Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
If you’re a runner and you are not engaging in some form of consistent, intentional strength training, you are leaving a LOT on the table. This is another episode I’m doing in my “Back to Basics” …
Continue Reading about 129. Back to Basics: The Importance of Strength Training for Runners →
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 129 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, another in My Back to Basics series: the importance of strength training for runners. So if you’re a runner, and you’re not engaging in some sort of consistent intentional strength training, I’m just going to tell you right now you’re leaving a lot on the table.
So this is another episode I’m doing in my Back to Basics series, where I’m talking about the basics of good health: improved fitness, improved running, and really becoming your healthiest and most badass self. Okay, so today is all about the importance of strength training for runners.
To be honest, most runners that I talked to are not doing any form of strength training, like at all, or they’re not doing it properly. So in this episode, I’m gonna go over why strength training is so important. If you’re a runner, how it can help you to improve your running, how we can help you to lose weight. And all the reasons I believe that strength training is actually one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your overall health and fitness. So that’s all coming up here.
And I just wanted to let you guys know that this whole month, this month of June, is mastering your mindset month over in the Running Lean coaching project. The Running Lean coaching project is my coaching program. And this is our it’s it combines the best of my group program and one on one coaching with me, we put together a personalized plan that works for you, you get training, you get all the information you need, you’ll learn exactly what to do, how to improve your nutrition, how to take control of your food choices, how to lose weight and keep it off permanently, how to build new habits, how to get stronger, how to improve your strength, your endurance, how to fix your mindset.
This whole month, mindset is one of the most important things you can do. This shifting your mindset is one of the most important things you can do to take control of your health and fitness, you cannot succeed and cannot make these changes last, if you don’t have the right mindset. So we’re spending the whole month of June talking about how to improve your mindset. And don’t worry, I know it’s the middle of the month. But if you want to join us, you can.
And all the calls that we do and all the training I’ve been doing around mindset this month, they’re all recorded, and they’re all archived on to a private podcast feed that you can listen to, or you can watch the replays of the Zoom calls, you can watch the videos as well. So you won’t really miss out on anything.
So I just want you to know that anytime you hear me talking about what we’re doing in the current month, and every month, we pick a different theme and sort of just do a deep dive into that theme, you’re not really going to miss out on anything if you join in the first or second week or the middle of the month, okay. And then you can actually have access to all the back back months of trainings that we’ve done.
So if you’re ever interested in really taking control of your health and fitness for good, and understanding how to make these changes last permanently, then join us over in the Running Lean coaching project. There is an application process. This isn’t for everyone. And I want to make sure that we get on the same page before you jump into the program because I’m interested in working with people who are committed and who have what it takes, I think to succeed you so you have to have this commitment level, you have to sort of go all in on yourself in order to be successful with changing your health and fitness like this. So I want you to consider that. So we jump on a call and we talk about your goals and see if this program is right for you or not.
So if you’re interested in applying, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply We’ll jump on a quick zoom call you and I will have a conversation and see if this is good fit cool. But we’d love to have you in the Running Lean coaching project. And especially for this month where we’re talking all about mindset that’s runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out your application and we’ll jump on and a zoom call and see if this is right for you.
Okay, another episode today’s another episode in our Back to Basics series. This is where I’m just kind of going over some things I may have talked about in the past. You know, maybe I’ve updated some of the information that today’s a good example of that I’ve got some updated information about strength training for you guys and about why it’s so important, especially for runners, especially if you’re somebody who’s trying to lose weight, especially if you’re somebody who wants to improve your health and fitness, I know you do. If you’re listening to this podcast, you want to become more, you want to become the most badass version of yourself. I know you.
So, you know, this is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Absolutely. People talk about, you know, how great running is for you. And I know I’m a runner, this shows for runners, I coach runners running is my life. It’s what I do. But I’m going to say something that may surprise you. I think strength training is more powerful and more important for you than running. Running is also important. Running is also important, okay.
But I think building strength is going to have ramifications that last longer, and will help improve your fitness in ways that I’m gonna explain today. So I hope you kind of agree with me by the end of this episode, how important strength training is for you.
But it can be more powerful and more effective on your overall health and fitness than running can be. Okay, I know it sounds crazy, right? But I believe it’s true.
So just to give you an idea of like, what I teach in my coaching program, there’s like four main pillars that I talk about in my program. And they are nutrition, strength, endurance, and mindset. And all four are required. All four are important for different reasons. Nutrition, obviously, if you’re eating the wrong diet, and no amount of running is going to fix that no amount of strength training can really undo that. Okay, so nutrition I’m going to say is number one, and then I would put strength as number two.
And then endurance would be number three, you know, we need to build a strong cardiovascular system. So you know, running, run, walk, or whatever you like to do. For endurance, some people are cyclists, awesome rowers, swimmers, whatever you’re into from an endurance mindset. And endurance standpoint is awesome, do that. Do that.
And then underlying everything is mindset. Mindset is like, sort of the foundation that makes everything else possible without the right mindset. All this stuff is really hard to do. Okay, but armed with the right mindset, shifting your mindset, changing your mindset for the better, will make huge improvements, all these things you think are impossible for you become possible with the right mindset. Okay, so all four of these elements are required to be a fit, healthy, happy human being, you have to have all four, nutrition, strength, endurance, and mindset.
And today, we’re gonna be talking about strength. We’re going to talk all about why it’s important. And I don’t want you to skip this. It’s probably the most important. Okay, next to nutrition. All right.
So the problem I see with a lot of runners is that they just don’t do any kind of intentional strength training, or the strength training they do is, is not they’re not doing it, right. I hate to say that. But I’m just going to tell you right now that there’s kind of like two different ways to do strength training.
There’s one where you’re intentionally building muscle. And there’s another way where you’re basically it’s more like a cardio workout. Right? You’ve seen this like Orangetheory, and, you know, certain, you know, HIIT classes maybe, or yoga, like power yoga and things like that. These are, these are great, I love all that stuff. They’re all good for you. But a lot of times these workouts tend to be more cardio based.
And that’s fine. But as runners do, we really need to be engaging in more cardio. It’s not a bad thing. Cross training is great. I love it. You know, if you’re a runner and all you’re doing is running, I think that can be detrimental after some time. You know, you start to get overuse injuries and things like that. So engaging in some other types of cardio activities like cycling or swimming. Great, awesome stuff to do.
But don’t pretend like what you’re doing is strength training because a lot of times it’s not, you know. So, bodyweight isn’t really enough sometimes, and I’m gonna get into that in just a minute. But we want to be intentional about building strength and building muscle.
And if you’re a runner and you’re not doing this, you are leaving a lot on the table, you’re not going to be as efficient as a runner, you’re not going to be as efficient as a fat burner, you’re not going to lose weight, if that’s something you’re interested in as effectively as you could be if you’re doing some intentional strength training. So running is just not enough on its own.
There’s three main systems that runners need, and they need to improve and need to work on. And that is endurance, strength and explosive power.
So most long distance runners especially we get into marathon runners, or ultra marathoners, they just focus on endurance. And that’s it. So again, you’re just leaving a lot on the table, you’re leaving out two very important systems that you should be improving in order to make writing that much better for you. Okay. So endurance is great, we want to build our endurance, but you’re leaving a lot on the table, if that’s all you’re working on.
Now, I get some times, you’re training for 100 miler, and, you know, that might be where you’re gonna focus on the long, slow distance, and totally make sense. But incorporating strength and explosive power into your training cycle, and into your regular workouts is going to make that endurance even better, you’re going to improve your endurance, because you’re improving these other systems.
Think about it like this, we need all three systems to function properly, to be at our best, to be at our strongest. And if you’re only working on one of them, endurance, for example, you’re just gonna leave out a lot of potential for improvement, you know, running improvement, performance improvement, power output, even endurance, like, just if you just work on endurance, and that’s all you’re working on, but you’re not getting stronger, you actually are not going to improve your endurance the way you could be, if you were if you were doing some intentional strength training, okay.
So, you know, like to build endurance, you just want to run more, you keep increasing your distance, you keep increasing the time you’re out there running, you know, to build explosive power, you can do things like HIIT training, plyometric exercises, stuff like that. And then to build strength, we have to lift weights, we have to have some sort of resistance.
Okay, so bodyweight usually isn’t enough. So we need to have some more resistance, some body weight can be fine, especially at the beginning. And there’s some exercises where bodyweight is plenty. But really, to work your entire body, you have to be overloading muscles. And so I’ll explain more about that in a second here.
But just understand that we need all three of these systems functioning properly, endurance, strength, and explosive power. And if you do have all those things, firing on all cylinders, so to speak, you’re going to be at your best, right, you’re going to be much more, you’re going to be much stronger and much more powerful as a runner, and a healthier human being overall.
So some of the things I see as a result of people not doing regular resistance training, regular strength training, is they have reduced power output. So they cannot run as hard, or as intense, or as fast as they want to, their running performance is impaired. Regular strength training will fix this. People that don’t engage in regular strength training, especially runners are more prone to injury.
You have a reduced ability to burn fat, if you’re not engaging in regular strength training, your metabolism is actually slower than if you were doing some regular strength training. And there’s just this overall kind of lack of energy that happens, that I see in a lot of people who aren’t engaging in regular strength training. Okay. So just understand that some of the negative things, and I’m gonna talk about how we fix these things right now, right.
But the important thing I want you to understand here is that we have to be engaging in regular consistent resistance training of some sort. And when I say resistance training, there has to be some sort of resistance in order for you to overload your muscles. So that can be free weights, it can be machines at the gym, sometimes it’s bodyweight, it could be those bands that you hook into a doorway or something like that.
I’ve got a set of those bands that I take with me on vacation. If I can’t get to a gym with actual weights, and they work really well. They work really well to do all kinds of resistance exercise, we just have to be, we have to push ourselves to the point of failure. muscle failure is what we’re looking for here. Okay.
So let’s talk about why strength training is so important for runners and what it does for you like, what are the benefits? Why would we want to be engaging in regular strength training? So one of the most important ones that I like to talk to, especially with the people that I work with who a lot of times they’re trying to lose weight, is that your strength training will play a big role in helping you to lose weight.
So when you are carrying around more muscle mass, when you actually have more muscles, your metabolism speeds up, you can actually burn more calories, and therefore burn more fat when you’re carrying around more muscle. So one of the best things you can do to lose weight and improve your body composition, is to do regular strength training. So your muscles require more energy than fat does.
So muscle requires more energy to be on your body than fat does, that doesn’t require a whole lot of energy for your body to carry it around. But muscle does. And so your metabolism will actually be faster if you’re doing regular strength training, and you’re building some muscle. So just understand that if you’re trying to lose weight, like if that’s a goal of yours, and you’re not doing regular strength training, it’s just going to take longer.
Okay, so don’t you want it to go faster? Yeah, I know you do. Another benefit of strength training is that it helps you to get fat adapted and helps you to stay fat adapted. So this whole idea of speeding up your metabolism helps to improve fat burning, it speeds up the fat adaptation process as well.
So if you want to get fat adapted, which is where we’re transitioning our body from being primarily sugar burners to being primarily fat burners, then regular strength training is going to help speed that process up, and it’s going to help you to stay there again, your metabolism is faster, you’re burning more fat in general, then you can stay fat adapted, if you’re doing regular strength training, it’s a much, it’s a much better way to stay fat adapted, and it’s really powerful. And if you can keep your metabolism operating faster, then you keep the engine burning hotter, basically, when you have more muscle on your body, okay, so it’ll help you to get fat adapted and help you to stay fat adapted.
Another benefit of strength training, especially for runners is that, you know, when you, when you build strength, you’re increasing the strength of your muscles, but you’re also increasing the strength of your connective tissues. So ligaments and tendons, this will help protect joints around things like your knees, and your ankles and your hips.
And if you’re a runner who’s prone to injury, and you want to know, like one of the best things you can do to help prevent injury in the future, regular strength training is going to do that for you. So having stronger muscles, having stronger connective tissues, having stronger joints will mean that you are you have a less reduced risk of injury. Right? So this is something that I think is very important, especially as we get older, okay.
Which brings me to another important benefit of strength training, which is it helps to increase bone density. So, bone density is one of those things that people think, oh, you know, you just need to, like, take calcium supplements or something and, and there’s actually some sort of controversy around that and how taking too much calcium can actually diminish bone density.
So it’s better to do something like strength training to improve bone density. So as we get older, one of the most common issues with people is that they lose muscle mass, and they lose bone density. And then they you know, as they get older, they do things like fall down. And when you fall down and you break a hip or something like that, you become sedentary and then your overall health and fitness declines very rapidly at that point.
This is one of the most common causes of death in the elderly is complications from falls, that can be prevented with regular strength training, just stay strong. I want to be like 101 years old and still be able to like, go for a run, lift weights, I want to be in good shape. So that’s my goal. I don’t want to fall down and break a hip or break a leg or something like that. Okay. So, if you’re an endurance athlete, and you’re getting a little bit older, you’re over 40 or whatever. You especially will benefit from strength training, because your strength declines faster than your endurance as you get older.
So you may still be able to run longer, but you could be breaking yourself down. Remember that running is catabolic. Running kind of breaks you down. And one of the best ways to reverse this or prevent this from happening is to maintain muscle strength.
I am currently 55 years old, and I have never been stronger in my life. And I just started this a few years ago, this very intentional way of strength training that I teach to my clients that is very effective. And if you engage in regular strength training, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can improve, you can make improvements, you can become stronger. And you should be doing some sort of regular strength training, it doesn’t matter how old you are, okay, but strength training will help increase bone density and help you to kind of prevent aging, it’s like magic. Another benefit of strength training is that it helps to improve your overall energy. So consistent anaerobic exercise, like sprinting or intense weightlifting, you know, lifting heavier weights, this is going to give you more energy and give you more energy for your next bout of intense physical activity.
So this is actually going to improve your overall athletic ability, this isn’t going to improve your overall athletic performance. And this is going to improve your overall energy levels. So doing some sort of consistent, anaerobic type of exercise, like strength training, will help you to have more energy just throughout the day.
Another important aspect of strength training for runners is that if you want to improve your speed, if you want to become a faster runner, you need to be doing some regular strength training, there’s no better way to get faster. And then to build stronger muscles. When you start to build stronger muscles and you lose the fat weight and gain some muscle weight, you improve your power to weight ratio, so you have more power on a smaller frame. That means that you can run faster, you have more power output at that point.
So this is about body composition. This is about losing fat weight, gaining muscle weight, and it will help to improve your running performance, you can run faster for longer, okay. And that brings me to my next point, which is improving endurance. So being being stronger means you have more long lasting energy, you can run further, you can run longer distances and longer amounts of time, you can be out there running, because you have stronger muscles, right, you’re not going to break down and hit the wall, like you would if you were super weak, you know. So stronger muscles means you can sustain running for longer periods of time.
And it also has to do with increasing your lactate threshold. So regular strength training will help to improve your lactate threshold, increase your lactate threshold. So that means you’re just shuttling more lactate out of the bloodstream. So you’ll be able to work out harder and more intensely for longer periods. Right. So again, this is about helping to improve performance in general helping to improve speed, power, output and endurance. So all of that gets improved when you’re engaging in regular strength training.
Then there’s a couple of benefits of strength training that I thought were interesting. For example, regular strength training can help you fight depression, improve your mood. So regular strength training releases these feel good hormones and neurotransmitters. And we call this your daily dose. So its dose stands for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, D O S E. And the effect of these feel good hormones can last for, depending on the person, up to 12 to 24 hours.
So if you’re doing regular strength training, you’re doing regular workouts every day, every other day, whatever. You are just going to be a happier human being all around, you’re going to be nicer to be around, you’re going to be in an elevated mood. And so if you’re somebody that has struggled with some, you know, mental health issues, or maybe a little bit of depression, anxiety, that kind of thing. I know this was me.
Years ago, I really struggled with some anxiety issues and depression. And running regularly and doing regular strength training was one of the things that really pulled me out of that, and really helped me to stay above that. And, you know, I still had some of those issues. It’s not like it’s going to fix everything, I had to do some, you know, some counseling and therapy and things like that, which I think is so, so important.
But this regular release of these feel good hormones, just puts you in a little bit of a better mood, and it lasts for a while. And so this is one of the reasons why I continue to do regular exercise and regular, intense exercise. So when I go to the gym, and I lift weights, it’s a hard workout. When I go run, I usually do one of two things, I do super hard, fast runs, I did some sprints the other day, super hard, super hard. And then today, I did a very slow, easy run.
And I kind of balanced the two out, you know, so I’m not always just doing some medium hard runs, I’ve kind of balanced them out with some pretty intense runs, that release more of these feel good hormones, regular strength training, that can be pretty intense to release, these feel good hormones, and I’m just in a better mood all the time, I’m a lot nicer to be around when I’m exercising regularly. I like myself better and other people like me better.
And another thing I thought was interesting was that regular strength training can help reduce risk for some diseases. They’ve done some studies that show that increasing muscle in your body, increasing bone density can actually help reduce the risk for diabetes and heart disease. So if you’re somebody that maybe has a family history of these kinds of things, then regular strength training can be a factor to help to reduce the risk of some of these things. Obviously, your diet is gonna play a factor into this.
Genetics to some point. Don’t smoke cigarettes, that kind of thing, right? You don’t smoke cigarettes, right? I used to smoke cigarettes, I can’t believe I did that today, I look back on that and go like, that was dumb, right? I smoked for like 15 years. Terrible. Kids don’t smoke cigarettes. Okay, stay away from cigarettes.
