Boxing nutrition, by the data
What should a boxer eat? We ranked 2,652 foods.
Every food a boxer might eat, scored on three things that decide a fight camp: how much protein you get per calorie, how much nutrition you get per calorie, and how full it leaves you. Pick a goal, and the ranking re-sorts.
Plain English, no jargon. Switch to the data-science view for the formulae and the method. Full method: scoring formulae, the dataset and how each measure is derived. Switch back to plain English any time.
The best all-rounders: loads of protein for the calories, packed with goodness, and they fill you up.Super Score = %Protein per kcal x Nutrient Density x estimated Satiety (each 0-100, product normalised).
2,652 foods, ranked by All-Round score
| # | Food | Group | All-Round | Protein | % Protein/kcal | Nutrients | Fullness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seaweed nori, dried, raw | Vegetables | 100.0 | 90% | 85 | 92 | |
| 2 | Prawns standard, dried | Fish and fish products | 89.0 | 88% | 71 | 100 | |
| 3 | Shrimps dried | Fish and fish products | 81.4 | 91% | 74 | 84 | |
| 4 | Liver pig, raw | Meat and meat products | 74.3 | 76% | 91 | 76 | |
| 5 | Eggs chicken, white, dried | Eggs | 72.7 | 100% | 53 | 96 | |
| 6 | Liver chicken, raw | Meat and meat products | 64.0 | 77% | 77 | 76 | |
| 7 | Liver calf, raw | Meat and meat products | 61.4 | 70% | 83 | 74 | |
| 8 | Crab white meat, purchased cooked | Fish and fish products | 57.4 | 97% | 53 | 79 | |
| 9 | Pork fillet medallions, grilled lean | Meat and meat products | 56.9 | 96% | 50 | 84 | |
| 10 | Kidney lamb, raw | Meat and meat products | 55.2 | 74% | 69 | 76 | |
| 11 | Kidney ox, stewed | Meat and meat products | 55.0 | 71% | 70 | 78 | |
| 12 | Kidney ox, raw | Meat and meat products | 54.6 | 79% | 64 | 77 | |
| 13 | Liver lamb, raw | Meat and meat products | 52.5 | 59% | 84 | 74 | |
| 14 | Seaweed kombu, dried, raw | Vegetables | 52.0 | 67% | 64 | 86 | |
| 15 | Pork fillet medallions, grilled, lean and fat | Meat and meat products | 51.8 | 89% | 49 | 83 | |
| 16 | Seaweed wakame, dried, raw | Vegetables | 50.9 | 70% | 63 | 81 | |
| 17 | Kidney pig, fried | Meat and meat products | 50.3 | 58% | 82 | 75 | |
| 18 | Kidney pig, raw | Meat and meat products | 49.8 | 72% | 65 | 76 | |
| 19 | Liver pig, stewed | Meat and meat products | 49.6 | 54% | 87 | 74 | |
| 20 | Liver ox, raw | Meat and meat products | 49.4 | 55% | 86 | 74 | |
| 21 | Liver lamb, fried in corn oil | Meat and meat products | 48.4 | 51% | 92 | 73 | |
| 22 | Roe cod, hard, raw | Fish and fish products | 47.9 | 83% | 52 | 78 | |
| 23 | Tuna flesh only, baked | Fish and fish products | 47.8 | 95% | 42 | 84 | |
| 24 | Crab purchased cooked | Fish and fish products | 46.5 | 68% | 64 | 75 | |
| 25 | Liver calf, fried in corn oil | Meat and meat products | 46.4 | 51% | 89 | 72 |
Satiety is an estimate. It is modelled from the known drivers of fullness (protein, fibre, water, low energy density, low fat), not measured directly.
Not all food groups are equal
Average all-round score by food group. Fish and seafood win comfortably. Fats and oils score zero, because they carry no protein at all. Mean Super Score per Tier-1 food group across all 2,652 edible entries. The gradient reflects the multiplicative scoring: groups rich in lean protein and micronutrients dominate, while energy-dense, protein-free groups collapse toward zero.
- Fish and fish products 19.2
- Meat and meat products 13.0
- Eggs 8.9
- Herbs and spices 8.4
- Vegetables 3.3
- Nuts and seeds 2.6
- Milk and milk products 2.4
- Cereals and cereal products 1.2
- Soups, sauces and miscellaneous foods 0.7
- Fruit 0.5
- Sugars, preserves and snacks 0.3
- Beverages 0.1
- Fats and oils 0.0
How the scores work
Three building blocks, each out of 100:
- Protein per calorie. How much of a food's energy comes from protein. Great for keeping muscle while the calories stay low.
