Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you probably already know that you have to change your diet. This is obvious and we all know this, but that’s where most people stop. They change …
Continue Reading about 218. You Have to Change How You Think →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 218 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners today, you have to change how you think. So if you’re somebody who wants to lose weight and keep it off, you probably already know that you have to change your diet, right?
This is obvious, we all know this. But that’s where most people stop, they change their diet, they get some results. But it rarely lasts. Because they’ve only changed the behavior, not the thinking that’s driving the behavior. They keep slipping back into old eating patterns because they haven’t changed the thoughts that create those patterns in the first place.
So if you think you can change your diet, but not your thinking, you’re always going to struggle. So today on the podcast, if you want to change behavior and make it last, then you have to change how you think.
But first, I know I talk a lot about nutrition, weight loss, running strength training, all that stuff here on the podcast. And if you’re new to the podcast, welcome. And also this all might seem a little overwhelming to you. And you might just want to know where to get started with all this stuff.
If that sounds like you, awesome, I’ve got you covered, I created a free training, it’s about an hour long, it’s a video that you can watch, you can check it out anytime it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner, you’re gonna learn all the basics, nutrition, strength, endurance mindset, all geared towards you, the runner who’s interested in becoming fitter, stronger, faster, and the most badass version of yourself yet.
If this sounds like you, check out this free training, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on free training. I know it’s pretty obvious, right? And you can get started on your weight loss journey today. Cool. Awesome.
Okay, let’s get into this topic today, you have to change how you think. So one of the things that prompted me to talk about this today is that I talk to people every single day. And they just want some of these people just want me to talk to tell them like what to do, like, just tell me what to do. You know, give me a plan and I’ll follow the plan.
They just want to know what’s, the when’s, the how’s, like what should I eat? When should I lift weights? How often should I run? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And I jokingly say, half-jokingly I say, yeah, knowing what to do is easy. If it were that easy, though, all I would do is write a book and hand it over to you right?
But knowing what to do is only a small part of the equation. All right? How often have you known what to do and you still haven’t done it anyway, like, you probably know that you shouldn’t be eating some things like Dunkin Donuts, right? But you do it anyway.
And you’re not doing it and you’re not like doing the things that you want to be doing consistently. So that’s where, you know, we see this behavior that we’re engaging in, we want to change the behavior, but we stop there, we just stop it like, well, I just need to stop doing that I need to do things differently. I need to take different actions, okay?
The problem with this is that you’re not changing the thing that is actually driving the behavior that’s actually creating the thoughts, the feelings that are actually driving the behavior. Okay, you can’t just change a behavior, you have to change the thinking behind the behavior, okay?
But when it comes to, you know, things like, okay, I shouldn’t be eating Dunkin Donuts every day. I get that. But they find themselves they just keep eating the Dunkin Donuts every day. And they’re like, how come I can’t do that? Because they haven’t changed the thinking that’s driving the behavior.
So if you’re somebody who struggles with sticking to a plan, like sticking to a food plan, you know, you might have experienced this in the past, and lots of people I’ve talked to have experienced this where they’re like, yeah, I did that.
For a while I was able to change the behavior, I started to eat real food, and I started to do pretty well with that. But they never did like the deeper work of changing the thinking that drives the behavior. And so they just slip back into those old patterns that keep slipping back into those old eating patterns.
You know, slipping back into, you know, binging on stuff and in, you know, eating the junk food, and they can’t understand why because they know what to do. But they’ve never done the deeper work. The deeper work is changing. The thinking changes the doing, the thinking that actually drives the behavior.
Okay, so I’ve said this a couple of times now, your thinking drives your behavior, how does all this work? So, you know, here’s, here’s what, what I want to talk about next, this is how your thinking actually drives your actions. Okay?
So when we want to change something complicated, like eating patterns, this can be kind of challenging, okay? And for most people, they just look at the action itself, I’m either eating broccoli, or I’m eating potato chips, I’m eating, you know, the chicken that I put out, or a meeting the Dunkin Donuts, you know.
And when it’s when you think about the action like that, it is, it is very surface level, when you just try to change the action, you are going to get minuscule results, I’m just telling you right now, if that’s what you’ve been working on, then you are going to get very short term results, and you’re never going to make lasting change.
What you want to do is get down to the thinking this is the deeper work, you get down to the thinking that’s driving the behavior because this is where you can actually start making real lasting change.
So most people believe that whatever they’re doing is some sort of automatic behavior. Like they’re some sort of a robot, they have no control over their actions, you know, the Dunkin Donuts just sitting there and I eat them. I just find myself eating them, I find myself eating them. Like I am an automaton, I see doughnuts and I eat them.
This is not really going on. This is really not what’s happening. You are not a robot, you are a human being you have free will, you have agency, you have the power to make decisions and you are making decisions, you are not out of control. You can choose something different in that circumstance.
But in that circumstance, you’re making a choice, you’re choosing this over that you’re choosing, typically, you’re choosing what feels good right now, you’re choosing immediate gratification, you’re choosing immediate pleasure over your long-term goals, over long-lasting gratification and pleasure, a fit body, a long and healthy life and all the good stuff that you actually want for yourself.
Most people think behavior works like this, they see the Dunkin Donuts saying eat them, period, right? Here’s how your thinking actually drives your behavior, though. So you see the Dunkin Donuts sitting there. And then you have a thought about the Dunkin Donuts.
So it’s not the donuts themselves that are driving the behavior, but it’s your thoughts. So you have a thought about the donuts, oh, man, those look so good. You know what, I’ve been good all week, I just ran 10 miles, I deserve a little treat. You know, I’ve been pretty consistent with all this, it’s not gonna hurt that much. It’s going to feel really good to eat, though.
So you have all these thoughts that go through your mind. You know, a lot of times you don’t even know you’re having those thoughts. It just goes, it happens really fast. Really, it’s very, very quick. It’s just in an instant, where you have these thoughts, but you do have these thoughts.
And those thoughts are very powerful. Because those thoughts create a feeling inside of you. Immediately, they create a in this case, they create something like desire. And the feeling could be anything really it could be a feeling like you can have a thought that creates a feeling of stress or anxiety or anger.
But in the case of you know, looking at some Dunkin Donuts and you just ran 10 miles, it could just be an intense desire, which is just a feeling it’s an emotion, a desire. You have this intense desire that wells up inside you that desire to eat a Dunkin donut.
What is actually driving the action of eating the doughnut? If the desire wasn’t there, you wouldn’t eat the doughnut. So the desire to eat the donut is not created by the donut in the box. That’s not creating the desire. The desire is created by your thoughts about the donut sitting in the box.
Oh, this is gonna taste so good. This sugar is gonna make me feel really good because it does that sugar lights up those pleasure centers in your brain. Oh, I’m gonna get a nice sugar rush for the next 20 minutes or so.
All these thoughts that you have create that desire and they really ramp up that desire. It’s like turning up the volume on that desire. And the reason we know this is true is because some people they just don’t have that. They don’t like Dunkin Donuts and they don’t have it. The desire to eat the doughnuts, the doughnuts are not causing the desire because some people can see them sitting there and just be like, not so great. I don’t really like those things, you know, they have no thoughts about, oh my God, these are gonna be so amazing.
They have no thoughts about oh, I just deserve this, you know, just ran 10 miles, they don’t have any of those thoughts. And so they have no desire to eat the doughnut, and so they don’t eat the doughnut.
So not eating the doughnut is not hard for those people because their thinking is different. They are not thinking all these thoughts about how amazing this is going to feel. And so the desire is not there to eat the doughnut, and so they don’t eat the doughnut.
So this is what is called a thought-feeling-action pattern. Your thoughts create feelings and your feelings drive your behavior. And I just call this for simplicity, a thought pattern, right? Thought patterns are things that we have learned over the years and years and years of our lives. And we have thought patterns about all kinds of stuff in our life. Some are good, some are not so good. Right? You’ve been practicing certain thought patterns for your whole life, decades.
Like, Dunkin Donuts are amazing. To be honest with you. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a Dunkin donut, just a little sidebar here. I know people love their coffee, they talk about how good the coffee is. I just can’t imagine that it would be that good.
Because I’m sort of a coffee snob. I love really good, you know, single-origin coffees that I grind the beans myself, and I just don’t think that it would be that good. But in no way I don’t know, maybe I’m missing out on something. But I don’t have the desire to eat the Dunkin Donuts. I’m just using this as an example.
So you’ve had these, you’ve been practicing these types of thought patterns for decades. Like if you’ve always loved Dunkin Donuts, and you’ve probably thought, oh my God, these are just so amazing all the time. So you’ve created a thought pattern. And you’ve done this so many times, it just creates a habit. The habit is when you see the donuts, you eat them.
And you think it’s an automatic thing. But it really isn’t. It’s a thought-feeling-action pattern that you’ve been practicing over and over and over and over again. This is the same as practicing any other behavior. Behavior that’s become a habit for you, like running.
So when you first started running, you have all these thoughts about running, like, running as hard. I don’t feel like running today. I’m not getting any faster. Running is really hard. Why is running so hard? I hate running. It’s really hard. It’s stupid. Those are my thoughts about running when I first started doing it, and it took me so long before I got better, you know, running, running takes a long, it takes a long time to get better at, right?
And these thoughts that I was having would keep me in bed, most mornings, you know, because they would, when I started thinking these feelings about running being so hard, and I’m not getting better. And I you know, I’m not getting faster, and running is stupid. It’s not working for me.
All those thoughts that I had about running, were causing feelings of demotivation inside me, a lack of enthusiasm. I’m not good enough, feelings of frustration and anger, like those feelings of demotivation, frustration, anger, and lack of enthusiasm, these feelings will drive a certain type of behavior, which is to stay in bed and don’t go run. Because running is stupid. Okay?
That is a thought-feeling-action pattern at play right there. So you don’t feel like running and you don’t run. But over time, over time, you do squeak out a few good runs here and there. And you do eventually get a little bit faster. And running becomes a little bit easier. And you kind of surprise yourself that oh I actually ran like five miles and it actually felt okay.
Like you start to see that this might actually be working, you start to enjoy it. You start to feel good after you run, you start to look forward to it. And so then you have all these new thoughts about running that start to change the way you feel about running to the point where now you never miss a run no matter what even if it’s really crappy outside.
Even if it’s cold and snowy and rainy. Even if you’re sick, you’ve got the flu, even if you’re on vacation, you’re gonna go out there and run because it feels so good for you. So you’ve created for yourself without even knowing it a whole different set of thought patterns around running.
And so the behavior, you think, you know, the behavior just changes by itself. No, you have changed that behavior over time. I hope this is an example that you can relate to. Because this is a really good example of the amazing power of your thought patterns.
Running can be a hard thing, but you can get through it. And you can get over that and you can become a person who loves to run. The very same thing can happen with any other thought patterns in your life. Running just didn’t naturally come easily to you and be handed to you all of a sudden, you know, running just got easier. No, you had to like, work through it.
And you had to learn thought patterns, it took a while you had to practice it for a long time before it became something that was easier, and it was a habit. So thought patterns can be learned thought patterns can be unlearned, too, right?
