NAME: Christopher Thompson
AGE: 41
DOLCE DIET BOOKS: 3 Weeks to Shredded & Living Lean
My goal was to improve my overall diet and obtain the lean look I had before breaking my hand in a kickboxing match at 145 lbs. I got instant results in 3 days which made me want to complete the three weeks. I went from 169 to 159 in just 8 days, the pic included is my results of 8 days, not bad for a lightweight.
LISTEN HERE
In Ep. 36 Mike talks about foods that can suppress your appetite, how to get lean without losing size, exercises that are good for MMA athletes, breads, eating raw eggs, how to measure body fat, how to start UFC FIT if you’ve never worked out, how to use food to help you bulk up and more!
The founder of The Dolce Diet & creator of UFC FIT, Mike Dolce is known the world over for his work managing the weight cuts of UFC athletes like Johny Hendricks, Vitor Belfort, Thiago Alves, Chael Sonnen, Quinton Jackson, Nik Lentz, Jake Ellenberger and more! His #1 international best-selling books include The Dolce Diet: 3 Weeks to Shredded, The Dolce Diet: Living Lean, & The Dolce Diet: Living Lean Cookbook.
For more information on Mike’s books, MMA weight cuts, weight management, gaining muscle, weight loss, overall healthy living, UFC FIT and so much more, visit TheDolceDiet.com & TheMikeDolceShow.com & UFCFIT.com.
We always like to share stories that inspire! Here’s one of them…
Originally posted at EliteAthletes.be
by Brian Lynch
I would like to share a story with you. I was 25 years old, about to turn 26, finishing up my 4th season overseas professional basketball when I decided to make a choice that would ultimately change my life.
My first 4 seasons had been a whirlwind. I had just graduated from Villanova University and we as basketball players were spoiled there. We played in amazing arenas throughout the Big East with fans of over 25,000 people at times. All locker rooms were first class and every hotel we stayed at had a bunch of stars tagged to its name.
We were “the shit” there and we mattered!
I started in Poland, where I played very well on the court but struggled terribly off the court. Going to a place were we had no lockers in our locker room but only a hook for all your clothes, playing in gyms that were over 50 years old which are shared by most of the community, and playing with only one other American in a country where nobody spoke English took its toll on me. But I loved hoops, had an encouraging dad who told me to stay with it, and pressed on.
My second season started in Israel, where during that time 9/11 happened. I still remember watching the planes hit the buildings and thinking, I am sitting right now in the middle east! I recall the phone calls I had with my mother during this time, needless to say she wanted me home. So my game struggled for the first time in my career. I started playing poorly and eventually at the end of the pre-season before I had even played 1 game, the coach asked if I would like to leave. I left!
Later that season I got picked up by a team in Portugal. It was difficult coming on to a team where they had already played half their games and were doing well. So I accepted a role of coming off the bench and embraced it. That season I ended up getting 6th man of the year. But still, I felt far from where I was supposed to be.
Season 3 began very interesting. I got a good contract in Greece which was one of the best leagues in Europe. There I enjoyed the sites and craziness of Greece in general, but basketball struggled. My game wasn’t fitting in to the coach’s system. I couldn’t find a way to be effective and started to second guess myself. Eventually me and the other American at that time had stopped getting paid as well. After 3 months of this, I settled 10 cents on a dollar and left. I ended that season in Germany where I played much better and had a better experience off the court. Only problem was, I was back to square one. My contract offers were all the same as before, and I was not being recruited by any Eurocup or Euroleague teams. I was not moving forward, I was moving backwards.
Season 4 was supposed to be my year. I had an Italian passport at the time and decided to try Italy. Contract was ok, team was A1. Maybe I could finally break out! Well, this was the beginning of the end for me. I was lent out to another team in A2 Italy after 6 weeks, and even there, I wasn’t even getting burn. Sitting and watching. I practiced so hard to get the coaches attention for the next month but to no avail, I continued riding the pine. Was I not good enough? Most of the Americans in the league were guys I competed against in college. I even had better stats than them in college yet they were flourishing while I was sitting. I left Italy to take a one-month job in Pro A France to replace an injured player. I was able to get my rhythm back and played ok, but when the player was healed, I had to go find another team. I finished that season on the same team I was on in Germany the year before but with a different coach, Chris Finch. His team was struggling at that time. I came in, and after only 4 games, he had been fired. My play was not good and our team ended up dead last! 3 teams in 1 season…..
