Along with my friend Sean Hyson of Men’s Fitness, I had lunch on Saturday with Mac Danzig, the winner of last seasons Ultimate Fighter and future UFC champion. Upon meeting Mac for the first time one of the things you notice immediately is that he is incredibly polite and respectful; nothing like the image that they created for him through the magic of editing on The Ultimate Fighter. The second thing you notice is that his hands are incredibly huge compared to the rest of his body and that you probably wouldn’t want to get hit by one of them.
Following are a few highlights from the conversation we had at one of New York’s top vegetarian restaurants:
•He doesn’t weight train because he gets too big too fast and just doesn’t really enjoy it. Instead he does bodyweight exercises.
•He loves running/sprinting for conditioning.
•Most of his training/conditioning work is just MMA training.
•He stopped consuming all dairy products in 1999 due to a recurrence of sinus and respiratory issues among other things.
•His condition and immune system improved immediately and his sinus problems were a thing of the past.
•He doesn’t believe in high protein diets. He walks around at 170 and competes at 155 but only consumes 100-140 grams of protein per pound daily.
•He drinks a gallon to a gallon and half of water per day.
•His diet consists of lots of brown rice, quinoa, tempeh, nuts, seeds, beans and lentils. He cheats in the off season with soy ice cream or vegan cookies.
•He swears by The Ultimate Meal and Vega meal replacements and says he notices improvements in energy and recovery ability when taking them.
•Since swearing off all animal products he has never felt or performed better. His sleep quality has also increased noticeably.
•He is a huge music fan and listens to an incredibly wide variety of stuff including Black Sabbath, Wu Tang Clan, Neil Young, Peal Jam, Public Enemy, Ministry and of course, Danzig.
