Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
If you’ve ever trained for a marathon then you know that sacrifices have to be made in order to achieve that goal. You have to put in a lot of hours on the weekends running in the cold. You have …
Continue Reading about 221. What Are You Willing to Sacrifice to Lose Weight? →
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 221 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, What Are You Willing to Sacrifice to Lose Weight?
So if you’ve ever trained for a marathon, then you know that sacrifices have to be made in order to achieve that goal. You have to put in lots of hours on the weekends running in the cold and the dark, you have to give up time with your friends and your family. You endure sore legs for days, you’re tired all the time, you are more than willing to sacrifice these things in order to finish that marathon.
Okay, so how about when it comes to losing weight? What are you willing to sacrifice in order to hit your weight loss goals? So in this episode, I’m going to take a deep dive into the kinds of sacrifices we all have to make in order to lose weight and keep it off.
But first, I know I talk a lot about nutrition, weight loss, improving your running, and getting stronger here on this podcast. If you’re new, welcome I’m glad you’re here. But you might be a little confused or overwhelmed by all this information.
I get it if that’s you, no worries, I’ve got you covered. I created a free hour-long training that you can check out at any time. It’s called Five Simple Steps to Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner.
I teach you the basics of nutrition and strength and endurance and mindset all geared towards you the long-distance runner. So if you’re ready to get leaner, ready to get stronger and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself yet, this free training is exactly what you need. Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training and get started on your weight loss journey today.
Alright, so what are you willing to sacrifice to lose weight, there’s a lot of confusion around the weight loss world. And I’ve seen a lot of people who think or assume that you really don’t have to give up anything or make any sacrifices in order to lose weight.
Like you can just kind of keep doing what you’re doing, maybe run more, you know, maybe skip the ice cream every now and then or something like that, but you really don’t have to give anything up.
I’ve even heard, you know, dieticians and certain people touting these diets where you just can eat anything that you want. Just eat it in moderation. You don’t really have to sacrifice anything, just eat a little bit less of everything and all your problems will be solved. Does this really work?
I have to tell you that I know that didn’t work for me. I’ve tried that. I know a lot of people that have tried that it hasn’t worked for them. There’s a lot more going on than just like, you know everything in moderation.
Everything in moderation is a great idea. I wish it worked. If it worked, it would be amazing. But I don’t think it works for most people, especially when we’re talking about some types of foods like sugar, which are very difficult to moderate.
Have you ever tried to moderate your sugar intake? Have you tried to just eat a little bit of sugar? It’s hard to do. One of the reasons is is it brings you so much pleasure it lights up the pleasure centers in your brain every time you eat sugar. And it lights up those pleasure centers even more than certain drugs like cocaine do, you know, it’s crazy, how much it lights up the pleasure centers in your brain.
So just eating some sugar in moderation causes you this abnormal craving for more sugar, right? So if you’re somebody that’s trying to moderate what you’re eating, and you’re trying to moderate your sugar intake, and every time you eat it, you have this huge craving for more sugar, this is going to be very difficult for you, you’re gonna go crazy.
And what ends up happening is you eat a lot more sugar, because you’re trying to moderate. Okay, so that’s just one of the reasons why moderation doesn’t work. And I think that there’s a lot more going on in the human physiology when it comes to blood sugar when it comes to insulin when it comes to how our bodies store fat or release fat from fat cells.
You know, we’ve got to make sure that our insulin levels are low, that our blood sugar is pretty chill most of the time. And if you’re spiking your blood sugar and insulin is constantly high, it’s going to be very difficult for you to lose weight, even if you are eating in moderation, okay?
So the reality here is that we do have to make some sacrifices, and even eating whatever you want in moderation, you are still making some sacrifices there, because you’re not eating as much as you’re used to eating, if that’s the route you want to take, you know, people that do Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, calorie counting, you know, all that stuff.
I personally don’t think those methods are very effective long term, they’re effective short term, but not long term. You know, just for reasons like, you know, your, you know, restricting calories will kind of make your metabolism slowed down a little bit.
So, those types of diets, you know, why they tout just saying, like, oh, you know, we’re gonna, you know, eat everything, we’re just gonna moderate and really watch the number of calories you’re eating, you still have to make sacrifices there, you still have to watch the number of calories you’re eating. All right.
So just know that it doesn’t matter, the method of trying to lose weight, there is going to be some sacrifices that have to be made in order for you to reach that goal. Okay. And I want to say this, you know, I’ve said this a couple times before on the podcast here, but when we talk about losing weight, of course, we’re talking about losing fat, not just weight, we’re not talking about losing muscle or bone mass or anything like that. We want to improve our body composition, we just all understand that weight loss means fat loss, right?
Can we just all agree to that? Cool, okay. So when it comes to your body weight, and the amount of fat that you’re carrying around, or muscle, even in this case, there are three different approaches.
You can choose to maintain your weight, which means you’re just gonna keep doing what you’re doing and maintain your weight easily. You can gain weight, you know, you might be somebody that wants to actively get bigger, you know, maybe from a muscular standpoint, or you can try to lose weight.
So if your goal is to maintain your weight, and your weight is kind of where you want it to be, and you’re okay with where your weight is, then probably what you’re doing is fine, and you just can keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.
You know, you might be eating a certain way, you might be exercising a certain amount each week. And if you can easily maintain your body composition, meaning you’re not gaining fat, you’re not losing muscle, you really don’t need to change anything.
So this is what we call maintenance mode. And eventually, we all want to get into maintenance mode. And the end goal of any weight loss journey should be this place where you can just easily and kind of effortlessly maintain your weight, like that should be the goal.
And that’s the goal with everybody that I work with is like the end goal should be that when you and I are done working together, you know exactly what to do to easily and pretty effortlessly maintain your weight, right? So if you just want to maintain, that’s pretty easy to do. Just keep doing what you’re doing, you don’t really have to change anything. All right.
Now, the second approach is, let’s say you’re somebody that wants to gain weight. And you might be thinking, I’m sort of crazy for talking about this, who would want to gain weight? But lots of people do. Bodybuilders want to gain weight, I’m trying to gain weight, I’ve been trying to gain weight for some time now. And when I talk about gaining weight, what we’re talking about typically is gaining muscle.
So I’ve been actively trying to gain muscle. And it is hard to do because one thing you have to understand is that you have to be very diligent about eating more food, you got to increase your calorie intake, you got to eat more protein, then you have to do a significant amount of weight training.
And that could be training for hypertrophy training for strength, but you have to be actively working towards building bigger muscles, you can’t just expect to eat a lot more calories, and then expect to gain a bunch of muscle, it doesn’t really work that way. Again, that would be awesome if it did, but it doesn’t.
So we want to combine a good healthy diet and I’m not talking about eating a bunch of junk. But a good healthy diet, you just have to increase the calorie intake and then the right amount of weight training and we have to do this stuff consistently for a pretty long period of time, especially as you get older.
You know if I was doing this in my 20s or 30s, I’d probably be gaining weight from muscle weight pretty quickly and pretty easily. But now I’m in my late 50s you know, and putting on muscle and getting bigger in that way is a little bit harder, but I’ve been pretty successful with it you know and I’ll share more about about on a future podcast, I’m not quite where I want to be yet. So when I do get there, I’m going to share my journey with you guys there.
Okay, so that would be the approach of gaining weight. All right. So if you want to maintain, just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing, if you want to, if you want to gain weight, or even if you want to lose weight, then we have to change something, right?
So that brings us to the third approach, which is the one that most people, I would assume one, which is to lose weight, you want to lose that fat weight, okay? So if you want to lose, then we have to change something, if you want to maintain your weight, just keep doing whatever you’re doing, right?
But if you want to lose, what you’re doing is not getting you there, right? So we have to change something. If you have 20, 30, 40 pounds to lose, then whatever you’re doing right now is not going to get you there.
Maybe what you’re doing right now would be a good maintenance plan for you. So think about that. Like what if you’re not gaining weight, you’re just maintaining your weight pretty easily. But you want to lose, think about this. This what you’re doing now could be a good maintenance plan for you long term after you hit your goal weight, of course, right?
So common sense says that if you want to lose the weight, then we have to change something. And when I say change something, that means we have to sacrifice something or some things in order to start getting the weight to move, in order to get you to that goal weight.
Okay, so whenever people are told that they need to make a sacrifice, they figure Oh, my God, it’s like torture, you know, but it doesn’t have to be torture. I looked up the definition of sacrifice. And I like these words that are associated with it.
So the definition is to suffer loss of something to give up something to renounce something, or to destroy something, I like that one, we got to destroy the pizza cravings, you know, especially for an ideal a belief or an end. Right.
So the end, in this case, is your ideal weight. It’s your weight loss goal. And the sacrifices are the things that you need to give up that you need to renounce the things that you need to destroy, in order to achieve that.
And okay, another way of saying this is every goal requires a sacrifice. And the sacrifice could be something you love, like pizza, or ice cream. And, you know, it could be money or time or effort.
You know, if you’re training for that marathon, you know, you have to make sacrifices, months of training in the cold weather, long, long runs on sore, tired legs, you sacrifice time with your family, you sacrifice your social life, because you can’t go out on Friday night, you got to get up early to run 18 miles tomorrow. And then you can’t go out tomorrow night because you’re so tired from running the 18 miles.
You know, most people I talk to are like, oh my gosh, I am so willing to make those sacrifices in order to you know, hit my marathon goal. And so many people are so quick to make that decision. They’re like, cool, I’m definitely going to sacrifice to hit that marathon goal. In fact, I’m going to do this twice a year or three times a year, I run like two or three marathons every year.
So you’re making the sacrifices pretty much year-round. Because if you’re running two or three marathons a year, you’re kind of always in training. So you’re always giving up things. You’re always sacrificing some things for your training. So you know, that training for a marathon requires a lot of sacrifices and you do it gladly. You do it with a smile on your face. Okay.
So what about those sacrifices that you might have to make in order to reach a weight loss goal? You know, you may want to stop eating sugar and you may want to stop drinking alcohol and you may want to cut out the junk food that you’ve been scarfing down happily while you’re doing all that marathon training.
Maybe you cut out snacking or you just go down to eating a couple times a day. Maybe you stop eating all the pizza and the french fries and the ice cream. So all these things are real sacrifices that you might have to make if you want to hit that goal. But the bigger question here is this. Are you willing?
Are you willing to make those sacrifices are you willing to give up the foods that you love that tastes so amazing that light up the pleasure center in your brain like crazy, but they keep making you fatter?
Are you willing to give up those foods, because the cold hard truth is this losing weight requires sacrifices, becoming the healthiest and most badass version of yourself requires sacrifice. If it didn’t require sacrifice, you already would have achieved it. The fact that it requires a sacrifice means you have not achieved it yet.
So you have to give up something in order to get there, what you want is outside your comfort zone mean, meaning that, you know, if it was in your comfort zone, you’d already have it because it’d be something that you’re comfortable with, you know, but it’s not, it’s outside your comfort zone.
And so just by definition, one of the things you’re going to have to sacrifice is comfort in order to reach that weight loss goal. So sometimes I talk to my clients and they’ll say something like, you know, I’m a little frustrated because my weight has stalled a little bit. And by the way, this is totally normal happens all the time, weight loss can stall for 2, 3, 4 weeks sometimes.
And then it just picks up again, sometimes we don’t change anything. But it’s really not a stall if it’s you know, been four days or six days or something like that, it’s really not. If it’s three, four weeks, yeah, then we got to, you know, look at you know, something, and maybe make a change. And this is totally normal. Everybody goes through this at some point, okay?
So they’ll tell me, my weight is not changing at all, but it’s not going down, it’s staying the same. And when we really dig into what’s going on, almost always, it’s like, well, you know, I’ve had the occasional cookies here and there, I’ve had the occasional piece of cake, I only had one slice of pizza the other night, and I did have a glass of wine too, you know?
Okay, so first of all, all that stuff is fine to do if you want to maintain your weight, because you’re maintaining your way pretty easily here, you know, you can have the occasional cookie, you can have the piece of pizza here and there, you’re gonna have the occasional glass of wine.
And if you do it the right way, and you can do it in moderation. Again, it’s hard to do sometimes with some of this stuff. But if you can do it in moderation, then you’re good from a maintenance standpoint. So if your goal is to maintain your weight, you’re fine. Okay.
But since your goal is not to maintain, it’s to lose your weight, then you’re going to have to be a little bit more disciplined, right, you have to make these sacrifices, at least until you reach your goal weight, then you can go back to the occasional cookie, the slice of pizza, or the glass of wine here and there.
And maybe we practice doing that here and there, as you’re getting closer to that goal weight, so that you understand the mental and emotional aspects of drinking alcohol and eating sugar, because those things can really mess you up. And they’ll they’ll cause more cravings. And it’ll be really hard to stop once you start for some people anyway.
And so we got to be careful with that. So maybe we practice that and we can walk through it slowly. You know, I’m not just going to cut you loose and go Good luck, you know, we’re going to practice doing some of that stuff together. Okay.
So what I’m saying here is like we do have to make sacrifices, but we don’t necessarily have to make these sacrifices for life. Okay. I always talk about how we want to commit to a lifestyle, and commit to a lifestyle of eating healthy, that does not mean we commit to a lifestyle of never having another piece of pizza again, in our lives. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
So losing weight requires these lifestyle changes, you have to change the core of how you approach food, like your mental and emotional approach to food has to be different, right? You can’t keep doing the things you were doing before that doesn’t work, you already know that we and if you want to lose, you got to tighten things up a little bit.
You have to make some sacrifices. And then you have to learn how to do maintenance the right way. And maintenance doesn’t mean you just go back to doing things the way you did before. It’s about sticking to your healthy eating plan most of the time, like let’s say 90% of the time, it means learning that you can eat the occasional slice of pizza, and not the entire large pizza.
That was always my problem. I would be like I’m gonna get some pizza and I would eat like a whole medium or large pizza to myself. Depending on how like thick the crust was, you can only eat so much crust, you know, it means learning how to have a glass of wine once a week, not a bottle of wine every night. Like there’s a big difference there. Okay.
And this learning is how to do things differently. This learning how to moderate amazingly delicious foods that make us feel so good that that’s where the real work comes into play. Right? So if you’re somebody that’s like, you know, the thing that’s going to really be sustainable for me is if I can occasionally have that glass of wine, if I can occasionally have a piece of cake or cookie, but I can occasionally have pizza. I have learned how to do this.
