179. Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs to Know Part 3: Mindset

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 179 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today: Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know, Part Three: Mindset.

Your mindset is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. But most people do not spend any time at all working on improving their mindset. This is crazy to me because without the right mindset, doing things like losing weight and keeping it off becomes nearly impossible.

However, armed with the right mindset, losing weight becomes easy, and effortless and your success is basically inevitable. Everything you want for yourself but don’t already have requires a shift in your mindset in order to get it. Change happens from the inside out, okay?

This inner work, this mindset work, is the most important and most powerful work you can do for yourself. So today, I’m going to lay out a whole bunch of mindset principles that you absolutely need to know if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

And again, this is part three of my three part series called Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know. Part One focused on nutrition principles. Part Two was all about the exercise principles you need to focus on in order to lose weight, get stronger and become the most badass version of yourself. Cool.

Alright, but first, if you have ever struggled to lose weight and keep it off, I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone, you’ve probably just been given the wrong advice, or you’re just not following any kind of plan. Alright, and it’s okay. I get it. I’ve been there, we’ve all been there.

But if you’re ready to actually do something different to actually do something to change, and follow a plan that was custom built for you and have someone there supporting you every step of the way, then I’ve got you covered. I created The Coaching Project with you in mind.

The Coaching Project is my lifetime access weight loss coaching program designed specifically for runners. You and I will work closely together to put together a custom nutrition and exercise plan to get you to your goals.

Then we meet regularly to see what’s working and what’s not and then course correct if needed. One thing you need to understand about coaching is that it’s not a one size fits all approach. There just isn’t one diet or one exercise plan that works for everyone. There just isn’t.

You are an individual, you have your own goals, needs and your own lifestyle. And I want to meet you where you are. What works for others may not work for you. So why try to force yourself into some cookie cutter program that isn’t made for you and probably won’t work for you?

So if you’re ready to stop struggling and start getting results, check out the coaching project just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. I would love to see you in The Coaching Project.

Okay, let’s get into this, the most important mindset principles runners need to know in order to lose weight and keep it off. This is like my favorite topic. As a coach I’ve worked with a lot of runners and helped them develop the mindset that allows them to to become their most badass selves to lose weight, get stronger, run faster, and become their best selves.

And the mindset work is probably the most important work that you have to do if you want to lose weight and keep it off. If you want to live a happy, healthy lifestyle easily and effortlessly, this all requires a big shift in your mindset.

Your mindset is the foundation of everything that you do. Everything that you do is built upon this foundation. With the wrong mindset though you are doomed to failure. But with the right mindset, you’d become basically unstoppable. There’s nothing you can’t do.

So I’m gonna go over a few mindset principles that runners need to know in order to lose weight and keep it off. Okay, there’s more than a few. This is very challenging for me to narrow down this list. But I don’t know, I have like 18 or 19 principles I want to share with you today. I just couldn’t I couldn’t choose just a few.

So I hope you’ll enjoy, but let’s start with the first one, and these are in no particular order, by the way. But the first one is this: your environment is everything. So when we talk about changing your environment in order to promote healthy changes in your life, like if you want to create new healthy habits, you got to change your environment.

This means changing things like what foods you keep in the kitchen and the fridge and the pantry. What’s in that snack cupboard? Do you even have a snack cupboard? You probably don’t need one. But your environment is more than just your kitchen.

Your environment is the books you read, the movies you watch, the podcasts you listen to, the audio books you listen to, the TV shows you watch. All of these things have an influence on you as a person and what you choose to do and not do and how you live your life.

We are very influenced by all these outside influences that come into us. What about the people you spend time with? You know, they say you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with?

Who do you follow on social media? What friends do you spend time with? What family members do you spend time with? You may have some toxic family members that you probably shouldn’t spend as much time with. I know sometimes that’s out of our control.

But sometimes you need to just say like I’m not gonna go over to Aunt Janet’s because she’s a little cuckoo, you know, or whatever you need to do. But these people have an influence on you, even the people you follow on social media, right?

So make sure that the people in your life are supporting you, they have your back. There are positive influences on your life, okay? They say you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you spend time with five marathon runners, you’ll probably be the sixth. If you spend time with five lean, strong human beings, five faster runners, five people who are into self improvement, you’ll probably be the sixth.

