Fight nutrition, written by someone who does it

Weight cutting, fight week, supplements and anti-doping: the same material used in world title camps, without the guesswork.

Weight cutting for fighters: the complete guide

If you read one thing on this site, read this. How much a fighter can safely lose, over what timeline, why the weigh-in format changes every number, and the half of the job nobody plans for.

Start with your sport

Sport by sport

Boxing: two authorities, four instruments

Two authorities, four instruments. The IBF second weigh-in, the WBC camp checks, the commission and the clause in your bout agreement.

MMA: nobody caps what you put back on

No sanctioning bodies and no rehydration clauses, an early morning weigh-in, and an anti-doping programme run by the promotion against its own list.

Kickboxing: two formats, one sport

Amateurs weigh in on the morning and fight several times. Professionals weigh in a day out. The gap is wider than in any other striking sport.

Muay Thai: a hydration test, or no window at all

One promotion designed the cut out with hydration testing and walking weight. The stadium circuit did not. Two systems, opposite answers.

BJJ: the format where cutting cannot pay off

Weigh-in in the gi, minutes before the first match, one attempt. No recovery window, so anything taken out is still missing on the mat.

Wrestling: the second weigh-in decides it

Making weight on day one is not the job. At championship level the second morning carries no tolerance at all, and 2 kg only at Ranking Series and World Cup.

Judo: the 5% rule and the night you get back

Fifteen hours to recover and a hard ceiling on the refill. Research suggests the rule change increased cutting rather than reducing it.

Judo · wrestling · amateur boxing

Judo, wrestling and amateur boxing: a scale that keeps coming back

Weighing in every morning, a random check with a 5% allowance, or a second scale on day two. No recovery window, and several contests to survive.

Weight loss on a GLP-1: the nutrition nobody covers

For private clients, not fighters. What the kilograms are made of, and how to arrive lighter without arriving weaker.

Tennis nutrition: what changes when there is no weight class

No cut, no rounds, no known finish time. Written from the WTA tour and the 2026 US Open.

Jockeys: why weight-cutting advice does not transfer

You make weight daily, and the 1 kilogram rule means you can never fully rehydrate. Almost every protocol written for fighters is wrong for you.

Going deeper

Boxing weight classes: all 17 divisions

The full table in pounds and kilos, plus the part nobody prints: the gaps between divisions are wildly uneven, and that decides where you belong.

UFC weight classes: every division in order

All the UFC divisions in pounds and kilos, the one-pound allowance, and why the steps between them are twice the size of boxing's.

Catchweight: what it means and what it costs

A weight agreed outside the divisions. Who really pays for it, how it differs from a rehydration clause, and what to settle before signing.

Taekwondo weight classes and the 5 percent check

All 16 World categories and the 8 Olympic ones in kg and lb, with the random weigh-in ceiling worked out for every class.

Powerlifting weight classes: IPF, USAPL and USPA

Every class in kg and lb, which federation uses which, and why a 2-hour weigh-in and a 24-hour weigh-in call for opposite weight plans.

High school wrestling weight classes 2026-27

All three NFHS sets for boys and girls, which states use which, the growth allowance, and the certification rule that decides the lowest class a wrestler may enter.

Wrestling Weight Classes: High School, College and International

There is no single list. NFHS lets each state choose, the NCAA runs 10, and United World Wrestling runs 10 per style in kilograms. All of them, plus the rule that decides how far down you may go.

NCAA Wrestling Weight Classes: The Classes and the Certification

The 10 men's and 10 women's NCAA classes, the 1 November certification deadline, the descent plan, the dual meet allowance, and what happens when a wrestler moves up.

Youth and Middle School Wrestling Weight Classes

USA Wrestling classes for 10U, 12U and 14U, the maximum weight difference rule, and why moving a child up is free at the scale.

BJJ Weight Classes: IBJJF and ADCC, Gi and No-Gi

IBJJF gi and no-gi limits, the ADCC sets, and the two things that make this sport different: the gi counts, and you weigh in minutes before you compete.

Amateur Boxing Weight Classes: Olympic, World Boxing and IBA

World Boxing runs 10 classes per sex and the Olympic pathway to LA28. The IBA grid, why it sits outside that pathway, and the entries check that fixes your category for a whole tournament.

Muay Thai weight classes

The Thai stadium ladder in pounds, IFMA in kilograms, and why a ONE strawweight is not a strawweight anywhere else.

Judo weight classes

Seven categories per sex, and the 5 per cent random check that puts a ceiling on the overnight refill.

Kickboxing weight classes

WAKO runs seven disciplines and the classes are not the same across them. Plus GLORY, ONE, K-1 and the weigh-in that decides everything.

How do boxers cut weight?

The whole camp rather than the last 3 days: the 30, 14 and 7 day checks, and what 8 weeks of food has to do.

Best supplements for boxing

The 5 with evidence, what 7 years of shop orders showed about what people rebuy, and the categories behind most failed tests.

How do UFC fighters cut weight?

The stages in order: camp, the water load, carbohydrate, fiber and sodium, fluid last. What surveys say fighters actually do, and where it breaks.

How much weight do UFC fighters cut?

5 to 8 percent, and why the number predicts nothing. The published figures, the 30-hour window, and three world title cuts with the camp numbers attached.

Best supplements for MMA

The 5 with evidence, the 7 certifications the UFC anti-doping program approves, and what a morning weigh-in changes.

Weight cut case studies

Nine public UFC cuts side by side: how far above the limit each fighter started, the final 48 hours, and what each case shows.

