Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
If you want to succeed at anything - losing weight, running a faster marathon - there is one thing you have to start doing. This one thing is nothing you don’t already know, but no one really likes …
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When it comes to accomplishing big goals, you have to expect things to get hard. For example, losing weight takes time, and for some it can be a long and challenging road to get there. Yes, …
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 →
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 250 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Three Things You Need To Do To Get Yourself Unstuck. So have you ever felt like you just can’t seem to make progress towards a goal? Have you ever found it difficult to get started eating the right way or exercising regularly? Or have you ever made some progress towards a goal, but then you hit a plateau and you just can’t seem to get things going again? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then congratulations, you are normal. It also means that you’ve probably felt stuck at some point in your life and found it difficult to get unstuck. So in this episode, I’ve got three things you need to do to get yourself unstuck so that you can continue making progress toward your goals.
But first, if you’re looking for some help reaching your goals, if you have certain health and fitness goals that you’re trying to accomplish by the end of the year, we’ve got a couple of months until the end of this year, plenty of time to get started and make a lot of progress towards those goals. Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to improve your running? Do you want to be able to run faster, run longer? Do you want to get stronger? Do you want to build a stronger frame to help you with running? Do you want to improve your running? Well, getting stronger is one of the ways you can do that. All these things are possible for you, and if you want a little bit of help getting there, absolutely think about getting a coach. And if it’s me, great. If it’s somebody else, that’s fine too. But with a coach, you get guidance, you get direction, you get feedback, you get support, you get accountability, you get motivation, you get encouragement. All these things that you get from a coach will help you to stay on track and keep making progress towards your goals. Today we’re talking about being stuck and getting yourself unstuck. Having a coach is one of the best ways to avoid getting stuck in the first place. So if you’re interested in getting a little bit of help making sure that you never have to worry about being stuck, just go to my website, running leancoaching.com, click on work with me. You and I will have a conversation, and we can talk about exactly what it would look like for you to become the most badass version of yourself yet, go to runningleancoaching.com, click on work with me. Awesome.
Okay, so today, three things you need to do to get yourself unstuck. I’ve been thinking about this today because I hear from a lot of people in my day to day life, some people I work with, not too often, though, because with a coach, you know, a lot of the people I work with, they don’t ever really get stuck, but maybe people that are interested in coaching that I talk to, they tell me that they feel stuck. They’ve tried to lose weight, and it worked for a certain amount of time, and then it stopped working, and now they’re stuck. They don’t know what to do, or they’ve wanted to lose weight for a long time, and they’ve been stuck at this weight forever, and they just can’t seem to get things moving. Or maybe they are interested in running a marathon or something like that, and they have tried to get started with that, and it just hasn’t worked. Or they have, you know, made some progress, but they can’t get past a 5k without feeling like they’re gonna die, and so they just feel stuck. We’ve all felt this way before.
I kind of mentioned that in the intro here, that if you’ve ever felt stuck before in your life, it’s very normal. This is very normal. But I want you to think about this as I’m going through some of the stuff I’m talking about here today, which is that being stuck is really just a mindset. It’s a state of mind. It’s not real. You’re never really stuck. You’re just acting like you are. I know this might be hard for some of you to hear, but I want you to really be open to this and just listen today with this concept in mind that being stuck is just a state of mind. It’s not real. You’re acting like you’re stuck, but you’re not really stuck.
Because here’s the thing, it’s easier to just say I’m stuck than to take the uncomfortable action of getting yourself unstuck, and that’s exactly what we’re going to be talking about here today, is that uncomfortable action of getting yourself unstuck. But just keep in mind that there is no such thing as being stuck. It’s just a state of mind that you are in.
Okay, so number one, the first thing you need to do to get yourself unstuck if you’re feeling stuck, is to stop procrastinating. Now you might think I don’t really procrastinate, but we all procrastinate. Everybody procrastinates to some level, to some degree, some more than others, some in different areas of their life. We all know that there are things that we should be doing or want to be doing, and we’re not doing those things, or we’re putting them off. We’re saying to ourselves, or telling us this ourselves, this story, that I will do it tomorrow. That’s classic procrastination, right? So why? Why are we sort of addicted to procrastination? What is this thing about procrastination?
