45. The 5 Habits Runners Must Have to Lose Weight

My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 45 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I am talking about the five habits that runners must have in order to lose weight. The way you make big changes in your life is by consistently doing new things.

That means showing up day after day with drive, determination, and perseverance doing these new things. Another way of saying this, is you have to create new habits, you’ve got to break old habits and create new ones. And this just might be the single most important thing you can do for yourself. It’s really the only way that you can make meaningful, lasting changes in your life.

It’s how you become anything more than who you are right now. Let’s say you want to become a marathon runner, you’ll have to break the old habit of sitting on the couch every morning watching Netflix, you’ll have to get into a new habit of running in the morning instead of watching Netflix, even when you don’t feel like it.

Creating habits like this, it’s not easy to do, it’s hard to do. That’s why most people don’t do it. So why most people never change is why most people don’t run marathons. It’s why most people will always be overweight and feel unhappy about it. Because most people aren’t willing to do the hard work of creating new habits.

So today I’m sharing with you the five habits that all runners must have if you want to lose weight, and keep it off for good. But first, if you liked this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. It is a fun group of energetic, positive, and like minded runners who all have the same kind of goals.

We’re all trying to become fat-adapted, we’re all trying to lose weight, and run better, just make running more fun, more enjoyable to push ourselves to become more, come check us out Running Lean community on Facebook. Now we just want to get right into this today.

The five habits that runners must have in order to lose weight and number one is you got to get into the habit of eating real food. And I say this all the time, you can’t outrun a bad diet, right? Running is great. It helps to build strength, it helps to build endurance, it feels good to run, keep running, it’s just not a very good way to lose weight.

Weight loss is almost entirely an issue of diet. If you want to lose weight, you have to change your diet, you’ve got to get in the habit of eating real food. You know, for most of us, the problem really is the carbohydrates and sugar are like the most concentrated form of carbohydrate.

So we’ve got to like stop eating so much sugar because what happens is you eat a lot of sugar and carbs that raises your blood sugar, which you know, makes your insulin levels go up.

When your insulin is high, your appetite is increased, your hunger is increased, you never feel full and your body is put into this fat storage mode. And fat storage mode is not what we want. If you want to lose weight. If you want to lose weight you got to get your body into fat burning mode, right. So in order to do that, you have to get off the sugar and the carbs. Put your body into a state of a to become a more efficient fat-burner.

When you start eating real food, the kind of food that we humans have evolved to eat over the last couple of million years, you begin to lower your blood sugar. You begin to lower the insulin, you begin to regulate all those hormones that are causing you to hold on to fat and you begin to metabolize fat more efficiently.

So eat real food, eat food as close to nature as possible foods that our ancestors would have eaten. So the first habit you have to adopt in order to lose weight and keep it off is you got to get into this habit of eating real food and once you get into this habit and you’re eating real food consistently it’s just becomes a part of who you are, it becomes easy and effortless to maintain, it’s just becomes part of your lifestyle. So that’s number one.

Number two, is you have to practice meal spacing. The other habit that you have to get into is not eating all the time, because that will also contribute to putting your body into that fat storage mode. Because every time you eat any kind of food whatsoever, your blood sugar goes up, and insulin goes up, and then boom, you’re back into that fat storage mode, right.

But if you’re eating constantly, your body is constantly in that fat storage mode. So if you can limit the amount of times you’re eating throughout the day, you know, we do stuff called intermittent fasting, or you can call it meal spacing, whatever you want to call it.

When you just have some periods throughout the day, where you’re not eating food, then you give your body a break from all that insulin, you give your body a break from being in that fat storage mode, and you put your body into fat burning mode for more of the day.

So if you’re eating six, seven times a day, like let’s say you eat three meals a day, you eat snacks in between all those meals you’re eating dessert, then you’re basically going to be constantly holding on to body fat, you’re always your body’s just always going to be in that fat storage mode.

