Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
Have you ever felt like you just can’t seem to make any progress toward a goal? Have you ever found it difficult to get started eating right or exercising regularly? Have you ever made some …
Continue Reading about 250. 3 Things You Need to Do to Get Yourself Unstuck →
It’s that time of the year when every weekend it seems there are a ton of races going on all over the world. And a lot of runners who’ve worked really hard over the last few months will inevitably …
Continue Reading about 249. Avoid These Mistakes and Crush Your Next Race →
One of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health and fitness is to regularly push past your comfort zone. This might seem obvious to you and pretty basic, but it’s an area where …
Continue Reading about 225. Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone →
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 225 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone.
So one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health and fitness is to regularly push past your comfort zone. Now, this might seem obvious to you and pretty basic. But it’s an area where most people really struggle, the idea of getting uncomfortable is easy to understand.
Most people are like, sure, Patrick, I’m totally willing to get uncomfortable. But when they come face to face with their own discomfort, all those good intentions kind of go out the window, most people end up running back to the safety and security of their well-constructed comfort zones.
So today here on the podcast, it’s all about pushing past your comfort zone so that you can grow so that you can evolve. And so that you can become the most badass version of yourself yet. Cool.
Okay, but first, if you’re listening to this podcast right now, it means that your health and your fitness, those things are important to you. You want to feel better, you want to get leaner run faster. And I’m here to tell you that all of that is possible for you. It really is. And I can help you get there.
You know, I listen to lots of podcasts, I listen to lots of books, and I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. But when it comes to applying all the stuff that I know, nothing has really helped me more than having a coach there for me, somebody that could guide me and mentor me and show me the way, like every step of the way I had somebody there with me.
I’ve had several amazing coaches in my life, I had a business coach, I had a strength coach, I had a nutrition coach, and those areas of my life have never been better. So the coaches that I’ve had have helped me become the person that I am today.
They inspired me so much that they kind of this is why I became a coach myself, because I saw what they were doing and I was like I want to do that too. I want to have that kind of impact on people as well. So if you’re listening to the podcast, right now, keep listening, keep learning, like that stuff is all good.
But when you’re ready to get down to business, when you’re ready to do the work, consider working with a coach and it doesn’t even have to be me. It’s okay if it’s somebody else, but find someone that can show you the way that can help you apply all of this knowledge that you’re taking in, okay, somebody that can hold you accountable, and somebody that can help you stay on track.
The only way you make progress with anything like this is to take consistent aligned action. And the best way to stay consistent with all this is to have somebody there holding you accountable and helping you stay on track. Cool.
So if you’re interested in working with me, awesome, just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. You’ll fill out a quick little application you and I’ll get on a call. We can have a conversation about coaching. I’ll tell you all about it, how it works. And we’ll see if this is a good fit for you. If it is, cool. If it isn’t, no big deal. All right.
But I want to help you to become the most badass version of yourself. You get yourself a coach, okay? It’s it’s a game-changer. I promise you Okay, runningleanoaching.com and click on Work With Me.
Okay, let’s talk about your comfort zone. What is your comfort zone? Well, your comfort zone is everything that you already have. Because when it comes to what is comfortable for you, it’s always going to be the things that you’ve already done. Those things are comfortable for you.
It’s everything that you continually do. It’s all of your current habits. It’s all your current behaviors. It’s how you think it’s how you feel, it’s all your beliefs. It’s it’s everything that is that is within your like zone of comfort. You know, that’s what your comfort zone is, you built this comfort zone.
You build your comfort zone around your psyche, like your, your model of the world, helps to shape your comfort zone and your psyche that’s just a fancy word that means your spirit your soul yourself. Like it’s the totality of your mind, your conscious mind, your unconscious mind, it’s everything that influences your thoughts, your behavior, it’s your personality, all of that is what your psyche is essentially, okay?
And you have this very unique psyche. And all of that is what feels comfortable to you. Okay, so if there is something that you want for yourself that you don’t already have, you’re going to have to leave your comfort zone in order to get it.
Because remember, everything that you already have is in your comfort zone. If you don’t have it, that means it’s outside your comfort zone, everything you want, but don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone.
Which means that in order to get that thing, you’re going to have to get uncomfortable. And I talk to people about this all the time, and they say, I get it, Patrick, I’m so willing to get uncomfortable. You know, I say you’re gonna have to embrace the suck, and people are like, I’m ready to embrace the suck. Patrick, I can do that, you know.
And this could be with your diet, let’s say you’re you want to change your diet, you want to stop eating sugar, let’s say you want to stop drinking alcohol, because you’re trying to improve your health, you were trying to prove your fitness trying to lose some weight. sugar and alcohol are our throttles, if you’re trying to lose weight, those things are going to keep you stuck, right, they’re going to throttle your progress.
So my suggestion, my, my gentle suggestion would be if you want to lose weight, stop eating sugar, and stop drinking alcohol. Okay? Those two things, though, tend to feel really good, they’re really comfortable. It’s really comfortable to eat sugar, it’s really it feels really good to drink alcohol, you know.
So when I say oh, you’re gonna have to get uncomfortable, you’re gonna have to stop doing those things. People are like, I got it, I can do that. I’m really ready to embrace the suck, I’m ready to get uncomfortable. Like, okay, cool.
But then when you know, the rubber meets the road, when you actually do stop drinking or stop eating sugar. And you’re freaking out a little bit because people around you are drinking or people around, you’re eating sugar, or you walk into the break room and there’s doughnuts, or you walk into the kitchen, and your wife or husband or kids or someone has just made a bunch of chocolate chip cookies.
And the whole house smells amazing, like chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven. They’re all gooey, that chocolate chips are melty, oh my gosh, who wouldn’t want to eat that up? That’s discomfort. That’s when you’re like, I don’t think I can do this. This is too hard.
So when I talk about getting out of your comfort zone, it’s being in that moment you’re standing in the kitchen, you can smell the chocolate chip cookies, you can see them you see the chocolate just melty as they break apart, and you’re not eating them. That’s what I mean by discomfort. That does not feel good.
That’s you getting out of your comfort zone, right? Because you’re not eating those things. But they’re sitting there. And that’s the feeling I’m talking about. So people will say this when they’re having a call with me. And we’re just you know, it’s a Monday morning and we’re, you know, just having this one-on-one conversation. And they’re like, all fired up.
But as soon as those cookies come out of the oven, like all bets are off, you know. So if you want to lose the weight, you got to maybe take a break from eating those cookies for a while. And that’s what I mean by getting out of your comfort zone. All right.
So let me tell you a little bit of a story. So I had this dog. And we had this dog at our house. And this dog was kind of crazy. Her name was Daisy, she was a yellow lab. Cutest dog in the world so smart, like so ridiculously smart. And we had gotten one of those electric fences, you know, what do you call like an invisible fence, you know, it’s wires buried underground, she had the collar on, and we would train her so that she would go outside and not cross the line where the where the wires were under the ground.
So you put up flags and you train the dog that once they get near the flags, they have to back off because they get that little buzz in their neck or whatever and then it shocks them if they get too close. Well, this dog was a little bit crazy. And she figured out that she could get up against that line and start to feel that buzz or that shock and then she would just bolt through the line she would bolt through the line of the wire and get shocked and she was okay with that.
