Results of the last TEAM SKIP experiment

[Ken "Skip" Hill]

I know that some of the clients involved in the last experiment have already posted results in a couple threads but I wanted to get a thread up and explain what I saw throughout this last experiment in my own words.

First, the experiment was pretty simple in that I wanted to play with two things:

1. adding fat into the Skipload

2. using a reverse pyramid type of approach to the dieting

Most that know me, or have followed what I have had to say for a while now, will know that I always like to play with new ideas and experiment or try out new approaches to things. For the last show I did over the summer I did both of these things and they worked very well so I wanted to see if it was just me or if it would work for others, as well.

For starters, I got the point early on in my prep that I was running an all day Skipload and I didn't really want to start the night before with the load at something like 15 weeks out. I just felt that was too far out and wasn't comfortable losing that one day of weight recording (my weight would be up due to starting the load the night before). So, I decided to add in some fat to the load and it not only kept my load inside of one day for many more weeks but it seemed to not only work just as well but possibly was working even better as the weeks progressed. I was seen by a fellow prep guy at a popular burger restaurant 3 weeks out and while he was talking to me in the parking lot after I had killed 3 burgers, he kept looking at my legs and arms wondering why I had worms all over me. lol He didn't ask if I was competing because ... well ... he just saw me kill off 3 very large burgers and he knew the show was only 3 weeks later. When he saw me backstage at the show we all got a good laugh and his exact words were "only Skip could pull off something like this".

Second, I did something that I really didn't plan on doing at least consciously. I started the diet very low in calories and not eating any vegetables, at all. The only real reason that I did this was because I just couldn't stomach the meals at first and was absolutely stuffed and the vegetables made me gassy. So, I started at only about 3 or 4 meals and added calories as I got hungry as the weeks passed.

So, I thought I would try to start the calories low and build into them over the weeks like I did because it worked very well. I pretty much increased calories to the point that I was eating about 3 times as many calories at the end of the prep as the start and I was easily Skiploading with 3 times as much food and probably even more than that. This is called feeding the metabolism. Yes, I increased cardio but this prep I only did about 1/4 of the cardio that I have done in the past though I did use cardio cycling.

So, this was the approach that I used for the experiment. How did it work?
Mixed reviews. I mean, it worked across the board but to different degrees. Some had stellar results and others had great results and some had so-so results. I would say that by and large most people had great or stellar results but I couldn't put my finger on why some had only average or so so results, either. I can't say that everyone should have had incredible results because it won't usually work that way but it bothers the shit out of me when I can't put my finger on why, when it doesn't work as well as I would like it to.

Clearly, there are issues of execution that can play into it and there are metabolic issues that could have been in play before I even started working with a few of these clients but in the end, if I am being honest, there were a few people that got only average results.

The hardest part of this for the client? The scale weight not moving much. This REALLY was a tough issue for some because when most people diet they want to see the weight go down and it really didn't go down much. What was happening was that they were changing their body composition which is great but ... our brains still like the black and white of the numbers changing and when they aren't, it isn't easy when you hear your nutritionist say that everything is fine and you are still progressing when you can't see the black and white numbers changing.

After time, most came around to understand it and accept it after they saw obvious changes about 2 months into it. The changes for some of them were just too obvious to deny.

I think the only catch to doing this type of approach is you have to be good in your head with the scale not moving much and you have to use other ways to gauge progress like calipers and tape measurements in addition to pics and the scale. If you only rely on the pics and the scale, good luck.

If any of the experiment clients want to chime in, feel free. I had a good time working with the bunch that joined in for this experiment and it is always great to get that feedback that what I thought would happen, actually did happen and was consistent for the majority of the others.

Skip

[mentalflex]

Skip, with the individuals who only got average results, have they used your traditional Skipload methods previously (and how did they do with that)?

As you noted above, there are certain metabolic issues that come into play, and I would be interested in knowing how well the individuals who got average results process and respond to fats.

This could be interesting trying to find out why there were deviations in the results...

Thanks for posting up your experiment Skip.

[-AJA14-]

Skip, do you believe in a metabolism type?
Like 1 type prefers higher fats. 1 type prefers higher carbs and 1 type can utilize both.

[dakoose]

Was this experiment meant as a contest prep diet for your guinea pigs and it ended up being more of a recomposition for them?

Also, when you say you did a reverse pyramid, how low are we talking from the get-go? I mean, I understand if you don't want to dole out all the details, but if you are willing to discuss numbers, are we talking ~1500 calories? I ask because from some of what I've read/heard from John over at IA's, he's a big believer in going very low for a short/moderate period of time to ignite your metabolism and then when you slowly up cals after that you can get great recomp/muscle gain with minimal fat gain.

