83. The All-or-Nothing Mentality

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 83 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today we’re talking about the all or nothing mentality. So as we come to the end of our dry July challenge, I’d love to know how it went for you. How did it go? How was your experience giving up alcohol for a month? Were you able to do it? Was it hard? What’s changed for you? Maybe you’re sleeping better? Do you have more energy, maybe your workouts have been better?

Maybe you just feel better overall, I actually would love to hear from you. You can drop your comments in our Facebook group. But a lot of people are now asking themselves like now what now? What do I do? Do I keep going do I have to, you know, swear off alcohol forever?

Whether or not you choose to continue with this, I just want to make one thing very clear, you don’t have to make a decision that you’re never going to drink again. I think a lot of people get stuck on this idea of either you can drink or you have to never drink and there’s no middle ground. There’s no moderation. And this is what I mean when I’m talking about the all or nothing mentality.

And if you’re trying to change a habit it can make the process of changing a habit feel extremely daunting, like thinking about never drinking again, or never eating sugar again for the rest of your life. Is that really going to help you stay on track? So in this episode, I’m just going to take a deep dive into this whole idea of like all or nothing, this whole mentality that people adopt, and then I’m going to propose what might be, I think a more effective way to change a habit.

And like I mentioned, if you haven’t already done so please come and check out the Running Lean community on Facebook, and share your thoughts about the dry July challenge. I’ll be posting a little bit more in there. We’re wrapping up the month.

But I would love to know what kind of experiences you guys have had like what positive experiences you’ve had from taking a break from alcohol for the month, just search for Running Lean community on Facebook, and you can join us there.

And then here’s a recent five star review of the Running Lean podcast. And this person said, “I have recently finished listening to all of your podcasts and love them. So please make more soon lol. But seriously, I thank you for sharing all of your knowledge on running and nutrition because I’ve learned a lot. Thank you so much. And I look forward to many more, please know that your podcasts are making a difference. Oh, and I will be going away for a week and really enjoyed your advice on making a plan when you are not in your typical routine because I will be sure to plan ahead.”

Thank you very much for that awesome review. And if you want to leave a review of the podcast, I would so appreciate it. I love hearing that this is helping you guys and that I am making a difference. So you can just go to whatever podcast app you use Apple podcasts, or whatever, scroll down, tap the stars and write a few words. And I will be sure to read your review on the show here. So thanks again for doing that.

And then just a quick update, you know, I’ve got this coaching group that is now open, officially open, and not going to be closing. So anytime you’re ready to start making some of these changes. This is a very cost-effective way of doing it. The monthly coaching group is where you get access to my online training materials you get access to weekly group calls with other people that are going through the same thing.

Part of it is like the support group because you get the support of people just like you that are you know going through trying to accomplish some of these big goals for themselves and you get to hear what’s working for them what’s not working, how did they overcome some of these struggles so it’s really effective at helping you to see that there’s hope and that there’s you know, things that you can do that will help you to stay on track.

And of course, I do some coaching and teaching and training every week in the group. If you’re interested just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join. And also in August, all month, all month long, we’re gonna be taking this deep dive into the thought, feeling, and action patterns that we all have, and how they might be keeping you stuck.

And if you want to start, you know, taking control of some of these things, habits, and things like that in your life, how you can use your thought, feeling, action patterns to actually start getting better results in different places in your life. Okay, so whether you’re trying to lose weight, or you want to improve your running, you want to improve your overall health and fitness, you want to get stronger.

Maybe you want to keep up with the drinking or learn how to moderate your drinking. We’ll be talking about all that stuff and how your thought feeling and action patterns play such a huge role and all that stuff. So anyway, runningleanpodcast.com/join and join us.

Okay, let’s get into this topic. Because I’m excited about talking about this, I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because I’ve heard people say that, you know, when you decide you want to, you know, change a habit, that you just have to, like, abstain from doing that thing.