And I have learned that I can eat pizza like couple times a year, I pretty much don’t eat sugar, I’ll have the occasional piece of dark chocolate. So it might be at 5% dark. So it’s there’s not much sugar in there. But I, when I eat that stuff, when I’m eating chocolate, when I’m eating some pizza, I want more of that stuff.
You know, I’ll start thinking about it ahead of time, because I usually plan it out. I’ll be like, oh, yeah, next month on the 14th I’m gonna have a pizza, you know, or eat some pizza. And then I’ll be thinking about, I can’t wait to have that pizza that I haven’t. I’m like, yeah, it was fine.
But then afterwards, I’m like, that was really good. I want more of that, you know, and I’ll and I’ll have to be really cognizant of my mental and emotional state around those types of foods that light up my pleasure centers, okay, and you’re gonna have to do the same thing for you. Okay.
So learning how to moderate some of these foods is really where the work kicks in. Okay, but you can do it. And the cool thing is, is that when you make these sacrifices, so you gotta be willing to make some sacrifices.
And when you make these sacrifices, and sometimes it’s for months on end, you might have to sacrifice some of these things for three months, six months, something like that, when you give them up, when you destroy them, they no longer have the power over you that they once had.
And after some time, you realize that not eating these things is really, you’re really not sacrificing anything at all. You know, it’s just not a big deal anymore. Okay.
So here’s your work for this week. Think about this. What do you need to sacrifice in order to reach your weight loss goals? Right? And then what are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to sacrifice all those things? And it has to be like a yes or no, you have to be committed.
You have to be absolutely committed to cutting these things out of your life, at least for a while. Okay? Every goal requires sacrifice. Losing weight requires sacrifice. What are you willing to cut out of your life to reach your weight loss goal? Okay, think about that. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
If you've ever changed your eating habits or started exercising on the weekends instead of partying, and your friends have told you that you're boring then this episode is for you. Every day I talk …
Continue Reading about 219. Being Boring Can Actually Be Good for You →
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 219 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners today, being boring can actually be good for you. If you’ve ever changed your eating habits or started exercising on the weekends, instead of partying, and your friends have told you that you’re boring, then this episode is for you.
So every day I talked to people who want to lose weight, improve their health, improve their fitness, and improve their strength, improve their running. And one of the reasons they struggle with all this stuff is because it all seems so boring.
I don’t want to give up this exciting life that I have, you know, I’m afraid that everything’s just gonna be too boring, my life’s gonna be boring, the food’s gonna be boring. So in this episode, I’m going to share some unconventional ideas about how being boring can actually be good for you.
But first, I know I talk a lot here on the podcast about nutrition and weight loss, improving your running, and getting stronger. And if you’re new to the podcast, it probably seems a little bit overwhelming. I get it. But I’ve got you covered, I created a free hour-long training video that you can check out at any time, it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
You’re going to learn the basics of nutrition, strength, endurance, and mindset, all geared toward you, the long-distance runner. So if you’re ready to get leaner and get stronger and become the most badass version of yourself, then this free training is exactly what you need. To get it just go to runningleancoaching.com, click on free training and you can get started on your weight loss journey today.
Okay, how being boring can actually be good for you. So the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because I’ve been hearing from a lot of people lately who have had that sentiment of, you know, yeah, I want to get fit and healthy and everything, and I want to change my diet, but it’s just also boring.
You know, I don’t want my life to be boring. I want to eat food. It’s exciting. And I think that the reason for this is that we’ve been conditioned to believe that everything in our lives has to be some amazing entertaining over-the-top experience.
You know, we’re inundated with images and stories on social media and on TV and on the news and in movies about how amazing this one person was, or look at this incredible thing that this person did. Or there’s this unbelievable restaurant, you wouldn’t believe it, or this hotel, vacation destination, whatever. Or when it comes to food, there’s so much craziness out there.
There’s this out-of-the-world way to make a hamburger with 11 patties and 17 kinds of cheese and then you dip the whole thing and batter and you deep fry it and blah, blah, blah. Even someone like David Goggins, who I love and admire, he can kind of have this effect on people where it leads us to believe that you’re really not doing it right.
Unless you end up in the emergency room at the end of every run, you know, oh, my foot broke in the middle of this run. But I kept doing another 30 miles and I ended up in the emergency room like, and that’s kind of like what we’re trained to believe is like the epitome of living, you know?
So, here are some reasons why I think this is a problem because it makes us believe that everything we do has to be some amazing over-the-top experience or you know, we’re doing it wrong. And it makes us feel inferior if we’re not constantly reaching some amazing height, new height or accomplishing something amazingly huge, you know.
And what it does to us is it makes us chase the ideas of excitement and pleasure and feeling good, feeling amazing constantly. So we’re constantly chasing pleasure. We’re constantly chasing the next big, most exciting thing, and it leaves us pretty much always feeling inferior. Not feeling good enough. Like my life isn’t exciting enough. I’m not David Goggins.
You know, the food I eat is it’s boring. My life is boring. The food I eat is boring, though, the way I work out is boring. And basically, we kind of fester in this place of feeling inferior, never good enough. Like there’s always something wrong with us.
And so our lives end up feeling really dissatisfied. And we experience a lot of internal conflict around all this stuff, like you’re just not living up to your full potential, you know. And I’m all about, you know, having people like David Goggins, inspire us.
And I’m all about living up to your potential and doing things that that feel good, but at what cost, and how much of our lives have to be that exciting, the world expects us to be amazing. And we’re just not all like that we’re not all wired like David Goggins. And that’s okay.
That is perfectly okay. I’m glad there’s only one of him. That problem with chasing all of this excitement, and chasing all of this pleasure leads to a lot of unhealthy habits, you end up eating way too much, or eating way too much of the wrong types of foods like every meal has to be some fun entertainment experience, you end up getting out of shape because it’s way more fun to just sit around watching Netflix and partying than it is to, you know, go to the gym or go out for a run that stuff is boring.
Don’t you want to have an exciting life where you go and your party all the time, and you get super drunk and you eat a bunch of junk food? I mean, yeah, you’re gonna feel like crap the next day, but it’s worth it, right? Because it’s so exciting and so fun and so amazing. I think you understand where I’m going with all this.
But here’s the thing, what if the secret to a long healthy, happy life was being boring? What if a boring life not as super exciting, amazing life was actually our default? And I would argue that this is always been the case for us as human beings.
My interpretation of everything I’ve read about human evolution is that boring was a good thing. When we were living a pretty boring life, it meant that our food supply was pretty steady, and that we were living in a lot of peace and harmony.
You know, there wasn’t a lot of conflict happening in our lives, there was prosperity, we could build families and communities. We had a very simple life, but it was very consistent. We experienced a lot of consistency, a lot of consistent growth and a lot of consistent progress.
So boring for millions of years of human evolution was a good thing. You know, it was a bad thing for our human evolution was excitement. That was not good. Excitement was bad, imminent danger. It meant the saber-toothed tiger was invading tribes.
You know, excitement was a threat to our well-being. Lack of a steady food supply instability, like exciting, it was not something that we wanted in our lives, it was something that we avoided, we strove to live very simple, very kind of boring lives.
Boring is what we wanted, boring allowed us to evolve, to grow, and to thrive as human beings. So this idea that our lives have to be exciting all the time. This is a pretty new concept. It’s been drilled into our brains, though, over the last 50 years, 100 years, maybe, max.
But listen, that excitement is a lie. We don’t have to have super exciting meals at every meal, or we don’t have to party all the time. And we don’t have to be living some super exciting lives all the time. We don’t have to be chasing pleasure and dopamine constantly.
Because I think being boring is our natural state as human beings. And I think that even today, we can thrive and grow and become the amazing people that we want to become and have a very boring, quote-unquote, boring life. When I look at my life today, objectively, it is pretty boring.
You know, I go to bed at the same time every night I get you know, which is kind of early, you know, maybe 9:30, 10 o’clock, you know, you know, I watch some TV before I go to bed I get up at the pretty much the same time every day. I have the very same like morning routine, I sit and I drink my coffee.
You know, I go to the gym, Monday through Friday, every day at about the same time. I run a few times a week, on the same days. I pretty much eat the same things most days. You know, I do mix it up a little bit here and there and there’s some variety and I go to dinner every now and then. But for the most part, my diet is pretty simple.
I kind of buy the same foods at the grocery store and I might mix up the way I put them together but it’s pretty much the same things. I take a walk every day and I love my walks, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I’m walking. And I’m learning and I’m sort of growing, and learning some things and working on personal growth and self-development and things like that while I’m out, walking. And so that’s my boring life.
Like, that is what my life looks like most of the time. But here’s something interesting, you know, and if you asked me back in, like my 20s, you know that if I just painted that picture of what this life looks like, I’d be like, boring. Like, I don’t want to be a part of that. But now I love it.
I love it because I get so much out of it. So here’s why I believe that being boring is good for me. And here’s why I think it can actually be good for you too. Because just about everything I’m doing today has become a habit.
The things that I do on the regular are things that have become a habit, for me, they’re easy, they’re effortless, it’s not something I have to spend a lot of time, you know struggling to do, or anything like that all the things that I’ve established as habits in my life are easy for me to just continue doing.
So I’m very consistent with everything, with my diet, with my strength training, with my running, with my personal development. You know, lifting weights has been one of those things that I did for years, but not really consistently.
But now that I’m doing it very consistently, and it’s pretty boring, I go and do the same, I go to the same gym every day. And I do kind of the same workout. Not really I kind of mix it up a little bit. But I do the same types of workouts most days. This has led to massive gains in my lean muscle mass, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been before in my life.
I’m 57 years old, I’m carrying around more skeletal muscle today than I ever have in my life. And that’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve been able to develop that because of this boring consistency with my strength routine.
You know, running for me is getting much easier. Because I’m doing it consistently. I’m running three days a week only. But each run has a very specific goal and an intention, my endurance is improving. My heart rate is improving, my speed is improving. And it just feels good to run consistently. And I love doing that.
The way I eat is very consistent. And it’s allowed me to maintain my weight pretty effortlessly. You know, every meal is not some huge entertainment experience. For me, I really appreciate simple food, like I’m so excited and happy to have a steak or some burgers or something like that, and some broccoli for dinner.
Like this one of my favorite meals like steak and broccoli. I even order this when I go to restaurants sometimes because I love it so much. It’s boring. And most people would be like, oh my gosh, why don’t you go and eat some amazing thing that this one crazy restaurant has or whatever. It’s probably loaded with sugar and flour and probably had me feeling like crap afterwards. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything there. I don’t think I’m missing out on any of that junk food just because everybody says how amazing it is right?
I read a lot of books, and I listen to podcasts and audiobooks. And I’m always learning. So my personal growth is always improving and evolving. And so with my with my boring life, I actually love it. I love my boring life, I have a boring workout schedule and boring food, and boring personal growth habits.
But listen, this doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy some excitement here and there. I do enjoy some excitement here are there. But it’s not what I’m chasing constantly. You know, I love going out to a nice dinner, we’ll go to different restaurants and try something that’s different, something that I’d probably never make at home because that’s one of the reasons why I want to go to a restaurant.
Because if it’s just something I can eat at home, with the exception of the steaks, because I love eating steak out too, but I want to go somewhere where I can eat something that I normally wouldn’t get at home, you don’t have somebody make it for me, and I’ll just let the chef kind of you know, do their thing.
You know, I love exploring the world and taking trips and discovering new places and creating awesome memories. But even when I travel, like I don’t have to have all this excitement all the time. It’s not a big huge party for me, you know, I don’t have to spend all day at the buffet and at the bar and go ziplining and skydiving in order to have a fun, fulfilling vacation.
You know, I don’t have to eat myself sick at every meal in order to say oh, that was a great vacation. You know, I’m so happy to just sit by the pool or go for a run on the beach. Or check out some local cool coffee shops or something like that. Like to me that’s really fun. And yeah, it’s kind of boring. Boring by some people’s standards for sure. But for me, this is perfection. Okay.
So here’s what I want to charge you with this week, which is embrace the boring, you know, start creating good habits around food good habits around workouts good habits around running good habits around your personal growth go out there and be boring this week. Okay, that’s all I got for you today here. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you probably already know that you have to change your diet. This is obvious and we all know this, but that’s where most people stop. They change …
Continue Reading about 218. You Have to Change How You Think →
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 218 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners today, you have to change how you think. So if you’re somebody who wants to lose weight and keep it off, you probably already know that you have to change your diet, right?
This is obvious, we all know this. But that’s where most people stop, they change their diet, they get some results. But it rarely lasts. Because they’ve only changed the behavior, not the thinking that’s driving the behavior. They keep slipping back into old eating patterns because they haven’t changed the thoughts that create those patterns in the first place.
So if you think you can change your diet, but not your thinking, you’re always going to struggle. So today on the podcast, if you want to change behavior and make it last, then you have to change how you think.
But first, I know I talk a lot about nutrition, weight loss, running strength training, all that stuff here on the podcast. And if you’re new to the podcast, welcome. And also this all might seem a little overwhelming to you. And you might just want to know where to get started with all this stuff.
If that sounds like you, awesome, I’ve got you covered, I created a free training, it’s about an hour long, it’s a video that you can watch, you can check it out anytime it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner, you’re gonna learn all the basics, nutrition, strength, endurance mindset, all geared towards you, the runner who’s interested in becoming fitter, stronger, faster, and the most badass version of yourself yet.
If this sounds like you, check out this free training, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on free training. I know it’s pretty obvious, right? And you can get started on your weight loss journey today. Cool. Awesome.
Okay, let’s get into this topic today, you have to change how you think. So one of the things that prompted me to talk about this today is that I talk to people every single day. And they just want some of these people just want me to talk to tell them like what to do, like, just tell me what to do. You know, give me a plan and I’ll follow the plan.
They just want to know what’s, the when’s, the how’s, like what should I eat? When should I lift weights? How often should I run? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And I jokingly say, half-jokingly I say, yeah, knowing what to do is easy. If it were that easy, though, all I would do is write a book and hand it over to you right?