Most dogs would not do that. But she was I don’t know brave, courageous, crazy. I don’t know what you want to call it but she saw that there was a whole wide world out there. And the only way that she was going to get to that wide world out there was to experience the discomfort of, you know, going through that fence. Okay.
So this is a pretty good analogy, because that fence, that invisible fence is like our comfort zone, you know, and when we get close to it, we feel the pain. So discomfort is just our brain telling us that, you know, there’s something uncomfortable out there that we want for ourselves. And that discomfort that we feel means that in order to get that thing, we have to cross a threshold, you know, we have to cross this invisible line, from comfort to discomfort.
And our brain sees that as painful. Our brain’s job is to keep us safe to avoid pain, and seek pleasure to avoid discomfort and seek comfort, to avoid the unfamiliar and seek the familiar. So when we want something like I want to lose 40 pounds, or I want to run an ultra marathon, or I want to have a different relationship with alcohol, all those things are outside our comfort zone, the cost of achieving those things is discomfort.
And so it’s like that dog getting close to the fence and just sitting there and dealing with that buzzing and that shocking that’s going on and just bolting through it anyway. Because they know that dog knew that on the other side of that she could run that whole neighborhood.
And she did and our neighbors would always be bringing her back like, hey, your dog got out again. And I’m like, I don’t get it. You know, this is an invisible fence, she’s getting shocked here. She didn’t care. She was crazy. I loved her, but she was a handful I’m going to tell you.
So you see that that’s a good analogy, because it kind of puts your comfort zone into the 3D world here, you know, so you can actually kind of visualize what that looks like for you. So you stop drinking, or you stop eating sugar, or maybe you got to really increase your mileage to you know, go go after that ultra-marathon or something, and the discomfort is going to show up, the resistance to that thing is going to show up.
And you’ve got to just embrace it and go through that. That’s how you achieve those things. Like the cost of achieving those things is discomfort, right? So embracing the suck. That just means leaning into that discomfort standing there, at the edge of that invisible fence, feeling the shocks and then going after that thing anyway.
This is the real work that we do together, you know, with my clients, this is the real work that we do. You know, it’s it’s less about, oh, here’s the foods you should eat. And here’s the kind of workouts you should do. It’s more about how do I deal with the discomfort and the challenges of not doing the things that are comfortable for me? Okay.
So you know, in, like I said, this can relate to your running, this can relate to getting stronger to changing your body composition, whatever it can relate to your relationships, it can really to your work, whatever that thing is that you want for yourself.
Whatever area of life we’re talking about here that you don’t already have, the cost of getting that thing is going to be discomfort. And listen, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a comfort zone like this is your safe place. This is something you’ve created for yourself. It’s everything that you know, it’s everything that you’ve done. It’s everything that you have accomplished already. And this is a good place to be.
But you know what? Growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. Change doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. The only way you can grow and evolve and become more is to get out of your comfort zone.
Here’s an example from my life lately. My running workouts lately have been pretty amazing. And the reason is because I have been consistently pushing myself out of my comfort zone. So last year, I was doing a lot of very slow running because I was preparing for a 12 hour running event. And I did a whole podcast and kind of talked about that you can look that one up.
But this year, I am focusing on a running a faster half marathon. And this is going to be in like three weeks or so it’s going to be early. The Flying Pig Half and I’m actually running the 5k and the 10k the day before the half just because I like to torture myself.
I like running nine miles the day before a half marathon, who doesn’t do that? But my point is that my running has been amazing lately because I have been regularly pushing myself to run faster. I’ve been doing tons of speed work, tempo runs. And my running is felt better than ever.
And the last few workouts I’ve done have been so good. Tuesday, I did three one-mile repeats. So this is, you know, this was yesterday, this was my, what do you call it, like my speed day, my speed work day. And I chose to do one-mile repeats, which is something I don’t do too often, because it’s hard and uncomfortable.
But I gotta tell you, I felt so amazing doing those. And I wasn’t running super fast, I think 8:38-40s something like that per mile. But, you know, felt amazing. On this past Saturday, I did a 12 mile run, and ran with some faster people to kind of pull me along.
And I ended up having a really amazing 12 miles it was kind of like I was my goal was to run six miles fast, and then kind of jog it back. But I ended up running with some other faster people on the way back. So both out and back, were fast.
So I did a 12-mile tempo run instead of a 6-mile tempo run that day. But I was feeling so good. I wanted to see what I was capable of. And I wanted to push myself a little bit. So the reason I’m talking about this is because in order to get faster, in order to improve my fitness and my running, I’ve had to really push myself and get out of my comfort zone.
The work that I’ve been doing lately has been uncomfortable. Running 12 miles at like a tempo pace is not comfortable. Doing three one-mile repeats in a row that is now uncomfortable. But you know what, my fitness is improving, my running is feeling better than ever. And I’m hoping that I have a really good half marathon. That’s the goal anyway. Okay.
So that’s the kind of work that we have to do in order to get out of our comfort zone and achieve those things that we want for ourselves, we have to be willing to be uncomfortable, that’s the price we pay to improve, right?
So people are super keen to this idea. You know, but once they get into it, everything in your being your whole psyche is telling you go back to safety. You know, whether you’re trying to run faster, quit sugar, quit alcohol, whatever it is, you’re gonna get to this place where it’s going to feel uncomfortable, and you’re going to want to run back to the safety of your comfort zone.
And I hear people talk about this all the time, when they’re like, oh, you know, I was doing really great with my food plan. And then this thing happened at work. And I got really stressed and I just you know, there were doughnuts in the break room. So I just ate the doughnuts. You know, that’s you running back to the safety of your comfort zone when you do that.
My suggestion for you is to notice when your psyche is telling you to run back to the safety of your comfort zone, when the donut sounds good to you. And it sounds like a good idea, even though you don’t eat that stuff anymore.
If that sounds like a good idea, that’s your comfort zone trying to pull you back. And you have to fight against that. You have to just say no, I’m not doing that. I’m gonna stay uncomfortable here. In this moment, I’m going to stay uncomfortable. Because everything when we get out of our comfort zone, everything out there that’s out of our comfort zone feels painful to your brain, your brain is trying to avoid pain.
So why the heck would you want to do something that to your brain seems painful? When you do that your brain is going to resist that your program is going to resist that we avoid pain, Patrick, remember, you know, and so that’s your brain telling you like go back to the safety and comfort of your comfort zone get get away from this pain, okay?
But you have to like fight against that you just have to ignore it and you have to move on. Just like my dog Daisy, who just ignored the stupid shock that she got. Every time she ran through that fence. She didn’t care because what was on the other side of that was amazing. She would run through the whole neighborhood check out all the other dogs, go wander up to people’s porches, run in the street. Like she was nuts. And she loved it.
She was living her best life and all it required was, you know, some temporary discomfort and like not eating the chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen is the same thing. It’s like just can you deal with a little temporary discomfort. It’s not gonna last that long.
It might be 10 minutes, it might be 15 minutes, give yourself 15 minutes just say okay, you know what? Those cookies look amazing, but I’m just going to wait 15 minutes and if in 15 minutes, you still want the cookies you can reevaluate at that point. Okay, chances are, that’s going to kind of go away.