Like, let’s say you want to, like, quit eating sugar. And people are like, well, sugar is bad for you. And if you have a problem with sugar, you know, if you can’t moderate sugar, you just need to, like, quit forever. And the same thing goes for drinking.

A lot of people especially like in the recovery communities say that if you are, you know, if you have a problem with drinking, that you should just never drink ever, and that you have to be either 100%. You have to abstain 100% of the time, or, you know, basically, you’re not doing it, right. Okay. It’s like you’re either all in, or you’re all out and there’s no middle ground there, okay, it’s like 100% compliance, or you’re not complying at all.

So maybe you just want to, like, instead of giving up drinking, maybe you just want to change your drinking habit, you know, or maybe you don’t want to like, give up sugar 100%, but you just want to like change your relationship with sugar, you know, you don’t have to decide that you’re never going to do it again.

I think this all or nothing mentality, it’s like either this or that. It’s on or off. It’s binary, you know, it’s either yes or no, I think it’s very black and white thinking and I think it can be problematic for a lot of people and can be very challenging for a lot of people to, to give up or to change the habit, okay to like, kind of make a better habit.

And we’re really talking about when we talk about habit change of changing our relationship with, you know, alcohol, changing our relationship with food, okay. I used to have the same sort of attitude about running. So I was either like training for something big and epic, like an Ironman or 100 miler, or, I wasn’t training at all, like, why even bother running a half marathon, you know.

And this is like, very black and white thinking. And I don’t think this is you know, healthy, I’m not saying there’s nothing, there’s nothing wrong with, you know, running or training for an Ironman or, or 100 miler, whatever you want to do. I think those things are amazing. But we just have to get out of this idea that it’s like all or nothing, okay.

And I want to make something very clear before I go on here. So when I talk about all or nothing. It’s different from when I talk about going all-in on yourself. Okay, so I talk a lot about this concept of, you know, when you have a big goal, you need to go all-in on yourself for that goal, okay?

You need to approach these big things in your life with the attitude that you’re committed to making a work, right no matter what. So let’s say you want to lose weight, and you have this big weight loss goal. Going all in on yourself means that you’re going to keep going, that you’re, you know, it may take a while you may have some slip-ups, you may have some failures along the way. You may not stick to your plan or whatever, but you keep moving forward, you don’t quit on yourself.

Okay, maybe you want to change your relationship with alcohol going all-in on that means you use the power of your thoughts and feelings about alcohol to change the habit. It means you create a drinking plan, maybe you just want to moderate, so you create a drinking plan and you stick to it. No matter what.

Going on all in on yourself means you’re committed to your health. You’re committed to success. You’re committed to, you know, maybe going after this PR and your marathon. It does not mean you’re never allowed to drink again. It does not mean you’re never allowed to eat a cupcake again, it does not mean like you can never, you know, run a half marathon or five games or something like that, you know, we just want to make sure that we understand the difference between the all or nothing mentality and like going all-in on yourself, okay?

There’s a big difference between swearing off something forever, like sugar, alcohol, and changing the habit and changing your relationship with it. Okay? So going all-in on yourself does not equate to all or nothing, it just means you aren’t half-assing, you know, you’re not half-assing your efforts towards this goal. You’re full-assing it with whatever it is you’re doing. Okay?

So there’s this idea, and I was talking about this a minute ago, like, there’s this idea, especially in the recovery communities that if you want to change a habit, you have to quit it forever. If you want to change your relationship with alcohol, that there’s, you know, maybe you’ve had a problem with alcohol in the past, it’s been hard for you to give it up or hard for you to moderate that you just have to quit forever, you know.

If you have an issue with food, and maybe you, you know, you’re overweight and you’re trying to lose some weight, and you just want to be healthier and feel better. That means that like you could never eat sugar again, or never have a pizza or fries ever again. And here’s what I want to propose. And I think this is the kind of the crux of the problem here.

When you think about like never eating pizza again, or never eating a burger with fries and a milkshake ever again in your life. How does that make you feel? Probably, you probably feel deprived, it probably feels sort of terrible. And when you feel deprived and terrible, because you feel like you’re missing something, something that you enjoy, what happens to your desire for that thing, your desire for that thing actually goes up.

