Closing the book on 10 years of face-punching

It’s been over a year since I last stepped in a mixed martial arts cage to compete.

I never shared publicly that it was always my intent for that fight on November 30, 2018 to be my last. I had decided it was in the best interests of me and my family to compete one last time and hang them up--win, lose, or draw.

I’m not sure why I never told anyone this. Maybe I was worried that my team would feel less invested in me. Maybe because I didn’t want that mindset going into the fight. Maybe I was just afraid to admit it. 

I’ve still never once said out loud the words, “I’m retired”. I've only ever said that "I don't have any plans to compete." It is too much finality to admit.

A year ago, I had a great training camp going into my fight, and I lost. I made a single mistake against an excellent fighter and was punished for it.

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A post shared by Terrence Chan (@tchanpoker) on Dec 16, 2018 at 11:37am PST

I am not a gifted athlete, to say the least. I'm neither particularly strong, nor fast, nor flexible, nor coordinated. I don't have great muscle memory or kinesthetic learning. I've been a bookworm and a computer nerd all my life. Never played on a single school team in any sport.

All I have ever had in athletics is tenacity and discipline. I worked hard. I tried to learn everything that was relevant about strength and conditioning, nutrition, sleep, recovery, striking, wrestling, jiujitsu, and everything in the middle. The only reason I became halfway good at MMA was because I was obsessed. I refused to half-ass anything. I only ate the “right food” at the “right time”. I guarded my sleep with vigilance. I took ice baths in the middle of a Canadian winter. I scoured the internet to learn about mobility, conditioning, supplements, and how to throw better knees in the clinch. I had private sessions with boxing coaches, wrestling coaches, BJJ coaches, MMA coaches, S&C coaches, mobility coaches, hypnotherapists, sports psychologists, physiotherapists, and more.

My athletic inferiority drove me.  

Even though I started late (at age 30), MMA came along at the right time for me. I needed MMA as I was leaving the world of professional poker. Obsessing about optimal 3-bet ranges and river thresholds was replaced by head kicks, knee taps and triangle chokes. I needed to start from new and find inspiration.

Sometimes I had the size advantage; sometimes I didn't.

These days, of course, inspiration comes from my daughter, who turns 2 soon. Being a stay-at-home dad is a totally different grind from being a fighter or a poker player. Watching her little brain develop and discover the world around her is a completely different challenge. It might not offer the adrenaline rush of walking out to a cage fight or being all-in at a WSOP final table, but the reward is, hopefully, a toddler, a girl, a young woman that is proud to call me her dad.

I was never a star in this sport. Never the best in the world or the country. My best rank was #7 in Canada. The sport will not miss me; I was an insignificant footnote. But I can be proud of a lot of things. I fought some tough opponents. My last two opponents are a combined 5-0 since fighting me. I can be proud that I worked to give 11 opponents the best version of me possible on that day. I can be proud that whether I won or lost, I never quit. 

I leave the sport without lasting physical injury. My brain is intact and my joints more or less work the way they’re supposed to. A lot of people in this game aren’t so lucky. I never took performance enhancing drugs. I don’t think that makes me better than anyone else, but since surveys indicate that 50-80% of fighters believe other fighters on them, I mention it.

Like with my poker career, one of the more awesome things about MMA was that I got to train and fight all over the world: Vancouver, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Phuket, Manila, Bali, Brazil, and Korea are among just a few of the places I was lucky enough to be punched (or elbowed) in the face.

In the same way that I still appear at the WSOP ten years after my poker-playing prime, I don’t see myself leaving MMA entirely. I go to jiujitsu 2-3 times a week, and I enjoy being around fight camps. I like to think I have a mind for the game, and I would still love to be around the sport in some capacity or another. I’m not sure I was ever a technical enough fighter to be a coach, but I can offer help where I can. I would enjoy doing content around the sport.  If there’s a promotion out there looking for commentary, I would do that in a heartbeat. 

But I don’t think anything will ever change the fact that I will keep wishing I were the man in the arena instead of the man behind the scenes. I loved fighting. It was fucking awesome, and I miss it. 

Pushed to the limit: Lessons from my most important pro win

On Saturday July 21, I fought the toughest match of my MMA career vs Bojan Kladnjaković. It was a 15-minute war that left both of us pretty exhausted:

Exhaustion: Who wore it best?

The fight was without a doubt the most satisfying victory of my career because it was by far the hardest. I was pushed to my limits and had to dig deep to come out with the win.

Earlier in my career, I fantasized about this type of fight. Many of my early wins came easily against guys who were simply far less skilled than I was. I was rarely in trouble. So even as the wins mounted, a strange part of me yearned for a fight that would take me to my limits. This is probably a silly way to think, for what it's worth. Training for a fight is hard enough, and actual MMA fights are dangerous enough that one should always be happy with a quick, dominant victory. But in any case, this was one of those fights I used to fantasize about.


I won the fight by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) but I felt was the very clear winner. The commentators on the fight were very surprised it was a split decision. And yet there's no doubt my opponent had his opportunities to win. Even putting aside his submission attempts and good strikes in the clinch, he was just difficult to deal with and made me work constantly. 

There's no doubt that I needed to be the best version of me on Saturday night to pull out the win, and I was. I trained through two tough training camps in 2018 without ever getting booked for a fight. I went to the WSOP without having a fight confirmed, but I continued training and keeping my diet healthy while in Vegas. I skipped the $3000 6-Handed Limit Hold'em, and I never made it to In-N-Out. I spent more money training for the fight than my purse netted me.

