57. How to Make Healthy Eating a Way of Life

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 57 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. Today, I’m going to be talking about how to make healthy eating a way of life. Probably the biggest issue that people struggle with when it comes to healthy eating is sticking with it.

They do great for a few weeks or maybe a few months. But then eventually they find themselves elbow-deep in the edible cookie dough and they have no idea how they got there. Well, here’s the thing. We all have the ability to make healthy eating a way of life. For some people, it’s no problem for others, it seems virtually impossible.

So today I’m going to talk about what’s going on here. Why it’s easy for some people to make healthy eating a way of life and why for others, it’s really hard. I’m also going to offer some practical tips to help you start making that shift that mental shift from the temporary diet mentality to the permanent way of life mentality. Cool. All right, I’m gonna get into all that in just a minute.

If you haven’t already, come check us out on Facebook, we have this awesome Running Lean community on Facebook. And next month, this is February 2021, we’re going to be doing a 28-day low carb challenge. So our focus for the month will be on reducing problematic carbs. So we’re talking about sugar and refined grains.

Mostly, this is not a no carbs deal here. You know, this isn’t like keto month or anything like that. What we’re trying to do is just see what it feels like to ditch the really problematic carbs for a couple of weeks or four weeks if you decide to do that. So I’m going to be offering some training each week in the Facebook group, during the challenge period here, tell you how to do this simply and safely.

And we’ll also be offering encouragement for one another. We’ll support each other through this whole month. Okay, so join us in the Facebook group. And this Sunday, this will be the 31st of January, I’m going to do a kickoff call. So our weekly coaching calls that I normally do on Sundays, this one will be all about kicking off our 28 day low-carb challenge, cool.

It’s gonna be fun. It might open your eyes to some different ways of doing things and I think it could change your life for the better. So if you’re interested, just come check us out on Facebook, just search for Running Lean community on Facebook.

Here’s a recent five-star review of the Running Lean podcast from Rudy Root. Love the name by the way. And Rudy Root says, “Five stars. Super awesome podcast. I’ve been listening since last summer and find so much inspiration from this podcast. I’ve actually listened to many of the podcasts twice. Because there aren’t many great podcasts out there. So many of them sound monotone and rehearsed, but not this one. Patrick’s passion comes through and his sincerity. I’ve learned so much about journaling, mindset, food fasting, and of course running. I’m impressed that Patrick shares so much knowledge for free. The Facebook group is also worth checking out. I enjoy the Sunday live videos too. Again, so much you can learn from on this podcast.”

Thank you, Rudy wrote for that awesome review. And if you feel moved, you can share the love as well. If you enjoy the podcast, it would mean so much to me. If you would just take a moment and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It’s just a nice way for you to say thank you. Cool, awesome.

Alright, let’s get into this topic today. I’m excited about this. Because this is something that is very near and dear to my heart and this is how to make healthy eating a way of life. So the problem that most people face is that you know, they have this issue, they’re like overweight, okay, or they don’t feel good.

Maybe they have inflammation, bloating, gas, health problems, all kinds of, you know, metabolic issues, right. And so, the answer is just to change how you’re eating right? Change your diet, do something different. You know, for most people just switching from the standard American diet to literally anything else is going to be is going to, you know, help you to improve in some ways, okay?

But whatever it is that you adopt, whatever healthy eating plan that you get on – vegetarian pescatarian, Paleo, the South Beach diet, whatever it is. I mean, you know that you need to do these things, right, you know what you need to do, okay, and so you do it.

So you start just taking some action, you start changing how you eat, you’re changing the types of foods you’re eating, and maybe how often you’re eating, okay. And for most people, it starts out pretty good, like a few weeks go by, you might be able to stick with it, you start to feel better, and you might even lose some weight.

But then something happens, something always happens by the way, and you find yourself you know, gorging on cupcakes, or whatever your bingeable food of choice is. The edible cookie dough is so hilarious, I think it’s funny that they even make such a thing. It’s like, we know you guys like to eat raw cookie dough. So we’re just going to make that just eat that, okay.

But what happens is, you’re able to stick to it, most people are able to stick to some sort of healthy eating plan for a few weeks or a couple of months. But then they quit, they can’t do it anymore. Okay. And a lot of times, they blame that diet or that diet doesn’t work.

