Purpose Over Why Alone

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome back to another episode of The Burn. I am Ben Newman, and you know how we do this every single week. We're gonna bring you a story of an athlete, a business owner, somebody from the professional world, an entrepreneur, individuals who prove and show us that why and purpose is not enough. It's the underlying burn that ignites your why and purpose and causes you to show up on the days you don't feel like it, and especially after you win. And one of the joys that I had in I've had in being able to do this over eight years is to meet extraordinary individuals doing extraordinary things. And oftentimes what we do is we bring you the individuals who are right there under the bright lights. They are the ones who are in the cage, they're the ones who are on the field. But similar to my work, sometimes you see me running crazy up and down sidelines. You may catch me on TV. But the reality is, most of my work, people have no idea what I actually do. They don't understand the conversations that I have. They don't have any concept of the real work. They see a 60-minute clip of me firing up a team in a locker room, and they think that that's all my work includes. That's hardly even close to the work that we do. And so one of the joys that I have is meeting extraordinary individuals behind the scenes who actually help athletes and high performers perform at their highest level.

Meeting UFC Nutrition Leader Charles

SPEAKER_01 1:34

And we have an unbelievable opportunity for all of you today to hear from Charles Stahl from the UFC. He's the senior director of performance nutrition. He's been at the UFC since 2018. How did I hear about Charles from one of those magnetic, powerful, amazing athletes, our dear friend? Many of you have been to events where he spoke. You've been uh or heard him also on the burn here. You know he's been a dear friend of mine for over 10 years. But Michael Chandler, knowing that we are going out to Vegas for boot camp this year, and we're gonna have a UFC experience doing the unrequired at UFC headquarters, he said, You've got to meet my guy Charles Stahl. So after I did my research of Charles, I said, We gotta have Charles on the burn. And so, Charles Stahl, welcome to the burn.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Absolute pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Well, it's uh it's always fun for me to learn of the amazing individuals. And I'll tell you, I could hear it in Michael's voice, knowing him for so long, when he gets excited about something and you've had a lot of these conversations, you know when he's excited, he's excited. And he said, Charles is just the man. He's like, whenever I need anything, he's always been there to prepare me. What is it for you that that enables you to find the joy? Tell us a little bit, just kind of the behind the scenes, what you're doing at the UFC, how you got into this line of work and why you love it so much.

From Muay Thai To Performance Dietetics

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, so uh my journey, as you mentioned, it's been eight years with the UFC. And uh, I'd say my combat sports journey definitely preceded my time as a performance dietitian uh with the UFC. And maybe it's just uh how I grew up, um, just cut from a slightly different cloth. But I guess I always enjoyed going on the the road less traveled, and I wanted to push myself, uh, find my personal ceiling, and it kind of grew into wanting to help others find where that ceiling was. And uh I guess that's why I kind of stumbled across Muay Thai and I took it on uh head on and and uh uh went competitive at the age of 16 and fast forward to the gate today. I mean, that that's uh on onwards of two decades actually. Uh when I thought about it, I was like, oh my gosh, two decades of combat sports experience. But uh in terms of how I got the role, I was actually the dietitian out at UCLA uh prior to my time at UFC. And I guess uh uh dietitians that have uh that that background in combat sports who have lived it, felt it, um, are a diamond dozen. So uh UFC just uh grabbed me and uh took me to to uh Las Vegas and uh it's it's it's been history. Um but I've really had the great pleasure of watching this program grow from uh just two dietitians to now we're at a team of 16 uh across the world. We have a Performance Institute in Vegas, which uh I look forward to to meeting you there in person. Uh we have a facility in Mexico City at altitude, and we also have one in Shanghai. So we we got a big global team.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

And so help us better understand. So your role, I know being the director, really helping lead this team because of you being part of the growth and what's driven the growth. How does how does the athlete utilize the opportunity to work with Charles? So let's say there's a big fight and they're fighting for a belt, or you know, it's the biggest fight of their lives, and and they're coming to you, and and what is the typical ask of you? How are you stepping in to really help them elevate?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Sure.

