Ronda Rousey
I'm kind of like a middle mix between a warrior diet and a Paleo diet, so I only eat once a day and it's at night - so kind of like interval fasting. But I eat until I'm full, I eat as much as I want, and I really don't eat anything that you couldn't find, you know, 10,000 years ago.Collection: Diet
I go mainly by the Dolce diet. It is a little hard to describe: it's not really a diet but more of a lifestyle. I eat throughout the day; I have three meals and two snacks, and it changes according to what I need at the time.Collection: Diet
People say to me all the time, 'You have no fear.' I tell them, 'No, that's not true. I'm scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I'm a courageous person because I'm a scared person.'Collection: Fear
I wear sunglasses almost all the time outside - not because I think I'm really, really cool, but because of the rays.Collection: Cool
I'm unbelievably ticklish. When I was a little kid, my sisters would hold me down and tickle me until I peed my pants.
My first injury ever was a broken toe, and my mother made me run laps around the mat for the rest of the night. She said she wanted me to know that even if I was hurt, I was still fine.
People call me a whole lot of things, but above anything else, I'm a fighter, and it's going to be hard to accept an identity without that.
I've separated my shoulder and my collarbone; I've messed up my knee a million times. I've broken my foot in several places. I've broken my toe a bunch, broken my nose a couple of times, and had a bunch of other annoying little injuries, like turf toe and arthritis and tendonitis. It's part of the game.
What I'm really looking to do is retire undefeated; I'm not sure when the right time to retire will be, but I know that I'm not done yet. Something still feels unfinished, and that's why I'm going to keep going.
I'm the champion for a reason.
Buffalo wings and cider is all I need.
When I looked at the state of women's MMA, what I saw was that it was missing rivalries or anything theatrical about it. Everybody was trying to be Miss America, unwilling to go under any kind of criticism, and taking the safe answers. I thought I needed to do whatever I could to get attention.
I was always pushed to do that much more, and in the long run that made me more of an MMA fighter. My mom always told me that if I let it go to the judges, I'd lost. There was no way I was going to win a decision, so I had to find ways to finish the fight fast.
At 150 pounds, I feel like I'm at my healthiest and my strongest and my most beautiful.
I had to learn to take my time in MMA, and I was just able to keep a clear head.
Even if they don't know it, everyone has the instinct to survive.
The Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I was lucky enough to go twice, but most people only get one chance. And in judo you can train your whole life and it'll come down to a split second: You can lose everything or win anything.
I was in a weight-cutting sport, in judo, so I had to be a certain weight on a deadline. It kind of pushed me into having a really unhealthy relationship with food in my teens. I felt like if I wasn't exactly on weight, I wasn't good-looking.
I'm scared of failure so much more than any of the other girls I compete against that I work so much harder than they possibly could. I'm totally down with spiders and frogs and heights and snakes - everything; I'm cool with it.
That's the thing I'm worst at: resting. I have to be forced to do it. Sometimes I think of loopholes. 'Oh, I'm just going for a walk, up a dune that's 45 degrees, but I'm walking, so it's not a workout.'
There's something so zen-like and grateful of just ripping a hot wing apart and getting it all over your face, and everyone's happy. I love that atmosphere.
I'm a big crier. I never cry when something is painful, but I cry if things are frustrating. Like if I'm trying to do something, and I mess up over and over. If I'm playing a video game, and I can't beat a level that I've tried 10 times, I'll cry. When I was a kid, I think I cried for every practice from 2003 to the middle of 2006.
I like to be part of the change I want to see in the world. Not being afraid of criticism is actually a big advantage.
I like quoting 'Lord of the Rings': 'My list of allies grows thin! My list of enemies grows long!'
When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.
I have a candle permanently on my Jacuzzi because I love me some candles.
The bigger my chest is, the more it gets in the way. It just creates space. It makes me much more efficient if I don't have so much in the way between me and my opponent.
I think that going on any reality show is not good for your mental health because you behave differently when you are being watched, and you constantly have an extra bit of awareness of what's going on all the time.
Being an athlete, you try to get protein.
Look at my face. Does it look like I can take a good hit?
People say this all the time and everyone, like, nods their head and is like, 'Oh yeah, totally,' but no one ever does it, including myself. I can do better at it, is just drinking a lot of water, like a gallon and a half, two gallons a day, like, straight water all day.
The style I have in judo is very unique... One big advantage a judo player has is they have very good posture and - like, wrestlers, they show when they're about to do a take-down... which judo players don't, and so I kind of incorporate the boxing style with a judo grip and finishing that way.
In MMA it's a lot less intimidating because it's not like you get one shot at a title every four years. You get a title shot every couple of months... With the Olympics, you don't always have this, so there is so much more pressure involved.
If I could have had everything exactly the way I wanted, this is how I would have written it down. Win all my fights in the first round, then go to the UFC and headline a show, and have it as a pay-per-view and at home. People's dreams don't come true like that.
Reality TV is set up to make people entertaining. A good person with values and principles is not good television.
At home, I watch fights and documentaries - that's it. If it's not about the birth and death of stars, 'Frozen Planet,' or someone getting punched in the face, I'm probably not watching it.
For me, MMA is like speed chess. It's like I'm herding a person into a certain position. Say my endgame is an arm bar. I'm not gonna actually take you and put you there. What I'm going to do is convince you that it's a good idea to move in the direction I want you to go.
I had a certificate that said, 'Doctor of Mixology, Harvard University,' that I actually got from Harvard University. A friend of mine was a research assistant over there and it was one of those student or university perks and she brought me in on that. So I am a doctorate from Harvard and it only took me one afternoon.
I respect Georges St. Pierre as a businessman and an athlete. I don't have anything against him personally. But he's not the kind of fighter I like watching.
I lost a lot of judo matches because of points fighters. It was extremely frustrating for me.
I love Canadians. They are the coolest, nicest, most patriotic people, and they will support their countrymen no matter what, and I think that's commendable.
The whole 'bad girl' thing allows me to mess up sometimes. And I have freedom to say more of what I want to.
If there's a camera on me or off me, it's roughly the same, just a lot less energy.
I don't shy away from any questions. I'm not scared of any question. I'll give you an answer. A lot of people are scared of having actual opinions out there. People are so scared of criticism... I'm not scared of people disliking me.
Where is women's sports prominently displayed with the men? Tennis is the only thing I can think of.
Most people get scared away from having an opinion. It's not so much my opinions everybody relates to, it's that I don't care about being punished for it.
It's not my responsibility to make everything I say idiot-proof.
I think it's hilarious if people say that my body looks masculine.
People can say I am a terrible role model because I swear all the time or that I fight people. Look, I don't want little girls to have the same ambitions as me. I want them to know that it is O.K. to be ambitious. I want them to know that it is O.K. to say whatever it is that is on their mind.
Believe me, there's nothing I would like to do more than disappear for a while.