And I'm lucky I did all that. My opponent was good enough that I had been in a little less good shape, if I had done just a couple fewer reps in the gym, if I had been slightly less mentally focused, if my weight cut had gone just a little bit worse, I could be writing about my second pro defeat instead of my fourth pro win.

While I'm proud of my work ethic, I'm very unimpressed with myself after having watched the video. I look (to my own eyes) stiff and tense. There are opportunities in the standup and grappling that I simply don't take advantage of. I was hit by strikes that I should have avoided. My goal was to be calm, but active. I was active, but not at all calm. I felt like my technique was largely poor and inefficient. Those are all areas to improve for next time.

On the plus side, while I was not as calm and technical as the high-level guys I admire, I was mentally very tough. I was exhausted at many points during the fight, but I did not let myself rest in the critical junctures. This was the difference between this fight and my loss in 2017. In that fight, I fought with insufficient urgency at the critical points, and that allowed my opponent to chip away to the point where I simply got too far behind in the fight to come back. Last Saturday, there were multiple times where the thought of taking a short break entered my mind, but another part of me just pushed me to throw one more combination, score one more takedown, or advance one position. The self-talk went, "one more explosion, TChan, then we take a break." Like a marathon runner who only worries about the next 100 metres, I broke the tasks down into manageable chunks and put the fatigue out of my mind. I pushed a pace that Bojan wasn't prepared to keep up with. And when the final horn went, I felt like I had left 100% of myself out there.

Overall, I'm happy and satisfied. Glad that I was able to put myself through training camps while still trying to be a good dad to my now-7-month-old. Glad that I stuck through injury and the frustration of not getting booked, and just keeping my nose to the grindstone. Grateful to have the support of everyone around me encouraging me, even if at times they worry about me.

I had a lot of fear and anxiety going into this fight. I've always suffered from a bit of impostor syndrome. In business, poker, and MMA, I've always struggled with feeling that my accomplishments were legitimate. I'd only had one win against someone I felt was a really strong, skilled opponent (Ali Wasuk) and that win was now over three years old. Maybe I had some wins against some guys who weren't very good, but the fear always lingered that I wasn't a real fighter. When my teammates at Toshido MMA started off the night 4-0, I was worried that I would be the first to put up a loss. Worst, I was worried that I would embarrass myself and show the world that I was a phony. I don't know why I had these feelings, but they were there.

To some extent, my performance in this fight has alleviated these feelings. I am a real fighter, and I should tell it to myself more often. This fight brought out the best of me. I fought a skilled full-time mixed martial artist with real experience and I came out on top. That's something I needed in my soul.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face....by a baby.

I've come to an acceptance that there won't be an MMA comeback for me in 2017. And with a child on the way, it's uncertain whether there will ever be one. That possibility is so tough for me to admit because it's been such a large part of my identity the last seven years.

Don't get me wrong: I am over-the-moon excited to become a first-time dad. I know there's an excellent chance that seeing a tiny little infant grow into a toddler, a child, and then a young adult means I won't care in the slightest about ever being in the confines of a reinforced caged polygon.

Nevertheless, I love the sport of MMA so much. And if every time I look at my Sherdog record and see the big red "LOSS" at the top of the page, it will always eat at me a little.

(Side note: I'm writing this as I just got back from the gym, doing 1000m repeats on the rowing machine. On my last repeat, the thought, "I want to quit" crossed my mind. My motivation to finish was the memory of Keegan Oliver on top of me, elbowing me in the face. My motivation to go faster was imagining that I had been granted a third round against him, and was down on the scorecards with one minute to go.)

After my loss in March, I took a few weeks off for personal time. We happily conceived (it was planned) and I pushed aside the loss, overjoyed at the news. I have known since very young that I've wanted to be a father, and I finally found the woman I want to be the mother for my child. These two things are without question the best things to ever happen to me. Eventually though, I was faced with the question of whether fighting is still something I want.

And the answer was a resounding yes.

It was probably a month before I redoubled my efforts to become more committed. I determined that yes, I wanted to avenge this loss, take another tough fight against another tough flyweight. I re-focused on the technical aspects of striking, wrestling and jiujitsu while hiring a strength and conditioning coach who would assess all of my strong and weak points. I was excited every time I walked in the door at Lions MMA or the weight room. I stayed the course on optimizing diet, sleep, and self-care.

But the injury bug got me good in 2017. A neck injury I suffered in Vegas during WSOP that still bothers me today. I've re-injured my ankle, and the specialist says it's really not going to get any better. I'm now training at Toshido MMA which has produced four UFC fighters despite being located in a small town of 100,000 residents. But my body has not held up in training, despite the care and maintenance I put into it. I've been getting sick more this month than I've been in years. Even though I've been averaging 10-12 hours in the gym every week, I know that I'm not in fight shape. It will take time.

So the comeback will be delayed until next year, but the future has never been as uncertain, and the numbers continue to look bad. New fathers see their testosterone drop ~30%. Younger fighters consistently have a higher winning percentage.  Everyone wants to think of themselves as an outlier, including myself. And there is a time to say, "fuck the numbers. I am that outlier."

It'll be hard work and the deck will be stacked against me. And that'll make it more fun when I get it done. And if I don't -- well, fatherhood seems like a good deal, too.