If you want to train yourself to hate running, just go back to all the crappy thinking about running, how hard it is how you don’t like it, how you’re not getting any faster, why so hard. All that stuff, just keep thinking those kinds of thoughts, and it’ll be super demotivating. And you’ll not feel like running ever again. Okay?
If you have a thought pattern, like mindlessly eating the Dunkin Donuts every time you see them, even though you know it’s not what you want, it’s not good for you, it’s not going to help you lose weight, it’s not healthy, it’s not in alignment with your long term goals, then you can unlearn that thought pattern, okay?
And it starts with changing the way you think you have to change the thoughts that are creating those feelings of desire within you. So how do you change your thinking? So changing your thinking is not as easy as it sounds, you just can’t be like, well, I’m just going to think differently.
Especially if you’ve been practicing the same thought patterns your whole life, it takes time. And it takes some effort, it takes a little bit of work. And when I say work, that’s where most people like tune out. They’re like, oh, please, I don’t want to do any work.
But listen, if you want to change, you have to do some work, right? And I promise you that if you’re willing to work on this particular area, when you’re starting to talk about changing thought patterns, this can be an absolute game changer for you. And it applies to any thought patterns in your life, whether it’s Dunkin Donuts, running, whatever it is that you want for yourself, you can change this.
And I’ve got a three step little process here that I’m going to go through with you that I think is really powerful. And it’s the three R’s. And the three R’s are to recognize, record, and reframe.
So the first R, if we’re talking about changing thought patterns here, the first R, the very first step is to recognize you got to recognize that something is going on here. You know, you have to see that you’re engaging in a behavior or a thought pattern that you want to change.
You have to recognize that what you’re doing may not be in alignment with your long-term goals. So this is self-awareness, understanding that you’re not a robot, this is not automatic behavior. You’re just practicing an old thought pattern. So you have to recognize that something is going on here.
That is the critical first step. And you have to be honest with yourself that oh, yeah, I’m doing something that you know, I am eating the Dunkin Donuts mindlessly what’s happening here, like what’s going on? So recognize that something is happening here. Okay, step number one.
Step number two, the second R is to record, record the thought pattern in as much detail as possible. So as soon as you can, once you recognize what’s happening, or that there’s something happening here, stop and record some thoughts and feelings about the behavior.
Ask yourself some questions like, what just happened there? Like why did I do that? What was the thought that I had right before I did that? What was the feeling that I had right before I did that?
This doesn’t have to be complicated, you can just grab a notebook and write it down, use a pen and a piece of paper, use your journal, write it on a note on your phone, you can even record a voice memo and just record it into your phone. I like doing that because sometimes I can’t write as fast as my brain is, you know, can think and I can talk so I just talk it’s a lot easier for me.
But the more you record, the more you can start to see that yeah, these are the types of thought patterns that I’m engaging in. These are the types of thoughts I’m thinking these are the types of feelings that are being created within me that are actually driving the behavior.
And then the next step is to and the third R is to reframe. Reframing means you change the thought to create different feelings, which drive a different behavior. This simply means you need to start to choose different thoughts in those moments, and this is a practice this is not something you’re going to do you know, you, you know, and then you’re going to do one time, you’re gonna be like, oh, I got it. No, it takes time.
Reframing is a powerful tool. It’s used in a lot of psychological practices like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And they have a similar like three steps sort of process that is similar to this. But I think this one applies to us very profoundly. Okay.
So you have a thought, like, you know, I’ve been good all week, I deserve this donut, I just ran 10 miles, it’s not that big a deal. All those kinds of thoughts, right? Those thoughts are creating a desire inside you. And then you just use that desire to drive you to eat the doughnut.
But a reframing, reframing thought might be something like, oh, that donut looks really good. But my health is more important to me than how good that donut might taste in the moment. My weight loss goal is bigger than the tiny amount of pleasure that this stupid little donut is going to give me. Or I’m not the kind of person that eats that crap anymore.
Right, these thoughts, these reframed thoughts, start to create feelings of motivation, you start to feel more confident, you have a different desire not to eat the doughnut, but to stay consistent and reach those health and fitness goals that are so important to you.
And so in that moment, the desire to stay committed to your goals is much more powerful than the stupid donut sitting there. And so you make the choice tonight the donut. That’s a reframe.
Okay, so the whole thing, this whole process, recognize, record, reframe, only takes a couple of minutes to do, it only takes a few minutes, but you want to practice this, you want to practice this every day.
Recognize there’s a thought pattern you want to change. Record your thoughts and feelings about it. Reframe those thoughts and feelings to produce a better outcome next time.
It’s a very simple process. Simple, but not easy. This is the work that we have to do. This is the work that most people don’t want to do or not willing to do. Most people would rather stay stuck and just blame everything around them for why they’re stuck.
Like, oh, if those donuts weren’t sitting there, I’d be fine. Actually, no, because the donuts are not the problem. It’s your thoughts about the donuts. That’s the real problem. Okay. So get out there, start seeing all the thought patterns in your life, and start recognizing that these things are happening and that you are creating them.
Alright, so there’s some good thought patterns that are happening in your life and there’s some that are not so good, but recognize all of them and start to see them for what they really are, okay?
There’s going to be some that you want to continue doing. There are going to be some thought patterns that you want to change. And that’s when we put the three R’s into practice. Recognize, record, and reframe. Cool. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. I love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
If you want to accomplish a big goal, the key to getting there is consistency. You have to take aligned action and continue to take it over and over and over until you eventually reach that …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 207 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today how to get back on track. So if you want to accomplish a big goal, the key to getting there is consistency.
You have to take aligned action and continue to take aligned action over and over and over again until you eventually reach that goal. The problem is that most people don’t stick with anything long enough to see that end result.
They get off track somewhere along the way, and they end up staying off track. So getting off track is actually not the problem, we all do it. The real problem is not getting back on track. So today, it’s all about how to get back on track, and how to stay there so that you can actually crush those big goals.
But first, I know I talk a lot about improving your health and fitness becoming a fat-adapted runner and losing weight. And I know all this stuff can be a little overwhelming. So if you’re looking for a little guidance, a good place to start is a free training that I created called Five Steps to Becoming a Leaner, Stronger Runner.
It’s a training video where you’re going to learn how to fuel your body properly, you’re going to learn how to improve your strength, improve your mindset, so that you can make these changes last, you’re going to learn how to lose weight, what kinds of fuel to use and not to use.
If you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, if you’re ready to run faster and longer and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself yet, then you need to check out this free training now just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training.
Alright, let’s get into this topic how to get back on track. So I realized that a lot of people will start working towards some big goal like losing weight. And if you’re somebody that wants to, you know, lose 30 or 40 pounds, that’s a big goal.
And that’s going to take time to reach that goal. It’s not something you can do in a few weeks or even a couple of months, it usually takes longer than that. Or maybe it’s it’s something big like running your first marathon. Again, that’s going to take months of preparation, you have to build a good base. And then you got to do like 16-20 weeks of training.
These kinds of goals, these big goals, I love them because they cause you to level up. But they’re also hard and they take time. And eventually, you are going to, during the course of training for that marathon or trying to lose weight, you’re going to go off track, you’re going to slip up, you’re going to miss a workout, you’re going to eat something you shouldn’t be eating, you’re going to eat something that it was, you know the way you used to eat, you’re gonna eat a bunch of junk food.
And it’s okay to do that. It’s okay to have those little slip-ups here and there. But what most people do is they go off track, and then they end up quitting because they’re like, well, I can’t do it. See, look, I failed.
They consider themselves a failure, which is never true, by the way. But they end up quitting so easily. Right? Have you ever done this? Have you ever been doing something you were doing great, you’re moving right along, you are sticking with a plan.
Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight. So you change your diet, and you’re sticking with it. You’re doing great. And then you have this weakness moment and you’re like, I’m just going to eat up large pizza myself, right?
And then you look at yourself and go, you know what, I’m a complete failure. I can’t do this. Look, look at what happened to me. I went completely off track, I can’t do this and then they quit.
Well, when you quit, you’re absolutely giving up and you’re absolutely going to fail. You’re never going to reach that goal. You know, if you’re training for a marathon, and you just give up running like you’re not gonna run that marathon I’m going to tell you right now, it’s a little bit too hard to be able to just show up on the starting line and run a marathon without any training. (Although there are people that have done that and good for you. They probably did not feel too good for a couple of weeks afterward.)
But just know that these things require work they require time and that you will go off track during that process. Okay, and we have got to stop looking at going off track as the end because it’s not the end, the real problem, I think, is that many people are just afraid to fail. There’s a big fear of failure going on here.
This is why most people will never even start anything why most people won’t try to change their diet, they won’t even try to lose weight. They’ll convince themselves that it’s okay being the size they are. And for some people, that’s fine.
And a lot of people, you know, there’s a big movement of body positivity. And I’m all for that if you’re feeling good in your skin the way you are, and you like your size and everything, perfect, I love it.
But there’s a lot of people that are trying to convince themselves that it’s okay, because they’re afraid of trying to lose weight, they’re afraid of failing because when they’ve tried it in the past, it hasn’t worked.
And when you go off track, when you start something and you go a little bit off track, people will see that as a failure. And they’ll be like, yeah, see, I just showed myself that I can’t do it. This is not good thinking though. This is not the way you want to approach something big like this, okay?
If you want to accomplish these big goals, you have to stay consistent. Like you have to do things consistently. You have to eat the right foods, day in and day out, you have to do the training every single day, you have to show up for yourself no matter what. So this is all about taking aligned action and taking aligned action consistently.
Aligned action is an action that is in alignment with those big goals that you have for yourself. So if you’re taking aligned action around losing 40 pounds, it might be, you’re just not gonna eat sugar for a while.
If you, you know, want to run a marathon lined action would be you got to show up and do the training, you got to run four days a week, five days a week, whatever you decided you want to do, you got to do those long runs on the weekends.
Even though it’s raining out, even though it’s cold out, even though you got to, you know, dress in a hat and gloves and tights and jacket and everything and go out there and run in the cold. Like that’s aligned action is getting out there and showing up for yourself. Even though it’s hard, even though you don’t want to. That’s the only way you’re gonna reach these goals.
If you want to lose a bunch of weight, or get to run your first marathon or improve your marathon time, it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take consistent aligned action. That’s it like you just have to take consistent aligned action.
So what happens though, is people will be taking aligned action pretty consistently for a while. And then they’ll go a little bit off track. Well, listen, everybody goes off track. Nobody does this stuff perfectly. I work with clients every day, who are kicking ass, they are improving, they’re running, they’re losing weight, they’re getting stronger.
And not one person has done this perfectly, not one person has been 100% compliant with everything I’ve told him to do. And that’s okay. Because that’s the norm like, it’s normal to not do it 100% perfectly. But we do need to be consistent with this stuff.
Okay, we need to get our reps in, we need to do the same things over and over and over and over again until it becomes automatic behavior. So for me for a while there, I was working out at this local gym, a little small gym with a, I had a private trainer that was helping me and I would go twice a week.