Alright, now I want to talk a little bit about what it means to do strength training and like kind of how we do it and how we shouldn’t do it. So I was kind of mentioning this earlier, but we want to make sure that we are intentional about building strength.
So when I say that what I mean is like, we don’t want these workouts to just be another cardio workout. And I see too many people, especially runners who they’re like, well, you know, I just need to lift really light weights and do a million reps, you know, because that’s how you get toned. And really, it doesn’t really work that way.
In order to build strength, you have to create an overload in the muscles that you want to build strength in. And we should be working out the whole body here. Okay, so a whole body workout is what we’re talking about here. Tip to toe.
So when you do intentional strength training, you should be overloading the muscle group you’re working out. And this is a principle in strength training called progressive overload. So as you lift the weight, and you get to rep number 12, or 15, whatever it is, and you can no longer lift that weight, even though you’re trying with all your might. And it’s hard and it hurts and you’re like I can’t do it.
That’s overload, you have overloaded that muscle, you can no longer lift that weight. If you could still do another 20 or 30 reps, you’re not there, you’re not going to have an adaptive response. When you overload the muscle, the muscle responds by then, growing stronger, there’s an adaptive response to that overload.
Right? So what we don’t want to do as runners is more cardio, you don’t really need to be doing more cardio, most runners do plenty of cardio. So make your strength workouts very intentional about building strength and don’t make them about more cardio.
So we got to overload the muscle. And we want to do that in a very intentional way with some sort of resistance. So how much resistance Well, studies have shown that light weights will not create the overload required for your muscles to have that adaptive response and grow and get stronger.
So what you want to be doing is lifting heavy and I know what people are thinking you’re like, Oh, but I don’t want to become some big giant bodybuilder. And I’m just gonna tell you right now, do not worry about that. So many people tell me this, they’re like, oh, I’m not gonna I don’t want to lift weights because I don’t want to be all big and jacked. You know? I will tell you right now that to become big and jacked takes so long and it is so hard to do.
Go tell a bodybuilder that you know you’re not going to lift weights because you don’t want to get jacked like them. And they will just laugh in your face, they’ll just be like, yeah, whatever, don’t worry about it, you got to eat a ton more food, you got to be intentional about taking certain supplements, you got to, like work out really intentionally, really hard, like, five, six days a week at the gym.
If you want to get jacked, you can, but it’s going to require a lot of work, a lot of, lot of work. And I’m just going to tell you as a runner, if you’re a long distance runner, right there is going to be, that’s going to kind of be working against you a little bit. Because running, like I said, is catabolic, it breaks you down, running can break down muscle.
So in order to build muscle, you got to be pretty intentional about strength training, do not worry about getting huge. Do not worry about getting muscle bound, it’s just not going to happen. Okay, so lift heavy weights, lift weights heavy enough to create that overload, that’s what’s going to get you there, that’s what’s going to create the adaptive response and get you stronger, we’re not in you know, if you want to see some muscle on you, that’s fine, you can do that you can do that.
You don’t worry about getting huge. More importantly, is getting stronger, becoming a stronger human being. That’s what we’re really after here. So sometimes you’ll see some of those muscles, sometimes you won’t, it’s okay. But if you’re working, if you’re working out properly, you will get stronger. Now this is what’s going to create all these benefits that I talked about here.
When I say you’re going to gain muscle, I mean, you might gain a few pounds of muscle, you probably won’t even see it on the outside of your skin, you might even see bulging muscles coming out, especially women, if you don’t want that look, don’t worry, you won’t get that look. Okay.
It’s very hard to do that, it’s very hard to get these big jacked muscles, I’m trying to do that right now. And as a 55 year old runner, it’s challenging, it’s taking me a lot of effort to like actually build some bigger arms and bigger chest and things like that. So just know that is very hard to do. Don’t worry about it.
So lift heavy, make sure you’re doing some sort of intentional strength training twice a week, and you should be doing a full body workout twice a week, this is what’s going to improve your strength and you know, help to build muscle, once a week is enough, if you just want to maintain where you are. But twice a week, if you want to build, you know, if you’re doing it three or four times a week, that’s fine, too. But twice a week is all that’s really required if you want to build muscle, okay, and then you want to work all your muscle groups.
This isn’t about like just working your arms or just your legs, you know, we want to work the entire muscle groups, all the muscle groups in your body and your entire body from top to bottom. And we work these in order from largest muscle groups to smallest and yes, you’re going to do legs too. Just because you’re a runner, doesn’t mean you get to skip leg day.
It’s important that we work all the muscles and that you’re, you’re improving strength in all areas of your body, especially your legs. So runners will tell me this all the time. They’re like, well, I just don’t do legs because I run so much. So I don’t really need to do legs. You absolutely need to do legs.
Yeah, you might have pretty strong legs right now. But what if you could improve that what I know it would be amazing, wouldn’t it? And think about this. We store glycogen in our muscles. Even if you’re a low carb runner or a fat adapted runner and you’re really efficient at burning fat, you still need glycogen in your muscles for your muscles to operate.
And you get all that you need from you know, your liver like producing glycogen for you don’t need to eat a bunch of gels and stuff like that. But just know that glycogen is stored in your muscles. The biggest muscles in your body that store the most glycogen are like your legs, your quads, really. So if you have larger quads, you can store more glycogen, just something to think about as you’re considering whether or not you want to build muscle. Okay.
So all these reasons I just mentioned, are why I think it’s so important that if you’re a runner, and especially if you’re somebody who wants to improve their overall strength and overall health and fitness and you want to become your most badass self, you cannot skip strength training, you got to do it intentionally. You gotta do it consistently. And you gotta do it in a way that will help to make you stronger, and build muscle. Okay.
And if you’re interested in getting some help with all of this and you want to become a stronger leaner runner, you want to lose weight. You want to do it in a way that supports your running and you want to do it in a way where you get stronger as well as leaner then join us in the Running Lean coaching project.
I’d love to have you in the program, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply And as always, I love you all keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
I’ve taught a lot of nutrition and mindset concepts over the last two and a half years of doing this podcast, and some of these topics are worth a revisit. Either because I’ve discovered new …
Continue Reading about 123. Back to Basics: Eating Real Food →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 123 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Back to Basics Eating Real Food. I’ve talked a lot about nutrition and mindset over the last two and a half years of doing this podcast. And some of these topics are worth a revisit, either because I’ve discovered new information about the topic and I want to share that with you.
Or because it’s just so important, it’s worth another look. So over the next several weeks, I’m going to be sprinkling in some of these back to basics episodes to share new and improved info, and then revisit some of the key concepts for weight loss and sports nutrition for runners. And today’s topic, eating real food falls into both categories.
So I’ve learned a lot since first talking about eating real food. And it’s also one of the most important things you can do to improve your overall health and fitness. So it absolutely deserves another look. And eating real food is a simple concept. But it looks a little different for everyone.
If you’re a runner, and you’re interested in making a change in your eating habits so that you can lose weight while also supporting your running goals, then I want to invite you to join the Running Lean coaching project. This is my immersive coaching program that includes group coaching one-on-one coaching with me, you get all the knowledge, support and accountability that you need to learn what to do to learn how to do it, and to help you stay on track.
Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply, you will fill out a short application, schedule a Zoom call with me. And we’ll talk about your goals and see if coaching is a good fit for you. I would love to help you learn how to eat real food, lose the weight without all the frustration and learn how to build good habits that last for life.
If you’re ready for some realistic lifestyle changes, mindset shifts and sustainable results, then you’re ready for the Running Lean coaching project. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply to get started down. All right back to basics, eating real food.
So I’m just gonna jump in and talk about why I teach this concept. And the really the first reason why I talk about eating real food is that there’s something really wrong with the standard American diet. Alright. So for millions of years as humans, we did really well, you know, eating real food was just something we did naturally.
But then pretty recently, we screwed it all up, all right? The standard American diet is based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it was created back in the late 70s. It was like 1977, I believe, I think they published it in like 1980. But they basically told us that we should all be eating a very high carbohydrate diet, like upwards of 65% of your calories should be coming from carbohydrates. And low fat, like fat is bad. They just decided this right?
And immediately upon implementing these guidelines, the health of this country began to decline. So why did they make this change? Well, there was this guy named Ancel Keys. And he was a researcher and a doctor. And back in the 50s, he proposed this idea. It was called The Diet Heart Hypothesis. And it was an idea that eating fat would cause people to die of heart attacks. So he did all these studies. And he did. He published a study called The Seven Countries Study.
And the interesting thing about this study is actually there were 22 countries involved, but he just cherry picked the seven that kind of fit with his idea of what he wanted the results to be and he only published the seven countries that that kind of supported his claims. Anyway, none of the stuff that he proposed in this study have actually been proven.
In fact, a lot of it has been disproven over the years. A lot of the stuff that he proposed in this Diet Heart Hypothesis has been disproven yet. We changed our dietary guidelines back in 1977/1980 and we’ve changed everything, this has affected everything. It still does today, the guidelines that they produce and they haven’t changed much over the last 50 years or whatever.
But these guidelines have a profound effect on all areas of our lives. So all school lunch programs are being generated based on those guidelines. Right now, 19% of school aged kids are obese. This is a problem. All military rations, all mess hall food and military is dictated by the guidelines. 7% of our troops are obese.
All the special nutrition programs for women, infants and children like WIC are being determined by the guidelines. 15% of toddlers and WIC are obese toddlers, all hospital food is dictated by the guidelines. Food Programs for the elderly are being dictated by the guidelines. Life expectancy in the elderly is going down.
There’s more Alzheimer’s disease, more diabetes, more cancer. These things are rampant among the elderly. And they’re all diet and lifestyle caused diseases. Agricultural production is dictated by those guidelines. It’s simplified, it’s incentivizing farmers to produce more and more cheap carbohydrates like soybeans, wheat and corn.
Those are like the main things that we produce here in this country. And then of course, the food industry uses the guidelines too, so they produce more garbage food that’s loaded with things like vegetable oil, right? And high fructose corn syrup and all this junk. So all these things I just mentioned, they all are using those guidelines to produce, you know, the foods that we eat, and the guidelines are just wrong. They don’t work.
Since implementing the guidelines in ‘80, 88% of Americans are today considered metabolically unhealthy meaning they’re overweight, they’re obese, their insulin resistant they have diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and on and on, only 12% of us are considered healthy. This is wrong. This does not work.
“For the first time in history, we had a government telling us what to eat.” This is a quote from Ben Bikman. He’s a PhD, a Utah professor and a leading metabolic scientist and he says, “For the first time, we have a government telling us what to eat, encouraging us to eat far more refined carbohydrates, and much less healthy fats and proteins and our weight, and our health has only suffered for it.”
The results on the nation’s health and weight have been dire since the government first set dietary guidelines in 1977. The food industry has completely shifted the types of foods they produce to our overall detriment. According to the CDC, the weight of the average adult American today is nearly 30 pounds more than that of the average adult American in 1977.
This is a problem. What are we doing? There’s all sorts of issues and diseases related to eating this particular diet too, by the way. Obesity rates have more than tripled in the US because we’re following the guidelines. We have a diabetes epidemic. 14 different types of cancer have been related to diet, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer.
Alzheimer’s disease is diet related. They call it type three diabetes, PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, is diet related. All of these issues are mostly caused by you know too much insulin in the bud. And that’s called hyperinsulinemia. And how do you get too much insulin in the blood? Eat a lot of carbohydrates and eat a lot of sugar. Right?
So the diet is wrong. It’s making us sicker, it’s making us fatter, and we need to get off of that. Do anything else do anything else, then what the dietary guidelines are telling you to do? Okay. And I don’t think I’ve talked about this, but they did a study a while back, and this was called The Pure Study.
And they did this over a 10 year period. And they did it from 2003 to 2013. And they followed over 135,000 people in 18 different countries. And they basically, you know, divided these people up based on their macronutrient intake and basically there were people who are eating high carbohydrate and lower fat, and then low carbohydrate, high fat.
And the conclusion basically is this: I’ll just read the conclusion to you. High carbohydrate intake was associated with a higher risk of total mortality body death. Whereas total fat and individual types of fat were related to lower total mortality. Total fat and types of fat were not associated with cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction, or cardiovascular disease mortality, whereas saturated fat had an inverse association with stroke.
Global dietary guidelines should be reconsidered in light of these findings. So that’s the conclusion from this study. The interesting part about that, I mean, the whole thing is fascinating to me, because basically they just disprove that Diet Heart Hypothesis right there, they’re saying fat has nothing to do with it.
In fact, the people with the high fat diet had lower risk of dying from all these diseases. And the saturated fat had an inverse association with stroke, meaning that the people who ate more saturated fat had less stroke than the other people. So that was really fascinating, right? That kind of blows all that out of the water, right?
Okay, so how does this affect you, as a runner? Aren’t runners just immune to all this stuff? Can’t runners just eat whatever we want? No, we cannot. Runners are humans too, in case you haven’t noticed, and lots of runners experience a lot of these health issues, weight gain, obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, type two diabetes, right?
There’s this phenomenon called TOFI. And this is someone who is thin on the outside, fat on the inside. And this is especially true with runners who look pretty lean on the outside. But on the inside, they might have a lot of visceral fat. And they might have developed something like type two diabetes, and no amount of running more is going to fix this right.
This is a diet related problem, a diet related disease. And one of the famous examples of this is Professor Tim Noakes, who wrote the book, The Lore of Running, and this guy is a total badass, right? He’s a researcher, he’s run over 70 marathons, but he ended up getting Type Two Diabetes. As a runner, he looked fine on the outside, but his doctor was like, you need to switch your diet.
It opened his eyes, he switched to a low carbohydrate diet. And now he coaches world class athletes on this low carb approach and this fat-adapted approach to running. And in his book, The Law of Running, he has a chapter on nutrition in there, which he advocates for the traditional high carbohydrate approach that, you know, you’ve probably heard of that most runners have heard of, right.
But he famously like, tore that chapter out of the book, because he just could no longer support that he’s like, I was wrong. I wrote this stuff about eating all the carbs. And it’s completely wrong. It’s bad for you, it’s killing us, we’ve got to stop doing it. Okay. So this whole low carb approach to running to sports nutrition, it’s no longer some weird fringe thing.
This is becoming more and more common. So the NASM, the National Association of Sports Nutrition, this is where I got my sports nutrition license. They used to teach the traditional high carb approach to nutrition for endurance activities running and such.
Several years ago, they made a big decision in that they couldn’t do that anymore, they’re going to move away from that high carb approach, and move to a more of a low carb fat adapted approach to sports nutrition. This is a bold move for this organization. But they could not in good conscience keep telling people, especially athletes to eat this crap diet, this diet that is literally killing us.
So they said we can’t do it, no more. And the funny thing is, is that this decision was not well received by everybody. Like there’s people who, you know, we’re following that traditional all carb approach to sports nutrition, and they wanted to get trained in this and wanted to get licensed in this approach. And they were not happy about this, but they just decided that this was what they had to do.
They couldn’t, you know, in good conscience, they couldn’t keep telling people to eat this garbage food anymore. Okay. And this is probably the biggest reason why I signed up with NASN is because they promote the low carb approach to sports nutrition, they understand the importance of being fat-adapted and how it’s not just good for for us as humans and to become the healthiest people that we can be.
But also, it’s great for endurance sports. And then there’s doctors like Stephen Finney and Jeff Bullock, who wrote the book on low carb sports nutrition called The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance. And then there’s all these companies out there right now that are making nutrition products for low carb running like Mirror Energy, s fuels, you have Elemental Labs, and there are more companies coming on board all the time, they’re springing up all over the place.
Why? Because there’s a need. There are a lot of athletes like me and you who want to perform at our best without eating all the garbage. All those like nutrition food like substances like Clif Bars, I used to eat a lot of Clif bars back in the day when I was like doing the high carbohydrate thing. And I would eat a couple Clif Bars every day and I was like, well, this is healthy, you know?
And look at the ingredients, Clif Bars, these things are not good for you. In fact, I was on their website and I was like what is in a Clif Bar. And so I’m going to read you some of these ingredients: organic rolled oats, so that’s all carbs, organic brown rice syrup, sugar, soy rice crisps, which are made from soy protein isolate rice flour and barley, barley malt extract, which is a form of sugar. Organic roasted soybeans, organic tapioca syrup, that’s sugar, organic cane syrup, that’s sugar. Unsweetened chocolate, chicory fiber, soy flour, high oleic, sunflower oil, natural flavor, sea salt, cinnamon, there’s not a whole lot of nutrition in here.
Okay, this is a bunch of carbs. This one bar is 43 grams of carbohydrates, including 17 grams of sugar with 16 grams of added sugars. And only 10 grams of protein. So this is just a candy bar essentially, is what it is okay. And on their website, it says there’s like a FAQ section like frequently asked questions that says are Clif Bars good for you? And here’s their answer, “Clif Bar is the ultimate energy bar trusted for nearly 30 years by athletes and sports nutrition experts to get you started and help you keep going during long outings on the bike trail or slopes.” Notice how they don’t actually answer that question.
Because their lawyers probably were like, you can’t say that they’re not good for you. Right? So they kind of skirt that answer. But anyway, I’m just trying to tell you that instead of eating this, like processed garbage food, we need to be eating real food. And I’m gonna get into that in just a second. Okay, I’m gonna tell you what that means.
