Month: August 2025

• NBA star Luka Dončić is working out twice daily and practicing intermittent fasting this offseason.
• His nutritionist says he follows a gluten-free diet and eats at least 250 grams of protein daily.
• This plan is adjusted to accommodate Dončić’s schedule during the NBA season.

NBA star Luka Dončić, 26, is doubling down on fitness this offseason.

In an interview with Men’s Health, the team responsible for Dončić’s fitness and nutrition spoke about his strict regimen this summer to stay in peak form.

It all starts with his diet and a strict intermittent fasting schedule, Dončić’s physiotherapist, Javier Barrio, told Men’s Health.

Every day except on Sundays, the Lakers player fasts from 8:30 p.m. to noon the following day. At the end of his fast, Dončić heads straight into the first of his two daily workouts.

“It’s not so easy to learn,” Barrio said, adding that the goal of fasting is to reduce any post-workout inflammation that Dončić experiences.

To ensure his muscles stay in top condition, Dončić fuels up with 250 grams of protein a day.

He sticks to eggs and chicken during meals and supplements with shakes made from no-sugar, low-carb whey protein isolate.

Dončić’s nutritionist, Lucia Almendros, said that 250 grams of protein is “the minimum” amount he needs to eat in a day.

“If he wants more, he can eat more,” Almendros told Men’s Health.

But a balanced diet is key: Dončić keeps nuts on hand whenever he needs a nutritious snack, and he consumes lots of vegetables. He also often has fruit for dessert.

Although Dončić doesn’t eat gluten, he consumes other types of carbs like rice and potatoes sparingly, Almendros said.

“Depending on the game, depending on the moment of the season, depending on his physical condition, we use carbs — but in a specific moment to have energy in the game or in the training,” Almendros said.

This strict diet plan gets adjusted to accommodate Dončić’s schedule during the NBA season, Barrios said.

“You can’t eat nothing after 8 p.m.,” Barrios said. “Because half the days you are traveling in this time. You are not able to do a fasting 16:8 during the season — this is impossible.”

In another Men’s Health article from the same interview series, Dončić said his physical condition hasn’t felt this good in years.

“My sleeping, my body, my everything … I felt more rested,” Dončić told Men’s Health.

He said he’s also satisfied with his leaner, more toned physique: “Just visually, I would say my whole body looks better,” Dončić said.

A representative for Dončić did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.

Despite being a five-time NBA All-Star, Dončić has been criticized for his weight and conditioning throughout his NBA career. In February, he was traded midseason from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in a deal that surprised many NBA fans.

Pro athletes’ diet and training routines vary.

In 2022, NFL quarterback Justin Fields told Business Insider that he eats a vegan diet for better performance.

“I think the biggest change for me is just how much lighter and faster I feel all around. This change was very drastic for me after I did the challenge with my family and was ultimately the reason I chose to continue a plant-based diet,” Fields said.

In 2023, NFL running back Raheem Mostert told BI he takes an “everything in moderation” approach to his diet and makes small changes to his meals to ensure he always feels his best.

“Prime example; if I’m eating a burger, I probably have no cheese on it just because I know that it’s an inflammatory issue for me,” Mostert said. “So I try to cut out those little things.”

• Ukrainian reports are starting to document the use of Russia’s new jet-propelled Shahed drones.
• One version, unofficially dubbed the Geran-3, is said to fly up to 500 miles per hour.
• Such speeds would pose key problems for Ukraine’s air defenses if jet drones are launched en masse.

More signs are emerging that Russia is launching a new exploding drone said to fly much faster than its current Shaheds.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported on Wednesday that it had encountered jet-powered attack drones while defending its airspace the night before.

“A notable feature of the night attack was the use of up to eight jet-powered UAVs in the northern direction,” it wrote in a regular update.

The announcement marks one of the first official reports of Ukraine’s forces encountering the new loitering munition in combat.

In total, the Air Force Command counted 78 Shahed attack drones launched on Tuesday night.

The statement added that 51 drones were shot down or disabled by electronic warfare, interceptor drones, anti-air missiles, and mobile fire groups, which typically use truck-mounted machine guns.

The Ukrainian air force did not specify if any jet-propelled drones were shot down.

“There were 27 drone impacts recorded at 7 locations, and falling debris from downed drones at 2 locations,” Air Force Command wrote.

On Thursday, a Ukrainian Telegram channel that monitors the flight paths of Russian drones also wrote that it recorded launches of jet-propelled drones.

“On the map we’ve drawn for you, you can see the movement of cruise missiles, jet-powered Shaheds, and regular strike/decoy UAVs,” it wrote. While not an official government channel, it’s widely followed in Ukraine for city-specific alerts on incoming drones.

A major problem for Ukraine’s air defenses

Russian jet-propelled drones are believed to be closely modeled after Iran’s Shahed-238, an upgraded long-range loitering munition Tehran unveiled in November.

Moscow has not officially detailed its own version of the new weapon, but Ukraine’s intelligence and Western analysts have reported that it’s likely building a model with the Tolou‑10/13 jet engine to vastly increase the drone’s speed.

Open-source intelligence sources said as early as January that Ukraine may have shot down at least one Shahed-238-type drone, indicating limited Russian use. In June, images published by Ukrainian Telegram channels appeared to show destroyed fragments of such drones in the country.

In both earlier reports and the Air Force Command’s update on Wednesday, it’s unclear if these were prototypes or finalized drones.

But if deployed en masse against Ukraine, the new upgraded drone could pose a major problem for Kyiv’s air defenses.

The Shahed-238 is said to be much faster than the Shahed-136, which is locally produced in Russia as the Geran-2 — the Kremlin’s main attack drone against Ukraine.

While the Shahed-136 is known to fly at top speeds of 115 mph, a Russian general told state media in December that the Shahed-238 could fly as fast as 500 mph. Extended independent analyses on the drone’s still aren’t publicly available, and it’s possible that the munition can only fly that fast while diving.

At such speed, however, the jet-powered drone would be nearly as fast as a cruise missile.

That would be a nearly impossible target for Ukraine’s mobile fire groups, or the vehicle-mounted machine gun crews it’s relied on to fight off Shahed-136s.

This year, mobile fire groups are already being overwhelmed by the sheer number of Russian Shahed-136s launched every night. To shore up the gap, Ukraine has started prioritizing interceptor drones, which also risk being rendered obsolete if jet-powered Shaheds become mainstream.

Interceptor drones, built secretly by Ukrainian companies, already need to fly much faster than the Shahed-136 since they must catch up to the loitering munition after it’s detected.

A Shahed-238 or Geran-3 moving at 500 mph would require an intercepting drone to fly nearly three times as fast as before.

“In such a case, promising antiaircraft interceptor UAVs, unfortunately, will be powerless,” wrote a Ukrainian military blogger in late June.

Ukraine does have advanced anti-air missile defenses for faster targets, such as the US-made Patriot system, which has even been reported to take down the hypersonic Kinzhal missile.

Still, Ukraine typically reserves these expensive anti-air munitions for ballistic missiles; expending them to neutralize waves of Shahed drones would be unsustainable.