Every fighter who’s ever made weight knows the truth about food — it doesn’t have to be complicated. The fitness industry has turned eating into a science project. Macros, meal timing, carbs, keto, paleo, carnivore, intermittent fasting with a 47-minute eating window. It’s exhausting. And most of it is designed to sell you something.
Here’s what actually works: eat real food, eat enough protein, and stop putting garbage in your body. That’s the entire diet. Everything else is details.
This isn’t a meal plan. Meal plans fall apart by Thursday. This is a framework — a way of thinking about food that works whether you’re trying to lose 50 pounds, gain muscle, or just stop feeling like trash every afternoon.
The Foundation: Real Food
If it grew out of the ground, walked on the ground, flew in the air, or swam in the water — eat it. If it was manufactured in a factory and has 35 ingredients you can’t pronounce — don’t.
That one rule eliminates 80% of the problem. No calorie counting required.
Protein sources: Chicken, beef, turkey, fish, eggs, shrimp, Greek yogurt. These are the building blocks. Every meal should be built around a protein source. Not around rice. Not around bread. Protein first, everything else second.
Carb sources: Rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, oats, fruit. These are fuel. You need them, especially if you’re training. The anti-carb crowd has scared people into thinking rice is the enemy. Rice is not the enemy. A bag of Doritos is the enemy. There’s a difference.
Fat sources: Avocado, olive oil, nuts, eggs, fatty fish. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Excess calories make you fat. Good fats keep your hormones functioning, your brain sharp, and your joints lubricated.
Vegetables: Eat them. Broccoli, spinach, peppers, asparagus, green beans — pick the ones you don’t hate and eat them every day. They’re full of micronutrients, they help with digestion, and they fill you up without adding significant calories.
That’s the grocery list. Stick to the perimeter of the store where the real food is. The center aisles are where the processed stuff lives.
The Protein Rule
This is the one thing that matters more than anything else. Hit your protein target every day. Everything else is secondary.
How much: 1 gram per pound of your goal body weight. If you want to weigh 180, eat 180 grams of protein daily. That’s the number. It doesn’t change whether you’re trying to lose fat or build muscle.
Why it matters: Protein is the most satiating macronutrient — it keeps you full longer than carbs or fat. It preserves muscle mass when you’re in a calorie deficit. It requires more energy to digest than other macros, meaning you burn more calories just processing it. And it’s the raw material your body needs to recover from training.
What that actually looks like in a day:
- Breakfast: 4 eggs scrambled (24g protein)
- Lunch: 8oz chicken breast with rice and broccoli (50g protein)
- Snack: Greek yogurt with a scoop of protein powder (40g protein)
- Dinner: 8oz salmon with sweet potato and asparagus (46g protein)
- Shake if needed: 1 scoop whey protein (25g protein)
That’s roughly 185 grams. It’s not hard once you start thinking protein-first at every meal. The adjustment period is about a week. After that, it’s automatic.
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What to Cut
You don’t need to eliminate entire food groups. You need to eliminate the obvious garbage. Be honest with yourself about what’s holding you back.
Liquid calories. Soda, juice, sweet tea, fancy coffee drinks, alcohol. This is where most people’s diets go sideways without them realizing it. A Starbucks Frappuccino has more sugar than a candy bar. A night of drinking adds 1,000+ empty calories before you even get to the late-night food run. Switch to water, black coffee, and tea. This single change will produce visible results within two weeks.
Fast food. Not because one burger will kill you. Because the habit will. Fast food is engineered to make you eat more than you need. The portions are massive, the ingredients are designed to trigger cravings, and the calorie density is insane. A Big Mac meal is over 1,000 calories. That’s half a day’s worth of food for a lot of people and you’re hungry again in two hours.
Processed snacks. Chips, cookies, crackers, granola bars disguised as health food. These are calorie-dense, nutrient-empty, and designed to be impossible to eat in moderation. Nobody eats seven Pringles. Replace them with real food snacks — hard boiled eggs, nuts, fruit, beef jerky, Greek yogurt.
Added sugar. Read labels. Sugar hides in everything — bread, pasta sauce, salad dressing, “healthy” smoothies, protein bars. The less added sugar you consume, the better your energy levels, your sleep, and your body composition will be.
How Fighters Eat
Professional fighters don’t eat exotic diets. Walk into any boxing gym in the country and ask what the fighters eat. The answer is almost always the same.
Chicken, rice, and broccoli. It’s a cliché because it works. High protein, clean carbs, micronutrients. It’s cheap, it’s easy to meal prep, and it fuels training without weighing you down. Every fighter has eaten this meal a thousand times. There’s a reason it’s the default.
Eggs. The most versatile protein source that exists. Scrambled, fried, hard boiled, in an omelet. Cheap, fast, and packed with nutrition. Fighters live on eggs.
Oatmeal. A staple breakfast for fighters in camp. Slow-digesting carbs that keep energy steady for hours. Add some berries, a scoop of protein powder, and a spoonful of peanut butter and you’ve got a meal that carries you through a morning training session.
Lean beef and fish. Red meat gets a bad reputation but lean beef is one of the best sources of iron, zinc, and B12 on the planet. Fish — especially salmon, tuna, and sardines — provides protein plus omega-3 fatty acids that help with inflammation and recovery.
