This is long -- but it's gotta point to it. Bear with me.
I wrestled in high school. For those of you not familiar with the sport, each competitor is placed in a weight class. Making a long story short, pretty much everyone was always trying to lose weight in order to compete in the weight class below. It was not uncommon for someone to wrestle in a class that was 15 - 20 lbs below their true weight. The main reason for this was to be able to wrestle smaller people. But nobody was ever smaller --- cuz everyone dropped weight. So you get two guys in the 160 lb class --- but both of em probably normally weigh in the 170s.
I was no different; for three years, I hung around the 112/119 weight class. My true weight was around 130, 135, if I remember right.
The methods used to lose that kind of weight are irrelevant to the story --- but they're painful and unhealthy. In fact, "cutting weight", or "making weight" became more of a sport than the actual wrestling was.
There were times I'd make weight for a match --- and then go back to the locker room and gorge on all kinds of food that I had spent a week dreaming about. Was I focused on wrestling?? Nope.
I won maybe 30/90 matches between my freshman and junior year. Was I a bad wrestler?? Nope, not at all. I was very good --- and worked hard. However, I was always too tired to go at it when the time came --- mostly due to cutting weight.
So, my senior year, I got smart. I weighed 141 lbs. I coulda probably managed to easily go down to the 140 class. Instead --- I went UP. Yep, wrestled 145.
I went home after practices and ate anything I wanted, never worried about making weight --- just focusing on the matches. While everyone else was starving and sweating themselves out --- I was fat, full and happy!!
I lost one match that year --- to the eventual State Runner-Up
anybody see what im sayin
I wrestled in high school. For those of you not familiar with the sport, each competitor is placed in a weight class. Making a long story short, pretty much everyone was always trying to lose weight in order to compete in the weight class below. It was not uncommon for someone to wrestle in a class that was 15 - 20 lbs below their true weight. The main reason for this was to be able to wrestle smaller people. But nobody was ever smaller --- cuz everyone dropped weight. So you get two guys in the 160 lb class --- but both of em probably normally weigh in the 170s.
I was no different; for three years, I hung around the 112/119 weight class. My true weight was around 130, 135, if I remember right.
The methods used to lose that kind of weight are irrelevant to the story --- but they're painful and unhealthy. In fact, "cutting weight", or "making weight" became more of a sport than the actual wrestling was.
There were times I'd make weight for a match --- and then go back to the locker room and gorge on all kinds of food that I had spent a week dreaming about. Was I focused on wrestling?? Nope.
I won maybe 30/90 matches between my freshman and junior year. Was I a bad wrestler?? Nope, not at all. I was very good --- and worked hard. However, I was always too tired to go at it when the time came --- mostly due to cutting weight.
So, my senior year, I got smart. I weighed 141 lbs. I coulda probably managed to easily go down to the 140 class. Instead --- I went UP. Yep, wrestled 145.
I went home after practices and ate anything I wanted, never worried about making weight --- just focusing on the matches. While everyone else was starving and sweating themselves out --- I was fat, full and happy!!
I lost one match that year --- to the eventual State Runner-Up
anybody see what im sayin
