Follow These Guidelines

I haven’t spoken much about diet here other than talking about calories and body composition.

This is going to break down completely everything you’d ever need to know, let it be a foundational thing to read.

I’ll go over the obvious macros. I’ll talk a bit about micronutrients. Then I’ll go over other stuff like supplements, water, and other tid-bits.

This isn’t going to be super annoyingly detailed, but it will give you everything you need for your goals.

That being maximising muscle building, good general health, awesome brain power, and of course, longevity.

Skip to sections

• Medical Disclaimer

• Food Journal

• Calories (Weight Manipulation)

  • Trying to gain fat

  • Trying to lose fat

    • First few months (aggressive cut)

      • Protocol

      • Stop Condition

    • Transition into normal deficit

    • Normal deficit

  • Zero Fat Gain/Loss

• Macronutrients

  • Carbs

    • Fibre

  • Fat

  • Protein

    • Amount to Consume

    • Protein Digestibility

  • What your macros should look like

• Micronutrients

• Supplements

  • Supplements you don’t need

  • Supplements you do need

• Hydration

  • Water

    • Amount

    • Timing/Schedule

  • Electrolytes

    • Rough Daily Ratio

    • Electrolyte Powder Recipe, and When to Use it

      • You’ve drank a normal amount of water today

      • You’ve drank way too much water today

      • You’ve drank barely any water today (also a very g …

• Cheat Sheet

Medical Disclaimer

If you have some sort of weird condition that changes the way nutrition works for you (deficiencies, allergies, etc).

Please bring this to a doctor and work through my recommendations to adjust based on your specific situation.

None of this is medical advice and only my collection of the scientific research on the topics. If you follow any of these protocols you do so based on your own research, understanding, and not because of me.

Food Journal

Before I get into anything the most important thing you could ever do, something that’s almost mandatory for this, is a food journal.

It doesn’t matter if you know how much of stuff to eat if you don’t log what you eat.

It’s dumb.

Install Cronometer.

Log everything.

Weigh everything, don’t just eyeball it.

Conduct some food autopsies.

Calories (Weight Manipulation)

Most of the time these start from the top down.

Calories are obviously one of the biggest things that matter in a diet, and I’m going to almost completely ignore it.

It’s not that I don’t think they’re important. I just don’t think anyone here needs calories explained to them. You already know all about calories.

I’ve called this section “Weight Manipulation”.

That’s not true truthful.

It’d be more accurate to call this “energy manipulation”. This is because for the most part most things on the internet lack nuance. believe it or not there are two types of maintenance calories 😳 

There’s a calorie amount that will make you stay the same weight on average (not maintenance).

Then there’s a calorie amount that will make you gain weight but not fat (actual maintenance.

Look.

Muscle building comes under the BMR section.

This means the weight gain from muscle is part of maintenance calories, even though it’ll add weight.

No one really speaks about that, thinks about that, or understands that.

Now you do.

I’d recommend you don’t mention this to anyone as they’ll get very confused and you’ll have to take a while explaining it.

So the calorie part becomes quite simple.

You’re only ever wanting to get a few things out of caloric manipulation, and all of them involve fat.

1. You want to gain fat

2. You want to lose fat

So here’s how that would look, and why it’d look.

All of these are dependent on your bodyfat%.

Trying to gain fat

When you’re actively building muscle at maintenance (either weight/caloric) you’ll eventually reach a point where you’ve become too lean.

At this point, a caloric surplus to gain some fat to get back to a healthy place is ideal.

To put it simply, if you’re below/almost at 10% bodyfat, bulk up to 15%.

All you’d do here is add calories to your “true maintenance” and make your way back to 15%.

Don’t overshoot it.

You don’t have to do this super slow, or super fast, just pick something you like. Get baking, make some desserts. Do whatever.

Trying to lose fat

When you’re above 15% you need to be getting down to around 10-15%.

I’d recommend going all the way to 10% as it’ll be a life changing moment when you get that lean.

This might take a long time. The more fat you have to lose the longer. That doesn’t mean we have to be super slow with it though.

The best way to start a cut is with a 1-2 month aggressive cut.

First few months (aggressive cut)

This might sound insane and completely different to what everyone else has told you.

Cuts don’t have to be low and slow.

They shouldn’t be. They should start aggressive. They should be as short as possible.

An aggressive cut is in the range of a 750-1500 calorie deficit.

When you run an aggressive cut you have to follow a specific protocol I’ll drop a few lines below.

The aggressive cut has both a protocol you adhere to, and stop conditions.

The aim of this isn’t to have an unsustainable diet that does a lot of damage. The aim is to push your body to a place that’s healthy, but difficult.

“So why do we run this in the first place? Why not just have a longer cut?”

• The time you spend in a calorie deficit will hurt your general health, and muscle growth ability.

