How to Lose Weight for a Fight With Sport Diets

While losing weight in general is already a difficult affair, losing weight to participate in an athletic event is even more stressful. When preparing, you must strive to lose fat while retaining as much muscle mass as possible to maximize your athletic effectiveness. While the amount of time between now and the fight will determine your pacing, the procedural elements of dieting to retain muscle mass will remain fairly static.

Things You'll Need

• Food journal

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Instructions

Getting Lean

• 1

  Have a body-fat analysis performed so you will know where you stand. Body-fat testing can be done at most gyms and medical centers. An appointment is usually required, so call ahead to ensure they will be able to see you. For males, coming into a fight at around 10 to 12 percent body fat is a reasonable level of leanness. For women, anything between 12 to 14 percent body fat is considered very good

• 2

  Calculate how much time is remaining between now and the fight to set your pacing. Additionally, calculate how much weight you need to lose--subtracting your current weight from your projected body weight at your desired level of body fat. Divide this evenly across the amount of time you have available to prepare. Because slow and steady weight loss has less chance of losing valuable muscle tissue than blitzkrieg weight loss, you will want to utilize your available time to the maximum.

• 3

  Keep a journal detailing the foods you consume throughout the day, their total calories and their macronutrient breakdown. Macronutrient breakdown refers to the number of grams of protein, carbs, and fat in each item. Decide beforehand how many calories you will be eating per day based on how much weight you need to lose and how quickly it must be lost. There are roughly 3500 calories in a pound of body weight, so if you are aiming to lose a pound a week, you will have to eat 500 fewer calories per day than normal to accomplish this task. In general, fill your diet with only healthy, natural foods such as lean meats, fruits, vegetables and healthy fat sources like olive oil, nuts, seeds, and fish oil. Avoid processed foods, sugars, alcohol and refined flour items while dieting.

• 4

  Set a daily carb rate according to your current level of body fat. Leaner individuals are more insulin-sensitive (better able to use ingested carbs) than those carrying extra weight, so they can eat more carbs while dieting, as they have less of a chance as storing those carbs as body fat. According to performance coach Christian Thibaudeau, aim for 0.25g/lb of body weight if you are between 15 to 20 percent body fat, 0.35g/lb of body weight if you are between 12 and 15 percent body fat, and 0.45g/lb of body weight if you are between 10 and 12 percent body fat.

• 5

  Finally, fill the remainder of your diet with an equal proportion of calories from fat and calories from protein. Remember to keep yourself limited to those healthy items mentioned above. Additionally, remember that a gram of fat has roughly twice as many calories as a gram of protein or carbs, so you will have to consume two grams of protein for every gram of fat in your diet to keep things even.