The last time we saw Uriah Hall, there was enough craziness going on with his body that people were wondering if it really would be the last time we saw Uriah Hall.

MMA as a matter of life and death is not something to joke about, but thanks to a weight cut gone awry due to things with his body he didn’t yet understand, Hall says his situation at UFC Fight Night 125 in January could’ve been much worse.

As it was, he couldn’t make it to the scale for the weigh-ins for a scheduled fight against Vitor Belfort and had to be hospitalized. But in the wake of that, the 33-year-old middleweight figured some things out.

“I learned a lot over the last incident,” Hall told MMAjunkie. “I learned I’m allergic to a lot of things, a lot of foods. What a lot of people didn’t realize was I had stomach problems, which made it hard for me to digest food. So I ended up cutting more weight than normal because I couldn’t digest. That whole week, I was struggling to even digest and I was accumulating more water weight.

“But just taking away certain foods, and experimenting with eating certain things, realizing I’m bloated from this or this or this … but the weight’s been really good, the camp’s been amazing.”

Hall (19-5 MMA, 10-3 UFC) on Saturday fights Paulo Costa (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) at UFC 226, which takes place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass. Their fight is part of the FS1 prelims.

Hall and Costa were supposed to fight in April, but a Costa injury bumped him from UFC Fight Night 128 and they eventually were rebooked for UFC 226.

Hall this past September got back in the win column with a bonus-winning knockout of Krzysztof Jotko after a three-fight skid of losses to current middleweight champion Robert Whittaker, Derek Brunson and current Bellator champion Gegard Mousasi.

He said the situation in St. Louis with the weight cut may have been regrettable, but what he learned from it may be a big positive going forward.

“You’ve just got to know your body, and it happened in a way where I just learned from it,” Hall said. “It didn’t have to happen, but the fact that it happened made me realize I need to pay attention to certain things.

“It’s scary overall, but I wouldn’t say that gave me a big change in my outlook on life. It was more like a wakeup call to pay attention because you’re getting older, and as you’re getting older you have to pay attention to certain things with your body – especially when you’re competing. It’s like a car: You’ve got to keep fine-tuning it, you’ve got to put that right fuel and you’ve got to change the oil and all that stuff.”

For more from Hall, check out the video above.

And for more on UFC 226, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.