Trial Weight Cut Results

So the results of the cut are in, 9 pounds in 3.5 days. Not quite what I was after but also just the most basic measures, no steam room or epsom salt baths or any of a dozen other techniques that I have standing by (and which range from the uncomfortable to the positively distasteful). I felt all awash when loading water (weird and unpleasant), then when dehydrated my wedding ring fell right off when and I had some leg cramps after exercising (the former was actually a little unnerving as it made the point unexpectedly that this was working), and I felt light-headed when exercising not long before the "weigh-in." Eating during the cut was a lot of (unsalted) eggs, tuna, greek yogurt and salad greens (and a little bit of ice cream actually), which got old. I rehydrated quickly and was back up to near my starting weight within around 12 hours, although I ate a little a normal sized meal early on and it was too much. The next day, "fight day" in this simulation, I felt great and actually very light and energetic almost like the bounce back after an illness.

I had to cut the whole thing a bit short when my wife started sending me articles on how many people die doing a weight cut. This really pointed up the distance between the world I live in and the world of any sort of fight sports. Nobody I see in my daily work/parenting/neighborhood life thinks this weight cutting is anything other than completely nuts. This includes people training for marathons and other sports, who i frankly think are beating their bodies up in serious ways. The fact is that every single fight event in which weight classes figure are going to have people doing varying degrees of weight cuts (and they are all probably unhealthy). So I find myself spending a lot of time trying to explain why I would even want to do any of this but especially this bit which is very visible outside of the gym where I train. It points up that beyond the learning curve for an older guy trying to work all this out, that there is a lot of social pressure to not do this. More on this in the days ahead.

BTW finding advice about how to do a good safe cut seems pretty rare online (the basic outline of what I did came from this Muay Thai Guy article), and that certainly reflects that there is risk here (and nobody wants the liability). So let me say I am not recommending anybody do what I have done, I share it because I am sharing the experience, and not as a roadmap.