I decided to start up a journal because of the November 100 challange. I really like how Specialk and Archie link their entry's into the challange. Gives a more crisp and clean look to it.

A little bit about me: I'm 25, I live in Glen Ellyn (suburb outside of Chicago) and I've been working out for about a year now. I became pretty serious about weight training in August, but was more of a "showed up 4 times a week and did whatever" thing. It was a good start, but a few weeks ago I decided to find some sort of plan that I can focus on, other then just lose weight.

Browsing around here and at T-Nation, I found Shugarts article about the V-Diet. I read every blog that I could find about this crazy looking diet, and all had positive reviews - if done correctly. I decided that I didn't want to dabble my toes in the pool, I just wanted to jump right in. I ordered the supplements needed, and started on October 21st. Today marks the 12th day that I have been on Chris Shugarts' Velocity Diet. I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through the first couple of days, and since then it's been a pretty smooth ride.

Anyway, I'll put my training log, food log, and any other kind of junk in here.

Hello :wave:
Smart move with starting your journal, I find it really helps.
Good luck in the November Challenge!!

Welp, just finished up my last shake of the day. Orange Cream, tastes a lot better then it sounds!

Nutrition was spot on, it's not hard to mess up 5 shakes :)

As for my total body workouts, I start with Legs, then do a compound push, compound pull, then three isolation excercises. For today:

Workout - 6:00 - 6:50
Deadlift: 10 x 3 - 225
DB Flyes: 3 x 8 - 35
Pullups: 5, 5, 3 - Bodyweight
DB Incline Bicep Curls: 2 x 10 - 20
Skullcrushers: 2 x 10 - 45
Seated Calf Lift: 2 x 10 - 90

Work was so-so. Lot of boring stuff, couple people taking some days off tomorrow so expecting things to be a little more hectic.

After work, grabbed Peanut (my dog) and we went on our 45 min walk. All in all, a solid day as far as nutrition/workouts go.

Hello :wave:
Smart move with starting your journal, I find it really helps.
Good luck in the November Challenge!!


Thanks for the warm welcome Archie! Good luck in your challenge as well :D

Yikes, have to post this from my friends house so I wouldn't lose my point!

Today was pretty normal. Had my five shakes, decided to try mixing it up a bit, and took the Banana Cream powder and make a "thick" shake. I put this in the fridge for 10 min or so, which turned it into a pudding like substance. Not bad, ate it with a spoon. Tasted like banana nut pudding, so I'm not going to complain.

After work, took the dog for our daily little walk, then finished up the day with some Vanilla mixed with a little Pumpkin Spice. To keep things safe, I headed over to a friends house, where we're playing a little Halo 3.

Had to set my fantasy football guys today, looks like I'm going with:

Brady - QB
Westbrook - RB
Peterson - RB
Kenton Keith - RB
T. O. - WR
Brandon Marshall - WR
Tony Gonzalez - TE
Chargers D
some random kicker since mines on Bye.

I play a pretty weak team I think I'm a 34 point favorite, so ought to be a pretty easy weekend.

Anyhoo, that's enough for tonight. Tomorrow night is my moms surprise 50th b-day party (shhhhh), and that's going to be a pretty big bump in the road. Not only is it at a fantastic Chicago Banquet hall (old school pizza to), but it starts at 6:30. I'm either going to have to shift my shake schedule or slam it down in front of 80 people.

Well, here it is, the one day that I have feared most since I've started the V-Diet, my moms birthday. I'm heading out in about 30 minutes to get there early to help set up, so I figured I'd post now so I don't forget.

--Weights--
Squats
205x5
205x5
205x5
195x5
195x5

Bench Press
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3
110x3

Rows
110x8
110x8
110x8

Preacher Curls
45x10
45x10

Seated Calves
90x10
90x10

Then I did Abs for 15 min. After Abs I did my 45 min on the treadmill so I could get that in, with all the running around today I didn't want to say "eh, I'll get it in later" and then not do it.

Food has been on, my tactic is to flop my last shake with Natty PB to 6pm, right before the party starts. I've also switched my 1pm 3 scoop shake to 6pm as well. The goal is to be feel full from 7pm to 8pm. Then they take the food away, and I'll be ok.

Hopefully I can do this, my extra piece of motivation is that tomorrow is my weigh in. If I mess up tonight, then my weigh in will suck, and I don't want that. So far today, 100 points. I'll edit in if things change though.

Weigh in day!!!

For the week~
Weight - 237.4
Waist - 39"

From last week I'm down 3 lbs, but more importantly, down 2 more inches around the waist. At the halfway point of this diet, I have dropped 9 lbs 4" off my waist. Not shabby.