Nutrition Support Beyond Las Vegas

SPEAKER_00 5:11

So so for starters, every athlete on the UFC roster has access to all the resources at the Performance Institute free of charge. We are there to support uh in any way we can, whether that's an in-person service, whether you're just coming in to do some testing, figure out how you can optimize yourself from a recovery standpoint, from a metabolic standpoint, from a weight division fit standpoint, um, all the way to remote services. And what I take pride in what I've been able to do with this performance team uh is scale things for remote services. You can have the most beautiful facility in Las Vegas, but I'd say onwards of 90% of our roster don't live in Las Vegas. So, how do we embed ourselves into their preparation cycle? And that's through uh our um partner, Thorne, and able to get performance supplementation to these athletes. Uh, Ignite Meals, which is our meal prep uh food provider that can get food that we prescribe and program to our athletes' doorstep. Um, so we have all these ways of influencing what I like to call performance behaviors. So an athlete essentially can reach out to either ourselves or just kind of organically stroll by the PI and uh embed themselves in our in our system. Uh, and we'll help with preparation through their fight camps. And um, you know, there's nothing like running a marathon and then being alone for the last mile. So we're at every single event uh with our performance chefs because that is the most challenging piece that we can talk more about later. But uh really dialing in their nutrition to the to the highest level, every little gram is controlled, and uh we help the athletes make weight safely, but also recover so they can perform in the octagon.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah, I got a I got a fun question for you on the on the cutting of the weight, uh, but I got I got one more before uh before

Earning Fighter Trust At Scale

SPEAKER_01 7:16

we get there. So is there a correlation the athletes that you're seeing that are winning at a higher level, that are utilizing your services at a higher level? Because I I imagine it's not a hundred percent of athletes are actually taking advantage of what's available to them, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

So my my goal, my KPI is to have a winning record of 50%. And why is that? Because I want to work with everyone. I want to work with the winner and the loser. You know what I mean? So so we've scaled to the point now where 90% of athletes on a given fight week have been or are utilizing us. Oh, that's huge, and which is incredible, right? And uh keep in mind there they don't have to use us, which is where I take great pride in the work that we're doing. We've been able to create uh um the evidence-based practices in being able to provide value to the athletes, but in this at the same time, we've been able to embed ourselves through understanding their perspectives, their cultures, their food preferences in a way that earns their trust. And I take great pride in that.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah, that that that that's incredible. Especially, you know, it's easy to get excited, oh, you know, and to tout the people who win, but to say, I care about every athlete, because one of the things people don't understand is the toll that that type of work puts on their body because it's work, it's serious work. You know, an NFL player, any professional athlete, I mean, you being a former D1 athlete, Muay Thai, you know, you that type of training that takes a toll on your body. It's taking a toll on the years off of your life. And so it's got to make you feel good from not only wanting them to have a winning record while they're competing for the UFC, but really longevity to be a mom, to be a dad, to be a sibling, to be a friend, right? To really live long, healthy lives.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, I think um we want our athletes to retire from the sport, not the sport retire the athlete. So um whether, like you like you mentioned, whether it's winners or losers, we uh incorporate ourselves into the preparation, but also just as important, if not even more important, is the post-fight piece, the athletes' brain health, their soft tissue repair, um, their relationship with food. Because the everyone talks about the difficulties and challenges of cutting weight, but how you structure your life, how you, how you create that moat around you, so to speak, uh is gonna determine how you approach the next preparation cycle. And like I said, our athletes actually have quite long careers in professional sport and weight making. Uh uh, so like you know, you will have athletes compete in their 20s all the way through their 30s. That's a lot of that's a lot of mileage. That's a lot of rounds. Uh, uh that's a lot of um, yeah, that's just a lot of toll on the body. So we have to be there to to um yeah, help them with the recovery journey.