And actually, this was when I was going in it was I was just doing this group, these group workout sessions. So I was doing these group workout sessions twice a week. And honestly, it just there wasn’t enough consistency there for me to get stronger. Like, I wanted to get bigger muscles, and I wanted to get stronger. And I just wasn’t doing it consistently enough.
And then I’d missed some weeks and missed some workouts and I was just sort of half-assing the whole thing. Okay. So the thing is, though, I decided at some point that I wanted more for myself, and that for me, I needed more consistency, that the aligned action was kind of there, but it wasn’t enough.
And so I needed to reevaluate what I was doing. And so what I started doing was I joined a different gym, you know, one where I didn’t have to go to these group classes where I could just go whenever I wanted to. And I started going five times a week and I started that just earlier this year.
So we’re coming to the end of 2023. So this was at the kind of the beginning of 2023. And I decided that for me, the kind of consistency I needed was to go five days a week, Monday through Friday. And I committed to doing that and I knew that if I was committed to going five days a week, the consistency would be there for me to get bigger muscles for me to get stronger for things to begin to change for me, and they did.
And it took a while, like, at the beginning, it was hard. It was not something I was used to, I wasn’t in the routine of going to the gym every day. I didn’t always feel motivated to go, but I just kept at it. And the thing is, every now and then, I had some, you know, things to do, I had some scheduling conflicts, or whatever, and I couldn’t show up, and I couldn’t, you know, go to the gym. So I went off track.
But the thing is, because I was going five days a week, if I missed one day, it wasn’t a big deal. When I’m going twice a week, and I missed a day, that’s a lot. That’s like 50%, of my workouts I missed for the week. But now if I’m doing five days a week, and I missed one, okay, no big deal.
But getting into this routine of going five days a week, I wasn’t motivated to do it all the time. I didn’t do it perfectly all the time. But I kept at it until it became automatic behavior, until it became something that felt easy and effortless.
Today I love going to the gym every day, it’s my happy place, I would much rather just go and lift weights than run. I got, I’ve kind of switched, I used to like hate lifting weights, and would just rather run now I’d rather just lift weights and running kind of has become secondary for me.
So my point with all this is that you have to practice consistency, you will not do it perfectly. But you have to get those reps in, you got to show up for yourself every single day. And you have to take that consistent aligned action.
Okay, so the key here is consistency, not perfection. So if you go off track, not a big deal. Now, with all the consistency in the world, you are going to go off track, and you’re going to experience some kind of failure along the way.
If you’re trying to change how you eat, and you know the family has all ordered pizza, and there’s pizza sitting there, you might eat some pizza because it’s pizza. It’s amazing, right? You might skip a workout because you don’t feel good and you didn’t get enough sleep last night or you just don’t feel like going, that’s fine.
You might skip a run because it’s like raining, pouring down rain outside, that’s about the only reason why I skip runs usually is if it’s absolutely pouring rain and cold. If it’s raining and warm, fine. But if it’s cold and rainy, I don’t like that combination.
So eating the pizza, skipping a workout, skipping a run, no big deal. It’s normal. It’s to be expected, it will happen sometimes. But you cannot look at these things as being the end, they are not the end. These are just little micro failures along the path that will eventually lead to your success.
So the big key is consistency, not perfection. And you’re going to have these little failures. But you have to recognize these little failures for what they are. They’re just little blips on the radar.
And the important thing is, is that as soon as possible, you get back on track, and you do not miss two workouts in a row. You never have two cheat meals in a row. You don’t turn one meal of eating pizza into well, you know what I’ve blown it already. So I might as well just go all in on this.
And then you end up eating and drinking your way through the weekend. And then you feel terrible on Monday. And you’re like, you know what I might as well just keep going because I’ve already blown this whole week anyway. So then you blow the rest of the week. And then you’re like, well, I’ve already blown this whole week might as well just blow the whole month.
And you see where I’m going with this right? This is terrible. This is terrible thinking, okay? Never have two cheat meals in a row. As soon as you can you get back on track. So if you have, you know, a dinner and that you know, was you ate a bunch of French fries, you know, because they were just sitting there and you’re like, I just want some french fries. And you sort of give in and you and you have that moment of like getting off track.
Okay, no big deal. Next meal that might be you know, lunch the next day or something like that. You’re back on track you you stick to the plan that you made for yourself.
Same with your workouts do not miss two workouts in a row. Everybody will miss a workout here and there. And I have done this, you know, a handful of times over the last year so like there’s just times where I couldn’t make a workout. I’m like, you know what, I’m just gonna I’m just gonna blow this one off. It’s fine. Next workout though I do not miss that next workout. That is key right there.
You don’t want to start spiraling downward so you have to stop it as soon as possible. You have to put the brakes on right there right? You have to stop that process from getting out of control. Because when you have this thinking where you’re like, well, I’ve already blown it, I might as well just keep going, that is very detrimental. You know, you have these big, important goals that you are working towards.
And basically, what you’re saying is, what’s more important to me is this one meal, and just, you know, giving in to all these desires that I’m experiencing right now. And just, you know, feeling comfortable, that’s more important than these long-term goals, that is not acting in alignment with who you really want to become in the future.
So think about that are your actions in alignment with who you really want to become in the future, getting off track is fine, you can get off track here and there, get back on track as soon as possible. It’s okay to fail. It’s part of the process, it should be expected. But failure does not mean it’s the end. getting off track here or there does not mean that you should stay off track for days or weeks or months at a time.
Right, those little off-track moments should just be that there should be little moments, little vignettes, little blips on the radar. The key to not letting these moments turn into days and weeks is to reflect on that moment of failure. And what I suggest to my clients to do is to write about it.
It doesn’t have to be this big, you know, time-consuming grandiose thing, just jot down a few questions and reflect on them. Ask yourself a few key questions. So let’s say you ate a bunch of pizza. What I want you to do is like fine, okay? Eat the pizza, enjoy it, whatever. Afterward, though, maybe that night before you go to bed, you pull out your journal. And I want you to do a little bit of writing.
And I want you to ask yourself some key questions like, Why did I do that? Get curious with yourself. Why did I go off track like that? What was the thought process that led me to make that particular decision? What feeling was I experiencing that I was trying to avoid experiencing? Or change? How was that feeling? And how was I trying to change that feeling? What could I have done differently in that moment?
You know, if I could have waved a magic wand and done things differently, what would I do differently? You know, what would I do differently next time because it’s there’s going to be a next time? And this little process, even simple, doing a little bit of writing a little bit of reflection on your thought process and on your decision making. And it is it’s very simple, but it’s also very powerful.
And honestly, most people don’t do it. Most people would not spend five minutes writing about why they made a particular decision. But understanding why you make the decisions that you make, why you go off track, learning about your own thought process, learning about how you’re dealing with emotions, or trying to squash your emotions, learning about how you give into temptation, or how you blow off a workout or why you do those things. This is amazing self-awareness.
And right here, this little exercise will help you stay on track next time 100%. Because when you do that work of doing a little bit of a post mortem on the incident and saying like, oh, here’s why I think I did this. Here’s what I would do differently next time when that next time comes around which it will, you are armed with new information, you’re armed with this new self-awareness, you’re armed with strategies and tactics that you can take. That will keep you on track.
So you don’t go off track in the first place, we will all go off track eventually. But the odds of you doing it go down a lot when you take the time to create this self-awareness. Okay, you want to understand yourself at a deep level. You want to understand why you do the things you do. You want to understand how you could do things differently next time so you can make different decisions in the future because every little decision helps to shape who you are. All these decisions you make there either moving you closer to that goal, or further away.
And failure is inevitable. Listen, you are going to fail. You’re not going to do this stuff perfectly. It’s okay. But each of these little failures you have to see is a learning experience. Every time you go off track. It has to be a learning experience.
So learn from these experiences. This is how you develop your mindset. This is how you grow, this is how you evolve, this is how you become more. You actually don’t learn anything from doing everything perfectly all the time, I wish it worked that way but it doesn’t. Okay that’s all I got for you today, love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
Most people come up with all sorts of excuses, reasons, and stories for why they can’t accomplish something hard. You set out to lose weight so you change your diet but you eventually slip back …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 205 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. And today, the problem is you. So most people come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons and stories for why they can’t accomplish something hard.
So you might set out to lose weight. So you change your diet, but eventually kind of slip back into old habits, and your new way of eating goes out the window. And when you ask most people why they do this, that’s when all the excuses and the reasons in the stories come into play.
There’s a different way to approach all of this. And in this episode, I’m going to show you the way most people think that the problem is out there. But when you accept that the problem is you, you can start accomplishing everything that you want in your life.
But first, I talk a lot about losing weight and improving your health and fitness here on the podcast. And I know all of this information can feel a little bit overwhelming. That’s why I created a very comprehensive free hour-long training for you called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
In this training video, you’ll learn how to fuel your body properly, to lose weight, and improve your running. You’re going to learn the incredibly important role that strength plays in being a lean, healthy runner, you’re going to learn how to make changes that actually are sustainable, and so much more.
If you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, to run faster, run longer, and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself yet, then you need to check out this free training now just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training.
Okay, so most people when they set out to accomplish something, and they start making some progress, and they find themselves slipping back into old habits or not following through on the things they said they were going to do, they come up with excuses, and reasons and stories.
And all these things can seem very valid. You know, you can say, oh, you know, I can’t stick to my diet because my husband doesn’t support me. Or, you know, I wasn’t able to stick to my running plan because my work schedule changed. And all of these things that we look to as reasons why we can’t accomplish the things that we want to accomplish in our lives.
All of these things are typically outside of us, they are outside of our control, meaning we only have control over three things, our own thoughts, feelings, and actions and everything else is outside of our control.
So when you start to blame outside circumstances, outside forces, for why you can’t accomplish something that feels very out of your hands, it’s out of your control, there’s nothing you can do about it, right?
And I want to talk about this, but I want to go back a little bit and talk about why we do this. So humans as we’ve evolved, we’ve been hard-wired, to look for problems and find solutions. And we are really, really good at this. This has helped us in the past to avoid danger, and to survive, and to evolve and to eventually become the beings that we are today.
So this problem-solving feature that we have as human beings is really fantastic. Okay, this is built into our DNA now, right? It’s, it’s a part of who we are, from an evolutionary standpoint, we look for problems, and we find solutions and we are good at this.
And from an evolutionary standpoint, finding problems was always really good, like looking outside of ourselves for problems was very important, right? Because we were faced with real dangers that were outside of us things like saber-toothed tigers, that were lurking in the shadows, long, cold winters that we had to survive, scarcity of food, you know, finding shelter going through childbirth, these are all things that were big problems and most of them were, you know, outside of our control.
And so, we had to look for and find these problems and find solutions for those problems. And so this is how we have evolved. We’re good at looking outside of ourselves to find what the problem is. The issue, though, is that nowadays, we don’t have those kinds of problems. But our genetic programming still wants to look outside of ourselves for problems.
So we inherently will look to, oh, my boss is being a jerk. That’s why, you know, I’m not performing well at work, or I’m in a really bad mood, because traffic was really crappy this morning on my way to work, or, you know, I would do better with my diet and stuff, but my spouse doesn’t really support me or it’s too cold outside, I don’t want to run, you know.
