Training & Diet Secrets of a Vegan UFC Fighter

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Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And with me on the Call today is a professional MMA fighter. And he's not just any old fighter. He was actually the winner of Spike TV's the Ultimate Fighter TV show. And he has a rich history of great success in MMA and fighting. He's a wealth of knowledge on training and nutrition. His name is James Wilkes. James, thanks for coming on the call today.

Yeah, Ben, thanks very much for having me.

You know, you have this story, you know, in terms of being a fighter, and I know you're chock full of knowledge that you're going to be able to share with our listeners today. But you know, before anything else, just because I know a lot of people just wonder how somebody gets started doing what it is that you do. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this in the first place?

Yeah, well, my dad really got me into it originally when I was 8 years old. My uncle, my dad's brother, was a national karate champion, and I think fighting had really been in the family. My grandfather was a paratrooper that was dropped behind enemy lines World War II at the age of 14. He actually faked his birth certificate just so that he could go and fight for Great Britain in World War II. So, you know, my grandfather's a fighter, my dad was a fighter, and my uncle was a fighter, being a karate champion. So I was kind of pushed into it, you know, at the age of 8, but really stopped at the age of 10 because I didn't like it, really, because I was sort of being forced to already pushed into doing it. And then at the age of 15, a taekwondo class started at my school and I was just ready for it at that age and really started pursuing it. And from there it just sort of snowballed and I started learning lots of different arts.

Interesting. You know, I'm curious about that myself. I've got a couple of kids, twin boys, and I'm training them right now for tennis, but they're only five years old. So you found that when you were about eight, you kind of got burnt out on it for a little while.

Well, I did. I think you can start that young, if it's done properly. I just think that the style that I did, it was called Kika Shin Karate. It was a very hard style and it really pushed you very hard. I remember sessions where I was crying when they were trying to kick you do it like a thousand punches and then hold your arms out and they're not allowed to drop your arms. I remember the stretches. They would really push you through the stretches. It was a really old school mentality, the kind of don't drink water in the middle of training type of mentality. That's probably put me off a little bit. And that's not how we do it at my gym. Now we've got kids five or six years old, and you make the class a lot of fun for the kids, so they enjoy it.

Now, in Ultimate Fighter, there's certain skills that you specialize in. What is it exactly? What's your fighting style?

Well, my start, I started a lot of stand up kickboxing. We didn't have much of the jujitsu or grappling in England, so I started with a lot of stand up, but then moved here in 2000. And I actually came originally to train with the Navy SEAL unarmed combat instructor, Paul Vunak. But I really wanted to test myself, so I got into the sports side of things and that's where I was incorporating a lot of the grappling. And grappling is, you know, the jiu jitsu is my favorite, favorite art now that I still practice.

Yeah. And that's where you're taking people to the ground, right?

Correct. Ground. You're looking at chokes and locks. And for those people that don't know what mixed martial arts is, kind of a simplistic explanation of what it is. If you took all the combative sports in the Olympics, so that would be boxing, judo, taekwondo, wrestling. If you combine all of those combative sports, you'd essentially have mixed martial arts. So you want to be well versed in the striking as well as the throwing and the submission arts.

So how did you get the nickname Lightning?

Just a lot of training partners at the gym start commenting on my speed, and a number of people said, wow, you like Lightning? And it kept happening over the space of a year or two. And people would ask if they could see my punch from the side rather than coming straight at them because they often couldn't see it coming. And so it just kind of stuck from there. It was just a speed thing with the striking.

Nice. And so at this point, are you still fighting or are you Retired.

I've actually retired. And when I was younger, I used to play a lot of rugby, and I'm pretty sure that's how I broke my neck. I'm not quite sure because I didn't find out until about five years later.

So you were fighting with a broken neck, Right.

Well, I went for an X ray when I came out here. I had a lot of pain from training, went for an X ray, and they said, well, when did you break your neck? And I said, no, never broken my neck. They said, well, yes, you have. Here's the X ray. And they showed one of my vertebrae all kind of crushed and crumbled. And they said it was from a vertical impact on the top of my head. So the only thing I could really think is playing rugby and running straight into somebody. And I do remember having a couple of instances where I took big impacts. Had to take a couple of weeks off. Yeah.

Is that dangerous? I mean, could you have been paralyzed if you kind of move the wrong way during a fight with a fractured.

