will not be beaten by mere food, come on now. So I take 2 Hot Rox this morning and off to the gym I go, I am also recovering from pulling my soleus muscles in both my calves in a football game, so running is not always an option. For today?s cardio I used the good ole elliptical. I know this machine is kind of gay, but if you work it right it can be a good tool for cardio, so 25 min on it with a 5 min cool down on the bike and I was good to go. Ahhh wow no gym tonight. This 3 day workout will be a little different to get used to. So today we take fish oil also, not to bad. We just took 4 capsules around every shake, and 5 with our last one. I am still kicking my self in the ass for not ordering Low Carb Grow earlier! Still tasting good, on some of the shakes I even add some coffee grounds to give me a little energy, very tasty also. So no gym tonight turned out to be ok since I find out that I have a 12 hr night mission tonight, if you have been in the military you now that actually means about 15 hrs at a minimum So I take 4 Gatorade bottle filled shakes already mixed with flax seed, my pill case with my Hot Rox, no fish oil today, and I am good. Pretty easy actually.
Day:3 Ahh nothing like waking up in your sleeping bad in a little shelter. Our mission was to pull security on this Serbian church, so luckily my baddle buddy let me sleep a lot of the night and I started my shift at about 6:00. Good deal about being a medic sometimes. If you take good care of your soldiers they usually return the favor. But it takes a lot of damn hard work to get their trust, when they finally call you ?doc? it is a feeling that is hard to describe!! So anyways I wake up and take my Hot Rox around 7:00 figuring I will have my first shake around 8:00-8:30. Had my second shake at 11:00. This day ended up being busy as hell so the convenience of the shakes is paying off! I got back from my mission just before 13:00 which gave me enough time to change, go to the gym and do the elliptical for 20 min. Come back, and then go teach a medical class at 14:00, then at 14:30 I had my 3rd shake. I got back from teaching class at 17:00 which gave me an hour to change again, get a few things done and head up to football practice at 18:00. I drank my 4th shake at about 18:45, ? way through football practice. As running back practice is like another cardio workout. We run the option so I am always running somewhere! I figure I run about 50-60 forties during practice. After practice I get a few more things done, take my Hot rox, and rest for awhile. AFN, (armed forces network) usually has 3 channels which usually all suck! But they actually had Big Daddy on. So time to relax, have another drink, and chill for a few hours. Then off to the gym. The workout once again surprised me. On deadlifts I actually RAISED the weight by 10 lbs after the fifth set from what I used to do! The rest of the workout was great, it was a challenge but I had energy all the way through it and was focused as hell!!! On the clean and overhead press I cleaned each rep because I need to improve my clean form. So that was a bonus. Once again I can?t figure out why the workouts are going so well but I am not complaining, my roommate is feeling the exact same way I am through the workouts also mind you. I drank my surge right after my workout, headed to my room, finished up some daily tasks, took my zma and hit the sac!
Day 6: Well today I woke up feeling like I got hit by a bus. Yesterday we had I had medical class, a mission, and a football game, so I was able to get my cardio session in but had to wait until today to get my gym session in. Maybe working out is a decent thing to do on they day I eat anyways. Hopefully it would be a time to get some extra carbs into my system. But either way I got it done today. I will probably just do another cardio session tomorrow morning. Our football game took a little more of toll on me than I had thought! Those of you who have been in the military know just how competitive any athletics in the army are! But anyways I must say that I play iron man on our football team playing corner, running back, kickoff, and I am our return man. So a football game is a pretty damn good workout in itself. The whole game I was still full of energy and the only difference that I felt is that I could actually tell I was lighter. Everyday this week I have been able to tell that I have less fat. I feel less fat on me everywhere everyday! I see veins starting to appear in my biceps, shoulders, legs, and forearms. I can definitely tell a difference in the amount of fat that I have now. I have been avoiding using the scale until Monday morning but it is not an easy task. I am curious as hell to see what my weight and body fat is already. I feel and see less fat on me every day which is very encouraging. I have also been very impressed that I have kept if not even somehow gained strength so far. My roommate is also experiencing the same effects of the V-diet. I must say that I am very surprised so far. A few days ago we got our flax seed grinder in the mail so at least we didn?t have to chew up the flax seed but??.the damn grinder is manual! We thought sure as hell that is was electrical when we ordered it! To say the least it takes about 30 damn minutes to grind up 3 days worth of flax seed!! It is a great forearm workout, though. Well back on track, after filing out sick call slips for my soldiers I laid in bed for about another hour to recover enough to go to the gym. I have not felt yet like I have been overtraining even though I have been doing a little more intense cardio than suggested. Today it is just my ankles, knees and hips that hurt. Our football field is solid dirt, almost no grass, so it is like running on concrete with cleats, the joints love it!!!
