From the national best-selling author of Racing Weight, Matt Fitzgerald exposes the irrationality, half-truths, and downright impossibility of a “single right way” to eat and reveals how to develop rational, healthy eating habits.
From “The Four Hour Body,” to “Atkins,” there are diet cults to match seemingly any mood and personality type. Everywhere we turn, someone is preaching the “One True Way” to eat for maximum health. Paleo Diet advocates tell us that all foods less than 12,000 years old are the enemy. Low-carb gurus demonize carbs, then there are the low-fat prophets. But they agree on one thing: there is only one true way to eat for maximum health. The first clue that that is a fallacy is the sheer variety of diets advocated. Indeed, while all of these competing views claim to be backed by “science,” a good look at actual nutritional science itself suggests that it is impossible to identify a single best way to eat. Fitzgerald advocates an agnostic, rational approach to eating habits, based on one’s own habits, life- style, and genetics/body type. Many professional athletes already practice this “Good Enough” diet, and now we can too and ditch the brainwashing of these diet cults for good.
Matt Fitzgerald is an acclaimed endurance sports and nutrition writer and certified sports nutritionist. His most recent book, Iron War, was long-listed for the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and he is the author of the best-selling Racing Weight. Fitzgerald is a columnist on Competitor.com and Active.com, and has contributed to Bicycling, Men’s Health, Triathlete, Men’s Journal, Outside, Runner’s World, Shape, Women’s Health and has ghostwritten for sports celebrities including Dean Karnazes.
A New Hampshire native, Matt became a runner at the age of eleven, after running the last mile of the 1983 Boston Marathon with his father (who had run the whole thing) and his two brothers. By that time Matt was already a writer (specifically a comedic poet), having declared his intention to make his future career as a writer at the age of nine. He never changed his mind.
Although he never intended to marry his passions for sports, fitness, and writing, that’s how it worked out. Before he’d even graduated from high school Matt was making a little money writing articles about the exploits of his Oyster River High School Bobcats Cross Country Team for a local weekly newspaper.
Matt moved to California for no particular reason in 1995, two years after earning a B.A. in English from Haverford College (a DIII track and cross country “powerhouse” where Matt had intended to run but did not because of burnout). Willing to take the first writing job he could find in San Francisco, Matt received an offer from Bill Katovsky, the original founder of Triathlete, to join the tiny staff of an endurance sports startup magazine based in Sausalito.
This opportunity has led to every subsequent opportunity in Matt’s career, which has included stints at Triathlete, AthletesVillage.com, Active.com, and Competitor Group. Matt’s byline has appeared in a long list of national publications including Bicycling, Maxim, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Outside, Shape, Stuff, and Women’s Health. The son of a novelist, Matt has a special passion for writing books. His best-known titles include Racing Weight, Brain Training for Runners, and Triathlete Magazine’s Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide.
A certified sports nutritionist, Matt has served as a consultant to numerous sports nutrition companies, including Energy First, Healthy Directions, PacificHealth Labs, and Next Proteins. Having coached for Carmichael Training Systems in the early 2000’s, Matt continues to design readymade training plans for triathletes and runners that are sold through TrainingPeaks.com and FinalSurge.com, as well as customized plans available through this website.
Matt intends to keep racing until he can’t. He’s run a bunch of marathons and countless shorter running events since returning to the sport at age 27. In 1998 he branched out to triathlons, and four years later completed his first (and only) Ironman. Matt lives in Northern California with his wife, Nataki, who is more important to him than running and writing.