So the discomfort, it’s not like, it’s days and weeks of this stuff, a lot of times, it’s just a few minutes here and there. Or if you’re running a, you know, an ultra marathon or something like that there may be several hours of discomfort that you have to endure, to get to that goal.
And it could be, you know, a lot of a lot of uncomfortable runs, you know, uncomfortable training regimen, you know, whatever, whatever it is, it’s, it’s not a forever thing, right? But it is one of those things that, I want to encourage you to regularly step out of your comfort zone, because when you do this stuff regularly, it gets easier, your comfort zone gets bigger, the more you do it.
So things don’t end just because you got out of your comfort zone, once you get out of your comfort zone, you do something you accomplish something you never have before, guess what your comfort zone just got a little bigger. Oh, that’s kind of goal, right?
But your goal as a human being is to continue to grow, to continue to evolve to continue to become more, which means you have to regularly expand your comfort zone, you have to regularly do things that are uncomfortable, so that your comfort zone can continue to expand with your growth with your personal growth. So does your comfort zone grow.
So you got to be willing to bet against your comfort zone every day, all the time, like forever. This is just something you have to do. If this sounds terrible to you, it’s because it is it’s kind of it’s uncomfortable to do this. I’m not saying it’s comfortable. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s not. But this is the work that we do.
You don’t grow, evolve and become more and just like say, Well, I did that once and now I’m done. You don’t do that once and then go sit on the couch for the rest of your life. No, that’s not how we approach life. There’s no finish line. It’s not a destination we’re trying to get to it’s a way of living, we regularly leave our comfort zone to become more. And then we continue doing that.
Honestly, I wouldn’t want to live my life any other way. So all these hard things that you want to do in your life, and they’re hard, I get it. But I want you to approach these things with courage and with consistency. Consistently show up for yourself, have the courage to keep going even when things are hard, have the courage to feel uncomfortable. Sometimes things are hard, they take a long time. They don’t work, right? It doesn’t matter.
We don’t stop, we don’t quit. We don’t give up. We keep moving forward, we keep butting up against the edge of our comfort zone and keep making that bigger, keep expanding that comfort zone. That should be your goal. So your work becomes pushing yourself to the edge of that comfort zone daily. feeling that pain, right?
Deal with the discomfort and then move through it. And I hear people say this all the time, like oh, it’s such a struggle. I’m struggling with sugar. I’m struggling with alcohol. I’m struggling with my workouts, you’re not struggling. You’re just not willing to be uncomfortable for long enough.
Chances are your only struggle is your brain is telling you don’t do this. Go back to the safety of your comfort zone. So, you know they say the struggle is real. The struggle is actually not real. It’s just a story. You keep telling yourself the struggle is in your mind. Okay, it’s not easy doing this stuff. And it is uncomfortable. That’s the nature of it. But it’s not a struggle. Okay. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean. And I will talk to you soon.
There’s a lot of interesting food advice being given out these days by health and fitness “experts.” One in particular that has stood out to me lately goes something like, “Take a few days each …
Continue Reading about 223. The Problem with Eating Whatever You Want →
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 223, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today the problem with eating whatever you want. There’s a lot of interesting food advice being given out these days by quote unquote, like health and fitness experts.
One in particular that has kind of stood out to me lately goes something like this, take a few days each week and go crazy, eat whatever you want. You can’t be too restrictive with your diet. So I’ve done a lot of thinking about this idea. In fact, I’ve even tried it for a while I’m gonna talk about that later.
I’ve learned a lot about how this principle works, why it works, why it doesn’t work, mostly why it doesn’t work. And I’m going to share my thoughts with you about that today. So in this episode, I’m going to explain the problem with eating whatever you want, and offer maybe a better way to do things.
But first, if you’re listening to this podcast right now, it means that your health is important to you. You want to feel better, you want to look better, you want to get stronger, you want to run faster. And I’m here to tell you that all of that is possible for you.
I also want you to know that I am here to help you get there. Yes, I know I’m here talking to you on the podcast, I’m sharing all this information with you. And if you’re listening, awesome, you’re going to learn a lot. I listen to all sorts of podcasts and audiobooks. And I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff.
But when it comes to the practical application of all that knowledge, nothing has helped me more than having a coach there every step of the way to guide me to mentor me to help me stay on track. I’ve had several amazing coaches in my life, who have helped me to become who I am today.
I’m in the best shape of my life, I have a thriving business, my mindset has never been better. These amazing coaches helped me with all of that, in fact, they had such a powerful impact on me that they inspired me to want to be a coach myself.
Okay, so for you, the one listening to all these podcasts, keep listening, keep learning, keep expanding your knowledge, but when you’re ready to get to work, consider working with a coach, it doesn’t even have to be me, okay, but find somebody to show you the way to help you to apply all of this knowledge that you’re gaining to hold you accountable to help you stay on track, so that you can get better results and faster than you ever could on your own.
Okay, and if you are interested in working with me, awesome, just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. And you and I will work together to help you to become the most badass version of yourself yet. Cool.
All right, let’s talk about the problem with eating whatever you want. So there’s a trend out there. I’m starting to notice in the health and fitness industry, this has been going on for a while that basically says this every now and then you should be able to eat whatever you want, and it should be fine.
And I’m not diametrically opposed to this idea. Okay, I want to start out by saying that. So some people, they say, you know, just follow the 80/20 rule. If 80% of the time you’re eating healthy, then 20% of the time, you can do anything you want, and it’s totally fine. And I’m not even completely opposed to this concept. But I think if we’re doing a 20 around food, it might be a little too much of eating whatever you want.
Okay, so I did a little bit of math. And if you eat three times a day, for seven days, that’s 21 meals a week. Okay. So 20% 21 is 4.2 meals a week, where you get to eat anything you want. To me, that seems like a lot. Okay.
Then there’s something like Tim Ferris’ slow carb diet. So he has this thing called the slow carb diet. It’s from his book, The Four Hour Body, great book, by the way, a lot of good information in there.
And he has this kind of diet plan in there that says you know, just keep the carbs low. You know, don’t eat anything white, essentially. And there’s some interpretation as to what is considered white. It’s kind of like no sugar, no flour, no dairy, essentially. And you want to do that like six days a week, okay.
And then one day a week for the whole day, you should eat whatever you want. Literally eat anything, you can eat five pizzas, a dozen donuts at a time, ice cream at every meal. And the people that follow this kind of diet, I guess you could call it a diet usually have this one cheat day, whatever you want to call it.
They do this on Saturdays, and they’ve nicknamed it Fatterday. Because you gained like five pounds every Saturday. So the principle is, you know, one day a week, you get to do whatever you want. And people go crazy on this day. And I actually tried this a year or so ago I did this as an experiment to see, you know, what would happen to me, if I took on this all you can eat anything goes one day a week sort of mentality.
Okay, so I ate you know, I would eat doughnuts and pastries in the morning with coffee like and I don’t ever eat in the morning, I was eating french toast and pancakes for lunch, pizza for dinner. And then the most decadent ice cream I could find. Sometimes they get ice cream that’s like low carb ice cream that doesn’t have sugar in it.