And they’re not really taking responsibility for their own actions. Okay. And I’m gonna get into why it’s hard to take responsibility for our own actions and why we don’t do that very well, especially when it comes to sticking with a nutrition or exercise plan. But the core problem, though, is that after a few weeks, or a few months, most people quit.

Now, I have to say this, like not all diets are the same. When it comes to changing your diet changing what you’re eating, some diets are, are much harder to stick to, in particular, like caloric restriction diets. So any diet that reduces calories is going to put your body into this kind of starvation mode, and you end up being most people end up being very hungry all the time, like overly hungry, and they end up getting to a point where they just start binging on junk food again.

Also, these caloric restriction diets tend to slow your metabolism down. So you’ll end up burning fewer calories. So not only are you hungry all the time, but your metabolism actually starts to slow down to match what you’re taking in. And so the weight loss tends to stall and kind of just plateau after a little bit.

So any diet that makes you super hungry, though, is going to be very hard to stick to, okay, it’s almost impossible to stick to a diet and expect to lose weight if you’re like voraciously, hungry all the time. And most diets work on some principle, some version of a caloric restriction.

Okay, so this is why most typical diets are so hard to make a way of life, right? For most people, it’s not impossible, just it’s very difficult to stick to a caloric restriction type of diet for any long period of time. It’s very hard to make this a way of life for sure.

Okay, well, the type of diet does matter. There’s bigger issues at play here. Some people do well with caloric restriction, and they can do that for their whole life. And that’s fine. And most people have an issue with that, though. So the things I want to talk about here are the so the first thing is this idea of the diet mentality.

The diet mentality is this underlying principle that what you’re doing is temporary. I’m going on a diet, that that just sounds like you’re doing something very short-term, right? You know, I’m going on a diet, and then I’ll go off the diet. You know, it’s it doesn’t sound permanent, right?

Whether you consciously are even aware of this or not, when you say I’m going on a diet, it kind of implies that you’re making changes for a short period of time, and then you’ll be able to go at some point and to go back to doing things the way you used to do. Right. This is sort of the unspoken rule, I guess you could say, or principle behind most diets. It’s this mentality that it’s temporary, okay?

There’s also the mentality that it has to be hard. And then it has to be uncomfortable, and you have to suffer your way through it. You know, and once you suffer long enough, you know, maybe you get to your goal weight, then you can go back to not suffering anymore and eating comfortably again.

So eating all the sugar, all the refined grains, all the comfort, food, all this stuff that got you overweight in the first place. Yeah, just go back to eating that stuff. Again, this is the mentality of a diet, right? It’s temporary, it’s super hard, you’re going to suffer. And then at some point, you can just go back to doing things the way you used to do and get back to being comfortable.

Again, you know, those things that you used to do that got you 40 or 50 pounds overweight in the first place. Do you see the kind of ridiculousness of this way of thinking, the way that I do? Good, I hope you do. This mentality, it just does not work and never has worked. And it never will.

To think you can go back to your old ways, the stuff that got you, you know, metabolically unhealthy, overweight, whatever it is, to think you can go back to doing that, and not like gain all the weight back and be become unhealthy, again, is bananas. It just is totally bananas. I don’t understand it.

But a lot of people think this, even people I work with sometimes, you know, we change their diet, we get them where they’re starting to get healthy. And they have this thought that like it’s temporary, they can go back to doing the old things. Again, I missed that way of eating. Of course, you do. That way of eating is amazing.

It feels great to eat pasta, bread, and sugar all the time. Like that stuff is amazing. But it got you sick, and it got you super overweight and unhealthy. You can’t expect to go back to doing that and not suffer the consequences. Okay. So remember, nothing changes if nothing changes, you can’t expect different results by doing the same things over and over again.

Trust me, I’ve tried this. I tried this for years and years, and it kept gaining weight. I was like, maybe if I just try this harder. If I just eat more carbs and more fruit and exercise more, it’ll finally work for me. And it just was never working. Maybe if I count my calories harder, maybe if I kept three apps that were tracking and a spreadsheet for tracking all of my macros that would help, and like no, this stuff was working right.

