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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Mindset

47. How to Handle the Holidays

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Next week is Thanksgiving and that marks the beginning of the holiday season here in the U.S. The holidays are a time to gather with loved ones, give thanks for all that we have, and of course, eat …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 47 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I want to talk about how to handle the holidays. Next week is Thanksgiving. And that marks the beginning of the official holiday season here in the US.

And the holidays are a time to gather with loved ones and give thanks for all that we have. And of course eat and drink ourselves into oblivion. Right? Okay, maybe that’s just me. So today, I want to offer some practical tips to help you handle the holidays. So you don’t roll into 2021 hating yourself and looking like Frosty the Snowman.

But first, if you are enjoying this podcast, please come check out our Facebook community. The Running Lean community on Facebook is a positive energetic, fun group of like minded runners who share goals and get through challenges together. I’ve got a big challenge that starts on Thanksgiving Day.

It’s called running through the holidays, we’re going to be running our way from Thanksgiving Day all the way through New Year’s Day, there’s going to be a lot of encouragement, a lot of support for each other. Listen, this can be a very stressful time of the year for a lot of people. And running is an amazing way to help relieve stress.

So we want to run our way through the holidays. So we can roll into 2021 Like a boss. Okay. So come check out the Facebook group, join us for the running through the holidays challenge, I’m going to be talking all about it, explaining how it works, what the quote unquote rules are, and all that stuff on Sunday. So come check us out love to have you in the group.

Okay, let’s talk about how we are going to handle the holidays. So most people, this is what happens when most people get to this time of the year. And they just don’t have any kind of plan for getting through the holidays in one piece, so to speak, okay. So this was always me, I would always roll into this time of the year and be like, it was kind of the off season.

So I might do a fall marathon. And so that would be like late October, early November, something like that. And then unrolling into this time of the year wouldn’t be running as much. And you think about how much time there is between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day. It’s like 37 days. And those 37 days, it’s like hey, I’m going to go ahead and just do whatever the heck I feel like.

I’m going to eat whatever I want, drink whatever I want, whatever. And just party my face off and eat my face off for 37 straight days. So, you know there’d be holiday gatherings, a holiday family time, you know, shopping gift buying all this stuff, right? And I would just tell myself, hey, this is just, it’s the holidays. So I’m just gonna eat whatever I want. I deserve all this, I earned it. I’ve worked hard to share you know doing all this running. It’s the offseason, I’m just gonna let my hair down so to speak, and just eat whatever I feel like and we all do this.

Okay, this is a very common thing. A lot of people do this. No plan. Just feel like they can just do whatever they want. And then they roll into the new year and can’t understand why they gained five or 10 pounds.

And I did this like all the time and I couldn’t figure out why I keep doing this? Why do I always gateway this time of the year? And I just used this excuse. I used the holidays as an excuse to just stuff myself like a Thanksgiving turkey. You know, I got into this kind of mode, this end of the year where I was just like f it, I got into f it mode, okay?

It’s the holidays f it, it’s Thanksgiving Day f it, it’s the day after Thanksgiving f it, I deserve all this, f it. It’s, you know, two weeks before Christmas, like, I just keep saying f it, I was in f it mode. And you know what that’s gonna get you, when you’re, when you’re in f it mode, constantly, your whole attitude just kind of sucks.

And you’re just going to go off the rails. You know, if you’re trying to stick to some kind of food plan, you’re trying not to blow up like a Thanksgiving turkey, during the holidays, and you’re in f it mode all the time. That is a terrible combination, you won’t stick to your plan.

So that was me, I would do this every year. And then come January would be like, okay, now I’m going to start getting serious about this. But then I’m like, starting from a negative, you know, I’m starting from this place of like, well, now I gotta, I gotta lose the 10 pounds I gained here in the last couple of months.

And I also, you know, you know, maybe another 20 pounds over as I’m up 30 pounds now. So it just sets you up for disaster, it sets you up for failure, you know. And I want to tell you something, this is all normal. And it’s just your brain doing what it does. This is your, it’s your thinking, it’s the way you’re thinking and the way you’re feeling.

And you can change all of it. I’m going to offer some tips for how to get through the holidays here. But I just want you to understand this is very, very important to understand that your brain is always trying to seek pleasure and avoid pain. And when we get to this time of the year, we get very stressed out. And we don’t want to feel stressed out.

So we want to avoid that that kind of pain that we’re experiencing the pain of stress, the pain of having to you know, having family over or going to someone’s house, you know, and visiting with family or preparing all these meals or buying all these gifts, or whatever we have to do is time of the year.

It can be very stressful and cause a lot of stress and anxiety. And that’s perceived pain. And we want to avoid pain. That’s our kind of default, we want to avoid pain. We want to seek pleasure. And we go to things like food to do that. Okay, so this is just normal. This is the way your brain is kind of wired, okay, but you don’t have to just operate in default mode, though.

You don’t have to just, you know, succumb to these desires to eat all the crap and overeat and just binge out on sugar for 37 straight days. You don’t have to do that. Okay? I know. But you’re saying well, but it’s the holidays. So can’t we just live a little? You can. You can, you get to decide what you want to do.

But don’t go into this expecting that you’re going to like maintain your weight or lose five pounds with that kind of an attitude. Because if your expectations are, oh, I want to lose five pounds between now and the end of the year. But you eat like a maniac for 37 straight days, that’s not going to work. That’s not reality.

Okay, so just understand that your brain is there trying to protect you. And it’s trying to say, hey, we want to avoid this pain when avoiding stress eating makes us feel better. So let’s just do that. Let’s just eat all the things and just feel good now. But I want to drop a little bit of truth on you here.

Because when we talk about the holidays, and we talk about you know, we use the holidays as an excuse to overeat and to over consume and to binge out over drink all these things. What we’re actually talking about, how many holidays are there? There’s like, three holidays, right? There’s Thanksgiving Day, there’s Christmas, and there’s New Year’s Day.

Now you could actually argue that Christmas Eve might be a holiday or New Year’s Eve or something like that. So maybe four. Okay, and there might be a couple of parties in there. So maybe five, maybe six, we’re talking like five or six days out of 37 days. But what we’re saying is it’s the holidays, so I’m just going to eat and drink my way into oblivion and what?

No, we’re just talking about a handful of days here actually, and a handful of days that you can manage if you get your mind right. Okay. Your brain is always looking for an excuse to get what it wants. Your brain is always looking for an excuse to eat the sugar until you just give in. You missed out on sugar.

Sugar is like so addictive, you know, and your brain is gonna go, you know what, it’s the holidays, eat all the sugar, you’re gonna feel so good look at that plate of cookies over there, just eat all of them, you know? Good, that’s gonna feel good.

So just notice your brain is doing this, okay? And here’s the thing, I guarantee you that your brain is not thinking about eating a bunch of turkey, or green beans, your brain doesn’t go to this place of craving, you know, normal food. What I say is like normal food, okay?

You get fixated on pie. You get fixated on cookies, on sweet potato pie, on mashed potatoes, all the carbs, all the the alcohol, the sweet stuff, the sugar, that is what you’re thinking about. And I guarantee that that’s the kind of stuff that you will binge out on. If you don’t understand what’s happening. All those foods are super delicious. Yes, but they also make us feel good.

They release these chemicals in our body that makes us feel good. The more concentrated the carbohydrate is, the more good it feels, you know, and we love this. Even thinking about a pile of Christmas cookies right now. Just think about that. Really imagine them, smell them. Imagine what it would taste like, I guarantee you right now, you’re starting to get fixated on these cookies and your mouth is starting to water and you’re starting to crave these cookies like you started once you start thinking about them. It’s like I’ve got to have cookies now. I guarantee you that you’re doing that and I have to apologize for doing this to you.

But this is what our brains do, we start thinking about how amazing this is going to taste. And for me, it’s always like pecan pie with whipped cream. Oh my god, I’m starting to like salivate just thinking about pecan pie. It’s like, so decadent and so rich.

And when that sugar hits you, because that is just like pure sugar, right? Oh my god, it feels so good. And then so that’s just thinking about it, and we start to like, have these crazy cravings for it. But once you actually start eating it, you cannot stop. And that’s the other part of it.

So there’s this like mental fixation, there’s mental craving that we get. And then there’s this physical craving that we get once we start eating it, we cannot stop, we will binge out on pie and cake and pecan pie and apple pie and all this stuff.

Whereas you won’t do the same thing with like turkey, right? You’re not gonna like I just can’t wait to binge out on, I’m gonna eat the whole turkey myself. No, man, you can’t do that. You just can’t do it. Your body has these natural whatever you call it, the sensors, like there’s these sensors in your body that say stop eating, you’re full.

We don’t have those same sensors for carbohydrates, though. So once we start eating them, we cannot stop, that feels so good. And we don’t have these things that are telling our brain to stop eating them. Okay, so just understand that this is all what your brain is telling you but it’s not necessarily the truth.

Your brain might be telling you, you have to eat a whole pecan pie yourself. But that’s really not the truth. You don’t have to do that. And like I was saying, like you probably don’t get fixated on just eating something like turkey and green beans. You just don’t do that. Right?

But you can eat a lot of food a lot of like non carb type food and get pretty full but then you’ll still eat tons of pie. But if I were to tell you like when you’re full hey, eat a bunch more turkey. You’d be like no way I can’t. There’s no possible way I could eat any more turkey but I guarantee you, you can eat half a pie. At least I can.

I’m hoping you can relate to some of this because if this is just me, then I’m in trouble. No, I know we can all relate to this stuff. Here’s the other thing I have to make sure you understand and that I want to make sure I’m communicating this well. I am not saying you cannot enjoy Thanksgiving dinner. I am not saying you should not eat the pie. Like my friend Katie says, she says, eat the damn pie. And I love that. Because if that’s what you want to do, then you should do that.

If you’re eating your grandma’s famous pumpkin pie with whipped cream on it is going to bring you joy, and you want that to be a part of your Thanksgiving, then absolutely do that. But I just want you to do it in a way that’s intentional, I want you to do it in a way that you’ve, you’ve planned it, and that you feel good about your decision for eating that. And that you have your own back.

I don’t want you to say, you know what, I’m not eating any dessert, I’m not going to do it, I’m just, I’m off of sugar, I don’t want to do it, it’s gonna like really ruin everything for me, and then do it. And then just give in in the moment and do it because then you’re just going to feel like crap, and you’re gonna beat yourself up, you’re gonna feel guilty, and you and you’re just gonna, like hate yourself, you do not want to go through the holidays, hating yourself.

You don’t want to spend Thanksgiving dinner, thinking that you’re missing out on something good, and you can’t have anything that’s good. And you’re deprived and you can’t have certain things and woe is me, everybody else is enjoying themselves. And I can’t enjoy myself because that attitude sucks. And that’s just going to keep you feeling miserable. And that’s going to make you take terrible actions.

