Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
March is motivation month over in the Running Lean Podcast Community on Facebook! All month long, I’m offering up helpful tips and challenges to help get you motivated to hit your health and …
Continue Reading about 62. The Secret Sauce of Self-Motivation →
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 62 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, sports nutritionist personal trainer, health and fitness expert, and the weight loss coach for runners. weight. The weight loss coach for runners actually did a whole podcast episode about this called a weight loss coach for runners.
Yes, because here’s the thing, on average runners carry around too much body fat runners are notoriously unhealthy people. Okay, on average. Now you may be thinking, Patrick, that’s not me, I’m super lean, I’m super fit, I’m super healthy. If that is the case, awesome, good job. Unfortunately, that’s not the norm. The majority of runners are carrying around a little too much body fat, they’re a little unhealthy.
And I noticed this in myself, I noticed this and other runners and I made it my life’s mission to help runners become more metabolically healthy, to change their diet, change up their nutrition, so that they can be the healthiest human beings possible. And keep running like we want to keep running. Running is good. We love running, we want to keep doing that.
So I focus on weight loss. You know, we talk about weight loss a lot here on the podcast. And in the Facebook group, we talk about the importance of getting down to your kind of natural weight. But the goal the real goal is to become healthy as healthy as possible. The weight loss is sort of a nice side effect of that.
So what I do in my coaching practice is help runners become the healthiest they can possibly be. We work on putting together the right combination of nutrition and exercise and mindset and stress reduction and all these other things to make you as healthy as possible. And the coaching I do is part guidance, part support system, part encouragement, part motivation, which we’re talking about today.
In part accountability, to keep you on track to keep you doing those things that maybe you don’t want to do, so that you can become the person that you all timidly want to become. If you’re interested in learning more about coaching, you can apply. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/coaching.
All you’ve got to do is click the apply button, answer a couple of questions you and I will get on a call together we’ll talk about this I’ll explain the program we’ll talk about what coaching looks like how it might help you. It may not be a good fit for you, and that’s fine. But let’s talk about and let’s find out, okay, we’ll talk about your goals, what it is you want to achieve. And we’ll see if working with me is a good way to get you there – runningleanpodcast.com/coaching.
Another thing I wanted to talk about was the Facebook community. So we have this amazing, supportive and motivational community on Facebook called the Running Lean community. Just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community, you will find us there. We’re doing all kinds of challenges and this month, March is motivation month over in the Running Lean community.
And I’ll talk more about that in just a minute. But let’s just suffice it to say that this month we’re focusing on ways of motivating one another encouraging one another to do hard things and sharing our experiences. Okay, so just check us out over in the Running Lean community on Facebook.
Today’s topic, I’m going to be talking about motivation. And today I’m kind of giving you a little recipe, what I call the secret sauce of self-motivation. So like I said all month long during March we’re sharing motivational tips and talking about motivation and how to create more motivation over in the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook.
And you know whether it is you want to run faster you want to run farther you want to dial in a nutrition plan, you want to lose those winter pounds. You need the motivation to make it happen. But most people severely lack motivation. Most people are just motivation deficient.
And this lack of motivation is keeping you stuck. You’re never making any progress towards your goals, and you just feel sort of self-defeated. Well, we don’t want that, we want to feel self-motivated. So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to be sharing my secret sauce of self-motivation.
I want you to think of this as a recipe that you can put together to help you create, and stoke that inner fire. That thing that like keeps you going right, so you can accomplish the big goals that are so important to you.
Right before I get into that, I just wanted to share this five-star review, somebody shared a five-star review on the podcast. And they did this over in Apple podcasts. And you can do this too, just go to Apple podcasts and scroll down to the Running Lean podcast and scroll down to where you see the review section. And you can leave a quick review, I would love it if you could do that. It would just mean a lot to me to know that this is helping you in some way.
And this is from BH1955. And the review said, “I was not feeling like running yesterday, but I decided that I would find an episode that would motivate me. Speaking of motivation, I found Episode 43, which was embracing discomfort. It really helped me to get through my run. Thanks so much, Patrick, for your podcast.”
You’re so welcome. Yeah, that’s a good one. And that motivation is what we’re talking about here all this month, but especially in this episode of the podcast. So why is March motivation month? Well, here’s what happens at the beginning of the year, we feel really motivated, right?
In January, people join gyms like crazy gyms are full, like, it’s insane, right? Everybody’s motivated to like, get healthy and change their diet and start exercising. And I’m going to start running every day or whatever it is, we’re feeling really fired up and really motivated in January, right? But then, you know, you kind of lose your motivation a little bit by the end of February, you’re like, Yeah, whatever, you know, the gym sort of empty out again.
And as we begin March, you know, it’s pretty easy to go to the gym, and you know, there’s really not many people there anymore. People aren’t running as much, they’re not exercising as much, they’re not sticking to their plan, they just kind of go back to doing the stuff they used to do. They’ve lost their motivation. All right.
And why is this, you know, why do people get motivated and then lose it? Why do people not stay motivated, and that’s kind of what I want to talk about today. And it really has little to do with, you know, what your capabilities are. So, there are people that accomplish some great things, right?
And you can look to these people and go like, oh, that person, they must have something that I don’t because they’re doing these amazing things. You know, I looked at, I used to look at ultra runners and go, I can’t believe that guy ran 100 miles, they must have something mentally that I don’t or some genetic, you know, character that I don’t have.
And I have to tell you, it has very little to do with innate capability, it has very little to do with genetics. People that accomplish great things, it’s not because they’re luckier than we are. I think it has everything to do with self-motivation. And motivation is, is just a feeling.
You know motivation is like when you feel motivated, you feel like doing something, right. When you’re not motivated, you don’t feel like doing something. And so a lot, oftentimes, I’ll ask my clients, I’ll be like, okay, you said, you’re going to stick to your plan this week. Why didn’t you do that?
You’re going to stick to your healthy eating plan, or you’re going to get up early and run. You set up a schedule for running three days a week, you didn’t do it, or maybe you know, we’re gonna start. We’re doing a daily journaling practice or lift weights a couple of times a week, whatever it is.
And then I’ll say, you know why didn’t you do that? You said you were gonna do that we made a kind of an agreement that you were gonna do that and then you didn’t do it. Why is that? And they’ll start with excuses.
They’ll start with oh, it was cold outside or I had a hard day at work or, you know, I just had a late-night or had to wash my car. or whatever they’re blaming their lack of, you know, wanting to do something or the reason they didn’t follow through with what they said they’re going to do.
They’re blaming it on outside events, circumstances, other people, whatever. But then I keep pushing them. It’s like, no, really, why didn’t you do that? And what it comes down to, you know, once I get through about four or five of these different excuses, is, they usually say something like, well, I just didn’t feel like it. They were not motivated to do that thing. They didn’t have the motivation. And that’s interesting, isn’t it?
And so I would say, like, Well, what did you do instead? What what did you feel like doing? Well, I just felt like sleeping in, or I just felt like eating ice cream and the cookies, or just felt like watching Netflix, or I just felt like scrolling through social media, you know, instead of journaling, or whatever it was.
So they felt like doing those things, but they were, but not feeling like doing the harder things, you know, and what it comes down to. And in my opinion, what it comes down to is like, we categorize things as like, easy stuff, and hard stuff, like some things you feel like doing.
And we kind of put these in the easy bucket, you know, it’s like, well, you know, I feel like just sitting on the couch and scrolling through Instagram. That’s easy. That doesn’t take any effort. So I could just do that. I’m motivated to do that all day long, right? I’m motivated to eat a whole pizza and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream every single day. Like I can do that without even thinking about right, that’s easy.
And then we have things that we don’t feel like doing, this is the hard stuff. Okay, so, you know, running, sticking to your running schedule, when it’s cold outside, getting up early to do some journaling, or, you know, sticking to your healthy eating plan. That stuff can be hard to do. Why is that hard? And why is this other stuff easy?
And part of it comes down to habit. You know, I talked a lot about habits in the last episode. So if you haven’t listened to that already, definitely check it out. Last week’s episode was called Making Healthy Habits Stick, and some good stuff in there that I think is going to be really helpful for you.
But the difference between the hard stuff that we don’t want to do, we don’t feel motivated to do. And the easy stuff that we just we can do without even thinking about it is it kind of comes down to habit, it kind of comes down to what we’ve been doing over and over and over again for our whole lives, you know, times, decades, at least, right.
And if you have a habit of every time you come home from work, you plop down on the couch, and you know, eat a whole bag of potato chips, and scroll through Instagram, that’s going to be kind of your go-to that’s going to seem easy. That’s the habit, that’s just the thing that you do without even thinking about it. Right.
If on the other hand, you wanted to establish a new routine and a new habit of like, instead of doing that going good coming home from work, throwing on your running shoes, and heading out the door for a little 5k that’s gonna feel really hard to do. That’s not going to be easy, because it’s not a habit yet, you know, it’s going to require you some effort to get going with that, right.
And that effort that I’m talking about kind of boils down to motivation. Are you motivated to do that thing or not? Now, here is the real problem with when we when we choose the easy stuff when we choose the easier path, the easier softer way over the hard stuff.
When you keep doing that, when you keep choosing easy, you will never become more than who and what you are right now. You will never grow as a human being as a person. You’ll never get faster as a runner, you’ll never get stronger. You’ll never get leaner, you’ll never become healthier. You’ll never become an emotional badass, which I think is one of the coolest things you can become.
You’ll be nothing more than you are right now. And you know some people are fine with that. Some people are like cool, you know, I’m just good with who I am where I am right now. I want to stay right here. And that’s fine if you want to do that. But for you, the person that’s listening to this podcast, most of the people that listen to this, want to become more.
I know you do because you tell me every single day I hear it from people all the time. I want more, I want to become fitter, healthier, stronger, leaner, faster. But here’s what happens. If you don’t lift weights, if you don’t do that hard thing, you’re going to lose muscle, you’re gonna just keep getting weaker. If you stop running, if you just quit, you know, you’re never going to become faster, you’re never going to run another marathon, you’re never going to set that PR, you’re never going to know what you’re capable of.
If you just keep blaming everybody else for how you feel playing the victim, you give out your power away, you’re powerless. The way you think and feel is controlled by everybody, but you. So for me, when I think about this, I think that even worse than staying where you are, is where you end up if you always choose easy.
Where are you going to end up if you always choose easy? You’re probably going to get fatter, you’re probably going to become more unhealthy, you’re going to get slower, you’re going to get weaker, you’re going to become less emotionally evolved, you begin to degrade as a human being, your human starts to wear down.
Like when you throw an old battery in a drawer, right? This battery that’s like brimming with life just starts to drain away, and the life just starts draining out of it over time. Just like that old battery in the back of the drawer, you become lifeless. I don’t think that’s what you want. I think you want to become more.
And if you do want to become more, you got to do the hard stuff. No one ever got stronger by thinking about lifting weights and sitting on the couch watching Netflix eating a big bag of potato chips. No one ever ran their fastest marathon by sleeping in every Saturday morning and saying screw it to all those long runs. Right?
I know you know this. We all know this. We all know what we have to do. But we don’t do it. We all know we got to do the hard stuff. But we don’t do it. Why don’t we do it? And it boils down to this like, I don’t feel like it. I just don’t feel like it. I’m not I don’t have the motivation. And I know that I experienced this too sometimes still.
And I’ll tell you, this whole podcast is about what I do to get out of that cycle. Because if I’m in that cycle of like, I don’t feel like doing this thing. Now I know I should do it. I know it’s like, gonna push me outside my comfort zone and make me a better person make me healthier, make me stronger.
I don’t feel like going to the gym sometimes and lifting weights. Lately, I’ve been doing this really intense, really hard weightlifting workout. It’s short, it’s only about half an hour, but it is intense. And you know what? Sometimes I don’t feel like doing that on my this is going to hurt. It’s going to feel terrible. But I do it anyway.
So it’s this whole idea of like, I don’t feel like it, I need motivation. Well, you got to make that motivation. So we’re going to talk about that in a minute. But here’s something I need you to understand. This is like the premise of everything I’m going to talk about here. And that is that you don’t find motivation out there. You create it within every single time.