Well, when you need to do something that’s tough, like, you know, changing your diet or going outside to run and it’s cold out, just thinking about these things brings up resistance. You know, resistance is a word that describes all the pain and the discomfort that shows up whenever you do hard things. So this is why a lot of times people will do anything, but that one thing that feels hard, you know. So there a lot of times people will, instead of going outside and running, it’s cold outside, people don’t want to go outside and run. So what they’ll do is they will start cleaning the house. When they’re telling themselves, oh, well, I’m just, I’m just cleaning the house. But cleaning the house is just something you’ve done a million times. It’s safe, it’s comfortable, it’s familiar. And then at the end of, you know, the 30 minutes, or however long it takes you to clean the kitchen, or whatever it is, you’ve got a clean house. So you have this instant result. You can look and say, oh, I did something, I accomplished something. But when you have to go outside and run in the cold, it’s hard, it’s uncomfortable, it’s painful, it feels unsafe, it’s unfamiliar, and the results come much later.
You know, running is amazing for you, like, it’s so good for your health, but you don’t get all the health benefits. You do get some right away, but for the most part, they come later. You know, let’s say you’re trying to improve your your running time. Well, you’re not going to go out and go from a four hour marathon to a three and a half hour marathon in one run. It’s going to take you a long time to get there. So instead of going out there and doing those hard things, we do something that feels safe and comfortable and familiar, which is to, just like, clean the house, and we’re telling ourselves a story, well, at least I’m doing something productive or whatever. But at the same time, there’s something you want to be doing, but you’re not doing it, and it’s that resistance that’s coming up. So instead of, you know, running, instead of changing your diet, starting to eat healthy food, you stay in bed, you flop out on the couch, you clean the house, whatever you’re going to do where there is not going to be any resistance.
So step number one in getting yourself unstuck is to recognize that we all have this kind of addiction to procrastination. Obviously, some people, more than others, in some areas, more than others. So recognize that we have this propensity towards procrastination and to stop doing that. The key to stopping procrastination is really getting into action. You have to do something. You have to take an action that moves you towards that goal. It doesn’t have to be a huge step. It could be just one tiny little thing to get you moving in the direction of that goal, even just a tiny little bit.
So what’s the tiniest thing you can do that’s going to get you into movement? So maybe you don’t feel like running and you’re procrastinating go out, going outside and running, because it’s cold out, and it is getting cold out, by the way, and I hate running in the cold, so there’s lots of days where I will procrastinate running, you know, I’ll sit there and I’ll be, you know, doing some work, and I’ll be inside and it’s warm, and I’ll be like, well, I’m doing work, you know, I’m doing some work, I’m doing emails or whatever it is, and I’m the whole time. I’m like, I should really be out there running.
So what is one thing you can do? Well, put your running shoes on, you don’t even have to go outside. Just get into that routine. Just start, start the process. Just put the running shoes on your feet, and then see what happens. If you don’t feel like starting a whole new eating plan and eating healthy and all this other stuff. Okay, sit on the couch and give yourself 10 minutes and just like, write a grocery list of some things that would be healthier choices for you. You know, if you don’t feel like going to the gym again, sit on the couch, write down three exercises that you can do when you go to the gym. Chances are, just by doing these tiny little things that are almost so easy you can’t do them, that you are going to break out of that stuck feeling, and you’re going to, you’re going to take the next right action.
So what’s the next action you can do after you put your running shoes on? Maybe you get your Garmin watch, and you put it on, or your running shirt, or your shorts or something like that. Maybe, you know, after making that grocery list, you know, start getting your bags ready and to put in the car, you know. Maybe you know you don’t feel like going to the gym, but you’ve written down a few exercises that you can do, and then you start, you know, packing your gym bag. You know, these are just little, tiny steps, but they absolutely help you to stop the procrastinating, stop feeling stuck, and to actually get into movement. So movement is really going to be the key to getting stuck in general, but to stop procrastinating in particular. Okay, so that’s number one. Stop procrastinating.
The second thing that you need to do if you want to get yourself unstuck is to really define your purpose. A lot of times you’re feeling stuck because you don’t have a sense of purpose. So many people say that the number one reason that they are unhappy in their life, especially as they get older in life, is because they lack purpose in their life.
So what is purpose? Well, purpose is really anything you want it to be. It can be whatever you decide that it is for you, your purpose should be something though, that drives you forward. It should be one of these things that when you think about your purpose, that it helps you to get out of bed on those cold mornings and get outside and run. Your purpose doesn’t have to be something huge, like, oh, I have to save the world. You’re not Frodo. Okay? So it can be something small, but it has to be something that is meaningful to you. Has to be something that is important to you. And having this, like, strong sense of purpose helps to keep you going when the going gets tough, and the going always gets tough, right?
So think of your purpose as your North Star. So this is the thing that’s out there. It’s actually within you. But I’m just kind of pointing out there as like, that’s something that’s always guiding you forward. It’s always moving you in the direction of your goals, your hopes, your dreams. I have a purpose. My purpose is very simple. It’s a little statement that I wrote out, and I think about it all the time. I have it written down in lots of places, and it is this, here’s my purpose. It is to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire others to do the same. That’s it, to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire others to do the same. This purpose gets me out of bed in the morning. This purpose helps me to either never get stuck or never stay stuck for very long.
