Why I Said Goodbye to Sugar and Grains – What a Fitness Book Taught Me About Eating as an Athlete

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One of my weaknesses is ordering triathlon books on my Kindle. Luckily, I signed up for Amazon Prime, so I get to "check out" a book once a month for free. The other day I checked out "My Half Ironman Experience: Insight on what to expect for your first race". Let me just say that I've read articles in Triathlon magazine that are longer and have more info than this "book". I'm just glad I didn't spend $2.99 to purchase it!

Anyway, after finishing this very, very short book, I looked at the bottom of the Kindle screen where Amazon makes recommendations based on my previous purchases. Of course everything is triathlon based (or so I thought), so I scrolled through the choices looking for something that had good reviews.

I stopped at a book called "Fitness Confidential". Without really researching what the book was about, I ordered it. After reading the first chapter, I realized it wasn't a triathlon book but a fitness and nutrition book.

The pic was pretty small on my Kindle, so I thought it was
just a triathlete on the cover

Fitness Confidential (Amazon)

Time to Start Over…Again

I woke up this morning feeling bloated and crappy from all the food and drink I indulged in during the Christmas holiday. I vowed to clean up my act and get back on track. First thing I did was post this in our tri group's special nutrition Facebook page…

This post was a link to the Food Matters tip page… it read:

#FMtip Inflammation from bacterial endotoxins may be a factor helping to drive the obesity epidemic. Junk food causes nasty microbes to bloom and friendly bugs to decline, just as sugar and refined carbohydrates feed the bacteria in your mouth that are responsible for tooth decay.

I promptly tossed the left over candy canes. I then picked up "Fitness Confidential" and started reading again. I was finally getting to the good stuff…Chapter 3 "The Non-Diet"…I like the way this sounds.

Funny Coincidence

The chapter begins with how people say how they've either been "good" or "bad"in terms of their diet…it then moves into discussing trendy diets that don't work and then why we fail on diets and end up gaining our weight back and then some. Ok…come on…just tell me what your "non-trendy" plan is…I'm sure we will all look back on this one and laugh too…

Here's the author's weight loss secret…

STAY AWAY FROM SUGAR AND GRAINS

Wow! That was just what I announced I was going to do on the group's Facebook page…I was getting rid of sugar and grains! Maybe this was a sign :-)

The book continues…

You didn't know what I was going to say, but you were hoping it was some kind of trick you'd never heard before. But even though you may not realize it yet, what I just told you is magical. If you just do it, if you just - 

STAY AWAY FROM SUGAR

and

STAY AWAY FROM GRAINS 

The advice wasn't revolutionary — just two simple rules: cut the sugar, cut the grains. No calorie counting, no low-fat obsessing, no portion measuring, no mandatory hour of daily exercise. Just those two things. The idea being that this isn't a diet with a finish line — it's just how you eat now. The author's point that stuck with me: when a client asks "how long will it take to lose the weight?", his response is "Why — are you planning to stop?"

No One Can Eat Just One

The author of "Fitness Confidential" has his own website (who doesn't) with a lot of good info. One of the top posts is called "Ruffles and Hormones and Weight Gain, Oh My"…basically it's about why we can't eat just one potato chip…and of course it reminded me of James and his admitted weakness for chips. My weakness is bread and pasta. I can't have one slice of bread or one serving of pasta. I guess my answer is to not have the bread or pasta in the first place.

While I like the idea of not counting calories or watching portions, I will honestly admit that it makes me a little sad to give up some of my favorites foods.

2026 Update: I've gone back and forth with sugar and grains many times since 2013. What I've learned is that consistency matters more than perfection — and that bread will always be my weakness.