What To Eat and Drink After You Weigh In For Muay Thai, MMA, & Boxing
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This article explains exactly what to eat and drink after you weigh in, in order to allow you to perform at your best. I cover:
Types of weigh-in
What do we need to consume post-weigh-in?
Why do we need to consume these?
How much food and fluid to consume post-weigh-in
Which foods and drinks this actually translates to
Types of Weigh-In
Generally, there are two categories: the same day as your fight, and the day before your fight.
For a same-day weigh-in, this could be anywhere from 90 minutes (e.g. BJJ competitions) up to 12 hours before your fight (some Muay Thai promotions in Thailand will weigh in at 5:00 am to 6:00 am, and you might not fight until 5:00 pm, or later).
A day before weigh-in is more common in the West, and in some shows in Thailand, especially MMA promotions. You’ll usually weigh in either the morning or early afternoon, on the day before you’re scheduled to fight. So, typically you’ll have at least 24 hours to recover.
What do we need to consume post-weigh-in?
Essentially, what you need to do in this period between the weigh-in and the fight depends largely on the weight cutting tactics you’ve used over fight week.
A good rule of thumb is to put back in what you’ve taken out over fight week.
The only exception to this rule is fibre. If you've used a low fibre diet to remove some weight from gut contents in the days leading up to the weigh-in, you don't need to put this back in. Having more undigested food in your stomach isn't going to benefit your performance. If anything, it might harm your performance, as we want to minimize gut discomfort as much as possible.
The other things that we're likely to have taken out are:
Carbohydrates
Water
Salt (specifically, sodium - table salt is sodium chloride)
So, the things we need to put back in are…you guessed it!
Carbohydrates
Water
Salt
Why do we need to consume these?
Carbohydrates are the primary fuel for high-intensity performance. If you have ever been in a fight, you'll know that it tends to be pretty high intensity!
Anything above about 60% of your maximum intensity will be fuelled predominantly by carbohydrates. So, it’s vital we put these back in to ensure you can access these top gears.
Nobody wants to be stuck in gear 1 or 2 while their opponent is drowning them with seemingly relentless cardio and overwhelming power.
Regarding water, dehydration as little as 2% of your body weight can affect your performance. Being euhydrated, which just means not being dehydrated and not being hyper- or over-hydrated will allow you to perform at your best and will protect your health.
There are countless negative impacts on both health and performance as a result of dehydration. I'll cover a few of them here, but it would be impossible to cover them all and still keep this article to a reasonable length.
Even relatively small magnitudes of dehydration can:
Increase strain on your heart
Impair aerobic and muscular endurance
Reduce muscle strength
Impair fine motor skills
Reduce mental capacity
Increase risk of concussion
Decrease pain tolerance.
It’s suspected that decreased pain tolerance is a result of higher cortisol, which comes as a result of being dehydrated. Cortisol is one of the primary stress hormones, and it directly relates to your pain sensitivity.
In addition to the above, there are a slew of other negative impacts, not only on your performance but also on your health in the long term. I won't dive into them here, but you can read this great article from the Grey Matters Journal, which covers some of these issues.
We've covered why we need to put back in carbohydrates and water, let’s talk about salt. Salt in the form of table salt is sodium chloride, and it's the sodium that we are interested in.
Sodium is an important electrolyte involved in regulating body water. Adequate sodium consumption allows the body to hold onto more of the water that we put in. Therefore, adequate sodium will support optimal rehydration.
Plain water is perfectly fine 99% of the time. But, in this period between the weigh-in and the fight, we want to hold onto as much as possible of the fluid we’re drinking. Adding salt to your fluids and/or food will mean that you hold onto more of the fluid you consume, meaning they make a greater contribution to rehydrating you, and less of it gets excreted via urination.
How much food and fluid to consume post-weigh-in
We've covered the ‘what’ and the ‘why’; now let's talk about how much.
You can’t just down a load of water, eat a load of rice, and expect to perform at your best. You need to consume an optimal amount of them.
For carbohydrates, somewhere in the range of 5 to 10 grams per kilogram of body weight, would be considered a good range to aim for.
If it's a same-day weigh-in, you'll want to go to the lower end of this range, more like 5 grams per kilogram, because you'll likely have a shorter recovery window. If you've got less time to recover, then you can't afford to consume as much as if you were having a day before weigh-in, because then you start to risk things like gut discomfort.
However, if you have a day before weigh-in, somewhere between 7 to 10 grams per kilogram of your body weight is probably optimal.
Recommended carbohydrate intake post-weigh-in based on bodyweight, and example foods.
It should go without saying, but don't just consume this all in your post-weigh-in meal. Try to consume a smaller amount every hour, you want to eat little and often. If you just binge massively post weigh-in, you'll be in a food coma and you'll be so stuffed that you won't be able to continue refuelling. You'll just hit that brick wall.