And your purpose needs to be something that is personal to you, it should be something that feels bigger than you, and it should evoke some sort of emotion when you read it or you say it or think about it. So it has to make you feel something, because when you feel something deep inside, when you think about your purpose, then you know you’ve got it. So take some time to define your purpose, like, why is losing this weight important to you? How is this going to affect other people in your life? Why is it important for you to be strong? Why is it important for you to run that marathon? And then, what is the ripple effect that these things are going to have on the people in your life, especially the important people in your life.
So step two in getting yourself unstuck is to clearly define your purpose. And this doesn’t mean just think about it, I want you to write it down, print it out, paste it on your computer, on your mirror in your bathroom. Look at it every day. It even helps if you write it out every day. So maybe you do some journaling. You can, you know, at the top of every journal page, write out your purpose statement. Write it every day. Look at it every day. Say it out loud, see it, say it, feel it. But that’s the most important part, is that when you see this or say you should feel something, so having the strong sense of purpose is going to keep you from getting stuck, and it’s going to help you to get unstuck when you feel like you’re stuck.
Okay. Number three, we’ve kind of been dancing around this one a little bit, but I’m going to take a deep dive into this. Number three is to embrace the suck. If you’re feeling stuck, right, you got to know it’s a mental construct that you created in your own mind, first of all, and knowing that you’re never really stuck, acts will help you to get into action. So it actually helps you to get into action just knowing that that it’s just a mental construct. But sometimes you just have to accept the fact that action is uncomfortable. Doing hard things, by definition is hard, losing weight is hard, running a marathon is hard, getting stronger is hard.
If these things were easy, everybody would do it. People don’t do these things. Like less than 1% of the US population has ever run a marathon, like you are in an elite category, if that’s you. Losing weight is very difficult. So many people just don’t do it. And all these things are hard because they’re uncomfortable, they’re painful. They’re unfamiliar to you, and your brain is hardwired to avoid pain and seek pleasure. Your brain is hardwired to avoid discomfort and seek comfort. It’s hardwired to avoid unfamiliar things and seek the familiar things.
So your brain is just a comfort, familiar, pleasure, seeking creature, and most things you want to accomplish in life unfortunately require you to experience some sort of pain or discomfort or something unfamiliar. Again, all these things that you want for yourself, if you don’t already have them, then they lie outside your comfort zone. So by nature, to accomplish things you’ve never accomplished before, it means you have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to get uncomfortable. You have to embrace the discomfort, embrace the suck.
If you want to lose weight, you have to go through the pain of sugar withdrawals. You have to go through the discomfort of eating chicken and broccoli when there’s pizza right there. And you have to go through that unfamiliarity of doing things eating foods that you’re not used to eating because you’ve been eating a different way. And so to your brain, none of this feels good. It all feels unsafe, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, painful to your brain, even though, in the long run, you know that this is what’s best for you. This is what’s best for your health, for your happiness, for your survival as a human being, all of the results of eating healthy and losing weight are positive, but to your brain, it’s all a big warning sign danger. Get out now, stop everything. And we call this being stuck.
The way to get yourself unstuck then is to accept that all of this is normal. It’s actually how you get to your goals, all that pain, the discomfort, the unfamiliar stuff, it’s all just part of what it takes for you to get there. It’s like the path that you have to take. It’s the cost of success. Discomfort is the cost of success. You want to lose weight, you want to run a marathon, the price you pay is getting uncomfortable. But you know what? We don’t want to feel any of those bad things. So instead, we do nothing a lot of times, and we stay in that stuck place.
So but remember what I said earlier, being stuck isn’t real. So the next time you think you’re stuck, do this instead of saying, oh, I’m stuck, say I am unwilling to get uncomfortable in this moment, instead of saying, I’m stuck, say, what do I need to do to embrace the suck today and then go do that thing? Okay, so those are your three things that you need to do to get yourself unstuck, stop procrastinating, define your purpose and then embrace the suck.
Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
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 →
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 249 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Avoid These Mistakes and Crush Your Next Race. It’s that time of the year when every weekend it seems there’s 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 make mistakes on race day. And making mistakes does not just apply to first time racers. Whether you’re a brand new runner, you’re doing your first 5k or you’re a seasoned athlete and running your 20th marathon, I think you’re gonna get something out of this episode. So today, it’s all about how to avoid these mistakes so you can crush your next race.
