I samband med den kommande titelmatchen har försvarande bantamviktsmästaren Ronda Rousey berättat att hon bara äter en måltid om dagen och att hon sedan dricker kaffe, mer än så blir det inte för den hårt tränande mästaren.
”It’s kind of a combination of The Paleo and The Warrior diet. I pretty much eat one meal a day – which takes place at night… There is one exception to all of this each day: I get to have coffee every morning. That’s the only thing I really fudge on… I thought it was crazy at first. Especially since breakfast was, and still is, my favorite meal… I sleep a lot better than I used to and I have a lot more time because I’m not planning meals all day long… The philosophy is, when you’re digesting food then your body wants to rest. If you’re hungry then your body wants to go and get food. So you have more energy when you’re not digesting food. So I can get more out of training on an empty stomach than I would on a full stomach.”, säger Rousey till UFC.com.
Självfallet skulle det komma reaktioner på en sådan diet och en av dem som höjt rösten är Mike Dolce som på senare år gjort sig känd för att hjälpa fajters komma i form och klara viktkravet inför match med hans ”Dolce Diet”. Han tror helt enkelt inte att det kommer att hålla i längden.
”What Ronda is doing, like I said, works very well for her right now, but she became an Olympian, the highest level an athlete can achieve, doing something different, and as far as I know, very few Olympians in 2012 competed on that type of diet. Id say almost none. I’m certainly not bashing the diet, but it’s just a very fringe approach to an overall healthy eating regimen… I think for a high level athlete like Ronda Rousey or any elite mixed martial arts practitioner that’s training twice a day, in my opinion, it’s impossible to sustain the level of performance in training necessary on just one meal a day. There’s overwhelming scientific data and practical data that supports this. Athletes in the gym need to replenish glycogen delivery and restore insulin levels immediately prior to training. If you’re training twice a day, but only eating once a day, you’re at a deficit. An elite athlete like Ronda Rousey genetically and through her work effort might be able to outpace some of those issues, but eventually, it will catch up. It always does.”. säger Dolce till Bloody Elbow.
Oavsett vad man tycker om hennes diet så klarade Rousey i alla fall vikten inför nattens Strikeforce: Rousey vs Kaufman och långsiktiga hälsoeffekter för just henne kan man bara spekulera kring.
Men det finns säkert en hel del läsare som är insatta i kosthållning för den hårt tränande elitidrottare. Är ni på Rouseys eller Dolces sida i denna diskussion?