That plane ride home in early May of 2004 was when I made “the choice” to rededicate myself. I had thought: why haven’t I moved forward and so many guys I competed against and outplayed in college were flourishing in Europe? I thought back on my last 4 summers and started to see a trend of non commitment and laziness. I started to wonder maybe the lack of passion to get better during the summer was what was holding me back. So I gave myself 1 last chance.
Here is the deal I made with the mirror: You give everything you got to yourself, your body, your game this summer for 12 weeks, and if I still fail, I can move on and get a real job back in the New Jersey/New York area. Ball will be finished and the dream will be over. So I did just that. In my first visit to the gym in mid-May to start my off-season promise, I bumped into an old friend. He was a guy I knew growing up who used to live around the corner from my house. His name is Mike Dolce. He was training to be an ultimate fighter and wanted to become a champ in his weight class. We spoke, I told him about what was going on in my life and this guy inspired me beyond belief. He wanted to train me. I would become his summer project. He told me to do everything he said as hard as I could, to follow his diet, and to believe in myself. By doing these 3 things, he would make me “BULLETPROOF”!
So it began. We made a schedule to meet 4 days a week. I mixed in a strength program during the week, along with drill and basketball workouts alone in a gym on my own. And to top it off, I had summer league basketball.
I remember all my friends and brothers calling me “Rededicated B”! They would help me with my dieting. While some nights those guys would get pizza and beer, I was drinking water and eating chicken, brown rice, and broccoli. Or a salad with brown rice and tuna fish, and so on! They were real friends, real brothers!!! They encouraged me to stay the course and give my dream of playing hoops at the highest level another chance. They weren’t the kind of friend or brother that called me soft for not taking a shot or having a beer.
I had the support, I had the mentor in Dolce, I just needed to keep the drive. As summer progressed, I started to see immediate results in my body, in my mind, and in my game. I tore up the summer league basketball that summer taking a team that shouldn’t have won many games to the finals. And my mentality was completely different. I had so much confidence because of the work that I had put it in that I became “bullet proof” both physically and mentally like Dolce said.
So after that summer, I went to Belgium possessed. I was going to play for the coach that I played for in Germany for only a few games before the team let him go. Coach Chris Finch had the perfect system that matched my game and he gave me freedom to make mistakes. My preseason was not great, but I was still playing harder and in better shape then anybody over the 6 weeks pre-season. Eventually I found my rhythm and when we started the 2004-2005 season, I was on top of my game. I averaged over 15 points, over 6 boards, and around 3 assists that season.
From a personal standpoint, I was the most consistent I had ever been in my life. I always had big games in other seasons, but I lacked consistency.
These 12 weeks with Dolce gave me the consistency. And most importantly, our team won a championship. NOBODY was expecting our small budgeted team from Bree to ever compete with the big boys in Belgium but we did.
We sort of shocked the Belgian Basketball Community and I never felt better about my game. I had no injuries, played in all games and never missed a practice. The following season, I finally got a better contract and our team was going to compete in the Eurocup. I was moving forward at last. And to top it all off, I met the woman I would eventually marry and have a family with. The rest is history!!
When I look back, if I decided to quit after that plane ride coming from Germany after finishing in last place and not playing well, I don’t know where or what I would be right now. Real talk! It was a choice to “rededicate” myself to this beautiful game that I love for 1 summer, 12 weeks!!!
Now I am still involved in the game as a Coach and hopefully will be able to reach the highest level as a coach. This choice has not only become a lesson learned, but more so a lifestyle. Whatever I do, I do it 1000 percent and give my full commitment. And it’s not always perfect.
I wanted to get drafted in the lottery and play in the NBA. That never happened but I still followed the dream of playing ball at the highest level that I could personally. I know that with passion and dedication to what I want, I may not get it (as I didn’t make the NBA) but something good will come from the hard work and you can never regret giving everything you got towards your goals and dreams. Not making the NBA actually ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me because I wouldn’t trade the journey that I experienced for anything. And it goes without saying, I wouldn’t trade what I have in my life now for anything. I am what I am, nobody will change that. My turning point in life started by the choice to get after it for 1 summer! Thats all it took. Anybody can do the same if they go for it with everything they got. There is no secret, its just work and belief.
My advice, if you want something really bad, then give every off-season your dedication!
