You hear it all the time in gyms. Fighters claim they’re professionals because they are showing up to training and doing all the extra work. Now there is truth to this. But this is short-sighted at the same time. The professional takes care of everything.

This means training, lifestyle, and nutrition. The athlete who comes to training underfueled and sleep-deprived is not a professional. Nor is the athlete who’s always overweight outside of camp. The real athlete is dsiciplined year round. Both of these cases are bad examples of how to conduct yourself as an athlete year-round.

Something that will change your training camps drastically.

This is a trend I have frequently observed among fighters. Even if they have a nutritionist, which is baffling to me. Post fight, they blow up. Get the call for another fight, step on the scale. After that, a panic attack ensues. The weight loss is daunting. Another camp that will suck, they tell themselves.

Sounds like you? Keep reading.

You get the point. It’s a never-ending cycle. Life is great until camp starts.

And this shouldn’t be the case.

There is a better approach.

The Year-Round Standard

The best approach is to resolve the issue before you even have a fight booked. Going into a small deficit, 0.5% weight loss per week, like highlighted in this article, is the best way to do it.

It’s sustainable and easy.

But most people will postpone this until it’s too late. So what’s the second-best approach?

Post fight, you take 2 days where you enjoy food without going overboard. And after that, you start taking nutrition seriously.

You eat to be elite. The main thing that people don’t understand is that you don’t have to eat clean all the time. But the other side of the coin, eating like trash all the time because you restrict yourself too much, isn’t healthy either.

Eat To Be Elite.

Staying at a healthy weight between camps is what you ideally want. Staying within 5-8% of the ideal weight to cut from is what you want. So say you’re a 71 kg fighter who fights at 65.7 kg. That would mean you’d weigh between 74.5 and 76.7 kg. Cutting from there to 71 kg in an 8-week camp is easy.

But how do we achieve this?

With a very easy equation.

Take your current ideal walk-around weight and multiply it by 45. That is the amount of calories you need to eat on a double training day.

This is what you should do post-fight, as soon as you go back to training.

So, for example, a 70 kg fighter would need to eat 3150 calories on double training days.

After we use the 3-2-1 principle to calculate how many grams of each macro we need.

So, for a 70 kg fighter, that would equate to:

• Protein: 140 grams of protein (2 x bodyweight in kg)
• Fats: 70 grams (1 x bodyweight in kg)
• Carbs: 484 grams of carbs (remainder of the calories divided by 4)

Most people trying to eat this amount of carbs will quickly realize this is quite hard to hit if you don’t use certain foods strategically.

Most fighters never learn how to structure this properly. That’s where I come in.

Camps don’t have to feel like torture every single time.

I work with fighters and hobbyists to build nutrition strategies that support performance across an entire camp. Not just the sessions that feel good in the moment.

If you have a fight booked and want structure instead of guesswork, you can sign up on Gumroad or reach out via Instagram or Substack.

Until next time

Alex

Today, we’ll cover some of the realities of the fight game no one talks about. So, yes, it hurts, of course. What did you expect? I get this question quite often. Even had it once after a fight. My left leg was twice the size of my right leg. I was shaking my head in confusion at that point. I couldn’t figure out what was worse. My leg hurting, or the headache I got after that question.

There are many beliefs out there about fighting that are just not true. And there are many things people don’t realize until it’s way too late. Today we’ll focus on the latter.

Let’s dive into it. Read More

It’s fair to say everyone has felt lost in life. And it’s fair to say most people have been there more than once. And some people feel lost and never figure out how to leave the situation they are in.

I went through it last year. I had 4 losses in a row; I lost all momentum in my online business, and to top it all off, I got fucked over by my job. At that point, I really asked myself if I was going in the right direction.

However, during this period, I learned a great deal, and I’m still here. And it’s safe to say we’re so back. Read More

I recently wrote a post called “How to avoid burnout when training hard.” This post included 6 tips on how to make sure you don’t burn out while training hard. But there is more. That post was aimed at what to do. People are still doing things that sound great on paper. Those things actually undermine their performance in the long run.

People get short-term results and think it’s working. But they are confused when they face the long-term consequences.