And you’re probably just going to give in, oh, you know what, screw it, I deserve this. So what I’m saying here is whatever you decide whether it’s, you know, I’m just not eating sugar, you could always bring your own like, sugar free dessert or something. That’s what I do. And I love it, love of it. And sometimes I just eat the sugar laden stuff too. And I love that.

But whatever you decide, do it with intention, go into it with a plan, and a purpose. And then stick to your plan. So we’re going to talk about that in just a minute. So I want you guys to enjoy the holidays. And I want you to do it in a way that is intentional, that feels good to you.

That’s honest, that’s authentic. And you’re not doing it in a way where you’re just beating yourself up for 37 straight days. Because that’s terrible. That’s just a terrible way to go through the holidays. Okay.

So here are some tips that I have for you for handling the holidays. So you don’t look like or feel like a stuffed turkey by the first of the year. So the first one is this, the first thing I want you to do is set your intention for the holidays.

How do you want to show up on January one? What is your vision for yourself? On January one, how do you want to feel about yourself? How do you want to look? Do you want to be the same as you are right now? Do you want to feel the same about yourself as you do right now? Maybe you want to get five pounds leaner? Or maybe you’re somebody that’s like you know, I’m okay gaining a few pounds.

Decide what you want to do now, set that intention for yourself now. Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to maintain weight? Or do you want to gain weight between now and the first of the year? Because the choice is yours. But decide now what you’re going to do and be honest with yourself.

Okay, so let’s say you want to lose weight, let’s say that’s your intention, I’m going to lose weight, I’m going to just continue sticking to my plan. And I’m going to try to keep losing weight. It might be, you know, a pound or two a week. So you know, I might lose, you know, five to 10 pounds.

And if that is your goal, and you’re all in on that goal, then awesome. Like, hats off to you like, awesome job. Just stick to it. Just do what you’ve been doing. Stick to your plan. So if you want to lose weight during the holidays, you can do that. It’s up to you. It just means that you’re going to have to get your mind right around some of these situations that you’re going to find yourself in.

You may not go all out on the deserts at Thanksgiving and Christmas and all this stuff. You may not be participating in the Christmas cookie bake-a-thon, if that’s something that would be challenging for you. Or you can do it and just know that you’re going to have these cravings and how to deal with them. And I talk to my clients all the time about how to deal with these kinds of cravings, and how to get through stuff like that.

Because, listen, we can’t always control our circumstances, but sometimes you can. So if you want to lose weight, you’re just gonna have to, like, stick to your plan, you’re gonna have to have the right mindset around it. And, and you can do that, but just go all in on that plan, okay?

What if you want to maintain weight during the holidays? So that might mean that you’re just gonna like, stay where you are. And that might mean you can have a few glasses of wine here and there, it might mean that you can have some exceptions to your plan, you can eat some pie here and there, you can eat the cookies here and there.

But it doesn’t mean going off the rails, it doesn’t mean like, really binging out on stuff, you know, you’re just going to continue kind of doing what you’ve been doing. But maybe you’re adding in a little bit more of the of the treats and the sugar and stuff like that. Maybe an extra helping of mashed potatoes with gravy, I love mashed potatoes, so good, isn’t it? Oh my gosh, like lots of butter in there and gravy.

And then let’s say you want to gain weight during the holidays. Now, you might think, who would want to do that? Well, if you’re the kind of person that’s like, you know what I want to really go all out and enjoy myself. I don’t mind if I gain five pounds during the holidays, if that’s what you want to do, again, go all in on that decision.

That might mean you drink more.It might mean you’re eating more and you’re participating in the cookie bake-a-thon. It means you’re like eating double desserts, you know, whatever it is you want to do. Go all in on that decision. Okay? Have your own back no matter what you decide, because there’s no right answer here.

It’s whatever you want to do for you, okay, but what happens is, most people say, I’m just going to like, I’m going to, I’m going to be really good this year, I’m not going to go off the rails, I’m going to stick to my plan, I’m going to keep losing weight, and then they they gain weight, and they can’t figure out why.

And they just didn’t go all in on their decision to lose, okay, so whatever you want to do lose, maintain gain, totally fine. Just be good with that decision. Have your own back and go all in on that. Okay, so that’s my first tip. Set your intention, decide what you want to do ahead of time, who do you want to show up as on January 1.

The second tip I have for you on how to handle the holidays is plan ahead and stick to your plan. This is like the most important thing you can do if you want to change anything in your life, but it’s so important when it comes to eating and losing weight. Or even you know, if you’re the kind of person who is doing something like maybe training for a half marathon or a marathon.

So what happens when you want to train for a marathon? You put together a training plan, you write it all down, you put it on your calendar, and then you do what when that day comes, you run those eight miles or those 16 miles or whatever it says on your calendar, right? That’s what it means to plan ahead, and then stick to your plan.

But when it comes to things like oh, I want to lose 40 pounds. And what that’s going to require is you changing what you eat, maybe when you eat. And instead of writing that down, and then working the plan and sticking to it. You’re just kind of like, oh, I’ll just kind of figure it out as I go. And it doesn’t work. And you’re like, oh, this, this diet doesn’t work or this eating plan doesn’t work?

No, it’s just that you just didn’t plan ahead and you didn’t stick to it. That’s all. It’s that simple. I know it’s simple. It’s not easy, but it’s that simple. So include in your plan, make sure you’re including in your plan, the stuff that you want to eat.

So let’s say you’re planning ahead for the holidays, right? And so you might work out a plan for a week at a time. You might write down in your journal or on a calendar, something like that. When you have holiday gatherings, parties, whatever it is. You have a written plan of what you’re going to do, when you’re going to eat, how much you’re going to eat on those occasions.

So you’re planning ahead, you’re using that prefrontal cortex of your brain that planning, cognitive part of your brain that’s responsible for thinking ahead and planning ahead. You want to use that part of your brain because you don’t want to use the primitive part of your brain into the make decisions in the moment because you typically make bad decisions in the moment.

So we plan ahead, we write down what we’re going to eat at least 24 hours in advance. So I know what I’m going to do tomorrow.

Right, this is a great, great tip, especially for things like Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, whatever it is, the day before Thanksgiving, make sure you know what you’re going to do for that day. And if your plan is to eat some pie, and eat the mashed potatoes, and you know, whatever, write it down, it’s totally fine.

Whatever you want to put on your plan is up to you. If you want to include a glass of wine, put that in there. Okay, just like with your running, plan it out ahead of time, and then stick to your plan. This is how you like, create good habits, this is how you build trust with yourself. This is how you build self confidence. If you plan ahead and you stick to your plan, you’re gonna feel so much better about yourself when you do it this way, as opposed to planning ahead and then just saying f it.

Because that’s the, you’re just gonna feel terrible about yourself, you let yourself down, you’re gonna feel guilty, you’re gonna beat yourself up, we don’t want to do that we want to feel good about ourselves, about ourselves and about our decisions. So have your own back, write, write down what you’re going to do, and then stick to that plan.

When it comes to food, remember, you know, it’s very compelling these foods, you know, especially he’s looking at that pile of Christmas cookies, or the table with the five different pies that you can eat after dinner, like it can be very compelling, and feel very urgent and feel like, you know, you get these intense cravings for that stuff in the moment.

But if you’ve planned ahead and said, I’m going to eat a small piece of pecan pie, and a small piece of pumpkin pie, and I’m going to be good with that, then do that. Stick to that and you’re gonna feel so much better about yourself. Okay. So that’s my second tip is to plan ahead, stick to your plan. And include the good stuff, include the stuff that you want to eat, the stuff that you love, if that’s what you want to do.

Tip number three is don’t show up at these holiday dinners, or meals, like starving and dehydrated. Because I’m going to tell you, if you show up feeling super hungry, hangry and super dehydrated, what you’re going to do is you’re going to as soon as you get there, you’re just going to be shoving food in your face and drinking whatever’s available to you.

Okay, so the suggestion is, for any kind of holiday event, to make sure you eat beforehand, like eat your regular breakfast or lunch, whatever you would normally do, do that. Make sure you’re getting good fats and protein, because that stuff kind of keeps you feeling full for a while.

And then when you show up at this event, you’re not going to feel like you got to eat your face off, you’re not going to feel like super dehydrated, drink plenty of water too, this is so important. Most people don’t drink enough water during holidays and stuff like that and family gatherings.

And what you end up doing is drinking a lot more alcohol and then when you’re drinking a lot of alcohol, you sort of lower your willpower and you start making bad decisions and that’s when f it mode gets activated and right.

So if you’re super thirsty, you tend to drink more alcohol. So if that’s something you want to avoid, my suggestion is to drink more water to make sure you’re just staying hydrated, okay? And whether or not you want to drink alcohol is totally fine. It’s up to you know, I don’t have any strong opinions either way.

Just know that as you drink more and you feel more drunk, you know you feel more relaxed, a little more loosey goosey. You get a little more loosey goosey with your eating plan and you tend to kind of get into that mode where you’re just like screw it, I deserve this, this is awesome. I’m enjoying myself. I’m just gonna eat whatever it’s fine.

So you’ve tended to make terrible decisions when you drink too much. So just make sure that you’re not coming to these events feeling super super hungry. Eat your normal breakfast or lunch and then when you do show up, you won’t be just, you know voraciously, digging into the piles of nuts and chips and all this other stuff, okay, so don’t show up super hungry or dehydrated.

Number four, and this one is so important. These are all important, but this one is one that we really have a hard time doing on a daily basis. But even more so during the holidays, especially Thanksgiving, and that is to don’t eat to discomfort. This was a big aha moment for me when I started losing weight.

Finally, for the last time, I learned that I am an overeater. I tend to eat a lot of food. And I always justify it because I’m a runner, hey, I run a lot, so I need to eat a lot more. But I would eat until I was uncomfortable, basically at every meal.

And at the holidays, it was way worse. I can remember Thanksgivings where I literally would stuf myself so much that I felt so miserable. I couldn’t even function after dinner. I just had to like go sit on the couch and just veg. And I felt terrible. I felt sick to my stomach. Is that how you want to go through the holidays? I say no.

There’s this comedian. And I don’t know who said this. But basically, he’s an overweight guy. And he’s like, “Yeah, I tend to overeat a lot. He’s like, the meal isn’t over when I’m full, the meal’s over when I hate myself.” And I think about this all the time, because that was true for me.

I would eat until I hated myself, I felt so bad about eating so much food. And I just don’t do that anymore. I’ve learned how to eat to a place where I’m comfortably full. And I use this tool with my clients called the hunger scale.

And it’s basically a scale of 0 to 10. How hungry are you? How full are you? And when you get to like a plus two plus three, on that fullness meter, then you just stop eating. So you’re kind of pleasantly full but not uncomfortable. Because as soon as you get uncomfortable, you’ve eaten too much.

Our bodies are not designed to eat that much food when you get uncomfortable. That’s because we have these sensors in our stomachs that sense. They’re like stretchers. Stretch sensors, they determine how much food we’re putting in our stomach. And when they get to a certain point, they say stop eating.