But first, if you’re somebody who’s interested in improving your running performance, if you want to run longer distances, if you want to increase your endurance, if you be able want to be able to run ultra marathons or marathons or half marathons, whatever it is that you want to do to improve your endurance as a runner, or if you want to get faster, maybe you want to crush your next race. You want a PR or PB, depending on where you are in the world, then I think you might benefit from having some guidance, some direction, getting some constant feedback, having tons of support accountability, having somebody there that’s motivating you, that’s encouraging you.
This is what it means to have a coach. Listen. You don’t have to figure all this stuff out for yourself. You can have somebody right there that’s helping you every step of the way, that’s guiding you, that’s keeping you on track, that’s holding you accountable, so that you can get your results much faster than trying to do it all on your own. So if you’re interested in learning more about coaching, let’s you and I just sit down and have a conversation. We do this over zoom. We just do a quick call, and we’ll talk about coaching. I can answer all your questions. We’ll see if this is a good fit for you. Just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com, and click on work with me, and I can show you exactly how to run longer, how to run faster, and how to become the most badass version of yourself, yet. Cool.
All right, so today avoiding certain mistakes so you can crush your next race. So the reason I’m talking about this today is because there are a lot of races happening right now. This is the beginning of fall racing season. So that starts in September and goes really through November. So September, October, November, typically the three months in the fall when most races are happening. In fact, we just had the Berlin marathon this past weekend, and man, what a great event. I had several of my clients running that event, several of them had PRs and just had great races, and just felt amazing.
But it got me thinking that there are a lot of people out there that don’t have a coach, or don’t have the guidance, or maybe haven’t done a lot of these kinds of races, and there might be some mistakes that are being made out there that a lot of people just don’t really think about until it’s too late. I was certainly in that camp, and I’ve made my share of mistakes early on in my running career, and after doing a lot, a lot of races, I have pretty much made all the mistakes that you can make, pretty much everything I’m going to talk about, I think I’ve done probably, in other words, I’ve made all these mistakes that I’m going to be talking about today, so I can speak from experience, but the reason I’m talking about this is so you don’t have to, you don’t have to make these same mistakes. You can plan a little bit better.
But there’s a lot of people and even seasoned runners, even runners who have done tons of races, run many, many, many, five Ks, half marathons, 10 Ks, marathons, whatever, that still make these kinds of mistakes. And, you know, when we do a little bit of digging after a race, maybe I’m working with somebody, we say, okay, well, let’s talk about what you did. Oh, you know. And then they say something, and I go, well, you know, you talked about maybe not doing that. And, oh yeah, you know, I kind of forgot. So it’s just one of those things where the stuff I’m going to talk about today applies to everybody, whether you’re brand new to running and you’re going to be doing your first race, which is so exciting, it’s so fun.
And listen, I love this aspect of running where we can train for an event that has to happen on a certain day at a certain time, like you have to be ready, and you have to show up, you have to put in the effort, and then you have to show up and actually do the thing. I love that because it’s a way of like, motivating you to get out there and do the work and do the training, because you have a hard date that you got to show up and actually do the work, and then the race itself is a chance for you to prove to yourself what you’re capable of.
So I think races are so much fun, and when you do accomplish your goal in a race, that feels amazing. It’s like all this hard work paid off, and you have shown yourself that you’re capable of doing something you didn’t think you could do before you ran this race. So these races are a chance for you to really prove something to yourself, not to anybody else, but to yourself, and to say to yourself, like, look what I am capable of. So I love racing. If you’re not somebody that’s into racing, I would say, get out there and try. It doesn’t mean you have to run super fast, but it is a chance for you to prove to yourself what you could do. So it is a chance for you to get out there and get a little bit uncomfortable for the length of time it takes to run the race. That might be 30 minutes. It may be three or four hours, or maybe six hours, I don’t know, but whatever it is, get out there and prove to yourself that you can do something hard.
Okay, so there are a lot of mistakes that people make, and even seasoned runners. And the first thing I’m going to talk about here, now listen, some of these things you’ve probably heard before, and you’re like, oh, yeah, and I know all that, but are you doing it all? Like, just be honest with yourself, if you’re a seasoned runner and you’ve been running a million marathons or whatever, I’m going to tell you some things, and you’re going to probably go like, oh, I know that already, but think about the last few races you did. Did you remember these things? Did you actually do these things?
