The Lonely Triathlete
Achieving Triathlon Race Weight
Description
Don't most of us want to be the most optimal weight for racing? Don't most of us love eating? Don't most of us just let nature take its course and we'll then just race at whatever weight we happened to get to? It doesn't have to be that way. ---------------------------------------- Come join our growing community at www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete [https://www.patreon.com/thelonelytriathlete] ---------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT Welcome back to The Lonely Triathlete. On January 2nd, 2026, I stepped on the scale and saw a number I wasn't expecting: 193 pounds. The strange part wasn't the number itself. The strange part was that I was already training again. I had restarted my triathlon training at the end of October. I was doing dryland swim training, cycling, running, and doing all the things endurance athletes are supposed to do. Yet somehow I was carrying around an extra 23 pounds compared to where I sit today. And you know the strangest part of all? I didn't really think I needed to lose weight. I mean, I knew I was way heavier than I wanted to be for race performance but... I didn't look overweight. I wasn't struggling to fit into my clothes. Nobody was pulling me aside to express concern. The weight was distributed evenly enough that I simply looked like a bigger version of myself. Today I'm hovering very close to 170 pounds. So how does a reasonably fit triathlete gain more than 20 pounds while continuing to train? And what happens when those pounds gradually disappear? That's what I want to talk about today. Because this isn't really a story about weight loss. It's a story about habits, performance, health, and a few uncomfortable truths that many endurance athletes probably don't want to hear. One of the biggest mistakes I made was believing that training alone would solve the problem. I had stopped training consistently for a period of time and gained some weight. When I restarted my training in October, I assumed the extra pounds would simply melt away. After all, that's what seemed to happen when I was younger. More training meant more calories burned. More calories burned meant less weight. Simple. Except this time it wasn't. The scale barely moved. Months went by. The training continued. The weight stayed. Looking back, I think I was relying on an old formula that no longer applied. Age changes things. Habits matter more. And unfortunately, there is no amount of Zone 2 riding that can completely erase poor nutritional habits. If I had to identify the single biggest contributor to my weight gain, it would be evening snacking. Potato chips. Pie. Doughnuts. Simple carbohydrates. The kinds of foods that are easy to justify after a hard workout. You tell yourself you've earned it. You tell yourself you've burned enough calories. You tell yourself it's only one snack. And then that one snack becomes a daily habit. The funny thing about gradual weight gain is that it becomes invisible. You adapt. You normalize it. You continue to think of yourself as the athlete you were ten or twenty pounds ago. The scale tells a different story. Eventually I decided it was time to stop guessing and start paying attention. The first thing I did was download the free version of MyFitnessPal and begin tracking calories. That single step changed everything. Not because I became obsessed with numbers. Quite the opposite. It simply gave me awareness. And awareness tends to change behaviour. The second thing I did was increase my protein intake. For me, that mostly came from whey protein shakes. One of the biggest discoveries I made was identifying my danger zone. For me, it wasn't breakfast. It wasn't lunch. It wasn't immediately after training. It was around 8 p.m. That's when the cravings showed up. That's when the urge to snack would hit. That's when good intentions became vulnerable. So instead of waiting until I was hungry enough to make poor choices, I started getting ahead of the problem. I'd drink a protein shake. I'd eat carrots, broccoli, or cauliflower. I'd pour myself a naturally flavoured sparkling water. And something interesting happened. The cravings lost much of their power. They didn't disappear. But they became manageable. Looking back, I honestly think that evening protein shake was one of the most important tools in my entire weight-loss journey. Not because it magically burned fat. Because it reduced the likelihood that I'd reach for something far more calorie-dense. The third change involved alcohol. I didn't eliminate it. I reduced it. I limited myself mostly to weekends and generally capped it at about three drinks in an evening. Again, nothing dramatic. No radical diets. No extreme restrictions. Just a series of small behavioural changes repeated consistently. And that's really the lesson. The weight came off steadily over five months. Not perfectly. Some weeks I lost weight. Some weeks I didn't. Some weeks the scale actually went up. But the overall trend continued downward. That's an important point because so many people expect weight loss to look like a straight line. It doesn't. Neither does fitness. Neither does triathlon training. Neither does life. Progress is messy. What matters is the trend. Now let's talk about performance. Because this is where things became impossible to ignore. The biggest difference has been running. I feel lighter. Not metaphorically. Literally. My feet seem to float across the ground. My stride feels smoother. My footfalls feel softer. Less pounding. Less plodding. More efficiency. Last September I ran a 10K in roughly 47 and a half minutes. Recently I ran a 