Week 2 covers four things: progress & expectations, how hormones respond to dieting, honest tracking, and meal prep. Plus a short word on training and the rep ranges in your programme.
Watch the video, then use the notes as your reference for the week.
Progress isn't linear — reset your expectations
Most people think the work looks like a perfectly smooth line trending down. It doesn't. What it actually looks like is up, down, up, down, up, down — with the trend slowly drifting downward over weeks.
Some weeks stall. Some weeks the scale jumps up despite doing everything right. I had one this week — weight dropped 2 kg, then bounced back up 1.5 kg. I'm still putting all the work in.
There are so many short-term factors: stress, water retention, sleep, training response, hormonal shifts. None of them mean you're failing.
And progress shows up in places that aren't the scale:
- Feeling better day-to-day
- Less bloated
- More energy
- Lower stress
Typical timeline:
- Week 1: water weight drops, glycogen drops, intestinal weight drops (food clearing through), early stress reduction. A lot of scale movement that isn't fat yet.
- Week 2: things start to settle. More stable readings.
- Week 3 onwards: the real fat-loss weeks begin.
Calm down, breathe out. It's been one week. You're not going to lose 10 kg in seven days — this stuff takes time. A bit of honesty and patience and you'll feel a lot better.
Hand on heart — did you actually track everything?
I've been coaching 14 years and I'll tell you something: the small untracked things add up. That square of chocolate. The oil in the pan. Finishing the kids' leftovers. The biscuit with your brew. They all count.
So — honestly — did you track Monday to Sunday? Or just Monday to Thursday? Social events count. You need to know the damage to act on it.
My own example: I went to the cinema, thought "yeah, normal day", smashed the popcorn, then tracked it after — 1,400 calories. Massive overshoot from one tub. That's the kind of honesty that fixes things.
Some of you are sitting there going "this is more calories than I've ever eaten" or "this isn't enough food." Just be honest with what's actually going in your mouth. I can adjust the numbers if needed — what I can't fix is a tracker that doesn't reflect reality.
How your hormones respond to dieting
When you diet too hard, your hormones push back:
- Leptin & ghrelin — ghrelin increases hunger, leptin reduces it. Dieting throws them off and ghrelin tends to win.
- Insulin — impacts how well you retain muscle.
- Testosterone can drop.
- Cortisol rises. High chronic cortisol is one of the strongest predictors of future weight gain.
That's why we don't do extreme dieting for long stretches. You can run a deep deficit short-term, but pushing it too hard for too long stretches your body out, raises cortisol, and you eventually regain everything — sometimes more.
Why I don't recommend low-carb
If you cut carbs drastically, fast for 20 hours a day, or live on 900 calories, you're queuing up rebound. There's also research showing that when you diet hard, perceived exertion in training rises even when the actual workload is lower, and exercise-induced cortisol is higher too.
I've done this myself as a grappler — cut my carbs, then wondered why I was gassing out on the mat. Low-carb, high-fat may slightly increase fat oxidation in training, but it's associated with lower exercise efficiency and economy. In plain English: if you want to struggle, go low-carb. It makes life feel like shit.
Back in the day, pre-grappling, I was obsessed with running and cycling — ran half marathons on low-carb. Felt like running through mud. Brought the carbs back, felt amazing. That's the entire experiment.
Remember the hierarchy
Someone asked this week: "If I have McDonald's on a Sunday, should I worry?" No. Just look at your weekly calories. That's where it's at:
- Weekly calories
- Daily calories
- Daily protein
- Carbs & fats — preference
Meal prep — three strategies
Meal prep doesn't have to mean boring Tupperware Sundays. Pick the strategy that fits your life:
1. Big prep, once a week
Doesn't have to be every dinner for seven days. Could be:
- Prepping all your breakfasts — yoghurt pots, overnight oats
- Cooking off all your meat for the week
- Prepping just proteins — then assembling a meal at meal time
Grab a tray of chicken from the fridge, throw it on a plate with whatever else you've got in. That's a meal prepped.