The weight miss registry

Every verified weight miss since 2025 with the overage in percent, the fine and the outcome, plus official fight-night weights.

How much weight UFC fighters gain after the weigh-in

35 official fight-night weights: the median regain, the lighter against the heavier, and the two lines the commission uses.

Wrestling weight certification, explained

What happens on test day, the 2026-27 floors for high school and college, and six questions for the coach.

How to cut weight for wrestling, safely

Your minimum class is calculated, not chosen, and the descent is capped at 1.5% a week. How to work inside the certification instead of against it.

Best supplements for wrestling

What an NCAA school can hand out, the college caffeine limit, and why high school wrestlers start with food.

Best supplements for judo

The 5 with evidence, the WADA rules judo lives under, and what creatine does to the 5 percent morning allowance.

Best supplements for BJJ

USADA testing at IBJJF majors, and supplement timing when the weigh-in is right before the first match.

The model that exists

The minimum weight rules nobody enforces

A body fat floor, a hydration test before the season and a descent capped at 1.5% a week. One sport wrote the model down. Almost nobody copied it.

Hydration testing: what 1.025 actually measures

The same threshold is used in two sports for opposite purposes. One decides whether you compete tonight, the other how light you may get all season.

Weigh-in rules by sport: the reference table

Every format in one table: when you weigh, what is checked, what tolerance exists, and what happens if you miss. Dated, and corrected when rules change.

Tennis, in depth

What to eat before a tennis match when nobody knows when it starts

Where the banana fits in a day that keeps moving.

The 10-minute heat break: what to actually do with it

The rule arrived on the men's tour in 2026 and the women have had it since 1992. Nobody has written the protocol for the 10 minutes themselves.

Cramping in tennis: what the evidence says and what the rulebook decided

If the potassium is not doing it, what is. And why no rulebook will stop play for it.

Why tennis players eat bananas, and why almost every answer is wrong

The fruit is the right choice. The potassium and cramps explanation does not survive the arithmetic.

Supplements for tennis players

The one with the best evidence is the one combat athletes have to give up and you do not. Most of the rest is sold on a mechanism rather than a result.

Anti-doping in tennis: what the programme asks of you

Strict liability reaches every ranked player. Whereabouts filing reaches about 200. The gap is where the trouble lives.

Junior tennis nutrition: the problem is almost never what they are eating

The research on youth players, and the one conversation that is not a coaching conversation.

Nutrition for tennis coaches

You are the most listened-to voice in the player's week, you are a Player Support Person under the anti-doping rules, and nobody trained you for either.

Or start with your situation

Where you are now

Your first camp is data collection, not optimisation

You have no sweat rate and no idea how your gut handles nerves. Everything you do is an experiment.

Your first weigh-in: read this before you cut anything

For a first competition the answer is almost always to compete at what you weigh. You have no data on yourself yet, and the first event is where you get it.

Making weight around a full-time job

Camp advice assumes you control your day. Most fighters do not. What changes, what does not, and what to drop.

Somebody else's camp, your head

The only person in a fight camp with no plan, because he has no fight, so nobody builds one for him.

Heavyweights: no weight limit is not no target

Every guideline is written per kilogram, so at 125 kg it stops being a diet and becomes a logistics problem. And nobody supervises the division without a cut.

Competing over 35: what actually changes

Masters brackets use adult weight limits, so the cut is the same with less capacity to recover from it. And most advice for older athletes was measured on people who do not train.

Type 1 diabetes: the cut is the part that changes everything

Your sensor reads interstitial fluid, and in a cut that fluid is depleted. It lies on the day you need it most.

Across every sport

Fasting and combat sport

Ramadan, Great Lent and intermittent fasting restrict three different things. Each one breaks a different part of a training plan.

When the plan changes

Short notice: can you actually make the weight?

Two weeks buys you 1 or 2 percent through food. If you are sitting at your normal weight, your own division is arithmetically out of reach.

3 weeks out: what is still possible

The arithmetic of a short runway, what nutrition can and cannot take, and the three honest options when the number does not work.

Coming back after a layoff: what you lost, in order

You keep your strength and lose your engine. That mismatch is why fighters coming back feel fine in round one and empty in round three.

When the fight is cancelled, postponed or changed

Four situations requiring opposite responses, and why the longer the delay the more completely you should come back up.

Eating through an injury

Why protein goes up when training stops, and the one limb where creatine appears to protect tissue.

Eating with a broken jaw

In a randomised trial a written plan beat shakes and protein supplements, on weight and on how the patient felt.

What happens to a fighter's weight after the last fight

One cohort of retired weight-class athletes gained more than non-athletes. Another gained less than average. The difference is what they did after.

Working with others

Working together

Do you need a nutritionist, and what does it cost?

Most fighters do not, and this says which ones. The three situations where it changes an outcome, and the four free things to do first.

The bout agreement: the terms that decide your camp before it starts

The contracted weight, the weigh-in format, the clauses and the testing window. Four terms agreed by people who will not be doing the cut.

For coaches and parents

Running weight across a squad

Squads rarely fail on knowledge. They fail because nothing was written down and nobody was named as responsible. What a staff decides, records and refuses.

The room you built: what a gym says about weight

Ninety-five percent are not in treatment. If you are waiting to be told, you will not be told.

The 4 kilograms are not a discipline problem

Bone density peaks a year after height. That year is when the skeleton is most fragile and when the weight arrives.

She is not a gymnast, so you assume she is fine

The standard warning picture does not describe a weight-category girl. The risk arrives by a different route.