What I learned from getting my ass kicked

Six days ago, I entered into the Hard Knocks cage full of excitement and confidence. I was amped up, more full of energy than I had ever been for any fight. I expected to be in for the toughest fight of my career, but I was prepared. I went in injury-free, after three great months of training in Thailand. I was not overtrained; I was not undertrained. I had a smooth and easy weight cut. I felt strong. My cardio felt great. I knew what my opponent brought to the table. I was ready.

And after eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds of combat inside that cage, my opponent raised his hands in victory while I protested to the referee that I wanted to keep fighting. While Keegan Oliver circled the ring in celebration, I got into a debate with Andy Social about the definition of "intelligent defence".

How quickly it went from this...

...to this

It's hard to say where it went wrong, but the most honest answer is that I was beaten by a better fighter. I think that's the only real way to look at this, the honest way. I wish I had done a lot of things differently. I could have done different things in the fight that could have reversed the outcome. If I had done those things, I would have been the better fighter on that night. But I didn't do them. And so I got my ass kicked.

As I said, I was prepared. But in everything. there is a gap between preparation and execution. That gap is what we commonly refer to as "following the game plan".

The X (perience) factor

I did a lot of sparring in preparation for this fight. Most people who have sparred -- whether boxing, kickboxing, jiujitsu, wrestling, or MMA -- remember it as a complete blur of chaos and anarchy. People respond with both fear and aggression. What's noticeable from my many years of watching beginners spar is that they almost always forget virtually everything they have learned, and flail wildly. Their brains tell them they are in a fight for their lives. Everything is reactive, and often panicked.

Over time, people get better at sparring. They remember technique, stance, and fundamentals. They develop composure. Their brains tell them, "we are safe. We are having fun. Let's explore. Let's learn. Let's develop."

I've sparred enough that I think I am fairly composed during sparring. I have been blessed with many sparring partners whom I trust. In sparring, I see things. I take my time and see openings and opportunities. I can carefully pick my shots. I am aware when my defence isn't solid, and when I'm making mistakes.

But sparring is not fighting. Fighting is chaos. It is reaction. The adrenaline is blinding. Without a lot of fight experience, a fighter can revert to that first day in sparring, where everything is purely reactive, and none of it is measured.

Thanks to my excellent coaches throughout the years, I understand technique and fundamentals. But last Friday my lack of experience in actual fights showed. I didn't do the things that I practiced and drilled. I made technical mistakes. My stance was too tall facing a wrestler of Keegan Oliver's calibre. I overcommitted on the feet. I didn't control my dominant positions well. I let him control his dominant positions too well. I settled for the bottom position and did not scramble with urgency. The list goes on.

I did some good things, too. I did certain things very well. I just didn't do enough good things, and he did a lot of them. His experience and skill shined.

Looking forward

Again, the tough part is that I felt really well-prepared for this fight. I truly believe that on March 17, the best version of me to date was ready to step into the cage. There's no question that today I am a better fighter in every way than every other Terrence Chan that has ever stepped into the cage. But it wasn't enough to win last Friday, and that's tough to swallow.

I've been asked how I feel about things, and the truth is that despite the loss, I don't feel too much different. I still love the sport. I look forward to going back to training. I still hope to compete. I cannot erase this loss -- nor would I want to -- but I am anxious to vindicate myself, to show that I can do better. Most of all, I never want to put the thought in my head that I gave up once I met resistance. I want to prove my own grit to myself.

At the same time, I know my loved ones had a hard time watching this fight, and I know they will likely not want to see me step in there again. That is honestly and truly my only hesitation. I took some ugly superficial damage in this fight, but I did not suffer a concussion. The average skiing accident or fall off of a ladder likely causes more damage than I took last Friday. Physically I feel like I could compete again next week. I would happily accept a rematch next month. Hell, if the gods came to me and said I get fifteen more minutes in the ring with Keegan right now, I would power down this computer and put in my mouthpiece.

But I do have to balance my decisions between my selfish desire to avenge this loss, and the concerns and desires of those who care about me and have supported me for so long.

I want it. I crave it. But you can't get everything you want in this life, and sometimes you have to live with that.

I don't want this to be the last fight photo ever taken of me.

Discipline, obsession, freedom, and 1% better

Originally published in 2014, a story entitled "Tom Brady explains why he goes to sleep at 8:30" recently come across my social media feed. I haven't watched a football game in many years, and I didn't even know Brady was still playing football, but I couldn't resist the clickbait headline.

I'm glad I did, because I feel like I found a kindred spirit.

I think that the decisions that I make always center around performance enhancement, if that makes sense. So whether that's what I eat or what decisions I make or whether I drink or don't drink, it's always football-centric. I want to be the best I can be every day. I want to be the best I can be every week. I want to be the best I can be for my teammates. I love the game and I want to do it for a long time. But I also know that if I want to do it for a long time, I have to do things differently than the way guys have always done it. 

I have to take a different approach. Strength training and conditioning and how I really treat my body is important to me, because there's really nothing else that I enjoy like playing football. I want to do it as long as I can.

I wanted to bold every sentence in that paragraph. Finally, someone who gets me. Replace all instances of "football" with "MMA" and this is my attitude. Tom Brady is an elite, world-class athlete. I am far from it. But in this way, we are the same.

