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At noon on Friday, 11-0 UFC fighter Mirsad Bektic will weigh in at 145 pounds for his featherweight fight against 22-5 Darren Elkins in one of the best undercard fights at UFC 209.\nBektic will weigh around 164 pounds when he enters the cage 36 hours later. The weight gain Bektic puts his body through is shockingly abrupt, but it is a normal part of combat sports. (To wit, on Friday morning, Khabib Nurmagomedov was hospitalized due to complications from his weight cut, and his interim lightweight title fight was canceled.)
\nBektic\u2019s offseason weight is 180 pounds, and he does not execute the meticulous weight drop and gain by himself. Like most top-level mixed martial artists, he works with a nutritionist.
\nIn Bektic\u2019s case, that nutritionist is Mike Dolce, one of the most respected in the MMA world. Dolce started his career nearly 20 years ago, training the likes of Quinton Jackson and Randy Couture as they started their ascent to becoming UFC legends.
\nNow, Dolce and his team of certified dieticians work with between eight to 10 MMA fighters year-round making sure they eat a balanced diet that minimizes weight and maximizes power.
\nDolce builds a specific meal plan for each of his fighters that accounts for their body types, fighting styles, and training methods.
\n\u201cThink about [Nick and Nate] Diaz, they are a longer, leaner, lighter athlete. They\u2019re very endurance-driven, most of their fights are won through volume and constant pace,\u201d Dolce told The Post. \u201cThen you can think of another athlete who is very stocky and bulky like Yoel Romero. Very explosive, very heavy muscle fiber recruitment \u2026 it\u2019s harder for that athlete to push pace, so you need to understand the type of energy systems the athlete will use and make sure that they are fueled for that.
\n\u201cWith the bulkier athletes, they\u2019re going to need a higher protein content because their muscles need a higher level of amino acids to help repair the muscle fibers as they break down. They\u2019re also going to need more carbohydrates and a more constant carbohydrate intake as those muscle primarily use stored glycogen as it gets converted into glucose, which is the primary fuel source for those working muscles.
\n\u201cWhen you get a leaner, more endurance-prone athlete, you don\u2019t have to have as high of a total protein intake or as high of a total carbohydrate intake, you can have a higher ratio of essential fats floating through their diet.\u201d
\nDolce\u2019s obsessively detailed meal plans prioritize his fighter\u2019s long-term health first, their training performance second and their weight third. Taste is taken into consideration, but only if it doesn\u2019t compromise the other three factors.
\nDolce provides recipes for things like pasta and hamburgers, except that many of the craveable components have been removed. Pasta sauce is made from avocado oil, steamed tomatoes and plain beef instead of olive oil, sauteed garlic and Italian sausage. Likewise, Dolce\u2019s \u201cfries\u201d are actually not actually fried at all \u2014 they are baked sweet potato sticks seasoned with cinnamon and honey.
\nDolce\u2019s roster of fighters, which includes Ronda Rousey, prefers his system. There are alternatives. Dolce does not ask his fighters to eat steamed broccoli and boiled chicken, or run in plastic sweat suits, or go through emotional steam treatments like Cristiane \u201cCyborg\u201d Justino famously did during one of her hellish weight cuts.
\nInstead, Dolce claims, his fighters have abnormally easy cuts because he plans things out so far in advance. His fighters never have to drop huge amounts of weight in short amounts of time. As a result of his planning, Dolce claims none of his fighters \u2014 he estimates plotting weight cuts for well over 1,000 fights over his 20-year career \u2014 ever have missed weight.
\nBektic is now Dolce\u2019s star client.
\nThe 26-year-old Bosnian is one of the best young fighters to come out of American Top Team (ATT), the legendary gym in Coconut Creek, Fla., that is home to UFC champions such as Amanda Nunes, Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Tyron Woodley.
\nIn a featherweight division full of lightning-fast strikers like Max Holloway and more flat-footed knockout artists like Jose Aldo, Bektic has a chance to rise up through the ranks because of his sheer athleticism.
\n\u201cI feel powerful, I feel outstanding, focused,\u201d Bektic said Tuesday, three days before the UFC 209 weigh-in. \u201cMy body is the healthiest it\u2019s ever been. I feel like I can do anything.\u201d
\nJovial and relaxed, Bektic spoke to The Post from Las Vegas in between his morning cardio workout and afternoon training session. He already had downed a breakfast bowl of oats, nuts, seeds, and fruit, a snack of blueberries and almonds and a gallon and a half of water. Bektic isn\u2019t worried over the details of making weight because Dolce has planned his diet down to the last bite of food, sip of water and even bowel movement.
\nHere is exactly how Dolce and Bektic shed the weight:
\n10 weeks from fight night \u2014 181 pounds
\nThis is the time when Bektic transitions from his offseason routines and starts gearing up for his fight against Elkins.
\nHe enters training camp at ATT, cuts out any non-fighting distractions, like dating, and mentally commits to his weight cut.
\nBektic\u2019s diet does not change significantly yet, however. Every four weeks all year long, he receives a detailed meal plan from Dolce that he follows religiously, and the routine he\u2019s built up during the year will continue far into his training camp.
\nEvery morning, Bektic wakes up, goes to the bathroom and texts his weight to Dolce. Then he goes about his day, which usually includes two training sessions, three large meals and two snacks composed of a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, grains, and meat. The idea, Dolce says, is to make sure Bektic gets all the micronutrients \u2014 things like Vitamin D, Calcium, Zinc \u2014 his body needs to maintain his health as his training intensifies.