I could have been paralyzed. The vertebra that got crushed should have fused to the two vertebrae either side. So they said that it didn't fuse because I must have kept moving it and kept active for those two weeks. So that could have been very dangerous. And so the issue is now that the bone has grown inwards. And so I've got something called severe stenosis. And stenosis is basically the narrowing of a canal. And those bones are now pressing against my spinal cord, rather. There should be some room. So when you get hit, you've got some leeway, but those bones are pressing on my spinal cord. And if I get a good punch or a good knee in the face, that could sever that and I'd be paralyzed from the neck down. So I decided to retire with six bites left on the contest.

Wow. So are you still able to train? Are you still working out?

I do a little bit of. I do the jiu jitsu with my students because I feel like a little bit more control. It's not so random where you suddenly take a punch and you're stepping forward. So I don't do the kickboxing anymore. I don't do the big takedowns, but I will do the ground game. That's actually against my doctor's advice, but I do do a little bit of jiu jitsu with my students still and some friends of mine. But I gotta trust the person I'm with now. I don't want them wrenching on my neck.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So when you were fighting and you were training, what type of training did you do? What does a typical day or a typical week look like in a UFC fighter in terms of training protocol?

So I would usually do two workouts a day. We do one in the morning, one in the evening. And a lot of times when training hard, I take a nap a couple of hours in the middle of the day. And then obviously, you've got all your massage and physical therapy, at least, and chiropractic as well, going on. But training would be broken down usually, into. You'd work on a couple of specific areas, so maybe a jujitsu session or a boxing session, and then you'd have sessions where you're putting it all together. So you'd be sparring with the kicking, punching, takedown, punching on the ground, and kind of combining everything. And we'd also do some separate fitness sessions as well for cardiovascular endurance, strength, explosiveness, things like that.

So a lot of. Do you guys use more like Olympic lifting and barbells, or is it more kind of like a kettlebell, medicine ball type of thing or like machines, or. Is there any specific kind of equipment.

That you tended to use over the years? It would vary quite a bit. Towards the end, we were using tires and sledgehammers. We'd do battling ropes. I'd run the steps. We had a specific program. It was actually designed by the Leicester Tigers coach, which is one of the top rugby teams in England. But basically it would be running the steps, 30 seconds or less to get to the top, and then every minute and a half, we'd be going again, regardless of how long it took you to get back down. So sort of explosive stuff. Using ATP.

Yeah, yeah. I remember when I was in college, I was the intern for the strength conditioning program. We used to have the University of Idaho football players do that, except at the bottom of the stairs, we either have a heavy chain or a plate. And so you'd be doing your repeats, basically alternating between carrying the heavy plate however you wanted to carry it to the top of the stairs, or dragging the chain, and it would. We call it the Gauntlet. It was a tough, tough routine. So you did.

Yeah, I mean.

Oh, go ahead.

The thing for MMA is that you really don't know how the fight's going to go. I mean, you can sometimes judge it based on your opponent, and that's the nice thing about being the ufc. You can watch all their footage and all their old fights, whereas at the lower level, sometimes you don't even know who you're fighting. But even when you know your opponent, you don't know if it's going to be more of a grappling match where you're going to be using quite a lot of isometric, if it's going to last two minutes of explosiveness, whether it's going to be a bit of a slower fight because obviously you can control your game, but it's difficult to know how the opponent is going to fight sometimes. So you've got to be able to be ready to go three five minute rounds or to be able to really explosive for a minute or maybe it's up and down, 30 seconds on the ground and back up again. You've really got to be pretty well rounded in terms of your fitness. It's not like some sports where I say it's the 100 meter sprint or the javelin or whatever it be. Sometimes you can really plan for that specific event, whereas the fighting, obviously it could vary quite a bit.

So did you do much cardio work as well, like riding a bicycle or going out on long runs, getting in the pool, things of that nature?

Yeah, I mean we would periodize a little bit earlier on, we'd have a little bit more of the, the slower paced stuff. And I also did some runs towards the end, not particularly long, maybe three to five miles. But honestly a lot of that was just trying to get the fat off to make the weight. And that's another big thing for us is we walk around usually quite a bit heavier than the weight that we fight. We try and do the fat burning stuff as it was close to the fight too.

Yeah. And did you have a specific protocol you used to shed weight? I noticed Tim Ferriss over on his blog recently had a fellow write a comprehensive article on how to shed weight as quickly as possible for a weigh in. Did you have kind of a specific protocol that you relied on?

