The Velocity Diet
History
The Velocity Diet is not my idea, not at all. To give credit where credit is due you should check out a guy called Chris Shugart, an author for T-Nation.
The diet isn’t new by any means and it seems to have started out as a modified Protein Sparing Modified Fasting (PSMF) diet that is used for extremely overweight people that need to lose weight quickly. In it’s medical form it’s not conducive to people doing any form of physical activity, there just isn’t enough energy in it. With some modifications though it has been used to some success for athletes such as body builders that need to lose some fat while retaining most if not all of their muscle mass.
Chris Shugart has essentially taken the good work of a former author for T-Nation and updated it to include the best knowledge and supplements that are available to body builders and strength athletes. He also gave it a catchy name!
How It Works
Essentially the V-Diet is a PSMF that has increased calories for use by relatively active people. It’s got some formalisation to it with a couple of formulas and quite a strict schedule as to when more carbohydrates are consumed than in a normal shake. Essentially with the guidelines in place the diet is very easy to follow.
It works by providing your body with far more protein than your body requires to generate the energy it needs throughout the day. Doing so reduces the amount of amino acids (protein/muscle) that will be required to be metabolised for energy and instead focuses the body on fatty tissue, dietary fats and carbohydrates. By reducing dietary fat and carbohydrate intake this forces the body to focus solely on fatty tissue as whatever fat and carbohydrates are ingested will generally be used to re-build glycogen supplies in the body.
Essentially this diet focuses your body on burning existing fatty tissue and gives the body all the protein it requires for muscle growth. The best kind of combination.
What You Eat
In the initial diet there are a bunch of products suggested but the brands aren’t important and the ones recommended by T-Nation aren’t necessarily the best. What is recommended is a good balanced protein powder, flax meal, fish oil and peanut butter. Now that the diet has been used by many others though there are plenty of other great suggestions that help you stay on track and don’t hinder your progess, in fact they help.
Many people use a mixture of protein isolate and casein instead of the recommended blend. The argument is that during the day casein will keep you fuller and supplied with quality protein throughout the day. Only in the morning and after a workout do you require protein isolate for quick absorption. This makes sense and has worked for many, many people.
There was a particular product recommended for after workouts to give you a boost in carbs and a spike in insulin to make your body really grab all it could out of your post workout shake. However dextrose or maltodextrose in a shake is a cheaper and just as good alternative to this. Personally I put muesli in mine as I don’t believe all that much in the post workout insulin spike but it’s a personal choice.
Fibre is a definite requirement as you won’t be eating solid foods in the strict form of the diet. Many people take psyllium husks (the active ingredient in Metamucil) daily and I have done this with great success. I recommend it, but remember to keep fluid intake high.
Diet soft drinks are great as they don’t add calories or carbs and after a few days when you’re sick of the shake flavour/s a bit of fruity sweetness can really hit the spot.
I’ve found chewing gum is great too and I go through it by the tonne. Strawberry Extra is my favourite so far and I find I really like fruity flavours when I’m on this diet.
Caffeine tablets and black coffee are a real help too, caffeine is an appetite suppressant and it’s a great stimulant too. I find sometimes that I can be a little tired on this diet so a shot of espresso or a caffeine tablet can really help. If you can get better stimulants (legally!) then give them a go, especially if you’re getting hungry they will help you stay on the wagon.
Most people don’t take as much fish oil as is recommended in the initial program. You’ll get lots of great oil from the flax, but fish oil is a great thing to take so it’s going to be a good thing to take a few at night before bed for some extra good fats.
The Program
First thing is to work out your high and low calorie days, this is done using formulas Chris Shugart came up with, bodyweight is in pounds (kg = lbs/2.2) :
Low Day : ((10.2 x bodyweight) + 879) x 0.5
High Day : ((10.2 x bodyweight) + 879) x 0.6
Each shake will have some serving of protein powder to be determined plus 2Tbsp of flax meal. At night you’ll replace the flax with peanut butter for some good fats to slow the food absorption.
