# Notes on Ultimate Diet 2.0



## Bull Terrier (May 14, 2012)

Since I'm new to this forum (but most certainly not new to the sport) I wanted to share my experiences with the Ultimate Diet 2.0 system created by Lyle McDonald.

For those who don't know the author he is an ex-disciple of the mythical Dan Duchaine and collaborated with him years ago on his Body Opus program, which itself I believe was an update of an older system, i.e. Ultimate Diet created by Dan Duchaine back in the 80s. Lyle McDonald, being the clever git that he is, improved and tweaked everything and the final result is Ultimate Diet 2.0 (UD2 from now on).

Anyway, enough background, let me explain where I'm coming from now&#8230; I've been weight training since I was 18, and I'm now 38 years young. I've mainly followed Hardgainer type systems, of reduced volume training made up of training cycles so as to alternate the training intensity by varying the poundages at workouts. I would realistically say that my genetics are not suited to this sport, but that has never stopped me from trying. I always focussed on mass and strength and quite honestly with hindsight it would be fair to say that I lost sight of the bigger picture.

With my girlfriend nagging me that I was too fat, and me thinking that I still needed to attempt to add more muscle, I decided to go on a bit of a diet just to shut her up. First step for me was to get my bodyfat accurately measured at gym. The guy uses callipers, but he takes measurements at 9 points, he has a beautiful set of callipers and most importantly he knows how to take measurements. I nearly died when he read out the measurements - I was at a shocking 27%!!! I think that like a lot of people I had seriously underestimated my bodyfat and to say I was shocked would be an understatement.

Anyway, this only spurred me further to diet down. UD2 is intended for people who are no more than 15% bf, whilst I was at a whopping 27%. But - I was terrified of losing my hard-earned muscle mass (not that I was that massive or anything) by dieting with a normal diet like Zone or something like that. UD2 is designed to make you lose fat whilst either retaining your muscle, or even gaining a little. So, I decided to give it a go.

Since Lyle McDonald makes his living by selling these books I don't think it would be fair to explain everything about the diet or give links on illegal downloads. Suffice to say that it is technically a cyclical ketogenic diet, which is to say that there are several days of very low carb days interspersed with higher carb days. Protein is always kept high and fat is always kept relatively low. Training is made up of 4 full-body workouts per week, and cardio is optional (I don't do it personally). The training seemed like too much for my way of thinking, because it just sounded like almost certain overtraining. However I still decided to give it a proper chance and follow the system to the letter. I'm glad I did.

Even though I didn't meet the criteria for doing UD2 since my %bf was way too high, I still made tremendous progress. Obviously the initial weight loss is always the most dramatic, but I have found that the weight loss is very consistent. I started at the beginning of December 2011 and since then I have lost about 11kg of fat. My %bf has gone down from 27% to roughly 16%, and for the first time in my life I can actually start to see my abs. I've lost around 15cm around my waist. The best thing of all is that my strength has gone up!! This is truly incredible.

I just want to say that I strongly believe in this system and I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of other people who have tried it.

Anyone out there?


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## BigInTheCity (Jun 17, 2011)

Hi Bull Terrier

Those results are fantastic, keep up the good work!

Just reading the book at the moment, very interesting read as I'm a bit of a geek for enjoying the science side of things.

How are things now, 2 months on from your post?

I'm thinking about trying the slightly tweeked version he mentions in the book, with a goal of muscle building, rather than the fat loss.

Regards

Andrew


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