By Miguel Rivera

On Thursday, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. started his training day by weighing 178 pounds, 13.5 shy of his necessary contractual weight for May 5th, which is the day before his scheduled fight with countryman Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

There were concerns that Chavez Jr. would not be capable of making the contract weight of 164.5-pounds. Chavez Jr. has not weighed that low since 2012, when he was competing as the WBC middleweight champion. He weighed 168-pounds for his December bout and over the years he's come in as high as 172.

When comparing to another recent fight, Chavez Jr. appears to be on track to make the weight. Daniel Jacobs was 174.8-pounds when the WBC weighed him 30 days prior to his title fight with Gennady Golovkin.

For the fight with Canelo, Chavez Jr. hired Hall of Fame trainer Nacho Beristain and conditioning coach Memo Heredia. They are holding the training camp at the high altitude area of the Otomi Ceremonial Center in Mexico.

"I do not weigh myself every day because I don't believe there's a problem with the weight. At some point we are going to focus on that aspect and going through with the relevant diet, but for now we are eating well because we are working very hard. I weighed 178 pounds on Wednesday night. We go according to plan. I already weigh under 180 pounds," said Chavez Jr. to ESPN Deportes.

Chavez Jr said happily that Nacho congratulated him on his recent sparring session on Wednesday, when he did six rounds against two sparring partners who have been helping him since the beginning of the camp. At the end of the camp, they expect to get in 120 rounds of sparring. Sparring days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

''I was congratulated by Nacho. We are doing very well in all aspects, I feel acclimated, and looking forward to working and that is the important thing. I can tell the people that they are going to see a new Julio but I don't want to do it with words - I want to do it with facts,'' Chavez Jr. added.

Chavez Jr. aims to be around 175 at about two weeks out from the fight.