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0 Appendix
This book is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute
for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. It is a review of scientific
evidence presented for information purposes only. Use of the guidelines herein is at the
sole choice and risk of the reader.
Copyright: First Edition 2014 by Lyle McDonald. All rights reserved.
This book or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or recorded in any form without
permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews.
For information contact:
Lyle McDonald Publishing
1200 Hatteras Drive
Austin, Tx 78753
Email: lylemcdonald@bodyrecomposition.com
Introduction
The Ultimate Diet 2.0 is one of my earlier books. Over the years I've gotten a lot of feedback and
questions about the program and, in hindsight, there are three major issues that come up over and over
again. Rather than attempt to re-write the entire text of the book, I've put them in this little booklet as
an appendix/addendum.
The first topic has to do with starting the diet. While many people do just fine jumping into the diet
(usually out of a mass gaining phase), it became fairly obvious that the combination of a drastic
reduction in carbohydrates coupled with the depletion workouts were just breaking people.
To combat that, I've designed a 2 week break-in period. This is meant to be done after you finish your
previous gaining phase and is conceptually similar to the hardening phases that bodybuilders used to
use between their bulking phases and contest dieting. The idea was to harden up, get a bit of
recomposition (more muscle and less fat) as they cleaned up their diet and adjusted their training to get
ready for the grind of the upcoming contest diet.
Now explicit goal of this phase isn't to lose fat (although that might happen) but rather to get yourself
metabolically, physiologically and even psychologically prepared to handle the full Ultimate Diet 2.0
Cycle. It only needs to be followed for 2 weeks but will make your first cycle of UD2 a lot more
survivable.
The second topic deals with what to do between blocks of using the Ultimate Diet 2.0. In the book
itself, I suggest using the diet for no more than 6-8 weeks without taking a "break". If you're lean
enough to use the UD2 in the first place, that's really about the limit to how long you should diet
without giving yourself a mental and physical rest.
But over and over people were asking what they should do during that break in terms of their diet and
training. In this booklet, I will answer that question in detail. Even if you only do one 6-8 week cycle
of UD2 and then plan to go right back to gaining, I still recommend using this 2 week break period to
stabilize your body fat levels and start re-adjusting your training before you go back into gaining mode.
The third section is what to do after the diet is over. Clearly the goal of UD2 is to reach very low levels
of leanness but, unless you're just getting ready for a contest, it's important to know what to do to come
off the diet so you don't blow up. You'll notice that there is a bit of overlap between sections but they
are distinctly different. Please read them all.
The fourth section is an expanded section on UD2 variants for powerlifters and Olympic lifters. Many
times these strength athletes find themselves in a situation where water manipulation alone isn't
sufficient to get them into the weight class (or they only have a short period between weigh-in and
competition and can't severely dehydrate) and they need to lose fat without losing too much
performance.
The fifth outlines a 14-day UD2 variant that many have heard about but that I've never really addressed
in any sort of detail.
Finally I finish up with some of the Frequently Asked Questions about the diet.
Upper/Lower Option
Upper Body
Lower Body+Abs
Push
Pull+Legs
Crunch: 3X6-8
Triceps 2X6-8
Crunch: 3X6-8
Triceps 2X6-8
Or something roughly along those lines. You can train according to your schedule but
Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday or Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday or something similar would
be appropriate.
Since volume is most likely reduced from what you were doing, I really want you to focus on intensity,
in terms of weight on the bar during these workouts. This is basically a maintenance load, volume can
be cut significantly (by up to 2/3rds) but you won't lose muscle or strength so long as you keep the
weight on the bar the same as when you were in your gaining phase.
The volume is also lowered because you're going to be following up each of the above workouts with a
short high-repetition/short-rest type of training to start getting used to that style of training (for the
depletion workouts).
