When Gina Carano stepped on the scale Friday morning, it wasn’t just the culmination of a fighter’s typical weight cut. It was part of a nearly two-year “path to recovery.”
That’s what Carano had to say in a “vulnerable post” shared on Instagram after she weighed in at 141.4 pounds for her highly anticipated featherweight fight with Ronda Rousey, which takes place Saturday at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., and streams on Netflix – the streaming giant’s first foray into MMA.
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Carano got emotional, sharing that she’s lost 100 pounds since September 2024 and reflecting on how her weight-loss journey has affected her life.
“Since Sept 2024 to today, May 15, 2026, I have lost 100lbs.,” Carano wrote. “It hurts to say that and share but I am going to share it because I worked so damn hard every week for over a year and a half to shed this weight. It did not happen overnight. If it wasn’t for having this incredibly challenging goal in fighting (Ronda Rousey) I most definitely wouldn’t have reached this. I was pre-diabetic, had trouble simply walking in September and have been on the path to recovery to turn myself back into an athlete since then.
“It was hard, SO damn hard.. there was so much to learn, too much to unpack here, ups, downs, plateaus, things I learned late I wish I learned earlier, trial by error but I did it.”
It’s been nearly 17 years since Carano, the first mainstream women’s MMA star before Rousey arrived in the UFC, last competed in a fight.
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When she steps in the cage Saturday night, she’ll be a woman transformed.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Gina Carano shares ‘vulnerable post’ reflecting on weight-loss journey
