You can go from VVR to Whitney, you just have to hang some food or eat even less than you already do, all while carrying the heaviest load of the hike at the time your body finally realizes it actually needs to get more calories. After the initial week on the trail, your body will seriously crave food, but you'll hit the point in your resupply schedule where you can't take extra calories, because your can is too small.
I have a Bearikade Expedition and do 18-25 mile days, so VVR to Portal actually is doable quite easily for me, but it is vacation, and if I can carry less, or have more to eat at the end of the hike, I am going to choose that option. The cost to have food waiting at MTR versus the overall cost of my trip is rather unimportant.
One thing you may want to consider if you just use VVR is to stop at MTR and add a few things to your can from the hiker barrels, buy some fuel there, or whatever else you know you don't have to carry from VVR to MTR. Unless you show up very early in the season, those hiker barrels (plastic buckets, sorted and labeled by categories) are rather full with food and other goodies.
If you want more advice than you can handle, join the John Muir Trail Yahoo group. They have many resources you may find useful prior to a first trip on the JMT
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/johnmuirtrail/info
