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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Running Mindset

41. Live Vibrantly

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If you ask most people how they feel about their life, they’ll probably tell you their life is pretty dull, pretty ordinary, maybe even dreary. Today, I'm here to tell you that this is NOT how you …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there and welcome to episode 41 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. If you ask most people how they feel about their life, they’ll probably tell you that their life is pretty dull, pretty ordinary, maybe even a little boring or dreary. Today, I’m here to tell you that this is not how you are supposed to live your life.

We have one very short life here on this planet. Do you really want to settle for a life that can only be described as dull and ordinary and dreary? Because here’s the thing, you get to choose. You can choose to live a dull and dreary life. Or you can choose to live a big, bold, beautiful, vibrant life. In this episode, I’m talking about choosing to live vibrantly, and why it’s such a powerful principle to live by.

But first, if you like this podcast, please come and check us out on Facebook. The Running Lean community is a positive, energetic and fun group of like minded runners. And it kind of goes hand in hand with this podcast. I do weekly live coaching in that group on a whole bunch of different topics, you know, focus around the same kinds of things we talk about here on the podcast, but it’s a chance for you to ask questions and get support of a very large, thriving growing group of runners just like you.

So just head over to Facebook, search for Running Lean community and join us over there. And then listen becoming a fat-adapted runner, breaking old habits, creating new ones, developing the mindset to make all of this stuff permanent in your life can be challenging to do on your own. That’s why I offer one-on-one coaching.

I’ll help you figure out the right nutrition plan that will get you to your goals because everybody’s different. You’ll have me holding you accountable and keeping you on track and always moving in the direction of your goals will help you to do things that you don’t want to do so that you can be the person that you ultimately want to be most importantly you’ll develop the mindset that you need to make these changes for life.

Here’s a comment from one of my coaching clients Hannah and she says, “I did another virtual half marathon today fasted again. My co-runners are really surprised that I don’t need any gel or goo and I am fine. I see no difference in my pace and energy. In fact, I had two strong finishes recently. I didn’t feel like I was tired or exhausted. Patrick, I’m still carrying lessons that I learned from you. Really gives me this jumpstart I needed to change my eating habits. My weight has been stable for six plus weeks. So glad I found this page and eventually you.”

Yes Hannah, changing your eating habits will definitely give you more energy and stronger finishes. If you’re ready to stop screwing around with your weight if you’re ready to change your eating habits if you’re ready to start living vibrantly, then apply for a one-on-one coaching with me just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, one word. Do it now, I promise you it will change your life.

Okay, so several months ago, I sat down and wrote out the Running Lean Manifesto. This is just a list of the things that I wanted to live my life by a set of principles, the things that I stood for the things that are important to me. And now I’m sharing this with you guys because I think this is a great framework for living an amazing life healthy in mind and body.

And I’m calling this the Running Lean Manifesto. What is the manifesto? Well, it’s just a set of guiding principles or values and it’s like your North Star, something that you can always do that is always keeping you on track.

Why do we need a manifesto? Well a manifesto provides a blueprint to live by. Okay, it helps us to stay on track and always moving towards our goals. It’s easy to see where we are so you can say, “Am I living up to these principles yes or no?” Following these principles helps to give our lives purpose. And I believe we should all have some sort of manifesto to live by.

So here’s what the Running Lean manifesto is. Number one, eat real food. Number two, live vibrantly. Number three, thrive in your body. Number four, embrace discomfort. Number five, run because you love it. Number six, love yourself unconditionally. Number seven, think, feel and act with purpose. And then number eight, be an example of what’s possible.

So over the next several podcast episodes, I’m going to be talking about each one of these separately. And remember, these are the guiding principles for what I do. And they are the guiding principles of the Running Lean community. So these can be your guiding principles too, it’s totally fine. They are our guiding principles. Okay, so these are the principles that drive us forward together.

It’s the blueprint we can all use to become the best version of ourselves. Okay, so today I’m talking about the second principle, which is to live vibrantly. And what does that mean? And what kind of an impact can living vibrantly have on your life?

Well, first, let’s look at the definition of vibrant, what does that mean? Vibrant or living vibrantly means the word vibrant means full of energy and enthusiasm. Pulsating with life. Vivid, bright, striking, strong. That all sounds pretty amazing, right? The opposite of vibrant is spiritless, listless, dull.

So when I talk about living vibrantly, it means living a vivid life full of energy and enthusiasm. Not a dull, spiritless, listless life. Okay. We all squared away with that part? So are you doing it? You say, yes, I want to live a vibrant life. But are you actually doing it?

On the surface, you’d probably agree that you don’t want a dull spiritless life. But how are you living your life? Really ask yourself that question. Go inside, what’s the answer? I think way too often, we stay stuck in our own little cocoon, our little safe, comfort zone, safe from all the scary, hard things that are out there in the world.

For example, when I started coaching entrepreneurs, so I started my coaching career as a life and success coach for entrepreneurs. And that work was fine. It was safe. But I was feeling like it was kind of dull and listless. You know, looking back on it, like it wasn’t really challenging me.

And I wasn’t really passionate about this work that I was doing. You know, I was an entrepreneur and I had some success as an entrepreneur. I was helping some people but it was like, it’s okay.

At some point, though, I decided I want to work with people I connect to at a deep level. I want to work with people who are passionate about running the way that I’m passionate about running. The kind of weirdos you know, that are like, yeah, and you know, you know who you are, the ones that are like, want to go run 20 miles on a Saturday morning.

I want to connect with those people. Because I get that, I get that mindset. I wanted to work with runners on helping them to develop that mindset, and then their nutrition and help them solve the weight problem. And this felt really scary to me. I had to put myself out there.

This topic of like helping runners lose weight, especially when I talk about hey, you know, let’s get off the carbs. And there’s another way of doing this. It’s kind of controversial, right? Not everyone agrees with me. And that’s okay. I don’t need everybody to agree with me. It’s okay that you’re wrong about me.

But here’s the thing, I could stay safe and work with my little entrepreneurs over here and make some good money and have a nice little biz. Or I could go and do something that I was really passionate about, but I was like going into uncharted 10 Atari it was. It was scary though, there were a lot of unknowns. And it felt bigger than me. But that’s what I wanted. I wanted something that was bigger than me.

I love, love, love this quote from John Shedd. And if you’re if you’ve ever been to Chicago, you know, there’s the Shedd Aquarium up in Chicago. And so he had this quote, he said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for.”

Oh my gosh, that’s so good. A ship and harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for. So for me, I was not built to stay small and safe, and sit here on this shore. Doing my little entrepreneur thing over here, I was built for something bigger, something that lights me up, I was built for life so big and bright and vivid, that I blow my own mind every day.

Because the alternative to that is a comfortable life, but a very small life. It’s not what I wanted for myself. I’m not going to dull and dampen my experiences just for the sake of comfort and safety. I had to make that decision. I did that. For most of my life. I stayed small, you know, I stayed comfortable for a lot of my life.

And it got me sick and fat. I had diseases, I was you know, very unhealthy in a lot of ways. And my life was very, very small. When I gave up drinking, my life became bigger. When I gave up, you know, eating junk food. My life became bigger. My life is so big now, because I choose to live vibrantly every day.

Now, this does not mean that every day is always rainbows, rainbows and unicorn farts, okay, because it is not. Stuff gets hard sometimes. So how do you live a vibrant life, when everything is like crashing down all around you? And I get that sentiment I really do. It can feel like your life is falling apart sometimes.

But honestly, that’s just a thought in your head. That’s a thought that you are choosing to think my life is falling apart. It’s just a thought you’re choosing to think here’s the thing. Life is not supposed to be great all the time. We’re not supposed to be happy all the time. We’re just not.

If you expect yourself to be happy all the time. Or if your goal is to try to be happy all of the time, you will be gravely disappointed about half the time. Life is 50/50. 50% of the time it’s pretty good, 50% of the time, it’s not. And it’s okay. The goal is not to be happy all the time.

The goal is to have this life that’s 50/50 and be okay with all of it. You know, at the beginning of this year, I was going through a divorce, I was living alone. I had started two jobs and then lost them due to the pandemic I was delivering for Uber Eats just so I could pay my rent and make ends meet.

And I could have decided at that point that life was unfair. Everything’s crashing down around me. I’m just going into survival mode here. Go back to the shore. Stay safe. Have this safe, comfortable, dull, listless life. Or I could choose to live vibrantly. I wanted more.

I wanted to create a life so big and bold and beautiful and vibrant, that I would wake up every day and I would blow my own mind. So I worked on my business during the day, I recorded podcasts, and I was coaching people. And then at night, I was out delivering food.

You know, this was really hard for a while. It felt like I was starting over. You know, like I was in my early 20s you know, just starting out on my own again. It was really a very, it was a hard time for me. I kind of felt like a loser at times.

But I had to decide that I wanted something more. I had to decide that I wanted a life that was big and bold and vibrant. And how am I going to create that for myself? How can I live that way? Despite the fact that things around me do not seem awesome?

And the answer is, life is 50/50, we have to experience all of it. And we just have to accept all of it. And that’s the key right there is that you have to be willing to experience the good and the bad. You have to be willing to experience all the good stuff that comes your way. And all the challenging stuff that comes your way. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything.

You know, it doesn’t mean you have to like suffer. But you do have to learn how to experience the whole breadth of experiences and emotions that we all feel as humans, it’s all part of the human experience.

So I wasn’t trying to dull my experiences, I was willing to experience everything that life had to offer all the good, the bad, the terrible, the discomfort; the not knowing if any of this stuff was going to work. And I faced it all head on. I took on all those things with courage and determination as best I could.

I was determined to create a life that was pulsating with energy. That whole 50/50 thing life is, you know, half good half not so good. You have to accept this as truth. You have to, you have to accept everything. You can’t reject the bad stuff. You can’t reject the hard stuff. You can’t resist the uncomfortable stuff. Because that’s when you have that small, safe, dull life.

So be willing to feel that, be willing to experience the entire range of human emotions. You know, without sadness, we wouldn’t know what it feels like to be happy. Without anger and frustration, we wouldn’t know what peace feels like. Without hurt, we wouldn’t know relief. Without chaos, we wouldn’t experience calm.

If running a marathon was easy and pain free, do you think it would feel the same crossing that finish line? Do you think it would feel as amazing to cross that finish line if running a marathon was easy? No. It’s because of the struggle. It’s because of the fear and the pain and the suffering through the training that when you cross that finish line, it feels overwhelmingly joyful.

If you’ve ever run a marathon, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Or maybe it’s a 10k or a 5k or whatever that is for you. This is one of the reasons I love running so much. It’s not because it’s easy. It’s because it is hard. Because I’m willing to go out there and challenge myself and push myself and experience all of it. I’m willing to leave that safe harbor, so I can create a life that is buzzing with energy and enthusiasm.

This is what it means to live vibrantly. What would it look like for you to live vibrantly? Be honest with yourself. Are you living vibrantly right now? Or are you playing it safe? Do you have big goals and dreams for yourself? If yes, are you moving toward them? Are you taking action every day? Do you have a plan?

You know, one of the most powerful things about coaching is that working with me we create a plan for your big goals and your dreams. And then we work the plan. We take action and we move toward them every day. The power of coaching is having someone there to guide you, to hold you accountable to keep you focused to keep you on track to keep you motivated.