Yeah, it changed over the years, but primarily I relied upon water loading in the last couple of days, significant sodium reduction. And then the day of the weigh in I'd have a little bit of caffeine to increase renal blood flow as well as putting mineral oil all over the body which seemed to clog the pores. And then all of a sudden when it did break out, you would sweat quite profusely. I do 10 minutes on the elliptical covered in a sauna suit, sweats and some sort of hood and gloves. And then I would get in the sauna, in and out. Didn't need too much exercise after that. Once the sweat started and could Lose eight pounds in less than an hour quite easily.

And then did you just pig out between the weigh in and the fight?

Yeah, I mean, I still tried to be careful what I was taking in because you really want to eat whatever you can see. But quite a lot of carbs post workout and get the fluids in electrolytes. And usually I would have an IV also for electrolyte replacement.

Yeah, interesting. It sounds kind of similar. I used to do competitive bodybuilding and it sounds similar to what we did for that. We'd use a dandelion root as well as an antidiuretic. Did you ever use any?

Yeah, yeah, I did dandelion leaf tea. I usually have, actually, with the distilled water the day. The day before.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a great liver tonic, but taking it to the point where you're peeing dark orange is not necessarily recommended for the general population.

Yeah, I was way beyond dark orange. I was almost solid.

Yeah, yeah.

Like a slut.

Backstage we do a lot of red wine and dark chocolate just to get the nitric oxide and the vasodilation back up before going on stage. So it's interesting stuff. It's fun little biohacks. So do you ever see, and this is stuff I see a lot on, like, MMA websites, you know, some of these quote unquote, underground training techniques, like altitude training masks, and, you know, you're even seeing stuff like electrical muscle stimulation and extreme isometric training, things of that nature. Did you ever get into any of that stuff that kind of flies under the radar from a training standpoint?

Yeah, I slept in an altitude tent.

Really?

Yeah. So I would simulate. I forget now. I think it simulated about 11,000ft. It was a variable.

Yeah. Was it a hypoxica?

No, it was coming from Canada, but it was very similar. I forget the name of the company, but basically what I read was that a large benefit of the altitude training, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, being you have the expertise. The large benefit was from living at altitude rather than just training at altitude. So you'd get, obviously, increased red blood cell production from the living rather than just the training.

Right, exactly. And you get a pretty good immune system response, too, and up regulation in white blood cell production, along with some of that red blood cell. You hold onto oxygen a little bit more readily, too, in the red blood cell. I actually have one of those altitude tents and my wife won't let me use it. She refuses to let me put an altitude tent up over a bed. So I go out in my garage and I just put on the mask and ride the bike. You know, you can adjust it to up to 13,000, but you still get a lot of benefits to doing that or using it. Just can actually do intermittent hypoxic training, meaning you can pull.

I also did that. Yeah, I'd also do intermittent hypox training a couple of times a week on a stationary bike as well in addition. But I'd also use after training sometimes I would also kind of go the other way and do the. Oh, I think I've been punched in the head too many times.

The hyperoxygenated area.

Hyperbaric. Hyperbaric chamber.

Yeah, exactly.

So I'd sometimes go hyperbaric right after the training session and then I do the hypoxic at night. Plus kind couple of sessions of intermittent hypoxia training during the week.

Yeah, I actually have a whole box full of those oxygen shots out in my garage where you spray the pure oxygen into your mouth. I never noticed anything from using those. But the hypoxic training and especially the hypoxic training when you have the mask on while you're training is the thing I've noticed the biggest benefit from in terms of oxygen carrying capacity. And I don't even really test my pulse oximetry as much as just get in a pool and swim underwater for as long as possible. And you notice a really significant effect just using that as your test. So it's interesting stuff. What about. Oh, go ahead.

I was going to say, have you seen some of the devices where people are putting the masks over their face which sort of limit air intake? And I've just been a little bit skeptical about those. I don't really know enough. I haven't really read much about it, but it seems like it wouldn't be as good as real hypoxic training.

Well, it's. It's basically just an expensive straw. I mean, because all you're doing is resisted breathing. So, you know, it's. It's good for building up the strength of your inspiratory and expiratory muscles. But there's no actual true hypoxic training effect. That's why it irks me to see them marketed as altitude training masks when they're, they're really in fact not exposing you to altitude. They're similar to that powerlung device. Have you seen that? Where you breathe in and out of this device that's simply providing resistance against your breath.