And when you feel terrible, and you have this now increased desire for this thing, what do you think you’re going to do? Typically, you’re going to give in to those cravings, you’re going to eat the fries, you’re going to eat the pizza, you’re going to eat the cupcakes, you’re going to drink the alcohol because you just want to feel better.

You have all this desire, and you’re feeling terrible about yourself. And like, you could never have this thing again, and feeling depressed about that. And geez, what are you going to do, you’re just going to want it even more. Okay. So thinking that you have to quit something forever, it feels, it can feel very daunting for people. You know, it can feel overwhelming, and, frankly, pretty frustrating.

And another big problem with this all or nothing mentality is that if you slip up if you do swear off drinking forever, and you do drink, man, you just feel terrible. Like you feel guilty and full of shame and disappointment in yourself like you are a failure. Like you just can’t do it. And if your mentality is like it’s all or nothing, there’s no room for moderation, there’s no room for occasionally. There’s no way that you can have a healthy relationship with alcohol or with sugar.

You have to have like, no relationship at all. Like that’s the mentality is that you can’t have a healthy relationship. So you have to have zero relationship at all, like total abstinence. And here’s what I’m just trying to propose today is like, there’s a different way of doing this.

Instead of having no relationship with alcohol, no relationship with junk food, like junk foods, okay, every now and then, you know, but here’s the thing, instead of having an unhealthy relationship with those things, what if you had a healthy relationship with those things? So there are other ways of doing it, you can actually change your habits and change the relationship with food and with alcohol and do it in a way that is, okay.

Now, I’m a big proponent of staying away from junk food. Honestly, I really am. And I’m a big proponent of staying away from sugar for the most part, and I don’t drink. Okay, that’s a choice that I’m making. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. But here’s the thing. If you want to drink alcohol, you can. If you want to eat a burger and fries every now and then you can. If you want to eat a candy bar, you can you just have to like work on your relationship with the thing.

Now I want to share with you an example of how this plays out in my life in a little bit of a different way. Like an actual relationship with a person. Okay, so about 18 months ago, my wife and I got divorced, we both had just moved to this new building near downtown Cincinnati, and we both love the building. So we both decided we were going to stay in the same building.

So we both live in the same building on different floors. And so we see each other every now and then, okay. And it’s not that big of a deal. Rarely, so I’ll occasionally see her and her new boyfriend, you know, hanging out at the pool or something like that. And it’s not really a problem, I’m kind, you know, we’re friendly with each other, we all get along.

But here’s the thing, I get advice from people, like people I know, they’ll tell me, like, you should just move somewhere else, or you just don’t ever talk to her, if you see or go talk, you know, walk away, go the other way, don’t engage in conversation. You know, like, you need to, like cut off all ties with her like 100% no relationship at all right?

And instead of doing that, because that’s not what I want, instead of trying to eliminate this person from my life, because that’s not reality, you know, I’m going to see her around, and it’s okay. Instead of trying to eliminate the relationship and make it an all-or-nothing type of deal, I’m working on changing the relationship I’ve worked on and successfully changed the relationship so that there’s not any drama around it, that’s not energetically charged anymore.

It’s not emotionally challenging anymore, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing situation, I can still see her around, I can say hi, we can stop and chat, I can, you know, have a conversation with her and her boyfriend at the pool. And it’s no big deal, I’ve effectively changed the relationship with my ex from a, you know, romantic partnership, to a platonic friendship.

And this is kind of, I mean, it’s such a good analogy, I think, to our relationship with food or to alcohol, or even with, you know, exercise in general, we can change the relationship and make it into something that is healthy. And that we can do in a different way, we can change the relationship, we don’t have to cut off the relationship. Okay.

So the way this works around food and stuff like that, is that, you know, for the same way that I can be around my ex in this building and stuff, I can be around sugar, I can be around people drinking, and I don’t have those cravings anymore. There’s no increased desire for these things in my life, the desire is not there.

