Nutrition coach George Lockhart ‘excited’ about ease of Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s weight cut so far

George Lockhart said he hasn’t harped much on Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s last weight cut. He, like everyone else who has heard her talk about it, knows it was a disaster.

Jedrzejczyk has said publicly that she cut 15 pounds in a span of 14 hours ahead of her UFC 217fight with Rose Namajunas back in November. Namajunas ended up knocking Jedrzejczyk out in first round, winning the UFC women’s strawweight title.

After that debacle, Jedrzejczyk dropped her nutrition team, Perfecting Athletes, despite being a huge proponent of that company for years. She said they made mistakes that were unforgivable. Lockhart, who has worked with Conor McGregor, Cris Cyborg and many others, was brought on board and he said he has been working with Jedrzejczyk for six weeks.

On Saturday, Jedrzejczyk will get her rematch against Namajunas in the co-main event of UFC 223 in Brooklyn. Jedrzejczyk has said she’s lucky to be alive after that last weight cut and now she has a chance to win the title back. Lockhart said from he knows about what happened in November, it was not a good situation.

“When I found out exactly what she did with the cut and with the reload, she was nowhere near,” Lockhart told MMA Fighting. “It’ll tell people this and I told Joanna, 3 percent dehydration equates up to 30 percent decrease in performance. Just 3 percent. And I guarantee you cutting the [15] pounds the way she cut and the way that they reloaded her, she was way more than 3 percent. What you saw in there was a minimum 70-percent Joanna. At most. She was probably like 60 percent.”

This past weekend, Jedrzejczyk wrote on social media that she was already down to 122 pounds — seven off the 115-pound strawweight limit. While that might seem like a high number to the layman, it’s very manageable and part of the plan, Lockhart said.

“She ain’t cutting nowhere near [16 pounds],” Lockhart said. “We’re this far out, we haven’t even cut her water. We haven’t cut anything, man. We haven’t cut her carbs yet and she’s already walking at that. I’m excited for her.”

Lockhart said Jedrzejczyk was surprised with the diet so far. She’s able to have more fruits and carbs leading into the water cut that before. The one thing that hasn’t come up much is what happened in November. Lockhart said he wants to steer clear of that topic.

“Honestly, I didn’t want to get into detail about the whole thing last time, just because I know it’s a sore subject,” the nutrition coach said. “I don’t want her remembering about that last cut.”

Lockhart is confident that Jedrzejczyk is going to hit the mark at 115 pounds Friday morning with relative ease and then go into the Octagon on Saturday night at her absolute best.

“I want this cut where it was so f*cking easy, she’s like, ‘Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m done with that. It was nothing,’” Lockhart said. “I think we’re gonna do that.”