Leah:
Welcome to episode 16 of the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. I’m your host Leah Higl and I am here with my co-host Aidan Muir. And today we’re going to be discussing acute weight cuts. So specifically acute weight cuts, not talking about long-term body fat loss. So I suppose to set the scene, let’s talk briefly about the two kinds of weight loss.
The first is going to be that more chronic loss of body fat and or muscle mass to reduce your scale weight over time. And the second is going to be the acute manipulation of things like sodium, water and fibre in your system to reduce your scale weight. So in today’s podcast, we are going to be talking specifically about number two.
Aidan:
Yeah, so making weight for competitions basically like we obviously work with lot of powerlifters, combat sports, other things like that where you need to make a certain weight class and in some cases it be really favourable to be a little bit above your weight class in terms of size. The big one it obviously makes sense with fighters and stuff like that where it’s like if you’re 5 % bigger than the person you’re fighting like I don’t know it’s a very compelling like it’s a clear advantage so like there’s a lot of reasons why people want to do it which does lead into like what we want to talk about like who should be weight cutting and who shouldn’t.
I kind of want you to first on that one before I say my piece. So who should be doing weight cuts?
Leah:
I personally only advise weight cuts for people who are either like professional in that sport, are going for some kind of record. Maybe if you’re like trying to podium at a particular event or competition, you could say maybe maybe do a weight cut there. But if you’re not super competitive in the sport that you’re in, and you don’t necessarily need to do one, then I would always advise against it like there is some like it puts a lot of stress on the body and if it is going to be better for you to get 100% of your performance on the day then it doesn’t make any sense to do a weight cut.
Aidan:
Yeah and like the reason I wanted you to go first is because that that is the gold standard like that is how we view it and like I think I’m the outlier. I’m just like a little bit more pro weight cuts than most people and like something that I think about and why it shaped my view is it’s like I do have the opinion that you can cut about for like the research on fighters which we’ll talk about in a bit but research on fighters is like four percent, sorry four hour weigh-ins you can get about five percent body weight the week of and rehydrate and everything like that and lose no performance. That’s what the research on fighters shows.
So it doesn’t mean that works for all athletes like doesn’t mean it works for Powerlifters and everything like that and doesn’t mean there’s no individual variation like some people will get better results Some people get worse, but what I think about is it’s like I’m a pretty mediocre powerlifter. I’m never gonna podium. I’m never gonna break records I’m never gonna do anything like that but like I want to get the best performance that I can get and that includes to me being like my best power to weight ratio or whatever it is or the best total or whatever body weight like I want to get the best that I can get and if I went with that gold standard definition I’d never be able to do that.
And it’s basically telling myself I’d never be able to do that. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything like silly like really push the boundaries or anything like that but it does mean like if I’m going to compete in a 90 kilo weight class I might weigh 94 kilos a week out or something like that and it’s something that I’m more open to doing with certain competitors and stuff like that like if I if I have a powerlifting client who’s done competitions before and they’re not gonna get a medal or they’re not gonna podium and they’re not gonna break a record. But they want to do a weight cut I’m not gonna convince them otherwise and I’m gonna try and help them do that. So I’m pretty open to it, but the gold standard is that they probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Leah:
Yeah, and I think if you’re not using any like if you’re being sensible about it, you’re not doing anything dangerous., Sure you can put your body through that I think the whole process is absolute hell and I havent done it and I don’t think I’d personally ever do it.
Aidan:
I suppose that’s another thing though because like I have obviously played around like that’s how I justify to myself I’m like I’m play around with it because I’m doing this with lot of clients I need to know what it feels like and so I have done like 94 to 89 in a couple of days I felt great like I felt fine yeah and like how was I gonna know that without doing that but it’s also like not everyone feels like that like most people seem to feel all right with that kind of job. When it gets 8%, most people feel pretty rubbish. The higher it gets, obviously the worse it gets.
The way I view it is 8% is really pushing it. 10% kind of have to be a bit of a freak to be able to be like, there are people who do that and they perform well and everything like that, but they are the outliers. They exist, you can do that, but I’m not encouraging that basically.
Leah:
Yeah. And you definitely want 24-hour weigh-in if you were going to that 8 to 10% for sure.