Like the desire for my ex is not there the desire for you know, sugar is really just not there. I’ve changed my relationship with food and alcohol, I don’t have to abstain from you know, ever seeing alcohol or ever being around it. I don’t have to abstain from sugar or never eating it again, I can do it occasionally. I’ve changed the relationship.

You know, I love my son and I will do like taco night, sometimes we’ll go out to this place and we’ll get chips and salsa and tacos and all this stuff, a lot of carbs, you know, and I’m pretty much don’t eat carbs, you know, but I’ll go and I’ll enjoy myself and I’ll have fun doing that. And then the next day, I just go back to doing what I normally do. It’s no big deal. Right? I’ve changed my relationship with the food. Okay.

And when you change the relationship, there’s so much freedom in that, because now you’re free to do what you want to do. Because I’m here to tell you that if you want to drink alcohol, but you’re just forcing yourself not to and you’re just trying to white knuckle your way through your life without it. This is going to be so much harder for you than if you say you know what, instead of never drinking again, I just want to drink you know, on Saturday nights.

You know, that way I can just sleep in the next day. It’s not a big deal. Yeah, I know I’m not going to feel great but it’s not like the day before a long run, and like you know you can do it in a way that feels good for you. This is a powerful skill that you can master okay.

And here’s the other thing I want to make sure you understand is that for some people, the all or nothing, you know, principle the all or nothing mentality does work and they actually feel good about not making a decision to never drink alcohol again, or never eating junk food again. And if you’re the kind of person who’s like, you know, I just don’t ever want to drink again, or I don’t ever want to eat candy bars ever in your life, and you feel good about that.

And that motivates you? And that mentality kind of strengthens your resolve that keeps you on track and fuels you and it feels good for you. As long as it’s not making you feel deprived or demotivated or increasing your desire for it, it’s totally fine. If this kind of thinking works for you, then absolutely go for it. There’s nothing wrong with this line of thinking unless it makes you crave the thing more unless it makes you feel terrible.

Okay, you don’t have to decide that you’re never going to drink again, or never eat out or never eat sugar again. So I quit drinking alcohol 14 years ago, and when I made that decision to quit, I just so happen to have quit 100% and have never had a drop of alcohol since that day in 2007. That was not my intention when I quit.

When I quit. I was like, I just can’t do this anymore, I need to just like cut back. And, um, and I, you know, was in therapy and you know, involved in like some 12 Step programs and things like that. And my experience was that for me, it was better if I just didn’t pick it up if I just didn’t drink, you know, and I never made the decision, like, I’m going to quit this for the rest of my life.

I just decided that I was going to make this decision sort of a one-day at a time kind of a deal. So it’s like today, I’m just not going to drink it, we’ll see how it goes. And then the next day, I kind of made that same decision, and so on and so forth. And so I’ve sort of just kept that same mentality of like, if I want to drink I can, it’s not like I can’t, but I just don’t want to I don’t have that desire, okay.

But early on, especially in the 12 step programs, you know, I was told and I firmly believed at the time that if I had just like one drop of alcohol, I’d be back to drinking a six-pack every night in no time I’d be like, you know, end up in jail or dead, you know, to scare the crap out of me.

You know, I hear people talk about how, you know, they had many, many years of sobriety, and then they’d had one drink, and then it was all over, they’re right back to where they were before. And there was, you know, all this turmoil in their life and everything they had worked for so hard, just all fell apart, and their lives turned to crap.

And I’m just like, oh, my gosh, I don’t want that. So I better not drink at all. And here’s the thing I’ll tell you like, today, I don’t really believe this is true for everyone. It hasn’t been shown to be true. Like I know a lot of people who were sober for many years, and maybe they had a slip-up, maybe they drank once or twice, and then they didn’t go to jail. They’re not dead. They weren’t suddenly struck homeless and living in a gutter or anything like that.

