Velocity diet succumbs to soda break

Published by admin on July 25th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

Soda Bread

Day 20 I weighted in at 202lb -10lb from day 1. In week 3 my fat loss flat lined. I didn’t need to look at the scales. I can always see fat loss in the mirror first anyway. I don’t need to look in the mirror either. My body was fighting back every further gram of fat loss like my life depended on it. As it should! But why so soon? This is metabolic slowdown. The curse of every diet. Usually it is not an issue until you are heading towards 10-12% body fat. I reckon I’m still mid to high teens. This seems very early for this type of slowdown to be happening. By Friday afternoon I couldn’t sit down for five minutes and stand up again without feeling faint. My concentration was affected too. Once it gets to a point where it is affecting the day job and family life its time to call it quits. I stuck with it until my planed HSM on Saturday afternoon and quit after that. So, 21 days it lasted.

My transition plan didn’t really work out either. I cooked a loaf of Martin Shanahan’s Irish soda bread with my 4 year old son and we eat the whole thing on Saturday. Its funny, at times like this you revert to type. I was brought up on soda bread and traditional, healthy, home cooked Irish food. This was the fist time in my life I cooked soda bread. Usually a sister, Mother or Aunt can be relied upon. On Sunday morning I was 206.6lb on Monday morning I was 213.2lb. An increase of 11.2lb in less than 2 days. Overall I gained 1lb on this diet.

My results were very different to what I expected. I did lose some fat. Maybe 4lb or so. I also added muscle. I loved the training. This is the first time I have trained in this way. 4 times a week at 40-50 minutes per session. The training worked very well for me. I got stronger in all my lifts. Normally I would lift heavier and longer. Anyway, I think the pictures tell the story better than I do.

Before on the left after on the right both @212lb

Before on the left after on the right both @212lb

*I’m a bit bloated in the ater pics, my wieght will probably settle back around 208-209lb during the week.

Conclusions and excuses

It looks like I gained some muscle and lost some fat. For three weeks work the results are not earth shattering but are not to be dismissed either.

I set out to lose lots of fat and I hoped not to lose any muscle. I lost some fat, not a lot of fat. And I probably lost it all in the first 10 days. I had a huge sense that I was wasting my time in week 3.  When you body is humming away burning fat, you should feel fine. When you start feeling crap, your body is fighting back and not burning fat.

So where did it all go wrong? Was I eating too much protein? Maybe so. But the extra protein seemed to help gain me some muscle too. That’s not a bad thing. Especially if you are a tall male with long skinny arms. So, why didn’t I burn more fat then? I reckon its just because the fatter you are the easier it is to burn fat and to continue burning fat for longer. At this point I can only burn fat for 14-18 days before my body goes into body fat protection overdrive. That maybe also affected by any number of other factors including age, genetics, gender and God knows what else. Either way it makes so sense for me to be trying this for longer than two week jaunts. So from here on the fat attackes will have to be shorter.

2 Comments »

Spot Reduction – How can I lose fat off my hips?

Published by admin on July 20th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

My wife often asks me “how do I get rid of the fat on the top of my thighs and hips?” Of course the correct answer is “I love the shape of your hips”, which I do of course! The standard answer in the world of health and fitness is: “You can’t reduce fat at any one spot, you’ve got to lose fat all over and then the amount of fat on the top of you tights and hips will reduce in line with everything else”. Another question: “how come men don’t have this problem?” Men have different hormones and have problems in other areas, most often belly fat or man boobs. Can you control any of these hormones? The answer is, to some degree you can! You have 100% control over Insulin for example. Insulin is the hormone that responds to the amount and type of carbohydrate you eat. And Insulin can be the culprit for love handles and belly fat. For other hormones like Testosterone, Growth Hormone, Cortisol (a stress hormone), Thyroid (a hormone that regulates your metabolism) and Estrogen you can influence to a lesser degree indirectly.

Rapid weight loss and dieting can have the affect reducing Testosterone and your thyroid level. And stress hormones like corisol often go up. This is just your body clueing into the idea that it’s not getting its usual feed of calories and carbohydrates. It will adapt accordingly. Your Nervous systems will slow down too. But you can at try to keep it going somewhat with green tea, caffeine or other stimulants (better known to dieters as fat burners).

