When Nate Diaz put on weight in preparation for his fight against Jake Paul, he felt sluggish.
On August 5 in Dallas, Texas, the UFC legend will make his boxing debut against YouTube personality Paul at a career-high weight of 185 pounds. Diaz, who started his UFC career at 155 pounds, moved up to the welterweight division after his shocking 2016 victory over Conor McGregor.
Diaz has spent the past three months bulking up for his battle with Paul, who fought Tommy Fury in February and weighed 183.6 pounds. After deciding to fast for half of each day, the 38-year-old suddenly found that he was able to workout more efficiently than before.
“I’ve been eating a lot of food and getting heavier,” Diaz admitted on Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk podcast. When I was on a weight gain diet, eating whatever I could get my hands on to bulk up as much as possible, I noticed a decrease in my speed. I finally said to myself, “Dude, I’m lazy and tired and I’m working out like a meathead right now.”
“I was into bodybuilding and weightlifting. The extra weight merely made me lethargic and sluggish, and I became quite unmotivated as a result. I eventually relaxed my approach and came up with a new game plan, after which I found that I had a ton of extra energy and could get a lot more done. Before, I would eat as much as I could to “blow up,” but now I just fast for half the day and “get down” whenever I feel like it.Like right before I was going to start training, I used to have to do it every two hours, and it left me fatigued no matter where I went. I was engaging in activities that bring me great joy, and now I find myself thinking, “Man, I don’t even want to go.” I found that I had more stamina and was generally in a better mood after letting go of some extra pounds.
Diaz had never been overweight before since he felt like he was “in jail” while dieting to get down to 155 pounds. The fact that his older brother Nick competed at welterweight and had previously held the 170lb belt for the now-defunct promotion Strikeforce delayed his transfer to the weight class earlier in his UFC career.
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