Introduce Cardio
Once again, I don't know with any degree of certainty whether or not you've been doing any sort of
cardiovascular training in the off-season. Some trainees do, most do not. For that reason, their
tolerance for cardio as well as the metabolic pathways involved in fat burning are often a little bit out
of practice (no, that's not a technical delineation). This two week phase is a time to bring in cardio
gradually so that the addition of it on the UD2 doesn't contribute to your getting wrecked.
Of course, if you have been doing cardio already, this section isn't that relevant to you. If not, read on.
Like with the depletion work, I suggest bringing in cardio fairly gradually. Two weeks isn't really
enough to get a big aerobic adaptation but every little bit helps.
I'd start with a minimum of 10-20 minutes of low intensity cardio (heart rate 120-130 and it may be
higher due to the previous training) on your lifting days. That's a minimum of four cardio sessions per
week. Alternately, you can do up to 30 minutes of low intensity cardio on the off days. Fasted if you
desired but it won't really matter at this point.
I'd add at most 10 minutes every two workouts duration wise to a maximum of 40-45 minutes if you
cardio after weights. If you're doing cardio on the off days, you can be a touch more aggressive and
build up to a full hour. But keep the intensity LOW. No intervals, no HIIT. Just good old brisk walking
on the treadmill or outdoors. Old school cardio. It still works.
With that calorie level, set, I'd suggest setting your macronutrient intake at roughly 1.5 g/lb of protein,
1 g/lb carbs and 0.5 g/lb fat. Use lean body mass for these calculations and don't get too hung up on
exact numbers. So let's say you are 180 pounds at 10% body fat. Here are some sample calculations.
Step 1: Determine pounds of fat and LBM by multiplying total weight by bodyfat %
180 pounds * 10% = 18 pounds of fat
Step 2: Subtract total fat mass from total weight to get LBM
180 pounds - 18 pounds = 162 pounds of LBM
Step 3: Multiply LBM by 14-16 cal/lb (I'll use 15 cal/lb) to get total calories
162 pounds * 15 cal/lb = 2430 calories.
Now we determine the amounts of protein, carbs and fat to consume each day.
Step 4: Determine Protein Intake
162 pounds * 1.5 g/lb protein = 243 grams protein * 4 cal/g = 972 calories
972 calories/2430 calories = 40% protein
Step 5: Determine Carb Intake
162 pounds * 1 g/lb carbs =162 grams carbs * 4 cal/g = 648 calories
648 calories/2430 calories = 30% carbs
Step 6: Determine Fat Intake
162 pounds * 0.5 g/lb fat = 81 grams of fat * 9 cal/g = 729 calories/
729 calories/2430 calories = 30% fat
Again, it doesn't have to be exact, the point is to raise protein a bit, moderate your carb intake and keep
fat at low to moderate levels. You can divide that up into whatever meal pattern fits you best
depending on size.
Bigger folks tend to do better with more meals (or they are extremely big and difficult to eat) but
smaller women and men often find that 3-4 bigger meals works best or the meals end up too small to be
satisfying. If you do intermittent fasting, you can divide the food up over your eating period. If you
don't know what that sentence means, don't worry about it.
And that's that. For the two weeks between your previous gaining phase and starting the UD2, I want
you to apply the above recommendations. Alter your lifting frequency to a twice/week per muscle
group frequency while cutting volume slightly (but maintaining intensity), progressively bring in highrep/short-rest interval work to prepare for the depletion workouts, add some cardio slowly and alter
your diet so that total carbohydrate intake is moderated.
A quick tangent
I should make a quick comment about that before moving on: if this is your first time being contest
lean, it will mess with your head going forwards. Once you've been 4-5% for a man or 11-12% for a
woman, anything higher will make you feel fat as hell.
Even at 9%, a man who has been contest lean feels like a blimp. Nevermind that he is leaner than most
of humanity; in his mind he's fat. It's the same for women, a woman at 15-16% (lean but sustainable)
feels HUGE after she's hit 11-12% on stage..
