Competition

Tournament Weight Cut Planner

Tell us your current weight, your target, and how many days you have. We’ll show a daily target and a plain risk read — framed around making weight safely, not crash-cutting.

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This is a safety-first planner

If making weight ever means starving, dehydrating or training sick, stop and talk to a coach or sports dietitian. We’d rather you compete a division up than get hurt.

A planner, not a crash diet

This tool exists to keep you out of trouble. Rapid weight cutting — the sauna-suit, water-loading, zero-carb scramble — is common in grappling and genuinely dangerous when it’s rushed. The safest cuts are slow: a gradual drop of body fat and a small, well-timed water manipulation at the very end, managed by someone who knows what they’re doing.

We classify your plan by how much of your bodyweight you’d need to lose per week. Under roughly 1% per week is the range most sports-nutrition guidance considers sustainable. Past that, you’re increasingly trading performance, focus and health for scale numbers.

What the risk read means

On track: your target is reachable with normal, sensible nutrition and training. Aggressive: doable, but it needs a real plan and probably a coach’s eye. High risk: the timeline is short enough that hitting it safely is unlikely — the honest move is to enter a higher division or pick a later event.

If a number here ever pushes you toward starving, dehydrating, or training sick to make weight, that’s your signal to stop and talk to a coach or a sports dietitian. A medal isn’t worth a hospital trip.

Frequently asked questions

How much weight can I safely lose before a comp?
A common sports-nutrition guideline is to keep fat loss around or below 1% of bodyweight per week. Faster than that increasingly costs strength, energy and recovery. Last-minute water cuts are a separate, riskier topic best managed with a coach.
Is cutting water weight safe?
Aggressive dehydration cuts carry real risks — impaired performance, cramping, and in extreme cases serious medical emergencies. If you manipulate water at all, it should be small, late, and supervised. This planner deliberately steers you toward gradual loss instead.
Should I just compete a division up?
Often, yes. If making weight means a punishing cut, the smarter competitive move is usually to fight fresh and strong one division higher than to arrive depleted at your ‘right’ weight.