My fourth V-burn challenge I completed in 23m 41s!  Three and a half minutes better than last time!!!  I think I’m just getting used to it.

I’ll do it for two more weeks until the proper end of the Velocity Diet and then I might try the Intermediate one, which has 6 reps instead of 5, and different exercises.

Hooray, yesterday was the last day of the main part of the velocity diet!

Being the last day of Part 1 of the diet, it’s time to take my measurements again.  Here they are:

Neck: 38cm / 15in (no change)
Chest: 93cm / 37in (lost 2 cm)
Waist: 85cm / 33.5in (lost 7.5cm – yay!! )
Calves left: 38cm / 15in right: 39.5 (lost 0.5 cm)
Thighs left: 55.5cm / 22in right: 55.5 / 22in (no change)
Body fat: 10.6% (lost almost 3% – very happy!)

I was 81.2kg when I started the diet.  Now I’m 78.8.  So I lost 2.4kg (5.3 lbs) over the four weeks. I thought that was quite low, but after doing the measurements above, I see it’s not the weight you lose that’s important, it’s the fact that your whole body shape changes.

Now I get one healthy meal per day.  Great!

On day 26 I’d been left a comment which asked what it cost me to purchase the things required for the Velocity Diet, and that got me thinking about what it’s actually cost.  I know it’s a lot… but how much exactly?

The cost wasn’t the only problem – it was the actual inability to get the products in the first place.  The UK doesn’t have one tenth of the selection of things available in the USA.  Here, go into any health store anywhere in the country, and your options for protein powder will be Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla and Banana if you’re lucky.  In the USA, you’d have Tutti Frutti, Tropical, Chocolate Mint, and a million other wonderfully amazing and unimaginable flavours (at a fraction of the price).  I mean, if you’re a professional bodybuilder and you know what the products are, you probably know what are acceptable substitutes and what aren’t.  If you’re like me however, and you do weights because you have to and not because you want to, then you probably will have to use the Biotest products because you don’t know any better.  So you’ll have to pay top dollar if you’re in the UK.

Some people have said that the Velocity Diet was created by Biotest simply as a way of selling more of their product, and in a way, they’re probably right.  But I didn’t want to substitute anything because if I wasn’t happy with the results of the diet, I wouldn’t be able to blame it on using inferior products.  So I made sure I bought the products suggested where I could.  Here’s what I got:

Protein Powder £200.
I’d been recently introduced to Scitec Nutrition’s protien powder, and it tastes so good that I wouldn’t use any other protein powder.  I bought it from Supplement Clearance World online here http://www.supplementclearanceworld.co.uk/products/%20Brand::Scitec%20Nutrition and I must say they were very good – delivered each time within 2-3 days and never emailed to say they were out of stock of a product.  And they have loyalty points for existing customers.

L-Leucine £30
What the heck is Leucine anyway? I bought a different brand of this because I couldn’t find the Biotest stuff anywhere.  I bought MAXX ESSENTIALS L-LEUCINE from an eBay seller.  It has a horrible aftertaste I must say, I think I’d buy capsules next time.  I only used this for 4 weeks out of the 6.

Biotest superfood £38
Bought this on eBay.  Boy it’s expensive.  I only bought 4 weeks’ supply because it’s so hideously expensive.

Biotest Flameout £60
This is the one I had the most trouble getting.  I tried to buy it online from an online store (unfortunately I don’t recall which one), however they emailed me soon after to say they were out of it (even though the website said “IN STOCK”).  I then bought and paid for it on eBay.  The seller got back to me and said that he didn’t have it in stock.  GRRR!!!  I thought you weren’t supposed to list an item unless you actually have it in your posession at that exact time?  Maybe I’m thinking of TradeMe (New Zealand).  Fortunately, the second seller I tried on eBay had it (I emailed them first to make sure).  These are examples of ridiculously bad service you get in this country.

You could probably just buy regular fish oil capsules from any health store if you wanted to save some money.

Biotest Surge £40 (post workout drink)
I love this stuff.  I bought the Raspberry one (well, actually I bought the Chocolate one but got sent the Raspberry one – yet another example of bad service by UK businesses) and god it was nice.  If it wasn’t SO expensive I’d buy it all the time.

Milled Flaxseed £10
Bought from Holland and Barrett (it’s here).  Others have reported not liking the taste, but I think it’s okay.

Natural Nut Butter £12.50
Holland and Barrett again.  I alternated between Cashew nut butter and Almond nut butter.  My god they’re nice.

So overall, the total is £390.50 for the six weeks.  A LOT of money.  Of course, you don’t have to buy regular food for the first four of the weeks, but I don’t know about you – I don’t spend nearly £400 on food in four weeks.

It’s been fun though.  I’ve still got two more weeks to go of eating only one or two healthy meals a day, and I’ll write up my verdict on the diet as a whole then.