Before I go on though, I do have to mention that I need to subtract a point for last night. I went on food overload, having all that great smelling italian food in front of me drove me to the point of crazyness. I made it all the way until cake, then caved and hit the salad bar. I loaded up on greens, carrots, and black olives. Even though it was a pure veggie cheat, it still wasn't scheduled, so minus 1 point for me.

Now for today!

Cheat day!!!

I plan on making some chili, aft I finish this I'm heading to the supermarket to get my ingredients. What I'm tossing in there:

4lbs ground turkey
4 15.5 oz Cans Kidney beans
2 Onions
2 Tomatoes
1 lb Diced Carrots
4 Bell Peppers
6 cloves Garlic
2 bottles of V8 Veggie Juice
Chili Powder
Cumin
Paprika
Celery Seed
Pepper

Makes me hungry just thinking about it, so I'm going to go!

Losing a point for stuffing yourself on vegies... could have been worse so well done :)

Let us know how the chilli turns out :drool: I am having chilli tomorrow... hopefully

The Chili was fantastic! Even my picky girlfriend who hates everything liked it, so it had to be decent. Prep time was a killer, it took me about an hour and a half to chop up all the veggies, but it was definatly worth it. The only thing I am going to do differently next time is add some more chili powder, 4 TBSP didn't seem to be enough.

Also, that recipe makes a LOT of chili. I had to use a stock pot to cook the chili in because there was so much stuff. I ended up freezing more then half of what I cooked so I can use it as a few meals after I'm off the velocity diet.

In other news, my body responded pretty well the food yesterday. I had a pretty intense bathroom session late last night, but other then that all was well. I jumped on the scale this morning, and my weight is up, but not by that much. 238.8, so one lb and a half. I'll prolly have that water weight off by lunch time :lol:

Cardio yesterday was a piece of cake, I hopped on a treadmill during the Pats/Indy game. I'm pretty happy with the Pats winning. Brady is on my fantasy team which has been dominating, but with a team built like them, they just deserve to win.

Today I'm off from the gym again, so all I have to do is walk the dog when I get home. I'm not expecting any set backs today.

Hey man! Good luck with your goals and that V-Diet. I'll be following your progress. I've been thinking about giving it a try myself.

Hey man! Good luck with your goals and that V-Diet. I'll be following your progress. I've been thinking about giving it a try myself.

Thanks! Any questions, just ask! The simplicity of just 5 shakes is what made this so appealing to me, and the change it is making towards my cravings is amazing. Instead of wanting pizza or a cheeseburger (which actually look bad to me now) I want to eat an apple, or have a chicken breast and some rice.

Had to set my fantasy football guys today, looks like I'm going with:

Brady - QB
Westbrook - RB
Peterson - RB
...
Chargers D

I play a pretty weak team I think I'm a 34 point favorite, so ought to be a pretty easy weekend.



Peterson the Viking version? If so it was quite the day to have him, well except for the fact that he killed your defense. I'd say it made up for itself though.

Peterson the Viking version? If so it was quite the day to have him, well except for the fact that he killed your defense. I'd say it made up for itself though.

Ya, he was a stud on Sunday. In the ESPN league I'm in, he scored me 48 points, putting me ahead of 154 to 81 for the win. I just hope he doesn't rebound with a no touchdowns like he has been this season. I'm playing the last team in the league, but still, Brady is on bye meaning I have to start McNabb....

Just trucking along on the V-Diet. It doesn't even feel like a drastic change at this point. I don't feel hungry, I had another solid workout today, maintaining weights and even going up in Leg Press. I left my notebook at home, so I'll have to edit in my weights a little later tonight.

Daylight savings is a pain. Now it's dark and cold by the time I get home for work, making my nightly walks with my dog a little uncomfortable. You're not supposed to get your heart rate up really high in these walking sessions, so I don't warm up much. I might switch to using the treadmill and just run the dog around the back yard with a ball for a bit so he tires out.

Which reminds me, the #1 best workout partner (for cardio at least) is a puppy. They never quit on you, and more importantly, they bug the crap out of you until you get off your butt and get moving....

Weights for today:
Leg Press
270x5
270x5
270x5
270x5
270x5

DB Shoulder Press
45x5
45x3
35x5
35x4
35x3

Pullups
5 sets of 4, Bodyweight

DB Shrugs
45x15
45x15

Dips
5 sets of 4, Bodyweight

Abs

Next week I can try going up again with Leg press. Shoulder Press I got a little cocky on, I wanted to do 40 - 5x5, but couldn't find the 40's so tried the 45. To much to soon. Next week it'll be back to 35's. Pullups and Dips I'm trying to get 5 sets of 10, so still a lot of work there. Shrugs will probably stay the same until I can get to 2 sets of 20.

