Cutting Weight

I am going to have my first amateur boxing match in early May. I am currently 6foot5 212lbs with about 10% bf. For the fight I need to get to 200lbs. My question is what is the best way to do this as I have never had to cut weight before. Training wise I box 4 or 5 days a week, run 3 days a week and full body strength training (cleans, squats, bench, pullups) 2 days a week. Obviously I�??d like to keep as much strength as possible but still get to 200. Any advice?

it’s 12 pounds man I’ve lost 23 in a month.
Eat a tiny bit less, run a little bit more.

I fight MMA and I have had success with the following plan. Unless you are more than 20 lbs over, don’t worry about cutting weight until 1 month out. Try to keep yourself about where you are, but don’t neccessarily try to actively lose weight. Eat a lot of wholesome, healthy foods and train hard. Starting one month out, begin to low-carb it a bit however you see fit.

I’ve had success with the V-diet light, some people do a carb-cycling thing, whatever you think. One week out you should aim to be UNDER 10 lbs from your goal. I usually aim for 8-9. Then days 7-4 out, do nothing much different but maybe (as you should be cutting your training intensity down significantly) do a little extra light running. Days 3-1 out, up your salt intake slightly (I mean slightly) and drink at least 2 gallons of water per day.

Day of weigh in (again assuming you are withing 10 lbs of goal, and you are weighing in at we’ll say 7 pm) eat a light breakfast a have a glass of water. That’s it for you today, so savor it. About 4.5 hours out, put a container of Epsom salts in a hot (as hot as you can tolerate) bath (I also put in a decent amt of sea salt and some apple cider vinegar) and sit in there for 30 min with as much of your body as possible under water. This will cut anywhere from 2.5-7 lbs (I usually get about 5 off).

Then go to the sauna. Get a vinyl sauna suit, make sure you wear a shirt under it and shorts under it so the suit doesn’t burn the fuck outta your skin. Sit in there for 15 min or so to start, and then do rounds of 5 min or so until you have cut off the remaining weight. I DO NOT recommend exercising the weight off. It will tire you out.

Also, do the bath first because it is far less fatiguing than the sauna and you want to do as little sauna as possible. After you make weight, drink a liter of Pedialyte fairly quickly. You will feel instantly better. Get another liter in over the next few hours. Eat a very high carb meal right after you weigh in also. Now some folks differ after this.

On the day of the fight, I usually eat a big breakfast and then graze all day. I focus on fruits and some lean protein. Others do other things like eat like a horse right up to fight time. Do this and you will be max strong for your fight and max heavy as well.

The absolute key, no matter what people tell you, is to get the weight down as quickly as possible, stay there for as short of time as possible, and get it back up as quickly as possible. Good luck!

im gonna disagree, depending on how much water youre holding, you might not have to lose any weight. Assuming its a 24 hour weigh-in, start drinking a TON of water 3-4 days before the fight, 24 hours before the weigh in (2 days before the fight) stop eating and drinking. If you need to sweat it out, steam room, sauna, car with the windows rolled up and heater blasting, whatever. After weigh ins start drinking 50% water, 50% gatorade, and eating. you should gain it all back within the 24 hours

He won’t need a full 24 hrs…if you take the salt bath and sauna combo that is. I agree with the huge amt of water (again at least 2 gallons/day), also upping sodium intake slightly will diminish aldosterone levels and get your body ‘in the mood’ to let go of some water. With that said, you won’t need 24 hrs, again the key is to do this in as short a time frame as possible.

For my last fight I was able to get 9 lbs off in 3 hours, weigh-in, and have almost the full 9 lbs back 4 hours after weigh-in. Pedialyte is best for quick rehydration. By the way, the grape is the best flavor by far. The orange tastes like cough medicine.

I think both KBC and DaneW (from the 3rd paragraph on imo!) are spot on in what they say. 12lb’s with a 24hour weigh in is nothing and should be easily doable.

I guess I should have mentioned this in my first post but it is not a 24 hour weigh in. Weigh in is at 5pm and fights start at 8pm.

[quote]DB297 wrote:
I guess I should have mentioned this in my first post but it is not a 24 hour weigh in. Weigh in is at 5pm and fights start at 8pm.[/quote]

Oh… that changes things then. You really don’t want to be going cutting massive amounts of weight in that time. Maybe 5-7lb at most. See what the others have to say first tho.

That does change things. You will want to diet closer to your goal in that case, and cut less water. You might even consider cutting no water. Especially for a first fight it is a lot of extra stress to be running around hours before trying to make weight.

That said, you should be able to cut around 5lbs of water and add it back on very fast.

My favorite cutting diet is just to eat very clean, and eat no carbs after breakfast. I drop weight fast this way and don’t feel too destroyed.

for such a short weigh-in cushion I would avoid the sauna and the vinyl suits. about 5 days out double your water intake and sodium. Roughly 48 hours out drop the sodium and scale back the water to normal. 24 hours out no water no food. If you need something to drink in that final stretch, hot dandelion root tea with lemon. A hot bath is ok if necessary but I would just relax in the room and keep pissing.

after the weigh in guzzle water first then the pedialyte (makes it much more effective than doing pedialyte first) and some type of simple carbs such as fruit or bread. Wait a bit for your body to start rehydrating then down some heartier food.

With that said, I’m a little confused as to why you can’t drop 12 pounds or something close to it in two and half months? If you start planning now you should be able to get comfortably below 210 without sacrificing any strength.

That’s what I was wondering. If you’re 10% bf you shouldn’t have much of a problem losing some fat. Shouldn’t be difficult at all to make weight without having to lose too much water weight. Remember, our bodies can only absorb 1.5 liters of water an hour (roughly), so you don’t want to be cutting tons of water if you only have 3 hours to be hydrated.

Just get your diet in check and up the cardio a bit. If you do that you should be only a few pounds off come fight week.