Racing Weight

I just finished reading Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald. When I first started this blog I was looking for a way to document what I'd learned about ways of eating that would keep me lean and thus improve my power to weight ratio for bicycle hill climbs. So it was hard for me not to want to see what Matt had written.

The subtitle of Matt's book is "How to Get Lean for Peak Performance: 5-step Plan for Endurance Athletes." And while endurance is an aspect of my hill climbing, it is not the determing factor - I'm looking to go faster, not longer since there are no longer climbs in my neighborhood. While my training rides last from 2 to 3 1/2 hours, the all-out climbing part lasts from between 35 minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes. So I'm not interested in the four hour plus slogs that are the focus of his book.

With that said, I think Matt has done a great job of organizing his information and explaining his sources and reasoning. I was more than a bit disappointed that the main recommendation was for people to count calories, though in his defense he made the recommendation as a way to help folks understand where the excess calories are coming from that keep them from getting as lean as they'd like to be. I feel things could've been a lot simpler: animal proteins, nuts, fats and cheese are energy dense foods (they have a lot of calories in relation to volume), most fruits and vegetables have low energy density. Both contribute plenty of nutrients to support long term health. The main point should be portion control for the most energy dense foods (i.e., a serving of lean meat no larger than the palm of your hand, 1 of 2 tablespoons of nuts, modest amounts of good fats, etc).

Another point is that nutritionless foods (those containing lots of sugar and white floor) should be minimized as much as possible, as they'll actually destroy some of the nutrients that you consume from high qualilty sources.

And a final point is that what is marketed as healthy food isn't necessarily healthy. For instance, fruit juices are no better than soda pop due to their high fructose content, even though they do have some additional nutrients. And pretty much anything baked, even using whole grain flour, is very calorie dense but pretty much nutritionally empty - certainly there is very little bang for your nutritional buck there.

So save yourself some time and money and invest in a good anti-inflammatory diet program. It'll save you weeks or months of counting calories. Once you're on that, if you're still looking to get down to your absolute optimal racing weight, then you'll want to count calories. But just remember, this is more art than science. The calories listed on packages are averages, not absolutes. And if you are avoiding processed foods to maximize your health, good luck figuring out the caloric values of all the different ingredients that go into a meal (that's why pro teams have their own nutritionists - so the riders don't have to burn a zillion brain-calories figuring this stuff out).

The bottom line is that Racing Weight is fantastic if going long in cycling, running, skiing, or swimming is your thing. But if you are interested in speed over distance, then there's a lot less there that will be of interest to you.