Ask Me About My Weight—But Only When I’m in the Ring
As a woman who boxes, cutting my weight comes with a lot of emotional baggage
I was dehydrated, hungry and grumpy, and trying to get my bath water as hot as possible. Someone told me I could create sauna-like conditions in my bathroom if I thwacked the heating up and ran the hottest bath imaginable. Eventually, I managed to get a bit of steam going by running the shower for a while and boiling the kettle about 10 times over, running back and forth from the bathroom to the kitchen like I was in a relay race.
Why create a pseudo sauna in my bathroom? I needed to temporarily shed two pounds of water weight ahead of an amateur muay thai boxing match, and I was willing to try almost anything to get me there.
I’ve been fighting now for just over a year. I first signed up for a charity fight as a way to get fit—and to deal with the aftermath of a debilitating bout of depression. During that first brutal fight camp in February 2018—despite being covered in bruises and aching more than I’d ever ached in my life—I fell in love with muay thai. I knew the minute my first fight finished I’d never be satisfied with just one match. I’ve just done my fourth fight.
The more I fight, the more my weight becomes part of my fight plan. Talking about…