And I would not stop at that point, I would start to feel that uncomfortable. And I would just keep going and keep going and keep going. And that’s what made me hate myself, as it made me miserable. Okay, so I’m not talking about like, counting calories, or you know, tracking everything in an app or you don’t have to get that detailed with this kind of stuff.

You don’t have to get super diligent about counting everything that you eat or weighing your food or anything like that, because that can be very, very stressful for a lot of people. But I do suggest really getting in tune with how your body feels, how much food does your body actually need?

When do you start to feel full, and then don’t eat beyond that feeling. Because when you do, you’re eating too much. And if your goal is to maintain or lose weight during the holidays, but you keep overeating at every meal. You’re not going to recycle I’m just going to tell you right now.

And like I said, when I first started talking about this subject of not eating to discomfort, that was the game changer for me when I was able to start losing weight that I stopped eating to the point of making myself feel terrible. I stopped eating too are uncomfortable. I stopped eating to where I hated myself.

Okay, now I’m eating enough to where I feel satisfied. But I don’t feel uncomfortable. This is a game changer. I guarantee you. Okay, so do not eat till you feel miserable. That’s not healthy. It’s just not good for you.

And then my fifth tip is just to remember what the holidays are all about, and that they’re not all about the food. For me, the holidays are about giving thanks for everything good in my life, obviously especially Thanksgiving, right? But it’s a chance for me reflect on this past year, and all the things that I’m grateful for.

You know, the people in my life, the abundance that I have in my life, I’m so grateful for everything, for being able to sit here and do these podcasts and share this with you guys, for the Facebook group for my coaching clients, for my membership group, all these people that are changing their lives for the better because they’re changing their mindset.

They’re changing their diet, they’re changing their relationship with food, they’re changing their relationship with their bodies, and with running and all this stuff. And I get to do this with people, I get to help people. I’m so grateful for all this stuff. And these holidays are a time to celebrate our accomplishments over there.

It’s time to celebrate with family and with friends, it’s time to make connections, it’s time to be together and enjoy that feeling of kinship and togetherness. It’s time to share love, and laughter and have fun together and play games and make lasting memories together. 20 years from now, you’re not going to remember how many helpings of mashed potatoes you ate.

Unless you eat like 12 helpings and you’ll probably remember, but you’re always going to remember that time you spent with your family. Like I remember, honestly, like I remember so many Thanksgivings with my family sitting around the table when all of us were together.

And seeing my dad’s face and seeing him smile. And just looking around the table. And he was so grateful to have this amazing family. With these amazing kids. Especially me, I was really probably the most amazing of all. I’m just kidding.

But he just was like, would look around us in like, raise his glass and be like, I love all you, I’m so thankful for all of you. This is so amazing. You know, let’s all give thanks. And I just remember that connection in that family togetherness that we shared. And it was so amazing.

That’s what I remember, I don’t remember, you know how many pieces of pie I ate, or you know, my mom always made these amazing, this amazing Thanksgiving dinner and all the traditional stuff. And it was always great. But I remember laughing with my family.

I remember sitting around the table, and me and my brothers, we get going and my sister we just start laughing like crazy. That’s the kind of stuff that I remember. And my mom shaking her head and just going like you guys are terrible. Oh my gosh. We’d always kind of take things a little too far.

But that’s the stuff I remember. And it was so fun. Remember what the holidays are all about. Don’t focus so much on what you’re eating, or what you’re not eating, or what you get to eat or what you don’t get to eat because you get to decide all of that. Okay? So set your intentions.

Here’s, here’s our list of tips to get you through the holidays here. Set your intention, do you want to lose, maintain or gain weight it just go all in on that decision. Okay. Number two, plan ahead and stick to your plan. Just know what you’re going to do at least 24 hours in advance and stick to it. That’s the important part: sticking to it. Number three, don’t show up starving, don’t show up dehydrated. Eat a regular meal beforehand, make sure you’re drinking plenty of water. Number four, don’t eat so much that you’re miserable, you’re uncomfortable. And then number five, remember what the holidays are all about. Connection, togetherness. Make memories.

It doesn’t have to be all about the food. It can be a little bit about the food, but it doesn’t have to be the main focus. Okay. Those are my tips to help you get through the holidays. Come on over to the Running Lean community on Facebook because we’re going to do this amazing running challenge. We’re going to be running every day from Thanksgiving Day through New Year’s Day.

And then I’m going to do some weekly coaching in the group to help you stay on track. We’re going to be talking about some goal setting for the new year. weight loss goals, setting running goals, all kinds of stuff. Cool. I cannot wait to see you guys there in the group.

And if I don’t talk to you beforehand, have an amazing Thanksgiving with your family and friends. And as always, lots of love to each and every one of you keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.

46. Love Yourself Unconditionally

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If you’re anything like me and you’ve struggled with your weight, then you probably know what it feels like to kind of hate yourself. You hate how you look, you hate how you feel, you hate how …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 46. of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, we’re going over another one of the guiding principles from the Running Lean manifesto. And this one is: love yourself unconditionally.

So if you’re anything like me, and you’ve struggled with your weight ever, then you probably know what it feels like to kind of hate yourself. You know, you might hate how you look, you hate how you feel. You hate how you’ve let yourself go. You hate who you have become.

Wow, this is a very negative and very sad place to be. I know how it feels I’ve been there. But here’s the thing, you can’t accomplish anything positive from such a negative state of mind. When you feel like super crappy about yourself, you know, it’s almost impossible for you to do anything good to lose weight to feel better about yourself, you just can’t do it.

So in this episode, I’m going to be talking about how to break out of this negative mindset and how to stop hating yourself. Because the answer is to have unconditional love for yourself, to love yourself unconditionally. So I’m gonna explain how to do it.

But first, if you like this podcast, you need to come check out our Facebook group. It’s the Running Lean community on Facebook. And just to get you excited about this, I got a new challenge coming up in November. So starting Thanksgiving Day, we’re going to do a new challenge called running through the holidays. And I haven’t even talked to anybody about this yet.

So I’m not going to tell you what it is. But it’s going to be a fun way for us to all get through the holidays together to maintain our sanity and our health and to feel good about ourselves during the holidays. So I’m not gonna. I’m just teasing this right now, I’m not going to tell you all about it. So come to the Facebook group. And I’ll explain it all in there.

And we will be running this challenge through the Facebook group from starting on Thanksgiving Day here in 2020. Okay, cool. Just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community. And you will find us there.

All right, so we’ve been talking about the principles from the Running Lean manifesto. So this is a set of guiding principles that I put together, that I want it to be our North Star, I wanted us to rally around some principles, some concepts, some values, some ideas that can kind of keep us grounded, that can kind of keep us moving towards our goals. These are like our North Star.

And I love that analogy of it’s always guiding the way. So the Running Lean manifesto is eight guiding principles and they are this: Number one is to eat real food. Number two is to live vibrantly. Number three is to thrive in your body. Number four is to embrace discomfort. Number five is to run because you love it. Number six is to love yourself unconditionally. Number seven, think, feel and act with purpose. And then eight be an example of what’s possible.

So we’ve already covered a bunch of these. Today we’re talking about how to love yourself unconditionally and why this is important and how to do it. But listen, these principles are some some things that you can kind of rally around and really understand these and really embrace these because when you do, this is like the key to living a healthy, vibrant, fulfilled life.

And it’s not rocket science. This isn’t super complicated, but it does take a little hard work and a little dedication. So just commit yourself to living by these principles. Like I’ve committed myself to living by these principles and just see What kinds of things you can accomplish in your life? I think you might just blow your own mind.

Okay, so today we’ve got principle number six from the Running Lean manifesto, and that is to love yourself unconditionally. Now, before I get into this topic, I just want to say this, this might seem like kind of a woowoo topic for some of you, you might be like, love yourself, unconditionally, Patrick, come on, but I want you to be open minded about this, I want you to just listen, and, and be open to these concepts, because they are important.

And all too often, we don’t like to talk about our feelings, we don’t like to talk about our emotions, we don’t want to talk about how we may not like ourselves, or how we may hate ourselves, or how we maybe should work on loving ourselves more like this is stuff that kind of feels uncomfortable to talk about sometimes. But you know what, I don’t care. I’m talking about it. And I want you guys just to be open to it. Cool. Are we on the same page?

Alright, let’s get into this. So here’s what we do. We beat ourselves up a lot. As human beings, we’re just naturally really good at this. You know, we engage in a lot of negative self talk. So we have something like 60,000 thoughts a day that run through our heads? We have these conversations that are constantly running in our minds, like there is constantly a dialogue, running chatter going on in our heads, right?

Can you relate to this? Does this sound like you? Because I hope so. Because I know, it’s not just me. But I have this going on all the time. I have these thoughts, these conversations, I have conversations with other people, complete conversations in my mind. Or I have a conversation with myself in my mind. That’s kind of bizarre.

I’m like, who’s talking? And who’s listening? And who’s watching all this happen? Like, is this all me? It’s all me. Anyway, so we have these conversations going on, we have all this chatter going on in our brain. And it’s typically kind of crappy, it’s kind of negative, right?

We have a lot of negative self talk, even if you don’t, even if you’re not conscious of it. And you don’t like consciously notice that happening in the moment. It might be running in the background, right? It’s kind of like there’s a, there’s a radio station playing in the background. And it’s like, you’re not good enough, you can’t do that. Who do you think you are? Look at you, you look at how much weight you’ve gained, you’re fat, you’re ugly, you know, we have all this stuff going on in our brains. And it’s like, it just never shuts off. Okay.

And a lot of this negative self talk that we have a lot of this chatter going on this negative Chatter is because we, we regret a lot of things from our past, you know, we have, we’ve done things in the past that we regret, or that we’re ashamed of, or that we’re embarrassed by. And we feel like we failed a bunch of times in the past.

And we keep replaying these scenarios over and over and over again, in our heads. So one of the things that we do, one of the lines of negative thoughts that we keep having negative self talk has to do with the past, okay?

Another stream of negative self talk is about the future, constantly thinking about how we’re going to fail in the future, or how we’re not where we want to be, and how, you know, I’m never going to get to my goal weight. And I’m never going to be able to stop overeating, and I’m never going to be able to give up sugar. And I’m never going to be able to, you know, run a marathon, because I just, I just can never do it.

I can never commit to whatever it is, we fail ahead of time. You know, we constantly tell ourselves how we can’t do X, Y or Z. So when we’re focused on all the negative negativity from our past, we’re looking at our future as being you know, some negative thing.

We cannot live in the present. We cannot have contentment, peace. We can’t love ourselves in the present, right? All we do is we just kind of hate where we are and who we are. And what happens is, we can really set ourselves up for a lot of not only disappointment, but we set ourselves up to fail in so many ways. And we don’t even realize it.