The decision to stop it is yours

Dehydration, hard training and ibuprofen is the combination that kills. The call has to be assigned before the week.

Taking a squad to a tournament

Hotel scales and official scales differ by hundreds of grams, and half your squad eats at the same buffet.

You are not tested. You are still liable.

Seven articles apply to you. Complicity runs to a lifetime, and it includes covering something up.

For coaches and parents

Weight cutting under 18

Children starting at 4 years old, growth that does not come back, and the concussion finding nobody connects. Written for the adults in the room.

Six questions to ask your child's coach about weight

Not whether it is safe. Six specific questions, what a good answer sounds like, and which reply should end the conversation.

For parents and clubs

Warning signs a club handles weight badly

What to look for in the gym, in the schedule and in the language, from someone who sees the athletes these clubs produce 10 years later.

Weight cutting

Weight cutting: the complete guide

The whole picture: what you are actually losing, the phase-by-phase timeline, the safe ranges, and the half of the job nobody plans.

Choosing the target

Choosing a division

What weight class should you fight at?

Not the weight you are today. The published band is 12 to 15 percent above the division limit between camps, and that is what decides it.

How much weight can you actually lose in a week?

Five percent is the figure with evidence behind it. What that evidence measured, what it never looked at, and why your weigh-in format decides more than your discipline.

Body composition: what the number can tell you, and what it cannot

A 15% reading might really be anywhere from 13.6 to 16.4. And the worst week to use an impedance scale is the week fighters most often do.

Going the other way

Moving up a weight class: do you actually need to gain?

Most fighters who move up do not gain a kilogram, they stop cutting. And real mass arrives at a quarter to half a percent a month, not a week.

Boxing weight classes: all 17 divisions

The full table in pounds and kilos, plus the part nobody prints: the gaps between divisions are wildly uneven, and that decides where you belong.

Wrestling Weight Classes: High School, College and International

There is no single list. NFHS lets each state choose, the NCAA runs 10, and United World Wrestling runs 10 per style in kilograms. All of them, plus the rule that decides how far down you may go.

NCAA Wrestling Weight Classes: The Classes and the Certification

The 10 men's and 10 women's NCAA classes, the 1 November certification deadline, the descent plan, the dual meet allowance, and what happens when a wrestler moves up.

Youth and Middle School Wrestling Weight Classes

USA Wrestling classes for 10U, 12U and 14U, the maximum weight difference rule, and why moving a child up is free at the scale.

BJJ Weight Classes: IBJJF and ADCC, Gi and No-Gi

IBJJF gi and no-gi limits, the ADCC sets, and the two things that make this sport different: the gi counts, and you weigh in minutes before you compete.

Amateur Boxing Weight Classes: Olympic, World Boxing and IBA

World Boxing runs 10 classes per sex and the Olympic pathway to LA28. The IBA grid, why it sits outside that pathway, and the entries check that fixes your category for a whole tournament.

Muay Thai weight classes

The Thai stadium ladder in pounds, IFMA in kilograms, and why a ONE strawweight is not a strawweight anywhere else.

Judo weight classes

Seven categories per sex, and the 5 per cent random check that puts a ceiling on the overnight refill.

Kickboxing weight classes

WAKO runs seven disciplines and the classes are not the same across them. Plus GLORY, ONE, K-1 and the weigh-in that decides everything.

The rules

Weigh-in rules by sport: the reference table

Every format in one table: when you weigh, what is checked, what tolerance exists, and what happens if you miss. Dated, and corrected when rules change.

Weigh-in format

Same-day weigh-ins: why the whole plan changes

The recovery window collapses from a day to a few hours, and the safe water cut halves with it. What that means for how camp has to be built.

Rehydration rules: what each organisation actually enforces

The IBF second-day table division by division, the WBC checkpoints, what the WBA and WBO actually require, and why a contract clause is not a rule.

The contract has a rehydration clause. Now what?

Typical caps, typical penalties, and the arithmetic that decides whether the number is survivable.

When it goes wrong

What happens if you fail a rehydration clause?

Three different things get called a rehydration clause, and failing each one costs something different. A title, a percentage of the purse, or nothing at all.

Hydration testing: what 1.025 actually measures

The same threshold is used in two sports for opposite purposes. One decides whether you compete tonight, the other how light you may get all season.

The model that exists

The minimum weight rules nobody enforces

A body fat floor, a hydration test before the season and a descent capped at 1.5% a week. One sport wrote the model down. Almost nobody copied it.

Old enough to compete, old enough to cut?

A child can register to box at eight and cannot turn professional until 18. Every federation sets an age for competing. Almost none sets one for cutting.

Fight week

How to cut weight in 24 hours

Read the gap before you do anything, and the point where it stops being a weight problem.

Fluid protocols

Water loading: what the research actually shows

The controlled trial found it was worth 0.6% of body mass, a fraction of a kilo for most fighters. What the study did, what it never tested, and where the real danger sits.

Weight cut meal plan: camp to fight week

What food can actually remove, about 3 percent on a good week, and what changes on the plate in each phase. Plus the order after the scale.

Gut content: the kilogram nobody accounts for

What low residue means on a plate, what it is worth, and why the constipation trap catches people.

Measure your own sweat rate: the arithmetic

Two weights, one fluid total, one session. The only number in your cut you can generate yourself.

Sauna, hot baths and sweat suits: what each one costs

A 2-hour bath protocol removes about 2.7% of body mass. Three trials found the Epsom salt in it does nothing. And the history nobody in the changing room remembers.

Diuretics: banned at all times, and why

Category S5, no threshold, in and out of competition. What they do to a depleted fighter, and the contamination route that catches clean athletes.