If you lift heavy weights, especially using big, heavy compound movements like deadlifts and squats you will provoke a response hormone response. Your testosterone levels will rise. On the other hand if you overdo a workout you can produce a too much stress hormones like cortisol which has a negative affect on fat loss. The best fat burning workouts always include short but heavy workouts with compound lifts and limited recovery between lifts.

Here are my top 3 success factors for any diet plan:
1. Plan and prepare food in advance, give yourself every opportunity to succeed.
2. Illuminate as many distractions as possible. Plan for challenges then filter, delegate, prioritise, improvise, whatever it takes to minimise the impact on our diet.
3. Workout hard, heavy and fast – prepare and stick to the workout plan and get plenty of sleep and recovery.

The quality of your workouts becomes more important the leaner you get. Give it hell for 28 days, cut out alcohol; you have to will those last few pounds away with pure bloody-mindedness. “Psychology trumps physiology every time”.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

The Cost of a Velocity diet

Published by admin on July 19th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

 

So what does a velocity diet cost per day over 28 days? I have worked it out at €12.60 a day and €353 in total. I have tweaked it a bit, mostly because you can’t get all the Biotest products here in Ireland and partly because I know it can be done cheaper without compromising results. I also added in L-Tyrosine and a high quality Multivitamin with plenty of iodine to prevent or delay the thyroid slow down. So the “Rakish” velocity diet works out at just over €10 a day or €294 in total.

Rakish Velocity diet

Biotest Velocity diet

Milk protein isolate 11lb: €62

ON 100% Whey 10lb (10 lbs) = €89.99

Udo’s Oil: €25

After Max (4.18 lbs) = €35.99

Solgar Multivitamins €20

Total: €233 = $330

Metabolic Drive® Low-Carb Protein

 

Flameout™ EPA/DHA

SURGE® Recovery

BIOTEST® Superfood

Total: €310 = $439.99

BCAA 5000 (336 g) = €27.99

Biotest L-Lucine €27

Flax seeds: €8

Flax seeds: €8

Natural Peanut butter: €12

Natural Peanut butter: €12

L-Tyrosine: €4.50

 

Psyllium Husks (Powder) €9

 

Total (28 day supply): €294 = $417

Total (28 day supply): €353 = $501

 

1 USD = 0.704669 EUR (19 july 2011)

That’s not bad at all I think. You could do the Velocity diet using real food sources. Basically replace the protein with lean meats and the fibre with vegetables. But it’s not the velocity diet anymore it Lyle McDonald’s Rapid fat loss diet. In Ireland a chicken filet with 30g of protein costs about €1. A scoop of ON whey with 30g of protein works out at around 60cent. Vegetables are going to work out a bit more expensive than the powdered fibre too. So Lyle’s rapid fat loss diet works out around €14 a day.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

Weekends and deadlifts – the ultimate fat loss weapon

Published by admin on July 17th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet
Velocity diet Day 13 – Saturday the 16th of July was the worst day of this diet by far. I had to jump out of bed to deliver a bottle to the baby at around 7am. My blood sugar was in my boots, I got up, walked about 6 steps and had to sit down again on one of the kids beds, dizzy, head going blank, no energy. Give it a few second and wait for the blood to return to my head. Deliver the bottle and back to bed. I got up an hour later not feeling a whole lot better.

I went to the gym at 10am to do a 40minute session. My wife needed to be somewhere at 11am. “No problem, this session only takes 40 minutes”. At 10:45 I got a call, “where are you”. I finished the session in 5 minutes, I realised in that 5 minutes how I should have been doing the session in the first place. I raced between the deadlifts, bench press, pull ups and walkouts. No farting about, I felt the adrenaline, the lactic and a bit of anger. That’s how these sessions are supposed to feel. That’s where you get a response. I probably got more out of that last five minutes that the previous 45. I spent most of the other 45 minutes thinking about my deadlift form and what I was doing with my shoulders. That’s important too but if you want a mass building, fat burning response you just lift the damb the thing and move on. The deadlift is probably the best fat burning mass building weapon there is. Here is the inspirational Dominic Munnelly showing how it should be done.

