The Weight Cut Trap

The weight cut trap!

I wanted to share a bit about myself and how I fell into an unhealthy weight-cut pattern.

The reason I am so passionate about helping as many female fighters as possible to avoid it.

Like 99% of you, when I started competing, I entered the weight category that matched my walk around weight. Thats what makes most sense.

Then I had some success, I was winning so I entered more competitions (kickboxing was my martial art of choice at that time). Problem is, I was 16/17 years old and still growing. I was also surrounded by weight cut culture, everyone in my club was always cutting weight. So I figured it was the thing to do.

It was becoming harder and harder to make my fight weight as the years passed. I was restricting harder in camps, eating less and less. Which inevitably led to binging more and more between camps. My walk around weight steadily crept up and up and my relationship with food and my body was going downhill!

Look at those dead eyes 😒

Here I am waiting to weigh in for a big fight after an extremely hard weight cut, hating the world! About to step on stage for a very public weigh in, hoping among all hope that the scales for the weigh in matches my scales and I can just weigh in and drink something ASAP!

The final straw for me came after I came home from a box cup in the UK. I had had 4 kickboxing fights in the past 3 months and was invited to box at The Haringey Box Cup by my boxing club. It was a big deal to get the invited. So I said yes. It was multi day weigh ins though which I knew would be hard.

I got as far as the final which meant 4 weigh ins in as many days. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that I was struggling to make the 57kg cut off. So after my fight in the morning, I would tell the team I was going home to rest, and I would leave and go running around London in a sweat suit to start the weight cut for the following morning. How bleak!!!

When I got back from London, I had the usual signs of being run down, coldsores, a bit of a flu. BUT this time, I was also bloated and itchy. I was so scared I had done some damage to my kidneys, I went to my GP and got some blood tests. Thankfully, everything was fine but that was the scare I needed to get my shit together!

I decided to not accept any more fights until I had my body and my mind sorted. I worked with a Nutritionist, focused on strength and conditioning and started meditating to help myself switch off.

This is where my research into weight cutting practices, female nutrition and female hormones really stemmed from. There was no info online, no studies, so I became my own study participant.

With help, I got in to the best shape of my life and never had a bad weight cut again!

This is what I want for you! I want to empower you to know your own body and what it can do when it is fuelled correctly. Not when it is starved!

I have only a couple of spots left for one-to-one work to start in 2023. If you are interested in starting in to 2024 on a journey of empowerment and food freedom, hit reply and let's talk about your options.

Stay well,

Lindsey