That’s just what happens, it’s almost impossible to lose weight this way, if you’re eating all the time. And one of the awesome benefits of spacing out your meals and having some time without bringing in any external fuel is that you become fat-adapted much faster. So that whole fat-adaptation process can be kind of challenging, you know, running is a struggle for a few weeks while your body’s switching over from burning sugar to burning fat.

And when you can extend the amount of time that your body doesn’t have that external fuel coming in. In other words, not eating anything, you kind of force your body to use stored body fat for fuel, which is good, we want this, this is when you begin to start metabolizing that body fat more efficiently and faster.

So this really helps to speed up the fat adaptation process. And it helps to shorten the amount of time that running sucks, while you’re going through this process, okay, so it’s really, you get sort of a couple of good benefits when you practice some meal spacing.

So that’s the second habit that we have to adopt that you have to just create in your life is to practice meal spacing, it gives your body a break from the blood sugar spikes, because your body a break from insulin, gets your body out of fat storage mode and into fat burning mode and keeps you there and get you through that tough period a lot faster. So that’s number two.

Number three, the third habit runners have to adopt if you want to lose weight, is you have to reduce stress in your life. This is one of the hidden issues around weight loss. For a lot of people, a lot of people have a really hard time losing weight, who are really stressed out.

Stress plays a huge role in keeping your body in that fat storage mode. This is like the third part of the insulin trifecta, you know the bad trifecta. It’s not a good trifecta. Because what stress does is it releases cortisol, which is the stress hormone.

And along with that is glucose is released from your liver and stress and constantly having that cortisol in your body and constantly having high levels of cortisol and glucose will spike your blood sugar and raise insulin levels as well.

So even though you may not be eating anything, even if you may be eating a good, pretty solid, clean diet, you can still be in that fat storage mode just from putting your body under constant stress. So here’s kind of what’s happening. Here’s the background.

We’ve evolved as humans to deal with stress pretty effectively. You know, back in the day, a saber toothed Tiger would come along and our body would see that and go into fight or flight mode. And we’d release the stress hormone cortisol, adrenaline gets produced, glucose gets produced, increases our blood sugar, insulin goes up, all that stuff happens, right?

These hormones are all working the way they’re supposed to, by the way, because they’re getting your body ready for fight or flight to fight the saber toothed tiger or run away So you would have all this extra energy in your body to fight this animal off or run away.

And I would run away for sure. I mean, that’s how I would probably deal with this situation, right, but either way you would use up that energy by fighting or running away, and then the danger would be gone. And then everything would regulate and everything would go back to normal. Okay, that’s good.

That’s the way our bodies are designed to work. But here’s the thing today, there is no saber toothed Tiger. But we have all this other quote unquote, quote, unquote, stress in our life, we have a boss who yells at us, we have traffic that we’re sitting in, and we got the kids screaming at us, we got COVID, you know, we’ve got the husband who’s not helping around the house, we got credit card debt, you know, we all have all this constant anxiety in society today.

And we have this constant, high levels of cortisol and glucose and adrenaline and insulin, and we’re on this, we’re all in this chronic state of, of stress. And so we’re in a chronic state of fat storage mode. You know, stress is literally making us fat.

And they actually have this synthetic form of the stress hormone cortisol, it’s called prednisone. And when people take this, they gain weight, all the time. So I always ask my clients, I’m like, how’s your stress level? You know, what are you doing about it? Because you have to have some sort of a daily plan, a daily practice for reducing stress, it’s not a one and done kind of a thing.

It has to be an intentional daily practice that has to become a habit. So Habit number three is to reduce stress in your life. If you don’t do this, your body’s just going to stay in that fat storage mode, you need to have a daily stress reduction practice, where you’ll have a very hard time losing weight. So that’s habit number three.

Habit number four, is to build strength and endurance. So why is strength training so important for runners? Well, strength training is actually essential. If you want to be a successful runner, even a long distance runner. And a lot of runners don’t do this. They don’t pay attention to strength training, they just don’t do it.

They’re like I run, I’m good, you know. But what happens is when you put your muscles under stress, the kind of not not the kind of stress, I was just talking about the kind of stress that stimulates muscle growth, you build more muscle, you build more lean mass, and you become a stronger runner.

