I think having a plan with your coach or whoever
you're working with is important and keeping
the weight loss if it's possible around less
than 5 % of your body weight because greater
than 5 % is when you typically start to see a
lot of the more significant changes happening
both psychologically and physiologically um so
if that's possible that can be something else
to take into account and keeping those weight
loss goals more realistic so again less than
that five percent is realistic for most people
Hi Zee, it's my pleasure to have you on Evidence
Strong Show. If you could briefly introduce yourself.
Hi Alex, thank you so much for having me. I am
a first year PhD student at the University of
Toronto in Canada. And I previously completed
my bachelor's degree in psychology, which is
what got me into the field of exercise and psychology
and how those two things intersect. I also am
a powerlifter and have been powerlifting for
about five or six years now. And it was really
this interest in lifting and feeling good about
myself and my mental health that got me into
the field of kinesiology, where I'm currently
doing my PhD. We are talking about weight cutting
and body image. Why this is the topic you chose
for this paper and for your work? Yeah, great
question. So before I started doing my master's
thesis, I had competed a couple times in powerlifting
and I started to lose weight. for competitions
in order to make a lower weight class. And I
noticed that it's a fun process. It's a challenging
process. It's a rewarding process. But anecdotally,
there was a lot of psychological things that
were going on for me personally, and also people
that I had talked to who went through the process
of losing weight for a competition. And when
I decided to start my master's, I was very interested
in the psychological changes that were potential.
happening for people who were losing weight while
preparing for a competition and when I started
to look into the scientific literature I noticed
that a lot of the research was more focused on
physiological changes which is valid and we want
to know how the body reacts to such a stressful
event and how it affects performance which is
all things people would want being an athlete
but I felt that the psychological aspect was
missing from the literature and although there
may not be a direct link currently between psychology
and performance. And I felt that there was merit
to studying this. So I wanted to add to the literature
by looking at the psychological changes. That
was something that interests me from an anecdotal
perspective to begin with. So my own experiences
is what got me interested and then seeing the
gap in the literature and being able to fill
that gap and start that process, continue to
drive the research forward. Excellent. We need
research in this area, the audience of this.
This podcast had an opportunity to listen to
Jolanda Cruz, who was exactly describing what
you said. She was talking about there is the
physiological side, but there is a mental side
to the cutting weight process too. So how did
you go about designing this study? Yeah, so taking
a look at the literature, there was a couple
of descriptive studies that had recently come
out before I started my master's thesis. And
they described the time. lines that people typically
follow when they are preparing for competition.
So just understanding the typical length of time
that powerlifters take to lose weight so that
I could start to gauge like how long do I need
to be looking at this process and what the timeline
would look like. That was sort of how we started
to develop the methods for the study and the
design, knowing that we wanted it to be a longitudinal
study. So looking at multiple time points. And
also knowing that we needed to start far enough
in advance so that people probably hadn't already
started cutting weight. So keeping all those
things in mind. And then also looking at the
International Powerlifting Federation rules around
weight loss and registering for competitions.
We kept those in mind as well. That brought our
start time to about nine weeks before competition.
And then from there, we measured the all of the
measures were taken every three weeks. leading
up to competition so one measure at nine weeks
one measure at six weeks when six weeks was about
when most people reported starting to significantly
lose weight for competition and then one measure
at three weeks which is at the time when i was
conducting the study that was when the international
powerlifting federation had set the deadline
you can't change your weight class after the
21 day mark so we figured that would be a good
time to capture if people were panicking and
changing their weight class or if they were still
set on being in that weight class and then we
tried to get as close to the competition day
as possible but also without trying to disrupt
the athlete on the actual competition day so
we measured or asked them to record 24 hours
before their competition and then it's reported
in the literature that most powerlifters gain
about 50 % of the weight that they've cut back
about a week after competition so we also captured
that at one week mark in hindsight I wish we
would have went a little bit further, but trying
to reduce participant burden as much as possible
while still collecting data. So yeah, that's
how we just developed this. There were four,
five time points. Four of them were before competition.
Who did you invite to the study? So we decided
to focus on female powerlifters. Over the age,
they had to be at least 18 years or older. We
didn't put an upper age limit on it. Knowing
that there's also master's powerlifters, which
I was able to actually capture a master's powerlifter
as well. So no upper age limits. And they had
to be anticipating to lose weight for competition.
That was one of the criteria. And they also had
to be competing within an international powerlifting
federation competition. between the months of
when did we do data collection, August and December
of 2023. So any time point in between there.
