My Racing Weight

I've enjoyed running and competing in triathlons, but my weakness (or biggest weakness) has been the nutrition side of things. I've decided to go hook, line and sinker with Matt Fitzgerald and his book Racing Weight as my nutrition guide.  Rather than having a focus strictly on losing weight, the focus is on finding your ideal body composition.  I think I'm more driven by competition rather than looks, so this has greater appeal to me. I'm not completely finished with the book yet, but I have been able to set some rough goals.  I mentioned in an earlier blog that I'd enjoyed some years in the 180s.  Given the events and stresses of the start of this year, I'd gone up to 194 lbs and 22% body fat by the end of April.  Fitzgerald wrote the book both for professionals and age-groupers (where I'd fit in), and suggested that age-groupers try to move up just one level of body composition performance to the next, rather than go from couch potato to pro.  Therefore, my goal is to get to 14.9% body fat, which should equate to something like 179 lbs if I don't loose to much muscle.   I did go out and buy a body fat scale and even the Forze snack bars he recommends.

So far, so good- I'm sure it helped being sick this weekend, but according to my new scale, I'm down to 187.8 lbs and 19.5% body fat.