Water Cut

Cutting guide for BJJ

This is a guide I made for the guys at my gym getting ready for a grappling tournament. Not exactly what you are looking for, but its pretty good and has a lot of good information.

Everyone has been asking about cutting weight, so we figured we would put together a guide on the basics and then talk specifics with people where needed. This should give you a pretty good understanding of everything, but definitely ask about anything extra that isn't clear or answered.

How much should I cut? It really depends how much you weigh, what kind of shape you are in, how your diet is, etc. Most of the divisions are like 149.9, 159.9, 169.9, etc... So here is what I suggest as a general rule...

Go to 139.9 if you are... 140 to 150 pounds. Go to 149.9 if you are... 150 to 160 pounds. Go to 159.9 if you are... 160 to 170 pounds. Go to 169.9 if you are... 170 to 180 pounds. Go to 179.9 if you are... 180 to 190 pounds. Go to 189.9 if you are... 190 to 205 pounds. Go to 204.9 if you are... 205 to 220 pounds. Go to 224.5 if you are... Over 220 pounds.

If you have wrestled, you will either think that these weights could be lower or that they are about right. If you haven't wrestled, you might be thinking "How can I drop that much weight so quickly?" It's very doable with a little bit of work and not as hard as you may think. There are two major parts to preparing to cut weight.... super hydration and diet.

Super Hydration Super Hydration is drinking ("pounding") as much water as you can stand to flush our your system. Over the course of the day your body has to get rid of all the fluid you put into it. Thats why when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you do is pee. We also get rid of water through sweating. Thats why some people will sweat out a ton while training, while others won't sweat as much. A lot of it has to do with how much water you drink throughout the day.

Over the course of a couple weeks, we will get our bodies to be dumping out as much water as possible. The night before weigh-ins we will stop drinking water. You will drop like 5 to 8 pounds without even trying because your body will tricked into pushing out the water expecting to get more but then it doesn't come.

Staring 2 to 3 weeks out, start trying to drink 2 gallons of water a day. It's tough to get down that much water in the course of a day. There are a couple things that help though...

Start pounding water as soon as you wake up. It is so much easier to put away water when you start first thing in the morning. When you aren't active about it and wait until later in the day to start, you almost have to drink twice as fast. I have made the mistake more than once about not starting until 1 or 2 in the afternoon and its torture to get it all down. As soon as you get up... pee and start chugging water. Chug water throughout the day and don't stop until you go to bed. The goal is 2 gallons each and everyday. If you want a more specific schedule, try and get down 1 gallon by 1pm.

Always drink from a 1 gallon jug. Smaller jugs will obviously get you the same amount of water if you drink lots of them, but you will be more active about it when you have a huge jug of water that you need to get down. It's easier to keep track of how much water you had for the day too. I guarantee you will be thinking "Is this bottle 4 or 5?" or something of the sort. Stick to a gallon jug and you will know if its your first or second jug.

Extend... not to be confused with Extendz. Extend can be bought at GNC, Vitamin World, etc. It's basically a recovery drink but it helps with getting down water too. You can mix it into a gallon jug of water and it helps with the taste quite a bit. The toughest part about pounding water is you get so sick of the taste. You will start looking at the gallon and thinking how much you hate it. I think it might be like 40 bucks for a good sized thing of it. It's not 100% necessary, but it helps.

Super hydration will also help with recovery so you can train more and harder. It will also help with your diet because you won't be as hungry because your stomach will always be filled with water.

Diet DIet is important too. We don't expect people to completely change around their diet for a NAGA, but if you want to make a life change, talk with Chuck and he will put you in the right direction. For this guide, I want to go with what we think is good and what we think is bad.

Good Stuff: Grilled Chicken (No Marinade or anything good on it. Plain boring chicken.) Broccoli (pretty much any green veggies but Broccoli is the best. It's high in fiber too.) Tuna fish (no mayo.... try adding a tiny bit of salsa).