But we’ve evolved as humans to like, eat real food. We’ve thrived on eating real food for millions of years. And I just want to say that we’ve changed things recently, pretty recently, right? I mean, we’ve evolved as hunter gatherers, our diet was mostly animal based for hundreds of thousands of years. You know, we’re also omnivores, we can eat a lot of different foods. It doesn’t mean we should.
But for the most part, we were eating a diet of meat, tubers, fruit, not like the fruit we have today, honey, but there wasn’t broccoli. Broccoli didn’t come around until the 1700s. There wasn’t tomatoes, tomatoes didn’t come around until 700 ad. Even bread is a relatively recent thing, like refining grains that happened about 1000 years BC, so maybe about 10,000 years ago, right?
But in the grand scheme of things, two and a half million years of human evolution 10,000 years is not that much time. And prior to that, you know, we just didn’t need that stuff. You know, and if you look at the mummies of ancient Egyptians, they, you know, we can study the actual bodies, you know, because they’re, they’ve been preserved for the last few thousand years.
They have rotten teeth and distended bellies, and they’ve determined that this is from eating refined grains, a lot of refined grains, rotten teeth, distended bellies. Prior to that though, Paleolithic man, they found all these, you know, they didn’t find the bodies, but they found the skeletons and the skulls and they all have like perfect teeth.
So no refined grains, no tooth decay, you start eating this stuff, and it starts to be bad for you, right? The bottom line is that the refined grains are a problem, right? Alright, so what I mean when I say like, let’s eat real food. Let’s go back to eating real food. Real food is food that still looks like and it’s food that our ancestors would recognize.
So a Clif Bar does not fit into this description. Okay. So eating real food means you’re sticking with unrefined unprocessed food. Food that still looks like it’s supposed to look, if it’s a piece of salmon, it’s a piece of salmon. If it’s a sweet potato, it’s a sweet potato. If it’s broccoli, it’s broccoli. Not food that’s been ground up into powders or liquids, not food that’s been extracted from whole foods, but the actual food, okay.
I think it’s a good idea to stay away from most foods that come in packages. Most packaged food is basically processed food, okay, and I’m not anti packaged food, but most of it is highly processed. You just have to be careful, read the labels, right? Most processed food, most packaged food contains like the three worst things you can eat. I call this the Vile Triumvirate. Right?
It’s sugar, refined grains, and vegetable oil. If you stay away from packaged food, you’re not going to get any of that stuff. I promise you. Stick with whole foods, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, vegetables, fruit, natural fats, like olive oil, butter, some dairy like whole milk, Greek yogurt. Stay away from highly refined, highly processed food made with a million unpronounceable and unnatural ingredients. All right.
And then when I start talking about this, people get this idea in their head, and they’re like, isn’t this just like keto or low carb, high fat or paleo? And the short answer is like, no, it’s really none of those things. It’s similar. Paleo is pretty close. But even that isn’t quite right. Because here’s the thing. This is going to look different for each individual. And last week’s episode, I talked about this in depth, that’s episode 122.
Like we’re all different, we all have different goals. We all have different lifestyles, different food preferences, genetics, our metabolism, our culture, all that has to play a part in what you choose, as the diet that works best for you. Right? There’s not a one size fits all plan that’s going to work for everybody.
There just isn’t, there’s no such thing. And to be clear on this, this isn’t about eliminating a food group. This isn’t about eliminating carbohydrates, right? Or never eating a carb again, or anything like that. This is about shifting your body back to the way it’s supposed to function. The way that your body has been functioning beautifully, as humans for thousands or millions of years, right?
I think it’s ignorant to think that introducing all this processed food in the last like 60 to 100 years or so is not going to negatively impact our health it is it has, it’s a problem. So the best thing and simplest thing you can do for yourself right now is just eat real food, food that still looks like food, food our ancestors would recognize.
So what if you do this what happens when you start eating real food? Well, your body starts to function the way it’s supposed to. You know, the way that humans have been functioning for millions of years, hormones become balanced and regulated. You’re no longer hungry all the time. You’re getting all the nutrients your body actually needs. Things like insulin drop, like you stopped storing so much energy as fat, right?
You keep eating sugar, a lot of that sugar energy can’t be used right away. So your body stores it as fat. If you’re not eating that stuff, you’re not storing all this fat, you’re actually burning fat, your fat begins to be released from your fat cells and you begin to burn fat and you begin to lose weight.
You start sleeping better, you wake up feeling more rested. You have this steady supply of energy from burning fat, so you don’t have these afternoon crashes where you need that Starbucks Triple Shot, Caramel Macchiato with extra whip, just to get you through your workday. Right. So when you start eating real food, your body starts to function the way it’s supposed to.
So what about running? How does this affect your running? Or why would runners choose to eat this way? Well, one of the biggest benefits of eating this way is that you become really efficient at burning fat. And fat is an amazing fuel source for long distance running. And when you become fat adapted, this is a pretty amazing experience. Like if you’re into running and I know you are, then I suggest you try this. I can’t explain it.
Like you have to go and you know, try this for yourself and see how you feel. Now there are some misconceptions about what it means to be fat-adapted. So I want to explain this a little bit more. Being fat-adapted means you are training your body to burn fat very efficiently. And we all have a virtually unlimited supply of energy on our bodies at all times in the form of stored body fat.
Okay, now, I want to go back to our prehistoric man for a second because in doing a little bit of research for this episode, I came across this fascinating study in this article. And I just want to talk about what it means to be fat-adapted and how we have evolved to kind of, this is like our normal state of being okay.
So we are born runners, we are really good at running long distances. We’ve adapted to become these amazing long distance runners, right? Modern humans, and their immediate ancestors, like Homo erectus, have several adaptations that make humans instead of being some ferocious, furry fleet creature, the animals, the animal world’s best, we are the world’s best distance runners. Right?
Early humans, scavengers, ended up becoming persistence hunters. So we develop these long springy tendons in our legs and our feet that function like large elastics like rubber bands, right? They store energy, and then with each running stride, release it and this actually reduces the amount of energy it takes to take another step. There’s also other adaptations to keep our bodies stable as we run.
So we counterbalance each step with an arm swing, we have these large butts and these large buttock muscles that hold our bodies upright. And we have this elastic ligament in our neck to help keep our head steady. All of this stuff is designed to help us run very efficiently, right? Even the human waste, which is thinner and more flexible than that of our primate relatives, allows us to twist our upper bodies as we run to counterbalance the slightly off center. It forces exerted as we stride with each leg.
Okay, so once humans start running, it only takes a little bit more energy for us to run faster. Other animals, on the other hand, expend a ton of energy as they speed up, particularly when they switch from a trot to a gallop, which most animals cannot maintain over long distances, right?
Those adaptations make humans and our ancestors better runners, it’s our ability to run in the heat that may have made the real difference in our ability to procure game. So humans have several adaptations that help us dump the amount of heat that we generate when we’re running. These adaptations include being hairless, virtually, some of us more than others, our ability to sweat, the fact that we breathe through our mouths when we run, it allows us to take bigger breaths, and helps us to dump heat.
And we can run in conditions that no other animal can run in. So other animals, they get to get rid of excess heat, they pant, they have to pant and they can’t pant when they’re running, so they have to stop and rest and pant to dump the heat. That means to run a prey animal into the ground, ancient humans, they just kept that animal running. So altogether, these adaptations allowed us to relentlessly pursue game in the hottest part of the day, when most animals are resting right.
So we practice persistence hunting. We would chase a game animal during the heat of the day, make it run faster than it can maintain, we would track it, flush it if it tried to rest and repeat the process, just keeping the thing going until the animal would literally overheat and collapse. And so the animal would develop hyperthermia, which is like heatstroke in humans after about 6 or 10 miles of this.
And so, by the end of all this, even humans with their crude, early weapons could have overcome stronger and more dangerous prey. And adding credence to this theory is the fact that some Aboriginal humans still practice persistent hunting today. And it remains an effective hunting technique. It requires very minimal technology, has a high success rate, and yields a lot of nutrient dense fuel in the form of meat.
Okay, so all that is just to say that running long distances is part of our DNA. And running long distances means that we needed a steady fuel source available at all times, especially when we were not eating we would be fasting we would be, you know, running an animal for days until we, you know, caught up with it and whatever. That’s where our stored body fat comes into play.
We’re naturally born fat burners. And when you get off the sugar, and you get off the refined grains and the packaged garbage food, you can turn your body back into a long distance running badass fat burning machine. And right now, most people, like the average runner probably has around 100,000 calories of stored energy in the form of stored body fat, enough to run for days and days without stopping.
On the contrary though, your body can only hold about 2000 calories of carbohydrate in the form of glucose. So if this was our preferred fuel source, we would need a lot, lot more of that to be able to track animals for days, right. So the idea of getting fat-adapted should be really stated like getting back to being fat-adapted like we were meant to be.
The other misconception about being fat-adapted is that you make this switch from burning all carbs, you know in sugar, and then burning all fat. And this is never the case, you’re always burning both your body produces glucose, all the glucose that your body needs your body actually creates at your liver creates glucose for your brain and for your muscles to function properly.
And as long as your activity level is kept low enough, like during most long distance running, you will continue to produce enough glucose glucose for your working muscles while also utilizing fat as your main source of fuel. But as your exercise intensity gets higher and higher as you start burning more glucose and less fat, and you will probably need to add some sort of fuel in the form of carbohydrate to maintain the more intense effort, okay, and you got to practice this in your training.
And then you can dial in exactly how much carbohydrate you need, at what level of intensity. So you can keep that inner fire burning hot, right? So you can keep delivering a steady supply of fat and glucose to working muscles and kick some serious butt out there. Okay, so when you get good at this when you practice both, using both fuel sources efficiently, this is known as being metabolically flexible or metabolic flexibility.
So you train your body to use both types of fuel very effectively. Again, this isn’t about eliminating carbohydrates. This is about switching your body to going back to being an efficient fat burner, okay? The only thing with this is that if you go too high in the carbs, you kind of shut down the fat burning process. So you have to be careful with how you do this. And you have to experiment with it.
Okay, and everybody’s a little bit different. And so you have to practice with this in your training. This is not something you’re going to just do on race day, for sure. Okay. So eating real food, I want to recap real quick, what I just talked about, the standard American diet is wrong, needs to be changed.
Runners are not immune to the effects of this terrible diet. So just stop doing it. Running does not mean you can eat whatever you want, okay. Humans have evolved by eating real food. We’ve become amazing creatures, the most advanced creatures in the universe as far as we know. And we did it by eating real food. So we need to get back to that.
Humans have also evolved to be badass runners and badass fat-burning machines. We need to get back to that too. And the easiest way to get back to that to get back to our badass purpose is to eat real food. Eat food that still looks like food, food our ancestors would recognize. Cool, this is fun. I love talking about this. I could talk about this all day. Hope you guys have an awesome day. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
Today I have a bit of a different episode for you. I’m going to be asking you a lot of questions about your diet, your weight, your current health, your running performance, and a few other …
Continue Reading about 121. Is It Time to Change Your Diet? →
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 121 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, is it time to change your diet? So today I have a bit of a different episode for you. I’m going to be asking you some questions about your diet, your weight, your current health, your running performance, and a few other things.
The reason for this is that I want you to consider how your current diet, whatever you’re doing today, might be affecting you in a bunch of different areas of your life. Most people don’t pay attention to their diet unless they find themselves suddenly overweight, or their doctor wants to put them on some kind of medication.
And of course, I’m joking because it’s never suddenly, “I’m overweight!” It’s a slow, gradual process, right? We just don’t notice it until it’s like I can’t put my pants on anymore. The point is, this episode is all about you and your diet. So I want you to be thinking about your diet and your current state of health and fitness as I talk about diet here today.
And by the end of this episode, I want you to have a clear understanding of the effects of food, the effects of your diet on your health, and your sports performance. And I want to help you decide whether or not it’s time to finally change your diet. And listen, I know what it’s like to try to change your diet.
I know how hard it can be. I’ve done this many, many times in the past, it was never easy. For me, it was always some sort of a struggle. And the only time it really wasn’t the only time it finally worked permanently, was when I reached out and I got some help.
I got a coach to help me figure out what I should do. What was going to work for me, not based on some fad diet. But putting together a custom plan that I felt good about that I sort of created myself and man it finally worked.
I lost 40 pounds after making this change, running became easier. I’ve never felt so good. I’ve never had so much energy. And now this is what I do. I help runners like you lose the weight that you’ve been struggling with. For years, maybe I help runners to get leaner and stronger and to become running bad asses.
So if you’re a runner, and you’d like to get that weight problem solved for good, I want to invite you to apply for coaching with me. You’ll fill out a short application, schedule a Zoom call with me, we’ll jump on a call, we’ll talk about your goals. And we’ll see how coaching can help you get there.
I would love to help you lose weight, and do it without all the stupid struggling and frustration. I know what that’s like, there’s a better way. If you’re ready for some realistic lifestyle changes, mindset shifts and sustainable results, then you’re ready for coaching, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply to get started.
Alright, so today, I want to talk about diet and whether or not it’s time for you to make a change to your diet. So specifically, we’re going to be talking about whether or not your current diet is working for you. And listen, people get pretty emotional when talking about diet, especially when anyone suggests that maybe you should change your diet, I’m not going to make that decision for you.
I want you to just think about this for yourself and make that decision for yourself. Because your diet is either, it’s either working for you or it’s not. And sometimes we don’t understand the effects that our diet is actually having on our health, on our athletic performance on our general mood, you know, and we naturally put up a lot of resistance when anyone suggest that we change our diet, or that maybe somebody suggests that diet could be the cause of a lot of the health issues that you’re experiencing.
And I totally get this. And there’s a lot of information out there. A lot of people that are pushing an agenda on you and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to push an agenda on you. I want to help you to make a good decision and this is what I do with my coaching.
This is why the way that I do coaching is a little bit different from other coaches, I don’t just tell you what to do, we come up with a solution together, something that you feel good about. Because only you know what kinds of foods you like and don’t like. Only you know what’s going to be sustainable for you.
And when we can put together a plan that you feel good about, that you are in alignment with, this is the game changer here. Okay, and, and this was what was the game changer for me too, when I finally decided to change my diet for good and it started to work and I started to lose the weight and I became fat-adapted, and I understood how certain foods were affecting me.
And I put that together myself, I kind of put that plan together myself, obviously with a lot of guidance with a lot of help from experts and things like that. But I just want you to understand that I just want you to think about whether or not your current diet is working for you. Okay.
Now, before I dive into this, I want to also explain how I’m using the word diet today because I tend to not use this word a lot. Just because people freak out a little bit when they hear diet. I’m not saying diet in the sense of like, you need to go on a diet, or you need to really limit how much food you’re eating.
You know, I mean diet in the sense of a nutrition regimen, a food plan died in the sense of the food that you habitually eat, not like vegetarian or carnivore or vegan or keto or South Beach diet or anything like that. I just mean like, the foods that you eat, because we’re all different. You know, we all eat differently, I can’t really put what I eat, I really can’t put it into a category, like the ones I just mentioned, it’s just different. It’s just what feels good for me and what works for me, which is different from what’s going to work for you.
But people hear the word diet, and they immediately start thinking about cutting calories, deprivation, struggle, suffering, falling off the wagon, it brings up all these negative connotations, right? So today, I just want to use the word diet freely to mean the foods that you eat on a regular basis, right? It’s not good, it’s not bad. I don’t want to be polarizing here. And I’m not talking about the latest fad diet or anything like that, just the foods you typically eat. That’s the way I’m using diet here today. Cool.
And then lastly, I want to help you to understand how profoundly your diet is affecting you, and your running, and your overall health and your weight and whether or not you can lose the weight. And I want to help you decide if changing your diet is right for you or not.
So you might be doing fine. You might be listening to this and like you’re super healthy, you’re at your natural weight, you feel amazing, you have tons of energy, all this stuff, there’s probably not a real big need to change anything.
But I’m guessing that there are a lot of people listening to this right now. And there’s some areas in your life or some areas of your health and fitness that you’d like to improve. And your diet is one of the most powerful drivers of your health, good health or bad health, and it depends on the diet.
So by the end of this episode, I want you to have a clear understanding of how your diet is affecting things like your energy levels, your mood, your sleep quality, running performance, body composition, and really your overall health and happiness.
And then I want you to have what it takes to be able to make an informed decision as to whether or not it’s time for you to change your diet. Cool. Okay, so let’s look at a few of these indicators here.
So again, think about your current state of health and your current diet. When I go through some of these questions like first and foremost, how is your weight? Think about your weight. This is always the number one thing people look at when they consider changing their diet. Am I overweight? Do I need to lose weight?
So one of the ways that people determine whether or not they need to lose weight is they look at something like BMI, body mass index. And they look at this as the one indicator of whether or not they’re overweight. And you see these charts in doctors offices and things like that.
The problem with BMI, I don’t like the BMI to be honest with you because it’s only taking two data points. It’s taking your height and your weight and then making an assessment based on that. BMI is not a very accurate indicator of your state of health and fitness.
And it’s definitely not accurate if you’re pretty fit. So BMI can be very off; it can be very inaccurate, especially if you’re muscular. So for example, my son and I are the same height. We’re both 5’11. But he probably weighs 25-30 pounds more than me. And so if you look at the BMI chart, he’s borderline obese, he’s over, he’s considered overweight on the BMI chart, he’d be borderline obese.
But I have to tell you, he’s nothing but huge. He’s a bodybuilder, you know, he’s muscular. He’s put on a lot of weight in the form of muscle. But the BMI which is telling that he’s overweight, okay. So that’s a good example of where BMI can be wrong.