But knowing what to do is only a small part of the equation. All right? How often have you known what to do and you still haven’t done it anyway, like, you probably know that you shouldn’t be eating some things like Dunkin Donuts, right? But you do it anyway.
And you’re not doing it and you’re not like doing the things that you want to be doing consistently. So that’s where, you know, we see this behavior that we’re engaging in, we want to change the behavior, but we stop there, we just stop it like, well, I just need to stop doing that I need to do things differently. I need to take different actions, okay?
The problem with this is that you’re not changing the thing that is actually driving the behavior that’s actually creating the thoughts, the feelings that are actually driving the behavior. Okay, you can’t just change a behavior, you have to change the thinking behind the behavior, okay?
But when it comes to, you know, things like, okay, I shouldn’t be eating Dunkin Donuts every day. I get that. But they find themselves they just keep eating the Dunkin Donuts every day. And they’re like, how come I can’t do that? Because they haven’t changed the thinking that’s driving the behavior.
So if you’re somebody who struggles with sticking to a plan, like sticking to a food plan, you know, you might have experienced this in the past, and lots of people I’ve talked to have experienced this where they’re like, yeah, I did that.
For a while I was able to change the behavior, I started to eat real food, and I started to do pretty well with that. But they never did like the deeper work of changing the thinking that drives the behavior. And so they just slip back into those old patterns that keep slipping back into those old eating patterns.
You know, slipping back into, you know, binging on stuff and in, you know, eating the junk food, and they can’t understand why because they know what to do. But they’ve never done the deeper work. The deeper work is changing. The thinking changes the doing, the thinking that actually drives the behavior.
Okay, so I’ve said this a couple of times now, your thinking drives your behavior, how does all this work? So, you know, here’s, here’s what, what I want to talk about next, this is how your thinking actually drives your actions. Okay?
So when we want to change something complicated, like eating patterns, this can be kind of challenging, okay? And for most people, they just look at the action itself, I’m either eating broccoli, or I’m eating potato chips, I’m eating, you know, the chicken that I put out, or a meeting the Dunkin Donuts, you know.
And when it’s when you think about the action like that, it is, it is very surface level, when you just try to change the action, you are going to get minuscule results, I’m just telling you right now, if that’s what you’ve been working on, then you are going to get very short term results, and you’re never going to make lasting change.
What you want to do is get down to the thinking this is the deeper work, you get down to the thinking that’s driving the behavior because this is where you can actually start making real lasting change.
So most people believe that whatever they’re doing is some sort of automatic behavior. Like they’re some sort of a robot, they have no control over their actions, you know, the Dunkin Donuts just sitting there and I eat them. I just find myself eating them, I find myself eating them. Like I am an automaton, I see doughnuts and I eat them.
This is not really going on. This is really not what’s happening. You are not a robot, you are a human being you have free will, you have agency, you have the power to make decisions and you are making decisions, you are not out of control. You can choose something different in that circumstance.
But in that circumstance, you’re making a choice, you’re choosing this over that you’re choosing, typically, you’re choosing what feels good right now, you’re choosing immediate gratification, you’re choosing immediate pleasure over your long-term goals, over long-lasting gratification and pleasure, a fit body, a long and healthy life and all the good stuff that you actually want for yourself.
Most people think behavior works like this, they see the Dunkin Donuts saying eat them, period, right? Here’s how your thinking actually drives your behavior, though. So you see the Dunkin Donuts sitting there. And then you have a thought about the Dunkin Donuts.
So it’s not the donuts themselves that are driving the behavior, but it’s your thoughts. So you have a thought about the donuts, oh, man, those look so good. You know what, I’ve been good all week, I just ran 10 miles, I deserve a little treat. You know, I’ve been pretty consistent with all this, it’s not gonna hurt that much. It’s going to feel really good to eat, though.
So you have all these thoughts that go through your mind. You know, a lot of times you don’t even know you’re having those thoughts. It just goes, it happens really fast. Really, it’s very, very quick. It’s just in an instant, where you have these thoughts, but you do have these thoughts.
And those thoughts are very powerful. Because those thoughts create a feeling inside of you. Immediately, they create a in this case, they create something like desire. And the feeling could be anything really it could be a feeling like you can have a thought that creates a feeling of stress or anxiety or anger.
But in the case of you know, looking at some Dunkin Donuts and you just ran 10 miles, it could just be an intense desire, which is just a feeling it’s an emotion, a desire. You have this intense desire that wells up inside you that desire to eat a Dunkin donut.
What is actually driving the action of eating the doughnut? If the desire wasn’t there, you wouldn’t eat the doughnut. So the desire to eat the donut is not created by the donut in the box. That’s not creating the desire. The desire is created by your thoughts about the donut sitting in the box.
Oh, this is gonna taste so good. This sugar is gonna make me feel really good because it does that sugar lights up those pleasure centers in your brain. Oh, I’m gonna get a nice sugar rush for the next 20 minutes or so.
All these thoughts that you have create that desire and they really ramp up that desire. It’s like turning up the volume on that desire. And the reason we know this is true is because some people they just don’t have that. They don’t like Dunkin Donuts and they don’t have it. The desire to eat the doughnuts, the doughnuts are not causing the desire because some people can see them sitting there and just be like, not so great. I don’t really like those things, you know, they have no thoughts about, oh my God, these are gonna be so amazing.
They have no thoughts about oh, I just deserve this, you know, just ran 10 miles, they don’t have any of those thoughts. And so they have no desire to eat the doughnut, and so they don’t eat the doughnut.
So not eating the doughnut is not hard for those people because their thinking is different. They are not thinking all these thoughts about how amazing this is going to feel. And so the desire is not there to eat the doughnut, and so they don’t eat the doughnut.
So this is what is called a thought-feeling-action pattern. Your thoughts create feelings and your feelings drive your behavior. And I just call this for simplicity, a thought pattern, right? Thought patterns are things that we have learned over the years and years and years of our lives. And we have thought patterns about all kinds of stuff in our life. Some are good, some are not so good. Right? You’ve been practicing certain thought patterns for your whole life, decades.
Like, Dunkin Donuts are amazing. To be honest with you. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a Dunkin donut, just a little sidebar here. I know people love their coffee, they talk about how good the coffee is. I just can’t imagine that it would be that good.
Because I’m sort of a coffee snob. I love really good, you know, single-origin coffees that I grind the beans myself, and I just don’t think that it would be that good. But in no way I don’t know, maybe I’m missing out on something. But I don’t have the desire to eat the Dunkin Donuts. I’m just using this as an example.
So you’ve had these, you’ve been practicing these types of thought patterns for decades. Like if you’ve always loved Dunkin Donuts, and you’ve probably thought, oh my God, these are just so amazing all the time. So you’ve created a thought pattern. And you’ve done this so many times, it just creates a habit. The habit is when you see the donuts, you eat them.
And you think it’s an automatic thing. But it really isn’t. It’s a thought-feeling-action pattern that you’ve been practicing over and over and over and over again. This is the same as practicing any other behavior. Behavior that’s become a habit for you, like running.
So when you first started running, you have all these thoughts about running, like, running as hard. I don’t feel like running today. I’m not getting any faster. Running is really hard. Why is running so hard? I hate running. It’s really hard. It’s stupid. Those are my thoughts about running when I first started doing it, and it took me so long before I got better, you know, running, running takes a long, it takes a long time to get better at, right?
And these thoughts that I was having would keep me in bed, most mornings, you know, because they would, when I started thinking these feelings about running being so hard, and I’m not getting better. And I you know, I’m not getting faster, and running is stupid. It’s not working for me.
All those thoughts that I had about running, were causing feelings of demotivation inside me, a lack of enthusiasm. I’m not good enough, feelings of frustration and anger, like those feelings of demotivation, frustration, anger, and lack of enthusiasm, these feelings will drive a certain type of behavior, which is to stay in bed and don’t go run. Because running is stupid. Okay?
That is a thought-feeling-action pattern at play right there. So you don’t feel like running and you don’t run. But over time, over time, you do squeak out a few good runs here and there. And you do eventually get a little bit faster. And running becomes a little bit easier. And you kind of surprise yourself that oh I actually ran like five miles and it actually felt okay.
Like you start to see that this might actually be working, you start to enjoy it. You start to feel good after you run, you start to look forward to it. And so then you have all these new thoughts about running that start to change the way you feel about running to the point where now you never miss a run no matter what even if it’s really crappy outside.
Even if it’s cold and snowy and rainy. Even if you’re sick, you’ve got the flu, even if you’re on vacation, you’re gonna go out there and run because it feels so good for you. So you’ve created for yourself without even knowing it a whole different set of thought patterns around running.
And so the behavior, you think, you know, the behavior just changes by itself. No, you have changed that behavior over time. I hope this is an example that you can relate to. Because this is a really good example of the amazing power of your thought patterns.
Running can be a hard thing, but you can get through it. And you can get over that and you can become a person who loves to run. The very same thing can happen with any other thought patterns in your life. Running just didn’t naturally come easily to you and be handed to you all of a sudden, you know, running just got easier. No, you had to like, work through it.
And you had to learn thought patterns, it took a while you had to practice it for a long time before it became something that was easier, and it was a habit. So thought patterns can be learned thought patterns can be unlearned, too, right?
If you want to train yourself to hate running, just go back to all the crappy thinking about running, how hard it is how you don’t like it, how you’re not getting any faster, why so hard. All that stuff, just keep thinking those kinds of thoughts, and it’ll be super demotivating. And you’ll not feel like running ever again. Okay?
If you have a thought pattern, like mindlessly eating the Dunkin Donuts every time you see them, even though you know it’s not what you want, it’s not good for you, it’s not going to help you lose weight, it’s not healthy, it’s not in alignment with your long term goals, then you can unlearn that thought pattern, okay?
And it starts with changing the way you think you have to change the thoughts that are creating those feelings of desire within you. So how do you change your thinking? So changing your thinking is not as easy as it sounds, you just can’t be like, well, I’m just going to think differently.
Especially if you’ve been practicing the same thought patterns your whole life, it takes time. And it takes some effort, it takes a little bit of work. And when I say work, that’s where most people like tune out. They’re like, oh, please, I don’t want to do any work.
But listen, if you want to change, you have to do some work, right? And I promise you that if you’re willing to work on this particular area, when you’re starting to talk about changing thought patterns, this can be an absolute game changer for you. And it applies to any thought patterns in your life, whether it’s Dunkin Donuts, running, whatever it is that you want for yourself, you can change this.
And I’ve got a three step little process here that I’m going to go through with you that I think is really powerful. And it’s the three R’s. And the three R’s are to recognize, record, and reframe.
So the first R, if we’re talking about changing thought patterns here, the first R, the very first step is to recognize you got to recognize that something is going on here. You know, you have to see that you’re engaging in a behavior or a thought pattern that you want to change.
You have to recognize that what you’re doing may not be in alignment with your long-term goals. So this is self-awareness, understanding that you’re not a robot, this is not automatic behavior. You’re just practicing an old thought pattern. So you have to recognize that something is going on here.
That is the critical first step. And you have to be honest with yourself that oh, yeah, I’m doing something that you know, I am eating the Dunkin Donuts mindlessly what’s happening here, like what’s going on? So recognize that something is happening here. Okay, step number one.
Step number two, the second R is to record, record the thought pattern in as much detail as possible. So as soon as you can, once you recognize what’s happening, or that there’s something happening here, stop and record some thoughts and feelings about the behavior.
Ask yourself some questions like, what just happened there? Like why did I do that? What was the thought that I had right before I did that? What was the feeling that I had right before I did that?
This doesn’t have to be complicated, you can just grab a notebook and write it down, use a pen and a piece of paper, use your journal, write it on a note on your phone, you can even record a voice memo and just record it into your phone. I like doing that because sometimes I can’t write as fast as my brain is, you know, can think and I can talk so I just talk it’s a lot easier for me.
But the more you record, the more you can start to see that yeah, these are the types of thought patterns that I’m engaging in. These are the types of thoughts I’m thinking these are the types of feelings that are being created within me that are actually driving the behavior.
And then the next step is to and the third R is to reframe. Reframing means you change the thought to create different feelings, which drive a different behavior. This simply means you need to start to choose different thoughts in those moments, and this is a practice this is not something you’re going to do you know, you, you know, and then you’re going to do one time, you’re gonna be like, oh, I got it. No, it takes time.
Reframing is a powerful tool. It’s used in a lot of psychological practices like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And they have a similar like three steps sort of process that is similar to this. But I think this one applies to us very profoundly. Okay.
So you have a thought, like, you know, I’ve been good all week, I deserve this donut, I just ran 10 miles, it’s not that big a deal. All those kinds of thoughts, right? Those thoughts are creating a desire inside you. And then you just use that desire to drive you to eat the doughnut.
But a reframing, reframing thought might be something like, oh, that donut looks really good. But my health is more important to me than how good that donut might taste in the moment. My weight loss goal is bigger than the tiny amount of pleasure that this stupid little donut is going to give me. Or I’m not the kind of person that eats that crap anymore.
Right, these thoughts, these reframed thoughts, start to create feelings of motivation, you start to feel more confident, you have a different desire not to eat the doughnut, but to stay consistent and reach those health and fitness goals that are so important to you.
And so in that moment, the desire to stay committed to your goals is much more powerful than the stupid donut sitting there. And so you make the choice tonight the donut. That’s a reframe.
Okay, so the whole thing, this whole process, recognize, record, reframe, only takes a couple of minutes to do, it only takes a few minutes, but you want to practice this, you want to practice this every day.
Recognize there’s a thought pattern you want to change. Record your thoughts and feelings about it. Reframe those thoughts and feelings to produce a better outcome next time.
It’s a very simple process. Simple, but not easy. This is the work that we have to do. This is the work that most people don’t want to do or not willing to do. Most people would rather stay stuck and just blame everything around them for why they’re stuck.
Like, oh, if those donuts weren’t sitting there, I’d be fine. Actually, no, because the donuts are not the problem. It’s your thoughts about the donuts. That’s the real problem. Okay. So get out there, start seeing all the thought patterns in your life, and start recognizing that these things are happening and that you are creating them.
Alright, so there’s some good thought patterns that are happening in your life and there’s some that are not so good, but recognize all of them and start to see them for what they really are, okay?