- Nutrients. How many vitamins and minerals you get per calorie, with points taken off for too much salt, saturated fat and sugar.
- Fullness. How filling a food is likely to be. We work this out from protein, fibre and water (filling) versus how calorie-packed it is (not filling).
Then the goals just mix those together. Making Weight rewards protein and fullness. Bulking rewards protein but low fullness, so you can eat enough. Max Protein is the protein block on its own.
Each food is reduced to three normalised 0 to 100 measures, then combined multiplicatively:
- % Protein per kcal = protein kcal / net kcal per gram, using Atwater factors (protein 4, fat 9, carbohydrate 3.75).
- Nutrient Density = sum of capped %RDI across 25 encouraged nutrients, minus %RDI of sodium, saturated fat, sugar and alcohol, clipped at zero and normalised.
- Estimated Satiety = weighted model of protein (0.35), fibre (0.30), water (0.20), energy density (0.10, inverse) and fat (0.05, inverse), normalised.
Super = Protein x Nutrients x Satiety. Goodness = Protein x Nutrients. Cutting = Protein x Satiety. Bulking = Protein / Satiety. Satiety is modelled, not measured, so treat it as a guide. Source data: the UK Government CoFID 2021 dataset.
The method follows mainstream nutrition science. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, higher-fibre and wholegrain foods help you feel fuller for longer, and foods with a lower energy density let you eat more for the same calories. Ranking foods by nutrients per calorie is a well-established idea, and when you are cutting, a higher protein intake helps protect lean muscle.
Five things the data shows
- Seaweed beats steak. Dried nori is the single most protein-efficient food in the set, ahead of every cut of meat.
- Offal is gold. Liver and kidney crowd the top ten, a reminder that the least fashionable foods are often the most nutritious.
- White fish rules fight week. Eggs, Prawns, Seaweed lead the Making Weight ranking.
- Fats and oils score zero. No protein means no score, however much energy they carry.
- Dried wins on paper. Drying concentrates protein, so dried foods top the per-calorie measure. Useful to know, and a reason to read prep notes carefully.
Find foods like the ones you eat
Every food sits on this map by what it is made of, so foods close together eat alike. Bored of one thing? Click it and find its nearest cousins to swap in. A 2D t-SNE projection of standardised nutritional features (macro share of energy, nutrient density, estimated satiety, energy density). Click a point to rank its neighbours by Euclidean distance in the original feature space.
Two foods, head to head
Pick any two foods and see how they stack up: protein, nutrition, how filling they are, how lean and how light. Compares two foods across five normalised 0 to 100 axes: %protein per kcal, nutrient density, estimated satiety, leanness (100 minus fat share of energy) and inverse energy density.
Explore by goal
Explore by food group
Common questions
What should a boxer eat to make weight?
Foods that give the most protein and the most fullness for the fewest calories. In this dataset that means lean white fish such as cod, haddock and tuna, dried egg white, and lean cuts like pork fillet. They top the Making Weight ranking because they combine a high share of calories from protein with a high estimated satiety score.
Which food has the most protein per calorie?
Dried nori seaweed has the highest share of its calories coming from protein, ahead of dried prawns, dried shrimp and raw liver. Drying concentrates protein and removes water, which is why dried foods rank so highly on this single measure.
Is steak really not the best protein for boxers?
Steak is a strong protein source, but on a per-calorie basis it carries more fat than lean fish, white poultry or organ meats, so it ranks below them here. The rankings reward protein density and nutrients per calorie, not protein in absolute grams.
How is the satiety score worked out?
Satiety is an estimate, not a measured value. It is modelled from the known drivers of fullness, weighting protein, fibre and water content positively and energy density and fat negatively. It is a guide to how filling a food is likely to be, not a clinical measurement.
Where does the food data come from?
Every food comes from the McCance and Widdowson Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID) 2021, the open dataset published by the UK Government. The scoring model that ranks them was built by Jon Francis.
This is general information for boxers, not medical or dietary advice. For a plan built around you, speak to a registered dietitian or your GP. Making weight is about eating smarter, not crash dehydration, which harms both health and performance. Food data from the UK Government CoFID 2021 dataset, used under the Open Government Licence.
Want the principles behind the numbers? Work through our free 10-week boxing nutrition course, or read how training shifts the maths in how many calories boxing burns. Ready to train? Book a free trial session or see our recreational adults classes.