Right now, I’m in a place where I’m trying to gain weight. So I’m starting to dip into that overweight range of BMI. And I’m not overweight, okay, I’m gaining muscle, I’m doing some pretty intense gym workouts, I’m really focusing on building muscle this year.
So anyway, BMI, not a super good indicator of whether you are overweight or not. Okay, there is a better way to determine your body composition. When we talk about weight, I’m really talking about fat weight, okay, there’s a certain amount of fat we all need to have on our bodies. And fat is not wrong or bad.
Like, people talk about zero body fat, you would die. If you had zero body fat. The minimum body fat requirements to sustain human life for men, I think is 3%. For women is 12%. Women need more body fat to support their, you know, female reproductive systems and things like that.
So we don’t aim, we’re not aiming for a 0% body fat ever, right? Just as to sustain life, women need 12%. So maybe 20-25% body fat is where you want to be. If you’re a female, or maybe you know, 18-16% as a male. It’s different for everybody, really.
But you can use something like the US Navy body fat calculator, you can find this online. So you take some body girth measurements along with height, weight, and age, to determine your body composition. So this is a better indicator of whether or not you want to lose some of the fat weight. Okay.
And the goal when I tell people that, you know, we talked about weight loss, and I asked people like, how much weight do you want to lose? Where do you want your body composition to be? And sometimes there’s just like, I’ve never thought about that before, I just want the scale to go down.
I’m like, well, let’s say we start gaining muscle, you’re losing some of the fat weight, but you’re gaining muscle, the scale is not going to go down, it’s going to kind of stay the same. Are you okay with that?
And so then I’ve got to like, get them to take some other measurements, and we’ve got to do some other type of measuring so that we can see that we are improving our body composition, okay. And they have scales that can do something like this, you know, those smart scales that use an electrical impedance, so they send a little bit of electric current up through your body and it you know, has to do with it tries to determine your muscle weight versus fat weight.
And so it’s trying to make a determination based on how fast the electrical current goes through your body of whether or not your competition is mostly fat, or muscle or whatever. They did a study about five years ago, and consumer reports on these different scales.
And they compare them to a bod pod, so bod pod is an air displacement measuring device, which is very accurate. So you have to go somewhere and you have to sit in this thing that looks like an egg. And they shut you in there. And it’s very, very precise.
Okay, it measures volume, and it can definitely measure, you know, the difference between your fat and muscle weight. But they, they took that as the base baseline measurement, and then they compared these scales, and the scales were off by like, a lot, you know, 20 to 30% difference, this is huge, right?
There’s a huge difference between what is considered to be, you know, accurate. So, I don’t really suggest these scales are very accurate, you know, can they help you to kind of determine if you’re losing some fat weight and gaining some muscle weight, probably, but just know that they’re not very accurate, okay.
Here’s what I want you to do instead, instead of worrying about all these measurements and things like that, some are good, some not so good. Go by how you feel. Use your best judgment. You know your body better than anyone else. Ask yourself some questions.
Do you feel like you’re overweight? Would you feel better if you lost weight? Do you feel pudgy? Or doughy or fluffy or bloated? This was me. I always felt doughy like when I started to feel doughy, like the Pillsbury Doughboy, I was like, I don’t want to feel like that. And if this is how you feel every day, then you can decide for yourself if you want to lose weight or not.
But it’s not up to a number. It’s not up to the government, it’s not up to some standard that you see on a chart somewhere. Just determine this for yourself. How do you feel about yourself? How are your clothes fitting? Are they tight? You know, have you had to go up a size or two?
And a few years back, when I started gaining weight again, my clothes were getting a little snugger. And I refused to buy new clothes. I was like, eventually, I’m just going to lose this weight. But you know, for now, I’m not buying new clothes, there’s no way I was going to go up a size in pants or shirts or anything like that.
So the clothes kept getting tighter. And I kept feeling less confident. I was feeling more self conscious, I would put on the shirts like a button up shirt, and the buttons would be sort of like pulling apart at the around the belly section. This is not a good look. All right. And it was very embarrassing for me.
And so I would like just choose whatever the loosest fitting clothes I had, and not a lot. All the tight fitting clothes, I had just ended up in the back of the drawer or the back of the closet, whatever. And then I remember I had some shorts in the summertime and I had some shorts that used to fit perfectly and I loved the shorts, but I couldn’t even button them anymore.
Could not even get them buttoned. And that was part of my wake up call was like, I’ve got to do something about this because I’m not going to buy new clothes. I’m not going to go up sizes. Alright, just so you know those shorts now I wear them today. And they’re like loose on me. Like I almost could go a size down. I’m not going to do that though.
But listen, I want you to decide for yourself, do you want to feel better about yourself? Do you want to feel better in your body with losing some weight? Maybe some fat weight and gaining some muscle help you to feel better about yourself. Now I always encourage people to work on the way they feel about themselves before they decide to go on a weight loss journey.
Like you have to like, kind of love yourself through this whole process. You can’t just hate yourself and expect to love yourself when you lose the weight. No, it doesn’t work that way. But no one else can decide whether or not you need to lose weight. It’s not up to the scale or to chart or anything else like that.
And it’s not up to other people in your life, either. Because sometimes I work with people who come to me and they’re like, yeah, I really want to lose like 10 pounds. But you know, my husband tells me I look fine, and I don’t need to lose weight, or my mom tells me I shouldn’t lose any more weight.
And I just want to like encourage you to just decide what you want to do. If you want to lose five or 10 pounds, you know, maybe you want to improve your running time. You want to run a faster marathon and losing 10 or 15 pounds is gonna really help you to get there, then absolutely, that should be something that you decide for yourself.
It’s not up to other people, other people just want us to feel good about ourselves, they want us to be happy. And if they see you, you know saying like, oh, I need to lose some weight, they might think you’re unhappy. And it’s not about that. It’s about becoming our best selves. It’s about becoming badass, right?
It’s not about you know, not feeling good about ourselves. Okay, so going back to the question, how’s your weight? How do you feel about yourself? How do you feel about your weight? If you want to lose weight, if you feel like you’re overweight, diet is going to be the number one driver of this for you. We want to change your body composition, then we’re going to change your diet.
Okay. The next indicator of whether or not it might be time to change your diet is your relationship with food. Like if you struggle with food choices, if you struggle with making good choices and staying on track with a pretty healthy diet, then it might be time to give that diet an overhaul. You know if you find it very difficult to avoid junk food, sugar in particular, then it might be time to change your diet.
Listen, sugar jacks you up. It’s more like a drug than a food. There’s no real positive nutritional benefits from eating sugar. There aren’t. There’s a lot of negative consequences though. You know, sugar causes all kinds of metabolic issues like higher blood pressure, inflammation, gain, weight gain, diabetes, fatty liver disease, increased risk for heart attack and stroke.
Too much sugar in the diet is the number one cause of metabolic diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, Alzheimer’s and all these things that I just mentioned. And what it really does is it puts your body into this state of hyperinsulinemia with too much insulin in your blood, or insulin resistance, that means your body just can’t regulate insulin properly, and so it just keeps pumping out more and more and more insulin.
Insulin drives fat into fat cells. Insulin drives your body into fat storage mode. So when insulin is high all the time, you’re just storing fat all the time. You can’t burn the fat. And then in researching this podcast today, I found some other negative side effects of too much sugar in the diet.
And some of these things I did not realize first is dental health. Now of course, we all know that eating too much sugar can cause cavities, right? You know, bacteria in your mouth feed on sugar. And they release these acid byproducts which cause tooth decay, right and cavities. Think we all know that one.
But sugar also cause like an increase of kidney disease risk. Having consistently high blood sugar can damage the delicate blood vessels in your kidneys. And that can lead to an increased risk of kidney disease. Too much sugar can cause gout. Gout is an inflammatory condition characterized by pain in the joints, especially in the toes, like big toes.
I had gout some time ago, years and years ago, because I was eating a real crap diet. And I will tell you it is one of the most painful things you can experience. There was almost nothing I’ve ever experienced that was as painful as gout. I couldn’t even couldn’t even walk, couldn’t put shoes on, couldn’t have the sheets touching my feet. I had to sleep with my feet like not touching the sheets. Not good.
But sugar raises the uric acid levels in the blood, which helps make gout worse, it makes it really bad. And then another thing that I did not know is that high sugar in the diet can lead to cognitive decline, impaired memory and increased risk of dementia. Right. So why are we eating sugar?
Listen in moderation. Yes, very, very limited amounts, you know, whatever. Okay, but listen, sugar is not healthy, this is not good for you. There’s only negative consequences to eating sugar, it’s more like a drug than it is a food. It causes harm at certain levels like a drug does, it’s very difficult to quit eating sugar.
And if you struggle with giving up sugar, this is an indicator that something may have to change in your diet. Okay, if you find yourself craving sugar all the time, or just thinking about giving it up kind of sends you into like a panic mode, then it might be time to get off the sugar and change your relationship with food or change your food choices and change your diet. Okay.
Another indicator that it might be time to change your diet is your eating habits in general, like are you using food as an emotional management tool, because if you are, we got to change something here. Okay. This is about changing your thoughts and feelings, but it’s also about changing what you’re eating.
Because if you’re binging on junk food, if you’re using this hyper palatable food, you know, most processed foods most junk food is considered what they call hyper palatable, it’s been engineered to be incredibly delicious, and give you like a dopamine hit and, and make you feel good and releases all these chemicals that make you feel amazing. Again, like a drug, right?
And so if you’re using food as an emotional management tool, maybe it’s time to change your diet. Right? If you’re eating because you’re stressed, you’re bored, you’re anxious, you’re frustrated, you’re overwhelmed, angry, lonely, whatever. These are reasons to consider making a change to your diet.
Okay, you have to be able to handle your emotions and your emotional experiences in this life. Like a mature, evolved adult human being not like a toddler. The toddler reaction to our emotions is when we just want them to go away right away. I don’t want to feel this way. Give me some food to make me feel better. Right?
That’s what we do. And I’m kind of like saying it funnily. But listen, funnily is a word. I don’t even know if that’s a word. I’m saying it in a funny way. But we got to deal with our emotions like mature evolved adults, we have to actually be able to just sit with our emotions and experience these emotions without having to eat over them when we’re eating just to feel better.
This is a problem. These are not good eating habits, okay? And listen, ending emotional eating, this is not an easy thing to do. And I get it. This is a complicated topic. And we actually spent a whole month last month on this topic in the coaching project.
And people got a lot out of it, to be honest with you, we really dug deep into emotional eating and how to stop doing it and how to deal with our emotions instead, it was pretty powerful stuff. But if you regularly find yourself eating, not because you’re hungry, but because like you just want to feel better, maybe it’s time to change your diet, okay?
Another indicator that it might be time to change your diet, are you hungry all the time, because you shouldn’t be. If you’re hungry all the time, there’s something wrong. Humans evolved over, you know, millennia, I would say, lots of millennia, hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions of years, we’ve evolved to eat a couple of times a day, at most, and then sometimes we would go for days without food altogether.
So think about our human ancestors, we were amazing, persistent hunters. That’s why we’re such good runners, because we would, you know, call an animal from the herd, and then run it down. And we could just keep up with this animal, they would, they would die of exhaustion, but we can sweat really well.
We maintain our body temperature. And we’re really good at running we have big butts, which help us to balance when we’re running. And, you know, we are really good at long distance running. Right? That’s why I love endurance events, especially ultra running, where you’re running through the woods for extended periods of time, because this most typically, most directly mimics how we’ve evolved as humans, it’s like built into our DNA, this persistent hunting and this running.
But we would run down animals, this would take days sometimes. And we wouldn’t have food during that time. And during that time, if not having food was a problem, we would you know, crash and burn and die along with the animals. Right. But no, that’s not what we did, we could maintain.
Our brains actually got more focused, we became more cognitively aware of what was going on in our surroundings. And we had plenty of energy to just keep going. And if we had to eat every couple of hours, if this is the way we’ve evolved as humans, this wouldn’t have worked at all right?
This is just not normal, our digestive systems, our pancreas and things like that are designed to work sporadically to work intermittently, not all the time. So if you can’t go for a couple of hours without food, this means that your body is not working the way it’s supposed to. Okay, it means your hunger signals are messed up, your hormones are messed up.
And what causes that is the wrong kind of diet. If you’re eating the kind of diet where you know, you’re hungry all the time, this is a problem. This is not right, you need to change your diet. Speaking of energy, how are your energy levels, because if you’re crashing and burning every afternoon, then this is a problem. This means your diet needs to be changed, right?
You want to have sustainable energy, that’s pretty consistent all day long. We don’t want to be having these spikes of energy, oh my gosh, I feel amazing. And then crashes where you just feel like falling asleep at your desk at three o’clock in the afternoon, right? The wrong kind of diet will cause these spikes in your blood sugar.
And when we have these massive spikes in our blood sugar, when we come down from that, we actually kind of dropped below baseline. So we want to stay near that baseline as closely as possible. But when you spike really high, you crash really low. And that’s where people say, oh, my blood sugar is low, I need to eat some sugar, whatever, you know, I need an energy drink in the afternoon.
So this is a problem. Again, this is not normal. We should have pretty pretty steady energy all day long, right? But a diet high in sugar, high in refined carbohydrates, high in highly processed foods is typically the cause of these energy spikes and crashes. All right. And as a runner, you don’t want this. You want steady energy being delivered to your brain into your muscles like all day, especially for running especially for your athletic performance.
Speaking of which, how is your running? How is your endurance? Do you find yourself hitting the wall during long runs? Are you just getting gassed? Are you running out of energy at some point? Do you have to like wash down a bunch of gels and goos and stuff just to like, get out there and do a 10 mile run or something?
So when we talk about, you know, running out of energy, this is like hitting the wall or bonking when you’re running, right? And if this is you, if you find yourself consistently just running out of energy, then we need to look at your diet, it could be, it could be a big problem, okay?
So, running out of energy hitting the wall is a pretty common thing, especially with the marathon runners, right. And for me, I used to hit the wall between mile like 18 and 20, pretty consistently. And this is where most runners that I talked to tell me that they typically would hit the wall.
This is when you run out of glycogen in your muscles, and you have no alternative energy source. So you’re not fat-adapted, you’re not burning fat efficiently. And you’re you have no more fuel, and you just crash and burn, boom, you’re done. You just have to stop and walk. And then it’s kind of a slog fest, those last five, six miles on a marathon, right?
So you know, for me, one of the big reasons I got into sports nutrition, and especially sports nutrition with this, you know, kind of leaning towards the fat-adaptation side of things is that I wanted to figure out how to become a fat adapted runner, I wanted to figure out how to stop the bonking, how to stop hitting the wall at mile 18 or 20, I wanted to have unlimited, you know, fuel for running.
And when you become a fat-adapted runner, you virtually become bulletproof. You have this endless supply of fuel onboard in the way of your own stored body fat. And just to prove this, I’ve heard other people that have done endurance events without any calories at all. And I wanted to see, you know, can I even do this? Is this even feasible? You know, is this possible?
And then last year, once I got fat-adapted, I ran two marathons. And then the year before I did a 50k, and I did all these events on zero calories, I didn’t eat breakfast beforehand, I didn’t take in any calories during the event. And I had plenty of energy to complete these distances.
So you can absolutely do it once you’re fat adapted, you can absolutely do these long distance events without having a bunch of fuel or any fuel really, except for the fuel that you’re producing, using your own body fat. Now, is this optimal for everybody? Maybe not, I just wanted you to understand that when you become fat-adapted, you no longer need massive amounts of fuel, you can get away with not very much, right?
I actually teach my clients how to use fuel strategically during races to enhance running performance, you can use some types of fuel to keep the fat burning going, but also take advantage of you know, the carbohydrate sources or, you know, other sources of fuel to give your muscles more glycogen, so that you can like, get a little bit faster, maybe have that top gear, okay.
Speaking of speed, how is your running speed? This could be an indication that you need to switch up your diet, you know, if you find yourself just stuck at the same speed, and you just can’t make any improvements, your diet is going to help with this. Okay, your diet could be hindering your speed and your performance.
And of course, you know, when it comes to running faster, you’ve got to work on strength training, you’ve got to build stronger muscles. You want to become a more powerful runner. And you also have to do speed work, right? These are things you need to do. But diet plays a huge part in this too. Right? The wrong diet can kill your speed.
If you’re eating a bunch of junk food, processed food, a bunch of weird ingredients, you’re not giving your body, you’re not giving your muscles the nutrition that it actually needs to perform at its best. And you’re just doing yourself a disservice you’re not going to get faster, it’s going to be very difficult to get faster. Put it that way.
So look at your running speed and if you’re trying to, you know PR a marathon PR a 5k or 10k Let’s look at the diet it could be having a negative impact on your running speed. Okay. And then how are you recovering from running? Most runners who eat the Standard American Diet who eat a lot of sugar, a lot of processed foods, a lot of refined carbohydrates and refined grains experience chronic inflammation.
This means that recovering from hard workouts takes a lot longer, which will actually decrease your running performance overall. And when we get fat adapted when we change the diet, the runners that I work with telling me that they have, they are recovering faster than ever, they’ve never experienced this kind of like, they’ll go and run a 20 miler, and the next day, they feel amazing.
They no longer feel all the inflammation and the bloating. And even their doctors report the lower levels of the inflammatory marker, I can’t remember what it’s called off the top of my head here. But when you get your blood work done, there’s that inflammatory marker.
