Tom Holland (4) (1969–)

I would strongly recommend against reading this book if you suffer from disordered eating or food restriction of any sort.

The author comes across as extremely judgmental and kind of a jerk. He assumes that everybody reading the book is hoping to lose weight. He suggests cutting out 1,000 calories of your daily intake every day, so that you can lose 1 or 2 pounds a week. Which, honestly, I don't understand how that isn't a starvation diet. In the same breath, the author states that triathletes need to eat a lot and typically do not handle nutrition well (he gleefully recounts many stories of people who did not fuel adequately at a race or training event). The author prays to the gospel of calories in, calories out, like a human body is exactly like a car (it isn't).

The author states that you will absolutely get faster as you lose weight. I realize this book was written prior to [Good for a Girl], but we've known for quite a while that athletes who suffer from disordered eating may experience a short-term gain in speed but will ultimately lose that speed gain and become injured to the extent where their racing careers (professional or not) will be over. Not to mention losing weight at all costs has a name: anorexia. Let's not promote that.

So the author's advice is to eat a lot! Eat constantly throughout the day! But not too much! If you eat too much, you'll get fat! And god forbid anybody be fat, right?! Like he literally suggests eating six 400 calorie "meals" every day (let's not call 400 calories a meal, it's a snack). I don't understand how that is adequate nutrition to fuel the caloric needs of somebody who exercises on average 2 hours daily, with long workouts going 2-3 hours. And that's just me, who doesn't do Ironman length events!

The author does bring up special diets (which, thankfully, he differentiates from diets like Atkins) but then literally discusses things like Atkins in the midst of discussing vegetarianism, veganism, etc. He then ends the chapter with a smug statement about how he eats everything which (unstated) obviously makes him better than us stupid vegans. He mentions how like zero pro athletes are vegan, but then grudgingly name drops Scott Jurek. The recipes at the end of the book are kind of a joke, and I think are there more for the calorie counts than the actual recipes. Like, one bagel with exactly one tablespoon of peanut butter. That's not a recipe, that's a crisis.

Like most women, I have a (ahem) complicated relationship with my body. Since getting back into running and taking up triathlon, my goal is to get stronger and never step on a scale (which, by the way, the author says you should do weekly). I've been feeling good about what I'm capable of without focusing on weight. However, amplifying my exercise has made me constantly hungry, so I have been looking for a book to help me figure out what to eat so that I can get through teaching a 3 hour class without being hangry. This book made me feel disgusting and piggish about myself, which is an awful shame. I also didn't learn anything meaningful about how to fuel throughout my day so I'm not constantly hungry.

Please, when somebody finds a good book about nutrition that isn't too academic or, well, this hot mess, please let me know!… (plus d'informations)