Loosin' a little weight for a comp.

**jspeedy** · Posted On: 6/28/2011 6:06pm

Here's my deal, I plan on entering my first BJJ comp on July 23rd. I'm a full time student and I work full time so this is more of a hobby thing for me. I don't have dreams of becoming an MMA fighter or serious competitor. I'd like to enter in the 155lb weight class. I currently weigh around 165 and am 5'11". I'm pretty lean for the most part, my cheapy bathroom scale puts my body fat % at 13-14%.

My search on the subject has yielded two results 1) being loose the weight w/. exercise since i've got the time. 2) Weigh about 10lbs more than I want to compete at then dehydrate for weigh in and rehydrate before the event.

Currently I do BJJ 2x a week at 6AM and FMA 1x a week. I also do stronglifts 5x5 2-3x a week when I can.

I'd like to loose 10lbs naturally over the next month then go back to strength training ala stronglifts. Some advice seemed to suggest bb style routines or bodyweight routines to accomplish my goal. I remember reading some stuff about 20 rep squat routines from Pavel and other sources. Would this be a good route to go?

I plan on tightening up on my current moderately healthy eating habits and excluding beer from my diet for now. Do I even need to change my lifting routine to loose a little? Or should I just eat less?

FTW I did a thread search and found some interesting stuff, and some advice that sounded horrible. Most of the weight cutting threads either turned into a weight loss thread or ended up getting derailed and didn't answer all of my questions.

Here's the links I checked out for anyone else wanting to research the subject:

Here's a link to cutting water weight that sounded informative: http://www.grapplearts.com/How-to-Cu...l?c=150&a=4147

Here's the related BS threads I read over:
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/show...cutting+weight

http://www.bullshido.net/forums/show...cutting+weight

***TaeBo_Master*** · Posted On: 6/28/2011 6:17pm

For rapid fat loss (it's not exactly sustainable, but you only need it for contest prep right?), cut out all alcohol and carbohydrate sources except fruits and vegetables. No bread, pasta, sugar, anything like that. Lean meats, fruits and veggies, that's all.

In the mornings, do low intensity cardio (like fast walking) on an empty or nearly empty stomach. If you absolutely have to eat before the cardio, make it small and no carbs. I suggest a boiled egg or two.

If you get to within a week or less of your competition and still have a little weight to go, then and only then should you consider water depletion for weight loss. Water depletion should be a very short term, last-ditch effort. You can't function well in a dehydrated state, and so it should really only be targeted for the weigh in.

**jspeedy** · Posted On: 6/28/2011 8:21pm

Thanks for the reply. I'll cut the carbs and alcohol. I already do BJJ 2x a week in the morn so I suppose I can add some jump rope to the the other 3 days. Of course I usually eat before BJJ so I'll eat after. Weekends are a problem because I work 40 hours a week (internship) then I work fri nights and sat nights and sun morn for income totaling 70-75hrs a week of work.

Should I stick w/ stronglifts for my weightlifting days? Usually I have a pretty relaxed routine I do at home so I can study for 5 or so mins between sets overall it takes me about an hour to an hour and a half. I was wondering if I should do something faster paced for a shorter time like a bodyweight circuit of pullups, pistols and whatnot that would still leave me time to study afterwards.

**Res Judicata** · Posted On: 6/28/2011 8:41pm

The atkins induction/velocity diet type plan TBM suggested is good for rapid fat loss. But -- and here's a big but - you will feel like absolute **** if you over do it. After about a week you will want to kill someone. Your performance will suffer. Your brain will be foggy. For what you're doing you do not -- do not -- want to hit ketosis (you'll know, your breath and sweat will stink).

***TaeBo_Master*** · Posted On: 6/29/2011 12:50am

Unfortunately, Res is right. And unfortunately again, there's not really a way to get all of the good with none of the bad. Losing body fat means being in a state of energy debt. This will hamper your performance. You're gonna have to sacrifice one to get the other. But that's why it's a good idea to do it as far out as possible, so you have time to recover (hopefully) before you actually compete.

I recommended the walking in the morning for the purpose of aiding fat loss. It's not to be confused with real training for conditioning. In addition to the dietary changes, doing low intensity cardio work with little glucose in your system for fuel, you will be making your body burn fat more efficiently. You're working on a pretty short timeframe, so for the best results, you're gonna have to do the most work you can.

***TaeBo_Master*** · Posted On: 6/29/2011 12:51am

Originally Posted by Red Judicata

The atkins induction/velocity diet type plan TBM suggested is good for rapid fat loss. But -- and here's a big but - you will feel like absolute **** if you over do it. After about a week you will want to kill someone. Your performance will suffer. Your brain will be foggy. For what you're doing you do not -- do not -- want to hit ketosis (you'll know, your breath and sweat will stink).

Just for the record, I'm only suggesting this option for the very short term. 10 lbs. of FAT (water is a different story) in a month or less is pretty rapid. I don't like or recommend ketosis in general. But if trying to lose weight quickly on the short term, it's a nifty trick. Plus, the inclusion of fruits and vegetables can easily be sufficient to avoid full blown ketosis.

Edit: Double post from lag. Edited for relevancy.

**jspeedy** · Posted On: 6/30/2011 5:15pm

Should I also start a more high intensity workout as well as watching my diet?

***TaeBo_Master*** · Posted On: 6/30/2011 5:36pm

For your case, I would keep the high intensity training limited directly to your martial arts preparation. Any additional work you do for the purpose of losing the body fat should be done at relatively low intensity. The intensity level should be basically just enough to get you to sweat a little, but remain light enough that you could continue it seemingly forever, it should not lead you to total fatigue. To enhance results, do this when there's as little blood sugar available as possible in your system.

Note: This advice is because of the short timeframe you're working with. For more general, performance advice, I'd start someone with lower intensity, duration based cardio until they built up a good level of aerobic efficiency. Then progressively add intensity, begin interval training, etc etc.

If you have a good aerobic base, then even your high intensity workouts will burn fat because you've made your body good at doing so. However, if you skip the base building step and go straight to the high intensity stuff, your fat loss will suffer. That's because your aerobic efficiency will be much less, so you'll have less oxygen utilization. Since fat burning only occurs in an aerobic environment, if you can't bring in oxygen, you can't burn fat.