You’ll want at least a gram of protein per pound of body weight, so with that knowledge in hand you work out how many shakes to roughly make up to your low calorie day while meeting your protein needs. One of my shakes doesn’t have flax to meet that and my night shake has less protein. You can tweak it how you like but most people have 4-6 shakes throughout the day with the required amount of protein powder to meet the calorie and protein goals.
The only change is that on the days where you workout, you add enough carbs to make up to your high calorie day into your post workout shake. That’s it.
So for someone that is 230lbs we get :
Low Day : 1612 Calories
High Day : 1935 Calories
Protein Minimum : 230 grams
My powder has 27g protein and 120 calories per serving to meet my protein needs I require 8.5 servings which is about 1050 calories. I have a tablespoon of peanut butter at night for 120 calories giving me 450 calories left for flax, that’s about eight tablespoons which works out perfectly for four shakes with two in each. A couple of fish oil capsules before bed and I’m right on the money for calories.
That gives me six shakes, which works out to about one every 2.5 hours throughout the day, I get the right calories, heaps of protein (there is some in the flax and peanut butter too) and with some psyllium almost 35g of fibre.
That’s how it’s done.
After the Diet Is Over
Unfortunately (or fortunately) you shouldn’t go back to eating how you did before the diet, your body has become fantastic at using stored fat for energy and converting carbs to glycogen. The most important thing you can do is to keep your carb intake low and steadily increase it over the next couple of weeks. The easiest way to do this is to slowly increase the amount of solid food you eat. People that do this well still lose some weight over this period, though it’s not uncommon to gain a little bit back due to water being stored again.
Typically people will introduce one solid meal a day for a week after the diet and then the week following that two solid meals and then the week after that you can go back to a healthy diet. This will generally include some protein shakes anyway and I find I tend to eat 3-4 solid meals a day anyway. The trick is to make sure the carbs you start on are good quality and remember you definitely have the will power at this stage to do anything.
You’ll probably find that you’ll get a bit bigger all over and maybe more vascular due to the increase in carbs. Quickly available energy stores will be easier for the body to maintain and you’ll have more energy too. It’s a good time.
Other Benefits to the Diet
Besides the weight loss that you’ll certainly experience there are a couple of other benefits that I’ve found and have seen other people notice too. Personally the most boring part of the diet is the same tasting shakes every time, I’m never hungry though. Changing flavours is easy though with diet soda for some fruitiness or low carb jellies and so on.
During the diet because of the lack of carbs I find that I’m satiated basically all the time and my cravings almost disappear. The lack of insulin spiking and steady flow of food keeps me at a relatively easy pace all day rather than the up throughout the morning and that ‘3pm dip’.
You’ll also save a lot of time and I tend to find I have about an hour or more free each day because I don’t have to cook anything or make anything. I don’t have to go grocery shopping which again reduces the temptation to buy bad foods.
After the diet is over I find that the cravings still aren’t there, which is good, the worst thing you can do is go and splurge the day after the diet is over. I still don’t hunger for anything much though the worst thing I sometimes desire is a tin of smoked tuna. Oooh yeah. Delicious.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Hi there! I’ve recently heard of the Velocity Diet. I’ve recently lost 10 kilo’s from the Kate Morgan diet but I’ve been looking for something more strict and rapid. I’ve asked a few people about it and I’ve managed to find out a fair bit about the diet but still don’t know where I can get it from. I’m desperate to lose weight and keep it off. Seems like now is the best time for me. I’m ready and raring. After ‘googling’ the diet I’ve come across this site, hoping someone can shed more light for me. I live in Perth and I was wondering if you know anywhere I can order the shakes from..
Adam =)
April 4th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I think the Kate Morgan diet is what some people call The Velocity Diet Lite, in that some people still have a solid meal each day rather than each week. I guess the problem I have with any pre-packaged diet is that it doesn’t teach you to fish, it just gives you the fish. When the packaged goods aren’t available you’re left without any knowledge on what was going on or how to eat healthily.