All motivation comes from within you, you make your own motivation. 100% of the time. There’s no magic motivation dust that you can sprinkle in your morning smoothie. Although, I think there’s a very cool idea, right? I think maybe somebody should invent that thing. That’d be amazing. So you make your own motivation, right?
It comes from within you create it, even though you may not even know you’re creating it, you create it. So you might get motivated because you hear somebody speak you might hear some speaker that’s like super motivating and you’re like, oh, I feel so motivated to like take action. Right?
And you may be feeling that way right now. Like you may be like, oh, yeah, I listen to your podcast, Patrick and I get super motivated. I hear people tell me this all the time. It’s so motivating this podcast, so motivating. But here’s a fun fact. You guys, I’m not motivating you. You’re doing it. You’re motivating yourself. It’s not the words I’m saying that are getting you motivated. It’s your own thoughts and feelings about these words.
So, I need you to understand this concept, everything you feel every emotion that you experience. Emotions are things like anger, sadness, frustration, stress, happiness, joy, and motivation; these are all emotions. Every emotion is caused by a thought. You cannot experience an emotion.
You cannot experience an emotion without first thought of having a thought about something. Right? So you may be angry, but you’re angry because you had a thought about what your boss said to you. It’s not the words he used. It’s what you make those words mean, that causes you to be angry.
You may be frustrated with your kids, because they’re not doing their homework. But it’s not the fact that they’re not doing their homework that’s got you frustrated, it’s your thoughts about it? What’re you making it mean? Oh, it means they don’t listen to me, it means they’re going to grow up to be, you know, serial killers are whatever you’re telling yourself about this thing that’s causing you to get frustrated.
It’s never outside circumstances that cause emotions. It’s always, always, always your thoughts about those circumstances. This is such a basic concept that I need you to understand. Because motivation is an emotion. Motivation is a feeling. Your thoughts create your motivation. You’re not being motivated by the words, I’m saying you’re being motivated by the story, you’re telling yourself about what these words mean to you. That’s what’s really getting you motivated.
So right now, you’re thinking about what all this means to you how it applies to you and your life, and how you’re going to apply this to your unique situation. It’s all those thoughts that are creating your inner motivation. Okay. I hope you’re understanding this motivation is an inside job, you create your own motivation, by your own thoughts. Okay.
So, just so we understand, we’re all starting from the same place here. Okay. So how do you create the motivation that you need to do the hard stuff like what’s the secret sauce of self-motivation? So here’s, I’m going to break it down into a few things that you can do, I got like four things I’m going to have you work on this week, you can do this.
Number one is to do the hard thing, even though you don’t feel like doing it, in fact, do the hard thing, especially if you don’t feel like doing it. This is like my number one rule when I’m working with clients is like you have to do this thing, even though you don’t want to do it like you have to do it.
Now, of course, we’re all adults, and I cannot make anybody do anything. But I strongly encourage people to do things they do not want to do. Because I know that when they do it, they just feel so much better. So here’s an example. I decided this is crazy. I don’t even know why I’m doing this, but I decided that I’m going to do the David Goggins 4 by 4 by 48 Challenge this coming weekend.
So what is that? Well, you have to run four miles, every four hours, for a total of 48 hours. So this thing starts at 8 pm, Friday, March 5, 2021. And that’s 8 pm Pacific time. So everybody in the world is going to do this at the same time. So I’m going to start my first four-mile run at 11 pm Friday night, Eastern Time.
And then the next run for me would be 3 am. All right, that’s four hours from 11. And then the next run would start at 7 am. And then 11 am, and then 3 pm, and then 7 pm, and then 11 pm, and just keeps going until Sunday evening.
So every four hours, you’ve got to complete four miles of running. And you got to start it at the top of that fourth hour each time. Okay. Sounds like, you know, I don’t know what it sounds like to you. But it sounds to me like, Oh, it’s just four miles, right? No big deal. But it’s four miles, with only like three hours-ish of rest in between. And you got to do it 12 times. So like 48 miles in 48 hours.
And I have to tell you, I don’t feel like doing this. The main concern of mine is like, I love my sleep, and it’s so important to me to get enough sleep if I don’t get enough sleep, I get a little cranky. I’ll feel good, you know, and I don’t know how I’m going to do this without enough sleep without getting a good solid, you know, seven, eight hours of sleep straight.
I’ll only be sleeping for maybe two hours at a time. This is going to be really interesting, and I just don’t feel like doing it. The first few times getting out there I think are going to be a challenge for me, I think, you know, going out at 3 am is going to be hard and then doing it again at 7 am, I think this is going to be hard during the day may not be as bad, but those early, you know, am runs I think are gonna be awful.
But um, here’s the thing, I’m doing this to prove something to myself, that I can do hard things, even when I don’t feel like it. This is probably the biggest key, if you want to create self-motivation, you’ve got to do hard things when you don’t feel like it. Because when you do some little thing that’s hard, and you didn’t feel like doing it, you know, it’s going to move you a little closer to your goal, you know, it’s going to, it’s good for you, you know, it’s like helping you, you know, it’s going to keep you heading in the right direction.
And that little bit of doing that hard thing, that little feeling that you get after you do that little bit of satisfaction you get after doing that is going to give you a little bit of motivation to do it again. And do it again, and do it again. And you can just keep going. In order to create self-motivation, you have to do the things you don’t feel like doing.
And then you have to just keep repeating those things, you have to get your reps in. Again, this is something I talked about in last week’s podcast. Repetition causes motivation because you begin to make the hard stuff easier, and the hard stuff becomes easier. Okay. So the first thing I want you to focus on is like doing the hard thing, even though you don’t feel like it.
So I’m going to be sharing my experience of the Goggins 4 by 4 by 48 challenge this weekend in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So join us over there. And I’ll be like, kind of documenting that my experience as I go, do some lives and stuff like that, and share kind of what it’s like to try to get out there at like 3 am and getting motivated to run. So I’m doing this because it’s hard. And this is like my number one tip for creating self-motivation is like, do the hard thing, especially if you don’t feel like it.
The second tip I have for you is this always focus on making slow and steady progress, or fast and steady progress, it doesn’t matter. But always focus on making incremental progress. Just making a little bit of progress will help you to get a little bit more motivation to keep you going.
Because when you make a little bit of progress, you tell yourself a story about what that means. You have a thought about it. And that thought is, hey, this is working. Right? So many people don’t see any progress. Or maybe they’re not tracking their progress. Or they’re not seeing progress fast enough. And they just quit, they give up.
They’re like, hey, this, this way of eating isn’t, I’m not losing weight fast enough. I’m just gonna quit and go back to doing what I was doing before, which doesn’t work either. But that’s a whole nother story. But little by little, you want to be making incremental progress, because when you do you get this little hidden motivation every single time you see the, you know, the pound, one pound a week drop off or something like that.
You’re like, oh my gosh, that’s awesome. Or an inch off your waist. Oh my gosh, that feels so good. Or, hey, you know what, I ran a longer mile this week, longer than my longest run. And these little things just start to stack up. And you begin to feel more and more motivated.
It’s like you keep your motivation tank topped off each time you do something like this and you keep increasing the amount of motivation that you create, you keep stacking these little, little bits of motivation, one on top of the other. So you know, like for me lately, I’ve been lifting more weights. I’m tracking my weightlifting and I’m able to do more reps or lift more weights.
So maybe you’re like, oh, I was able to do five more pounds this week. You know, or one more rep than last week. Or one more, I ran that one more mile, whatever it is. All these little signs point to progress and that it’s working and they will help to keep you motivated to keep showing up and continue doing the hard thing that you don’t want to do. I have this mantra this is like my mantra for life.
It’s relentless forward progress, no matter what. always moving forward no matter what. Always moving forward, no matter how slow. No matter how, you know, zig-zaggy, the courses or whatever, we’re always moving in the direction of our goals. This is my motto for life. This is like this got me through ultramarathons has gotten me through, you know, tough things that happened in my life, like divorce and loss of jobs.
This is how I built my business. Relentless forward progress, little by little, we make progress. And it feels good to just look back and say like, oh, I’m actually I’m making progress here. It doesn’t feel like it sometimes. But I can see these little hits of progress. And that gets me motivated. Right.
So focus on the slow and steady progress. The third tip for you to create self-motivation is that if it’s broken, you have to fix it. If you’re not seeing any progress, you have to change something, you know, what the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Right.
So if it’s not working, change it, you can’t expect to get stronger by lifting the exact same amount of weight every week, every time. Like, if you’re lifting 20-pound dumbbells, and you never go up from there, your body will adapt, and then you’ll just stop getting stronger, you’ll stop, you know, getting bigger muscles, you’re just gonna like stagnate. You can’t expect to run the fastest marathon, if you just run the same pace all the time, you’ll never get faster, you got to change something, right?
You can’t eat the same junk you’ve been eating for the last 20 years. You know, the stuff that causes you to gain the 40 or 60 or 80 pounds, you can’t eat that same stuff every day expect to lose weight, it’s not going to work. And so many people they try for a few weeks, maybe two, like they change their diet and they and they and they do it for a few weeks, and they don’t see many results.
Or maybe they’re the results aren’t happening fast enough. And so they quit, right? I’ve done this, you’ve probably done this too, right? But no, you don’t quit. You just you got to mix it up, you got to try something else, you got to change up the recipe, you know what I mean? Like you got to change up the nutrition plan. Because if what you’re doing isn’t working, you just got to try something else.
And I get it, it’s hard to know what to do. It’s hard to know, what am I supposed to change. And that’s where having an experienced coach there to help you, you know, make these changes. This is critical because I’m always tweaking things for my clients, I’m always helping them develop different macro percentages.
Different types of foods are always moving them in the direction of their health and fitness goals. Everything we do is about trial and error. You know, one of my favorite sayings is like it’s all a fun experiment, everything we do when it comes to health and fitness is a fun experiment because no two people are alike.
You cannot expect to eat what somebody else is eating and get the exact same results. It doesn’t work that way. You got to figure out what works for you. And this is like one of the things I love doing with my, with my clients, it’s super fun to do this, you know, I, I love the challenge of figuring out the right formula for each person. It’s actually fun to do.
But we’re always like trying things and then we’ll ratchet their weight down a couple of pounds were like, okay, that worked. Let’s do more of that. Oh, now it’s not working. So at least Okay, let’s try something else. And it’s fun to do that for me. Okay, so if it’s broken, you have to fix it.
If it’s not working, you have to change something, okay, just don’t keep doing the same things over and over and over again, that’s not going to keep you motivated, right. So you got to keep tweaking things. And this will help to keep you motivated because you’re going to be making more progress and moving towards those goals.
And then the fourth thing I want to talk about here, and this is like I think this is so fun, this is how to create instant motivation. So one of the keys to creating your own self-motivation. Remember, this is like, motivation is a feeling and we have to kind of create thoughts around that so we can create that feeling of motivation within us.
Everything I’m talking about here today is like how to like do some things take some actions to change our thoughts so that we create more motivation inside. More of a feeling of motivation inside the feeling of motivation inside your body, in your, in your thoughts about motivation, we call this an emotional state.
It’s like a physiological state that your mind and your body are in, that creates an emotional state of motivation. And this emotional state you can get into any time you want. In fact, you can get into any emotional state you want to get into at any time. Yes, it’s true. And I’m going to prove it to you right now.
So I want you to think about something that really makes you happy. Like, think about a time in your life when you are really, really happy. In fact, think about one very specific time when you were super happy. Do you have it? Now, close your eyes. Unless you’re driving or running, obviously, do not close your eyes, right?
But if you’re just sitting around, close your eyes, you don’t have to close your eyes students, by the way, but it does help to visualize. So you got that one specific moment in time where you were super happy, right? What were you doing? Go back to that exact moment in time where you were super happy, you’re just filled with happiness.
And see what you saw with your eyes and hear what you heard in that moment. And really start to feel the feeling of happiness welling up within you. Do you feel that? Now turn it up, turn up that feeling of happiness, increase the feeling of happiness. It’s almost like turning the dial on a television and turning up the intensity, the vibrancy of that happiness within you.
Until you begin to like radiate happiness, and you feel so intensely happy that you could just burst with happiness right now. I’m feeling that right now. And for me, it was a time when I was at Disneyland with my kids. And it was just like, so fun. It’s the happiest place on earth. Right? How could you not be happy riding Space Mountain with your kids?
