Paddy Pimblett's high-calorie weeks of indulgence are catching up with him as he attempts to drop over two stone ahead of his London fight this month.
Liverpool native Pimblett is one of the most exciting prospects in the UFC, stopping both of his opponents thus far within the first round and exciting fans with his antics in and out of the cage. But he has been criticised for making massive weight gain between fights as he gorges on junk food for weeks.
The former Cage Warriors featherweight champion competes at lightweight these days and has to make a monster cut in order to hit the 155lb limit after his sugary binges. He tipped the scales as heavy as 205lb - 49lb heavier than he would be allowed to weigh-in for a fight - during the peak of his holiday, which included a trip to America.
And speaking with football legend Gary Neville on his Sky Sports show The Overlap, Pimblett explained that he has around 14.5kg, or just under 32lb, to lose ahead of his next fight. He was joined by close pal and training partner Molly McCann and insisted that it's not unprofessional to allow his weight to go up so dramatically between fights.
"We've struggled in the past when we've been unprofessional about it," Pimblett said of he and McCann's weight journeys. "But now we're very professional about it, so we don't.
"People say to me 'oh, you're fat,' and think I struggle, I've still got 14.5kg to lose, but that's nothing. Around six weeks ago, I was 93kg and I fight at 70. That was me being fat."
McCann insisted that the weight "melts off" her teammate, to which Pimblett added: "It just comes off me fast, though. I'm 85.2kg this morning."
The rising star often promises that the next fight will be the one where he stays in shape after his brutal weight cut, but it rarely comes to pass. Particularly with his newfound fame across the Atlantic, Pimblett finds himself travelling frequently and struggles with keeping his diet in check during trips to America.
"I might grow up a bit more and actually keep my weight down a bit," he responded when Neville, an elite-level athlete during his football career, asked if the fluctuations were sustainable. "I was in America drinking gallons of Coke every day, eating 7,000 calories a day, easy.
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"The Monday after my fight I got home and I just went for scrans the next day. I went for Nando's and then I was just eating chocolate all day.
"I counted my calories and I ate 11,000 calories the Monday after I fought. That was without trying, my cheeks were all like [puffed out]. I'll do 5kg overnight, I'd do 10lb in a bath overnight.
"We get put in a bath hot, like a sauna, it's not a nice bath, it's roasting and when you get out your skin is red. You lie on like a towel as well with sleeping bags, they wrap you in a quilt and you lie there and carry on sweating and you just repeat and repeat until you make weight."
It's unclear when the segment with Neville was filmed, but last weekend, during an argument with a Twitter prankster, Pimblett claimed to be around 80kg. That would make him 5kg, or about 11lb, lighter than when he was speaking with Neville, and just 20lb heavier than he needs to be to face Leavitt.