Building strength also helps you to maintain good running form, and more consistent power output, especially as you begin to fatigue during longer runs, you know, endurance athletes that are over 40 will especially benefit from strength training, because as you get older, your strength declines faster than your endurance.

So your endurance might be there, but your strength won’t. So you need to keep up with the strength training as you go or you need to develop this habit. High intensity strength training also produces an anti-aging effect by helping you to preserve lean muscle mass and it helps you to optimize these adaptive hormones.

Being a lean runner means you’re a strong runner, so building strength in your muscles also helps you to build endurance. Because as a stronger runner, you can run further without getting fatigued, you can become more of a bonk proof runner when you build more strength. So practice some sort of strength training on a regular basis.

This has to become a habit. It helps you to build stronger muscles, stronger connective tissues, that absolutely helps you to burn fat more effectively. When you have more lean muscle mass, you’re a more effective fat burner, and you’ll lose weight more effectively. It’ll help you to increase your overall metabolism, meaning it just speeds up the whole fat adaptation process right.

Also cool to note is that when you build more strength, you increase your power to weight ratio. So that means you are a more powerful runner, you’re leaner, you’re stronger, you’re more powerful, you can run faster, and you can run longer. So habit number four is that you have to adopt is to build strength and endurance.

Strength training helps you to become fat-adapted, helps to increase your metabolism, helps you to lose weight, and helps you to get ripped and look awesome. And it makes you a more powerful, long distance runner.

And then habit number five that you have to adopt if you want to lose weight and keep it off for good. And this is probably the most important one and most overlooked habit. But you have to manage your mind. It’s so important. I probably should have mentioned this first. But I’m mentioning it last because I saved the best for last. That’s why I did it. Yeah.

But basically it underpins everything else that I just talked about. Without the right mindset, you really can’t create these other habits very effectively. You know, mastering your mindset is incredibly important and incredibly powerful. And mindset is one of my key areas of expertise as a certified Master Life Coach and a Master Practitioner of NLP, which is Neuro Linguistic Programming.

I’ve studied the human mind in depth for many years. And I’ve learned that when you’re armed with the right mindset, you can basically do anything you want. Seriously, you can do anything you want. And every single day I coach people on managing their mind and creating a more powerful mindset so they can get the results that they want.

You know, they know what to do, their mind is just in the way. Here’s the thing, your thoughts, create everything you have in your life, the good stuff, the bad stuff, all of it. Knowing this is key, it is critical to creating the life that you want for yourself.

Here’s an example. If you constantly have the thought, ‘I can’t lose weight, I always fail. This never works for me.’ If you keep thinking this over and over and over and over and over again, this becomes a thought habit. It becomes a deep seated belief.

And that belief, that thought habit, is going to cause you to constantly feel discouraged, it’s going to cause you to constantly feel frustrated. And feeling discouraged and frustrated, will cause you to go off plan, it’ll cause you to just say like, ‘screw it, why should I even bother, I always fail anyway. It never works for me.’

And this is just a thought habit. You know, it’s a thought that has created your current results. It’s a thought habit that’s created your current weight. Your thoughts always create your weight. Think about that.

If you change your thoughts, you can change your weight. When you learn how to manage your mind, when you create new thought habits, new thought patterns. You can deal with setbacks, you can deal with failures, you can deal with disappointments, you can deal with all kinds of frustrating things, without quitting on yourself.

When you manage your mind and you create these new, more empowering beliefs, and you practice those, instead, you start to build trust in yourself, you start to become incredibly confident in yourself. You find that you have the mental strength and the motivation you need to keep you going even when things get tough, because I promise you things will get tough, they always do.

So managing your mind is probably the most important habit that you need to adopt. If you want to have success in running, and losing weight, and really everything in your life. Now, these five habits are all required.

If you want to make meaningful, lasting changes in your life, kind-of sort-of doing one or two of these, it’s just not going to work. It’s not good enough, it’s not going to give you the results that you want. And I know that trying to figure out all this stuff for yourself can be very challenging.