People often give me great tips for amazing restaurants all over the world. I thank them politely and never end up eating there. Because I know the ingredients they use, while assuredly delicious, won't be as healthful as the ones I have in my kitchen.

My girlfriend generally wants to watch "just one more episode" of Netflix in bed. Unfortunately for her, she almost always loses this battle, because I know how losing an hour of sleep affects the next day's performance.

Do I enjoy the treadmill, the rower, the exercise bike, or the elliptical? Nope. Neither do I particularly love squats, chin-ups, bench presses, medicine ball throws, or box jumps. It's all boring to me. And mobility work is even more tedious.

I sure as hell don't love jumping in ice-cold baths or pushing to discomfort in hot saunas.

But it's all essential to what I love to do, which is to train and compete in mixed martial arts.

I crave a big gooey pizza or a hot chocolate brownie out of the oven just as much as anyone else. But if not eating it will make me 1% better in training the next day, then it's an easy decision for me. Turning off all the electronics at 9pm and taping up the blackout shades in our hotel room is an inconvenience, but it will make me better.

People laud me for my discipline. It's not discipline. It's merely a choice. Choices are easy when you realize what's important.

I spend 2-4 hours a day with some kind of coach: an MMA coach, a wrestling coach, a kickboxing coach, or a jiujitsu coach, or a strength coach. But the other 20-22 hours a day, I'm the coach. If I have poor technique on a head-inside single or my left hook/right low kick, I need them to fix it. But if there's any part of my physical and mental conditioning that's subpar -- that's on me.

Does this sound obsessive? You bet it does. Obsessive is the only way in this sport, and even more so if you're an aging athlete like me - or Tom Brady - trying to keep up with competitors 10-15 years younger. Young athletes are very good at being very obsessive in the gym or on the field. But generally aren't as disciplined those other 20 hours a day. They also don't need to be.

Every time I give an MMA-related interview, the interviewer asks me: What's my goal? What am I training for?

Here's my answer.

My goal is to know -- not believe, but know -- that if I fail, there is absolutely nothing else I could have done.

Nothing.

I need to be able to say, "I couldn't have done anything more. I couldn't have done anything better."

This is my great truth. It's my code. It's empowering. And it's what sets me free.

This is beauty to me. Fighting is more than just facing your opponent in combat. It's about yourself. Can I be the best possible me?

And no chocolate brownie, no episode of television, and no night of debauchery can compete with that beauty and that truth.

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On fighting hurt

This post was written on Friday, September 9, but will not be published until a later date, for reasons that are about to be obvious. I've mentally committed to myself that I will hit the publish button on this post whether I win or lose this fight, and regardless of whether or not it happens.

Friday, September 9:

On Wednesday - two days ago - I sprained my ankle in practice. It was an unlucky accident. My partner and I were doing fairly light wrestling drills with only 50% resistance. He attempted a takedown and I stumbled backwards and just fell with all of my weight on my bad ankle.

A strange weight cutting decision

Today I woke up to a strange announcement for the promotion I'm fighting for in two days:

Summary: In the last 18 months they have had three fighters hospitalized due to weight cuts. So for this card they have decided, with about 30 hours before weigh-ins, to increase everyone's weight amount by 3.5%. Instead of fighting at 125 lbs, I am now fighting at 129 lbs. Guys scheduled to fight at 155 are now fighting at 160, and so on.

This is really bizarre. If you watch the video it's a claim about fighter safety, but if they just start implementing this policy frequently, you'll simply have people moving down two weight classes instead of one. What I suspect has actually happened here is that there are a small number of individuals on this card who expressed that it will be difficult to make the weight, and that they were worried about those fighters' specifically having to cut a bunch of weight.

On one hand, I'm always happy to cut less weight. It means I won't have to be in the sauna tonight, and 129 is a very easy weight for me to make. On the other hand, it encourages guys who should certainly be fighting at 135 to drop even further. On the gripping hand, if other organizations aren't following suit, then I might not get fights at my proper weight class.

Weird stuff. In general I'm very happy to see a movement towards less weight cutting in MMA, but this is a very bizarre way to go about it. Will be interested to see how it goes forward.

The perils of fighting a winless fighter

As a fighter at the regional level, there's tremendous variance in whom you might fight. The range is huge. First, record-keeping is also not great at the regional level. My opponent back in April was listed on Sherdog at 0-1 (now 0-2), but I've seen videos of him winning by both KO and submission, and a saw a poster listing him as 10-6, so clearly there are fights that aren't on his record.

There's also a tremendous range is skill and dedication at the regional level. You might get some wannabe tough guy who just wants to say he was in a cage fight. Or you might get a superstar in the making whom nobody knows about just yet.

I know that my next opponent isn't either of these. Fighting since 2011, his Sherdog record is 0-2. On paper I should be a favourite given that I am 2-0. But his losses are to legitimate regional fighters, and his last fight was up a weight class at 135 against a former Battlefield titleholder.

When you're fighting an 0-2 fighter, it can mean you're fighting a wannabe who doesn't take it seriously (like when I fought this guy), or it can mean he is very hungry but has just had tough opponents. I'm assuming that it's the latter; based on his Twitter, he's in the gym, and even travelled to Montreal recently to train at Tristar under Firas Zahabi.

Every day that I haven't wanted to show up, and every day that I haven't felt like training hard, I remember that he is desperate. I think about what I would do and how I would be training if I were the winless fighter taking on the undefeated fighter. I am training like I am the one who is winless. I am training for him like his record is 15-0.

