What I am about to describe to you was the single most difficult, physical experience of my entire life.

I grew up on a farm in the rainy Pacific Northwest, with a cowboy father who made sure I did physical labor every morning before school. As an amateur wrestler, I was used to enduring punishing workouts that, looking back, can only be described as stupid. I went on to become a world silver medalist and an NCAA All-American, and have I fought professionally in a cage over forty times—including three UFC Championship bouts. I don’t mean to brag—I list these accomplishments only to illustrate that pushing my body to its limits has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

The following story trumps the most grueling moments of any of those experiences times ten.

In different forms of martial arts, the playing field is kept level by dividing athletes by weight classes. It wouldn’t be fair to ask someone weighing 120 pounds to face an opponent a hundred pounds heavier. But athletes are competitive by nature and will do just about anything to gain an edge, including strategizing around our weight. If I weigh in officially as a middleweight, but I’m as big as a light-heavyweight by the time I step into the cage, then I have the advantage of being bigger than my opponent. In theory anyway, because the man standing across from me knows the same tricks I do.

“There have been multiple cases in which ‘potentially deadly’ became deadly.” CHAEL SONNEN

In combat sports, the way we lose (and then gain) large amounts of weight quickly is through the dangerous process commonly known as “cutting weight.” In both wrestling and mixed martial arts, this extreme weight loss is part of the culture. The process involves a careful combination of healthy dieting, unhealthy starvation, and potentially deadly dehydration. And, yes, there have been multiple cases in which “potentially deadly” became deadly. During the first six weeks of the 1997 NCAA wrestling season, three college wrestlers died cutting weight. Their tragic deaths sparked the NCAA to make changes to reduce incidents of severe weight-cutting. Unfortunately, these young men were not the last to pay the ultimate price. Just a few months ago a Scottish Muay Thai fighter named Jordan Coe died wearing a plastic sweat suit while attempting to cut weight for an upcoming bout.

Caution: do not ever attempt what I am about to describe.

If you’re wondering why I choose to fight in a cage, it’s for one reason and one reason only—money. And that’s what was on my mind the day I got the call from Dana White, the president of the UFC. That day, he offered me a fight against Dan Miller at UFC 98, which was taking place exactly three weeks later. The call lasted less than thirty seconds and I said the same thing I always do when offered a fight—yes.

Fear management is an essential part of my profession. But the man who would soon be standing across the cage from me was the least of my worries. The first thing I did after I hung up the phone with Dana was step on the scale, which read 222.2 pounds. That was 36.2 pounds above the contracted weight limit of 186 pounds, and with only three weeks until fight time I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

AL BELLO/ZUFFA LLC/ZUFFA LLC VIA GETTY IMAGES

In all my years competing, I’ve never missed weight. And when I stepped off the scale, I immediately understood the level of pain and torture I was about to endure. Over the years I’ve become familiar with how my body responds when losing weight. Eating healthy food, in the correct portions, I lose three pounds per week on average. Since I was three weeks out, that would amount to a grand weight-loss total of nine pounds. Clearly, I needed to do something else if I wanted to lose another 27.

At the time, I didn’t understand how eating certain foods can enhance one’s metabolism. So, I kicked off my weight-cut by making a tremendous mistake. I began my short training camp with a two-day fast. Despite two workouts a day consisting of grappling, sparring, and weight training, plus an extra run at night, I ate nothing. Two gallons of water was the only item on my menu.

After two days, I was down four pounds, but it wasn’t long before my body began cannibalizing itself by sacrificing valuable muscle tissue. Muscle is not only important in a fight, it’s also metabolically active, fat-burning tissue. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn. With the amount of weight I had to lose in such a short period of time, my body had no choice but to also use muscle tissue for energy. That’s not ideal for anyone trying to lose weight—and certainly not good for me, less than 3 weeks out from a cage fight.