Conversely, if you spend time with five couch potatoes, five junk food junkies, you’ll probably be the sixth. Okay, so your environment is everything. It really is everything, okay?

Next one, your feelings are not in charge. Okay? And you are not your feelings. So don’t allow your feelings to drive your actions. Your brain is a powerful thing, that we don’t use it, we allow ourselves to be driven by our feelings a lot of the time.

So for example, if you’re having a stressful day, you’re feeling very stressed out about what you want to do, you just want to go drink a bunch of alcohol or eat some junk food. But listen to your mind, your mind is smarter than your feelings, your mind knows what’s good for you.

Your mind should be driving the bus, your feelings can come along for the ride, but they’re a passenger, they’re sitting in a passenger seat, they’re not allowed to drive. And we think we have to do things a certain way. Because we feel a certain way. This is just not true.

You don’t have to do anything, you can just have a feeling. So instead of being driven by your feelings, use that intuitive voice that you have inside you. Your intuition knows what’s right, or what’s wrong in any particular moment.

So let’s say you had a stressful day and you just want to eat cake for dinner. This is a feeling that’s dictating a behavior. But in that moment, there’s a part of you that’s like, this is not right. I shouldn’t be eating cake for dinner. That’s not who I want to be. That’s your intuitive voice. That’s your intuition. Listen to that voice.

Okay, your feelings are not in charge. Listen to that voice of reason. Let that drive your actions. Don’t let your feelings drive the bus. Okay? If you get good at this, this is a game changer for every aspect of your life.

All right, the next principle is this: you have to know the difference between knowledge and know how. So knowledge is knowing about something. Know how is knowing how to do that thing.

So for example, if you read books on how to swim, and you listen to, you know, podcasts about how to swim, and you read all these books, are you a swimmer? No, of course not because you’ve never been in the water. You’ve never practiced.

You’ve never, like gotten from one end of the pool to the other without having to stop and be like, oh my god, this is super hard. I did this when I was learning how to swim because I decided I was going to do my first triathlon some years ago and I signed up for a half Ironman. Who does that? Right?

I’ve never done a triathlon in my life and I’m like, I’m gonna sign up for half Ironman, how hard could it be? It’s a half, it’s a half thing, you know, so it can’t be that hard. But I really didn’t know how to swim I kind of assumed, but I wasn’t good at swimming at all. I couldn’t make it across the pool without having to stop and like catch my breath or whatever.

So I got on YouTube, and I read some books and I learned the principles of swimming but It wasn’t until I got into the pool and I practiced that, that I actually knew how to do it, it took me a long time to get good at the right form, because you have to be able to breathe on both sides.

And you have to be able to look up out of the water and sight where you’re going and keep yourself going in a straight line. Because when you’re swimming in open water, there’s no black line at the bottom of the lake or whatever to keep you on track. So you have to be able to look and so you’ve got to practice all this stuff, knowing how to do it is completely different than actually doing it. Okay.

So you got to know the difference between knowledge and know how. And when I coach people, I always kind of tell them, like, coaching is like 20% knowledge, yeah, I’m going to show you what to do to show you how to do it. But it’s like 80% application, it’s 80%, practicing these principles, it’s 80% doing the thing.

That’s how you become good at something. That’s how you develop good habits. That’s how you become a good swimmer. You know, you’ve got to practice that good form over and over and over again. But reading a book on it does not give you what you need, you’ve got to do the thing, and you’ve got to spend time doing it. Okay, so this applies.

Specifically, we’re talking about weight loss here. So we’re talking about sticking to the food plan, what works for you, what doesn’t work for you? How do you work in all this running that you want to do? How do you train for this event? And stick to your food plan and lose weight, if that’s what you want for yourself?

So it’s 20% knowledge and like, 80% application, okay, but the know how is in the doing. It’s in the practicing. It’s in the repetition. Okay.

That leads me to my next principle, which is this: You crave what you repeatedly do. So the things that are easy for you, and that you enjoy doing are probably the things you do regularly. So if you’re somebody who goes to the gym regularly, like I go to the gym most days, right?

So right now I’m in this phase where I’m going to the gym like five days a week, and I love it. I love it. There was a time in my life where going to the gym one day a week would have sucked. And I would have been like, this is stupid, I can’t believe I would have to force myself to go because I didn’t love it, because I wasn’t doing it regularly.

