Eating Well to Get Faster and Leaner.

It is the new year, which if you so choose, is a great time to refocus on goals. One of my big goals for the next six months is to train for and compete in the 2025 Nice Ironman. I’ve been active my whole life, but in sports like mountain biking, football, and kickboxing. I am relatively new to endurance sports. Until the last two years, most athletic events I have competed in have been short spurts. A 3 minute mountain bike downhill race, that sort of thing. So to really start endurance training only two years ago and aim for a full length Ironman at arguably one of the harder courses is, well, a tall order. If I want to dial it in, it’s more than training. It’s also about my recovery and diet. 

However, eating for endurance sports is much different than eating for other sports. Gone are the days when I was the smallest kid on the football team trying to put on weight for the season. Gainer protein shakes are not necessarily what I need to get in better triathlon shape. Nor is Michael Pollan’s advice to “eat real food, not too much, and mostly plants” specific enough for an aspiring endurance athlete to improve performance. So on my plane flight back to Paris, I dove into an exceptional book on diet for endurance athletes. Below are my key takeaways on how to get leaner and achieve peak performance.

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In Racing Weight, author, nutritionist and endurance coach Matt Fitzgerald sets out his five steps for getting into “racing weight,” or optimal weight for each individual for their peak race performance. He breaks down his method for achieving optimal performance weight into five component parts. These five steps are not consecutive, but can and should be pursued simultaneously. Fitzgerald supports his method on rigorous scientific studies. If you want a scientific understanding of the mechanisms behind his recommendations, I suggest his excellent book. Otherwise, read on for a quick and highly digested overview of Fitzgerald’s five steps to get lean for endurance racing.

1. “Increase Your Diet Quality”

The first step is perhaps the most intuitive: to get leaner, we need a higher quality diet, or in layman’s terms, a healthier diet. This healthier, higher quality diet allows us to satisfy the total absolute amount and balance of nutrients needed by our bodies for daily living and endurance training.

A high quality diet includes a variety of nutrient-rich foods which satisfies our requisite macro and micro nutritional needs. Compared to lower quality diets, these healthier diets have more nutrition per calorie. To eat this sort of diet, we need to pay attention to both the overall diet composition and the individual foods which make up the diet. 

On the holistic level, three factors can be used to evaluate diet quality: overall dietary variety, proportionality of nutrients (in relation to each other), and appropriate moderation of absolute calories from single sources. On the level of the individual food, we should consider a food’s total concentration and balance of nutrients. Natural whole foods tend to be more nutrient rich than processed or ultra processed foods. In other words,  100 calories of brown rice is more nutritious than 100 calories of a French baguette (sorry French people). So a high quality diet will be composed of nutritious individual foods which, when aggregated into an entire diet, satisfy our overall needs in a diverse way.

Fitzgerald created his “Diet Quality Score” as a system to evaluate the overall dietary quality. It is a simple point counting system. Dividing foods into 11 groups, Fitzgerald’s scoring system “considers the intrinsic wholesomeness of foods” and the “balance and moderation that also contribute to overall diet quality.” The max possible score is 29. It is calculated by the simple method of tracking servings of various foods and scoring a daily diet. Generally speaking, unhealthy foods have a negative score and healthy foods a positive score. However, as one eats more servings of a certain food type, the score of an additional serving of that food decreases–reflecting the need to account for moderation and diversity in an overall diet. 

Once we establish our baseline dietary quality, Fitzgerald notes the three possible adjustments to increase diet quality: (1) eliminate low quality foods, (2) add high quality foods, and (3) substitute low quality foods for high quality foods. The one caveat here is that we should adhere to the principle of moderation; for instance, adding more dairy may be counter productive if one is already eating a large amount of dairy. Overall, Fitzgerald provides a simple heuristic for evaluating and improving overall diet quality.

2. “Balance Your Energy Sources”

Step two of Fitzgerald’s plan may be considered anathema to many of the armchair diet experts who extol the virtues of single macronutrients (yes, if you think carbs are the devil, or protein the second coming of Christ, I am talking about you). Fitzgerald’s prescription to balance energy sources essentially means that we need to get adequate amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in our diet. As he points out, there is a wide range of acceptable macronutrients levels for endurance athletes. In terms of percent of calories from each macronutrient, Fitzgerald sets out the following ranges: protein at 10-25% , fat at 20-40%, and carbohydrates at 40-80%. 