I mean, if it was easy, if you knew how to do all this perfectly, you probably wouldn’t be listening to this right now. Here’s the thing. I’ve already done the hard part, I figured all this out. I’ve already made all the mistakes so you don’t have to.

And I coach people on how to get these results and how to do these five habits and how to create these new five habits in their life every single day. And here’s something I’m excited about and I’m gonna share this with you right now. I’ve created a new program that lays out exactly how to do all of this step by step.

It’s called Running Lean: The Weight Loss Training Course for Runners. In this new program, you will learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean, fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without the calorie counting, and develop all the habits required to make this last a lifetime.

I’ve taken everything I’ve learned, everything I’ve been trained on, everything I’ve been coaching my clients on, and I’ve packaged it all up into this online training course that you can go through that your own pace. Now, all this stuff, it can feel very confusing, very overwhelming.

So what I did was, I put it all together into this like, framework, it’s very easy to understand. It’s a framework that you can just learn and begin to implement for yourself. It’s an online self paced training course. It has like over 40 video lessons to guide you step by step, it’ll show you exactly how to create all these habits that you have to have, in order to become an efficient fat burner.

You become fat-adapted, and then of course, you begin to lose weight, which is amazing. It’s a nice little side benefit. This is a comprehensive training course, you will learn how to break the sugar addiction and get off of the refined carbs.

So you can start burning fat, which means you’ll lose weight fast, you can become a fat-adapted runner, so you can run farther than you ever thought possible. You can stop feeling hungry all the time. So you can take back control of what you eat. And when you eat.

You’ll learn how to develop your own nutrition plan that works for you. That includes foods that you love to eat, you’ll learn how to fine tune that nutrition plan so you can hit your exact goal weight, you’ll learn how to properly fuel for those long runs and for races so that you can achieve peak performance at every single workout.

Most importantly, you will develop the mindset required to make all of this sustainable. And I want to make something very clear. This is not a diet. This is not something that you’ve done in the past. This is a transformational training program.

And it’s designed specifically for runners and it will permanently change your approach to nutrition and to running into weight loss and all that stuff I want for you, I want you to stop feeling frustrated, I want you to stop feeling defeated because you keep hitting the wall in your weight loss goals or in your running whatever.

Instead, I want you to start feeling so energized and so confident that you could run all day. And just think about how much easier running will be when you aren’t carrying around all that extra weight.

I can tell you from experience after losing 40 pounds this year, that running is much better. You know, if I strapped a 40 pound weight to myself right now it’d be like, damn, that is crazy. I can’t believe I was running with that much extra weight.

But becoming a fat-adapted runner means you are an efficient fat burner. And this is the goal. This is what we’re trying to get to here. To become a fat burning machine. It means that you have this almost unlimited source of fuel on board at all times your own body fat. Running is so much easier when you’re fueled by fat.

I just ran a marathon this weekend I did it fasted, meaning I did not have any calories before the run I hadn’t eaten for like 12 hours before running a marathon. And then during the marathon I took in zero calories. I was efficiently burning my own body fat for fuel.

And I had one of the best marathon experiences I’ve ever had. I actually got faster later on the run. My fastest splits were the last six miles. This is not normal for me at all. But because I’ve become an efficient fat burner, I’ve increased my running performance by a lot. So in this program, I break it all down for you. I’ll show you exactly how to do it, how to become a fat adapted runner. And so you can start experiencing those kinds of results for yourself.

Oh, and there’s a cool little side effect. When you become an efficient fat burner you lose weight, right? You can’t lose weight when you’re burning sugar for fuel, you only lose weight by burning fat. So in this program, I break it all down and show you exactly how to do it.

I have to say that I’m pretty sure this is the most comprehensive online fat adaptation training course for runners that’s ever been created. In fact, it might be the only one. I know that no one is teaching this material this way. No one out there is combining fat adaptation with building the habits of stress reduction, strength training, explosive workouts and mindset that you have to have in order to make all this work.

