Coming from someone who had severe IBS and fixed his gut health — this stuff matters more than most people think. There's a lot of noise around gut health and not much actual signal, so today I'm going to strip it back to what the evidence and my own experience actually show. Plus diet breaks (the research is really clear), the supplement stack that's actually worth your money, and a story at the end about New York that will land the whole gut-health point in one go.
Prove you watched: drop the word "Lululemon" in the group chat. No explanation. Just the word.
Why gut health matters
Your gut runs way more than your stomach:
- Nutrient absorption
- Immune function — a huge chunk of your immune system lives in your gut
- Mood and mental health
- Long-term disease prevention
Even if you're eating clean nutrient-dense food, if your gut isn't working properly you're not absorbing it. Even in a deficit, we're still training and eating for health — and this is where health starts.
The 5 levers that impact gut health
- Diet. Whole foods first. That's the base and it stays the base.
- Activity. Too little and too much both cause issues. Even elite athletes get gut problems from extreme physical stress + high-volume fuelling.
- Sleep. Massive. Poor sleep disrupts digestion, hormones, and recovery.
- Stress. High cortisol keeps you out of rest-and-digest mode, so food sits there.
- What you avoid. Alcohol, ultra-processed food, excess sugar. You don't have to be perfect — just keep them under control.
Signs of poor gut health
If any of these are consistent, your gut is worth looking at:
- Bloating, cramping, excessive fullness — food sitting all day
- Brain fog, mid-afternoon sleepiness
- Diarrhoea or constipation
- Sinus blockages, runny nose
- Overall fatigue
- Skin issues
- Nutrient deficiencies
- Low mood, low motivation
What actually damages gut health
- Chronic stress. Short-term is fine. Chronic wears the system down.
- Antibiotics. Every grappler knows this — had staph? Been on antibiotics. They kill the bad bacteria and the good ones.
- Highly processed foods = low fibre = starving your good bacteria.
- Too much alcohol or caffeine. Both irritate the gut.
- Lack of movement.
- Poor sleep for extended periods.
- Inconsistent meal structure. The biggest one I see — more on this below.
- Poor eating hygiene. Where you eat, how fast you eat, rushing meals.
The biggest contributor: irregular eating
I've coached hundreds of people, and the single biggest contributor to gut problems I see is inconsistent meal structure. One day it's a huge breakfast, then nothing for 6 hours, then snacking, then a big meal. Next day it's skip breakfast, protein bar, snacks all afternoon, heavy dinner. That randomness stresses the gut — you're either constantly digesting or not at all.
When people tell me they feel bloated at random times, it's almost always the inconsistent eating, not the food itself. Steady your food timing first. Then you can actually identify what triggers your gut.
Sympathetic vs parasympathetic (again)
Same principle as last week — and it hits gut health directly:
- Sympathetic (training / stressed / fight-or-flight): blood pumps to muscles, lungs, brain. Digestion goes offline.
- Parasympathetic (eating / rest-and-digest): blood pumps to the gut. Food gets absorbed.
Eating on your phone, rushing, stressed, angry — you're in fight mode. Food just sits there. Sit down. Slow down. Chew. Keep it simple.
Core principles — screenshot this
- Eat pre- and probiotic-rich foods
- Aim for ~30 g of fibre a day
- Include fermented foods
- Hit 5 colours a day across fruit and veg
- Reduce stress; eat in a calm environment
- Limit processed foods
- Hydrate properly
Mindset: don't overhaul your whole diet. Ask yourself — which of these could I improve by 10% this week? Pick one steady lever, move it, then move on to the next.
Gut-specific supplements
I hate prescribing supplements. Two that actually earn their place:
- L-Glutamine. Most abundant amino acid in the body. Supports the intestinal wall, immune function, and gut recovery. ~5 g in water first thing in the morning, empty stomach, before coffee and before food. Cheap. Works.
- SymProve. If glutamine doesn't shift things and your issues are more serious, try this. Expensive, so not a starting point — but a solid step 2.
Get your diet right first. These are supports, not solutions.
Diet breaks — they actually increase fat loss
People assume dieting longer = better progress. Research says the opposite.
The Matador study (worth reading if you're nerdy): two-week diet blocks with one-week maintenance breaks in between, compared to a straight 6-week diet. The diet-break group lost more fat, kept more muscle, and had way better adherence. The variants (2 on / 2 off, week on / week off) have all shown similar results.
What's happening physically: interrupting the diet with maintenance periods reduces the compensatory metabolic response — your body doesn't fight back as hard. You lose more fat and keep more muscle.
Aggressive deficit + scheduled breaks > continuous restriction. That's exactly why Grapple Shred is structured the way it is.
Why diet breaks work — 5 reasons
- Preserves more muscle mass → better metabolic rate → better long-term results
- Reduces metabolic adaptation — constant low calories down-regulates metabolism
- Better training performance — strength, energy, recovery all improve during the break
- Better hormones — cortisol drops, testosterone and oestrogen stabilise
- Adherence — prevents the mental crash-and-binge cycle. Instead of white-knuckling it, you strategically pause.
