Making Weight Can Eat at Them

They showed up to wrestle at the North Torrance tournament of champions on Friday, many wearing singlets a little tighter than usual.

The holidays will do that. Too much food. Too much temptation. Too much pressure about eating seconds from mom.

“When you’re an in-season wrestler, there is no holiday,” said Brian Ormsby, a North Torrance assistant.

At least not ones you eat at.

Such is the life of a high school wrestler, who needs to keep his weight down at the very time when grandma is trying to fatten the rest of the family.

While most family members are loosening their belts, wrestlers tend to count every calorie in hopes of maintaining their optimum competitive weight.

It’s a two-front battle.

“My mom gets mad at me if I don’t eat,” said Downey wrestler Sergio Perez, who barely qualified to compete at his usual weight of 103. “My mom and my grandma will ask, ‘Why?’ and I try to tell them and they just get upset. They don’t understand.”

Osman Amador, a 130-pound wrestler from Santa Ana, said he had to drop eight pounds in a 24-hour period to hit his target weight Friday.

Amador said he didn’t use supplements to help him lose the weight. He did it the old-fashioned way: He sweat, working out while wearing heavy clothes. And he didn’t eat.

He also faded toward the end of his first match Friday, losing on points to Steve Rodriguez of Washington Union.

Other wrestlers succumbed to temptations at the table -- and couldn’t lose what they gained fast enough.

Adrian Gonzalez of Paramount wrestled in the 130 class at North Torrance, rather than his usual 125. “I tried to go to my room and tried to just focus on not eating,” he said. “But my brothers and my sisters wouldn’t leave me alone. In the end, I couldn’t resist my grandma’s cooking.”

He wasn’t the only one.

Teammate Louis Romero competed at 119 instead of 112.

“I couldn’t help myself,” he said. “Those little tamales!”

Other wrestlers downplayed food as an opponent.

“All you have to do is eat smart,” Oceanside El Camino’s James Solden said. “You don’t have to not eat. It is a holiday after all.”

One top competitor, North Torrance’s Matt Bautista, somehow managed to lose weight over the holidays, dropping in class from 112 to 103.

“On Christmas, I had to have just a little plate of mashed potatoes and that was it,” Bautista said shortly after pinning West Covina’s Chris Armendariz in the first round of the tournament. “Then I just went into my room to play video games to keep my mind off of [being hungry].”

Bautista’s sacrifice was evident. He appeared dehydrated and physically exhausted, even though his victory came only a little more than halfway through the length of a full match.

He said he could do his celebrating later -- after the tournament, when he planned to sit down with “a big plate of pasta.”

Many will wait longer. Ormsby, the North Torrance assistant, said the only holiday for a wrestler is the off-season.

“Then they can eat what they want,” he said. “Until then, it means saying no to grandma’s fudge and having the strawberries instead.”