You know, this is like so intensely happy for me. And I just burst with happiness thinking about that. So boom, you just got into this emotional state of being happy. And it took you like, what, 45 seconds? And you probably feel pretty amazing right now. I do. I feel really good right now. Isn’t that fun? That is fun to do, right?
Well, we can do this anytime we want. You can get into any emotional state you want at any time. And we do this all the time without even thinking about it. We get into an emotional state of frustration, or stress, or anger, or sadness, or boredom. All of these are emotional states that we choose. And they all make us feel terrible.
Why would we choose these terrible emotional states? Well, number one is because they’re easy because we’ve just been practicing them over and over and over again, our whole lives. And it’s easy to get into this emotional state of feeling frustrated, stressed out, or angry because we just we’ve been doing it and practicing it over and over again, right. And number two, it’s just kind of our default state. It’s become our default state. That’s terrible. I think that’s terrible.
I’m working on changing my default state to happy and full of joy. And I gotta tell you, it’s a much better place to be. It’s a much better state to be in. You can change your emotional state at any time, you can practice creating a feeling of motivation inside you anytime you want.
So let’s do this experiment again. Think about a time when you felt really motivated. Think about a specific moment in time in your life, when you were so overcome with motivation, and you just felt so motivated. Right now, again, close your eyes unless you’re driving or running. And then go back to that exact moment. That exact moment when you were super motivated, and see what you saw. Hear what you heard, and start to feel that feeling of motivation welling up within you. Hope you’re feeling that right now. I know I am.
I’m feeling super motivated right now. And again, turn it up, turn that dial, increase the intensity of that, of that feeling of motivation within you until you’re just bursting with motivation. You feel that? Yeah, feels good, right? I want you to practice doing this. I promise you. I promise you you’ll never be lacking motivation again, if you can just conjure up this feeling in a heartbeat, why not do it?
There’s no like magic dust involved. But I will tell you, this is like magic. This is like, it feels like magic. I feel so motivated when I think about, you know, a time when I was super motivated to do something. And it goes back for me anyway, it goes back to when I was training for my 100 miler, I was so motivated to finish that race.
I would get up early and go run 30 miles by myself on a Saturday morning, and then turn around and run like 20 miles on a Sunday morning by myself. That’s motivation right there. I think about the feeling I had, like putting my backpack together and putting my gear on, and getting ready to head out the door. That motivation that I felt was like I was a driven man, I was like, determined to like, crank that thing out and like, go out, go out there and get after it, you know?
So this little concept right here of like, going back to a specific time, we can like conjure up that feeling of motivation anytime we want. Okay, cool. I hope this has been helpful for you guys. I hope you’re feeling happy right now. I hope you’re feeling super motivated right now. And again, if you like the podcast and you get something out of it, share it with a friend, that will be awesome.
And if you want to join me in the Goggins challenge the 4 by 4 by 48, beginning this Friday, March 5 at 8 pm Pacific Time, do it. Let’s do it. It’s going to be fun. I hope. I don’t know what to expect. Never quite done anything like this. So it should be interesting. Okay, I hope you all have an amazing day. Lots of love, keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.
Most people are afraid of being uncomfortable. I think this is a real shame since getting uncomfortable is the only way to achieve anything worthwhile in this life. But it happens all the …
My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode number 43 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I want to talk about how to embrace discomfort. Most people are just afraid of being uncomfortable. Let’s face it. I think this is a real shame, though, because getting uncomfortable is really the only way that you’re going to achieve anything worthwhile in your life.
But I see it happening all the time, people will willingly trade away their big goals and their dreams just so they can avoid any kind of discomfort just so they can stay comfortable. Here’s the thing though, the only thing that stands between you and your goals is the discomfort of getting them. So in this episode of the podcast, I will explore what it means to embrace discomfort, and why it’s such an important factor in achieving everything you want in your life.
But first, let’s talk about the Running Lean community on Facebook. This is a positive energetic, encouraging informative group of like minded runners that goes hand in hand with this podcast. And I have a big announcement for you. If you are not currently part of the Running Lean community on Facebook, I would encourage you to jump in there as soon as you can, because I am doing something next Sunday November the first that I’ve never done before.
And you have to be in the group in order to check it out. I’m doing an epic training event. You will not want to miss this. The event is called Getting Lean, How To Transform Your Body Into A Lean, Fat Burning Machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting, and develop the habits required to make it all last for a lifetime.
So I’m sharing my proprietary kind of six part framework for becoming a lean running machine. This is the exact framework that I use with my coaching clients. I’m pulling back the curtain. I’m sharing it all with you.
That will be Sunday, November the first at 4pm, Eastern time in the Running Lean community on Facebook, it’s free to join, you have nothing to lose. You do not want to miss this event though. It’s going to be awesome. So just go on Facebook and search for Running Lean community. And join us on Sunday, November 1 For this epic event. Okay, let’s talk about our Running Lean manifesto.
So today, the principle I’m sharing with you is to embrace discomfort. So what is the Running Lean manifesto? Well, a few months back, I created a list of things that were important to me: my guiding principles. So a manifesto is a list of guiding principles, it’s a set of values to live by, these guiding principles have become my North Star.
As long as I’m following these principles, I know I’m living the kind of life that I want to live in that I’m heading towards my goals. And I want to share this with you because I want you to adopt this as your guiding list of guiding principles as well.
So your manifesto is a blueprint that you can live your life by. It’ll help to keep you on track, help you keep moving in the direction of your goals, your dreams, everything that you want to achieve. So it’s just, it’s always easy to see where you are by checking out where you are in accordance with these principles.
Am I where I’m supposed to be? Am I following these principles? Yes or no? It’s pretty easy to know. Okay, if so, following this list of principles, having this manifesto actually gives my life meaning and purpose and drives me forward.
So here’s what the Running Lean manifesto is. Number one is eat real food. Number two is live vibrantly. Number three is to thrive in your body. Number four, embrace discomfort. Number five, run because you love it. Number six, love yourself unconditionally. Number seven, think, feel and act with purpose. And number eight to be an example of what’s possible.
So I’ve been sharing a few of these. And over the next few episodes, I’ll share the rest of them taking a little bit of a deep dive into each one of these principles. And again, my hope is that these become your guiding principles, too, that these help you to create the meaningful life that you want for yourself.
So today, we’re talking about the fourth principle from the Running Lean Manifesto: embrace discomfort. And I did an episode a few episodes back called Embracing The Suck, episode number 35 of the podcast, which is just a different riff on this same topic, but it’s definitely worth checking out.
I got a lot of good feedback from that episode. But it will help to round out this whole idea of embracing discomfort. Okay, so let’s get into this. Here’s the problem as I see it. We all expect life to be comfortable all the time. We want to stay comfortable.
And this kind of makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, we as humans have evolved to avoid pain and seek pleasure. And this served us really well, as we were evolving as humans, as we were hunter gatherers.
When we were faced with an actual danger, like a saber toothed Tiger, we were programmed, we’ve programmed our brains to run away, that served us really well. It kept us alive. Understanding that there’s danger. And you know, wanting to avoid that danger, wanting to avoid pain, and seeking pleasure is good. It’s a good thing.
But today, there’s no saber toothed Tiger. But we still see danger all around us. Right, we see danger in work stress, we see danger and fear in the way people talk to us. We see danger in fear in people’s comments that they make online. Our primitive brain still wants to avoid pain, and is always trying to seek pleasure.
So we’re always still trying to kind of feel good all the time. Even though there isn’t any real danger out there. Or a focus of our energy is always on just being happy all the time, if that is our only goal in life, just be happy all the time, feel good all the time. The problem here is that this is not the way life works. This is not reality.
Reality is different. Reality is this life is kind of 50/50 when you accept only the good stuff in life, and you reject all the quote unquote, bad stuff in life, you are basically miserable 50% of the time. So 50/50 means that half the time, life’s gonna be pretty good, you’re going to feel good things, you’re going to kind of go your way, and the other half the time, not so much.
Things aren’t going to go your way, you’re not going to feel good. You’re going to experience good emotions, about half the time. And then you’re going to experience some negative emotions about half the time. That’s just the way life is. 50/50 means that we embrace all of it though, because this is what it means to be a human being.
The human experience is not just feeling good all the time. The human experience is experiencing all of it, the good and the bad, not just the good stuff. Okay. When we only accept the good and want to reject all the bad, we are in so much turmoil. We put ourselves through so much turmoil, because we’re not accepting half of the way life is. Okay.
Here’s an example from my own life. Honestly, every day when I wake up, I feel some level of discomfort. And no, not just because I’m 53 years old. I wake up and I feel some amount of fear and anxiety every day, because I have to show up. I have to show up to coach people, to create this podcast, to run my business, to run.
You know to go out there and run miles and miles. I have to show up to work out to stay fit. I show up every day in a way that I want to practice all of these principles and everything that I do. And I have to say that it’s not always comfortable, it is uncomfortable. So I wake up and I feel uncomfortable.
And I’m putting myself out there, you know, especially as a person who does a podcast with a following, and a big Facebook group, you know, I’m putting myself out there every single day. And here’s the thing about me, I’m an introvert, this is not comfortable for me. It’s not.
But you know what? I do it anyway. If I rejected discomfort, I would just stay in bed all day and watch Netflix. That’s comfort for me. That’s easy. That’s what’s safe. That’s what feels good. But that’s just my primitive brain, trying to avoid the pain and seek pleasure. That is not what I do.
Why don’t I just do that? Why don’t I just stay in bed? Why don’t I just watch Netflix all day? Why do I put myself out there like this, even though it’s uncomfortable? Here’s why. Because I decided that my job is to make a difference. My job is to be an example of what’s possible.
My job is to become more, to create change. Do you think I could do that? Do you think I could do my job if I’m in bed watching Netflix all day? I wish I could. But that’s not how this stuff works. That’s not how life works. It’s because I want more for myself. It’s because I want to become more that I’m willing to embrace this discomfort of putting myself out there.
Because that discomfort, that’s what it takes to become more, that’s what it takes to get there. Discomfort is the price you have to pay. If you want to achieve more. The cost of achieving your goals is discomfort. You cannot be, do, or have more without experiencing some amount of discomfort. You just can’t.
You know if being, doing, or having more was comfortable, you’d already have it. If it was easy, you’d already have it. Everything you want, but don’t already have lies outside of your comfort zone. And it’s precisely because it’s so hard and uncomfortable. That makes it so worth it. I know I hate how that works, too. But that’s the way it works.
Losing weight is hard. It’s an uncomfortable process to go through. No one would disagree with that. But when you embrace the discomfort instead of rejecting it when you put in the work, and you get to that goal. What an amazing accomplishment. What an amazing feeling that is.
I put myself through a lot of discomfort this year, getting to my goal weight. So I’ve told this story before but you know, I had put on like 40 pounds over the last couple of years. Even though I was eating what I thought was a great diet. I was eating a plant-based diet. But I was addicted to sugar.
So earlier this year, I was like I have to figure this out. And so I did all the research, I read all the books, I listened to all the experts, I attended seminars, workshops, I got training on not just the physical aspects of weight loss, but the mental aspect and the emotional side of things, too.
I went all in on creating change for myself. And honestly, this was a very uncomfortable period for me. I stopped eating sugar, and carbohydrates. Basically, I stopped eating processed foods. And I even went back to eating meat again, which was a whole nother uncomfortable place to be. This was a big decision for me, by the way.
And I did a whole podcast about that. Because it was a big uncomfortable thing for me to go through. So you can check that out when I can’t remember what number that is, but it’s called why I decided to start eating meat again. But I did all of these things.
And all of these things, you know, not eating sugar, not eating processed foods. Going back to eating meat again. All these things went against everything I was believing in up to that point. It was a very uncomfortable transition period for me. But I knew that the only way through it was to embrace the discomfort and go all in on it.
And here’s the thing, we runners, we are pros at embracing discomfort seriously. We do it all the time training for a marathon. Come on, that is a very uncomfortable thing to go through. Running every day, maybe you’re doing a run streak and you run every single day. That’s uncomfortable. Getting up early in the morning and running in the cold, or the rain or the snow, or the ice or the heat of the summer. I mean, just getting up early every Saturday morning to run. That is uncomfortable.