But our negative thinking, this like idea of hating ourselves, over time can really put us into a negative state that creates these terrible results in our life. For example, earlier this year, I found myself 40 pounds overweight, I found myself getting divorced, you know, my wife said she wanted to leave me, leave the marriage, or end the marriage, let’s just put it that way.

And I found myself delivering food at night, just to make ends meet. And I had gotten to this place where I had been beating myself up for so long, and kind of hating on myself for so long, that it manifested into all these circumstances I found myself in my life.

You know, the negative self talk I was doing got me 40 pounds overweight, the negative self talk I kept doing about not being able to lose weight, and it was too hard, and I can’t do it, that just kept me at that, at that weight, or kept me gaining weight. You know, and I would argue that my negative view of myself over the years, contributed to this marriage that just, you know, that came to an end.

You know, I’m not blaming her, I’m not blaming myself, 100% we all have our roles and these kinds of things. But I have to say that, you know, having such a negative view of myself contributed to that, you know, I think I felt like I was a bad person, you know, there was something wrong with me.

And, you know, that kind of contributed to that, playing out the way that it did. And then I found myself delivering food at night and thinking, man, my whole life is a failure, I am a failure. I kind of hated who I had become. And this is a terrible place to operate from. Nothing good is gonna come out of this, okay. But this pattern of hating on myself had been going on for a long time, for years.

You know, hating on myself got me where I was. It got me overweight, it got me to this divorce, it got me to delivering food at night. And it was this big eye opening moment for me. That hating on myself for all my past failures. And all the things I hadn’t accomplished and all the things I didn’t do, all the mistakes that I made, and hating where I was headed or my future, because it looked like it was so bleak and grim for me, you know, look, I’m overweight, I’m getting divorce, I don’t have, you know, a regular job.

I just had no love for myself in the present, I have been so focused on past failures, and so focused on this grim future that I couldn’t love myself in the present. So this is a very powerful form of self sabotage. When you hate yourself, how do you think you’re going to act? How are you going to show up? What are you going to do or not?

You know, how do you show up for yourself? When you don’t have any love for yourself? Do you keep moving toward your big dreams and your goals? Probably not. Do you stick to your food plan? You know, I said I’m gonna eat this. And this is exactly what I’m going to do. I feel so good about the…no, you’re not gonna feel terrible. Do you stick to your training schedule? So you’re training for that marathon?

No. Because it’s just this powerful self sabotage of hating on yourself. It keeps you stuck or sends you backwards. You get lazy, you say screw it, you start gaining weight, you stop running, whatever it is. And all this kind of self hatred comes from this constant stream of negative self talk negative thoughts that you just keep replaying over and over and over in your mind.

You know, thoughts are just sentences we say to ourselves in our minds, but we believe them, and we give them so much power, especially the negative ones. Negative thoughts lead to feeling negatively about ourselves. And negative feelings lead us to take negative actions or to take no action at all, inaction.

So we don’t stick to our food plan. We don’t get back to our workout schedule, we say, eff it a lot more. So you just eat whatever, whenever you feel like it. And all this stuff just leads to crappy results, you gain weight, you don’t hit your goals. You can’t accomplish good things from this state. You can’t hate yourself thin, I say this all the time.

So if you keep thinking, I’m a failure, I always fail, I can’t do it, this isn’t gonna work for me, then you’re gonna get all of those results. Keep thinking that over and over and over again, keep telling yourself that you’re gonna fail and guess what you will fail. Keep telling yourself, you can’t do it.

And guess what, you won’t do it, keep telling yourself, this won’t work for me. And guess what, it will not work for you. You cannot hate yourself thin, you have to love yourself through all of this. You have to have your own back. I talk about this concept a lot with my clients having your own back. And I want to explain what this means to you so that you understand this too, because this is a cool concept.

So what does it mean to have your own back? So imagine you’re out running with a friend. And you could be in a race, maybe you’re helping a friend get through their first half marathon, right? And you’ve done this a million times. And so you feel pretty confident you’re just out there to support them.

You’re helping them get through the tough part of this run. How would you show up for that friend? What would you say to them? I think you’d say things like, hey, I’m here for you, you got this, you can do it, you are a badass, come on, keep going, you’re doing great, you look great.

You can do hard things, you are crushing it out here, you are almost there. Come on, let’s go. Right, you’d be there to support them to encourage them to keep them motivated. You point out all the positive things you can about them, you’d push them, you’d make sure that they finished strong. So this is what it looks like to have someone’s back.

And when you do this, for someone else, it feels really good. Right? It feels good to be the one that’s doing the encouraging, the one that’s doling out all that love, all that positive Mojo, it feels good to be that person, right? Because you’re helping them do something big, you’re helping them get through something that’s uncomfortable. And it feels good to do this.

It’s very invigorating. I love doing this. I love helping people. That’s why I love coaching so much. You know, it’s such a big part of coaching is to give people encouragement and motivation and all that positive Mojo doling out the love, right. So you can dig deep within yourself when you need to help someone else, right?

You can dig deep within yourself and find that love and that encouragement to help push someone further even when it’s very challenging for them even when things are going very tough for them. Right.

So it’s very easy for us to do for others. But it’s very hard for us to do for ourselves. Why is that? You know, it’s it’s interesting, isn’t it? That it’s hard for us to do that for ourselves, even though we can do it so easily for others. But here’s the thing, you can do it, it works just as well, when you do it for yourself. Right? It feels just as good.

The answer here is that it’s not harder to love ourselves. It’s not harder to have our own back. But we just have all this negative self talk that’s always getting in the way. You know, if you can do this for someone else, which you can, I know you can. I know you’ve done this before, then you can do it for yourself. It just takes a little practice.

So some of the things you can practice is instead of practicing negative self talk, practice positive self talk. You know, instead of practicing feeling discouraged all the time, practice encouraging yourself. Instead of practicing thinking about all the ways that you’re going to fail or all the ways that you suck, practice thinking about all the ways you are going to succeed and all the ways that you are awesome.

And you can do this by just writing it down on a piece of paper. This is the easiest little exercise you can do. Write down all the things you love about yourself. Write down words of encouragement for yourself. Write down ways you can motivate yourself, just like you’d be motivating that person you’re running with to help them get across the finish line.

Do that for yourself. And I promise you, I promise you that when you start practicing this, when you write it down, when you read it every morning, and you start practicing, that, you know, showing this unconditional love for yourself, you’re going to start to feel so much more empowered, so much more confident, so much better about yourself.

You’ll stop living out in the past, living out those past failures, you’ll become excited about your future, you’ll begin to feel alive, and happy and confident right here in the present moment. And here’s the most important piece of this. Loving yourself unconditionally means without condition, so the unconditional part is important. Okay?

That means that you love yourself exactly as you are right now. It means that you love yourself at your current weight, no matter what that is. It means that you love your body, every inch of it right now. It means you love how you look in the mirror. It means having a positive self image, a holistic positive self image, you love your whole body, your mind, your feelings, your soul.

Unconditional love does not mean I love myself, but I hate my thighs, or I love myself, but I wish my belly was smaller, or I love myself, but I hate that number on the scale. Unconditional means without any conditions, period.

So I want to make sure we’re on the same page with this. This concept right here, you can love yourself exactly as you are right now and still want to change. You can have unconditional love for yourself and still want to lose weight.

You know, you can love yourself just as you are right now, and still want smaller thighs or to get rid of a belly, that’s totally fine. Right? It doesn’t mean you don’t want to improve yourself, right? You can love yourself and respect yourself right now and be constantly working to improve yourself.

Wanting to improve yourself doesn’t mean you have to hate yourself the way you are now, or that there’s anything wrong with you now, it just means that you’re always growing, you’re always improving, you’re always becoming more. So today, I practiced loving myself unconditionally, and I’m not perfect at it, I’ll be honest with you.

I don’t do a perfect job of this, but I practice it. You know, and, and there’s things about myself that I want to change, like, I’m still working on getting stronger and building some muscle. So I’m going to the gym and I’m lifting weights, you know, I can look at myself in the mirror and go, hey, hey, you, you look pretty good.

But at the same time, I’m like, I’d like to see my arms get a little bigger, get my chest a little bigger, you know, I want to look like just like I got some muscle on me, you know. And I’ve never been able to do that in my life. And so I’m like really working on that.

And I’ve seen some improvements over the last couple of months. Okay. So um, that’s something where I love myself now. And I can want to change, I can want to get better, I can want to improve, you know, my physical strength or my running endurance, okay? I love myself as I am. I don’t hate what I see when I look in the mirror anymore.

Okay, I don’t hate who I have become, I love who I have become. And I’m always becoming more. This is such a beautiful concept. I think that we can love ourselves now and want to become more. I love, love, love this. When you can begin to love yourself unconditionally. Even just practicing this a little bit you can begin to operate from a place of confidence and contentment and peace and power.

You have this abundance of confidence where you can see that you can actually achieve anything that you set your mind to. You’re not afraid to do things, you’re not afraid to feel like a failure or feel like a loser because you know that no matter what happens if you try something and you fail, that you have your own back.

To me, this is like having a superpower. This is why I’ve included it in the Running Lean manifesto. This is why it’s one of the important guiding principles of our life. It’s why it’s such an important piece of all the mindset work that you have to do. Because without unconditional love for yourself, if you want to become anything more than what you are, and who you are, right now, it’s gonna be really hard to do almost impossible. Okay?

So I want you to just start practicing this, start practicing, loving yourself unconditionally. And you do that by practicing positive self talk, write it down. Practice, having your own back, just like you’d have a friend’s back.

And here’s a little exercise you can do practice looking in the mirror, and loving and accepting every bit of who you are right now, every bit of your body, every bit of how you look, and every bit of who you are in this moment. That’s a tough one to do. But it’s powerful. And when you do these things, I promise you, you are going to begin to feel like there’s nothing you can’t accomplish.

There’s nothing you can’t do. Cool. Next week, I’m going to be covering the next principle from the manifesto, which is to think, feel and act with purpose. That’s going to be a good one. You don’t want to miss that. You got this, my friends, lots of unconditional love to each and every one of you. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.

39. Learning to Love the Process

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Oftentimes when we take on a big challenge like changing how we eat or training for a marathon, we don’t get the results we want fast enough. The weight isn't coming off as quickly as you want or …

Continue Reading about 39. Learning to Love the Process →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve learned that running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and that there’s a better way. Now I help runners like you to get leaner and get stronger, so you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 39 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m talking about learning how to love the process. So oftentimes, when we take on a big challenge, like changing how we eat, losing weight, or training for a marathon, we don’t get the results that we want fast enough, the weight isn’t coming off as quickly as we want, or the training isn’t getting any easier.

Running is still really hard. When you’re focused solely on the end result, and you’re not there yet, it creates this sort of tension. And you begin to hate the process it takes to get you there, because it’s hard. It’s why they call it a challenge. But this is not a very useful way to approach anything worth doing. So today I’m talking about learning instead, how to love the process, and how it’s a simple mindset shift. But it will absolutely change how you approach everything you do.

