24. A Weight Loss Coach? For Runners?

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.

Well, hey there, and welcome to episode number 24 of The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m a master life coach and a weight loss coach for runners. A weight loss coach for runners. Yes, I am a weight loss coach for runners. This is what I’m talking about here today.

And the reason I’m talking about this is because of this, I think there’s a misconception out there, that all runners are in perfect health, they’re all super skinny, super lean, 0% body fat, they never have to worry about gaining weight ever again. And I think a lot of people, especially non-runners, think that running is the cure-all for every health ailment that’s out there today, especially things like being overweight.

I think there’s a lot of people out there that think if they’re overweight, all they have to do is start running. So train for a 5k train for a half marathon, whatever. And they’ll magically lose all the weight and live happily ever after the end. The truth is very different. Running is not the magic pill for weight loss. It’s just not.

There’s more going on here. And there’s more that we need to look at. Running is amazing, though, and definitely plays a big role in living a healthy, vibrant life, but it’s not everything. So yes, runners, just like everyone else, need a coach to show them the way to show them what to do. So today I’m going to talk about that. I’m gonna talk about why I decided to become a weight loss coach for runners. Why is this even needed?

I’m going to talk about what this means for you. And I’m gonna talk to you about this aha moment that I had recently that kind of shifted my thinking around all of this, all this stuff around health, fitness, diet and exercise. So I’m gonna get into all of that in just a minute.

But first, I wanted to tell you about the Running Lean community on Facebook. So this is a group that I created that goes hand in hand with this podcast. So we take a deeper dive, we get into some discussions, some Q&A, some training sessions. It’s a supportive, positive, safe place for you to come and learn about all this stuff. It’s totally free.

If you listen to the podcast, though, you have to join this Facebook group. So just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community. Okay, so let’s get into this topic today. a weight loss coach for runners. What? Yes.

So first, a little bit of background on how I got here, then I’m going to talk about kind of the problem as I see it. But first of all, some years ago, you know, maybe 10-15 years ago, I was very unhealthy. I was very overweight, I was fat. I was sick, I was drinking way too much.

My life had become pretty unmanageable. And then I got diagnosed with testicular cancer, and that was back in 2003. And that was kind of my big wake up call.

So that was like something that really stands out for me is this pivotal moment in my life where I my mortality came into question, and I was pretty young at the time. But my mortality came into question, I was like, whoa, something has to change here. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die young. I was in my early 30s, basically.

So I started living a healthier lifestyle. I changed my eating habits. I started running, I stopped drinking like I did all the things that you know, we’re supposed to do. Start eating this kind of low fat diet, you know, but I really got obsessed with running so marathons I started getting into triathlons. I did an Ironman, I started getting ultra marathons and I came sort of obsessed with running like this was my thing.

I was like okay, this is like my new thing that makes me feel good. I’ve lost a bunch of weight. It feels awesome. And then I started becoming obsessed with like food and with eating better and and I went from like a low fat diet to barely eating any meat to like not eating any meat at all.

And I started eating only like, you know, fish. And then I went like completely vegetarian and stopped eating any kind of fish at all. But I was still eating a lot of like animal, you know, products like cheese and dairy and things like that, eggs. And then I went completely plant-based and I went to that extreme of just eating plant based foods, no animal foods at all, I started this plant based food blog, I got certified in plant based nutrition.

And I was just like really into it, you know. And my story of transformation was even featured in an article on The Forks Over Knives website. Forks Over Knives was basically a documentary that was written about a plant-based diet and how good it is for you. So all this stuff was like, you know, I just got obsessed with eating as healthy as I could. And running was a big part of that, too.

And everything was going beautifully for me, and like, my life was really good, I lost a bunch of weight. And I was feeling, you know, pretty good and pretty strong. And I was working out, I was able to do all kinds of stuff. And then I slowly started gaining weight back. So I had originally lost something like 60 pounds, you know, I was probably around 230. And I got down to like, I don’t know, 165-170.

And then I started getting them way back. And it happens slowly at first. And then it started to happen a little faster in the last few years. But I gained back close to 30 of those pounds. Before it was like another wake up call for me, you know, like I gotta do something about this. But in the last couple of years, I was, you know, in denial about this.

And I was like just trying to run more, which really wasn’t working. I was still eating mostly plant-based diets and actually started incorporating more dairy into my diet and cheese and things like that. But I was eating a very high carb diet, which a lot of you know, ultra runners kind of do. And, and there’s people that do other things as well.