And I just kept gaining weight. I finally had to throw my hands in the air at some point and just say, okay, I’m going to try anything, whatever I need to do, it’s whatever I’m doing is not working, I need to try something different. Okay. So my point here is that you, you can’t get into this mentality of diet, this is like temporary, and you can go back to doing what you used to do, that is not going to work. All right?

What happens though, when you’re entrenched in this temporary diet mentality, you’re just bound to fail, right? Your chances of quitting are so much higher. Why? Because you’re not in it for the long haul, you’re thinking in terms of a few weeks or a few months. And guess what, that’s exactly what you get, you can do it for a few weeks, or a few months, and then you quit.

So this thought that you have whether it’s conscious or not, this thoughts that you have is going to lead to that outcome of quitting in a few weeks or a few months. Even though you’re not really aware of it. And you may blame the diet, you may just say, Oh, that diet doesn’t work. No, this is what you’re thinking about it. Okay.

So what’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to this, like, temporary diet mentality? You know, the alternative is the way of life mentality, right? You’ve got to change your whole mindset around healthy eating. You have to let go of that whole old diet mentality, idea, that temporary idea, and you have to adopt this new way of life mentality.

Why does this work? Well, when you make healthy eating a way of life you’re no longer in this temporary mindset. Okay, you have a mindset of permanence, right? Healthy eating becomes who you are, it becomes what you do. You’ll have a much easier time sticking to it because in your mind, you’re never going back to eating the way that you used to eat again.

You’ll never quit because quitting isn’t an option, you have this deep desire at the core of your being to be as healthy as possible. And it’s a for life kind of a deal. So you develop this unshakable determination.

Think about it this way, like, it’s very similar to when you’re training for a marathon, right? There’s something very powerful, and deep inside you that when you’re training for a marathon, it drives you, there’s something inside you that drives you to train, to do all those long, hard runs to get up early on the Saturday mornings to run in the rain and the cold and the snow and all that other stuff, right?

You’ll do it because there’s something like visceral that’s driving you, right? No matter what I’m sticking to my marathon training schedule. That’s what I mean by unshakable determination. We want to apply that same unshakable determination to healthy eating, no matter what happens,

I’m sticking to my healthy eating plan. No matter what happens, I’m going to make this work. For the long haul. I’m in this 100% I’m committed. That’s where we want to get to. Okay. So how do we do that? Like, how do you develop that unshakable determination? Well, really, it involves not just changing what you do, because when you just change what you do, you’re changing your actions, your behaviors, kind of your habits, right?

This is just surface level stuff, right? You have to go deeper than that. You have to like, get to the core of who you are, right? You have to make healthy eating part of your identity. Okay? You got to make healthy eating just a way of life. Right? It’s just what you do. It’s just who you are. It’s part of your identity.

So when we talk about identity, what do we mean by that? Identity is everything that comes after the words I am. So your identity is who you are at the deepest core layer of your being. And we all have identities, we all have several identities. Some of the identities I have are I’m a man, I’m a father, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a coach. I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m a personal trainer. I’m an expert in sports nutrition. I’m a runner, I am a runner, this is part of my identity. You can probably relate to this one, you probably have that same identity. I am a runner.

Now, this has not always been the case. For me. I didn’t always use to be a runner. I used to be the fat guy. I was sick. I smoked cigarettes, I drank alcohol, I was super unhealthy. That was my identity. I was a smoker, drinker, and eater of junk food. You know, at one point, I’m a smoker. That was my identity. You know, and I couldn’t imagine not being a smoker.

And honestly, I tried to quit a million times. And that never worked. My identity was even when I was trying to quit my identity was tied around this idea of like, I’m a smoker who’s trying to quit. That was like who I was. It wasn’t until I shifted my identity to I’m a nonsmoker then I was able to quit for good.

I decided that I was going to be a different person. I was going to be a nonsmoker. In fact, I had to be I had to feel that at my core that had to be part of my identity in order for me to quit for good. I am a runner was not part of my identity until I was like almost 40 years old. Now, I can’t imagine not being a runner.

Honestly, I cannot imagine having the identity of someone who’s a non-runner. Being a runner is just deeply ingrained into who I am. I’ve made running and helping runners figure out their diet, their nutrition, I’ve helped runners take control of their health I help runners adopt a more powerful mindset. My whole career is built upon this core identity of mine that I am a runner.