Aidan:
That’s a really relevant point in terms of because Olympic weightlifting for example and powerlifting Australia, APU, I don’t know about APU, but they do two hour weigh-ins. So that’s the point we should touch on that I don’t really recommend manipulating all these variables that we’re gonna talk about for those weigh-ins. I’d actually just rather you’re in your weight class or very close to your weight class. And a big factor for that is we have this research showing that 2% loss of body weight due to dehydration, is part of what’s one of the variables we’re trying to manipulate, 2% loss in weight makes you weaker. It makes you less coordinated.
That level of dehydration actually effects your performance. And we know you can only rehydrate so quickly. If you lose 2% body weight, and then you’ve got to go out and compete, you’re not going to be at your optimal. The reason why I talk about this is like, if we’ve got this research on four hour weigh ins for fighters trying to do 5%, and we work with clients who sometimes have 24 hour wanes, 5% seems a lot more comfortable considering they’ve got 24 hours to rehydrate.
Leah:
24 hours is a long time.
Aidan:
It’s stupid. Like it is actually. It’s pretty dangerous.
Leah:
Like people can push that in a lot of amateur boxing. So professional boxing in Australia, I believe you get 24 hour weigh-ins, but they will do two to four hour weigh-ins in amateur boxing just to prevent people from trying to do these really crazy weight cuts. Because I don’t know how you feel about this, but in powerlifting, I feel like our culture is getting a little bit better than it used to be in regards to weight cuts. Like I don’t see that many people doing crazy things anymore. I still see a lot of things in combat sports.
Aidan:
Yeah, exactly and like to be fair, that’s also part of why I started talking about this a lot more over the last few years as well because it’s like, power lifting does have a weird culture about it where it’s like, either people do not cut at all and they have that opinion being like, nah, cuts are bad, I’m not gonna do it at all or they cut too much or they cut in a bad way. Like there is that no middle ground that that is why I’m trying to talk about this. Whereas like in fighting, they do big cuts. A lot of times you can argue that it is too big and they might do it in dangerous ways or whatever. there’s very few people like, no, I’m not going to cut. Because if you don’t cut and you’re fighting somebody who’s 10% bigger, even if they didn’t do it perfectly that’s a rough matchup.
Leah:
Yeah, in combat sports where pretty much everybody’s doing it, you’re at a clear disadvantage if you don’t partake in it in some way.
Aidan:
Whereas we don’t have that clear thing in powerlifting. like, I also think it matters less in powerlifting. Like, let’s use the 94 and 89 kilo kind of example. Am I that much stronger at 94 than I am at 89? Like, it’s not that big of a difference. Whereas like, it seems to matter more in fighting and stuff like that. And the other thing to add is powerlifting is not as mature of a sport in what I’m getting at in terms of like the gap between people is pretty big because it’s not that popular of a sport as well. Like a lot of fights are close.
Competitors choose fights that are meant to be close. But if you watch like GPC states or GPC nationals and stuff like that, there’s like, there’s big differences between the levels of a lot of lifters. Like there is some close competitors and stuff like that. But often the person who wins is pretty far from the person who comes second is pretty far from the person who comes third.
Leah:
Yeah, exactly. And I think if you’re in a particular weight class, I think there’s definitely an argument for being on the higher end of that weight class, even if you’re not going over it. Like if you’re in the 75 kilo weight class, you probably want to be at least 74, 75 kilos almost, rather than like 68 kilos and be just within that weight class. But when it comes to weight cuts, yeah, I think it’s just questionable whether someone should do it or not. It really depends on how how long they have to weigh in. That’s gonna be one of the biggest variables in whether it’s going to affect your performance or not and how much you’re trying to cut, obviously.
Aidan:
Yeah, so getting to some specifics and obviously talking in regards to longer weigh-ins as we talked about. I think one of the big mistakes a lot of people make is they over-emphasise one tool. And typically it is just water, like they just stop drinking water or something like that. And that does work, but if we go back to that kind of line, it’s at about 2% loss of body weight, et cetera, et cetera. Like if we go back to that hurting your performance, it makes sense that we’d want to pull from other areas as well, if possible.
