Dustin Safranek/USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect
The world of combat sports is full of things that can hurt you — fists flying at your face, takedowns that knock the wind out of you, and … weight loss?
Dropping a quick 10 pounds to qualify for the right weight class is a surprisingly strenuous part of the job, according to a UFC fighter.
In order to compete, athletes need to hit a specific number on the scale, often with strategic but extremely fast weight loss, followed by rapid regain. Done wrong, it can leave athletes with health concerns before they ever step into the arena for Fight Night.
The process is notoriously uncomfortable, and requires a careful strategy to avoid side effects for health and performance, said Jalin "The Tarantula" Turner, a fighter in the lightweight division of the UFC and partner of fitness gear and supplement company Sweet Sweat.
Turner is no stranger to a challenge: he got his nickname from facing his arachnophobia by adopting dozens of the huge, hairy spiders as pets.
But even for him, hitting the right number on the scale is one of the most grueling parts of his job as a pro athlete.
"Making weight is definitely the fight before the fight," he told Business Insider in an interview coordinated by Sweet Sweat. "You'll see the toughest man in the back room crying during a weight cut."
Turner explained the art and science of how athletes quickly lose weight to compete while minimizing the risk, and why you definitely don't want to do it yourself.
Cutting weight is a crucial strategic calculation for athletes. Lose too quickly, and you risk poor performance and fatigue. Lose too slow, and you may not make weight in time, potentially forfeiting the fight.
"Athletes need to walk a tightrope of balancing weight-making with athlete performance," Duncan French, senior vice president of the UFC Performance Institute, told Business Insider.
Most fighters walk around at a significantly higher body mass than when they compete. They have to eat a lot of food to build muscle and train intensively.
Turner said he typically loses around 20 pounds over the months leading up to a fight, by adjusting his diet to stay in a calorie deficit. "I'll get to a weight range where I'm comfortable walking around that and I feel healthy and still able to train without feeling too weak," he said.
Then comes the hard part: dropping the last bit of weight, around 10 pounds, in a week or two before weigh-in.
To quickly drop the scale, fighters (and sometimes Hollywood stars) focus on reducing water weight through a process of dehydration.
"You start manipulating the sodium, the water, and pulling out a lot of water in your body, which is always best to do closest toward the weigh-in time," Turner said. "It's really an art."
Fighters do everything they can to remove water from their bodies, including restricting how much they drink, and sweating it out in sauna or specialized suits. Turner said he uses Sweet Sweat products both for recovery and to help him sweat more, and the UFC recently collaborated with the brand in a small research study on how much of their bodyweight the athletes sweat out.
Regardless of how carefully calculated it is, the feeling of being deep into a cut is uncomfortable at best, and athletes experience hunger, thirst, and serious fatigue.
"Weight cutting is probably one of the hardest things to go through. It's literal suffering. There's no other way around the word," Turner said.
In worst-case scenarios, weight-cutting through dehydration can also have life-threatening consequences.
To lose weight in a safe, sustainable way, a reasonable goal for most people is to lose about 1% of your body weight a week — and it doesn't require you to risk your health or sacrifice hydration.
Even with the support of a trained team of professionals, weight cutting can be extremely dangerous, sometimes leading to hospitalization. Fighters have passed out, collapsed, suffered severe dehydration, or reportedly "almost died" as a result of weight cuts.
Cutting weight can cause heart health issues, electrolyte imbalance, and increased risk of stroke. One 2019 paper found dehydrated fighters may also have a higher risk of head trauma.
Turner said he and other athletes mitigate the risks by keeping the intensive cuts as short as possible.
"The less amount of time you're spending dehydrated, the better," he said.
But weight cutting, like most everything else that happens in UFC, is not something you should try at home. Unless you're a pro athlete being paid to lose weight, there's no reason to shed pounds at such as rapid pace, and doctors actively advise against it.
Your best bet to achieve a healthy weight and meet your fitness goals is not to rush, dietitians previously told Business Insider. Focus on slow, steady progress, eating plenty of nutrient-dense whole foods with some treats, and get enough protein along the way.