But I’m just saying like there’s a contingency of ultra runners out there that, you know, they can eat all kinds of, you know, carbs and sugar and all that stuff. And it’s not a problem. Well, it was a problem for me, I started getting all this weight back. And I tried all the stuff I tried going to like a high fat ketosis type of diet, like going keto, you know, which is really, really challenging.

I tried doing some time restricted eating, which is only eating in a tiny small window during the day, I tried raw food, only raw food diet, you know, vegetarian, vegan, Paleo, you know, counting calories, all this stuff, like I was putting all my calories into this app, and just it was so absurd. I was obsessed with this stuff, you know.

And none of this stuff was working. That’s what I’m trying to get to here is like, all these things I was doing, and nothing was really working for me at all. And then, I don’t know, a couple years ago, I started becoming really obsessed with studying the human mind with the human brain and how it works.

I started becoming a student of the mind. I started you know, researching and taking courses and taking classes and becoming certified as a Master Practitioner of NLP, which is neuro linguistic programming. And this is like how we can use the power of our mind to make changes in our life. And this all kind of goes along with me becoming certified as a Master Life Coach.

I learned about how, you know, our neural pathways work, how we can change these neural pathways in our brains, how we’ve got these habits that have been formed in our brains over, you know, decades over our whole life, these mental habits that we can actually kind of reprogram or change.

I learned about neuroplasticity, which is the way that we can actually change those literal neuro pathways in our brains, to create better states and to create better results in our lives. It’s just amazing. It’s amazing stuff, all this mindset work, how we change our thinking, how we change and manage our emotions, how we can make sure that our actions are in alignment with our goals like all this stuff, amazing stuff.

And I thought all right, so um, I can be like this mindset coach for runners like this seemed like a good fit, very logical, because you know, running is so mental. It’s such a mindset sport. You know, I always say running is 20% physical or 100% mental and we’re all mental, right? So I thought, okay, I’m going to be the mindset coach for runners because runners really need help with this.

And I know runners, so this is my life. I’ve lived it for so long now. So I started asking runners like what do you need help with, what do you want to help with the most? And I’m putting it out there and interviewing people and talking to people and asking them what they wanted help with. And people kept coming to me like, yeah, that mindset stuff, that’s good and everything, but I really like to lose weight, like, can you help me lose these last 10 pounds, or I seem to be put on, you know, 20 pounds, and I just can’t, you know, lose it and running it, it really isn’t working for that.

So, you know, I’ve noticed you’ve, you know, had a lot of luck with that in your life, like, can you help me with that? And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. And this happened over and over again. And I was like, wow, what is going on here? Like, I had to really consider that this might be an issue that I need to address that I can help people with.

And so I did. I kind of set out to help runners with this issue. Okay. But the question remained, like, why are all these runners needing help with weight loss? Isn’t running how you do it? Like, isn’t this the answer to weight loss? So I started looking into this, you know, I looked at my own experience, first of all, especially over the last three to five years and realized that was definitely not the answer.

Because I kept slowly gaining weight, you know, as a regular runner, you know, ran one or two marathons a year and was training with a group and ran, you know, four or five days a week, and was gaining weight pretty steadily. And I was like, well, that’s crazy. And I started seeing all these posts and Facebook groups, that I’m a part of, you know, these running groups, marathon training, half marathon training, stuff like that.

And people are asking questions like, Hey, I noticed that, you know, I’m gaining weight, even though I run every day, or, you know, I’m training for a marathon and gaining weight, like what’s going on with that? And people are like, oh, you know, you need to run more, you know, and, you know, giving them some advice and things like that.

And some of the advice I saw out there was marginal, not really helpful. But people are like, Yeah, I’m running all the time. I’m not losing weight. How come this isn’t working for me? The general consensus seems to be like, well, you’re not really doing it right. You know, you’re not running enough, try running hard, or try running faster. Try running longer. That, you know, that worked for me, so that it should work for you. This is kind of what people were saying.

But I wasn’t getting, I wasn’t seeing an answer. I wasn’t seeing an answer that worked. For most people, it wasn’t working for other people. And I think there’s just an assumption out there that all runners are super skinny, they’re super lean, I’ve found this really not to be the case. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t a lot of other people that I’ve seen out there either.

It wasn’t a lot of people that are friends of mine, it wasn’t people that are in my running groups and things like that, you know, if you’re a runner, if you’ve ever watched a long distance event, like a half marathon or a marathon, even some of the smaller, you know, 5 or 10K’s but, you know, I’m kind of mostly talking about, you know, half marathons, full marathon, that kind of thing, here, but, you know, so you get this huge group of people, right?