So we are looking outside of ourselves for problems. And when we do that, when we look outside of ourselves to find a problem, we will find problems. And we will find a lot of them.
When you’re constantly looking for the problem, and you’re looking outside of yourself, you will find it. You can find all kinds of excuses and stories and reasons why you can’t do this, or why this is too hard, or why you fail.
So instead of going outside, which is our programming, and I get that, and it’s hard to do this, but you have to look inside for the problems and the solutions. Because if the solution isn’t within you, there’s really nothing you can do about it.
Because you have no control over everything out there, you don’t have control over outside circumstances, you can only control your own thoughts, feelings and actions. That means if it’s not your own thoughts, feelings and actions, you have no control over it.
Everything else is out of your control. And if you extrapolate that out a little bit, that means that those things are not a problem for you. What other people think what other people feel what other people do, it’s out of your control, and therefore not your problem.
If it’s not within you, you can’t change it. And so it shouldn’t really be a problem for you. So always go within to find the problem. And the solution.
Sometimes other people’s actions will affect you. Like if somebody punches you in the face, that is an action that has affected you in a certain way. But it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a problem for you, you can be like, wow, that was crazy and just choose to walk away.
Or, you know, oh, my boss just dumped this big project on me. This affects you, you have to work late now, you wanted to work out or something like that, but you now you have to work late. But it doesn’t mean that it’s a problem for you. You choose what you want that situation to mean, you’re always assigning meaning to your circumstances, always.
You have a flat tire and you’re ready to work, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be in a bad mood all day, you can choose to be in a bad mood about that or not, it does not have to be a problem for you. So the solution is always within whatever the problem is, then the solution is within, okay.
If the problem is you know your own thoughts, feelings and actions, then you need to look at your own thoughts, feelings and actions to see what needs to change here. Because if it’s outside of you, it’s not your problem. If it’s within you, you can do something about that.
So that becomes where you need to put your focus. Most people will never do this. They don’t want to look at themselves. They always want to blame and complain and have stories and reasons and excuses. And when they do that, if you’re somebody that does that, it’s really easy to not have to do anything.
You don’t have to change yourself. You don’t have to become more you don’t have to grow. You don’t have to do anything hard. You can just sit there and be like, I’m a victim. And all this stuff is happening to me. With that attitude, though, what are you going to accomplish? Nothing.
You’re never going to grow, you’re never going to accomplish something bigger, and you’re never going to move past where you are right now. And if you want to move past where you are right now, and if there’s this other version of you that you’re working towards, then I’m going to tell you right now you have to stop blaming, you have to take responsibility.
So often times we look inside for the problem, and that’s a good thing. But you can do that and do it sort of the wrong way. You can be asking yourself really terrible questions. Like you can say to yourself, why is losing weight so hard for me? How come I can never run faster? How can I fail at everything I do? These are known as, and I say this a lot, these are called terrible questions.
They’re terrible. Because when you ask questions like, why is losing weight so hard? You’re going to find answers. You know, oh, because I always eat junk food. And I can never do this. And I’m never good enough.
Why can’t I run faster? Because I’m slow. I’ll always be slow. I just keep getting slow. Why do I fail at everything? Because I can never accomplish anything. I’m destined to be a failure. I’m never good enough. I can’t be successful like other people. These are terrible questions.
Don’t ask yourself those kinds of questions. Stay away from questions like that. Okay? Instead, you want to reframe these questions, you want to start asking yourself better questions. So it’s good that you’re looking within for the problem, and the solution, but you have to ask better questions.
So instead of why is losing weight so hard, say how can I make losing weight easier? What do I need to do to make this process easier for me? Do I need to write a list every day and make a plan every single day? Do I need to include foods that I really enjoy and make it fun?
Like, what do I need to do to run faster? Instead of why can’t I ever run fast? Oh, I need to do more speed work? I can start focusing on tempo runs? You know, instead of why do I always fail and everything, it’s like, how can I start being a success?
What can I do today, that’s going to help me to succeed at this thing, losing weight, getting stronger, getting faster? Stop the blame game, and start taking radical responsibility. You have to stop blaming everyone and everything that’s outside of you for why you can’t accomplish what you want to accomplish.
If you want to lose weight, if you want to run faster if you want to get stronger, stop blaming, and start taking radical responsibility. Radical responsibility means you take responsibility for all of the results that you’re getting, or not getting in your life.
If it’s not working, the problem is you. If it is working, you did that. Okay. It has nothing to do with what’s out there. What’s outside of you has nothing to do with whether or not you can accomplish the things that you want for yourself. But it has everything to do with what’s inside you. So once you see that the problem is you that’s good.
Okay, now you can get to work fixing it because you can you can control that. You can take control over what is within you. The only thing you can control. Radical responsibility means you accept responsibility for everything in your life.
Every result that you’re getting, or not getting, everything good, bad, and ugly in your life. You did that. When you get to that place of taking radical responsibility, that is a humongous first step in you know, being able to accomplish all these things that you want for yourself, okay?
Once you take radical responsibility, you can be like, oh, great, now I’m the problem. And here’s my situation. And here’s what I need to do to get things back on track. Okay, if the problem is always out there, you have every excuse in the world to fail. But if the problem is you, you have everything you need within you to succeed.
And listen, you always, always get to choose. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
Have you ever caught yourself eating something that you know is bad for you, but you do it anyway? Have you ever changed your eating patterns for a period of time and then found yourself going back …
Continue Reading about 197. Why You Keep Going Back for More →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 197 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, Why You Keep Going Back For More.
So have you ever caught yourself eating something that you know is not good for you, but you do it anyway? Or maybe you’ve changed your eating patterns for a period of time and then you find yourself going back to the junk food you used to eat even though you know, you probably should steer clear of it.
This was me for sure. I found myself going back for more to the junk food I used to eat even after long periods of healthy eating. Why do we do this? And what can we do to stop it from happening in the future?
In this episode, I hope to shed some light on why you keep going back for more of the foods you should probably not be eating and what to do to stop it. And this includes over eating, eating to excess. Okay.
But first, if you want a little bit of help getting started with all the stuff that I talked about here on the podcast, I put together a free training that you can check out it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
I put together the last three years of podcast materials, everything that I’ve taught here on the podcast, I kind of distilled it all down into about a one hour training that’s totally free, you can go through it, you can find it on my website, just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training.
But the goal of this is to teach you how to lose weight and keep it off for good as a runner. A lot of coaches, a lot of dietitians, a lot of nutritionists out there, they have advice for losing weight, but it’s really not geared towards runners.
And this is where I specialize in helping you as a runner, not only, you know, improve your running and get stronger, run longer distances, run faster, but also to be able to change your body composition for the better to lose the weight to get leaner.
A lot of people say you can’t do that, or you shouldn’t do that. I disagree. I wholeheartedly disagree. And you can learn at least a good chunk of how to get started with all this stuff by going through this free training. Like I said, it’s just about an hour of your time. That’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. Check it out, go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training. And I hope you enjoy it.
Okay, let’s get into this topic here. Why you keep going back for more? So one reason that I wanted to share this with you guys is because I’ve been working with a lot of people recently who find themselves slipping back into old patterns or craving the food that they used to eat even though we’ve changed their eating patterns, or their their chronic overeaters, you know, they just keep going back for seconds and thirds and fourths or whatever.
And there’s this idea that you know what, there’s something wrong with us, if we keep going back to the foods that we used to eat when we weren’t eating healthy, or there’s something wrong with us, because we tend to eat past the point of being full. Okay.
This has definitely been my experience in my life. So I can relate to both of these concepts of going back for more, I’ve changed my eating patterns. I started eating really healthy, and then I found myself slipping back into old patterns again, because what I was doing was uncomfortable, it was hard.
And maybe I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted. And then I’ve also been a chronic overeater in my life. This is one of the reasons why it was really hard for me to lose weight. Even though I was eating, you know, I was trying all these different diets, but I was just eating way too much of a lot of the foods even when I was doing the plant based thing.
Of course I was eating nothing but carbs, because that’s basically what a plant based diet is, is basically all carbs, tough to do for some people. Some people love it, and that’s great, more power to you. But for me, it was really challenging because I’m very sensitive to carbohydrates, number one and number two, I tend to overeat. I’m an overeater.
And you know, I don’t think calories are the whole picture. I think calories do come into the equation at some point and they definitely did for me when I would go back for seconds and thirds, and eat until I was way past the point of being full.
You know, there was a Comedian Jim Gaffigan, who used to say, “I don’t stop eating when I’m full. I stop eating when I hate myself.” I was like, Oh, my God, I feel so seen. Because that was definitely me and my experience around food.
And even today, I struggle with this sometimes, you know, I can, I can go out to dinner, I’m eating a nice big steak and maybe, you know, a baked potato or something on the side. And I find myself just eating until I’m past the point of being full. And why do we do this?
So I’m going to give you guys a couple of reasons why I’ve got like five reasons why we keep going back for more. More of the junk food that we’re not supposed to be eating, or we want to try to stay away from, or we’re chronic overeaters. And why we do this, and I want you to think about this in this concept of that there is hope for you that you’re not broken.
I’m certainly not broken, you’re not broken, we all do these things, you might be able to relate to a couple of these things I’m going to share with you here more than others. But we all have done these or some some of these in our lives. And it doesn’t mean that just because you can relate to some of these issues that there isn’t hope for you, there is hope for you like you can change.
Most of the things I’m going to be talking about are learned behaviors, and if a behavior has been learned, it can be unlearned. Alright, so just I want to put a context on this as you’re listening to this episode of you know, that these are things that you have probably taught yourself or been conditioned to over the years and that you can on teach yourself that you can decondition yourself to these patterns.
Okay, so the first one is this. The first one is that the foods that we tend to overeat are the foods that we tend to go back for the junk foods and stuff like that. It just, it feels good to eat that stuff. Let’s be honest, it tastes amazing. And it feels really good. Your brain loves pleasure.
Your brain is always seeking pleasure. Your brain’s job is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Your brain’s job is to keep you safe, is to avoid discomfort. Seek out comfort, seek the familiar, seek out pleasure. That’s your brain’s job. And you know what does a really good job of that? The comfort foods that you love. Junk food feels amazing, right?
A lot of times, it’s because these foods have been engineered to produce the maximum pleasure possible. That’s why people don’t binge out on broccoli. I hear people all the time. They’re like, oh, I just needed a snack. I’m like, okay, go eat some broccoli. And they’re like, I’m not gonna use broccoli as a snack. And I’m like, yeah, but if you’re really hungry, and you need to eat something, broccoli is great, you know, or some like raw carrots.
People are like, I don’t want raw carrots, I want some chips. I want some nuts. I want a candy bar, I want something that’s sugar, or salt or crunchy or a combination of all those things. Snickers, there you go. It’s got all those things all blended together, right.
But we don’t go for broccoli as a snack because it doesn’t light up our brain the way that this junk food does. So your brain loves pleasure. And this is one of the reasons why it’s really hard to change your diet. Because if you’re used to eating a diet that is full of pleasurable foods, pizza is a great example. You know, pizza is one of those things that like, oh my gosh, it’s like gooey and cheesy, but it’s also all that bread.