But those things that we continually do. We get good at, they start to fill us with joy, and we crave those things. All right. So maybe you’re somebody who runs marathons regularly, you begin to crave the training and the feeling of crossing that finish line.

Let’s look at the other side of this though. If you repeatedly eat junk food, you’re going to keep craving it more and more and more. Instead, if you start eating healthy food repeatedly, guess what? That begins to be what you crave.

I will tell you right now I crave certain foods that seem crazy to me. That like few years ago, I would have been like, who is this person, you know, like a good salad with some crispy vegetables on there. And a big steak like that is something that sounds amazing to me.

Now, if you’re not somebody that likes to eat salad, and likes to eat steak, whatever do, you do you it’s fine. But this healthy, simple food right now, I crave it, you know? So as human beings, the reason why this kind of works for us is that we perceive anything familiar as good.

So anything that seems familiar to us that we do repeatedly, we see that as good, anything unfamiliar, we see as bad. Even if that thing is not actually good for us like eating junk food as an example, right? We do this repeatedly and our brain’s just like this is good, because we do it all the time.

But we know it’s not good for us. But your brain doesn’t care. It just sees that as good because it’s something you do repeatedly. Okay. So the more you do something, the more familiar it becomes, and the more your brain perceives it as good so you begin to crave it, you crave what you repeatedly do. So choose those things wisely. Okay.

Next principle, I’ve talked about this once or twice before, embrace the suck. Listen, change is uncomfortable. Change is hard. And change, it just plain sucks sometimes. And in the ultra running community, we talk about this a lot.

There’s this concept called ‘embrace the suck’ because the suck is that point that will happen at some point during your race where you’re going to feel terrible. I don’t know when it’s going to happen. Let’s say you’re doing a 50 miler. It could happen at mile 30 or 45 or minus eight, I don’t know, but at some point, it’s going to suck. And it’s better to know this in advance to accept it. To embrace it, don’t wish it didn’t suck, don’t don’t wish it was easier because it isn’t going to be.

So accept it and embrace it. That’s the only way you’re gonna get through it. What we do here, when we’re trying to change our diet, lose weight, create better habits, become healthier, get stronger, this stuff is not easy. If it was easy, I wouldn’t have a job, I wouldn’t do what I do.

This is hard work. But it’s in the hard work that we grow, it’s in the hard work that we evolve, and we become our best selves. So don’t try to avoid the suck, don’t try to make it easier, don’t wish it was easier. You know, embrace the suck, because it will always be a part of the process. Okay?

Next principle, you have to commit to the process of change. If you want to lose weight, let’s say you wanna lose 40 pounds, and all your energy is focused on 40 pounds, I gotta get to this goal weight by this date, I’m just, you know, kind of got to hit that 40 pounds, I got 40 pounds lose.

If you just focused all of your energy on this one long term goal, you’re just going to feel kind of miserable all the time. I’m just telling you right now from experience of helping people through this kind of thing and seeing people with these weight loss goals.

And I’m just telling you that it is a miserable place to be if all you’re focused on is hitting that goal. Because your weight changes, it fluctuates, it goes up and down. And it’s just sometimes the the date that we have for a goal isn’t realistic, you know, it’s like I’m gonna lose 40 pounds in the next 60 days. I don’t think that’s realistic. I mean, it might happen. But what if it doesn’t, then you’re just disappointed. So let’s just scrap all that out.

I want you to instead commit to the process of change. What does that mean? That means doing the stuff you need to do today, and just focus on that, focus on the process of change, focus on your plan, the steps that you’re taking.

What are you doing today to move yourself towards that goal? Are you skipping dessert? Are you eating more protein, doing a HIIT workout, lifting heavy weights, saying no to fried food and sugary treats? Yeah, do those things just focus on that be in the moment, focus on the process of change instead of the end result.

Because I’ll tell you what, you’re going to enjoy that process way, way more if you just focus on the process of change, okay. And when you do this, your goal becomes inevitable, it may take a little bit longer than you want, or it may not take as long as you think it just takes what it takes, we’re all different, but you’re going to enjoy the process so much more.