I know nobody else is doing it this way. And I’m going to encourage you to jump on this opportunity right now to enroll in this class, because enrollment is open now into this training course. But it closes in a couple of days, I’ve only got it open until Sunday, November the 8th at 11:59pm.

After that, I gotta close the doors for this session. And then I don’t know when I’m going to be running this course again. Okay, so you just have to make a decision. Do you want to keep reliving your same old past? Stuck in all those old habits that got you where you are here today, doing the same things over and over again, that you have been doing and getting the same results like some sort of terrible Groundhog Day?

Or do you want something more for yourself for your future? Who is it that you want to become? Because that future version of you would encourage you to do something to take some action now, the only way you can become more, the only way you can become that future version of yourself is if you do something different today, if you start creating new habits today, because nothing changes, if nothing changes.

Now, a lot of people have been asking me about this. And I typically don’t talk about pricing and stuff like that, because I don’t want to, I don’t want to be salesy, okay, but I’m going to just tell you this right now, this course is worth well over the $1000. This is like thousands of dollars of material here that you will learn it is amazing.

In fact, similar courses like this sell for about one thousand bucks. I was teaching this course earlier this year, I was teaching it live to a small group of people, and it was around seven hundred bucks. And people were glad to pay. That was an amazing bargain at that.

But I want to remove money as a barrier for you. So I decided that I was going to make the investment into this program, a no brainer for you. So enrollment into the weight loss training course right now, just until Sunday is only $297 bucks, this is a one time payment, and then you’re in for life.

That’s it, I want it to be a no no brainer. And I think it is. Oh, and I have something else to announce. When you enroll in the weight loss training course, you can also join the Running Lean monthly coaching group. So your monthly membership gets you bi-weekly live coaching sessions with me.

So you get personalized guidance and feedback, which means you’ll always be able to stay on track. This is a group coaching program. So we do it over Zoom. And we all get to share our stories and stuff together. So you get the supporting encouragement from this small community of like minded runners, so you can learn from their experience, you get accountability.

So you start really showing up and you keep moving towards your goals, right. And then if you happen to miss any of the live coaching calls that we do over Zoom, I record them all and put them on a membership website. So you’ll have 24/7 access to all the recorded calls. This is really like the most cost effective way if you want to get some coaching and work with me.

And here’s something cool just for you guys. I’m giving you a first, your first month free, you can actually try out the monthly coaching group for free for your first month. Just check it out and see what you think. If you don’t love it, you will I know you’ll love it, but if you don’t meet this – no big deal, you can just opt out.

But after that it’s only $39 bucks a month. That’s it. That’s another total no brainer if you ask me. So again, I feel like I need to say this. I’m not here talking to you about all this stuff, and offering you this program because I want to sell you something that is not what I’m trying to do here. I’m offering you this program because I know it will change your life.

You’ve been asking me Patrick, how do I do all this? How do I become a fat-adapted runner? I want to know how to do it. How do I lose the weight when everything I have ever tried has always failed? You know, how do I figure out how many carbs I should eat so that I can run and lose weight? You know, how do I fuel for these long runs?

You ask me all these amazing questions. And so I’ve put all those answers together into this program. I want you to become more. That’s why I’m talking about this today. I honestly don’t care if you purchase this or not. That’s fine. If you want to make that investment into yourself, I think that’s an amazing choice for you to make.

If you don’t, I think that’s fine. I know that this program is life changing and it will get you the results that you want. If you want to go and enroll right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/course and you can get right in.

I want to quickly address a couple of common reasons why people choose not to do something like this. Because I’ve gotten some. I’ve been on some phone calls with people. And we’ve talked about coaching and stuff. And here’s, here’s a couple of the things that they tell me that I want to share with you, because you might be thinking the same things.

The first is, I’m not ready for this, maybe later. How many times have you wanted something? You know, you want to lose the weight, but you’ve said, You know what, I’m just not ready, maybe later. Maybe later is like the number one killer of people’s hopes and dreams.

