It is way too early to tell whether this was a good idea or not so I am going to need the rest of the week to see but I wanted to share a few things that I found interesting about the load, how I felt, what happened and the fact that I did not die. Well, not yet, anyway.
First, I stated before that sometimes my curiosity just gets the better of me. I just feel that if I don't experiment, I don't learn and even after 3 decades of doing this, I still want to learn anything I can. Because I have had such limited experience with this fat burner, I could have just stayed the course and ran it the same way I did last time and it probably would have worked great. However, that is NOT me. I have to play around, experiment and even if it doesn't work as well, I will know why and what not to do next time.
My initial thoughts that have bothered me for a few weeks now is that I cannot see how Skiploading MODERATELY could not help the fat burner work better - especially going into the second week on it where last time I felt like I lost quite a bit of its effect after the first 7 days. It still worked but not as well as the first 7 days. My theory was that just like regular Skiploading, the carbs would increase temperature and essentially provide gas on a fire to help the second week be as productive as the first week.
I was very careful when I loaded because I obviously didn't want to put myself in a situation where body temperature became an issue. To do this, I deduced that I was going to load moderate fat and moderate carb so that I didn't slam my body with tons of carbs, sharply increasing blood sugar levels and potentially causing body temperature to climb too high. My intial thoughts were 2 meals with the first consisting of sushi and the second consisting of a quality burger and fries. I decided to start the Skipload earlier in the day and do 3 meals instead of 2 and the first meal consisted of Lox and Bagels.
I was waiting for the heat but it just never came. It didn't come after the first meal and it didn't come after the sushi meal, either. I mean, I got warm but I always get warm when I Skipload even without the fat burner. The increase I experienced in heat was nothing of what I would have expected and let's just say that I did not hold back as far as volume of food. I ate a lot and almost forced food after I realized that there was no response as far as body heat. It was almost as if I was thinking, "Am I just not eating enough?" Now, I wasn't miserable but I was DAYUM full after those meals.
There were roughly 5 or so hours between meals and I admit that getting the burger and fries down for the last meal was more of a chore. I would have preferred to not eat it all but was making sure that I forced the food to almost force a heat response that never came.
When I say it never came, it did come at night while sleeping but nothing our typical box fan couldn't handle and it didn't disturb my sleep, at all. I slept as I always slept but did notice that I was significantly warmer at night when I would wake up than I was at any other point during the day.
Another thing that was noteworthy is that I did not anticipate filling out much, if at all. I expected heat from uncoupling and I expected my body to rip through the moderate carb intake and really not make much of any impact on my condition or fullness. I was WAY wrong on that one (and I did NOT use the SCGS compound while using the fat burner, either). I woke up Monday morning SICK full. I mean so full that you don't want to stop looking at yourself in the damn mirror. It was insane. Yes, I was waterlogged but the look was so appealing I kinda didn't care.
Now, when I say waterlogged I mean freakin' A waterlogged. Edema in the ankles that I admit I was not comfortable with as I know it had my blood pressure up and that is not ever good. However, it was a bit of a trade off in that I was ridiculously strong on Monday and felt like my skin was going to rip from the pump. For reference, this pump blew away anything I had ever had before from SCGS compound or ANYTHING. I want it again but the reality is that I don't like how I felt from the water retention so I will likely not do that again. It's a tough call because it clearly worked but ... it made me feel like shit and I feel it was a bit of a gamble - almost too much risk for me that I am not comfortable with.
The question now is: How will the rest of the week go? It is only Tuesday and almost all of the water is off and I am still substantially over my baseline at about 216 (baseline is 209) but I anticipate I will continue to clean up and drop water as the days progress this week. The bigger issue is that I need to get leaner. Yeah, being full is great but I need to get freakin' leaner.
The other question that is wide open is: What do I do this weekend for Skiploading if at all? I didn't load last time while running the fat burner and wasn't going to this time until my curiosity got the better of me. If I am leaner by the weekend then obviously the loading would have worked so do I do it again and just tolerate the water retention and sides for a couple days so that I can get the full benefit? Or do I not take the risk and skip the load entirely OR just load for a meal before bed?
All of these questions will be answered as the week progresses.
No matter what, though, I am still learning and that is more important to me than anything else.