I can honestly say that I have put my full 100% into this training camp. It's 12 days away, and they can't come fast enough.

It's a fight. Never, ever, underestimate anyone in a fight.

How I lose weight and keep energy up during fight camp

Professional poker player Dan Smith, gave me the following feedback on Twitter as to what he'd like to read about:

@tchanpoker i would be v interested to read about how many cals you're eating, your BMR, and how much you're burning while training etc. GL!

— Dan Smith (@DanSmithHolla) August 24, 2016

@tchanpoker and generally how you feel. I would expect energy levels to be super low?

— Dan Smith (@DanSmithHolla) August 24, 2016

It's a great question -- how can a person who is already fairly lean lose 10-20% of his bodyweight in 4-8 weeks and still manage to fuel something as demanding as an MMA training camp?

Well, I've been messing with this stuff for a while and put a lot of thought into it. But first a disclaimer: in the past I've been accused of broscience and being sloppy with "shit i read on internet". What follows is just what has worked very well for me when we're talking specifically about diet and nutrition the context of a mixed martial arts camp.  Now I've studied and read and re-read obsessively. But I'm lazy and this is just a personal blog, so I'm not going to be providing citations. This is all simply the result of n=1 experimentation and yes, it involves shit I read on the internet. People are free to disagree and tell me I'm an idiot for doing what I'm doing, and I'm very much open to the possibility I'm wrong about things (which I have been on many occasions in the past).

Okay first up, BMR (basal metabolic rate). The calculator suggests 1557 calories for a person of my size and age. Estimates of my daily caloric burn in a day (even with the "heavy" exercise multiplier) usually fall way below my usual intake, and yet I don't gain weight. Caloric burn is a function of so many things going on inside bodies that until they actually start putting microchips inside our bodies, I don't worry about it too much. But I would say on a typical training day I'm eating/burning between 3000-3500 calories.

Cutting weight over a training camp

Anyone will tell you that it's better to shed weight throughout camp than it is to simply cut a ton of weight. Losing 15 pounds in the sauna is a terrible experience: it's dangerous, it hinders performance, it creates the potential for getting sick on fight day. All kinds of bad stuff. And yet there is basically no one at the elite level competing without some form of water manipulation in the last 24-72 hours. And that's because if you've dieted down to a point where you are losing zero water, you're going to come in as the much smaller guy, simple as that.

But yeah, back to cutting weight. My philosophy is that prevention is better than solution. As a 125-pound fighter, I'm never letting myself get over 145. Ever, ever. This is rare. I know many 135ers who are hovering around 170 when they're not near a fight, and 170 lb fighters peaking well over 200. I pretty much never eat garbage and let myself go completely because I don't want to be the guy running a huge caloric deficit during a tough camp.

Most of my vegetable intake is organic and all of my meat intake is grass-fed/pasture-raised. When I'm eating out a lot and being social, I have some cheats but I'm still being reasonably selective off the menu. My girlfriend jokes that I am orthorexic. I don't actually think that I am, but I admit I'm more strict than basically anyone I know. Something like pizza or cake is around a once-a-year proposition for me, which even I have to admit is a bit strict.

Eating like this keeps me between 141-145 most of the time. When it's fight camp, becoming even more strict gets me usually about 1-2 lb of weight loss per couple of weeks. So ideally i'm around 135-137 when i'm 7 days out while doing not much caloric restriction. I don't count calories at all until the final two weeks, although I'll make some small adjustments (I'll talk about that shortly).

Beyond Calories: Winning at the Micros

Everyone is obsessed about calories, but here I want to focus more on micronutrients than macronutrients. For the uninitiated, micronutrients are basically the vitamins and minerals that make the body work. When you see a label like the one below, the micronutrients are in the bottom section:

There are a shit-ton of important micronutrients, many of which are presented here in a word cloud for some reason:

Compared to micronutrients, macronutrients are simpler for most people to understand because they know them all: protein, fat, carbohydrates, and alcohol.

Macronutrients get all the play because they are generally easier to talk about in sound bites and blog posts, but micronutrients are massively important and I focus way more on getting micronutrients in a bioavailable form. (This is the tricky thing about micronutrients; basically every micronutrient is available in a bottle, but it may or may not be well-absorbed by the body.)

I don't pay too much attention to calories and macros. I don't really care if I'm 40/40/20 or 50/35/15 or whatever. But I do pay attention to micronutrients and if I'm going to do a food log, it's mostly to ensure I'm getting enough minerals and vitamins. Usually I do a pretty great job; here's a randomly selected day out of my food log:

(Hope it was sunny outside today.)

Regardless of what my protein/fat/carb looks like, if I'm hitting well over 100% RDA on most vitamins and minerals and my digestion feels good, I think everything is dandy. And I feel great and energetic.

I make it a goal to choose really nutrient-dense foods, which is usually in the food department. The biggest single thing I do is choosing vegetables over grains, since gram-per-gram and calorie-per-calorie, vegetables destroy grains. Note the comparison of the three leftmost columns to the three on the right.

Source: In search of optimal nutrient density: veggies or whole grains?

Even in the case of more similar comparisons, sweet potato and squash destroy rice and pasta.

Another thing that sets me apart from most athletes is that I tend to avoid over-reliance on sports drinks. Not drinking calories is one of the best things you can do for nutrient density, since liquid carbs in general are very low in nutrients.

