Adventures in Weight Cutting

DISCLAIMER: Weight cutting is not recommended by Physicians. It does have risks, especially if you overdo it. This blog is just a documentation of my experience. It is in no way a guide or instructions on weight cutting.

NOT me

  When a boxer or Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter wants to lose weight quickly prior to a fight, they cut weight. Weight cutting is basically dehydrating yourself in a 24-48 hour period to lose as much weight as possible so you can qualify for a lower weight class. Once they make weigh-in, they rapidly gain back all the weight in another 24 hours so they can fight at their actual weight. It can be

dangerous and you can suffer from health problems if you take it to the extreme.

  Last September I had knee surgery. Nothing dramatic, just an orthoscopic procedure to repair a torn meniscus that had been bugging me for years. It would occasionally flare up, causing discomfort, but it didn’t prevent me from doing long distance running. I enjoy long distance running, and even ran a marathon with my bum knee. Post surgery, I was supposed to be able to resume running about 4-6 weeks and be back to normal shortly afterward. I couldn’t wait to test out my new knee and at exactly the 4 week mark, I hit the pavement. I didn’t get very far because my knee shot out in pain. I decided to wait the full 6 weeks, testing it on an elliptical first. It was still painful, but the pain went away after 20 minutes of exercise. I figured I just had to work out the kinks and press through the pain. I had another painful

attempt at jogging, but I decided to try again. The second time wasn’t as bad. After a week, it was getting easier to run, but I was nowhere near the level I was pre-surgery (I ran 15 miles the week before, and 3 the day prior). What’s worse, my knee began hurting on the opposite side of surgery. Suspecting there was more damage, I made an appointment with the surgeon at the 3 month mark. He assured me it was normal, and my knee was just getting back in shape after years of neglect. I don’t think he remembered I was running on it up to the day prior to surgery.

Also not me. I would never wear that shade of red.

  What does this have to do with cutting weight? Well, one of the primary reasons I run is for weight control. I love food. I can either cut down what I eat, or continue to eat and burn it off via running. Without my constant running, my weight crept back up. I’m not blaming it on lack of exercise. I didn’t eat well, and there were other things I could have done. Regardless, I had an Air Force Fitness test coming up, and it wasn’t looking good.

  The Air Force has a semi-annual fitness test that everyone is required to pass. It’s not super difficult to get a minimum passing score, but it’s a little challenging to get a 90+ score. If you get 90+, you only have to PT test once a year, so that’s a pretty good incentive. Unfortunately, I’ve only achieved a 90+ score once, and that was while I was deployed (not many places to eat, plus nothing to do but exercise = skinny me). The thing that usually gets me is the waist measurement. The PT test consists of 4 graded components: 1.5 mile run (max 50pts), Waist (max 20), Pushups (max 10), and sit-ups

(max 10) = 100 possible points I usually do great on the running, push-ups, and sit-ups, but struggle on the waist. 35 inches and bellow is the best, and anything over 39 is an automatic failure. I’m a hefty guy despite all my running, and there are no adjustments for height.

  When the new Air Force Fitness test came out, you had 3 days to do everything. Most would weight in one day, do sit-ups and pushups the next, and then run the third. Airmen would frequently dehydrate themselves to make the waist, then rehydrate for the next two days. Not quite weight cutting like the pros, but similar. The Air Force got wise, and quickly changed it to everything in one day. This means that weight cutting is near useless with the PT test. When you dehydrate yourself, you have little energy and cannot possibly pass the running portion. I know, I’ve tried.

  Each portion of the test is waiverable (the Military loves waivers…). Because of my knee, I was testing on just the waist portion. I only asked for a running waiver, but somehow it would up covering the pushup and sit-up portion too. I had an opportunity to try weight cutting since I didn’t have to worry about recovering. Plus I didn’t have much of a choice, because (PT) failure is not an option. (Seriously. They kick people out for PT failures…)

  A quick Google search for weight cutting brought up several how-tos. I already knew the basics, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid. Here are the basics of weight cutting:

Eliminate salt/sodium: Salt causes your body to retain water. I discovered this the hard way when I gained 7 lbs. and 2 inches following a carb loading meal at Olive Garden prior to a PT test. Fortunately the test was rescheduled. Since then, I routinely abstain from salt two days prior to any PT test. 

Eliminate Water: Water=weight. 

Eliminate carbs: I usually do this anyway, but everything I read said carbs helped hold water. I don’t know how true that is, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Lots and lots of sweating: it’s the easiest way to get rid of water from your body. Some people try

diuretics, but I wouldn’t recommend them. They really mess with your body and they are tough to control. If you sweat, you can stop and start at anytime.

My tape-in was at 1000 Friday morning, so I started 24 hours prior.

Crab comes from the sea? Who knew?

48 Hours to tape-in, 245lbs, 42-inch waist: “Wait. Didn’t you say 24 hours”? I had intended to do it in 48 hours. I eliminated as much salt in my diet as I could, but drank normally. My low salt foods for the day consisted of eggs (excellent low-salt food because of protein), unsalted tuna, mayo, and more eggs. Normally, fresh meat, including fish, without seasoning is great for low sodium (though very bland). Because of this, I had this great idea of having fresh crab with salt-free butter for dinner. Following the delicious crab feast, I decided to check to nutritional value online, and then had a face-palm moment. Since crab is, you know, from the ocean, and the ocean is, you know, FILLED WITH

SALT, it has a fair amount of sodium. Not bad, but kind of defeated what I was trying to accomplish.

26 hours to tape-in, 243 lbs., 42 inch waist: I normally lose a few lbs. overnight between sleeping and the morning pee, and today was no different, despite the crab foux pas. I took the day off to concentrate on the task at hand. I ate 3 eggs for breakfast and had my final glass of water.