• The longer you’re in this deficit, the worse the damage.

• At the beginning of a cut you’re in the healthiest place, this can be taken advantage of.

• Overall we leave with less damage than if we’d done a long slow cut.

Protocol

1. Follow a proper workout program like my UL skeleton. if it doesn’t fit my criteria of a good program or i haven’t approved it, don’t use it

2. Work out your calorie goal and macros for this cut.

   1. Find your true maintenance here. Consider cardio

   2. Write down the required protein to have 1g for each lbs of lean body mass you have.

   3. Learn about the essential fats and pick some sources to get these in. Give a rough estimate of how much fat this’ll be. ~30-40g

   4. Protein is worth 4 calories, Fat is worth 9 calories, and Carbs are worth 4 calories. Based on this work out how many grams of carbs you can have that puts you in a 750-1500 deficit.

3. End your workouts with a post workout meal.

4. On days you’re not working out aim to do 1+ hours of steady state, zone 2 cardio.

5. On your rest days also try and decrease carbs a little to get in some fatty fish.

6. Follow the advice in the micronutrients section.

7. Track everything you eat, and do a daily weigh in.

For the first week ignore what the scale says.

It’ll be dropping like crazy as you lose a ton of water, waste, and glycogen.

After that week we’ll start analysing the scale.

1. View trends of at least 1 week and assess the weight loss.

2. Use this to find your new true maintenance and work out if you need to change your calories.

3. Repeat.

Stop Condition

Most people won’t be able to run this for more than a month, but some will.

If you’re pretty overweight and have a lot to lose, instead of doing this for a month, keep doing it until you reach the stop condition.

For everyone else, inside of the aggressive cut month, if you see this stop condition, stop.

1. In the last 3 days you’ve had 2 nights of awful sleep. assuming this isn’t a regular occurrence 🙄 

That’s when you turn it into a normal deficit.

Transition into normal deficit

When you’ve finished your aggressive deficit you’re going to enter a bit of a strange system.

This is just to get you to a place where you’re in the best place for a prolonged deficit.

If your aggressive cut was only 750, feel free to go straight into the normal deficit here, you don’t have to have any type of reversal.

After the week is over just keep running the normal deficit.

Normal deficit

This is the classic bread and butter recommendation everyone gives.

A 500 calorie deficit.

Work this out based on your true maintenance. Stick till it till you get your goal. If you feel you ABSOLUTELY need it, have a refeed a maximum of twice a month. A day at/slightly above maintenance calories, mostly focused on carbs

When this is over congrats, you’ve ended your cut and can now eat at maintenance forever.

Zero Fat Gain/Loss

For anyone who doesn’t need to gain or lose fat here’s the paths.

1. Find your true caloric maintenance and eat exactly the amount that lets you keep your current fat, and gain muscle. best for muscle growth

2. Find your weight maintenance and eat the amount that lets you stay the same weight whilst you gain muscle and lose fat. good for lazy people

Macronutrients

People know how to handle this for the most part, but there are a lot of myths that have gone round.

Here’s the current tier list people have.

1. Protein

2. Fat

3. Carbs

Anyone who’s been reading this newsletter for a while knows it’s reversed…

1. Carbs supply the fuel and energy for life and workouts

2. Fat lets you produce hormones and cell membranes

3. Protein lets you build new tissue

The potential of fat and protein is capped, with carbs it’s unlimited.

Carbs

These are the best energy source you have.

They are completely unrivalled.

Fat is pretty mediocre at delivering energy and will never give you the best workout. Protein doesn’t even want to become an energy source. Carbs are king.

You can read all about why carbs are so important here.

When it comes down to it you’re trying to get as many carbs as possible.

After you’ve worked out the amount of protein and fat you need, and you’re doing the stuff I say to in the micronutrient section, fill every single other calorie with a carb.

When you’ve worked out the amount of carbs you’re allowed start messing and testing things all based on your gym performance.

• Firstly make sure you’re using the post gym period and reading this.

• What’s the best way to split your carb allowance up throughout the day to get the best gym performance?

• What are the best types of carbs to consume that give you the best gym performance? glycaemic index, amount of carbs, etc

• What are your favourites that can become a staple you won’t get bored of?

It’s a lot of fun.

You’re entirely autonomous here.

Fibre

You can’t forget fibre.

If you want to have any sort of healthy gut this is a must have part of carbs.

You’ll likely get most of this through your micronutrients but I’ll let you know what to aim for either way.

Get at least 30g.

Fat

Fat is a lot more irrelevant than people realise.

It’s not even completely essential for hormone production…

Fats aren’t essential, some parts of fat are. These parts aren’t in all fats.

Here’s what you need fat wise.