\nA typical day of eating at this point looks roughly like this:
\nBreakfast bowl (see above)
\nMidday snack of fruit, nuts and seeds
\nAn omelette for lunch with a side salad full of bell peppers, onions, and spinach
\nAnother snack of fruit, nuts and seeds
\nPineapple chicken stir fry with brown rice, vegetables and a smidge of soy sauce
\nTaken all together, Dolce\u2019s goal is to make sure Bektic maintains his muscle mass by eating around 2,600 calories per day, though the trainer insists his diet is not about calorie counting.
\nIn theory, anyone can follow the diet \u2014 and 2,000 people sign up for The Dolce Diet every year. Dolce\u2019s fighters, however, have to be far more disciplined than the average person. Their livelihood depends on it.
\n3 weeks from fight night \u2014 164 pounds
\nThough Bektic\u2019s food has not really changed over the past seven weeks, he\u2019s still dropped weight because he\u2019s working out more than usual. He does 10 training session per week specifically geared toward his bout against Elkins, a ground-it-out wrestler.
\nThe results are starting to show up on the scale.
\nWith just 20 days until the weigh-in, Dolce takes variability out of Bektic\u2019s diet. Instead of a four-week meal plan, Bektic gets a three-day meal plan, which he repeats three times over nine days. Dolce also makes the meals smaller and spreads them throughout the day. Bektic is eating every 90 to 120 minutes.
\nThe thinking behind the changes is they will allow fighter and nutritionist to gather as much information as possible about Bektic\u2019s weight in relation to his food and water intake.
\nSuffice it to say, things get extremely intimate between the pair. Bektic will tell Dolce exactly how much water he consumed then weigh himself before and after training. That way, Dolce knows exactly how much Bektic sweats. Grosser still, Dolce monitors exactly how much Bektic weighs before and after he goes to the bathroom. That way, Dolce can calculate exactly how long it takes for food to travel from Bektic\u2019s mouth to the toilet.
\nThis information will be extremely useful later in the weight cut.
\n1 week from fight night \u2014 153 pounds
\nBektic\u2019s weight cut has gone so well that Dolce allowed him to have what passes for a treat one week before his fight: a made-from-scratch hamburger on a whole wheat bun with a side of baked sweet potato fries.
\nThe burger was the highlight, food-wise, of fight week. From here until the weigh-in, Bektic\u2019s diet gets relatively boring. When he spoke to The Post, Bektic said he\u2019ll normally have something like oats, chia seeds, hemp seeds, banana, blueberries and almond butter for breakfast. Then three boiled eggs with spinach for lunch. And finally, five ounces of plain chicken breast with a side of white rice and broccoli for dinner.
\nIf he gets hungry between meals he might munch on some cashews.
\nWhile he\u2019s still eating a healthy amount of food, Bektic has started the process of super hydrating his body. He drinks up to three gallons of purified water every day, which, according to Dolce, will help him shed water weight in the last few hours before the weigh-in.
\nBektic\u2019s faith in Dolce\u2019s plan is so complete that he\u2019s stopped thinking about his weight.
\n\u201cI could make weight today if I wanted to,\u201d he says, three days before the weigh-in.
\nDolce is just as confident as his protege, but there are little signs the rigidity of the diet is taking its mental toll on Bektic. The mere mention of the tiniest doses of flavor that Dolce might allow him to add to his food becomes a drool-worthy moment. Soy sauce is no longer a simple condiment in Bektic\u2019s pantry, it is a fond memory of a flavor he can no longer taste.
\n1 day from fight night \u2014 145 pounds
\nIn the last 24 hours, Bektic and Dolce begin the final part of the cut by shedding water weight.
\nMany fighters sweat the pounds out the same way that wrestlers have for generations: by heating up their bodies in sweat suits or steam rooms. Dolce tries to avoid this as best he can, but there is no escaping the reality that Bektic has to shed water and sweating is the only way to do it.
\nDolce\u2019s solution is to use a hot tub because he believes he can precisely control the temperature so Bektic sweats into the water but doesn\u2019t overheat and thus become dehydrated. It\u2019s a difficult balance, but Dolce is confident in Bektic.
\n\u201cA guy like Mirsad will probably lose four or five pounds in the first 30 minutes on the first cut, we\u2019re already halfway there,\u201d Dolce said. \u201cThe second time, let\u2019s say he loses three pounds, and the third time he loses two pounds. We\u2019re actually underweight at that point.
\n\u201cWe actually get to eat dinner the night before weigh-in.\u201d
\nIf, for whatever reason, Bektic wakes up on Friday morning and he\u2019s over the weight limit, Dolce has a final trick up his sleeve.
\n\u201cI know when my athletes are having bowel movements, and during fight week they weigh themselves before and they weigh themselves after so we know exactly how much they\u2019re eliminating,\u201d Dolce explained.
\n\u201cThat allows [Bektic] to actually step on [the scale] completely empty.\u201d
\nFight night \u2014 164 pounds
\nAfter the weigh-in on Friday, Dolce has 36 hours to help Bektic reenergize and rehydrate.
\nIn the past, the process might have included IVs, but that practice has been banned by the UFC\u2019s drug enforcement partner, USADA. Dolce and Bektic have to control fluid intake the old-fashioned way.
\nJust like losing water weight, the process of putting it back on is tightly controlled because if Bektic drinks too much too soon, his body might rebel. In the worst-case scenario, he might suffer violent diarrhea, but Dolce and Bektic won\u2019t be worried about that because they have tons of experience and won\u2019t overdue it.
\nThus, when Bektic heads to the cage on Saturday night to fight Elkins, he\u2019ll be a well-hydrated and powerful 164 pounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"