But first, if you liked this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. It is a fun group of positive energetic runners like you. It’s a grip that kind of goes hand in hand with the podcast. We share common goals, we were all trying to lose weight, we want running to be easier, we want to live a healthier life.

I do weekly trainings in there on a host of topics like the mindset of running, nutrition, weight loss, and other fun things. Here’s a recent comment from one of our community members, Carrie, Carrie says, “You have completely changed my whole mindset around eating and running. You said in one of your podcasts that you love to motivate. And that’s exactly what you do. I’m down 11 pounds since August 3, and my runs are getting better. Thank you with three exclamation points.”

By the way, I love this. Carrie, thank you for sharing. Carrie is just one of the many positive motivated people we have in the Running Lean community on Facebook. We also do fun things like group challenges. September, we’ve been doing the intermittent fasting challenge. And we’ve been talking all about why we would want to even participate in intermittent fasting.

Why is that even a thing? Why is that important? Especially for runners, really intermittent fasting for runners. And it helps. How’s that even possible? So we’ve been talking about that.

And I’ve got more challenges coming your way soon. Especially as we’re getting into the holidays, just a little teaser, like we’re going to be doing a holiday challenge that’s going to be really fun. So just come join us just go to Facebook, and search for the Running Lean community. It’s fun.

Also, did you know that you can get help with your running and your weight loss goals? Yes, it’s true. Listen, becoming a fat-adapted runner, breaking old habits and creating new ones, developing the mindset it takes to make all of these healthy changes permanent to make it a new lifestyle.

This can all be daunting, it can be challenging to do on your own. That’s why I offer one-on-one coaching. Working with me as your coach, I’ll help you figure out the right nutrition plan for you that will get you to your specific goals.

You’ll have someone there, me, holding you accountable. I help keep you on track. I help you stay on track and moving towards your goals. I encourage you to do things that you don’t want to do so you can become the person that you ultimately want to be. And most importantly, you’ll develop the mindset required to make these changes for life.

So if you’re ready to make some big changes in your life, if you’re ready to lose weight and ready to love the process of doing it, then you have to apply for one on one coaching with me just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, one word, do it now I promise you will not regret it. We’ll get on the phone. We’ll have a chat. We’ll see if this is a good fit for both of us.

Okay, let’s talk about learning to love the process. So here’s what I see happening with people and I see this with my clients a lot. You have a goal. You want to lose weight or maybe your goal is to run your first marathon. So you create a plan, you change your diet, you change your whole way of eating, you start eating all the right foods, you start feeling healthy.

And things are going pretty well. Or maybe you start training for your marathon. So you put together a 17 week training program, and you start running, and you get out there and you’re running for five days a week, whatever it is, you’re doing great. But then something happens.

You look at the scale, and you’re like, you know, I’m really not losing much weight, I’ve lost a couple of pounds. And you know, this is hard, this is hard work. It’s just not, it’s not going fast enough, it’s not happening fast enough, I’m not losing weight fast enough, or, you know, I’m running five times a week, and my endurance really isn’t improving like running still sucks, it’s still hard, I’m not getting any better, it’s not getting easier.

So what we do is we get super hyper focused on the end result, we get focused on the goal, to lose the 40 pounds, run the 26.2 miles, but you’re not there yet, you’re you’re where you are today, you still have 38 pounds to lose, or you’re only up to running, you know, six miles.

And so there’s this tension, there’s this turmoil, if you will, that you sort of create inside yourself, I want to be there, but I’m only here you’re not seeing immediate, you’re not seeing immediate results, you’re seeing some small changes, but they’re small, it’s taking too long. You know, it’s not going fast enough.

You know, I don’t look like that one woman on Instagram yet, or I can’t run 18 miles yet. So you get frustrated, you get frustrated, because you’re not where you ultimately want to be. And first of all, this doesn’t make sense to me. It’s like you’re climbing a mountain and you’re in you’re kind of like the at the base of the mountain, you know, you’ve you’ve started, you know, you’re working your way up, but you’re still you got a long way to go.

It’s like saying, oh, this isn’t, this isn’t working, this isn’t going fast enough. And you’re like looking up at the mountain, you’re like, I want to be at the top, but I’m not there yet. It’s like, you gotta like do the work to get you from here to there. Okay, you can’t just like hate being where you are, and expect it to be like, easier to get to the top. That, that doesn’t make any sense.

So you get frustrated, you hate where you are, you’re putting this hard work in, it’s not working fast enough. And by the way, fast enough according to who? Like who’s saying you should be losing weight at a certain rate? Who says it’s going to take you you know, six weeks to lose 40 pounds when it took you eight years to put it on?

That doesn’t make sense, or, you know, to run 26 miles, it takes some time to build up to that. So anyway, I don’t know why we put these arbitrary timelines on things. I used to do that though, and I get it. And I used to put timelines on my goals. And when I didn’t hit the goal in the timeline, I was pissed off, I got frustrated.

And a lot of times I would just give up. So that’s another whole story, though. That’s another topic, I’ll save that whole goal setting and timelines and stuff for another day. But just know this, when you are frustrated with where you are, it’s gonna be very difficult to get to that result.

So what happens when most people are in this situation and what most people do when they’re not getting the results fast enough? When they’re frustrated, when they’re hating the process, they quit, right? They’re like, screw, it’s too hard, it’s taking too long, it’s not worth it. I’m just gonna go back to eating the way I was eating, which by the way, is definitely not going to get you to your goals.

Or I’m just going to sleep in on Saturdays and spend all day on the couch watching Netflix, which definitely won’t get you to that goal. So they give up on these big goals. They give up on these dreams because it’s not happening fast enough, and they begin to hate the process.

When you hate the process, you are going to have a very, very hard time sticking to that process. It’s all going to be terrible. It’s just going to suck all the time. Is that how you want to approach accomplishing this goal? Is that how you want to go through life? Because we’re always going to have goals that we’re working towards, right?

Here’s an example from my own life just so you can kind of put this in perspective. So I’ve been trying to increase my lean muscle mass. I’ve been trying to build more muscle And it’s hard work, I will tell you it is difficult. And it’s taking a while. And I haven’t been seeing much progress. And I was beginning to get frustrated with all of this.

So I’m putting in a lot of hard work. I’m strength training three times a week, religiously. You know, I go to the gym and go at it hard. And I’m starting to think why even bother, it’s not working. And I was hating what I was doing, I started to just hate the whole thing. It just was terrible.

And just a little backstory, I’ve always had a hard time like bulking up. And this may be my genetics, I was always a skinny kid until I got fat. And then I was the fat guy with no muscles. Then I got skinny again, and I trained for Ironman. You know, I was going to the gym all the time, but I could never really bulk up, I could never really put on muscle.

And so I was just thinking, maybe this isn’t for me, you know, I’m 53. Now maybe it’s just not possible for me to build muscle. And I was really kind of hating the process. So I had to make a decision. I came to a point where I was like, okay, I can’t just say, ‘This is too hard. It’s taking too long, it’s not happening fast enough. You know, I’m just gonna say screw it, why even bother.’

Or I could adopt this new mindset, I could learn to love the process. And for me, the process is going to the gym three times a week and working out. The process is putting in the training, lifting the heavy things, pushing myself harder each week, learning everything I could about this topic of weight training and how to do it more efficiently, how to get the most bang for the buck.

So I started studying the subject of resistance training like crazy. And I started pushing myself super hard each week at the gym. And I started to really get into this and sort of love the process.

So much so that I’m actually becoming a certified personal trainer, because I’m like, I want to learn everything I can about this and be able to teach it to others, especially as we get older, it’s very important to continue to keep your muscle strength up build muscle is so good for your, for your joints, for your bones, for your overall health. To have more lean mass, it’s great for fat burning, it helps you for running.

Most runners don’t do enough strength training. And so I want to help runners learn how to do this stuff the right way. Anyway, I’ve learned that I need to love this process. And it’s still going to take a while for me to get to the goals. You know, it’s still going to take a while for me to build the muscle or look the way that I want to look.

I’m getting there, I’m starting to see some progress. It’s slow. I think it’s easier when you’re younger to build to like bulk up like the Instagram dudes I see. You know, they’re like ripped, and I’m like, okay, whatever. It may take me a while to get there. But my goal is to get there eventually.

And it’s taking a while but I’m enjoying the process. Now, I’m loving the process. I’m not frustrated that it’s taking a while because I know the results will come. If I love the process, or hate the process, but I keep doing it, the results will eventually come. You can either hate every minute of it, or you can love every minute of it. The choice is yours to make.

And I see this with my clients, a lot of my weight loss clients. Because you know what? Losing weight is hard. Most diets fail and most people fail at losing weight because they’re just focused on one thing. They’re focused on the number on the scale. And when I work with people, we talk a lot about becoming the healthiest human being possible. We work on breaking old habits and creating a new, healthy lifestyle, new habits. The goal is permanent lifestyle change, not some temporary quick fix. The goal isn’t really the number on the scale, although that eventually will happen.

But it takes time. And you have to learn to love what you’re doing. This is why it’s so helpful to have a coach so anyone can just tell you what to do. You can actually go on YouTube and learn what to eat, you know.

But with a coach, you get to learn how to love the entire process. You get to learn how to change your mindset, you learn how to adopt a whole new attitude, a whole new identity around what it means to be a healthy human being.

And my clients, they learn to love themselves, they learn to love their new way of eating, their new way of approaching nutrition, and exercise and fitness. And they, they love this new life, they learn to develop the mindset required to make lasting changes. They learn to love the process, yes, they still have goals, they still want to, you know, lose 30 pounds or whatever it is.

But they’re not so focused on the goal that they hate everything about what they’re doing every day, because they’re not there yet. The results will come in time, you just got to stick with it. And it’s a lot easier to stay on track when you love what you’re doing.

Honestly, this is the key to succeeding at anything in life is to love what you’re doing, love the process, not only love yourself, but love the process of getting there. Because the reality is, when it comes to like losing weight, it does take time. You know, I often remind my clients that it took them years, decades to gain the weight, it’s not going to be gone in a couple of weeks or a couple of months.

But if you can love the process, when you learn to love this healthy new life that you’re living, when your focus is not only on a number on the scale, or some short term gains, and instead your focus is on optimizing your long term health and overall fitness, it’s still going to take the same amount of time. But it will be way more enjoyable getting there.

Another example of this is with my running lately, so I’ve been training for a rather big running event in October that I’m not really talking about too much. I’m being very vague, I know. And normally, when I have a big event like this, I dread the training, I dread it. It’s grueling. It’s very hard work. I hate the long runs.

But I’ve noticed something over the last couple of months, I’ve noticed that I have really been loving the training. It’s been fun, we’ve been going out with a few friends. I’m only running like three times a week. I’m not taking myself too seriously. I’m increasing distances. And I’m not like dreading those long runs. I’m actually looking forward to them. And without really even trying, I’ve just learned to really enjoy the process of training.

