Finding which weight division is best for you is the easy part. The hard part begins as you work to ensure that you make the weight with energy and motivation to fight once you get there. It’s especially hard if you have allowed your weight to increase because of poor training habits or lax eating. Solution: Don’t do that to yourself. Whether you want to gain weight or lose, you need to find a diet and training schedule that works for you using any one of the many approaches presented in this book.

Start Early to Make Weight

Too many fighters underestimate the time they need to trim off the pounds. They believe that all they have to do is increase their training sessions some and the flab melts away. Unfortunately, they discover too late that while that is a good start, it’s really not that simple. It’s not complicated, but it’s a tad more involved than just increasing training. The best insurance against still being overweight on tournament day is to start out early. Now, if you approach the task too conservatively, you come in too heavy, and if you hit it too aggressively, you risk being exhausted and over trained. What is needed, therefore, is a plan somewhere in the middle. Here are two that work great:

Lose one pound a week Say a tournament is 10 weeks off and you are 10 pounds heavier than what your weight class allows. While you could use the plan in Chapter 10 to lose 10 pounds in 21 days, the good news is that there is no need to put yourself through that tough regimen during a time when you should be focusing on polishing your tournament techniques. A much easier way, one that is virtually effortless, is to calculate a weight loss formula that trims one pound per week. This might seem too conservative, but you have 10 weeks to accomplish it, so why kill yourself? Remember, whenever you strive to lose more than one pound a week you also risk losing some of your hard-earned muscle.

Dropping a pound of fat per week means you need to cut and burn 3,500 calories every seven days. Here are a few pointers to help you along the way in calculating the right formula for you:

• You need to have a clear idea of what your bodyText needs during the 10-week period. Calculate the right ratio of carbs, protein and fat for you (refer to Chapter 3) and how many calories you need each day if you were to maintain your current weight. Be especially cognizant of getting enough protein to help minimize muscle mass loss, which occurs even with conservative weight reduction plans such as this one. Don’t get lazy and attempt to guesstimate your calories and percentages because you might discover during your, say, sixth week that you overate a few hundred calories each day. Do it right. Preparation is half the battle.
• Look for easy-to-cut calories. Do we really need to say that you have no business eating junk food and candy? Good. If you normally eat a lot of it, just cutting them out of your diet will eliminate thousands of calories a week. But if you just have to have a little junk so you won’t go stark raving mad, choose one or two (not three) items to have on your Dirt Day.
• Watch for hidden calories. Use calorie-free sweetener in your coffee instead of the real stuff. Eliminate butter on your bread. Gravy is evil and so is sour cream. These calorie monsters are used to enhance the taste of your food, but they have to go. Hey, stop sobbing and stay disciplined for the 10 weeks you need to prepare yourself for competition. Once you bring back the gold, then you can take your tastebuds out on the town.
• If you use a training cycle (Chapter 10) to prepare for your competition, your increased training and conservative calorie reduction will melt away unwanted pounds. Since you have to prepare for the competition anyway, use the training cycle approach to do it systematically and come out at the end 10 pounds lighter and ready to fight.
• Increase your calorie-burning aerobic and anaerobic work: sparring, all-out drills, bag work, non-stop kata and so on. These are good preparation for your competition, anyway, so add a little more, cut out some unnecessary calories and be a lean, mean, 10-pounds lighter fighting machine on the day of the tournament.

Stay in shape so you don’t have to lose Arguably the best approach is to ensure that you don’t need to lose weight, or at least not much. If you plan your training cycle well and follow it, you will always be in good shape, within a pound or two of your weight class. This makes life so much easier and allows you to focus on your fighting techniques and strategy, as opposed to being distracted by having to trim off some extra jiggly stuff. This takes discipline and planning, but you can do it.

Determine your ideal weight: Begin by measuring your bodyText fat percentage. It’s recommended that a competitive fighter have less than 15 percent. Now, some fighters feel comfortable carrying more, but they should know it’s useless weight that slows and inhibits their mobility, and decreases their overall effectiveness. “Sure, I got a belly, but I’m really fast,” some argue. Great, but how much faster would they be without the tummy to lug around? Extra weight is something you want your opponent to have, not you.

Seven percent bodyText fat is as low as you should go. Lower, and you risk serious health problems. Yes, competitive bodyTextbuilders often drop to three or four percent, but they remain there for only a few days, sometimes only the day of the contest. Carrying 15 percent is comfortable and easy to maintain.

Determine a buffer zone: Figure out how much buffer zone you want on either side of your ideal weight. For example, if your ideal weight is 150 pounds, your buffer zone should be no more than five pounds divided evenly. This means you can go up to 152.5 pounds or down to 147.5 pounds. The trick, meaning the real effort, is to stay within those those boundaries for the entire competitive season. To do so, carefully monitor your weight by checking the scales at least once a week. If the needle indicates you are nearing the upper or lower edge of your buffer zone, take immediate steps to increase your training and count calories to get back on course, a relatively easy task since you need to adjust only a pound or two. Never allow yourself to go beyond your zone. Once the competitive phase is over, you can rest, recuperate and allow your buffer zone to expand a little more. But be careful. We are talking 10 pounds at the most, five pounds on either side of your ideal weight. Should you make it 20 pounds, you are in for a lot of extra effort next season to get back into your weight division.