After the scale

Rehydration after the weigh-in

Why plain water fails, the order that works, how much fluid to replace, and the meal that has ruined more fight nights than any training injury.

When it goes wrong

Missing weight: what actually happens next

The 2-hour window, the title, the money, and what those 2 hours do to a fighter who is already empty.

By sport

How do UFC fighters cut weight?

The stages in order: camp, the water load, carbohydrate, fiber and sodium, fluid last. What surveys say fighters actually do, and where it breaks.

How much weight do UFC fighters cut?

5 to 8 percent, and why the number predicts nothing. The published figures, the 30-hour window, and three world title cuts with the camp numbers attached.

How do boxers cut weight?

The whole camp rather than the last 3 days: the 30, 14 and 7 day checks, and what 8 weeks of food has to do.

How to cut weight for wrestling, safely

Your minimum class is calculated, not chosen, and the descent is capped at 1.5% a week. How to work inside the certification instead of against it.

Public cases

Weight cut case studies

Nine public UFC cuts side by side: how far above the limit each fighter started, the final 48 hours, and what each case shows.

Kayla Harrison's weight cut

From 172 lb in judo and 155 in the PFL to 135 in the UFC. The camp she described, the fight-night regain, and what the public record shows.

TJ Dillashaw's weight cut

154 lb at 8 percent body fat, 124.6 on the scale 12 weeks later, and a positive EPO test. What the published numbers say about the drop to 125.

Khabib Nurmagomedov's weight cut

Hospitalized the night before the UFC 209 weigh-in, then on the limit for every fight after it. What happened, and the stop rule it argues for.

Conor McGregor's weight cut

His weigh-ins at 145, 155 and 170, his nutritionist's method, and what he said went wrong the one time he did not cut at all.

Paddy Pimblett's weight cut

198 lb a week after weighing in at 156, 14 lb in his final 48 hours, and what a week of eating can really add.

Charles Oliveira's weight cut

155.5 on the scale at UFC 274 cost him the title. The half pound, the extra hour, the scale dispute and his featherweight years.

Khamzat Chimaev's weight cut

185 with twenty minutes left in the window, a reported 46-pound camp, and a title lost the next night. What the numbers say about a camp built for 205.

Max Holloway's weight cut

145, 155 and 170 in under two years, with the cut shrinking at each step, and the 2018 six-day cut a commission stopped before the scale.

Alex Pereira's weight

184.6, 204.5 and then 251 with no cut. The 25-pound rebound he filmed himself, and the number nobody set when the limit went away.

When the plan changes

Your first weigh-in: read this before you cut anything

For a first competition the answer is almost always to compete at what you weigh. You have no data on yourself yet, and the first event is where you get it.

Short notice: can you actually make the weight?

Two weeks buys you 1 or 2 percent through food. If you are sitting at your normal weight, your own division is arithmetically out of reach.

3 weeks out: what is still possible

The arithmetic of a short runway, what nutrition can and cannot take, and the three honest options when the number does not work.

Coming back after a layoff: what you lost, in order

You keep your strength and lose your engine. That mismatch is why fighters coming back feel fine in round one and empty in round three.

When the fight is cancelled, postponed or changed

Four situations requiring opposite responses, and why the longer the delay the more completely you should come back up.

Making weight during Ramadan

A daytime weigh-in during the fast closes the recovery window before it opens. The scheduling problem nobody writes about, and what can be done about it.

What happens to a fighter's weight after the last fight

One cohort of retired weight-class athletes gained more than non-athletes. Another gained less than average. The difference is what they did after.

Safety

Women and the weight cut

Why the safe range is tighter, how the cycle moves the scale without adding fat, and the chronic risk that outweighs any single fight week.

For coaches and parents

Weight cutting under 18

Children starting at 4 years old, growth that does not come back, and the concussion finding nobody connects. Written for the adults in the room.

For parents and clubs

Warning signs a club handles weight badly

What to look for in the gym, in the schedule and in the language, from someone who sees the athletes these clubs produce 10 years later.

Six questions to ask your child's coach about weight

Not whether it is safe. Six specific questions, what a good answer sounds like, and which reply should end the conversation.

When a weight cut stops being a weight cut

The sport normalises behaviours that are warning signs elsewhere. What to notice, what not to say, and where to send somebody.

Camp nutrition

Fight camp nutrition: the complete guide

Fuelling 8 weeks of 2 sessions a day: the three phases, what changes between them, and where camps usually go wrong.

Energy and training

How many calories does a fighter need in camp?

Calories alone cannot answer it. Two thirds of one boxing cohort were under the risk threshold in ordinary training, and a world champion finished fight week at 8.8.

Boxing Diet Plan: What a Real Camp Day Looks Like

A boxer's day on a plate: the hard-day structure, what changes on a light day, and the rest-day version. Meal times, portions and the floors underneath all three.

What a Wrestler Eats: The In-Season Plan, Day by Day

A wrestler's week around school and practice: the gap that decides it, the protein that does not move, and the day after a tournament.

Hard days and rest days: why one diet does not fit a camp

Eating the same on a sparring day and a rest day underfuels the work and overfeeds the recovery. How to move food with the load.

Sparring day: the session you cannot afford to underfuel

A 0.8% loss of body mass already changed concussion-like symptoms and balance in a controlled trial. Sparring is where that gets paid for.

Round seven was new territory

Fourteen fights, 12 stoppages, and a career that had never gone past 6 rounds. The physiology of gassing out.