Give yourself 12 weeks to change your life!
Brian Lynch
Twitter: @blynch8
by Kevin Iole
LAS VEGAS – The sight was disgusting, the smell overwhelmingly nauseating. Mike Dolce could barely keep from gagging as he swabbed the bathroom floor with a mop and wiped down the toilet.
A few weeks earlier, he was living the American dream. He had a large salary, well into the six figures, owned a luxury car and a fancy sports utility vehicle. He was saving tons of money for retirement and had access to a lavish expense account where he could eat at high-end restaurants on someone else’s dime.
He calculated that he could retire in his mid-40s and have a casual, comfortable lifestyle for the rest of his life.
Dolce, though, was not content. He was, by far, the youngest person among the group he worked with. He was a municipal tax assessor and was at least 20 years younger than his colleagues.
After leaving a successful career, Mike Dolce has once again found prosperity.
There were plenty of good things about the job, but he noticed the not-so-good. He saw the guys who were well out of shape, with their bellies protruding over their waistlines. Their stress level was extraordinary; their blood pressure skyrocketing.
They were drinking to excess, struggling to maintain a happy home life. For all the material things their jobs brought them, they were, at their core, miserable.
“I could see my future when I looked at them,” Dolce said. “And it wasn’t the kind of future I wanted.”
Dolce’s then-fiancee, Brandy, was a prominent newspaper columnist who wrote a popular advice column. He approached her and told her about a job offer he’d received.
There would be no company car; no six-figure salary. There would be no retirement plan and no guarantee beyond the following week.
But like many of his colleagues, Dolce was terribly unhappy at work and getting more miserable by the day.
In 2005, it didn’t take him long to say yes to a job that he thought would pay him $36,000 a year – it would wind up paying him significantly less – and would require manual labor and lots of sacrifice, on his part and on the part of his wife. He would be taking more than an 80 percent pay cut while significantly increasing the amount of hours he worked each day.
Dolce, though, never hesitated. He accepted the job as the fitness coach at Team Quest in Gresham, Ore., and, essentially, as the gym’s janitor. Brandy quit her newspaper job. They sold their belongings, raided their retirement accounts, packed up the SUV and began the drive from New Jersey to Oregon.
Dolce is now 34, the author of a series of highly successful weight-loss and fitness books and has become an industry unto himself. He is the conditioning coach for a number of elite UFC fighters and his services are in high demand among athletes who need to cut weight for competition.
It all came about because Dolce realized he didn’t want to work in taxation for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to be an overweight middle-aged guy addicted to cocktails with an astronomical blood pressure. He was willing to do whatever it took to make a change.
But before he’d walked into the gym, before he started that supposed $36,000 a year job, he encountered some problems.
He married Brandy in the interim and they made the cross-country drive to Gresham as their honeymoon.
They were at a filling station gassing up their SUV when Dolce received a call from his new boss. It wasn’t a welcome-to-town type of call.
That $36,000 a year job was now gone; the best he could get was an $8 an hour, four-hour-a-day gig. That amounted to about $8,340 a year.
The job would require him to report to work at 6 a.m., open the gym, clean the mats, clean the toilets and work until 10 a.m. And then, after that, the star MMA fighters like Randy Couture and Dan Henderson would show up.
“And guess what?” Dolce said. “I got to coach them for free.”
The smart thing to do would have been to call his ex-boss, plead for his old job back and return to Long Branch, N.J.
That life, though, was not one he wanted, and he wasn’t going back no matter how bad his prospects looked. He believed in himself and in what he could do if given a chance, and the job at Team Quest, if nothing else, was a chance.
“Honest to God, I never had a hesitation and I said, ‘Yes,’ ” he said. “It’s weird. I’m usually a pretty rational individual, but never did I have a single hesitation [despite the problems with the job offer]. Never did I have a doubt. Everybody around me except for Brandy was like, ‘Are you sure? Are you crazy? Have you really thought about what you’re doing here?’ I worked so hard and people thought I was nuts to throw it all away and start over again.”
It’s clearly worked well for Dolce, so much so that when UFC executive vice president Don Gold wanted to start some kind of fitness program, he reached out to Dolce.
Dolce had earned a reputation as a magician in mixed martial arts. His fighters not only always made weight – and among his clients were the lost causes, the ones who had the most difficulty making weight – but they were far healthier under his tutelage.
