No cheeseburgers or pizza, but Scott Jorgensen says weight cut’s been ‘easy’

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Scott Jorgensen‘s move from bantamweight down to flyweight has been pretty easy. Then again, when you make weight at 135 pounds despite sneaking cheeseburgers into your diet, 125 pounds isn’t too much of a strain.

Despite being ranked No. 8 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA bantamweight rankings, Jorgensen knew his road to a title shot would be a long one since his recent losses have come to the division’s elite. So for Saturday’s UFC on FOX 9 event, he’s dropping to flyweight and hoping to revive his championship hopes.

Up first for Jorgensen (14-7 MMA, 3-3 UFC), a WEC vet, is former Bellator MMA champion Zach Makovsky (16-4 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who recently replaced injured John Dodson (15-6 MMA, 4-1 UFC). They meet on the FOX Sports 1-televised preliminary card of the event, which airs from Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, Calif.

While weight cuts and division drops can be menacing for even savvy vets, Jorgensen said it’s been a solution to not only his title-shot problem, but also his overall health.

“I’m great,” he today told MMAjunkie. “I feel as great as I’ve ever felt. I’m healthier now than I was at 135, and I’ve done it the right way. It’s why I haven’t fought in so long.

“I woke up today at 132. I’m still eating, still drinking, still feed good. I’ll make this weight real easy.”

He said one reason he’s healthier and feeling better is that the bantamweight division gave him a little too much of a leash to resort to bad habits, namely his diet.

“It’s a long story, but the short of it? Fighting at 135, I was eating whatever I wanted whenever,” said Jorgensen, who suffered a submission loss to Urijah Faber in his final bantamweight bout earlier this year. “Even in camp, I could sneak a cheeseburger in there, eat whatever I wanted, even pizza. Now I hired Phase IV Sports Physiology.

“I never ran before. … I trained hard just to get in shape, and I was always in better shape than anyone I’ve ever fought. But this time, we hired these sports physiologists, and they put me on a running regiment, my diet was built around my wrestling metabolism rate and how I actually burn calories just resting, and throughout the whole duration of this, I never dipped below what I was burning. I was never in a deficit, calorie-wise.”

He saw the results quickly, and for the first time, he’s now going to wake up on weigh-in day with little to worry about.

“Just by doing that, the first eight weeks I lost 10 pounds,” he said. “I went from walking around at 148 – and still eating and drinking and being normal – down to 137, 138.

“And now that we’re getting ready for the cut, we’re doing it the smart way. I used to cut eight pounds of water the morning of because I could. Now it’s easy. I love it.”

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