So just commit to that process of change and not focused all your energy on the end result. Which leads me to my next principle, which is the gap versus the gain, you’ve got to be focused on the gain, not the gap. So the gap, what is the gap? The gap is when you’re focused on where you’re not. So let’s say you want to lose those 40 pounds.

The gap is, you know that you have 40 pounds to lose, you have 40 pounds, that 40 pounds is the gap from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. And when all of our attention and energy is focused on what we don’t have, what we haven’t accomplished, how far we have to go, that is not a good place to be.

Because you’re going to get down on yourself, you’re going to feel frustrated, it’s going to feel like this is a never ending journey. And you’re just focused on the wrong thing. Instead, I want you to focus on the gain, what’s the gain?

The gain is every little success that you have along the way. When you focus on your little successes, and these could be oh, I lost a half a pound this week. Or it could be that my pants fit a little bit better. Or, oh, I can get into those shorts that I wore last, that I couldn’t wear last summer, you know, or I just feel like I have a lot of energy today. That’s a good thing.

When we focus on the positives on the gains that we’ve made along the way, we feel more motivated to keep going. We feel more confident that this is working. We’re no longer focused on what isn’t working. We’re focused on what is and it’s like just shifting into this whole new positive mindset instead of this negative one. So stop focusing on the gap, the gap doesn’t matter.

Focus on the gain, focus on those little things you do every single day that feel good and that move you inch by inch closer to that goal. You’re going to be much happier and enjoy the process much more if you do this, okay?

Okay, next principle, it’s okay to be the weirdo at the table. I love this one. Because we are so worried about trying to fit in, and please other people, and go along, just get along with everyone just do what everybody else is doing. Stop doing that. Okay?

If you’re somebody who is like working on their weight and trying to improve their health, and you’re not just not eating junk food, but you’re going out with some friends, and they’re all want to order a bunch of junk for dinner or something like that, or a bunch of alcohol or something, you do not have to go along with that.

If you choose in that moment, though, that everybody else is getting, you know, garbage food, you know, but you’re choosing to eat a salad or, or not have the drink when everybody else is drinking, you’re going to feel like you’re a little left out like you’re the outsider, like you don’t fit in.

They may even say something to you like, Hey, why aren’t you drinking? Hey, why aren’t you eating pizza like everybody else? You know, what’s wrong with you? Come on, just live a little, you get a little peer pressure going on there.

But they may just think you’re the weirdo at the table. And I want to encourage you to just be the weirdo at the table. It’s okay. Listen, you don’t want to be like everyone else. 88% of Americans suffer from some sort of metabolic dysfunction.

We’re talking overweight, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, all that stuff. These are all lifestyle diseases. And they call it metabolic dysfunction, or metabolic disease. You want to be in the 12%. The different the, the outlier, the weirdo, that is not like everybody else, okay? Just own it. Just own it.

Like be okay being the weirdo at the table. All right. Don’t be like everybody else. And we can’t please other people by our actions, you know, like, it doesn’t matter. Like, you could be the perfect person. And somebody’s not gonna like you. So it doesn’t matter, like, stop trying to please other people. It just doesn’t work. I wish it did. But it doesn’t.

Okay, next principle is this: the 90/10 rule. I love this one. I hope you do too. So we don’t have to do everything 100% perfectly. Nobody does, not even me, honestly. Instead, you’ve got to take a day off every now and then from your workouts or have a piece of cake or a piece of pizza every now and then.

Otherwise, you know, you might feel discouraged and miserable, we don’t want to be discouraged and miserable. So when I’m working with clients, I try to encourage them to follow the 90/10 rule when it comes to diet and even exercise, primarily diet.

That means that 90% or 90% of the time you are like on the money, you’re not eating sugar, you’re not eating a bunch of processed junk food, no fried food, no vegetable oil, nothing like that, right.

But then there’s that 10% of the time where you can have the cake, or a sugary treat, or some pizza or a beer or a doughnut or whatever, do what makes you happy. Right? If you can do this the right way, and this is very important, you have to be able to do this right where you can allow yourself to binge out on junk food because you have one donut gotta be able to practice restraint, right, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do cheat meals.

But if you can do this the right way, and you have a plan that you know is working for you 90% of the time, then this is something that might be sustainable for you. Right. So if we talk about 10% of your meals can be a little bit of a cheat meal kind of a thing. That means that we’re talking about one meal per week. That’s it.

