The Art of Cutting Weight
Intro - As most of you will know, I compete in the sport of Boxing, Kickboxing and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). For many years I have dedicated myself to these sports and train religiously, day in day out to further improve my skills and achieve one of my most important goals - turning professional.
Weight cutting- losing a large amount of weight to fit into a designated weight class for competition, is something that EVERY athlete in the sport of MMA has to partake in. For each athlete, it is ideal to be the lightest weight class possible to gain an advantage in strength over your opponent. This is why throughout my career, I have lost up to 11kg over the course of a training camp (8-10 weeks before a fight). I'm sharing with you how I do this and what process I have to go to, so I can hopefully motivate you to keep on pushing towards your goal of weight loss. I hope you find some useful tips in this article that could help you!
There is no secret potion. Your body has no choice but to burn fat if you are taking in a lesser amount of calories then you are expending. The beginning phase and middle phase of my weight loss is very easy. I eat simple foods that taste awesome!
Example; half a cup of oats for breakfast with milk or almond milk.
For lunch - Chicken breast\thigh with brown rice, sweet potato and other mixed vegetables. Protein shakes after training, and any choice of meat for dinner with vegetables that are low in carbohydrates for dinner!
This example is one of many different planned days that I may have. Not only can I lose weight by having these basic nutritious foods, I also feel energized too!
There are many more examples which you can ask your trainer about.
After the first time of weighing my food portion sizes I no longer need to as I know how much I should have on my plate. All of this does not take much time out of my day!
Most of us should be familiar with the macronutrients given to us through the Vision system. These numbers vary from each person depending on our age, weight and our goal. My case is no different and I often refer to my own macronutrients through the Vision system when I know that I need to lose weight for my competition.
What do we eat
- Chicken, fish, steak etc.
- Brown rice, Quinoa, sweet potato, any green vegetables or other low carbohydrate vegetable such as carrot, peas, cauliflower.
- Plain greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, Raw almonds
When do we eat
- I will have a small meal or snack every 3 hours. This ensures that I'm keeping my metabolism at a high rate throughout the day, helping me with burning fat.
- Each of these meals I will make sure I'm taking in a source of protein. This could also be from protein powder or bar, especially if I've been training.
- For breakfast, morning tea and lunch I will be having all of my carbohydrates. After lunch or afternoon tea I cut out carbohydrates. Since carbohydrates are the primary source of energy for the body, eating carbohydrate rich foods for dinner then going to bed just means that the body will store these carbohydrates since we are not using much energy at night.
Preparing food
- While preparing food might seem like a hassle at the time, it saves many hassles over the next few days. Here are some simple examples of preparing food that might help you;
- Cooking 500g+ of chicken breast & freezing them in 100g portion sizes to have on hand. You could also just add other vegetables to freeze too!
- Blending a smoothie with fruit, protein powder etc. if you don't have time to stop for morning tea or afternoon tea.
- Preparing a bulk amount of meals on a Sunday afternoon\day off & storing the rest of the meals that you don't have for later. If you have time at night you could also do this for the next day.
Although this is brief and there are many more tips & tricks I could give you, I hope you took something away from this article that you can implement! Remember that you can always ask your Trainer for help.
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