Yeah, I actually, I mean, I'm asthmatic. So when I was younger, they actually gave me something, a device very similar to that to try and increase the strength of the joy muscles.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I figured that these masks, there was something not quite right. It didn't seem quite logical to me that they'd be altitude simulation in any way.

I mean, I think they're like maybe 70 bucks or something like that for one. And I mean, if you can't afford, you know, some whatever, $6,000 altitude generator, then I think that it's going to get you some benefit in terms of strengthening your ventilatory muscles and your ventilatory capacity. But yeah, it doesn't hold a candle to hypoxic training. You know, the other thing they make is a snorkel that you can put a restricted flow device on top of and you can do swimming with a snorkel while you're breathing about 50% of the air you'd normally get. That's another good way for swimmers to do it. What about. I wanted to ask you if you've ever experimented much, you know, I know you've done a lot with it, with the sauna, you know, and using that for making weight, but what about the opposite end of the spectrum in cold? If you ever experimented with cold thermogenesis or doing these hypobaric chambers or not hypobaric, the cold chambers. I'm blanking on the name of them now, but you know what I'm talking about.

I've heard people have done it with the cold before, but I've never tried it myself. And to be honest, I haven't really read much about it, so I don't know much about that. But it seems like from anecdotal stories that I've heard, people have done it.

Yeah, well, a lot of people do it for fat loss. There's a pretty interesting cardiovascular response too, though, in terms of improved capillarization and blood flow delivery just from your body having to shuttle blood around from cold exposure. So it's interesting stuff. I've been experimenting with it a lot myself.

I just want to. I just wonder sometimes about all of these things of, you know, the, the amount of benefit you get versus the sort of effort or the cost or.

Right.

You know what I mean? You know, so, like, people will. Sometimes I see some guys at my gym have these, these, these altitude masks sometimes come in and warm up with them on. I'm just, you know, some of these guys are still out of shape. I'm just wondering, maybe you should sort out all of the main stuff first, like your diet and your exercise program and then worry about these little tweaks later on.

My take on the tweaks is if it's something you can work into your regular training anyways and it's not detracting from that, then I'm all for it. But yeah, I mean, if you're take electrostim for example, and I know a lot of folks are kind of getting on the electrostim bandwagon and it's something I've experimented with. The thing is though, you're spending an hour sitting on your couch running electrostim on your quads and your hamstrings when you still haven't even figured out how to run any faster than an 8 minute mile or something like that. And that's where I think it becomes a little bit ridiculous to use a biohack as a replacement for training.

Right. I think that's the issue with a lot of people in the west especially that they'll. It's the same thing with medication and pills. Well, why do I need to eat better if I can just take this pill? Same kind of thing. So I think it depends how you treat these things. Whether you see it as like a supplemental thing that you're going to do or as a replacement. And if it's a replacement, then it's probably not the best thing for you to be doing.

Yeah. Now what about recovery? Do you track recovery in terms of doing quantitative or qualitative heart rate tracking, anything like that? Is that something that a lot of fighters do or that you did?

Okay, so I would keep track of my. When I was fighting with my heart rate, particularly in the mornings when I woke up and I'd get around, I think it was like 45 beats per minute, maybe even 40, but it was a couple of beats over the norm when I woke up. Once I was in training mode, then I would think about taking a rest rather than pushing myself too hard that day.

What about heart rate variability? Did you ever experiment with that much in terms of measuring the. It's a measurement of the amount of time between each heartbeat.

No, didn't really keep track of that too much. You know, when we were running the stairs, we look at how long it would take to recover to get that heart rate back down and you can see that improving over time. But I'm sure there's definitely some more things that I could have done.

Yeah, they make these phone app. Well, it's phone app or you can use an actual computer software program or whatever. But you take your heart rate every morning and it actually measures, in addition to just your heart rate, the amount of time that it takes between each beat. And the more kind of plasticity and flexibility there is between each beat of your heart, the stronger your nervous system is and the more primed your nervous system is for recovery. So you can take a morning heart rate variability measurement and it'll basically indicate whether or not your body is primed enough to stress the nervous system on that day. And it's actually really, really cool science and super easy nowadays to do just with a phone.

Right. I'm sure there's a lot more I could have done. I tried to look into as much stuff as I could while still maintaining a normal life and training. But definitely some things that I'm sure I could have been doing to improve it. There's definitely things out there that I should be thinking about.

Well, you're making a documentary as well, aren't you?