40x110kg deadlifts on a Saturday morning when you feel pretty crap anyway can send you either of two ways. It can kick start your day or it can resign you to the couch for the day. I have a wife and 3 kids, Saturday and couches aren’t really an option until after the kids have gone to bed. Off to town on the tram. The tram is a one mile walk from the house. We have a 4 year old who doesn’t feel like walking today. So a couple of hours of walking later, mostly load bearing a 30lb child, we return home. I hit the couch and fall asleep. I wake up 20 minutes later and the dinner is cooking. Right, this is getting ridiculous. The healthy solid meal is going to be move forward one day. I might pay for this next weekend but enough is enough. Funnily enough I didn’t feel much better after the meal. I went to bed early. Just write it off as a bad diet day. I felt much better the next day.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

Vitamin D and Fat Loss

Published by admin on July 15th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

Calcium and diet

“Restrained eaters” have a significantly lower bone mineral density and bone mineral content (key indicators of overall bone strength and health) than those who say they are not concerned about what they eat.

Popular diets may promise quick weight loss, but calcium and other important nutrients are often missing from the menu, which can lead to bone loss.

Calcium is not only good for your bones but can help you maintain a healthy, low fat diet too. There has been increasing media coverage about numerous studies showing that a diet rich in calcium helps reduce body fat.

Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin, its primary function is to help your body absorb calcium.

The best and easiest way for you to get Vitamin D is through exposure to the sun. After 15 minutes of full body exposure your skin will have absorbed 10000-20000 Units of Vitamin D. They have discovered that our skin is very sophisticated at regulating D. Once your skin has absorbed enough D will stop absorbing vitamin D and will not absorb any more until it needs it again. And they have discovered that this all happens before your skin begins to burn.

You can also take Vitamin D in your diet. But this is where it gets complicated. When you drink a glass of milk for example, there can be up to a 600% difference in Vitamin D absorbed between you and the person sitting next to you. You might need 30000 Units of vitamin D a day and that level might poison the person sitting next to you.

I came up with a few ideas that might help:
1. In the summer go out and enjoy the sunshine and don’t be afraid to expose plenty of flesh but cover up or put on sunscreen before you start to burn. As an aside, the Brazilian super model Giselle Brunchen got in awful trouble last year by declaring that sunscreens are poisonous, there are natural sunscreens available in health food shops that contain zinc oxide and natural oils that are much healthier for your skin. (cut out if short for time)
2. In the winter you will need other proven ways to get your vitamin D. There are now safe sunbeds available. Some only emit UVB and won’t burn or give you a tan. A lot of high performance athletes now use them, not only for their health benefits, they have also discovered that Vitamin D can improve sports performance. For €2000 you can get an accredited sunbed fitted at home. Some day, when I’m rich, I’ll do some more research on this one.
3. There is another safe and easy solution which gives guaranteed results. You can now buy a D3 spray in health shops. It’s inexpensive and really easy to use; you take it orally by spraying it under your tongue. It tastes great and you get 1000 Units of Vitamin D which is absorbed directly into the blood stream.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
No Comments »

Calcium and Fat Loss

Published by admin on July 14th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

Calcium and diet

“Restrained eaters” have a significantly lower bone mineral density and bone mineral content (key indicators of overall bone strength and health) than those who say they are not concerned about what they eat.

Popular diets may promise quick weight loss, but calcium and other important nutrients are often missing from the menu, which can lead to bone loss.

Calcium is not only good for your bones but can help you maintain a healthy, low fat diet too. There has been increasing media coverage about numerous studies showing that a diet rich in calcium helps reduce body fat.

Dairy products, aren’t they fattening?

Some dieters consider dairy products to be fattening, but the evidence suggests the opposite is true. Numerous studies have shown that dairy calcium is more effective in reducing body fat than other forms of calcium.

Why does diary calcium work?

Researchers believe that other nutrients found in milk products act in synergy with calcium to reduce fat more efficiently. Here are the key ones:

  • Glycomacropeptides (found in whey proteins derived from milk) in particular, are known to create feelings of satiety and fullness and decrease food intake. This may explain why the velocity diet which has a high whey content outperforms similar diets based on using meat as a protein source.
  • Vitamin D and Essential fats – Dairy products contain both. Most of the population is deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin D regulates calcium absorbsion in the body. I will dedicate Part 2 of this post to vitamin D and calcium.