And they can see that that’s greatly lowered because of diet. So diet can have a huge impact on your recovery. And when you recover faster, and your body’s not in a state of chronic inflammation, you can become a stronger runner, you can improve your running performance, you can actually get faster too.
A couple more things. What about sleeping, how is your sleep? Sleep is often overlooked. But this is an important part of your training, it should be. It is crucial to get a good night’s sleep, your body has to use that time to, to rebuild to recover, and so that you can go out there and get after it the next day. And if you’re not getting the right amount of sleep, if your sleep is horrible, and you wake up not feeling good, feeling tired of feeling exhausted when you wake up in the morning, this is a problem, this is going to put your body in this state of chronic stress.
Chronic stress will increase your cortisol levels, which is the stress hormone, your body will produce more glucose in response to that stress hormone, which increases insulin levels, which keeps your body in that fat storage mode. Chronic stress leads to chronically storing body fat, and it makes it very difficult to improve your body composition.
If you’re super stressed out, we want to practice like acute stress in our body. So we want to run hard. Sometimes we want to lift weights hard, sometimes that’s acute stress, it’s short, short term, your body can adapt to that kind of stress.
There’s an adaptive response that happens when we experience that kind of stress, chronic stress being stressed all the time, which what is what happens when you don’t get a good night’s sleep every night, you can be just chronically stressed out, this is going to just keep it keep you from losing weight, it’s going to keep you from running at your best, it’s going to just make it very hard for you to recover.
So you gotta get a good night’s sleep. diet plays a huge role in this diet plays a huge role in your sleep. If you’re not, if you’re not eating the right diet, if you’re eating a bunch of junk food and eating a bunch of sugar, I’m going to tell you right now your sleep is going to be messed up.
People that I work with report that they’re sleeping has never been better, once they get off of that sugar kind of roller coaster. And then the last thing I want you to consider is your ability to focus and concentrate. One of the best things about being fat adapted for me, is the clear headedness that I experience, I can think more clearly, I concentrate more easily. And I can stay focused all day long.
The wrong diet doesn’t give your brain the kinds of fuel that it needs to function properly, your brain actually thrives on fat as a fuel source. So if your diet isn’t promoting fat burning, then you’re probably experiencing, you know, brain fog. And it’s hard to know that you’re experiencing brain fog when you’re in it. It just seems like this is the way things are.
But I’m telling you right now, when you get off of that sugar roller coaster, when you change your diet, you start eating real food, you start burning fat more efficiently. All of a sudden, it seems like the world comes into clearer focus, and you can concentrate and you can think more clearly.
And it’s like the fog has been lifted. It’s amazing. This is like one of my favorite parts about eating this way is that I just feel like my brain works the way it’s supposed to. Right. So all these things we just talked about are all indicators that your diet is either working for you or it’s not, you know, and if you’re finding yourself deciding that, yeah, you know, it’s time for me to change my diet. I want to encourage you to do something about it. Don’t just think about it. Don’t just listen to this and go okay, good stuff.
Let’s move on to the next one or whatever. I want you to do something, try something, take a break from sugar. Start eating real food, you know, food that still looks like food, right? Get fat-adapted as a runner. It takes a little bit of time to do that. It’s not for everyone. It’s a little bit of an uncomfortable process to go through. But once you get there It’s amazing.
And I’m going to tell you right now, you’ll never want to go back to doing what you’ve been doing in the past, right? Maybe eliminate processed food, that’s a good place for a lot of people to start. Anything that comes in a package, just stay away from it. Stop it with all the ingredients, right?
Most of these processed foods are not designed for your health, but they’re just they’re designed to taste amazing and to sell you more food really. They keep you hungry. They keep you craving foods so that you’ll buy more of their crappy processed packaged foods, right? The food companies are making a lot of money, but we pay the price with our health right?
And then consider getting some help. If you’re looking for some help with all of this. If you want some help and guidance, consider joining us in the Running Lean coaching project because you’ll learn exactly what to do and how to do it. You learn how to get fat-adapted the right way.
You’ll get support from the group and from me as your coach, you’ll get encouragement to keep going accountability to help you stay on track. And you’ll just get to your goals faster when you have the expert guidance helping you get there. Okay, so if you’re interested, love to have you just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply, and we can get you started on your journey to becoming a badass today. Cool. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
I have a very special podcast episode for you today. I recently sat down with one of my clients, Eva Bailey, and we had a fun conversation all about her experience getting fat-adapted and training …
Continue Reading about 108. Being an Example of What’s Possible with Eva Bailey →
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 108 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, being an example of what’s possible with Eva Bailey. So I have this very special podcast episode for you today. I recently sat down with one of my clients, Eva Bailey, and we had a fun conversation all about her experience getting fat-adapted and training for her first ultra-marathon.
So she shares some of the doubts she had going into all of this and how she worked through them. This wasn’t always smooth sailing. For Eva, she and I discussed a few of the things she struggled with along the way, and how she had to make some big shifts in her mindset in order to kind of keep going right. She also talks about training for then running her very first ultra-marathon and how that whole experience really solidified all of this as a way of life for her.
Eva is living proof that with the right mindset, you can do anything you want. She’s truly being an example of what’s possible, and I’m super excited about this conversation. I know you’re gonna get a lot out of it. And my hope is that you get inspired to also start being an example of what’s possible.
But first, if you’d like this podcast, come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. This is a fun, informative, supportive, encouraging group of like-minded runners who all come together to share goals to ask questions to get answers, I do some weekly training in this group. And did I mention it’s fun? Come and join us over on Facebook, just search for Running Lean Community and join us.
And then listen, if you’re tired of trying to figure all this stuff out on your own. If you’re tired of starting diets and then quitting whenever things get tough. If you’re ready to end the constant struggle with not being the person you know you’re capable of being, then I want to encourage you to do something to take action. Nothing changes, if nothing changes, right.
So I want you to get into action change something today. Start this year by learning how to create the habits you need to make eating healthy a permanent part of your life. We’re not interested in short-term results, we’re focused on the long game, I want you to make being healthy, just a part of who you are. And the easiest way to do this is to have someone there guiding you every step of the way, encouraging you, supporting you, keeping you on track.
Having a coach means you have someone in your corner, someone who’s got your back, someone who’s holding you accountable to do the things that you don’t want to do. So that you can become that healthiest and most badass version of yourself, right? Be an example of what’s possible for yourself, for your kids, for your community, and be an inspiration to others. I want you to inspire others to do the same. I want to create a ripple effect of health and positivity in this world. And it starts with you! Apply for coaching over at runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And let’s get you to that healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet. Yeah, cool.
Patrick McGilvray
Alright, like I said, I know you’re gonna get a lot out of this conversation that I had with Eva. She’s open. She’s honest, she brings the real stuff, the struggles, the doubts all of it. My favorite part is that she’s experienced this amazing transformation through this whole process, right? She’s a different person today than she was three months ago, but I’m gonna let her tell you all about it. So without further ado, let’s get into this conversation with Eva Bailey. All right, cool.
So today, I’ve got a very special guest, Eva Bailey is here. And she and I have been working together for the last few months. And Eva had quite a transformation. So Eva started out as someone who, and I’ll let her talk about this but she was a little skeptical about all this fat adaptation and low carb diet blah, blah, blah.
And so we’re gonna kind of talk about that a little bit, but she had quite a transformation. She was such a good client. She just dove into this all the way. Had a lot of questions. Along the way, we addressed those, and we worked through all that stuff. It was not always smooth sailing.
But at the end of the day, she ended up having an amazing experience doing her first ultra marathon, being a fat-adapted runner. And so we’re going to talk about all that today.
So, first of all, either Hello, and why don’t you just kind of introduce yourself? And tell us a little bit about what, what brought you to me and why you wanted some help with all this stuff here?
Eva Bailey
Yeah. Yeah. So I think health and fitness have been a focus for me, a lot of my life, maybe not early on as a kid. But most of my adult life. I have been a vegetarian since I was in seventh grade. And that has is was kind of how I identified for all of my life. I, I always kind of struggled with my weight a little bit like it was always a focus, it was always like, Okay, well, what, um, you know, what, what plan am I on, that’s gonna just kind of keep my weight down.
I was really active, but I always seem to, it just always seemed like harder than I thought it should be to keep my weight down considering how active I was. You know, and I had dabbled in a lot of different ways of eating, you know, starting to the vegetarian. I worked in a holistic doctor’s office for a few years a while back.
And, you know, so we did food elimination diets, and we did a low-fat vegan diet and you know, also did a calorie restriction Eat less run more kind of thing. And in the vegan diet, which, which is great. Like, I still I think vegan is great, which is kind of a mix between paleo and vegan.
But anyway, so I’ve tried all these things. And every time I heard people talk about low carb, I was just like, “Oh, God, that’s, there’s no way that’s healthy.” Like you know, plant-based whole foods, just eat real foods. And that’s all you have to do. And which I like, I still think there that that’s valid, you know, eat real food. And that’s, and that’s something that I don’t think I’m ever gonna get rid of.
But um, how can eating more fat and more protein more animal products be good for you? It just didn’t make sense. And but when I heard your podcast and I was started hearing about this, like, I heard you describe me, like, as far as you know, you can’t, you know, do you do training for this marathon, and I’m running all these miles, yet. I cannot seem to like, keep the weight down. Like if I eat less, I just start getting tired and cranky. And then now my performance is suffering.
I’m like, There’s got to be a better way. Like, why? Why is this so difficult for me? Like, why am I the weight that I am if I’m being so active, it just did not make sense. And especially when I’m thinking I eat really well. Like I wasn’t coming in from a point where I was eating a lot. A lot of junk. Like I thought that I was eating really well. Like I was eating a vegetarian diet. I was eating all these fruits and vegetables and quinoa and sweet potatoes like why why is this so hard?
I should be between 100-115 pounds for what I’m doing but it just wasn’t happening and so I hear you you know on your podcast like you know how people train and they run all these miles and they’re still gaining weight and you know, restrict calories and feel bad I’m like oh my god that’s me. That’s me.
So I’m like I feel like there’s something I’m missing. There’s something that I’m not doing right even though I think I am I’m doing everything that they’re saying to do but I’m missing something and I’m but all my life knowing and hearing that low carb is bad animal protein is bad and it’s gonna kill you.
Like hearing that in the back of my mind all my life. I’m just like, I can’t do it. There’s no way but something about what you said. I’m like, I got to try it. I got to try it. But I was kind of scared to do it on my own because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do it. Then my hormones started getting messed up or, you know, I didn’t want to become unhealthy. So I really wanted somebody to kind of walk me through it. So that and that’s kind of how I got to you.
Patrick McGilvray
What were you hoping to get out of this? Like, I understand that you tried all these different things, you know, the calorie restriction, the vegan diet, the plant-based or, you know, vegetarian? You had these thoughts about, I don’t know, maybe animal proteins are bad for you, and, and you wanted to give it a try? Why did you want to give it a try? Like, what were you hoping to get out of this? Like, what was sort of the end game you’re shooting for?
Eva Bailey
Yeah, I want to run I want to run far. And I just want to keep going. So really, my goal, it wasn’t really even about the weight, because I didn’t think I was overweight. I wanted to just run far. So you know, when I started working with you, I had run a couple of marathons already.
I think I was running far and I was doing really well on my running. But, you know, it’s off-course, isn’t it? The book that brings everybody to running, you know, Born to Run? You know, I’ve read, I read that a few years ago, and the thought of running 100 miles was like, super badass to me.
I’m like, that sounds good to me me I want to be able to run 100 miles. But it just didn’t seem realistic. So for me, my goal is to run farther. And just to feel good. I just wanted to run and keep going and never stop. And then you know, hearing you talking about being bonk proof and, and using fat for fuel. I’m like, huh, like, that’s interesting. That makes a lot of sense. How do I do that? So that was my goal is just to be able to run a long time and feel great.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And specifically you had, I believe you had signed up for an ultramarathon like your first ultra-marathon. So you sign up for a 50k having never done one before. And you and I started working together a little more than three months, I think before your 50k. So it was a good timing to like get started with this.
Because you know, as we talked about the fat-adaptation process, there are a few weeks there where it’s not amazing, right, and you don’t feel very good. And so you kind of went through that experience, describe that sort of experience of like, going through your training and changing your diet, and then going out there and running and having it not be what you thought it was gonna be. Yeah, for, like, what was that like for you?
Eva Bailey
Yeah. And that was another thing. Like I signed up and I had this goal and was like, “Okay, if I know that there’s this transition, I better get started now.” But so, getting started on my first run, when after a few days of really having no carbs, I was like, oh boy, I know what they mean.
Everything just felt heavy and slow, like my muscles were. It felt like I was working out in the gym. And I was going on cramping. So it just really sucked for a minute and then also I had some long runs coming up.
I was getting to a point my training plan where I was hitting, you know, my 20 to 25 mile long runs. And going into it like my first long run really having no carbs was was really bad. It was just a slog, but knowing going in that like this isn’t going to be fun, but I’m just gonna take it slow and knowing that this is part of the process as like okay, I’m just gonna do it. I am paying the piper here. Like I have to do this in order to get out to the other side. But yeah, no, it was not fun.
Patrick McGilvray
Did you have some doubts during that period where you were just like, I don’t know if this is this is gonna work this sucks.
Eva Bailey
Um, so I think I initially did but just hearing so many people’s experiences that it’s like a temporary thing helped me be like, no, no this is part of the process. I kind of was able to shift my thoughts on it and look at it like, and be excited. Because I was like, oh, you know, this is part of it. It just means I’m doing it right. So the fact that it sucks so bad right now, just means that I’m on the right track.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, so you are so you, you weren’t really having doubts, but you were just like, “Okay, this sucks. I see what they’re talking about now.” And, and you were just committed to the process. Right?
Eva Bailey
Exactly, exactly. The doubts that I had a couple of weeks into the whole process, I had to go on vacation. Well, I didn’t have to go on vacation. But I had a vacation planned, and I was going with some girlfriends to Boston. And so my doubts were on myself on how am I gonna stick with the plan, when I’m in this environment where everybody around me is eating the cannolis and eating the Boston cream pies and having all the drinks.
And like, and I’m two weeks into this, and but I know like if I go off track too much like it’s gonna you know, I’ll have it’ll slow me down. And so my doubts were like, “Oh, my God, how is this vacation gonna go?”
Patrick McGilvray
How did it go? Like, how did you end up like doing on that vacation?
Eva Bailey
I stuck to my guns really well, and but it was, and thank God, we had a call while I was out there, because I was describing it to you. So I was like, Patrick, and like, I’m sitting here and I’m watching all my friends eat these cannolis at Quincy Market. And I’m like, I just this is a special kind of hell.
And I remember we talked about that. And it’s like, remembering, that’s just a thought that I’m having in my head right now. Like, it’s, and the thoughts are, like just that they’re just thoughts. So kind of removing this factual nature of like, “Oh, this is a special kind of hell that I’m going through” to just like, “Oh, you know, I can actually look at this however I want.”
This is actually really great practice for the rest of my life when I’m going to be in front of people that are eating lovely pecan pies or drinking drinks with umbrellas. And I am choosing not to because I want to feel great on my 50k in December like I am choosing to do this because I know I’m going to feel better.
And just because that looks really good right now. Yeah, it’s just like a temporary thought. And that thought is going to be gone in just a moment. As soon as that thought comes in, it’s going to be gone. So remembering that those thoughts are kind of not really facts, they’re not real. And that was really helpful for me to kind of get through that, because I just felt like it was torture.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I do remember that conversation. And you were just like, in the hotel room. And you’re like, I don’t know about this, um, this is hard. Yeah, but you’re touching on something that is very important, which is that we have the power to think whatever we want. We don’t believe that though.
And until you really believe that you can’t start changing your thinking. So if you’re stuck with these thoughts of like, “Oh, this is a special kind of hell, or I can’t do this, or this isn’t gonna work for me.” Or, you know, “I’ve tried everything, nothing ever works.” Whatever thoughts and beliefs you have about yourself, or whether you can or can’t do something, what you’re able to achieve, how far how fast you can run, whether you can lose weight or not. Those are all optional. All those thoughts. And feelings are just optional. A lot of them are programmed.
You know, they’re programmed from decades ago. And so we’ve just always had these thoughts about like, “Oh, when I’m around other people who are eating cannolis, it’s going to be hell for me.” You know, you can choose to believe that and you can keep thinking that or you can shift your thinking. And when you shift your thinking, guess what? There’s more that’s available to you.
And maybe you can just get through that situation a little better. Here’s the reality, those kinds of situations will come up. Other times they’re going to come up your whole life. You get to decide what you want to think and feel in those moments and what you want to do. If you want to eat cannolis, go ahead, eat the cannolis. That’s up to you.
But if you don’t, and you’re doing it because you feel compelled or you feel like you have to or you feel like that’s just your programming, that’s a problem. But if you decide ahead of time, “Hey, you know what, tomorrow we’re going out with these friends I’m going to eat I’m going to eat a piece of cannoli and enjoy it.” Like, that’s totally fine, you can do that.
But if you if that’s not what you want for yourself, if you’re like, “Hey, I’m in training mode, I got this 50k coming up, I’m in this fat adaptation period where the more sugar ate, the slower this whole fat adaptation period is going to take, it’s going to lessen, it shuts down the whole fat burning process when I’m eating sugar.” You know that is something you can choose to do or not do. And it sounds like you, you know, you made some good decisions that weren’t easy, but you got through it. You know. So that was cool.
