Dan Hardy Gives Insight Into His Diet & Nutrition Regimen

UFC welterweight fighter Dan Hardy spoke via ufc.com about his diet and nutrition plan he implements.

“I have a system. Every morning I get all of my supplements out and put them in a little pot. I get two fruit juices – a fruit juice and coconut water – and mix them in a big mug with a scoop of branch chain amino acids and 20 drops of chlorophyll. I stir that up and take my supplements with that. Then I have a vegan protein bar with about 10 grams of protein, just something to get my stomach going.

My supplements: Vitamin C, Vitamin B Complex; Green tea, fish oils, probiotics. I don’t want my stomach working too hard during training. If your stomach is digesting food during training then it carries nutrients away from your stomach and it makes me feel nauseous when I train.

So I’ll take my supplements, my vegan protein bar, then I’ll check my emails and watch a fight before heading off to training.

I went shopping yesterday … I buy as much organic as I can. I buy lots of different types of fish, chicken breast, turkey, avocado, lots of free-range, organic eggs. All my meat is cage-free. But when I get close to the fight I rely on a lot more drinks.

Last night I had fish and broccoli. My carbs are very low. I eat sprouted wheat bread as one of my main carbohydrates. Today I’ll go home, have a shake and then eat four eggs with two slices of wheatberry sprouted bread. I might have apples, bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe or grapes. Obviously I only eat bananas right after training – I wouldn’t eat them at any other time of the day.

I like to get as many fiberous, natural carbs as I can as opposed to complex carbs. Occasionally I’ll have brown rice but not often. Quinoa is quite a popular complex carb at the moment.

I’ll probably have a couple Sushi rolls once a week – I might have some raw tuna with avocado — and that is as close to a cheat meal as I get during training camp. Usually Monday and Tuesday are pretty tough days. Wednesday I do a conditioning session in the morning and a technical session in the evening.

I know Thursday and Friday will be hellish days as well, so I like to have some extra carbs on Wednesday just to carry me through those sessions.”