They didn’t lose all the good stuff in their life. You know, they didn’t drink and then they drank, and then they don’t drink again. And it’s no big what you know, I think we get into this idea of like, it has to be one or the other. Like, it has to be binary. You know, and when we have this all or nothing mentality.

Occasionally having a drink is it’s forbidden. It’s completely off the table. You know why? Because well, you can’t control your drinking, you’re an alcoholic, or you can never drink again, you know, whatever things you tell yourself.

I was having coffee with a friend recently. And, you know, she had quit drinking many years ago as well. And we’ve both abstained from drinking, you know, but she decided not too long ago that she wanted to have a relationship with alcohol again. So now she occasionally drinks and she’s good with that.

You know, and we were both under this idea that once you start, you can’t stop and but that hasn’t been the case for her. So she can enjoy a glass of wine every now and then with friends. She can moderate her drinking. She feels good about her decision. Okay, she’s changed how she thinks and feels about alcohol. She’s changed the relationship with alcohol instead of having zero relationship with alcohol. She has a healthy relationship with alcohol now, and it’s the exact same thing with our food.

Like we can decide that we want to occasionally have a cupcake we can decide that we occasionally want to eat pizza. And this is where there’s freedom. Okay, you can do these things in a way that feels good for you, and you can change the relationship without having to swear it off forever.

So what about me, am I going to like try this experiment of like drinking again? Well, talking to this friend of mine got me really thinking about this idea. Like, if I wanted to drink again, I could probably do it in a way that is completely fine. And that feels good for me, I could change the relationship.

But I got to just tell you, like, I don’t want that for myself, I don’t have any desire to drink alcohol, or to feel buzzed or to get drunk or any of that stuff. I just don’t. I can drink if I want to, but I’m choosing not to. And this is a little bit different than my relationship with food. Because my relationship with food is a little bit different.

I will occasionally have some sweets or some, you know, sugar or some, you know, special dessert, or, you know, something that’s just like bread, you know, lots of carbs, I can occasionally do this stuff. Okay. But as far as drinking is concerned, I just don’t have the desire for it.

You know, that desire left me a long time ago, and I just don’t want it. Okay. So, and I’m not making this decision forever about alcohol. Like I might change my mind someday. And I might say, like, you know, what I might, you know, try drinking again. But for today, I don’t have that desire, and I’m not gonna drink today.

But like, as far as like, the junk food and the sugar and stuff like that, like, I’ve thought about this. And, you know, here’s something that I used to love when I would go to California and visit family out there. I love going to In and Out Burger, right? They have these great burgers and fries. And it’s like, milkshakes or whatever.

I’ll do that someday, you know, but it’s not something I’m doing like all the time, I don’t have to have it. I’m not thinking about it all the time, I don’t have this over desire for that kind of thing. But I’ll go and eat something like that. I love sourdough bread. I’d love to get, you know, a good loaf of sourdough bread when I go to San Francisco, or, you know, eat that special dessert on my birthday, or because it’s, you know, Christmas or something like that.

I can do those things. And I feel really good about it. I’ve changed my relationship with food. And if you’re thinking about like, well, how can I do this for myself, you know, I just want you to like, take on this attitude of like, I don’t have to swear off drinking forever, I don’t have to swear off eating sugar for forever. But maybe just for today is a good place to start.

Maybe adopting that idea that they talked about in some of these 12 Step programs is like, just for today, I’m not gonna drink just for today, I’m not going to eat sugar. And don’t even worry about tomorrow, just think about what you can do today.

And when you think about it this way it doesn’t feel so big and overwhelming anymore. It doesn’t feel like you have to quit for the rest of your life or you’re a failure, you can just decide. Today, I just don’t want that. You know.

Another big problem that I think happens when we adopt this all or nothing mentality is that we feel like we’re out of control. Like, you can’t control your drinking. So you have to quit forever. You can’t control your eating, and or you know, your sugar intake. So you have to just quit forever. Maybe you’ve been told you have an addictive personality or you thought that you had something like that. Okay?

