By the end, Lee Selby was hoping to hoodwink everyone - his opponents, his team and even his own body.
The former IBF world champion, who walks around at about 11.5st, had starved himself to make the 9st featherweight limit for nearly a decade - shedding himself of excess but lately also sapping himself of any strength.
Battles with the scales are a painful byproduct of any fighter's life. But Selby's recent tales of sacrifice and suffering - in boxing, as in life - have been darker than most.
Lee Selby starved himself for nearly a decade to make the 9st featherweight limit
'It got to that bad a point where I would have two meals - one of salad leaves and one normal meal,' he recalls.
'I would chew the normal food, spit it out, and just eat the lettuce leaves as if it was a substitute for the food I was missing out on. Just so I had something in my stomach.
'I was trying to trick my body into thinking I was eating proper food when really I was just eating leaves. It was dangerous, but I was willing to do that to keep hold of the title.' For so long making weight was a fight within itself, but one worth paying provided the wins kept coming.
They did and last year the Welshman sat atop the division, on the cusp of lucrative showdowns across the world. Not that it always felt that way.
Selby was reduced to a bloody shadow of his former self as Josh Warrington beat him last May
'In fight week I would hear other fighters on the bill saying how great they feel and they are looking forward to the fight, whereas I was sitting at home dying, starving hungry, thinking: "How on earth can they be feeling like that, when I'm feeling like this?"'
He adds: 'The mental side is just so, so draining, thinking about weight all the time. I'd be pinching my skin feeling how much weight I'd put on after every meal. It was bad, it became obsessive.'
In recent years he became too weak to spar in the final few weeks of camp. And in the days before his most recent fights, he was too drained to do anything at all.
'I was just lying around, the only bit of movement I would do was just to go to the gym to get the last bit of weight off,' he laughs.
It was from those ashes that he would have to rise each time he faced a man trained to damage his body some more.
Selby hid his struggles from his team so they, like everyone, watched as his performances dipped, even as the wins kept coming.
Selby tricked his body to make weight and knew early on he'd struggle against Warrington
Then last May, the Welshman faced Josh Warrington at Elland Road. He was a heavy favourite to keep his belt and set up a money-spinning showdown with Carl Frampton but, almost immediately, Selby realised he had finally gone one too many times to the well.
As Warrington ploughed forward, the 'Welsh Mayweather' was reduced to a bloody shadow of his former self - his depleted body simply unable to do what his mind willed.
'As soon as I threw my first jab, the spark was just gone,' Selby admits.
'My manager Jamie Sanigar - he didn't say it at the time obviously - but after the fight he said as soon I was warming up on the pads it just wasn't there.'
For 12 rounds Selby battled on, barely able to see his opponent as blood poured from two nasty cuts, his punches long drained of the power needed to stop the on-marching Warrington.
'Even weight-drained, on a bad day, I'm still a good enough fighter to beat most fighters,' the Welshman says.
