I’ve been training clients for over 10 years and there are some habits that my most successful clients seem to adopt. One habit they don’t have is severely restricting themselves of calories. Remember, when you consume too few calories, the body perceives that as starvation. In response to this, your metabolism slows down so that your body can conserve energy. And this doesn’t take long to occur. Furthermore, the more you restrict calories, the more your metabolism is lowered. This is your body’s way of protecting you from starvation.
While there is no one MMA diet plan that is the be-all-end-all, you can’t go wrong with these 6 battle-tested MMA nutritional strategies…
1. Eat Breakfast – Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. It sets the tone nutritionally for the rest of your day.
2. Exercise Daily – I recommend that my clients block out 60 minutes per day six days per week for exercise/physical improvement. That time can also be used for things like planning meals and developing fitness goals.
3. Stay consistent – Skipping meals is one of the worst things you can do. It causes a reduction in metabolism and will often times cause you to overeat at your next meal. You’d be better off eating a not so perfect meal and simply practicing portion control.
4. Keep the fat in check – This doesn’t mean fat free, just relatively low in fat. You actually need to consume some fat to sustain life. Limiting your fat intake to 15% of your overall calories with most of them being unsaturated would be fantastic.
5. Keep an MMA diet journal – People who keep food records tend to lose more weight assuming that is a goal. I’m a big believer of writing things down. There’s something about knowing that you have to write it down that makes you think twice before eating it.
6. Stay positive – It’s pretty amazing but after counseling people for so long, I can now tell how most people will do after sitting down with them for the first time. Those who believe they will reach their goals tend to do much better than those who are skeptical.
While there is no one size fits all MMA diet program, implementing the 6 nutritional strategies described above will guarantee long term success in regards to your physique and your MMA performance. Not only will a severely calorie restrictive diet guarantee long term failure from a fat loss perspective; your performance will also suffer and risk of injury will be substantially higher. I hope this MMA nutritional framework will prove to be helpful in your MMA training journey.
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
— Thomas Jefferson