Bad Stuff: Anything with salt of sodium. (Part of the reason we are pounding water is to flush out any and all sodium and salt in our bodies. Salt and sodium both make you bloat and retain water. We are going to be trying to dehydrate ourselves to make weight, so salt is the enemy. The sooner you cut it out the better, but the last week is SUPER important.) Chinese Food Pizza Fast Food Snacks (especially those with Sodium, start looking at labels)

Portion control is important too. You do not want to feel "full" at any time. I know we all love to eat like fat kids, but keep the portions small. Again, talk with Chuck if you have any questions.

The color of your pee is a great indicator on how you are doing with super hydration and diet. You want your pee to be clear and without any color. If its yellow you are slacking in your water intake or doing something really bad with your diet.

The Actual Cut The actual cut if the most important part of making weight. No matter how much weight you are cutting, it's always miserable if you need to use the sauna. If your day before weigh-ins weight is more than 5 pounds over your target weight, you will most likely need to sauna. The better you do with diet and super hydration, the easier this part is. I am sure some of you will slack on that stuff the first time, but after seeing how much the sauna sucks, you will do a better job next time. The sauna isn't the end of the world, but its much nicer when you don't need it.

Early weigh-ins for this NAGA are on Friday night and late weigh-ins are on Saturday morning. If you can do the early weigh-ins, you can sauna. If you are going to do the Saturday weigh-ins, the sauna is not the best idea. Check with us if you are doing the later weigh-ins.

If you are doing early weigh-ins... cut your water intake Thursday night around 6pm. From now until weigh-ins, you have NOTHING to drink. Not a sip of water, coffee, juice, etc. I don't even want you swallowing water when you brush your teeth. Ideally, you will be within 5 or 6 pounds right now of your target weight. If you are, you shouldn't need to sauna. If you are more, it's okay but the sauna may be in your future. Remember we talked about tricking our body? This is the time. You will work out Thursday night as always, but you won't be drinking anything during or after training. You will be surprised at how much water your body dumps out before and after a workout session. You will be pretty cranky, miserable and thirsty not drinking water, but suck it up. After you workout and change into dry clothes, take the scale in the bathroom, drop to your boxers and weigh yourself to see how much you have to go. Chris will have a sheet with everyones name for you to fill in how over you are. Check with Chris and Chuck and they will give you rough guidelines on what to expect.

When you go home, DO NOT DRINK anything. Sleeping in sweat pants (or any long pants that will keep you warm and absorb sweat) and a long sleeve shirt should get you to drop another pound or more. Don't kill yourself and bundle all up, but wear something. We want to lose every pound we can easily to avoid the sauna as much as possible.

The color of your pee was clear before but now it's going to be a darker shade of yellow. If for any reason it looks brown or red, call Chris ASAP. No one should be cutting that much weight where its a problem, but these two colors can happen if your kidneys are shutting down and you are having a major problem. Following the rules at the top for target weigh, no one is even close to getting to those levels. I still wanted to let people know about it though.

The day of weigh-ins you are going to go hungry. You are going to be starving and miserable... but you don't get any food. Just think about how on Saturday, you are going to make whoever you go against pay for making you starve, Take your frustration out on them. It sucks, but you will survive. You could go days without food if needed. I am only asking for about 24 hours. You can do it.

After Weigh-Ins Your first instinct is going to eat and drink like a madman. This is a mistake though... the worst thing you can do is eat and drink a ton of food and then make yourself puke it all up. You want to start sipping water and pedialyte right after weigh-ins. SIPPING! Do not chug your pedialyte. If you do chug it, its a waste because you will just pee it all out. Sip it slowly. Alternate between pedialyte and water. Ideally, you will put away a gallon or more of water before you go to bed tonight. It sucks drinking water, but it makes a big difference. It's important to get all of that water back into your system so you are not cramping up the next day. If you chug though, you will just pee it out. Sip it slowly!

For food... its the same as water. Eat slowly and eat a few times. Power bars are good in between bigger meals. You want to get some chicken, steak, rice, pasta, etc. Stay away from anything fried, fast foods, etc. You have hopefully been eating clean for a couple weeks so one more night of eating good will not kill you. It's the home stretch so don't