There’s going to be some that you want to continue doing. There are going to be some thought patterns that you want to change. And that’s when we put the three R’s into practice. Recognize, record, and reframe. Cool. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. I love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
There are a lot of dieticians and weight loss coaches out there who preach the benefits of tracking your food. They suggest tracking every bite you eat, entering all of your food into an app each …
Continue Reading about 211. Should You Be Tracking Your Food? →
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 211 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, should you be tracking your food? There are a lot of dietitians out there and weight loss coaches who preach the benefits of tracking your food, they suggest tracking every bite to eat, and drink all your food into an app every day. And then sticking to this routine for basically, forever.
And honestly, I’m not a big fan of this particular approach for many reasons, which I will share with you here on today’s podcast. So today on the Running Lean podcast, I answer the big burning question, should you be tracking your food? If no, why not? If yes, how should you do it?
But first, I know I share a lot of information here on the podcast about nutrition, weight loss, improving your running, getting stronger. And if you’re new, if you’re just listening to the podcast, you might be like, oh my gosh, this is very overwhelming. I don’t even know where to start with all this.
If that sounds like you, totally fine, I got you covered, I created a free hour-long training just for you to kind of get you started with all of this. And you can check it out anytime just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com and click on the link that says Free Training.
I created this hour-long training, it’s called 5 Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner, you’re going to learn all the basics of nutrition, strength, endurance, and mindset; all geared towards you the runner and everything that I teach here on the podcast, everything that I work on with my clients.
So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself here in 2024, then this free training is exactly what you need. runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training and get started on your weight loss journey today.
Okay, let’s get into this episode here, should you be tracking your food? So, I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve been talking to lately, and they’ve told me that they have worked with dieticians in the past, or coaches in the past, who have suggested that they track their food and do this very meticulously, and they have to track every single bite that they eat.
And they have to enter everything into an app, and they have to hit certain macro numbers and calorie numbers. And if they don’t do everything exactly perfectly, then they’re not going to lose weight, they’re not going to be healthy things are not going to work for them, okay.
And I understand sort of the concepts behind that and that they want to, you know, get people to this place where they’re eating exactly what they’re supposed to, quote, unquote, supposed to be eating. The amount of food they’re supposed to eat, eating the number of calories they’re supposed to be eating, the right percentage of macros, the right macro breakdown that they’re supposed to be eating.
And, and I understand that part of it, you know, you gotta be getting 1500 calories a day. And if you don’t, you know, you got to make up for it somewhere, so you got to make sure you’re getting exactly the right amount of calories every single day. Okay. So I understand that part of it.
The problem I have with this is that this is a very new concept in the history of human beings. You know, we have been around as some form of human being for around two and a half million years. And they’ve tracked us back to two and a half million years ago. And we’ve been growing and evolving in that span of time.
That’s a large span of time, think about that. Two and a half million years. For the 2.4999 million years, we did not need the Food Track. And we didn’t have all the obesity and overweight issues and the diseases, and the metabolic dysfunction and diabetes and all that stuff that we have today.
We’ve only been tracking food for how long, you know, maybe a few decades? We’ve only been using an app since we started using apps on phones, so maybe 15 years, 12 years, something like that. So in the grand scheme of things, I look at this and I kind of shake my head a little bit because I’m like do we really need to be logging everything into an app, and counting all of our calories?
And, you know, making sure we’re getting this exact right breakdown of macros every single day. And if we don’t do it perfectly, then we’re going to basically die. You know, and I just think this is a kind of a silly concept. I’m a big fan of going back to our ancestors and trying to mimic what they did.
What did they eat? How often did they eat? What kinds of foods did they eat? How much did they eat, I want to go back to that, I think that is a much better way of approaching your health and your fitness than, you know, looking at an app on your phone, and making sure you get a bunch of numbers, right? I just don’t think it is necessary.
Number one, I really don’t think it works for most people. Because is this something that you can do sustainably? Is this something you’re going to do forever? Do you have to now track all your food forever, or else you’re gonna like all of a sudden balloon up and gain a bunch of weight?
Because if so, there’s something very wrong with what you’re doing. Because we shouldn’t have to do that. So my initial take on this is that I think tracking your food, there are some benefits to it. And I’ll get into some of that in a minute here.
But I think tracking your food and logging all your calories, and making sure you hit all these numbers and stuff. I really don’t think it’s a sustainable practice. And remember, whatever you do has to be sustainable for you.
The right diet for you is the one that you can sustain. The right method for you when it comes to your nutrition and how much you eat and the kinds of foods you eat and what you eat, all that has to be something that you can do forever.
If it’s just something you’re going to do for a short period of time, and it has some benefits to it, and you can learn some things great, that’s fine. And just know it’s going to be a short-term fix.
But I’ve been hearing from a lot of people lately, who’ve been telling me that they’ve worked with other dieticians or coaches who expect them to track all their food and hit all these numbers every single day forever. And the other thing about this is that it’s not really teaching you much in the way of like, oh, these are the foods that are healthy for me, these are the foods that keep me full, these are the foods that work for me, you know, I feel better when I’m eating less often, or I want to get in tune with my natural body. And my body’s natural senses.
Like there are satiety sensors that we have in our body that tell us hey, we’re done eating, we’re full, don’t need to put any more food in us here. We want to get in touch with that. We want to get in touch with our hunger signals to understand, hey, you know what, I’m actually hungry right now.
Not just like, you know, I’m kind of bored. I’m like rifling through the pantry to see what crunchy salty stuff I can eat that will just satisfy my boredom or something like that. So anyway, I know I went off on a little bit of a tangent there.
But listen, the way we have been trained to like focus on calories and numbers and macros and all that stuff. I think there’s some benefits to that for a short period of time just to get some ballpark numbers and to get some awareness of what you’re doing.
But the real key here is that whatever you do has to be sustainable. And I don’t think logging all your food, every single bite you eat every time you you know, lick or taste something that you need to track and I think that is not a sustainable practice, okay?
Now, there are some benefits to keeping track of what you’re eating. And you don’t have to be super detailed about it. But if you’re keeping track of the foods you’re eating, let’s say you’re just keeping a food journal. I think this is a great first step for everybody. To start keeping a food journal just write down the foods that you’re eating as you go through your day, and you eat something you write it down.
If you have a snack in the afternoon, you write that down. If you have a bite of your kid’s cookie, you write that down, you just write down everything you’re eating for the day. If you do this for a short period of time, a few days a week, you are going to start to have a lot of self-awareness about what it is you are actually eating and not eating.
Because so many people are like yeah, I eat pretty healthy. I’m like okay, what does that mean exactly? Oh, you know, I eat healthy foods. I eat lots of fruits and vegetables and stuff. I’m like, okay, you don’t ever eat chips or crackers or cookies or french fries. No, I really don’t eat that stuff. Okay, well keep a food log and then you tell me what is really going on?
And then it’s like, oh, yeah, well, I did eat, you know, some ice cream from my kids. And then oh, yeah, we went to pizza. And then oh, yeah, I did eat a couple of large fries this week or whatever, it just starts to create a lot of awareness about what you really are doing.
And you’ve got to be honest with yourself, if you’re doing this food logging, this journaling. And people who journal their food, people who write down what they’re eating every day, they tend to make better choices, they tend to eat healthier, they tend to not overeat as much, they eat less often. And they tend to lose more weight.
So if you want to get started on a weight loss journey, I think one of the best things you can do is start keeping a food journal, and just writing down what you’re doing. So just create that self-awareness, that one little step right there will start moving you in the right direction, towards making better choices.
Because you’re starting to have this awareness of what it is you’re actually doing, as opposed to just thinking about it. Because when we think about it, and we’re disassociated with it, you know, we’re not writing it down in the moment, we can just remember the good stuff that we do, we don’t remember all those times we sneak the french fries, you know, from our kid’s plate, or the you know, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets or whatever it is we’re eating.
And I suggest you do this in the easiest way possible. And easiest way for me would be to just write it down using a piece of paper and a pen, or a pencil in a diary or a journal or, you know, some sort of a notebook or something simple like that. Don’t make it more complicated, we don’t want our method of logging or journaling to get in the way of making it easy, it has to be something that is very simple for you to do.
So I used to keep this little tiny notebook, I would carry it around with me if I went out. And it was something that was very small. And then I would just write down what I was eating each day. And I did this for a long time.
And it really worked, it really helped me to begin to create better habits and make better choices around what I was eating and stuff like that. So it doesn’t have to be anything complicated, it can be as simple as just getting a little tiny notebook. And then write down what you’re doing every day as you do it.
You’ve got to do it like sort of in the moment, that’s the best way to do it. So keeping a food journal is great. But there’s even a better way of doing this.
So when you are logging your food after the fact, you are basically saying, here’s what I did five minutes ago, here’s what I did an hour ago, here’s what I did earlier today. And that is fine. And again, you’re starting to create a lot of awareness about what you are doing throughout the day, or what you have done throughout the day.
But there is a much more powerful approach, what we want to do is we want to set ourselves up for success ahead of time. And so I’m a huge fan of pre-planning your food, and writing down what you’re going to do ahead of time.
And one of the big reasons why this works is because you are making decisions in advance, you are making a decision about what you’re eating, but you’re doing it for tomorrow. So you’re you’re deciding today, what you’re going to be eating tomorrow.
And why this works is because when you make decisions ahead of time, you’re using a completely different part of your brain than when you’re making decisions in the moment. When you make decisions in the moment, you’re using that little tiny almond-sized part of your brain called the amygdala, which is one of the most primal parts of our brain. It is responsible for our fight or flight, our fear center.
It’s what’s responsible for our primal urges, like, you know, just like food, sex. You know, whatever feels good in the moment, those kinds of primal decisions, those kinds of primal choices that we have to make in the moment.
So we don’t want to be making decisions using that part of our brain because typically we’re going to choose whatever just feels good right now, we’re going to choose the thing that is the most pleasurable.
We’re going to think, you know, we’re going to choose the pizza if that’s what when we decide that we’re going to have if we don’t decide ahead of time and we have a pizza sitting in front of us, we’re going to decide to eat the pizza because oh my gosh, it’s pizza. It’s amazing. There it is. It smells good. I want that I’m going to eat it right now. Okay.
The other way of doing this is making decisions in advance. And when you do that you’re using your pre-frontal cortex, your pre-frontal cortex that is a modern thinking part of our brain. It’s the part of our brain we use to make good decisions. It’s our planning brain.
And when we use our pre-frontal cortex to make decisions, we tend to make good decisions, we’re going to decide ahead of time, we’re going to use our prefrontal cortex to say, I’m eating, you know, a salad and chicken for dinner tomorrow night, even though I know the kids are probably going to want pizza. And my husband will probably bring home a pizza, but I’m going to eat what I’ve planned to eat today.
When you make that decision ahead of time, you are much, much more likely to stick to that decision. In the moment, you’ve decided you’ve made a little promise to yourself ahead of time. And then when tomorrow comes, and that pizza is sitting there, you’re going to remember that you’ve made this other choice. And that’s what your choice is going to use, you’re going to stick to that plan.
This is where things really can start to come together for you. Because you’re planning ahead, you’re making good decisions ahead of time, you’re making this promise to yourself that you want to keep, because you don’t want to break a promise that you make to yourself, you do this all the time; you break promises to yourself, but it never feels good, right?
You plan ahead, you make a good decision, you make this promise to yourself that this is what you’re doing tomorrow. And then when tomorrow comes the day is so much easier, you don’t have to think about anything, you just do what you said you’re gonna do. You’ve got it all planned out, you know, when you’re eating, you know how much you’re eating, you know, the foods you’re eating, and then you just stick to that plan.
This is how you build any new habit. If you want to create a new habit, you have to change your thinking patterns, you’ve got to change your daily activities, you’ve got to change your actions and changing your actions is hard. This is hard work to do. And when it comes to food, this seems to be the hardest area for people to make, change and make change last. So creating new habits around food is a lot harder than say going to the gym every day.
If you’re somebody who’s like, okay, it’s a new year, I’m going to the gym every day, you might stick to that pretty religiously for a while. I know a lot of people, who end up quitting the gym after February or whatever the gyms are crowded in January, and they’re empty again in March.
But for some of you, you’re like, I’m going to stick to this new running plan, I’m going to stick to this new workout plan and you do it and you’re really good about that. Because it’s important to you and you do it, you make that plan ahead of time you write out your training schedule for the week, and then you stick to it.
Do the same thing with food. That’s all I’m asking you to do here. Do the same thing to food with your food. Just make sure that you are planning ahead. Know what you’re doing tomorrow, or the rest of the week, you can plan a week in advance, you don’t have to.
But when you do this, when you make this plan ahead of time, you’re gonna stick with a plan, you’re gonna start to develop a good habit around that you already have done it for running, you’ve already done it around your workouts at the gym.
And this approach works in all these different areas. It works for planning your workouts, it works for planning your strength session, you know, just decide ahead of time, what muscle groups am I going to work tomorrow, what exercises am I going to do? How many sets and reps write that stuff down?
You already plan your runs, you know what days you’re working out, you know what your runs are going to be like, you know when your long run is this weekend, right? You know what the workouts are, and you know the goal for each of these workouts, just do the same thing with food.
Okay, if there’s any area of your life where you need to create healthy patterns, better habits, or make better choices consistently, then plan them ahead of time until you get the hang of it. And those habits are formed. Once those habits are formed, it becomes so much easier.
And you don’t have to do this forever. You don’t have to make this plan ahead of time and stick to it forever. When I first started out on this last, you know journey of losing weight improving my body composition and developing these good habits, I was very very religious about planning and tracking my food every single day.
I did this consistently for like eight months straight every day. I don’t think I missed a day in there. Maybe I did here and there but I pretty much never missed a day because I was afraid that if I stopped doing it, I would like just fall apart and I would fail.
I was kind of paranoid that I was going to slip up and just go back into my old habits, if I didn’t continue to make this plan and stick to it every single day, and listen to it doesn’t typically take eight months to train your brain and develop good habits. But I was a little bit paranoid, I kind of tend to do things to the extreme.
So I was like, I’m just going to do this until I know without a doubt that I can live my life without it. And then I eventually gave it up, I eventually quit tracking. And those first few days, I was like, oh, my gosh, what am I going to do, but I figured it out. And it works that my point with all this is that it did work for me.