Well this is it, the last day where I have no solid food.  What an experience it’s been.  No weights today, which is great.

I’ve been missing running, and I think I’m going to go out for a run tonight.  Now that I’ll be eating solid food again I don’t think it matters too much.

I didn’t do my measurements when I said I would last but I will do them tomorrow, tomorrow being day 28.

Boo hiss Tesco!!!

http://www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/paymonthly.aspx?page=5

They’re advertising that for £30 per month, you get UNLIMITED (in capital letters) calls & texts.  However, in the small print, you’re limited to “£500 worth of usage” per month.

Now admittedly that’s a lot of usage… but it’s not unlimited!  This type of false advertising has me fuming.  How are Tesco allowed to advertise “Unlimited calls & texts” that’s limited?

I’ll never buy from Tesco Mobile because of this.  An overreaction?  Possibly.  But there is so much misleading advertising these days that someone has to take a stand, even if it is just one person!

I’m not sure I’ll go as far as closing my Tesco Savings account and ceasing to shop in their supermarkets.  But that’s certainly crossed my mind.  I absolutely *hate* companies that think that just by adding an asterisk (*) after a word, that they can change the English definition of that word to whatever they want.

Vodafone did a similar thing a while back – they advertised “Unlimited Internet” which was limited to 2GB per month.  I’ve never bought from Vodafone since then and I never will again.

Today is day 26!  Only two days to go until I get to eat one meal a day.  I can’t wait.

Being Thursday, this is about when the hunger pangs start, but they’re not so bad this time, I think because I know I’m allowed a meal a day from Saturday!

Although I’ve been bad, I skipped my first workout this week.  I can’t let that happen again… naughty naughty.

128 meals down and only 12 to go.  91% of the way through.  I’m so excited!

Yesterday was day 23, in a way time has gone fast, but in another more accurate way, I’m glad I don’t have to do this beyond this week.  It’s getting tough.

Saturday I had my sub from Subway and it was goooood.

Yesterday I did the V-Burn challenge (see day 8).  This time I did it in 27m 25s!  Nearly 2 minutes better than last time!  I did push myself though, at the end of it I came so close to throwing up.  Lucky I rested for 30 minutes immediately after it and I was fine.

117 meals down, 23 to go.  84% of the way through – incredible.

Of course, after this week I’m only allowed one healthy meal a day, and the week after only two healthy meals a day, but that will be super easy compared to one healthy meal a week.  It means i’ll be able to go out with my cousin on Monday and have dinner with her when she flies into London from Qatar!

Yesterday was the first day on this diet where I felt hungry, I mean really hungry.  I couldn’t stop thinking about food all day.  I wanted to go to the deli and get a massive chicken roll, with many many slices of cheese, and then a bag of pick-n-mix sweets, not just a small bag, but at least £5 worth.  Oh god I was hungry.

It was probably partly because it was a slow day at work and so I had time to think, and also I was so tired because it’s been real hard to sleep because it’s been so hot.  I ended up going home yesterday and going to sleep at 7.45 and waking up at 8.20 the next morning.  I skipped the weights because I was just dead.  I feel better today!!

Today I did my weights from yesterday.  I was full of energy today after such a big sleep.  On Saturday for Healthy Solid Meal day I am going to go to the Subway on Aldgate High Street and get a big fat Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki footlong sub on Honey Oat bread, and a big bunch of strawberries from Tesco.  Yum I can picture it now.

Yesterday, I looked in the mirror and for the first time I really felt like I noticed a difference.  It made me very happy indeed.  I’ll do proper measurements tonight but I feel like my body fat percentage has reduced by 2%.

I also felt like I could lift much heavier weights than I could two weeks ago which also made me happy.  Plus more energy in general, even though I’ve had trouble sleeping because it’s been so hot at night.  It’s been a good week so far.

I’m happy about no weights required today.

Yesterday (day 14) I went to the Brighton party, and as I had a feeling might happen, the lure of drinks and birthday cake was too much, and I ended up having three or four drinks, and several pieces of birthday cake

So, I officially ended up failing the diet on day 14.  But, never fear, I’m going to continue to press on.  I made it almost 14 days without breaking the diet, and if I can go on the next 14 without making a mistake, then I’ll still feel like a success.

Drinking these protein drinks after having yummy chocolate and carrot cake is really hard, and once again, I feel a bit like being sick.

Day 15 (Sunday) I didn’t do a lot, I made sure I got my walk in but silly me forgot to restart my stopwatch after stopping to tie my shoes, silly me, so I don’t know how fast I was walking.

Today I’ll walk the long way home from work as my walk.  Then I have to do weights… I hate doing weights on Monday (I hate doing anything on Monday) but I will persevere.