Correct? Yeah, it's provisionally entitled the Game Changers and basically it's got athletes in it. But it's not necessarily about athletes. It's really about the way in particular we're focusing on men and the way that men perceive that we need to eat meat to be strong and to be athletic and to be virile and so forth. So it's focusing a lot now. Originally it started with the athletes, but it's really shifted a little bit more towards men and their perception and male identity as it relates to meat eating.

Interesting. So you're vegan, correct?

I mean, I eat honey once in a while.

Is honey not vegan?

No, because I mean, insects are still part of the animal kingdom. Technically, I guess it wouldn't be, but yeah, I mean, I eat a plant based diet. I don't eat any animal flesh or animal secretions, basically, I guess you could say other than, other than honey on rare occasion.

Now we actually get, we get a lot of kind of plant based athletes who write into this show, you know, triathletes, crossfitters, people like that. And they want to know strategies for enhancing performance while following a plant based diet. Were there things that you had to go out of your way to do as a fighter to ensure that? I'm sure you've been asked the question a billion times where to get your B12 or your protein or your fatty acids, things like that? Do you kind of have to be careful as far as that's concerned when you're active?

Yeah, I mean, to be fair, my last fight was in 2010, I tore my knee in 2011, two weeks before the fight I was supposed to take. And then as I was getting ready to fight again, 2012, I had a lot of neck problems and they looked at it and that's when they said, look, you've got this stenosis. So I never actually fought while I was plant based. I only switched two years ago. So I thought I was going to fight in 2011, 2012. So I was training on this diet and I got stronger, I got in better shape than I'd ever been, but I never actually fought on this diet. So I would like to sort of put that out there. So I'm not being misleading in any way. Yeah, I mean I think it's like anything. I think you got to be careful and look at what you're eating. I think you should be cognizant of what you're putting in your body. So it would be unfair to say, well, since you're eating a plant based diet, is there certain things you need to look at? Well, I'd say yes there is. But we could also say the same of meat eaters. Correct? We could say, well, since you're eating meat, is there some things that you should look at like the quality of the meat that you're eating? So yeah, I mean I make sure I eat lots of legumes or I eat nuts and seeds as well. To make sure I'm getting sufficient protein. I take a B12 supplement. I actually also do an allergy based DHA supplement. A lot of people will do the fish oil. For me it's about health, it's about athletic performance, but it's also about my ethics as well. But for example, in terms of health, the fish oil, for example, a lot of people say they need the fish oil. For the DHA and EPA, we have to look at toxins, furans, PCBs, dioxins and the bioaccumulation, biomagnification of the food chain. And so to me a simple way to look at it is if we as low on the food chain as possible, in general, we tend to minimize those toxins. And the same goes with fish.

Now what's the bio for people who aren't familiar with that term? Can you explain the bioaccumulation thing?

Yeah. So basically, I mean the easiest way that people could relate is probably fish and mercury. So we have mercury that comes from natural sources but also from man made sources. And it finds the way, say into the ocean. Now the algae absorb some of that and then say the krill or the small plankton eat some of the algae, then the small fish eat that, and then the bigger fish eat the smaller fish and so forth. So obviously, as a medium sized fish, it doesn't live by eating one small fish, it eats multiple small fish. And so first of all, we have the bioaccumulation, which is say, for example, in this case, the mercury is not being metabolized and therefore it's building up in that single organism. And then as we go up the trophic levels, in other words, as we go up the food chain, we have this process called biomagnification. So when you get to the bigger fish, there can actually be up to a million times the amount of mercury per gram in the fish as there is in the surrounding water. So that's the bioaccumulation and biomagnification. It's not just with mercury, but that's the example.

Yeah, and I think that's an important point that you made about algae derivatives being able to kind of bind to heavy metals and detox. And I guess at the time that this podcast comes out, it will be a week after we interviewed Jack Cruz. And he's a guy who talks a lot about how this big mistake that a lot of like paleo and primal eaters make is they do a lot of fish, a lot of shellfish, a lot of big fish from the ocean, but they don't eat seaweed. Like they don't eat nori or seaweed or algae or spirulina or chlorella or any of these things that naturally, you know, you're going to find in the ocean to bind a lot of this mercury and metal toxicity. And so they get metal overload. And I think that's a really important thing for people. The other thing is selenium in fish. I saw an interesting chart. It was basically like the selenium mercury ratio and all these big fish, like the ones way up high in the food chain, like the pilot whale and the marlin and the swordfish, they've all got these mercury levels that are just out of sight compared to the selenium that's supposed to naturally bind mercury in a fish.