Foods that are a good source of calcium include cheese, milk, ice cream, baked beans and other dried legumes, dried figs, broccoli, most dark-green leafy vegetables, and soft fish bones like those in canned salmon.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
1 Comment »

Cut loose of the shackles forever – the Protein Paradigm shift part 3

Published by admin on July 13th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

The 99 ice cream cone: what a treat. On a warm summers day when you need a little pick up there is nothing like it. It brings you back to the happy days of your childhood, the warm summers days, the family outings, holidays, golden beaches, the Atlantic Ocean, the Killarney lakes.

Last weekend I was in Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland, one of the most spectacularly scenic places on earth. I was there to watch my team Cork take on arch rivals Kerry in the annual Munster championship Gaelic football final. There were 40,000 people packed into the small town on a beautiful summer’s day. The atmosphere in the town was amazing. The anticipation of the match. The last minute exchange of tickets. The two mile long stream of cars into the town. The pubs overflowing onto the streets. Old friends and family shooting the breeze. On days like this you feel life doesn’t really get much better.

Half my family is from Kerry, my father is from Cork and played for Cork at underage level, my mother’s family including my 90 year old grandfather are from Kerry. Kerry is the home of Gaelic football; they are the source, the aristocracy. Cork are current all Ireland champions, with a young, powerful and impressive team. Kerry won on this day. Cork’s performance was disappointing. Too many unforced errors. It’s deeply personal to me. Its deeply personal to my father and my brother. We love Kerry and we love the Kerry people but we hate losing to them. Three 99s ease the pain.

So what has all this got to do with protein, diet and body composition? It’s about moderation. Here’s is another example: I have had stand up rows in the past with workmates over not having lunch in McDonalds just because there is one right next to the office. These days, I’m an advocate of McDonalds in certain circumstances. I bring my kids to McDonald, maybe once a week, its cheap, its clean, the kids love it, it’s a treat and the coffee is good. And, as an aside, if you order the double quarter pounder and cheese you get nearly 50g of protein in your meal.

The trick is moderation. You eat 35 meals a week. If 34 of them are clean healthy meals with a lean protein source in each meal, then one large double quarter pounder meal with and diet coke and a 99 per week isn’t going to have any negative affect on your goals. You may even get away with 2 or 3 cheat meals a week. More than that and you are on a slippery slope.

It’s hard to maintain this discipline unless you are in an environment with people who have already made the shift. It takes time and we all regress. I’ve made great progress on rapid fat loss diets. I’m a hard gainer but I’ve made steady progress with strength training. I have regressed form time to time. We all do unless we surround ourselves with positive reinforcing influences.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
No Comments »

Free the shackles – the Protein Paradigm shift part 2

Published by admin on July 12th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

One week of a high protein liquid diet. Four tough workouts. Doesn’t sound like much when you write it down? It is hell on earth, believe me! One week into the v-diet and the penny dropped. My gotcha moment! Once you finish one week of the velocity diet you pretty much feel you can do anything. If you can do one week and it didn’t kill you, you can do two; if you can do two you can do four.

Here is how my thinking has changed in that first week:

1. I could trust my protein shakes. It wasn’t just inert white powder in there.

2. I worked out harder that week than I had in over a year. I could see the impact that regular protein uptake had on my training and recovery.

3. Some days I was drinking nearly 300g of protein. And the fat was still being stripped off. There was no need to worry about compromising fat loss by taking too much protein.

4. I put on muscle that week. I feet stronger; I made gains in the gym. I didn’t expect that.

5. My mindset about the velocity diet transition phase changed. That was a huge shift for me.

The transition phase of the v-diet, is where you gradually ease yourself back onto healthy solid food. First with just one solid meal a day then two and so on. A first I thought it was a hoax. A clever way of fudging and cloaking glycogen weight gain over a few weeks. My plan was to do the 28 days. Then pig out on carbohydrates for a few days. Return to bad old habits with a bang. This is wrong. You are doomed to the same faith if I you do this. Gorging on carbohydrates might sound like heaven. It is actually worse than the diet itself. Your blood sugar goes up and down like crazy. You body doesn’t know what is happening. You feel chronically tired, cranky and stressed. You don’t feel like working out. You will carve caffeine, alcohol and anything else that will give you a mood change!