1. Seeds to get at least 1.5g/day of ALA and 17g/day of LA. i’d recommend seed oils here

2. Fatty fish/fish oils to get at least 1g/day of EPA and 1g/day of DHA.

3. Dairy/Lamb/Beef to get at least 5g of CLA

4. A safety net of 10g of fat for fat soluble vitamins to be absorbed.

That’s literally it.

Log your stuff in Cronometer so that you can track all of those parts.

No more is needed. Focus on these pieces and you’ll feel much better than anyone recommending a blanket x amount of ALL fat per day.

Protein

The trash macro.

Look it’s not trash it’s just no way near as important as people think.

Protein doesn’t cause muscle growth. Protein supplies muscle growth based on a demand. That demand is thanks to carbs fuelling an insane workout.

Amount to Consume

Protein recommendations are typically an overestimate, there’s a heavy safety net attached.

Don’t worry about having a few days not meeting this number, nothing will happen.

• That being said aim for 1g per LBS of Lean Body Mass.

Protein Digestibility

You’ve definitely seen guys talking about protein digestibility for ages now.

It’s basically saying certain protein sources are useless, and others aren’t.

They’re not wrong. It’s just not that important unless you’re vegetarian. it’s also not thaaaat important if you’re veggie 🦆 

If you’re getting most of your protein from meat/dairy/fish/whey, don’t worry about digestibility.

If you’re veggie here are what your protein staples should be to avoid any digestibility concerns.

• Quinoa

• Soy

• Beans

What your macros should look like

1. As many carbs as possible

2. At least 30g of fibre

3. Focused fat consumption

   1. 1.5g of ALA and 17g of LA from seeds

   2. 1g of EPA and 1g of DHA from fish

   3. 5g of CLA from dairy/meat

   4. A safety net of an extra 10g of any fat

4. Protein tied to lean body mass. ~1g per lbs of LBM

Micronutrients

These are the things people nerd out about and talk about every single separate vitamin and mineral.

I’m not going to do that.

This isn’t a biochem class. It’s not useful for you. It won’t help you make your diet.

Here’s how you get all your micronutrients in without spending hours and hours researching.

EAT THE RAINBOW IN FRUIT/VEG

• Red Foods

• Yellow/Orange Foods

• Green Foods

• Purple/Black Foods

• Brown/White Foods

When you eat the rainbow you pretty much cover more than enough vitamins and minerals.

To triple check and make sure you’re hitting everything log your food in Cronometer.

Take a look at weekly averages and see if you’re lacking anything, if you are research what has some of it in. Add this to your diet.

Repeat.

Supplements

Supplements are there to supplement 🤯 

i honestly need to stop saying dumb obvious sentences with a mindblown emoji after it in my newsletter 😭 

That being said, there’s no point taking a multivitamin, supplement, etc, if you don’t need to supplement something.

For a man who doesn’t get enough protein, protein powder can be useful, or extra meat can.

You see what I mean?

So here’s where supplements bridge off into two types.

1. Stuff you can get with a little bit of work

2. Stuff that takes a lot of work to get/is pricey

If I wanted to get creatine without taking a supplement I’d need to have about 500g every single day for the rest of my life.

That’s just one thing, and a lot of stuff starts to add up, so here’s the method.

Supplements you don’t need

Cronometer will tell you this easily.

Give it 7 days worth of data and checkout your micronutrient averages, what are you missing?

If you see something you’re missing start trying to get it, are you still missing it? If so buy a supplement 🤷 

Is it super expensive to get in each day like trying to get Zinc through Oysters? Go buy a supplement.

If you start getting it easily, awesome.

Supplements you do need

Outside of covering any deficiencies you can’t do through your diet because of laziness or cost, there’s some stuff you’ll just never get.

1. Creatine.

2. Preworkout.

3. Melatonin.

That’s pretty much it.

Also most preworkouts suck and don’t work so please watch the vid below.

I’ll do a proper big write up on supplements on the 25th of January so put that in your calendar for extra help.

Most supplements are unnecessary until the training is properly dialled in.

Hydration

You might think that hydration is just a matter of drinking water but it isn’t.

Hydration is half electrolytes, and half water.

No this isn’t some gimmick. You’ve heard electrolytes thrown around everywhere. I swear this is important.

Some will try and sell you electrolytes worth less than a penny for £1 a sachet, I’ll let you know how to get it for a penny.

I’ll also let you know how these all interact and ratios and bla bla bla.

Water

Let’s start with water actually…

Water is really easy.

Amount

For every calorie you burn, aim to have 1ml of water.

If your maintenance is 2424, that’s 2424ml of water.

There’s one curveball, but it’s also easy.

If you’re taking creatine add an extra 100ml for every gram. 5g creatine = 500ml.

Easy peasy.

Oh and if it’s hot/you get super sweaty drink more water, this is just the least amount you need.

Timing/Schedule

Don’t worry about this too much.

Make sure to get water in somewhat evenly and you’ll be okay.