Roadwork before breakfast: does fasted training do anything?

It burns more fat during the session and does not produce more fat loss. Both are true, and the gap is the whole subject.

Diet approaches

Keto and low carb for fighters: what the evidence shows

Fat oxidation doubles, and that is not disputed. What breaks is the intensity a fight is fought at, and keto also spends your weight-cutting lever 8 weeks early.

Plant-based fighters: the volume problem

A vegan fighter needs protein at the top of the range, from food that fills you up, while cutting weight. And the diet itself pushes you toward more supplements.

Gluten, lactose and the fighter who cut a food group for no reason

Coeliac disease is diagnosed while you are still eating gluten. Remove it first and the test can come back normal.

Fight day and recovery

Eating when nobody will tell you the bell time

How to eat when the first bell could be at two in the afternoon or close to midnight, and why a fixed plan fails on a live card.

What to eat between matches at a tournament

Twenty minutes between bouts or 2 hours. The structure that works for both, and the weigh-in that comes back tomorrow morning.

The first 24 hours after a fight

Myoglobin peaks around 2 hours after combat. Creatine kinase at 24. What to do on a body that made weight yesterday.

The 72 hours: what the markers actually do

Creatine kinase back to baseline by 48 hours in judo athletes. Over half of one rugby squad still not recovered at 60.

The week after the fight

Your kidneys are already damaged when you reach for the ibuprofen, and the weight coming back is not fat.

Back to training: how to know you have recovered

Four signals a fighter can read without a lab, and the mistake that makes the next camp harder than the last one.

Sleep: the recovery tool nobody schedules

Under 8 hours a night carried 1.7 times the injury risk. Going the other way lowered cortisol and sharpened reaction time, at no cost at all.

Between fights: 12 to 15 percent, and the number nobody knows

There is a published figure for what a fighter should weigh between camps. The phase it governs decides how the next camp goes.

Alcohol and recovery: 37%, and the night it matters most

Protein synthesis fell 37% with alcohol, and 24% even when protein was taken alongside it. Protein does not rescue it.

Travel and environment

Travel and away camps: where nutrition plans fall apart

What to fix before you fly, how to run a camp from a kitchen you do not control, and the last days that undo eight good weeks.

The competition trip

Competing abroad: the clock decides more than the food

The scale runs on local time and your body does not. Two strategies exist and they are opposites, and the worst thing is to land halfway between them.

The fight you lose in a hotel restaurant

One squad cut its illness rate from 50 percent to 20 with three rules, and the standard preventive antibiotic is wrong for a fighter.

Altitude: the weight you lose there is not real

Two kilograms gone in the first week is fluid and a blunted appetite. Plan a cut around that number and you arrive at the scale mis-calibrated.

Fighting in the heat: acclimation, and why it collides with the cut

Plasma volume expands in 3 to 5 days. A weight cut spends days removing it. Two calendars nobody lays over each other.

Injury and head impacts

Eating through an injury

Why protein goes up when training stops, and the one limb where creatine appears to protect tissue.

Eating with a broken jaw

In a randomised trial a written plan beat shakes and protein supplements, on weight and on how the patient felt.

Nutrition and head impacts: what is actually known

A blood marker of nerve cell damage rises with repeated head impacts, and boxing is named in the research. One intervention has evidence, and it is thinner than it sounds.

In the camp cupboard

Creatine in a weight-class sport: the number fighters are afraid of

Body mass up 0.89 kg. Fat-free mass up 1.39 kg. The lean tissue went up by more than the scale did.

Caffeine: the dose works, the timing is the problem

3 to 6 mg per kilogram an hour out is well supported. Then remember main events start at 11 at night, and nobody writes about that.

Religious fasting

Competing in the month

Competing while fasting: the day itself

A bout in daylight means no fuel and no fluid from dawn until you are finished. What suhoor has to do, and why the running order decides everything.

Training through Ramadan: a fighter's month

Two eating windows, a shifted training day and a month where the target is holding what you have. What actually fits into suhoor and iftar.

Running a squad through Ramadan

Half the roster fasting and half not, one training hall and one kitchen. The month is a logistics problem before it is a nutrition problem.

Training through Great Lent: the protein problem

No meat, no dairy, no eggs and mostly no fish, for 7 weeks. A fasting period that restricts what you eat rather than when, and what that costs a fighter.

Across every sport

Fasting and combat sport

Ramadan, Great Lent and intermittent fasting restrict three different things. Each one breaks a different part of a training plan.

Making weight during Ramadan

A daytime weigh-in during the fast closes the recovery window before it opens. The scheduling problem nobody writes about, and what can be done about it.

Or start with a food

Foods for fighters: what to eat and when

The index, with the reasoning behind the whole section. Why general nutrition advice does not transfer to somebody who has to make a weight.

Protein

Beans and lentils: tinned beats dried

The gas-forming carbohydrates are water soluble, which makes the processed version the gentler one.

Chicken: the default protein nobody thinks about

It survives every phase. The plan leaks on what gets added to make dry breast edible.

Cottage cheese: excellent protein, and a sodium problem

Similar protein to Greek yoghurt, roughly 8 times the sodium. In one week that matters.

Dairy: cut for the wrong reasons, kept for the wrong week

The mucus story does not hold up. Lactose intolerance is real. Different problems, different answers.

Eggs: the protein that works in every phase

Most foods have a week where they become wrong. Eggs largely do not, and the reason matters.

Greek yoghurt: the strain in the study is not the one in your pot

The athlete probiotic evidence is real and strain-specific, which is why it does not transfer to the shelf.

