Miesha Tate: Winning The Belt Was The Worst Thing That Happened To Me

Miesha Tate spent her whole life chasing a UFC world title, and when she won it, it broke her. Miesha is a former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, one of the fighters who cracked women's MMA open at the highest level, and someone who has now spent almost as much time deconstructing what that pursuit cost her as she did chasing it. We sat down in Malibu and got into the parts of the story you don't usually hear. The moment she realised the gold belt didn't solve a single one of her problems. The years of eating disorders, distilled water weight cuts, and amenorrhea she was privately navigating while headlining pay-per-views. The pregnancy loss earlier this year that forced her to look at what her fighting career had done to her hormones. And the coach whose death became the reason she started her podcast. Miesha is direct about what she got wrong: the war she waged with her own body, the intuition she overrode because she'd signed on the dotted line, and the mental health cost of being the "strong woman" everyone pointed to. She's also honest about what actually helped her rebuild, from cognitive behavioural therapy to prayer to learning, for the first time in her life, how to be present. If you've ever confused discipline with self-punishment, this one will resonate. You’ll learn: [0:00] Introduction [9:53] 99% of a cage fight happens inside your own head before the walk out [15:20] How winning the belt became the biggest breaking point of Miesha’s life [24:15] The eating disorder, the weight cuts, and drinking distilled water for 72 hours [40:09] Women need 100 to 300 more calories in the luteal phase, and no diet accounts for it [52:36] The pregnancy loss she believes was tied to years of under-fueling her body [1:04:19] How prayer, reconnection, and a cognitive behavioral therapist pulled her out of the darkness [1:14:40] The balloon exercise that taught her presence for the first time in her life [1:25:57] Why Miesha believes public school was designed to divide the nuclear family Resources Mentioned: ROAR (Women Are Not Small Men) by Stacy T. Sims, PhD | Book The Period Brain by Sarah E. Hill, PhD | Book Hold On To Your Kids by Gabor Maté, MD and Gordon Neufeld, PhD | Book When The Body Says No by Gabor Maté, MD | Book Dr. Kayla Osterhoff | Website Find more from Miesha: Miesha Tate | Instagram | X | Website Built for Growth | Podcast Apogee Boise (Micro School) | Website Find more from Ste: Ste Lane | Instagram Radical Health Radio | Instagram | YouTube Heart and Soil Supplements | Website | Instagram | X | YouTube