Hardy diet: I was ingesting 72 nutritional pills a day
Curreri: Who and what have most influenced your diet? Hardy: Different scientists, nutrition experts and other athletes. I went through…
Curreri: Who and what have most influenced your diet?
Hardy: Different scientists, nutrition experts and other athletes. I went through a stage, around UFC 95 when I fought Rory Markham, I was working with an expert who was very knowledgeable. He took diet to another level, to where it was almost more important than the training. I was soooo overwhelmed, it was like a full-time job. I was taking 72 pills a day. All different kinds of things: Beef liver, L-Carnitine, which was the worse one because it makes your skin smell like fish. It interfered with my training sessions. Funny enough, that was my quickest fight in the UFC, but I think it was circumstantial. I don’t think it had to do with the diet because I felt exhausted for that fight and I didn’t look right on the scales, either. So after that fight I pulled it back a lot. I really focus a lot on getting nutrients from food instead of supplements.
During training camp I stay away from anything that is acidic, like dairy products.
Curreri: A month after a fight how heavy are you?
Hardy: 205 is about right. If I try to gain muscle and lift a lot of weights – like I did after the GSP fight – when I weighed 218.8. I find my body functions best around 200 pounds. I do most of my training camp at around 192, 194. And then when we get close to the fight I drop it down more than that. Usually, on the Monday before a fight, I’ll be around 186.