That said, I sometimes use a few high-end sports drinks, like Superstarch and Vitargo, as well as coconut water. I think it's useful to think of simple processed carbs like sports drinks and white rice as performance-enhancing drugs (except of course, not illegal). They're great for optimizing performance and endurance, but they are not providing much nutritional benefit, and a significant side effect (weight gain/insulin spiking). The regular public doesn't fast carbs at all (in much the same way the public generally doesn't need steroids), but athletes in high-intensity sports benefit from a quick, easily digestible way to shuttle glucose into muscles. So I don't avoid them completely, but as much as possible, I simply drink water. When I need to lose weight quickly, the sugar drinks are the first thing to go.

Talk more about carbs!!11

Carbs are not necessarily the enemy of weight loss when it comes to the high-intensity athlete. As I mentioned, I don't really track this stuff, but I probably used to be too low on the carb side, clocking in around 20-25% carbs. I've increased this to 40-50%, especially deeper into fight camp where I'm doing a higher number of high-intensity rounds and my muscles need this fast fuel.

When do i eat those carbs (and fat)?

On days and weeks where I am not training, or it consists of either low-volume or low-intensity training, my carb consumption is back down near 20-25%. This improves three things for me personally:

a) body comp (I stay leaner)

b) brain function

c) better digestion (slightly)

On days I do train, I will load up on carbs+protein in the 2-3 hours after training, and eat mostly protein+fat the rest of the day. I try not to have very many meals that have fat+carbs together, because those can really cause weight gain (think of most things people overeat -- pizza, ice cream, potato chips -- and it's notable how many of them are this simple fat+carbs combo).

During fight camp, where usually I am mostly doing light workouts in the morning and lengthy high-intensity activity in the evening, I do a cyclical carb or a "carb backload", meaning I eat very few carbs before dinner, but eat a ton of them (and less fat) after training.

This day was 40% carbs, but 80% of those were during/after training.

Final hacks:

I do a daily 12-hour fast, so I do not eat from 10pm to at least 10am, usually past that. Obviously I'm sleeping a lot of this time, but doing a little light aerobic work in the morning in a fasted state helps me burn off a little belly fat.

I also do a 24-hour fast once a week, usually Saturday dinner to Sunday dinner, so I do not eat before 8pm or so once a week. This is just a good practice to give the digestive system a break, and losing weight is just an extra benefit.

So how do I feel?

Losing the first 8-10 pounds in 6-8 weeks, even on a lean frame like mine, requires discipline. But it isn't horribly hard. I feel pretty good most of the time. My energy levels are high most of the time, and when they're not, it's not because of lack of calories but rather because the intensity of the training has worn me down. Fasting, a lack of junk food the rest of the year, going high-carb only after workouts, and keeping nutrient numbers high gives me tons of energy to train at a high level throughout the camp.

The hard part is the last 8-10 pounds on the final week. Once I'm 7 days out from the weigh-in, the carbs and eventually the entire meals start getting reduced, to deplete glycogen from my muscles (which I don't need too much anyway since I am not training intensely in those days). Then we get into sodium loads, saunas, and all the water manipulation. This is the part that really feels awful, and so ideally you do as little of it as possible. In a perfect world, I might be something like 130 with seven days to go, but it's hard to lose that kind of weight and train as hard as I'd really want to.

Questions or comments? Comment below (may require you to click on the title of this post).

Meta-blog: What would you like to see here?

I'd like to ask for help from the people who read this blog and like the MMA stuff.

I've had people say in casual conversation that they'd like to hear more about my MMA training, but I don't necessarily know how exactly to go about doing that.

So what would you actually like to hear about?

My next fight, and my future in this sport

I'm excited to be returning to the Battlefield Fight League cage on September 10! My opponent this time is Vaz Lep. He trains out of Titan MMA/10th Planet in Coquitlam BC. I know that he's been around for a while; here's an amateur fight of his from 2011.

This is the only video online, but I haven't bothered to study it. It's unlikely that his game in 2011 looks anything like it does in 2016. My first amateur fight was also in 2011, and I know my current game doesn't look anything like the 2011 version. I expect him to be a tough opponent and that's that.

Olivier Busquet / JC Alvarado fight audio documentary

Over the last few weeks, myself and PokerCast producer Ross Henry have been working hard on a behind-the-scenes all access audio documentary on the $270000 fight between JC Alvarado and Olivier Busquet.

We've interviewed both men in-depth about their stories, their backgrounds, their reasons for taking the fight, their fears, their concerns, their ups and downs. We'll also have interviews with coaches, training partners, friends, and fellow gamblers. It's a compelling story, and one that we think deserves to be told well.

Fight recap: My "thrilla" in Manila

That was a crazy trip to Manila! This was my second time travelling away from home to fight -- the other time was to Suncheon, South Korea -- but I expected it to be a lot smoother than that trip. On this trip, I would be travelling with a teammate, coach, and girlfriend, and figured logistics would go a lot smoother.

Manila observations, weight-cut, and 24 hours to the fight

(Preamble: If you only came here to get info on how to watch the fight, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

I have been in Manila a little over 24 hours now, and I will be fighting in a little over 24 hours as well. It's the first time in about five years since I've been here. The last time I was here, I made the final table of the APPT event, so I saw nothing other than the hotel and the casino. The time before, I stayed at the house of a jiujitsu friend, and we shuttled back and forth between the competition and his family's mansion. So suffice it to say I'm not really knowledgeable about the city, nor am I now.