So this isn’t a cheat day, this isn’t a cheat week or a cheat month. This is a cheat meal, like once a week. So I’ll tell you like and I don’t do this once a week, but probably once or twice a month I get like tacos, that’s my thing. I just love tacos full of chips and salsa and guacamole and, and I get tacos.

And so that is what I consider my cheat meal. I do that once every other week or something like that. And it makes it so enjoyable to live this way. You know because the other 90% of the tim my diet is on point. Right?

But then I get to you know, enjoy something that is hyper palatable food that’s Uber delicious. I know it’s not super good for me. But at the same time it’s so small the amount of tortilla chips that I eat versus you know how much good clean food I’m eating that it doesn’t have a big effect on me. Okay.

Which leads me to my next principle: Whatever you do, it has to be sustainable for you. That means that it has to be enjoyable for you, or else you won’t want to do it. And if you don’t want to do it, and it’s a miserable process, and you feel like you’re deprived all the time, you’re not going to stick with it.

Sustainability means that you have a plan that you follow for life, like this is not short term. This is for good, right? not temporary. This is just how you do things from here on out. Okay. So this has to do with the foods you eat, how you exercise, all that stuff.

So if you’re trying to follow some plan that says you can never have sugar again, in any form the rest of your life, and you have to run every single day. Like, to me that sounds terrible. Because there’s going to be a moment where I’m going to be like, oh, it’s like Christmas, I really want to have this Christmas cookie that my kids made for me or something.

Or, you know, I’m kind of tired. And I feel like I need to take a day off, but I can’t because I’m on this plan. Like that’s not sustainable. Right? So whatever you have to do, you have to enjoy it. And it has to be sustainable.

That’s why when I work with new people, we come up with a plan and we always have the discussion about what foods do you love. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about putting together a plan that includes a lot of those foods that you love, so that you’re more likely to stick with it.

Which leads me into my next principle, which is consistency beats perfection. Do not focus on perfection. Nobody does this perfectly. Instead, focus on consistent consistency. Over time, that’s what’s gonna get you there. That’s what’s gonna make a huge difference for you. Okay?

When you focus on perfection, you beat yourself up every time you go off the plan. And this leads to self doubt, and a lack of motivation and giving up on yourself. Instead, practice consistency, you make a plan, and then you stick to the plan even when you don’t feel like it. It’s that simple.

You don’t go ballistic on yourself if you mess up because you are going to mess up and it’s okay. Here’s a good rule of thumb to follow: never have two cheat meals in a row. Never miss two workouts in a row.

That means if you do have that one cheat meal that next meal, you are right back on plan again. That means if you missed that workout, the next scheduled workout you make that workout no matter what.

You know, maybe you didn’t feel like running because you were super tired. It’s not a big deal. But you got to hit that next workout no matter what. Same with the food plan, right next meal, you’re back on track. Consistency over time is what’s going to get you there because nobody does it perfectly. So don’t think you have to do it perfectly. And don’t think that anybody does it perfectly, because nobody does.

Alright, next principle is this, you have to take radical responsibility. So this means that you cannot be a blamer or a complainer. Most people have a very hard time sticking with some kind of a diet or exercise plan. And they will have all kinds of stories and reasons and excuses. And they will blame everything and everyone else for why they can’t stick to their plan.

I had a job change, or my hours changed at work, or my kids are home for the summer or my husband doesn’t eat the same foods as me or is too cold outside, or it’s too hot outside, or Mercury’s in retrograde or whatever. These are all just excuses. And I could go on and on. I’ve heard every excuse in the world, you know.

And I want to tell you to just stop it with the stories. Stop it with the reasons stop it with the excuses, stop blaming everybody else. Start taking radical responsibility for your own results or lack of results. If you want to lose weight, and you want to maybe run faster, and you really want this for yourself, then take the responsibility of doing the work to get those things. No excuses.

No more blaming anyone or anything that’s outside of you. If it’s to be it’s up to me. Have you heard that quote before? I don’t know who said that. But I love it. If it’s to be it’s up to me that means you got to do it. It’s your fault. If it works, it’s your fault. If it doesn’t work, it’s your fault. Just take responsibility, good or bad.