How long have you wanted to lose weight? Probably a long time. How long have you wanted to change how you feel about yourself? Probably a long time. I don’t want later to turn into never for you. So that’s why I’m curious or encouraging you to take action today.

That’s why the enrollment for this program is only open for a few days, because I want you to just make the decision now. Just do it, I want this for you, I want you to want it for yourself. Because you deserve this, you’re worth it. Your long term health and happiness is worth it. And so I’m encouraging you to just make that decision. Now, don’t say later, do it now.

Another thing people say is I’m just gonna figure this out myself. I’ll just go figure it out, I’ll you know, go on Google, or something. And I’ll just try to figure it all out. And that’s fine, you can do that you can save a few dollars and spend all your time struggling to try to figure it out yourself.

Or you can just spend that little bit of money now. Save yourself all that time, all the effort, save yourself from all that struggling to figure it all out yourself. skip all that skip all the struggle, strip out, skip all the overwhelming confusion and learn it from somebody who’s already made all the mistakes and figured it out.

Because I’ll have you know if you can simply pay a couple hundred bucks and have all this figured out for you is not a no brainer, I think it is for me. I gladly pay for courses, where someone else has spent years learning what works and what doesn’t, figuring it all out, putting together a system or a framework that shows you exactly how to do it all, then I can come along and just pay a few hundred bucks and boom, I get the whole system.

I don’t have to deal with all the struggling, I get instant access to all those years of knowledge. It’s like boom, knowledge download instantly. I love that and I gladly pay for that all the time.

And another thing people say that I just want to address is they’re like, you know, this sounds good. Patrick, I totally agree with you. This sounds amazing, but I just can’t afford it. And I just want you to know that if you’re listening to this now, and you’re thinking about this, and you’re thinking I really need a program like this, because I haven’t been able to do this on my own.

But you think oh, I don’t think I can afford this right now. Here’s the thing, here’s, I’m going to tell you something that is probably the most important thing you need to hear about losing weight about becoming the best version of yourself.

If you feel like you want to enroll in this program, and you think you can’t afford it, then you’re in this place called desirability versus feasibility meaning that you desire to lose weight, to become a fat-adapted runner, to be healthier, and to become that amazing, happier, more confident future version of yourself. But you don’t think it’s financially feasible for you. So what you do next, will ultimately determine what happens in your life. Because thinking it’s not feasible, is actually a form of self-sabotage, that you probably didn’t even realize you’re doing until I just pointed it out to you.

Here’s the truth, you have to ask yourself this vital question to determine whether or not you really want to become that fat-adapted runner or whether you want to really lose weight. And the question is this: am I going to be 100% responsible for my own health and happiness, or am I not?

You know, that’s where you are today. Because you’ve done the things you’ve always done. And if you really want something to change in your life, if you really want to lose the weight and become a lean runner, then you have to do something different. You have to choose to make that happen for yourself.

So the question isn’t, can I afford it? The question is, how can I be 100% responsible and make this happen for me? If you choose to do nothing here, that’s fine. Just means you aren’t willing to get out of your comfort zone. It means you’re probably driven by fear. And you’re probably not going to get there, you’re probably not going to become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself, which is fine.

You’re just going to probably continue to struggle with your weight, just like you’ve always done. So let’s go back to that important question you have to ask yourself right now, are you going to be 100% responsible for your own health and happiness? If yes, then just enroll in this program. It’s a no brainer.

Again, do you want more of your past or more of your future? My hope for you is that you choose to go all in on yourself, that you make the decision to become the person you’ve wanted to be for so long now that you take action now and start working on becoming more because your future self will thank you because you made this commitment today.

To enroll, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/course. Now, if you’re still unsure about whether or not this program is right for you join me in the Running Lean community on Facebook this Sunday at 4pm. I’ll be hosting a live q&a session where you can ask any question you want, I’ll answer everything for you. They’re cool. I really hope you’ll join me it will absolutely change your life. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean, gonna talk to you soon.

If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.