We put ourselves as runners, we put ourselves through all kinds of misery on purpose, we get super uncomfortable. We willingly suffer through months and months of training, just so we can say we ran a half marathon or a full marathon or an ultra or whatever your goal is.
I remember training for 100 miler a few years back, and I put in the training, it was like a year long training now, but you could probably do it shorter. But that’s how long I chose to do it. So I trained like for a year. And at the peak of my training, I was doing 30 mile runs on Saturdays, and then 20 mile runs on Sundays.
That’s uncomfortable, to be honest with you. Runners are pros at embracing discomfort. Right? We do it all the time. We’re good at it. We actually brag about it. But here’s the crazy thing. As soon as I suggest that, maybe you stop eating sugar, so you can actually become a super healthy human being and maybe lose those extra 40 pounds you’ve been carrying around. You’re like, oh, this is too hard, Patrick, this feels uncomfortable.
And I just laugh because I’m like, this is ridiculous. You’ll happily endure 17 weeks of marathon training and all the discomfort that comes with it: the painful, long runs in the dark, the black toenails, the sore legs, the long hours out in the elements, the blisters, that chafing, GI issues, all the struggling, all the suffering. You’re all in on all of that. All that discomfort, 100%. No problem.
But when I say like, hey, maybe quit eating sugar. And you do and you experience a few moments, a day where you’re having a craving like, I could probably go for something sweet right about now. And those cravings actually go away after the first week or so by the way. But when you experience a little craving for something sweet, you’re like, Oh, my God, I can’t do this. It’s too hard. It’s too uncomfortable.
Why is there such a disconnect there? Why do we have such a cognitive dissonance when it comes to this? This is fascinating to me. I believe that it’s all about deciding what’s important to you. You know, my best guess is that you’ve made marathon training, your number one priority, which is fine. That’s an important decision. And it’s a big goal. And it takes a big commitment.
So you made a decision at one point that you’re gonna go all in, you’re gonna run a marathon. And here’s your training schedule, and you are all in on that decision, no matter what, no matter how much discomfort you are going to experience, you are crossing the finish line on this date.
You know, when you run your marathon, you decided at some point that embracing the discomfort of training and of running that race was the price that you had to pay to reach that goal to get across that finish line. What if you decided that you were going to go all in on losing that weight? What would that look like for you?
What if you committed to that goal, the same way that you commit to training for a marathon? What if you decided to go all in and actually just embrace that discomfort of losing weight? How would you show up differently? How would you show up for yourself? What would you start doing differently? Maybe what would you stop doing? Because here’s the thing, you get to decide.
My suggestion for you is that you choose discomfort, whatever that looks like for you. But my suggestion is that you choose discomfort and go for the big stuff. Because you already have all the easy stuff, all the simple stuff. I want you to go after more. I want you to go after all that stuff that lies outside of your comfort zone. Be more, do more, have more, become more, just know that there’s a price that you have to pay to get it and that price is discomfort. That’s it. It’s just discomfort.
Next weekend, I am running a marathon. And the reason that I’m telling you this and that it’s a big deal for me is because about two years ago, I decided that marathons were too hard. I had run 14 marathons, and I was like, marathons suck, right? They’re too long, it takes too long for the training. These runs are way too painful.
You know, plus, you know, you’re out there all day. I decided that I was going to stick to half marathons, you know, you get it all done, like two hours, you never have more than like a 10 or 12 mile training run. You know, after your marathon after your half marathon, you can still walk the next day, like, I could justify all these reasons why I was going to just stop doing marathons and go back to just doing halfs.
And a few months ago, I was out running with some friends. And they’re all talking about creating this marathon in the Fall here and running a full marathon. And I was like, Yeah, you guys enjoy yourselves. You’re crazy. I’m not in. No, thank you. I’m just into halves now.
But then I really started to think about what it is that I really wanted for myself. Did I want to stay comfortable and small? Or did I want to see what I was made of? Did I want to push myself? Do I want to become more?
I decided that yes, I wanted to be more, I wanted more for myself. I didn’t want to settle for the comfortable. I didn’t want to settle for the easier, softer way. I wanted to prove to myself that I can still do hard things. And that meant that I had to embrace the discomfort and go all in. So I started training for a full marathon.
This will be my first full marathon in over two years. And I’m really excited about doing this by the way. It’s going to be fun, I feel good about where I am and in all of this. But I made a decision that I was going to be an example of what’s possible when you embrace discomfort.
So I’ve done all of my runs in the fasted state. That means no food for like 12 hours or so before the run. I’ve taken zero calories, have taken in zero calories during the runs. So I’ve done several 16’s, several 18’s, 20 miles with zero calories and no problems at all, tons of energy. Because I’m fully fat-adapted. And I feel like I’m virtually bonk proof at this point.
And I’m gonna run 26.2 miles in a week. Fasted, zero calories to show you what’s possible. And I have to tell you, I’ve been feeling amazing. I’m kicking ass on my runs, even at 53 years old. That’s right. But here’s the thing.
If I chose during my life if I chose to stay comfortable. If I choose not to embrace discomfort, I would never know what I was capable of. If I had chosen to stay comfortable in my past, I wouldn’t have quit drinking. I wouldn’t have done an Ironman. I wouldn’t have run 100 miles, I wouldn’t have lost 40 pounds. I wouldn’t be running a marathon next week.
If I constantly chose comfort, I wouldn’t be here talking to you on this podcast right now. I’d be at home on the couch watching Netflix wishing that I was more wanting to be more, but instead just staying comfortable and safe instead.
So here’s my call to action for you for this week. I want you to embrace discomfort. What does that look like for you? I want you to think about that and then go all in on the discomfort. be uncomfortable. It’s okay. Please go for the hard stuff too. Don’t go for the easy stuff.
That’s simple stuff that’s like right there within your reach. That easy stuff that’s not where the growth is. Go big. Embrace all the discomfort. And I’ll leave you with this thought: discomfort is temporary, but becoming more is forever.
All right, I’ll be diving into more of these principles from the Running Lean manifesto in the upcoming episodes. So this is really fun sharing this with you guys by the way. And don’t forget next Sunday, November the first I’ve got this epic event that I really want to share with you.
It’s called Getting Lean: How To Trasnform Your Body Into a Lean Fat Burning Machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting, and develop the habits required to make it last a lifetime. I’ll be sharing my coaching framework for becoming a lean running machine.
That’s over in the Running Lean community on Facebook Sunday, November the first 4pm Eastern, just search for Running Lean on facebook and join us. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.
If you have big goals and dreams for yourself, if you’re the kind of person who wants more out of life, then achieving those big goals and dreams will require you to do hard things. To get there …
My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode number 35 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today we’re talking about embracing the suck. I’m gonna say the word suck a lot today, just so you know, little forewarning.
But listen, if you have big goals and dreams for yourself, if you’re the kind of person who wants more out of life, than achieving those big goals and dreams will require you to do hard things. And to get there means there will definitely be a period of time when things were going to get hard things are eventually going to suck.
So today I’m talking about embracing the suck. Most people want to do the opposite, they want to avoid the suck. But here’s the thing, the suck is going to happen, whether you like it or not. So it’s better that you learn how to embrace it, rather than always trying to resist it. So that is coming up.
If you like this podcast, you have to come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. This is a positive, informative, highly energized group of like minded runners and it kind of goes hand in hand with the podcast. I do weekly live trainings in there on a bunch of different topics.
We talk about nutrition, weight loss, some science stuff, some mindset stuff, and we got a big challenge coming up. This is my first time talking about this, we are doing a challenge for the month of September. So beginning September 1, it is intermittent fasting month in the Running Lean community. And no, it does not mean that we will not be eating anything for the entire month of September. Okay.
I will explain exactly what intermittent fasting is and what it isn’t. We’ll talk about how you can do intermittent fasting safely. And you’re kind of already doing it already right now, whether you like whether you know it or not, I’ll be busting all the myths about intermittent fasting like it will kill you. That’s a myth, it won’t kill you.
We’ll talk about how you can incorporate intermittent fasting into your training, all the amazing health benefits of intermittent fasting especially for running and weight loss. When you combine a low carbohydrate, high fat diet, along with intermittent fasting, this is like rocket fuel for your health and for your fitness and for your weight loss.
And we’ll talk about what all that means and how to do it. So just go over to Facebook, search for Running Lean the Running Lean community and join us for our September intermittent fasting challenge. It’s going to be cool. Also losing weight, becoming fat-adapted, learning how to do all these things like intermittent fasting. It’s hard to do on your own, I get it.
That’s why I’m here. I want to help you. And I do offer one-on-one coaching because we’re all different. We all have different goals, different needs, different lifestyles. Working with me, you’ll learn exactly how to do all this stuff in a way that works for you as an individual. In fact, here’s one of my very favorite clients Deborah had to say recently, she wrote this comment, so sweet.
She wrote, “I’m on day 14 of coaching with Patrick. I’ve seen many nutritionists and dietitians in my life, and also work with a dedicated running coach. Patrick is by far the most legit health coach I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He takes the whole body and the whole mind approach and helps you to battle through the tough stuff, cutting out sugar and carbs, and helps you to identify the reasons that are far bigger than calories or pounds. So you can stay with it. I was dying for a piece of supermarket birthday cake yesterday. And just knowing that Patrick is in my corner to make a smarter decision helped me to get through that craving.”
Thank you so much for those kind words. Deborah, you are so sweet and you are an awesome client. Also, that craving for that supermarket birthday cake is very, very specific. We need to talk about that. But it’s funny. That’s what sugar does to us. It has a powerful hold on as it causes all kinds of very specific cravings apparently.
But if you’re ready to make some big changes in your life if you’re ready to ditch the sugar and the carbs In the addiction to sugar and carbs and those crazy, specific cravings, if you’re ready to embrace the suck, at least temporarily, then you have to go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, one word, and apply for one on one coaching with me do it now I promise you, you will not regret it.
Alright, embracing the suck, embrace the suck is a fun phrase that is very popular in endurance sports, it means that it means this, it means things are gonna get hard. At some point during this event during this race, whatever it is you’re doing, things are going to suck, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to accept it, embrace it, and keep going.
And I first started hearing about this a lot when I was training for Ironman. There’s a great deal of suck during that race, there’s a great deal of suck in the training for that event too, just so you know, it’s a lifetime of suck when you’re into Ironman Triathlon, as a lifestyle.
But anyway, so during that event, there’s a lot of suck, that’s going to happen, right. And I knew that at some point, during that day, I was going to have to face the suck, okay. And I didn’t really know when that was going to happen or whatever, until the day of the race.
So the day of the race, you know, do this swim, two and a half, 2.4 mile swim, get out of the water and, you know, cycling for 112 miles. And then I laced up my running shoes and started to run while this was Louisville, Kentucky, August 95 degrees and humid.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, arguably. And this is when I was heading out to start to run my marathon after the 2.4 mile swim and cycling 112 miles of rolling hills. So I had been out exerting myself since 7am. And this was now three o’clock in the afternoon. So this is like eight straight hours of continuous physical exertion. And I started running and my legs just would not move. I felt horrible. It sucked big time. And it’s in that very moment right there. I was like, oh, yeah, this is what they’re talking about. Embrace the suck. This is the sucky part.
And I knew what it meant intellectually, like, I knew like, oh, yeah, this is gonna happen at some point. But until you experience it in the moment, it is just a concept. It’s just a theory. But when it hits you hard like that, and I will tell you, it hit me hard, it was very, very difficult, I would start running for maybe 10 seconds, and I just had to start walking and try to start running again for maybe 15 seconds. And I just couldn’t do it, I had to walk.
And it took a while for me to get a little momentum going where I could actually run for any extended period of time. I mean, there were people, you know, at the beginning of the marathon that were just like, sitting on the ground, just like on the curb, like laying down, you know, just already they were just done.
And it kind of freaks you out a little bit because you’re like, oh my god, you know, what have I got myself into here? But as you know, I kept moving. And when I was fueling and hydrating and things like that I was able to get up a little running, but I just let it be sucky. And I just kept moving forward. That little mantra was in my mind, embrace the suck, just know it’s gonna suck. And keep moving.