Oily fish: the only food here with a brain argument

Canned tuna carries a sixth of what a sardine does. Most people eating fish for omega-3 have the wrong fish.

Red meat: best source of two things, worst timing

Haem iron and creatine in a form nothing else matches, and the slowest thing to clear before a scale.

Tofu: the hormone question is already answered

Forty-one studies, no effect at any dose. And the one plant protein that survives fight week.

Tuna: the protein that gets mistaken for a fish

Oil-packed carries less omega-3 than water-packed, not more. And light against white governs the mercury.

Turkey: chicken has more tryptophan, and the mechanism is backwards

Protein when you need to be sharp, carbohydrate when you need to sleep. The rest is myth.

White fish: the best protein-to-calorie ratio you can buy

Around 87 percent of cod calories come from protein, and nothing else clears the gut as fast.

Carbohydrate

Bread: wholemeal is barely better than white

A few points apart, both high. What actually changes the number is fermentation, not the flour.

Corn and popcorn: two different foods, one name

Three cups of air-popped popcorn is 93 calories. Nothing else gives you that much volume for that little.

Honey: the liver glycogen nobody talks about

Fructose helps one glycogen store and not the other. And table sugar does the same job.

Oats: the breakfast that turns on you

The best breakfast in camp and one of the worst in the final days. Beta-glucan holds water.

Pasta: the low-GI carbohydrate nobody believes is low-GI

Wholewheat buys almost no glycaemic advantage. White is still right in the final days, for a different reason.

Potatoes: the carbohydrate nobody plans around

Among the most filling foods per calorie, and the skin decides which week it belongs in.

Quinoa: a better grain, not a protein source

Eight grams per cooked cup. Complete and not sufficient, and wrong in the final days for two reasons.

Rice: white or brown depends on the week

The food where the general answer and the fighter's answer point in opposite directions, and why.

Fruit

Apples: they put the fibre back in the juice and it still did not work

Same calories, same fibre, three forms, 150 calories difference at the next meal. Structure beats content.

Bananas: useful, and not for the reason people think

The cramp story does not hold up. What it actually gives you is fast carbohydrate with no preparation.

Berries: the recovery effect and the adaptation question

Tart cherry blunts inflammation, and inflammation is partly how you adapt. That decides when to use it.

Citrus: the fruit does one job and the capsule does another

Firm evidence for people under heavy exertion, and two risks that peak in the week it is most tempting.

Dried fruit: best thing in your bag, worst thing in fight week

Removing the water concentrates everything. The sugar, which is the point, and the fibre, which is not.

Watermelon: right food, wrong reason

The citrulline claim needs a kilogram. The real value is water without fibre, and the real caution is nitrate.

Vegetables

Broccoli and the cabbage family: two gases, two mechanisms

The volume and the smell come from different compounds, and both leave in the cooking water.

Leafy greens: the same nitrate, working for you this time

It improved judo-specific work and lactate, and did nothing for jump height or grip. Mouthwash abolishes it.

Fats

Avocado: classified as fruit, behaves as fat

One avocado is 227 calories, and it increases what you absorb from everything else on the plate.

Nuts: the label overstates whole almonds by a quarter

Whole nuts deliver fewer calories than the packet says. Nut butter delivers exactly what it says.

Olive oil: the largest uncounted number in your kitchen

A tablespoon is 120 calories and nobody measures it. Everything else matters less than that.

Drinks

Coffee: the dose you cannot know

Caffeine content swings several-fold between cups, which makes coffee a poor delivery method.

Green tea: the drink and the extract are different products

The fat oxidation effect holds at moderate intensity and is lost at the intensities you actually train at.

Sweeteners: the trials and the observations disagree

In fight week the sweetener is not the issue. The fluid is, and the sugar alcohols are.

What actually keeps fluid in: the sports drink does not

Milk and oral rehydration solution beat water. The sports drink performed no differently from water at all.

Other

Chocolate: the percentage does not tell you what is inside

Dutch processing destroys the compound you buy it for, and organic tested worse for heavy metals.

Fast food: wrong all year, defensible in one specific window

The choice on the road is not between fast food and an ideal meal. It is between fast food and nothing.

Salt: the most managed variable in fight week

Restriction does not work alone. It primes the reload, and half the protocol is worse than none.

Sauces: one tablespoon of fish sauce is 1,390 mg of sodium

A calorie problem for 8 weeks and a sodium problem for 4 days, from different bottles.

Supplements

Supplements for fighters

The short list of things with evidence, and what each one does to a body that is deliberately removing water and sodium.

Best supplements for boxing

The 5 with evidence, what 7 years of shop orders showed about what people rebuy, and the categories behind most failed tests.

Best supplements for MMA

The 5 with evidence, the 7 certifications the UFC anti-doping program approves, and what a morning weigh-in changes.

Best supplements for wrestling

What an NCAA school can hand out, the college caffeine limit, and why high school wrestlers start with food.

Best supplements for judo

The 5 with evidence, the WADA rules judo lives under, and what creatine does to the 5 percent morning allowance.

Best supplements for BJJ

USADA testing at IBJJF majors, and supplement timing when the weigh-in is right before the first match.

Certification and contamination

Informed Sport, NSF, Cologne List: which certification applies to you

Three programmes, three different promises, and why a botanical raises the stakes on all of them.

When certified supplements are not sold where you live

Six programmes, four countries. What importing solves, what it does not, and how the risk calculation changes when verification is impossible.

Halal and the supplement aisle

The capsule shell is the biggest unlabelled question, and halal certification does not mean batch tested.

