Yes, boxers should eat good (and well). They need their vitamins and such. If they’re making a weight limit, of course they need to restrict their diet accordingly (no cake for desert, etc.) But in general, the thinking on what’s good for athletes shifts every so often and while some think it’s progress and ‘advancements,’ I’d like to challenge that and see if there’s discussions o be had. For instance: Ray Robinson ate steak as his prefight meal and had the chef/cook drain the ‘cow blood’ (juice) into a glass and drink it. Likewise, Duran feasted on steak regularly. They turned out pretty good. Is there a school of thought that their diet limited their accomplishments in a major way? Do we really think a Ray Robinson would have been that much greater (he’s generally regarded as the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all time) if he had eaten something ‘better’?
I spend a lot of time on my physical fitness. I found someone that had the results that I wanted; he only eats red meat. I have never heard anyone say that their diet limited them.
Emanuel Steward once said he told his fighters to eat what they’re comfortable with, at least as a prefight meal, even said something like: “If they’re comfortable with McDonald’s hamburgers, they should eat McDonald’s.” I didn’t take that to mean he was anti-nutrition so much as that feeding a fighter something they didn’t like/weren’t comfortable with that the nutritionists tout as today’s ‘wonder food’ is more likely to put him off his game mentally than they would gain from it. There’s been 1,000 new fads and they all pretty much die. Carbo-loading was it for a while. Now not so much, I gather. I remember when I was a competitive swimmer in my youth, someone had some bee pollen capsules that were supposed to give you energy for your race if you took it that morning. I did. There may have been some placebo effect but it didn’t make me set any records, haha, but I told myself I felt like I had more energy. I think whatever gains there are, they are so marginal as to not really matter much. That aside, obviously nutrition plays a big part in making weight. Eating healthy and eating right is a better way to make weight than just starving and dehydrating.
I took bee pollen too. You are also correct- most fighters eat healthy when they are trying to make weight, not so much otherwise. And after a weigh in...
I think generally speaking the wider variety of foods your body is accustomed to and can obtain nutrients from the better, if you think of it like fighting you are taking on different "styles" of getting nutrition, if you go vegan and 2/3 of your meals are some sort of shake you are limiting your body's capability if you're legitimately training hard you will burn through almost everything, this includes sugar which you actually need, things like bananas and grapes should definitely be part of a diet but obviously not things like coke and ice cream, stick to Schwarzenegger's constraints of fat and protein or carbs and protein but never fat and carbs Robinson and Duran weren't melting slabs of cheese onto their steaks and eating it on a hoagie roll, Tyson had big glasses of orange juice with his steaks but wasn't eating a bunch of bread with it, fructose is just faster burning carbs which are better for before working out or when the body is really depleted/dehydrated hence the popularity of oranges after making weight I'm pretty sure damage occurs if the brain is starved of glucose especially during high intensity workouts
