Joe Rogan and Sean O’Malley recently sat down for a 3 hour podcast episode and discussed a varity of topics.
One topic that’s been in the news a lot lately is weight cutting as it pertains to event against Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya.
Many outlets reported that Rogan mentioned Pereira’s excessive weight cutting in addition to saying that weight cutting is sanctioned cheating. This is an opinion Rogan has expressed many times before in relation to a number of weight issues UFC athletes experienced.
But this time Rogan addressed how weight cutting can actually be detrimental to mental health.
O’Malley just competed at UFC 280 against former champion Petr Yan. O’Malley ultimately won a contested split decision.
Rogan said, “When you are always dieting and cutting weight makes you more prone to doing that.”
O’Malley then replied,
“The reason Paddy The Baddy gets as big as he is because you get this mental disorder. I ate strict as f**k for about 10 weeks before that fight. I’d have a little cheat meal on a Saturday but the closer I got to the fight, four or five weeks out, I was just eating so clean to where right after it’s like I’ll order two cheeseburgers, some f**king appetizers and just eat till I’m so uncomfortable and in so much pain. It gives you this mental disorder from eating.”
O’Malley mentioned how psychologically difficult it may be to follow a rigorous diet for an extended length of time. He implied that the body goes through an intense experience.
O’Malley explained,
“Eating disorder from cutting weight is a real f**king problem… Coming to 135 lbs is hard. You feel like you’re dying. Your heart is pounding, you 100 percent are dying.”
“I talk to my body like, ‘you know what we are doing. It’s fight week. We’re going to start cutting weight. You know you’re not actually going to die but it’s going to feel like that or whatever.”
This mirrors something Pimblett said himself:
“I think I’ve got a bit of an eating disorder because of MMA. The weight cuts, dieting, I genuinely think I have a bit of an eating disorder. People when they go eat with me they are visibly (surprised) at how much I can eat.””