Now if you don’t have big goals and dreams, why the heck don’t you? Why wouldn’t you want a big, beautiful, bold, vibrant life for yourself? Seriously, ask yourself why you don’t want that. What kind of life do you want for yourself? The kind of life where you push yourself out of your comfort zone? Do more, be more, become the most amazing version of yourself yet? Or do you want the kind of life where you stay at home and stay safe and sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix all day? Because you get to decide.

Do you want the kind of life where you’re still carrying around that extra 40 pounds from now until the day you die? Do you want to constantly be struggling with your weight and your self image? Do you want to keep hating how your clothes fit or hating how you look in the mirror, or hating how you feel about yourself, or do you want something else?

Do you want something bigger? Do you want something more vibrant? Because it’s just a choice. And when you make that decision, like when you really decide when you go all in on living vibrantly, there is nothing that will stop you from getting there.

So my call to action for you is to make a decision to choose to live vibrantly, starting right now, what can you do right now, that would light you up. Now it doesn’t have to be like, oh, go jump out of an airplane or climb a mountain or, you know, this is not what I’m talking about.

You know, for me, it’s doing this right here. It’s recording this podcast. It’s teaching these principles to you. It’s encouraging you to live an amazing life. It’s motivating you to get out there and do something bigger than what you have now become more than who you are right now.

Doing this lights me up about what I do. And here’s a little secret for you guys. This is not easy. It’s still not easy for me to come on here and talk about these things. It’s uncomfortable. But I make the decision to show up every day with courage and determination. And because of that my life is pretty amazing. It’s pretty vibrant. Because I choose it.

I choose to live vibrantly every single day. I want my life to be pulsating with energy and enthusiasm. That just sounds so good to me. I want my life to be vivid, bright and meaningful. So what does it look like for you to live vibrantly? Maybe you have a big dream to get incredibly healthy, get back to your natural weight.

Maybe you want to run a 10k or a half marathon or a full marathon or maybe an ultra marathon. Maybe you want to run 10 miles a day for 100 straight days, like Andy in the Facebook group. This guy is a beast. He’s running 10 miles a day for 100 straight days. What if you just wanted to walk for 30 minutes a day for 100 days?

Maybe you want to start a business or get a new job or find your soulmate. Or maybe you want to quit eating sugar or maybe you need to cut back on your drinking. Doesn’t matter what it is, it matters that you choose to begin that you choose to live vibrantly.

Decide that you are not a ship that was built for safe harbors, and go out there and face the unknown. Face those turbulent waters with courage and determination and see what amazing, vibrant life you can create for yourself. All right, I’ll be diving into the other principles that I mentioned at the beginning from the Running Lean manifesto in upcoming episodes.

I’m so excited to be sharing this stuff with you guys. It’s super fun. And we continue this conversation over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So just come by and check us out. Challenge yourself to live vibrantly, to get healthier, to lose weight, to become a better runner, to become the best damn version of yourself yet. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

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

39. Learning to Love the Process

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

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Podcast Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

38. Stop Arguing for Your Limitations

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There are basically two ways to approach any challenge. One way is to focus on all the reasons why you can’t do it. The other way is to focus on all the reasons why you can. I find it …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 38 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m going to be talking about why we need to stop arguing for our limitations. There are basically two ways to approach any challenge. One way that some people do it is to focus on all the reasons why you can’t do it. The other way is to focus on all the reasons why you can.

And I find it interesting that so many people choose option one, when they’re facing something challenging in their life. They spend a lot of time and a lot of energy focusing on all the reasons why they can’t do it. So today, I want to talk about why we do this, why we argue for our limitations, and how this kind of thinking is just keeping us stuck. And I do offer some suggestions on what we can do instead.

But first, if you like this podcast, please come check us out on Facebook, though – Running Lean community on Facebook, you can just search for those words, and you’ll find us. This is a positive, energetic, informative, fun group of like-minded runners just like you that share common goals like losing weight, living a vibrant life, becoming super healthy, running, making running easier.

I host a weekly live trainings in there on things like intermittent fasting, which we’re focusing on this month. Running, nutrition, weight loss, exercise, physiology, all kinds of stuff. Here’s a recent comment from one of our community members, Amy.

Amy says, “I ran a virtual 10k this morning, although it was hot and steamy, I felt great. I didn’t have to eat anything before the run, or even feel like I needed anything to fuel with but water. Thank you, Patrick and the rest of the group for the motivation and helping me change my mindset and my body these last eight weeks.”

That is awesome. Thank you, Amy. Amy’s a great example of the kind of positive, motivated people we have over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. And this month, we’ve got this intermittent fasting challenge going on right now. Intermittent Fasting is just practicing some periods of the day where you just don’t eat anything.

You can call it time restricted eating or meal spacing. But basically, you know, we talk about how to do it safely, how to incorporate this into your running, why we would want to incorporate this into our running. There’s a lot of amazing health benefits, by the way. So just check us out, come and see what it’s all about the Running Lean community on Facebook, and figuring out all this stuff.

How do we do time restricted eating? How do I lose weight and continue running? How do I make running stronger? How do I become a fat adapted runner? All these things take some time to figure out. They take awareness, they take knowledge and they take some support, so that you can create this kind of lasting change in your life.

Listen, this is not about a diet, diets are temporary, right? What I help people do, through my coaching practice, is help people create new habits. And it takes about 90 days to create a new habit. So most of the coaching I do with people is a three month or 90 Day Program. And what you get with that is the knowledge, awareness and support that you need.

So that you can accomplish those goals so that you can create the habits that you need to change your lifestyle to change your relationship with the we’re all different. We all have different dietary needs, what works for one person may not work for somebody else. You know, if one thing worked for everybody, I could just create a PDF and give it to all you guys and be like here just do this, but it doesn’t work that way you need to figure out what works for you.

So together you and I will figure out exactly what will work for you. It takes a little bit of trial and error, but eventually we get it right. I want you to make big changes in your life. I want you to get off of the carbohydrate addiction, I want you to reap all the amazing benefits of becoming a fat adapted runner.

If you’re interested in this, cool, check it out, just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, that’s one word, and apply for coaching with me, we’ll get on the phone, we’ll have a little conversation, we’ll get on a Zoom call. And we’ll have a quick little conversation and see if this is a good fit for both of us. Cool.

Alright, let’s get into this topic today. So the topic today is, I titled this stop arguing for your limitations. And I have to tell you a little warning before we get started here that I’m doling out a little tough love today. I think this is an important message for all of us to hear. And listen, I need to hear this too. I’m not exempt from this message either.

So part of me talking about this is to remind myself that I need to stop arguing for my limitations too, because I do it sometimes, too. But I’m hoping this message resonates with you. I wrote a short post about this earlier in the week, and shared it on social media, and I think it touched a nerve for a few people.

And so I thought you know, I think I need to do a little deeper dive into this. Because a few people said, you know, oh, that was tough to hear, but I needed to hear it. So I’m hoping this resonates with you guys. So here’s what I’m seeing, I hear you guys tell me things like I want to do something big. I want I want to accomplish this big goal, I have this, this big dream or goal, you know, I want to lose 50 pounds, I’ve struggled for so long with this weight, I really want to lose this weight, or I want to run a full marathon, I really want to do that.

And so, you know, you say you’re all in, you want this with every bit of your soul, you’re like, I’m so focused on this goal, I’m gonna do it. You might have a plan, you start working the plan. But then you know, stuff starts to happen. Maybe you wake up in the morning, and then the weather’s not awesome, it’s raining outside, and you’re just like, I don’t really don’t feel like running today.

Or maybe you just get tired or maybe stuff like your job is stressing you out. You know, your kids are driving you crazy. Or the one that I love, you know, well COVID hit and so you know what that means as if like it was some hurricane that you know, knocked your house down or something.

But here’s what’s happening, we have all these external things that happen in our life. You know, we get an extra workload at work, you know, our boss is demanding more of us or, you know, the kids are being, they’re doing school from home, they’re doing like remote schooling, or the husband doesn’t help as much as he should be, according to you.

And you have all these external things happening. And instead of just forging on, you use these external things, as an excuse to give up to quit, you use these excuses to give up on these big goals and dreams that you said you are all in on. You wanted more than anything else. And you just use his excuse to quit.

You know, you say, I can’t focus on my health because you know, my kids are our home and they’re doing school from home now. So there’s no longer I can’t focus on my health anymore. What, really? Or I was doing fine, not eating sugar and carbs. But then I had this really stressful day at work. And, you know, my boss gave me a bunch of extra work. So I needed to eat a whole pizza and a half gallon of ice cream at one sitting.

If you’ve done that before, it’s fine. You’re normal. I’ve done that before. Or you’re just like, you know, this is just hard. It’s really hard. Training for a marathon is hard. Or losing weight is hard. So I just, that’s why I can’t do it. By the way, all this stuff I’m talking about here, this stuff is just life.

Stuff happens all the time. Life’s not supposed to be some carefree, happy existence. You know, flowers, daisies, unicorns, rainbows, it’s not like that. It’s more like 50/50 – half the time you feel pretty good. Half the time you feel not so good. That’s okay. You can either just accept this fact, or you can just fight against it with everything you’ve got.

And when you accept it, when you accept that you won’t feel happy all the time. Honestly, there’s a lot of freedom in that. What happens is we get ourselves into trouble when we have this belief. And we hold on to this belief very tightly that we have to feel happy all the time.

And I got news for you, that’s just never going to happen. This is you fighting against reality. And I see it all the time. I see it every single day. Well, I just want to feel better. Guess what, you’re not always going to feel good. And that’s okay. The inner turmoil that you feel is mostly caused by resisting these negative emotions, quote, unquote, negative emotions, unwanted emotions, like stress, like anger, like fear, like sadness.

All these emotions, we feel are just part of the human experience. We’re humans, we get to feel all kinds of amazing emotions, some of them are pretty amazing. Some of them feel so good. And some of them not so much. But to be human means we feel all these emotions. And we have to accept this fact, we will feel some positive and some negative emotion, some wanted emotions and some unwanted emotions, and it’s all good.

Life is 50/50 – be willing to accept all of it. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to agree with it. You don’t have to accept it and say, well, that’s just the way it is. I can’t do anything about it. No. It’s like I tell my weight loss clients all the time, I’m like, you have to love yourself exactly as you are right now. Look in the mirror and love yourself exactly as you are every bit of your body.

You can’t hate yourself and expect to lose weight, I always say can’t hate yourself thin, you got to love yourself exactly as you are. And you can work to change that. But you have to accept what is. It’s when we resist what is when we resist and reject that half of our existence that we quote unquote, don’t like or, you know, don’t think is normal.

That’s what causes us the internal pain and the agony, we resist and reject any kind of unwanted emotion. Okay, that was a little a little tangent, I went off on there. But I just need you to understand that there are external circumstances that are going to happen in our lives. And those things are neither good nor bad, really, I’ll talk about that more in just a second.

But understand that you may feel some stress, you may feel some anger, you may feel some fear. And it’s okay. Don’t push it away. Don’t push it away, just accept it all. I love this quote from Henry Ford. He said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” This is perfect for what I’m talking about here today.