The crust is so amazing and chewy and it’s warm. And it’s just like, oh my gosh, that’s a very pleasure inducing food right there. So if you’re somebody that’s eating pizza on the regular, and then and then you switch your diet you’re like okay, pizza’s off the table, you’re gonna be dreaming about pizza. Your brain is gonna be like, where is the pizza, bro? Like, how come you took the pizza away from it? You know I want that pizza. So we seek out pleasure and junk food gives us lots of pleasure.
You know, you got to remember that there’s a dopamine response when you eat these pleasurable foods. Even thinking about the pleasurable foods gives you a dopamine response and it feels good to just think about it. If I start describing the most delicious chewiest pizza crust with the red sauce that’s just hanging off and the pepperoni on top and the melted cheese that’s got just a little bit of burned on there you know I’m you know, I’m talking about right.
You start to drool like your brain is like lighting up right now just even thinking about that just listening to a description of pizza like that will light up your brain and provide a dopamine response, but also when you eat as food, you get oxytocin release, serotonin, endorphins, all the feel good chemicals get released.
And listen, eating pizza, it feels amazing. Eating ice cream feels amazing, eating candy bars feels amazing. All these hyper palatable foods increase this dopamine response to increase the field good hormonal response. And why wouldn’t you crave that stuff, right?
We don’t tend to go back to eating hoards of broccoli or chicken or something like that. Even though that stuff is great for you. That stuff is what your brain and your body actually needs for nutrition to keep you healthy and safe and alive. But that’s not what we crave.
We crave the junk food, we crave the hyper palatable foods, the foods that have been engineered to be amazingly delicious. Okay. So number one, you have to understand that your brain loves pleasure. And that’s just your brain doing what it’s supposed to do. Seek pleasure, avoid pain, you know, it feels painful to your brain.
Eating broccoli feels painful to your brain, because it’s like, oh, I know, it’s good for me. But I really want the pizza, but I mean, the broccoli and so that seems terrible. It’s like a terrible place to be like, who wants to do that?
Okay, so your brain wants to seek pleasure and wants to avoid pain. So there’s your brain doing what it’s supposed to do. So just understand that part of the thing that we’re fighting against here, if you’re trying not to eat this stuff, is that your brain is going to drive you in the direction of the junk food.
Alright, so we got that kind of going against us here. But just listen, that is one of five different reasons why you might be going back for more.
Number two, a lot of times you are using your eyes instead of your body to know when it’s time to stop. And this refers to overeating. So a lot of times we look at our plate, and we look at you know how much is on our plate and we need to finish every bite that’s on that plate no matter what even though we’re full, even though we don’t feel good.
Now, this was me. And this is one of the reasons why it’s been decades of me trying to stop this overeating habit. But it was drilled into me as a kid that I had to finish everything on my plate no matter what or I would get in trouble.
And I had to sit at the table and everybody else left the table was able to go eat their dessert and get on with their life and I had to sit there and eat everything. Eat the tuna fritters that my mom made. I just bring that up because I just thought about, I haven’t thought about tuna fritters in like 40 years, honestly.
But I just thought about those because it was one of those things I was like this gross I don’t want to eat this stuff. You know, just imagine like a crab cake but not as good and it’s tuna instead. Okay, and it’s hot.
But I would have to sit there and eat that stuff. And if I did need it, I couldn’t leave the table. And if you didn’t eat everything on your plate you had you didn’t get dessert either, which doesn’t make any sense. Okay? Like, if you don’t finish all this plate and make yourself miserable, you don’t get more food afterwards.
So these ideas were drilled into my head that it didn’t matter how you felt, it didn’t matter if your body was like you’re full. Like your eyes and what was in front of you had to be devoured no matter what.
This is really, this is weird that we do this to kids. Don’t do this to your kids. If you want to, like help your kids now, don’t do this to them. Let them eat whatever they want. Who cares? You know they’re kids, they’ll figure it out like eat what feels good to you. Oh, you don’t want to eat much. You don’t want to eat the brussel sprouts. Fine. Don’t eat them. It’s fine.
But don’t make your kids eat everything because that is not teaching them good eating habits that’s like disordered eating in a way. Okay. So I was trained that I had to eat everything on my plate no matter what.
And mentally right now it’s really hard for me to leave food uneaten. Like my girlfriend, she’ll go out to dinner, or even eating dinner here, and when she’s done eating, she’s just done. And she’ll sit there and they’ll be like one bite left.
And I’m like, you’re not going to eat that? Oh my god, you’re driving me crazy. Just eat that last bite. I don’t want anymore. I’m done. I mean, I just got to this point where I was done, and then I’m done. I don’t have to keep eating and I’m like, how do you do that? I don’t understand how you do that. That’s not me. I gotta eat whatever is on my plate.
And a lot of times I’ll put too much on my plate but I got to eat it anyway. And so that’s one of those things where I had to really work on that and I’m better about that now. I can leave food. I’ve been better about that lately, especially as we go out to dinner. And you know, you get what they give you on the plate like I don’t have control over that.
And I’m good about like leaving some behind. Sometimes I don’t, sometimes I do. So, there’s this idea that you can’t trust your body to know what’s best for you, you because you’ve been conditioned to go by other rules, you know, you can only trust the conditioning that you’ve been exposed to, you know, and so, this is a, this is a big problem, you know, this is something that we have to undo this whole clean plate club, you got to be a member of the clean plate club.
No, you don’t. And a lot of this is just families, you know, bless my parents, you know, they were trying to try their best, they did their best, they had a bunch of kids, you know, I was always the problem child too.
And, you know, I have four siblings, and they would, I was always, always the one in trouble. I know, hard to imagine. But I was the one that would get what I thought was getting picked on all the time, but I was just, I was rebellious, you know.
But I have this conditioning, this family conditioning of overeating, really. And to this day, it still lingers here and there, sometimes it creeps it’s ugly head every now and then. But just understand that, you know, you got to start listening to your body. And when you’re feeling full, or even before you feel full, like when you feel like satiated, it’s time to stop, okay. So that’s number two, using your eyes instead of your body to know when it’s time to stop.
Number three, you believe that more is better. So if a little food is good for you, then more is great for you, right? This is the same issue that alcoholics and drug addicts have. So they think that, you know, if one drink makes you feel good, or if one hit or pill or whatever makes you feel good, then two or three drinks or 10 is going to be better, or 10 hits or pills or whatever is gonna make you feel better.
And so we think that since we’re eating a little bit of french fries, or a little bit of pizza is good for us, or it feels good, then eating the entire pizza is great. You know, we don’t want to, we don’t want to find it. And we don’t want this good feeling to end, we’re getting this dopamine response, we’re getting all these, you know, chemicals released, that feel really good.
And we don’t want that. And we want it to feel even better. So we think that eating more food, going back for more and more and more, is going to feel better and better and better. And again, this is conditioning. It’s not really genetics, we are not genetically predisposed to overeat, we’re not genetically predisposed to eat until we’re uncomfortable.
This is something that you have learned. Because you think if I stop eating halfway through this pizza, then this good feeling is going to end, it’s going to go away. And honestly, the only thing that happens is you start to feel really terrible. And then you feel really awful. And you and you do sort of hate yourself, you know.
And it’s one of those things where the behavior is so ingrained in us and again, these are just things that we’ve been conditioned to over the years we’ve trained ourselves to do these things. You’ve got to be able to unlearn this, we have to be able to learn better behaviors and start practicing eating to satiety, not to uncomfortableness, okay.
So we believe that more is better. And more is not always better, more is just more, and a lot of times more is worse. But it feels like more is better. Again, this is our brain sort of tricking us, okay.
Number four is this and I know that we have all thought this before, that I’ve already blown it for today so I might as well just keep going, right? So I ate the cupcake. You know, my kids wanted, you know, we take cupcakes to school. So I like made cupcakes, and I was just gonna get into the garage, but I had one.
And then I was like, you know what I’ve already blown it for today. So I’m just gonna go ahead and eat 10 more cupcakes and the entire pizza and all the ice cream in the house, right. And because I’ve already blown it for today, or, you know, I’ve already had like one piece of pizza, I might as well eat the entire pizza.
This is why so many diets fail because people don’t have any strategies in place to be able to deal with these occasional setbacks or fails or whatever you want to call them. And I believe that we have to build some of these exceptions into our plan.
So if you have a healthy eating food plan, there should be some exceptions in there every now and then it’s like, yeah, you can have a couple pieces of pizza, you can have the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. But you got to do these things in a very intentional and purposeful way. You got to do them mindfully.
You don’t want to do them because you’re reacting to how you’re feeling in the moment. You want to plan them ahead of time. One of the strategies that I work with all my clients on is planning, like plan ahead and then stick to the plan and plan ahead and stick with the plan. Don’t make decisions in the moment because we tend to not make good decisions in the moment.
Another rule that I think everybody needs to follow is, you never have two bad meals in a row or two cheat meals in a row. You can blow it with one meal, you can eat a cupcake, fine, okay, you blew it with that meal, you failed, great. Next meal, you’re back on track, that’s it.
Another way of looking at this is divide your day into four quarters, you might lose a quarter, but never lose the day. So if you blow it in quarter number three, and you had you know, some cupcakes or you had a piece of pizza, whatever, great, don’t blow the next quarter. Right, get back on track with the next meal. And that’s it. If you just kind of adhere to that right there.
This one can take care of itself pretty easily. But you have to be disciplined about that. And you can’t get into this attitude of like, well, I’ve blown it for today. I might as well just, you know, keep going. Or here’s another one I’ve heard people say is like I’ve already blown it for today, so I’m just gonna, like, make the next week a total eating binge fest, like, oh, I’ve gone one day, so I might as well go and blow the whole week.
Like don’t do that, but a lot of people do that. A lot of people do that. Right? Oh, you know, I was going great with my nutrition plan until work got really stressful. And then I had this one meal that was no good. And then that ruined everything. And now I’m back to eating garbage every single day. Like really, one meal can do that to you. It really can, it can set you back.
And then you think, you know, well look at me, I’m a failure, I can’t do this. So I might as well just go back to doing what I used to do. Just a piece of crap. And you know, you’re not, you’re not, you just made a bad decision, or, you know, you had a slip up whatever could get back on track with the next meal.
And again, I like to build in some of these, whatever you call it, cheat meals, you know, I like to call it the release valve. Like, we have this pent up craving sometimes for stuff and you know, talk about pizza, like just because that’s my thing. I love pizza.
And every now and then I gotta eat some pizza. Because that craving can get a little bit out of control sometimes. And every now and then I’m like, I’m just gonna go eat a couple of pieces of pizza. And then I’m fine. You know, I’ve had pizza twice this year. I know it’s crazy. And I just had some recently and it was so good. And I was like, This is so good. I’m glad I don’t do this all the time anymore. But it was so good to do it every now and then.
Okay, so don’t get into this attitude of a balloon offer today might as well just keep going or bonus for today. So might as well just blow the whole week, don’t do that. Get back on track with the next meal. Okay, that was number four.
Number five is this marketing and social pressures. So here’s the reality. The food companies do not care about your health, they don’t care about your well being, they want to make money. And the way they do that is they get you to eat more food, that is their goal.
