Eight years into a plant-based diet, Bruce Carrington only misses fish

The equation is slightly different for non-heavyweight boxers, for whom staying under a certain weight is part of their job description and not just something that could help boost their performance.

In 2022, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez made headlines for trying a vegan diet prior to his fight with Dmitry Bivol at 175lbs. But during the fight, he faded badly and took his first loss since 2013. He then abandoned the diet afterwards and reverted back to what he had eaten previously. 

Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington has had no such problems.

Carrington has followed a plant-based diet for eight years with few hiccups. In an interview with BoxingScene ahead of his March 29 fight with Enrique Vivas in Las Vegas, Carrington rattled off a number of staples in his diet that help him throughout training camp.

“While I’m cutting weight, I’m still eating pasta, eating my greens,” Carrington told BoxingScene. He is ahead of schedule with making weight this camp, so has been able to vary his diet a little bit more. “As of right now, I’ve just been eating things like soy protein – it’s kind of like an alternative for chicken [...] couscous is really good, asparagus, broccoli, eat a lot of salads, and then have some fruit on the side. Oatmeal with some peanut butter for protein, and mix some berries in there. It’s a good mix of different things to keep me light and balanced, and energized throughout my weight cut.”

The natural question: does he miss anything from before he began the diet?

“The only thing I would say I miss – and it’s only because the vegans haven’t replicated it that well yet – is fish. That’s the only thing I could say. I’m like, if they could get fish down here, then I wouldn’t have an issue. It’s nothing that I crave, I wouldn’t say I crave fish at all. But that’s probably the only thing I’d say I miss.”

As for his energy levels, the diet is sufficient that Carrington can rise to go for runs at 4:30 in the morning and train three times a day. 

Vivas, a hyper-active fighter who threw 110 punches in a single round in a loss to Joet Gonzalez and combined with him to throw more than 1500 punches in the entire fight, will surely test Carrington’s conditioning. 

Owen Lewis is a former intern at Defector media and writes and edits for BoxingScene. His beats are tennis, boxing, books, travel and anything else that satisfies his meager attention span. He is on