Something you said is like fibre, and also food volume ties into that. If you eat half a kilo of food and that’s in your stomach when you weigh in, that’s a half a kilo increase. Does that affect your performance? It’s not affecting your performance. If you instead had 200 grams of food, for example, you would weigh in 300 grams lighter and you’ve done nothing to hurt your performance. So that’s an obvious example, but that’s something to think about.
You can manipulate your fibre intake, you can lower your fibre intake, you can lower your food volume for, say, two days leading up to it, which we’ll talk through. And then salt, this is a debated one or sodium, a bit of a debated one but like obvious one is that we hold onto more water when we have higher salt intakes. Like if you go out to a restaurant and then weigh yourself the next day, which is all gonna lead into another point, typically your body weight’s higher because you’ve had a higher carbohydrate intake. Every gram of glycogen you store, you typically store around 2.7 grams of water as well. So it’s like you eat a lot of carbs, you store more water. You have a lot of salt, you store more water as well.
Also a bit of a lag effect for sodium and storing water due to the hormones aldosterone and ADH. So we can play around with some stuff with that where it’s like you can actually go really high salt or high sodium for the week of and then drop that at the end almost once again like tricking your body into like basically excreting more water. And then the last variable is obviously water intake. Anything else that you’ve thought of in terms of variables or anything like that or how you would go about weight cuts or how you wouldn’t go about them?
Leah:
Yeah so I guess when it comes to those particular variables, like if we’re talking about an athlete that doesn’t have much weight to cut, potentially you would just use things like your food volume and your fibre to manipulate a kilo or so of body weight if you’re really close to that before even touching on things like dehydration, like playing around with water and sodium because it’s the water and sodium manipulation that’s going to affect your performance. So if I can, I try to focus on a reduction in fibre, food volume and a reduction in carbs, see how much we can get out of that. And sure, if we have to, okay, we’ll do the water load and everything we’ll speak about in a minute, but we’ll do the water load and try to get some dehydration involved.
Aidan:
And even just on those points, that’s also where it’s like I always talk about like spectrums and stuff like that, but that’s why I say like you can do a little weight cut like if you’re in the 90 kilo weight class like no reason you can be 91 kilos or 92 like it’s such an easy job from there like with those little things you just talked about.
Leah:
Yeah, like if you have a two-hour weight and you’re just manipulating carbs and to a certain extent in fibre and food volume. You can fuel back up. But as soon as you start playing around with water, that’s what we have to be mindful.
Aidan:
Yeah, and even like using power lifting it’s like a two-hour weight and it’s actually more than two hours because it’s like it’s two hours and then you start squatting or whatever if you’re on the first flight. Then like, you’ve got like, your first opener is like, it’s still like a warm up, like, and then you’ve got the entire day before you get to the, it’s like, it’s really more than two hours, but yeah.
Leah:
Yeah, you’ve got, you’ve got time. I suppose another thing I would briefly want to touch on is variables that we wouldn’t use, but some people do use. So talking about things like induced sweating, so saunas, or even people putting on a bunch of garbage bags and going for a run and things like laxatives, diuretics. So yes, they’re all things that are used, but not things that we would suggest.
Aidan:
Yeah, I’m open to using saunas as a last resort. If somebody’s got a big weight cut, I’m like, let’s do all these things. like, maybe look at having a sauna as like if you need it.
Leah:
Yeah, I feel like if I can’t be there to monitor that person, then I do feel a bit irresponsible recommending it.
Aidan:
Yeah, I message them every day of the wake up and like try and stay in touch.
Leah:
Are you there during like it would you be there during like no time or because I see like the fight dietitian and obviously with their athletes they are there with that athlete monitoring them. It can be dangerous to induce sweat like that if you’re in a sauna for a few hours.
Aidan:
Yeah, I’ve never had someone do it.
Leah:
I have had someone do it, but I had made sure that their coach was there during that process and they were monitored during that so it’s one of those like question mark ones where I’m not completely against it, I think it can have its place. It’s just not something that I recommend consistently.
Aidan:
Yeah. And then when you’re about stuff like laxatives and diuretics, like they’re more likely to harm performance and stuff like that. Something that I think of like every time I hear laxatives and weight cuts, I think of the Scott Watson story.
Leah:
Oh me too.
