Felice Herrig details how she lost motivation when 'dieting became starvation' – but has it back

OKLAHOMA CITY – Felice Herrig was doing it all wrong.

The UFC strawweight is a self-proclaimed obsessive personality. And because of it, the choices Herrig made for fight preparations – specifically when it came to cutting weight – caused her to lose motivation two years ago.

“The thing that made me lose motivation was the obsessiveness,” Herrig told MMAjunkie ahead of her FS1-televised fight with Justine Kish on Sunday at UFC Fight Night 112. “I am an obsessive person, so when I do something I’m always trying to top myself. Every camp I thought I had to work harder, I had to train harder, I had to diet harder.

“To me, dieting became starvation. I had a lot of eating disorders. I remember there would be times where I would have a can of tuna, and I would split it up, and I would eat that – one can of tuna a day for like weeks at a time, thinking that’s how I was going to cut weight. Thinking that if I wasn’t depriving myself enough then I didn’t want it enough, I wasn’t motivated enough, I wasn’t disciplined enough.”

The effects of her habits were evident during a lackluster performance at UFC on FOX 15, resulting in a unanimous-decision loss to Paige VanZant. Since then, though, Herrig has changed her ways, taking a practical approach to her weight-cutting.

“I eat really clean and healthy whole foods,” Herrig said. “I don’t eat anything processed. But I listen to what my body is telling me.”

As a result, Herrig (12-6 MMA, 3-1 UFC) heads into Sunday’s fight with Kish (6-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) riding the momentum of back-to-back wins. And as she puts it, “I’m back to loving the sport again, and I’m back to (being) the ‘Lil Bulldog,’ the Felice that was hungry. I’m just soaking everything in. I’m just loving every moment of it again.”

Admittedly, Herrig hasn’t been thrilled about having to face Kish. With her opponent making the 116-pound limit just once before, Herrig had concerns about Kish missing weight again and said she was prepared to walk away from the fight if it happened. Thankfully Kish made weight, which gives Herrig the chance to hand her a first loss.

But Herrig also said she feels a little burned by the UFC after a February win over up-and-coming star Alexa Grasso failed to have the effect she was hoping for.

“I thought beating Grasso was going to really shoot me into the rankings,” Herrig said. “Because you know that if she beat me, you know she would’ve sky-rocketed in the rankings. But honestly I just realize the rankings are (expletive). A fight is a fight. Maybe it’s not the ideal matchup, but we’re all strawweights, and we’re all going to fight each other at some time.”

Check out our interview above to hear more from Herrig.

And for more on UFC Fight Night 112, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.