Another crystal clear moment of embracing the suck for me, was during the Hallucination 100. So this was the 100 mile trail race that I did up in Hell, Michigan, which is an aptly named play by the way. And the trail is 16, roughly 16 miles, a little over 16 miles. And so you got to do the loop six times to get to 100 miles.
So I finished my fifth loop. And so there’s right around mile 84. So I just had one more loop to go and you’d think I’d be like, Yay, just one more loop to go. Well, my feet were swollen like crazy. I had these giant blisters. My feet hurt every step. I was in excruciating pain. Every muscle in my body was like, just sore and tense and tight.
I had been running nonstop for over 24 hours at this point. So I’d rip around all through the night. No sleep and here I was, I still had 60 more miles of trails and hills to go, I wanted to quit. So I had to make a choice, in that moment, you know, because it sucked big time, it was really, my whole body just wanted to shut down and just lay down and be done with it.
I had a choice though, I could call it a day, and just be done with it. You know, say, Hey, I got to mile 84 good job, or embrace the suck, and finish. I mustered up all the courage, I had all the determination. I knew it was going to be painful. And I just put one foot in front of the other.
And I set out on that single track trail, and started that last 16 grueling miles. And it was very hard. It hurt a lot. It sucked a lot. But I just allowed it. I allowed the pain to ache, I embraced the suck. The exhaustion, the fear, the frustration, all of it, I just was like, it’s all going to be there. And I’m going to keep moving forward no matter what.
I have this mantra, there’s a mantra and trail running, which is, or ultra running, I guess it’s relentless forward progress. And this is kind of my mantra for life in general. But relentless forward, progress is like the thing that keeps me moving in those moments, like no matter what, just keep moving forward. And I did. And I finished that.
I finished both those races to the hardest things I’ve ever done. Arguably, like, those two moments are like, the most sucky experiences of my life, but I embraced them. And I kept going, I didn’t quit.
And then what happened to me, which surprised me, when I finished those races, the experience of of having gone through that sucky period, and like embracing it, and then keep moving forward. This was life changing for me, I became more of a person more than what I was before starting those events. You know, I got way outside my comfort zone. And I grew in more ways than I could ever have imagined.
And it didn’t happen because there weren’t any sucky periods or because it was easy. It happened because it was hard. You know, I’ve talked about this before, and, you know, we gotta like, accept the challenges that come our way. And that’s how we get to the, to the good stuff is we got to go through the challenges, kind of what we’re talking about here. embracing the suck, okay.
And this applies to many different areas of your life, you know, so I talk about my, my weight loss clients, I tell them that things are gonna get uncomfortable, you know, that they need to embrace the suck when they stop eating sugar. And they’re like, yes, Patrick, I’m down with all of that, bring it on, I’m ready.
And so they stop eating sugar. And a week or so goes by, you know, things are okay. But then they start having these withdrawal symptoms, you know, they get headaches they get, they feel lethargic, they start having these super strong cravings for sugar, they start dreaming of sheet cakes from the grocery stores and edible cookie dough.
And they start to feel like they’re missing out on all of life’s pleasures that their life really sucks now, and there’s never ever gonna be joy in their life again, their life is basically over. And I’m like, remember, when I said things were going to suck and get very uncomfortable? Well, that’s what we’re talking about. You’re in it now.
But they’re like, but I don’t want it now. I want it to go away. And I’m like, I know, I know. But here we are. Same thing with runners who want to, you know, kick the carbohydrate addiction and want to become fat-adapted runners. And I tell them very specifically, running will suck for a few weeks as your body adjusts to switching from, you know, glucose to fat as fuel, just it takes a while for your body to get to that process.
And they’re always like, I’m down with that. I’m ready, bring it on. So they stop eating the carbohydrates. And after a week or so the running gets really hard and they’re like, what’s happening? Running is really hard. I mean, it’s really hard and I’m like remember when I said you have to embrace the suck and you were all down with all that. Well, this is what we’re telling you. This is the suck. Okay.
You know, it just takes a few weeks to become fat-adapted. Once you do, it’s amazing. But there’s a period where it’s very uncomfortable and running is hard. And you just have to accept it. That is part of the process.
Okay, but here’s the thing. Anytime things start to get hard they start to suck, we have two choices. We can resist them, resist it, or we can embrace it, we can either resist it all, fight it, reject it, push it away. wish it wasn’t so hard wish it was different.
Or we can embrace it, we can allow it to be there, accept it, accept the fact that it’s going to be hard and keep going anyway. So when we, when we resist it, when we resist the sock, you know, we wish things were different. We’re basically not accepting reality. It’s like saying I wish the sky was red instead of blue.
Or, I wish running 100 miles didn’t hurt at all. Or I wish my sugar addiction wasn’t so real. These things are just the way things are. They are exactly how they’re supposed to be. And here’s a little pro tip, do you know how you know that this is how they’re supposed to be? Because that’s how they are.
You know, running 100 miles is going to hurt because it hurts. You know that sugar addiction is real, because it’s real. You know, this guy’s supposed to be blue, because it is. It’s when we don’t accept this reality, this is what causes us inner turmoil.
When we don’t accept things as they are, it actually makes the sucky part a lot worse. You know, and I get it, it’s like, I just want to feel better, like right now. But you know, it’s not how it works. It’s like trying to hold a big beach ball underwater.
So you push it down and you push it down, the more you push it down, the harder it is to hold it down, and you just can’t keep it up. And eventually, that beach ball is going to come up, it’s going to come splashing up into your face. And don’t ask me how I know how this works. But that’s what happens. Okay.
So we’re just like rejecting what is, we’re pushing away. This sucky part, when that is just part of the process of getting to those big goals and dreams. Anything worthwhile that we want to accomplish means we got to go through something sucky to get there, okay.
You can accept it, you can embrace it, or you can just resist it and fight it. Fighting it and resisting, it just makes it worse. Right. But when you embrace it, when you stop the resisting, when you stop pushing away, the reality of what it is, you let go of the beach ball, you just let it be there. All sucky and everything. When you can accept things as they are, even if they suck, and that’s okay. Just embrace it and keep moving forward.
You feel the pain, yeah. But you keep on running. You feel like quitting, but you don’t, you just keep going instead, you feel like eating a whole sheet cake to yourself. But you don’t, you just allow that craving to be there. And you don’t do anything about it. Maybe eat some bacon instead. Or you feel like going back to all the carbs.
So that running will be quote unquote, easy again. But you don’t, you just let it be hard. Because you know, you have to go through that sucky part to get to the amazing part. And here’s a little spoiler alert for you guys. Life is not supposed to be happy, and comfortable all the time. Life is like 50/50. it’s just not supposed to be happy, carefree, joyous, and amazing and super comfortable all the time. It’s just not.
It’s more like 50% of the time, life is amazing, and exciting and fun and uncomfortable. And then 50% of the time, it’s uncomfortable and kind of crappy and a little sucky. And that’s okay, this is normal. This is the way of life. This is what it means to be a human being alive on the planet today.
But if you think life is going to be good all the time, if you expect that you are going to be very disappointed and very miserable a lot of the time because you’re going to be rejecting and resisting the reality of what is. You have to accept it all. You have to embrace the suck.
Because without the pain, we don’t get to experience the pleasure. Without agony we don’t know what joy is without feeling sadness. We don’t know what happiness feels like without frustration, we don’t learn patience. Without feeling anxiety, we don’t experience peace. Without failing, we don’t want to know what accomplishment feels like.
You know, without uncertainty, we don’t know what confidence is. When you can embrace all of it, when you become willing to experience all of these emotions that we’re talking about a lot of emotions here fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, pain, when you’re willing to experience these emotions, when you’re willing to embrace the suck. There’s nothing you can’t do.
Most people, they’re afraid to feel uncomfortable. They are so afraid of the suck that they never do anything hard, they’re not even going to try. They don’t even get up off the couch. Because they know that to put on their running shoes and go start running when they haven’t been running forever.
And they want to run a 5k. They want to do that. But they know it’s going to be hard. And so they just stay on the couch. They don’t embrace the suck. So they never do anything hard. And guess what? They never accomplish anything. They stay comfortable. Yeah. They don’t have to experience the sucky things. Yeah. They stay in their comfort zone.
But what does that do for you? What does that get you? Is that what you want for your life? I don’t think so. If you’re listening to this podcast, if you’re listening to me, then I’m pretty sure that’s not you. That does not sound like you. Everything you want, but don’t already have, lies outside your comfort zone. So if you never embrace the suck, you never embrace the discomfort you never grow.
You never become more than what you are today, right here, now. You never accomplish anything bigger than what you’ve already done in your life. Like, this is it, this is where you are. And that’s it. If you don’t embrace the suck, you don’t get uncomfortable.
You never experience the amazing 50% of your life full of joy and satisfaction and accomplishment. You got to go through the 50% that’s hard and painful and sucky. Remember the sucky parts, you have to go through the sucky part, in order to get to the amazing part.
It just that’s just the way it works. So I want to encourage you to embrace it all. The good, the bad, and the suck, embrace the suck. Become an emotional badass, like allow all those things to come up. The pain, the frustration, the fear of missing out the exhaustion, whatever it is you’re doing, embrace it all.
Because when you do when you embrace the suck, you become a total badass you’d be there’s like nothing you can’t accomplish. Most people are so afraid to experience these emotions. Don’t be afraid to experience the emotions. And you’ll see what you can do. I guarantee you, it’s a much better way to live your life.
Well, we will be continuing this conversation over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. Just come and check us out. It’s really fun. And remember, September is going to be intermittent fasting month, we’re gonna be talking all about it, how to do it, why we do it, why it’s important, how it’ll help you.
And, you know, it’d be super awesome. If you enjoy this podcast. If you get something out of it. Just leave a quick little review on iTunes, just, you know, scroll down and your little iTunes podcast app, tap the stars. And then just write a couple words that that you’re getting something out of this, it would really mean a lot to me if you did that. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean. Embrace the suck. I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a Lean Running Machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.
Today, I’m talking about what happens when you commit to achieving something, and I mean really committing to it. It’s like the difference between saying you’re going to run a marathon one day and …
Continue Reading about 33. The Power of Making a Real Commitment →
My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode number 33 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host and weight loss coach for runners. And today I am talking about what happens when you commit to achieving something.
And I mean really committing to something, it’s like the difference between saying you’re going to run a marathon some day, and then actually signing up for a marathon. And then putting together a training plan and then actually training for it. There’s a big difference there.
There’s this subtle but very powerful shift that happens in your brain when you decide to go all in on a goal. Making a real commitment, especially early on in the process is often the one thing that differentiates those who succeed at reaching their goal and those who do not.
But first, I want to tell you a little bit about the Running Lean community on Facebook. If you like this podcast, then you have to come check out the Running Lean community. It’s a positive, energetic, informative group that goes hand in hand with the podcast. It’s a fun group of like minded runners who share common goals like losing weight, running easier, running farther and living a more vibrant life.
I do some weekly trainings in there on a host of topics like the running mindset, running nutrition, similar to the things that I talked about here on the podcast, weight loss, and so much more. So we can take a little bit of deeper dive into some of these issues, and topics.
Here’s a recent comment from a podcast listener and member of the Running Lean community Tammy, she said, “I’ve learned more from Patrick listening to and being part of the Running Lean community and podcasts for the past few months than I have in the past 30 years as an avid runner and workout junkie. His insight on running nutrition and life principles for optimal health are inspiring and encouraging. I’m enjoying running again, for the first time in years have lost weight and have incorporated the knowledge I’m learning into practice. It’s one thing to hear it, but another thing to have someone motivating you and encouraging you to make it happen. It’s made a huge difference. Highly recommend fellow runners to join in.”
Thank you, Tammy, you’re so sweet. Listen, I strive to be an example, to be an example of what is possible. I’ve accomplished a lot in my life for just an average guy. I’m not some elite athlete, I never went to the Olympics or anything like, you know, I’m an average guy. But I’ve done some pretty amazing things.
And I want to encourage you and maybe even push you a little bit to get you outside your comfort zone to help you to accomplish those things that you want in your life. So join us over in the Facebook group, it’s just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community, you’ll find us it’s fun.
