I always enjoy the crowd that likes to make it sound like cheat meals, refeeds and Skiploading aren’t hardcore and that you can’t get ripped if your refeeds, cheats or Skiploads are too big. It’s almost as if loading on more than 1 meal is somehow taboo these days and you aren’t going to be peeled.
Shit please.
Now, I am not at all saying to eat like a hog on the weekends and you will get shredded, too, but I am saying that these general and very broad statements aren’t accurate. You CAN eat a ton of calories and get ripped if your timing is right, the amount of food you are eating is right and if you build your body into eating these larger amounts of food.
And it isn’t “cheating”, it is highly structured – whether it appears that way on IG or FB when I post pictures of what I eat when I load for most times well over 1 full day.
Now, can you get ripped without huge Skiploads, refeeds and cheats? Absolutely. In fact, as much as I believe strongly in my methods and have proven them for years and years, my methods are not the only way to get into great shape. However, if you have the option of getting ripped eating shitty, bland meals and having a cheat meal once every 3 weeks or you can build into Skiploading once a week for sometimes a full day or longer, why in the hell would you not choose the latter option???
No, it isn’t unhealthy.
No, it isn’t going to cause the “Beetus”.
No, you don’t gain body fat if it is done correctly.
You can choose not to Skipload or have cheats and you can prefer to diet without giving your metabolism a break but please do not ever say it doesn’t work because I have proven it too many times for that to be said – not only with myself like I am currently doing right now in my prep but I have also used this method of dieting for 17 years myself AND for thousands and thousands of clients.
This last weekend I loaded for 1.5 days.
I started at 7pm Saturday with my training partner at IHOP because there are no gourmet breakfast places open past 3pm here in Denver. Plus, IHOP does have some pretty good pancake and French toast options.
I opened with the SCGS compound (high carb and lower fat meal) and my meal consisted of:
Blackberry cheesecake pancakes
Bananas Foster brioche French toast (with extra extra sauce and extra extra bananas)
Peach Praline pancakes with ice cream on top (extra extra peach sauce and pralines)
4 eggs over medium and a stack of sour dough toast to sop up the egg yolks
Notice my training partner's one plate. He's an amateur but we are working on him.
4 hours later:
No SCGS compound (moderate fat/moderate carb)
1 half pound Cherry Cricket burger (peanut butter/bacon/grilled pineapple rings/pepper jack cheese
Fries
1 slice of carrot cake
Sorry, no picture of the carrot cake but I assure you it was damn good looking.
The pic of the other burger is Mrs. Skip's. It had onion strings, grilled jalapenos, cream cheese and strawberry habanero jelly.
SLEEP
10am
SCGS compound (higher carb and lower fat)
Breakfast at Syrup, Denver
Nutella-stuffed French toast with strawberries and strawberry syrup
Coconut crusted brioche French toast with coconut syrup (to die for)
Baked apple pie pancake with mascarpone
Crab cake benedict with smashed tator tots on the side
2:30pm
NO SCGS compound (moderate fat/moderate carb)
1.5 half-pound Cherry Cricket burgers (peanut butter/bacon/grilled pineapple slices/pepper jack cheese)
Small piece of my grandson’s birthday cake
6pm
SCGS compound (higher carb/lower fat)
A massive amount of sushi that I can’t even begin to calculate. The pic was only one of the rounds we ordered.
Mochi balls for dessert
11pm
2 toasted english muffins with light butter and homemade peach preserves from our friend Jen. Her preserves are so good I don’t even put it on the English muffin, I simply take a bite of the English muffin and I use a spoon and put a spoonful of preserves in my mouth with the bite. Oh yes.
½ pint of Ben and Jerry’s new “Oat of This Swirl” ice cream.
I don’t count calories but obviously this is a TON of calories. I have built into this amount of food over about 4 months and I am continuing to drop roughly 2 pounds per week and getting into incredible condition.
You don't have to subscribe to my dieting methods but be fair enough to admit that they work and they work well. I have spent years proving it and still am.
I've been running on a 100-200 calorie deficit during my normal feeding days (rotating macros around training days), and have one refeed per week where I don't even bother with tracking for the most part. I calculated maintenance calories based on LBM, and don't count macros from most veggies (I eat a crap ton of them regularly).
I can say that I am quite a bit under maintenance but not so much that I am risking muscle tissue. I have held my strength almost 100% over the last few months.
I can tell you that the only way this amount of food will work to fuel my metabolism without adding body fat is that I have to be depleted when I take in all of that food.
You mentioned you started designing skip loading from the shit loading principals. There is a lot of so called fattier "shit loading" food spread out in between the higher carbs lower fat meals.
I did listen to your trt videos and you mentioned about going hypoglycemic. What based your decision to add fat and does that tend to lean more towards shit loading or is still in the parameters of skiploading just a gut feel that you go with?
I follow you and learn as much from you as possible. Have a huge amount of respect for your work.
Will hopefully get the chance to learn from you directly when the opportunity presents itself
Yes, the addition of fat to the Skipload would tend to "lean" towards shitloading, BUT ... I feel it isn't the same because I have guidelines that I have my clients follow (as do I).
Shitloading was kind of a free-for-all in that you just ate whatever you were craving or whatever sounded good to you. It could have been a dozen doughnuts or 2 gallons of ice cream (and I have been known to have put down KKs by the dozens and it worked well). However, these days I am much more focused on health and try to keep a healthy component to the method by insisting that my clients use more of a "meal" approach instead of it being a free-for-all. So, yes, the fat is higher but there is still a focus on carbs at the same time. I tend to refer to it as more of a "moderate fat, moderate carb" approach so that someone doesn't sit down to 4 pounds of wings with ranch dressing or 7 caramel crunch scones from Panera (which, by the way were sent from heaven by God, himself, but I digress ...).
I encourage meals like breakfasts containing pancakes with butter and syrup, hashbrowns, maybe a few eggs or an omelette, toast, etc.. Quality burgers and fries (not fast food but a restaurant burger or a bar burger I allow) even from 5 Guys is pretty good considering their food is hormone free and local, and they cook their fries in peanut oil. Sushi is a good option and pizza can be an option IF it is a floury dough (not heavy like pizza hut or old chicago) with better toppings instead of pepperoni and other shitty meats. Now, adding in a scone after a meal or some ice cream or a dessert is fine as long as it is on top of a meal instead of BEING the meal.
I do this higher fat intake because it slows the rate that carbs from that meal hit your bloodstream and that is what I ran into when I was forced to figure out how I was going to change my loads in 2012. I could have used the SCGS compound but I wsa not using it at that time and wanted another option. Plus, I am always wanting to learn and just throwing down more SCGS compound wouldn't have allowed me to learn the relationship between fat and Skiploading. Also, and this is not understood by a lot of people (more people than I would have thought): fat WILL be used by the muscle just like carbs, just not as readily and not as easily as carbs are.