My healthy solid meal on the Sunday of week 1 was so satisfying. It got me trough a gruelling v-burn challenge on the Sunday night. The Monday of week 2, was the easiest day of the diet to that point. I think the gradual transition back to healthy, clean unprocessed carbohydrates is a good idea. Ease yourself back into healthy eating. Reinforce the positives all the time.

Tags:
No Comments »

“I just can’t do moderation”, the Protein Paradigm shift Part 1

Published by admin on July 11th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

You don’t fully trust the supplement companies? Do you really believe you are getting 25g per scoop? Is it all a smoke screen? The idea of eating so much meat somehow seems wrong. All that chewing! How many chickens have been sacrificed for your fat loss and muscle gains goals? You diet, you lose some weight. You go back to eating a normal maintenance diet. But you just put the weight straight back on. You feel you deserve a break from the dieting. A few extra sugary treats slip in to the diet almost unconsciously. Social and family events are punctuated by rich food, sugary treats and alcohol. Life is too short to be so strict on yourself all the time. There is no enjoyment from eating healthy all the time.

What if you play sport? “I’m not naturally thin anyway” and “I need carbohydrates”. So you load up before games and load up again to recover. You need to keep the protein intake up in case you lose strength. Do you find you are getting fatter? And slower and older! You try to correct this. You decide the easiest solution is to reduce your protein intake to reduce the calorie excess. Make room for those sugary treats that punctuate our lives and make life just that little bit more fun, right? At the end of the season you are facing a diet to lose 10lb and a weight program to get your strength back just to get back to where you were 12 months ago. Are you are running to stand still? What’s the problem here? “I just can’t do moderation”. You’ve read all the forums, bought the supplements, listened to forward thinking knowledgeable coaches. “You need over 150g, 200g or 250g of protein a day to achieve your goal”. “Keep your carbohydrates clean and cut out the junk”. But the collective unconscious that we are all bound to gets us every time. The little voice that says “this can’t be right”, “they all must think I’m mad”, “there’s nothing wrong with a normal healthy diet”, “There is no way you can eat that much protein and lose weight” or “that much protein can’t be healthy”. We have been unconsciously conditioned like this since childhood. And we have helped condition others with the same thinking. Because deep down we still agree with the old paradigm. We will never make the paradigm shift until you see the results for your self. When you do the velocity diet, or any Protein saving modified fast, you see for yourself. Once you go beyond the first week somehow you feel like you are free of the shackles, for a while at least. Can you cut loose of those shackles forever… More tomorrow!

Tags: ,
No Comments »

Velocity Training

Published by admin on July 8th, 2011 - in Velocity Diet

When you do a workout how long does it take? Last night I did this workout. It took 36minutes. In total the session took 47 minutes including warm up and setup. The only equipment used was 2 kettlebells, a 25kg barbell and horisontal bar for the inverted rows. I did all this in my back garden, the commute time was nil. Dan John would be proud. I do 4 sessions like this a week. I have a full time job, a wife and 3 kids, needs must! 

Exercise/weight/total reps/reps per set/rest per set
Reverse lunges 32kg kettlebell 40 reps 6,6,6,6,6,6,4 -40 sec
Inverted Row Body weight(BW=205lb) 40 reps 8,6,6,6,6,4,4 -40 sec
Push Press 24kg kettlebell 40 reps 6,6,6,6,6,5,5 -40 sec
Barbell curls 25kg 40 reps 6,6,6,6,6,6,4 -40 sec
Reverse crunch flat 40 reps 6,6,6,6,6,6,4 -40 sec

The Push presses were brutal physically and mentally. Using a kettle bell and doing 6 reps per hand is really 12 reps at a very fast tempo. They just seem endless. Yet so effective, the kettle bell is so well suited to fat loss training.

205.2lb again this morning. Same as yesterday. Which is -7lb in four days.  That is still positive given that I had an aftermax with 40g carbs and a litre of salty water after this workout.

Tags:
1 Comment »
© Rakish Fat Loss