Also, if you’re interested in coaching with me, I’m always available for personal weight loss coaching for runners, you know, losing weight, becoming fat adapted learning how to run on your own body fat, it’s, it’s challenging, not gonna lie, and it’s kind of hard to do on your own. And everybody’s different.
We all have different goals, different needs,and different lifestyles. Working with me, you know, you and I working together, I’ll help you learn exactly how to become that lean, fat burning running machine and do it in a way that works for you and your specific needs and goals.
So you’ll get help and guidance you need to work through obstacles, I help point out your blind spots, things that you cannot see. You get a step by step action plan that will help get you to your goals you get accountability. That’s such a huge part of coaching is the accountability piece.
Motivation, encouragement, keeping moving forward, and tools and skills to help you improve every aspect of your life. Just imagine how much easier losing weight would be if you have someone right there showing you exactly what to do and holding you accountable. So if you want to ditch the sugar, if you want to get off the carbs, if you want to become fat-adapted, lose the weight, feel better, have more energy, you want running to be fun again, sign up with coaching with me. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, one word. And let’s talk. Alright, cool.
So today I am talking about making a real commitment. And I want you to do something here, as I start talking about this, I want to encourage you to start thinking about a goal that you have. So what is that thing that you want to do that maybe you’re a little afraid to do? Or maybe it seems like it’s outside the realm of possibility, it might seem kind of impossible for you to accomplish it, whatever that goal is that you want.
And I want you to start thinking about that, while you’re listening to this episode. Keep that goal in mind, okay. So it might be like you want to lose 30 pounds, it might be you just want to become a fat adapted runner, you might, you may want to like sign up and run your first marathon, or maybe start trail running, or just be healthier overall, like learn how to eat healthier overall, whatever your goal is, doesn’t matter.
Just keep it in mind as we’re going through this material. And then at the end of this episode, I have a little challenge for you. And you’re probably already thinking you know what it is? So we’ll get there. Okay, so keep that goal in mind. You got it, you got it in your head. Awesome.
Okay, so here’s the thing, the difference between people who succeed at stuff and those who don’t, a lot of times just comes down to a commitment. Successful people decide that they are going to succeed, they make a commitment to reach their goal. No matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how many challenges they face, they are committed to making that happen.
So they don’t necessarily have some superpower, they don’t have more drive than you, more determination, more willpower, or anything like that. They just early on in the process, they made a decision that they were going all in on this no matter what.
Okay, this is very important that you don’t have to have some gene that like, you know, is required for you to reach big goals, you just have to decide that you’re going to do it. Think about some of the things you’ve already done in your past.
So you’ve made some commitments in the past that were pretty epic. I know you have. And if you’re an avid runner, chances are you’ve signed up for marathons or a half marathon or a triathlon or a 5k or something like that. And at some point, you thought this was something you could never do, right?
And then at some point, you made a decision that you were going to do that no matter what. Early on in the process, you made a decision that you are going to do your first 5k. And I remember when I made the decision that I was going to run my first 10k. This was a big goal for me because I couldn’t run a mile without stopping. And so I made a decision to run a 10k.
And it was the Thanksgiving Day race here in Cincinnati, which is one of the oldest foot races in the country. And it’s been going on for over 100 years. And anyway, it’s a fun race. You know, 15-20,000 people show up on Thanksgiving morning, dress up like turkeys and run 10k. But 10k, you know, 6.2 miles seemed daunting to me, like, Whoa, that’s a big deal.
And so I started training for it. Well, I signed up for the thing, you know, and then I started, I put together a training plan. And when did we have the Internet back then? I don’t even know maybe I went online and picked a training plan. And then maybe I got a book. I don’t remember exactly. It would have been like 2003-2004 or something like that. So yeah, I guess we had the internet back then.
So anyway, I found a training plan. And then I like wrote it all into my calendar and I like stuck to it. Like I made the commitment that I was going to do this no matter what. And I trained hard and I ended up doing that. I made a decision early on in the process, no matter what I was going to cross that finish line.
And I’ve done this a bunch of other times too. When I trained for my first marathon, I made a decision at some point, I think I got kind of hooked after that 10k I was like, dang, if I could do that, I could do anything. I think the next race I signed up for was a marathon.
Actually, I just skipped the whole half marathon thing, and went straight for the marathon. And made a decision when I signed up for that marathon, I paid for it. I like signed up. And that was that was enough that was going to propel me forward. That’s what I needed to do. That was a decision that I had to make. That was the commitment that I had to make.
And then during my training for that first marathon, I ended up getting injured. I had stress fractures in my both of my tibias. And I had to take a bunch of time off of running like six to eight weeks or something like that, I probably didn’t take that much time off, but I had to take a bunch of time off. So it really messed up my training schedule.
My longest run, my longest training run for my first marathon was only 16 miles. So I’ve never run more than 16 miles. And so when I towed the line, at the start of my first marathon, the longest I’d ever run was 16 miles. So this was going to be 10 miles longer. But you know what? I did. I crossed that finish line.
And I’m convinced that making that real commitment early on, was like the rocket fuel that I needed to push me through all those trainings and to push me through injury. And to get me to that start line and get me to the finish line. A very powerful example of this is when I signed up for Ironman in 2013. At the beginning of the year, I decided I was going to do Ironman.
And I got online, and I signed up for Ironman Louisville. And I was like hovering over the submit button on that website form after putting all my information and my credit card information in and I was like, Oh my gosh, as soon as I click this button, I’m committed. That’s the power of making real commitment. And then, of course, I pushed the button.
And I was like, oh, my God, what did I just do? So it kind of like, freaked me out a little bit. And I was full of fear. And I just put together a training plan again. And I had to get through a lot of challenges. During that training, I was struggling with the bike, I couldn’t find the right kind of saddle, I was having all kinds of pain when I was riding, I crashed my bike, kind of like freaked me out when I did that.
You know, I put in like 20 hours a week of training for this thing. And there were so many challenges I had to face. And I’m convinced still, that it was that making that decision early on, that got me through all that training got me through all those obstacles. And that got me across the finish line in a successful completion of that Ironman. Still one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
But really, like when I made the decision, when I committed to finishing an Ironman, I knew in my heart and my brain, I knew I was going to do it. And that’s the way I approach things. Not always, but I try. And the same goes for every time I’ve trained for a marathon.
You know, I’ve run like two marathons a year for a bunch of years there. I haven’t done that in a couple of years. But for a while there, it was two marathons a year. And so I was pretty much training all the time. And so I would choose a race, sign up for it. And then I would show up for every single training run for those races. And that’s a commitment. That’s a commitment that goes deep, you know, and it’s something you have to do early on.
So you’ve got to make that commitment early on in the process. But here’s what happens when you make that real commitment. It’ll dictate how you show up every day. It’s got to be something that’s bigger than you first of all, because it has to keep you motivated. It has to keep you energized. It has to get you out there. Even when the weather really sucks when it’s super cold, or it’s dark, snowing, it’s like miserable. Or boiling hot. You know, depending on what time of the year you’re training.
It’s that commitment you make has to be epic. It has to be bigger than you. It has to keep you going even when you don’t feel like it. But when you make a real commitment to reaching a goal, that goal is as good as done. Now let’s transfer this like, think about other types of goals you might have, like, maybe you want to lose weight, or like I mentioned becoming fat-adapted, changing your diet. These same principles apply.
You have to make that commitment early on, it has to be an epic commitment, you have to make the decision that you are going to go all in, that you are going to succeed, no matter what, no matter what challenges come up, no matter how uncomfortable you might get, no matter how hard it might seem, in the moment.
Most people don’t do this though. Most people, you know, dabble in these concepts and principles, when we talk about losing weight, and changing your diet and what you’re eating, and how much you’re eating, and when you’re eating the kinds of foods you’re eating, people do it kinda sorta they don’t make that commitment, they don’t go out there.
And because they’re afraid, they’re afraid of how they might feel, because they might feel sluggish, they might have cravings, they might get an urge to eat some pizza or ice cream. And guess what, those people that kind of dabble that kind of go, not all in it goes sort of a little bit in, they get some little results.
And when things get challenging for them, which they will, they always do, they don’t have anything to fall back on, they don’t have any internal support system, you know, from within themselves. So they might like, maybe they’ve stopped eating sugar, and carbohydrates, okay. And they’re like, you know, I’m kind of committed to stop eating carbs.
And then they’re like, at a friend’s house, and they’re, you know, hanging around and they see a cookie right there. And there’s nothing in them that’s stronger than this urge they’re having in this moment, eat this cookie. And so they just eat cookie right there. You know, think about that, though.
They’re taking this moment, this tiny moment in time. And you know, even though they want to lose weight, they want their health to be better. They want to change the way they eat, they want to change the way they think about food and the way they feel about food. It’s causing them all kinds of problems. But in this moment, that one cookie sitting there is more important than all of that to them.
And they cave and eat the cookie. So that cookie is more important than who they ultimately want to be. Now, I’m oversimplifying this, and I get it sugar is very addictive. That’s why making this commitment to yourself is critical. It really is.
If you want to succeed at losing weight, if you want to succeed at changing your diet, if you want to succeed at becoming fat adapted. You know, you have to go all in with your commitment. You have to have this attitude of like, I am going to make this work no matter what.
When you do, it’s going to work. I can guarantee it. It’s all in your head. It’s all in your thoughts. It really is. But when we make these half ass commitments, you know what you get half assed results every single time. Half assed commitments will get you half assed results if that every single time.
And I know what you’re thinking, Patrick, it’s hard. It’s hard to stop eating sugar. It’s hard to change the way we think about food. And then I want to challenge that thought. Really, is it really harder than say training for a marathon? Is, you know, eating or not eating carbohydrates harder than sticking to a training schedule where you run four to five days a week for months and months on end through the dead of winter to train for a goal. Is that harder than that?
Is it harder than getting up early every Saturday morning? You know, running in the cold and the snow and the rain? I mean, believe me, I have done this so many times. I’ve had some very miserable Saturday morning runs that me and my running friends we still talk about oh yeah, remember that one 22 miler that we did in the freezing rain? Yeah. Where people’s like hands were numb? Yeah, I remember that.
Here’s the thing. You already do hard things. You’ve accomplished some amazing things already. I know you have and you’ve accomplished those things because you committed to accomplishing those things, you have to do that same thing here, I’m not asking you to do anything you haven’t already done.
You know, you just have to go all in, you have to decide early on that this is what you’re going to do, this is who you’re going to be. And that is going to help drive all of your actions. But what happens is we have these thoughts in our brain that this is hard, or I can’t do it. Or, you know, who am I? I’m not good enough. I’m not like you, or whatever the thoughts are, that we have.
So whether you think something is easy, or you think something is hard, these are all just thoughts in your brain, it doesn’t actually mean it’s easy or hard. You know, if you have a thought, like, I can try this fat adaptation thing for a while. And then if it gets kind of hard, I can just go back to eating the way I was before.
What do you think is going to happen if that’s your thought? I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. It will get hard, because it always does. And then you’re gonna go back to doing things the way you’ve always done them, which don’t work, and you’re just going to be stuck where you are. And that’s fine if that’s what you want. Totally fine. And I’ve had clients who’ve done this, so they quit, because they get uncomfortable. They think it’s too hard, and they can’t do it.
But here’s the thing, I have other clients who are doing the exact same thing. And for them, it’s like, super easy. They have just a different thought about it. It’s kind of interesting. Those people are like all in. They’re like, man, yeah, I’m totally committed to making this work. And I’ve had clients who have been like, hey, Patrick, this is challenging, but I’m, I’m committed to making this work.
How do we get through this obstacle? Like I hit a plateau? How do we break through this weight loss plateau here? And I’m like, let’s figure it out. That’s a much better place to come from. It’s very powerful. It’s empowering. Okay, saying it’s too hard. I can’t do it all that you’re giving all your power away, you’re just, you know, basically saying you’re not powerful enough, you can’t, you have no control over all this.
These are just thoughts in your brain, though. But when you make that commitment early on, and that’s just a thought too, by the way, but it’s a super powerful thought. I will do this no matter what. I love this quote from Tony Robbins, he says, “It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”
So think about those moments of decision that you have. What are you thinking in those moments? What are you deciding to think in those moments? What kind of a commitment are you making, in those moments of decision, because whatever it is, it will shape your destiny. Whether you think it will or not, it will. It is shaping your destiny.
