By Ryan Maquiñana

After Nonito Donaire weighed in at 116.25 pounds on Friday, almost two pounds under the bantamweight limit, Victor Conte commented on the nutritional road the fighter will walk before defending his twin title belts on Saturday against Omar Narvaez.

“Nonito will rehydrate back up to about 130 pounds,” Conte told BoxingScene.com Friday afternoon.  “He will likely be there by late tonight.”

Donaire, who started camp at 145 pounds, whittled away almost 29 pounds over a 12-week span.  Now the challenge becomes entering the ring in optimal condition, a task described well by another fighter who works with Conte, NABO junior welterweight champ Karim Mayfield.

“The gameplan is to be sold and not told, so I can’t give the exact order of how things go, but with Victor, there’s a real science to rehydrating,” said Mayfield, ranked ninth among WBO 140-pounders.

Mayfield, who defeated Patrick Lopez three weeks ago for the vacant belt and is now targeting Danny Garcia, went into a little more detail about rehydration tactics.

“You don’t just start chugging Gatorade as soon as you get off the scale,” he said.  “You want to actually retain water and not just urinate out what you’ve collected, so you have to time everything.  You eat bananas for potassium at a certain time.  You drink water with certain salts every few minutes or so.  And when you have your meal, you eat with a certain ratio of carbohydrates to vegetables.  Of course, you also drink your Pedialyte.

“For my last fight, the protocols worked perfectly.  I had never fought at 140 [pounds] in the pros before the fight, and I had no issues with regulating my blood sugar.  I didn’t urinate until about four hours of rehydrating, and it showed on the scale when I came in at about 150-151 the day after.  I felt strong, and I think Victor’s right that Nonito will come in at about 130.  Like me, he’ll be strong and ready to go.”

 Ryan Maquiñana is the boxing correspondent at Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, and Ring Magazine’s Ratings Advisory Panel.  E-mail him at rmaquinana@gmail.com, check out his blog at www.maqdown.com or follow him on Twitter: @RMaq28.