And yeah, it’s still hard. Sometimes running is hard sometimes, right? Running 18 or 20 miles will probably always be somewhat challenging. But if you hate every minute of it, if you are dreading every step, you know, you head out the door and you’re like, Oh my God, this next three hours of running is gonna suck. That’s no fun. It’s no fun at all.

So instead I’ve been loving the training, I’ve been loving the process of just going out there and doing the and putting in the work. And it’s way more fun doing it this way. I promise you it’s way more fun. When you hate the process, every moment feels like failure. But when you love the process, every moment feels like success.

The end result is the same, you’ll eventually reach your goal. But you’ll be a completely different person doing it. Alright, that’s all I got for you here. Here’s what’s coming up in our Running Lean community. September intermittent fasting challenge.

We’ve got one more training coming up and we’ll be talking about some advanced fasting methods that you might consider trying, why would we want to do these things? What’s the point? How will it benefit me as a runner? How does this help with weight loss and running? All that stuff?

I’ll talk about all that stuff next week in our September intermittent fasting challenge training. I do these on Sunday afternoons, by the way. So join us this coming Sunday for that not next week. It’s this Sunday, just so you know. And it’ll be fun to have you in the group. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon

If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.

21. How to Become a Lean Running Machine Part 3

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This is the third episode of my three-part series called How to Become a Lean Running Machine. This subject is near and dear to my heart. I’ve spent years and years trying every type of diet …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.

Well, hey there and welcome to episode number 21 of The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and Master Life Coach and the weight loss coach for runners. And today, I’ve got for you part three of my three part podcast series called How to Become a Lean Running Machine.

And the reason I put this together is because I’ve tried everything to lose weight, especially running more and more and more, and nothing I ever did really worked. So I set out to find the answers. I found the answers and I’m sharing them all with you here.

In this three part series. I just want to help you to stop struggling with your weight, I want to help you to start becoming the lean runner that you want to be. Quick reminder, next week, my next weight loss masterclass, starts Monday, June 1. And I want you to do this little visualization exercise with me here. So just take a moment.

If you’re driving, don’t do this. Don’t close your eyes. But if you’re not driving, just take a moment. Close your eyes, I want you to visualize yourself at your goal weight, or whatever that ideal weight is for you. Visualize yourself, Okay, close your eyes and do this right now. And then think about it like what do you look like?

How do you feel about your body now? How much easier is running now? How much more self esteem and how much more confidence do you have now? How much better is your relationship with yourself? What else have you learned along the way? What else have you been able to accomplish?

This is a powerful exercise really, you can open your eyes now. But I want you to just hold this vivid picture of yourself in your mind for a few moments each day when you do this. Your subconscious mind, your brain will actually get you there faster, it will move you there faster.

And if you’re ready right now, to start becoming that future version of yourself. This weight loss masterclass that I have is the rocket fuel you need to get there. Listen, losing weight is hard. If this was easy, we’d all be ripped and super lean. And it would be simple and everybody would have, there wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t have a job as a weight loss coach.

But it’s not easy. Losing weight is hard. There’s a lot more going on, than just like calories in calories out or just run more, right? And that’s what you’ve been learning here. It’s really especially hard to do on your own. Imagine, just imagine how much easier losing weight would be if you had somebody there to teach you exactly what to do and to guide you through it all every single step of the way.

Well, that’s exactly what I do in this masterclass. We just finished up a six week class where my students have had some amazing progress towards becoming their future selves. Okay, I want to share a couple of those little stats with you here. Elizabeth dropped 4 pounds. She wasn’t trying to lose weight but she ended up dropping like four pounds. She wanted to kick her sugar habit, which she did. She’s off of sugar for good and she feels amazing.

Amy lost 9 pounds. She’s down two sizes. She’s dropped four inches off her waist in her hips. Jenny lost 15 pounds and feels completely in control of her over eating for the first time in her life. Eric lost 15 pounds and he doesn’t have to feel like he has to exercise like crazy anymore just to keep the weight off.

Colin’s lost 40 pounds, and he has no doubt he’s going to hit his goal of losing 100 pounds. Oh my gosh. What’s really cool, though, all that is amazing, obviously, let’s celebrate that. But what’s also really cool is that they’ve all learned how to manage their thoughts and feelings around eating and we’re gonna be talking about that today.

They’ve all developed a whole new relationship with food and they’re all still losing weight. So our next masterclass starts Monday, June 1. If you’re in, you’re in, I only take 10 or 12 people through this class at a time, I want each person to get my personal attention. I want each person to get the coaching that they need to succeed to hit their goal.

And it means that you get a better experience because it’s a small group. And everybody loves the group classes. By the way, everybody’s been telling me how awesome it is that they’re on this journey together, and that they can share their struggles and their frustrations, and their ideas and their tips with each other and learn from each other and they support each other.

It’s an amazing little community. So if you want to get in, let’s just do it, just go to innerfiretribe.com/stopovereating and sign up to it now. Okay, so, here’s a quick recap of what we learned in the last two episodes.

I feel like I need to say like, you know, previously on The Running Mind podcast, give a little recap here. So I just did. So number one, the first part of this was talking about how running more and eating less, doesn’t really work for losing weight. Okay, running more or exercising more, moving more, doesn’t work for weight loss because our bodies naturally overcompensate by increasing our appetite by lowering our metabolism, you end up eating more so you kind of overcompensate for the calories that you burn from running.

And then the progress is very slow and very minimal at best. Also, running doesn’t address the physical, mental and emotional causes of weight gain, which is hormonal imbalances, mental cravings, emotional eating, okay. Calories in, calories out doesn’t work either, it never has, it’s a myth, our body works against this process again, you reduce calories, your metabolism goes down in response to that your body stays at that reduced metabolism, and the weight inevitably comes back, you just can’t outrun this natural process.

The second secret is that your hormones are most likely all out of whack. So increased levels of insulin put your body into fat storage mode, which also causes the hunger hormone ghrelin and the safety hormone leptin to stop functioning properly. So you’re always hungry, you never feel full. Decreasing insulin puts your body into fat burning mode, which means you know, all your hormones start working the way they’re supposed to, you’re not hungry all the time you feel full when you eat.

You know, everything’s working as it should, your body’s back into homeostasis. And the way you reduce insulin is by changing what you eat and when you eat. So you eliminate the foods that cause the high insulin, which is sugar and refined carbs, and then you just eat less often. Since insulin goes up every time you eat, eating less often.

Doing something like intermittent fasting or just not eating as often throughout the day, like eliminating snacks is probably the best thing you can do and will keep your insulin levels down and get your hormones back in healthy amounts.

And then today, we’ve got the third secret to permanent weight loss, which is you need to learn how to manage your mind and take control of your emotions. When you take away the foods that are causing you to gain weight, your over desire for food, this unnatural desire that you have for food does not go away immediately.

In fact, that desire can go up initially and it can get stronger because you’re in the state of like withdrawal, and craving. So it’s critical at this point to manage your mind and learn how to process your emotions while you’re going through this process. And this is where most diets fail.

And this is also where most dieticians or nutrition coaches fall short. They do a good job of telling you what to eat. But then they’re like, okay, here’s what you eat, or here’s what you don’t eat. Good luck with that. They don’t teach you how to deal with all the mental chatter that’s going on. And all the emotional stuff that you’re feeling that comes up, you know, you get these cravings, these urges.

We have withdrawals, we have to do a lot of emotional eating. This right here is probably the most powerful work that I do with my clients. This is what separates me from the rest of the diet coaches out there. Stop the eating, stop, you know change what you’re eating. That’s the easy part that’s just changing what you do.

And we all know that changing behavior is the least effective way of accomplishing anything. What you’re left with, after you remove the food, that’s the hard part. So, first you need to learn how to manage your mind and then learn how to deal with your emotions.

So let’s talk about how to manage your mind. You need to learn how to deal with the mental aspects of this over desire. So when you stop eating certain foods, like sugar and refined carbs, you’re going to have these urges, you’re going to have cravings, you’re going to feel restless, you’re going to feel deprived, because you’re gonna feel like you’re missing out on something like you’re missing out on on the joys of life or something, okay?

And all this is perfectly normal. Your mind has been programmed to believe that you will die if you don’t eat certain foods, like right now. And it’s for a lot of different reasons. But it has to do with the way our food is made, has to do with the way that our food has been marketed to us.

And it has to do with the way you’ve conditioned yourself to crave certain foods like your whole life. But especially like the people who make our food and market it to us, they’ve learned the secret to selling more food to us, which is to make us crave it like a drug. And it works really well.

They’ve created this thing called the bliss point in food. Scientists now lab are making our food unnaturally over desirable. And so they’ve created this thing that’s called the bliss point. And what it does is like they’ve determined for whatever food it is, what is going to give your body the most dopamine hit.

So the best feel good, physical feel good feeling from the food when you eat it, because every time you eat, you get a little bit of dopamine response, well, you increase the amount of sugar, sometimes you increase the amount of salt or the right combination of sugar, fat and salt or whatever.

And then you have this unnatural dopamine response in your body. Well, this is amazing, right? Because this is what causes them to be able to sell a lot more food. But it’s not good for us because it creates an unnatural over desire for food. And so we have this unnatural over desire right now in society, like we’ve never had before in human history. Okay.

So the good news is, though, that you can change this, okay? This is something that your brain has been trained to do. It’s mostly like subconscious mental habits, okay, and you can change it, you can actually learn how to reprogram your mind. So you got to learn how to train your brain to stop giving in to the urges, and you gotta learn how to train your brain to stop the unnatural craving for food.

Your brain is working against you here. And you need to learn how to stop doing that. Okay, so you need to develop new habits around how you eat, so that you can decrease these unnatural, like primitive desires and cravings for food that is basically making us fat. So you need to learn how to decondition your mind and reprogram your brain, so you no longer have the unnatural cravings and desires.

You need to change how you think about food. And you do this by changing what food means to you. So think about this. Next time you’re about to eat something. Just ask yourself this question. Why am I choosing to eat this? Whatever it is right now. Is it because I’m actually hungry, because I want to provide fuel for my body? Or is it because I’m bored? Or it’s lunchtime, or I eat at this time every day, whether I’m hungry or not? So let’s go get some food.

How you think about food is so key the meaning you assigned to food is so key if you want to change your relationship with it. If you find yourself thinking about food all the time, you might want to take a look at that. You might want to get to the point where food is more of you think of food as more of a way of just fueling your body and not something you’re like obsessing with, obsessing over all day long in your mind.

You know, and if you find yourself using food to feel better than we need to look at the emotional aspect of eating. Okay, we’re going to talk about that in just a second. So if you’re if thinking about food all the time, or if if the reasons you’re eating food are not just because, like oh I need to fuel my body I’m actually hungry, then that’s something you need to get control over. Okay.

