Racing Weight Quick Start Guide [Paperback]

Matt Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2011

Most endurance athletes are concerned about their weight. They know that every extra pound slows them down. Yet normal dieting and fad weight-loss programs don’t work for athletes who need to fuel their training.

Cyclists, runners, triathletes, and swimmers need Matt Fitzgerald’s Racing Weight Quick Start Guide, the first weight-loss training plan for endurance athletes. By applying all the principles of his best-selling book Racing Weight, endurance athletes will accelerate their season goals and race leaner and faster than ever before.

Athletes will devote 4 to 8 weeks to starting a weight loss of 5, 10, or 20+ pounds. The weight will come off quickly by following a schedule of high-intensity workouts, strength training, and a menu of calorie-restricted, high-protein meals and snacks. Low-volume and high-volume training plans help athletes maintain fitness even while they focus on weight loss.

With the Racing Weight Quick Start Guide, endurance athletes can lose weight quickly and get a jumpstart on reaching their performance goals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This companion to Matt Fitzgerald’s Racing Weight offers a detailed set of integrated nutrition, training, and weight-loss plans geard to help you lose weight quickly.” — Canadian Running magazine

“Racing Weight Quick Start Guide offers a fast, safe, and thoughtful way to lose weight and still maintain your base level of fitness.” — Tri Juice

Book Description

Endurance athletes will put into practice the research-based findings of Fitzgerald’s best-selling book, Racing Weight. Choosing from three plans based on different weight-loss goals ranging from 5 to 20+ pounds, endurance athletes will build muscle and burn fat as they close in on their optimal weight in just 4, 6, or 8 weeks. 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Velo Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934030724
• ISBN-13: 978-1934030721
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matt Fitzgerald is a prolific endurance sports journalist and author or coauthor of more than 15 published and forthcoming books on running, triathlon, fitness, nutrition, and weight loss, including Brain Training for Runners and Racing Weight. Fitzgerald also writes for Competitor, Triathlete, Inside Triathlon and Competitor.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as the original, but still helpful May 9, 2011

By S. Pritchard

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The original Racing Weight is a phenomenal book with an incredible amount of information backed up by hard data. This book starts off with a watered-down recap of Racing Weight, followed by a few meal plans and advice for losing weight. It is designed for the "off-season" which I did not know at the time of purchase, and is probably part of the reason I didn't find it too helpful. Additionally, I would have loved to see more vegetarian plans. The author admits to finding it difficult to get enough protein (30%) without overdoing calories in his one vegetarian plan; providing a bit more guidance would have been even more useful for me.
I'll probably go back to this book in the winter, when I'm not training quite as hard as I am now, and maybe it will help me even more than the original book already has. However, if you are thinking of purchasing this book and have not already read Racing Weight, I *highly* recommend buying that one before (or instead of) this one.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Good concepts - but it relies on a website that is missing info February 12, 2011

By projektyle

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I can't comment on the effectiveness of the methodology outlined here. It makes good sense, basically how to increase fat burning to reduce your weight while still allowing for base training. However, the setup is for you to calculate your nutritional needs based on a calculated number of calories needed, using the workouts in the book. Supposedly you can go to racingweight.com and find calculators that will let you calculate, for your specific starting weight, the number of calories you will burn using the workouts in the book. Unfortunately, when you go to racingweight.com and search for calculators, you find exactly one article, which has a link to an offsite calculator that has absolutely no info about the training plans in the book. From that perspective, it's a complete fail. And since the entire plan is supposed to be based on a specific caloric deficit, of which this is the basis, it makes the whole effort futile...

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great practical companion to Racing Weight March 6, 2012

By J. Moffitt

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I purchased and read racing weight and then this book, which I believe is more of a companion and not a stand alone product. If you want to get the most out of this book, read Racing Weight first. Racing weight provides a very sound evidenced-based rationale for how and why shedding extra pounds can help improve performance. The quick start guide provides very concrete steps for how to put that into action. Since I already had a fairly high level of cardiovascular fitness, I followed a hybrid version between the low and high volume plans for runners for 8 weeks and had excellent results. Since I am a runner and I only really closely read and followed the plan for runners, my review will focus on that aspect. I will also mention that I am an exercise physiologist and am reviewing this from not only that perspective but that as a consumer, since as a runner, I'm always looking for new ways to augment my training and have struggled to loose the weight I have expected to while training. Nutrition is also not my area of expertise, so I am always looking for good resources in this area.

I modified the plan to fit my needs but I really followed it very closely. As stated in the book it was VERY hard to get 30% of my intake in protein every day - I mostly hit the 20-25% mark, however. I also did not give up diet soda. I drew the line there! I did follow just about every other aspect very closely. I never did actually calculate my DQS, but rather shot to get the prescribed kcal with the correct protein% and take in as many high-quality foods as I could each day. Had I followed that part more religiously, I likely could have lost a bit more weight, but I struggle with carbohydrate cravings so I was still thrilled with the results. In the end over 8 weeks, I lost 10 lb of pure body fat and my running performance has dramatically improved. I don't think it can be overstated the importance of just focusing on weight loss rather than performance and implementing this plan during an off-season training cycle.

Among the stand out aspects of the book are promoting what I call "strength intervals" or doing hill work rather than speed work to build strength without risking injury and fasted long runs. Although I'm not sure it really helps you loose weight per-se, I think it helps boost beta-oxidation capacity and promote glycogen sparing when you do hit your performance training cycle. Also doing some high intensity work on the cycle as a cross-training tool is an excellent, excellent tool to boost high-intensity training volume without putting yourself and increased risk of injury.

My primary criticisms and where I didn't give this book 5 stars is that Mr. Fitzgerald failed to mention all the other physiologic and metabolic factors that will work against one loosing weight and the pitfalls of that (compensatory lower spontaneous activity etc.) and failed to provide any strategies for overcoming these factors. Its not just a simple math formula (kcal in - kcal out) as he would leave one to believe however infinitely more complicated! In addition some of the exercises described did not make sense in the progression he provided and have no gender specificity. For instance there is a leg curl exercise and inverted pushups exercise that I still cannot do nor can anyone that I've asked to perform these exercises, and they were introduced in week 1 of the program! I'm wondering if he did any test cases of these exercises with recreational athletes?

That being said if you are a runner or other endurance athlete and you've been struggling to loose weight, thinking it will just come off as you increase your mileage, STOP, read Racing Weight and follow this guide and you will have some very positive results. Going through this process will also help shape your thinking moving forward about nutritional choices beyond the weight loss cycle.