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Mackenzie Dern has her weight cut down to a science, but she is still shaking off lingering doubts. Dern faces Tecia Torres on the main card of UFC 273 and hopes to step foot inside the Octagon heavier than she has in recent fights.

Dern missed weight in two of her first three professional fights on the regional circuit. She received significant criticism after missing weight in her second UFC fight, marking the third time she missed weight in her six career strawweight fights. Cutting weight has not been an issue for years now and Dern credits the success to the birth of her daughter in June 2019.

"My pregnancy really did restart my body and my metabolism and everything. Breastfeeding, I lost so much body fat with that," Dern told CBS Sports. "When I made the transition from jiu-jitsu to MMA, I was doing these different kinds of weight cuts where they want you to lose water weight. In jiu-jitsu, you don't have that. In jiu-jitsu, we weigh in and we fight at the same moment. No one really cuts that way. I started my MMA career doing these different diets. My body and my hormones and everything were getting unbalanced... I lost a lot of muscle mass too." 

Check out the full interview with Mackenzie Dern below.

Despite successfully hitting the scales in her last six consecutive fights, that turbulent period still weighs on Dern. In fact, the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.

"Now my problem is -- almost because of what I went through with not making weight and the negativity and criticism and everything -- my last couple of fights, I've been so scared to not make weight," Dern said. "I'm on top of it. My last fight, I weighed 114.5. The [contracted] weigh-in is 115. The next day, I was 116 on the day of the fight. For me, I wish I was heavier than that but 'no, no, no, I shouldn't eat anything. I want to make sure I make the weight.' I needed to calm down and not worry. 'Don't worry, you can get it.' It was kind of a little bit of trauma."

Dern is teetering inside the UFC women's strawweight top five. A win over Torres likely puts her behind Marina Rodriguez as likely challengers for the winner of Rose Namajunas vs. Carla Esparza, assuming the outcome of UFC 274 does not conjure a Namajunas-Esparza trilogy fight. Dern is in no rush and prefers to hone her skills further before challenging for UFC gold.

"If I get in and submit or knock her out, if it's a great performance. I think we're definitely closer than further away," Dern said. "If it's a hard fight, a judges' decision, I'm definitely not in a rush to get to the belt so fast. I want to make sure I get ready and be prepared. Maybe I'd like to fight the loser of Carla and Rose. I've always wanted to fight a wrestler. I've never fought a wrestler before. I fought a jiu-jitsu girl, I fought strikers. I'd like to see how my game is."

Dern vs. Torres takes place in Jacksonville, Florida on Saturday, April 9. The pay-per-view card is headlined by UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski vs. "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung. The co-main event features UFC bantamweight titleholder Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan.