CUTTING WEIGHT FOR BETTER OR WORSE

Cutting weight is a fact of life in a sport like wrestling.

A woman missed her weight in the Paris Olympics.

She is the latest in a long line of surprises at the weigh in.

The big surprise for me is that she didn’t forfeit the finals match and get the silver medal.

Instead, she was disqualified and listed in last place for her weight class.

 

The shocking news not only knocked Vinesh Phogat out of the 50-kilogram Olympic final against American Sarah Hildebrandt, where she would’ve been guaranteed to win no worse than a silver medal.

Under international wrestling rules, Phogat’s failure to make weight resulted in a full disqualification. She technically finished dead last.

Technically?

 

I’ve had less than satisfactory weight cuts over the years.

This story is the sort of thing that might start me on another.

It started my junior year in high school when I cut to 165 lbs for a post season tournament.

My sophomore year I weighed 180 lbs.

The idea was to lighten up, stay strong, and dominate those ‘little guys.’

Instead, I made weight, felt as weak as a mop, and got rag-dolled by kids I knew I could beat.

But not that day.

Senior year I weighed in at 190 lbs and had a good year.

Freshman year in college I cut to 177 lbs and got pounded.

A year later I made weight at 180 lbs for an Army wrestling team try-out.

Every time I cut weight I got stomped. Go figure.

Was it embarrassing? Yeah, I’d say so.

Because of dehydration and starvation my body didn’t function as well as it did at normal weight.

It’s easy thinking I was the only one, but I wasn’t.

 

Side Effects Of Cutting Weight

“It’s something that a lot of times, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, it can be really promoted and it’s very unnecessary − especially from a young age,” said Elor, who won gold at 68 kilograms on Tuesday night.

 

As an eighteen year old freshman living in the dorm, I had a cafeteria full of food haunting me while I was making weight.

Since it was all paid for I should eat it? Of course. I come from a family of good eaters.

After stuffing my face until my stomach hurt, I found an out of the way toilet and purged, puked, vomited, tickled my tonsils.

With enough practice I got good at it. And made every weigh-in.

One of the side effects of weight loss, of shifting body weight to a lower number, is body shaming.

Who goes on a severe weight cut because they feel so good about themselves?

 

He died crawling to the scale. Glassy-eyed and pale, his legs too weak to hold him after he had shed nearly 17 pounds in three
days, Jeff Reese collapsed and expired on the cold floor of a locker room in Crisler Arena on Dec. 9 in Ann Arbor.

Reese, a junior at Michigan trying to make weight in the 150-pound class for a wrestling meet against Michigan State, spent the last two hours of his life in a plastic suit, riding a stationary bike in a room in which the heat was cranked up to92[degrees].

He was the third college wrestler to die in 33 days. Billy Jack Saylor, a freshman at Campbell University in
Buies Creek, N.C., and Joseph LaRosa, a senior at Wisconsin-La Crosse, died in November while cutting weight.

Though the official causes of their deaths varied, Reese, Saylor and LaRosa died of the same thing: the self-inflicted torture of drastic weight loss, college wrestling’s ugly secret.

 

The Drastic Habit

Many years ago, as an overweight American male, another fat boy and I made a weight loss bet.

Twenty pounds in two months.

He was younger and clocked in around 320; I came in around 240.

The one who didn’t make weight had to sponsor the other on an all expense paid trip to Seattle for a Mariners game.

Weigh in was Monday. On Thursday he called with, “Give it up, loser,” on my answering machine.

I’d already given up after putting on five extra pounds in two months and looked forward to taking in a ball game.

My buddy had been in the Dodgers farm system and talked a good game behind the plate during Short A.

That Thursday night I recommitted.

I bought a cross-country ski machine, set it up in my living room, and wore a stack of sweats for four days.

Did I make weight? Yes.

Did we go to the game like planned? No, because he was a jerk competitor.

It was one contest of many where we faced off. The guy was a bull.

We arm wrestled, we hit balls in the batting cage; he lost every time, and he got pissed.

As an experienced competitor I knew the difference between fair play and cheating.

He accused me of cheating, I accused him of being a sore loser.

Did I ever say, “Give it up, loser?” Never.

Did I cheat? Maybe, but not in an obvious way.

I’d arm wrestled everyone who wanted to give it a go in my Army bootcamp barracks, but I had one place I did it from.

That place gave me extra leverage and power and I never lost.

It was done with respect. No screaming, no dancing, just winning and losing.

The guys never caught on, either.

 

The Unwanted Weight Loss

When people come down with the sort of neck cancer that took up space on my neck, they have the choice of having a feeding tube installed in their stomach, or starving.

I opted out of the feeding tube with idea of two belly buttons for the rest of my life along with a chemo port scar.

I lost sixty pounds during the ordeal, achieving my fat man goal of getting under 200 lbs. one more time.

I made it to 199.5 before my cheerleader team caught on and said knock it off.

The chemo came with nausea. The anti-nausea pills came in three strengths.

For some reason the pills made me sicker than the chemo.

The reason they recommend a feeding tube for neck cancer is the radiation.

The tumor got cooked from one side; the other side got the pass-through burn.

It was a hot, hot, time, but I could manage. Right up until I couldn’t.

For the worst sore throat in history I had oxy and liquid oxy.

After trying one on one day, then the other the next, I got the spins and passed out. (Hey Mark)

That’s when I made the switch to weed brownies made for cancer patients and given for free in the industry.

A small brownie and a cup of tea lasted two hours, then water and protein drinks, and eventually deviled ham on soft hotdog buns, scrambled eggs, then doing it all again.

I admired my abs and my jawline that had been hiding undercover for years.

My wife came in with a picture she’d found.

Wife: I can’t believe how much you look like your dad. When was this picture taken.

Me: Let’s see. Oh, about a week before he died.

Wife:

Me: I’m not fucking dying here.

Wife: No, you’re not.

Me: Say it.

Wife: You’re not dying.

Me: Damn right. Please get me a brownie from the freezer and a cup of tea. I love you.

Wife: I love you too.