The difference between weight cutting and weight loss

The difference between weight cutting and weight loss is something fundamental and must be clear for those who approach combat sports and for a fighter!

In the common sense often people who are not inside the combat sports environment whether striking or struggling often think that these two terms, weight cutting and weight loss indicate the same thing but it is notso .

Losing Weight and Cutting Weight are two terms that are often used among combat sports insiders but have two different meanings, paths and objectives.

When it comes to combat sports, professional athletes have a different goal and a very different approach from those who have to lose weight as fat mass because usually an athlete’s fat percentages are already low and follows a controlled diet.

In amateur practice, on the other hand, it is different because often even if people train a lot and consistently do not follow a diet and often still accumulate excess fat despite training.

This makes you understand how nutrition is critical to having control of your weight which results in increased energy and performance.

Confusing the two approaches to weight loss can lead to many misunderstandings about weight management discussions.

What is the difference between weight cutting and weight loss?

Let’s put in a table this schema with the main points:

Losing Weight

Losing weight is what many people mark in their New Year’s goal especially after parties and holidays.

It happens to everyone to make good intentions after parties and holidays but I still can’t understand why people choose to change their diet every time a New Year’s Eve is celebrated, but I imagine they see it as a new beginning.

They are either feeling a little too chubby or chubby for their taste and want to do something about it to get back to wearing the clothes of yesced and feel comfortable.

The first goal must be your health, aesthetic sense can be a motivation that helps you achieve your goal.

Now without going into detail about how and what to do lose weight is and must be a change in one’s personal habits and requires consistency throughout the year.

It took you months to get fat you can’t claim to lose weight in a few days, it takes months.

People who want to lose weight want to reduce their weight and once they reach put it on standby permanently but it is not so and that’s why I talked about habits because if you go back to old habits and lifestyles, you return to the old fat conditions.

Normally, people who try to lose weight aim to lose fat by maintaining lean mass and their own muscles.

This is achieved by eating fewer calories than you burn and doing supportive physical activity.

Research shows that it doesn’t matter how you create this energy deficit.

Diets and diets

You can simply keep the diet normal, but reduce the size of the portion or follow one of the popular diets on the market such as intermittent fasting, paleo diet, low carbs,high-fat diet and so on but the truth is that you have to eat clean.

Research shows that in the long term weight loss from those diets are basically the same.

As long as you create a certain energy deficiency, you will lose weight.

To stay healthy it is advisable not to go too deep and make sure you have all the necessary nutrients (such as vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and more).

The weight loss process is quite slow, so you need to have a little patience and gain more culture about nutrition and nutrients.

A good pace is about 1 of the body weight per week.

So if you practice martial arts and combat sports and want to reduce your weight because you have too much fat mass then this is the way you have to follow and a buna diet combined with training will be the perfect combination to positively transform your body.

Cutting Weight

Weight cutting is something that many athletes (professionals) do that already have a low fat percentage and already follow a balanced diet.

The weight affects their performance and the weight category in which they go to fight and therefore prefer to lower it temporarily when they compete to be light but after cutting the weight heavier than their opponent by a few kg.

Athletes therefore hope to gain an energy and weight advantage over lighter athletes in their class.

Ironically, this is what almost everyone is doing, so no one has an advantage.

Cutting the weight has nothing to do with calories, but with the weight of the food and liquid that the body contains.

Your body weight is never completely stable, it rises when you eat and drink and when you visit the bathroom or sweat.

There are a few ways to reduce weight and each has its own advantages, risks and limitations.

Most athletes choose to dehydrate their body, but you can also choose to reduce the amount of food in the digestive system, the amount of glycogen stored in the muscles or the amount of sodium in the body.

To avoid negative side effects, weight cutting is performed as close to weight as possible.

Weight cutting is often described as unhealthy and worrying, but without exaggerating and using the right methods it can be relatively harmless.

In the next posts I will do a manual of how to do the weight cut but now I want to give you the mistakes that are often made during weight cutting especially among amateurs and semi pros who are often not followed by doctors and professional trainers.

5 common mistakes when cutting weight

When the seasons start with combat sports and wrestling events it’s time to start seeing athletes on a strict diet and running in plastic suits.

According to large-scale research involving more than 800 wrestlers of all levels, 82 percent of athletes engage in regular weight loss practices.

Most of them lose 2 to 5 of their body weight, 40 lose from 5 to 10 and some go even further and lose over 10.

Losing weight in the fight has become so common that it almost seems to be part of the sport.

Although many fighters are reducing weight, few do so under the guidance of a dietician.

Ambition and lack of information are the cause of errors in the weight reduction process.

Without knowing that athletes are making weight loss harder for themselves.

Here are five common mistakes:

Mistake 1: Drinking energy drinks

Many athletes continue to drink energy sports drinks and recovery during their weight-cutting days.

But sports drinks contain a relatively high amount of salt,which keeps liquid and therefore is sabotaging your efforts to reduce and cut weight.

Mistake 2: Dehydrate too early

Weight cutting is a very stressful activity, especially before an important event, when there is so much weight to lose.

For this reason some athletes prefer to go on the safe and start dehydration a week before the competition.

This way they reach their weight limit one or two days before weight and can be quiet.

But this practice severely damages performance.

It is better to start dehydration as close as possible to weighing and spend less time in a dehydrated state.

Mistake 3: Omelettes and eggs for breakfast

When a competition is away from home and you find yourself spending a few nights in a hotel, there is always the problem of finding the right food.

Breakfast eggs are a very tempting treat because they are very healthy and contain high quality protein, but when the hotel chef is frying your omelette you don’t know how much salt he uses.

If you can’t ask the chef to make the omelette without salt, you’d better skip it.

Error 4: Fruits and Vegetables

There is a big difference in the method of weight loss over a long period of time and the weight cutting tactic used in the last two days before weight.

While eating lots of fruits and vegetables is a smart way to feel full during a long-term weight loss plan, this isn’t the right approach for weight-cutting periods.

Fruits and vegetables contain a lot of fiber and remain in the intestine for a long time.

For fighters who need to lose weight for competition this dead weight is the last thing you want.

Mistake 5: Food on the go

The best athletes have to take a plane to go to various tournaments aroundEurope or the world.

A small snack on the plane or train doesn’t seem like it can do much damage to your weight but if you’re upset you’ll be surprised.

Food for airplanes and trains always contains many preservatives and additives that interfere with your efforts to lose weight.

You don’t have to eat anything they give you.

Conclusions

Now I hope the difference between losing weight and cutting weight is clearer because they are two totally different things and with different goals.

I am preparing a specific post with some methods and procedures for cutting the weight used by many pro athletes but they are not things you can do alone because your life is at stake.

Professional athletes are followed by trainers, doctors and monitored constantly, definitely not a thing to do to go and do the costume test although unfortunately many are doing this for aesthetic purposes.

If you want to improve your health and aesthetics you have to practice weight loss combined with physical activity by devoting months of constant work and you will really get great benefits.

Have a good workout!

Stay Tuned!

Street Fight Mentality & Fight Sport

Andrea