But in this case, I was looking for what has the most fat and the most sugar like I was just going crazy. And I didn’t do this for too long. I don’t know, maybe a few weeks to a month, something like that. Because I have to tell you, that Saturday was amazing, like because I just was binging like crazy.
But I felt like total garbage for like five days afterwards. And on that one day, I would gain a bunch of weight. And it took like five days before that weight would come off again. And I would come back to normal. You know, just think about that.
Like every week, you’re doing something that is so bad for you really and makes you feel so terrible that it takes you like four or five days to just get back to normal again. Okay. So that was one problem with that.
Another problem with it was that I found myself counting the hours until Saturday, I was starting to like fantasize about food and all the junk food that I was going to eat and how many glazed doughnuts I could eat at once. And you know what kind of pizza I was going to be eating and buying ice cream. So I would have it ready.
And you know, because I’ve been avoiding all this junk for years. But I found my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about all this food. Right? This is not really healthy thinking. Okay. So needless to say, this diet did not really work for me, even though I loved it. Man, who doesn’t love binging out on a bunch of junk food like that? Right?
It wasn’t helping me to maintain my weight. I felt like crap all the time, my food cravings were through the roof. So there are several problems with with plans like this, whether it’s like four days, four meals a week, you know, whatever you want, you know, or one day a week, just do whatever. Like I think that that we have to come up with a better plan than this. Okay?
Some of the problems with this eating whatever you want mentality is that it doesn’t teach you how to take control of your eating, you know, for a long time. For me anyway, and I’m guessing for you, because this happens with a lot of people that I talk to.
They have issues about control, and they’re eating like they feel like they’re eating is out of control. And if you’re engaging in a behavior that promotes out of control, eating on a regular basis, this is not going to teach you how to take control of your eating over the long term. You’re going to constantly feel like this out of control behavior is not only okay, but it’s almost encouraged, you know.
So you’re not learning how to be a mindful eater, you know, and I talked about this recently on the podcast about the mindless eating and how we have to be more mindful about eating. And so this kind of behavior I think, is detrimental to that. I think it leads to more mindless Eating, and it doesn’t teach you anything. So, you know, people say, well, this is this is the only way that you can eat a healthy diet sustainably, you have to be able to let off the steam every now and then.
But I think that we’re just reinforcing some really terrible eating habits, you know, its its binge type of eating is what’s going on here a lot of times, and to me, it feels like, we’re just kind of giving people permission to keep the disordered eating patterns happening. Okay?
If you’re somebody that has ever suffered with any sort of eating disorder, you know, you, you know what this feels like. And you know that this is very difficult and very triggering for you. Maybe even just talking about it can feel it triggering for you.
But to keep reinforcing that binge type of eating is, I think it’s going to kind of mess you up in the long term, okay, because it’s not teaching you how to be that mindful eater, how to be that person that is in control of what they’re doing.
Not to mention that, you know, eating whatever you want is, it’s not healthy for you not physically healthy, not mentally healthy, not emotionally healthy. It’s not physically healthy, because anything that you eat, that is so full of sugar and junk food, and you know, fried food, and, you know, all of the bread and refined grains and flour, that stuff just makes you inflamed, it makes you hold on to a lot of your weight.
It makes you feel lethargic, it makes you have brain fog, like you can’t think clearly. You know, it raises your blood sugar and insulin levels, it can really lead to some serious health effects, you know, really can lead to diabetes and things like that, if not, if done regularly, obviously. But it’s kind of like you’re you’re dabbling with poison here.
You know, it’s kind of like drinking alcohol, where alcohol is poison. You know, ethanol, the main ingredient that makes alcohol give you a buzz is poisonous, toxic, if you drink enough alcohol, you will die. It will kill you. But if you do it in small doses, it’s not too bad. But it’s still poison.
All right, we’re still eating poison. When you’re eating all this junk food here, you’re just doing it in smaller doses, but it’s not physically healthy. It’s not good for you, okay? And I think from a mental and emotional standpoint, it’s really bad for you, because it’s not teaching you good eating habits.
It’s promoting disordered eating patterns. It’s not allowing you to learn how to take control of your emotions, you’re basically eating your feelings, your eating, because you’re, you’re voracious, and you have this huge desire to eat, you’re eating because you’re stressed out, or whatever it is, whatever the reasons are, it’s hard for us as humans to learn how to take control of how they think and feel, when we’re eating a huge amount of junk food all the time.
This is akin to telling an alcoholic to just go on a bender once a week, or twice a week, you know, just to let off some steam, you know, because that’s going to be more sustainable for you. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.
As somebody who used to drink, I don’t anymore, I don’t think that’s a very good idea at all. Because for an alcoholic, you know, one drink leads to more drinks. You know, for somebody that has some issues around food, eating a bunch of junk food like that can just lead to more of that type of behavior.
And you’re not changing the behavior, we’ve got to take control of the behavior. Okay, I’m not opposed to eating this stuff every now and then. Not at all. But I think that, you know, somehow we’re treating your body like a garbage can. And we’re telling ourselves this story that it’s good for us. It’s really not.
Right, you’re not learning, any type of self-control here. You’re not learning how to deal with your emotions, like an adult. You know, you’re acting like a toddler, what does a toddler do? A toddler kicks and screams and cries oh, I want it my way I want I want things my way. And they and they will cry and scream until they get what they want. And we’re kind of doing the same things.
We have these feelings and we’re like, I don’t want to feel this way. So you just eat a bunch of junk food and you feel better. A little better, just for a few minutes doesn’t last. You’re actually not dealing with any of the issues and you’re not learning how to have emotions. You’re emotionally acting like a toddler, okay? We want to be emotional adults, not emotional toddlers, okay?
So this idea that we should be able to eat whatever we want to let off steam or whatever, they’re selling you this idea because they’re telling you, it’s the only sustainable way to eat because eating healthy all the time is not sustainable. You know, you have to get into those cravings or you’re gonna go crazy. This is what they tell you.
Okay, but what if you will learn how to dial down the volume of those cravings? What if those cravings weren’t as strong anymore? What if you thought about eating some ice cream for a minute, and you’re like, man, ice cream wouldn’t be good right now. It’s not really on my plan. I’m cool. I don’t really need it, I’m fine.
You’re gonna have those thoughts every now and then. But they don’t have to take over your life. They don’t have to become so strong that you have to go and give in to those cravings. Just because you have a craving for something doesn’t mean you have to go and have that thing. Right? If this is a new concept for you, I’m glad you’re here. Okay.
What if you learned how to manage your mind and you learn how to manage your emotions, so that you no longer needed to binge eat over them? Right? Wouldn’t that be more sustainable and healthier than, you know, blowing off some steam a couple times a week, just because you can’t deal with the emotional stuff. I think it’s more important to deal with how you think and feel than it is to like, binge out all the time.
So what if you learn how to handle all these emotions in your life, the good, the bad, the ugly, what if you didn’t need to turn to food to just feel better all the time? You know, this would be amazing. It’s a big game changer for you. When we’re giving in to all these cravings all the time, and we’re allowing ourselves to binge eat like that. Food has a power over you. Because you’re engaging in this binging behavior, you’re allowing food to be to be in control of you food is in the driver’s seat.