They care about their bottom line. That’s it, it’s a business, and they’re making billions of dollars. And so they make this hyper palatable food that you keep going back for more and, and they know what they’re doing.
They spend billions of dollars on research and marketing to make sure that you crave the junk food, right, and then you keep eating it that you keep going back for more and more and more, even though, you know, it’s not good for you. They know it’s not good for you. They don’t care.
Okay, so if you think the food companies are putting stuff out there that is good for you, you’re wrong. They don’t care. It’s not good for you, they know what they’re doing. And they market this stuff to you. And they make you think that you have to eat this stuff.
Are you like some kind of weirdo? And our friends do this too. Our friends sort of like treat us like we’re weird if we’re eating, you know, good, healthy food, like we’re the weird ones. What? Really?
So there’s people in our lives, usually it’s the people that are closest to us who mean well, but they treat us like we’re in middle school. You know, they’re like, Oh, it’s okay, honey, just have one piece of pizza. It’s not going to kill you. You deserve it. You’ve been good all week. Have some fun. Live a little, let your hair down. Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.
Have you had anybody in your life that’s like this? Some people call them food pushers. And a lot of times they’re, they’re well meaning. They mean well, they’re trying to be positive and just say like, hey, have a little bit of fun. You deserve it. It’s okay.
You know, but what they’re doing is they’re putting pressure on you to do something you don’t want to do. And you don’t want to eat the junk food and they’re pressuring you into doing it and so a lot of times you do. You slipped back into it, you go back for more because they want you to, because that makes them feel good.
If you’re doing what they’re doing, and then they don’t feel so bad about themselves, because they’re like, oh, as long as you’re doing it with me, you know. But for those of us who have difficulty controlling how much we eat, saying no to certain foods, this is me totally.
You know, people in our lives that are like this are going to keep us going back for more. Doesn’t matter how much discipline we have, or how much willpower we’re using, we will keep going back for more because we’re feeling pressured by the people who are closest to us.
And again, they mean well, but we have to ignore that. And we have to stand up for ourselves in those situations. And listen, willpower, like discipline is great, willpower is a finite resource, though willpower diminishes as the day goes on, like you only have so much willpower, think of it as like a fuel tank.
And by the end of the day, that fuel tank is pretty low, you don’t have much willpower in the evening, you have a lot more in the morning, right. And then by the evening, it’s gone, right? It’s because it’s like, you’re tired, you just want to like chill out or whatever, like, your willpower is gone in the evenings.
And that’s when a lot of people, you know, go out with friends. And then that’s when the social pressures happen, and they want you to drink and then once you start drinking, you’re, you’re making even poor choices around food. And a lot of people blow it at night, like they do great all day long. And then they blow it at night because of this lack of willpower because the willpower kind of diminishes as the day goes on.
So I’m not saying you gotta avoid your friends, but just understand that, you know, you got food companies who are marketing food to us and putting pressure on us to kind of eat this food, we got friends and family who are kind of pressuring us to eat this food. It’s hard.
This is a hard one right to navigate around all this stuff. But I guess you just got to be okay, being the weirdo at the table, the one person who’s not partaking in the alcohol, the one person who’s not partaking in the junk food, and you got to be okay with that. It doesn’t feel good, it feels uncomfortable. But sometimes we got to just get used to being uncomfortable in those situations, it’ll get easier after a while.
Okay, so those are the five reasons why we typically keep going back for more, and then just understand that there are some things we can do about this. Like, I know, this feels daunting, it probably feels like oh my gosh, Patrick, like this sounds terrible. Like how am I supposed to overcome all this stuff, there’s all this pressure, there’s all these things, you know, working against me here.
The first step though, is just understanding that you have this self awareness about all of this. A lot of times is self awareness and understanding what’s happening within you and to you from the outside world.
Just having that self awareness is enough to keep you from going back for more for like slipping into those old patterns. Right. Another thing is, like I mentioned earlier, is having a plan, you gotta have a plan, make a plan, what’s your food situation? What are you eating tomorrow? What times are you eating? What are you eating, for lunch, dinner, whatever, make a plan, make it ahead of time and stick to the plan. Right? That’s it. Most people don’t do that. They just wing it every day.
If you want to change your habits around food, winging it, it’s probably what you’ve done your whole life. So don’t do that. You got to have a plan, and you got to stick to the plan.
And it’s like training yourself to practice good habits like new behaviors and behaviors, winging it is not how you do it, though. Because you’re never going to be able to like lose the weight, keep it off change eating patterns, if you’re winging it every day.
So make a plan, stick to the plan, make a plan, stick to the plan, right? Once I started doing this, I started, like seeing results consistently. Because the only way you’re gonna see consistent results is if you do something consistently, you got to stick to your plan consistently. And then you’ll get consistent results. And eventually you’ll get your goals.
Most people they just wing it every day, they get some results. And then they slide backwards. And then they get some of these backwards, they say why should I even bother? This is demotivating. Right?
Consistent results will keep you in the game. They’ll keep you motivated, keep you going forward. And eventually you’ll reach your goals, if you can stick with it long enough. There’s a big mindset shift though, right?
Because you’re you got to switch from being reactionary, like reactive to the world around you to being proactive and actively making a plan and sticking to it. That’s a very different way to do this, to go through life. Most people don’t do it, that’s why they fail.
So we got to switch from allowing the world around you to dictate your actions and behaviors to using your own mind, your own principles, your own goals, your own beliefs to guide your decisions and your actions and your behaviors.
Okay, so we don’t want to be driven by what’s going on out there but what’s going on inside by our own body, our own thoughts, beliefs, our own emotions, all of that, okay? So it takes time. It’s not something that’s gonna, you know, you’re gonna be, you’re gonna make a decision and you’re gonna say, Oh, I just want to change how I feel about food. And it’s going to happen overnight.
No, it takes some time. Alright, it’s, it feels daunting, but I promise you, there is hope you can do this. You got to give it some time, you got to embrace the discomfort of change, because that’s going to be ever present.
But if you can stick with it long enough, you will get the results that you want, I promise you and again, as always, if you’re looking for some help with any of this, we can talk about coaching, this is what I do. I help people navigate this stuff every single day. And we have fun doing it too by the way.
Just head over to runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. Click on that link. You can fill out a short little application, get on a call. We’ll talk about coaching and how it might help you. And if it seems like a good fit for you, great. If not, that’s cool, too. Okay, cool. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean. And I’ll talk to you soon.
No matter how hard we try to control all the circumstances of our lives, eventually, things get a little out of control. Your boss increases your workload, the kids are riddled with extracurricular …
Continue Reading about 196. What Not to Do When Life Gets Chaotic →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 196 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. And today, what not to do when life gets chaotic.
No matter how hard we try to control all the circumstances of our lives, eventually things get a little out of control. Your boss increases your workload, the kids are riddled with extra curricular activities, which means you’re riddled with extracurricular activities.
Aging family members require constant care. And you just start to feel overwhelmed with everything going on in your life. Stress and anxiety levels increase until you’re sitting at defcon 1 and you’re ready to explode.
How you handle yourself during these times of intense stress. It’s extremely important. Everyone’s good at stress management, when there’s no stress. But when life gets hectic and feels overwhelming, that’s when you need to double down on self care.
So today, I’m sharing some very helpful advice on what not to do when life gets chaotic and what you should do instead. But first, if you’re interested in getting started with all the stuff that I talked about here on the website, I put together a free training for you, that will put you on the right track, it’s called five simple steps to becoming a leaner stronger runner, you’ll learn how to lose weight the right way as a runner, and keep it off for good without running a million miles a week.
I have heard from a lot of people who have told me that they have been told that they should not try to lose weight while they’re training for something while they are actively running. And I just have to tell you, that is definitely not the case, there is a way you can do this and make it work to where you can still improve your running while you are losing weight.
The problem is most people try to lose weight by just cutting calories. That’s not really recommended. That’s not what I teach. That’s not what I do with my clients. So if you’re a runner and you want to improve your endurance, you want to improve your strength, you want to improve your speed as a runner and lose weight. You can do all of that. Okay?
Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training and check out that training. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner, check it out. Cool.
Okay, so today I’m talking about what not to do when life gets chaotic. So the reason I’m talking about this today is because I’ve had several clients come to me recently, and in our weekly calls, they’ve shared that they haven’t been really sticking with their diet, and they really haven’t been sticking with their exercise plan.
And when we start digging into it, like, Hey, what’s going on? They’re like, well, you know, things are crazy right now in my life. I’ve got all these projects to work, you know, I’m taking care of my, my elderly father, let’s say or the kids have all that stuff going on at school and then after school on the weekends and, and life is just really chaotic right now.
And the thing they do when they feel like life is chaotic, and they feel overwhelmed. The thing that a lot of people do is they feel like they need to take something off their table. Like they got to take something off of their plate here because it’s just there’s too much stuff going on.
And what a lot of people do is they take off things like exercise, or eating right because those things seem like they are things that you can put off to later that don’t seem as important. And I know you know where I’m going with this because when you do that it just makes you feel worse. It just makes the whole situation worse.
It’s in those times of super stress in our lives and when our lives get chaotic that we need consistency. We need consistency in our diet, we need consistency in our exercise, we need to be consistently practicing self care. Because when you do that when you take care of yourself, you are much better able to handle the stress that life is throwing at you.
But that’s not what we do. We say you know what I’m feeling really overwhelmed with life right now. So I’m not going to exercise. That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Because that exercise is the thing that helps you to relieve stress and helps you to keep stress levels low. So why then would you want to take that off the table when you’re in this place of high stress in your life?
So that’s what I’m going to encourage you not to do that don’t take exercising off the table, or, you know, healthy eating off the table when, you know, life starts to throw you some curveballs and things start to get a little chaotic in your life. Okay.
And the reason that you do this, the reason that your brain says let’s stop exercising now is because you’re just your brain is just trying to keep you safe and comfortable seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
So whenever we see that our life is getting stressed out, that appears to be something that is painful to our brain, right? That’s pain. We’re trying to avoid that and we’re seeking pleasure. Our brain is always seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, seeking comfort, avoiding discomfort, seeking the familiar, avoiding the unfamiliar.
So when all these unfamiliar, uncomfortable, painful events start happening in our life, we just want to go to that thing, or those things that make us feel good. And a lot of times it’s food, right, it’s like, I’m just going to eat a pint of ice cream by myself, and this large pizza here and sit on the couch and do nothing else. And that’s going to make me feel better.
And you know what, it kind of works for a minute like you do feel a little bit better, who doesn’t feel great eating pizza and ice cream sitting on the couch, it feels amazing.
Until later, when you feel terrible, because you didn’t work out. Because you didn’t get those endorphins that you get when you run, you didn’t get the good feel good hormones that you get when you exercise.
You have this food hangover, because you ate tons of sugar and gluten and you know, carbs and all this stuff. And then you know, now you’re faced with feeling terrible, feeling terrible about yourself, physically feeling terrible, and you still have all this stressful stuff happening in your life.
