The Science of Performance Nutrition—From a UFC Nutritionist

The science of why quick weight loss backfires, how to establish your optimal "ready" range, and the hidden muscle crisis in modern weight loss.

On Tuesday, we had UFC great Miesha Tate on the pod. One of the hardest parts about fighting, she said, was the weight cuts.

Fighters lose up to 20 pounds just a few days before weigh-ins—and then gain it all back in the 36 hours before they step into the octagon to fight.

It’s wild, but fighters provide a window into the impacts of dieting, weight loss, and better nutrition for the average person.

Today, we’re talking with Tyler Minton, RDN. Tyler is a real one—a guy with a big brain sitting between two cauliflower ears from years of fighting.

After a dangerous weight cut as a UFC fighter, Tyler pivoted and helped revolutionize weight cutting and nutrition in MMA. He’s worked with some of the greats: Max Holloway, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and more. He now also works with Navy SEAL teams at Dam Neck Annex, in VA.

Tyler and I got into the full mechanics of UFC weight cuts and then covered lessons that matter for everyone else: Problems with crash dieting. Why your metabolism tanks faster than it recovers. A GLP-1 mistake Tyler notices many people making. His three-part framework that explains everything you need to know about nutrition.

This episode airs a few days before UFC 250, arguably the biggest fight card in UFC history (and on the White House lawn, because apparently that’s the world we live in now). So Tyler also gives his fight picks at the end.

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Show Notes

• Tyler’s Instagram

• Tyler’s Nutrition Coaching Company: Ethos Nutrition (he’ll work with you and you’ll get fitter for it).

• Tyler’s fight page. His nickname was “Melee.” Perfect.

• International society of sports nutrition position stand: nutrition and weight cut strategies for mixed martial arts and other combat sports

My Biggest Takeaways From the Episode

As a reminder, this new section is for Members only. Below are 7 of the highest-impact, most actionable takeaways from the episode, including:

• How a UFC weight-cutting trick was used to falsely market modern low-carb diets to the public.

• The metric Tyler uses to ensure fighters perform at their best while also eating enough to fuel better recovery, mood, and performance.

• Why your metabolism drops rapidly during a crash diet but doesn’t recover post-diet—and what to do about it.

• A mistake Tyler sees many GLP-1 users making, and how to fix it.

• A simple nutrition framework that leads to holistic health and performance (not just a lower number on the scale).

• Tyler’s UFC Freedom 250 picks.

1. UFC weight cuts are mostly water—a phenomenon that made the low-carb diet explode

Tyler helps UFC fighters drop 10 to 20 pounds in the 72 hours before weigh-ins, and then gain nearly all of it back within 24 hours. Surprise: It’s nearly all water weight. The carbs your body stores also store water. One gram of glycogen holds “3 to 4 grams of water,” Tyler said. During fight week, fighters cut carbs and swap in fat, which gives them 9 calories per gram and doesn’t hold much water. Many eat as many calories that week as they did during camp. “But they wake up lighter every morning,” he said. This trick (along with heat exposure) helps UFC fighters cut water, and their scale weight drops dramatically. But it was also leveraged in low-carb diet marketing—people would report losing 10 to 20 pounds in a week. It seemed great, but it wasn’t actual fat loss. It was water.