Daylight savings is a pain. Now it's dark and cold by the time I get home for work, making my nightly walks with my dog a little uncomfortable.

Ahhh.. I usually go for a run in the early morning (wake up at 5AM). So in terms of daylight, when I drive to work it's much lighter, so that's nice. The difficulty is the turn in temperature for the weather. It was 37 degrees this morning when I went out. I wear a lot more layers while jogging now. What I need is a pair of breathable running gloves to keep my hands warm. When it turns 5F, then I'll start getting cold! :D

You've got the right idea DashZ. Right now, my schedule is up by 4am, read the paper, work on some course work, then in the gym by 5:30am. Right now, I only lift in the morning. I do a lot of moving around and random stuff during the day, so my energy levels get low by the time I'm off work. I hate lifting tired, so I just go before work. I may try to get to the gym on my lunch hour for my cardio. Maybe I'll do a test run next week and see how that works. Puppy is going to be mad at me though....

One thing that is quickly becoming my friend on the velocity diet is green tea and water. I've never drank so much water in my life. I'm getting close to 1.5-2 gallons a day. It's amazing how often I feel hungry, but in reality I'm just a little thirsty. The water helps, and the green tea helps "change it up" in the afternoon. Lipton makes a diet green tea in a bottle, I may look into getting some of that stuff...

Legs feel good from yesterday. Shoulder is a little tight, but nothing major. Hawks play Columbus tonight, so I'll probably just kick back and watch them tonight.

10 more days to go! I'm looking forward to having some solid meals. I seem to have caught a "cooking" bug where I want to try about 800 healthy recipes I keep stumbling on. My favorites list got real long, real fast.

This mornings workout was good:

Workout:
Deadlift:
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3
225x3

DB Flyes:
35x8
35x8
35x8

Lat Pulls:
110x8
110x8
110x8

DB Incline Bicep Curls:
25x10
25x10

Skullcrushers:
45x10
45x10

Seated Calf Lift:
90x10
90x10

On a bright note, the Hawks won last night, 5-2 with a big 4 goal third period. Toews scored again, so the rookie duo sensation in Chicago remains hot.

I have cardio tonight, which shouldn't be much of an issue. I've been doing a bit of reading on Bill Starr's 5x5 program and may give that a try over the next couple months and see where it gets me. I'm still kind of a newb with weights, so I'd like to build up some strength during my cut. The goal is to try bulking in the spring, so we'll see how it goes.

On a bright note, the Hawks won last night, 5-2 with a big 4 goal third period. Toews scored again, so the rookie duo sensation in Chicago remains hot.


This being a bright note is a matter of personal opinion. And I guess it's ok since it is YOUR journal. ;)

This being a bright note is a matter of personal opinion. And I guess it's ok since it is YOUR journal. ;)

Heh, well at least you can rest easy with the better record. It's been an uphill battle for the past... 8 years? Wirtz SR. kicked the bucket this year though, so we'll see how JR. does...

As for today... CRAZY!!!

I was on the go pretty much all day. I had 9 customers I had to visit and run updates for. Pretty much a 12 hour day... ya.

I knew ahead of time though, so I packed up all my shakes last night in baggies and brought a shaker and a dozen water bottles. Weren't as great as the ice chip smoothies I've been having, but got the job done :D Met up with a friend at Life Time Fitness and walked with him through his workout routine, spotting him here and there. Then we had a couple games of racketball. Needless to say... I'm gassed right now.

This week has FLOWN by! Allready the weekend. I have a couple term papers I have to write up tomorrow, and a WAN lab that needs to be completed. Other then that, smooth sailing.

It's hard to believe I'm almost done with the V-Diet. At the beginning I thought this was going to last forever. The past few weeks haven't been nearly as bad as I expected.

Well, I missed my update yesterday :doh:

No real good excuse, I was on campus working on networking labs all day, and just kind of lost track of my day. I did get my first 5x5 workout, although I tweaked it a little bit just to see where I was at for weights.

Workout
Squats
110x5
130x5
150x5
170x5
190x5

Bench
90x5
95x5
100x5
105x5
110x5

Deadlifts
125x5
145x5
165x5
185x5
205x5

Shrugs
45x15
45x15

Calf Raises (seated)
100x15
100x15

My main goal in this is to get my bench up, while improving on my squat and deadlifts. I've been progressing decently with my legs since I've start lifting, but my bench seems to just kind of drag. I'm not quite sure what kind of setup I'm going to do for isolation work, probably one day of arms, one day of shoulders, and one of legs. We'll see what works though.

