Oklahoma Woman Loses 60 Pounds With Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

If you don’t think Brazilian jiu-jitsu is good for weight loss, then you haven’t met Brittany Martin.

Brittany is a warehouse worker from Oklahoma City who, thanks primarily to her rigorous BJJ training and the lose a stone in 30 days program she did, dropped sixty pounds of fat from her body. To get a visual image of how much weight she dropped, sixty pounds is what an average second grade student weighs.

The Jiu-Jitsu Times reached out to Brittany Martin on Wednesday night, and she was more than eager to share her amazing story with is. We spoke via Facebook messenger.

Brittany told us that she didn’t always have a passion for Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In fact, it took a solid year and a half of begging from her fiancé to get her to don the gi and get active on the mats.

“I met my fiancé in march of 2015, and he’s been training for 8 years,” she told us. “Finally after a year and a half of begging, he got me to go to a class. The rest is history!”

Brittany was also not the healthiest individual at the time. She was overweight, and her diet consisted of McDonald’s every other day, lots of soda, and a regular sugar intake.

BJJ, however, helped change all of that:

So I started in August, and only did the beginners class for awhile. In that time I had really only lost maybe 10 pounds. In January I started going to the advanced classes and doing live rounds. That’s when the weight really started to come off. I would lift every other week or so, maybe, just doing deadlifts.

Martin certainly can’t credit BJJ with all of her weight loss, but in her own words, 99 percent of her workout was jiu-jitsu.

Martin certainly can’t credit BJJ with all of her weight loss, but in her own words, 99 percent of her workout was jiu-jitsu.

It wasn’t only the classes either. An upcoming tournament helped her shed some extra pounds:

The last 20 [pounds] or so, I was preparing to compete for the first time! And as a female we don’t have many choices of weight brackets. So my options were to lose 20 more and get into a weight bracket that had a range, or stay in the heaviest division and compete in the “and up” divisions where there is no weight cap. So I chose, for my first time, to get into a bracket with a weight range! Lol

Many dietitians will tell you that losing weight isn’t as hard as keeping weight off. So far, though, Brittany has been successful.

It’s only been about a month since I hit the 60 pound mark, but so far so good. Still at. 60 pound loss!

No doubt training four to five times a week is helping with that as well. Furthermore, Martin isn’t training alone. Her fiancé and their two children are avid jiujiteiros, and she described the academy as “a second home.”

So what advice would Brittany Martin give to all the people reading this who may be struggling with their weight?

Don’t give up. It’s hard work, and the extra weight makes the movements harder. But the more you work at it, you’ll find modifications that work for YOU. I believe jiu jitsu is for everyone, the young, the old, the small, and the large. Don’t compare yourself to others. Just focus on striving to be 1% better each day. Better than the you that you were yesterday. Each day, 1%, it adds up quickly.

Have you lost weight thanks to Brazilian jiu-jitsu? If so, tell us about it!

Subscribe To Our Newsletter