Introduction
Welcome to the first edition of Integrated Fitness and Nutrition by Tom Fitzgerald.
I’m excited to publish my first piece on Substack and debut this weekly newsletter for people who want to make fitness and nutrition a priority when it can’t be priority number one.
I’ve only recently become aware of Substack, but when I did I knew it was a perfect fit. Writing articles is something I’ve done consistently for the past seven years and I’ve been fortunate to be featured in major publications.
But I’ve been less consistent with the other formats that connected me to the readers. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with social media and in fact, I’ve only recently posted to my business profile after nearly four years without content.
It was a similar story to my email list. I had a list with over 1000 people, deleted it, rebuilt a new one and then just stopped sending emails. I had enough clients and no longer needed to try and convert my readers, so I just stopped.
But over time, I came to miss the engagement. I like writing articles, discussing them with people who both like them and don’t and hearing people’s stories about how they have helped. I’ve had people email to tell me they used a strategy to lose 10kg after years of thinking nothing worked.
It’s crazy to think that I had no idea they had read the article, let alone were making changes to their lives based on the recommendations. It’s a privilege to be able to help one person
What I like about Substack is that you manage your subscription directly with Substack, without giving any information to me, which makes it quick and simple to opt-in or leave.
I know that I always question whether my information is really deleted from the marketing that I sign up for, which can be a barrier to opting into new content. Maybe it’s from the bad experiences from searching for a house and then having real estate agents email months after unsubscribing from their lists!
This weekly newsletter is going to focus on my fitness and nutrition insights and experiences from working with clients and managing my own approach. Each edition will have an update, main article, tips and answers to questions from the Substack community.
Creating content that is clear and implementable is important to me. I think it’s important that people know you, but you don’t need a PhD in nutrition and exercise science to be able to improve your own diet and training. So if you think the content is getting a bit too information-heavy or lacking strategy you can put into play tomorrow, just shoot me a reply to let me know.
I will also answer questions that get submitted. As the list is just starting out, you can just reply to the email and I’ll get the question from there. If things grow and there are too many questions to answer in a single edition, I’ll set up a submission form and get subscribers to vote on the next questions to answer.
But that might be optimistic thinking and it’s not a problem to solve today. For now, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter and I hope to continue writing to you in the future.
The Week That Was
I planned on writing these newsletters from my laptop and coming to you beachside or in a nice park with a good coffee. I enjoy writing outside and find that without an internet connection, I can focus on getting a single piece of content completed with minimal distraction.
The weather gods are clearly not subscribers, yet, because they have thrown a spanner in the works. We are in the middle of a “rain bomb” as the meteorologist just put it on this morning’s new report. It sounds worse than it is and I would rather describe it as simply “rain”.
While I can brave the rain, my laptop can’t, so the first edition is coming to you from my office with an average-tasting homemade coffee on oat milk.
My training has been going well for the past six weeks, after three months of interruptions due to COVID lockdowns. I’m in the gym four times per week doing two each of upper and lower body strength work and running twice a week.
The strength work is 30-40 mins and each session is led by the deadlift, bench press, squat or overhead press. My goals are to rebuild some strength after an inconsistent two years of training during COVID.
The running is working towards building a fitness base and running a decent 10km time in the coming two months (by my low standards). In March 2020, I signed up for a half-ironman in September that year, only for the lockdown to strike just a week later. I wasn’t able to train and the events haven’t been run for the past two years.
I’m not sure if I still want to do the half-ironman, but developing a fitness base gives me more options for the future.
My body weight is sitting around 100kg. If I want to improve my running, and especially if I want to increase the distances, this will need to decrease to make it easier on my joints. I find that 95kg is my sweet spot for having a good balance between running and strength training, so I’m working towards dropping 5kg over the coming months to reach this target.
I’m currently on a deload week of training and taking a few days off this weekend for a trip away with my fiance. We were meant to be getting married this weekend, but unfortunately had to postpone due to the ongoing travel restrictions within Australia.
I’m looking forward to the break and coming back fresh to finish the year strong.
I’ll be sharing my training and nutrition updates each week as a point of discussion. Feel free to ask any questions or share your opinion - I’m interested in your thoughts and always happy to clarify what I’m doing and why.
I don’t share this information on any other platform because it’s hard to provide context when people jump in and out. However, I feel with the newsletter that you will be able to access previous editions and stay across the progress and updates.
Simplifying Nutrition
You’ve probably heard that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. While I don’t agree with the exact breakdown because exercise is such an important component of developing an adhereable long term strategy, I do agree that getting nutrition sorted goes a long way to making progress.
Weight loss requires creating an energy deficit whereby energy intake from food and fluid is less than energy expenditure from exercise. I call these the 3 F’s - food, fluid and fitness, and they are the variables that we can control for body composition. Most people need to consume less food to make this happen.
There are three ways to eat less food
Firstly, we can reduce portion sizes. The composition of meals remains exactly the same but it is consumed in smaller amounts.
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