The protein amount here perhaps runs contrary to general perceptions of protein requirements for athletes. Health influences like Professor Andrew Huberman have publicly promoted 1 gram of protein intake per pound of muscle. However, as Huberman noted, this for muscle growth–not the principal motivation of endurance athletes. As Fitzgerald points out, many of the best runners in the world from East Africa maintain a diet where over 75% of their daily calories come from carbohydrates. This checks out with my time living with a family in rural Kenya where many of the meals are principally corn, wheat, or tuber based. Proteins and fats, for instance in stews, were used as condiments for ugali–a dough-like complex carb that is dipped that is eaten with the hands and dipped in stews. I miss ugali, and Kenyan chapatis too. (Sorry croissants, my true carb love is in Africa).

While Fitzgerald ranges for macronutrients may seem rather wide and arbitrary, there is a logic to it for endurance athletes. Diet follows training volumes, and as the ugali-eating Kenyan marathoners illustrate, carbs are the principle fuel for endurance.

For protein and fat, the key here for endurance athletes is to get minimum sufficient amounts: protein at minimum 10% of daily calories, and fat at minimum 20% of daily calories. Beyond that, the fat and protein amounts are highly flexible. With proteins and fat requirements met, endurance athletes must  modulate carbohydrate intake to match training volume. Simply put, a high training volume requires higher carbohydrate intake. Less training means less carbs.

Fitzgerald breaks down the recommended daily carbohydrate intake for endurance athletes based on training volume. Again, more training load means more carbohydrates. An easy week of 7-10 hours training calls for 7-8 grams per kilogram body weight; a medium week of 11-14 hours calls for 8-9 grams carbs per kilogram; and a peak week of 15-19 hour week calls for 9-10 grams per kilogram. Of course, intensity of training varies carb intake requirements–so these numbers 

Fitzgerald also recommends to err on the side of caution and make sure to get enough carbs. So that means for a 75 kilogram athlete like me, in an easy week of 7-10 hours training, I am looking at 600 grams of carbs per day, in a medium week, around 675 grams carbs, and in a peak week, I am in the 750 gram range. If you ever have tried counting carbs, you will know that 750 grams is a TON. An easy phone application like My Fitness Pal can be used to track macronutrient levels. Counting macros can be a helpful exercise to perform occasionally as a form of self-audit. 

This is why when I am at peak training volumes, I rightfully go in on carbs. In these weeks, when I was at the law firm, I was taking out the summer associates to lunch as much as possible. God bless the law firm paying for lunch, because I earned myself a bit of reputation in the office for the ability to put down food. A gentlemanly partner once pulled me aside and asked me: “is it true you really eat that much?” Yes, yes it is. Thanks to the firm for paying for it.

Here in Paris, the context is a bit different, but I am still putting down carbs like no other at peak training volumes. Catch me eating an entire baguette while a professor lectures on the constitutional nature of money. For me, carbs are constitutional.

3. “Nutrient Timing”

Now that we are getting a higher quality diet and the appropriate amount of macronutrients, carbs galore, we can focus on the timing of ingestion of the foods. To the chagrin of my college self when I lived next to an Indian buffet, eating massive meals all at once is not the ideal way to race weight. But then again, that was the era of my backyard prison workouts, so my training was different then too.

The nutrient effects of food are determined by the context of their consumption. Three main factors determine these effects; (1) the long term status of the body (i.e., training load over the course of days and weeks), (2) the short term timing of the intake (i.e., immediate energy demands on body), and (3) presence or absence of other nutrients (i.e., carbs only or carbs and protein). In total, calorie and nutrient intake should be paired with the contexts of the needs–since calorie and nutrient needs are context dependent.

As general principles, Fitzgerald recommends we should eat early and often. This helps avoid large meals, which tend to be counterproductive in getting lean. Both based on science and my personal experience, a high protein breakfast helps create long-term satiation throughout the day. Eating early and often helps prevent overeating at any one time later in the day (for instance, at Raja’s Indian buffet). For Fitzgerald, four or five fueling times is ideal for the endurance athlete.

