All questions anonymous as always. Watch the video for the full colour — use the notes below as your reference.
"Close friend's 40th next Saturday — ban calories and plan the drinks into MyFitnessPal, or just don't go?"
Go. A Shred you can only hold by being a hermit isn't a Shred — it's a prison sentence. You'll quit by week three. The whole point of this is to see if it fits in your real life: mates, birthdays, all of it.
The playbook:
- Bank, don't starve. Pull your daily calories slightly lower Monday to Saturday daytime. That gives you a buffer of roughly 1,500-2,000 kcal to play with at the party without blowing the weekly average.
- Pre-plan the drinks in MyFitnessPal before you leave the house. Log them while you're sober. Decide the limit while your judgment's intact, not at 11 pm with a pint in your hand.
- Cheapest lane: clear spirits + zero-sugar mixers. Pick it. Stick to it.
- Protein-load the day. High protein, lower carb, lower fat through the day so you arrive with calories in the budget and a sensible appetite. Don't turn up starving and smash the buffet.
- Sunday: back to normal. No fasting. No double session to "burn it off." Just go back to your numbers and move on.
One good night inside a planned week does nothing. Don't let it spiral into guilt. The plan is built to survive the 40th. Enjoy yourself.
"Should I track fibre as well as carbs, protein and fats?"
Short answer: don't need to hit a fibre target the way you hit protein — but keep an eye on it.
- Protein is the one we defend with our lives.
- Fibre — aim for 25-35 g.
A lot of you are in a deficit, and some of you are on GLP-1s. Both can slow digestion and back you up. Low fibre on top of that = bloated, sluggish, blaming the diet when it's actually your gut. So don't over-obsess on a gram target — just stay in the 25-35 g range and you're sorted.
You'll hit it naturally if you've got veg, fruit, oats and whole grains in your day.
One thing to watch: don't smash 40+ g of fibre right before you roll. Fibre is brilliant for health, less brilliant when it's sitting in your stomach during hard rounds. Back-load it away from training.
"My energy drops at times — do you rate zero-sugar energy drinks short-term to power through?"
Not precious about it — yes, fine tool. Zero-sugar energy drink before training or to push through a flat afternoon is caffeine, sometimes with electrolytes, and if it gets you through a session you'd otherwise skip, that's a net win.
But often it's not a caffeine problem. The flat patch usually comes from fluid and fuel in a deficit — people quietly under-eat and under-drink all day, then wonder why they're flat by 4 pm. A caffeine drink papers over it for two hours, then you drop harder.
The fix:
- Pre-training carbs
- Electrolytes daily
- Water all day
Sort that and the "I need an energy drink" feeling largely disappears.
Respect the caffeine cut-off. A goth juice at 4 pm wrecks your sleep. Aim to keep caffeine 8-10 hours away from bedtime. If you train at night, go caffeine-free.
"My optimum Reta dose — I'm fine at 3 mg a week, built up over 5 months. What's the max? Should I increase?"
First, well done for building up properly — that's the right way. (I have a Reta e-book — ask in the chat and I'll drop it.)
How dosing works:
- Most people start at 0.5 mg and increase by 0.5-1 mg every 2-4 weeks — if progress stalls. If you're still seeing progress, stay where you are.
- Studies have gone up to 12 mg, with a sweet spot somewhere around 4-9 mg. Find what works for you.
The mental model: the dose is not a score — it's a dial. The right dose is the lowest dose that keeps your rate of fat loss where you want it.
"What's the max?" is the wrong question. The right question is: what's still working? If you're losing 0.5-1% bodyweight a week at 3 mg and your appetite's controlled, 3 mg is your optimum dose. Zero reason to push it up.
Only nudge it up if:
- You've genuinely stalled for 2-3 weeks, and
- Training and food are absolutely dialled in, and
- You've ruled out the usual suspects — water, sleep, under-recovery, under-logging.
Faster is not better — faster is muscle loss. Crank the dose, scale drops fast, a chunk of it will be muscle. And more dose = more side effects.
"How do you track calories for grappling? Just the MyFitnessPal default?"
I'll save you a lot of grief: don't track it. Leave it out.
MFP's estimate for an hour of rolling is an almost wild guess — might say 700-800 kcal. Means nothing. Plus your calorie target already includes your training — that's baked in. Adding "exercise back" double-counts.
Just log "did grappling that day" in the tracker and move on.
"What do you think of ashwagandha for sleep?"
I rate it — one of the few natural supplements that genuinely works, with research behind it.
It's an adaptogen — takes the edge off cortisol and stress. Less of a knockout sleeping pill, more of a "calm your nervous system down and switch off" tool. Really relevant on the Shred: deficit + hard training + life stress keeps cortisol elevated, and that's often what's behind the racing brain at night.
If you can't switch off in the evening, ashwagandha is a fair shout.
- I've used Advanced Sleep by Marchon in the past — includes ashwagandha.
- Give it 2-4 weeks to build its effect.
Not magic. You still need the basics: caffeine cut-off, carbs in the evening meal, cool dark room, consistent wake time. Ashwagandha is the cherry on top, not a replacement for any of that.