This is just such an ingrained part of who I am. Same thing with I am a healthy eater, and I didn’t used to be, you know, junk food. I was overweight. I was obese. I was sick. I had cancer. And all these things were part of who I was, I was like this, I didn’t care what I ate was a human garbage can just eat anything, just throw it all in there, whatever.

And again, I didn’t really take control of my eating around until I was around 40 years old. And then it got better, you know, and it got out of hand again, and I had to take control again about a year ago. But today, I’m, I have this identity of someone who is a healthy eater.

This is really, really ingrained in who I am. And it kind of colors, everything that I do and how I go through my day, and who I interact with, and the things I do for my work and everything else. Today, healthy eating is not just what I do, it’s who I am, I can’t imagine being someone who doesn’t eat healthy.

So this is deeply rooted in the core of my being this is a deeply rooted core identity of mine being a healthy eater, right. It’s the foundation of like all this work that I do, it’s what Running Lean is based on. Okay.

So when I talk about identity, I’m really talking about those things that are just part of who you are at your core. All right. Now, you might have an identity, that’s kind of keeping you stuck, you might be carrying around this identity of someone who can never lose weight, you might have the identity of someone who can never stick to a diet, you might have the identity of someone who always struggles.

I hear this all the time, oh, I’m, you know, I just always struggle with my weight, I’ve always struggled, this is just who I am. That’s like so deeply part of your core, that trying to lose the weight or changing how you’re eating is going to be extremely difficult.

And these thoughts that you have these beliefs that you have about yourself, they may be buried in your subconscious, you may not even be aware that you have this identity, but it’s like the ultimate form of self-sabotage, you’re never going to make progress, you’re never going to be able to stick to anything, any healthy way of eating.

If you have this identity of like, I always struggle, I can never lose weight. I’m someone who just this never works for me, you have to make a shift at the identity level, if you want to get different results. And that identity level, this is where your beliefs are this is your worldview, your self image or self worth your values, your judgments about yourself and others.

That’s where all of these things reside, this is all these things kind of makeup who you are at your core. Okay? In order for you to make healthy eating a way of life, it has to become a part of your identity. And I love this. I was talking to a client last night, Autumn, and she shared with me that she has been journaling lately.

And she wrote that, you know, healthy eating is what I do. This is who I am. And she shared that with me. And I was like, yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. This is what I do. This is who I am. When you have that mentality, there’s no question of sticking to it or not. It’s just what you do. It’s just who you are.

I’ve just been reading this amazing book, by James Clear, called Atomic Habits. And people have been recommending that I read this book for years. And I’m like, yeah, I’ll get to it. I’ll get to it. And finally, I’m like, okay, let’s start reading this book. And really, the stuff he talks about in there is amazing. And it really lines up with a lot of stuff that I teach here, too.

But he says, “The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.” It’s one thing to say, I’m the type of person who wants this. And it’s something very different to say, I’m the type of person who is this. So, again, in order to make healthy eating a way of life, it has to become part of your core identity.

So how do you do that? Good question. How do you make healthy eating part of your identity? So I’m going to give you a couple of practical steps that you can actually take care of. Okay. The first is this, the first thing you have to do is you have to commit. You have to go all in on this idea that I’m just going to make healthy eating part of who I am. You have to make that commitment to yourself. You have to go all-in on yourself.

I am now a healthy eater, period. This is who I am, period, make the commitment that you’re going to stick with, this doesn’t matter what happens, you’re sticking with this. It’s like making an unwavering promise to yourself, right? This is who I am, this is what I do. So that’s number one. You have to make that commitment and you have to really feel it.

What a lot of people do is they say, yeah, I want to eat healthy for the rest of my life. Yeah, sure. And they kind of half-ass that commitment. Well, guess what, you’re gonna get half-assed results from that. Okay, so you got to be you got to full ask this commitment. why don’t why isn’t that a phrase? I want to full-ass this thing? Anyway, things that make you go, that’s weird. Okay, step one, make the commitment has to be like, you have to go all in on yourself.

Number two, you got to spend some time visualizing this new identity. All right. If part of your identity if you want part of your identity to be I am a healthy eater. What does that look like for you? You have to spend some time thinking about it, visualizing it. What does your life look like? What do you look like? What does your typical day look like? What do you do? What do you eat? When do you eat? How much do you eat? What’s now important to you? Now that you’re a healthy eater? This is a lifestyle for you what’s important to you? Maybe the most important thing to ask yourself is how do you feel? How does it feel to have this identity?