Aidan:
Yeah. So I can’t remember, I don’t want to butcher it, but something about how like he had to make weight, he was doing 100 down to 90 kilos. Yeah. So like 10%, a bit over 10%. So pretty hectic. And he used, I think he used a bit of like a normal serve or something like that. And it wasn’t enough, or he just didn’t feel anything. So then he used more. I’m not sure if that’s right.
Leah:
Yeah, so he had the laxatives. I think this is right. He had the laxatives and he didn’t feel a response, you know, in the first hour or so. So he took the same dose again and then ended up having.. Yeah.
Aidan:
Yeah, so he was on the toilet the entire night and obviously got no sleep. Yeah, even like when nothing was coming out, he still was on the toilet. He just like, yeah, couldn’t get to sleep. And it’s like, well, obviously not getting sleep for an entire night is gonna hurt your performance. So yeah, like that, that always scares me. And like, that’s like a horror story, but like, I don’t know, like, yeah, little things like that aren’t going to go wrong with other stuff, basically more simple stuff.
Talking through a protocol. So let’s talk through it as if we had like a Saturday weigh in for a Sunday comp. So 24 hour weigh in. How would you approach that?
Leah:
Yeah, so if we’re doing a Saturday weigh-in, mean, how many days I actually do this protocol for depends on the person and how much weight they have to cut. But let’s talk about average. So maybe we’d start like the week before, like the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Aidan:
I’d look at the definitely Sunday for like an 8% style cut for a more hectic one, but like for a smaller one, probably, probably Monday, Tuesday.
Leah:
Yeah. So this, this can definitely differ individual client to client, person to person. But yeah, we can talk through what we’d roughly do. So I suppose for the first four days, we’re going to go fairly low carb, but we’re going to keep normal fibre still. So we don’t want to cut that too early because that’s definitely not going to be a good thing. And we’re going to have a high water intake. So starting a bit of a water load and starting that high sodium intake that you talked about. And then after that, say two to four days is done we will still keep that low carb diet but we’ll also add in the addition of low fibre for that last kind of two to three days of that weight cut and this is where we will also reduce our salt intake or our sodium intake but we will keep water high to normal so we won’t actually restrict that until the day before.
Aidan:
Yeah, and then Friday, basically the same, or the day before, sorry, same as the day before that, but the only change we make is restrict that water. The number I go with is about 1% of body weight, but like you should really, so like for somebody who’s 80 kilos, it’s like 800 ml of water. It’s not a lot, particularly if you drink a lot normally, but like by then you really know where you’re tracking. It’s like that protocol that we’ve kind of just laid out there, low carb, like we’re even talking like less than 30 grams of carbs to some people.
Like it’s pretty low. This is like how when people start keto and they drop weight like crazy, like this is the same mechanism. Like you do that and that probably, that protocol probably gets about 8% off from you. And as we spoke, I’m like, I don’t really like people doing 8% cuts. Like I try and steer people away from that. So almost everybody we probably work with, we wouldn’t do that full protocol.
Like we would scale it back like instead of going like less than 30 grams of carbs like maybe less than 100 like if they were having like 300 grams to start off with…
Leah:
Its all relative to how they start because I always think about it as well because obviously as I talk about it all the time, but I work with vegans I work with plant-based people you think about the habitual fibre and carb intake of a vegan compared to someone who isn’t. It’s really really really high. So when I work when I do weight cuts with these people like I guess what would be helpful is like when we’re talking low fibre we usually say under about 10 grams. And then low carb, like less than 30 grams.
Traditionally, when I work with plant-based people, we’re aiming for under 20 to 30 grams of fibre. So like the normal intake for someone who isn’t plant-based, because their habitual intake is like 60 to 80 grams. And then also same thing for carbs is I might just not be as aggressive with that.
Aidan:
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, so like, I say like 1% body weight, but like you’ll know, you’ll know if you can go higher. Obviously you go as high as you can while still making weight, And another strategy I sometimes use in here is, it depends, if somebody hasn’t had to do all the other stuff but they’re a little bit over, I might be like, okay, well don’t eat much food or drink much after 5 p.m. the day before weigh in. Some bigger guys, like there’s one guy I worked with who was 114, 115 kilos, and that’s all we did, and he dropped her under 110.