Let’s dive into it. Read More

Recently, I had one of the best training camps of my career so far.

Fight number 20 in Hua Hin ended in a close decision loss.

The gamblers loved the fight and gave both of us a bonus. Next month, I’ll be back competing on the Bangkok scene due to this performance.

One of my training partners fought on the same card.

His camp looked very different.

He was underfueled and burned out toward the end. So, I gave him macro targets to aim for, ensuring he recovered properly before fight day.

Problem solved. Or so I thought.

A few days later, I got this message:

And this is how we arrive at the issue of solely relying on AI.

The Problem With “Just Using AI”

AI has been treated like an oracle lately.

The issue?

AI can be a useful tool if you already understand what you’re looking at. Most people don’t. Fighters included.

In my training partner’s case, his macros were way off:

• Carbs: hit
• Protein: low
• Fats: low

Is that catastrophic? No.
Is it easy to fix? Yes.
Should this have been an issue to begin with? No.

The meal plan he followed appeared structured on paper, but he figured out that something was way off when he tracked it. Once I looked at it, I also pointed out that there was basically zero fiber in this meal plan.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen this.

Fighters have been utilizing AI, often to their detriment.

AI Can’t Coach You

AI doesn’t see:

• How hard you trained that day
• Whether you’re sleeping like shit
• How close you are to burning out
• If you have been chronically underfueling

AI relies on your input, and most likely, you don’t know what matters when it comes to your nutritional needs.

The coach asks you follow-up questions. AI is just a glorified “yes man.”

That’s the difference.

Context matters when making nutrition plans.

Why Coaching Actually Works

It’s very tempting to use AI since it’s free.

This is why people pick it over coaching. But coaching does something that AI can’t do: give you an individualized plan.

For 50 euros per week, your nutrition becomes something to worry about less.

And you can cancel anytime.

Final Thought

Coaching gives you results. AI only gives you more things to worry about.

This is exactly what I did for my training partner. I fixed the issue with the meal plan, so he had something less to worry about.

I can similarly help you.

I work with fighters to plan and execute nutrition strategies for hard camps, including weight cuts, heat acclimation, and sweat rate testing.
If you have a fight booked and want structure instead of guesswork, you can sign up on Gumroad or reach out via Instagram or Substack.

Until next time

Alex

Burnout rarely happens overnight. It’s a very slow process.

It typically presents as flat sessions, constant soreness, poor sleep, or a feeling of being “off” by week two or three of camp. Most fighters and hobbyists go through it at least once. For some, it’s a learning experience. For others, it becomes a cycle.

The good news: it’s largely avoidable.

Here’s how most people get it wrong and what actually works to avoid burnout. Read More

Should you accept fights without elbows? My opinion on this shouldn’t be very controversial, but I’ll lay it out nonetheless to make my point clear. The whole Muay Thai scene has changed. Thais barely go to the stadiums anymore; it’s mostly tourists now. So the promoters obviously play into this. Read More

Fight camp started a while ago, my friend and I are fighting in Hua Hin on the 24th. This obviously comes with an increase in training volume, especially in Thailand. The daily tasks become monotonous. You shadowbox, kick pads, hit the bag, etc.

After a while, your mind starts to drift, and you might hit a plateau for a bit. This is very normal; we all go through this. Today, my training partner and I went through this. Luckily for us, the gym was packed. So the bags were all taken. Read More

Heat acclimation is one of the most underutilized tools in weight cutting. It’s something I make my clients do as soon as we start working together.

What is it? Teaching your body to sweat efficiently and tolerate heat. Without this, cutting weight becomes hell and could ruin your performance on fight night.

I’ve watched fighters who skip this step try to cut in a sauna suit in Thailand for the first time. They feel like they’re being cooked alive. Their heart rate spikes dangerously. They panic. They can’t breathe. The cut becomes torture. Read More

In Thailand, fighting without a weigh-in is extremely common. Most fighters see this as an advantage. There’s no weight cut, so that’s one thing less to stress about.

But in reality, many of them still leave a huge amount of performance on the table.

The assumption is simple: if I don’t have to cut weight, my problems are solved.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Read More