Can a supplement make you fail a drug test?

How contaminated products cause failed tests, which categories carry the most risk, and what strict liability means when you did not know.

Training and performance

Creatine in a weight-class sport: the number fighters are afraid of

Body mass up 0.89 kg. Fat-free mass up 1.39 kg. The lean tissue went up by more than the scale did.

Caffeine: the dose works, the timing is the problem

3 to 6 mg per kilogram an hour out is well supported. Then remember main events start at 11 at night, and nobody writes about that.

Sodium bicarbonate: it works, and it is a sodium load

The position stand names boxing, judo, karate, taekwondo and wrestling. Then work out that a standard dose delivers 6.6 g of sodium to an 80 kg fighter.

Beta-alanine: the one you cannot take in fight week

Four to 6 grams a day for at least 2 to 4 weeks. That timeline is why most fighters take it uselessly.

Beetroot and nitrate: read who was in the studies

Handgrip strength up 8.4%, throws up 2.4%, heart rate down almost eight beats. In adolescent recreational judokas.

Glycerol: banned for 8 years, then not

Prohibited in 2010 as a masking agent, removed in 2018. It holds fluid in the body, which is backwards for a weight cut and interesting after one.

Electrolytes and ORS: why the sachet works and the sports drink does not

Sodium-glucose cotransport, what is in a WHO sachet, and why the sugar-free tablet is right before the scale and wrong after it.

Protein powder: what you are actually buying

Not superiority over food. Calorie efficiency, which is a different thing and the only argument that matters when a fighter is in a deficit.

Mass gainers: the arithmetic nobody does

One serving carries several times the daily surplus a trained athlete should run. What happens to the rest, and what to use instead.

HMB: does it protect muscle in a weight cut?

One trial reported 7.4 kg of lean mass in 12 weeks. A later meta-analysis threw it out.

BCAA: three amino acids out of 20

The one oral study found half the response of the same BCAAs inside whey. That gap is the whole category.

L-carnitine: the fat burner that needs 160 g of carbs a day

The carnitine group did not lose fat. They avoided gaining the fat caused by the carbohydrate needed to make it work.

Health and recovery

Foundation stack

Vitamin D: the deficiency that training outdoors does not fix

Over half of athletes tested come back inadequate, and weight-managed sports are a documented risk group. D3 not D2, the dose, and what the strength trials really found.

Foundation stack

Omega-3: the dose in the research and the dose in your capsule

Every head-impact study used at least 2 g of DHA. Most capsules carry a fraction of it. Plus the rancidity problem and bleeding in a contact sport.

Foundation stack

Magnesium: the right form, the real dose, and the claim that does not hold

A capsule labelled 1,000 mg contains about 140 mg of magnesium. The label problem, the supplemental ceiling, and why there is not one trial behind the cramp claim.

Foundation stack

Zinc: the ceiling, the copper problem, and the ZMA story

Why chronic zinc creates a copper deficiency, and what happened when the ZMA testosterone study was replicated independently.

Foundation stack

Iron is not only a women's problem

Men are protected by eating more food, which is what a restricted phase removes. And training itself blocks absorption for hours.

Foundation stack

Does a fighter need a multivitamin?

A 33 percent calorie cut pushed micronutrient intake below 90 percent of allowances without changing a single food choice.

Probiotics: why the strain matters more than the number

A CFU count without a named strain is unusable, and the respiratory infection data is messier than the label suggests.

Foundation stack

Collagen: the protocol nobody copies properly

Loading is half the intervention, which changes what collagen can and cannot do while a limb is immobilised.

Glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM: tested on the wrong people

Across 10 trials, who funded the study predicted the effect better than the dose did.

Curcumin: the meta-analysis says yes, the elite data says maybe

Strong results in standardised damage models, far less consistent in professionals, and the plain capsule is not what was tested.

Tart cherry: the recovery supplement with a timing problem

A moderate effect on strength recovery, roughly twice the size of the effect on soreness, and a loading period most fighters skip.

Sleep and travel

Melatonin: a timing signal, not a sleeping pill

Half a milligram works as well as five, and the hour matters more than the dose.

Glutamine: wrong for muscle, interesting for the gut

The pooled evidence rejects the claim on the tub. The permeability work in heat is a different story.

Handle with care

Pre-workouts: the category that ends the most careers

Of 27 doping cases where a supplement was proven to be the source, 20 were pre-workouts.

Do fat burners contain banned substances?

Nearly half the fat burners in one 200-product analysis held a prohibited substance, and most tainted products never named it on the label.

Testosterone boosters and DHEA: banned in sport

The legal supplement category that most often contains a prohibited anabolic agent.

Ecdysterone and turkesterone: the one that works is the problem

One is on WADA's Monitoring Programme under anabolic agents. The other has two trials showing nothing.

Ashwagandha: the evidence thins exactly where you are standing

The effects are most pronounced in untrained people. In athletes the recovery side survived and the testosterone claim did not. Plus the liver injury cases behind it.

Nicotine pouches: not banned, still the wrong tool

It does not remove the energy you need. It removes the signal telling you that you need it.

Female fighters

Female fighters

What genuinely differs, what does not, and the measurement that costs nothing and is routinely ignored.

Training around your cycle: what the evidence says

78 studies pooled, and the effect on performance came out trivial at low quality of evidence. What the cycle is genuinely useful for is something else.

Female fighters

Your cycle and the scale

The gym says 3 kilograms. The studies say half, and the water loading interaction is the part that matters.

