5:30 am.

The sun isn’t up yet, the air is still crisp and the halls of Antioch Community High School are empty.

Except for the fitness center.

Despite the early hour, senior varsity wrestler Nathan Dlugopolski is starting his workout with 45 minutes of speed biking. Today is a meet for the wrestling team and he needs to make weight.

9:30 am.

835 miles away in Oklahoma City ACHS alumnus and dancer Heather Latakas starts her day as an Oklahoma City University sophomore. Today isn’t just any normal day of classes, though, it’s “Weigh In Day”.

For Dlugopolski, Latakas and many other athletes making weight is as habitual to their sport as daily practices are. Many athletes never experience the stress of having to cut weight for their sport, but for many wrestlers or dancers, it is just a part of life.

“I am required to weigh in three times a semester to check and make sure I am maintaining the weight asked of me,” Latakas, a performance major at OCU, said. “For someone who wants to be a desirable performer and get a job in the industry, maintaining a healthy and attractive appearance is necessary. It’s not the easiest thing, but it’s part of the job.”

Dancers at OCU are required to maintain a certain weight specified for their body in order to be able to be cast in shows, perform and even graduate.

For Dlugopolski, who describes cutting weight as “a lot of constant strenuous exercise and being very disciplined with [my] diet,” making weight requires discipline and pure passion. The wrestler often has to sacrifice meals and drinks for just a stick of gum or squeeze in an intense cardio session before a weigh-in.

3:30 pm.

Dlugopolski finishes his cardio just in time for weigh in and Latakas steps on the scale. The nerves set in.

If a wrestler doesn’t make weight, they can’t wrestle in their weight class at that meet. If a dancer doesn’t make weight, there is always the option of meeting with the dean and attempting to audition again the following week, but if they are too much overweight, they will be asked not to audition again. In either case, there doesn’t seem to be another option besides meeting the weight requirement.

For some, like Latakas, it may just take an extra few trips to the gym and “thinking twice about the french fries and ice cream” to cut the required weight, while for others, like Dlugopolski, it requires a strict diet of lean meats, fish and nuts.

In recent years, the topic of weight cutting for sports became much less hush-hush and more controversial. In a society where body image dominates, the pressure to maintain a certain weight can be unhealthy physically as well as mentally.

“I personally believe that trying to cut eight, ten or even more pounds to make a weight class is an unhealthy thing unless [the athlete has] the body fat to do it,” Dlugopolski said.

In 2012, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) instated strict regulations for college-level wrestlers, including the banning of sweat suits, laxatives, diuretics and high locker room temperatures, and limits on the amount of weight an athlete is allowed to lose in a week.

While some weight cutting is dangerous and drastic, there are certainly healthy, safe ways to maintain weight.

“I don’t think it is healthy to try to lose weight too quickly.This situation creates more incentive to make choices that aren’t very healthy in order to make sure they are happy with the number they see on the scale,” Latakas said. “But I also believe there are both healthy and unhealthy ways to go about losing weight. In general, I find the best way to make weight is to have an overall healthy lifestyle; maintaining and losing weight should be more of a long term goal, rather than for one specific event. I can’t really rely on a crazy diet trend that may or may not work; I have to make it a lifestyle.”

To these dedicated athletes, their sport is not just a hobby, but a lifestyle. Maintaining weight is just a small downfall to a sport that means the world to them. Cutting weight requires dedication, passion and discipline, but when it is done right it makes all the difference.

“Personally, I’ve been lucky enough not to have my weight impede my ability to perform and do what I love,” Latakas said. “But for those who have trouble meeting their weight requirements and don’t receive as many opportunities to perform because of it, I could see why they would obsess over it.”

10:00 pm.

Another day, another weigh in. For Latakas, she’ll have to do this all over in a month; for Dlugopolski, he’ll be stepping back on the scale in a few days. However, healthy or unhealthy, the numbers on the scale don’t deter these athletes, but rather, they motivate them that much more.