If you are not eating a healthy nutritious diet you are not getting the maximum benefits from your MMA workouts.
Nutrition plays a key role in getting the best performance out of your body and, indeed, your mind. We are only going to cover the basics here – it really is a good idea to invest in a quality book on nutrition to help you put together a healthy eating plan.
If you are a competing MMA fighter you should look into consulting a qualified nutritionist, who can look at your training, your goals, your current diet and help you put together your optimum plan.
MMA Workout: Nutrition – The Good
Plenty of fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. You already know that, but try to incorporate more into your meals. Have a salad with your meal. Snack on salads in between meals. Less potatoes and starchy vegetables and more green leafy ones too. If you eat meat – and there are top level MMA fighters like Jake Shields who are vegetarian or even vegan (Mac Danzig being a famous example) – then have chicken without the skin and to a lesser extent lean red meat. Fresh fish is great, even oily types.
Pulses/legumes, such as chickpeas and kidney beans are a good source of protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre. Wholemeal grains are more nutritious and will release energy more steadily than products like white bread/rice/pasta. Lightly cooked stir fries are quick, easy and a good regular meal. And a daily multi vitamin tablet is a good insurance policy.
Some foods pack a higher proportion of nutrients than others, and that doesn’t mean that you need some exotic berry that is only grown in the Tibetan mountains. Some commonly available examples are alfalfa sprouts, apricots, asparagus, avocados, bananas, beans (and pulses) of all types, berries, broccoli, carrots, garlic, grapes (particularly red grapes), kiwifruit, leafy greens such as spinach and rocket, nuts, seeds and tomatoes.
MMA Workout: nutrition – The Bad
Fast food like burgers, fried chicken, fish & chips, pizza and the like should be an occasional treat and not a part of your regular eating. Cut out deep fried food, manufactured food, products with high levels of fat, sugar and salt. Food packaging is often deceptive – that yoghurt with the “99% fat free” label is probably loaded with sugar. Make it a habit to read the ingredients and where-ever possible buy fresh.
MMA Workout: nutrition – The Ugly
Smoking. You already know that if you smoke it’s slowly but surely killing you, and probably don’t need me or anyone else to remind you. You’ve probably tried to stop smoking using the “willpower” method, or even patches. Do yourself a favour and read Allen Carr’s “Easyway to Stop Smoking”, and you will see smoking for what it is and how it works. Seriously, read it.
Alcohol. Although drinking, even to excess is still accepted or even encouraged, the truth is that it is not only an addictive drug but a poison too. Yes, a poison; if you drank pure alcohol it would kill you. Instead we dilute it and the body struggles to process it. Drink little, if you must drink at all.
Read up on nutrition, develop a healthy eating plan and you will find you get much better results from your MMA workouts.