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A lot was spoken on former UFC featherweight champion, Jose Aldo's weight cut as he looked to drop down to bantamweight ahead of his fight against Marlon Moraes at UFC 245. Aldo's pictures during the weight cut had people speculating if the former featherweight king made a massive error in deciding to compete at a lower weight class but when the time came, the self-proclaimed 'King of Rio' put up a brilliant performance against Moraes, so much so that even though he lost via split decision, the reigning champion Henry Cejudo wants to defend his title against Aldo.
Aldo's nutritionist, Dr. Priscila Antunes conceded that "it was a challenge" to get Aldo down to 135 pounds from 150 pounds for the first time ever. In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Dr. Antunes elaborated on how she went about the task, depriving Aldo of his favorite food in the process.
“He hates nutritionists, but he trusted me. Aldo is very focused, you know? He had nowhere to run, he needed a nutritionist this time. He couldn’t do it by himself. And his diet was pretty easy.”
Dr. Antunes credited a ketogenic diet on fight week for getting Aldo's weight off easier than it did during his fights at featherweight.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why Aldo had so much cardio in his fight. Many athletes tend to follow a protein diet before the weigh-ins. I’ve had that experience before but I think it broke my athletes. When I did the ketogenic diet with him, it worked.”
Per the man himself though, the weight cut went like a breeze. In fact, Aldo said that he has never had an easier weight cut in the entirety of his career.
“It was excellent. I never cut weight so easily in my life. It was way easier than everybody imagined. I knew it would be easy as soon as I started this diet months ago. I knew I would recover well and be strong to fight the next day. I was ready to fight five, 10 rounds if I had to.”
