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Old Forum Cutting Weight

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Physical Culture

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I have a powerlifting meet next Saturday, Nov. 10.  I'd like to compete in the 181 division.  I woke up this morning at 185. My body fat is 17.5% according to a skin caliper.  My diet is mostly clean, but far from perfect.  I have a question about cutting weight for the meet.

I want to drop about 6-7 pounds in 6 days.  I don't want to use diuretics or anything unhealthy.  I was reading about water manipulation without dehydration.  The basic technique is this: Sunday through Thursday, drink 2 gallons of water a day.  Friday, drink less water, but enough for hydration- 3-4 quarts.  Drink nothing after 6 p.m.  Saturday, wake up and go to the weigh in.

The theory seems to be twofold: the extra water causes the body to release stored water weight, as well as triggering other fat loss mechanisms.  The 14 hour water fast gives the lifter time to urinate out the extra water as well.  Articles claim that a lifter can drop 10 pounds in a week this way. Some aspects of it make sense, and it certainly does not seem unhealthy.

Has anyone used this method?    In addition, I plan to cut carbs this week.  Any thoughts on cutting 6-7 pounds in a week without losing strength?  I don't mind if a few of the pounds of water weight come right back after the weigh in.

 
 
Fellow Steve, 4 pounds over with a week to go should be no problem.  I will share my thoughts by responding to some of the points you made, and I'll close with a few things you might not have considered.

If your diet isn't perfect, this is the week to make it so - just that can cause you to drop several pounds.  I don't know what "far from perfect" is in your case, but start by eliminating all sweets - the means any deserts, any soda, and anything else that's not contributing to your nutrition.

You don't need to drop "about 6-7 pounds", you need to drop 4.  There's no reason to make it worse than it is.
 It's important to know if a weigh-in option the day before is available.  I have a meet on the 18th with an option to weigh in between 5 and 6:30 PM on the 17th.  You can bet I'll be weighing in as early as possible.

I don't think trying to over-hydrate is a sound strategy, and if you haven't tried it before now, the week before your meet, then don't start.  Try it some other time if you like.

Drinking nothing after 6 PM the day before is a fine idea.

Don't cut out carbs if you're not used to that - it can make you weaker.  You can try this but it's another strategy to experiment with ahead of time.

There are herbal diuretics you can take - don't rule them out.  There's one called XPEL made by MHP that I use before a meet pretty regularly and it's good for a pound or two for me.  One of the nice things about it is that you are encouraged to drink because the diuretic does the job of shedding water for you.

You can drop several pounds in the hour before you weigh-in simply by getting into the hottest bath tub can stand.  I drop 1 pound every 20-30 minutes this way, and I regularly show up at a meet a pound or two over then spend an hour in the tub right before the weigh-in.

Bring your own scale with you.  You'll need it if you try the hot tub approach.

If you weigh 185 now and you're OK with dropping 2 pounds of water weight in the hour before the weigh-in, you can wake up the morning of the meet at 183.  There is no need to drop 6-7 pounds this week.

Yes, you'll put back the water weight- that's as it should be.  You should try to put some of it back beginning immediately after the weigh-in.

Your bodyfat percentage is, at this point, irrelevant.

I hope that's helpful to you.

-S-
Steve Freides, StrongFirst Team Leader
http://www.kbnj.com
http://RideChickens.blogspot.com
 
If you want to lose the water in your body, it can't get better than diuretics, can it? In a normal, healthy individual a dose of Lasix (frusemide) will not reduce your potassium and cause weakness. But I don't know anything about the specific subject of cutting for a meet.
 
I am fairly sure that frusemide is banned by most sporting organizations.

 
 
Thanks, everyone.  The meet does not have an early weigh in.  Weigh in starts at 8:00 on Saturday morning.  It is about 25 minutes from my house, so that's a big advantage. I just wake up and go.  Furusemide is on the list of banned substances, so that's out.  I'll check out the herbal diuretic Steve mentioned.  I take very few medicines and supplements at all (multivitamin/mineral, fish oil, liver tabs, glucosamine and condroitin, ibuprofen when needed). 

A question, Steve, about the bathtub method: is it safe to test this method by doing it more than once in a week?  For instance, to try it on Monday to see how much weight it takes off me, then hydrate and do it again on Saturday? 

It's just a local meet, and I'm not at a level to break any records.  I'm in the 35-39 category, so the competition is pretty thin anyway.  If I showed up in the 198 division, it wouldn't matter that much, but I'd rather keep lifting in the 181 so I can measure my progress against a consistent group of lifters.

 
 
"Far from perfect" means I eat some things I shouldn't: peanut better, cheeseburgers, pizza sometimes.  I eat lots of vegetables (we have a great garden 8 months out of the year, so most of my veggies are fresh and organic) and lean meats and eggs (fresh from our chickens).  This week, I'll cut the crap and stick to lean meats, fresh veggies, and a few whole-grain carbs.  No sodas, but I put away about half a pot of 1/2 caff coffee every morning.  I don't know how many calories I consume- probably 2,000 to 2,500 a day when I'm eating right.
 
Steve, we're all different but if you're healthy I think you could try the hot tub method on Monday.  The dehydrating quickly isn't for everyone and I recommend you do it with someone nearby, just in case you start to feel funny.  Actually, you almost certainly will feel funny.  The question is how do you recover?

I wish you white lights.

-S-
 
Thanks, Steve!  I'll give it a try.  Do you recommend water afterward, or something with electrolytes like Gatorade or Pedialite?  It would be nice to know how I can expect to feel afterward, and how long it takes me to recover, so a trial run makes sense.
 
Sure, Gatorade or Pedialyte - again, try and see how it works for you.  When I weigh in the day before, I usually go to dinner right after the weigh-in and picky salty foods and that does it for me, but no reason not to try a recovery drink that I can see since that's what they're made for.