So like I said, at the beginning, there are basically two ways we can approach a challenge. So we have something challenging in our life, we want to lose a bunch of weight, we want to run a marathon, we can focus on why we can’t do it. Or we can focus on why we can do it. Let’s talk about these.

When you focus on why you can’t do something, here’s what happens. You find all sorts of excuses, all sorts of reasons you have stories you want to tell me about why this isn’t going to work for you want to lose weight, but stuff happened at work, you know, my husband doesn’t help as much as he should. The kids are screaming in the background.

And in your mind, these are all valid excuses. They are valid reasons why you can’t do this thing. Why you can’t stay on your protocol, why you can’t train for your marathon. But let’s look at this. Let’s look at how this works. Because here’s the thing, these are all just stories that you’re telling yourself. These are all just stories, you’re believing you’re choosing them, and you’re choosing to believe them.

So let’s look at how this works. You got stuff happening at work, the husband’s not helping the kids are demanding stuff from you. These are what we call circumstances. Circumstances in our lives are always neutral. The circumstances in our lives are facts. They don’t hold any meaning on their own. They only mean something after we have a thought about the circumstances. Okay.

Neutral circumstances are true for everyone. They’re just facts, facts that can be upheld in a court of law, let’s say. So, the kids have to attend school from home, that is a fact. My workload has increased at work, tat is a fact. These are just facts. Everyone would say, yeah, that is true.

None of this means anything, until you have thought about it, until you choose a meaning that you want to assign to this particular circumstance. You with me so far? Circumstances, always neutral. If it’s something happening outside of our thoughts, feelings and actions, it is neutral, we have no control over it.

So the kids have to attend school from home is a circumstance, millions of parents are dealing with this right now. Right? This is just a neutral fact. Kids have to attend school from home, it does not mean you can’t, you can no longer focus on your health. It doesn’t mean you can’t train for a marathon.

Those millions of parents that are dealing with this right now, you know, half of them are probably out there, focusing on their health right now. They’re probably training for their first marathon right now. They’re figuring it out. Kids doing school from home does not mean you can’t run. If that were true, it would be true for everyone. But it’s not.

You’re choosing not to focus on your health, you’re choosing not to run. And what you’re doing is you’re using your kids having to do school from home, you’re using that as an excuse. Because what you’re trying to do is hard. And you don’t want to do it. Because it’s hard, because it’s uncomfortable. Because it’s gonna take a while.

By the way, nobody said this stuff was going to be easy. It’s why it’s a challenge. But you want that thing. You want it with all of your being. But instead, you’re choosing to focus on all these reasons, you’re choosing to believe, you’re choosing these reasons. This amazing story that you’re creating in your mind about why this won’t work for you.

And then I come in as your coach and I say, listen, here’s what your mind is doing, your brain is just making up these stories about why you can’t do this. This is a choice you’re making. These are just neutral circumstances, you can figure this out, let’s figure it out together. And then that’s when I get the pushback.

I get people digging in and fighting like hell, for all the reasons why they can’t do it. Why, you know, it’s different for them. They have all these stories, all these excuses, all these reasons. They defend these things, to their dying breath. They are fighting tooth and nail for these beliefs that they have about why they can’t do it. Why? It’s too hard for them and they argue with me.

No, it’s just the way it is Patrick, there’s nothing I can do about it. But you know what, there is something you can do about it. These are just beliefs that they are choosing. They’re arguing for their limitations. They’re basically saying like, look, I have these limitations. I can’t do it. Here’s all the reasons why. And then they list them all out.

And I hear stories and stories and stories. It doesn’t make any sense. You’re basically saying I want this goal. I want this thing that I’ve wanted for so long, but I know it’s a challenge, but it’s it’s too hard. And here’s all the reasons why I can’t do it.

They’re like focusing on the reasons why they can’t, creating all the reasons, all the excuses in their mind. And choosing to believe them. That’s the scary part right there. You’re choosing to believe these reasons. You’ve got to stop doing this. Just stop it right now.

Stop arguing for your limitations. Because the more you focus on why you can’t do it, the more reasons you’ll find, the more excuses you’ll find. You look for reasons why you’re failing and you will see these reasons everywhere. When you start looking for all the excuses, you will find them everywhere.

My friend Samantha says it this way. She says, “When you argue for your limitations, they’re yours to keep.” Powerful. So there’s another approach. This is the one that I would suggest you take on. It’s up to you though.

Let’s go back to those neutral circumstances. Okay, so my boss is asking a lot of me at work right now. It’s really stressing me out. So you can choose to believe that this workload is stressing you out, you can choose to believe that this means you can’t focus on your running anymore. You can’t focus on your health, and you have to like quit running.

You can choose to believe that this extra workload means you can just sit around and watch Netflix eating a whole pizza and half gallons of ice cream. And that’s just the way it is. As if you know, it’s all happening to you. What results do you think you’re gonna get from that? From taking those actions?

I can pretty much guarantee you’re not going to be running a marathon anytime soon, I can pretty much guarantee your health will definitely not be improving anytime soon. All right, my boss is asking me to do more work right now is a neutral circumstance. So what if you thought, you know, my boss was asking more of me. And I’m up to the challenge.

Hey, I’m really good at what I do. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve done way harder things in my life. This is no big deal. You know, I might need to adjust my training plan a little bit. But hey, I got this. Wow, that’s a little more powerful, isn’t it? or what have you tried on a thought like, nothing is more important to me than my health.

And running a marathon has been a dream of mine for way too long. Now, I’m not letting a little extra workload stop me from reaching this goal. You know, what if instead of looking for all your limitations, because when you look for them, you will find them? I promise you? What if you looked for all of the possibilities? Focus on why you can’t and you’ll find reasons why everywhere.

Also focus on why you can and you’ll find reasons why everywhere. If you get to choose what you want to believe about your circumstances, because they are neutral, why would you ever choose to believe that you can’t do it? Why would you choose to believe that this stuff means you can’t reach your goal?

Why would you ever choose failure? Because that’s what you’re doing. By the way, I don’t really believe there’s such a thing as failure. You either keep going until you succeed, or you quit. These are two choices that you get to make. And they have nothing to do with anything outside of you know, kids screaming, no workload can change that. These are choices you’re making. You either keep going until you succeed, or you quit. For me, quitting is just not an option.

These are choices you get to make based on your thoughts, your feelings and your actions. It has nothing to do with COVID. Okay. Lots of people are training for a marathon. Lots of people are building a business during this global pandemic. Lots of people are improving their health. I see it every single day. Lots of people are getting amazing coaching and changing their lives for the better. Stop using it as an excuse.

Sorry, this is where the old Tough Love is coming in. I do love you guys. I hope you know that. Everything I’m saying I’m saying with kindness and love. I’m smiling. But listen, where are you in your life with this right now? Like where are you arguing for your limitations? Think about this.

Like, let’s say you want to lose 50 pounds? It’s pretty common for a lot of people I’ve talked to. Why do you think you can’t do it? Think about that. Why do you think you can’t do it? Why? Why isn’t this going to work for you? Ask yourself that question. See what your brain comes up with for an answer.

So maybe you came up with answers like well, I’ve tried everything, nothing’s ever worked before or you know understand I’ve time to figure all this out right now I don’t even know where to begin. These are just reasons you came up with, they’re just thoughts in your head. They’re not the they’re not the truth unless you choose to believe them.

Take a look at the circumstances in your life right now. Ask yourself this question: What am I choosing to believe about this particular situation, whatever it is? You know maybe it’s the kids being home. A lot of people are talking to me about their kids being home and doing school from home and it’s posing some challenges, some unique challenges for people.

What are you choosing to believe about that situation? Are you holding on to a story or a belief about it? That means you can’t do this. You can’t succeed at your health goals or your weight loss goals or your running goals. If that’s you, like, maybe think about that, and what do you want to believe instead? You get to choose what to believe.

By the way, this is a very important question to ask your brain, what thought can I choose to believe? What thought can I choose to believe that will motivate me, that will fill me with courage and passion and excitement about this big goal? It’s so important to me. Maybe something like you know what, I’m going to lose 50 pounds, no matter how long it takes.

I’ve tried a bunch of other stuff. It didn’t work. That’s all behind me now. Now. Now is the time I’m going to figure this out. I will not stop until I figure it out. I will not quit until I succeed. This is way too important to me. I don’t want to ever feel sick and tired again.

I don’t know, I don’t really know where to begin with all this stuff. But I’m going to start today. And maybe I’ll ask for help. I’m going to seek out a coach, I’m going to get guidance, I’m going to get direction, I am going to make this work. Damn, that is a much more powerful way to approach something, right?

What if you took all that fight, all that energy that you’re putting into arguing for your limitations, and instead, put all that fight and all that energy into searching out like the possibilities and all the reasons why you’re going to succeed? I wonder what kind of results you’d get if you did that.

Remember, whether you think you can or you think you can’t. You’re right. Okay, I hope you don’t mind. This little bit of tough love for me today. So here’s what’s coming up in the Running Lean community on Facebook. Remember, I talked about doing the September intermittent fasting challenge.

We’re talking about time restricted eating, meal spacing, that kind of stuff. This week, we’re going to be talking about training in a fasted state running on empty. Why do we do this? It sounds crazy. I know. But why is this good for us? And why would we want to do this? Why would we choose to train without calories and without fuel?

So I’ll talk about that this week. So join us in the Facebook group, just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community. That’s all I got for you today. Lots and lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

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

35. Embracing The Suck

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If you have big goals and dreams for yourself, if you’re the kind of person who wants more out of life, then achieving those big goals and dreams will require you to do hard things. To get there …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 35 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today we’re talking about embracing the suck. I’m gonna say the word suck a lot today, just so you know, little forewarning.

But listen, if you have big goals and dreams for yourself, if you’re the kind of person who wants more out of life, than achieving those big goals and dreams will require you to do hard things. And to get there means there will definitely be a period of time when things were going to get hard things are eventually going to suck.

So today I’m talking about embracing the suck. Most people want to do the opposite, they want to avoid the suck. But here’s the thing, the suck is going to happen, whether you like it or not. So it’s better that you learn how to embrace it, rather than always trying to resist it. So that is coming up.

If you like this podcast, you have to come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. This is a positive, informative, highly energized group of like minded runners and it kind of goes hand in hand with the podcast. I do weekly live trainings in there on a bunch of different topics.

We talk about nutrition, weight loss, some science stuff, some mindset stuff, and we got a big challenge coming up. This is my first time talking about this, we are doing a challenge for the month of September. So beginning September 1, it is intermittent fasting month in the Running Lean community. And no, it does not mean that we will not be eating anything for the entire month of September. Okay.

I will explain exactly what intermittent fasting is and what it isn’t. We’ll talk about how you can do intermittent fasting safely. And you’re kind of already doing it already right now, whether you like whether you know it or not, I’ll be busting all the myths about intermittent fasting like it will kill you. That’s a myth, it won’t kill you.

We’ll talk about how you can incorporate intermittent fasting into your training, all the amazing health benefits of intermittent fasting especially for running and weight loss. When you combine a low carbohydrate, high fat diet, along with intermittent fasting, this is like rocket fuel for your health and for your fitness and for your weight loss.

And we’ll talk about what all that means and how to do it. So just go over to Facebook, search for Running Lean the Running Lean community and join us for our September intermittent fasting challenge. It’s going to be cool. Also losing weight, becoming fat-adapted, learning how to do all these things like intermittent fasting. It’s hard to do on your own, I get it.