And it doesn’t take that long, you know, I usually say if you can be religious and track consistently every day for like 30 days, or 60 days, somewhere in that range, you typically can start to, you know, create those new neural pathways in your brain create good habits, and this becomes kind of effortless for you, it becomes your new normal.
And if it’s your new normal, then you don’t have to effort your way through the day, you can just you just know what you’re doing. And you can do it. Okay. So make a 24-hour plan. This is the way I’ve worked with people who have planned a day in advance.
And that works really, really well just make sure you’re doing this at least one day in advance. I did have somebody who wanted to plan a month ahead of time, and she wrote out an entire month’s schedule of every meal she was eating for a month. Now that was awesome for her, but I don’t think we need to go to that extreme.
If you want to plan a few days ahead of time or a week ahead of time, I think that’s great. A lot of people love to do meal prepping. And so they’ll prep once a week for the week. And they’ll do their shopping for the week. And if that’s you, and that works for you, I think that’s great.
But a few days is plenty of time a day in advance is really that’s all that’s required. But we have to be making these decisions ahead of time. Don’t wait until the day of or it’s like lunchtime, and you’re like, I wonder what I should eat today. No. Decide in advance.
And you don’t have to use some app. And you don’t have to, you know, track every calorie and every macro and all that I love just using a notebook or a journal or a diary. And just write down what you’re doing tomorrow, just write it down, use a pen, when you use a pen or a pencil and you write it down by hand, it kind of cements that into your brain better than like typing into an app, there’s sort of a disconnect when you do that.
But when you write it down on a piece of paper, it tends to cement that decision into your brain. So now you’ve made the decision, you’ve made it in advance, you’ve made this promise to yourself.
Now you just have to keep that promise to yourself tomorrow. Because when you do that, when you keep the promises that you make to yourself every single day, you start to build this immense amount of trust in yourself.
You start to build integrity with yourself, you start to build confidence. And you know that you can do this, you know that you can stay consistent with this. And you’ll start making progress. I promise you that if you make this plan every day, and you stick to the plan every day.
That is how you make progress. That is how you lose weight. And that is how you keep it off. Because now you’re training your brain that this is how I do things now. Okay, everyone I’m working with right now, this is January of 2024. Everybody I’m working with this month, we are making this 24-hour plan every day. And we are committing to do it for the month of January.
So we’re challenging ourselves to do this. And everybody’s being super consistent with this with this. And they’re setting themselves up for success not only for this month or the next few months but for the year.
They’re like restarting the year on this really positive vibe of like, I’m being consistent, I’m making good choices. And I’m promising these things to myself. And I’m keeping these promises to myself, and they’re making great progress too.
Several people that I’m working with have said their weight loss has been a little bit slow. Or maybe they went out you know, took a few steps back during the holidays, you know, things have stalled out a little bit.
But lately, they have been planning every single day they’ve been planning ahead and now they’re starting to see their weight go down again. And all they have changed is this one little thing of making a plan every day making an advance and then sticking to that plan.
This is how powerful this little daily habit can be. So this is the work that you need to start doing for January. Should you be tracking your food? I think there’s some benefit to pre-planning your food. I think there are benefits to journaling your food if you’re just getting started with all this. Really, the most powerful way of doing it though, is planning ahead of time. Okay.
If you want help with all this I always got you covered you can go to my website runningleancoaching.com, click on Work With Me and we can talk about working together.
Cool, all right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
Today is a very special episode - number 200 - and I wanted to do something a little different to celebrate this milestone. I’ve had a look over the last 200 episodes and picked out the most …
Continue Reading about 200. Mindset Principles Runners Need to Know →
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 200 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, Mindset Principles Every Runner Needs To Know.
So today is a very special episode number 200. And I wanted to do something a little different to celebrate this milestone. So I’ve had a look over the last 200 episodes. And I picked out all the most important mindset principles that I feel runners need to know in order for you to crush your running goals and crush those weight loss goals, too.
I’ve featured each of these principles in different parts of podcast episodes over the last few years here. So you can easily go back through the archive and search for each of these principles, you’ll get a deep dive on each one of these so that you can do that anytime.
It’s super fun putting these podcast episodes together for you every week. And my hope is that they’ve helped you to improve your health, your fitness, and your mindset in some way. So here’s to episode number 200. Yay, and to the next 200 to come. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you for listening, I really do love you all.
But first, I know I talk a lot about losing weight and improving your health and your fitness. And I also know that all of this can be a little overwhelming. So if you’re looking for a good place to start, I created a free hour-long training that you can go through it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
In this training video, you’ll learn how to properly fuel your body and lose weight and improve your running. You’ll learn about the incredibly important role that strength plays and being a lean healthy runner, you’ll learn how to make changes that are actually sustainable, not just short-term, quick fixes, but actually sustainable, and so much more.
If you’re ready to get leaner and get stronger, if you’re ready to run faster and longer than ever before, if you’re ready to become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself, then you need to check out this free training now just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training.
Okay, so 200. Episode 200. This is kind of hard to believe for me because this has been almost four years of podcasts. If you do a podcast every week, which I have done now for almost four years, that equals about 200 episodes.
And looking through some of the stats, 1.6 million downloads, that’s crazy. And I should add that that is just continuing to grow every single day. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to the podcasts and making this something that you listen to every week and that you’re committed to listening to.
I know a lot of people reach out to me and they tell me how much this podcast has improved their health and their fitness. So they’ve taken a lot of the principles that I share here. You know, I talk about diet, I talk about strength training, and I talk about running and I talk about improving your health and your fitness from a variety of different angles.
They apply the principles, and they get some good results. I think that’s really cool. And people reach out to me, I probably get a few messages every week where people are like, hey, you’ve literally changed my life. I’m in much better shape, I lost all this weight, I feel great, my health is improved, my strength is improved, my running is improved, and my whole life is better, just because of the stuff you shared on your podcast.
That’s pretty cool. That is pretty cool. That is what I want to get out of this. I want to help you I want you to apply the principles I share here on the podcast and make improvements in your life.
And I’m a coach, I work with people every single day. And I help them from a one-on-one standpoint as well. And if you’re ever interested in that, just reach out to me I’m here for you can go to my website runningleancoaching.com, and click on work with me.
But I also want to make sure that I’m sharing a lot of information here on the podcast. And understandably there’s a lot of stuff I share on the podcast that is generalized information. It’s not specific to you as an individual and that’s what I do with my coaching program.
I work with you as an individual. And we put all this stuff together in a way, in a formula or recipe so to speak, that is tailored to you your goals, your needs, your lifestyle, and all that stuff. So what I do share here on the podcast has helped a lot, a lot of people, and I hope that you’re one of them.
Okay, so please reach out to me, and let me know if this is something that has helped you in any way, you can find me on social media, just search for Running Lean Podcast or, you know, Running Lean Coach on social media. And let me know how things have improved for you and how you’ve applied some of these principles. Okay.
One area that I think is very important, and this is why I decided to do this particular episode today is because of the mindset, the mindset is the thing that holds most people back, you know, I talk about running, I talk about strength training, I talk about nutrition, those things are all important.
And, you know, if you want to become a healthy human being, you got to be very consistent with those things. But really, the underlying force that’s driving all of your success that’s driving, all of the change in your life is your mindset.
With the right mindset, you can accomplish anything that you want, the wrong mindset, you’re doomed to failure. Okay, so we’re talking about mindset principles today, that runners need to know that you need to know that you need to apply if you want to make positive changes in your life, to your health, to your fitness, to your presence, to your mood, to the level of satisfaction and happiness that you have in your life. Okay.
So I’m gonna go through this list, I have 20 different mindset principles to share with you today. And I mentioned in the intro that each one of these is, I’ve done a deep dive on a separate podcast for each one of these principles. And in the show notes, if you open up the show notes for this episode, I will put links in there to each of the episodes that I took these from so that you can actually click on the link, and then you can go directly to that show if you want to take a deep dive into each one of these principles.
I’m gonna go through each of these relatively quickly, I’m gonna do a kind of an overview of each of these principles so you understand it. Some might dive into a little bit deeper, but for a deep dive, and each of these, click on the links, and you can go directly to that episode and listen to it.
And you know, usually talk for 20-30 minutes on each of these topics. So these are important. And every one of these principles is something that will help improve your life in some way.
And they’re not all required, I think if you adopted, you know, 80% of these, let’s use the 80/20 rule here, you know, 80% is going to be good, that’s going to be a good amount of principles to apply. And if 20% really don’t speak to you, that’s totally cool.
But start taking some of these principles and start applying them to your life today and see what happens. Okay. So, while I’m talking about these principles here, these mindset principles that I think are so vitally important, think about what it is you are trying to accomplish.
Do you want to lose weight, improve your body composition, get stronger, become a faster runner, and be able to run longer distances? Are you training for your first half marathon marathon ultra marathon? What are your goals from a health and fitness standpoint?
Or maybe this is like, related to your career right now? Maybe you’re starting a business, maybe you’re trying to get a promotion? Maybe you’re trying to improve your relationship? Think about what it is you want to accomplish.
What would success look like for you? And I guarantee you that you can apply these principles to those goals that you have for yourself, regardless of whether they’re related to running, or weight loss or not. Okay, so that’s my little frame that I want to put all this stuff into.
So the number one principle that I think and these are not in any particular order of importance or anything like that, but I just listed them in order of the way I did the podcast. So the earlier ones are going to be the earlier podcasts and the ones towards the end are going to be the later podcasts. That’s all.
Okay, number one is self-awareness. Self-awareness is a principle that you really need to start adopting and start thinking about and start embracing. If you want to make any kind of change in your life. One of the most important things you can do to start any process is to start developing self-awareness.
What does that mean? That means you’re aware of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. You’re aware of your own behaviors and what is driving those behaviors. Typically, it’s your thoughts and feelings that are driving those behaviors.
Most people don’t do this, they’re not self-aware. Most people go through their lives, thinking that whatever they’re doing is other people’s fault. And that everything is happening to them. And that they don’t have any agency, and they don’t have any ability to change any of these things.
And I have to tell you, that you are in control, you have agency. And the number one step that you can do to start moving towards taking back that control of your life is self-awareness.
What is it you’re thinking about all the time? What’s on your mind? What’s worrying you? What emotions are you experiencing throughout the day? What behaviors are being driven by those emotions?
Start thinking about all this stuff, write it down, I encourage people to write what I call a “thought download”, which is just writing down everything that’s in your head and getting it onto the page.
When you do that, that creates a ton of self-awareness, right? That right there because you can actually look at what’s going on inside that brain of yours. This is a very, very important first step. So self-awareness.
And when you write stuff down, don’t filter any of that stuff, don’t censor it. Don’t try to make it make sense. Just write down what’s going on in your head. All those dark thoughts, write down everything that you’re thinking and feeling.
Do this every day, you’re gonna become a self-awareness ninja, you’re gonna be like, Oh, my God, I’m so in tune with how I’m feeling with what’s going on with me what, you know, what emotions I’m experiencing.
And this right here is huge, it’s gonna go a long way to helping you improve anything, right? You can’t improve something you don’t measure. So you have to build a measure, where are you with the self-awareness thing? Okay, that’s number one.
Number two, you have to learn to love the process. So a lot of people set out to change their diet, let’s say. And they stop eating sugar, and they start eating healthy whole foods. And it’s going pretty, okay, you know, maybe they’ve lost some weight.
Then there’s going to be a point in time, I promise you that this is going to happen, where you are going to experience a setback, or a failure or a stall in your weight loss. And you’re going to get frustrated.
And you’re going to say this isn’t happening fast enough. And you’re going to start to get start to feel like a failure, and you’re going to want to just quit. Because what you’re doing here is you’re basing the way you feel on the results that you’re getting, or not getting, or how fast it’s taking or not taking.
And we have to stop doing that we have to just dive into the process of change, and commit to the process of change and love the process of change. You want to change your diet, you gotta love that new diet, you want to get faster as a runner, you got to love speed work, you got to commit to learning to love that process.
And stop focusing on the results, the results will absolutely happen if you stick with it. And of course, there are changes that need to be made here and there along the way, which is fine. There’s no such thing as a straight path from point A to point B, it’s going to take a while to get there and it’s going to be circuitous.
It’s going to be backwards and forwards and you’re gonna get up and you’re gonna fall down and you’re gonna get up again. And this is the way that life works. There’s no such thing as success without a bunch of failures along the way.
So we have to learn to love the process of change. If you do that, the results will absolutely happen eventually. But if you’re pissed off about the process, if you’re pissed off about the food you have to eat or the fact that you have to run faster or whatever, you’re going to be miserable, and you won’t get the results because you’re going to end up just quit. So learn to love the process.
Number three, you have to avoid self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is one of those things that people do. I used to, and I see it every single day. And I and I can see it in you. It’s hard to see it in yourself, but I can see it in you.
And that’s one thing I love about coaching people is they start telling me a story about how you know they weren’t able to stick to their diet plan because of this and that and I’m just like, in my mind, I’m going self-sabotage, self-sabotage, self-sabotage. Like I could just see it happening.
And so again, this is like goes back to that self-awareness principle, where if you start to develop self-awareness, you can actually start to see when you begin to self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is a tricky thing. Things like procrastination, like when you’re delaying doing something because it’s hard. That can be self-sabotage.
When you don’t start something because you think you’re gonna fail at it. Oh, why would I even bother to try to lose weight because every time I do I fail? That’s self-sabotage.
I even see people do things where, let’s say they’ve, you know, they’re, they’re losing weight, and they get to some big number like, you know, they want to get under 200 pounds, I work with a lot of guys who want to, they just want to be under 200 pounds again, you know, and they get really close to that number. They’re like 202, 203, 201. And then all of a sudden, the weight starts to creep up a little bit to three to a five to six.
And they’re like, I don’t understand what’s happening. And we dive into it a little bit. And what happens is getting to that 199 number that feels really uncomfortable. And so subconsciously, your brain is going to self-sabotage because it doesn’t want you to be uncomfortable, your brain just wants you to be safe and comfortable and do the things you’ve been doing.
And to be at 190, and it feels super weird and uncomfortable because you haven’t been there since like high school, right? So you got to be aware of that though, you got to be aware that this is something that will probably happen.