Reverse diet starts now
We're starting to slowly bring your calories up. Use the Range Method when you need to. The goal is being fluid with your numbers, not rigid.
Reverse dieting doesn't mean jumping to maintenance. From day one you're still in a slight deficit. You're still losing fat — just controlled ramp-up, not a switch flip. Around week 2-3 of the reverse we decide the next phase — new fat-loss block, gaining phase, extended maintenance. That's a 1:1 conversation.
Worked example
Say your deficit is 1,800 kcal and your maintenance is 2,400. You've been strict for six weeks, feeling a bit sluggish.
Wrong move: binge at 4,000 kcal in one go.
Right move: nudge up to 2,100 kcal. Recovery window. Then add another 200-400 kcal/day over the next block.
That could be one extra snack, a slightly bigger portion, or a small dessert without the guilt. You're still in deficit, still losing fat — but your hormones stabilise, mood lifts, energy comes back. That's the fluid approach. That's how you win post-Shred.
Maintenance isn't failure — it's progress
Big one. Most people think dropping out of a deficit means they've failed. It doesn't. Maintenance is where results get held, hormones recover, and the next phase gets set up.
1:1 phone calls over the next couple of weeks — we'll map out the next 3, 6, and 12 months. That's where the individual planning happens. Only 10-13 spots this round.
Supplements — the foundational 5
There's a lot of marketing noise here. What actually earns a place in your stack:
- Fish oil — joint, brain, mood, recovery. Hard to hit through food unless you're eating oily fish daily.
- Vitamin D — immune system, bones, hormones. Hard to get from food, especially without much sun exposure.
- Creatine — the most researched supplement on the planet. 5-10 g/day. No cycling.
- Electrolytes — if you sweat hard. Helps hydration, cramps, recovery. Otherwise just salt your food and drink water.
- Protein powder — only if you struggle to hit your protein target through food. A tool, not magic.
Nice-to-have (situational)
- Pre-workout — skip if training after 2 pm. If earlier: 150-250 mg caffeine + beta-alanine + citrulline malate.
- Casein — slow-digesting protein, useful before bed if you can't get your protein in earlier.
- Multivitamin — covers gaps, especially in a deficit where variety often drops.
- Magnesium — underrated. Sleep and relaxation.
- Adaptogens — ashwagandha, rhodiola, L-theanine. Stress, focus, recovery support. Not miracle products, but useful with consistent use.
Skip these
Gut-health powders, "detox" shots, enzyme pills, most of the flashy stuff on Instagram. Save your money and fix the basics first.
The New York story (told to you as promised)
Quick context: I owned a gym for 10 years. This was peak business-grind era — I flew to New York for a business mentorship, wanted to scout gyms out, speak to owners, see how they ran things. I also, at the time, had severe IBS, was carrying a lot of weight, and my phone network didn't work abroad. To navigate the city I was hopping Starbucks-to-Starbucks for WiFi to check maps between stops.
I was staying in New Jersey. Every morning: massive hotel breakfast — potatoes, sausage, bacon, the lot. Then the train into Manhattan. My rule was no taxis, no trains inside the city — walk everywhere, 30-50k steps a day. Which also meant 3-4 Starbucks along the way for the map check.
One afternoon I'd done all the gyms and switched to tourist mode — SoHo, big flagship stores, the Twin Towers site. The site is nowhere near where I was catching the train back to Jersey. It was getting late, I started walking back — and out of nowhere, my gut felt like Mike Tyson had uppercut me from the inside. Big jacket, backpack, sweating, holding onto walls. I knew I had about 90 seconds.
I try a construction site — guy denies me the toilet, private property. I keep walking. See a massive bouncer outside a beautiful glass-front building. Ask him. He points upstairs.
It was a Lululemon. Not a public loo — a fancy yoga-studio flagship store with fittings that cost more than my car.
Up the stairs, left, first cubicle locked. I push the second one open in a panic — it turned out to be a urinal, not a toilet. Too late. It was, in Jay's exact words on the video, "like someone threw a chicken korma at the wall." Everywhere.
I clean up, sort myself out, throw the boxers away. Look down — Scooby-Doo footprints across the floor where I'd stepped in my own disaster. As I'm leaving I hear someone walk in behind me and scream "OH MY GOD" in a full New York accent. I got out of there as fast as I could.
The moral: sort your gut health out. It can put you in very, very bad situations. And now you know why "Lululemon" was today's codeword.
Week 7 action points
- Steady your meal timing this week — same rough windows every day. That alone fixes a huge amount.
- Sit down to eat. Phone away. Chew.
- Pick one gut principle to improve 10% this week (fibre, fermented foods, hydration, calm environment).
- Consider 5 g glutamine in water first thing if gut symptoms are ongoing.
- Trust the reverse diet. More calories, still in a slight deficit, still losing fat — that's the point.
- Audit your supplement stack against the foundational 5. Bin the gimmicks.
- Book a call with me if you haven't already — only 10-13 post-Shred 1:1 spots.
- Drop "Lululemon" in the group.