BJJ Competition Diet – A Guide For Cutting Weight

A rule to remember

Cutting weight doesn’t make you a better FIGHTER, training makes you a better FIGHTER.

My Philosophy and how to be Cutting weight like a champ

Did you hear about the greens only low sodium commando soliders diet? The diet that will make you lose 5 kilo in 5 days? No? But rings a bell?
When it comes to diet, there’s no magic formula or a special diet that will solves all of your problems.

But my main issue here is not the diet itself is the CUTTING WEIGHT process.

The reality is – cutting weight is a part of the sport, but more importantly cutting weight doesn’t make you a better fighter. Getting better at fighting (grappling or any sport) makes you a better fighter.

Get it into your head.

I want to distinguish finding your best weight class vs obsessing over different weight classes. Don’t get caught up on what weight class is ideal. If you’re good you’re good.

You will always have the tall big guy or the short and heavy guys and both of them can fight in the same weight class. You need to adapt yourself to each opponent.

For example:

I hear so many athletes complains about their opponent being bigger than them or stronger then them. This such a huge mental mistake.

all of us, when we train,  we train with different people that are different sizes. and how many time you came to your coach and told him “wow I had a really good round with this guy, I felt so good “

than for competition you cut weight to fight a “smaller” / your size opponent and after the match you say “this guy was too strong for me”

So let me get this straight. before you trained with 5-10 pounds bigger guys than you and you felt good but after you cut weight to fight smaller opponent you complain he was big and strong?

My point is – stop obsessing about your weight class and focus on how to be a better fighter. 

All clear? Lets continue 

How to avoid cutting weight

As I said before, cutting weight is a part of this sport, but we dont want to be cutting weight all year long. You can go crazy. The worst thing you can do is emotional eating. Where you eat until you emotionally happy which is usually around 1 whole pizza and 2 buckets of Ben n Jerry’s (#not sponsored)

A huge change that I did for myself is getting more healthy habits and making good life decisions instead of just focusing on my diet. 

When you eat healthy all year long you don’t need to cut too much weight.

Some good healthy habits are:

getting between 7-8 hours of sleep

Drinking plenty of water (walking around with a bottle of water)

Avoid binge eating: is kind of self explanatory 

Discipline eating: Instead of eating until I’m full, I’m eating until I’m 75% full or in other words until I’m content. 

If you like to check your weight than a good rule of thumb is to be around 5% above your fighting weight. (For example if your ideal weight is 68 kilo than walking around at 71.5 more or less)
But now we got to the fun part:

how to cut weigh like a champ 

Cutting weight while training:

A huge mistake to make is to try and cut weight while you train. Training in a very hot room, training with a sauna vest, training with more cloths, using special cream to help you sweat more etc.
Remember what I said at the beginning? Training will make you a better fighter right?

So let me ask you this:

What is the main goal of your training at your academy? To improve your fighting skills

What is the main goal of your conditioning training? To improve your overall fitness.

You cant go 100% while wearing sauna vests or training in a hot without air room  etc. save the “cutting weight” process for AFTER TRAINING 

After your regular training is done, than you can put on your sauna vest suite or put you jacket on and do some extra jumping ropes or a couple more flow rounds to get the extra sweat.

There’s a time and a place to be cutting weight. Don’t let it effect your training.

Passive cutting weight methods:

These methods can consist of doing a hot salt bath or sitting in the sauna

Because it a “passive” method, you want to try and make it as fun as possible and avoid overthinking while you sit and do nothing. So here are a few tips you can use:

Make a “cutting weight” playlist

If you do need to cut weight, at least make it a fun process. Add some fun songs that you like to listen to. Focus on making yourself laugh instead of sitting and complain on how much you have more to cut. (Being stress is not helpful for the process)

Don’t do it alone

Ask someone to join in, so you can talk and laugh it will be a completely different experience, the less stressed you feel from cutting weight, the faster you will cut.

Know how much time you need

See how long it takes you to loose 1-1.5 kilos 

Than you will know how much time you need before the competition, again- the worst thing is that you know you have more to cut and not enough time to cut it.

hope you find these guide helpful , remember:

Don’t obsess about your weight class

Try to fight open classes to challenge yourself

Have better habits to keep you away from cutting to much weight you don’t need to be on a diet the whole year

When you do need to cut, do it in a fun and as enjoyable you can

Let me know what you think! Do you have your own cutting weight playlist?

What’s your favorite method to cut weight?