The Two Phases Of Weight Cutting

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Speaking of uh speaking of cutting weight, all right. So let's dive into this story because it it's really for people that have never really experienced it, it's extraordinary what the human body has the ability to do. So I actually met Michael Chandler through my dear friend Tyron Woodley. And uh the black UFC gloves right there is actually a pair of gloves uh from Tyrone and me. And so, you know, we're all from the St. Louis area, just a bunch of St. Louis, uh St. Louis guys, a bunch of kids from the Lou, although Chandler's from a little bit outside uh St. Louis. But I was with Tyron July 31st, 2016, when he knocked out ruthless Robbie Lawler, a minute and 16 seconds into the first round down in Atlanta, Georgia, two years before you started with the UFC. And uh I remember the weigh-in, which a lot of people don't realize this. The weigh-in is actually the day before, and it's in the morning when they wake up. You know, the the 4 p.m., 5 p.m. weigh-in that I got to go to is all pomp and circumstance, and it's you know, it's all for the crowd. But by that point, those those fighters couldn't make weight by four or five o'clock in the afternoon. So I remember, you know, Tyron's doing everything he does to cut weight, and he fought at welterweight, so 175 pounds. And I remember we we go to the regular way and he makes weight, and then two hours later I meet him for breakfast, and he was eating a stack of pancakes, you know, big gallon of water, refueling himself, as you know, you're teaching these guys to do. And I said, Tyron, I said, just out of curiosity, what do you think you weigh right now? And Charles, he's like, Man, I'm probably about 195. I'm like, 195, like in two hours? Can you take us through why that's so important, how the body is actually able to do that? But then the shock to the body, how you teach these athletes to do it the right way. And then, you know, the crazy thing is Tyron would step into the cage almost 200 pounds, which is why he was able to be a five-time welterweight champion, one of the toughest weight classes, because he was able to fuel his body and get back to almost his walk-around weight. I mean, he was just a just an absolute savage in the ring because the other guys weren't that big. I mean, it was a massive advantage. But tell us a little bit of the science behind how the body can do that and how to appropriately refuel, because that's a shock to the body.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, so uh there's a lot to break down there. So just to clarify, I think the term, especially in combat sports, that gets thrown around a lot, is weight cutting. But what does that actually mean? Uh you'll see guys say, you know, I'm walking around 190 and I fight at lightweight at 155, and you think, you know, they say, I cut all that weight. But what is actually going on? Then there's two very distinct phases. We have chronic weight loss, which is usually a pre-camp where they start to dial in their nutrition and start to bring their weight closer to an optimum training weight. You don't really want to train and adapt your body to a walk-around weight that you're not really going to be competing at. So that's where they might do that pre-camp. Then you have your fight camp where you're slowly strategically dropping your weight, maybe a maximum of 1% weight loss per week, so that you're able to walk that tight rope between weight descent and also performance. Because the two are actually antitheses for one another. So you have to walk that tight rope. And you're also doing things and preparing your body. And you may have seen some of the videos that um Michael may have posted about his heat acclimation. So that's the strategic stressing of the body using heat stress to facilitate these adaptations around sweat losses, uh, cardiovascular advantages, but also psychological resilience. All those things are leading up to what I call fight weak. Fight weak is what we call the acute weight cut. That's where we're acutely manipulating components of the body to facilitate really rapid weight loss. So our athletes now, it's been a difficult uh culture change, but they're all pretty high glycogen status at this point leading into fight week. That means they still have carbohydrates in the system. So over fight week, we strip the body of muscle glycogen. So we feed them a high protein, high-fat diet to facilitate that weight loss. We also, every dietitian loves fruits and vegetables, but we actually strategically pull the fiber back on fight week. Because fiber that you eat on fight week is weight that you gotta cut when it comes to that Thursday night. So we're so basically, for lack of a better term, you poo out any weight that you have in your gut and we transition them from high sodium intake to low sodium. Those are the those are the systems and frameworks, so to speak, that helps facilitate getting your body as close to the weight class as possible prior to dehydration. Now you see probably this is the part that most people talk about. This is that Thursday night leading into Friday morning where the the you're street you're exposing the body to heat stress to create sweat losses, and that's what's getting the last onwards of 10 pounds off of our athletes. So great. You made weight, you touched the scale. If they were to compete right then and there, I don't think fights would last more than a minute. I don't think you're resilient enough or you can can execute uh your physical potential, right? So you got to put it all back on.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

So just just just for someone who's never gone through something like that, what does that feel like for the athlete? Does it almost feel like you're sick with the flu? You can't really move, it's lethargic. Because sometimes you see when they actually step on the scale, it's like people are almost like holding them up to actually step on the scale. What's that like for them physically?