Food has the power over you, you have given up your power and your control to food. This is ridiculous. Don’t do this. You’re giving up control of your mental and emotional state to food. Right? Alcoholics do ,drug addicts do this. People who are addicted to food do this.
So there’s a better way to do things, there’s a better approach. And the approach is this learn how to manage your thoughts and feelings. That’s it. That’s the work. It’s that simple. It’s that simple. Stop using a substance food, alcohol drugs to manage how you feel. You got to get really good at just dealing with life just as it is the good, the bad, the ugly, the really ugly. All of it, you just have to be able to handle it all. Like an emotional adult. Okay.
I used to use alcohol this way. For 25 years I drank so that I wouldn’t have to feel, period. That’s why I drank because I didn’t want to deal with all these feelings stress, anger, fear, resentment, guilt, shame, frustration. I didn’t want to deal with any of that stuff. And I drank and I felt better. It worked.
Kind of came with all these negative consequences. My health was terrible. My relationships with everyone were terrible. I ended up getting a divorce. People didn’t want to be around me anymore. I generally felt miserable all the time. And when I quit drinking, this was back in 2007. I had to learn how to live my life without numbing, without the crutch, without escaping my thoughts and feelings. And it worked.
It worked for a period of time until I turned to food to fill that void because I got off the alcohol but then I was like oh food that gives me that buzz that I used to get that gives me that numbing sensation I used to this helps me to not have to deal with my thoughts and feelings anymore. Yay.
But then the foods started to not work for me and I started to gain a bunch of weight, you know, and I started to feel terrible. And I had to learn how to deal with all the thoughts and feelings all over again. All right.
This time I had to do it without any sort of external coping mechanism, right? So I made the decision when I stopped eating junk food – sugar, pizza, ice cream – and made the decision that I was going to start embracing my life, just the way it was everything and the way that I felt, and in my thoughts, my thoughts and feelings, were not going to, like control me that I was going to take control over that stuff that I wasn’t going to turn to food or drugs or alcohol to feel better.
I haven’t had a drink in 17 years, and my life is vastly richer and more rewarding because of it. I stopped using food to feel better. I haven’t done that in five years, I have never felt better. I’m in the best shape of my life, physically, but also in the best shape of my life, mentally, emotionally, I can handle everything that life throws at me.
And I’ve gone through a lot of hard stuff in the last few years, and I don’t have to eat a bunch of doughnuts. Just because you know, life is stressful. You know, I’ve done the work. It’s not easy, it’s hard. It takes time. There are setbacks, there is discomfort. It takes time.
But this is the work that we commit to. And the people that I work with, the clients that I work with, they get this, they’re here for it, they show up, and they’re ready to embrace the sock, you know, they don’t do it perfectly. No one does, by the way, not even me. But they stick with it.
They make progress, they get better at it, they learn how to be emotional adults, they learn how to stop using food to feel better, they learn how to stop the binging behavior. And when you learn this work, when you learn how to take control of your thoughts and feelings.
Everything in your life becomes easier. This stuff doesn’t apply just to food. It applies to every area of your life, your relationships are better, your work is better. Your friendships are better your relationship with your kids is better. You’re happier person. Because you’ve learned how to handle the stress the board and the frustration, anger all without having to eat over it.
Okay, you’re going to learn how to have a little discomfort, like that’s part of the process. But you’re going to learn how to just deal with the discomfort and you don’t have to feel better right away. This is the path to becoming the healthy, healthiest and most badass version of yourself honestly.
So you might be thinking, you know, okay, I’m listening to you, Patrick. I’m hearing all this stuff. But in the back of my mind, you’re like, Okay, does this mean I can never eat a doughnut again? Can I have pizza sometimes? Please, you know? And yeah, absolutely. You don’t have to like give up these foods for the rest of your life. That is not what I’m talking about here. I eat those things on occasion.
Food is meant to be enjoyed, right? We celebrate with food. If it’s your birthday, eat some cake. You don’t have to eat a birthday salad. Nobody wants to eat a birthday salad. Okay. But you have to do the work I’m talking about here today.
First, you have to change your thoughts and feelings, you have to change your relationship with food before you can start enjoying these things every now and then. Okay, you have to learn how to dial down the volume of the desire. Learn how to handle your thoughts and feelings.
Learn how to handle life on life’s terms, you’ve got to get past the need for the binging type of behavior. When you do all that you can experience true freedom around food because you’re no longer powerless, you’ve taken your power back, you’ve taken back control, you’re now in charge again, then you can start eating the stuff on occasion.
And I don’t recommend the 20% rule, or the one day a week you get to do whatever you want. I don’t think that’s really healthy for a lot of reasons that I’ve already talked about. But I do talk to my clients about getting to this place where maybe there’s one meal a week that you can go a little bit off the plan. And that might be a 90% or 95% rule, something like that sort of 80/20 It’s like 90/10 or 95/5, you know, something like that.
And, but you can’t do that from day one. Like we have to get control of food first, before you can start dabbling with some of this junk food. The junk food is not the it’s not the main problem. The problem is really our relationship with this stuff. So we got to fix that first. When you fix that first then you can enjoy a piece of pizza every now and then.
I do eat pizza a couple times a year, I do eat ice cream a couple times a year. Desserts here and there, a piece of chocolate here and there. I don’t eat a lot of sugar to be honest with you. The thing that I crave more than anything else would be like baked goods, bread, pizza, that kind of stuff. Okay?
So you can do this on occasion, but you gotta get in control of your thoughts and feelings. You got to change that relationship with food first. Okay? That’s very important. Very important. We don’t want to be eating out of control. We don’t want to be eating powerlessly.
We want to be eating mindfully. We want to be mindful of about our plan and then sticking to that plan we want to be intentional and mindful around food and that takes a little bit of time.
And as always, I’m always here to help you with all this you know, if you’re interested in working with me just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. And you and I will get started on your journey. Cool. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will 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.
I think we all know that eating too much sugar is not good for you. Excess sugar consumption has been linked to all sorts of metabolic dysfunction like high blood pressure, excess weight gain, …
Continue Reading about 187. Why Moderating Sugar is so Difficult →
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 187 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, why moderating sugar is so difficult. So I think we all know that eating too much sugar is not good for you.
Excess sugar consumption has been linked to all sorts of metabolic dysfunctions like high blood pressure, excess weight gain, insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes, just to name a few. So the solution is pretty simple. Just don’t eat so much sugar, moderate your sugar intake. Easy, right?
Why does it sound so easy, but is it so hard in practice? Why is moderating sugar so difficult? Today I’m going to take a deep dive into why this is, why moderating sugar is so difficult, and offer up some practical tips to help you take control of those sugar cravings.
But first, why is it so hard to lose weight and keep it off? How many times have you tried and failed? Contrary to what you might think and what most people think there isn’t anything wrong with you, you’re not a failure. There are a few reasons why most people fail at losing weight. Number one, probably you’re not willing to get uncomfortable.
Most people don’t want to experience any type of discomfort, especially when we’re talking about food. The truth is, if you want to lose weight, you have to do things differently. This means embracing a little bit of discomfort, okay, change is uncomfortable.
If you don’t accept that the journey will be uncomfortable and you are setting yourself up for failure. Okay, so you have to understand that you got to get uncomfortable.