Okay, the first one is this, trying something new on race day. This is a mistake that everybody makes at some point, the rule is nothing new on race day. This is one of the biggest mistakes every runner makes when they get out there and they do their first race or their 10th race, or whatever. Oh, you know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna buy these new shoes that I just got at the expo the day before the race, and I think I’ll wear them tomorrow for my marathon. Mmm bad idea. Or I think I’m gonna try this new Mexican place the night before my race. You know, nope. Don’t do that. No new food, no new gear, no new pacing strategy. No new pre race meal, no no, nothing new on race day, no new flavor of gel or whatever you’re doing. You want to just be wearing the same clothes you’ve been wearing for your training. You want to be eating the same food. You want to be fueling the same way, and you want to be wearing the same shoes and socks, and you know, using all the gear and everything that you’ve done in training, you want to do on your race.
One of my biggest mistakes ever was during my first marathon. So I was training for my first marathon, doing it all on my own. I wasn’t running with anybody else. I wasn’t in a running group or anything like that. I had a couple of friends who were runners, and I talked to them a little bit about, okay, what should I do for this race? And they gave me some pointers and stuff, but really, not too much. Really stuck with me, but I was reading a book at the time, I think it was Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Carnass.
And in this book, he’s talking about how he was on some long run and he stopped and had some chocolate covered espresso beans, and how it was amazing because it gave him this boost of energy like he’d never felt before. He just felt amazing after eating these chocolate covered espresso beans, because it’s like caffeine and sugar and it’s chocolate and it’s delicious, and it’s exactly what he needed to keep going. And I thought, oh, that’s a good idea. I know I have a marathon coming up in a few days here. I think I’m gonna go and get myself a bunch of chocolate covered espresso beans, and I’ll just eat those, you know, towards the end of my marathon, this should be fine, right?
All right, so I got all these chocolate covered espresso beans, stuck them in a little baggy, put them in my shorts. Well, ran, I don’t know, whatever, 16-18, miles. I was probably around mile 20 or something like that, and I pulled these things out of my shorts, and first of all, think about what happens to chocolate when it’s been in your warm shorts for like, three hours? Well, everything had kind of melted together, and it just became this big glob of stuff. And I was like, well, it’s okay. It’s not going to deter me.
So I just kind of reached in there and grabbed a handful of this chocolate coffee bean glop, you know, and started munching on it. And I was like, Oh, this tastes great. You know, this is going to be awesome. Well, the thing I didn’t realize is that espresso beans are, they’re just coffee beans, so they’re like, super crunchy. And as you start eating these things, there becomes 1000s of tiny, little, very sharp shards of coffee bean that get lodged in every place in your mouth and your throat. And I started choking and coughing, and I couldn’t stop coughing. I had to stop and go to the side. I thought I was going to puke. It was horrible. Did they work? No, I don’t think so, because I felt terrible. I thought I was going to die, and I’m sitting there choking on these chocolate covered espresso beans.
So I learned something that day though, I was like, do not do anything new on race day, like I tried something brand I’ve never tried these things before. I’d never eaten these things before. Had no idea they were gonna have that effect, and it was horrible. So that’s an example of what not to do. So that’s one of the biggest rules of any kind of race, that you’re gonna do nothing new on race day.
The second mistake I want to talk about here is not preparing for the race. And what I mean by that is a lot of people, they train, and they do all the training runs, and they put in the mileage, they put in the time, and they’re preparing to run a certain distance or a certain time, but they’re not preparing for the race itself. So you’re training, yes, but are you race ready when you show up at the start line? Have you done what I call dress rehearsals for your race? In other words, you should be practicing everything before the race day, your fueling strategy, you should be practicing your food strategy that happens like the day before you were on a race the morning of you know, bathroom habits like all this stuff has to be done ahead of time, and you got to practice it wearing the same clothes.
You know, nothing new on race day, but you also have to train for running a race. Races are different than just a training run. What are you going to be carrying with you during that race, during that event, carry that with you in training runs. So the last like third of your training cycle typically should be your long run should be devoted to dress rehearsals for your event.
You should be doing a lot of running that’s very similar to your event, yes, but also you should be preparing for that race, even so much as to prepare, like your pacing strategy and to practice your pacing strategy, practice fueling, practice hydration, practice electrolytes, practice if you’re going to take walk breaks, practice that whatever it is you got to train for your race. You want to be race ready when you show up at the start line. And so many runners, they just have no clue what’s going to happen during that race, because they’ve just been training. They’ve just been running, you know, at whatever pace, and then they think something magical is going to happen on race day. No, you got to plan for that. You got to prepare for it. So prepare to race. Prepare for the event that you’re going to be running.
Okay, another big mistake that a lot of people make is not giving yourself enough time in the morning of a big event, showing up late. This is really, really stressful. So a lot of people will wait till the last minute, and then they arrive late. They can’t find a place to park. There’s so many people. The crowds are so big that it takes them forever to get from wherever they parked, super far away, probably to the actual event. When you get into some of these big marathons or half marathons, even some 5 and 10k’s can be so crowded that just getting through like the corrals, to try to find your corral can be very time consuming.