If you’re getting good results take responsibility. If you’re not, take responsibility. Don’t blame anybody else. So here’s the thing: when you start doing this, when you start taking radical responsibility for every result you’re getting or not getting in your life, it becomes a game changer.

This is like total freedom for you because you’re no longer allowing anything outside of you to control what you’re doing or not doing or stop you from becoming who you truly want to be. This is a very beautiful empowering place to be, okay? People who take radical responsibility, get results, period. Okay?

Next principle, coaching is only for people who can’t do it on their own. So this is actually a myth. This is not something that I want you to follow. But I want you to just hear me on this. I hear people talk about coaching. And they think that coaching means that it is only for people who have no willpower, no discipline, and who just can’t do stuff on their own.

And I just have to tell you, this is not true at all. I was always somebody who’s very disciplined, I trained for an Ironman Ironman on my own. I trained for a 50 mile race on my own, 100 mile race on my own, countless marathons, countless ultra marathons, all on my own. And I was fine with all that I did great with all that.

Now, there was a blind spot that I had, when it came to nutrition, I did not have a plan that was working for me, I didn’t know what to do. And I didn’t have anybody helping me. And I thought I could figure it out myself. And I just couldn’t, I tried everything. And I really couldn’t.

Nothing really clicked for me until I got some coaching. Once I got some coaching, I had a custom plan that was designed for me, I had a lot of say in how I wanted to make this work. And I began doing the mindset work I needed to do to make this a lifestyle. And that was never going to happen on my own.

I learned a lot of the mindset principles I’m sharing with you today from various coaches that I’ve worked with. And doing this inner work has been the game changer for me. And the other thing I have to tell you is that the best coaches have coaches.

I work with a lot of coaches, there’s a lot of people that are clients of mine who coach other people. Some of them coach them on health and nutrition and diet and running and exercise. Some of them are life coaches and things like that. The point is, though, the best coaches have coaches.

So coaching isn’t just for people who can’t do it on their own, coaching is for anybody that wants to improve, and that wants the help and the guidance and the support to basically make those results inevitable. Okay.

Which leads me to my next principle, which is this change happens from the inside out, right? It’s this inner work, these mindset principles I’m sharing with you today, for example, this is the inner work that you have to do, you cannot expect to change by simply like, Oh, I’m just going to run more miles or I’m going to eat, you know, these 10 foods.

Yeah, you’ll change temporarily, like some of that you might be able to lose some weight, if you change your diet a little bit. But permanent change, it’s a whole different thing, a whole different thing. You have to fix your mindset. If you want long lasting change to happen, you have to do the inner work.

That’s why so much of my coaching program is focused on this inner work, on the mindset work. Because change happens from the inside out, it doesn’t happen the other way around. It doesn’t happen from the outside in. It’s not like oh, I’m going to make all these changes and I’m going to lose this weight. And I’m going to run faster, I’m gonna get stronger. And then I’ll have this great mindset.

Nope, it happens the other way around. You improve your mindset. First, you adopt a powerful, successful mindset. And then you become powerful and successful because of that. Okay, so just remember that change happens from the inside out, not the other way around.

Alright, next principle is this: you need to become an emotional badass. So human beings, we are emotional beings. It’s normal and natural for us to experience a wide variety of emotions and we have emotions that we call negative and some that we call positive.

We love the positive emotions you know love joy, happiness, ecstasy, calmness, peacefulness. These are all what we would consider positive emotions. But we hate the negative ones, fear stress, anxiety, guilt, shame.

All these are what we would call negative emotions. And we love feeling the positive emotions but we try to repress the negative ones. We try to push them down. We numb ourselves out to those negative emotions. We don’t want to feel those things, emotions and feelings same things right. So we numb ourselves to those feelings.

And how do we do that? We use food, we use alcohol, we use shopping, sex, gambling, drugs, and on and on and on. There’s so many things, scrolling through social media as a way of numbing ourselves. The two most common ones, and the ones that I help people with a lot, are the food and alcohol.

Those are like the two kind of most common ways that we numb ourselves. So if you’re trying to lose weight, and you’re eating, to make yourself feel better, you got to learn how to stop doing that you got to learn how to stop soothing yourself, or numbing yourself with food, or alcohol.

