The Wonderful World of Weight Cutting Part II

My friend Dustin Silvey, a wrestler, likes to read my blog.  He asked me one day, "Why don't you write a post on weight cutting?"  I said that I didn't know much about it and didn't feel comfortable writing about it.  So, I thought I would interview him and share his experiences with weight cutting, as Dustin was a former MMA athlete and is currently a varsity wrestler.  So we sat down one day and discussed weight cutting.

JK: Thanks for sitting and chattin' with me about weight cutting.  So, let's get to the point - how do athletes cut weight for combat sports?

DS: Instead of explaining how athletes cut weight for combat sports, which if you really wanted to know, you could just Google "how to weight cut" instead, so instead, I am going to tell you how I cut from 76 kg to 68kg in 10 days for the CIS Atlantics competition that took place in February of 2012.

JK: Oh, alright - personal experience is always best.  So how did you do it?  Sounds like a lot of weight?


DS: Here's a little disclaimer, everyone cuts weight differently and has different techniques that work for them. What I am going to say here, is what works for me. It will NOT work for everyone and other people will suggest their way is better. All and all it’s the same as long as you are healthy and ready to compete when the time comes. Now on to how I cut my weight.

First things first, Atkins wasn’t all wrong. Well he was in the fact that this weight I am cutting will not under any circumstances stay off after the 10 days. But he was right that carbs are the enemy. The 1st thing I did was limit my carbs to near nothing. I would eat/drink a fruit protein shake in the morning for breakfast; it tasted like a gift from the gods: sweet, sweet sugars. My body would say to itself, “CARBS! Our only carbs of the day!” Later in the day I would eat a banana and after my 1st practice, I would indulge in an apple. The apple was important to make sure I could train again later in the evening so I would not carb crash. Other than the large salads I would have for lunch and dinner that would be the extent of my carbohydrate intake.

JK: Wow, that sounds quite extreme.  No wonder the weight wouldn't stay off after the 10 days.  What about lunches and dinners?

Dustin in action

DS: My lunch and dinner consisted of breasts, lots and lots of breasts. Doesn’t sound too bad does it? Shame I am talking about straight up, plain, chicken breasts. Just not so attractive now, is it? Chicken breast is basically pure protein, and when you are cutting weight you can eat as much protein as you want! The best part about protein is what you don’t use your body will mostly just piss out. So if you can choke down 4 plain chicken breasts for lunch then go for it! The key is lots and lots of water so that you don’t clog up your kidneys.

After about 3 days of this I will have lost about 2 kg. This is mainly due to the lack of carbs; my body cannot retain much water. This is the best time for training. The lack of gluten, sugar and fats in my body allows me to go like the Energizer Bunny. My cardio is insane! My strength goes up and I feel like a million bucks! So why don’t I do this all the time? Because, I like home baking far too much.

This could, for some of you, not sound that hard. And in all reality, it isn’t. The key is timing. Eating those apples directly after training to stop the carb cravings and/or the crashes. The little bit of carbs in the morning makes you feel like a rockstar and if you drink them in protein shakes they will be the best tasting shakes EVER! If you keep your appetite in check, as in always eating around the same times you can eliminate cravings. The hardest part for me is those damn bake sales all over campus. How can one walk by and not buy a cupcake!!!

JK: I think you nailed the nail on the head with that one Dustin.  Most people cutting or not weight cutting don't understand nutrient timing.  Of course what you put in your mouth plays a huge role too, but everyone can benefit from learning more about daily nutrient timing.  How long did you have to do this for again?

DS: I stuck to this diet for 7 days. At which point I was about 73 kg. For the last 2 days before the weigh-in I removed all salt from my diet. This meant the removal of Costco box chicken, and either fresh chicken or salmon were added. The lack of salt makes training very, very difficult. During warm ups my body would get tired and I would start to feel sluggish. When it came to hard training my brain would tell me to stop and I would get miserable and lazy. I have one teammate whom pushes me hard and he started asking what the hell was wrong with me. Not fun, but after the two days you can see striations in you muscles and you piss all night like a diabetic.

JK: That doesn't sound like fun.  Must be hard to figure out the timing of all this so you don't feel like crap on competition day.  Tell me about weigh-in day.

