Best Diet For MMA Fighters-What to Eat What Not

A Mixed Martial Arts fighter and not being committed to a strict and nutritional diet are two things at extreme poles. It’s not only the MMA equipment that helps you to achieve your martial arts goals but the diet is equally important to give your 100%. You can’t ignore what you’re consuming when you want to be one of the best MMA fighters out there. Besides being an athlete, the whole idea of being fit and in shape revolves around the calories you’re taking inside of your body. You need to gain sufficient energy to get the training that will help you with 100% benefits. That’s why there are a lot of nutritionists who offer the best diet for MMA fighters.

In the coming sections, we will be discussing the most effective MMA diet plan. Indeed, you must have enough passion and determination to stick to that kind of planned diet. Not only MMA fighters but non-athlete should also customize their daily meal to be fit and live a healthy life. Have you ever heard of this saying? 

“Keep it simple”

Keeping your diet simple and easy will allow an MMA fighter to stand confidently during an important fight. Let’s have a look at the right MMA fighter diet plan. 

Best Diet For MMA Fighters:

Morning Meal:

Do you know why breakfast or a morning meal is the key to a healthy life? We will tell you. A healthy breakfast undoubtedly makes your body energized and motivated to spend the rest of the day to the fullest. Apart from this, it also helps you with weight maintenance and hunger control. 

Without a doubt, breakfast is like fuel to your body organs to work properly. Carbohydrates and required calories are a must in the MMA diet. The number of calories should be between 500-700, don’t exceed more than that otherwise, it’ll affect your mixed martial arts training. For carbohydrates, low sugar cereal, porridge, scrambled or boiled egg, and whole-grain toast should be considered for breakfast. Don’t forget to add fruit and milk to the morning meal. 

Morning snacks are also not a bad idea too. For that, you can consume

• Yogurt with low-fats
• Protein bars
• Some Cabs
• A portion of protein 

Lunch:

Fast Food for lunch? Sounds tempting and delicious. Doesn’t it? But you should not be tempted by such unhealthy meals. It takes a lot of effort and dedication to be an MMA fighter. To be the best at the ring, you have to adjust your routine and have a MMA diet plan. 

Make sure to have a good lunch before training otherwise an empty stomach will affect your training and session. For lunch, the MMA diet should emphasize sandwiches, soup, salad, and vegetables. In addition, you can have;

• Low in salt and fats
• Avoid fast food and bake items
• Keep the meal portion small

For afternoon snacks, it’s good to have the following items,

• Boiled eggs
• Portions of protein and carbohydrates
• Nuts, yogurt, and vegetables
• Protein bars
• Egg and Rice

Dinner:

Dinner is considered one of the most important meals after breakfast. The best diet for MMA fighters should be full of nutrition for dinner. A mma nutrition plan for dinner should be about protein. Nighttime is a good and ideal time for consuming protein for MMA fighters. At least 40g of protein should be in a dinner meal. You can also enjoy:

• Chicken Turkey
• Red Meat
• Low-fat meat
• Vegetable salad, soup 
• Rice, pasta 
• A good portion of Carbohydrates

Drinks:

Heard of Energy drinks? You must have. But you should keep it as simple as possible. Water is the best friend of an athlete, especially an MMA fighter. The MMA fighter should be drinking at least ⅕ to 2 liters of water daily. Furthermore, a cup of coffee in the morning is also not a bad idea. 

Foods To Avoid:

You can’t be a food lover and a professional fighter at the same time. You just can’t. Because being a fighter or an athlete demands sacrifices and determination. You have to maintain a strict mma diet to keep your training and spirit high. There’s no concept of cheat days when you’re practicing mixed martial arts fighters. 

You should avoid the following items:

• Fast food
• Food with high fats
• A Lot of salt and sugar
• Fried Food
• Cakes, sweets, and chocolates
• Too much coffee
• Skip dessert daily 

All the above-mentioned foods impair your training as such foods make you lazy and difficult to move. 

Should MMA Fighters Consider intermittent fasting?

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Not eating food for a specific period is a concept of intermittent fasting. Mostly it’s done to reduce weight, fat burning process, increase metabolism and strengthen the body. Athletes do this kind of fasting to cut weight during their training to be able to fight in a specific category. Coaches particularly suggest to athletes to do a restricted tasting or intermittent fasting. 

Professional MMA fighters are going towards intermittent fasting because it helps them with weight cutting. As it turns out to be a great way of enhancing metabolism and increasing the energy level of the body. If you’re new to intermittent fasting, it can be a little challenging at first without a doubt but your body will adopt this challenge after some time. The small challenge is nothing in front of the benefits you’ll get from intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is an important aspect of the modern MMA diet plan. 

Conclusion:

Having perfect and well-experienced training coaches doesn’t do any good when you’re not checking what you’re eating. A good nutritionist will provide your balanced and best diet for MMA fighters that will reflect from your body. You should do proper consultation before switching your diet plan from one to another. Last but not the least, we wish luck to all the young MMA fighters out there.