Diet Tips

When it comes to weight loss you want to consider muscle mass, fat mass, and water as contributors. It is necessary to have a diet plan that maximizes fat and water loss and minimizes muscle loss. Your diet and exercise routine should never counteract your ability to train hard and increase performance.

Dropping weight before a fight is something you do in order to be at peak performance within your chosen weight class. When dieting is done correctly it should make you feel stronger, faster, leaner and energetic. Never tired or weak. But a good diet plan is not only necessary in being successful and ready for the fight. There are five other essential ideas that should be combined with an effective diet plan.

Dedication: Have integrity with yourself. Nobody cares how well you do, so you will have to want to do excellent for yourself. Sure, people will cheer you on and want you to win. But they will not hold you accountable for your choices and actions throughout the training and dieting process.

You are the Captain of your own ship. If you say you are going to do it then have integrity with that. Integrity is what you do or choose to do when nobody is looking. Losing weight and training hard requires integrity and also reap great personal reward. Nothing feels better than completing a challenging task by yourself, for yourself AND only because you said to yourself that you would.

When faced with a difficult situation or decision. Just remind yourself what is at stake. If you decide to do something this is not aligned with your goal remind yourself of what you are giving up if you make a decision to act without integrity.
Preparation: Get a good diet plan. You’re going to need to know the science, facts and specifics of calories, timing, and macromolecule ratios. You need to know the what, why and when’s of dieting. Find an experienced nutritionist and get started. The plan should be specific for your needs and although there are some specific universal rules of thumb, every sport and individual requires a different diet in order to maximize performance. See Nutrition Facts by Mike Loos to get started.

In order to succeed you have to plan out everything, you should have all the foods you need ready to eat. If you wait until your hungry to decide what to eat you’re already setting yourself up to fail. You should be eating what your diet recommends. Plan your shopping trips with grocery lists and recipes. Stay organized and make preparing for your meals a priority.
Sacrifice: Remind yourself everyday that if this was meant to be easy everyone would be doing it. Nothing worth doing ever came easy.

Realize that you will have to give up on parts of your lifestyle that are not conducive to your success. If Friday night parties are too tempting with food and alcohol, then turn down the invite. Figure out what your pitfalls are and modify how you would normally react. Just know that eating right and training hard means less time for other things. That is the sacrifice you make for success. And it is only temporary.
Positivity: Talk to people you know about what you’re doing. Inspire others and bring it into existence. When you talk about what you’re up to, it becomes more real. Don’t keep it in your head; bring it out into the open positively. Trust that what you’re doing is worth it. And that it will take time and patience. Be forgiving of yourself if you make a bad choice and then jump right back on the “Band Wagon”. Being successful does not require perfection. It requires you to have integrity more times than not.
Trickery: As the competition nears and weigh in time approaches losing the last amount of unnecessary weight is important. You have just spent weeks preparing by reducing your body fat, now it’s time to use some tricks to lose any excess weight.

The trick is to keep these key areas of your body functioning optimally:

A. Sweat Glands-Men have more muscle mass than women so they tend to carry more water which is stored in muscle tissue. This proves more effective for men.
Yet both sexes should utilize the dry sauna for sweating out water weight, meditation, relaxation, and flexibility maintenance.

B. Intestinal Tract-Large amounts of food should not be taken in the last few days before weigh ins. It is now time to fast and small healthy meals should be consumed. You can wait until after you weigh in to eat a lot. You want to make sure your GI tract is clean and one way to do this is by drinking a “Dieters Tea” or “laxative tea” the night before weigh ins. This will help eliminate any materials that your body is holding onto that serve no purpose. That’s why it’s called “waste”. Staying close to the restroom is always necessary when using this trick.

C. Circulatory System & Urinary Tract- Stay away from high sodium foods and High carbohydrate meals. Both of these will cause excess water storage. Your last meal the day before weigh ins should be low sodium and low carb. Save the carbs for your pre-fight meal. Take water pills to help elimination AND contrary to popular belief drink a lot of water! Excess water will not store unless you give it a reason to. If you stop drinking water you are giving your body a reason want to hold onto water. The point is to eliminate excess water and maintain the appropriate level needed to perform well. If you’re dehydrated your performance will suffer. Every bodily function requires water. Balance your bodily elements by drinking coconut water once a day for a few days before the fight. Coconut water is naturally loaded with minerals that will balance out your body’s mineral content, which play a role in good hydration and proper elimination of excess water. Make sure your bladder is empty and you have eliminated before you step on the scale.

When you step on the scale to weigh in you should feel hydrated, strong, lean, energetic and a little hungry. The previous weeks spent losing fat, maintaining muscle tissue and losing excess water have paid off on the scale and have contributed in maximizing your performance as an athlete.