Number two, you’re kind of blaming everyone and everybody else for your lack of success. If you go off track, you don’t stick to your plan. You blame someone or something, you know, the boss, the school, whatever it is, you’re destined to fail.
People who fail tend to have a lot of excuses. They have reasons, they have stories, they blame other people for why things don’t work for them, okay? The only one responsible for your actions, though, is you, okay? So don’t blame anybody else. Take responsibility for your successes, and failures, and act appropriately.
Number three, number three, you just give up way too easily. Successful people, they just don’t give up. They keep going no matter what. Even if it’s hard, even if it takes a while. Even if it seems like it’s not working. If you want to succeed at losing weight and keeping it often you have to stop giving up right? You just have to keep going.
Okay, so these are the three things that you need to stop doing. If you want to be successful at weight loss, you know, be willing to get uncomfortable, stop blaming other people, take responsibility, and then don’t give up.
Okay, by the way, if you want help with all of this, I’m here for you, you can always join the Running Lean Coaching Project. That is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more.
And if you want a little help, just getting started with all this stuff, I created a cool training program that you can watch for free. It’s like an hour-long training program. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to find that and get started. Cool.
Okay, so today we’re talking about sugar. This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I talk a lot about sugar, a lot about the issues around sugar. And one thing that I’ve stressed is that I think for most people, you know, there’s not one diet that’s going to work for everybody, right?
But I think for most people that reducing and moderating your sugar intake is going to go a long way in helping you to become a healthier human being. It’ll help to, you know, help you to get fat adapted, it’ll help you to increase your endurance, it’ll help you to be burning more fat in general, which gives you more energy throughout the day.
It helps with cravings in general like there’s lots of reasons why we want to moderate our sugar intake. And so we all know this, we all know that we shouldn’t be eating as much sugar. But moderating it is so difficult, right? It’s so hard for so many people to eat some sugar or they stop for a while, then they go back to binging out on it again or whatever.
Why is this? Why is it so hard to moderate sugar when moderating other foods is easy? Like it’s not hard to moderate broccoli intake, right? It’s not hard to moderate chicken intake, or steak or eggs or, you know, brussel sprouts? Why is sugar different? What makes it different?
So I want to answer that question today. And I will, but we have to understand that excess sugar leads to all kinds of issues from a metabolic standpoint, higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes leads to fatty liver disease.
An increased risk for heart attack and stroke like these are serious things. This isn’t like, oh, you know, it, you just shouldn’t eat sugar because it’s, you know, might give you cavities or something. No, these are like some serious issues we’re talking about here.
Okay, so we know eating too much sugar is not good for us. We all know that. It’s hard to moderate, it’s hard to give up. It’s hard to control. So why is this, first of all, and then what can we do about it?
So these are the questions I’m going to answer here today. The first thing I want to mention here is kind of go over, you know, I talk to runners, you’re probably a runner, if you’re listening to this podcast, I want to talk about fat adapted running and what that means.
So when you’re a fat adapted runner, this means that you have just improved your body’s natural ability to burn fat, that is our natural state as human beings to store some of the energy that we get from food as fat and then to be able to burn that energy later on. Okay?
So improved fat burning means that you will improve your running endurance, because fat is a great source of fuel for endurance activities for running and cycling, and swimming, and rowing and all kinds of things, it means that you’ll have improved endurance, improved recovery, running will become easier for you.
But in order to get fat adapted, you have to really lower the amount of sugar that you’re eating, right. Sometimes I tell people to take a break for 30 days, or, you know, just really dramatically reduce your daily intake. And this requires a little bit of a change in lifestyle, right?
You can’t go, you know, eating all the sugar every other day, if you want to stay fat adapted, like you have to lower your sugar intake and kind of keep it low for a while. It’s a little bit different for each person.
I can’t tell you exactly how much you need to lower it and how many days you need to stay there. And when you’re going to raise it, what you need to bring it up to, because it’s a little bit different for each person. But just understand, it doesn’t mean you never eat sugar again, it just means you’ve got to eat less than you’re probably used to.
Okay, so maintaining a lifestyle, a lower sugar lifestyle is what we’re talking about here. If you want to improve your running and you want to stay fat adapted, you’ve got to maintain a sort of a lower sugar lifestyle.
So doing this is challenging, because of all the reasons I’m going to talk about here today. But sugar is so powerful, it is a powerful food substance that makes it very difficult to maintain a lifestyle free from sugar or low in sugar. Okay.
So one of the things that I talk about with people and they want out of my coaching is they want to get fat adapted, and they want to stay that way. They love how they feel when they’re fat adapted, they love how it improves their running, they can run faster, they can run longer, they have this all day energy, they’re sleeping better, their mood is better, like there’s so many good things with being fat adapted that they want to maintain that and they find it difficult because sugar is a powerful thing.
Okay, so and then the other part of this is weight loss. So the other part is if you want to reach your weight loss goals, you’ve got to lower your sugar intake because again, we’re talking about burning fat here, right?
You know, as our natural state as humans, we are good fat burners, we want to, we kind of prefer glucose or sugar as a fuel, but it’s like a paper, it burns very hot, but very quickly, we want to tap into that fat which is more like burning logs.
Fat burns for much, much longer. It doesn’t burn quite as hot so to speak, but it burns much longer. Okay. So we want to tap into that stored body fat as a source of fuel for running but also that’s how you lose weight. You’ve got to burn the fat, right? And again, this requires you to moderate your sugar intake.
So if you want to lose weight, you want to become a fat adapted runner, we’ve got to moderate our sugar intake and just about every doctor and dietitian out there will agree that yeah, this is the case. If you want to lose weight, then you need to moderate sugar intake.
So we have an interesting thing happening here. Burning fat will help you to become metabolically healthier to help you to lose weight, you’ll improve your blood work, you’ll have less inflammation, lower blood pressure, all these things, it also helps improve your running performance running becomes easier, you can go longer, push harder, recover faster, all those things. But it just requires one thing, just moderate sugar intake. Okay, simple.
This is so simple right? Now, there are other things that contribute to becoming healthy and to becoming your healthiest self, you know, you want to stay strong, you got to do resistance training, you got to manage stress, you got to make sure you’re getting quality sleep every night, we got to you know, address mental and emotional health.
But one big lever that we can pull is going to be moderating your sugar intake. Okay, if you want to get your body moving in the right direction, then moderating sugar intake is going to be the biggest, the biggest lever that you can pull to get that started. Okay, simple, right? Simple, but not easy.
So almost every person that I work with tells me that they have a hard time moderating sugar or they have in the past. They’re on point with a lot of other areas of their health and fitness, you know, they’re running is on point they’re doing resistance training, or, and they’re sticking with their training program for their, you know, maybe they’re training for a marathon.
They do the cross training they’re supposed to, and they never miss their workouts like they’re on point with all these areas. But when it comes to sugar, they’re like, oh, yeah, that’s my weakness. That is my weakness. And if this sounds like you just know that it’s super common, you’re not alone. There’s nothing wrong with you.
In fact, it means you’re pretty normal, but if you want to become metabolically healthier, if you want to lose weight, if you want to improve your running, then we’re gonna have to get this whole sugar thing figured out. Okay?