Because you’ve probably been using food as an emotional management tool for way too long and has to stop. If you want to become healthier, leaner, stronger, you got to change your whole relationship with food. So the real work actually begins when you stop using food as an emotional management tool, when you stop using food to numb yourself when you stop using food to feel better.

Now, you got to feel all these emotions, hmm, that does not feel good. That is the stuff that we actually have to deal with. So when I talk about becoming an emotional badass, that means that you have to get good at having those emotions and experiencing the feelings, that you have all of them without doing anything to make them go away without eating over them. And it sounds easy enough, right?

Okay, you stop emotional eating, you’ve got some emotions you’ve got to deal with, you just deal with those, and then you’re good to go. Sounds easy. But this is the work. This is the hard work and some of the hardest work that we do in the coaching project.

You know, I guarantee that most coaches out there and most programs out there are not going to help you in this area. Especially people that are helping runners and stuff like that, like it’s just not on their radar to help people in this way.

Most coaches don’t know how to help you stop the emotional eating and what to do instead, right. They, most coaches, are just like eat this, don’t eat that. Run this many miles, whatever. I do things a little bit differently, just so you know. So we have feelings. And we have to feel those feelings, we have to be able to feel them, we have to be able to process them, we have to be able to learn from them without eating because of that without drinking because of them.

And honestly, this is probably one of the most important life skills that you can and should learn. Because when you become an emotional badass, you’re no longer afraid to experience any emotion, positive, negative, whatever, like you’re, you’re just like grinding it all on, you become unstoppable. There’s nothing that you can’t do. There’s nothing that you can’t accomplish.

Most people don’t want to try to lose weight because they’re afraid they’re going to fail. And then they’re going to feel bad about themselves. That’s why they don’t do it. They’re afraid they’re going to fail. And they’re going to feel bad about themselves. They’re afraid of a feeling they’re afraid of feeling that feeling.

But what if you weren’t afraid to feel the feeling? There’s just like, nothing you wouldn’t be willing to try. So you got to become an emotional badass, just know that. Okay. Next on my list of principles that every runner needs to know, is the idea of a fixed versus a growth mindset. A fixed mindset.

So this is where your brain and your mindset is basically fixed. This is who I am. This is how I’ve always done things. This is how I will continue to do things I cannot change. And end of story. And I’m being sort of funny about this, but so many people think that their mindset is fixed. That’s just, this is the way I do things.

Oh, I’ve got a sweet tooth. I’m an emotional eater. You know, I’m a stress eater, whatever. But you don’t have to be that way. You can change. But if you’re stuck in that fixed mindset, it is going to stifle your growth, it’s going to cause a lot of stress in your life. It does kind of let you off the hook though.

Because you don’t really have to do anything, or stick with anything because you’re never going to like get better or improve anyway. So you don’t really need to bother with any of that stuff. It basically keeps you stuck and small. The fixed mindset is not where you want to be. You want to adopt a growth mindset.

A growth mindset is like I’m always learning, I’m always growing. I’m always improving. I’m always becoming more. I’m always capable of growth. I’m always open to change and learning and growing. This opens you up to amazing new experiences and opportunities. It helps you to try new things even though you might fail. But you know that you can try because you might also succeed. And so why not just try?

So the growth mindset is one that you have to adopt, if you want to change. If there’s anything you want to improve in your life, you can’t do it with a fixed mindset, you have to have that growth mindset, okay? So you have to adopt that. And you will be able to accomplish great things in your life, right? But with that fixed mindset, you’re going to just kind of stay where you are, you don’t want that.

Alright, next principle is this. Taking aligned action is the key. So this means that you have to take consistent aligned action, if you want to create progress, what is consistent aligned action. So aligned action is actions that are in alignment with your long term goals.

So if you want to lose weight, one of your actions that would be in alignment with that goal is like, I’m just not going to eat ice cream for dessert every night, boom, okay, doing that action. In this case, it’s not doing something that is in alignment with who you want to be. And when you take consistent aligned action, you make progress, you’ll start to see the weight coming off of you. Cool.

Well, making progress helps you to build confidence, you’re like, Oh, I’m doing this, I can actually do this. And that confidence creates motivation to keep going and take more aligned action. And this is the cycle of motivation. This is the cycle that you want to stay in.