What Extreme Dehydration Feels Like

SPEAKER_00 16:08

So, I mean, there's a lot of things going on when you're exposing your body to that amount of heat stress, but also dehydration. Um, for starters, when you when you're under heat stress, uh um vision changes, all the signs and symptoms of uh mild heat illness, uh changes in in behavior, uh your equilibrium might be off. Uh that's why the fall risk is higher, and you have to have such a good supportive team to prevent you from falling. Um, but then also even with a 3% loss in body water, you can lose physical attributes like cognitive function, strength, power, cardiovascular output, all these things start to diminish. Now, obviously, when you scale that even higher to the magnitudes of weight that our athletes are often shifting, it's just it's just to the nth degree, right? Um, but yeah, I guess the best way I could describe it is having uh having a headache, feeling like you have a fever, but then also having your tongue stuff stuck to the roof of your mouth. Best way I can describe it.

Rehydration And Refuel Strategy

SPEAKER_01 17:16

All right, so now now coming the other way. So I see tyranny put on 20 pounds. Help us understand is is that really just that gallon of water? It's just refueling the muscles. What is that process?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

So it comes down to reintegrating things, a fluid and carbohydrates, and a way that strategically can be tolerated by the gut, but also can restore your muscle glycogen status because carbohydrates are the predominant fuel for fighting. It's a high-intensity sport, it's a high-intensity uh uh competition. We need that nitro fuel, so to speak. So you can't just throw the kitchen sink at an athlete. You can't just say, okay, congratulations, you got off the scale. Now go within one minute, smash, you know, six pancakes with syrup. Right. You're gonna get unbelievable GI distress. Um, so we start out with oral rehydration solution. It's a carefully curated sodium concentration, electrolyte concentration that can be absorbed, but it's not too concentrated because that's gonna draw water into your intestines. And when that happens, you get diarrhea. So that's what we start off with. Uh, there's also some carbohydrates in there to facilitate the absorption and transport of that fluid. Then our athletes transition from there to slowly introducing some solid foods. It might be like baby food. Uh, our chefs like to do rice pudding because it's super easy to absorb. And slowly, slowly, let's say by the four, two to four hour mark, you should be able to tolerate uh a carbohydrate dense meal, rice and chicken, or like Tyrone, some pancakes.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah. All right. You're doing that process all the way through, post weigh in into fight day to put that weight back on.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

All right, I've got two two more questions for you. One is athlete related, and then one is very, very specific for you. And I just I I I love this. I hope everybody kind of I it's like for me, I nerd out on this stuff. It's all the things that actually cause somebody to perform at the highest level. It's the little details, it's the mindset pieces, it's the things that are unseen. And I would just I would encourage all of you, even if you're not a fighter, you know, you gotta find that edge in your life. It's what provides energy, whether it's your supplementation, whether it's your food intake, whether it is mental performance, maybe it's things that we've done together that have helped you elevate. But you have to get inside the details of the little things that most people don't talk about that then elevate you to your highest levels of performance. So, Charles, I could talk to you all day because I just love hearing the little nuances or how does the body work and how does this work? And so I I it's just incredible and can't thank you enough for spending this time. So the the final two questions, the one about athletes and the second, second for

The Moat Mindset Of Champions

SPEAKER_01 20:04

you. Is there a commonality that you found that the highest champions possess? And if there was one thing you had to say it's most common, is it the way they intentionally focus? Is it mindset? Is it the details of nutrition? Is it how hard they train? What do you think makes the best champions the best?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

You know, I I think when it comes to high performers, that championship uh mindset, I don't think anyone doesn't have direction. I think none of them don't have a purpose, but rather I'd say it's it's usually the the secondary factors like um not having what I like to call that moat. You have this castle that you're building, all your work is laying a brick. Every day I lay a brick. But there are there are these nefarious things in your life that you get exposed to on the daily that's gonna deplete that body battery, and that's where you have to create that moat. The most successful athletes I've seen have a very strong moat whereby they can protect their energy battery. Willpower is essentially preserved, and it's things like your food environment, what you bring into your house, the the friends and family that uh you have around you are there to support your performance journey and not deviate you from that path. Um, but even things like the the kinds of social media that you consume on the daily, uh there's a lot of brain rot that it's out there, but is it actually constructively making you a better person? And having those accountability partners, those are the things that I think really define an athlete that can achieve greatness in sport, but also stay there.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Love it. All right.

