Combat and Weight Class Sports Nutrition! 

Clint Wattenberg is a veteran Sports RD that has an incredible journey to becoming a sports dietitian. Clint talks all about his experience as a student athlete and sports dietitian at the collegiate level, eating disorders in sport, and his experience working with combat and weight class sports athletes at the UFC Performance Institute.

Clint Wattenberg is the Director of Performance Nutrition at the UFC Performance Institute. Since starting at the UFC PI in 2017 at the program’s creation, Clint has helped guide the nutrition program to include (soon-to-be) four full-time sports dietitians and a vibrant internship program focused on building the next generation of combat and weight class sports nutrition. Contributing to the growth of the field has been a focus of Clint’s career seen through the development of the Combat & Weight Class Sports Summit, the publication of his eBook Performance Nutrition for Wrestlers and his commitment to professional mentorship of emerging sports dietitians. Clint is also responsible for managing the expansion and coordination of the UFC PI Nutrition Team to include the UFC PI Shanghai and support service expansion that includes comprehensive culinary integration and nutrition team support of all UFC events.

Prior to joining the UFC, Clint served as the Coordinator of Sports Nutrition at his alma mater Cornell University.  In addition to supporting the Big Red’s 37 teams, Clint worked as part of the Cornell Healthy Eating Program (CHEP) as an eating disorder nutrition specialist and helped to found Body Positive Cornell (BPC), an eating disorder prevention and campus-wide wellness initiative. Clint was a student athlete (wrestling) at Cornell where he was an All-American and was on the US Freestyle Wrestling National Team as a post-grad.  Other relevant experiences include serving as an assistant coach at Cornell, Director of the Finger Lakes Wrestling Club (developmental through elite senior level), President of New York Wrestling Association for Youth (NYWAY) and competing in Mixed Martial Arts.