Water. Fighters are religious about hydration. Not sports drinks. Not vitamin water. Water. With sea salt if they’re training hard and sweating a lot. Dehydration kills performance faster than anything else.
The pattern is simple: whole foods, protein-heavy, carbs around training, vegetables at every meal, water all day. No supplements can fix a bad diet. Get the food right first.
Meal Prep: The Boring Secret That Works
Nobody wants to hear this. Meal prep isn’t exciting. It’s not a hack or a trick. It’s spending an hour or two on a Sunday cooking food for the week so you don’t end up ordering DoorDash at 9pm because you have nothing ready.
The basic prep:
- Cook a big batch of protein. Grill chicken breasts, cook ground turkey, bake salmon — whatever you like. Enough for 4-5 days.
- Cook a big pot of rice or roast a tray of sweet potatoes.
- Wash and chop your vegetables. Broccoli, peppers, spinach — whatever you’ll actually eat. Roast a pan of mixed vegetables while you’re at it.
- Portion it out into containers.
That’s it. When you’re hungry, grab a container and heat it up. Two minutes in the microwave versus 45 minutes waiting for delivery. Cheaper, cleaner, and you actually know what’s in it.
You don’t have to eat the same thing every meal. Rotate your proteins. Change your seasonings. Use different vegetables. But have the food ready. The people who fail at eating clean almost always fail because they didn’t prepare — not because they don’t know what to eat.
The 80/20 Rule
Eat clean 80% of the time. The other 20%, live your life. Have pizza with your family. Go out to dinner. Enjoy a holiday meal without weighing your mashed potatoes on a food scale.
The people who try to eat perfectly 100% of the time are the ones who crack and binge. Discipline doesn’t mean deprivation. It means consistency. Hit your protein. Eat real food. Drink your water. And don’t turn food into an anxiety disorder.
Fighters in camp eat strict because they have a date on the calendar and a weight they need to make. You probably don’t have a weigh-in. You have a life. Eat to support your training, feel good, and be able to sustain it for years — not weeks.
The Short Version
- Eat real food. Protein, carbs, fats, vegetables.
- Hit 1 gram of protein per pound of goal body weight every day.
- Cut liquid calories, fast food, and processed snacks.
- Drink water all day.
- Meal prep so you have clean food ready when you’re hungry.
- 80/20. Eat clean most of the time. Don’t make yourself miserable.
Chicken, rice, and broccoli isn’t a meme. It’s the foundation. Build from there.
Hydration: The Thing You’re Probably Getting Wrong
You know you need to drink water. Everyone knows that. What most people don’t know is that water alone isn’t enough — especially if you train.
When you sweat, you don’t just lose water. You lose electrolytes — sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride. These minerals control muscle contraction, nerve signaling, hydration at the cellular level, and energy production. Drinking plain water all day without replacing electrolytes dilutes what you have left and makes the problem worse. That’s why you can drink a gallon of water and still feel flat, crampy, and foggy.
The basics:
- How much: Half your body weight in ounces as a baseline. If you weigh 200 pounds, drink 100 ounces of water daily. Add 16-24 ounces for every hour of training. More if you’re sweating heavily or training in heat.
- When: Start the day with 16-20 ounces before you eat anything. Sip throughout the day. Don’t try to catch up by chugging 40 ounces at dinner — your body can only absorb so much at once and the rest runs through you.
- How to tell if you’re hydrated: Your urine should be pale yellow. Clear means you’re over-hydrating and flushing minerals. Dark yellow means you’re behind.
What to add to your water:
A pinch of quality sea salt — Celtic, Redmond Real Salt, Himalayan pink, or Baja Gold — gives you sodium and trace minerals that plain water doesn’t have. This is the simplest, cheapest hydration upgrade available. One pinch in your morning water, one pinch in your training water. You shouldn’t taste the ocean — just enough to add minerals.
During training:
Water with sea salt handles most sessions. For long or intense sessions — anything over 90 minutes, heavy bag days where you’re drenched, or outdoor training in heat — consider adding:
- EAAs (essential amino acids) mixed in your water bottle during training. Supports muscle recovery in real time and gives your water some flavor that makes you actually drink it. BodyHealth PerfectAmino is a solid option.
- Electrolyte mixes beyond just salt. Products like A-Game Hydration, LMNT, or Liquid IV provide a balanced electrolyte profile — sodium, potassium, magnesium — without the sugar load of Gatorade.
- Hydrogen water tablets like H2Tab are newer to the scene. The research on molecular hydrogen is early but promising for reducing oxidative stress and inflammation. Drop a tab in your water bottle and it dissolves. Not essential but some people swear by the recovery benefits.
What to avoid:
- Sports drinks (Gatorade, Powerade): Mostly sugar and food coloring with minimal electrolytes. A bottle of Gatorade has 34 grams of sugar. You’re better off with water and a pinch of salt.
- Energy drinks: Caffeine, sugar, and chemicals. Not a hydration source.
- Juice: Liquid sugar. Eat fruit instead.
- Soda: Obvious. But it needs to be said.
The bottom line on hydration: Water plus minerals. All day, every day. Sea salt is the minimum. EAAs and electrolyte mixes during training if you want to optimize. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and most people notice a difference in energy, focus, and recovery within the first week of doing it consistently.
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