So you’re not armed to actually be able to handle that stuff. You’re much more likely to handle stress in your life, if you stick to your exercise plan, if you stick to your healthy eating plan. And I know this is the time where you’re like, oh, but it’s just so hard. I have so much other stuff going on. I get it, I totally get it. But it doesn’t help you to feel better. It just doesn’t work.
And so I just want to encourage you to not do that. Okay, when life gets chaotic, that’s when you need to be even more disciplined about your own self care. What are those things that you’re doing on a daily basis, that help you to manage stress that help you to feel better?
Don’t take your own healthy habits off the table when life gets chaotic. Okay? Make a plan. And make that plan every day. Make that plan in advance. And the reason we do that is because you’re much more likely to make a good plan if you make those decisions about what you’re doing ahead of time.
So I talked about the 24 hour plan a lot. Make that plan at least 24 hours in advance, know what you’re doing tomorrow. What does your exercise look like tomorrow? Are you working out? Are you hitting the gym? Are you lifting weights? Are you running? What does your food look like tomorrow? When are you eating your first meal? When are you eating your second meal? What are you eating in between? Are you waiting in between? What are you eating at those meals?
I plan all that ahead of time, when you plan ahead of time you make great decisions. Think about that. You’re sitting here, maybe listening to this and you’re thinking about what you’re going to do tomorrow, you probably can make a great list of foods and exercise that you could do.
But when tomorrow comes and things are crazy, and you’re a little stressed out about work and stuff, you’re just gonna go and grab whatever’s in front of you. Like that’s not when you make good decisions. You make good decisions when you decide ahead of time.
So make a plan, make that plan ahead of time and then stick to that plan, no matter how hectic life becomes. There’s an exception to this. And that means that when we have a plan, and we’re planning on sticking to that plan, and then something happens and we’re like, okay, I was going to work out but my boss told me I had to come to work early.
And now I’m going to be working all night and I won’t be able to work out. Okay, so you miss a workout. It’s no big deal. Do you know make a plan, get very detailed about your plan, make that plan ahead of time and then you know when life throws you some curveballs and things get a little bit hectic, a little bit chaotic.
You have to be able to go with the flow a little bit. Okay, but that should be the exception, not the rule. That should be just something that happens every now and then. Okay. And listen, I know what this is like because I’m going through this myself right now.
I live in this old building. It’s a beautiful old building right on the outskirts of downtown Cincinnati. It’s an old Piano Factory. And it was built in 1921. And back in the, they were making pianos here until like the 70s. And then like in the 80s, they turn this building into an office like an office, office complex, whatever.
And then about 10 years ago, a building management company took over the building and turned all these, this whole building into beautiful loft apartments. And it is beautiful, huge windows, 15 foot high ceilings. It’s a beautiful place to live.
But last week, somebody had a small little fire in their apartment down the hall from me, I live on the sixth floor. And somebody had a little kitchen fire. They were like frying chicken or something, right? They had a grease fire.
They didn’t know what to do when you have a grease fire. What are you supposed to do when you have a grease fire? I’ll tell you what not to do. Don’t throw water on it. But that’s what they did. They threw water on it and it made the fire worse. It set off the sprinkler system.
Okay, so there wasn’t really damage from the fire like the fire was minimal, very small, but it set off the sprinkler system in that one apartment down the hall. Well, apparently that sprinkler system has something like 1200 gallons of water that has to just it’s like a tank and so it has to run out. There’s no way to turn it off.
So the sprinklers went off, and they just flooded this floor there. And there’s water from this floor from the sixth floor all the way down to the basement. So there’s 52 units that were affected by this flood, including mine. So I’ve had them coming in here.
I’m recording in my home office right now. It is the first time I’ve been able to get in here in a while because they’ve had dehumidifiers in here, they ripped up the carpet today. They ripped up some of our hardwood floor. They’re doing a great job of cleaning up and they’re gonna be, you know, doing the rebuilding project here pretty soon, but it is a mess right now.
And my whole system is like, just disheveled right now. It’s very chaotic in my life right now. Okay. Everything’s cool. Like we’re getting through it. My girlfriend and I live together here, we both work from home. And so this is affecting us both, you know, but we’re working it out. And we’re making things work as best we can.
But I just have to tell you that things are chaotic right now. Okay. What I’m doing is I’m focusing on healthy eating every day, I’m focusing on workouts every day. There have been a couple of days where I haven’t been able to get my workout in. Today was one of them, they came in here. During the time that I had allotted to do my workout today.
They came in here and needed to be in here for several hours doing work. And I needed to kind of be here to kind of oversee things to make sure everything was cool. So I wasn’t able to get my workout in, which is fine. That’s what I’m talking about. Like, I had a plan. I’ve been working the plan pretty well, pretty much 90% of the time.
But today, it was one of those times where I just had to like stay home and I couldn’t get my workout in. Okay, but no big deal, right? I’m not too concerned about that. Because I know tomorrow, I’m back on track again, you know, and we need to have a plan.
We need to focus on our own self care during these times of crisis and chaos. But also we do need to be able to go with the flow. We’re not striving for perfection. Nobody does any of this stuff perfectly. I don’t do this perfectly. I don’t stick to my food plan 100% of the time, probably 90% of the time.
From a workout standpoint, I’m better about that probably 95% of the time, I really don’t miss many workouts. This is a pretty rare exception today. They’ve actually ripped up the carpet in my office here to where I record and so it’s like an echo chamber in here.
Because I don’t have that carpet. dampening the sounds of it sounds like I’m in a hall like a big hall or something. That’s why there’s a lot of reverb going on in here. But listen, you need to double down on yourself during these times of crisis when things get chaotic for you.
Okay, don’t take exercise off the table. Don’t take self care off the table. Don’t take healthy eating off the table. Stick with those things as best you can. You may not do it perfectly. That’s okay. Right. I’m not putting my health and my fitness on the backburner just because there’s been this crazy, you know, construction going on around here. Right?
So I don’t want you to do that either. So in those times when things get hectic and stressful, because that’s going to happen. This is what life is about: life is about how we deal with these situations when they come up. Because it’s going to happen, it’s inevitable. But I think what happens a lot of times is we wish this stuff wasn’t going on.
You know, we wish the apartment hadn’t flooded. We wish these people didn’t throw water on a grease fire, you know, we wish they didn’t have to rip up my carpet and hardwood floors and all this stuff. But it’s just the fact you know, and this is what we’re dealing with. And so we have to accept this as like, here’s our circumstances in life, and then do our best to take care of ourselves through this process. That’s it.
Because when you do that, you’re going to feel so much more confident and so better armed to be able to deal with the stress and chaos that’s going on in your life. Okay? Chaos is inevitable. Stress is inevitable. Crazy circumstances in your life are inevitable how you deal with it, that’s up to you. You can deal with it by diving into junk food, and eating your way through large pizzas and pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I have done that. I don’t recommend it.
The other way of dealing with this is to focus on exercise, focus on taking care of yourself, focus on healthy eating. And I promise you, you’re gonna get through this, you’re gonna get through this feeling way better about yourself, then had you gone that other route, okay? So don’t take self care off the table, focus, you know, make yourself the priority when things are crazy and chaotic. Okay.
And as always, if you’re looking for help with any of this stuff, we can talk about coaching, just head over to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. You can fill out a little application with just a couple questions. We’ll get on a Zoom call.
We’ll talk about coaching and I’ll give you all the details and see if this is a good fit for you. If it is, great. If it isn’t, no big deal. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
At some point in your weight loss journey, you will experience a setback. This is normal and nothing to be ashamed of. But most people just do not handle setbacks very well. They get down on …
Continue Reading about 176. Handling Setbacks Like a Badass →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 176 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, handling setbacks like a badass. At some point in your weight loss journey, you will experience a setback. This is normal, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but most people just do not handle setbacks very well.
They get down on themselves, they feel gross feelings like guilt and shame. And most of the time they just give up. Do not do this. Instead, you have to learn how to handle setbacks properly. So in this episode, I’m gonna break it all down for you and explain what to do instead. So you’ll be handling setbacks, like a badass every time they happen.
first, let me ask you something. Can you relate to any of this? Do you struggle to lose weight? Does running more no longer work for you? Are you ready to be done with all the yo-yo dieting? The yo-yo gaining and losing the same way over and over again? Do you want running to be easier again? Do you just want to know what to do and how to do it? And are you ready to get started on your weight loss journey?
If you answered yes to any of the previous statements, then I have just a thing for you. You can join me for a free live training and coaching session called How to start losing weight as a runner, this is going to be held on Wednesday, May 17. And it is going to be live over Zoom.
So you just got to get yourself signed up. Once you do that you’re in and I’ll be there live. And during this call, you’re going to learn why we gain weight, the real reasons why we gain weight and what you can do about it. Why running more is not the answer, the right fuel to use for weight loss and for running. You’re gonna learn nutrition principles to get you started.
So the whole purpose of this is to get you started on your weight loss journey the right way. Okay. And I’ll be answering your questions live. So be sure to show up, bring your questions. If you’ve been thinking about working with me as your coach, join me on this live training and coaching session that is a great opportunity for you to show up, ask questions and kind of get some live coaching from me.
So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself, then you owe it to yourself to attend this free live event. If I didn’t mention that it’s free, there’s nothing you just got to sign up, you know, so I know who’s coming and be able to send emails to you and things like that. So you’ve got nothing to lose except a few extra pounds and everything to gain.
To sign up, just go to runningleancoaching.com/live and you can sign up, right up until the date of the event. I would just encourage you to sign up a little bit sooner so that you can get the reminder emails and make sure you can and you get the links to the meeting and stuff like that. Okay, runningleancoaching.com/live. I hope to see you there. It’s gonna be fun.
Okay, on to this topic today handling setbacks, like a badass. I’ve been thinking about this topic and sharing this topic for a while with you guys. And I’ve had a couple of people experience some setbacks, lately, which is very normal. I want to make that very clear here that, you know, having a setback, you know, you’re going along fine.
Maybe you’re losing some weight, you’re sticking to your plan. And then something happens. Like that’s normal. But a lot of times we don’t, we don’t think it’s normal. And we think that it’s bad for some reason, and we get down on ourselves when this happens.
So a common scenario is you’re on your weight loss journey. You’ve changed your diet, you’re exercising regularly, maybe you join a gym, you’re sticking to the program, losing weight, feeling great, feeling motivated, committed, all of a sudden, though, something happens, something happens and it throws you off your plan.
So you’re no longer sticking with it. You stop eating healthy food, you stop going to the gym, you’re not running, you just want to sit around and watch Netflix all day. Maybe even start gaining some weight. And you just feel like guilt and shame and disgust and you’re disgusted with yourself and oh my gosh, this sounds terrible. Right?
And you might be thinking I’m being a little overly dramatic here. Or is this just a little glimpse into reality? Because I can describe this scenario so well, because I’ve lived it. I’ve been there. I’ve lived this over and over again. I’ve had many setbacks in a lot of different areas of my life. And I know how much it sucks. And I know how hard it is. And I also know that the traditional ways that people talk about this stuff isn’t super helpful.
So what I’m going to share with you today is a little bit of a different take on some of this. And you have to understand, the first thing you have to understand here is that, you know, setbacks are normal, and we should expect them and nobody’s going to get through life without having any kind of setback. So as soon as we start accepting that things are gonna get a little bit easier for you.