The V-Diet isn’t a pre-packaged thing, you can’t buy the shakes as such, though it is really simple to follow. You should read this page again to get an idea of what is involved.
Essentially you buy Casein protein powder (I recommend Optimum Nutrition) and Whey Protein Isolate powder (I recommend Optimum Nutrition again) and also some peanut butter and flax seeds (from woolworths). These are all the supplies you need.
You’ll drink WPI for your first shake on waking up and also as your post workout shake. The other times you drink either 100% casein or up to a 50/50 split depending.
To buy protein powder teh best places are online and I recommend mrsupplement.com.au.
If you follow the formulas and what is written above you will be doing the V-Diet. It’s not about buying anything in particular and no one has really put their name to it.
I’ll put some more info on this page about the details of what I did as I’ve finished it a while ago.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I’ve been researching and working numbers the past two weeks to start this diet may 12th or around there (when i get back into town), my only question is how did you get 450 calories out of 4 servings(2TBLspoons each) of flax seed? Every milled flax seed or flax seed meal is 60 calories per serving(2 TBLspoons)?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Each serving (21g or 2Tbsp as you say) of flax seeds is 8.9g fat, 3.8g protein, 6.1g of carbs (mostly fibre). It’s approximately 60 calories per Tbsp though which is where you might be getting confused ?
May 6th, 2008 at 1:39 am
flax seed milled or meal is 60 calories per “serving”, and one serving is 2 tablespoons. So as for 4 servings mixed in with for shakes you would have 4*60=240, which is mixing 2 tablespoons in with each of 4 shakes during the day.
for example if you click here: http://www.amazon.com/Hodgson-Mill-Milled-12-Ounce-Boxes/dp/B000FDKQBK#nutrition-facts and click on nutrition facts(these are the same nutrition facts i’ve found for many different brands of milled and meal flax).
May 6th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Gotchya. Yeah the difference there is between pre-ground and whole I think. I was taking 2Tbsp of seeds that were ground and that’s teh nutritional info that was on the pack.
It’s not really all that important as long as you get more than 25g of fibre a day. So depending on how much flax you take that may require further supplementation with psyllium husk or something like that.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Congrats on webiste and your success with Velocity diet. I’ve done similar in past aka t-dawg diet etc. and it worked well. I recommend checking out Udo’s choice or his Beyond Greens for your good fats even if they are a little expensive (i’m not connected with em in any way)
…but i agree with you most Oz protein powders are to be avoided.
i’m starting on velocity type diet myself today for 3 weeks, cheers to protein shakes and psyllium etc.
May 14th, 2008 at 5:49 am
Hey thanks for all your help, where can i pick up psyllium? what is it exactly? I am soon to be starting toe velocity diet, closer based off your plan rather than the biotest money pit, i will be using ON casein/whey, but i’m also going to be using biotests hot rox and flameout. Were most your daily shakes 100% casein, or did you mix whey too?
May 14th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I pickup Psyllium Husks from the health food section in my local grocery store. I take about two tablespoons a day one before bed and one around lunch time.
In the morning for my first shake I have just whey in my shake with flax. I figure the fibre and fat slow digestion a bit but after not eating for eight hours the whey is best.
The rest of the day I have about 2/3 casein and 1/3 whey in each shake and then before bed I have just casein and peanut butter.
I got a trial of some stuff called cytolean which is supposed to be a bit of a stimulant so I’ll see if that works. I generally had more energy on this diet and rely on caffeine for a pick me up if needed.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:39 am
is there/or what is the reason against doing 100% casein for all except post workout and breakfast?
May 15th, 2008 at 11:03 am
It’s just been shown by a few studies that a mix of whey + casein is better for weight loss than 100% whey or 100% casein. It sort of makes sense that you’re body would like to get the benefit of the quick spike of whey and then the slow release of casein, especially when under drastic caloric deficiency.
All I know is that last time moving from a all whey week (i had run outta casein/blend) to a 20/80 whey/casein split accelerated my fat loss noticeably.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
the last shake before bed did you do 100% casein since its going to be absorbed longer, or did you still do a 20/80 mix?