That’s why I’m here. I want to help you. And I do offer one-on-one coaching because we’re all different. We all have different goals, different needs, different lifestyles. Working with me, you’ll learn exactly how to do all this stuff in a way that works for you as an individual. In fact, here’s one of my very favorite clients Deborah had to say recently, she wrote this comment, so sweet.

She wrote, “I’m on day 14 of coaching with Patrick. I’ve seen many nutritionists and dietitians in my life, and also work with a dedicated running coach. Patrick is by far the most legit health coach I’ve had the pleasure of working with. He takes the whole body and the whole mind approach and helps you to battle through the tough stuff, cutting out sugar and carbs, and helps you to identify the reasons that are far bigger than calories or pounds. So you can stay with it. I was dying for a piece of supermarket birthday cake yesterday. And just knowing that Patrick is in my corner to make a smarter decision helped me to get through that craving.”

Thank you so much for those kind words. Deborah, you are so sweet and you are an awesome client. Also, that craving for that supermarket birthday cake is very, very specific. We need to talk about that. But it’s funny. That’s what sugar does to us. It has a powerful hold on as it causes all kinds of very specific cravings apparently.

But if you’re ready to make some big changes in your life if you’re ready to ditch the sugar and the carbs In the addiction to sugar and carbs and those crazy, specific cravings, if you’re ready to embrace the suck, at least temporarily, then you have to go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, one word, and apply for one on one coaching with me do it now I promise you, you will not regret it.

Alright, embracing the suck, embrace the suck is a fun phrase that is very popular in endurance sports, it means that it means this, it means things are gonna get hard. At some point during this event during this race, whatever it is you’re doing, things are going to suck, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to accept it, embrace it, and keep going.

And I first started hearing about this a lot when I was training for Ironman. There’s a great deal of suck during that race, there’s a great deal of suck in the training for that event too, just so you know, it’s a lifetime of suck when you’re into Ironman Triathlon, as a lifestyle.

But anyway, so during that event, there’s a lot of suck, that’s going to happen, right. And I knew that at some point, during that day, I was going to have to face the suck, okay. And I didn’t really know when that was going to happen or whatever, until the day of the race.

So the day of the race, you know, do this swim, two and a half, 2.4 mile swim, get out of the water and, you know, cycling for 112 miles. And then I laced up my running shoes and started to run while this was Louisville, Kentucky, August 95 degrees and humid.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, arguably. And this is when I was heading out to start to run my marathon after the 2.4 mile swim and cycling 112 miles of rolling hills. So I had been out exerting myself since 7am. And this was now three o’clock in the afternoon. So this is like eight straight hours of continuous physical exertion. And I started running and my legs just would not move. I felt horrible. It sucked big time. And it’s in that very moment right there. I was like, oh, yeah, this is what they’re talking about. Embrace the suck. This is the sucky part.

And I knew what it meant intellectually, like, I knew like, oh, yeah, this is gonna happen at some point. But until you experience it in the moment, it is just a concept. It’s just a theory. But when it hits you hard like that, and I will tell you, it hit me hard, it was very, very difficult, I would start running for maybe 10 seconds, and I just had to start walking and try to start running again for maybe 15 seconds. And I just couldn’t do it, I had to walk.

And it took a while for me to get a little momentum going where I could actually run for any extended period of time. I mean, there were people, you know, at the beginning of the marathon that were just like, sitting on the ground, just like on the curb, like laying down, you know, just already they were just done.

And it kind of freaks you out a little bit because you’re like, oh my god, you know, what have I got myself into here? But as you know, I kept moving. And when I was fueling and hydrating and things like that I was able to get up a little running, but I just let it be sucky. And I just kept moving forward. That little mantra was in my mind, embrace the suck, just know it’s gonna suck. And keep moving.

Another crystal clear moment of embracing the suck for me, was during the Hallucination 100. So this was the 100 mile trail race that I did up in Hell, Michigan, which is an aptly named play by the way. And the trail is 16, roughly 16 miles, a little over 16 miles. And so you got to do the loop six times to get to 100 miles.

So I finished my fifth loop. And so there’s right around mile 84. So I just had one more loop to go and you’d think I’d be like, Yay, just one more loop to go. Well, my feet were swollen like crazy. I had these giant blisters. My feet hurt every step. I was in excruciating pain. Every muscle in my body was like, just sore and tense and tight.

I had been running nonstop for over 24 hours at this point. So I’d rip around all through the night. No sleep and here I was, I still had 60 more miles of trails and hills to go, I wanted to quit. So I had to make a choice, in that moment, you know, because it sucked big time, it was really, my whole body just wanted to shut down and just lay down and be done with it.

I had a choice though, I could call it a day, and just be done with it. You know, say, Hey, I got to mile 84 good job, or embrace the suck, and finish. I mustered up all the courage, I had all the determination. I knew it was going to be painful. And I just put one foot in front of the other.

And I set out on that single track trail, and started that last 16 grueling miles. And it was very hard. It hurt a lot. It sucked a lot. But I just allowed it. I allowed the pain to ache, I embraced the suck. The exhaustion, the fear, the frustration, all of it, I just was like, it’s all going to be there. And I’m going to keep moving forward no matter what.

I have this mantra, there’s a mantra and trail running, which is, or ultra running, I guess it’s relentless forward progress. And this is kind of my mantra for life in general. But relentless forward, progress is like the thing that keeps me moving in those moments, like no matter what, just keep moving forward. And I did. And I finished that.

I finished both those races to the hardest things I’ve ever done. Arguably, like, those two moments are like, the most sucky experiences of my life, but I embraced them. And I kept going, I didn’t quit.

And then what happened to me, which surprised me, when I finished those races, the experience of of having gone through that sucky period, and like embracing it, and then keep moving forward. This was life changing for me, I became more of a person more than what I was before starting those events. You know, I got way outside my comfort zone. And I grew in more ways than I could ever have imagined.

And it didn’t happen because there weren’t any sucky periods or because it was easy. It happened because it was hard. You know, I’ve talked about this before, and, you know, we gotta like, accept the challenges that come our way. And that’s how we get to the, to the good stuff is we got to go through the challenges, kind of what we’re talking about here. embracing the suck, okay.

And this applies to many different areas of your life, you know, so I talk about my, my weight loss clients, I tell them that things are gonna get uncomfortable, you know, that they need to embrace the suck when they stop eating sugar. And they’re like, yes, Patrick, I’m down with all of that, bring it on, I’m ready.

And so they stop eating sugar. And a week or so goes by, you know, things are okay. But then they start having these withdrawal symptoms, you know, they get headaches they get, they feel lethargic, they start having these super strong cravings for sugar, they start dreaming of sheet cakes from the grocery stores and edible cookie dough.

And they start to feel like they’re missing out on all of life’s pleasures that their life really sucks now, and there’s never ever gonna be joy in their life again, their life is basically over. And I’m like, remember, when I said things were going to suck and get very uncomfortable? Well, that’s what we’re talking about. You’re in it now.

But they’re like, but I don’t want it now. I want it to go away. And I’m like, I know, I know. But here we are. Same thing with runners who want to, you know, kick the carbohydrate addiction and want to become fat-adapted runners. And I tell them very specifically, running will suck for a few weeks as your body adjusts to switching from, you know, glucose to fat as fuel, just it takes a while for your body to get to that process.

And they’re always like, I’m down with that. I’m ready, bring it on. So they stop eating the carbohydrates. And after a week or so the running gets really hard and they’re like, what’s happening? Running is really hard. I mean, it’s really hard and I’m like remember when I said you have to embrace the suck and you were all down with all that. Well, this is what we’re telling you. This is the suck. Okay.

You know, it just takes a few weeks to become fat-adapted. Once you do, it’s amazing. But there’s a period where it’s very uncomfortable and running is hard. And you just have to accept it. That is part of the process.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Anytime things start to get hard they start to suck, we have two choices. We can resist them, resist it, or we can embrace it, we can either resist it all, fight it, reject it, push it away. wish it wasn’t so hard wish it was different.

Or we can embrace it, we can allow it to be there, accept it, accept the fact that it’s going to be hard and keep going anyway. So when we, when we resist it, when we resist the sock, you know, we wish things were different. We’re basically not accepting reality. It’s like saying I wish the sky was red instead of blue.

Or, I wish running 100 miles didn’t hurt at all. Or I wish my sugar addiction wasn’t so real. These things are just the way things are. They are exactly how they’re supposed to be. And here’s a little pro tip, do you know how you know that this is how they’re supposed to be? Because that’s how they are.

You know, running 100 miles is going to hurt because it hurts. You know that sugar addiction is real, because it’s real. You know, this guy’s supposed to be blue, because it is. It’s when we don’t accept this reality, this is what causes us inner turmoil.

When we don’t accept things as they are, it actually makes the sucky part a lot worse. You know, and I get it, it’s like, I just want to feel better, like right now. But you know, it’s not how it works. It’s like trying to hold a big beach ball underwater.

So you push it down and you push it down, the more you push it down, the harder it is to hold it down, and you just can’t keep it up. And eventually, that beach ball is going to come up, it’s going to come splashing up into your face. And don’t ask me how I know how this works. But that’s what happens. Okay.

So we’re just like rejecting what is, we’re pushing away. This sucky part, when that is just part of the process of getting to those big goals and dreams. Anything worthwhile that we want to accomplish means we got to go through something sucky to get there, okay.

You can accept it, you can embrace it, or you can just resist it and fight it. Fighting it and resisting, it just makes it worse. Right. But when you embrace it, when you stop the resisting, when you stop pushing away, the reality of what it is, you let go of the beach ball, you just let it be there. All sucky and everything. When you can accept things as they are, even if they suck, and that’s okay. Just embrace it and keep moving forward.

You feel the pain, yeah. But you keep on running. You feel like quitting, but you don’t, you just keep going instead, you feel like eating a whole sheet cake to yourself. But you don’t, you just allow that craving to be there. And you don’t do anything about it. Maybe eat some bacon instead. Or you feel like going back to all the carbs.

So that running will be quote unquote, easy again. But you don’t, you just let it be hard. Because you know, you have to go through that sucky part to get to the amazing part. And here’s a little spoiler alert for you guys. Life is not supposed to be happy, and comfortable all the time. Life is like 50/50. it’s just not supposed to be happy, carefree, joyous, and amazing and super comfortable all the time. It’s just not.

It’s more like 50% of the time, life is amazing, and exciting and fun and uncomfortable. And then 50% of the time, it’s uncomfortable and kind of crappy and a little sucky. And that’s okay, this is normal. This is the way of life. This is what it means to be a human being alive on the planet today.

But if you think life is going to be good all the time, if you expect that you are going to be very disappointed and very miserable a lot of the time because you’re going to be rejecting and resisting the reality of what is. You have to accept it all. You have to embrace the suck.

Because without the pain, we don’t get to experience the pleasure. Without agony we don’t know what joy is without feeling sadness. We don’t know what happiness feels like without frustration, we don’t learn patience. Without feeling anxiety, we don’t experience peace. Without failing, we don’t want to know what accomplishment feels like.