I am a healthy eater. How does it feel to be a healthy eater? When you visualize who you want to be when you visualize this identity, it’s like a mental rehearsal for the reality that you want for yourself. Right? So you mentally rehearse the reality that you want. And when you do that, you create that reality for yourself.

Dr. Joe Dispenza, amazing, amazing guy. By the way, if you’re not familiar with his work, definitely read, Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself. This is an amazing book. But anyway, he says, “According to research on mental rehearsal visualization, once we immerse ourselves in that scene, changes begin to take place in our brain. Therefore, each time we do this, we’re laying down new neurological tracks in the present moment, that literally change our brain to look like the brain of our future.”

In other words, the brain starts to look like the future we want to create has already happened. This is such a powerful, powerful thing, okay, visualization changes your brain to basically look like the future that you want to create. And when you do that, that future that you want to create for yourself begins to take shape for you. Okay.

Elite athletes do this all the time they rehearse the race, they’re about to run in their mind first, and then when they go to do it, it’s like it’s already happened. Basketball players do this, they rehearse, shooting free throws, and then they get out there and they can do it more effectively. Visualize your new identity. That’s step number two.

Step number three is to start paying attention to yourdaily thoughts, your feelings, and your actions, right. These are only things that you can control in this world are your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, right? So start paying attention to them.

A great way to do this is to do some daily journaling. We’ve been talking about this all month in the Running Lean community on Facebook. We’ve done this journal challenge for January, people have been getting some great results. You start paying attention to what you’re thinking about, you start paying attention to your emotions, and you start paying attention to the actions you’re taking.

Right because you’re the things you think about all the time, you’re your constant thoughts. They create your feelings, they create your emotional state, and then you take action based on your emotional state. So your thoughts lead directly to the actions that you take and the results that you get right.

For example, if you feel motivated, you might go for a run. If you feel motivated and excited, and you feel like oh, I’m sticking to my meal plan here. You might eat a nice kale salad and a piece of salmon. Okay? Now if you’re feeling crappy if you feel sad, you might sit on the couch. You might binge-watch some Netflix you might eat a whole large pizza by yourself and cry. I may have done that. Right.

So your emotional state kind of drives your actions. So pay attention to what you’re constantly thinking because your thoughts really create that emotional state. And one great way of doing that is just doing some journaling each day, write down what you’re thinking about, just get all your thoughts out of your head and onto the page.

And so pay attention to what you’re thinking about, then pay attention to how you’re feeling. And it really helps to just give your emotions a name, instead of just like, oh, I’m depressed, I’m down, I’m blue. I don’t know, I’m overwhelmed, whatever, whatever state you’re in, try to name it, I’m, I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m lonely, I’m sad. I’m bored. I’m stressed. Try to name those emotions and try to find out, like, what thoughts are causing those feelings, okay.

And then look at the actions that you’re taking right in and start paying attention. I’m not talking like you don’t have to change all this stuff. But start paying attention to your thoughts, start paying attention to how you feel. And then really start paying attack attention to the actions you’re taking.

Start taking aligned actions, like is eating a large pizza by yourself moving you closer to or further away from your goals? I’m gonna say probably moving further away. That’s just something you can say, oh, that’s interesting. I wonder why I’m doing that. Right. So just make sure that the things you’re doing or not doing are in alignment with this identity that you want for yourself.

Like, if your identity if you want your identity to be I am a healthy eater, then you know, just sitting around watching Netflix and eating a large pizza by herself, is probably not going to be in alignment with that identity that you want for yourself, okay? So make sure you’re taking aligned action.

What you do should be moving you closer to who you want to be. When being healthy, becomes part of your identity, you gain confidence in yourself, you build trust with yourself, and sticking to it becomes natural. It’s just it’s what you do. Remember, being healthy is not a destination you’re trying to get to this isn’t a temporary deal. Being healthy is a way of life.

Being healthy has to become part of the very essence of who you are. Like Adam said, This is what I do. This is who I am. That’s what we want. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you got something out of it, please consider sharing it with a friend. You guys totally got this. Lots of love. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll 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.