The next thing is learning how to take control of your emotions. This is so critical. There’s a lot of emotional eating going on in the world right now, during this COVID19 quarantine, a lot of people are feeling a lot of emotions. And so they’re doing a lot of emotional eating. And I get it, eating feels good, it makes us feel good.

You know, we get that little hit of dopamine every time we eat. This is the same chemical that gets released when you drink alcohol or when you take drugs. Highly concentrated foods and foods that are super high in sugar, especially give us a huge hit of dopamine, and they feel really freakin good. Going back to the bliss point, again, they’ve created this unnatural desire in us, okay.

So what happens is when you start to feel some kind of negative emotion, the first thing you want to do is be like, I gotta make this go away. I want to feel better right now. So what do you do? You go to the fridge, you open it up, you pull out, whatever it is, and you eat and you’re like, Ah, I feel better. What’s going on here is that we’ve trained ourselves to use food as a way of dealing with our emotions, instead of just dealing with our emotions.

So maybe you’ve had a bad day at work, or a fight with your husband. Or maybe your kids are screaming in the background, no problem, just go eat something and feel better. And we call this buffering because what you’re doing is you’re putting a buffer between you and your feelings, you’re using something external, to feel better internally.

The problem with buffering is that it’s temporary, and doesn’t work. And it has a lot of negative consequences. So I used to use alcohol as a way of buffering from my life. And it worked great. I felt better every time I drank. Here’s the thing, though, my problems were still there. My emotions were still there waiting for me.

And when I sobered up, they were still there. Except now I’m home. I was hungover, I was feeling like ass and destroying everything good around me. And then I would want to feel better. So what I would do was what? Drink again, right? Because that’s what makes you feel good.

What a terrible unhealthy cycle to be at, you know, that was just doing the one thing that was like, you know, making my life miserable, making me miserable. And it was the only thing I could do to feel better. But it was also the thing that made me feel terrible. Crazy. The same thing happens with food though.

So you might be stressed out, you might be having a bad day or you’re feeling lonely or nervous about an upcoming event or something and, and you eat over it. You know when Kristine and I separated back in December, I was feeling all the feelings. I was feeling lonely. I was feeling scared. I was feeling sad. I was feeling hurt. And I really started using food as a buffer.

I started using food to feel better. You know Dewey’s pizza, and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream became the best part of my day. I looked forward to that all day long. If I can just get to the end of the day where I can like eat a ton of food. Especially that ice cream with all the sugar in it. I knew I would feel better. But here’s the thing, it doesn’t work.

I mean, it works temporarily. It feels good. But then I started gaining weight. And I started feeling terrible about myself. And I still had all the negative emotions. But now I was eating, adding over eating on top of the negative emotions, and it made me just feel worse. Good times.

So what do you do in that situation? I just wanted to feel better. So well, I would like just go to Chipotle, get a giant burrito and chips and walk and I would feel better, right? No. It’s just part of that vicious cycle. I had to break the cycle. I had to learn how to feel my feelings. I had to learn how to stop using food as the escape pod to get away from my life.

I learned how to process my emotions all the way through. I needed to completely change how I felt about myself and how I felt about food. When you learn how to manage your emotions without having to eat over them. Not only will you have a much easier time losing weight, but you will be able to apply this same skill to every area of your life.

When you think about the worst thing that can happen in most situations, you will feel some kind of feeling. And a lot of times the feeling we’re trying to avoid is fear or, or some negative emotion, right? Fears. The biggest one that comes to mind though. But what if you are no longer afraid to feel your emotions, but if you are like, just bring it on, I’ll experience any emotion? And that’s where I’m at today.

And this is what I teach my clients is like, learn how to experience any emotion. And oh my gosh, there’s like nothing you can do. I mean, it sounds kind of scary and crazy to think about that to just like, feel your feelings. But what if you could do that? Like, what if you no longer had to eat to feel better? When you don’t have these like primitive urges, and these cravings, and you can deal with your emotions without eating, like you’re free, there’s incredible freedom in this.

And when you learn how to manage your mind, and learn how to process your emotions through, just allow them to be there, just sit with them. You know, besides being able to lose weight much easier, you get these amazing life skills that you can apply to every area of your life, everything becomes easier.

So, if you want to get back to your natural weight, if you want to stay there permanently, you need to learn how to manage your mind, you need to learn how to control your emotions. And these are skills you can learn. I can teach you all of this.

So let’s recap what we learned here today. Most diets fall short, because they only tell you what to eat or not to eat. They don’t teach you how to deal with your thoughts and your feelings. We have an unnatural mental over desire for food. It was created by scientists mostly, but it’s how we’ve programmed ourselves to think about food.

And you need to learn how to reprogram your mind and create better mental habits around eating. This is how you change your thinking about food. And then eating just like alcohol or drugs, it makes us feel good. You know, we get that little release of dopamine feels good. But you can get stuck in the cycle of using food as a buffer as a way of feeling good temporarily and trying to avoid feeling your emotions.

And it comes with a price: weight gain, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, diabetes, the list goes on and on and on. So you have to learn how to allow your emotions to learn how to feel your feelings. Stop using food as your escape pod. If you want to lose weight and you want to keep it off, you have to change the way you think and feel about food. You have to change your whole relationship with food.

And when you learn these skills, you get to apply them in every area of your life. You become this mental and emotional badass. And when you learn how to do this, there’s nothing you won’t be able to do. I promise you, this is amazing. Okay, that’s all I got for you today.

Quick reminder, the next weight loss masterclass starts June 1 That’s only a few short days away. I don’t have room for 10 people, so you have to sign up now. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/stopovereating, and you can get signed up. You will learn all of these skills in this masterclass, you will lose weight for sure.

But you’ll also learn how to manage your mind and allow your emotions. This work is life changing, I promise you it is transformational. innefiretrib.com/stopovereating, and enroll now. That’s all I got here. I really hope you enjoyed this series. I’ve got lots more good stuff coming your way very soon. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends. I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles, are starving yourself, and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a Lean Running Machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and you’ll learn the three secrets of losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to therunningmindpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become a lean running machine.

16. The Secrets to Achieving Any Goal

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Today I'm talking about the right way vs. the wrong way to set goals. The problem is most people pick some random goal, it's usually too small, and they kinda sorta come up with a plan for making it …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.

Well, hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and the life coach for runners. And I teach you how to stop struggling and start getting the results that you want in your life. And that’s what I teach here on the podcast is how to manage your mind.

So you can take control of your life. So you can do things like lose weight, and stop drinking, and become the most badass version of yourself. Because you know what? You can do, be, and have anything you want in this world, you are capable of so much more, you are capable of magnificence. And once you really, really believe this, there’s nothing you can’t do.

This is kind of what I’m talking about today, how to set big, powerful goals for yourself, for your life, and how to make them happen. How to achieve whatever it is that you want. And so here’s the problem with the way most people set goals. So most people, they just pick some random goal out of the air, maybe it’s something they think they shouldn’t do, like, a lot of other people are qualifying for Boston, maybe I should do that.

And so they think, okay, I’ll do that. Or maybe they’re, you know, overweight, and they’re like, hey, I should probably lose 40 pounds, there’s a goal, I’ll just do that. You know, or maybe I’m kind of unhappy with my job, maybe I’ll just like, become an entrepreneur, I’ll start my own business. So they pick something, right?

And then they pick a date, and they’re like, okay, I’m gonna accomplish this by, you know, in six months, or whatever, some random date in the future. And then they might have some vague idea in their head of what they’re supposed to do to reach that goal. So they might kind of like, do a training program, if they’re trying to qualify, or the, you know, like I should pick some diet to try to lose some weight, or, you know, maybe they’ll watch some YouTube videos on how to be an entrepreneur or something like that.

And so they kind of sorta take some action, and then, you know, kind of work toward that goal. Doesn’t that sound terrible? The way I’m explaining this, saying this out loud actually sounds kind of depressing to me right now, honestly. But here’s the thing, this is the way most people do it.

And they think that they’re doing it the right way. They don’t really know any better, it’s fine. Not calling anybody out here. But then they don’t hit the goal. And then they feel like they are a failure. And goal setting doesn’t work. I’m a failure, they get down on themselves. And they just quit and just go about their life. And they never get anything done. They never accomplish anything great. They never reach any kind of goals.

And I’m saying all this because this, this was me. Like I know exactly what this feels like I’ve done all of this so many times. I’ve picked some goals, I’ve kind of set some, you know, put some action steps in place to try to get those goals and I’ve done it so many times, and then I’ve failed. And then I just continually beat myself up over it. And I figure I’m just a failure and I can’t accomplish anything.

I’ve learned the hard way that is a terrible way of setting and accomplishing anything. This way of goal setting is broken and has to be changed. So today, I’m going to walk you through a better way of setting goals. But more importantly, I’m going to teach you how to achieve those goals.

And it doesn’t matter what they are, the process is the same for whatever goal we’re talking about here. And a quick little side note on the word goal versus outcome. I like the word outcome better than goal. And here’s why. From NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming words, we believe that words are very important. Okay.

So when we say the word goal, our brain, our subconscious mind especially comes up with this pick that’s sure of something that’s way out in the future, something that we have not achieved yet. Something that’s, you know, out there somewhere, it seems far away. Whereas when we say the word outcome, this is almost like past tense, okay, it has been done, it has been accomplished.

And the subconscious mind paints a picture of you having achieved that outcome. So I can see it, I can hear it, I can feel it. And this is kind of a better way of thinking about it. So, I prefer the word outcome. And maybe you can start adopting that when we start talking about goals.

Okay, so this is what we’re talking about today, how to set and achieve all of your outcomes. So strap in, is going to be fun. So the first thing I want to encourage you to do, the first step in achieving outcomes, is to pick an uncomfortable goal. Most people think, too small, they pick a goal, that seems like something they could do.

And the problem with this is that we never grow, when we stay comfortable. When we stay inside our comfort zone, we don’t grow. And if you want to get somewhere else, somewhere different from where you are right now, you have to think big. You know, think about what you really want.

And when you think about that thing that you really want, it should make you feel somewhat uncomfortable. If it feels too easy and too comfortable. It’s not a big enough goal, okay? In order to grow beyond who you are, right now, in this moment, you have to do things you’ve never done before. But this scares people because they’re like, well, I don’t know how to do it.

And of course you don’t, because you’ve never done it before. The way you learn how to do it, is to do it. So you gotta get outside of that comfort, comfortable bubble that you’re in, okay? And think about this, what do you really want? Who do you want to be? What do you want to accomplish, let’s say in six months, or a year. So we’re really good at coming up with little tiny goals that we can achieve. Because it’s almost like we know we can do it. But what about those things you don’t know, those things that you’re afraid you may not be able to accomplish? Those are the things we want to be focused on. Okay.