As food is fuel for workouts and recovery, we should pay special attention to eating before, during, and after workouts. And since carbs are the principal fuel, Fitzgerald recommends eating 100 grams of carbs two to four hours before any workout. This allows the food to be digested and processed and glycogen levels to be replenished by the time of the workout. Anyone who has ever done a long workout fasted knows how it feels to be under-fueled. One whiff of a food and that’s all you can think about…

Fitzgerald also offers a few helpful guidelines for fueling during exercise. First, we should be drinking enough water so as to replenish water lost in sweat. If we do not, blood volume decreases and performance is strained. For any workout that will lead to moderate or more fatigue, we should be fueling mid-workout. Carbs are key, but Fitzgerald also points to studies that suggest a small amount of protein during workouts also buffer against performance decrease. Many pros aim for massive amounts of carbs mid workout–up to 110 grams of carbs per hour. However, digestive and metabolic systems need to be trained to process such large carbs amounts during exercise. As such, one can consider fueling an aspect of training. Except for longer sessions that will create hunger, Fitzgerald recommends fueling with liquid sports drinks. For those longer sessions, he recommends also incorporating solid and semi-solid foods. Although he does not address it, athletes also need to be replenishing electrolytes lost in sweat.

Finally, Fitzgerald discusses refueling after endurance exercise. The sooner one refuels, the better. Specifically, within 2 hours post-workout, he recommends getting 1.2 grams of carbs per kilogram body weight and 1 gram protein per 4 grams carbs. For a 75 kilogram athlete like me, that is approximately 90 grams carbs and 22.5 grams protein. Also, one needs to drink enough water to get urine back to nearly clear, and salts enough to replenish those lost electrolytes. 

4. “Managing Your Appetite”

Now that we are properly fueling our workouts and eating early and often, we also need to manage our appetites. Fitzgerald provides a number of strategies to manage, rather than resist, our natural appetites. As he notes, in normal evolutionary circumstances, the appetite is a trustworthy signal of when and how much we should eat. However in our modern food environment with hyper-palatable food which is highly marketed and highly available, normal evolutionary circumstances are out the window and our appetites have become less trustworthy northstars of appropriate eating patterns.

In short, if one is to get into lean optimal racing weight, one needs to prevent overeating (again, to the chagrin of my college self putting down those 2000+ calorie Indian buffets). To account for life in our modern food environment which encourages our propensity to overeat, Fitzgerald lays out four principles for managing our appetites–rather than just resisting with bare-knuckled willpower.

First, practicing proper nutrient timing (as described above) will go a long way to preventing the surge of a massive appetite which leads to overeating at any single meal. This means starting with a substantial, protein-rich breakfast and having four or more feeding times daily.

Second, he recommends eating mindfully. While in one way, this is about eating slowly not to overeat, on a more meta-level it suggests we need to pay attention to our appetites and feelings of hunger and fullness. This means we should only eat when we are hungry, and we should stop eating when we are full. However, we should also put to an end other forms of unmindful eating. For instance, emotional eating as a way to deal with difficult feelings such as sadness, loneliness, and perhaps most relevant to a previous life of mine, boredom! We should also stop unconscious eating, spontaneous eating, and unnecessarily clearing our plates. If you are full and have food left on your plate, put it in a bag. As former Bahamian colleagues would say, tote your food! (Let me know if you would like a bumper sticker that says “Tote Food Not Guns”). A general eating schedule creates a broad structure which will help one avoid these mindless eating behaviors.

Finally, a one-two punch of high-satiety and low-density foods will help prevent overeating. High-satiety foods are those with a higher satiety per calorie level, or in more simple terms, less calories of these foods makes us feel fuller. Certain nutrients, like fiber, certain proteins, and long chain fatty acids, and calcium, promote feelings of satiety. These foods, like yogurt, cheese, salads, legumes, and veggies make a great snack between meals, or as an appetizer before meals (to prevent overindulging at the subsequent meal). Following a similar logic, low-density foods help one feel fuel because stomach distension triggers feelings of satiety. In other words, foods with a higher ratio of volume to calories are also great snacks and appetizers. For instance, soups or even a glass of water before a meal begin to fill up that stomach and make us feel fuel–even if the calories are not there.