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
So I’m assuming the shakes are to made with water as opposed to milk?
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am
@Jon : The night time one is 100% Casein for the slow absorption. The mixed ones are all others besides the first, last and post workout shakes.
@Othon : Yes you make all the shakes with water. Some protein powders seem to be flavoured with being mixed with milk in mind. So far I’ve found most of the ON flavours to be great with water and even better with milk when not on the diet. I’d suggest sampling some before committing to a large quantity for this diet.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:26 am
Again, sorry for the bombardment of questions, but do you have any idea on whether its more efficient to mix 20/80 whey casein, to 50/50 whey casein? or which might be better?
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:39 am
@Jon : I am starting to have an educated guess now but I think it starts to enter the area of vastly diminishing returns. As long as you’re in the ball park and are not hungry then I think as long as you’re blending some whey and casein that is good enough.
All I can say is that there is one commonly cited study where one group was given whey only and one casein only and one casein and whey in a 80/20 mix (same as milk) and the blended group lost vastly more weight and retained or gained more lean body mass.
Personally 2:1 is easier to measure for me than 4:1 given I’m mixing 45g of protein.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:53 am
ya mine is going to be 6 servings of 1 scoop or serving each, with one of them having a half scoop more- so easiest would be half scoop of each, thats why iw as asking. I’m staring tomarrow and just trying to work the final kinks out now lol.
Other than doing 50/50 of each i cant imagine it would be too detrimental to scoop most of casing(3/4’s or so) and topping it off with whey.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
@Jon : Yep, you’re right as long as you’re feeling full and getting a steady stream of protein then you’ll be fine. It’s not like you aren’t going to lose weight, it’s just about keeping protein up so as most of that weight is fat.
I think the main thing is that the shakes are nice and for a quality manufacturer so you set yourself up with the best chance of succeeding.
Good luck! Let me know how you go or if you have a blog/log anywhere online.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 am
so couple mid day notes:
One of the only things different about my diet from yours, is i’m including Hot-Rox, and at 156 starting weight, i only take 1 capsule twice a day, and boy does it give quite a kick! the original velocity diet tries to include NEPA walks, where you burn calories but dont acutally excersize instead, i’m puting round in with my punching bag to generate the same calories burned.
second: im triying flax seed meal, instead of milled flax seed, cause some poeple said it was better, and easier to mix in, but man is it hard to stomach, at first i liked it, was filling, but towards the end i had to work at stomaching the rest, which will hopefully change soon.
Again thanks for all your help, i couldnt’ve started this without it.
PS. i’m using creamy vanilla ON casein, with vanilla ice cream ON Whey, and it tastes GREAT lol.
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:02 am
No worries, I’m glad to help! Hopefully this gets you a really good head start on losing weight (I’m assuming you’re 156kg not 156lb?)
You could try spreading the flax across a few shakes or increasing hte amount of fluid. It’s not hugely important when you have the flax more that you get it in.
Good luck! You should start a log or something
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
One thing I have to say about this diet is that I am not hungry at all, but I have massive cravings for random food.
I just wanted to ask, I am not following the diet exactly but wanted to check to see if it is ok.
At the moment I am about 74kgs (163lbs) so I have 4 shakes a day with about 40 grams of protein in each giving me 160cals from the protein and about 30cals from carbs and fat (total 190cals per serve) about 760cals per day from my shakes.
I don’t have any flax so I have been supplementing that with fish oil, to meet the fat requirement I take 24 tabs a day which gives me about 216cals from fats.
I have the 1 tbsp of peanut butter giving me another 120cals at night which takes my total cal intake for the day to about 1096cals
I also highly supplement fiber
I know that this is about 20cals under my recommended caloric intake for the day but I don’t feel hungry throughout the day.
My main concern is the fish oil for flax, will this detriment the diet at all.
Thank you
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
That seems fine Rhyno. As long as you aim for 25g of fibre a day and drink plenty of water fish oil is actually better than the fat you’ll get from flax.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Thanks Azza