But you just have to know that it is part of the deal. It just is. All right. And I think that one of the big problems is that there are a lot of messages that we get from outside. A lot of external messages that we get that tell us that, like, it should be easy. That’s the first message I want to kind of address here that most experts and coaches out there who are talking about diet and nutrition, they will tell you, well, here’s what you do, stop eating sugar. And I say this all the time, too, right?
I tell people this all the time, stop eating sugar, stay away from processed food, stick to eating, you know, whole food, real food, right? This, this is something we can all agree that’s, that’s probably pretty beneficial for you and works for most people. And then if you know what to do, like, that’s all you need. And I think the underlying message there is that it’s so easy. All you need to know is what to do.
But I have to tell you something, it is never that easy. If it were that easy, no one would ever experience any kind of failure or setback, I wouldn’t have a job if it was that easy. If I could just tell you what to do, I would just do that. I would just tell you, here’s what you do, here’s the 10 things you’re going to do. And everything will work perfectly for you. It does not work that way.
This whole idea that it should be easy, it’s very misleading. Because people think that, you know, if you just tell people what to do, then they’ll just do it. And if people aren’t talking about the fact that you fail, and that there are setbacks, and that they’re expected. If people aren’t talking about that, then it just must be easy for everybody else, except for me.
So this is a real tricky little place to be because you might be thinking that you’re the only one that’s having a hard time with this. And then everybody else finds this to be easy. But for you it’s hard. Right? But I have to tell you this, it is hard. This stuff is not easy. Right? It is supposed to be hard.
And I know this not just from my own experience, because I have experienced many, many challenging times trying to stick with my weight loss plan my, you know, exercise plan, my overall mental health and fitness plan. And I know from years of experience working with literally hundreds of runners, that this stuff that we do, it is not easy. It is hard, it can be challenging. It can really suck sometimes.
Success is never a linear path. It’s always kind of wonky. And that’s okay. It’s okay. I talk about embracing the suck all the time. Like just lean into that discomfort, right? This means that it will be hard. It is not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be hard. And if you have it in your mind that it’s supposed to be easy, but for you it’s not, that’s going to feel terrible.
I was talking to a client recently who told me, you know, early on the process she was like super committed, ready to go. She was all in and you know, we talked about hey, you know at times this is going to be hard. You’ve got to be willing to, you know, embrace the suck times. It’s gonna be hard, expect to be hard.
She’s like, yeah, I got this. I know it’s gonna be hard. I’m ready for it, bring it on. And then after a month or two something happened with work. She kind of went off the plan. And getting back on track was really, really hard. She found it very, very hard to get back on the plane. And I remember being on a call with her and she said she was like experiencing all this guilt and shame and just couldn’t get her mojo back and, and it was really hard.
And I said, yeah, remember back when I said, this was going to be hard and you need to embrace the suck? Well, this is what I’m talking about. This is what hard feels like she was like, oh, wow, that’s cool. Like, it just clicked for her. That like, for some reason, even though going into it, intellectually, she knew, oh, this is supposed to be hard, it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be hard.
But then when you’re actually in it, and it gets hard, and you’re like, oh, it shouldn’t be this way. It should be easy. It’s not easy. And this is what hard feels like. So stop thinking it’s supposed to be easy. It’s not. And it’s not just you, it gets hard for everybody at some point. Expect it to be hard, because it will be.
And then when it does get hard, and it’s like, oh, this is very challenging right now, you can gently remind yourself, oh, yeah, this is what hard feels like. So that first message that I think we get from a lot of people out there, a lot on social media, other coaches, nutrition experts, dieticians, whatever. There’s this underlying sort of presupposition that it should be easy, and it’s not easy. It is hard. Okay. So first accept that.
The second thing is that we just shouldn’t have setbacks like we should, you should just do it perfectly. This is a message that I think we get from the outside world at times, but more often, internally. That you should be able to do this perfectly, and you should never fail. And that was always me. This internal dialogue always tells me that I am different. I don’t fail, I do things perfectly. And I shouldn’t have failures. I shouldn’t have setbacks.
This is a problem. Because here’s why. When you do experience a setback, and you will, you feel like you shouldn’t be experiencing that setback. And this is something that I call fighting against what is. You are fighting against the way things are. You are so keen on being perfect, that when things go awry, and they always do – you think well, it shouldn’t be this way. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.
But this causes a lot of suffering. This thing of where you’re like this, things should be different. As soon as you start thinking things should be different, you start suffering. That’s it. Most human suffering is due to this to us wanting things to be different, but they aren’t. Most human suffering is just us fighting against what is. And we do it all the freaking time.
When we refuse to accept that things are the way they are. When we refuse to accept the way things are we suffer, we experience inner turmoil that doesn’t change the way things are. We just experienced all kinds of inner suffering. So the way through this is to learn what I call radical acceptance. That means accepting the way things are. Accepting reality, just as it is. No judgments, no criticisms, no thinking and wishing things were different.
Practicing radical acceptance in every aspect of your life, if you do this, you will stop your own internal suffering. Everything will still be the way it is. But your inner turmoil disappears because you’re accepting of the way things are. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. You’ll know that things are the way they’re supposed to be because that’s the way they are.
It’s funny because we will do something, we will experience something and look back on it and go well, that shouldn’t have gone that way. And I always say well, you know, it was supposed to go that way because that’s the way it happened. That’s the way it happened. It was supposed to be that way because that’s the way it happened. As soon as you just accept all of this, everything gets easier. You’re no longer fighting against everything. So practice radical acceptance.
This does not mean you don’t work to improve things, or change or learn from your mistakes. Of course not. We always want to be learning and growing and evolving and becoming more, you can still accept everything just as it is and work to change. This is a very, very, very key distinction here.
Accepting the way things are does not mean that we are passive, that does not mean that we accept, well, I’m just going to like, gain two pounds a week for the rest of my life until I blow up and die. Like, no, it doesn’t have to be that way.
You can work to change, while accepting the way things are. This kind of a radical concept, right? Most people do not do this. And most people suffer through everything in their life. Setbacks are to be expected. As soon as you accept this fact, it’s going to make a big difference for you.
And I think the third message we get around experiencing setbacks is that see, we often get emotional about this stuff. And there’s this underlying message out there, that we shouldn’t get emotional. That we just shouldn’t be emotional people, especially guys.
This is a sneaky one, because it’s not something that’s often you know, actually said out loud. But I think there’s an underlying vibe that we just shouldn’t be emotional, shouldn’t show our feelings, shouldn’t feel our feelings, just get over it and move on. And especially in the health and fitness community, there’s a lot of, you know, macho bravado out there.
And I think there’s a place for that. And I kind of like some of that at times. But other times I’m like, you know, it’s okay, that as men, especially, that we can just, we do have feelings, we do have emotions, and it’s okay to experience that stuff. It’s okay to have those emotions and feelings.
Listen, we are human beings. Every human being has emotions, we are emotional animals. It’s what makes us awesome, what makes us human. There’s no other animals on the planet that experience the vast array of in depth emotions that we do.
There are animals that experience emotions, they’ve shown this before, but not the way that we do. It’s not to the extent that we do. So having emotions is normal. It’s a part of being human. So that’s cool. Being emotional, having emotions is not the problem. We get into trouble when we allow our emotions to dictate our behavior. That’s when we run into problems.
So, for example, you experience some kind of setback, like you have a big change at work, and you got all this new work to do. And maybe they let a couple people go, you’ve got to take over their responsibilities. It’s a lot of work that you have to do now, a lot of internal stress. So your goal now becomes just I gotta get rid of this stress as fast as possible. So how do you do that?
Well, how have you always gotten rid of stress? Eat, drink, binge watch your favorite shows on Netflix, sleep in, skip your workouts, do whatever feels good. Because that’s going to make you feel better, right? That’s going to remove the stress right now.
It doesn’t work and we know that, but we have the setbacks and then we allow the emotions of that experience to drive our behavior. When you allow this to happen, you are no longer in control. Your emotions have taken the wheel and they are driving the bus. Okay? We cannot allow our emotions to be in charge. We cannot allow our emotions to dictate our behavior. And this will also happen when we experience a setback and then we beat ourselves up about it. ‘I’m worthless. I can’t stick to my plan. I’m a failure. I suck at this. I’ll never lose weight. I’m ashamed of myself. I’m a piece of crap.’
This is like self flagellation, right? And it sends you spiraling downward into the abyss of negative emotions. And again, how do you mitigate that? Will you turn to food and drink and Netflix and whatever to suit yourself and feel better. Even though you know, this is not a long term solution, you’re chasing immediate pleasure in the midst of pain because it just feels good. You just want to feel good.
And you end up sacrificing your long term goals for a little bit of short term pleasure. So the big problem here isn’t being emotional. The big problem isn’t having emotions, that’s normal. We’re human, we should have emotions, we should experience our emotions. The problem is when we allow our emotions to drive our behavior.
So you have to allow yourself to experience those emotions without trying to make them go away. You have to allow yourself to be emotional and experience an emotion. Process that emotion, feel your feelings, allow the emotions to move through you, without doing anything, to numb yourself or to, to feel different; just feel bad.
That is a crazy concept right there. Most people do not want to feel bad. People do not want to do this because it does feel terrible. It’s supposed to feel terrible, though they are negative emotions by default. They are negative feelings. It feels negative, it feels terrible. But what if you just could experience these emotions and not do anything about it? Ah, this is how you become an emotional badass right here.
Oh, I’m willing to experience that emotion. I’m willing to experience some guilt, or shame or feeling like crap. I’m willing to experience all that stuff. If you get good at that, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. So feel the emotion, allow it to be there, do nothing. Don’t try to numb it. Don’t try to make it go away. Just feel it, it will eventually fade and go away.
Think about the times you’ve been in emotional distress. And you’ve just felt so terrible. You can look back on those moments and say like, oh, yeah, that was like, a few hours, a few minutes a day, whatever. Depends on the type of emotion we’re talking about here and the intensity of it right? Most of the time, though, it always passes, it eventually goes away. You can choose to just experience it and feel it and process it. Or you can just numb yourself to that stuff. Don’t do that though.
Become an emotional badass. Instead practice this. This is something you do have to practice. It is not easy. It’s not for the timid. Okay, so, setbacks, they are inevitable. They are part of the process of growth and change and evolving and becoming more. Handling setbacks like a badass means knowing that your journey will be hard. And you keep continuing on anyway, you just keep going anyway.
It means accepting that everything that happens is as it should be. And then you can work to change when necessary, but accepting everything as is because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And then allowing your emotions to be there without trying to numb them or push them away. And without letting them drive your behavior. This is how you handle setbacks, like a total badass.
If you want to learn more about getting started on your weight loss journey, join me for that free live training and coaching session called How To Start Losing Weight As A Runner on Wednesday, May 17. I’ll be going live to show you how to get started on your weight loss journey the right way. I’ll be answering your questions live. So be sure to show up. Bring your questions and get a little coaching, cool. Go to runningleancoaching.com/live to sign up. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called Running Lean For Life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