So I had people kind of all over the place starting
at various times. And I was just keeping track
of them as they were going through the data collection
phase, even if I'm going to think back. Yeah,
those were the inclusion criteria. They could
be from anywhere in the world. That was the other
thing too. So as long as they were part of the
International Powerlifting Federation, it didn't
matter where in the world they were planning
on competing or where they were currently training.
So I did have a couple international powerlifters
in the sample as well. So it was nice to get
a range of competitors. After we went through
the entire data collection phase, I was able
to use data from 12 female powerlifters in a
sample. The average amount of weight loss. throughout
the I'm going to talk about those like first
nine weeks leading up to competition was about
three and a half kilos on average from nine weeks
out of competition. So that was roughly about
what would be expected in the literature from
other studies on powerlifters reporting weight
loss. We had people from Canada, people from
the US, some people were from Europe, Australia,
and someone from Mexico as well. So there was
quite a broad range of countries, which was quite
nice. And like I said, people were competing
at the regional level, the national level, and
also the international level. So a broad range.
competitors at different levels. And some people
had never lost weight for a competition before.
And some people had done this upwards of 10 to
15 times. Awesome. So 12 females, and then you
put them through some battery of tests. So what
did you measure? Yes. So there was three measures
for body image. And these were one measure for
positive body image, which is body appreciation
was the scale that we used. measures general
appreciation of the overall health appearance
function of the body the other two measures were
trying to tap into the more negative side of
body image so whether or not people were currently
satisfied or dissatisfied with their weight we
thought that was important since this was a study
about weight loss and cutting weight and then
also whether or not people were satisfied or
dissatisfied with the shape of their body so
getting out the difference between weight and
shape and then the fourth measure was specifically
for well -being. So just general feeling and
functioning well in everyday life. So those were
the four measures that were completed at every
single time point in the study. asked people
to report their body weight on each of the days
when they were completing all of the other measures.
We didn't give any specific instructions about
how people should be weighing themselves. And
we wanted to try to do this to make it as relative
and relevant to the participant as what they
would do when they were preparing for a competition.
So personally, for me, I try to make my times
when I weigh in as similar to when I compete
or what time I will be. competing so we didn't
want to limit people and say oh you have to take
your weight in the morning or you have to take
your weight in the evening in case that wasn't
relevant to what their personal preparation for
competition was so we asked people to just report
their body weight knowing that it was a subjective
measure however we did correlate it with their
actual official weigh -in on at the day of competition
so 24 hours before and then official competition
weight were correlated just so we can get more
of a subjective and objective correlation. And
they were almost perfectly correlated. So I do
believe that people were telling me their actual
body weight throughout the entire duration of
the study, which was great. Would you be able
to tell us what have you found in the study?
Yes, definitely. I guess that's some of the important
stuff to know. So what was found was that obviously
people did lose weight over time between that
nine -week mark leading up to competition until
the day of competition. And people were more
satisfied with their weight as weight decreased,
which is to be expected. We also found that there
was improved well -being. as body weight decreased.
And then, which was sort of the opposite of what
I had hypothesized and what was expected from
the literature. And we can talk about that as
well a little bit more. And then for the other
two measures, there was no significant changes.
So no significant changes for body appreciation
didn't increase or decrease significantly. And
same for shape satisfaction. So even though they
were losing weight, those measures did not necessarily
change. The weight satisfaction one makes sense
that it was increasing people became more satisfied
the well -being one was an interesting one to
think about why people would feel generally feel
better and be functioning better going through
such a difficult process especially when a lot
of the literature shows people feel more stressed
angry fatigued especially weight class athletes
a lot of the literature is in combat sport athletes
so they typically have these more negative mood
states as they're losing weight for competition
So it was interesting to see that well -being
improved. But we did find some data to possibly
support why this might have been happening in
relation to goal setting. So this was also something
that wasn't measured. But it seems that a lot
of weight class athletes in qualitative literature
feel quite proud of themselves when they achieve
their weight loss goal and actually make weight
for competition, which could be contributing
to the fact that people are actually feeling
better and their well -being is improving. So
they're working towards a goal. make weight they're
also working towards their goals of how much
they want to lift and how training is going so
I didn't really measure any of those performance
indicators or performance factors because this
was mostly focused on the psychological aspects
but I think that would be an interesting future
direction to see if those are correlated and
if there's any relevance to well -being changing
while your performance is increasing, decreasing,
and while your weight is also changing. Because
I think all those factors definitely play a role
in the entire preparation for competition. The
question was, could we speculate a little bit
on why the well -being of the athletes at the
competition was better than when they started?
So were there any things they did with the food?