It’s either moving you closer to your goal and ultimately will get you there, or it’s moving you further away. And you’ll just be stuck where you are. So honestly, the only thing that can stop you from reaching that goal is a thought in your brain. So think about like what thoughts are going through your brain right now around your goal? What thoughts are you having about it?
Some thoughts might be like let’s say your your goal is to you know, get off the sugar, become fat-adapted, lose some weight. Here’s some thoughts that people have. “I’m super addicted to sugar. I crave it all the time. There’s no way I can give it up. There’s just no way I can do it.” That’s just a thought.
Or, “I’ve tried to lose weight before. It’s never worked before. Why should it work now? I’m just gonna fail again. I know I will.” That’s just a thought. Or, “I’m gonna feel deprived. I’m gonna feel hungry all the time. I’m gonna have FOMO (fear of missing out) because other people get to eat pizza and I can’t.” That’s just a thought.
Or like, “This is just gonna be it’s just gonna be too hard. Or people will judge me. They’ll think I’m weird.” People think you’re weird anyway. So okay. People think I’m weird. People don’t like me. There’s a lot of people that don’t like me. I know. It’s crazy, right?
But anyway, there are people out there. And it’s okay. It’s just a thought. It’s just a thought that we all have. But these are like thoughts, all those thoughts that I just kind of ran through, these are actual thoughts from clients. They feel like they’re the truth, but they’re not. They’re just thoughts. They’re just like sentences in our brain. I’ve had clients who think that losing weight on like a low carb high fat diet is the easiest thing they’ve ever done. They say it’s simple, it’s fun.
There’s a lot of freedom in it, and they love doing it. These are just thoughts that people have. And those people that have those kinds of thoughts will tell you what? They reach their goals, and it’s fun, and they enjoy it. Just a thought.
So I want to encourage you to like, go all in whatever that goal is that we were talking about earlier that you are thinking about, let all this stuff come up all these thoughts that you might have, it’s okay, just allow those thoughts should be there, because they’ll come up. But keep going anyway.
You know, we don’t succeed, because we never have never negative thoughts, we succeed because we have negative thoughts. We allow them and we keep going anyway. You know, think about the marathon training, have you ever been out on a long training run in your thought, this sucks, I’m never gonna finish. It’s too hard. I’m never gonna be able to finish this thing. Maybe I should just quit.
Of course, we’ve all had that thought, right. Especially on that cold 20 miler where we had the freezing rain. I was like, this really blows, I hate running. But I kept going anyway, and I finished it. You know, so we could have those thoughts and still do the deal and still, you know, move towards our goal, we can still take the action we need to take to get us there.
Those thoughts can be with us, they can come along for the ride with us, but they’re not driving the bus. They’re like in the passenger seat over there. Okay, we want the thoughts, that’s those, those epic commitments that we have that like, I’m going to do this no matter what we want that driving the bus, okay.
So, something I want you to do here is to think about this, this is a cool kind of exercise you can do. And it’s important that you kind of do this and think about that commitment level that you want to reach that goal that you have, okay. Your six year success, like reaching that goal, achieving that goal, it’s as good as done, when your reason for sticking to it is more compelling than some, you know, physical craving, or some emotional desire or some thought like, I just don’t feel like doing this.
So here’s the kind of little exercise you can do in your mind, it’s a very easy thing to do. But I want you to like, go out into the future, like put yourself out into your future. And you have accomplished that goal. So it is done. So you’re at your goal weight, or you’ve crossed the finish line of that marathon, or you’re healthy and happy, you have a different relationship with food, whatever your goal was, you’ve achieved it, it is done and think about this.
How did you make that happen? How did you get here? What’s the main reason you were able to achieve this goal? What was the commitment that you made early on that kept you going? Obviously, it was something that was very compelling, because it got you through all the challenges, all the obstacles, or the all the hard stuff. It wasn’t some half assed commitment. Right? You went all in.
So what did that look like for you? How did that feel to have that commitment driving you all that time? That got you there? How did that feel? Now hold on to that feeling. And here’s the challenge that I have for you. So at the beginning of the episode, I talked about thinking about a goal, right? Here’s the challenge for you, I want you right now, holding on to that feeling, I want you to make the commitment that you are going to reach that goal no matter what.
No matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it might seem to you right now, it might seem impossible for you right now. Still make the commitment. Doesn’t matter how challenging things you’re gonna get or you don’t, you don’t even have to know how you’re going to make it happen. You just have to commit to making it happen. Do that right now.
This is the challenge, make a real commitment right now. And then come over into the Running Lean community on Facebook and share that goal with us. What I bet that just made you feel uncomfortable, right? You’re like oh, I don’t know about sharing my goal. Because it makes it real when you do that. I know it’s scary. And some people don’t like to share their goals and that is totally fine.
Personally, I do share my goals with a few key people in my life like with my coach, with some very close friends, you know, I have some, some goals with my business and things like that, and some, you know, goals for my health and things. I don’t share it like, in a super overt way.
But sometimes I do, sometimes I post in groups, or share with, you know, groups of people, goals that I have. And it’s actually pretty powerful to do that. So if you’re the kind of person that wants to share something with a group of people that would encourage you, I want to encourage you to do that in the Facebook group, just post your goal in there and say, my goal is, or I’m committed to, let’s write it that way.
I’m committed to and then share your goal with us write a post, and then we’re all going to tell you that you can do it, and we’re going to help you achieve that goal. It’ll be fun, and scary, and awesome and amazing and powerful.
Okay. I know some of you are like cringing right now you’re like, dude, really, I don’t want to do that. You don’t have to do that. But I want you to make that commitment in your mind, regardless of whether you post it or not, whether you share it with the world, I want you to make that real commitment in your mind to reach that goal.
And then see what happens, see what amazing, powerful things you can do. Okay, so we’re gonna continue this conversation in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So just go to Facebook, search for Running Lean community, and join us it’s going to be super epic.
And if you enjoy this podcast and you get something out of it, if it helps you in some way, you can show your support by just leaving a quick review on iTunes, I would really appreciate that. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. As always, lots of love to each and every one of you. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a Lean Running Machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become a lean running machine.
Let’s face it, it’s been a challenging year for all of us. Just consider the impact the COVID-19 global pandemic has had on each of us - this year has been a huge challenge! We’ve all been forced …
Continue Reading about 30. It’s the Challenges That Change Us →
My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode number 30 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host and the weight loss coach for runners. And if you’re just tuning in for the first time, you’re not losing your mind, I just recently changed the name of the podcast. So this is the podcast formerly known as The Running Mind podcast. And now we’re just Running Lean, boom.
So welcome to Running Lean, where you’re gonna learn all about how to get leaner and get stronger. So you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. You are capable of amazing things. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about. Today, we’re talking about facing challenges in order to unleash that amazingness that is lurking inside you.
Let’s face it, it’s been a challenging year for all of us. Just considering the impact that the COVID-19 global pandemic has had on every single one of us. It’s been a challenging year, it’s been a huge challenge for all of us. We’ve all been forced outside our comfort zones, and into a place that feels very uncomfortable, very challenging.
But what I want to talk about today is how it’s these, these very challenges that we face, that show us who we really are. It’s the challenges that force us to grow. It’s the challenges that change us sometimes in profound ways that we never would have experienced if it weren’t for going through all the discomfort of these challenges. The challenges that we face are essential for our growth as human beings. So I’m gonna get into all of that in just a minute.
But if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. It’s a group that kind of goes hand in hand with this podcast. And it’s a fun, thriving, engaging community of like minded runners who all want the same thing. They want to get leaner and stronger, run faster, and be able to run longer.
And speaking of challenges this month, we’ve been doing the no sugar challenge, and it’s been super fun. It’s hard. It’s a challenge. It’s why it’s called a town challenge. It’s not easy to quit eating sugar, trust me. But lots of people have been in the group ditching sugar and carbs and experiencing, you know, discomfort, but also amazing changes.
And here’s a recent comment from Sondra, she’s in the group and she’s talking about how she feels and she says, “I’m doing great. I’m finally over the headaches and the fatigue. I now have the energy to run consistently and longer. Oh, and I’ve lost inches and I’ve lost eight pounds. It’s day 16 for me, super excited about the results thus far.”
That is amazing, Sondra, that is amazing work. Giving up sugar is not easy. It’s a challenge. It’s hard. But it’s not quite as hard when you’ve got the support of all these people around you to kind of share the experience with you and help keep you motivated. So join the group just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and join us, I’d love to have you in there.
Also very important. Our next masterclass the next Running Lean weight loss masterclass for runners starts Monday, August 3, that is just 10 days from today. If you’re listening to this on Friday, it’s a six week intensive training program, you’re going to learn how to become a fat adapted runner. That means getting off the sugar and running on fat.
Running on your own body fat, which is an amazing source of fuel. Yes, you will lose pounds, you will lose inches but also you’ll become leaner and stronger you’ll be able to run. Running will be easier. I promise you. It’s hard at first but then it gets easier. I do have a couple of spots left. And I’m only accepting a small number of students per class. I keep it intimate. And it’s a select group of people so you’ll need to apply so if you want to get your application in do it now before the program sells out because it will sell out. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/masterclass to apply.
Okay, so let’s get into this topic today, which it’s the challenges that change us. So like I had mentioned, it’s been a challenging year for all of us, you know, we’ve got this global pandemic. I mean, who would have known that something like this would happen. It has radically changed our lives, it has affected the economy, it’s affected us as human beings like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.
There’s been layoffs and work furloughs, people have had to adjust to working from home, people have had to adjust to being at home with their spouses and with their kids. Not always easy. People have had to learn how to use Zoom, talk about stress. You know, parents are expected to homeschool their kids along with, you know, doing their job from home.
You know, our running groups have all been canceled, all of our races have been canceled. All of these big goals and dreams that we had for this year have been canceled, or at least, you know, put on some extended hold. And, you know, these are all big challenges. You know, if you can put all this stuff together, you know, it can seem like pretty overwhelming, right? Pretty big challenges.
So I’m going to share some stuff with you here. And I hope you don’t mind. But I’m going to ask your permission to get real with you. And I’m going to be vulnerable and talk about some things that I really haven’t talked about before. Here’s that cool, cool, cool. Okay, good.
So here we go. So here’s been some of the personal challenges that I’ve faced, in addition to, you know, the global pandemic, and all the fun that’s kind of gone along with that. So at the beginning of this year, I got divorced, you know, my wife said she was ready to move on.
And, and so I had to go through that, which is a challenge. And that meant, you know, finding my own place to live. So I moved into my own place, I had to get used to living alone again, which is kind of weird. After being married for like nine and a half years, you know, I had to figure out how to pay my bills, because honestly, at the time, she was the main income earner for our relationship in our marriage. And so I had to hustle, right, I had to, like, get some jobs and stuff.
So I did, I like, I had my coaching business and I was you know, doing some coaching which was good, kind of building my business at the time. But I went out there and I got some jobs so that I could have some more income coming in. So I got a job working at a running store, local running store, selling running shoes, basically, which was, you know, was fine.
I got a job working as the head coach of one of the local running groups here in Cincinnati, and that was fine. And you know, paid a little bit of money, just good. In addition to those three things, so my coaching, the running store, the running group, head coach, I was doing some rideshare you know, driving just picking up some, some extra cash, driving people around for Lyft, and all that was fine. Like I was fine, I was making ends meet, I was hustling. I was very busy. I was working literally like all the time. And then COVID hit and things really changed in a big way for me, personally.
The two jobs that I had the two paying jobs that I had I got furloughed from both of those so we had to stop the running group and obviously the running store had to shut down. So those two things went away immediately. And then I had to like stop doing that ride share thing because I did not want people in my car.
You know, I did not I just don’t trust you know, people I wanted to stay safe and I didn’t want to get sick. So I stopped doing that. And that all brought a lot of fear to me and a lot of financial fear like how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to buy groceries? That kind of stuff.
And so I started delivering food for Uber Eats so I just did some of that food delivery and I gotta tell you, during the stay at home order that was a pretty lucrative gig. You know what I mean? I could work on my coaching business in the day and then deliver food dinner time basically and I and I did that for quite a while and really made a lot of good money doing that.
