Experts say breakfast is the most important meal of the day—and that's a revelation Israel Adesanya has embraced over the past 11 months during his longest break from competition as a professional athlete.

The key phrase here is “professional athlete.” Since his loss to Sean Strickland at UFC 293 in September of last year, Adesanya has approached his training with the commitment he believes is essential for a professional athlete.

“I’d wake up, roll out of bed, grab my stuff, half drive to the gym because I’m kind of alive or awake, and then I’d get to the gym and that’s when I’d get the energy and I’d be up. Then after I train for about an hour-and-a-half, I go have breakfast at 11:30 am or midday. I don’t do that anymore. My chef has breakfast ready for me when I wake up, with my juice, my supplements, then I get going. Living like a professional athlete really helps. Amazing. Wow.”

Eating breakfast is just one of a handful of changes he’s made to his routine that’ve sparked new life in his mixed martial arts career ahead of one of the biggest moments of his life – a main event clash against middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis at UFC 305.

“We revamped the whole training system we’re doing in our gym, and it’s made everything fresh,” Adesanya said. “We even have de-load weeks now. Crazy.  We’ve never had that before. I come back from that fresh, smashing the next four weeks. It’s been fun. This has been a really different perspective for me.

“Maturity happens for me in different stages and the last 11 months I’ve grown a lot in many different ways. This is probably one of the best - if not the best - camps I’ve ever had.”

When he wasn’t training alongside his longtime teammates at City Kickboxing in Auckland, New Zealand, Adesanya embraced new experiences to fill the void of his extended break, including “life changing” activities like skydiving for the first time in Abu Dhabi.

“Well, for someone like me, even [Alexander Volkanovski] spoke about this, I think Dustin [Poirier] spoke about this, as well, having time off for us, we need purpose, we need something. For me. I don’t have any kids that I know of, so I don’t have another thing to put my everything into, so I had to find things to distract myself. Good things, bad things. I did some fun things. But yeah, it’s good to finally find my purpose and go for it again.

“I had some epiphanies in my own way about what I’m doing with my life, what I want to do in this game. A lot of epiphanies, a lot of light bulb ‘a ha’ moments, so yeah, I enjoyed them. I enjoyed the learnings.”

Standing across from him inside the Octagon Sunday morning local time in Perth, Western Australia will be 185-pound champ Du Plessis, who captured UFC gold in January when he defeated Strickland at UFC 297.

To put it mildly, Adesanya and Du Plessis are far from friends, having exchanged barbs both online and face-to-face numerous times since the South African claimed the title. This already compelling matchup has only grown more intriguing as their heated rivalry has escalated over the past eight months.

Adesanya, who’s used his time off to reset his mind, body and spirit, tries to stay focused primarily on himself, but he’s channeled the intensity of their rivalry as motivation to push himself through his latest training camp.

“I just focus on myself,” Adesanya said. “I focus on the mission at hand. The storyline definitely fuels me because of his statements, and I feel like he needs to be educated on who paved the way for him to be in this position. It’s there, but it’s not the whole reason I’m here to fight him. He’s a guy I haven’t beat yet, he’s supposedly the best in the world, and we’re about to see about that.

As Adesanya mentioned, Du Plessis, as the current title holder, is technically the best middleweight fighter in the world. Since signing with the UFC in 2020, he’s won all seven of his fights, five by stoppage, while earning four Performance or Fight of the Night bonuses.

Even though he’s fought former champions like Strickland and Robert Whittaker, as well as UFC veterans Brad Tavares and Derek Brunson, none have been able to crack the code of Du Plessis. Now, it’s Adesanya’s turn to solve the puzzle.

“They underestimate his spirit, his toughness,” Adesanya said of Du Plessis’ previous opponents. “He’s a tough guy. Also, they play his game. He makes it really dirty. And when I say dirty, it’s not in a bad way. He makes it really ugly and messy and then shoots on them and strikes from all angles and a different pace and cadence. I’ve looked at it, I’ve watched it for a while, and I look forward to exploiting it. He’s going to try to exploit me, but again, we shall see.

When it’s time to go, when I lock in, and I’m really locked in, I destroy people. And this one, I’ve been really locked in for this fight and I’m going to destroy this guy.”

UFC superstar Israel Adesanya has opened up on bringing a “jacked” new frame into his UFC 305 blockbuster against Dricus du Plessis – while also confirming reports out of City Kickboxing that he is punching harder than ever before in his storied career.

The revelations of his physical overhaul comes as host of Australian fighters have also spoken of the Aucklander carrying a “different energy” around the UFC fighter hotel in Perth this week.

After almost a year outside the cage, Adesanya insists he is now stronger, faster, and even “feeling younger” as he prepares to throw down against the South African rival who now holds his old UFC middleweight crown.

Speaking with Fox Sports Australia on Thursday, the New Zealander also talked about being heavier than ever before in his career, and more muscular, after spending large chunks of this camp with High Performance Sport New Zealand – the same team responsible for the nation’s successful 2024 Paris Olympic campaign.