So set a big, uncomfortable goal. Get outside your comfort zone, and then start, you know, your subconscious mind will start moving you towards that thing. And this is where all the beautiful things happen in our life. This is where we grow, where we learn, nothing happens in our comfort zone, nothing really good happens that way and we just stay where we are. Okay, so number one is pick an uncomfortable goal, something that makes you feel uncomfortable when you think about it.

Number two, is you have to have a compelling why. You need to know why this goal, this outcome that you want is so important to you take some time to really figure this out. So maybe you want to lose those 40 pounds, so you don’t end up dead at 45 from a heart attack. You know, you want to be there to play with your kids and to play with your grandkids.

You know, maybe you want to quit drinking so you can stop feeling hungover every morning and stop all the obsessing about when you’re going to get that next drink. You want to experience the freedom that comes from breaking habits like overeating and over drinking. These are very compelling reasons why you would want to change why you want to accomplish that goal.

So have a compelling reason why and your why has to move you. You have to feel it in your bones. It has to be something bigger than you. When you think about why you want to accomplish this. It has to create, there has to be, an emotional response inside you. Okay, if it does, and if you don’t feel it, it’s not big enough. The goal is not big enough, your reason is not strong enough.

So you need a compelling reason why this is important to you. This is the thing, this reason, this is the thing that’s going to keep you going when it gets tough because it will get tough. If you’re setting a big uncomfortable goal. Every step along the way is good. An uncomfortable goal is going to challenge you, it’s going to be difficult, there’s going to be difficult, there’s going to be failures all along the way, having that compelling reason why will help keep you going, okay?

Number three, you have to believe in yourself. First, you have to believe it, before you see it. You have to have the confidence and trust in yourself to know that you will get there no matter what. And the way you do this is by becoming who you need to be in order to get that outcome that you’re looking for.

We get this backwards a lot, we don’t get the goal, then become the kind of person that could get a goal like that. We become the kind of person first and then we get the goal. For example, when I was training for Iron Man, I had to become an Iron Man, I had to become an Iron Man finisher. If I wanted to be an Ironman finisher, does that make sense?

In my mind, in my heart, I had to become an Iron Man, in order to be the kind of person that I needed to be to do the kind of things I needed to do to get those results. So I had to adopt the identity of being an Iron Man, and start thinking and acting like an Iron Man, what would Iron Man do?

You know, my values had to be in alignment with my goals. So training became super important to me, I was sticking to my training schedule, no matter what that became something that was really important to me. My beliefs had to be in alignment with my goal, I had to believe without a doubt that I was going to accomplish this.

And that I had everything it takes to be an Ironman finisher, I had to tap into new potentials, I had to learn new things, I had to be the kind of person that read the kind of books that an Iron Man would read, I listened to the kind of podcasts an Iron Man would listen to. I did the research about the sport, like I researched everything about the sport, I’m a passionate researcher.

I did all of these things so that I could learn as much as I could and tap into that potential. My daily schedule of the things that I did, my behaviors, my actions, I changed all this stuff, because I became who I needed to be. So I could accomplish this huge goal. So in order to achieve that outcome, finishing an Ironman, first I had to become an Ironman. And this is where we get things backwards.

Typically, we think we need to do things in order to get results so that we can become who we want to be. Instead, we need to become who we need to be. So that we can do what we need to do to get the results that we want in our lives. And when you do it this way, all of your values, the things that are important to you become clear, your beliefs become clearer, the actions you take become clearer. And you’re almost guaranteed to get the results that you’re looking for.

Alright, the next thing you need to do is write down all the steps you need to take to achieve your outcome. This sounds pretty simple. At first, but a lot of people will say to me, well, Patrick, I don’t know all the steps. If I knew all the steps, I would do it but you know what you do know?

And here’s how you do it, you just get a blank page out, grab a pen, and do what we call a thought download. You just write down everything you can think of that you would need to do to get from where you are today to where you need to be to where you achieve this goal, which is get it all out on the page. And just keep asking yourself, what else would I need to do? What else would I need to do?

So we’re looking for all those tiny little action steps that you need to take so that you can achieve this outcome. Get it all out on the page once you get it all out on the page. And you should have a lot of stuff on there.

The next thing you do is just take all those steps and put each one on your calendar. That becomes an appointment on your calendar. And then, and this is the most important thing, is do every one of those things on your calendar. This is the key to achieving any outcome that you want. You put an appointment on your calendar, and it becomes a commitment that you make to yourself. You know, the path from where you are to where you want to be is paved with steps. Achieving a big goal is just a series of small steps that gets you from where you are to where you want to be.

There’s just small actions we’re talking about here. But once you do each one, once you achieve them all, then you have reached your goal. I like the analogy of like, you know, hiking up a mountain, you’re walking up a mountain, and you just keep taking one step after another one step after another. They’re tiny steps when you look at each one. But combined, they get you up to the top of the mountain. And the view from up there is pretty amazing. Okay, so get everything down on the page and get it all on your calendar, and then do them all.

Alright, the next thing is identifying obstacles. So when you write all this stuff down, and you start putting all this stuff on your calendar, all this resistance is going to come up, you’re gonna start to feel a lot of fear, and a lot of anxiety. And you’re gonna start coming up with all these excuses. And all these reasons why this stuff is never going to work or that you can’t do it, you’re going to come up with this huge list of all the possible things that will, you know, could possibly go wrong, okay, this is completely normal, it’s part of the process, we want to embrace this part of the process.

Normally, we start thinking about all these obstacles and stuff, and we kind of freak out and we just want to pretend like they don’t exist and just kind of move on. But this is not the right way to do it, we want to embrace the obstacles, okay. So the way we do this is we do another thought download, so we grab another piece of paper, and then we start writing down all the obstacles that we can think of, we just get them all out on the page.

This is a kind of a painful process, honestly, you start writing down all these things that could possibly go wrong, or get in your way, you know, maybe, you know, so and so, you know, thinks I’m stupid for trying to do this, or, you know, my family isn’t going to be on board with this, or I’m afraid of what people will think of me, or I’ve tried stuff like this before, and it’s never worked. Or I think this is going to be too hard, or whatever it is, come up with all those obstacles, get them all down on the page.

And then for each one of these obstacles, come up with a strategy for overcoming that obstacle. All right, and this is like magic right here. So if you’re looking at, you know, your obstacles, and one of them is, I’m afraid of what people will think of me. You know, maybe your strategy for overcoming that is working on your mindset, you know, creating thoughts around those thoughts.

Like, it doesn’t matter what other people think, I believe in myself. That’s what’s most important to me, like, that’s a much better thought, then, you know, other people will will think I’m stupid, or think I can’t do this. So for every obstacle that comes up, write down a strategy for overcoming that obstacle. And then every obstacle just ends up being a rung on the ladder to success to your goal. It’s really powerful exercise to do.

Okay, then after you’ve got your obstacle ladder, so to speak. The next thing is to follow through. And this is the difference between people who achieve goals and people who don’t is whether or not they actually do what they say they’re going to do. You need to learn to count on yourself to do what you said you’re gonna do. You need to practice making promises to yourself and keeping them you know, every action step goes on your calendar, right? And then you’re gonna have this huge list of stuff, this huge calendar full of stuff that you need to do. And you’ve said yourself, here’s the goal that I want, here are all the steps I need to take. They’re on my calendar now. I just got to do them, right? And you just do them.

But what happens is you’re going to come to that day and that time and you’re going to say you know what, I really don’t feel like doing this one thing you know, maybe I’ll just go watch Netflix for a while. I’m I’m kind of tired. I don’t really feel like training today. I don’t really feel like doing the work to build my business today. I don’t really feel like sticking To my protocol, my eating protocol, I think I’ll just, you know, go ahead and eat this whole pizza. I’ve been there, I know what it feels like.

But the way we build self confidence is is that we make promises to ourselves, we make commitments to ourselves, and then we follow through on those commitments, even when you don’t feel like it. So you make a promise to yourself, and you follow through, you make a promise to yourself, and you follow through, you make a promise, and you follow through and you keep doing this.

When you do this, you build this amazing amount of trust in yourself. You build unshakable confidence in yourself, to where you feel like you can achieve anything that you want. So this is what we call honoring the calendar no matter what. So everything you’re you’re going to do becomes an action item on your calendar. And you do them even if you don’t feel like it. Okay.

The last piece of this is failure. I want you to embrace failure. What did you just say? That’s right, I said, I want you to embrace failure. So what happens if you fail? Most people, what do they do when they fail? They just give up right? Honestly, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a failure. I just think there’s stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t work. In NLP, we say there is no failure. There’s only feedback.

This thing I tried, did it work? Yes or no? What’s the feedback? Did it work? Yes, it did. Okay, cool. I’ll do more of that. Did it work? No, it did not. Why didn’t it work? What can I learn? What do I need to change? How can I do things differently next time so that I get a different result?

And we just keep practicing. Now we try something, it works or it doesn’t. And if it doesn’t, we try something else. And here’s the secret. Just keep doing this. There really is no such thing as failure. There’s only quitting. So people really don’t fail, they just quit, they give up. But the more times you do something and fail, the more confidence you build, because you keep overcoming this failures. So I encourage you to fail. I encourage you to plan on failing, plan on failing a bunch of times before you get things right.

No one’s ever really achieved anything of significance by succeeding every single step of the way. You get to success by creating a huge pile of failures. Failing is how you do it. It’s how you get there. I always say success is a terrible teacher, you don’t learn anything by getting everything right all the time. You learn by failing, and trying something else, and learning from those mistakes. So fail often.

So, quick recap. To achieve any goal, any outcome that you want. First thing is pick an uncomfortable goal, get outside your comfort zone has to be bigger than you. Number two have a compelling why. Why do you want to accomplish this, what’s going to keep you going when it gets tough? Number three, believe it first, believe it and then you’ll see it. Number four, get all the steps and get them all on your calendar. Number five, identify all the obstacles you can think of and then create strategies for overcoming each one of those. And this just becomes a ladder to your success. Number six, follow through. Honor your calendar no matter what, do what you say you’re going to do. And then number seven, embrace failure, fail often. And that’s it. That’s how you achieve anything you want in your life.

I know this might sound a little daunting to you just listening to this right now. And I will tell you, it can be challenging to do this on your own. And that’s what having a good coach does for you is to help you with every single one of these steps. And this is the work that I do with all of my clients. We look at every step I just laid out. And we make sure that we are always on track.

And I help my clients identify those things that they cannot see themselves. It’s really hard to to see yourself it’s hard to you know, see those your blind spots, you know, so that’s what a good coach will do to help you to see those things that you cannot see for yourself. So whether you want to lose weight, whether you want to quit drinking, you get the accountability, the follow through, you get the strategies, all of this by working with a coach.

You don’t want to create a pile of failures. And I help my clients work through all of that so they can achieve the result that they want in their life. Well, I’d love to hear what you thought about this particular topic, you can always reach out to me with questions or comments Hello at inner fire tribe.com And that’s all I got for you today. I hope to see you soon. Much love to each and every one of you.

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