2. Cook once, eat twice
When you're making dinner, just make extra. Tomorrow's lunch is already done — the oven's already on, the pan's already dirty. Zero extra effort.
3. Mini prep, twice a week
Quicker, fresher, more variety — avoids the same-chicken-and-rice trap. Lean on:
- Slow cookers and rice cookers
- Pre-cooked staples — chicken, rice, salad packs
- A big pan of pasta with veg, a bit of cream cheese, chicken — easy, quick, solid
Fresh vs frozen? Both fine. Use whichever's easier.
Training — what to focus on this week
Week 2 is a big one. You're getting into the groove, you've got your first check-in this week, and training and nutrition are starting to lock together.
The first couple of weeks are about awareness — drilling habits around calories, protein, and showing up. Nothing fancy needs to happen yet. We adjust training more seriously around week 3-4.
For now: don't try to train harder. Focus on quality. Live in the higher rep ranges already programmed. Bank clean reps.
A star that shines twice as bright burns half as long. I've watched people come out hot in week 1 and disappear by week 3 — don't be them.
Why the rep ranges matter in a deficit
When calories drop, recovery drops — you're fuelling yourself less, so you can't fully recover. If you ramp intensity right now you'll spike fatigue, recovery tanks, and you'll feel it.
- 10-15 reps — motor control, muscle endurance, perfect in a deficit. Movement quality, control, much safer when you're under-fuelled. This is where most of the early programme lives.
- 6-10 reps — the great zone. Risk creeps up with load selection and form — as intensity rises, mechanics break down. That's why we don't live here early on.
- 1-6 reps — max strength. We spend very little time here. The goal isn't heavy singles; the goal is being consistent.
We drop the reps and bump the load later in the programme. But heavier reps aren't what makes you shredded — showing up at sensible intensity and managing your calories does.
Be flexible — and lift with intention
If you wake up under-fuelled or wiped out, bump the reps up, drop the load. Clean reps. Bank consistency. Don't sweat the numbers — well-trained lifters won't be hitting PBs in a deficit and that's fine. Newer lifters will see lots of progress. Seasoned lifters: the win is moving well. Refine your technique now so you can push harder later.
One cheat code: intention. Don't lift blindly. Go into each session with a purpose — the same way you'd approach a grappling round.
Occam's Razor — the simple answer is usually right
When you've got a load of solutions and don't know what to do, the simplest one is normally the correct one. I see people overcomplicate this stuff as an excuse. Be honest with yourself about that.
If the biggest barrier between you and the result you said you wanted is using a tracker — you probably don't want it as much as you say you do.
Results come from simple things done consistently. Hit your calories. Hit your protein. Train on your training days — whether the session feels great or not.
Order of importance — training
- Get your weekly sessions done. If you said three, do three. If you said two, do two. Showing up beats everything.
- Be honest with intensity. Half-hour session? Log a half-hour session.
- Track your lifts. Track them — but don't worship them.
- PBs are nice to have, not required.
Don't use "knowledge" as an excuse
I spent way too many years on the "I need more knowledge first" trap — travelled the world chasing perfect training and nutrition. Owned a gym for 10 years. Over six figures spent on education across 14+ years of coaching.
The honest truth: the knowledge was there when I qualified at 19. I just hadn't applied it.
You don't learn to swim by reading about swimming. You swim.
All you've got to do is: track your calories, fill your tracker out, hit your protein, lift. That's it.
Week 2 action points
- Reset expectations on progress — trust the trend, not the day.
- Track honestly. Monday to Sunday, social events included.
- Avoid extreme approaches — no low-carb, no 900-calorie days, no 20-hour fasts.
- Build a practical meal prep system — pick one of the three strategies and run with it.
- Training: quality reps, sensible intensity, intentional sessions. Don't try to train harder this week.
- Show up to your first check-in.
Take advantage of me over the next three weeks. Ask questions, watch the videos, do the work. Q&A lands Friday — get your questions in.