Brief (tourist) Manila observations

Fight fight! Saturday! Saturday!

I'm excited to announce my next fight! And it's happening in six days!

The story of this one is a bit of a wild one. I was originally supposed to fight this weekend in Hong Kong for Impi World Series, but that event got cancelled and postponed to August. So then I was offered a fight in Underground Battle MMA in the Philippines. I wasn't super-excited about cutting down to 125 lbs in the Philippines away from the comforts of home, so I turned it down.

A new guy started training at our gym in the meantime, and he accepted the fight. But he effectively pulled out of the fight over the weekend, so I decided hey, I'm in shape, I've been training for months without a fight, and I'm only 139 lbs right now anyway. Fighters fight, so let's do this shit. I called up our contact, and here we are.

An "unlucky" injury

I've been forced to pull out of my September 11 fight due to an injury.

There are so many thoughts that go through your head when you have an injury right at the end of training camp. The most tempting, the most pernicious, is "fuck, what bad luck."

It's a dangerous thought because it's partly true. You do need some luck to survive a training camp without a major injury.

Poker players know that losers blame bad luck when they lose, and call themselves geniuses when they win.

Winners know that while you can't control the luck, you can do everything possible to stack the odds in your favour.

MMA training camps are hard things. The best way to train for a fight is to simulate a fight. A fight is a mess of fists, feet, knees, elbows flying all over the place while two guys tangle themselves up in a struggle to control the other guy's arms, legs, heads, and spines. And the best way to train for a fight is to find people who are as good or better than you at all the chaotic punching, kicking, and limb-tangling, and try to fight off their attacks.

If you don't train hard, you don't get better. If you train too hard, you get hurt. It's a hard tightrope to walk. Athletes and coaches always want to do more. The great sprinting coach Charlie Francis always said that he spends 90% of his time holding athletes back and only 10% of his time pushing them to do more. Balancing overtraining and undertraining is a hard task; there's no magic test or formula that tells you what to do.

It really sucks to pull out of a fight two weeks before it, right as training should be tapering off. I was very much dedicated to this training camp. I invested hours and hours into my mental and physical training and I felt like this was going to be the best iteration of me in the cage, ever. And now I don't get to prove that to myself. It's rough.

You'll notice I haven't talked about the details of how I got hurt. That's because it doesn't matter. I could blame this, that, or the other, but the blame lies with me. Maybe it was because I didn't warm up properly. Maybe it was because I hadn't rested and recovered enough for that session. Maybe it was because I didn't have the mental focus in that moment. Maybe I should have asked the training partner to take down the intensity. But the bottom line is that I have to look in the mirror and say that I'm injured because of me, because of decisions that I made. It's my body, it's my athletic career, and at the end of the day, I have to take responsibility.

Does grappling work "in the streets"?

Two short stories about grappling.

Yesterday I was at an open training session. I was training with my cousin and had him in a side control (wrestling pin) position. In an effort to escape, he started jamming his elbow in to my throat. This is actually a fairly effective move to get someone off of you. Nevertheless, we both had a good chuckle about it, and I threw a few friendly knees to his ribcage to let him know that I could also be mean if I wanted to.

My cousin and I have a good healthy training relationship and we often do these types of “dick moves” to one another. We’re never trying to injure one another, but we definitely do play rough, generally rougher than we would against other training partners.

Five minutes later, the tables were turned. My cousin was tired and I started getting dominant positions and doing dick things. Grinding my chin into his nose or my forearm into his ear — all in good fun, of course.

Then this morning, I read a Facebook post from a BJJ training partner in Hong Kong. Apparently some road rager freaked out, slammed on the brakes in front of him, and attempted to provoke a fight with him. The BJJ guy double legged him and got to a dominant position. The aggressor attempted to bite, scratch and eye gouge the BJJ guy, but my friend held him down until the cops arrived, neutralizing him without throwing a punch or causing him any bit of harm.

The key takeaway from this is to be wary of the notion that grappling or MMA is ineffective “in the streets”. While it’s true that a well-placed eye gouge or groin shot can cause series damage, it’s pretty hard to do these things when you’re pinned helplessly to the ground. It turns out that the best way to learn how to fight dirty is simply to learn how to fight.

Fight day

I made weight yesterday officially at 134.6 lbs, and went to bed at about 141. My opponent weighed in at the limit of 136.0 lbs, and presumably went to bed probably a little heavier than me.

I've talked about how difficult this road is, and how much I've given of myself to be here. But I am also extraordinarily lucky to be able to dedicate this much time, energy, and money in the pursuit of my passion.

I am grateful to training partners in Vancouver, Las Vegas, Hong Kong and beyond, who have sparred with me, held pads for me, worked techniques with me, or even just had some words of advice or encouragement.

I'm calm, I'm ready, and I feel great. It is these moments that I love.

Audio interview with me ahead of Saturday's fight

I did a 30-minute interview with Battlefield Fight League's marketing guy, Jamak Golshani, ahead of my fight this Saturday. Check it out here!

Info on buying tickets to watch live, or purchasing the pay-per-view, are available here.