I can't give you much advice to deal with this beyond dealing with it. It's actually a good reason NOT
to do a physique contest unless you want to do it a lot; it totally skews your idea of normal forever. It
causes a lot of people to do some really silly stuff though, trying to maintain a level of body fat that just
isn't healthy and sustainable in the long-term. You have to come to terms with this and it may not be
easy. But that's an issue for you and your therapist to take up. Ok, back to the chapter.
Now if you didn't get that lean, you probably ended up fairly close to the numbers I gave above: if you
were a male using UD2, you should have gotten to 8-9% bodyfat, nice full 6-pack, leaner than most on
the planet. A female should have ended up in the teens somewhere. Ripped upper body, legs leaned
out.
Post-Contest Competitors
As I mentioned above, some of you used UD2 to get contest lean and, as much as you want to do,
maintaining contest leanness is not realistic or even a good idea from a physiological or psychological
point of view.
Clearly the first thing is to gradually let your body fat percentage increase. There are horror stories of
athletes gaining 20-40 pounds in a few days (most of this is water and glycogen) with post-contest
binges but if you followed UD2, the incorporation of the carb-loading and allowed forbidden foods
should help to prevent that. So let's focus on achieving a gradual increase in body fat percentage before
joining the other group of UD2 users at maintenance.
So first you're going to let your body fat gradually increase until you hit the ranges I mentioned above
(9-10% for men, 15-16% for women). At that point, I'd highly suggest that you spend 2 weeks at stable
(but low bodyfat percentage) before gaining. Just to let hormones, metabolism, etc. renormalize to as
great a degree as possible.
To do this of course you're going to increase your food, cut back your cardio and you can go ahead and
change your weight training away from the UD2 cycle. You can simply use one of the above splits or
whatever you want to do. At this point since you will be eating more, I'd suggest cutting back your
training weights to give your joints and body a break.
You can go to maybe 80% of your best performance (so if you were doing 100 lbs X 8 in an exercise,
just do 80 lbs X 8). You won't lose strength or muscle at this point but it will let all of that accumulated
fatigue from dieting dissipate.
Cardio can be reduced or outright eliminated. 20-30 minute three times per week on non-weights days
often helps people keep their food intake in check (it's VERY easy to lose control when the diet ends)
but keep it low intensity and let your body recover. Or just eliminate it outright. You won't have a heart
attack if you don't do aerobics for two weeks.
So what about diet? First and foremost, you're clearly going to get off the cyclical UD2 approach. You
probably adjusted the cycle to accommodate peak week to be full and dry for your show and the fact is
that pretty much everyone is going to go nuts at the pancake house the night afterwards.
I'd suggest doing a 1-2 days high-carb/low-fat refeed coming straight out of the show. Don't train, just
eat. That will refill glycogen, bump leptin levels and just help with overall food issues coming out of
the show. So that's Sunday and Monday. After that you will need to get things back under control a bit.
Now the first thing you'll need to do is to determine how much fat you need to gain to get to the body
fat percentages I listed above (8%-10 for men and 15% for women). To show you the math, I'm going
to use a sample male dieter who came into contest shape at 175 and 5% body fat.
Step 1: Multiply your current weight by bodyfat percentage to determine fat mass
175 * 0.05 = 8.7 pounds of fat
Step 2: Subtract pounds of fat from total weight to get lean body mass
175 pounds 8.75 pounds of fat = 166 pounds lean body mass
Step 3: Divide lean body mass by 1 minute goal bodyfat percentage as a decimal
So if the goal body fat percentage 8% we subtract 0.08 from 1 to get 0.92
166 pounds / (1-0.08) = 166/0.92 = 180 pounds
If the goal were 10%, you'd divide by 1-.10 and use 0.92. A woman aiming for 15% would use
1-0.15 = 0.85. Get it?
So assuming no lean body mass gain, this athlete would have to gain 5 pounds of fat to get from 5% to
8%. You can do the calculations for your own numbers. For the average sized lifter this number
shouldn't vary hugely, even a 200 pound athlete at 5% bodyfat only has to gain 6 pounds of fat to get
to 8%. A small female who competed at 118/12% body fat has to gain that same 5 pounds of fat to get
back to 15% body fat.