Women and the weight cut

Why the safe range is tighter, how the cycle moves the scale without adding fat, and the chronic risk that outweighs any single fight week.

Iron: the deficiency that hides as bad training

Up to 60% of female athletes. It reduces appetite, affects thyroid function, and looks exactly like being under-fuelled or overtrained.

REDs in combat sports: the diagnosis nobody makes

Every symptom looks like a hard camp. In most sports that list would prompt a conversation. In this one it is the description of week six.

Bone: the damage you cannot feel

The one consequence of under-fuelling that does not reverse when you start eating again, and the only one with no symptom until something breaks.

The coil, the pill and what you lose

The performance effect is most likely trivial. What hormonal contraception genuinely changes for a fighter is the free measurement it takes away.

Coming back after a baby: the nutrition half

Anaemia was the most common complication at 27.4%. Half of one cohort had a postpartum injury that delayed their return. Then a fighter has to make weight again.

Female athletes over 40: the warning system you lose

The cycle was your earliest signal that you were underfuelling. In perimenopause it stops being reliable, at exactly the point bone risk starts rising.

Fasting and the female fighter

The same fast costs a female athlete more, and it costs her sooner. Energy availability, iron and the cycle, across a month of restricted eating.

She is not a gymnast, so you assume she is fine

The standard warning picture does not describe a weight-category girl. The risk arrives by a different route.

Anti-doping

Anti-doping for fighters: the complete guide

Strict liability, prohibited methods, the 100 ml IV rule that catches fighters after a weigh-in, substances of abuse, exemptions, and the administration that actually protects you.

The system

Who actually tests you: WADA, VADA and the body that bans you

WADA writes the rules and rarely takes your sample. VADA takes samples and cannot ban you. The organisation that ends your year is usually neither.

The 2027 Code: what actually changes for a fighter

In force 1 January 2027. Contaminated Source replaces Contaminated Products, a fixed 2 months where a TUE would have been granted, and 25 percent off for admitting inside 20 days.

Called for a test: what happens, and where fighters lose

Notification, choosing the kit, the 90 ml minimum, splitting the sample, and the section of the form where most fighters throw away their only defence.

Whereabouts and ADAMS: the rule that ends careers without a positive test

Two time windows get confused constantly. When an officer may actually turn up, what your 60-minute slot really means, and how three pieces of admin become a ban.

What happens after a positive test

Provisional suspension, the B sample, the charge letter, sanction lengths, and the appeal that does not pause anything.

You are not tested. You are still liable.

Seven articles apply to you. Complicity runs to a lifetime, and it includes covering something up.

The bout agreement: the terms that decide your camp before it starts

The contracted weight, the weigh-in format, the clauses and the testing window. Four terms agreed by people who will not be doing the cut.

Anti-doping in tennis: what the programme asks of you

Strict liability reaches every ranked player. Whereabouts filing reaches about 200. The gap is where the trouble lives.

Medication and exemptions

TUE: how to apply, and when it is already too late

The four criteria, the 30-day rule, the five doors to a retroactive exemption, and why applications fail on paperwork rather than on medicine.

Your inhaler has a number on it

The 8-hour window most athletes miss, and the diuretic that removes the exemption entirely.

ADHD medication: prohibited in competition only

Stopping it 3 days out gives you withdrawal and still risks the test, because dehydration slows clearance.

Diuretics: banned at all times, and why

Category S5, no threshold, in and out of competition. What they do to a depleted fighter, and the contamination route that catches clean athletes.

Substances and methods

Substances of abuse: 3 months for a drug that does nothing

Cocaine, heroin, MDMA and THC have their own category and their own sanctions. Two 2026 cases show how differently the same substance can land.

Cannabis and the 150 threshold: why legal does not mean clear

One study found an average detection window of 10 days. After 28 days, 12 subjects were still positive. And CBD labels are wrong more often than right.

Is BPC-157 banned? Peptides and anti-doping

BPC-157 sits in WADA category S0, prohibited at all times, and no TUE can be granted for it. What that means for a fighter offered a vial in camp.

IV drips after the weigh-in: 100 ml, and why the bag does not matter

Every fighter publicly suspended over this was using saline. The rule, the documented cases, and the research finding that should end the argument.

Testosterone boosters and DHEA: banned in sport

The legal supplement category that most often contains a prohibited anabolic agent.

Ecdysterone and turkesterone: the one that works is the problem

One is on WADA's Monitoring Programme under anabolic agents. The other has two trials showing nothing.

Contamination

Can a supplement make you fail a drug test?

How contaminated products cause failed tests, which categories carry the most risk, and what strict liability means when you did not know.

Contaminated meat: the positive test you can eat

Clenbuterol in livestock, the 5 ng/mL reporting level, which countries carry real risk, and the one habit that turns an unwinnable case into a survivable one.

Informed Sport, NSF, Cologne List: which certification applies to you

Three programmes, three different promises, and why a botanical raises the stakes on all of them.

When certified supplements are not sold where you live

Six programmes, four countries. What importing solves, what it does not, and how the risk calculation changes when verification is impossible.

Pre-workouts: the category that ends the most careers

Of 27 doping cases where a supplement was proven to be the source, 20 were pre-workouts.

Free checklist, and one email a month if you want it

14 questions to answer before you sign a bout agreement

The weight terms and the anti-doping terms, in the order I go through them. Three pages, free to download, and if you want it, one email a month after that: the month's weight misses, one practical piece on making weight, and any rule change that affects fighters.

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By Oleksandr Foka — sports nutritionist. Written between camps, not on a schedule.

Educational content, not medical advice. For adults 18+.

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