TheVelocityDiet.com

Changes

One morning this week I woke up and had great definition in my top two abs and some really noticeable definition to the side of them too, it was a vision I guess of what can be soon.

This week I definitely have noticed the veins on my forearms coming out more and the vein growing across my right shoulder and chest.

Veins on my thighs have become more noticeable as has the changing shape of my things from blocky round things to having some muscular shape especially tapering into the knee. Squats and especially half squats are I think what has helped here a lot. I’m increasing definition while increasing size so I the muscle is really growing here.

There has been some noticeable changes in definition to the upper arms and shoulders as sometimes you’ll catch some definition between the delts on the shoulders rather than just roundness. Tricep horseshoe is starting to become visible too and the upper arm is becoming defined at just ordinary relaxed state.

Back is another area where sometimes I am surprised when I see myself. I think another couple of weeks of hard work will really pay off in this area. Much more definition in the traps and lats is what I’m noticing.

So the changes are still coming, they just aren’t so huge anymore. A little more definition here and there, a new vein, it’s slow but it’s worth it.

A Little Bit of Caffeine Goes a Long Way

I feel like after a couple of years of exercising fairly intensely and making diet changes and sleep changes and activity changes along the way I have become quite good at noticing how these changes affect me. One thing that I’ve changed recently is having caffeine before my workout, either as a tablet or as a shot of espresso coffee. It really makes a noticeable difference to my workout and exercise.

My current routine is something like this. Wake up, have a shot of coffee, protein powder and a glass of juice then go for a 30 minute walk at 6km/hr. It’s a brisk pace for me but it doesn’t really increase my breathing that much, it more warms me up and gives time for the coffee, juice and protein to start being digested. Then I start weights.

The addition of the coffee and warm up has definitely increased what I can do that early in the morning and I’d suggest giving it a try yourself.

A Weekend of Boozing

I hate drinking, I hate alcohol. I used to love it, but I guess I’m like those born again christians that get way more into it than any christian that grew up in the church. I don’t hate that people drink nor do I judge anyone for doing it, but for me personally alcohol just doesn’t do anything I like.

First of all I don’t have any more fun when I’m drunk, nor do I talk any more deeply or do anything that much different to when I’m sober and having fun. So the social lubricant aspect isn’t something I really require these days. It’s why I used to drink though.

Mostly though, it makes me weak and I hate that. The next day I feel like shit, I eat shit, I don’t exercise and unlike other things with similar detractions the following few days I don’t get any benefit from it while I’m drinking.

I jumped on the scale this morning to see what the impact was of a night of solid drinking and the following day of eating crap (lots of crap carbs) and doing no exercise. It was 4.5kg over the weigh in on Saturday!

Now I’m not stupid and think that I’ve actually put on 4.5kg of fat, most if not all of that will be retained water and I can definitely see the softness everywhere, but still I don’t want that.

So I have decided that I am not going to drink unless I want to from now on, there will be no situation where I will drink if I don’t want to. Previously I said that I’d drink only when it was socially responsible so an engagement party or bucks night and so on, however now I’m not going to do that. I’m not saying no alcohol will ever pass by my lips, that’s definitely not true, but it will be me that makes the decision on whether that happens and it won’t be based on anyone’s desires but my own.

So hopefully with strict diet and exercise this week I’ll drop another kilo based on my Saturday weight and not this morning’s weight.

I Don’t Want to Drink, but I Have To

It’s my best mate’s bucks party tomorrow. I’m going to have to drink otherwise I don’t think he will truly be happy. However in the last three months I have had no urge to drink whatsoever, and in fact I think I’ve been turned off by drinking. I am not looking forward to drinking tomorrow or how shit I will feel the day after.

I’ll see how I go. Maybe a couple of drinks will be enough and I’ll be fine. This will be the first drinking I’ve done since the office christmas party three months ago and hopefully if I keep it to a minimum I can be drunk but not do away with a week’s worth of hard work and wake up feeling completely shit the next day.

I’ll be doing measurements and weigh-in on Saturday morning to remove the temporary water weight and shittiness from the measurements.

So Much Junk Food in My Belly

I had a big weekend last weekend and come Monday afternoon (it was a long weekend) I was sat there watching movies and feeling pretty worse for wear in the head. I figured the best thing I could do was to keep myself happy and at that point in time that meant putting as much junk food in my mouth as I possibly could. I had a couple of protein shakes and a steak, plus some peanut paste and a roll but other than that it was lollies all the way.

I tracked everything though, how crazy is that. Ten sherbies, ten redskins and so on…

In the end it came to just over maintenance and given I’d been dancing and doing stuff the entire day prior I felt pretty comfortable that it was all covered, even if it wasn’t it’s been two months of absolutely solid, clean eating. Half a day will only hurt a little.

The surprising thing is how easily I got back on track. I think because I actually enjoy the healthy food I’m eating now the next day I was back on track, eating healthily and feeling fine. I usually give myself a tiny treat each day (a square of chocolate or a biscuit or something like that) and I didn’t even feel the need to do that, I completely forgot about it.

It’s now a few days on and at first I was actually quite scared that Monday was just going to be the start to me going back to old ways but that hasn’t happened at all. I haven’t fought cravings, I haven’t had any urges for the lollies, I’ve just eaten great food.