You know, without uncertainty, we don’t know what confidence is. When you can embrace all of it, when you become willing to experience all of these emotions that we’re talking about a lot of emotions here fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, pain, when you’re willing to experience these emotions, when you’re willing to embrace the suck. There’s nothing you can’t do.

Most people, they’re afraid to feel uncomfortable. They are so afraid of the suck that they never do anything hard, they’re not even going to try. They don’t even get up off the couch. Because they know that to put on their running shoes and go start running when they haven’t been running forever.

And they want to run a 5k. They want to do that. But they know it’s going to be hard. And so they just stay on the couch. They don’t embrace the suck. So they never do anything hard. And guess what? They never accomplish anything. They stay comfortable. Yeah. They don’t have to experience the sucky things. Yeah. They stay in their comfort zone.

But what does that do for you? What does that get you? Is that what you want for your life? I don’t think so. If you’re listening to this podcast, if you’re listening to me, then I’m pretty sure that’s not you. That does not sound like you. Everything you want, but don’t already have, lies outside your comfort zone. So if you never embrace the suck, you never embrace the discomfort you never grow.

You never become more than what you are today, right here, now. You never accomplish anything bigger than what you’ve already done in your life. Like, this is it, this is where you are. And that’s it. If you don’t embrace the suck, you don’t get uncomfortable.

You never experience the amazing 50% of your life full of joy and satisfaction and accomplishment. You got to go through the 50% that’s hard and painful and sucky. Remember the sucky parts, you have to go through the sucky part, in order to get to the amazing part.

It just that’s just the way it works. So I want to encourage you to embrace it all. The good, the bad, and the suck, embrace the suck. Become an emotional badass, like allow all those things to come up. The pain, the frustration, the fear of missing out the exhaustion, whatever it is you’re doing, embrace it all.

Because when you do when you embrace the suck, you become a total badass you’d be there’s like nothing you can’t accomplish. Most people are so afraid to experience these emotions. Don’t be afraid to experience the emotions. And you’ll see what you can do. I guarantee you, it’s a much better way to live your life.

Well, we will be continuing this conversation over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. Just come and check us out. It’s really fun. And remember, September is going to be intermittent fasting month, we’re gonna be talking all about it, how to do it, why we do it, why it’s important, how it’ll help you.

And, you know, it’d be super awesome. If you enjoy this podcast. If you get something out of it. Just leave a quick little review on iTunes, just, you know, scroll down and your little iTunes podcast app, tap the stars. And then just write a couple words that that you’re getting something out of this, it would really mean a lot to me if you did that. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean. Embrace the suck. I’ll talk to you soon.

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

33. The Power of Making a Real Commitment

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Today, I’m talking about what happens when you commit to achieving something, and I mean really committing to it. It’s like the difference between saying you’re going to run a marathon one day and …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 33 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host and weight loss coach for runners. And today I am talking about what happens when you commit to achieving something.

And I mean really committing to something, it’s like the difference between saying you’re going to run a marathon some day, and then actually signing up for a marathon. And then putting together a training plan and then actually training for it. There’s a big difference there.

There’s this subtle but very powerful shift that happens in your brain when you decide to go all in on a goal. Making a real commitment, especially early on in the process is often the one thing that differentiates those who succeed at reaching their goal and those who do not.

But first, I want to tell you a little bit about the Running Lean community on Facebook. If you like this podcast, then you have to come check out the Running Lean community. It’s a positive, energetic, informative group that goes hand in hand with the podcast. It’s a fun group of like minded runners who share common goals like losing weight, running easier, running farther and living a more vibrant life.

I do some weekly trainings in there on a host of topics like the running mindset, running nutrition, similar to the things that I talked about here on the podcast, weight loss, and so much more. So we can take a little bit of deeper dive into some of these issues, and topics.

Here’s a recent comment from a podcast listener and member of the Running Lean community Tammy, she said, “I’ve learned more from Patrick listening to and being part of the Running Lean community and podcasts for the past few months than I have in the past 30 years as an avid runner and workout junkie. His insight on running nutrition and life principles for optimal health are inspiring and encouraging. I’m enjoying running again, for the first time in years have lost weight and have incorporated the knowledge I’m learning into practice. It’s one thing to hear it, but another thing to have someone motivating you and encouraging you to make it happen. It’s made a huge difference. Highly recommend fellow runners to join in.”

Thank you, Tammy, you’re so sweet. Listen, I strive to be an example, to be an example of what is possible. I’ve accomplished a lot in my life for just an average guy. I’m not some elite athlete, I never went to the Olympics or anything like, you know, I’m an average guy. But I’ve done some pretty amazing things.

And I want to encourage you and maybe even push you a little bit to get you outside your comfort zone to help you to accomplish those things that you want in your life. So join us over in the Facebook group, it’s just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community, you’ll find us it’s fun.

Also, if you’re interested in coaching with me, I’m always available for personal weight loss coaching for runners, you know, losing weight, becoming fat adapted learning how to run on your own body fat, it’s, it’s challenging, not gonna lie, and it’s kind of hard to do on your own. And everybody’s different.

We all have different goals, different needs,and different lifestyles. Working with me, you know, you and I working together, I’ll help you learn exactly how to become that lean, fat burning running machine and do it in a way that works for you and your specific needs and goals.

So you’ll get help and guidance you need to work through obstacles, I help point out your blind spots, things that you cannot see. You get a step by step action plan that will help get you to your goals you get accountability. That’s such a huge part of coaching is the accountability piece.

Motivation, encouragement, keeping moving forward, and tools and skills to help you improve every aspect of your life. Just imagine how much easier losing weight would be if you have someone right there showing you exactly what to do and holding you accountable. So if you want to ditch the sugar, if you want to get off the carbs, if you want to become fat-adapted, lose the weight, feel better, have more energy, you want running to be fun again, sign up with coaching with me. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, one word. And let’s talk. Alright, cool.

So today I am talking about making a real commitment. And I want you to do something here, as I start talking about this, I want to encourage you to start thinking about a goal that you have. So what is that thing that you want to do that maybe you’re a little afraid to do? Or maybe it seems like it’s outside the realm of possibility, it might seem kind of impossible for you to accomplish it, whatever that goal is that you want.

And I want you to start thinking about that, while you’re listening to this episode. Keep that goal in mind, okay. So it might be like you want to lose 30 pounds, it might be you just want to become a fat adapted runner, you might, you may want to like sign up and run your first marathon, or maybe start trail running, or just be healthier overall, like learn how to eat healthier overall, whatever your goal is, doesn’t matter.

Just keep it in mind as we’re going through this material. And then at the end of this episode, I have a little challenge for you. And you’re probably already thinking you know what it is? So we’ll get there. Okay, so keep that goal in mind. You got it, you got it in your head. Awesome.

Okay, so here’s the thing, the difference between people who succeed at stuff and those who don’t, a lot of times just comes down to a commitment. Successful people decide that they are going to succeed, they make a commitment to reach their goal. No matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how many challenges they face, they are committed to making that happen.

So they don’t necessarily have some superpower, they don’t have more drive than you, more determination, more willpower, or anything like that. They just early on in the process, they made a decision that they were going all in on this no matter what.

Okay, this is very important that you don’t have to have some gene that like, you know, is required for you to reach big goals, you just have to decide that you’re going to do it. Think about some of the things you’ve already done in your past.

So you’ve made some commitments in the past that were pretty epic. I know you have. And if you’re an avid runner, chances are you’ve signed up for marathons or a half marathon or a triathlon or a 5k or something like that. And at some point, you thought this was something you could never do, right?

And then at some point, you made a decision that you were going to do that no matter what. Early on in the process, you made a decision that you are going to do your first 5k. And I remember when I made the decision that I was going to run my first 10k. This was a big goal for me because I couldn’t run a mile without stopping. And so I made a decision to run a 10k.

And it was the Thanksgiving Day race here in Cincinnati, which is one of the oldest foot races in the country. And it’s been going on for over 100 years. And anyway, it’s a fun race. You know, 15-20,000 people show up on Thanksgiving morning, dress up like turkeys and run 10k. But 10k, you know, 6.2 miles seemed daunting to me, like, Whoa, that’s a big deal.

And so I started training for it. Well, I signed up for the thing, you know, and then I started, I put together a training plan. And when did we have the Internet back then? I don’t even know maybe I went online and picked a training plan. And then maybe I got a book. I don’t remember exactly. It would have been like 2003-2004 or something like that. So yeah, I guess we had the internet back then.

So anyway, I found a training plan. And then I like wrote it all into my calendar and I like stuck to it. Like I made the commitment that I was going to do this no matter what. And I trained hard and I ended up doing that. I made a decision early on in the process, no matter what I was going to cross that finish line.

And I’ve done this a bunch of other times too. When I trained for my first marathon, I made a decision at some point, I think I got kind of hooked after that 10k I was like, dang, if I could do that, I could do anything. I think the next race I signed up for was a marathon.

Actually, I just skipped the whole half marathon thing, and went straight for the marathon. And made a decision when I signed up for that marathon, I paid for it. I like signed up. And that was that was enough that was going to propel me forward. That’s what I needed to do. That was a decision that I had to make. That was the commitment that I had to make.

And then during my training for that first marathon, I ended up getting injured. I had stress fractures in my both of my tibias. And I had to take a bunch of time off of running like six to eight weeks or something like that, I probably didn’t take that much time off, but I had to take a bunch of time off. So it really messed up my training schedule.

My longest run, my longest training run for my first marathon was only 16 miles. So I’ve never run more than 16 miles. And so when I towed the line, at the start of my first marathon, the longest I’d ever run was 16 miles. So this was going to be 10 miles longer. But you know what? I did. I crossed that finish line.

And I’m convinced that making that real commitment early on, was like the rocket fuel that I needed to push me through all those trainings and to push me through injury. And to get me to that start line and get me to the finish line. A very powerful example of this is when I signed up for Ironman in 2013. At the beginning of the year, I decided I was going to do Ironman.

And I got online, and I signed up for Ironman Louisville. And I was like hovering over the submit button on that website form after putting all my information and my credit card information in and I was like, Oh my gosh, as soon as I click this button, I’m committed. That’s the power of making real commitment. And then, of course, I pushed the button.

And I was like, oh, my God, what did I just do? So it kind of like, freaked me out a little bit. And I was full of fear. And I just put together a training plan again. And I had to get through a lot of challenges. During that training, I was struggling with the bike, I couldn’t find the right kind of saddle, I was having all kinds of pain when I was riding, I crashed my bike, kind of like freaked me out when I did that.

You know, I put in like 20 hours a week of training for this thing. And there were so many challenges I had to face. And I’m convinced still, that it was that making that decision early on, that got me through all that training got me through all those obstacles. And that got me across the finish line in a successful completion of that Ironman. Still one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

But really, like when I made the decision, when I committed to finishing an Ironman, I knew in my heart and my brain, I knew I was going to do it. And that’s the way I approach things. Not always, but I try. And the same goes for every time I’ve trained for a marathon.

You know, I’ve run like two marathons a year for a bunch of years there. I haven’t done that in a couple of years. But for a while there, it was two marathons a year. And so I was pretty much training all the time. And so I would choose a race, sign up for it. And then I would show up for every single training run for those races. And that’s a commitment. That’s a commitment that goes deep, you know, and it’s something you have to do early on.