So why is it so hard to moderate sugar? First, you have to understand that there are many factors involved with why we want sugar, why we crave it. There are a lot of different drivers. And I’m going to talk about those drivers here in just a moment.
There are some that are physiological drivers that work on our biology, there are some mental and emotional drivers. And then there’s external drivers. Those are factors that are outside of ourselves that make moderating our sugar intake very difficult.
So I want you to think about each of these drivers as like a gas pedal, like pretend like you are a car and each one of these is like an accelerator. And each one of these increases your craving for sugar. Alright, so here’s what I’m talking about.
The first one is this, the first driver is taste. And the taste of sugar is a powerful driver. We have receptors in our mouth, around our mouth, on our lips, or tongue or soft palate that all scents the sweet taste of sugar.
When we taste something sweet, it sends signals to our brain that we are about to get something sweet. And it increases dopamine, dopamine, and it feels good. And immediately, our craving for sugar is increased.
So this first driver, this first accelerator happens right away. As soon as we taste something that is sweet, our sugar cravings get increased. And we want more sugar right now. And that causes us to want to eat more sugar.
It also causes us to want to eat more food in general. So every time we have this receptor that sends dopamine to our brain about sugar, and it’s saying like, oh, this is a good thing. We want more of this. It also increases our wanting and craving for more food in general. All right. So the first driver is going to be the taste of sugary foods in our mouth.
The second gas pedal that gets pushed here is an increase in our blood sugar and this happens in our gut. So when you eat sugary food this causes your blood sugar to spike and it causes an increase in your blood sugar, which is normal. This increase in blood sugar also sends signals to your brain to release dopamine. And again, your sugar cravings go up and your food cravings go up.
And they’ve done these studies where they’ve fed rats sugary foods. But they’ve removed their taste receptors, so they can’t taste the sweetness of the foods. So they don’t have that sweet taste of the food in their mouth. Just the sugar is just being ingested.
And these rats will eat more sugar because of that, because they’re eating sugar, they’re eating, they want more sugar, and they eat more food in general. All right. This is also the main reason why food companies try to sneak sugar into everything. Even if you can’t taste it. They’re still sneaking sugar into foods.
Because if what you eat causes a higher spike in your blood sugar, you’re going to crave more of that food. And you’re going to want to eat more of that food in particular and more food in general.
And the food companies know this because if you’re eating more of their food, they’re making more money. They don’t care about your health. They care about the bottom line. Okay. So some of the crazy places where they hide food and you wouldn’t really know this. Some of them may taste a little bit sweet like low fat yogurt.
We all know that if you look at yogurt, it’ll say like, oh, low fat yogurt is healthy and good for you. Look at the label, it’s like all sugar. Okay, so be careful of that one, but other ones are a little more sneaky, like pasta sauce. Almost all pasta sauce has added sugar. Look at the label. Other sauces. Almost all condiments have sugar in them. So just be careful.
But this one is weird, like gravy. Why does gravy have sugar in it? Again as to make you crave more of that food. canned soup has a lot of sugar in it. Salad dressings, nut butters, which should be what they should be just nuts. Like you’d grind up some almonds and you make almond butter. But no, they add sugar to that to make it more delicious.
Crackers have a ton of sugar and bread gets added sugar, beef jerky. I love beef jerky, and I go out of my way to find one. I think the brand is Tillamook. And they have a no sugar beef jerky. So, and it tastes delicious, by the way, but you’ve got to be careful of this.
So there’s this other accelerator that’s forcing us to crave more sugar. And it’s happening in our gut and we don’t even necessarily taste the sugar, but it is happening in our gut. And so just understand that those food companies are out there. They’re pushing that accelerator.
Okay, so now we have a car with two accelerators. It’s hard to put the brakes on when you got two accelerators going. Okay, what if you have a third accelerator? All right, well, the third accelerator, the third like gas pedal that’s being pressed here happens in your brain.
And understand that glucose is one of your brain’s preferred fuel sources. The other one is ketones, which are a byproduct of fat burning. Okay, so ketones and glucose, your brain needs about half and half of these in order to function properly.
And so, you know, if you’re somebody that doesn’t eat sugar at all, you’re going to get all the glucose you need because your brain gets the glucose it needs from your liver, your liver will produce glucose in a process called gluconeogenesis. And it provides your brain with all the sugar that it needs to function properly.
Ketones get provided when you’re in a fasting state. So anytime you haven’t been eating for about eight hours, you’re burning some fat and you’re producing some ketones and you’re getting all the ketones that you need, we’re all producing ketones to some degree, as long as you’re burning some fat, right.
And this is a natural state for humans to be in, in this sort of fasted state where you’re producing some ketones, right so your brain needs both of these fuels. And so that is another driver that is causing your brain to crave more sugar because when you eat sugar, your brain sees this as oh, this is one of my preferred fuel sources.
And will increase your craving for more sugar and your brain doesn’t really know that too much sugar is bad for you. It just says, oh sugar, we want more of this. And so it turns on this process of craving. So just understand that sugar is one of the preferred fuels for your brain and just having that as a fact is it is a little bit of an accelerator of the craving for sugar.
Okay, so now we have three accelerators right, we have taste, we have an increase in blood sugar, and then we have this preferred fuel source. All three of these things drive our sugar cravings up, they all cause us to eat more sugar and eat more food. In general, people who eat more sugar will naturally want to eat more sugar, and they are prone to eat more food as well.
So if you’re trying to lose weight, and you’re eating sugar, then an increased appetite. And an increased appetite for sugar is going to make losing weight very challenging. So just understand this, right? So we have this car or human person here with three accelerators all going at the same time.
Really increasing our sugar cravings, making us want more and more sugar more and more food in general. So putting on the brakes, and slowing this car down is challenging, right. So these are the three physiological drivers. Okay, there’s a couple other ones I want to mention here, that make it pretty difficult to moderate sugar intake.
So the fourth accelerator, I’m going to call this, I’m going to lump the mental and emotional factors into this fourth accelerator here. So the first thing about the addictive qualities of sugar, this is like the mental cravings that we have for sugar.
So sugar increases dopamine, which makes us feel good. It also causes us to want to eat more sugar, which increases our dopamine even further, eventually, our dopamine baseline gets increased, meaning that you need more and more dopamine just to feel normal again.
So what’s going to get you to feel normal again? Well, eating more sugar, of course, and then this vicious cycle just continues, and it keeps pushing your dopamine levels up. So all the while you’re gaining weight, you’re feeling terrible, because you’re not getting the same effect from the sugar because you’ve increased your baseline, right.
So this is the same cycle that people go through with alcohol and drug addiction. And studies continue to show that sugar is just as addictive as some drugs like cocaine. So you have to understand that this is a powerful mental driver. There is a physiological process going on underneath the covers here, but understand that this is a very powerful mental driver that causes us to want to feel better.
Okay, and it’s the addictive quality of sugar. So just understand, we got to fight against this, these are all things that are kind of working against us here, okay. And don’t worry, I’m going to talk about some things we can do. And just know that there are some solutions here. Okay.
The other one is the emotional side of this. So this is where you use sugar as an emotional management tool or like a coping mechanism, right. And most people do this, most people have used food in some form or another as emotional, an emotional management tool.