And then there’s a small group at the front, who are the faster people usually? Well, of course they are if they’re at the front, right? And they’re super lean, they’re like, super fit, and you’re like, oh, yeah, you know, they look amazing, you know, they’re super, they got like, 0%, body fat, whatever.

And, but then, if you keep watching, you know, the vast majority of the people out there are pretty average, you know, and, or maybe slightly overweight. And there’s a lot who are like very overweight, and there’s a lot of people are even considered like in the obese category. They’re out there running a half marathon or a marathon.

According to the CDC, in 2018 71.6% of adults, over 20 in the US are considered overweight or obese. That’s it. 72% of the US population is obese. It considers themselves overweight or obese. And there’s a lot of people who are turning to running as a way to combat this epidemic, really, in this country.

There’s something like 30,000 running events every year in the US alone. 30,000 running events, but like we’re running a lot. And if we’re running we’re the answer then what’s going on with all these overweight runners? Are they all just doing it wrong? Probably not.

I feel like I need to say this here. Like it’s not my job to tell people or to tell you that you’re overweight or that you should lose weight. You know, this is something that every individual needs to decide for themselves. You know, I don’t use some US standard to determine like what you’re supposed to weigh. Again, this is all up to you.

I’m all about positive body image, you know, you have to love yourself exactly as you are, right now. You have to love the way you look and love the way you feel about yourself. Yeah, you have to love your body, just as it is, before you can even think about wanting to change it, you’re not gonna be able to lose weight, if you have this, like, if you hate yourself, if you have a terrible view of yourself.

You can’t be engaging in negative self talk and hating how you look and expect to make positive changes to yourself. Within yourself, you can’t hate yourself thin, you have to love yourself first. And you can love yourself just as you are, and be working to change that. You know, just because you want to lose weight doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself, or you don’t have a positive body image.

It’s just the opposite. Loving yourself is the only way to create the body that you really want for yourself. It’s the only way to really feel good about yourself. So what I need to say here is like the bottom line is like, if you consider yourself overweight, and you love yourself, just the way you are, you don’t want to lose weight. That’s amazing and awesome. You go do your thing. It’s totally, totally cool.

And if you consider yourself overweight, and you want to drop a few pounds, or a few dozen pounds, that’s amazing, too. Let’s do that. It’s all good, though. There’s no judgement, there’s no shame, there’s no right or wrong here. The key is to love yourself, however, you are right now.

Okay, so let’s go back to explaining all these overweight runners like how do we explain this? How do we explain that there are so many runners out there who struggle to lose weight? Turns out, and I’ve talked about this a lot here on the podcast, and I’m going to continue talking about this.

But it turns out that running is just not a very effective way to lose weight, the whole calories in calories out thing it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because of overcompensation because we tend to eat more when we work out.

You know when we do long runs, we tend to overcompensate by eating more food. Our bodies are doing this on purpose, our hormones are doing this because you know they’re trying to cope, your body is always trying to maintain homeostasis. So if you burn a ton of calories, and if you continue to do this over time, your body, your body’s metabolism actually will lower in order to account for those calories.

And it will try to get your calories back up. And so it will make you more hungry and not feel as full as often and will increase your appetite. And, and so losing weight by just running is really really hard to do, it really is hard to do. Losing weight is more of an issue of balancing your hormones than it is about you know, running a bunch of miles.

You know, running also doesn’t address some of the other issues that go into why we gain weight, why we can’t lose weight, you know, there’s, there’s mental cravings, there’s mental urges, there’s, you know, beliefs that we have, a lot of times there’s limiting beliefs that we have about what we can and can’t do.

There’s emotional issues, there’s a lot of emotional eating that happens. Especially right now during the COVID-19 quarantine, like a lot of people are turning to the fridge to feel better, because a lot of stress is going on out there. Instead of like experiencing those emotions, people are eating over them.

So anyway, we have to address all of these factors. There’s a lot of stuff at play here. It’s not just about running. Okay, so the problem as I see it is that I think people are trying to use running as this, catch all this, like, you know, the magic pill for losing weight and it’s just not true. It just doesn’t work. Okay.

So that’s kind of the problem is I see it and so how do I help solve that problem? Well, you know, here’s one thing I did for myself that helped me and this is where I’ve, I’ve kind of created my solution around this. So I was really working on trying to figure it all this out, you know, and so I started doing some reading and researching.

And I started getting help and getting training and I got a coach and I learned about all of this. I learned about how my hormones were actually jacked up and how my hormones were like, making me fat, how counting calories really doesn’t work. I learned how to, you know, manage my mind around all this stuff and Learn how to allow and process my emotions. So I got coaching, I had somebody show me the way, I had somebody that was there to kind of challenge my old ideas and my limited thinking, I had somebody there to point out my blind spots and somebody there to hold me accountable for my results.