The lollies are in my cupboard for the next time I have people over. I had considered throwing them away to reduce the temptation but I don’t feel like I need to at all.

What a change.

Eating a Lot is Hard

I’m increasing my intake by 250 calories a day from today in an effort to slow the weight loss, more specifically to try and maintain more muscle while I’m losing weight. I think it’ll probably need to increase by 500 calories a day but I’m also not going to make such a massive jump in one go.

In doing so it means I have to start planning out my workout days to have about 2500 calories, and I was just trying to do this now and it was proving pretty difficult to plan meals to hit that target that I could actually consume. It would be easy to increase fat intake and therefore fit a stack more food in but I’m more interested in increasing fat slightly and then increasing protein and carbohydrate intake too. It means I’ll be eating roughly 30% more on my workout days and it’s a bit of effort.

Before the V-Diet I was actually taking in roughly 2500 calories a day without any problem but now afterwards and after having a restricted intake for two months I’m finding that it’s difficult to eat enough to get up to maintenance calories. Some meals actually make me feel overly full now yet previously I’d have been wanting more.

The reports of the extra benefits after the V-Diet besides weight loss aren’t exaggerated. I’m losing weight now very easily and see my goal weight approaching within the next four weeks even if I increase my calorie intake. Pretty cool really given that I hadn’t lost much weight for about a year.

My maintenance at my current activity level is probably about 3000 - 3500 calories a day. I’m currently eating 1900 - 2500 calories. So I have a long way to go

Why Didn’t I Eat Like This Before ?

I’ve just finished cooking lunch and I was looking at it and just thinking, this is a bloody awesome lunch. Why haven’t I done this sort of stuff before ?

My lunch consisted of 150g of chicken pounded flat and fried with no oil. Some fried mushrooms, again without oil and some steamed sweet potato and brussel sprouts. It’s a decent sized bowl full of food and it’s all good for me. It took about 5 minutes to prep and cook. So prep, cook and eat I was done inside of 30 minutes.

I am full as a boot, I ate 400 Cal which was 50g of protein and 40g of carbs and 8g of fat. You really can’t ask for much better.

I am really enjoying food now, and look forward to whatever I’m going to have tomorrow for lunch too!

Double Check What You’re Ordering

Damnit! I thought I’d ordered egg white powder but instead I ordered whole egg powder! What an idiot. After waiting so long for this stuff it’s annoying that I got a bunch of stuff I don’t want and will probably last me many, many months.

Skin Changes

I just noticed yesterday after a shave that my skin felt a lot better than it has in a while. Then this morning while I was brushing my teeth I noticed that under my eyes and on my nose the pores were much smaller and cleaner. These areas tend to have dirty pores no matter how much I clean them.

My hands have no missing skin and look fine which is unusual as there is usually a crack of a tear somewhere.

So maybe it’s the addition of the multi vitamin or the removal of crap food but it seems my skin has responded well to this too!

Other Benefits to the Velocity Diet

The primary benefit that most people will be going for is the weight loss, that’s the goal and the main reason why you start this type of diet. However there are plenty of other benefits you get that aren’t well documented or really pushed.

For me personally it’s shown that I do still have control over how I look and how I eat. I had become a slave of thinking that certain things were in my way from change and this has shown that they aren’t. I think it’s given me back the motivation to be healthy and know that there will be good results from that.

It’s given me a stack of extra time! Not only do I not have to shop for food anywhere near as much but I don’t have to cook or eat it either. I just make up shakes and down them. Each meal takes about five minutes as compared to between ten to 45 minutes. That really adds up and you can almost take up another hobby! I’ve been doing a lot more reading.

It changes your view of food and you realise that you’re in control of what you eat and it removes those weaknesses you had. I have found myself from time to time just open the fridge out of habit but instantly I kind of think about why I’m doing it. There isn’t any point and there is no reward to just eating for no reason. This eating pattern has definitely made eating more healthily and for the right reasons more important to me.

Further to that it has removed the eat-as-reward thing that myself and I think a lot of people have. It’s a habit and after 21 days of not doing it the thought really crosses my mind. I in no way have considered having a wicked meal to celebrate my completing the diet and the biggest no-no I’ve done during the diet was to have a couple of peanuts to test the seasoning I put on them. Seriously it was like 10 nuts. Other than that when I had a craving for something solid when I was feeling depressed I made a flax seed muffin with my shake contents and ate that with water. I don’t want to reward myself with food anymore and instead will probably reward myself with clothing, books, music and gadgets.

I’ve saved money! Again with the change of food habits I’m no longer spending money on crap food or booze. Crap food was probably $50 per week with lunches and ice cream and soft drink and things like that. Booze would probably be $50 a week too and so with both of those gone that’s a pretty good treat for being good each month! Or I just save the money for a rainy day. Either way, this diet works out cheaper. With these habits sticking that’s basically $100/wk and more that I’ll save for the rest of my life.

So there are plenty of other benefits to this diet and so I’d recommend people consider it just for the above reasons. For the weight loss you can do it for anywhere between a week to the full four weeks. For the other benefits though you really need to stay the course. My first run will be for 28 days, but my subsequent run/s will just be until I’m happy with my weight.