DS: Food and drink had stopped 24 hours from the weigh-in. I woke up at 4 am, skipping my glorious shake, weighing 71 kg and caught my flight to Fredericton, sleeping most of the way. After arriving at the hotel at 10 am, I slept some more. Sleeping is the best way to forget that you are hungry and thirsty. I decided at 2 pm it was time for the fun stuff (weigh-in was at 6 pm). I jumped on the scale and saw I was at 70.5 Kg. I thought, man only 2.5 kg in the sauna this won’t be too bad. (Now a lesson needs to be learned here, NEVER say a weight cut won’t be that bad, it is always bad). I dug through my bag and found my thick heavy hoddie, a pair of sweat pants and my sauna suit.

JK: What a sec, what's a sauna suit?

DS: It is basically a gigantic plastic suit that prevents sweat from evaporating and thus cooling your body, so in turn you sweat more. The more you sweat, the more water weight you lose at a faster pace which equals less time in the sauna.

JK: Ah, I see.

DS: Ya, one of the biggest mistakes people make while cutting weight is they put all their clothes on and then go into the sauna. The problem with this is your core cannot heat up, only your head, which is the LAST thing you want heating up. What I do, and most people do, is take all of my stuff with me in the sauna and once I get a good sweat going (in about 15 minutes) then I put all the stuff on. Being very careful not to burn myself on the sweat suit - that bastard heats up quick! The order you put the stuff on is: underwear, sweat suit, hoddies, pants, socks and shoes.

JK: I never knew how that worked.  What do you do after the sauna?

DS: I remove myself from the sauna and ride a stationary bike. However, at this competition there was no bike, so I had to attempt to run on the treadmill. This SUCKED. Sitting on a bike moving your legs is a lot easier than trying to move your whole body and balance it in a dehydrated state. After 3 10/5 walk/sauna cycles I took off all the clothes and just lied in the sauna for another 1.5 hours. At this point I was 68.2 Kg and was not feeling so good.

JK: Holy!  That's amazing and quite the process.  You must have felt drained, pardon the pun.  What happens next?

DS: I headed back to the hotel room and lied on the bed still sweating trying to cut the last .2 kg. After a while I realized I was going to puke. Now puking when you have no fluids in your body goes like this: dry heave, dry heave, dry heave andddddd burp. And boy does it make you angry that nothing comes up that could help with the .2 kg. After my poor attempt at puking I lied on the cool bathroom tile floor trying to get my core temp down. While waiting for our taxi to the weigh-in location I had another fun dry heave session in the parking lot. GOOD TIMES I thought to myself.

JK:  Wow, didn't know that was apart of the process.  Sounds like a night out after the bar.

DS: Arrival at the weigh-in is the worst. You sit there waiting, with water and food in your bag, for your name to be called. At last when they do call you get on the scale praying that you are on weight, that the scale is the same as the one you have been using, that you don’t have to get back on the bike, or worse back in the sauna. And when the scale comes up 68 kg you thank whatever god you believe in and rush to grab the first liquid you can find.

Dustin on weigh-in day

JK:  Amazing and very extreme!  Definitely not for the general population!!

DS: And that is a day in the life of cutting weight.

The next day at competition I was back up to 74 Kg.

JK: I always wondered how much fighters weighed on fight day compared to the weigh-in day.  How did you go about gaining the weight back?

DS: Well I ate very little after the weigh-ins but in the night I would wake up. Each time I woke up I would drink 1 L of water (which is equal to 1 kg of body weight) and eat one protein bar. I woke up 4 times that night. In the morning I had a shake for breakfast, a protein bar and another litre of water. I was then ready for competition at 10 am.

JK: Other than the puking, which I guess is part of it, seems like everything went pretty smoothly.  What happens when things go wrong?

DS: At this tournament one of my teammates tried to cut more weight than she could. With lack of education on how to cut weight and a lack of understanding of what was happening to her body she started to enter the danger area of kidney failure. The few teammates that had any real experience in cutting weight were busy cutting their own weight, which makes it hard to help others. Had our team captain not stepped up to the plate to check on her she would more than likely have had her kidneys fail. Once she started to go out, the EMT’s were called and she was taken to hospital and given an IV to get her fluids up. We were lucky that this was all that happened. It is important to remember, cutting weight is not “cool”. It is hard on your body and if not done right can be detrimental to your health and competition the next day. Athletes need to be educated on how to cut weight properly and the dangers of cutting too much weight. You wouldn’t go skydiving without a lesson and a bit of education first, would you? Well weight cutting is the same. Get educated. Remember, most of us play sports because we love them, not because we will make it to the Olympics or the UFC. It is supposed to be fun and safe, so keep it that way.

One word of advice: if you don’t think you can make the weight, DON’T. Sometimes it’s just not worth it.

JK: Thank you Dustin for giving us a look into the wonderful world of weight cutting.

Thanks for reading,

-JK