Dieting through a training camp – Part 1

Dieting through a training camp – Part 1

Most amateur and professional boxers will have some time off between fights and once a date is agreed for their next fight they will increase their training and start their diet to make weight (heavyweights obviously excluded from this), this is the period they refer to as their training camp.

What I’m going to discuss here are some key diet and supplementation points to consider for the fighter who has to make weight, the what’s and what not’s to stress over, I’ll even brush on the dreaded but now almost essential dehydration process. Hopefully you’ll pick up some key points, which you can apply to your own training and nutrition plans. My experience comes from the boxers and MMA fighters I have worked with and all of my work is backed by science, something that should not be ignored in exchange for fad diets or self-proclaimed guru’s new methods. If the scientifically backed methods don’t work for you then it’s not the science, its’ most definitely you. Crash diets suck big time, don’t get in the viscous cycle of that being your only option to make weight. Oh and don’t bitch and moan about having to diet, if you hate it that much fight at your natural weight.

As a performance athlete making weight you really must do all you can to protect your metabolism, there’s no doubt as bodyweight and fat stores drop the so will your metabolic rate, however you need to protect it and make sure it is not magnified. This is your key tool to making weight the easy way. Crash dieting and bingeing after a fight are a sure fire way to metabolic damage, now the science is not vast on this area (check out the seminal Minnesota Semi-Starvation Study for good info on metabolic rate decreases) my experience with athletes is that every time you binge and add fat it becomes harder to shift that fat each fight, compounded by alcohol and age. I’ve worked with many fighters who through a combination of steady state cv, low calories and then bingeing after a fight just find it harder each time to make weight and the calories have to go lower for longer. Soon enough you’re left with nowhere to go and end up living on barely any food and using stimulants to get through training sessions, that is not a good place for increasing performance coming in to a fight. what’s really happening in this situation is your testosterone levels, nervous system output and thyroid drop through the floor and yet cortisol levels sky rocket, this is a bad environment for performance, recovery and fat loss, albeit somewhat inevitable when you do this, limiting it is key.

I have seen fighters eating sub 500kcals for 2 full weeks prior to the weigh in, this is a crucial time and using stimulants to carry you through training brings about the other real issue of adrenal fatigue. So at all costs protect your metabolism, to do this you need to be sensible and here are the techniques I use with clients who have suffered with this:

·      If you have a lot of weight to drop then drop it at the start of training camp, don’t leave it until 4 weeks out where you have to starve yourself

·      Don’t binge after a fight if you’ve starved yourself, your body is not a position to handle a huge influx of calories from sugar and processed foods you will have been craving

·      Increase your carb intake after fights slowly 25g increments per week

·      Don’t stop training after a fight, you may want a break but you cant eat all you want and not train, you’ll just get fat quickly, so just keep in your s&c sessions and your hiit conditioning work if you wish to cut back

·      Start your dieting early, get the bulk of the weight off quickly and then slowly eat and train your way in to your weight

·      Keep protein high. Protein has been shown to help increase metabolic rate.

·      Don’t steady state cardio as your calorie burner – not only will those long runs damage your knees and joints but too much of such activity has been shown to slow metabolic rate, I hear of current world champions going for a steady run to burn off the calories every night. We’ve all seen the overweight guys walking for an hour on the treadmill in the gym, saying he’s burnt 1000kcals off at a steady pace barely breaking a sweat, the fact is he’s not and he’s still overweight

·      Finally don’t worry, permanently screwing your metabolism up is pretty much impossible, what’s important is making the changes to make things easier so you can concentrate on your performance rather than constantly worrying about making weight, stress is not good for your metabolism either.

You’ll notice that I advise to strip weight quickly at the beginning of a training camp, the reason for this is two-fold: firstly it will leave you to concentrate on what should be the most important factor which is your performance as the fight gets closer, secondly, dragging a heavy body around the treadmill is hard work, you need to increase your power: weight, this is basically the speed at which you can move with keeping your heart rate in the 90%+ zone, the higher the speed the better, after all speed is a key performance component for fighter. If you’re trundling round the treadmill at 14kph at over 90% hr you need to increase this and you will see a marked improvement in your performance in the ring, which is ultimately what you want.