He had created what is known as “The Dolce Diet,” and thousands of ordinary people were losing, literally, thousands of pounds.
Gold reached out to Dolce, who eagerly jumped on the project. The UFC Fit program is a 12-DVD set that contains Dolce’s exercise and diet tips.
When he worked at Team Quest in Gresham, he wasn’t just working with elite fighters. He was also teaching average people how to get into and stay in better shape.
That, more than being around the fight scene, is what Dolce said is most important in his life.
“This is what I was born to do,” he said. “I have a passion to help people achieve their dreams.”
To really be able to help people the way he wanted, he had to make money to pay the bills. His wife took a job as night sports editor of an Oregon newspaper, with a commute of more than an hour from their home.
A former high school wrestling star whose dream of earning a Division I scholarship ended when he tore his shoulder in the state tournament in his senior year, Dolce decided to become an MMA fighter himself to supplement his income.
“I had to fight to pay the bills, no question,” he said. “In 2006, I made $14,000 from ‘The Dolce Diet’ while working with some of the world’s most elite athletes. That was over a 90 percent decrease from what I’d been making previously when I was a tax assessor.
“I’m married. I’m a proud man, and so I did what I had to do to be able to make my dream happen. I had to fight. I had no choice but to fight.”
Even that plan wasn’t without its problems.
Dolce was training for what was to have been his final amateur fight. Only a few seconds remained in the round in which he was sparring. His coach was shouting for him to go for a double leg takedown. The coach yelled that if he didn’t shoot a double before the round ended, the entire team would do sprints as punishment.
And so Dolce, ever the team man, shot the double.
But his sparring partner at the same time came up with the idea to throw a knee. As Dolce hurtled in for the takedown, the knee caught him squarely in the face.
“I wasn’t knocked out, which I almost pride myself on,” Dolce says now, chuckling at the thought. “I remember being on my hands and knees and seeing a puddle of blood about three feet away from me. I wondered to myself, ‘Did I hit him? Did I throw a punch going in?’
“And then I saw these feet come walking over to me. Blood was shooting out of the top of my eye in a stream, like Cupid in a little fountain.”
Dolce had broken the orbital bone above his left eye and would require surgery. His skull was cracked. The sinus cavity was shattered like an eggshell. He needed facial reconstructive surgery – but he was making just $32 a day and didn’t have health care insurance.
The fighters loaded him into a car and drove him to the emergency room. In surgery, he wound up having four titanium plates and 27 screws inserted into the left side of his face in order to repair the damage.
Ex-UFC fighter Nate Quarry put a box on the counter at Team Quest, soliciting donations to help pay for Dolce’s medical bills. Chael Sonnen emptied his wallet and gave Brandy his card, promising to help the couple pay their bills and buy groceries.
“That’s why I love those guys so much and why these bonds I have in MMA are so deep,” Dolce said. “I don’t want to blow Chael’s cover here, but he is a pretty damn good guy and he’d do anything he possibly could for you. Nate Quarry’s the same way.”
After he recovered, he still wasn’t making a lot of money. He biked the six miles to work rather than driving a car and having to pay for gas he couldn’t afford.
But someone stole his bike seat and Dolce simply couldn’t afford to buy another one until the next payday. And so, for the better part of two weeks, he rode a bicycle with no seat up and down the steep Oregon hills en route to work.
Dolce recovered and fought both in the now-defunct International Fight League and on Season 7 of “The Ultimate Fighter.” And though he had ability, his career path wasn’t to be a fighter.
He got joy out of seeing ordinary people lose the paunch over their waists. It was like a drug for him to see someone go from being morbidly obese to incredibly in shape in just a few months.
“I just love helping people change their lives,” he said, stretching the syllables in love to the max. “This is why I am on this planet, to do this job.”
He’s never had a fighter miss weight and vows he never will. He hasn’t come up with any crazy plan, but said the science of weight loss and, for fights, weight cutting, hadn’t really changed much over the years.
Fighters were struggling to make weight even though it was their jobs to do so because of a lack of good information, he said.
“Unfortunately, the art of weight cutting as it pertains to optimal performance has not evolved in over 100 years,” he said. “Look back a long time ago in the archives of what combat athletes were doing to make weight. They’d just stop eating, stop drinking. They put on heavy suits and they’d work out real hard in a hot room or out in the sunshine. That’s how athletes have cut weight for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, that’s how the world’s most elite athletes are still cutting weight.
