Fight Week Cut Experiment
Introduction
I remember chatting with my friend I trained with yesterday about cutting weight in combat sports and how he’d use to put on some plastic, eat some carbs, run, and try to sweat it off. There is nothing scientific about that approach and odds are, this method doesn’t work. You’re just going to be in a constant state of dehydration and end up yo-yoing your weight back. Back in high school wrestling, I heard this was how they did it. Lack of nutrition science and knowledge amongst coaches I found detrimental to teenagers or anyone growing up. That’ll cause a lot of body image issues, eating disorders, hormone problems, etc. Plus eating carbs and trying to sweat is counter intuitive as you’re retaining water weight from refilling your glycogen but trying to sweat yourself out.
Other stories I remember I heard about was an old classmate I knew who use to wrestle in high school who would eat his lunch and then go to the bathroom and just throw it up to try and make weight. It doesn’t work like that. All you’re doing at this point is just damaging your gut and organs. Coaches are mentor figures and a lot of athletes will look to them for advice and if the message they’re sending is to “be tough”, that’s the wrong way to go about with it. It’s a lot tougher to admit you don’t know everything and that there are people out there who knows more than you and go seek out that knowledge. At the end of the day, we’re competing in the sport, not trying to win a starvation experiment.
Eat Good Make Weight
I like food and I like having a healthy relationship with food. I came across Pete Miller “Condition Nutrition” and Jordan Sullivan work on fighters with weight cuts. Looking at what some of Pete Miller’s clients eat during fight week, the food looks good, they make weight, and they don’t feel like crap. I also heard that learning/knowing how to cook is quite an underrated skill in sports as well since it helps you be able to prepare your own food and count your own macros. I do like cooking my own food and experimenting when traveling. If I can eat well, train and feel great, compete and feel great, I’m in.
I’m curious with gathering whatever notes I can find on strength and conditioning, nutrition, or recovery (I like learning, researching, and gathering resources as being a lifetime student of many endeavors that may overlap each other is my life’s goal) so I hopped on Jordan’s free weight cut webinar since I’m curious how that process works. I also purchased Pete Miller’s fight week recipe book and fight camp guide (not on the site anymore as of today for purchase).
Weight Cut Experiment
Throughout my trip in the UK from May to July, my weight been around 61-62 KG max as I was training every day. I can lose about July 20 was my birthday and people kept feeding me food and some cake so I ended up ballooning up to 64 KG. Overall, the food was pretty lean, but I was also stressed out after my birthday (lost my job a few days before and I received news that my mom fell off a ladder). I was told that stress does raise cortisol level which does temporarily increase weight a bit.
Monday on the 22 I dropped down to 62.5 KG. On Tuesday I was probably around 61.9 KG. I went to 61.3 KG on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I was around 60.5 KG. I felt pretty light on Saturday and I was looking to try and get mainly around 61.2 KG anyways since that’s the weight I was around regularly so I decided to eat the leftover slice of cake from my birthday.
I was 58.5 KG on the Sunday of the interclub. Yes, I ate a slice of cake the morning when I woke up. It puts me in a good mood and I hadn’t had much carbs or sugar. If Leon Edwards can have some ice cream, I can have a small slice of cake (generally I’m not much of a cake person anyways unless its xu xa which is a Vietnamese seaweed jello). After weighin in, I ate a bunch of rice crackers and some jelly beans since they’re simple carbs that’s easy to digest without causing me GI issues. I felt really good and ready to go afterwards.
Although it is not recommended to cut out that much carbs from same day weigh-in process, I decided to give it a try to see how my body react to it. The only thing I didn’t do is a water cut (your classic sauna suit and dehydrate it off). Below I’ll share what I ate on the days and what my training was like. Do note I’m doing this on a budget and as economical as I can with my Too Good To Go bags I picked up so whatever expires first got to go.
What I Ate
For the most part. I made omelettes. I like my eggs and they’re cheaper for a budget meal. I did had some other yummier things earlier in the months, but I’ll keep it simple. Next time I’ll have some yummier things. Otherwise for dinner I had Greek yogurt with some peanut butter and I snack on monkey nuts for some fat and protein. I actually like monkey nuts. I did mix some fruits in my Greek yogurt (hello blackberry season) until the last 3 days when I cut out the fiber. I usually have a protein shake for breakfast. Below are usually what I have for my after training lunch that I cook. Do note that the stuff I listed for each day isn’t the only thing I ate, but they’re my main meals.
Monday, July 22
I had a lot of vegetables in the fridge. I honestly was going to make this earlier to free up space in the fridge, but I was fed a lot on my birthday and had a bunch of meat anyways so time to clear up some space. I do like soup and it fills me up pretty good without being too heavy. I think I put some prawns in there, but I don’t remember at this point.
Tuesday, July 23
I think I got the chicken while going about on my daily walk and browsing through the aisles in Aldi or Morrisons. I don’t remember at this point, but I’ll keep my lean protein intake high and I still got a lot of vegetables to use up. No rice, couscous, noodles, or bread this week.