The single best way to do this at the beginning of a camp is a ketogenic diet. This is a far from ideal style of dieting for performance athletes, although recent research out of Italy showed performance not to be affected on a 1 month ketogenic diet it is in my experience not optimal long term for an athlete. Although carbohydrates are not actually an essential macronutrient they are essential for fuelling and recovering from gruelling twice a day workouts, however a ketogenic diet alongside a steady increase in training intensity will drop the weight off you quickly, most of which will be water/glycogen to start with but there will be some fat loss too, this method allows you to bring carbohydrates back in around training to fuel and recover from workouts quickly as well as being closer to your fighting or pre dehydration weight. 3-4 weeks should be the longest timeframe to use a ketogenic diet, if you’re doing longer than this then you’ll notice your performance either dropping or plateauing. You may also start to feel like you are overtraining as by this time your training intensity should be peaking. This is the exact tactic I have used many time with fighters, the fact they’re eased back in to training allows for this type of harsh diet.

To be continued, hopefully/obviously...

Writing your own cutting diet

This is version 2 of this article, I originally wrote this for people wanting to drop weight for summer however as now is a time where a lot of people are looking to lose weight and get fit and healthy I have added a few things. This is not just about losing weight though at the end you will have been eating healthy foods and exercising for 12 weeks that is enough time to make a dramatic change to anyone’s physique and health.

As summer is the time most people want to look good, now is the time to think about just how good you want to look in that bikini or those pair of speedo's..... the earlier you start the diet and training routine the easier it will be and the better the results, crash dieting 2 weeks before a holiday will leave you feeling flat and by the 2nd day of your holiday you'll look no better than before you started.

However giving yourselves a good 12 weeks will leave you looking and feeling a lot better. Here's a quick guide of how to plan your holiday diet:

start with getting your bodyweight in LBS and times by 13 for a starting point of total calories (Why 13 you ask? Well most online calorie calculators will give you a figure close to this and obviously they are all backed by science!), then use a simple macro split of 40/40/20 (protein/carbs/fats). Protein should come from lean sources, carbs from complex sources and fats should be healthy fats. Sugars and alcohol should be significantly lowered. The odd treat is fine but drinking every weekend will slow your progress down by up to a 3^rd, that means you would have to do an extra 6 weeks to get the results!

Weeks 1-2 – drop all junk food slowly and switch to 3 meals and 2 snacks each day over the first 2 weeks, include more fruit and veg, especially green fiberous veg (broccoli, green beans, spinach etc)

Weeks 2-4 – keep your diet the same and hit the gym, 2-3 times a week with a mix of weights as a full body strength routine and cardio (intervals and sprints for up to 20 minutes will yield the best results). Also adding SSCV at the end of weights for 15 minutes will help burn fat.

Weeks 4-8 – each week lower your carb intake gradually, if you start on 300g of carbs per day then each week drop your daily intake by 25g you should only be consuming complex carbs by this point. At this point you could add a couple of steady state morning cardio sessions. By week 8 you will be on 200g Carbs per day.

Weeks 9-12 – again lower Carbs by 50g a day (200kcal total) each week this is when it gets hard in theory but once at this stage you should be well and truly seeing results which will spur you on. Keep training the same, 3 times a week with weights and at least 4 cardio sessions a week: SSCV either AM or post weights or Intervals/sprint sessions. By week 12 you will be on 100g Carbs each day.

Your weights routine should be progressive if you find you are losing strength too quickly then hold the Carbs at the same amount for a week or 2 and ensure you are fuelling your workouts correctly. CV should be in the form of Intervals/sprints and be up to 20 minutes, where you put this is up to you but away from weights would be best.

There's your quick guide to getting your diet started, feel free to write one up and post it on the wall for us to have a look at.