So it can take a long time, and it’s very, stressful. And that much stress right before you’re about to run your race for the season, this can really lead to poor performance. Keep in mind that when you get down there, there’s, like, always, super long lines at all the portalets. My, uh, suggestion is always to TCB at home, if you can take care of business at home, do that, because if you need to, if you wait until you get down to you know, you’re at this big event and you’re going to try to use a bathroom down there. It, it can be problematic, right? It can be a very long wait for for bathrooms and things like that. So do not show up late. Give yourself tons of time, way more time than you think.
Make sure you’ve mapped out parking situation. If you’re meeting people, you’ve mapped out where you’re going to be meeting people. Everybody is on the same page with all this stuff. If you can carpool with some people, do that, like there’s so much stress that can be avoided, especially early in the morning on a race day, if it’s a big race, it can be really, really stressful. So make sure you do not show up late. Be early. Be early.
Okay. The next thing I want to talk about is not sticking to your race strategy. So let’s say you did have a plan. You have been practicing a racing plan, but on race day, you get sort of caught up in the excitement, and you’re like, feeling a little spicy here first thing in the morning, and you end up going out a little fast, and you’re like, that’s fine. I’m good. I feel great. Well, you’re supposed to feel great at the beginning of a big event, because you’ve done the work, you’ve peaked at the right time, you’ve tapered. But when you get to that event and you go out too fast, you’re going to crash and burn early. So this is going to be a big problem. So you want to avoid that.
The other thing is just going out way too slow, like, oh, I just, I’m really worried about having enough energy for the ender to finish this thing, so I’m just going to be really, really conservative. No, have a strategy ahead of time for your pacing. Practice that strategy and then just execute it on race day. Do not deviate from the plan, like you’ve practiced this that has worked for you, and if you haven’t practiced it, then that’s tough, like you’re just gonna have to do your best. But the point is, like practice a race strategy, a pacing strategy, ahead of time, and then make sure that you execute that exactly on race day, because you know it’s going to work for you.
It may feel weird to go a little bit slower at the beginning because you’re feeling so good, or maybe feel weird to run a little bit faster at the beginning because you’re thinking, oh, I don’t know if I can keep this up, but just know that whatever you’ve decided you’re going to do ahead of time and whatever you’ve been practicing, that’s what you want to stick to. Okay?
And that leads me to my next thing, which is not sticking to your fueling strategy. And this is a big one. A lot of people, they just, they practice fueling like during training runs and then during a race. And I hear this all the time. They say, oh, I just forgot. I forgot to fuel. I forgot to do it again. This is part of your race strategy. Make sure you don’t deviate from your rehearsed, well rehearsed and practice race strategy on race day. Don’t do that. They wonder why they can’t finish strong. Well, they forgot to fuel three times during their event. You know now, if you’re a fat adapted runner, and you are, you know, you’ve gotten very efficient at burning body fat for fuel. You’re not going to need a ton of fuel, and you could probably do pretty well with a pretty bare minimum amount of fuel.
But still, you have practiced a racing strategy. You’ve practiced a fueling strategy. Stick with it during your race, practice it and then execute during your race, over fueling like, so doing too much like, if you’re too worried about, oh, you know, I better do extra this might be a problem. You know, some people get disaster pants when they do too much fuel, especially if you’re doing like, the really sugary goos and stuff like that. And under fueling might lead to early bonking like you might just crash and burn too early, so practice your fueling strategy and then do that on race day. If it works for you, then do that on race day.
The next tip here, and thing to avoid is not dressing appropriately, especially for weather that can be too hot, too cold, could be rainy, could be snowy. Most people, I find dress too warm for races, so they show up wearing jackets and long pants and things like that, because it’s a little cool in the morning, so maybe, let’s say 50 degrees or something in the morning, and they’re running a marathon, and they’re going to be out there for, let’s say, four hours, right? Say the thing starts at 7am so they’re going to be out there until 11. Well, the weather at 11 is going to be much different than the weather at 7am so instead of being 50, it might be 70, and you’re going to warm up out there, even running something like a 5k or a 10k, you know, after the first mile, your body is going to be producing a lot of heat, and you’re going to warm up quite rapidly.
And so most people I find are too hot at the beginning of the race. You should be a little cold at the start of a race, because you will warm up as you go, especially if you live somewhere where you get humidity and a little bit warmer temperatures. Then it can be very problematic, and this will cause you a lot of discomfort, or you’re like, trying to take clothes off, and then what do you do with them? Like, we’ll tie it around your waist. Well, that just makes that part of you warm. You’re trying to carry your shirt with you or whatever. Like, this stuff is just, you know, be prepared for the weather. Be like a weather fiend. Like, pay attention to the weather. Look at the humidity again. You’ve been practicing this stuff in your training, you should have been practicing a dress strategy as well.
