a force wrote: ↑08 May 2025, 04:16
There’s pictures of him sparring Riakhporhe from a month or so back & he looks like he had lost a fair bit of weight. It sounds like he’s been piling the weight back on whilst in Saudi before the fight
Muscles are made up of ~75% water. Fat is more like ~15% water.
I am a Bakole sized individual. When I go on a hard diet, I can shift 40lbs very quickly - less than six weeks. It's pretty much all water weight though, maybe 6lbs of fat, the rest water and the stuff that needs that water. You look greatly reduced but the amount of fat you have budged is only a small percentage of the total lost.
Here's the rub. I can easily put 25lbs of that back on within a couple of weeks. Looks like you've been on a steroid cycle, when really you have just refilled your deflated muscles.
I don't think many old school trainers and even some nutritionists understand this. It's not complicated but explains the swings in weight of these big guys.
In addition, over months and years, overeating lays down fat that is hard to shift, 1lb a week is a lot to move of pure fat.
Someone like Bakole needs a year or so of dedicated work to get in really good shape, not just fake it and be a temporarily lighter, weakened version of himself.