I’m glad you shared that. Because I think it’s such an important thing. And we don’t think about that we don’t think about how our thoughts are really creating these results for us, you know when you really look at it that way, right?
So you got through sort of the fat-adaptation period, you started running, started to feel better. Describe that moment when running started to feel better because I love hearing that from people.
Eva Bailey
It was kind of gradual, like, I just kind of noticed my paces just started getting better. Like it still felt hard. But eventually my pace just kind of got back to where it was before. But I do remember, I think it was on one of my longer runs that I did not need any, any goo or like, or I always bring little nut butter packets. But I was like, “Well, let me see if I can get by without it.” And so I think I remember I did it one of my 25-mile training runs and I used nothing. And I was fasted. And I was like, holy cow, and I felt like I could keep going. I feel like the only like, the only thing holding me back right now is just like my muscles and my connective tissues are not quite ready for me to go do 30 miles just yet.
But I think yeah, I think it was like one of those long runs where at the end I’m like, I didn’t have any fuel. I just had my electrolytes and I feel pretty darn good. And that and I think that was when I was like oh, okay, I see I see the benefits here.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I love that moment of like that sort of light bulb moment that goes off and you’re just like oh, there might be something to this after all you know it’s so awesome. I love hearing people talk about that so let’s fast forward a little bit so you got fat-adapted you got through some tough times keep in mind that we’re sort of like getting into the holidays here.
You know we got Thanksgiving going on and we’re getting into the Christmas season and all that, but you had this ultra-marathon in December. How did that go? Like just kind of describe what you did to prepare for the race and kind of like you know what your game plan was going into it and then kind of what happened.
Eva Bailey
Yeah you know I was consulting with you quite a bit, but my plan going in you know I have somebody else that kind of writes my run plans so I had all my taper planned but as far as like the night before meal I didn’t do anything different.
I had had a steak and some asparagus and kind of my usual thing I had been practicing the strategy for you know my long runs before I just had my coffee. I had my butter coffee in the morning and I used the s-fuels in the morning of and just loaded up on my hydration in my electrolytes and I brought my little nut butters just in case because it’s like my little security blanket like if I need them I want to have them.
But I’ve had the same nut butters in my little pack for months now. And then I just carry with me just in case. But mentally preparing I’m just gonna have fun. I feel ready like telling myself I think I did one of my like a 28 and 29 miler about my goal pace for the race.
So I’m like I’ve done everything I can I think my paces are looking good. I think I’ve got my fuel strategy dialed in. The weather was kind of the only curveball because it was going to be really bad weather. So I’m like it’s going to be a little rainy or that I’m used to them. Add some, some extra Body Glide, you know, maybe bring some extra shoes to change into if I need them. So I’m like, you know, going through this whole strategy that is pretty, pretty typical. So and then I get out there, I’m kind of rushed, trying to find a bathroom. Anyway, so we get going. And so now we’re off to the races. So that’s my preparation.
Do you want me to start talking about the actual race went?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, just start talking about how the race went. I know that for you, this is your longest distance running in that sort of fasted state with minimal fuel. And when we talk about fuel, you know, you’re using some s-fuels, which I recommended, which is mostly just fat and protein. So it’s amino acids and some MCT oil, and some electrolytes, basically, so it’s minimal fuel, it’s not like you’re not eating sugar. There’s no carbohydrates going on in there. So just, you know, you kind of have very minimal fuel going in there, but it’s enough to fat and protein will help keep you going forever. Do you know what I mean? So you don’t really need much more than that. So that’s awesome.
But talk about how the race went for you. And you know, how you ended up?
Eva Bailey
Yeah, yeah. So the race, you know, I was feeling good. I was feeling good for a while I did an early start. And so it was a smaller group, a lot of people ended up not showing up because the weather was really bad. But in Seattle, like you just, you’re used to that. So I was like, you just show up, showing up is half the battle, right?
There was, there was one guy that was ahead of me most of the time. And so I’d always kind of just see him a few hundred yards in front of me and, and there was a point where we did end up running together because he would stop at all the aid stations. And so then that kind of gave me a chance to catch up with him each time.
But there was a section where we were running together, and we were talking and he was telling me, “Oh yeah, I run 50 miles, 100 miles, I’m gonna do a 250-mile race next in May.” I was like, holy smokes, this guy’s like, badass! He’s, he’s a real runner, you know, starting to compare myself.
But anyway, so we ran together for a little bit. And then he kept going, but every time he’d stopped at the aid stations and eat the carbs, and the chips and whatever. And I’m feeling good, the whole time, you know, still feeling good.
And then we get to the last turnaround. And I start gaining on him. And he’s, you know, we pass each other or I pass him and he’s looking at me, he’s like, you’re killing it. And I’m like, yeah, come on, you know, thinking he’s gonna kind of keep like, run with me some more to the finish line.
And I realize I’m passing him and then I realize he was the only one ahead of me the whole time. And so I’m like, I’m about to be the first one to finish this finish line! And then and I know there wasn’t a whole lot of people in the race, but I was like, holy cow.
So then the last eight miles of the race I’m like, I’m still feeling good. I’m still feeling good. I still don’t need the aid stations. I still don’t need the crap that all the other people are eating. I’ve got my s-fuels and my electrolytes and then I just that’s kind of when I got that that last wind or it wasn’t even a second wind because it just I never lost my wind, I just kept going.
And then seeing the last eight miles I smoked the dude that’s gonna run 250 miles in May! And that was when I was like, “Okay, I’m a believer.” Nobody can tell me that carbs are gonna keep you going for you know long distances like this they may be good for shorter you know faster distances. But this was like the proof to see this guy bonk you know in the last eight miles, and I just go faster. Like I went faster, and then the last bit of it then the whole thing. So that was amazing. That was eye-opening and my overall paid like I beat my goal by you know, 15 minutes or 15 seconds average. So I felt pretty stinking good at the end of it!
Patrick McGilvray
You should, and you should be proud of yourself. And you ended up being the first female because you guys started in stages. So you kind of went with the early group. And there are some later groups that started and then they took the chip times, basically. And you ended up being the first female, which is amazing. So not only was it your first ultra marathon, but you basically came in first, let’s just say that, okay?
Eva Bailey
Yeah. And that, to me, that’s bonkers. You know, like, my first one out of the gate. Right, you know, and so I’m like, well, is, it was, it wasn’t a huge race, you know, I but, but at the same time, like, yeah, that’s, that was pretty cool. That was, that was pretty cool.
Patrick McGilvray
And then just a little side note here, apparently, like a week later, after the results were already posted. Some other female ended up getting that top slot because she got lost. And I want to, I want to say that she like, talked to the race director and said, “Oh, I got lost and so you should like make my time, you know, the number one time or whatever.” Which I don’t think is fair at all. Because if you get lost, I’m sorry. You don’t win. You lost. Right?
Eva Bailey
Yeah. I don’t know what happened. I think, you know, maybe some signs blew down, or I don’t understand what happened. But there was a lot of confusion with the timing. But, you know, when the first results that were posted, like I was the first first female.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, we’re just gonna go with that story. Yeah. Okay, cool. We’ll put an asterisk next to her name. You are the, you’re the real winner. I mean, there’s all ultramarathons all the time where people get lost, or they take a wrong turn, they don’t give them extra time, they don’t take that back. You know what I mean, they just lose the race. You know.
Anyway, I’m so proud of you either for like, not only, I mean, I’m proud of you for winning this race, but I’m just so proud of you for sticking with it more than anything else. And really seeing the power of changing your diet and changing your mindset. Because that’s what it’s all about.
It’s about you becoming this confident and healthy version of yourself, you know, which that’s what you really set out to do. You know, you didn’t, you know, when we set out, you know, you didn’t have a bunch of weight to lose, you know, a little bit, but it was just like, that wasn’t really the main focus, the main focus is on getting you to the, to the place where you could run long distances, and feel amazing, and just feel like you can keep going, which I would say, totally mission accomplished there.
Yeah, you know, and then the fact that you, you know, you’re observing this other guy out there, which is very typical. So, you know, you see all these other people out there on these ultras, who may be very, very experienced, you know, and of course, we’re all different levels of speed, you know, different paces and stuff like that.
But this guy was, you know, pretty experienced, and sucking down all the sugar and carbs all throughout the race and ended up just like crapping out towards the end. And here’s you, you know, the Energizer Bunny just keeps going and going. I love that it’s such a good comparison. You’re catching up to this guy. And then you pass him. And he’s just like, I can’t do it anymore.
Eva Bailey
Exactly. That was the moment where I was really sold where we’re like like you said, the comparison is just right in your face, you can’t deny it.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So let me ask you this, you really had a shift in how you sort of thought about all this, because at the beginning of our conversation here, you were talking about how you were skeptical. And you were like, I don’t know how this is all gonna work. This can’t be good for you eating, you know, animal products and things like that. But you, you went in and did it.
And you did eat, you know, you were eating steaks and things like that. And so you did embrace that. The animal products part of all of this. And, and I’m just curious, like, what was that shift like for you? Or what shifted for you during this whole experience? Like, what did you know, you know, the person that you were going into this versus the person you are today? Like, what’s the difference there?
Eva Bailey
Yeah, yeah. I think getting educated on some of the science, I think there’s a lot of resources that you kind of pointed me to that really made me rethink what was true about the science about the dietary guidelines that are given to us and not less thing, our ideal ideology trample our biology, you know. And like, let me try something just because I have, you know, I feel really kind of hoity-toity and superior being like a vegetarian or a vegan. Like, let me make sure that that’s really best for me.
So when I started, like the first thing that I noticed that I couldn’t deny, going low carb was like this, the stomach pain and bloating that I always thought was normal on previous, you know, plant-based diets like it went away within like a couple of days.
And I was like, Wait a second. “So you mean I can eat a meal and my stomach doesn’t hurt?” And so just in the first couple days just seeing that I don’t have stomach pain was like, okay, that’s really hard to deny.
So it was just seeing, seeing the undeniable results was like, I think there’s probably a lot of science that is not correct, that they’re teaching us. So it was just seeing the results firsthand, feeling the results, and kind of doing some more research on the science.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I think it’s interesting. So you bring up something interesting, like the feeling, like the stomach pain, the bloating, the inflammation that a lot of us are experiencing when we’re eating this high carbohydrate diet. And we just assume that that’s normal.
And you don’t notice that you’re experiencing all that stuff. Because that’s just the way you’ve been living your life forever. But when you stop eating that way, and you change your diet and start eating whole foods, you stop eating processed foods, you stop eating sugar, you stop being refined grains and carbohydrates, you start noticing that, why doesn’t my stomach hurt? How come I’m not gassy? How come? I’m not bloated? How come? I’m not? My body isn’t all inflamed and achy all the time.
And until you actually start experiencing that it’s hard to describe to people but it’s, it’s such a better way to live your life, isn’t it? I mean, why wouldn’t you want to do this? And listen, I hear people talk about this all the time. They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember I did that low carb thing. For a while I felt great. I was less inflamed. I was, you know, my stomach didn’t hurt.’ And then they then they’ll tell me like, ‘Oh, but I just couldn’t keep up with it.’ Or I just, you know, it was too hard or something like that, you know, what do you say to those people who think that this is too hard?
Eva Bailey
Oh, I was about to say, this is like the most sustainable thing I’ve tried. And I’ve tried just about every variation that you can think of. And this is by far the easiest thing like you can even if you’re out and about like you can always find stuff to eat and it’s yeah, it’s not that hard.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I would agree. I agree with that. I think it’s like one of the simplest things you can do. It’s about eating real food and simplifying your food, not making it more complicated. You know?
Eva Bailey
Yeah, it’s like the first couple weeks, the when you’re trying to kind of figure out, you know, when you when you’re learning what to do, and you’re creating new routines, you know, that’s difficult, but once you figure that out, that’s it’s smooth sailing.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, obviously, there’s always going to be a transition period where you’re, you know, whenever you’re changing your diet or changing your behaviors, like there’s going to be a period of like, there’s discomfort, there’s not knowing what to do, you know, you’ve got all these old habits and you’re sort of been just operating on autopilot forever.
And so when you change all that, like yeah, it is a little bit difficult. I always describe it as being a little bit of a clunky process, like it’s a little clunky like you got to like get the wheels greased up and get things working properly. But once you get it going, it should be simple. The idea is to simplify, simplify, not make it more complicated.
So tell me what you’re doing today. So you mentioned at the beginning like you’re doing sort of a pegan diet. Tell me what that means. And kind of how that looks for you.
Eva Bailey
Um, it’s basically you know, and it’s still low carb I’m not I haven’t really gone back to a full pegan because they have a lot of kind of starch. There’s still some sweet potatoes and quinoa and things that I’m not really doing now but I am bringing back I am going to do some carb cycling. So it will be those things for like a couple days out of the month.
And so it looks like, you know, I’m doing the time-restricted eating. So basically in the morning, I have my coffee, I drink that all morning, and then I don’t eat lunch until noon or one. And it’s usually some, some scrambled eggs with some onions and mushrooms in there. You know, maybe some uncured no sugar bacon, so I’m really focused on the quality of the food too.
So even the animal products I eat are grass-fed, grass-finished. No, no nitrates, and free-range chicken and things like that, and all of the green leafy vegetables that I want, you know, asparagus and Brussels sprouts, and, you know, some green beans. So it’s like, I still feel like I’m still eating real food. And it totally doable. It’s delicious. I feel like we eat better now than we ever have before.
I don’t even, I know COVID We’re not going to restaurants, but I don’t even want to go to restaurants anymore because I just eat so many delicious things here, you know, and then, you know, dinner’s, you know, some chicken and some vegetables, but it’s like, there are so many delicious recipes that we’ve been trying. It’s just been scrumptious.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and that’s one of the beautiful things about eating this way is that you can do it in a way that’s very simple. And where your, your taste starts to change. So we get used to wanting to like, we get used to the hyper-palatable foods, you know, that are like marketed to us and stuff and that are amazingly delicious. And when you stop eating that stuff, just like eating a steak, or just a chicken breast or just some Brussels sprouts, you know, with some salt and pepper on it becomes incredibly delicious.
So you’re no longer like your taste receptors are like working the way they’re supposed to again, and you’re no longer required to eat this food that’s been engineered to be extremely delicious, or whatever, you can find just as much satisfaction out of eating. Like, for example, just last night for dinner, I had two chicken breasts with salt and pepper on them. That was it. That was my dinner. And I was like, This is so good. Who is this person eating this stuff? You know, but it was just like, so good.
You know, and I’m not saying you have to eat meat or anything like that. But I’m just saying like, you can really do this in a way that just simple food can be incredibly satisfying again, and there’s such a freedom in that too, because then you’re not relying on, you know, making all these recipes and making things really complicated and going to the grocery store six times a week and all these other things. So I love eating this way.
Is there anything else you wanted to share that we haven’t really talked about? I just think your story is so amazing. And I’m so happy you took the time to kind of come on here and talk to me. But is there anything else that we didn’t cover that you wanted to talk about?
Eva Bailey
Um, well, I think just the other thing that shifted for me was how I look at alcohol. You challenged me in the first 30 days to not have a drink. And I used to have a drink you know, a few times a week. And like a wasn’t a big deal. But like when I’m cooking dinner, I would like to have a drink. And you challenged me to go 30 days without I’m like, “Okay, I’ll give you a 30 days Patrick but that’s not a not a day longer!”
And now like you know, it’s I feel like so much of it is just creating a new habit. But now I don’t even miss it. And I don’t really even want to have a drink because again, you go back to kind of feeling the comparison of I feel so great. And then I had a drink. I’m like, I don’t really feel so great anymore.
And so now I don’t even want to drink and that was kind of a big shift for me too. And yeah, I think that was just one other thing, and preferring fasted running was another thing that like when I heard people say that they run fasted. I was like, they’re crazy! There’s no way that’s healthy, because I’m thinking like, ‘Oh, you know, we’re supposed to eat breakfast and like you shouldn’t do that.’ And then I started trying it and I’m like, “Wow, I feel way better when I fat when I run in the morning fasted.” And so that’s life-changing, and it just simplifies everything.
So, you know, I’m not running around feeling hungry all the time. So, last weekend, we went out for a mountain bike ride kind of midday. And normally I’d be like, ‘Okay, well, we’ve got to make breakfast in the morning, I’ve got to make lunch, I’ve got to make some wraps on something that I can bring for lunch.’ And, like, now, I have so much more time in the morning where I don’t have to worry about cooking breakfast, we went out for a mountain bike ride. And it was like, one in the afternoon we’re driving home.
And normally I’d be like, okay, I need my snack bars. And you know, I need my lunch. And I’m like, I feel perfectly fine. We just did a, you know, a mountain bike ride, which is, you know, that’s pretty physically demanding. And like, I feel great. And I’m not frantic and like, I have to hurry up and get home and make lunch or like, it was just, huh. I’m not hungry all the time. I don’t need to snack.
I used to snack like I would eat eight times a day. I need breakfast. I’d graze in the morning and I eat lunch and I graze until dinner. And then I so I was just eating all the time. And I realized that that’s not how even though they’d say, “Oh, yeah, eat more, and it’s gonna make your metabolism go faster, and then you’re gonna lose weight.” No, no, no. I feel it was like an imbalance in hormones.
And so now doing all this has corrected my hormones and just balanced and I just don’t feel hungry as much all the time might that’s, that’s not my world, food is not my world anymore. I can focus on you know, whatever I’m doing right here right now with my friends and, and just be present, rather than thinking about what I’m going to be eating.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, or drinking, you know, yeah. Yeah. And that’s so cool. I’m glad you mentioned that because this is about changing our relationship with food. And with alcohol. These substances can be very difficult to do in moderation, especially the refined carbs, the sugar, or the alcohol, that’s hard for a lot of people to do in moderation.
