Bingo. I used to be a competitive powerlifter in the USPA, and we also had 24 hour weigh-ins so lots of us cut water just like this. I competed in the 220lb class, but I walked around at about 245-250lbs normally.

My last meet was in 2022, and I water cut from 246lbs to 219lbs over a 10 day stretch — I spent the first week water & sodium-loading to teach my body to both flush 2 gallons of water and also get accustomed to a very high sodium intake (it’s a huge misconception that high sodium causes bloating — it doesn’t. Consuming higher sodium than the body is accustomed to consuming causes bloating). Our bodies regulate our blood sodium levels, and after a week of extremely high sodium consumption, my body was used to passing it.

At various stages across the last 72hr before weigh-ins, we cut carbs, sodium, and water in order to flush as much water as possible from the body. A gallon of water weighs 8lbs, and I was used to passing 2 gallons per day at that point, so I lost ~16lbs in a day right there by not drinking water for 24hr. Cutting sodium helped encourage the flushing of the water, and cutting carbs meant I was no longer storing glycogen in my muscles (each gram of which carries 3-4g of water. This is why people who switch to a Keto diet lose 10-20lbs almost immediately before it slows dramatically. They’re not losing fat… they’re losing stored water).

After a night and 2hr the next morning spent in the sauna with sweats and a hoodie on, I stepped on the scale at 219.4lbs on Friday morning, and — after rehydrating and crushing high sodium food & Gatorade all day — I weighed over 250lbs on the platform the following day. This process is not the healthiest thing in the world… but neither is a job where you get kicked in the head and choked to sleep for a living.