Why not to cut weight.... at least for me.

I cut weight for Copa, and this was closer to cutting weight than what I normally do.  If I want to drop a weight class, I always start well in advance, and try to go about doing it in the best way possible, with the least negative effects on my body.

For Copa, I about 5% of my body weight in six days.  It may not really seem like a lot, but it was enough to put me in the hospital.  Oops.

I normally have low blood pressure, and in cutting weight, I got dehydrated, and it caused my already low BP to drop even lower.

The weird thing about it was I have been dehydrated before, and I feel dehydrated.  I am tried, my head hurts and I feel awful.  This time though, I felt generally fine.  I was tired, and sore, but I attributed it to the fact that I had just competed.

However, walking across my house, I blacked out, and landed on my face.  Neither of those things were real great for my body.

It's actually not as funny when you are the one falling down. 

And being that blacking out and smashing your face is not something that generally happens to 30 year old healthy women, I was forced to go to the ER.

Luckily the problem was just hypotension caused by dehydration, and possibly my anemia in conjunction with my already low BP.  My normal BP is 85/50 ish... so when it is already low, having it drop rapidly from standing and moving quickly, I fainted.  I do get dizzy if I stand up quickly from time to time, but I guess it was just made worse by dehydration.

So, they gave me an epic crap ton of fluids... they started with three bags all at once.  That sucked quite a bit.  It made me REALLY cold and miserable for about an hour... but then they gave me fluids at a normal rate and kept me for observation.  ... Observation being, my standing up and siting down a bunch of times over and over, whist my hospital gown malfunctioned horribly.

So, the moral of this story is... I will never cut weight again.  I will just fight strong at my walking around weight and that will just have to be enough, and I am sure it will be.