Making weight when you don’t care about weight

I have been a bit quiet on the blog lately, but alas, the world of eat, sleep, WOD, repeat, has continued to go on.

When I last checked in, it was an update on my current Outlaw Way training, which has been temporarily shifted to Outlaw Barbell in prepping for my first Olympic Weightlifting meet. A real, sanctioned, had-to-register-with-USAW, must-wear-a-singlet, meet.

Why in the heck would you sign up for that,

you ask. Well, just as with the Crossfit Games Open, or my half-marathon, or a 70 flight stair climb, I am a glutton for signing up for things that push me out of my comfort zone.

On Saturday, I will suit up..

I’ve done plenty of Oly lifting lately and know as far as the lifting goes, I’m as ready as I am going to be. I am not going to win this thing; nor setting any unrealistic expectations other than putting myself out there and enjoying the experience.

But one thing that is pretty foreign to me is this idea of “making weight.”

Much different from Crossfit, to register in a weightlifting competition, you must claim a weight class at registration, which will group you with other athletes of your size, thus ideally leveling the playing field, in a way.

I have said on more than one occasion I would be completely fine gaining weight, and when I was gaining weight it didn’t matter.. Though with my consistent training and following Eat to Perform, my everyday weight lately has dropped a bit from my heaviest and plateaued to a moving average of 62 kilograms (yep, I am also immersing myself in the love language of the metric system).

The official weight classes for women are:

48 kg  ≤ 48.00kg                  105.6 pounds
53 kg  48.01kg – 53.00kg   105.622 pounds-116.6 pounds
58 kg  53.01kg – 58.00kg   116..622 pounds-127.6 pounds
63 kg  58.01kg – 63.00kg   127.622 pounds-138.6 pounds
69 kg  63.01kg – 69.00kg   138.622 pounds-151.8 pounds
75 kg  69.01kg – 75.00kg   151.822 pounds-165 pounds
+75 kg  ≥ 75.01kg                 165.022 pounds

I am not going to make any efforts to gain or lose weight and play the weight class game since in the big picture, it doesn’t matter at all to me.

But…

I’m registered at 63, a weight I am typically under, but from day-to-day, depending on a million factors including food, water, stress, or even the scale used, a women’s weight can fluctuate. I log my weight weekly, for no real reason at all, but I am consciously aware that this class is just where I am .

Though I have some reservations about the weight class I chose. My normal daily eating is full of grass-fed meats and recently upping my veggies. I load my carbs around my workouts and occasionally indulge in a treat post-workout without thinking twice about it. And at the end of the day, every Wednesday morning after I wake up, my weight rarely is above 63kg, or 138.6 (though admittedly, prior to this whole process, I claimed to want to be 140!).

With a comfortable deload week, I am eating around 2000 calories with the reduced carbs (and honestly, no idea how some women struggle eating that much – it is difficult to ONLY eat that!). And I am hungry.. but slightly hesitant to consume my normal foods I would be eating because what if I don’t make my class? What if their scale doesn’t match my scale? What if my body decides to freak out (which, stressing about the thought of not making weight probably could have an impact on this..).

Again, big picture – this meet is completely for fun and I am not competing to win.. but I still feel I should make the effort to commit to a class.. right?

Your turn..
What was the last thing you signed up for to challenge yourself?
Have you ever competed in an Oly competition?
Do you prefer Crossfitting or weightlifting?
Do you weigh yourself often?
Have you ever had to “make weight”?
How do you deal with the slight fluctuations day by day if you are trying to make a certain weight?