You’d be surprised people were ordering a lot of food during the lockdown. Okay so working on my coaching business during the day, recording podcasts, sharing content, you know, creating programs and things like that. And then at night out there hustling, delivering food and I gotta tell you all of this stuff dealing with all of this and and the divorce and all of that all at once was very challenging for me, there was a lot, a lot of stress going on in my life.
And, and I didn’t choose any of it. You know, it wasn’t like I went out there and was like, I think I’m going to get divorced and start my life kind of all over again, at 53 years old. You know, I didn’t want that. Choose that. I mean, I’ve chosen plenty of challenges like I’ve chosen to do hard things, plenty of times, I’ve run dozens of marathons and ultra marathons, you know, I did an Ironman, I ran 100 miles, I did a 100 mile trail race, all these things are very hard, but I chose them.
They all made me feel very uncomfortable. They got me out of my comfort zone. I knew they would, though. But I made a decision, a conscious decision ahead of time to do these things. Okay, I didn’t choose to get divorced, I didn’t choose to get furloughed from those jobs. I didn’t choose to kind of start my life all over again, on my own. I certainly didn’t choose a global pandemic, to just add to the fun of all this stuff going on.
All of this stuff forced me to get out of my comfort zone. It forced me to get uncomfortable. And inevitably, it like forced me to grow and to change. And this is the powerful lesson that I’m going to share with you here today is that whether or not you choose the challenge, if you face it head on, you change for the better.
You’ve got to embrace the discomfort that these challenges bring. The key is to step up and face the challenge head on, embrace the discomfort. Discomfort is the cost of growth, it’s the price you pay, if you want to change. Because when you avoid discomfort, you avoid all the change and all the growth, you stay right where you are.
Yeah, it feels comfortable, feels good. It’s what you know. But you’ll also never have the experience of becoming anything more than you are right here now in this moment. And one big way that we avoid discomfort is we try not to feel our feelings, you know, we don’t want to feel bad, we don’t want to feel any negative emotions, because that feels bad.
So a lot of times what we do is we buffer away our emotions. And buffering means we put something external between us in our emotions. So we use something like food or alcohol, to make us feel better on the inside. So we might, we might feel scared or lonely or angry. And so we eat something or drink something and it does feel better temporarily.
But we’re basically, we’re resisting those feelings, we’re resisting those emotions that are coming up during that challenging time. You know, we reject anything that’s so called like a negative emotion, because they don’t feel good. And we want to feel good.
Like right now. I can’t tell you how often I used food to feel better at the beginning of this year. You know, the first couple of months after our separation. I was eating a lot of pizza and a lot of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. And it did feel good. It was kind of like the best part of my day.
I would you know, like I was saying I was working all day and then working all night. And then I would be like I’m getting a large pizza and a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. And this is going to be like the best part of my day. I look forward to it.
I mean, honestly, that’s probably not awesome, if that’s the best part of your day. But that’s a topic for another day. But anyway, it works for a minute like it does, does feel good. Eat all that sugar and stuff. It works for a minute, but then it doesn’t work right like you come down after sugar.
And then you’re still left with all those emotions, you still feel all those feelings. But only now you feel worse because you’re getting fat on top of feeling hurt or lonely or scared. So avoiding the discomfort does not work. It only makes things worse, you have to embrace the discomfort of your challenges. So I had to learn how to allow these emotions in.
I had to learn how to allow them in and process them just to let them be there. The negative emotions the quote unquote negative emotions, the positive emotions, all of them. I had to stop using food as an escape from my emotions. And this is not something most people are willing to do.
Most people will not do this because it’s hard, it does not feel good, it is uncomfortable. But if you want to step up, if you want to face your challenges head on, you have to allow these emotions in. You know, like, a good example is right before the start of Ironman. So if you’re not familiar with what Ironman is, it is a brutal, it’s like one of the toughest sporting events you can do as a human being.
So it starts with a 2.4 mile swim, and then 112 mile bike ride, followed by a full 26.2 marathon. And so I trained for a long time for this thing, but then, right, you know, the morning of the event, we’re standing there ready to jump in the water. And I was like, feeling so scared, so scared, full of fear. And I just allowed that fear to be there with me, and I, and I, the gun went off, and I jumped in the water.
And I just did it anyway, as a good example, I tuned in to that feeling I had at the time of just allowing that emotion to be there with me, while I was doing this really hard thing. And I was kind of feeling that same way, about the separation and the divorce.
At the beginning of this year, I was feeling so hurt and angry about the divorce, you know, I didn’t want to feel that way. But I allowed the feelings to be there. I allowed those emotions to be there. And I carried on anyway, I just kept doing the next right thing. Anyway, it’s kind of like you’re driving in a car, and you look over in the passenger seat and you’re like, hello, fear, hello, hurt, hello, anger.
Yeah, you guys can come along with me, but I’m driving, you’re not in charge here. So don’t allow those feelings to overwhelm you or overtake you, or dictate how you’re going to show up. You know, keep moving forward, allow the feelings to be there with you. That’s what it means to embrace the discomfort.
You know, think about this sugar challenge or no sugar challenge we’re doing in July, it’s uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortable to not eat sugar, if you’re used to eating it, it doesn’t feel good. You can there’s some like withdrawal symptoms that you get, your head aches, maybe a little lethargy.
And it just doesn’t feel good. And you don’t have that thing anymore, that buffer to use to feel better. So there’s this period of like discomfort and most people are just not willing to feel that discomfort. But I’m telling you, discomfort is the price you have to pay to become more when you embrace discomfort and you face your challenges, you grow.
Because growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. Oh, you get in your comfort zone is more of what you already know and have you know, you don’t get to be more. When you embrace discomfort, you learn what you’re capable of. And let me tell you, you’re capable of way more than you realize. When you embrace discomfort, you build trust in yourself, you build confidence in yourself. And you begin to change in profound ways that you’d never even imagine.
If you weren’t faced with this particular challenge, you become more of that amazing human being that you already are, but you just become more. You know, you get to become an example of what’s possible. And honestly, when you embrace discomfort and you like, face your challenges and move through them. It just, it feels amazing. The sense of accomplishment and pride that you have in that, oh my gosh.
Now, here’s the best and worst part about all this, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the change. So, if you want to make some big changes in your life, you’ve got to like face some big challenges head on. You know, and a lot of times, what we do is we say, well, I’m gonna do this little challenge, I’ll stop eating a little bit of sugar. I’ll cut it down a little bit, you know, and then you might get a little bit of a change, you know, but if you really want to elicit big changes in your life, you’ve got to like face these big challenges whether you choose them or not.
You know, I faced some very big challenges this year so far. And because of those big challenges, I’ve changed in big ways. You know, right now sitting here talking to you today. I feel so good about myself. I’m very comfortable living here on my own, I’m very comfortable financially, I’m very comfortable with myself.
I actually love being alone, in love living by myself. I actually have a good relationship with my ex wife. Like we still talk. And just a little sidebar, like who wouldn’t want to be married to me? I just want to know that, right? I mean, because I’m awesome. But anyway, that’s another, another topic.
But I’ve gotten myself off the sugar, I’ve gotten myself off the carbs I’ve lost 40 pounds this year. And it’s not because of stress. Actually, I was gaining weight, because of the stress eating that I was doing. I was one of the reasons why I was like, dude, I gotta do something about this now.
So I got off the sugar and the carbs, I started eating high fat, low carb diet, lost 40 pounds, running is so much more enjoyable again, I’m actually like, at the best weight, and I’m in the best shape of my life that I’ve been at since I can remember, I don’t remember ever being in this good shape. And I’m 53 I’m not like you know, super young.
Other big ways I’ve changed, I’m doing work that I love every single day. Talking to you right here on this podcast is a great example of the kind of work I’m doing. Not because, not in spite of the challenges I’ve had, but because of them. Because I’ve been forced to like step up my game.
You know, I’m building this amazing community of runners. And it fills me with gratitude and with love. I mean, this is an amazing positive group of people that I get to surround myself with, I feel so grateful for that. I have this great coaching business that I just love. Coaching people, by the way, like, when I’m coaching someone, I’m in my zone, and I just feel amazing. You know, right now, this podcast, it’s like one of the top ranked podcasts on iTunes. What? That’s crazy.
I’ve rekindled all these amazing friendships with people, from people from high school and people that I just haven’t been, you know, friends with for a while or haven’t really communicated.
But I have all these people reaching out to me and saying, Hey, Patrick, how are you doing? I just, I feel overwhelmed with love and support from my friends and from family. And today, I show up in everything I do as like the best and most authentic version of myself yet. And I know there’s even more to come.
But today, I can honestly tell you sitting here today, I love myself unconditionally. This is not something I would have said four or five months ago. I love myself unconditionally. And this is one of the most amazing changes I’ve ever experienced in my life. And here’s the crazy part about all this, I would not be here today in this place with all this. All these amazing changes that I’ve experienced. I would not be here today, if I was still married, I just know that I would not be who I am today.
If I was still in that comfortable life that I had. I was forced out of that comfortable life and into all this discomfort. It was very uncomfortable. If I haven’t stressed that enough, it was very uncomfortable, the divorce, the loss of jobs, the pandemic, all of this. But it was the catalyst for my change in my growth. And I know it sounds crazy. But I’m grateful for all of it.
I’m not where I am today despite these challenges. I’m here and who I am today because of those challenges. And I look at challenges differently today. I see challenges as opportunities, opportunities to grow, to change, to become more to get stronger to thrive. I don’t want to just survive. I’m not here to be a survivor, I want to thrive. I want to be amazing.
I just want to be like, fine. You ever ask people like how are you doing? And they’re like, fine. Like of all the emotions you could choose to feel? You just want to feel fine? No, I want to be amazing.
Now are our challenges hard? Are they hard to do? Is it hard to like face your challenges? Yes. Is giving up sugar hard? Yes it is. You know you feel terrible at first,running sucks for a little while. But then is it worth it when you get through all that and you get to the other side of that again? Hell yes. It is so worth it.
Is running a marathon hard? You know it is, but are you profoundly changed when you cross that finish line, especially with your first marathon, oh my gosh, you know you are. So here’s my challenge to you. What are you avoiding doing because it’s hard? What are you not doing because it’s uncomfortable? I want to challenge you today to do that. Do the hard stuff, face those challenges, whether you’re choosing them or not, get out of your comfort zone. Do it off.
And if you can’t do it every day, if you can, you know whether the challenge is something you’re choosing or not choosing, embrace the discomfort because there will be discomfort. Learn how to feel your feelings, learn how to allow them in and keep moving forward. You know, don’t use those buffers against your emotions, don’t eat to feel better, don’t drink to feel better, don’t do drugs to feel better.
Because that stuff that does not work, you have to learn how to feel your feelings. But when you do, when you get out of your comfort zone, when you show up as your most authentic self, when you face your challenges head on, you get to show yourself what you’re made of. You get to become more you will blow your own mind with this work, I promise you.
And you can see what amazing big changes you can make in your life. Who you can be? Who do you want to be? Not despite the challenges but because of them. Ah, that was good. I’m glad I shared that stuff with you guys here today. And honestly join the Facebook group because we talk about challenges a lot in there.
And every Sunday I do kind of like a little free training in there. Sunday afternoons. So last Sunday, we talked about what it means to become a fat-adapted runner and all the benefits of that. And it’s good, we have lots of fun discussions in the group. So please join us over on Facebook, Facebook land, just go to find the Running Lean community on Facebook.
And then remember the next Running Lean weight loss masterclass for runners starts in just 10 days, you will learn exactly how to become a fat adapted runner. It’s an intensive six week training program taught by me live, you get to ask questions, get all your questions answered, you will lose weight, you will run faster, you will become stronger. You will become a bonk proof runner and build around those long distances without ever worrying about like crashing and burning.
You’ll learn how to end the emotional eating and learn how to allow and process those emotions will help you work through embracing the discomfort of all of this. Yes, it’s a challenging program, but it will change you. You will be transformed as a runner and as a human being in just six weeks. And I do have a couple spots left.
So please get your application in now. innerfiretribe.com/masterclass. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.
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