Final Q&A — Diet Drinks, Tracking Mindset & Maintenance

Last Q&A of the block — last time you'll see my ugly mug. Three good questions to close it out: diet drinks, the fear of not tracking, and finding your new maintenance calories.

"What do you think of drinks like Diet Coke — bad or fine?"

Genuinely fine. Coke Zero, Diet Pepsi, whatever — zero calories. On a shred, a zero-calorie drink that scratches the sweet, fizzy itch is a tool, not a sin. If a can of Coke Zero stops you raiding the cupboard at 9 pm, it's doing you a favour.

Killing the myths:

• "Sweeteners spike insulin and stop fat loss." No, they don't. Fat loss is calories — a zero-calorie drink doesn't break a deficit.
• "Diet drinks make you eat more." For most people, not true. If anything a diet drink is what gets you through the evening without caving.

The one honest caveat: if a diet drink genuinely sets off a binge for you personally, then bin it. That's individual, not a rule.

Two minor things to keep in mind: caffeine (Coke Zero has it — a can at 9 pm can wreck your sleep) and teeth / gut (loads of it isn't great for enamel, and some people bloat off carbonation). Otherwise — it's a tool. Use it.

"I find the idea of not tracking daunting because of past habits. Any advice?"

Really important question — and first, well done for naming it. If tracking has a difficult history for you (disordered eating, an obsessive all-or-nothing relationship with the numbers), that awareness is the most valuable thing you've got.

Tracking is a tool, and no tool is worth your mental health. If numbers take you to a dark place, we don't use that tool. Simple as that. There's more than one way to get a result.

You do not have to track to get lean. Tracking is one method — precise, useful for some — but the actual driver is a consistent slight deficit, and there are calmer ways to reach it:

• Hand portions — palm of protein, cupped hand of carbs, etc.
• A plate rule and consistent meals
• Habits anchored instead of numbers
• A gentler track: protein only. Just one number — the most useful one — and far less obsessive than full calorie counting.

The bigger point: the goal was never to make you someone who tracks forever. The win is getting you to where you can eat well without an app running your life.

So if not tracking feels daunting, flip it — not tracking might be exactly the healthiest skill for you to build. Consistency beats precision every time, and a method you can actually live with beats a perfect one that messes with your head. If you want to talk it through, message me.

"What's the best way to work out my new maintenance calories — keep ramping up, or slowly maintain after the cut?"

Brilliant question, because what you do now decides whether you keep everything you just worked for. Loads of people nail a cut and undo it in a fortnight because they treat the end like a finish line. Don't be that person.

Yes — slowly ramp up, like it says on your tracker. Don't jump straight to maintenance overnight, and definitely don't blow the doors off. This is reverse dieting, and it matters for two reasons:

1. After weeks in a deficit, your body's primed to store — a sudden massive jump in food is when people balloon and panic.
2. A slow ramp lets you actually find your real maintenance instead of guessing.

Add food back gradually — a small bump each week, mostly carbs — and watch what happens.

Estimating your maintenance number

Rough starting formula:

bodyweight (kg) × 22 (female) or 24 (male) × activity 1.1-1.5

Example: 100 kg male × 24 × 1.3 ≈ ~3,100 kcal maintenance estimate.

But the real way to find it — let the scale prove it

The formula is just a starting point. Your bodyweight trend is the most accurate calculator there is:

• Keep tracking a little longer, even though the cut's done.
• Add a bit of food, hold it for a week or two, watch your weekly average.
• Weight stable = that's your maintenance, by definition.
• Still dropping? Add a bit more food.

Judge it on weekly averages, not day-to-day — weight jumps around for a hundred reasons. And expect the scale to rise a little as carbs come back in. That's glycogen, water, and gut content — not fat. It's normal, and it's a good sign: it means you can keep training hard with the extra fuel.

The mindset: you're not off-plan — you're in a new phase.

Where this leads — plan the year

If you want to be in shape for next summer, it starts now. Two rough roadmaps:

Lots of fat to lose: fat-loss phase Sept → mid-Oct, 2-week break, Nov → mid-Dec, diet break over Christmas, another phase Jan/Feb → mid-March, 2-week break, April → June, then a muscle-gain phase or just enjoy summer.

A little fat to lose: a short fat-loss phase now, then a big 15-20 week muscle-gain phase, then a mini-shred / mini-cut right before summer.

Well done — and don't let it slip

Two things to close. First: seriously, well done. You finished the whole block — whatever the scale says, you built habits over these weeks that most people never manage, and you did it while training hard on the mats. That's a harder version of this than most people ever attempt. Be proud.

Second, the honest bit: the end of the Shred is where most people quietly lose it all. The deficit's done, the structure disappears, life floods back in — and three months later they're back where they started wondering what happened. The people who keep it and build on it are the ones who don't stop when the group does.

If you've felt the difference and want to keep going — finding your maintenance properly, adding some size back, or just having someone in your corner so you don't drift — that's exactly what the 1:1 coaching is. A personal version of everything we've just done, built around you, your training, your weight class if you compete, your life.

You've done the hard part — you proved to yourself you can do it. Don't let it slip now. Thank you for being part of this — it's been an amazing group. Now go enjoy that reverse, and I hope to speak to a lot of you soon.