Basically, you’ve just trained yourself for decades, that whenever you feel unwanted emotions, that you eat something like you have some chocolate and you’ll feel better. So just unlearning this is a big challenge in itself, just unlearning how to not do this, like not use sugar to manage your emotions can be challenging in itself.
But you really have to learn how to just deal with your emotions. So you know, the process looks like this, you have a difficult emotion, you eat sugar, and you feel a little better immediately. The problem with this though, is it doesn’t last.
There’s a rebound effect, where you actually feel worse, after that Sugar Rush wears off. And you haven’t addressed the emotional stuff that’s actually causing you to feel bad. So you eat more sugar to try to feel good again. And then again, we’re in this vicious cycle of like, not really dealing with our emotions, and we’re, you know, messing up our dopamine baseline and all these things.
So the answer is you’ve got to stop using sugar to manage your emotions. So when you do this, when people stop using sugar as an emotional management tool, then they’ve got to like deal with the emotions, they gotta like, feel bad. That means you’ve got to allow the emotion to be there without doing anything to dull it, or make it go away.
And this process is not comfortable. And it is not fun. But it is very, very powerful. And one of the most powerful things that you can do for yourself. So I want to encourage you to stop managing your emotions with sugar and start dealing with those feelings. Just feel the feelings, right, feel the feelings, let it be uncomfortable. Eventually they go away.
You know, nobody has felt a strong emotion forever. So it will go away. Sometimes it’s 15 minutes, sometimes it’s an hour, 24 hours, sometimes it takes a few days. But, you know, typically, there’s no emotion that’s going to last forever.
Think about the worst emotions you felt in your life. You know, years and years ago, that, you know, you’ve gotten over. And you haven’t even thought about that for a long time. Okay, so got to stop using sugar as an emotional management tool. So that’s the fourth accelerator that we have causing us to want more sugar and craving more sugar.
And the fifth one, I’m going to call these external forces. So what are these external forces, these are things that are outside of ourselves. One of them is the marketing that food companies do. And I kind of mentioned a little bit of this earlier when they sneak sugar into food, right.
So their whole goal, the food company’s goal is to sell more food. So they just want you to eat more food, so they can sell more food and make more money. That’s it. They know exactly what they’re doing. They know how all these processes work that I just talked about here.
They know all the physiological, mental and emotional drivers causing us to crave food. And they take advantage of all of them. They exploit all of these factors, so that you will eat as much of their junk food as possible.
So your job is to recognize this, know that it is happening, it’s not going to stop on its own. But you have to take control, you have to make better choices. Pretty much just stay away from packaged food, stay away from food with a marketing message behind it, pretty much I mean, read labels, you got to get really good at reading labels, right.
But if most of the food that you eat doesn’t have a label on it, you’re just eating a whole food, like real food that still looks like food, it’s not ground up, it’s not emulsified, it’s not ultra processed, it’s just like a strawberry, a egg, a piece of meat.
Like if you’re just eating eggs, and meat and fish and dairy and fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds and all this real food, then you don’t have to worry about any of this. And eating this way doesn’t really ever get boring in my opinion. It’s always fun and delicious, and will improve your health immediately.
So you don’t need all the marketing, you know, they’re gonna tell you that this food is gonna be, it’s gonna change your life, it’s so amazing. But just stay away from all that stuff. Stay away from all that. And you will grow to love eating simple and quote unquote boring foods. It’ll become your new normal.
And then the last part of this, like external forces, would be social pressure. This is like friends and family who, you know, they mean well, but they’ll say things like, oh, well, you know, I just want you to have a good time or, you know, you deserve to live a little, come on. It’s just, it’s okay. It’s just one donut, don’t worry about it.
You know, you deserve it, you’ve been good all week. You know, they want to make you a part of their crappy eating party. You know, they want to make you feel guilty for not eating the dessert that they made.
You know, they tell tell you stuff like you know what sugar is not the problem. You just have to cut your calories. All foods are okay, in moderation. Well, we know that’s not true. Everything I’ve talked about today tells us that, you know, eat not eating sugar in excess is very difficult. Right?
So there’s this social pressure, this peer pressure that will always be there, always gonna be a thing. It’s out of your control, like, you know what people think or say or do around you like you have no control over that. It’s up to you, though, how you respond to it. Okay.
The only thing you could control is your own thoughts, feelings and actions. You can’t control what other people think do or say. So you can’t control them. But you do have control over what you make all that mean about you or not, and how you respond to that.
So I always just smile at people and say like, you know what? You might be right. And when they tell me something like it’s okay, you should have a little or you know, sugar’s okay, you should just live it up.
Just say like, you know what? You might be right. And it just kind of shuts the conversation down right there. You know, it’s not aggressive. I’m telling the truth. I’m like, hey, you know what, you might be right. But at the same time, I’m kind of saying like, also you might be wrong. Okay. Little subtlety there.
But I like this phrase because it immediately diffuses the sugar pushers. Okay. So now we have five accelerators all going at the same time. Right we have taste we have an increase in blood sugar. We have our brain’s preferred fuel source, we’ve got an addictive quality of sugar, we’ve got using sugar as an emotional management tool. We have marketing messages, we have social pressure.
All this can make moderating sugar extremely difficult, right? Do you understand now why putting the brakes on sugar is so hard, you’ve got five accelerators all going at the same time. Okay? But just understanding all of this should help you.
Understanding all of this should help you to start making better choices around food for yourself. And I’m not saying that sugar is bad, or that you should stop eating sugar altogether. You know, listen, life is for living, you should enjoy some foods every now and then. I enjoy a little dark chocolate here and there.
What did I eat recently, I had a piece of cake recently. Which was not really all that good. I’m not a big fan of cake, to be honest with you. Cheesecake on the other hand, love, love, love me some cheesecake. But you have to understand that the cards are stacked against us when it comes to moderating sugar intake.
Sugar is powerful. It’s a powerful substance. Is it a drug man, that’s just let’s just say it’s like a drug. Right? It has the same effect on our bodies and our brains, right? So be armed with this information so you can make better choices around food in your life and around sugar, especially a few suggestions.
Try to avoid the hyper palatable foods. So these are the foods that are overly amazing, right stick to eating whole foods. Stay away from packaged foods. If you’re going to eat food with a package, read the label carefully. Watch out for hidden sugars. Sugar comes in many, many names. I think there’s like 96 different names that they use for sugar in packaging. And they do this to confuse us. They do it so they can hide the sugar.
So understand those 96 names for sugar, and be on the lookout for them. Start learning how to deal with your emotions. Without using sugar to numb yourself to your emotions. Just feel your feelings, right. Learn how to say no to the social pressures around sugar, the peer pressure that you get from others.
And maybe one thing that you can do that tends to help people just kind of reset their brain and their body which is to just take a break from eating sugar, maybe 30 days. 30 days away from sugar can reset your dopamine levels. It can help you to get rid of the cravings that you have for sugar. It can do wonders for you physically, get you burning fat again, and helps with mental clarity. It’ll help with your emotions because now you’ve learned how to start dealing with your emotions.
So maybe a break is an order of always if you want help with any of this stuff, reach out I got you okay. That’s all I got for you today here. I hope you got something out of this episode. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