But what if you can control your drinking? What if you can control your eating? You just haven’t learned how to do it? What if there’s no such thing as an addictive personality? I did a little research into this.

And in her book, The Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction, Maya, I’m gonna screw up her last name, but it’s like Szalavitz Maya says fundamentally, the idea of a general addictive personality is a myth. People with addictions or potential addicts cannot be identified by a specific collection of personality traits. So there you go. Maybe the addictive personality is not really a thing.

Here’s the thing, you always have a choice. Everything you do is a choice. The decision that you make is a choice that you are making. It’s not something that is out of control. You always have the ability to be in control or to take back control if you think you’ve lost it because you really haven’t lost control.

You just think you have you know, maybe you’ve been told that you don’t have control and you’re choosing to believe that but a lot of times it’s just a thought, feeling, action pattern that you’ve been doing for a long time. So you may not feel like you’re in control because your thoughts and feelings about eating junk food and drinking are just like automatic.

And this behavior that you’re engaging in is like something you do, mostly unconsciously. You know, it’s kind of like tying your shoes, it’s just something you do, you can do it without even thinking about it right? Eating and drinking can be the same way. It’s such an ingrained habit that you feel like you’re out of control, but you’re actually making decisions, okay, you do have control.

And if you want to see this, what you need to do is just slow down. Right? If you want to see that you do have control, pause, when you’re, you know, about to engage in this behavior. And start looking at the thoughts and feelings that precede the behavior. Like what were you thinking and feeling right before you found yourself with a glass of wine in your hand, you know, what thoughts and feelings drove the action of eating the burger and fries, the milkshake.

And I don’t want you to skip this step like this is important, I want you to get curious with yourself. Start to become aware of how those thoughts and feelings are driving your behavior. Because if you want to change the behavior, you’ve got to look at the thoughts and feelings that are driving it. When you begin to see that there’s a pattern at work here, a thought feeling reaction pattern, you can begin to take back the control, you can see that you are in control.

And this is how you begin to change the behavior. And do it in a way that actually works. Instead of just saying like, I just got to quit this forever. So it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, okay? If that all or nothing mentality works for you love it, do it, keep it going right on, get down with your bad self.

But if you want something different, if that doesn’t work for you, if that feels terrible for you, and you want to just like instead of avoiding a relationship with, with certain types of foods or alcohol, you want to change the relationship, you still want to have a relationship, but you want to be different to a healthy relationship, then that is possible for you, you can control your eating and your drinking. And you got to start by looking at your thoughts and feelings about sugar, about burgers and fries, about alcohol.

And once you start to be aware of how your thoughts and feelings are, you know driving the action, you can begin to change them so that you can take different actions, okay. And this, the same principles apply to everything in your walk of life.

Like these same principles apply to my relationship with my ex-wife, and it works beautifully. Like it works. Great. My relationship with her today is good. You know, not because of anything she’s doing. Because I’ve learned how to change the way I think and feel about this relationship. I’ve created a healthier relationship.

You know, my relationship with food today is good. Not because it’s never around, not because I avoid, you know, carbs or sugar 100% of the time. It’s not because I made a solemn oath to swear these things off forever. It’s because I’ve changed the relationship. Right? I’ve changed how I show up around these things.

And this is available for you too. I just want you to see that. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. All or nothing sometimes works for people, but sometimes it just feels too. It’s too much. It’s overwhelming. Okay.

So be sure to join us over in the Running Lean coaching group because in August, we’re taking a deep dive into this whole idea of like changing your thought, feeling, action patterns, you know, how do you how do these things show up? How do you change them so you can start getting the results that you want around things like weight loss or maybe controlling your drinking or changing your running or just improving your overall health and fitness?

If you’re interested in joining the group love to have you in there just check out runningleanpodcast.com/join and we’ll see you soon. And listen, I hope you got something out of this episode today. I had fun putting this together.

And if you did get something out of it. Please consider sharing it with a friend I love you all keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

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