Such a big change, I think it was 114, so he dropped five kilos just by doing that. So it’s like he normally needed a lot of food, drank a lot of water, all those kind of things. Then the next day, so call it a 10 a.m. weigh in or whatever, you just wouldn’t eat or drink before that unless you were comfortably under. Once again, you know, so if you have room to move and you could eat and drink and whatever, then yes, obviously do that. But if you are cutting it fine, then obviously you wouldn’t eat or anything like that until after.
Yeah, so I suppose the other stuff that I also think about, it’s rare, but like I’ve had one client get constipation during this process, because obviously we cut fibre. Some people cut caffeine as well, just as part of this process as well. It’s just incidentally that they do that. They do it for other reasons and sometimes that helps people go to the toilet. if they cut that, could be a factor. Cutting entire lot of food volume, being dehydrated, that can lead to constipation, all of those factors together. Do you have strategies for what you do if somebody got constipation during that?
Leah:
Again, I’ve only had one client as well that this has happened to. And we just used Osmolax. So that’s basically just a stool softener. We still had three or four days before the weigh-in. So I knew that was enough time where a softener would be able to fix that problem. Not a laxative, so not a laxative, but a stool softener might come in handy if you do experience constipation after cutting carbs and fibre and caffeine and whatnot.
Aidan:
Yeah, exactly. That’s my approach now. I don’t actually, I don’t introduce it until somebody has had an issue first. Like if I’m doing multiple weight cuts with somebody and they got on the first, there’s only been one person, but like, it’s obviously a risk.
Leah:
It’s a risk.
Aidan:
So it’s something to think about, but I wouldn’t introduce it until somebody has had issues. I wouldn’t just preemptively do that just in case.
Leah:
No, I wouldn’t do that for everybody, but potentially if someone was prone to constipation, it’s something that I would consider.
Aidan:
Yeah, for sure. So then the next step, this is where a lot of people will mess up even more, being honest, because they don’t really plan it out, is rehydration post-weight cut. If you nail your rehydration, theoretically, you can cut more weight and get back to your starting weight or ideal weight more effectively. You can cut more and do that. Like if you have a terrible rehydration strategy, you couldn’t cut a lot of weight and get back to it. So like really nailing this is pretty important because it actually allows you to cut more if you wanted to or at least feel better on the day, which is the goal. So there’s a few goals. One is obviously rehydrating in terms of water. Another one is glycogen. My kind of rule is you want to get back to a similar weight to what you were at the start of the week.
Leah:
But not exceed it.
Aidan:
But not exceed it.
Aidan:
Yeah, I talk about that a bit as well. But because we know that 2% rules like if you’re 2% under then yes, it’s probably your performance. But exceeding it like, you’re not gaining any muscle in that timeframe. You’re not doing anything that’s really helping your performance. But it is a game. A lot of people turn into a game that they’re like, how much weight can I regain? like, I even this is just anecdotal, but I’m like, is that leading to an increased risk of cramps? Like, is there a massive fluctuation in electrolytes and stuff like that? Like, are you just gonna feel hella bloated? Like are you gonna like?
Leah:
Gonna feel like crap?
Aidan:
Yeah, I don’t know. So like that’s why I say get back to the starting line. So the actual protocol that like I’ve developed over the years is basically I have three separate drinks for my clients. So I have a 250ml protein shake, that’s just protein powder and milk or even just water depending on what you prefer. I add creatine into that. Obviously you’re not going to fully, because you probably have taken creatine out for the weight cut, if creatine holds onto water, like it makes sense to take creatine out. You’re not going to fully saturate yourself with creatine obviously in this timeframe, but it does help you hold onto a little bit more water, particularly if you have it multiple times. It’s almost like doing a loading phase. If it takes five to seven days of loading to get to full saturation, even just 24 hours of the loading phase is actually moving their needle a little bit. So a protein shake with some creatine in it, 500ml of Gatorade or Powerade or just grab a 600ml bottle, don’t ever think this, and 250ml of Hydralyte.
It’s intentionally meant to be around one litre, because that is about as much as healthy kidneys can kind of excrete, and that doesn’t really differ much between sizes of people as well. that one litre is pretty consistent for pretty much everybody, and you sip on it slowly over the course of an hour. I don’t know, have you seen charts on hydration with different products? There’s dairy, milk in there and water and like… So those charts are pretty interesting.