20 hours to tape-in, 242 lbs., 42 inch waist: I didn’t really do much that morning, other than not drink anything. Due to the low-salt, I was urinating regularly, so I lost a lb. I had another 3 eggs for lunch.

Me after 3 steps.

  Now it was time to start sweating. The recommended best way to sweat was a sauna. I’m assuming this is because the MMA fighters don’t want to expend too much energy prior to their fight. I had no cage match upcoming, so I decided to run instead. I waited till the afternoon when it was a little warmer outside. I donned a sauna suit and threw a hoodie over it. I couldn’t find my sweatpants, so I wore jeans because the sauna suit was just too damn attractive to wear by itself.

19.5 hours to tape in, 237 lbs., 41-inch waist: The 2.5-mile jog went fine. I could tell I was getting a little overheated at the end, so I took it slow the second half. I usually sweat when I run, but I was drenched in the sauna suit. Since the sauna suit is relatively airtight, a lot of sweat pooled inside of it. I took it off in the bathtub and it just poured out of the suit. I toweled off, then stepped on the scale and saw I lost 5 lbs. This wasn’t too unusual. I’ve sweat off more before, but that was when it was much warmer than 65 degrees outside. Still, I knew I was on to something.

19 hours to tape in, 236 lbs., 41-inch waist: I continued to sweat following my run. I wasn’t super thirsty, but I sucked on a couple ice cubes to help my rapidly drying mouth.

16 hours to tape-in, 236 Lbs., 41 inch waist: I attended a parenting class with my wife. I felt a little woozy and tired, but I think that had more to do with my egg-diet than anything else. I looked longingly at the other parent’s drinking water and questioned if it was really worth it. Little did I know, the real suffering was about to begin.

12 hours to tape-in, 233 lbs., 41 inch waist: Besides saunas, the next most recommended way to sweat was taking a very hot bath. In addition, I read that using Epson salt enhances the water extraction. I filled the tub with as-hot-as-I-could-stand-it water and 2 cups of Epson salt. It took me a while to get used to the temperature, but eventually I submerged most of my body. The Internet recommends you submerge as much as you can underwater, but I just sat there and read a magazine for 30 minutes. I’m glad I decided to get out, because I was feeling a bit woozy and light headed. I think it was from the heat more than the dehydration. I escaped to the toilet and turned the fan on to cool off. I was nauseated and fighting the urge to pass out. I wondered if I was going too far. I recovered long enough to weigh and tape myself. I lost 3 lbs., but no inches. Exhausted, I went to bed.

4 hours to tape in, 231 lbs., 39.5 inch waist: I had a miserable night’s sleep. I was very hot, and very thirsty. I woke up in the middle of the night, opened a window and sucked on a few ice cubes. I finally cooled off and slept the remainder of the morning. Upon waking (and peeing) I weighed myself 2 lbs. lighter, but an impressive 1.5 inches thinner.

  The inch loss didn’t surprise me too much. I’ve learned in the past that being hot expands your waist. I learned this when an Air Force squadron of mine insisted on taping us after our run. Everyone always taped in higher than expected. I experimented and concluded that yes, your waist does expand after exercise. I assume it’s because when you are hot, your blood vessels expand and make their way as close to the skin as possible so it can cool off.

2 hours to tape-in, 227 lbs., 39 inch waist: I knew I was cutting it close on the waist. I downed 3 more eggs for breakfast, and put the sauna suit back on for another run. It was in the low 50’s, and little sun outside, so my run didn’t produce as much noticeable sweat. I also had a significant lack of energy and the run was more of a walk with occasional running spurts. I still managed to cover 2.2 miles, and lost 3 lbs.

  I tried another Epson salt bath, but kept it down to 12 minutes. After how awful I felt the last time, I didn’t want to push it too far. I left the tub a little woozy again, but quickly cooled off and weighed myself a final time. I hit 227, which was 16 lbs. lighter than when I started (18 if you count the day before).

Tape-in: I was eager to get the taping done and over with. I was so hungry and so thirsty; I would have done just about anything for a drink of water. I showed up 15 minutes early, and the Air Force being the Air Force, told me I had to wait into 1000 to tape in. I went outside in the chilly air to ensure there was no thermal expansion. Finally, the moment of truth arrived! They taped me in at 37 inches, which I felt was fairly generous, but I wasn’t complaining. I passed, and that’s all that mattered.

  I immediately ran to my car and chugged a bottle of water in 2 seconds.  Even though my stomach was a little queasy, it was the best damn tasting bottle of water I had ever consumed.

Post tape-in: I ran to the Burger King on Base (BK is my traditional post PT test food establishment), and chugged 3 medium Sprites. I ordered a Big King and a Yumbo (ham and cheese) plus fries. I felt like I could eat it all, but only ate the Yumbo and most of the fries. I had another 64 oz. of drinks on the way home, plus Pizza for dinner. I wound up gaining 8 lbs. back that day, and all 15 back the next 48 hours. I felt lethargic the day of the tape-in, but I was basically fine, albeit very thirsty, the next day.

Conclusion

Losing 17 lbs. in 2 days is possible. Granted, I’m a bit larger than the average person, so results may vary. I think I teetered on the edge of going too far. I probably could have achieved the same results, but continued to drink some water prior to my first sweat activity. I was curious to see if it would work, and it did, but I feel like I cheated.

  One thing I want to emphasize is that I felt miserable while doing it, and immediately gained it all back. I would much rather go through several months of dieting and legitimately lose the weight than go through that again. If you want to lose a few pounds and maybe an inch off you waist for a special occasion, I would recommend just cutting salt from your diet 24-48 hours before. It’s easy, relatively painless, and far less risky.