I see it with most people I work with, they get to some round number 150, 175 to under whatever that number is for you. And they will begin to self-sabotage. To avoid that feeling of discomfort, the discomfort is just being in the one hundreds again, 199 or whatever it is.
You gotta avoid the self-sabotage, you got to be aware of what you’re doing. Be aware of your thoughts and feelings that are driving the behavior. Again, this is huge, huge, huge, okay, but watch the self-sabotage.
Number four, you have to make healthy habits stick, and healthy habits are how you accomplish all the good stuff you want for yourself, you want to get stronger, you need a healthy habit of hitting the gym a few times a week, every week, consistently.
You want to get faster, you need a healthy habit of running faster on a regular basis. You want to lose weight, you have to have a healthy habit of eating the right kinds of foods, even if you go out to dinner, even if you’re on vacation, even if it’s Thanksgiving, or Christmas or whatever.
Of course, there are some exceptions here and there. But for the most part, when you develop habits, it’s so much easier to stick to your plan because it’s just what you do when you have developed good habits.
Then going to the gym is a no-brainer because that’s just what you do. I go to the gym five days a week. It took me a while to get in the habit of doing that. But once I did, it’s like I look forward to it. Now, even leg day, I used to hate leg day.
I even talked about this recently on a podcast, I was like, oh, I hate leg day. But now I love it, it’s actually my favorite day because I can feel my legs getting stronger. And I can see the results. And I’m like, Yeah, bring it on, let’s lift some heavy weights today.
So you have to make healthy habits stick. And you have to learn how to do that. And you know, that requires getting your reps in, it requires a lot of discomfort, you got to get uncomfortable doing these things. Because for a while it’s going to feel uncomfortable, it’s not going to feel like a habit, it’s going to feel like work.
You know, getting up early to run four days a week or whatever is hard. You know, especially if you got kids, you’re trying to get this in before you go to work. That’s hard to do, it’s gonna be really uncomfortable. But once you do it for a while, it’s going to be no big deal. It’s just who you are and what you do.
So many people I work with love getting up at like four o’clock in the morning and they work out. I don’t get up that early, just FYI, but they love it. And I’m like good for you. Because they can get their workout in and then the kids get up, they can have time with their kids or husband before they go to work or wife or whatever. And then they feel much better about their day and it has become a habit.
Do you think getting up at four o’clock in the morning is easy? No, it is not, especially when you first start out doing that. But over time, it gets easier. Not suggesting you get up at four o’clock in the morning. But you have to learn how to make everything that you do that you want to do consistently has to become a habit.
Speaking of which, one of the best ways to develop a habit is what I’m going to call making decisions ahead of time. This is mindset. Principle number five. When you make decisions ahead of time, you’re using that thinking part of your brain, your pre-frontal cortex, when you make decisions in the moment you’re using your primitive brain, your amygdala, that’s like your fight or flight center.
That’s responsible for making those questionable decisions because you’re using that primitive part of your brain that just wants to feel good and wants to avoid pain.
So you’re seeking pleasure avoiding pain, that’s your amygdala is responsible for those kinds of decisions. Like there’s doughnuts, Heck, yeah. Like that’s a decision made with your amygdala.
When you decide ahead of time when you when you planned your lunch the day before. And you know you’re gonna have you know, chicken and broccoli and that’s what you’re eating for lunch and you brought it with you and you’ve made that decision ahead of time you planned it. You wrote it down. You prepped for it, you brought that you’re going to eat the chicken, the broccoli that you promised you.
And that’s how you’re going to make these healthy habits stick is going to be writing things down making decisions in advance 24 hours in advance has to be and I tell people this all the time you do this, I promise you, you’re gonna stick to that plan. Much, much easier to stick to the plan when you’ve decided in advance, okay?
Number six, the all-or-nothing mentality just has to go. This is not about all or nothing. One big problem people have when they set out to change their diet is they they have this thing thinking of like, they’re never going to be able to eat, you know, their favorite food again, like they’re never gonna have a piece of pizza in their life, or they’re never gonna be able to eat a french fry.
Or they’re never gonna be able to eat Ben and Jerry’s or chocolate or whatever it is, whatever your thing is. And I just have to tell you that I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s rooted in reality.
First of all, because you’re going to do that, you’re going to eat the french fries, you’re going to eat the burger, you’re going to eat the pizza. So this all-or-nothing mentality has to go out the window. And instead, I like to employ the, what I call the 90/10 principle when it comes to food because I think the 80/20 is a little too lenient.
If you’re trying to lose weight, and you need to stick to a healthy food plan, then I think 80/20 is a little too loosey-goosey there. Okay, so let’s go with about 90/10. 90/10 equals about one meal a week.
One meal a week, do what you want, eat some pizza, have some ice cream, whatever, it’s fine. It helps to kind of release some of that pressure. It’s like a release valve, you get this one meal where you can just eat some pizza and have a little bit ice cream. Okay, good. Now get back on track the next meal.
Don’t ever have two bad meals in a row. Don’t ever miss two workouts in a row. But this all-or-nothing mentality has to go. It’s like, oh, I’m either eating all healthy foods every day for the rest of my life. Or I’m not.
Another area a lot of people struggle with is in drinking alcohol. And they think that they either have to drink all the time or never drink. And there’s an in-between there. There are lots of people who drink very moderately, maybe once a week, maybe once a month, maybe not even that often, maybe a couple times a year. Why not? Why can’t that be a reality for you? It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Okay, so let’s just throw that one out the window.
Number seven. This is gonna sound contrarian, but it is not weight loss is not the goal. If you’re overweight, and you’re like, okay, I need to lose 30 pounds. Your goal, you might be thinking your goal is to lose weight. That’s not really what the goal is.
The goal is for you to become as healthy as possible. The goal is for you to get to this place where your body is operating the way it’s supposed to operate, that your body is functioning the way it’s supposed to function as a human being.
I always talk about fat-burning. Fat burning, we have to turn fat burning back on because this is our natural state as human beings we burn fat. When we’re burning fat, we feel better, we lose the weight, running improves, our mood improves our energy levels throughout the day improves our ability to concentrate and think clearly improves.
We need to get back to that natural state. And also when you get healthy, and your body is burning fat and you’re operating on all cylinders, your hormones are all regulated, your blood sugar’s regulated, and you just feel better you’re in, you’re in the best shape of your life, you’re feeling amazing.
And of course, we want to add in strength training and running and other things too. But the goal is not the weight loss, the weight loss is a side effect of becoming the healthiest version of yourself. So that is really the goal.
So that’s what I want you to focus on, don’t focus on “I have to lose 30 pounds” because when we do that, we’re like, okay, I just got to get this weight off as fast as possible. I’m going to go on the cabbage soup diet, which I don’t even know if that’s a thing, but it sounds terrible.
I’m going to just lose the weight as fast as I can. This is not sustainable. Can you eat cabbage soup the rest of your life? No, and nobody would want to be around you if you did. Anyway, think about that for a minute.
Okay, now put that image in your mind. So the goal is not to lose weight and lose it as fast as possible goal is to become the healthiest version of yourself and be able to sustain that long term.
So stop focusing on weight loss. I know sounds contrarian, right? Focus on becoming the healthiest version of yourself, the weight loss will happen as a beautiful little side effect.
Number eight, you have to break the habit of being you. What do I mean by that? That means that you have a certain way that you see the world we all do. We all have what is called a model of the world. So we all experience reality differently. It’s pretty, pretty trippy.
You know, the way that I see things is based on my past, my family of origin, one where I was brought up, my religious beliefs or non-religious beliefs, my goals, my successes, the people, I spend time with, the things I watched, the things I listened to, the books I read all that stuff and, and you have a whole different set of criteria that you are filtering the world through.
So your model of the world is going to look different from my model of the world. And I love this example of two people standing at the ocean. So you got two people standing at the ocean. One is looking out over the ocean and thinking, oh my god, this is the most beautiful, serene place, I love the ocean so much.
That’s me, by the way, I love the ocean. I need to live by the ocean, I just need to do that for the rest of my life. I just need to be by the ocean, and I’d be so much happier. Anyway, I’m in the Midwest, it’s cold, it gets cold in the wintertime. I don’t like that.
So two people standing by the ocean one thinks it’s beautiful, serene, loves it, and the other person is deathly afraid of the ocean. Why is that? Why do they have such different thoughts and experiences about the ocean?
Why do they see it as being one sees it as being blissful, and peaceful, and beautiful? And the other sees it as being dangerous? And it brings up all kinds of fear.
Well, maybe the one person used to be a surfer. And they surfed every day, and they loved it. And they just loved being in the water. And they love floating in the ocean and have lived by the ocean their whole life. And it’s just like a very calm, serene place to be, it’s their happy place. Again, that’s kind of me.
The other person maybe had a near-death experience as a kid, they like almost drowned in the ocean and were told never to go back in and that the ocean is dangerous and to stay away from it.
And just that simple, little act, that little bit of trauma maybe and the reinforcement from parental figures, authority figures, whatever, could really cause them to have completely different ways of looking at this thing that everybody would just agree is just water, you know. So that’s just an example.
But think about this, everybody in our lives has a different way of filtering the world. And I bump into this all the time with my girlfriend because we have different ways of seeing things.
I’m like, Oh, my God, this show we’re watching is so amazing, or this movie or this piece of artwork or whatever. And she’s like, no I don’t get it. I don’t like it. And I’m like how? You’re crazy. This is the best movie I’ve ever seen. Like, it’s just we just see things differently. I’m usually right though, just by the way.
Okay, so we got to break the habit of like being ourselves, we got to break the habit of doing the same things all the time, using the same filter to see everything, we got to open ourselves up to seeing things a little bit differently, we got to open ourselves up to doing things differently.
If you get up and do the same things every single day, and you do them the same way, you’re never going to break out of that you’re never going to expand past your own comfort zone, like we got to get out of the comfort zone.
That means doing things differently. That means pushing yourself everything you want, but don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone. So you got to break the habit of being you and you got to start to become someone else.
And I don’t mean like you got to put on a wig and like glasses and a fake mustache or something like that. But you have to start changing, we should always be changing and evolving and growing and becoming more.
And so that means that you got to break the habit of just doing things the same way every single day, start doing something different start, you know, pushing past your horizons, start changing your habits and start doing things differently and start becoming that different person.
I always tell people that I love it when they set a big goal like running their first marathon because they can’t run a marathon today, maybe their longest run is like five miles, and they want to be able to run a marathon. It’s going to require a lot of work, you know, four months or so of training, and they’re going to have to become a different person that process and just doing the training and showing up at the starting line of that event.
They’ll be a different person than they are today. What is that for you? What is that going to look like for you? What can you be in six months from now? Who do you want to be you got to be somebody different. And you need to work towards that. Okay, it’s got to break the habit of being you.
Number nine, you have to overcome your limiting beliefs. This kind of ties into what I was just talking about. But we all have limiting beliefs about ourselves. Limiting beliefs just means that there are things that limit our potential.
So there are things that we believe about ourselves that are actually holding us back. So it’s things like I can never lose weight because I’ve never been able to do it in the past. Um, I don’t have any willpower. I’m just a sugar junkie, you know, I have a sweet tooth so there’s nothing I can do about it.
Those are all limiting beliefs because they’re limiting your potential, or I could never run a marathon, or I can never qualify for Boston, I’ve heard people telling me this.
I had a woman I worked with a long time ago. And she told me that she wasn’t a real runner. She never felt like a real runner. And this was really holding her back. And I asked her about her running and she said that she’s been running every day 5k at least every day for like, five years. But she’s been a streaker, she’s had this long-running streak. And I’m like, what the what? Like you are absolutely.
What a limiting belief that is, though, that I’m not a real runner. Because I can’t run fast like some people are, I can’t qualify for Boston, stop doing that to yourself, stop having these limiting beliefs.
Take a look at what things you believe about yourself. And see where you can make some changes there and let go of some of that stuff. Just drop it like a rock, okay?
Number ten, you have to choose your struggle, you can choose the struggle of being unhealthy, being overweight, and not feeling good about yourself. Because that is a struggle, you can go through your life struggling with all of that, you can go through your life struggling with not living up to your potential, you can go through your life struggling with how you feel about yourself.
There’s another struggle you can choose though, that is the struggle of getting up early and going to the gym. That’s a struggle. That’s hard to do, of sticking to your food plan when everybody else around you is eating pizza or doughnuts in the break room.
And it’s going to be a struggle to not eat that stuff in that moment because you chose chicken and broccoli for lunch. That’s a struggle. Choose that struggle, though, because that one is actually going to improve your life.
Choose the struggle of going to the gym and lifting heavy weights that hurt, it hurts to lift heavy weights, it’s hard. I was at the gym this morning. And I was listening to a podcast and I was lifting weights and doing a bunch of reps. And I’m listening to my podcast, with the noise-cancelling headphones on, so I can’t really hear other people too much. And I can’t hear myself either.
So if I’m making noises, if I’m talking, I can’t really hear myself too well, I have to take out my ear pods, whatever you call those things if I want to talk to somebody, but anyway, I noticed today that I was doing all these reps, and I was grunting and like making noises.
And I kind of caught myself and I was like I think I’m being a little too loud here. But it was kind of funny because it was a struggle. It was hard. And I sort of caught myself. And you know, I had my eyes closed and I was grimacing on my face. And I was like, ah, you know, and making noises.
And people around me probably heard it because it’s pretty loud. But whatever. I mean, that’s what you do when you’re at the gym. But that’s a struggle going to the gym every day, lifting those heavy weights, it’s a struggle. But what do you get in return, you get a better body composition, you get more energy, you feel better, your metabolism improves, your ability to burn, fat improves, your running improves, you get faster, you get stronger, you can run longer distances, you look better naked, all that stuff because you struggled at the gym.
Instead of struggling by just sitting on the couch feeling sorry for yourself, don’t do that, choose your struggle every single day.
That leads me to number eleven, which is battling the resistance because this is going to happen. As soon as you start to do something different, the resistance is going to rear its ugly head, it’s going to come up and it’s going to be there and you’re going to be like, I really want to do this.
But that’s the resistance, oh, I really want to lose weight. But you know, changing my diet is hard. Or I really want to get stronger, but going to the gym, you know, I don’t want to pay for a gym membership or just too many people that gym, well, this is all resistance. It’s just excuses.