[zalex999]

I am gonna weigh in here on a couple things as a member of the experiment team myself. I will start off by saying I have not asked Skip, so I do not actually know which category I fall into in terms of results, whether they are good or if I am one of the head-scratching cases.

I was at dinner with Skip when he pounded the 3 burgers and chatted with the other prep coach, and it was quite interesting seeing him living everything he preaches as he FILLED UP and actually almost over-did it when he drank some soda. So for those who mentally call BS when he puts out those stories of himself, I invite you come down and have a burger in Colorado. He also did a great job coaching me through the experiment. Now onto some numbers.

I started the experiment at 220 lbs, I got as low as 215.5 over the course of the experiment and actually ended the diet at about 224 right before my last load.

I was undoubtedly leaner at the end of the experiment, I see that, Skip saw that and a friend who visited about 2/3rds of the way through the experiment said he could see changes (he is an experienced weight lifter and friend who has seen me throughout the past few years and whose opinion I trust).

Being a highly strength driven individual I was very glad to see my lifts did not get shit on by the initial low calorie-phase, however, I will say some of my weaker link lifts (bench/oh press) did not progress a huge amount in terms of maximal strength during the experiment.

Body-composition improved, while not dramatically week-to-week, the end result was undeniably positive body composition changes.

Towards the end of the experiment I asked for a push in leanness, and Skip had me try out a cardio cycle with MUCH higher cardio for two weeks. It did surprisingly little to/for me, and taught me a very valuable lesson in that I seem to be more affected by diet changes than cardio, because we could easily manipulate my weight and appearance with adding to or decreasing the Skipload.

A couple weeks out now from the experiment, I have been making some dietary adjustments per Skips suggestions and am liking what I see. I am going to continue with this style of eating for the next 4-6 months and see where I end up.

Over all I would say it was a successful experiment, and can now, more strongly than ever, recommend working with Skip.

I would be happy to chat about any questions you guys have for a participant as long as I feel they are fair to Skip.

[Ken "Skip" Hill]

I do believe that some people respond better to higher carbs vs. lower and higher fat vs. lower fat, yes.

Thing is, sometimes it can be different for the same person from one year to the next because variables can change like activity on their current job, metabolism and diet before they started the restricted calorie diet, type of training they are doing (high vs. low volume, etc.), etc...

I do not believe that each person has a specific type of metabolism for a specific diet, no. There are just too many variables that are almost always changing to be able to lock down something like that.

Skip

Skip, do you believe in a metabolism type?
Like 1 type prefers higher fats. 1 type prefers higher carbs and 1 type can utilize both.

[Ken "Skip" Hill]

Skip, with the individuals who only got average results, have they used your traditional Skipload methods previously (and how did they do with that)?

I would have to check but I believe that all of the experimenters were working with me for the first time. Still, they could have used the Skipload in the past but that would be hard to compare because it wasn't under my supervision so who knows what it would have looked like.

Plus, I admit that I made a mistake by changing 2 main variables at one time. I should have done either the adding fat into the Skipload OR the incremental reverse pyramid style for calories so that I could have had more clear and obvious results showing that one method was better than the other.

What I believe I see as a result is that both concepts worked well but how well is where I lose out by not separating the two.

Skip

[Ken "Skip" Hill]

I don't want to give out numbers because, again, they weren't exactly the same across the board with each person. They were, however, very low - so much so that protein was low, as well, and I think that most on the board would see the numbers and go "oh, wow, that is pretty low".

I was going for dropping body fat as quickly as possible but not at the risk of losing muscle.

Skip

Was this experiment meant as a contest prep diet for your guinea pigs and it ended up being more of a recomposition for them?

Also, when you say you did a reverse pyramid, how low are we talking from the get-go? I mean, I understand if you don't want to dole out all the details, but if you are willing to discuss numbers, are we talking ~1500 calories? I ask because from some of what I've read/heard from John over at IA's, he's a big believer in going very low for a short/moderate period of time to ignite your metabolism and then when you slowly up cals after that you can get great recomp/muscle gain with minimal fat gain.

[Ken "Skip" Hill]

I forgot, you WERE there that night, huh? lol

I wouldn't classify your results as head scratching as much as I would say that you weren't in the top group of dramatic results, no. Still, we spoke about what I think the issue is/was and I think over the next handful of weeks and the changes we put into affect for you coming out of this experiment, we will see if we are right or not. If we are, and you respond well to even ore calories then you will then fall into that category that you need a LOT of calories to feed your metabolism and that going low calorie simply squashes your metabolism.

Do keep me posted.