Fitzgerald’s first four steps to achieving racing weight all concern our diets. To summarize, we can achieve optimal weight for our performance through (1) improving diet quality through a diverse diet of natural foods, (2) balancing our energy sources, which means getting requisite amounts of proteins and fats and modulating carbohydrate amounts to account for training load, (3) eating at the right times, and (4) managing our appetites to prevent overeating. However, Fitzgerald’s final step for achieving optimal race weight goes to our training: to reach an optimal weight for performance, we need to train for it.

5. “Training for Racing Weight”

The goal here is to get into racing weight–or the weight for optimal performance. As form follows function, the best way to improve endurance performance is to train to maximize endurance fitness and leanness. Broadly speaking, to improve endurance performance, one can increase the volume of three types of training: moderate-intensity work, high-intensity work, and strength training. As a proponent of what he describes as 80/20 training, Fitzgerald argues that the best way to get fitter without overtraining or getting injured is to build a broad endurance base, performing about 80% of training at moderate-intensity with peak high-quality high-intensity training accounting for the remaining 20% of training volume. The endurance work is supplemented with two to three sessions of strength work. According to Fitzgerald, this is how the pros train.

As to the moderate-intensity work which forms the foundation of training volume, the focus here should be on increasing total overall volume over the course of a week, rather than just the length of the longest workout per week. In other words, we should not increase our volume by just squishing it all into the long weekend runs and rides. Long workouts are still advantageous, particularly when training for long events, but such long workouts should not be so taxing to require recovery amounts that limit overall weekly volume. In other words, your Sunday ride should not be so long as to destroy your capacity to train on Monday and Tuesday. In short, an athlete has the most potential to increase their fitness through increasing their total amount of moderate-intensity training.

This moderate-intensity work is supplemented by a small amount of high-quality high-intensity. Both moderate and high intensity work have somewhat overlapping but also distinct physiological benefits. Thus, you need to train both. But since high-intensity work is highly taxing, a training load which includes too much of this type of work is a quick way to get injured or overtrained. As such, Fitzgerald recommends only performing 1/5th of our training volume at high intensity. For instance, for triathletes Fitzgerald recommends two swimming workouts per week above lactate threshold and one supra-threshold workout for both cycling and running every 10 days. However, as Fitzgerald reiterates, the best way to get lean and fast is to train long rather than just fast.

Finally, Fitzgerald recommends complementing endurance training with strength work. Time with the weights should be quick and to the point: two to three workouts per week of 20 to 40 minutes is sufficient. The strength exercises should be sport-specific. But perhaps contrary to what an endurance athlete might think, they should be performed with heavy weight at a low rep range–rather than an endless repetition of light weight movements. Such heavy work strengthens tendons, ligaments, and connective tissue, increases absolute strength, and will improve performance and help prevent injuries. Core work should also be included, although not necessarily with heavy weight here. A bit of max-intensity power work is also good; for instance, cyclists should do one set of six to ten 20-second sprints at max power once per week.

To summarize,  a broad foundation of moderate-intensity work, capped with a bit of high-intensity work, and complemented with a bit of sport-specific strength training, is the ideal method to train for race weight. This will get us both fast and lean. For Fitzgerald, training for optimal performance is the best way to achieve racing weight–since form follows function.

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If I am going to follow Fitzgerald’s program, it is because I want to perform better. It’s about being healthier and performing better. Looking good is a happy coincidence, but is not the primary goal. In fact, I have found exercise much more enjoyable when I am training for something–rather than just working out for working out’s sake. I think it will be a similar phenomenon with improving my diet.

Regardless, improving my diet and training will improve my health, and that is why I do endurance sports, for my health–both mental and physical. Perhaps most of all, endurance sports are a way to improve my mental health. They provide a way to achieve a feeling of self-efficacy, growth, and direction, and sublimate my intensity, obsessive nature, and pain into something healthy, and even beautiful. Ultimately, if it makes me feel good to train well, it also makes me feel good to eat well. They are undoubtedly two sides of the same coin.

Written by Ian R. J. Good. January 7, 2025. Paris, France.