Onto salt, for every litre of fluid you consume, you want this to contain somewhere between 2-3 grams of salt or 1,000 to 1,500 milligrams of sodium.
Sports drinks like Lucozade Sport or Powerade are often a little bit too low in sodium for this post-weigh-in requirement. So, either you can add a little salt to them (see recipe below), or you can consume an oral rehydration solution (ORS). These are formulated with the optimal sodium concentration to rehydrate you.
This leads nicely into the water component. You want to consume 150% of your water losses.
So 1.5 x whatever you've lost in water (in kg). In the final 24 hours, most of the weight you lose will be from water. So, multiply whatever you lose in the last 24 hours before the weigh-in (in kg) by 1.5; that is your fluid target (in litres).
Make sure you don't drink too quickly, as you can only absorb a certain amount of fluid per hour. This will differ a little depending on the individual, but one litre per hour is a good rate to aim for, so try to drink about 250ml every 15 minutes.
You can also monitor your urine colour. Bear in mind that peeing clear isn't solely an accurate way to assess hydration post-weigh-in. However, if your urine is not clear/very pale yellow, this is a good indicator that you are still dehydrated.
Which foods and drinks this actually translates to
A rehydration drink that I am a fan of, and use with my clients, is as follows:
500ml water
500ml isotonic sports drink
2-3g salt
Mix these ingredients into a 1-litre bottle. Drink it at a rate of roughly 1 litre/hour until your total fluid target has been reached (1.5 x water losses in kg). Once you've reached your fluid target, you can switch to plain water or juice, if preferred, to maintain hydration.
There are a few different things to consider regarding food choices after weighing in. I split the carbohydrates into two categories:
Aggressive high carbohydrate
Regular high carbohydrate
Aggressive carbohydrate options are best in the first 2 hours after weighing in, and also when you don't have much time to refuel, such as for a same-day weigh-in. These will be really high carbohydrate foods, such as:
Energy/sports bars
White bread with jam/honey
High sugar cereals with low-fat milk
Jelly sweets
Liquid meals
These foods are energy-dense. In the two hours after you weigh in, you probably won't want to have a big meal of chicken and rice. You'll want to get that hydration going before you start to consume larger amounts of food. If you do go right from the weigh-in to a full meal, you may experience GI discomfort and maybe a dodgy stomach. So stick with those more aggressive foods in the 1-2 hours after weigh-in.
Once your body adjusts and you get more hydrated, you can switch to these regular high carbohydrate foods, which are a little bit more normal. If you have more than a couple of hours to replenish your glycogen (stored carbohydrates) stores, then you don't need to be so aggressive. These include:
Pasta
Rice
Potatoes
Bread
Bananas
Dried fruits
We don't want a super high protein intake after weighing in because it will fill you up a lot and not leave enough room for a high carbohydrate intake.
That said, we also don't want a super low protein intake. We want to be somewhere in the middle. You want to choose pretty lean protein sources that don't contain much fat, for example:
Chicken/turkey breast
Lean beef
White fish
Tuna
Whey protein
Low-fat Greek yoghurt
We want to keep fat and fibre pretty low. They slow down your digestion and can cause some stomach discomfort if consumed in excess which, obviously, isn't optimal leading into a fight where you want to be performing at your best.
Nobody wants a dodgy stomach when they're having a fight. This means choosing lean meats, ‘white’ carbs, and keeping vegetable portions small.
Many fighters find that consuming some vegetables even just psychologically helps them feel a little bit healthier, even though it probably doesn't have much of a physiological impact. So, you can consume vegetables. But, keep the portions relatively small.
I can't stress this next point enough, avoid high-fat junk food. Don't go for a McDonald's after you weigh in. It's one more day to stay relatively disciplined with your food choices, you can do it.
The reward you get for that is being able to perform at your best, and not feeling awful in the ring because you've gone and had a burger. Post-fight is when you can go and enjoy those foods.
The rehydration drink recipe above will take care of your sodium needs. You can also add salt to your meals, or things like soy sauce and other salty seasonings if you would like.
In summary, we’ve covered:
Different weigh-in formats
What our bodies require after weighing in
Why our bodies require each of these components
How much carbohydrate, fluid, and salt to consume
Which specific foods and drinks you should prioritise after weighing in
Which specific foods to avoid after weighing in
Following the advice in this article will allow you to optimally rehydrate and replenish carbohydrate stores after weighing in, giving you plenty of gas in the tank to put on a dominant performance in the ring or cage.
I hope you found this helpful. If you do use any of this advice, please reach out to me on social media (@jamesnicholnutrition) and let me know how you've got on.
If you’re interested in hiring me as your nutritionist, click here.