Some people just be like, oh, yeah, just moderate, but it’s very hard for a lot of people. And so some of us, you know, like, I don’t drink alcohol at all. Some people can just, you know, we talk about that relationship they have with alcohol, and if they want to change that, then we work on it, it doesn’t mean you have to, you never can drink an alcoholic drink again in your life. But it just means that we got to change the relationship, you got to change how you think and feel about this stuff, you got to stop using these things, like drugs to make yourself feel better.
It’s, you know, stop using it as a coping mechanism or as a reward mechanism and start using it as, as fuel. Or in the case of alcohol, you can drink every now and then. But it’s if it becomes an issue, you can back off again. Like we want to work, we want to have this relationship with these things to where we are in control. And as long as we are feeling like we’re always in control, we’re good.
Because then you can just say no, you can just stop, you can say no. But when we feel like we’re out of control, when we feel like the food is something we have to do every couple of hours, because, you know, we’re so hungry, we can’t not eat, or I can’t imagine not drinking every other day or whatever. That’s a problem. We need to fix that, you know, so we need to work on the relationship. And so I’m glad you brought that up. Because you did a good job with that, too. Was that scary for you to like, maybe give up the alcohol for the first 30 days or so?
Eva Bailey
I mean, I have to be honest, it was the thing I was looking forward to the least. Yeah. And I remember our first call like I was kind of bracing myself for you to tell me like okay, you know, let’s see if we can get you to cut that out this next month. And we got to you know, we’re almost at the end of the call and you didn’t mention it and I was like okay, he didn’t say anything about it. Maybe I can keep drinking and then at the very end you’re like, okay, give me you know, 30 days.
Patrick McGilvray
Oh, by the way, it’s I forgot to mention this!
Eva Bailey
Right? So it was like, surprisingly enough like even though Yeah, I was not looking forward to that to not drinking.
Patrick McGilvray
But how’d it go for you?
Eva Bailey
I think the hardest part was when I was with my girlfriends and they were drinking but just by deciding in advance like this is just what I’m going to do. And knowing like, okay, I’m challenging myself for 30 days like this is temporary. This is just what I’m going to do. And you know, you make the decision you set your mind to it, and there’s just no other option. There’s not an option to be like, oh, like actually, maybe I’m gonna have on tonight like, no, that’s just off the table. So for me, it was just, I just closed the door and it’s like, it is what it is.
Patrick McGilvray
Was it hard at first though?
Eva Bailey
It was at first, like, especially when I was like cooking dinner. Because you know, you’re in this habit of like, oh, I’m cooking dinner, I’m going to have a glass of wine while I’m cooking. So it was because like, I’m in that habit. And I was kind of like, looking for the thing that I’m going to, like chopping and oh, where’s the glass of wine that I normally reach for? So that was weird. And I was like, Oh, I really would kind of like a glass of wine right now.
Patrick McGilvray
And then how long before it felt easier? And you just weren’t really thinking about it anymore?
Eva Bailey
I think it was maybe like, after the first couple weeks, I was like, yeah, okay.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t take long. Right. And that’s the experience that a lot of people have, they’re, they’re a little bit’s scared to go into this. Like, I don’t know about that. But it’s, and this is part of the, the reason we do it, part of it is physical because you want to like change your, your, your hormones, and alcohol just acts like sugar in your body, you know. So we want to like kind of eliminate that issue as well. And it also slows down the whole fat-adaptation process and all that.
But then there’s that mental aspect of it being sort of a habit. And so we want to just like, change the relationship. And so it takes a few weeks, usually to like, just go like, oh, I don’t really miss that anymore. And most people go into it scared. And then after a few weeks, they’re like, oh, is no big deal. Which is cool. Because when you get to that place, then it’s not a big deal.
Yes, not drinking is not a problem, because you’re not thinking about it all the time. Just like eating the sugar and stuff. When you stop being obsessed about that kind of food, not eating it is not a problem. You know, it’s like, easy peasy, right? Cool. Yeah.
Well, this has been amazing. Eva, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your experience with me, and congrats on an amazing 50k. What’s next for you? What do you got coming up another race scheduled or anything like that?
Eva Bailey
So I’ve never been an organized race person. So I think you know, I do have a marathon scheduled in July. That’s just kind of a fun one that I’m doing with some girlfriends because it’s something that we’ve done the last couple of years. And so I’m going to do that again in July.
But I do want to do a 50 miler. I’m just trying to figure out when because this year, I’ve got a lot of plans and I’m trying to figure out how to schedule a 50 miler in with all the things going on. I am trying to figure out where I can squeeze in my 50 miler because, well, you know, with one of my original goals, like I, I still want to run 100 miles one day, I still want to do that.
So I am keeping my mileage up. So that way, if I can find a time to get that 50 miler in that I’m not ramping up from the beginning. I also want to work more on being able to help other people with this transition. I’m looking at, you know, improving my own coaching abilities and certifications. And so I want to figure out how to help other people do this because it’s just been so transformational.
Patrick McGilvray
That’s awesome! I’m so glad you said that too. Because my mission here with all this stuff is to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire others to do the same. And you’re living that right now. You know, I’ve been an example for you. Now you can go out there and be an example for others. And that’s what I want.
This is how we create change in the world. This is how we create impact. This is how we create this ripple effect of good health and positivity in this world. So that’s super awesome. Well, let us know when you get your 50k on the calendar, and then we can like do a little recap and see how that goes for you. I’d love to get you back on here and talk about that experience and then your 250 miler when you do that one. You’ve got to beat that guy! It’s been awesome. Eva. Thanks again for being here. It’s been super fun.
Eva Bailey
Oh, no, thank you so much. I’m so excited to be able to talk about this. Any anytime somebody will listen to me talk about health and fitness and food like I’m all over it. So thank you.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
I’ve received a lot of questions about the Running Lean Coaching Group’s January 8 Pounds Down Challenge so I decided to address all of your questions in this bonus podcast episode! Starting on …
Continue Reading about Bonus Episode: January 8 Pounds Down Challenge →
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 this special bonus episode of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m going to be talking about the coaching group’s January eight pounds down challenge.
I’ve received a lot of questions about this challenge and about what we’re going to be doing over in the coaching group. And I wanted to make sure that I addressed all of your questions. And I was going to do this in this week’s Facebook Live. But there are some mitigating circumstances where I cannot go live on Facebook right now. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.
But I just want you to know that starting on Tuesday, January 4, we’re going to be focusing on getting fat-adapted as a group, we’re going to be doing this in the coaching group, we’re going to be getting fat-adapted and dropping some weight.
And the goal is to try to lose eight pounds by January 31. So if you think about it, it’s roughly two pounds a week, maybe a little less than two pounds a week. Very doable. Can I guarantee everybody’s gonna drop at least exactly eight pounds? No, but you know what, we’re going to set ourselves up for success, okay.
Some people might might lose a bit more, some people might lose a bit less. It’s all good. So if you’re interested in stepping up your game and joining us for this fun and transformative challenge, be sure to listen to this episode, because I’m just gonna be talking about what we’re going to be doing over there. I’ll give you all the details, and then join us in the group, it’d be fun to have you in the group. Okay.
So normally, I would be talking about this on my Facebook Live that I do every week in the Facebook group. And because of some glitchy thing that I did a couple of years ago, apparently, the Facebook algorithm found some old posts that I shared some meme or something like that, that apparently went against the community guidelines for Facebook.
And I’m basically restricted from going live for 30 days. No big deal. Whatever I posted was innocent enough, there was something sarcastic, which I’ve been known to do every now and then. And looking back on it, I can see how it was maybe just in poor taste or whatever. Okay, so, lesson learned. I’m kind of restricted from going live on Facebook right now.
So for this month, I’m going to maybe do a couple of bonus episodes of the podcast, is that cool with you guys? Cool. So it’s all good. Lesson learned. You’ve got to be careful what you post on Facebook, I’m telling you right now they take stuff very seriously, you know, even if you’re joking around. So just be careful with that kind of stuff.
You guys, you know what? I always try to keep things positive, you’re probably listening to this going, like, I can’t believe you would post something like, what did you post I know, it was just something dumb that I shared that somebody else created, you know, some meme, you know.
But apparently, it went against their guidelines, so lesson learned.
Okay, so here’s what I’m gonna talk about today – I want to talk about this challenge that we’re doing over the Facebook group. So this is all about getting fat-adapted and doing our best to lose eight pounds by January 31.
Okay, so why are we doing this? Well, first of all, this is a great time of the year to do this not because it’s January 1, and we’re all like setting resolutions and all this stuff. No. It’s a good time to do it because we are just getting started with marathon training.
Or maybe your half marathon training hasn’t started yet. So this is the offseason and this is a good time to kind of get started with any kind of nutrition changes, any kind of dietary changes.
You don’t want to wait six weeks until your marathon to start something like this. Okay? So, most spring marathons are going to be in, you know, April, May June, kind of in that timeframe. So we’ve got plenty of time to get fat adapted, okay.
I want to help you create some momentum as well to start this new year. I want to help you develop some new eating habits and some new relationships with food really, and with exercise and I want you to understand what it takes to become a fat adapted runner.
I want you to see the benefits of becoming a fat-adapted runner, and I want to create some momentum. I want you to create the momentum to help you just project yourself into the rest of the year like really give you some momentum to just keep things going and really create some good positive habits.
You know, when we talk about losing weight, we talk about getting fat-adapted, we talk about getting healthier, we talk about getting more fit, improving our health, improving our fitness, whatever it is, it’s all about changing your habits. It’s all about what you do, every single day.
And most people, what they do is they, you know, they get to a day like January 1, and they’re like, I’m gonna lose weight, you know, and then they just kind of arbitrarily kind of half-ass a plan and sort of, you know, try to eat better, whatever that means.
And they don’t really succeed at that, right. I mean, this is why the gyms are full in January, and then by March, they’re empty again, right. So most people try to do this in a way that just doesn’t work. Okay.
And so, a couple of other things that kind of don’t work is trying to do it on your own. Right? It’s hard to do this on your own. Without guidance, it can be challenging, okay. Without accountability, it can be very challenging. Without direction, or somebody to help you get through the tough stuff, it’s going to be almost impossible for you.
So what we’re going to do as a group is we are going to learn together, exactly how to get fat adapted. So you’ll be able to do this with a group, you’re going to get expert guidance and direction from me and from other people in the group.
I’ve got people in my coaching group who have been in my membership program for many months. And some people, I would consider them to be experts at this as well, they’ve got a lot of experience doing this.
So you’re going to hear from me and from other people that have had a great experience doing this, okay, but I’m going to be your coach, I’m going to be coaching you through the tough stuff, okay. You’ll have a clear and proven plan, you’re going to have a plan that has worked for countless other runners.
And we are going to kind of figure out our plans together. And you’ll have a chance to ask questions. Every week, you’re going to get encouragement, you’re going to get that accountability, where you have to sort of check-in, you’ll get to talk about what’s going well, what’s not, you’re going to stay motivated, you’re going to stay on track when you do this as a group. Okay?
That whole accountability thing. Somebody asked me this recently, like, what does accountability look like? It looks like this. It looks like every week, we’re going to say hey, this is what your job is for this week. Here’s the work you need to do. Maybe you got some homework assignments you have to do this week. Here’s what we’re going to do as a group together, yeah, let’s do it.
So we all say, yes, we’re committed, we’re going to do this thing. And then every week, you’ve got to show up and say, did you do it or not? That’s what accountability looks like. Okay, because you don’t want to show up to the group and say, I didn’t do it. I didn’t stick to my plan. You know, I just gave up. You don’t want to do that. Right?
So you’re going to stay on track, you’re going to do what you said you’re going to do, because you got to check in with us and tell us you did, or you didn’t do it. That’s what accountability looks like. Okay.
And I also need to say this, I need to say that when we do this when we go through this process in this group together as a group, we are going to have fun doing it. Okay. It doesn’t have to stop at losing weight, getting healthy and becoming fitter can be fun. Is that crazy to say, does that totally blow your mind? Because it can be fun.
Most people think you have to suffer. Most people think it has to be super terrible. And you have to live in this world of like, dust deprivation and white-knuckling it. And, you know, just being hungry all the time. And feeling like crap. Like we’re gonna try to minimize that kind of stuff. Right? We’re gonna have some fun doing this.
Okay, um, I always say like losing weight doesn’t have to be a suffer-fest. Like we can do it in a way that feels good. That’s actually kind of fun. Okay. So how does all this work? So, what you’ll want to do is you’ll want to join the Running Lean coaching group and do this before Tuesday. Okay, Tuesday, the fourth.
So Tuesday, the fourth at 8:30 pm is our first group coaching call for January. And those are the only that’s the only time each week that we do this call. Okay, right now, I only have one call time each week.
As this group grows and we get more interest, you know, I could change that time or add more times, but for now, we just have the one call time and I try to accommodate, you know, as many people’s schedules that can there’s no way I could possibly pick a time that would work for everybody, but this time seems to work for a lot of people.
But don’t worry, if you can’t make the live calls, you can still get a lot out of the program by listening to the replays. So I post all the replays, all the video replays, from our group zoom meetings on a private website that you’ll have access to, I also have a private podcast feed that you can listen to.
So you can actually just listen to the coaching calls as you’re out running or whatever, which is a great way to kind of, you know, replay and get that information if you can’t make the lives but I do encourage you to make the live calls.
The people that make the live calls get a lot more out of the program, I’m just gonna tell you right now. Okay. So as soon as you sign up for the program, you’re going to get immediate access to all of my online training materials.
So my big flagship program is called the Weight Loss Training Course for Runners. And this is a big, multi-module program, it’s got, I don’t know, 40 videos, 45 videos, something like that, of training on a variety of topics about fat-adaptation, about the mindset required to lose weight and keep it off.
Strength training, explosive workouts for runners, there’s just so much information in there, okay, you get my course called Achieving the Impossible. This is all about setting big, huge impossible goals and then making them happen, you’ll get access to my course called Getting It All Done, which is a productivity course and helps you with planning.
A lot of what we do in the program is about planning, we plan our meals ahead of time, we plan our workouts, and then we stick to our plan. So I show you exactly how to plan your whole week, using different calendar tools and a very effective way of getting everything done.
And then you’ll have access to all the previous group coaching calls to all the recorded stuff, like I said in the private podcast, so in addition to all of that you get access to my private Facebook group where we kind of do a little bit of Q&A in there, sometimes you get to ask questions and get answers. So I would encourage you to get signed up before Tuesday. And we will all get started together on Tuesday, January 4. Cool.
So each week, you’re going to have you know, some different work to do, you’ll have some different sort of assignments, you’ll have different layers of like, what it looks like to get fat adapted, and how we change our diet, and how we, you know what you’re supposed to eat, what you shouldn’t eat, things to avoid, things you should definitely add in how to schedule your workouts around all this. How to make sure you’re getting the most out of the out of your running workouts, how to get through this tough fat-adaptation phase because the first few weeks is a little bit challenging.
And so you know, got some tips and tricks for getting through that quickly. You’ll get to ask questions and check in every week in the program. Cool. So that’s what the program looks like, I just want to encourage you, if you’re the kind of person who is like interested in doing this, you’re interested in starting your year off, by getting yourself fat-adapted, like this is something you’ve been thinking about for a long time, and you’re ready to take action, just I’m just gonna encourage you to take action. Okay?
Go over to runningleanpodcast.com/join and you can read all about it. And then you can just get yourself signed up. And as soon as you get yourself signed up, you’ll have access to all the online training materials, and then you can join in the live call on Tuesday.
You know, if you’re the kind of person who keeps gaining and losing the same 10 or 20 pounds over and over again, and you want a different way to do things, you want a different way that’s going to maybe work permanently for change, this is a good program for you.
If you’ve been running a ton of miles like trying to lose weight and it’s just not working for you anymore, this is definitely the program for you. Okay, if you want running to feel easier, you want to become virtually bonk-proof so you can run without hitting the wall and have this like steady energy for running also just for like getting through your day and not having these energy spikes and crashes all day long – definitely the program for you.
Okay, take control of your nutrition game. Let’s get you fat-adapted once and for all. We’re gonna do it together and experience all the fun and all the benefits and all the health benefits, especially of getting yourself fat adapted and losing some weight in January. Cool.
I know you guys are gonna have questions you can post questions in the Facebook group about this. I’m excited to be on this journey with you. I’m excited to take a group of people through this together. I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun doing this. If I haven’t mentioned that already, I’ll say alright, we’re gonna have fun.
And then together we’re going to have an awesome January and set you up for success for everything that you have scheduled for the rest of the year. All of your spring marathon and half marathon goals, and just all of your overall health and fitness goals. Cool. All right, you got this my friends love you all keep on Running Lean. Reach out if you have any questions and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
The holidays can be a very difficult time of the year for a lot of people. Shopping for gifts, planning social events, spending more time with family, and the added end-of-year demands at work can …
Continue Reading about 103. Handling the Holidays Like a Badass →
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 103 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today we’re talking about handling the holidays like a badass. Listen, the holidays can be a very difficult time for a lot of people.
You’re shopping for gifts, planning social events, spending more time with family, and the end of your demands at work can all lead to feeling more stressed and more overwhelmed. Not to mention the shorter days and the colder temperatures, the lack of sunlight all this can make getting outside exercise more challenging.