Where Charles Finds His Burn

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Final question is for you. So, you know, I've been doing this for eight years in terms. Of the burn. And I always love hearing like, where does that internal fire come for each individual that we have on the show? And so I strategically wanted to ask this last of you because I know people are going to be so excited to hear about all these athletes. But the reality is you've gone to the highest possible level with one of the fastest growing, most popular sports in the world, taking care of these athletes. It's not possible to do what you've done and to get to where you've gotten to and have the conversations and do the things you've done without you having a bird. So you being a D1 athlete, which I have had the opportunity to work with swimmers. And swimmers are absolute savages. If you, as an individual, have never gone to a collegiate swimming workout, you have never seen somebody push their body to the limit. So uh Ozzie Caveto, who is the uh he's an uh Olympic coach and he's the head coach of uh SMU women's swimming. He's absolutely amazing. I worked with him when I was at uh Alabama with the football program there, and he was the swim coach there, and he's just extraordinary. But swimmers, unbelievable. Mindset, body, nutrition, all of it. Where does your burn come from? What was that underlying fire, that deeper than why in purpose, where you learn to push yourself as a swimmer, to push yourself in Muay Thai, for you to say, for Charles, I'm gonna push myself to be my best. Where did that internal fire come from for you? Or where does it still come from for you?

SPEAKER_00 23:33

I mean, my I attribute a lot of the strength that I have as a human being to the teachings that my my mom gave me uh starting out uh as a young kid. I think her constantly pushing me to uncover what my ceiling and what my limits are were the driving force in finding things that were always hard. Uh walk the extra mile, it's never crowded. Um, that's always been something that I always lean on uh whenever things get tough. Um, and that's where I think I my whole life I've tried to pick the hardest possible thing that I possibly could, right? It's like I swam, uh, I did Muay Thai to harden and toughen my mind, my body, my spirit. And then not I didn't just become a dietitian. I I I found combat sports, right? The the the hardest uh uh application of performance nutrition to help others also achieve uh and and uh find their own ceiling. So um I'd attribute it all to mom.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Well, then you and I are the same because that's where my burn comes from. And uh maybe the reason why, even though it started over text message, we hit it off so well. And uh I cannot wait uh to have the opportunity to meet you in person. Uh, those of you that are part of our round table or standard elite, you guys are gonna have the opportunity to meet Charles live at the UFC headquarters at the Apex. You know, it's one of those things. I'm so grateful, Charles, to you and Michael being catalysts for opening up the door for that to happen because the UFC does not do that. There are no private, you know, tours of uh what we're gonna be able to do. So we are so grateful uh to have this opportunity. I look forward to the opportunity to meet you, to learn more from you uh for our high performers that are part of our you know select groups to go through a workout and have you there to watch. You you may jump in and say, Hey, I got some ideas for you guys, because some of you could give a little more. I recognize there's some opportunities here. So I encourage you to jump in and help us. But uh I appreciate you so much for joining us, Charles. My pleasure, and I can't wait to see you in person soon. Well, thank you

Your Challenge To Live In Details

SPEAKER_01 25:41

so much. And to each and every single one of you listening, here's the challenge that I have for you. When you listen to the level of detail that Charles communicates with when it comes to his work, do you communicate that way when it comes to your work? When you think about your performance, have you studied the way that Charles has studied? You don't become the director of performance nutrition for the UFC because you haven't studied and you're not the best in the world. So are you living in the details? Are you studying? Are you constantly evaluating the best ways for you to be the best you can be in your craft? That's one of the reasons why I love conversations like this, because you find out the little details, the little nuances that actually make the difference to drive the highest levels of performance. So I'd love for each and every single one of you from this conversation with Charles and I to put that mirror of accountability in front of your face and ask, even if you're not a UFC fighter, you're not showing up and competing in combat sports, or maybe not doing anything athletic anymore, can you get inside the details for you to perform at a higher level by paying attention to the little things that'll drive the highest level? And then of course, you better stay connected to your burn. Because if our moms are any indication of how important the burn can be to keep you driving, then you finding your burn, which hopefully we keep you connected to every single week, will make the difference. Because it's that underlying burn that ignites why and purpose, that causes people to show up on the days they don't feel like it, and especially after they win, that makes all the difference. That is the secret of the highest performers, and that's why we come to you every single week with stories like Charles Stahl. We appreciate every single one of you, and we'll see you next week with part one.