And with the Kiwis claiming 10 gold medals in France, Adesanya is now readying to go earn his own thanks to the work put in at the Institute, and alongside his nation’s best athletes.

“I feel stronger, I feel younger,” Adesanya said.

“I feel more elasticity in my tendons.

“(Laughs) I feel like a young Springbok.

“We did testing before the camp started, and then did testing again mid camp to see where we were at – and the numbers were well up.

“Basically, my coaches tell me to jump and I say ‘how high’.

“And you do that enough times you get jacked.

“But still with the weight cut, I’m on track.”

Adesanya also responded to team-mate Dan Hooker’s claims earlier this week that Adesanya is punching with “scary” power and harder than ever before.

So is he right?

“There is always levels,” he says, nodding his head.

“I’ve been punching sharper, so the impact is definitely more deadly.

“I definitely feel stronger.

“Sharp”.

Adesanya doesn’t need anyone to tell him about his poor showing against Sean Strickland in 2023, because he remembers it all too well.

After he finally exacted revenge on Alex Pereira with a vicious knockout in April 2023, Adesanya was supposed to face Dricus du Plessis next but an injury prevented the South African fighter from competing at a scheduled date in September. So Adesanya drew Strickland as a challenger instead, but the matchup almost seemed like a way to keep him busy until du Plessis could recover and set up a showdown between the heated rivals.

That’s not how things played out though, as Strickland scored a near finish in the first round then dominated the majority of the action over 25 minutes. Afterward, Adesanya acknowledged he needed some time off to recover and reflect on arguably his worst showing since arriving in UFC in 2018.

“Look, my last fight was atrocious for myself,” Adesanya said during UFC 305 media day. “I was not happy with that fight.

“Fans, the media [say] you’re only as good as your last fight. They keep all these f*cking sayings that don’t make sense anymore. You’re only as good as your last fight? I don’t get it, but at the same time, I’m like, OK.”

While he may not agree that the sum of his parts only comes down to his lone fight against Strickland, Adesanya used it as fuel to get him ready for his comeback.

He plans on putting that on display come Saturday night against du Plessis.

“For me, even this weekend, I kind of want to do what I have to do, and when I do it, then people are going to be like, ‘F*ck, how did we not see this coming?” Adesanya said. “How did we underestimate that he was going to do this? Amazing.’ It’s just time to remind people.”

When it comes to having dirt prematurely tossed on his grave after a bad night at the office, Adesanya isn’t totally unfamiliar with the concept, even if he doesn’t agree with it.

The same thing happened after he lost his middleweight title the first time around in his initial UFC encounter against Pereira in 2022.

“They said that after New York when I fought Alex Pereira,” Adesanya said. “They were like ‘He’s done, he should pack up.’ They always say some dumb shit like that. But a lot of these fans, they’ve never done what we’ve done.

“I don’t really pay attention to that stuff. I know what I can do. My team knows what I can do. It’s just time to show people what I can do.”

The time off combined with some changes to his preparation has Adesanya feeling as confident as ever going into his fight against du Plessis.

Adesanya has downplayed the personal rivalry between them in the days leading up to the fight and he’s not even putting much emphasis on the UFC title on the line.

While these two have shared some intense moments together, Adesanya and du Plessis avoided any undue animosity when their fight was first announced and met on stage during a press conference to promote tickets going on sale. That said, Adesanya shared an intense moment with the reigning UFC middleweight champ when they finally came face-to-face.

“He tried to puffer fish me and he realized pretty quickly I’m not the one you can just try and blow smoke at,” Adesanya said. “He felt my energy. He understands. He knows who he’s dealing with now.

“That moment right there let him know. He got to look into my eyes and see who I am. I don’t know what brought it on, but it’s just déjà vu. I’ve been here before. I’ve battled with the best. No one can intimidate me. He definitely won’t do that.”

If all goes well on Saturday, Adesanya will not only become a three-time UFC middleweight champion, but he could potentially set himself up for a rematch against Strickland after UFC CEO Dana White named Strickland the No. 1 contender for the title.

As much as that loss to Strickland bugs him, Adesanya promises that’s the last thing on his mind with a fight against du Plessis still in front of him.

“I’m different now,” Adesanya explained. “I’m not trying to look towards the future. I’m putting everything on this fight. I’m not a guy who needs to fight for the belt because I’ve never done it before. ‘This is my one dream.’ No, I’m just focused on this fight, beat this guy up and then I’ll deal with whatever comes next when it comes.”

Throughout the press event day, a host of Australians also backed Adesanya to regain his title, with Melbourne featherweight Jack Jenkins even suggesting the 35-year-old is carrying “a different energy” to what he took into his title loss against Sean Strickland.

“There’s something about him that is electric,” the Aussie said.

“And this isn’t taking anything away from him (in Sydney), it might just be a reflection of my own energy there.

“But in Sydney, that energy wasn’t there I feel.

“I soon as I saw him here I thought, this man’s on.”

Queensland lightweight Tom Nolan said the main event was going to be a “crazy fight”.

“I’ve been going back and forward all week,” he said when asked of a tip. “But I’m going Izzy”.