It can be very easy to just say “F-it” and blow off all your diet and exercise plans stay indoors watching Netflix with a big old glass of wine and hibernate until the new year. Right. But if that’s not how you want to roll into 2022, then I’ve got an alternative solution for you.
So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to share a few simple tips for handling the holidays like a badass, so you can slide into the New Year feeling good about yourself. Which by the way, is not the way most people do it.
But first, if you liked this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. Right now we’re in the middle of our running through the holidays challenge, we just passed the halfway mark, we’ve got another, I don’t know 17 or 18 days to go. And this is a challenge to get outside and run every day during the holidays.
It’s a fantastic way to you know keep your stress levels low. And to get some exercise every day. And we’re having a ton of fun in the group. Just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and join in on all the fun. And here’s another five-star review of the Running Lean podcast.
This is from Rake TM. And the title of this is “Life-changing and Introspective”:
“I recently discovered this podcast and the content presented. And the method shared is absolutely awesome. Patrick is really great not only at sharing, running-related performance improvements, but life-related lessons as a life coach. It’s all very inspiring, and I can’t stop binge-listening to all the episodes. Thank you, Patrick.”
Well, thank you very much for leaving a review. And if you feel the need to share your thoughts and leave a five-star review, I would love it just go to iTunes and scroll down or your apple podcast app and scroll down to where it says to leave a review, tap the stars and leave a few words, I really greatly appreciate that.
And then a couple of things I wanted to let you guys know about number one is the Running Lean coaching group is we got a big thing coming up in January. So our focus for January is going to be on weight loss, I want to help you start the new year by creating some massive momentum to develop the habits that you need to lose weight and learn how to do it for good.
And we got a big challenge coming up in January the goal for our group is going to be to lose eight pounds, you know, by the end of the month, right? So, lose eight pounds in January is sort of our goal for the month of January.
And listen, that’s only two pounds a week and this is very doable for you. You know, it’s very average, okay? And don’t worry, because I’m gonna show you exactly how to do it, you’re going to get all the support from me and everyone else in the group. We’re all going to be kind of doing this together as a group.
So I want to help you crush that goal. And listen, January is just an awesome time to get started with this kind of thing. Right? Marathon training is just getting underway. So it’s a perfect time for you to become fat-adapted so you can crush those spring racing goals.
So I’m going to show you exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine so you can run without bonking, lose weight without losing your mind, and develop the habit you need to make this last.
If you’re interested just join the group you can join at any time just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join – we’d love to see you for our big lose eight pounds in January challenge cool.
And then also if you’re interested in one on one coaching, that’s what I do. It’s my jam. If you’re looking for a little help with all this stuff, you know how to make a plan how to stick to your plan, what you should be eating, what you shouldn’t be eating – I offer all expert guidance, support, encouragement, accountability, all the experience you need to make this work for you, no matter what your goals, we can, we can get you there. Okay? Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply and see if coaching is a good fit for you.
All right on to this topic today, which is all about handling the holidays, like a badass. This time of the year, it can be very hard for people, right, we’ve got more stress this time of the year than any other time of the year collectively, right?
The days are cold, it’s dark, work is a little busier, you got to get all this stuff done at the end of the year. You’ve got more social events, you’re spending more time with family, you got to plan more meals, you’re buying gifts, you’re wrapping gifts, you’re sending out Christmas cards, maybe you’re traveling.
And all of this stuff can really feel overwhelming and cause a lot of people to really struggle. You know, this is supposed to be a fun time of the year, right and everybody looks forward to it. But at the same time, it can be very challenging for a lot of people, okay.
So when you find yourself feeling this stress, it can be very hard to stick to your diet and exercise plans, it can be very hard to want to get up and go to the gym when it’s cold and dark outside, it can be very hard to want to stick to your food plan when everybody around you is eating a bunch of junk and cookies and candy and all this other stuff, right?
So if you just want to stay inside and hibernate, like during this time of the year, that is perfectly fine. You’re allowed to do that, right? But if that’s not how you want to spend the holidays, then you get to decide what you want for yourself, okay, if you want something different, this episode is for you. Okay?
If you want to be able to stay on track, stick to your diet, keep up with your runs, keep up in the gym, whatever it looks like for you. You are allowed to do that. By the way, you don’t have to just fall into this habit that most people fall into, which is just kind of giving up a lot of this stuff during this time of the year.
How many people do you know to say, well, you know, the diet starts on January 1. Well, why? Why would you wait? Right? Why do you want to wait until then, to start improving your life? Why do you want to wait until then until you start doing something that’s good for you? Why do you want to wait until then, to start improving your health and your fitness?
I say start today, if that’s what you want for yourself, it doesn’t matter that we’ve got the holidays coming up, it really doesn’t. There’s always something going on, right? I want you to think about how you want to show up on January 2, you know, who do you want to be when you start the New Year? How do you want to show up for yourself?
Do you want to feel shame and guilt remorse and regret? Because you’re going to be starting from like a health and fitness deficit? Like you got to make up a lot of ground because you gained some weight you got a little softer?
Or do you want to feel proud of yourself and confident and happy with your choices? Do you want to start the new year with momentum? Do you want to start the new year ahead of the curve, like feeling like you had your back during this period of time, right? It’s a choice, it is a choice, you get to decide.
So here’s what I’m going to do, I got three tips for you today. And I’m gonna break these down a little bit. But the first one is step number one. Or tip number one is that you get to decide who you want to be on January 2. And you should get very detailed with this, right?
And I tell people all the time to like do these writing exercises, like write it out. Write out who you want to be. And I know a lot of people that listen to this podcast are just like, yeah, whatever. I’m not gonna write that out.
But you know what, it makes a difference. It really does. The people that take the time to do this work and actually sit down and do the writing, when it comes to things like this, they get better results I’m just going to tell you, they do.
So if you want to get better results, I want to encourage you to do a little bit of writing around this. Who do you want to be on January 2, you know, I want you to envision this version of you and write down what it will look like and feel like to be that person on January 2, right.
Now you get to decide if you want to keep losing weight, maybe you’ve already started a weight loss regimen and you’re kind of losing and you’re like that and you want to continue to lose weight. Maybe you want to just maintain your weight through the holidays. Or maybe you’re okay if you gain a little bit of weight during the holidays.
But you’ve probably never thought about it like before, right, but really, it’s a choice, it’s a choice that you get to decide how you want to show up for yourself in January if you want to gain a little bit of weight, that’s fine.
But I just want you to make that decision now. Because this decision that you make today is going to drive your behaviors over the next few weeks. So let’s say you decide you want to gain weight, that means like, you’re probably going to eat more food, drink more alcohol, indulge in a bunch of, you know, sugar, and, you know, processed foods and go a little bit crazy. Maybe you’re gonna, like, stop running for a few weeks, or, you know, not go to the gym. That’s fine. If you want to do all this, it’s totally awesome.
Just know that you will probably gain weight in this process. And if you’re okay with that, if you’re okay, showing up in January, you know, five, eight pounds heavier, whatever, awesome, more power to you. Okay, you get to decide if that’s what you want for yourself, maybe you want to maintain.
Maybe you’re the kind of person who is like, you know, what I’m gonna stick to my healthy eating plan. For the most part, I might make some more exceptions than normal, you know, I might have a little more wine here and there, I might be drinking some more beers, I might enjoy a dessert or two, but for the most part, I’m gonna, you know, kind of stick to the plan.
And maybe you back off the running and the strength training a little bit, but not entirely. So this is a way of maybe maintaining your weight. Okay, totally fine. Again, all these options are available to you.
You’ve probably never thought about it like this before, though, right? Most people just assume that they’re gonna, like, just continue to lose weight or whatever, during the holidays, but they don’t change anything. Okay.
And then let’s say you decide you want to lose during the holidays, you want to continue to lose weight, this is going to require that you keep planning your meals and keep sticking to your plan, right, it’s just going to require that you stick with your running schedule, you keep up with some sort of resistance training. And this plan is awesome. And I’m super proud of you if you decide to do this.
But just know that it requires a commitment, it requires a little bit more discipline and a little more motivation. It doesn’t require as much motivation if you’re okay, gaining some weight over the holidays, right. So you get to decide, do you want to gain weight, maintain your weight or lose weight, make that decision.
So here’s what not to do. So most people go into the holidays, thinking that they’re going to keep losing weight or stay the same, but then they eat a ton more food. They’re eating all the sugar, they’re drinking alcohol, they’re slacking off on their exercise regimen. This is the way most people do it. They don’t have a plan, they just think they’re gonna stay on track.
And they think they’re just gonna, like maintain their weight, but they’re not. Their behaviors are not in alignment with the goal of wanting to maintain their weight. And then they show up on January 2, and they’ve gained weight, they’re like 10 pounds heavier.
And they’re like, I don’t understand what happened. It’s like you didn’t make a plan. You didn’t decide how you wanted to show up. So step one is deciding how you want to show up on January 2, who do you want to be, write it down, decide today, who you want to be, and decide if you’re one of those people that wants to gain weight, maintain or lose weight, make that decision now, and then act accordingly.
So if you’re the kind of person who wants to lose weight, you’re gonna have to stick to your plan. You’re gonna have to be diligent and not eat the cookies when everybody else is eating the cookies.
Maybe people are drinking around you and you’re not. You’ve got to make that decision. If that’s what you want for yourself. Okay? Just be honest with yourself, who is it you want to become? And then act accordingly. Okay, so that’s tip number one or step number one to this process.
Okay, step number two is to make a plan and stick to the plan. So now you have a very clear picture of how you want to show up on January 2. So now you just need to make a plan and stick to it right? It seems so simple, but most people do not do this. Most people just wing it. Right? Don’t wing it. Make a plan.
So making a plan means that you’re planning out all of the events that are coming up, you plan out your meals, you plan out your workouts, you got holiday parties, family events, weird schedules, whatever.
Your kids are gonna be out of school, maybe you work from home and your kids are gonna be home with you. You’re gonna have a house full of people. All this stuff can be an excuse for just blowing off your diet and exercise routines.
And I hear this from people all the time, oh, well, you know, the kids are out of school. So that means I have to eat a lot more cookies. No, it doesn’t, it really doesn’t mean that at all. Right, don’t use that stuff as an excuse for not sticking to your plan. This will require a little bit more, you know, work a little more thought work a little bit of more discipline on your part.
Yes, it will make a plan and stick to the plan, you get to decide what’s on your plan. Just make a plan. Decide what’s coming up, like you know what’s coming up, you know that there’s going to be this holiday event, you know, there’s going to be this work thing, you know, there’s going to be kids around, whatever you got to make cookies for this thing, cupcakes, whatever, plan for all of it.
Decide what you’re going to eat and when, decide when you’re going to get your runs in, decide when you’re going to go to the gym to get your resistance training in, and get it all planned out in advance. Right, so simple, and then just stick to that plan.
Over in the coaching group, I have an entire course called Getting It All Done, where I show you exactly how to plan everything in your life so that you can make it all work, because I get it. We’re all busy. We all have busy lives, we’ve got work, we’ve got kids, we’ve got school, we’ve got all kinds of things going on, right?
And I make these suggestions like, hey, you should probably get outside and exercise every day, you should probably be doing some resistance training. You know, you should probably do some stretching and some yoga and things.
People are just like, dude, I can’t. I don’t have time for all this stuff. And I don’t want you to use that as an excuse. I don’t want you to use the I don’t have time as an excuse, okay? Because time is just a mental construct. It doesn’t truly exist.
You make the time for whatever is important to you, you absolutely do. So make the time for what’s important to you decide what’s important to you make the time and get it done. But I have this cool course right, it breaks it all down and shows you exactly how to do all that. I
found this quote when I was preparing for this podcast, and it might be from Ben Franklin. It’s kind of you know, the internet, who knows what some of this stuff. But anyway, it’s this quote has been attributed to Ben Franklin – “If you fail to plan you’re planning to fail.”
Boom, I love this, quote, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. I want to encourage you to not skip this step. Don’t skip the planning, make a plan. Most people just don’t do it. They just wing it. And if you don’t have a plan, you’re going to inevitably fail. Okay.
And just so you know, starting in January over in the coaching group, we’re going to be focused on starting the New Year, the right way. And I’m going to show you exactly how to plan your meals, what you should be eating, what you shouldn’t be eating, and most importantly, how to stick to that plan. Right, anyone can make a plan. It’s the sticking to the plan that’s the hard part.
Here’s my best advice for achieving greatness in any area of your life. Are you ready? Here it is. Make a plan. And then stick to that plan, even when you don’t feel like it. That’s it, make a plan and then stick to the plan. Even when you don’t feel like it.
You can accomplish just about anything with that kind of attitude. If you want to lose weight, make a plan to maybe you quit eating sugar and you quit eating processed food, and then stick to that plan, even when it’s hard. stick to that plan.
Even when you’re surrounded by cookies and candy and pastries. Because you’re gonna want that stuff. It will be hard in that moment, you will not feel like sticking to your plan in that situation.
You know, maybe you’re making Christmas cookies with your kids and the whole house smells like sugar cookies, right? How do you stick to your plan, that’s going to be hard, but you can do it. I know you can.
But that’s what it means to stick to your plan even when you don’t feel like it. If you want to get stronger, make a plan to lift weights a few times each week. And then do that. Work that plan. Even when it’s cold and dark outside.
You don’t feel like getting up and going to the gym because you’d just rather sleep in, get your butt out of bed and get to the gym. Even though you don’t feel like it, do it anyway. That’s how you get stronger.
Right? So make a plan and then stick to the plan. That’s my second best advice for getting through the holidays like a badass.
And then step number three. Listen. You might fail. No big whoop. Do not beat yourself up if you fail. Do not beat yourself up if you fail. What happens if you fail? What happens if you don’t stick to the plan? What happens if you eat the sugar cookies or you just skip the gym or you skip that run because you decided to stay inside watching Netflix?
Like what happens in that situation? And by the way, here’s a little sidebar for you. Netflix, is not bad. Netflix is not the worst thing in the world. People talk about watching TV as being the worst thing you can possibly do. So much so that like, it can feel very guilty and shameful.
When you just sit down to watch a show I say enjoy your TV, but just like anything else, the dosage matters. So just do it in moderation. Right?
And by the way, I just started watching Succession on HBO – holy cow, that is an awesome, awesome show. So enjoy your Netflix, enjoy your streaming TV, whatever, enjoy your movies. It’s a great way to spend some time and you know, snuggled up on the couch with a loved one or something like that. End of rant.
Okay, that was a little sidebar. So what happens if you, if you fail, you eat the cookies, you just don’t get to the gym, whatever. What happens if you don’t stick to your plan 100%? Do not beat yourself up. Just get back on track as soon as you can.
If you screw up one meal, it’s not going to ruin everything for you just get back on track at your next meal. If you miss a workout, don’t freak out about it, you’re not going to lose all your fitness. Just make a point to get back on track at your next workout.
A good rule of thumb is to not have two bad meals in a row and never skip two workouts in a row. What we’re after is consistency, not perfection. It’s more important that you put weeks and months together of consistency. Rather than sticking to some plan perfectly every single day. It’s just not practical to think that way. Right?
The same thing goes for our running through the holidays challenge. If you miss a day, it’s no big deal. Just pick it back up again the next day. It’s not about doing it perfectly. It’s about doing it consistently.
And this all might make common sense. And, you know, it can be very easy to slip into the habit of beating yourself up over this stuff though. It can be really easy to just feel guilty or shameful or talk smack about yourself. Right? These things do not do you any good whatsoever. Right?
What happens is, a lot of times people will have a cheat meal, or they’ll miss a workout. They feel terrible, ashamed, and guilty. And this can very easily spiral you down into an attitude of like, just screw it all. Why should I even bother with any of this, I always mess up. Don’t do that.
Right, indulging in these negative thoughts and negative feelings. And we call these indulgent emotions. When we do this, we indulge in this negativity and worthlessness and shame and guilt – don’t do that. It’s very detrimental to your success. Okay?
Because what happens when you feel bad? What happens when you beat yourself up like this? Typically, you just want to feel better. Typically, you just run to find something to make yourself feel good again. And a lot of times that means using food or alcohol.
So it just makes the situation worse. It completely compounds feeling bad, right? So I plan on failing, it’s part of the process, not a big deal. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Okay. Strive for consistency, rather than perfection and get back on track at the very next opportunity.
Okay, so quick recap. My three tips for handling the holidays like a badass, first of all, decide who you want to be on January 2. Do you want to gain weight, maintain your weight or lose weight and then act accordingly? Who do you want to be on January 2?
Who is that badass version of yourself? What does he or she look like and write about it? Write what it would feel like to stay consistent through the holidays right about what it would feel like to show up on January 2. Feeling good about yourself feeling confident, feeling like you had your back this whole time and decide who you want to be.
Step number two. Make a plan stick to the plan even when you don’t feel like it. Remember, if you fail to plan you are planning to fail.
And then step number three is don’t beat yourself up. If you do fail, no big whoop. Get back on track at your next meal or your next workout. Don’t ever skip two workouts in a row. Don’t ever eat two bad meals in a row. Okay, we’re striving for consistency, not perfection.
And I know you got this. I know you guys have absolutely got this. And listen if you’re ready to make some big changes in 2022 Just join the Running Lean coaching group starting in January we’re going to be focused on weight loss eight pounds down challenge and becoming a fat-adapted runner so you can crush those spring racing goals.
Join us over in the coaching group, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join, and we’ll see you in January. Love you all keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
