Ideally, you should continue to cut down your intake of carbs further leading up to the fight to lose weight. Avoid eating carbohydrates as much as you can before the fight. There are many different ways that you can track count carbohydrates. Check the nutritional information on your food package or use a diet app to help estimate how much you are eating. You should particularly avoid eating fruits, sugars, and starches, as these are high in carbohydrates or water and will make cutting weight more difficult. Track how many calories you eat throughout the day too. Cutting back on calories can help with losing body fat.
On the day of your weigh-in, any food you eat that you cannot pass will contribute to your overall weight. Stick to 1 or 2 smaller meals earlier in the day to keep your weight as low as possible. Try eating a plain chicken breast and some broccoli as soon as you get up, and then a small meal of cooked vegetables just before lunchtime on the day of the weigh-in.
Meats and vegetables that aren’t seasoned with salt will be very low in sodium. While this will make your food very bland, it will also make it very effective at helping you cut weight. Try seasoning your food with other spices or herbs to make it more flavorful. Your body only needs 186 mg (0. 18 g) of salt to continue functioning properly, but it will be very difficult to eat this little sodium. Focus on reducing the sodium in your diet, as it is near impossible to cut it out completely.
Aldosterone is a hormone that encourages water to be reabsorbed into the body. By drinking more water than you need, your body will stop producing as much aldosterone, increasing the amount of water you get rid of each day. Be prepared to urinate upwards of 10 times each day that you are down-regulating your aldosterone levels. Most of the water in your body that is flushed will come out as urine.
If your weigh-in is on a Friday, for example, you should drink 8 litres (2. 1 US gal) of water on the Sunday, 4 litres (1. 1 US gal) on the Monday and Tuesday, 2 litres (0. 53 US gal) on the Wednesday, 1 litre (0. 26 US gal) on the Thursday, and nothing but small sips up until the weigh-in on Friday. Flushing your body of water and not replacing it will cause you to become very dehydrated, which can be harmful to your kidneys, increase the chances of concussion, and result in heat stroke. Always consult a doctor or medical professional before attempting to do so.
The bath should be hot enough to cause “moderate pain”, but not enough to burn your body. You may need to add some water heated over a stove or in a kettle to get your bathwater hot enough. To increase the rate at which you lose water weight through sweat, you can exercise in the sauna as well. Be careful when doing this not to over-exert yourself, as this can cause faintness and may make you pass out. Make sure someone can observe you and prevent you from harming yourself. You can also help sweat out excess water weight by wearing warm clothes in the week before your weigh-in. Forcing yourself to sweat and dehydrate can be incredibly dangerous to your health. Always consult a doctor before attempting to do so.
There might not be a bathroom easily available in the few hours before the start of the fight, so it’s best to stop drinking so much water a few hours before the fight. 1 litre (0. 26 US gal) of water is the absolute maximum that the human body can absorb in an hour. Drinking too much water can be deadly. [7] X Research source This will help restore your cut water weight, which can give you a competitive advantage in the fight.
Stay away from junk food. It will help you put weight back on, but won’t give you the energy you need for your fight. Try having a large meal of beef and vegetables with rice a few hours after the weigh-in. Have a large meal of pasta and chicken in the mid-morning the day before your fight. Eat as much as you can for each meal without feeling bloated or ill at the time of your fight.
Carbohydrates will help to draw the water into your body and add to your overall weight. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, and pasta are all great options for carbohydrates. Have 1 or 2 servings with each meal in the day before the fight.
Only ever add salt to your food, rather than eating salt by itself to increase your sodium intake. Your food should be salty, but you shouldn’t be salting it to the point that you can’t taste anything but salt. The American Heart Association recommends a maximum intake of sodium around 2300 mg (2. 3 g) each day. It is likely that you will go over this by adding salt to each meal. This may be detrimental to your health long-term, but going over the recommended intake occasionally shouldn’t harm you. [10] X Trustworthy Source American Heart Association Leading nonprofit that funds medical research and public education Go to source Always consult a doctor or nutritionist before increasing your sodium intake suddenly and drastically.
