What is the Correct Diet?
Diet is an extremely important part of one’s life in general whether or not they are tailoring it to serve a specific lifestyle. If you plan to compete in mixed martial arts, especially on a competition level, it is necessary to get the proper nutrition so your body can work to its full potential.
When to Eat
Meal timing is a very important for a good diet. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, everyone has heard it before but it doesn’t make it less true. This restarts your metabolism after an extended period of inactivity (a.k.a. sleep) and gives you a boost of energy. Also eating more frequently and less food is great for keeping your metabolism working on an even keel throughout the day instead of starting and stopping. This serves to give you a good supply of energy throughout the day if your training.
Post-workout recovery meals are important as well. This gives your body a supply of nutrients to repair the body after a workout. Eating meals late at night when your metabolism slows can help to store energy for another day of training. However you should still try not to eat any large meals 3-4 hours before you plan to go to bed.
What to Eat
PROTEIN! Protein is an essential part to a mixed martial artist’s diet. Protein provides the building blocks that your body needs to build up and repair muscles during a fighter’s training. Meats are the obvious source to go to for protein. Red meats, i.e. anything that comes from a cow, should be avoided en mas because of a high cholesterol and fat con been a switch to a vegetarian diet. HERE is an article showing a vegetarian UFC fighter’s diet. Fighter Mac Danzig was even featured in the documentary “Forks Over Knives” because of his vegan diet. A vegetarian diet can provide protein in creative ways with nuts, eggs, soy, whole grains, dairy products, and many other sources, and is generally lower in fat and cholesterol. This eating style is a new diet to the fighting world and it serves to be more healthy and seems to be able to provide enough protein as well, so you might want to consider this diet for yourself.
Mac Danzig is doing pretty good for not eating meat.
Other
Getting proper vitamins is also essential to keeping your body running correctly atents. However lean chicken, turkey, and pork products are all very good sources to get protein.
A growing trend in the fighting world hasnd efficiently. This is simple to fix in today’s society with a vitamin supplement but having a balanced diet that delivers essential vitamins is a good way to make sure your body stays healthy. You can, pretty much, not have to many vitamins either because you just expel excess vitamins through your urine.
High energy foods are also important because of the energy needed for high levels of training and competition. Fats are included in this group because of the pure amount of energy they can provide with with only a small volume. In addition to this, carbohydrates are a good way to provide your body with large amounts of energy. Carbohydrates in the morning provide energy through the day; carbohydrates at night get broken down during your sleep and stored as fat for use the next day. Also simple carbohydrates, like sugars, provide quick supplies of energy for your body.
What to Drink
Without proper hydration your muscles will shut down and your coordination will suffer once you are dehydrated. The best way to avoid dehydration is to stay hydrated all the time. When you are hydrated your urine will be clear or only slightly yellow, which can be from excess vitamins and such, but dark yellow urine means your dehydrated. Water is the best thing to drink to stay hydrated on a regular basis, but Gatorade or other sports drinks can be good to provide sugars and electrolytes to your body that are needed when working out.
Also an secret that is not commonly known is that chocolate milk is actually an extraordinarily good recovery drink. A more in depth explanation of why this is true along with other nutrition information can be found in this nutrition guide. So next time you think of drinking an expensive high tech recovery drink, think about just grabbing some simple chocolate milk.
Rhody MMA 