Use your pee to judge if you’re drinking too much/not enough.

When working out have a few sips between sets and everything will be perfect.

Electrolytes

a.k.a the Sodium:Potassium:Magnesium:Calcium ratio.

electrolyes? more like electonope.

What is this super long string of minerals all together that lives in delicate balance to make sure my cells can survive.

If that’s not terrifying I don’t know what is.

That being said let’s break down this ratio a bit.

Rough Daily Ratio

You’re roughly looking at 4:8:2:1.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not 100% sticking to that, but that’s around the area you should be.

Electrolyte Powder Recipe, and When to Use it

The best time to have a proper put together electrolyte formula is during/before a gym session.

If you feel like you want that extra boost/haven’t drank a lot today.

You’ve drank a normal amount of water today

• 500ml - 1L of water

• 2,500 mg sodium chloride

• 385 mg potassium chloride

• 390 mg magnesium malate OR 265mg di-magnesium malate

• Flavouring (pick any of these, or none)

  • 2 tbsp lime juice, stevia

  • 2 tsp lime juice, ¼ cup of raspberries, stevia

  • 2 tsp lime juice, 3 orange slices, stevia

  • 2 tsp lime juice, ½ cup watermelon, stevia

You’ve drank way too much water today

This isn’t for people who don’t understand electrolytes properly. Do your research on hypertonic electrolyte formulas before following something like this.

• 1L water

• 5000 mg sodium chloride

• 600 mg potassium chloride

• 660 mg magnesium malate

• ½ tsp baking soda (if you feel bloated)

You’ve drank barely any water today (also a very good pump formula but don’t abuse)

This isn’t for people who don’t understand electrolytes properly. Do your research on isotonic electrolyte formulas before following something like this.

• 1L water

• 3000 mg sodium chloride

• 1000 mg potassium chloride

• 6-8g of glucose

• Flavouring (pick any of these, or none)

  • 2 tbsp lime juice, stevia

  • 2 tsp lime juice, ¼ cup of raspberries, stevia

  • 2 tsp lime juice, 3 orange slices, stevia

  • 2 tsp lime juice, ½ cup watermelon, stevia

Cheat Sheet

If you’ve read everything skip this bit, just use it as a reference for when you come back as it’s just a summary.

1. Nothing here is medical advice, just an interpretation of the scientific literature. i got to cover my liability 🙄 

2. Journal your metrics

   1. Install Cronometer and log everything you eat

   2. Weigh yourself daily

3. Eat the write calories

   1. Work out if you need to bulk/cut/maintenance

   2. Do cut/bulk/maintenance

4. Eat the right macros

   1. As many carbs as possible

   2. At least 30g of fibre

   3. Focused fat consumption

      1. 1.5g of ALA and 17g of LA from seeds

      2. 1g of EPA and 1g of DHA from fish

      3. 5g of CLA from dairy/meat

      4. A safety net of an extra 10g of any fat

   4. Protein tied to lean body mass. ~1g per lbs of LBM

5. Eat the rainbow in fruit and veg. Red; Yellow/Orange; Green; Purple/Black; Brown/White

6. Check Cronometer to work out what you’re lacking in and get it in

7. If you can’t get something in with whole foods (despite trying) get a supplement for it

8. Get Creatine and take 5g a day

9. Get a preworkout that works (most don’t so watch this)

10. Take melatonin if you need it for sleep

11. Hydrate yourself properly throughout the day

    1. 1ml of water for each kcal of maintenance

    2. An extra 100ml for each gram of creatine

    3. Drink more if you sweat a lot/it’s hot

    4. Balance water throughout day/needs and pay attention to electrolytes

    5. Take electrolytes at the gym if you think it’s going to be helpful

12. Throughout the day get in (but not all in one go) electrolytes

    1. Sodium 2300-3000mg

    2. Potassium 4600-6000mg

    3. Calcium 1200-1500mg

    4. Magnesium 600-750mg

That’s the little cheat sheet, and you’re all done now.

Nothing else to read.

If you enjoyed all of that, or would like a more hands on approach for putting this all together send me an email at [email protected]

I’ve got two coaching groups running The Deep End and The Shallow Lane.

The Deep End is very serious and has a lot of work and hands on stuff, The Shallow Lane is a bit more casual.

Both are cool. and $30/month

Thanks for sticking around to the end, I’ll see you tomorrow!

Your Hypertrophy Hero,
Fletcher

P.S. As this was another of those emails that emails don’t have enough space to send I’m going to teach you how to add my website as an app on your phone instead.

Step 1. Click this link poolefitness.com on your phone.

Step 2. Look for three lines in the top right (it’s called a burger menu) ☰ < looks kinda like this

Step 3. Log in if it asks you to, otherwise click the button to add the site as an app and follow the instructions.

Step 4. This is the most important step, turn on notifications for me 🙄