Diet is still going well, today my solid meal is going to be a couple chicken breasts, some brown rice, and a few cups of veggies. Then the final week of this diet, which means I need to start planning my meals for the following week...

Not much to report today. Did my cardio in the AM, and fit in all my shakes. Only a few more days left and then I'm done with my first cycle of the Velocity Diet.

Dominated in Fantasy Football again this week, despite Peterson getting hurt and Brady on bye week. Westbrook came up big, and I got lucky with McNabb performing well for once. Also, it looks like the guy that is second place in my division is going to lose, so that puts me 2 weeks up with 4 weeks to go. Things are looking good for that $50 for winning the division :D

Anywhoo, tomorrow is the first official day of my 5x5 program. I'm excited to start that, and see how it works for me over the next 8 weeks or so.

So what kind of progress have you seen on the V-Diet? I only did it for 2 weeks and dropped 7lbs before I'd decided to ease back into food.

I also saw you were looking into the green tea bottles. I drink two bottles of the Lipton diet green tea with citrus every day. One at about 10:30 and another at around 3:30. Absolutely love the damn things. They can get rather addicting though.

I've seen some pretty decent progress on the diet. I didn't weigh in week 3, but did take pictures. Most noticably my waist has shrunk pretty quickly from the start of the diet.

If I had to estimate based off my week 2 numbers, I've probably lost close to 15 lbs by now, and expect to drop 3-4 more by the end of the week. Also probably an inch or two off the waist from week two as well. That would be about 20ish lbs or so, and 5-6" off my waist in 28 days.

I'm more worried about the two following weeks though, with Thanksgiving coming up I will have to bend that will power a little bit more and stay away from pastries. I'm allowing myself a slice of pumpkin pie, but that's about it. Meal shouldn't be to bad, I'll load up on Turkey for the protein, and I've talked my girlfriends mother into making a huge veggie salad, along with having some steamed broccoli and various other veggies to keep me full.

Right now, I'm planning next week to be one meal a day, with the exception of Thanksgiving (might have an veggie egg white omelette in the AM). Then the next week, two solid meals. After that, I am thinking of running the V-Diet again for three weeks, 12-01 to 12-21, and then relax for the holidays. Then I'll see where I'm at after New Years.

Long term goal right now is to be down to 200ish lbs by the beginning of February. Super Bowl weekend I am heading down to Vegas with three of my best buds. Once I get back, I'll take a week or two to fix all the damage I cause my body, then I'll try my hand at some bulking.

I'm think I'll have to pick up some green tea today when I stop at the store. I have been doing the Diet Cherry Coke thing, but I really want to kind of stear away from Soda all together. I'm hoping that this tea will be the key.

So Comcast can die :blank:

It's been a rough couple days at home. For starters, my puppy seems to have been bred half gazelle or something, because he can hop the five foot fence I have for my backyard. He's gotten out about a half a dozen times the past two days, so now I have a stake in the ground with a 50' cable attached. He still has full roam of the backyard, just can't get to the fences now.

Then, ever since Monday, my cable connection has been cruddy. This wouldn't be so bad if I didn't take online courses. These courses have pretty strict timelines, like you have to post 2 comments in the discussion area by Tuesday night, etc. I thought there was something wrong with my computer, or house, but finally late Tuesday night I called Comcast and they let me know that my area has been having random blackouts. This morning there were trucks all over the place, so hopefully that will be fixed today.

Other then that though, it's been a solid week. Only a few more days left of the V-Diet, I've started the new 5x5 program which is pretty nice, and weight just keeps dropping.

Tuesday's workout:
Squats
110x5
130x5
150x5
170x5
190x5

Bench
90x5
95x5
100x5
105x5
110x5

BB Rows
55x5
60x5
65x5
70x5
75x5

Shrugs
45x15
45x15

Calf Raises (seated)
100x15
100x15

Wow, just gotta finish today and tomorrow, and I'm done with the V-Diet. I'm proud of myself for sticking to this, and I'm really excited to see my results on Sunday!

Workout for yesterday:
Squats:
110x5
130x5
150x5
150x5

Incline Bench:
75x5
80x5
85x5
90x5

Deadlift:
145x5
165x5
185x5
205x5

Situps:
3 sets of 25 situps

Looking forward to get out of work today, it's been a long week. Going to go see Beowolf at an IMAX theater tonight, so that ought to be interesting. Tomorrow I need to do a little grocery shopping for next week, and then Sunday I'm going to Indianapolis for the Colts game (booooo!) Sunday I'm definatly going to treat myself for some pizza in the evening, it's pretty much the only thing I crave now that's bad for you. I've never wanted to have chicken so bad before...