Eurosport.Yahoo examine the practice of weight-cutting in MMA. Read on - never again will you feel affronted by your girlfriend's snide comments about your beer-belly...

Most people, at one point or another, have taken a look in the mirror and decided they might need to lose a pound or two.

But not too many people try to shed two stone or more. And fewer still attempt to do so in just a matter of weeks.

And yet this is exactly what UFC fighters do, year after year, putting mind and body through hell as they drop from their 'natural' weight to their fighting limit.

When the UK's Michael Bisping takes on Patrick McCarthy at UFC 83 in London in March, he somehow has to squeeze his 210lb, light-heavyweight-frame into a 185lb middleweight-body.

We're not simply talking about switching from doner to shish kebabs on the way home from the pub, cutting out the odd Snickers bar with your lunch, or walking the golf course instead of tootling the fairways in a buggy.

No, this is serious stuff. This is masochism in a very real sense, far beyond anything the odd trip to Weightwatchers could achieve.

If a fighter has cut weight correctly, he could enter the Octagon feeling ripped, teak-tough and with a crucial weight-advantage. But getting it wrong will leave a fighter exhausted, outta gas, wobbly-legged - which is the last thing you want when facing down a man intent on beating you senseless.

So, for all those who have ever wondered why fighters seem so grumpy the week before a bout; for all those fans who wonder why a fighter looks green at the gills at weigh-in; and for all those who whine when their girlfriend prods their belly, here's Eurosport.Yahoo.com's guide to cutting weight.

Get a soundtrack: Behind every really tough act of endurance is an infectious soundtrack. Edmund Hillary might not have had an Ipod, but you can be certain he was humming Hank Williams' Your Cheatin' Heart as he walked his final steps up the southeast face of Mount Everest in 1953. She may never have actually admitted it in public, but Ellen MacArthur would surely have jacked in her solo circumnavigation of the globe without the sound of Coldplay on her tinny portable speakers. And Rocky Balboa would still be a no-good bum on the streets of Philadelphia had he never heard Eye of the Tiger on trainer Mickey's tatty old wireless.

Let's get one thing straight, it is going to take more than willpower alone to get you up for a six-mile jog at four o'clock in the morning - and nothing gets the blood pumping like the throb-throb-throb of a base drum, a shiny 12-piece brass section or a 10-minute guitar solo from your favourite axe-wielder. Remember, when the going gets tough, the tough get a soundtrack.

No man's an island. Unless he's cutting weight "I want to apologise right now because I now I am going to be one moody SOB come fight week," said Bisping when it was announced he would be fighting at middleweight for the first time in March. Mike's a smart guy - he's been around enough fighters to realise how grouchy cutting weight can make a man.

Think about it: torturous training sessions, grumbling stomachs, crippling dehydration, weeks of complete abstinence and sobriety - it's hardly conducive to a cheery disposition. No man wants his loved ones to see him at his lowest ebb, trembling with exhaustion as he cries into his celery-and-cucumber smoothie. Cutting weight needs isolation; it needs a remote mountain-top training camp; just you and your craggy old trainer; cut off from your unsympathetic girlfriend and her soft, warm bed; far away far away from the nearest Krispy Kreme donut franchise; out of the range of a Pizza Hut delivery moped.

The Devil is in the detail: When fighters emerge naked for the weigh-in, their modesty covered only by a towel held around him, it should be immediately obvious how important even the smallest details are when it comes to losing weight. That fighter isn't naked because he wants to prove to the ring girls that all those protein shakes have done nothing to inhibit the size of his manhood; he is naked because he thinks that even the negligible weight of his boxer-shorts will tip him over the weigh-in limit.

Similarly, the age-old practice of "chew-and-spit". There is little mystery - and certainly no romance - to chew-and-spit; a fighter simply chews gum and spits into a bucket in an effort to expel as much water from his body as possible. Which helpfully explains why all those little scrotes in hoodies seen hanging around outside Co-Ops and KFCs are always so scrawny.

If you can't cut, you suck: If you or I were losing weight, we'd most likely give up when we realised those pesky last few pounds weren't going to shift as easily as the previous 40. Fighters don't have the same luxury - if the light-heavyweight limit is 205 lbs, there is no getting away from the fact that 205 is what the scales have to read come weigh-in time. Fighters know weighing-in heavy is more than merely a little embarrassing - it can negate a contract, jeopardize a fight, cancel pay-cheques, anger sponsors and frustrate fans.

Losing those stubborn last few pounds has a nickname in the trade, "sucking weight" - and it often prompts some fairly drastic measures. Induced vomiting, laxatives, working out in rubber suits, riding exercise bikes in saunas, smearing your body in pore-opening make-up remover before jumping rope in a steam-room for two hours - this is stuff more often seen in Hollywood torture-porn than a fight gym. We've yet to hear of an instance of a fighter's limb being lopped off in order to make weight, but you get the sense it has been considered once or twice.

Even clouds of blood have silver linings: You'll often hear claims that the atmosphere at a pre-fight weigh-in was "thick with tension". This is only partly true. Often, the fighters are too exhausted to be angry and the air is as likely to be thick with a sense of joyous relief as it is with friction or ill-feeling. And make no mistake, when the cameras stop rolling and the newspaper men file out of the hall, a fighter will waste little time in gorging himself on more food and fluid than Ricky Hatton hitting it large on a Saturday night down Deansgate.

Indeed, such is the sense of liberation as the body gurgles and swells with juicy replenishments, it must be easy to forget that there is still a fight to win the next day. Of course, care still needs to be taken; the last thing you want is a belly full of Coke and fried chicken when a fourteen-and-a-half stone brawler is lining up a vicious first-round body-shot.

Still dubious about whether such spectacular weight-cutting is possible? Let me refer you to the curious case of Joe "Diesel" Riggs. At 20 years-of-age, Phoenix-born Joe weighed 300 lbs and was fighting similarly gargantuan heavyweights in small MMA shows across the States. A couple of years later, he was beating Chris Lytle at the 170 lb in the UFC's welterweight division. What stood out in that fight was Joe's physique: the huge, V-shaped back, the broad shoulders, the Redwood-trunk thighs.

"When I was 300lbs, I was more of a chubby guy," he says, without a hint of understatement. "Then I naturally went down to 205 easily, and I thought, 'I can make 185.' It's always better to fight smaller opponents - to be the biggest guy in the weight class. Actually, I haven't lost any of my strength since I dropped in weight...I've got a great chin. It takes a bat to knock me out, and I'm fast and strong."

Nowadays, Joe flits between the welterweight and middleweight divisions. He's looking for a way back into the UFC, where he has a 4-4 record. You want to talk about cutting weight, talk to Joe Riggs.

And remember, if all else fails, become a heavyweight: The ultimate goal of cutting is to get a fighter to compete in his lowest possible weight class, whilst still maintaining maximum strength and stamina. It takes commitment, discipline, a vaguely perverse appetite for pain and punishment and a sadistic trainer.

Thankfully, there is an alternative option that continues to afford a fighter the respect and opportunity given to his peers whilst also being compatible with a more carefree lifestyle of takeout dinners and the occasional beer. The downside is that your opponents are likely to be as monstrously powerful and indomitable as yourself - with more of a killer appetite. Welcome to the heavyweight division

Alex Sharratt / Eurosport