All right, taking consistent aligned action, making progress, building confidence, being motivated to continue to take more aligned action, that’s the cycle you want to be in. There is another cycle that most people kind of find themselves in, by the way, and this is the cycle of demotivation, where you take misaligned action, so action that is not in alignment with your long term goals.

I want to lose weight, but you know what, I’m going to eat twice as much ice cream every night for dessert. That would be called misaligned action. Misaligned action causes misaligned results or lack of progress. So you start gaining weight, you want to lose weight, but you’re gaining weight. And that lack of progress causes doubt and worry and uncertainty and a loss of confidence. And that lack of confidence causes you to be demotivated.

So you’re no longer motivated to keep going. So you just quit. Have you ever experienced that? And I know I have. But I want to tell you something. Just don’t do that. Take consistent aligned action. If you’re not taking consistent aligned action, ask yourself why?

Why am I not doing the right thing in this moment? Maybe go back to that intuitive, asking yourself intuitively, like what is right in this moment, okay, because you know, you know what’s right.

Next principle is this: never, ever, ever, ever give up. People who are successful at losing weight, know that it takes some time to get the results that they want. So they don’t quit when they have a weight loss stall or a plateau. They keep going day in and day out. They keep doing the work, they keep showing up for themselves. And they never give up no matter what. They’ve committed to the process of change, and they keep going no matter how long it takes.

What if you adopted this mindset around one key area of your life like weight loss? What could you accomplish? How much weight could you lose? If you just never quit? What if you applied this principle to every area of your life, you could transform yourself into a whole new person no joke.

So commit to becoming the healthiest and most badass version of yourself. And then never, ever, ever give up. You don’t quit when it gets hard. You don’t quit when you get tired. You only quit when you’re done. Okay.

Which leads me to my last principle, which is this there is no finish line, you’re never done. I hope this doesn’t bum you out. Really, I hope it doesn’t. But there is no finish line. This is a lifestyle. You know, weight loss, getting healthy, becoming our best selves isn’t a destination we’re trying to get to, there isn’t a finish line, you’re going to cross and then you’re going to be like, oh, cool, I can rest and relax now and eat whatever I want.

No, it doesn’t work that way. We commit to these principles. We commit to this lifestyle. And it is a lifestyle. It’s the lifestyle that we live our life from here on out. So there is no “done”. There is no finish line. We just keep going. We keep showing up for ourselves because it’s the right thing to do.

We keep improving and growing and evolving and becoming more because it’s the right thing to do. Because we want to constantly transform ourselves. We don’t want to stay where we are. We don’t want to be the same person in 10 years that we are today.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always growing and evolving and I couldn’t look back where I was two three years ago and go, gosh, I’m like a different person today. And it’s because I kept showing up for myself every single day. A day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year.

When you have this principle, there is no finish line that this is just the work we do and it continues. This is a game changer because this just becomes a part of your identity. Being healthy, exercising, eating right, it just becomes a part of your identity becomes part of who you are and what you do. It’s not a struggle. It’s not hard. You’re not missing out on anything. It’s just what you do. It’s who you are.

Okay, just remember, there is no finish line, this work continues. Okay. I hope you’ve enjoyed this three part series called Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know. You can really listen these three episodes anytime you need a little refresher course on what to do to kind of get yourself back on track.

Next week on the podcast, I’m going to be recapping my recent 12 hour ultra marathon, how I trained for it, my nutrition plan during the event, what went well, what didn’t go so well. lessons I learned and lots more. So that should be a fun one. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast and whatever podcast app you use so you never miss a future episode, okay.

And then if you’re a runner and you’re ready to lose the weight for good, then I have something that you need to check out, I put together a brand new free training program called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner.

I’ll teach you how to lose weight the right way and keep it off for good without the suffering and the deprivation or running a million miles a week. And just like you know, this is about more than just losing weight. It’s about not doing the same things over and over expecting different results.

It’s about changing your whole relationship with diets and nutrition and exercise. It’s about becoming the healthiest version of yourself from the inside out. And it’s about changing your mindset and creating new habits that last for life.

So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, if you’re ready to run faster, run longer and become the healthiest version of yourself yet. Check out this free training, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. There’s never going to be a better time than right now to get started, that’s runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.