So you’ve got to make that commitment early on in the process. But here’s what happens when you make that real commitment. It’ll dictate how you show up every day. It’s got to be something that’s bigger than you first of all, because it has to keep you motivated. It has to keep you energized. It has to get you out there. Even when the weather really sucks when it’s super cold, or it’s dark, snowing, it’s like miserable. Or boiling hot. You know, depending on what time of the year you’re training.

It’s that commitment you make has to be epic. It has to be bigger than you. It has to keep you going even when you don’t feel like it. But when you make a real commitment to reaching a goal, that goal is as good as done. Now let’s transfer this like, think about other types of goals you might have, like, maybe you want to lose weight, or like I mentioned becoming fat-adapted, changing your diet. These same principles apply.

You have to make that commitment early on, it has to be an epic commitment, you have to make the decision that you are going to go all in, that you are going to succeed, no matter what, no matter what challenges come up, no matter how uncomfortable you might get, no matter how hard it might seem, in the moment.

Most people don’t do this though. Most people, you know, dabble in these concepts and principles, when we talk about losing weight, and changing your diet and what you’re eating, and how much you’re eating, and when you’re eating the kinds of foods you’re eating, people do it kinda sorta they don’t make that commitment, they don’t go out there.

And because they’re afraid, they’re afraid of how they might feel, because they might feel sluggish, they might have cravings, they might get an urge to eat some pizza or ice cream. And guess what, those people that kind of dabble that kind of go, not all in it goes sort of a little bit in, they get some little results.

And when things get challenging for them, which they will, they always do, they don’t have anything to fall back on, they don’t have any internal support system, you know, from within themselves. So they might like, maybe they’ve stopped eating sugar, and carbohydrates, okay. And they’re like, you know, I’m kind of committed to stop eating carbs.

And then they’re like, at a friend’s house, and they’re, you know, hanging around and they see a cookie right there. And there’s nothing in them that’s stronger than this urge they’re having in this moment, eat this cookie. And so they just eat cookie right there. You know, think about that, though.

They’re taking this moment, this tiny moment in time. And you know, even though they want to lose weight, they want their health to be better. They want to change the way they eat, they want to change the way they think about food and the way they feel about food. It’s causing them all kinds of problems. But in this moment, that one cookie sitting there is more important than all of that to them.

And they cave and eat the cookie. So that cookie is more important than who they ultimately want to be. Now, I’m oversimplifying this, and I get it sugar is very addictive. That’s why making this commitment to yourself is critical. It really is.

If you want to succeed at losing weight, if you want to succeed at changing your diet, if you want to succeed at becoming fat adapted. You know, you have to go all in with your commitment. You have to have this attitude of like, I am going to make this work no matter what.

When you do, it’s going to work. I can guarantee it. It’s all in your head. It’s all in your thoughts. It really is. But when we make these half ass commitments, you know what you get half assed results every single time. Half assed commitments will get you half assed results if that every single time.

And I know what you’re thinking, Patrick, it’s hard. It’s hard to stop eating sugar. It’s hard to change the way we think about food. And then I want to challenge that thought. Really, is it really harder than say training for a marathon? Is, you know, eating or not eating carbohydrates harder than sticking to a training schedule where you run four to five days a week for months and months on end through the dead of winter to train for a goal. Is that harder than that?

Is it harder than getting up early every Saturday morning? You know, running in the cold and the snow and the rain? I mean, believe me, I have done this so many times. I’ve had some very miserable Saturday morning runs that me and my running friends we still talk about oh yeah, remember that one 22 miler that we did in the freezing rain? Yeah. Where people’s like hands were numb? Yeah, I remember that.

Here’s the thing. You already do hard things. You’ve accomplished some amazing things already. I know you have and you’ve accomplished those things because you committed to accomplishing those things, you have to do that same thing here, I’m not asking you to do anything you haven’t already done.

You know, you just have to go all in, you have to decide early on that this is what you’re going to do, this is who you’re going to be. And that is going to help drive all of your actions. But what happens is we have these thoughts in our brain that this is hard, or I can’t do it. Or, you know, who am I? I’m not good enough. I’m not like you, or whatever the thoughts are, that we have.

So whether you think something is easy, or you think something is hard, these are all just thoughts in your brain, it doesn’t actually mean it’s easy or hard. You know, if you have a thought, like, I can try this fat adaptation thing for a while. And then if it gets kind of hard, I can just go back to eating the way I was before.

What do you think is going to happen if that’s your thought? I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. It will get hard, because it always does. And then you’re gonna go back to doing things the way you’ve always done them, which don’t work, and you’re just going to be stuck where you are. And that’s fine if that’s what you want. Totally fine. And I’ve had clients who’ve done this, so they quit, because they get uncomfortable. They think it’s too hard, and they can’t do it.

But here’s the thing, I have other clients who are doing the exact same thing. And for them, it’s like, super easy. They have just a different thought about it. It’s kind of interesting. Those people are like all in. They’re like, man, yeah, I’m totally committed to making this work. And I’ve had clients who have been like, hey, Patrick, this is challenging, but I’m, I’m committed to making this work.

How do we get through this obstacle? Like I hit a plateau? How do we break through this weight loss plateau here? And I’m like, let’s figure it out. That’s a much better place to come from. It’s very powerful. It’s empowering. Okay, saying it’s too hard. I can’t do it all that you’re giving all your power away, you’re just, you know, basically saying you’re not powerful enough, you can’t, you have no control over all this.

These are just thoughts in your brain, though. But when you make that commitment early on, and that’s just a thought too, by the way, but it’s a super powerful thought. I will do this no matter what. I love this quote from Tony Robbins, he says, “It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.”

So think about those moments of decision that you have. What are you thinking in those moments? What are you deciding to think in those moments? What kind of a commitment are you making, in those moments of decision, because whatever it is, it will shape your destiny. Whether you think it will or not, it will. It is shaping your destiny.

It’s either moving you closer to your goal and ultimately will get you there, or it’s moving you further away. And you’ll just be stuck where you are. So honestly, the only thing that can stop you from reaching that goal is a thought in your brain. So think about like what thoughts are going through your brain right now around your goal? What thoughts are you having about it?

Some thoughts might be like let’s say your your goal is to you know, get off the sugar, become fat-adapted, lose some weight. Here’s some thoughts that people have. “I’m super addicted to sugar. I crave it all the time. There’s no way I can give it up. There’s just no way I can do it.” That’s just a thought.

Or, “I’ve tried to lose weight before. It’s never worked before. Why should it work now? I’m just gonna fail again. I know I will.” That’s just a thought. Or, “I’m gonna feel deprived. I’m gonna feel hungry all the time. I’m gonna have FOMO (fear of missing out) because other people get to eat pizza and I can’t.” That’s just a thought.

Or like, “This is just gonna be it’s just gonna be too hard. Or people will judge me. They’ll think I’m weird.” People think you’re weird anyway. So okay. People think I’m weird. People don’t like me. There’s a lot of people that don’t like me. I know. It’s crazy, right?

But anyway, there are people out there. And it’s okay. It’s just a thought. It’s just a thought that we all have. But these are like thoughts, all those thoughts that I just kind of ran through, these are actual thoughts from clients. They feel like they’re the truth, but they’re not. They’re just thoughts. They’re just like sentences in our brain. I’ve had clients who think that losing weight on like a low carb high fat diet is the easiest thing they’ve ever done. They say it’s simple, it’s fun.

There’s a lot of freedom in it, and they love doing it. These are just thoughts that people have. And those people that have those kinds of thoughts will tell you what? They reach their goals, and it’s fun, and they enjoy it. Just a thought.

So I want to encourage you to like, go all in whatever that goal is that we were talking about earlier that you are thinking about, let all this stuff come up all these thoughts that you might have, it’s okay, just allow those thoughts should be there, because they’ll come up. But keep going anyway.

You know, we don’t succeed, because we never have never negative thoughts, we succeed because we have negative thoughts. We allow them and we keep going anyway. You know, think about the marathon training, have you ever been out on a long training run in your thought, this sucks, I’m never gonna finish. It’s too hard. I’m never gonna be able to finish this thing. Maybe I should just quit.

Of course, we’ve all had that thought, right. Especially on that cold 20 miler where we had the freezing rain. I was like, this really blows, I hate running. But I kept going anyway, and I finished it. You know, so we could have those thoughts and still do the deal and still, you know, move towards our goal, we can still take the action we need to take to get us there.

Those thoughts can be with us, they can come along for the ride with us, but they’re not driving the bus. They’re like in the passenger seat over there. Okay, we want the thoughts, that’s those, those epic commitments that we have that like, I’m going to do this no matter what we want that driving the bus, okay.

So, something I want you to do here is to think about this, this is a cool kind of exercise you can do. And it’s important that you kind of do this and think about that commitment level that you want to reach that goal that you have, okay. Your six year success, like reaching that goal, achieving that goal, it’s as good as done, when your reason for sticking to it is more compelling than some, you know, physical craving, or some emotional desire or some thought like, I just don’t feel like doing this.

So here’s the kind of little exercise you can do in your mind, it’s a very easy thing to do. But I want you to like, go out into the future, like put yourself out into your future. And you have accomplished that goal. So it is done. So you’re at your goal weight, or you’ve crossed the finish line of that marathon, or you’re healthy and happy, you have a different relationship with food, whatever your goal was, you’ve achieved it, it is done and think about this.

How did you make that happen? How did you get here? What’s the main reason you were able to achieve this goal? What was the commitment that you made early on that kept you going? Obviously, it was something that was very compelling, because it got you through all the challenges, all the obstacles, or the all the hard stuff. It wasn’t some half assed commitment. Right? You went all in.

So what did that look like for you? How did that feel to have that commitment driving you all that time? That got you there? How did that feel? Now hold on to that feeling. And here’s the challenge that I have for you. So at the beginning of the episode, I talked about thinking about a goal, right? Here’s the challenge for you, I want you right now, holding on to that feeling, I want you to make the commitment that you are going to reach that goal no matter what.

No matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it might seem to you right now, it might seem impossible for you right now. Still make the commitment. Doesn’t matter how challenging things you’re gonna get or you don’t, you don’t even have to know how you’re going to make it happen. You just have to commit to making it happen. Do that right now.

This is the challenge, make a real commitment right now. And then come over into the Running Lean community on Facebook and share that goal with us. What I bet that just made you feel uncomfortable, right? You’re like oh, I don’t know about sharing my goal. Because it makes it real when you do that. I know it’s scary. And some people don’t like to share their goals and that is totally fine.

Personally, I do share my goals with a few key people in my life like with my coach, with some very close friends, you know, I have some, some goals with my business and things like that, and some, you know, goals for my health and things. I don’t share it like, in a super overt way.

But sometimes I do, sometimes I post in groups, or share with, you know, groups of people, goals that I have. And it’s actually pretty powerful to do that. So if you’re the kind of person that wants to share something with a group of people that would encourage you, I want to encourage you to do that in the Facebook group, just post your goal in there and say, my goal is, or I’m committed to, let’s write it that way.

I’m committed to and then share your goal with us write a post, and then we’re all going to tell you that you can do it, and we’re going to help you achieve that goal. It’ll be fun, and scary, and awesome and amazing and powerful.