It’s BS, it’s your mind saying I don’t want to do anything that’s uncomfortable. Remember, your brain has one job, keep you safe, avoid pain, and seek pleasure. That’s it. It wants the familiar and it will, it will avoid the unfamiliar and seek the familiar every single time.
And all this stuff is called the resistance and Steven Pressfield talks about that in his book, The War of Art, I would definitely check it out if you guys are interested. It’s a it’s a great book. It’s about breaking through blocks, and you know, for creative people, but really, it applies to everybody.
And he really does a good job of talking about the resistance. So you have to go to battle with the resistance every day. Because it’s going to show up you’re going to be like I don’t feel like running today because blah blah, blah. That’s the resistance coming up.
You know, I talk to people all the time who want to work with me, and we have a conversation we get on Zoom we have a conversation. And I tell them all the reasons you know, or all the things that they can accomplish and they’re telling me all the reasons why maybe they can’t do it or it’s not the right time. That’s the resistance. It’s the right time. There’s no right time, right?
If you want to start and you want to change, today’s the day to do it, now is the right time. But that resistance comes up here like, well, maybe I’ll wait till after the holidays, like what you’re gonna wait like three months before you change something?
No, start today, you got to go to battle against the resistance. Every single day, every time that shows up, you got to beat that foe, okay?
Number twelve, is you got to get into the gain and out of the gap. So this is the gap versus the gain mentality, right? When we talk about the gap, that is the gap between where you are today.
And where you want to be, there’s a gap there, I want to lose 40 pounds, I want to be healthier, I want to change my eating habits. So there’s a gap between where you are today, because you’re not there.
I want to run a 9-minute mile instead of a 10-minute mile. There’s a gap there. When you focus on the gap, you’re constantly focused on where you are not. You’re constantly focused on the fact that you are not where you want to be. And I see this all the time with people who are trying to lose weight.
We’re working together for a period of time and they’re like, but I’m still not at x weight. I’m still not there. I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m like you got to stop focusing on that. Let’s look back and look at your progress instead.
What have you gained? You know, how is your mindset different? How are your energy levels? How are you sleeping? How are your clothes fitting? How are your measurements, your inches?
How many inches have you lost? Yeah, the scale might be going a little bit slow or whatever, who cares? Let’s focus on all the gains you’ve made. You’ve changed your relationship with food, you no longer crave the junk food like you used to. That’s a magical place to be.
Focus on the gain, stop focusing on the gap. Okay, focus on where you have made gains, focus on the progress you’ve made and stop focusing on where you are not. That’s number twelve.
Number thirteen is you got to get yourself immersed into this world, whatever that looks like for you. If you want to change, you want to make some big changes in your life, you have to immerse yourself in the world.
When I was training for Ironman, this was 10 years ago now. I immersed myself in the world of long-distance triathlon. And I read books and I listened to podcasts and I watched videos I was on YouTube.
I was on blogs, I was reading all kinds of articles, I was listening to podcasts and listening to audiobooks and talking to other people and spending time with other people who are into triathlon and training with people who are doing triathlon I immersed myself in this world of triathlon.
I had a training partner, we talked about this stuff all the time. And I encourage people to do the same thing. And I kind of created my coaching program that follows this principle where we immerse you in this world of other people who are all doing the same things.
So there are group coaching calls, where we all spend time talking about what’s working, what isn’t, what improvements have we made, you get to hear from other people, you get immersed in this world of, of people who are trying to lose weight and get stronger and run faster, run longer, they’re feeling good about themselves, it’s such a positive environment to be in, then you get the one on one coaching with me.
So you get this other layer of support and guidance, and encouragement. And then I have a bunch of training materials online, I’ve got this private podcast feed that you can listen to that’s not this podcast you’re listening to. This is like all the stuff I teach on the group coaching calls.
And so you have like literally hundreds of hours of trainings that you can be listening to. So you can really immerse yourself in this world of eating right and losing weight and doing it the right way and getting stronger and improving.
You’re running and all this stuff, right? So immerse yourself in whatever that looks like for you just get into it, do it all, okay?
Number fourteen, you have to live in integrity with yourself. That means that you do what you say you’re going to do. That means if you get up in the morning, and you have a run scheduled for today that you’re going to you’re going to do that run.
That if you are trying to eat healthy and you’ve got a healthy food plan you’re trying to stick to that means when you go out of town for that work trip you stick to that healthy food plan.
Because what happens is the opposite for most people, most people do the opposite. They are not in integrity with themselves. They think you know what I mean? I’m out of town, nobody’s gonna know that I’m not sticking to my food plan. So I’m just gonna eat whatever.
And then when they do that they they told themselves before they went on this trip that they were going to eat healthy. But then when they got there, they’re like, whatever, I’m just gonna eat the pizza like everybody else is eating in the Fettuccine Alfredo or whatever.
What happens in that moment is that they kind of break down that trust in themselves, they break down the integrity, they’re trying to build with themselves, and they no longer have the confidence to be able to stick with it, because they keep breaking these promises they made to themselves.
Being in integrity with yourself means you keep the promises that you make to yourself means you honor the commitments that you make to yourself and to others, but really to yourself.
It’s easier to keep commitments to other people because you got somebody there sort of holding you accountable. That’s another reason why I love coaching people because, you know, they got to show up and tell me what they did or didn’t do. And they’re way more likely to stick to a plan when they gotta report to me on a regular basis, tell you what.
Living in integrity means that you are in integrity with yourself, because it’s easy to just do whatever when nobody’s watching, right? Being integrity means doing the right thing, even when no one’s around to watch to see what you did.
So you got to build this trust in yourself, you got to build this integrity with yourself. That means making a plan and sticking to the plan, even when you don’t feel like it. When you do this on a regular basis, I promise you, you’re going to build so much trust in yourself and so much self-confidence that sticking to the plan is going to be no big deal.
Alright, number fifteen, happiness is overrated. Let’s stop chasing happiness, okay? Because here’s what happens when you’re chasing happiness. You’re going after feeling good. So what do we do when we’re chasing happiness, we eat to feel better, we drink alcohol to feel better, we do drugs to feel better, we shop to feel better.
We do all kinds of unhealthy behaviors because we just want to feel good, we just want to be happy. Here’s a fact, life is not supposed to be happy all the time. It just isn’t. That’s just not the way life is designed.
It’s like 50/50, like for half the time you feel pretty good half the time not so much. So stop trying to avoid half of your life, stop trying to avoid the 50% of life that’s not perfect, or whatever that isn’t like, quote unquote happy according to the movies or to Hollywood or the television shows or whatever.
Just accept the fact that you’re going to be unhappy sometimes. And it’s okay, it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong, it means you’re working, you’re operating the way you’re supposed to, as a human being.
So stop chasing happiness, it leads to all kinds of addiction, and all kinds of bad behaviors. Instead, just accept the fact that life is 50/50 and then move on from there. Okay.
Number sixteen, the other side of endurance. So when we talk about endurance we’re talking about most people think of, you know, running an ultra marathon, you know, oh, endurance, yeah, you got to be able to run for 24 hours straight and be able to run 100 miles or whatever.
Yeah, that is endurance, you know, running a marathon requires endurance, you got to build endurance. And I think building endurance is one of the best things you can do for yourself from a cardiovascular standpoint, and increasing your endurance.
And that could just mean like running a 5k, it could be running five miles a few times a week, and that’s perfectly fine. That’s how you build endurance. And then you could always build upon that if you want to if you want to improve that.
But there’s another side of endurance. And that’s the endurance of sticking with the plan. And we’ve talked a lot about sticking with the plan today. So far, it’s it’s a big mindset principle, a lot of stuff I do with the people I work with, is helping them stick with the plan.
Because it’s one thing to have a plan, and you probably know what to do, it’s a whole other thing to stick with the plan, right? So the other side of endurance is being able to have the endurance to stick with a plan, even when it’s hard. And that means that you endure, you know, days and weeks and months and years of being a healthy eater of somebody that exercises regularly.
Endurance isn’t just about running endurance is about you know, creating good habits and then seeing them out for the long haul, spell sustainability. Okay, so practice that kind of endurance. It’s great that you’re out there running long miles. apply that same principle, though, that you push through like you push through a long run, apply that same principle to sticking with your diet for example, okay.
Number seventeen, you have to overcome your fear of success. So many people tell me that they fear failure when they start out with something like this like I’m I really want to change my diet and lose weight but I’m so afraid I’m gonna fail. And and I get that because maybe they failed a lot in the past.
But the other thing that people fear is success, they fear being successful, they fear losing the weight because then they say, well, okay, I was able to lose some weight. But what if I can’t maintain it? What if I can’t keep it off, because I’ve tried this in the past, and it hasn’t worked?
I’ve tried this in the past, and I’ve been able to lose weight, but then it came back again, you know, or whatever. Fear of success is a real thing. And people are really afraid of who they are going to become when they accomplish X, Y, Z, whatever that is, you know, qualify for Boston, run your first marathon lose a bunch of weight. Because it’s different, and it’s uncomfortable, and you’re becoming a different person in that process. And that can be very scary.
You know, if I told you like, okay, you’re going to work with me, and in six months, you’re going to be a different person, you’re going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, I don’t know about that. Right?
And I’m like, no, you’re gonna be able to lose the weight, you’re gonna run faster, we’re gonna get you stronger, your body composition is gonna improve, you’re gonna stand in front of a mirror naked and be like, alright, I like what I see here.
That’s scary for people, because they’re like, oh, my gosh, I don’t know what that’s like, for me, I’ve never been there before. That’s scary, okay, you got to get over that. Embrace the suck of the process and just get over the fact that it’s going to be uncomfortable. And stop using the fear of success as an excuse to not start something, it’s totally worth it, by the way.
Number eighteen, the key to success is consistent aligned action, there’s nothing more to it than taking consistent aligned action. When you do that, you will make progress. When you make progress, you will feel more motivated to continue taking consistent aligned action.
The only way you’re gonna get results is through your actions, not through your thoughts, not through how you feel. The only way you get results is by taking action. And the action has to be aligned with your goals.
So think about that long-term goal that you have to lose 40 pounds, you need to take actions that are aligned with that goal. So eating cake for breakfast and dinner is going to be something that is misaligned, that is misaligned with that goal of losing weight.
And when you take misaligned action, you’re going to get misaligned results you’ll gain weight instead. If you eat cake for breakfast and dinner, instead you need to take aligned action. Focus on protein, and keep the carbs in check.
Don’t eat junk food, don’t eat processed foods, and stay away from sugar, that’s aligned action that’ll get you to your goals. And the consistent part is pretty self-explanatory. But you can’t just do it once, you have to continually do this.
So consistent aligned action, what are those actions that are in alignment with your goal, make a list, what are the things you’re going to do that are going to get you to that goal, it’s just steps, you know, it’s just steps on a ladder.
Let’s say you want to get to the top of the ladder, just take one step at a time, then you’ll eventually get there. But you have to do it consistently, you can’t just do it a few times, it has to be something you do on a regular basis.
Number nineteen, increasing your emotional tolerance, you have to be able to tolerate having emotions that talked about this on a recent podcast. So having emotional tolerance means that there’s going to be times when you let’s say, want to eat pizza when everybody else is eating pizza, but you’re not gonna eat the pizza.
And you’re gonna feel a little stressed out about that, and you’re gonna feel like a fear of missing out FOMO you know, you’re gonna feel desire for that pizza, because it’s sitting right there. And all these emotions that you’re experiencing can feel very intense, they can feel very strong.
And you think the only answer is just to eat the pizza to make those feelings go away. So you’ve got to get rid of the feelings, like I don’t want to tolerate these emotions anymore. So I gotta get rid of that. So I’m just getting the pizza and it does work, those emotions will go away.
But what if you increased your ability to tolerate experiencing those emotions? What if you were able to just have those emotions, you were able to feel desire, and you’re able to feel, you know, FOMO and you’re able to feel stress or whatever it is, and you just, were okay with that?
I mean, it doesn’t feel good. It’s not supposed to. But what if you were just okay with that? It’s a game-changer. When you increase your emotional tolerance, you’re able to stick with the plan.
You’re able to get through those moments where you would normally stress eat, or eat because you’re, you know, sad or angry or whatever. Your ability to tolerate your own emotions is just part of being a human being.
And it’s something you have to work on. It has to be something you work on every day you practice it again. It’s easier. I do this all the time. There are lots of times where I’m sitting there and I’m thinking, I really want to eat that. Still. It’s been years since I’ve had certain foods and I’m like, I still want that.
And I just don’t do it. And I feel a little bad, I feel a little uncomfortable. And it’s okay, I’m just, I’ve, I’ve developed a high tolerance for experiencing these emotions, okay. Fear is a big one. People are afraid to feel fear. What if you just felt the fear and you just did the thing anyway? It’s crazy what you can accomplish.
Okay, number twenty, and the last one I want to share with you today is the n equals one principle. And that means that you are an experiment of one. Everything that I’ve talked about here, on the podcast for the last four years, everything that you hear from other quote, unquote, like experts out there in the field of health and nutrition, and running and strength training, or whatever, you can listen to all the experts out there.
But it all boils down to you being an experiment of one, that what other people do the way that they do, it is not necessarily going to work for you. And that’s why I do coaching instead of handing over a document and telling you what to do.
Because there isn’t a document or a book, or a podcast, or an article that you can read that is going to give you the exact formula that is going to work for you. There is no such thing. We’re all different.
We all have our own, you know, cultures and our own lifestyles and our own food preferences and the ways we like to exercise our own goals, our own families like we have so many things that are unique to us that no two people are going to do any of this stuff the same way.
So you got to figure it out. I know you probably don’t want to hear that. But it’s true. You have to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t, you’re always an experiment. But this is actually good news. Because it means that you can try some things that may work and may not.
And if they don’t, then try something else. Don’t give up, keep going. But it’s always going to be n equals one. That means that the number of people in the experiment is one. And that is you. You are the experiment. Okay.
All right. Those are my 20 mindset principles that runners need to know and I think normal people need to know as well. Took me a little longer to go through these today than I thought it would, but that’s cool.
I just want you to know how appreciative I am of you listening to these episodes, I hope you get something out of these.