But on those charts as well, if you get the same chart showing that like, the reason I brought that up for the audience is basically just thinking about it terms of milk actually hydrates people slightly more than water. And it’s due to the food matrix, it’s due to the sodium in there, it’s to a combination of things. But sometimes these studies also go and compare if you skull it in one go versus if you sip on it slowly. And people seem to absorb more of the fluid, as in they don’t need to urinate as much, pretty much.
Like they absorb more of the fluid if they sip it slowly. So that one litre of fluid that just laid out, you sip slowly on that over the course of an hour. And if you did a small weight cut, like a couple percent, I’d probably just have that once and then move on to food after that. If you did an eight percent kind of weight cut, like a larger one, I’d have that every hour for four hours. If you did something in the middle, then I’d do something in the middle. I’d have something like do that for like two hours or whatever, because I can’t even explain it all now because there was a lot that went into that protocol in terms of how much fluid can we absorb, how much carbohydrate can we take on and store as glycogen, all of those kind of things.
The reason why protein is in there is not necessarily just for muscle growth, also because it’s too light, you’re not going to grow muscle. But it’s because it also helps you with glycogen synthesis, like the combination of that and there’s a lot that goes into that. So it’s like, that is the perfect kind of thing for the first couple of hours and then after that you move on to food.
We know that on average the body can store about 10 grams of glycogen per kilogram lean body mass. So for somebody who’s 80 kilos, 10% body fat, that’s about 720 grams of carbs. Like the whole point I’m getting at with that is that’s a lot of glycogen. That’s like, well 720 grams of glycogen. It is a lot of glycogen. And if you were fully glycogen depleted, which for a weight cut you most likely would be close to, that would kind of be the target to kind of replenish over the next 24 hours. You don’t have to fully get that.
Like mostly sports like powerlifting in particular, you don’t need full glycogen stores or anything like that. But if you were trying to maximise that, like you could go up to as much as 720 in that case if you were larger or had more muscle mass, you’d go higher. If you were smaller, you’d go a little bit lower than that. But that’s kind of the goal and it might be near what it takes to get back to your former size and everything like that. So in terms of introducing food, it makes a compelling argument for not necessarily doing what you call it like a seafood diet, which is where you just like eat everything inside. So what a lot of people do, it makes sense to focus on carbohydrate rich foods. And in terms of glycogen synthesis rates, the highest most people seem to be able to take on is one to 1.85 grams per kilogram per hour.
But and like absorb and everything like that, but that’s under optimal conditions. That’s under like a post exercise state where it’s easier to absorb glycogen. And that’s also when you haven’t just been fully glycogen, like when you haven’t taken on carbs for a week or something like that, you’re not exactly primed for glycogen. putting into context, how I’d actually put that in practice, like personally, I’d go like 50 grams plus of carbs every two hours during the first kind of part. And then after that, just divide that target of like, say 720 grams or whatever it is based on your size over multiple meals. Is there anything else you do differently?
Leah:
No, yeah, I do it like that. I guess the only thing that would be a caveat to that is obviously it’s dependent on the weigh-in time. So you don’t want to get that full amount in if you have a two hour weigh-in because obviously then you’re capped at how much glycogen you can store per hour. that’s what you want to look at if you have a two hour weigh-in. You could really only get in one to two grams of carbs per kilo per hour as opposed to that total for complete glycogen repletion. But I guess on the flip side of that you don’t want to be completely glycogen depleted if you only have a short period of time.
Aidan:
Yeah for sure. So yeah, that’s roughly how I’d do it. I’d focus on foods that make you feel good and foods that you know sit well and everything like that. Like yeah, pretty simple. I just wouldn’t overthink it too much. Like I’d just focus on higher carbohydrate foods. If you want to be really pedantic, like you could do the maths on everything that I’ve kind of said, but like I would just have that kind of shake or like those three separate drinks or whatever for the first hour or two, maybe four if you need and then go into food focusing on carbohydrate rich foods that sit well after that.
Leah:
Yeah, so I think what you said about not eating everything inside and going to Pancake Manor and eating a bunch of donuts is obviously something people do but is not ideal. But at the same time, you also don’t need to overthink it and just focus on really carbohydrate rich foods in that time period that you have whilst doing that fluid drink protocol as well.
So this has been episode 16 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we’ll be back next week.