So I went to the gym and had a great workout, usually I just do weighted dips with a 35 lb plate, but today I was able to use a 45 for all but the last 2 sets!!! Even in Rows I was able to do 10 more lbs than normal. I still can?t figure this out but I am not complaining! After the workout I slammed some Surge and got ready for my mission. I grabbed 3 shakes and threw them in my bag, packed up my fish oil capsules and Hot Rox in an empty pill bottle and I was off. It really is that easy, much easier than I would think trying to take planned meals to the field would be. Today was also the day for my first meal!!! Hell yeh! Last night my roommate and I were planning the fine feast we would have at the chow hall. HAHAHAHA I have missed the taste of food I will not lie. It seems you notice every food commercial, people carrying food, the smell of food from miles away, well you get the point, but it is not too bad. This meal will be nice to have! So on the way out to the humvee I grabbed a to go plate with eggplant parmesan, Cheesy potatoes with chili, corn, and a chicken breast. Not the best meal but I an only choose what they have!!! Wow to be back in the states, with things like grocery stores!!! Normally our chow tastes like ass but after not having solid food for a week this meal was freaking awesome!!! But now back to my shakes for another week. MMMMMmmmmm Thank god grow shakes taste ass good as they do. I am not even close to being tired of them so far. So tomorrow will be my day off of cardio but back to the shakes and then Monday, will be the first week. I must also say that I have not been taking any fiber except for the flax seeds with every shake and I have had no problems taking a good healthy dump every other day! So yet another worry out of the way.
Day 8: Well judgment day is here. I had another night mission last night so I got back in around 10:00 this morning and instantly passed out. I had 2 shakes already for the day but I figured that would be fine because hopefully I would sleep a lot today. No matter what hours I am out I figure as long as I get my 5 shakes in (plus surge) and get them as evenly spread out as possible I would be ok. Seems to work so far. I have also found out something I like. If you add about .5 scoops coffee grounds to the shake it makes as a great pick me up!!! Pretty tasty also. I woke up and slammed another shake and then did my cardio around 16:00, I figure I will go lift tonight but I had some energy so I figured cardio wouldn?t hurt. I have decided every once in a while to slow the pace of the cardio and go for about 40 min, I think I will try this more on days off from the gym. I will probably just go day by day depending on how I feel and what time allows.
Now for the time for truth???the first week?s results.!!
I weighed 165, a loss of 4 lbs!!! My body fat is also at 13.9% now compared to over 15.2% a week earlier!!! I weighed myself yesterday but the scale was jacked up so I am happy with the results that came up today! The main thing is that I can see the difference! I am more vascular, and my belt seems like I have about an extra .5 to inch on it!!! My love handles are much smaller also! I think I would have even lost more if I had not already been cutting down on a low carb diet 2-3 weeks prior. So in roughly a month I have gone from 178 to 165 and have kept all my strength! No complaints so far!
Notes from week 1:
*As more days go by my hunger between shakes lessens.
*A coffee grinder from our px works wonders on flax seed, damn manual grinder!
*I can tell I am a little low on energy at times but really not to bad so far, I am just not quite as motivated to do things throughout the day.
*Gatorade bottles are the PERFECT shake containers!!!
*Carrying a ruck of 3-5 shakes is easier than 3-5 healthy meals!!!
*Adding coffee grounds to shakes keeps you wired during midnight security!
*This diet is very easy to keep up with, the cheat sheet I made helped out the first few days but now it is all just habit. I also do suggest the meal option, that was the best damn chow hall meal I have ever had! Doing this diet with someone else is a huge help!!! You can both drool over foods you miss!
If you have any questions, advice, or anything beneficial, post away. Thank you and now to take on week 2!!!
Dastang