The ratios could be significant also. Exactly.

Yeah. In addition to kind of the bioaccumulation theory, are there other measures that you think folks should be taking from kind of a nutritional standpoint, you know, whether they're plant based or omnivorous, as far as ways that they can protect themselves from a lot of these, you know, these toxins and, you know, a lot of the issues that we tend to be faced with right now in the world around us, especially when we're hard charging athletes.

Yeah, I mean, you know, the one thing that I don't know much about, which I've heard recently a lot of people talking about is the, the nuclear fallout sort of stuff from Japan. So that's something I'd like to. Is that something you're familiar with or aware of? It's not something I'm not too well read on that subject.

Well, you know, the main thing that I know about is the iodine issue. Right. You've got radioactive iodine and it replaces your own endogenous iodine and kind of, kind of kicks that off. So it's a big hit on your thyroid. And I'm certainly familiar with, with natural iodine supplementation to try and buffer up your own iodine stores. And I think iodine in some cases was sold out in certain areas of the world after the fallout in Japan. Clay, some of these natural. What's it called? Zeolite, the mineral based detoxifier. Some of those things in terms of radioactive fallout I think is important. But yeah, to me that's scary. I don't know about you, but I think we don't even know what stuff like that does to our food supply, to the ocean, to plants. It's scary, right?

Yeah. I mean one thing I do take for the iodine is dulse sea vegetables can help bind those things, but also give you some iodine because the iodine in the American diet is typically from iodized salt which I think they added in 1923 or thereabouts because of the worldwide iodine shortage deficiency. And then I think another key area that people get iodine usually is from dairy products. Not that it's naturally occurring, but it's from the potassium iodide from cleaning the teats of the cows and also the inside of the tankers. And apparently we get contamination have quite a source of iodine in the American diet from that. And so since I don't eat, I don't really use iodized salt much and I don't eat dairy or fish. So therefore the iodine, you know, that's definitely one of the things that people should, if they're eating a plant based diet, should be wary of. I actually came up with an acronym just so I could remember it myself. For the nutrients that people make sure they're getting on a plant based diet. It's disco biz. Disco biz? Yeah. It's the only way I could. I'm trying to come up with a better acronym, but it's the way I can remember it. So that would be. Let's see if I can remember it. Vitamin D, iodine, selenium, calcium, omega 3B12, iron and zinc.

I'm writing that down right now. That may even be the title of this podcast. Podcast how to biz. What about. I have no clue where this would fit into disco biz. Did you say Vitamin K? Did you get that one in there?

No, K is not in there as well. Which is another one that I'm still learning more about. The differences between K1 and K2. Is there a difference between K1 and K2 in your opinion as how it works on the body?

Well, K1 you find to be pretty abundant in a lot of plant based foods like kale would be a perfect example. Any of the dark leafy greens like bok choy and kale and Swiss chard. Vitamin K2 is generally what you find in bacteria and you also find it in a lot of foods that you're not eating, like dairy and organ meats and eggs and stuff like that. But what my wife and I do is we get, we get natto from the Asian market and then we ferment that ourselves. You just need one tiny little cup of natto to start your own natto batch. That's really the best form of K. I mean, that's giving you the form of K2 that you don't get in a typical whatever bunch of kale. And yeah, it's certainly way more bioactive than K1. And certainly when you're looking at kind of interacting with calcium and magnesium and forming that triad that you need for bone density. Yeah, in my opinion it's definitely important.

Right? Yeah. Natto I've had before from the local Asian market. I didn't know you could grow your own batches that easily, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the bacteria just churn out little vitamin K babies. Yeah. Interesting, interesting. So, you know, I want to make sure that I ask you a little bit too about, you know, just like the whole mental game. You know, I know that there are a lot of folks out there doing everything from, you know, neuro linguistic programming to meditation to yoga to Tai chi. Do you get much into kind of like the brain enhancing kind of mental hack type of component of fighting and life in general?