Wednesday, July 24
Just a simple 3 egg omelette as I didn’t find any bargains at the store lately and eggs are the cheapest.
Thursday, July 25
Minced chicken is always cheap and flexible. I’ll use some lettuce as a wrap kind of like how I eat bánh xèo (Vietnamese fried pancake usually with prawns, chicken, or pork that you wrap it with lettuce and dip in fish sauce). I’m lowering on the fiber at this point, but I still love vegetables so I stick to lettuce or cucumbers as cabbage and other vegetables would be high in the fiber content. Lettuce is basically my replacement for rice or couscous at this point to wrap my meat with kind of like how people would wrap their tacos in a tortilla instead, but I’m using lettuce.
Friday, July 26
Canned sardines are always cheap, full of protein and healthy cholesterol. The hot sauce version I like to mix into the omelette for extra flavor so I just put the sardine in the middle and make an omelette out of that and use lettuce as my “wrapping paper”.
Saturday, July 27
I wanted to go a bit more special today and had some frozen salmon in the freezer to use that up so it’s salmon and cucumbers today for me and the leftover minced chicken will go in my omelette sprinkled with some green onions for flavoring. I took Saturday as a rest day besides walking around the park and plucking blackberries. I’ll eat it after the cut experiment to keep fiber low to see how this goes.
I baked some salmons, threw some tomatos on top to have it melt over, and when the heat is off I toss some green onions over it (so it doesn’t vaporize but cook it a bit enough to make it fresh up). I have some cucumbers to absorb up the rest of the salmon juices.
Sunday, July 28
I saw Leon Edwards ate ice cream and still made weight. I slept very well last night. I read that you dehydrate as you sleep so that’s probably another few pounds I lost waking up. I figure why not, I have a small slice left I’ll have this for breakfast. I will say, it feels really good having a slice of cake in my mouth after not having much sugar all week. I weigh 58.5 KG that day. To be honest, I was just shooting for 61.2 KG but this was pretty effective and I feel pretty good. Probably if I do a real weight cut or something some day, it’d be nicer if I had a scale and a proper dietian (I’ll need to replenish my funds), but overall, this experiment was a success.
My refill was a bunch of rice crackers (simple carbs doesn’t upset the GI) and some jelly beans.
Overall, I don’t really care that much for cakes and I don’t even eat jelly beans on a regular, but it’s simple carbs for the week without it being heavy on fiber to upset the GI.
After my interclub, I was quite hungry and craving loads of protein so I stopped by Aldi, found some chicken, got home and cooked that, got some steamed veggies, and made some couscous. Simple whole food meal. I was craving fruits and had some waiting for me as I went blackberry plucking and I still have some leftover raspberries so for another snack later I went with some berries and cashews.
I’m not going to dirty bulk load my diet as I like how I look and felt throughout the whole experiment and I like eating whole foods. Plus to continue my little post experiment and play around more with cooking as I got plenty of time to experiment with food and I do like cooking, I figure I’ll go all the way (no all you can eat or big macs for me please. Most over processed buffets will send me to the toilet puking so I rather not). I don’t want to yo-yo diet either by going down in weight very fast just to balloon right back up. That wouldn’t be healthy.
Retrospect
I wish I had a scale at where I stayed to accurately measure next time since the only time I get a scale is when I’m in the gym. It’d allow me to measure more accurately.
I’m pretty sure I can make 56.7 KG (125 lbs) with a water cut, but it’d need to be very methodical after the other processes. 58-59 KG safer for me to leverage as the amount I eat while I’m in the UK isn’t as much as in the US. I’m generally heavier in the US and during the winter walking around more closer to 63-65 KG.
I actually enjoyed eating during a fight week period moreso than my regular day to day. I upped my portion of protein and eat more of that compared to regular as my intake of carbs were lower so in a way I got to eat more of the food I liked.
Overall, I liked how this experiment went out. I can make and eat good food, focused on what I learned and was taught by my teammates, and be in a good mood. Oh yeah, and finally get some abs. I can never get them when I’m above 62 KG.
Last Notes
If I’m running long distance for an extended period of time, I am adequately fueling my body with a lot of carbs though. Adequate fueling prevents fatigues and injuries so I’m definitely trying to pay attention to my nutrition more especially as I get older so I’d like to keep healthy habits of fueling right for the right tasks. Luckily I already grew up eating whole foods and a large variety of food so shifting things is easy for me.
ALSO I recommend getting a proper nutritionist rather than going off this blog post as a source of truth. Every BODY is different. I simply just want to document my experience self testing. I just wanted to share that you DON’T have to throw up your meal to be a certain weight. You DON’T have to go on a starvation diet to meet a certain weight. You DON’T have to just eat plain chicken breast no sauce and rice all day (at least use hot sauce. Low calories and taste good).