Skip

I am gonna weigh in here on a couple things as a member of the experiment team myself. I will start off by saying I have not asked Skip, so I do not actually know which category I fall into in terms of results, whether they are good or if I am one of the head-scratching cases.

I was at dinner with Skip when he pounded the 3 burgers and chatted with the other prep coach, and it was quite interesting seeing him living everything he preaches as he FILLED UP and actually almost over-did it when he drank some soda. So for those who mentally call BS when he puts out those stories of himself, I invite you come down and have a burger in Colorado. He also did a great job coaching me through the experiment. Now onto some numbers.

I started the experiment at 220 lbs, I got as low as 215.5 over the course of the experiment and actually ended the diet at about 224 right before my last load.

I was undoubtedly leaner at the end of the experiment, I see that, Skip saw that and a friend who visited about 2/3rds of the way through the experiment said he could see changes (he is an experienced weight lifter and friend who has seen me throughout the past few years and whose opinion I trust).

Being a highly strength driven individual I was very glad to see my lifts did not get shit on by the initial low calorie-phase, however, I will say some of my weaker link lifts (bench/oh press) did not progress a huge amount in terms of maximal strength during the experiment.

Body-composition improved, while not dramatically week-to-week, the end result was undeniably positive body composition changes.

Towards the end of the experiment I asked for a push in leanness, and Skip had me try out a cardio cycle with MUCH higher cardio for two weeks. It did surprisingly little to/for me, and taught me a very valuable lesson in that I seem to be more affected by diet changes than cardio, because we could easily manipulate my weight and appearance with adding to or decreasing the Skipload.

A couple weeks out now from the experiment, I have been making some dietary adjustments per Skips suggestions and am liking what I see. I am going to continue with this style of eating for the next 4-6 months and see where I end up.

Over all I would say it was a successful experiment, and can now, more strongly than ever, recommend working with Skip.

I would be happy to chat about any questions you guys have for a participant as long as I feel they are fair to Skip.

[JohnnyBravo]

I was part of this experiment. I don't know whether my results were part of the "stellar" category or part of the "disappointing" category, but I was pretty pleased. I really got pretty lean, leanest I've ever been, and it was just what I was looking for before I started gaining weight this fall/winter.

After 8 weeks, I dropped a (seemingly atypical) 17lbs. I subsequently gained 6 back when I started using D-Aspartic Acid and Creatine Mono and bloated up a little bit.

I definitely liked it, as a whole. It wasn't tough to stick to. The cardio wasn't overwhelming, and it still got results. In fact, the amount of cardio I was doing was less than I had been doing previously. Probably the best endorsement I can give is that I will try this again, next time I get lean.

With regard to Dakoose's comment: the calories were pretty low at first, in a sort of, "oh shit that's low" when I first saw them, and TBH, lower than I would have trusted myself to reduce my calories. Was really only willing to go that low because of Skip's reputation. When you have someone that experienced telling you what to do, you tend to figure it'll work. It did work.

[tmcg86]

I’m not sure what category I was in either in terms of how successful Skip thought my results were, but I was really happy with my progress... I started the diet carrying a fair bit of fat and I was fairly successful during the initial fat loss and recomp and had definitely improved my body comp after the first 2 months, but in the last month Skip had me losing fat a bit faster than he has indicated was typical (I don’t know if Skip had to make adjustments for me especially because I was carrying too much fat to begin with or because I was one of the clients who was too focused on the scale weight and he got tired of my bitching – I didn’t think I was THAT bad ). Anyway, so I finished quite a bit lighter and a lot leaner, with visible abs (for the first time) and feeling great. The diet was very simple to follow and I guess fairly low calorie, but I still felt I had the energy to train and progress so I'd say it was a success.

Also, I should mention that one of the highlights of the experiment was that Skiploading was AWESOME. The first few weeks were normal Skiploads, but it really is that much better when you add fat. This made the diet extremely easy to stick to socially but also in terms of meal preparation. I’m doing normal skiploads now so I’ll be able to compare results.

[dakoose]

Anyone have before/after shots?

[jtstp77]

I am extremely pleased with the experiment results. As usual, Skip delivered.

I ended up with a decent drop in scale weight (206 to 189). Like others, I had weeks where the scale didn't drop much, or even went up a bit. During these times, my training progressed, and I could see continued visual improvements. There were some periods in the evenings where I had food cravings (but not hunger, per se). Food choices were flexible, and Skiploads were plentiful and fun--there's something to be said for being able to get a restaurant meal without having to order off the menu!

Bottom-line: My progress during the 90-day period was more dramatic than any that I've had in the past, and I am as lean as I've ever been. I'm signed on for another six months with Skip.