So make sure that you are taking into consideration if it’s going to be really cold and you need to wear gloves or something like that, can you take them off and stash them in your shorts or something as you’re running? If you do warm up, maybe you use arm warmers instead of a jacket, and that’s something you can just strip off and, you know, stuff in your shirt, or something like that. Again, this is one of those things that you got to practice, but pay attention to the weather and know ahead of time what you’re getting yourself into here.
I’ve done a lot of races where I usually am pretty cold at the start. I might wear an old sweatshirt or a big plastic bag, like a trash bag, to stay warm at the start of the race, and as soon as the race starts, I strip that stuff off. And I’m a little bit cold at the beginning, but then I warm up. And I’ve had some races where, you know, towards the end of the race, I remember running the Indianapolis marathon, which is in November, and the finish line is downtown Indianapolis, and you’re running west for quite some time, and the wind was in our face, and we were having an ice storm, and I was miserable. Now I had dressed for the temperatures. Didn’t know we’re going to be getting this ice storm. It was a little bit colder than I thought I was going to be. But, you know, I actually think I had a PR that day. I think that may have been my marathon PR. So even on a day where the weather is pretty awful. You know, you got to just plan on doing the best that you can for what is happening.
Sometimes you just can’t do anything about it. You know, we’ve had a few Flying Pigs here in Cincinnati, where the rain was horrific and, you know, wading through ankle deep water and stuff like that, just craziness like you can’t plan for some of that stuff. I get it, but do your best. Pay attention to the weather. If anything, dress a little cooler, because you will warm up, all right.
The next kind of mistake to avoid here would be relying on your watch too much. So understand something, that GPSs are great. The watches that we have are awesome. They are pretty accurate, but I will tell you, I have never run a race where my GPS matched the course distance Exactly. And I hear people complain about this all the time. Oh, the course was short, or the course was long, you know, my watch said it was 26.8 miles, you know, and listen, when they plan a race course like this, and this course is certified, especially if it’s a Boston qualifier course. These routes are certified. So they go around with a wheel and they measure that course exactly. Your watch is not correct. I’m just going to tell you right now the course is correct, 99.9999% of the time the course is going to be correct. GPS is inaccurate, especially when you’re in an urban downtown area, the signal bounces off of buildings and it will look like you covered more ground.
Sometimes, if you don’t run the tangents during a marathon, which is the shortest distance you that can add up that extra little bit of running that you’re doing around corners and things like that, can all add up over time and make it look like it’s a little bit longer, or that GPS is just off a little bit. You know, it’s not perfect. It’s not perfect, and sometimes the signal is interrupted because of different factors. I don’t know whether, I don’t know all the details about that, but just understand that GPS is not going to be perfect. So when you are looking at your watch and it’s telling you you’re at five miles, but you haven’t even seen the five mile marker yet. Go by what the course is showing you. Okay, go by what the course is showing you.
A better plan, especially for a marathon, is to wear a paste band. A paste band is simply a piece of paper that you cover with plastic. So I usually just use a bunch of tape and wrap it around my wrist, and it gives me the time I’m supposed to be at each mile marker. So if my goal is to run a nine minute pace for 26.2 miles, then at mile one I should be, my watch should say nine minutes. At mile two, my watch should say 18 minutes and so on. And so I can look at my pace band and say, Oh, I’m at mile 16. I should be at this time. And does that time match the, you know, the time, does the time match the where I’m supposed to be? Does it match where I actually am on the course, yes or no.
So instead of trying to rely on your GPS, on your watch, I just switch my watch to just show me the time only when I’m running a race like that, because I’m not going to, I’m not going to rely on my GPS to be accurate, because it is not accurate. So get a pace band. And you can, actually a lot of times, you can get these at the expo the day before a race. They will have them that you can just grab, and they’re pre made for different times, and you can just grab one of those, or you can print your own. You can go on the internet and just look up, print a paste band for a marathon, and they’ll, there’ll be places where you can do that, but I’ve had really good luck with this, especially if you’re trying to, like, let’s say you’re trying to break four hours in a marathon, and you’re, you’re, you know, you’re going to be really close. Like, your pace is, like, you know, 3 hours and 57 minutes. Well, guess what? Like, you don’t want to rely on your GPS for that, because if it’s off, you could miss your PR, so instead, go by the time only and pay attention to those mile markers and just make sure that your time is matching those mile markers. Okay?
