Tommy Fury has revealed his protein-packed, high-fat diet which he eats every day as he prepares his body to enter fight camp. The undefeated professional boxer, who boasts 10 victories from as many fights, opened up on his Youtube channel about both his diet and daily exercise routine.
Filmed as he comes off the back of a nine-month lay-off following surgery, the Manchester-born cruiserweight is in a vigorous training regime as he prepares his body for the rigours of fight camp. Standing at 6ft (183cms) and tipping the scales at around 14st 3lbs (90.7kg) for a fight, Tommy works out three times a day.
To sustain that, he needs to eat regularly, with lots of protein, fats, and carbohydrates, not to mention plenty of vitamins and minerals from fruit and vegetables. Tommy, whose half-brother is former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, starts the day with a black coffee and a three-mile run at around 8min 40secs pace.
He then heads to a local cafe, where he enjoys his breakfast of choice. He has two slices of brown toast with smashed avocado, plus four poached eggs – which he eats with a few dollops of ketchup. To drink, he has a couple of bottles of water, and a black Americano.
“It has good fats, protein, and carbs to get me ready for the next session,” Tommy said. “I’m training like an animal, three times a day. It ranges from running, weight training, and boxing, to tennis, golf, and circuits, stuff like that. I’m getting everything in just to get my body back where it was. I’m just getting my body ready to go into camp, getting it used to hard training again.”
Tommy’s breakfast – the breakdown
Tommy’s breakfast does not have quite as many calories as you might expect. According to Nutracheck, there are around 580 calories in his meal. The bread has 110 calories, the avocado 198 calories, the eggs have 216 calories, the ketchup has 32 calories, and the coffee has 24 calories. That brings the whole meal to 580 calories.
Considering the NHS advises 2500 calories a day for the average man – and Tommy will likely need far more than that to fuel his three workouts a day – it only accounts for just under a quarter of the daily recommended allowance. However, Tommy eats more than three meals a day, plus a number of shakes throughout the day. Boxers also often look to gradually cut weight the closer they are to a fight in order to hit the target for their weight class.
Interestingly, Tommy’s breakfast has 36.3g of fat. The British Nutrition Foundation states that total fat intake should not make up more than 35 per cent of our total daily calories. Of that, saturated fat intake should not be bigger than 11 per cent of our total energy intake from food. This is about 30g per day for men and 20g per day for women.
“Fats in foods can either be saturated or unsaturated. Most foods that contain fat have a mixture of both saturated and unsaturated fats in different proportions,” the British Nutrition Foundation states.
“Foods that are high in saturated fats include fatty cuts of meat and processed meat products like bacon, sausages, and salami, cheese – especially hard cheese like Cheddar – cream, butter, ice cream, cakes, biscuits, pastries, and chocolate.
“There are two types of unsaturated fats: monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats are found in olive and rapeseed oils, avocados, and nuts and seeds.
“Polyunsaturated fats are found in some vegetable oils and spreads made from them (including corn, sunflower and sesame), flaxseeds, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds, walnuts, pine nuts, and oily fish including mackerel, salmon, trout, herring and sardines.”
While 36.3g of fat might be almost half of the recommended amount of fat in a day for a man, only 12g of fat in his breakfast is made up of saturated fat – just over a third of the daily recommended allowance.
The eggs have 15.2g of fat, 7f of which is saturated fat, while the avocado has 19.5g of fat (3g saturated). The brown bread has 1.4g of fat, 1g of which is saturated. Eggs are hugely popular with boxers due to their high-protein content – about 13g per poached egg. They are also packed with nutrients like vitamins D and B12 as well as the mineral iodine, and omega-3 fatty acids.
They are also a great source of choline, needed by all of us for the formation of cell membranes and for brain function, including memory. Eggs also support eye and heart health, plus your immune system.
Avocados may look high in fat, but most of it is monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. These fats can lower levels of low-density lipoproteins cholesterol (LDL, or ‘bad’ cholesterol), which can increase your risk for heart disease and stroke. Saturated fat, on the other hand, can raise LDL cholesterol.
Avocado is not only packed with nutrients, but also controls blood sugar levels and reduces belly fat. They also increase brain function and eye health, making them extremely popular with athletes.
The rest of Tommy’s day
After his run and breakfast, Tommy goes home and chills out until around 1pm. He then has a protein shake with two scoops, before going to a cryo chamber to help his recovery. Just three minutes at -120°c can improve muscle recovery up to three times quicker. He then has another shake before hitting the gym for a 50-minute high-intensity session.
Tommy said: “The training is so rigiorus, you literally have to take naps during the day to get ready for the next session and recover. The reason I am starting mornings off like I’m in camp and training so much is to get my body prepared for that.
“The mental and physical side of it is torture. You can’t eat what you want to eat, you can’t drink what you want to drink. It is a long length – it is 10 weeks in camp.
“It is literally like you go to the gym, you come back, you lay on the bed, you might watch TV, you might sleep, get up again, go and eat, then you got o the gym. That’s all you do in training camp, it is very tough.”