If you do, reach out and tell me how this has impacted you. I’d love to hear from you. And as always, I love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
When it comes to running tough races, you eventually get to a point where it’s all mind over matter. Your legs hurt, you’re exhausted, and you just want to quit. This is when your emotional …
Continue Reading about 198. Increasing Your Emotional Tolerance →
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 198 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today I’m talking about increasing your emotional tolerance.
So when it comes to running tough races, you eventually get to this point where it’s kind of mind over matter, right? Your legs hurt, you’re exhausted, you’re ready to give up. This is when your emotional toughness game really has to be on point, you know, or at least you think that you can physically keep going.
But there’s this emotional state that is trying to convince you that you need to stop right now. Like it’s just time to quit, right. And this emotional toughness or emotional tolerance is also required when you want to do other tough things in your life, like not eating the pizza when everybody around you is eating the pizza.
So today’s podcast is all about increasing your emotional tolerance. So you’re better armed to tough it out when things get tough, which they always seem to do. And if you want a little bit of help getting started with everything that I teach here on the podcast, when it comes to losing weight as a runner, being able to keep the weight off for good, not trying to outrun a bad diet, improving your strength, improving your endurance, improving your speed as a runner. And being able to make all of these changes last for good.
I’ve put together a free training that you can check out. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. I’ll teach you the right way to lose weight and keep it off for good. If you’re ready to become leaner and stronger, run faster and longer and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself, then you need to check out this free training right now.
Just go to runningleancoaching.com, that’s my website, and click on Free Training. And by the way, it’s free if I didn’t say that it’s free, the training is free. I’ve put together this free training about an hour long. It goes over everything that I teach you on the podcast, definitely check it out runningleancoaching.com and then click on Free Training. Cool.
Okay, so let’s get into this idea of increasing your emotional tolerance. So the first thing to understand is that running is an emotional sport, right? We have all experienced a wide variety of emotions, when we’ve set out to train for a hard event, whether it’s a 5k, or half marathon, marathon, ultra marathon, whatever it is, there’s a there’s going to be a point during some tough race, there are some tough events that you’ve been training for, where it gets emotional.
And during running, there’s this physical toughness about it running, you know, I mean, you got to develop the endurance and develop the speed and develop the strength to be able to, you know, tough it out for 13 miles or 26 miles or whatever.
But then there’s also that emotional toughness, and you’ve probably already developed some emotional toughness, you’ve developed some emotional badass notes, you know, when it comes to running, because I hear from people all the time who tell me, they can sign up for a race and they go and they run their fastest race.
And there’s a point in that race where it becomes really hard. And they want to give up and they want to quit, but there’s this emotional resilience that they have that’s keeping them going. And I’m using the word emotional resilience or emotional toughness as opposed to mental toughness, because I think it is more emotional.
You know, the Mental Toughness part is like thinking, oh, I can do this. I think I can do this. I’m gonna keep going. But the emotional piece is like, you know, that feeling of like not wanting to be a failure. And like, I really just want to give up, I want to quit right now and curl up into a ball and cry right now.
I definitely have experienced that when it comes to running. So I think that as runners, we have developed some emotional toughness around running around certain events. When it comes to something like food, though, what happens there? Why is this so much different for us?
There’s this idea that when it comes to food and changing your diet, let’s say you want to lose weight, and so you’re going to stop eating pizza every night and you’re going to stop eating junk food, you’re going to up eating ice cream for dessert every night, you’re gonna stop eating the french fries every day, whatever it is, there’s this idea that you have to be able to handle some discomfort.
Because when you make a change like that, I promise you, it’s going to be uncomfortable. There’s going to be moments, sometimes a lot of moments where things are going to get uncomfortable for you. And I talk to people all the time, and I say, listen, you got to be able to handle this discomfort, you know, we’re going to stop eating sugar, for example.
And it’s going to be, it’s going to be hard and you’re going to feel uncomfortable, you’re going to want the sugar, your body’s going to crave the sugar, your mind is going to crave the sugar, you’re going to get emotional about all this stuff.
But you got to just lean into that discomfort and not eat the sugar, and be able to accept that emotional discomfort. And people tell me all the time, yep, I got it. No problem, Patrick. And then in reality when that time comes, and they have to say no to the sugar, but they’re craving it and they give in, or they you know, curl up into a ball and cry. Because it’s really hard in the moment.
In theory, it sounds easy enough. But in reality, this is a tough thing to deal with, especially if you’re not used to doing it. If you’re somebody that’s used to eating sugar every day, and you’re going to quit eating sugar for a period of time, that’s going to be hard to do.
If you’re somebody that’s used to drinking alcohol every day, or most days, and then you’re going to give up alcohol for a period of time, that’s going to be hard to do. If you’re somebody that wants to give up eating pizza all the time, not eating the pizza is going to be hard to do.
And it’s an emotional attachment that we have to these foods. It’s an emotional attachment that we have to feeling good. So it’s much harder to not eat the pizza than it is to tough it out for a marathon. Isn’t that interesting. I think that’s kind of crazy in a way.
Like if I just told you like you gotta run a PR when your next marathon. And if you’re in good enough shape, and you’ve done the training, you’re gonna get to a place during that race where it’s gonna be tough, and you’re gonna have to like put on that emotional badass rehab of yours, and you’ll be able to get through it.
But then when I say like, Hey, don’t eat pizza. Tomorrow night, when everybody else is eating pizza around you. That’s hard. It’s like harder for a lot of people, right? It’s interesting to me. So what is this? Is this a lack of willpower? You just don’t have enough willpower? Is it a lack of discipline? Are you just not disciplined enough? Was it a lack of desire? Do you not want it bad enough?
I don’t think it’s any of those things. I think it’s just an emotional tolerance issue more than anything else. So I’m going to ask you this question. What are you willing to feel? Seriously ask yourself that question, what are you willing to feel? What emotions are you willing to accept and just to feel?
You know, emotions we feel in our body, emotions, negative emotions, positive emotions, we feel them in our body, they feel like vibrations in our body, thoughts we experience in our minds and our heads. It’s very mental. It’s very heavy. But emotions we feel in our bodies like this vibration in our body. Some are good, some are not so good. Some feel good, some feel bad.
Anytime you use the word ‘feel’ to describe something that’s an emotional experience, we feel our emotions. Okay, for running, we feel physical pain, we feel physical suffering around food. It’s like emotional pain and emotional suffering. But what if you were willing to feel everything, especially the tough emotions.
Some of these emotions that we experience are deemed as negative emotions. And we don’t want to feel them. We’re taught at an early age that we don’t want to feel bad, we only want to feel good. And so our entire lives, we are chasing good feelings and running away from bad feelings.
So we do things like eat to feel better. We drink alcohol to feel better. We shop, gamble, do drugs, whatever, just because we want to feel better, even though we know those things are not good for us. But we chase after the good feeling. Because we don’t want to experience the bad feeling.
We run away from anything that feels bad, and we run towards anything that feels good. But if you want to change your diet, and you want to stick to a healthy eating plan, you’re going to have to experience some bad feelings.
But if you’re so conditioned to feel good all the time, then it’s going to feel like something is wrong. When you experience that bad feeling. So you’re sitting there at the table. Everybody’s eating pizza, and you’re like, oh my God, I feel bad right now. I don’t fit, this doesn’t feel right.
This feels like there’s something wrong, and I just got to feel better right now. And so you just grabbed the pizza and you start eating and you go, yeah, there we go. Now I feel good.
Don’t tell me you haven’t done that. Because we all have, we have all been there, you’re trying to stick to your diet, but then something happens everybody else is indulging in ice cream, pizza, whatever. And you just go for it, you just dig in, and you feel so much better. Right?
Because it feels good. Feels good to eat that stuff. Here’s the thing, though. Human beings, we are designed to feel all sorts of emotions, all sorts of stuff, right? Some feel good, and some feel bad. And I’m gonna say it’s about 50/50. And that’s the way life is designed. Life is supposed to be 50/50. It doesn’t feel good all the time.
But anytime we feel any kind of negative emotion and we go running away from it, we’re typically running into or chasing after something that is probably not good for us. So we have to accept this fact that life is 50/50 and that we’re gonna feel some negative emotions sometimes. And that’s okay, we’re gonna start, we got to start accepting, feeling bad sometimes.
That’s a crazy concept right there. Just accept that you’re going to feel bad sometimes. What? I know it’s bananas, right? A few years back. And I’ve talked about this before on the podcast here. But a few years back, I was going through a divorce. And this was tough for me. I’ve been with my second wife, that was my second wife, by the way, for like, nine years or whatever.
And we are going through this divorce. And we had been separated. And I was feeling terrible. Like, all the time. You know, I would wake up feeling terrible all day long, I’d feel kind of terrible. There were moments where I was okay. But I mean, I just felt bad a lot. It was tough to go to sleep at night, I was having all these crazy thoughts. And my mind was just racing and all these negative emotions.
Emotionally, I was a wreck. I felt terrible for a long time, for months. But here’s what I did. I, well, I tried to make it go away. And I was using food at the time to try to make it all go away. And I was working with a coach. And I just wanted to feel better. I was working with this coach. And she asked me a question.
At one point, she just said like, why do you think you shouldn’t feel bad? Why do you think you should feel any differently than you do? And I didn’t have an answer for that. I mean, I just, it doesn’t feel good to feel bad, right?
She’s like, yeah, but that right there, like just understanding that what you’re going through is tough, and it’s going to feel bad. And just having the acceptance around. That is what you need to wrap your head around, not trying to feel better, not trying to make the bad feelings go away.
But to accept the feelings, that was a game changer. For me, this changed my perspective on life and emotions and, and so much stuff. And we were just taught that we have to have like a positive attitude and think good thoughts and smile, and everything’s gonna be okay.
And like, no, everything was shit, you know, it was like, not good. And I just had to accept that and just be willing to feel bad. When I accepted this as my reality. And I sort of leaned into the negative emotions of, you know, going through this divorce. I did get through it much quicker. And I stopped having to use food to make myself feel better.
When you stop chasing feeling good all the time everything can change for you, because you’re no longer running away from the negative emotions. Because when you do that, listen, you’re running away from 50% of your life. You’re no longer afraid to feel bad. You can handle anything that comes your way, you become an emotional badass.
So this issue around food, and not wanting to feel uncomfortable at the table when everybody else is eating the pizza up. Think about this. What if you were just willing to feel bad for a little while? What if you’re willing to feel, you know, the desire for the pizza but not eat it? That’s uncomfortable. That’s an uncomfortable feeling, right?
But what if you were just willing to lean into that? What if you were having this craving and this urge to just like eat the pizza and just dig into it, but you didn’t give into that. That’s gonna feel terrible.
But you would get through that meal, and you would feel so much better about yourself. And then you would build a little bit of trust in yourself and a little bit of confidence that you can do this. And then the next time this happens, you’d get through that meal the same way and you’d build a little bit more trust and a little bit more confidence in yourself.
And listen, this doesn’t feel good. I’m not trying to Candy Coat anything here for you. This is a process that actually feels bad. Feeling negative emotions does not feel good. But it is important, I would say it is one of the most important things you can do for yourself.
If you want to change, if there’s anything that you’re going after that is tough, that’s going to take a while, like losing weight, changing your diet, not eating junk food, or even, you know, running that marathon. Those things all require some emotional tolerance, you have to be able to tolerate experiencing all these different emotions.
Now, there’s also the positive side of this, there are good emotions that you feel when you accomplish these goals. Or when you do something, when you feel good about yourself, I hear this all the time from my clients. They say, Oh my gosh, Patrick, I can’t believe I, they had, you know, brought all these doughnuts and bagels or whatever, into the break room. And I just didn’t eat them. And I felt good about myself.
And we call that a win. We call that a victory, you know, you won the day because you didn’t give in to the negative emotions. And that feels great, it feels great to do that. When you tough it out for that marathon and you cross the finish line. And you see that number on the clock and you just PR’d your marathon, that feels amazing. That’s, that’s joyous. That is an amazing elation that you feel.
So you can experience the positive emotions as well. But a lot of times it requires that we are willing to experience the negative ones. And then I remember a couple of marathons that I’ve PR’d or you know, 10K’s or half marathons, whatever. And those were very tough. And there were times when it was very challenging and extremely emotional and very hard and felt like quitting and all that.
And then at the end, crossing the finish line and accomplishing that goal, there was this release of positive emotion, it was just amazing. I actually cried, tears coming out my face, like it was so joyous, like blissful to feel that because I went through, you know, I went through the gauntlet, I did the hard things, I put in the work, I experienced all the negative emotions so I could experience the joy of victory.
You know, the same thing happens when we want to change our diet and stick to healthy eating, we have to go through the gauntlet, sometimes, you know, this isn’t forever. And this isn’t like something that’s gonna like last for months and months and months.
A lot of times we can break these addictions to sugar or junk food in around 30 days or so. But 30 days of like feeling some negative emotions can be kind of tough. You know, that’s why I do what I do as a coach. And I don’t just hand people a document and say, here’s what you do that just do the things on this list. And you’ll be fine. Because we need to talk through what they’re experiencing, we need to talk through how to get through some of those tough times and how to lean into those negative emotions.
So this is your work for this week. It is to allow yourself to experience negative emotions, allow yourself to experience you know what we would call bad feelings, don’t run away from them, lean into them, be willing to experience it all.
Remember, life is 50/50. Half the time you’re going to feel good half the time you’re going to feel bad. Don’t run away from that 50% that feels “bad”. Something else that happens over time when you do this, the bad feelings don’t feel that bad, they become more neutral.
When you’re willing to experience negative emotions and you do this on the regular and you get good at it. They become less emotionally charged, they don’t become so powerful, they become more neutral. This is what I call becoming an emotional badass.
So you build up this emotional tolerance, feeling bad becomes more and more acceptable and more neutral and easier for you to handle, then you can do anything you want. Because you’re willing to experience the negative emotions. You’re willing to experience the whole swath of emotions that we all experience as human beings and you’re not running away from half of your life.
Okay, I know you can do this. But if you want some help, I’m always here for you. Okay, we can talk about coaching, just head over to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. Fill out an application, we can get on a Zoom call. We can talk about coaching, what it looks like. I’ll answer all of your questions. We’ll see if this is a good fit for you. Coo.l
Okay, you guys got this I know you do and that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.