Every meet I've done has had a day-before weigh-in, but I have another meet on December 1 that does not so I'll be experimenting with all this stuff, too - every situation is different, and same-day weigh-ins are definitely harder to handle.

One other things no one has mentioned is taking a laxative the day before - I don't do this but I know some people do.

(And Lasix - yes, that' s banned substance in every athletic endeavor, even if you have a legitimate prescription for it for medical reasons,  so stay away. )

-S-

Steve Freides, StrongFirst Team Leader
http://www.kbnj.com
http://RideChickens.blogspot.com
 
Steve F,

  Just got out of the tub.  I was in for 30 minutes, as hot as I could take it.  Went in weighing 184, came out at 183.  Drinking a cold Gatorade to recover.  Thanks for the advice.  Of course, with a week of clean eating ahead, I may not need it.  This organization weighs with a digital scale. Do you know the standard cutoff?  If you weigh 181.1, does that put you in a heavier class, or would 181.9 still qualify?  How does that usually work?

Steve
 
I've seen every manner of scale from the old doctor's office kind to digital.  If it weighs you at 181.1, you're over the limit, though, if 181 even is your limit - more on that below.

About the tub - periodically let some water out and put some hot water back in.  It cools off pretty quickly and you need to keep it hot in order to keep you sweating off water weight.  Many people do things like jog to sweat off some water weight but I cannot see the point in wearing yourself out - the tub accomplishes the same thing, perhaps a little slower, but it still gets the job done and you get to save your energy for the meet.

Back to scales - you need to check on exactly what the limits are - I'm aware of it only for my own weight class, which goes like this: The official designation for me is 67.5 kg, which works out to be 148-3/4 lbs., so on a digital scale, if I come in at 148.7, I'm good, but 148.8 means I'm over.  They call my weight class 148 but it's closer to 149...

Often this sort of thing is spelled out in a federation's rules book, generally available online at their web site - you might want to check it out that way or probably easier just to direct your question to whoever is handling the email inquiries about the meet and they should be able to tell you.

Last but not least, my experience has been that meet directors will never use a scale that's going to weigh you heavy - if their scales are at all inaccurate, it's usually in the lifter's favor. My own bathroom scale is a Tanita that weighs in 2/10 lb. increments and I've always found that I come in at 2/10 or even 4/10 _less_ on the official meet scale -  I know that if I've made weight on my own scale, then I've almost certainly made it with a little room to spare on the official scale.

Hope that helps.

-S-

Steve Freides, StrongFirst Team Leader
http://www.kbnj.com
http://RideChickens.blogspot.com
 
Thanks, Steve.  I appreciate you taking the time to help me out.  I have an old doctor's office balance scale that I have verified is accurate (either that, or all of my kettlebells are consistently inaccurate- not likely). 

Can I bother you for one more question?  I've got my diet dialed in for this week, but I'm getting conflicting advice about training.  Some say to continue lifting reasonably heavy, and others advise a deload.  Last Friday I hit a mini-peak (a single of 210 and 355 in the bp and dl, respectively).  My most recent maxes in these lifts are 225 and 375 at this bodyweight.  I'd like to make 230 and 405 at the meet.  What do you recommend for training this week?  I can back off the kettlebell  lifting, but do you have any recommendations for the bp and dl?  Thanks.
 
My coach has me do zero lifting for the entire week before a meet so that's what I'm going to do in preparation for my meet on Nov. 18.  I think what you do the week before the meet depends a lot on how you train, i.e., if you're used to lifting frequently, taking a week off could be detrimental.  I was only lifting twice a week, anyway, so taking a week off doesn't feel like that big a deal, and I do lots of things to keep ready, e.g., my wife and I love to walk so I keep doing that, I stretch, and I might do things like a few moderate kettlebell presses, windmills, or swings, just to stay loose.

One subject that comes up frequently is how to plan your meet attempts.  My usual guideline is to open with something I've tripled in training to make sure I don't bomb out.  After that, it's all about where you're at in your current training.  If your training has been going well and you think you can do it, it's nice to go for a small PR on your second attempt and yet another PR on your third, but it's so individual - those are just how I think about it.

 

-S-

Steve Freides, StrongFirst Team Leader
http://www.kbnj.com
http://RideChickens.blogspot.com
 
Thanks, Steve.  I lift frequently (both my office and my gym are at home), so a week off would be quite out of the norm.  I think I'll deload the powerlifts, and do some moderate kettlebell lifting to keep active, but not fatigue the lifts themselves.  Thanks for your advice on this.  I'll post results here.
 
I've used Geoff Neupert's KB Burn Extreme, dropped more than that in the first week, don't see 4 pounds in 5 days being out of reach. If you do stick to yams and sweet potatoes on the carb days for the lowest GL choices and biggest bang as all dairy and gluten would be out of your system.
 
That was an incomplete thought at best (one of many reasons not to post on forums before bed...)

I was referencing the eating methodology /meal timing, and recovery components of the program.  Switching training methodologies a handful of days before a competition would obviously be dumb.
 
183, two days out.  I've had a terrible head cold since Monday- don't know what difference that makes, but the weight is coming down.  Shouldn't have to take any extreme measures for Saturday.
 
I weighed this morning, 24 hours out.  181 exactly.  I went to bed last night at 185, and flushed a lot of fluid during the night.  I severely reduced carbs this week, and drank 1.5 to 2 gallons of water a day.  Today I'll drink a gallon, eat light, and cut everything off by 6:00.  If I wake up heavy, I can do the hot tub treatment.  Thanks for the advice, everyone.  Maybe my experience can assist others as well.   I'll update this weekend with my weight, and my lifts.
 
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