Upping quality, for example, because they couldn't
have the calories, they couldn't sleep. I don't
know. Reading about athletes talking. about their
weight loss journeys yes it's challenging yes
there's a lot of drawbacks and things don't always
go the way that they want them to but they do
really focus on the quality of their food they
focus on the quality of their sleep they focus
on social interactions that are the most meaningful
to them because obviously maybe going out for
dinner and having a big meal like that is not
the most in line with the goal of weight loss
but they try to find those other social interactions
that are meaningful and will be able to still
keep them on the path of losing weight and cutting
weight appropriately. So getting the most meaning
out of their social interactions during this
time and really just focusing on that main goal
of losing weight for competition. Also, if training
is going well during this time, I think you're
so focused on your performance as well as the
athlete. That's the main goal going into the
competition. Not only do you want to make weight,
but you want to also optimize your performance
at a lower body weight. So if training is going
well and you are seeing those improvements as
you are preparing for competition, I think that's
going to make a huge impact on how you are feeling
because you feel like everything you're doing
is now trending in the exact direction that you
want it to be going. How about the week after?
I did just look at the descriptive statistics.
of the post -competition time just out of curiosity
to see. And people actually did increase their
weight. So from 24 hours before competition to
one week after competition, there was about a
50 % increase in weight. And most of the measures,
if you're just looking at them from like a graph
level descriptive, there was no statistic that
went into this, but just looking at the trends,
most of the measures for most people completely
went in. the opposite direction so if they had
been feeling if their well -being had been improving
up until competition. At that like 24 hours before
and one week after, the trend switched. It wasn't
meaningful enough to be looked at with analyses,
but I could see that there were changes happening.
So it was interesting to see that, but unfortunately
not able to statistically analyze it. So in weightlifting,
we sometimes speak about post -competition blues.
this kind of mental maybe exhaustion maybe it's
I don't know some things didn't go well or you
know you don't feel great a few days after the
competition do you think it's it's similar in
powerlifting yes I have heard people talk about
this in powerlifting as well and just from my
own personal experience sometimes the week after
competition like you don't even want to go to
the gym you don't want anything to do with it
and I think a lot of those really foundational
habits that you had been undertaking through
those weeks leading up to your competition. It's
almost like you just want to let everything go
down the drain and just maybe be the least organized
and rigid version of yourself so that you can
just relax. And I think this is where some of
the psychological changes really come into play.
You start getting into conversations about like
poor eating habits, which can come into play,
especially in that like one week post competition
after potentially being restrictive during for
such a long period of time. So I think a lot
of that. That definitely comes into play. And
I can't say that that's what was happening for
sure, but I think there's definitely something.
From what you've read and what your study brought
to us, would you have a few pointers for the
athletes how to navigate the process of weight
cutting if they choose to do so? How to end up
with higher well -being at the end of the process
than at the beginning? Yeah, definitely. I think
it's important to have take -home messages. Something
that is easily or hopefully applied to everyday
life. So I would say the biggest thing is gradual
weight loss over a very short burst of weight
loss. So the study was nine weeks leading up
to competition. And there is also recommendations
in the literature to focus on like at least a
six week weight loss practice prior to competition.
But a gradual weight loss, if you're able to
plan for it. prepare for it will be helpful to
mitigate some of the psychological and definitely
the physiological concerns. I think having a
plan with your coach or whoever you're working
with is important and keeping the weight loss
if it's possible around less than 5 % of your
body weight because greater than 5 % is when
you typically start to see a lot of the more
significant changes happening both psychologically
and physiologically. So if that It's possible
that can be something else to take into account.
And keeping those weight loss goals more realistic.
So again, less than that 5 % is realistic for
most people. In this study, people lost around
3 -4 % on average of their body weight. So that
could also be playing into why well -being increased.
Because it wasn't an unmanageable goal to reach.
Whereas if you're trying to go for 8 % to 10%,
that can be a lot more difficult and maybe have
more implications. Awesome. So realistic goals,
longer cuts, longer in weeks, not in days. Anything
else? Yeah. And just some, yeah, I guess that
goes back into the realistic goals of setting
a manageable weight loss goal. Awesome. Oh, having
help. You mentioned that. Whoa. Yes. Yeah. Okay,
three things then. Awesome. Two short questions
to finish. The first one is, what is your favorite
lift? My favorite lift is the bench press. Might
be a little controversial, but I think it is
the most technical lift out of the three for
powerlifting, in my opinion. Awesome. And where
people can find you online if they want to follow
your work or ask a question, where should they
go? Yes. So my powerlifting Instagram is strongerwithit.
And that is where I post research studies that
are being done in our lab, research findings,
and then also just general day in, day out powerlifting
in the gym. So that's the best. place to find
me awesome Izzy thank you so much for today it
was a pleasure thank you so much Alex have a
great day