46-minute 10K. About a minute and a half faster. Now, weight loss isn't the entire explanation. I've also trained consistently. My fitness has improved. But it's difficult to imagine that losing 23 pounds hasn't played a significant role. When you think about it, every step in a run requires lifting and moving your body weight forward. When you remove 23 pounds from that equation, the savings accumulate over thousands of steps. Cycling has been a little different. On flat terrain I don't notice a dramatic difference. But my watts-per-kilogram have steadily increased. Partly because my FTP has improved. Partly because there's simply less of me to move. On climbs, physics becomes your friend. Swimming? Honestly, I don't notice much difference. If there is a performance gain there, it's subtle compared to what I've experienced on the run. This naturally leads to the concept of race weight. One of the books that influenced my thinking on this topic is Race Weight by Matt Fitzgerald. One of Fitzgerald's key points is that race weight is not the lightest possible version of yourself. That's important. Because chasing the lowest number on the scale can become unhealthy very quickly. Instead, Fitzgerald describes race weight as the weight that naturally results from consistently practicing high-quality nutrition habits. In other words, race weight is an outcome. Not a target. I love that idea because it shifts the focus away from appearance and toward behaviour. The goal isn't to become skinny. The goal isn't to look good in a mirror. The goal is to become the healthiest and most capable athlete you can be. That brings me to another question. What are the health implications of carrying an extra 20-plus pounds? Now, I haven't had my blood work done yet. I'm planning to do that at the end of race season, along with another DEXA scan. So I don't have hard numbers to compare. But we do know that excess body weight—even in people who are relatively fit—can influence important health markers. It can reduce insulin sensitivity. It can elevate triglycerides. It can increase systemic inflammation. It can place additional strain on joints. It can contribute to higher blood pressure over time. Interestingly, my blood pressure has remained stable throughout this process, which is great. But I'll be fascinated to see whether my DEXA scan and blood work reveal improvements that mirror the changes I've already noticed in training and performance. Perhaps the most interesting reaction I've received came from my brother. I showed him my weight-loss graph. He looked at it and asked if the graph also represented my happiness level. In other words, as the weight went down, was I becoming less happy? I laughed because I think that question captures how many people view weight loss. They imagine deprivation. Sacrifice. Misery. Constant hunger. A joyless existence. That wasn't my experience at all. Was I hungrier in the evenings? Absolutely. But I managed it. I drank water. I had vegetables ready to go. I used protein strategically. I worked with my hunger rather than pretending it didn't exist. And the result wasn't unhappiness. It was actually the opposite. I feel better. I move better. My clothes fit better. My running feels better. My confidence is higher. My strength has improved despite eating fewer calories because I also began a twice-weekly strength training routine back in January. That's another lesson worth mentioning. Weight loss doesn't have to mean becoming weaker. When approached properly, you can improve body composition while becoming stronger. Finally, I think it's important to discuss the difference between pursuing performance and becoming obsessed with body image. These are not the same thing. Endurance athletes need to be careful here. A desire to optimize race weight can be healthy. An obsession with every pound can be unhealthy. The question I like to ask myself is this: If nobody could see my body, would I still want to lose this weight? For me, the answer was yes. Because this wasn't about appearance. It was about performance. Health. Longevity. Feeling better. Moving better. Becoming a stronger athlete. Those motivations feel healthy and sustainable. So where should someone start if they want to move closer to an ideal race weight? Keep it simple. Track what you're eating for a week. Not to judge yourself. To learn. Increase protein. Reduce liquid calories. Find healthier substitutes for your biggest nutritional weaknesses. Focus on food quality before obsessing over quantity. Aim for consistency rather than perfection. And most importantly, think in months rather than weeks. Nobody expects to go from couch to Ironman in six weeks. Yet people routinely expect dramatic body composition changes in that amount of time. The same principles apply. Small actions. Repeated consistently. Over long periods of time. Five months ago I weighed 193 pounds. Today I'm very close to 170. And the biggest lesson I've learned is that I wasn't carrying 23 pounds. I was carrying 23 pounds and a collection of habits. The habits were the real weight. Once those changed, everything else started to follow. In September I'll be getting another DEXA scan and blood work. I'm genuinely curious to see whether the improvements I've noticed in performance show up in the data as well. When those results come in, I'll share them here on the podcast. Until then, thanks for listening to The Lonely Triathlete. Keep showing up. Keep training. And remember that sometimes the biggest gains don't come from working harder. They come from making a few better choices and repeating them long enough for them to matter.
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