I wouldn't suggest gaining that fat any faster than maybe one pound per week. So a post-contest athlete
is looking at 5-6 weeks of deliberate fat gaining before they stabilize at their new higher body fat
levels. And yes this is similar to the concepts of reverse dieting that has been becoming more popular
although my goal is more gradually increasing body fat than anything that reverse dieting claims to do
(but doesn't actually do)..
I'd generally suggest keeping protein intake high and gradually increasing total carbs with a small
increase in dietary fats (this increase should ideally come from monounsaturated fats like olive oil and
polyunsaturates but don't go nuts with the latter). This can be accompanied by increasing training
volumes (consider this a general preparation phase as you're still recover from the rigors of contest
dieting) although don't go nuts trying to keep cardio in to stay lean. You need a break after a contest is
over and this is the time to take it.
Of course, if you lose control for a few weeks, it's very easy to put on that same 5 pounds of fat in a
much shorter period of time. If that happens, so be it and then move to the next phase.
Maintenance Phase
If you originally used UD2 to just get super lean but didn't get contest lean, this is where you start.
This is also where the previous 5-6 weeks of post-contest deliberate fat gain should put you.
The goal of this phase is to stabilize at your current body fat level, that same 8% or so for men and 15%
for women. Physiologically, many of the metabolic effects that occur during dieting are reversed (or at
least ameliorated) by bringing calories back to maintenance. I do generally recommend adjusting
your estimated maintenance down slightly (by about 10% or 1 cal/lb) to take into account the metabolic
slowdown that is simply unavoidable during dieting.
So a reasonable caloric intake during this phase would be 14-15 cal/lb (the higher value will be more
likely for men or those with very high activity levels). So multiply your current weight by that value to
get calories. I want you to eat at least 150 g/day of carbohydrates or more or you can use a value of 1.5
g/lb. So a 120 pound female would be eating 180 grams of carbs, a 200 pound male would be eating
300 grams. It's still moderate but covers the minimum requirement easily.
This level of carbohydrate intake is necessary to upregulate thyroid levels along with leptin and, flatly,
eating more dietary fat will not accomplish this goal. You can eat more carbs if you know that you can
handle them but you can't eat less.
Protein can be dropped to 1 g/lb if you like but keeping it higher (1.5 g/lb) tends to help with hunger
control. A lot of athletes are kind of burnt out on high-protein intakes after a diet and you can give
yourself a mental break from it if you desire. But don't go any lower than 1 g/lb of lean body mass.
Fats will make up the rest of your calories but where it ends up will depend on where you set the above
values. Here is the math for someone eating 15 cal/lb, 1.5 g/lb protein and 1.5 g/lb carbs who weighs
160 lbs (for this calculation go ahead and use total weight).
Step 1: Multiply LBM by 15 cal/lb to get total calories
160 pounds * 15 cal/lb = 2400 calories.
Step 2: Determine Protein Intake
160 pounds * 1.5 g/lb protein = 240 grams protein * 4 cal/g = 960 calories
Step 3: Determine Carb Intake
160 pounds * 1.6 g/lb carbs =240 grams carbs * 4 cal/g = 960 calories
648 calories/2430 calories = 30% carbs
Step 4: Determine Fat Intake
2400 calories - 960 calories from protein - 960 calories from carbs = 480 calories from fat
480 calories / 9 cal/g = 53 grams of fat (0.33 g/lb of fat)
That's a reasonable amount while being low enough to allow plenty of protein (for hunger control),
carbs (for hormonal upregulation) while still allowing decent food variety. You may get a slightly
different value if you plug in different numbers for protein.
You'll maintain this intake for the 2 (or more) weeks of your maintenance phase. You may be
wondering how long to stay at maintenance and there are tradeoffs to be had. Certainly you get more
hormonal and metabolic recovery by staying longer at the same weight/caloric intake.