I mean, I would do hypnotherapy. I had tape by an English hypnotist called Paul McKenna. I think it was the ultimate athlete or the athlete within or something. And I used to listen to that coming up to a fight, I would listen to that. It's like a 20 minute tape, kind of puts you to sleep, wakes you up again. I would listen to that on a daily basis and, you know, some visualization, that type of thing. But I will say, you know, a lot of times when you hear people after fights, they'll say, well, I knew I was going to win. I was so confident I was going to win. I knew 100% I was going to win. That's why I won. But that wasn't. I don't know if they're lying or if I'm just different. But when I won the Ultimate Fighter, I remember getting kicked in the head. My opponent was on the ground. Demarcus Johnson kicked me in the head. I tried to take a footlock, didn't work. He got on top, started pounding me in the head. And I was thinking, oh, well, I made it this far. I think I'm going to lose this one. I don't know if I'm the best person to talk to because I don't always have that belief I'm going to win 100%. All I think is I'm going to do the best that I can do, whether that means winning or losing. And same with life in general. I'm going to be the best that I can be at whatever I do. I also have this sort of mentality that if it can be done, I can do it. You know, whether it's fighting or business or life or whatever. A lot of people are quite negative in that way. But I certainly don't always think that I am the best at something or that I'm going to win everything, which probably some of the fighters do have. And many cases could help them a lot. And in some cases, if they don't win, it could be quite psychologically damaging, I would imagine.

Yeah. Did you find it easy to get hypnotized when using hypnotherapy?

Again, I did it on audio rather than in person and I found it took a while to sort of succumb to it. And having read something about hypnotism, I think the more you understand how it works, the less likely you are to buy into it.

You start thinking about the process.

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. That's what he's saying right there. In order to do this.

Exactly. That's. That's what I've struggled with. I've tried a few times. I even had a guy do a full on, you know, like, like you and I are recording on Skype. We actually did a video hypnotherapy session and we spent two hours with him trying to hypnotize me and just, just couldn't get that to work. So I never actually published it on the podcast, but I was just curious if it's something that other people struggle with the whole.

Yeah, I try to, especially that tape, and I've listened to it so many times. I try not to analyze it, but it would put me to sleep and wake me back up again feeling refreshed. So there's something to it. And I definitely think the mental aspect and once you get to fight night, I'd say it's all the physical work's been done or should have been done for the fight. And so once you get into the fight, I mean, it's 90% mental right there and 10% physical. And so, you know, when I thought I was losing, then I thought I was going to lose that fight for sure. I would still say to myself, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to keep giving my best until I'm done, and then the fight turns around and you win. I've had that experience a couple of times, to be honest with everybody. A lot of times when I was in the fight and getting pounded in the face, whichever fight it might be, I would just be thinking, why am I here? It would be much nicer if I was at home on the couch.

That certainly happens to me occasionally during Ironman. You know, I'll be 90 miles into the bike and I know that in 22 miles I got to get off and run a marathon. And that's about the point where you start, you start wondering how nice that hotel room would feel if you were to just roll over and head back.

I honestly can't even imagine doing the endurance stuff. I've never been a big fan of the running. I think the most I've ever run is seven miles. I can't even fathom the running of even a regular triathlon, let alone Ironman or Ultraman. Like Rich.

Yeah, it goes both ways. I went through a 12 week protocol in the off season. Do you know who Martin Rooney is?

No.

He runs the Training for Warriors website and he works with a lot of MMA fighters and puts out training manuals and he has a book called Warrior Cardio and I went through that protocol and there was a lot of bag work and floor work and a bunch of hurricane treadmill sprint workouts, and it was basically an MMA style workout. Without the actual fighting and rolling around the floor. And it just kicked my ass for 12 weeks in a row. And I could not imagine combining that with. With fighting. You know, even doing Ironman triathlon, it's a little bit more of a mental game than it is full on intensity like that. So it's great respect, man, for what you do and what you did. So.

Yep.

Well, I want to make sure that folks know where they can. They can kind of track you down and check out the documentary that you're working on and learn a little bit more about you. What are some good resources for folks?

Honestly, we haven't got the website set up yet for the documentary we're still working on. I've actually backordered One of the URLs that I'm trying to grab. So the place where I'll probably let people know about it is on the Facebook page, which is Plantathlete P L A N T and Athlete Plantathlete. And I'd say that's probably the best place to keep track of things. And we put some stuff on there about plant based athletes and, you know, recipe suggestions and things like that. So, yeah, I would definitely go there.

Cool. Cool. All right, well, James Lightning Wilkes, thanks for your time today.

Yeah, well, thanks very much for having me, Ben. Appreciate it.

All right, folks, this is Ben and James Wilkes signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com visit.

BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice.

Sam.