Okay. I know some of you are like cringing right now you’re like, dude, really, I don’t want to do that. You don’t have to do that. But I want you to make that commitment in your mind, regardless of whether you post it or not, whether you share it with the world, I want you to make that real commitment in your mind to reach that goal.

And then see what happens, see what amazing, powerful things you can do. Okay, so we’re gonna continue this conversation in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So just go to Facebook, search for Running Lean community, and join us it’s going to be super epic.

And if you enjoy this podcast and you get something out of it, if it helps you in some way, you can show your support by just leaving a quick review on iTunes, I would really appreciate that. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. As always, lots of love to each and every one of you. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

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

31. Jen Wright on How to Breathe for Long-Distance Running

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Jen Wright is a co-founder of Real Human Performance here in Cincinnati. Jen specializes in stress management, performance optimization, and mind-body resilience training. She spent 18 years in health …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode number 31 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host and the weight loss coach for runners. And I’m on a mission to help you eat real food, lose weight, look better, feel better, run lighter, run longer, and run faster than ever before. And today, I’ve got an awesome interview with Jen Wright.

And if you’re not familiar with who Jen is, you will be by the end of this episode. But here’s a little bio. Jen is co founder of real human performance here in Cincinnati. And she specializes in things like stress management, performance, optimization, mind-body resilience training, and she spent 18 years in Health and Human performances as a science and tech advisor with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, the Defense Sciences Office and then later as a deputy at the Air Force Research Laboratory in the human performance wing. She’s kind of a big deal.

For the past 10 years she has been working as a post traumatic growth coach and mind-body researcher working in Trauma Recovery, addiction recovery and with other growth minded humans that value things like personal development. Jen believes in the human potential, and she believes that each of us deserves to learn how to self regulate. It’s a really cool interview, stick around for just a minute. Get to that in just a minute here.

Just a reminder that our next six week intensive weight loss masterclass for runners begins Monday, August 3, that’s just a few days from now, if you’re listening to this on Friday, when this comes out, you will learn how to become a fat-adapted runner, you will learn how to control your hunger so you don’t feel deprived.

Because you can’t feel hungry and deprived and lose weight, that doesn’t work. You will learn how to control your hormones, especially insulin to get your body into that optimal fat burning mode. You’re going to learn how to do intermittent fasting combined with low carbohydrate, high fat so that it’s like rocket fuel for your weight loss and for your energy.

You’re gonna learn the benefits of training in a fasted state and how to do it properly. You’re gonna learn how to fuel your body while you’re training while you’re doing your long runs and how to properly fuel for those events. And those longer events and races.

You’re gonna learn how to break through weight loss plateaus so that you’ll, you’ll be able to dial in your exact weight, your natural weight for good. You’re gonna learn how to break the emotional eating habit, how to incorporate strength training and explosive workouts into your training because let’s face it, most runners, we tend to just stay in that chronic cardio zone you got to break out of that.

You’re gonna learn how to lose weight, you’ll feel better, you’ll have more energy, you’ll enjoy eating again, you’ll learn how to eat real food. And you’ll run leaner, stronger, faster and longer. Most importantly, though, you’ll have the mindset you need to be able to sustain this for, for life.

Okay, this isn’t a temporary thing. It’s not a diet. We’re changing our lifestyles. We’ll teach you exactly how to do all that. And I wanted to share a quick story with you guys. Here’s a former student of this masterclass Amy, and she really recently posted in our Facebook group, some before and after pictures a little bit about her experience. And if you’re not in the Facebook group, I would encourage you to go check it out. Just search Facebook for the Running Lean community and join the group. It’s fun, it’s fun in the group. But here’s what Amy had to say.

She said, “A couple years ago, my running was struggling. I was slow and felt weighed down. My heart rate was over 200 most days while running, which is high. I was a mess. Fast forward a year to meeting Patrick who introduced me to a new way of eating and making me realize what my body really needs. Not just all pounding the pavement, but in my everyday life. I could never imagine cutting all the crap out and I never would have guessed eating high fat would help me be leaner faster and a fat burning machine or that my running would improve. Well, this past Saturday I ran a half marathon as a training run for my Marine Corps Marathon this October and since April I’ve cut out all the stuff my body doesn’t quote unquote need so no goos, no chews, and certainly no carbs that weighed me down from my run. I use a little bit of Gatorade diluted in water for hydration, but that was it. My running was effortless. I’m down over 30 pounds, and I’ve shaved off over a minute per mile. I’m feeling lean, and pretty badass these days.”

Amy, I am so proud of you. You’re so awesome. You’re badass, you totally are badass. And here’s the difference. You can do this if I can do this. If she can do it, you can do it. The only difference is Amy made a commitment. She made a commitment to make some big changes. Was it easy? No, it was challenging.

But I helped her get through all that challenge, all the tough stuff. Now, she’s on the other side of that. And she’s a lean, mean fat burning running machine. And if you want results like this, join us in our next master class starts Monday August 3, just go to innerfiretribe.com/masterclass to apply.

So here’s what Jen and I were talking about. We talk about how to breathe as a runner, which is, surprisingly, something I get a lot. It’s a question I get a lot from people, how do I breathe as I run? Breathing is hard. So we talked about that we talked about using breath as a way of releasing relieving stress.

By the way, Jen is a breathwork expert. She’s amazing. She’s so knowledgeable when it comes to breathing. So we kind of talk a lot about that today. She talks about using breath to promote mindful running. So how to get into that flow state. We talked about that a little bit. We talked about belly breathing versus chest breathing, like which is better, which is more recommended.

There seems to be some, you know, debate out there about this. We talked about how to get rid of side dishes and a bunch of other stuff. Jen is amazing. She’s an amazing human. She’s doing amazing work. She’s transforming lives. So I’m gonna stop talking. Let’s get into this interview.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, today, I am talking to Jen right. Jen is co founder and co owner of real human performance here in Cincinnati. And today, we’re going to be talking about breathing, which is something we should all be doing, right. Thankfully, we already are.

But Jen is an expert when it comes to breathwork and breathing, and always has a lot of amazing, cool stuff to share. So Jen, why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about a little bit more about what you do.

Jen Wright
Yeah, thanks for the introduction for having me, Patrick, you one thing that wrath is something that we all have in common. And once we harness this literal energy potential, the breath for fuel for waste removal for self regulation, and just for overall efficiencies, we live with a completely different experience, a real, richer experience. So I’m excited to talk with you today and share what we know about breath and how it can literally shift us at the cellular level.

Patrick McGilvray
So you just mentioned something and I wasn’t going to talk about this. But now I have to ask it. So you mentioned like waste removal, though. You said something I heard recently, tell me if this is true, is that when we burn fat when we burn body fat, most of that gets eliminated from our body through our breath. Is that correct?

Jen Wright
So breath, that exhaled breath condensates one way you know our muscles when they’re working, whether it’s running or just for moving our muscles excrete CO2. And so it’s our job to then help that removal process when we’re high performers, especially when endurance athletes that just enjoy running, enjoy moving, that CO2 comes back to our lungs.

And it’s only then that the brain gets the signals that we need to breathe more to increase our oxygen intake. Lymph, the lymph itself, the lymphatic fluid is what carries away waste. It’s our waste removal system in our body. And there are two ways that lymph launches and three ways that lymph really gets removed.

And that is through our movement through local motion and through breathing. And then we can do specific techniques like lymph drainage and brushing and all of that. But breathing is one of these things that we’re already doing is foundational activities, this foundational movement that we do 20,000 times a day. It’s more than just oxygen exchange. It’s also waste removal.

Patrick McGilvray
That’s fascinating. And when I heard that, I was like wait, that can’t be right because it just seems crazy. Like we’re breathing out all this, all these toxins and all this waste and all our body fat is basically, you know, just being expelled through all these different manners which is it’s really fascinating. The body the human body is fascinating, Jen. Okay.

Jen Wright
It is so fascinating and we are designed to heal. In my previous life and working with the Defense Department one of the programs that I was involved with was looking at exhaled breath condensate and how each of us are so unique. We are as unique as we are with our fingerprints, our odor signature is equally unique.

And we look at odor signature to identify susceptibility and resistance to certain diseases. And what influences that is really the inner fire tribe tenets and the real human performance tenets is that it’s not just one note, or one node. It is our nutrition. And it is our movement. It’s our mindset, it’s the stress and how we how resilient we are to that stress. So those factors really make a difference on our odor signature. We know that if we even see it in commercial because stress, sweat smells different. One example…

Patrick McGilvray
For those of you listening, Jen is just checking her pits haha. So yeah, that’s very interesting. I have heard people say that when they start eating cleaner when they start eating a different kind of diet, they like don’t smell anymore. And it’s interesting. I mean, they still do, but it’s not strong and powerful like it used to be. And which makes sense, you know, because your body isn’t, it doesn’t have to, like release all these toxins and unnecessary things anymore. You know, you’re you’re you’re kind of back to homeostasis, right?

Jen Wright
Yeah, that’s right. And you mentioned nutrition. It’s similar when, when someone brings in the oxygen advantage and starts breathing for our fullest potential. The oxygen the oxygenation itself is it’s our foundation for cellular repair. Each cell receives these oxygen molecules and the bloodstream carries this oxygen through first to the organs because everything tends to the organs first organs demand the most.

So it goes to the organs first and through the major muscles through the fascia, rides the fluids, and eventually this oxygen arrives to every single cell for cellular repair. The blood production itself is such an interesting component of oxygenation.

Only in the last two years, have researchers discovered that the what do you want to call the blood cells, the stem cells that live we think that it’s the the white blood cells that are helping to create blood, but it’s actually these blood cells that live within our lungs, like 10 million cells, and even outside of our lungs that are, they’re doing the blood repair and the synthesis of blood itself.

So for organ fatality nutrition’s a core component. Before nutrition, our most foundational thing that we do before eating, before drinking water, is breathing. And, uh, you know, I like to say we can go technically weeks without food, only days without water, but really only minutes without oxygen.

And, oddly, this is getting into the subconscious mindset that lives in each of us. But oddly, it’s one of the last things that we tend to look at. When we’re looking at overall performance, although it’s the first and last thing we do in life. Rarely are we taught how to do it, to breathe.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And gosh, you bring up a good point, which is like breathing is just one of those things that we don’t pay attention to. And we don’t practice how to do it better. And so when I’m, when I talk to runners, a lot of runners will say like, I’m having trouble breathing, like, what can I do to improve my breathing?

Like, should I be breathing from my chest or from my belly? Because you kind of hear different opinions on things like that. So as a runner, like, especially somebody that’s maybe just getting started running, and it seems like the breathing is the thing that’s keeping them from performing better or makes it hard. So the breathing is the thing. They identify as being like the running as hard because of the breathing part. What can we do about that?

Jen Wright
Well, noticing is the first step. That is, so we don’t want to take breath for granted. Until we are without it, we take it for granted that it’s just going to be there because it is, thankfully it’s automatic. And then when it’s short, when it’s cumbersome, when something takes our breath away.

We’ve all had that experience where we see something, hear something, remember something, and it literally, gut punch takes our breath away. And we’re left without our most basic resource, which is oxygen. And it really strikes at our core survival. And that is part of the rewiring of our stress response. It’s more than just running for breathing for running performance.