And speaking of podcasts, I'll be the lead host of the 2+2 PokerCast tomorrow for the first time ever. In fact it'll be the first time in the history of the show that neither Mike Johnson nor Adam Schwartz will be sitting in the big chair. I'll be joined by Mazin "MSauce" Khoury in the studios, and that show will be out late Tuesday evening.

Why Fight? Part 2: The Reward

If you ask any fighter -- indeed, any athlete in any sport -- they'll mention the importance of the mental aspect of the game. Follow the game plan. Be confident, but not cocky. Respect your opponent's strengths, but don't fear them. Be mentally tough.

Training as a competitive athlete must necessarily involve going farther than the brain wants to go. Many people are tremendously self-motivated individuals who will work until exhaustion daily. Others need to be pushed by coaches and training partners, to be broken down by them, so they can be rebuilt stronger.

In my previous entry, I talked about the difficulty, toil, and investment a fighter makes in his training camp. Surely if someone voluntarily goes through something so hellish, there must be a powerful reward on the other side.

Rewards of the fight game

Why do people participate in dangerous sports? There are a variety of reasons, but this article touches on the subject. Summarizing:

• Extreme sports release dopamine, which triggers the reward system by making the person feel good. This creates an addiction to the feeling, and by association, the sport.
• Extreme sports are transformative, and those who participate in them may exhibit a higher capacity for humility and courage.
• Those who participate in extreme sports understand intellectually that these things are dangerous, but that fear is something to be overcome, not avoided.

Fighters will often say that the fight is the reward for the brutality of the training camp. That like sex, months of discomfort are traded for minutes of enjoyment (except the causal direction is reversed).

As someone who has stepped through the cage door four times, it's hard to dispute this idea. Putting all that training to use in a live combative situation, in front of a screaming audience, is a great feeling. While Mexican or Thai boxers fight to escape poverty, fighting in most of Western society is a first-world luxury. If you do it, you do it for the love of the game.

I try not to think of the fight as the reward, and take a somewhat more zen approach of the reward the journey rather than the destination. I have written before about the value of being uncomfortable, and doing things that are hard, simply because they are hard. 

But don't get me wrong. Fighting and competing is fun. This will be my fifth MMA fight. I've also had an amateur boxing match, two kickboxing matches, and probably about 20 grappling competitions. (Grappling is a fight sport where it is reasonable to be a dabbler, since getting tapped out is orders of magnitudes less bad than getting knocked out.)

Confidence

Confidence is another positive product of the grueling fight camp. Again there is a paradox at play here. Throughout training camp, the fighter often suffers crises of confidence. As he gets beat up in sparring, he can often question his own skill, and his confidence may wane. He may become self-defeating. I have thought to myself many times, "I suck at this. Why am I doing it?"

And yet other days, the fighter is supremely confident. On those days where things feel good and the fighter feels sharp, he feels nearly invincible, ready to take on the world. Today, as I'm writing this, it is how I feel. I feel supremely confident that on May 30, I will enter the Battlefield cage at the River Rock Hotel and Casino and put a beating on Blake Sigvaldason of Terrace B.C.'s Dungeon Fight Team Ali Wasuk out of Clinch MMA in Port Coquitlam, B.C. I feel like no other outcome is possible. Whether or not this is a rational response is another question -- I know nothing of the man other than watching a few fights he had well over a year ago. I don't know how strong he is, how athletic he is, how developed his skills have become. I have never put hands on the man, nor has he put hands on me. Yet right now, as my fingers touch this keyboard, I believe fully that there is no way he is ready to compete against me in that cage.

This stems from the incredible commitment required of a competitive fighter, which I touched on in Part 1. The fighter thinks, "I am spending so much time and energy on this fight. I am doing everything right. I am working with great coaches and training partners."

There is a tremendous optimism bias when one goes through a hard training camp. The thought is simple: "There's no way that this guy has put in what I've put into the fight. There is no way he is this obsessed with winning. Therefore, I will win."

Camaraderie and the Team

Finally, it is worth mentioning the team aspect of fighting. There are very few rōnin left in combat sports; even the most gifted fighters are now part of a team, training under a competent trainer. The relationship a fighter develops with his coaches and training partners is fraught with contradiction. The MMA coach borders on sadism, often pushing the fighter far beyond where he wants to go, throwing exhausted fighters into the shark tank to spar against completely fresh opponents. But the great coach does not simply break the fighter down; he builds his fighter back up.

The training partners beat up their teammate as hard as possible, though ideally without injuring him. The training partners are simultaneously your best friends and your worst nightmares in the gym. Because of them, you are battered, bruised, and often injured. But without them, you cannot succeed at the sport. The beatings that teammates give one another foster a tremendous sense of camaraderie and brotherhood (and sometimes sisterhood; I use non-neutral pronouns out of convenience, not disrespect). No one knows what a fighter goes through better than another fighter, and so fighters are surprisingly empathetic creatures -- at least when it comes to fighting. The punches to the face are always followed by fist bumps, hugs, and pats on the back.

Personal conclusions

It's my hope that this brief series answers some questions about the precarious balance between the costs and benefits of fighting as a passion, or vocation.

Fighting is not safe, and it is not healthy. It costs money, but even more so, overwhelming amounts of time. It is mentally draining. It has the potential to put valued relationships on rocky ground.

On the other hand, it also fosters and creates new relationships. Competition keeps me optimizing my own human performance. Training camps have taught me humility and perseverance.

Sixteen days until my dopamine receptors get their fix.