“My athletes, though, are healthy. They are as healthy as they can be considering their chosen situation, which is to temporarily weigh 20 to 40 pounds less than their natural weight. It’s because I make a priority of my athletes’ health.”
When Gold talked to UFC president Dana White, himself a one-time fitness instructor, about doing the UFC Fit program, White was adamant there was only one man for the job: Dolce. He’d hired Dolce to work with so many fighters, such as Thiago Alves, who seemingly could never make weight. If he was going to get into selling a fitness and weight-loss product, he wanted to do it working with the man he considered the best in the world at it.
“What makes UFC Fit different from every other workout out there is Mike Dolce,” White said. “When we first started talking about this, I knew we had to work with Mike or it wouldn’t work. He’s someone we respect, someone we believe in and someone we know for a fact gets results.
“Mike Dolce is known throughout the sport as the guy who takes UFC fighters to another level.”
Dolce chuckles at the notion of him as a celebrity. It wasn’t that long ago that Dolce was a power lifter who had bulked up to 280 pounds.
Now, he weighs a solid 195 and has around 6 percent body fat.
No longer is he gagged by the smell of a filthy room as he is cleaning a toilet.
He’s one of the world’s leading weight-loss/fitness gurus and he’s in demand around the world.
He loves to work with athletes, but insisted he’ll never forget his true passion.
“All I gave up, everything I did, to pursue this dream was so that I could make a positive difference in the lives of people like you,” he said. “Everything else, whatever rewards I get for doing my job, that’s secondary. When I put my head on the pillow at night, I know I can sleep well knowing that I made the difference in someone living a better, healthier life that day.”
Aaron Nance went from 205 lbs to 178 lbs in just over two months. Here’s his story:
My story is actually kind of similar to Mike’s. I started out 205lbs trying to be as strong as possible not caring what I ate to gain the strength. I just wanted to be strong. I achieved a few goals of what I wanted to be able to lift, and decided it’s time to get lean and healthy. I started with eating one clean meal a day, then two, now all meals are Living Lean! It took me just over 2 months to drop down to where I am at now, 178lbs. I still have about ten more to go, but I know switching over to 3 Weeks to Shredded I can do that no problem. I work out 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, mixing cardio, weights, and core exercises. I just can’t get enough! My advice I always give is to start with small changes and goals that lead to bigger and better ones. Most importantly YOU GOTTA WANT IT! BOOM! ~Aaron Nance
VIDEO: Mike Dolce (@TheDolceDiet) talks about the creation and launch of UFC FIT (@ufcfit), branding, and his challenge to The MMA Hour’s Eric Jackman (@newyorkric)
Thanks Mike. Didn’t lose much weight, only 7-8 lbs, but lost a good amount of body fat over the last 4 months. ~Brad Bohlman
Photo: Mike Pyle weighs in at 170 lbs via The Dolce Diet for his welterweight fight against Rick Story for UFC 160. 
Photo by Esther Lin
Mike Dolce assisted longtime friend and client Mike Pyle for this UFC 160 card. Tune in today to watch weigh-ins live below or at UFC.com at 7pm ET/4pm PT!
LISTEN HERE
In Episode 33, Mike Dolce answers your questions! Topics include that one time Mike ate chocolate cake for lunch, communicating with your spouse about healthy eating, UFC FIT, what to eat and drink at Starbucks, what’s in fast food, building muscle despite a cardio-laden lifestyle, how to create your Dolce Diet meal plan around your training schedule, how Mike changes his training schedule to avoid complacency, healthy birthday cake alternatives, The Dolce Diet Sauteed Spinach with Garlic recipe, and more!
The founder of The Dolce Diet & creator of UFC FIT, Mike Dolce is known the world over for his work managing the weight cuts of UFC athletes like Johny Hendricks, Vitor Belfort, Thiago Alves, Chael Sonnen, Quinton Jackson, Nik Lentz, Jake Ellenberger and more! His #1 international best-selling books include The Dolce Diet: 3 Weeks to Shredded, The Dolce Diet: Living Lean, & The Dolce Diet: Living Lean Cookbook.
For more information on Mike’s books, MMA weight cuts, weight management, gaining muscle, weight loss, overall healthy living, UFC FIT and so much more, visit TheDolceDiet.com & TheMikeDolceShow.com & UFCFIT.com.