By the third day of training camp, I was pushing myself to the extreme. Overtraining, lack of sleep, and extreme calorie deprivation increased my risk of illness and injury, which meant I was risking my ability to even show up for the fight. My nights were spent staring at the ceiling with my stomach growling as I visualized my upcoming match over and over in my mind, only taking a break to obsess over the buffet of food I would devour it was over. These thoughts consumed me.

I arrived in Las Vegas on a Tuesday, three days before weigh-ins. When you fight for the UFC, the first thing you do during fight week is check in with UFC staff and step on their official scale. When I did it, the scale read 202 pounds—and I felt like I was dying. I still had seventeen pounds to go.

“I had no other choice but to endure the suffering.” CHAEL SONNEN

The only thing I had going in my favor was excellent hydration. I had zero energy, but at least the cells in my body were full of water. That meant there was a lot of potential weight I could dump. But dehydration is risky business. You can live for weeks without food, but only days without water. Exposure to heat and exercise significantly increases the risk of something going wrong. Unfortunately, I would need to utilize both over the next few days as I intentionally drove myself into a state of severe dehydration in a final attempt to rapidly lose the remaining weight.

I used two strategies to eliminate the water: running while wearing a plastic sweat suit that increases your sweat rate, and sitting in a hot sauna. A gallon of water weighs 8.3 pounds. I had seventeen pounds to lose. Somehow, I had to suck two gallons of water out of my body in three days. This was not going to be fun.

After years of practice, I knew that I could lose one pound of water every ten minutes with either technique. But there is a limit to the length of time one can spend overheated, running in plastic, or sitting in a sauna. These were the most dangerous moments of the entire weight-cut, so I had to carefully gauge the length of my weight-cutting sessions and split them up over the final three days to avoid the misfortune of heat stroke and/or an untimely death. And because proper rehydration in between each weight cut session would add more water weight to my body, I had no other choice but to endure the suffering.

Poor sleep continued to be an issue throughout this entire ordeal. At the best of times, I hardly sleep during fight week. But this time around, I was significantly more uncomfortable than usual. And while I rarely sleep at all on the night before weigh-ins, I would have preferred a wink or two this time around, if only to forget for a moment how I felt during those final, awful treadmill runs in the plastic suit or during those suffocating sauna sits. My only salvation was knowing that the end was near.

JAYNE KAMIN-ONCEA/GETTY IMAGES

By the time I gauged that I had achieved my target weight on the day of the weigh-in, I needed help to move. Unfortunately for me, it was a very long walk from the hotel’s spa to my own room. Along the way, through the crowded walkways of the MGM, I stopped to take no less than twenty pictures with fans hanging around the lobby hoping to see one of their favorite fighters. Somehow I mustered a smile.

When I finally completed my excruciating shuffle back to my room and stepped on the scale, I was crushed to learn I was still 1.8 pounds over my target weight. I wanted to burst into tears. I failed to account for my increasing level of dehydration and how that would slow my sweat rate. My math of one pound per ten minutes was all wrong. Back downstairs through the mob of fans and into the sauna I went.

What happened between those final sauna sweat sessions and my arrival at the venue for weigh-ins is a blur to me now. But somehow, by the grace of some miracle, I made it.

JARED WICKERHAM/GETTY IMAGES

At the arena, behind the curtain before the official weigh-in, I laid down on the concrete and prayed for the clock to hit 4:00 pm (the official start time of the weigh-in). I wondered if I’d even be able to stand back up on my own without my body seizing up.

Yet somehow, with the goal line finally in sight, I experienced a sudden burst of energy. I could taste the ice-cold soda I craved so much. When I stepped onto the scale I couldn’t bring myself to look down to see if my math was correct, if I had actually made weight. It felt like an eternity as I stood there, my eyes sunken into my skull in front of thousands of screaming fans as the commissioner carefully checked the balance of the scale. Finally, I heard those magical words –“186 pounds!” Success. My cornerman handed me a bottle of water, I took the most refreshing gulp of my life, faced off with my opponent, and walked off the stage like a gangster.