However that has to be weighed against athlete's general desire to start gaining muscle and strength or
eating a little bit more. I do recommend an absolute minimum of 2 weeks at this level before you even
consider upping calories. If you want to stabilize for 4 full weeks, you'll probably be in a better place
to start gaining but I understand if you get impatient.
Friday: No Training
A little bit of GPP would be acceptable here but keep it low volume.
Saturday: Power Workout
Ok this is the big day for your training and you're essentially going to do what amounts to a mock meet
training squat, bench, deadlift followed by some extra work for the rest of the body. Now, here there
will probably be the most variation in training depending on what style of training you're used to.
If you're doing Westside style training, this is an ME day. Lowish reps (3's and lower) for a few heavy
sets and grind/go for PR's. Hit squat, bench, deadlift is probably best worked heavy every other week
tops. Follow that with some extra tension work for the other muscle groups, just like in the original
UD2.
If you're on more of a traditional rep cycling routine, just plug in the heavy day on this day. Over 8
weeks you might do a cycle where you do 2 weeks of 8s, 2 weeks of 5, 2 weeks of 3, 2 weeks of
doubles. Or whatever the system you're following is.
I think you get the idea, on Saturday work the competition movements in a competition training style
and then follow it with extra work for the other muscles. So delts, arms, core, prehab. No cardio
today of course.
Sunday: Day off
As with the original UD2, you can take today off or do some light cardio/GPP in the evening to set up
for the next cycle.
Or pick an assistance exercise that allows/requires more weight than the one you did on Monday (i.e.
snatch from high hang on Monday, snatch from below the knee on Thursday). Snatch first and then
clean and jerk.
You want to work at around 80-85% intensity on this day and that would tend to mean a maximum of
doubles in the snatch and singles (1+1) in the clean and jerk movements. Again do an appropriate
volume for that loading.
Again, with a lack of machines in most OL based gyms, you'll need to pick movements that are
relevant for the rest of the tension training. It will probably be more squats, RDLs or GM's, presses,
some arm and core work and do the same 2 sets of 6-8 keeping a couple of reps in the tank in those
movements to set up the carb-load.
Friday: Day Off
I'd keep this day completely off or do a bit of walking or something if you want to stretch your legs. If
you just must do something OL related, do some very light (70-75%) work to loosen up and keep your
groove. If you don't come out of the workout feeling better than you went in, you did too much.
Saturday: Power Workout
Saturday is the big day of training. Olympic lifters have long made saturday a test or mock
competition day and this is a good one to really go for it. I'd recommend the full competition
movements here. So full snatch and full clean and jerk to keep that groove.
If you training routine uses some type of cycling on the heavy days in terms of percentages, I'd slot that
into the Saturday day. If not, just aim for 85-90% or higher . If you're in a Bulgarian style system,
today is a day to go for a max/daily max. If you're not get you're 3-6 singles at 90% plus in the
competition movements. You can go 6 singles in the snatch and probably 3 sets of 1+1 in the clean
and jerk. You should know how best you train if you're advanced enough to use this diet so program a
heavy day and go get it done.
Of course snatch then clean and jerk. Then hit heavy power work in squat, RDL/GM, press, you know
the drill. Go heavy as per the UD2 which means triples or 5's and go heavy. You should be carbed, feel
strong and be able to go very heavy. You've got 48 hours to recover so hit it hard and then continue
your carb-load.
Sunday: Day Off
This is a day off. Brisk walking in the evening if desired is fine but other than that, no activity today.
Q: I've been doing the UD2, got my 2 initial cycles in to really dial things in but I don't seem to be
losing fat. What should I consider changing in this situation?
A: This is a bit of a tough question to answer since there are potentially multiple things that could be
going wrong. The first thing I'd suggest is that you make sure to only compare like days of the week
to like days of the week. Comparing a Monday (when you are full and carb-loaded) to Thursday
(maximal depletion) won't give you good comparative values. Either compare Monday to Monday or
Thursday to Thursday or whichever day you think gives you the best indicator of real change.