Okay, the next mistake a lot of people make is really just having a negative mindset, and this might be one of the most important ones here, if not the most important one. So people get really down on themselves when things don’t go as planned. Well, guess what? Things are never going to go as planned. You’re going to work all year, or whatever. You plan for this race. You have a race strategy, you’ve got this fueling strategy, you’ve been practicing your pacing, and then something happens, like, it’s too hot or it’s too cold, or it’s too rainy, or you you know you’re running late, so you couldn’t TCB ahead of time, and that messed you up, like whatever.
You cannot let these things get to you. One thing you can definitely plan on, though, is that nothing will ever go as planned on race day. It never goes as planned. So we’re gonna plan as much as we can, and then you gotta go with the flow. Yes, things are gonna get hard. It’s a marathon or a half marathon, or whatever. Racing is hard. Running is hard. Things are gonna get hard. It’s going to be painful. Running a marathon kind of sucks. They’re supposed to suck. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Less than 1% of the US population has completed a marathon. So if you’re somebody that’s running marathons, you are in an elite group like these things we do, they are tough, but you are tougher.
Think about all the hard things you’ve gotten through in your life so far. You’re just gonna add this one more thing to your list today. So just get it done. Just finish it up. Do the hard work. It’ll be over in a few hours. You know. Just know that you’ve done all the work. Trust your training. You’re way more powerful than you know, and just get the job done. All right. Plan as best you can. Go with the flow. Do not get into this mindset where you’re down on yourself. Oh, you know, if the weather was better, I’d have a much better day. Who cares? Everybody’s dealing with this right now. Do your best. Show up for yourself. Tough it out, see what you’re capable of. Wouldn’t it be much more fun to finish that race and go, You know what? Despite all this stuff, I did pretty good. That’s a much better attitude than Oh, all this stuff happened, and that’s why I totally just quit, you know? Like, no, don’t do that. Okay.
Which leads me to the next mistake a lot of people make, which is not having fun. Races are supposed to be fun. You guys, okay, this is like your victory lap. You’ve done all the hard work. This is the reward for all the hard work that you’ve done. I see too many people, like their heads are down. They’re kind of slunged over as they’re running. They maybe have their headphones in and they’re just checked out.
When I run a race, I smile a lot. I talk to people. I don’t wear headphones. I High Five people all over the place. I try to talk to people. Make new friends. Hey, where are you from? Oh, Bulgaria. Well, that’s crazy. What are you doing here? You know, I get pumped up from listening to the crowd. There’s this energy during a race that you want to be a part of, because it makes running the race so much more fun. So remember, we’re supposed to have fun doing this stuff. Yeah, running is hard, but listen, it’s supposed to be kind of fun, so enjoy it. Don’t be, if you’re just miserable the whole time. Like, how is that for you? Like, do you really want to do that for if you’re running a marathon for like, the next four or five hours? Do you really want to be miserable for five hours? No, enjoy yourself. Have fun, to talk to people, laugh, crack jokes, all that stuff.
And then my last little bonus tip here is going to be, don’t make the mistake of not taking good race photos. Okay, I just thought of this like the last second here. I’m like, oh, I need to add this on here. A lot of people make the mistake of not paying attention to where their photographers are on different races. So a lot of races, they’ll have professional photographers out there taking pictures. Then you can purchase the pictures afterwards.
And if you’re one of these people that wants to do that, like if it’s your first race and you want to purchase the pictures, then here these tips are going to be for you. But for anybody that wants to just take good, good race pictures, or better race pictures, pay attention. Pay attention to where these photographers are on the course. You can only see them. They’ve got giant cameras with these big lenses. It’s pretty easy to spot them a lot of times, they’re sitting in a chair, like in the middle of the road or something, or off to the side, but you know, a lot of times it’s pretty obvious that you can see them ahead of time. So be looking ahead when you see them.
Posture up, no slouching, proud chest, smile. Make sure they can see your bib number clearly on your chest. Move away if there’s people in front of you, make sure there’s a clear line of sight between you and the photographer, and you might feel like crap, but in that 30 seconds, or 20 seconds as you’re passing this photographer, smile, wave, act like you’re having a good time, then you can go back to being miserable afterwards.
But listen, racing is so much fun. I love running races. It’s one of the reasons why I love running so much is because we get to celebrate with these races. You get to go out and run with 1000s of other people, and it just shows you, like, what we are all capable of, these communities coming together. It’s so much fun. So get out there and enjoy it. Don’t make these mistakes.
Hopefully you all will have an awesome racing season this fall and or if you’re listening to this, in the springtime, hopefully you know your spring races will be awesome as well.
All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
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.