“Losing weight the wrong way is never a smart choice.” CHAEL SONNEN

Back then, I didn’t understand that my body needed specific foods to recover properly. Walking to death’s doorstep requires a specific plan to get back if you want to perform at your best. In retrospect, I’ll acknowledge that ordering a club sandwich with cheese, French fries, and ranch dressing was probably a mistake. After five bites my stomach seized up and I swore I’d never eat again. But several hours later, after a doctor administered an IV, I started to come around. My stomach settled, I sipped some water, and slowly began to eat.

Although my hand was raised after the final bell rang, my performance did indeed suffer. I made it, but I knew I could never go through this same sordid journey again.



In truth, there is no good way to lose thirty-plus pounds quickly. The universal appeal of quick fixes has been exploited by the diet industry for decades—from crazy workout programs guaranteed to give you a sculpted six-pack to rapid weight-loss diets so strict no one in their right mind could follow them for more than a few weeks. There is always a price to pay for unrealistic expectations. This is a theme I explore in great depth in my forthcoming book, The Four-Pack Revolution, which is due out around Christmastime.

COURTESY OF CHAEL SONNEN

Be honest, though. If the title of this article was How to Lose 1 Pound Per Week, you probably wouldn’t have clicked. But imagine if that was the common approach? What if the average, overweight person eating a standard Western diet of processed foods filled with refined oils and excess sugar committed to losing one pound a week? Let’s just do the math. Yes, that’s right—they would weigh over 50 lbs. less in twelve months. Those are life changing numbers.

If you find yourself with a few pounds to lose or have watched your weight cycle up and down without long-term success, here are a few things to consider. Trust me, after all these years and so many weight-cuts, I’ve become intimately acquainted with both the right and the wrong way to do this.

1. Don’t change everything overnight: Pick one or two small changes to make and gradually build momentum. Skip the donuts and add a protein shake. If you give yourself time, you can form lasting positive habits that deliver results for years.

2. Wrap your head around portion size: I recently went out to dinner at a popular chain restaurant that displayed the calorie count of each dish on the menu. A surprising number of meals were pushing 1,100 calories. Add a lemonade and a desert, and that meal could represent an entire day’s worth of calories. Most of us don’t even understand what ideal portion sizes look like.

3. Pay attention to sugar: Many beverages with healthy looking labels containing words like ‘healthy’, ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ often contain more sugar than a can of Coke does. Sugar makes you fat, messes with your hormones, and interferes with your metabolism. Limit your intake. (Here are six more ways eating too much sugar messes with your entire body.)

4. Drink more water (or unsweetened tea): I begin every training camp drinking at least one gallon of water per day. You may not need that much, but replacing soda or juice with water will save you hundreds of calories per day. And if you’re thinking you’ll just drink diets sodas, those are also a no-no. Recent research indicates they may triple your risk of stroke and dementia.

5. Prepare: The single greatest tip for losing weight is preparation. Chances are you know what you should be eating, so make it easy for yourself to eat those foods. If you’re hungry and have nothing healthy on hand, then that trip to the drive-through gets really tempting. But not so much with a balanced meal prepped and sitting in your fridge.

One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “How do you lose weight?” Wrestlers and mixed martial arts fighters have discovered tricks to losing weight while still being able to perform at a high level. But this approach doesn’t work for the rest of humanity. In truth, it doesn’t really even work for wrestlers and fighters. The human body can only take so much punishment. So whether it comes back to haunt you on fight night in the form of a bad performance or it creates a long-term, negative impact on your health, losing weight the wrong way is never a smart choice. My recommendation? Relax, give yourself time, and find a way to enjoy the process. Losing weight is about looking better and improving your health. It should never be a form of self-punishment. This is possible. With this approach, you’ll build sustainable, healthy habits that will last a lifetime.