The second suggestion I'd make is to be aware that self-measurement of body composition is fraught
with peril. Calipers take practice to use well, Bioelectric Impedance scales are fairly crap and most
methods have an error bar in the estimation that makes small changes in body fat difficult to measure.
Take a variety of measurements, weight, a few caliper measurements, tape measurement is probably the
ideal situation so that you can see if nothing is changing, or it's just one measurement that is off.
So let's say that a caliper pinch tells you that your abdominals (or thigh) aren't leaning out but a tape
measure thrown around your waist or thighs indicates a half-inch drop. Clearly you're leaning out, just
in a place where the calipers aren't picking it up (in this case the obliques and low back or hamstring
respectively).
But let's assume you've done all that and still nothing is happening. There are a number of potential
places to look for problems. One error that many seem to make is rushing the depletion workouts and
not making the sets long enough. This doesn't yield the optimal glycogen depletion and the entire cycle
is sort of dependent on that. Use a stopwatch during your sets (remember 45-60 seconds in length) to
ensure that they are long enough to really deplete glycogen. If it's not burning about 3/4 of the way
through the set, you're doing it wrong.
Although I doubt it's a problem for many, I'd at least check that the low-carb days are right in terms of
portions and amounts. It's pretty hard to screw this up, with a 50% deficit from maintenance, even if
you're mis-measuring by a little bit you should still be in a big deficit. But it is worth checking.
Probably the primary place, assuming your workouts and lowcarb days are correct is the carb-load. In
the book I mentioned that 12-16 g/kg is the optimal value but there is some variability. Women moreso
than men seem to do better with the lower values for some reason and even lighter men may find that
16 g/kg offsets the deficit created during the week. So that would be my first suggested change, reduce
the total carb-load amount to 12 g/kg lean body mass from after the Thursday tension workout until
Friday night.
Along with that, make sure that your caloric intake isn't too high on Saturday around the power
workout. Certainly you get better recovery and growth with a slight deficit but the key here is slight.
10% over maintenance shouldn't be more than a few hundred calories unless you are a BIG boy. Don't
double or triple that and then wonder why the fat loss isn't occurring.
The same comment goes for Sunday, it can be maintenance or slightly above but slightly is the key
word. Consider dropping this to slightly below maintenance (14 cal/lb or so) so give a slightly greater
deficit across the week.
And finally if none of that works, consider that the 7-day cycle isn't optimal for you. I have no idea
why but some people just spin their wheels on it. Either try the 14-day cycle or do a different diet.
Q: Have you updated any of the supplement recommendations from the original book? I've
heard of new yohimbe forms that are supposed to be better, or new stimulants?
A: Honestly, no. The supplement industry constantly tries to reinvent the wheel since there doesn't
seem to be a lot of new products to be had right now. So they come up with new forms of the old stuff,
pull some irrelevant science and sell it.
Creatine is a good example where basically no variant on creatine was ever better than the original
monohydrate; the only exception were the micronized forms which were easier on the stomach for
most people. But creatine ethyl-ester, creatine gums, chews, etc. were just more expensive and usually
less effective than the cheaper bulk basic form.
The same goes here so far as I'm concerned and I will always stand by the products that have years of
research and real-world results over new stuff. New isn't always better and is often worse.
I don't think BCAA have any benefit if protein intake is sufficient in the first place, the EC stack has
always worked and most of the new thermogenics and supposed fat burners only work in mice. The
claim about alpha-yohimbine are nonsensical and the only interesting thing of note these days is the
new HBM-Fatty Acid but until I see that study replicated, I'm not recommending it.
So just stick with what the book recommends.
End
And that's that: the UD2 Addendum. At this point, I hope that there are no remaining questions about
the Ultimate Diet 2.0, how to get ready for it, take a break, end it or apply it to other strength sports.
No, I didn't do an updated endurance version but that was pretty well laid out in the original book and I
didn't see the point.