Getting a coach has been the most powerful thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s helped me. I have a coach for my business. So it’s helped me, you know, create a business that I love, and I’m so proud of. I have a coach that’s helped me with my kind of general mindset and this weight loss and health and things like that, that has helped me more than anything else.

And coaching right now is a booming industry. The coaching business is booming right now, if you’ve ever thought about becoming, you know, like a life coach is something that people really want and need right now. More than ever. People want coaching, they need it, and it works. People are getting amazing results from working with a coach. I know I’ve experienced this.

And I know lots and lots and lots of people are experiencing amazing results from working with a coach. So here’s my big “aha” moment that I had recently. This was crazy. So I’m listening to this podcast and it’s from one of my mentors. And her name is Dr. Katrina, you bet she’s a pediatrician.

And she was talking about some of the work that she does. And she is a weight loss coach for physicians. And I was like, oh, that’s cool. You know, that’s a cool little niche business that she has. She works with, you know, busy physicians and helps them to lose weight. And then I was like, what, whoa, wait a minute, what? She helps doctors lose weight! This is a big aha moment for me.

I was like, well, even our doctors, who should be the most knowledgeable people on the planet, when it comes to diet, health, nutrition exercise, they don’t know what to do. They need help. So doctors are reaching out for help with losing weight, because they don’t know what to do. It’s whatever they’re taught, which is very minimal from what I understand. Like they don’t get taught this stuff in med school. Whatever they’re taught is not working.

And the limited amount of training and education that they do get is based on flawed guidelines that we’ve been following for the last 40 years, you know, the low fat, high carb diet that has more than tripled the obesity rates in the US since its inception in 1980. Yeah, that’s the stuff they’re kind of taught and following.

It doesn’t work and they don’t know what to do. And doctors are just like, I don’t know what to do, help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope. So they’re reaching out for coaching with this for themselves. And I’m hoping that they can turn around and teach their patients some of this stuff too. But this is like a huge lightbulb moment for me because I was like, of course, runners need help with nutrition and weight loss.

Even our freakin’ Doctors need help with this stuff. Basically, everyone needs help with this. So boom, here I am. I’m a weight loss coach. For runners. I’ve combined my passions, my passions for running, for eating healthy, real food, for mindset, you know, changes for managing emotions. I’ve combined my life coaching with health and nutrition and weight loss coaching.

And I’ve created this amazing program where I get to help runners get lean and get strong. I’ve lost all this weight, I’ve lost the 30 pounds that I gained, and it only took me like eight weeks to do it. I’ve completely transformed my body. I’ve completely transformed my mind. And I have more confidence in myself and I love myself today unconditionally.

And I want to be an example of what’s possible. Because if I can do this, so can you. You know, I’ve transformed myself into a lean running machine. And now I get to help others to do the same thing. I love this. I love being a weight loss coach for runners. And my hope in doing this work is that you get to experience that same kind of transformation too.

Here’s what I want for you. I want to help you lose weight. Sure, that’s nice. Seeing the number on the scale go down each week is awesome. But it’s not the most important thing. I became a weight loss coach for runners because I want to help you stop obsessing over food and calories.

And I want you to learn the amazing health benefits. And I want you to experience the freedom that comes from just eating real food. And I want you to stop obsessing over running as the only way to lose weight and start enjoying running. For all the amazing other benefits that are provided for you I love running, I completely recommend it to everybody, keep running it you know it’s a, it’s a great way to relieve stress. It makes you happier.

You sleep better, you have more energy throughout the day, it’s good for your heart, you build strength and endurance, you build strong bones and muscles. All that amazing. Just stop obsessing over it as a way to lose weight because it really doesn’t work.

I want you to love how you look. I want you to love how you feel about yourself, I want you to love yourself unconditionally. And I don’t want you to just be alive or survive. But I want you to thrive in your body. I want you to live a full and vibrant life. I want you to learn how to think and feel and act with purpose.

And then I want you to become an example of what’s possible to all of this. This is what gets me out of bed every day. This is why I’m devoted to my work as a weight loss coach for runners. That’s why I believe in this. And I’ll continue doing this as long as I can.

All right, I’m going to be continuing this conversation in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So join the group. I’m going to talk this week I’m going to talk more about what it means to eat real food. And how that is such a critical factor not just for losing weight, but for becoming a lean fit healthy runner. So just go to Facebook, search for the Running Lean community. Awesome. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends as always and keep on running. I’ll talk to you soon.

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