It really how do we source this oxygen, so that we can tend to our needs at the most basic level. So when we start to pay attention to this very fact that we can indeed, source our own resources that we can, can select are in modulate our ability to intake air differently, we start to receive it at the cellular level, but something in our mind happens as well.

There’s a shift in our mind that it’s a shift in our nervous system really towards a new rhythm towards regulation, where we adopt a mindset of like, I can, oh, I’ve got this I can, I can source what I need when I need it. And I can. So this is like an echo chamber, not just for the running trail, for the road, but just for life.

So first things first, is noticing when our breath is short, notice what takes our breath away. So breath in that moment becomes a clue, you know, our breathing our breath awareness is a clue. It’s a clue or cue to something that has changed. Something has rocked me off that state of homeostasis, off balance, and is demanding more from me.

Okay, no problem, we encounter this throughout the day, every day. So breath is not only a clue or cue, but then it also becomes the tool. So we’re talking about two different things, the potential of breath, disrupting the usual and then a breath also being a tool to be set in the moment and recharge throughout the day.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and one thing I understand is that when you do start experiencing, like, let’s say shallow breathing, or, you know, you know, struggling with your breath, it can create a stressful environment. And your body releases cortisol. So now you’re like in that fight or flight kind of mode, and you’re putting yourself under more stress.

So I noticed this, when I’m running with other people, there are certain people that you know, you might be running next to them or behind them, and they sound like they’re going to die. You know, everybody’s running this comfortable pace. But then there’s that one person that is breathing, like, they sound like they’re going to die.

And I’m gonna imagine that they are kind of putting themselves under a lot of undue stress, and that they’re stressing themselves out at the cellular level, and stressing themselves out mentally. And running for them is going to be a lot harder than for the person that is practicing a more slow, steady and mindful approach to breathing while running.

Jen Wright
Absolutely, and thinking of this individual, or these experiences when you observe people breathing heavy. What do you notice about their gait? Are they also running heavy? Kind of clotting or maybe compensated running? Can you when you think back to running groups, if someone’s breathing really hard is their gait also?

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I mean, I think so. I mean, I think they’re, yeah, they look and sound like they are really struggling. So yeah, and I know people that run like that all the time. That’s their, like, default.

Jen Wright
And we do it that way until we learn a different way, especially for those of us that find such freedom in running and just in being, you know, just getting into that stride. So, you know, kudos to those of us that have been running heavy and fatiguing yourselves and sticking with it because you’re right there is an additional stress that is just inherent to our most basic thing that we do in life 20,000 times a day being stressed.

It’s the it’s the most, it’s the major movement that we do, we think of it as automatic, because it is yet is the most mechanical, and most chemical, mechanical, chemical process that’s happening when we intake the air for, for that breath, and each cell takes it oxygen and through a chemical process converts it to fuel, you know, it’s just, it’s a beautiful, brilliant design that we have here.

And, and we can be better at it, it’s just stepping into that place where it feels more comfortable. And literally, we are lifted, we’re propelled by the oxygen because it is our fuel. So when we think about that, in like when we’re walking through the grocery store, we get, you know, we get the oxygen advantages to that little lift, but how that translates to the gait, during running and your running stride and footstrike it’s so important because it literally lifts us.

It’s interesting to think about breath cadence and footstrike cadence and exercise physiologists belong studying the impact of stress of running, right, and the diaphragm plays a lot in that capacity to maintain structure and stability. And conversely, it also plays a lot in instability, if we’re just repeating the same patterns of exhaling on the same footstrike, for example, so we, we… My friend, I can talk about breath work for many hours. For today, how would you like to take our conversation? Would you like to talk about more of the diaphragm?

Patrick McGilvray
Well, like, I want to go back to that question I asked about the belly breathing versus the chest breathing, because there’s some different schools of thought on that. And I’ve heard people talk about both as being better. And what do you think about that?

Jen Wright
Breathing is good, breathing is good. And that’s, that’s good advice right there. And I tell people all the time, they’re like, it’s just hard to breathe and like, just make sure you’re breathing, you’re fine. As long as you’re breathing, you’re good.

The beauty is, is that our body breathes. Now we can breathe more efficiently. Some days, we’re breathing efficiently. And some days, we’re breathing less efficiently, suboptimally. And there’s a lot of information available out there about deep breathing, you know, slow, deep breathing, and I’m here to say that one, we’re still breathing, check. Two, there is some modulation here. Not all about slow, deep breathing, there are breaths that specifically activate our nervous system that give us a boost.

Because we need a boost when we need it, we need the energy when we need to boost. And there are other breaths that intentionally slow and move us towards restoration and activate our parasympathetic nervous system. So we have the ability to operate with breath. And to down regulate with breath.

I’ve got a trusty little diagram here that anyone that knows me, I’m holding the EU. And this literally is a U it’s a U shape and it depicts our autonomic nervous system will post in the comments, because our autonomic nervous system tells us how we’re going to feel. But it’s important to note that every inhale that we take is an activation of our nervous system. And every exhale that we take is settling of our nervous system.

So just by nature of working with complete breaths, and that’s I’m a proponent of Complete Breathing, is that it’s a complete cycle, it’s every inhale is sourcing the energy that we need the air to convert to the energy, and every complete exhale is ridding our body of old toxins and waste so that we can be, quote, empty, the container more ready to receive more of that oxygen.

Patrick McGilvray
And so the inhale is kind of activating that sympathetic nervous system, which is our kind of fight or flight, you know, nervous system in our necks. What’s that?

Jen Wright
The gas. Yeah, yes, they step on the gas..

Patrick McGilvray
Step on the gas, okay. And then the exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our relaxation, you know, kind of mode. I always remember it by S for stress, P for peace, you know, and so that’s easy for me to remember sympathetic versus parasympathetic. So that’s really interesting. So then the argument about the belly breathing, chest breathing is just more about well whatever, like data isn’t as important, it sounds like what you’re saying?

Jen Wright
It’s all super important. And step one, we’re still breathing. Yes. Step two, we have so much, there’s so much to unpack here. But it’s really quite simple. The Complete Breathing is how we are born to breathe. Some of us were born with warning conditions where our breathing, our respiratory system is challenged in some way.

But most of us our respiratory system is challenged by sitting, by collapsing and so we are unable to access our fullest breath potential. So diaphragmatic breathing, chest breathing and clavicular breathing are three different places three zones or respiration that we have.

The diaphragm, the chest, and the clavicle. The Complete Breathing is a three part long breath, the low the mid the top lung, when we’re in fight or flight, we don’t need to be sourcing our breath from our belly.

Because we’re not looking to relax, we’re not looking to digest food in that moment, we’re actually just looking to survive. And so our breath becomes really short and shallow. We’ve all experienced that. And it’s when that becomes our default pattern, that the downstream effects are detrimental.

Because we’re just subsisting in that time, we’re just getting enough. And really, what would life look like, feel like when we are sourcing more, and at our most optimal state? Now for evading a lion, or if we are sprinting, for the finish line, diaphragmatic breathing is not going to be our natural go to place, we’re just going to be taking enough in so the oxygen exchange is just minimal. It’s just enough to get what we need to achieve the goal, which is to evade the line cross the finish line.

Patrick McGilvray
Right. Or if you’re like doing a heavy workout at the gym a bunch of heavy lifting, you know, you’re gonna, it’s gonna be higher, you know, right?

Jen Wright
So often, yes, because that’s what leads to, and it’s here at our thoracic cavity that really is that place where it’s, it’s the max expansion here, the ribcage. Taking a breath in here, the thoracic cavity for our big muscle movers when we’re doing the heavy lifting. When we’re looking to set a pace for a longer run then we can access the respiratory movement here at the thoracic cavity to help sustain that pace.

So we’re not just relying on the small muscles, the muscles, the intercostal muscles that live between the ribs, we can access the diaphragm, our major muscle, our major break breathing muscle, but it’s um, it’s not the only muscle that moves respiration, the diaphragm just happens to be the major muscle that moves respiration and helps us to maintain posture.

So sitting in as we do in our culture, as I am right now, we tend to overlook the access of this diaphragm, which I could go off. I love talking about breath, it is my favorite topic. And I just want to add this point.

Down here at our diaphragm when we breathe into the space of our diaphragm, it’s actually where serotonin and dopamine more than half our dopamine and serotonin is synthesized and created at in our in our viscera, in our in our belly, in our gut. And when we activate our diaphragmatic breathing or complete breaths, we’re helping that that process of synthesizing the dopamine and serotonin which then gets transported back up to our brain and distributed throughout our body. And who wants to feel good, you know? We want the ability to regulate, you know, the my life’s work. So it’s just one of those things where we aid the process.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that diaphragmatic breathing is something that I’ve experimented with, with great results. So I’ll do some diaphragmatic breathing exercises like before a run where I’ll just sit with my back straight and just practice that deep belly breathing into that diaphragm. And, you know, just do you know, five minutes of that so it doesn’t take very long right.

Right, but it starts to put you into this calmer state of mind. And now I understand what’s happening more, because you just said, you know, you’re kind of releasing that dopamine, you’re getting some of that some of those that serotonin going.

I would imagine that this would be a great thing to do before run, and to practice on longer runs to. Because if you can access that sort of calming, relaxing, those chemicals, basically, you know, those calming relaxing chemicals into your body, then I would imagine running would be a little bit easier for you, especially on those longer runs when you’re out there for a couple of hours at a time.

So I love the the idea of using breathing, not just as a way of like, oh yeah, I got to live, you know, gotta get the air in or whatever, but as a way of reducing some stress and reducing the, the toughness of the run, you know, because you can actually, so I guess the two things.

So I’m hearing, because I’m gonna keep pushing this point here, Jen, you’re like a politician with your answers here. But I’m gonna say like, belly breathing is probably the better way to go. For our long distance runners, you know, which I’m just kind of, you know, I’m, making that that jump, you know, just just say that. So whatever, it’s all good.

But it does reduce the stress, and it puts you into this more calm state, where, you know, you got to, you got to save your energy, you know, it’s all about energy conversate conservation, when you’re out there for several hours, you’re running a marathon or something like that, you’ve got to conserve your energy.

And to have this high chest breathing, you know, the shoulders start to get scrunched up into the ears. You know, you’re activating that stress response. And you’re putting your body in undue amounts of stress, which is, you know, really going to use a lot of energy to be in that state right there.

Jen Wright
I think you, you phrase that beautifully, and I’ll add that it takes a lot of energy to contain all that. Just to sum it up. It takes a lot of energy to contain this manufactured support of bracing so that the hip doesn’t hurt, so that the stitches subside, you know, running with our fullest breath potential keeps us fueled up and stitch free.

And it’s all about working with the diaphragm, I would encourage the listeners to start where it is easier. You’re talking about priming your body and your oxygen supply. You’re talking about priming your system before you go on a run. Awesome. That’s something that free divers figured out, you know, eons ago.

Because you know, underwater, we don’t have the luxury of taking air when we need it, even if you know even just emergency breath. So free divers and swimmers had to figure out this oxygen conservation and exchange rates really innately and on land as we are and working with the forces of gravity as we do.

It’s really important for us to figure out just what that impact is because during inhalation, we create a container. There’s the expansion, but stability is created. And on exhalation, the diaphragm and the external intercostal muscles relax and the space around the thoracic cavity gets smaller, it gets pushed out.

Well that’s also where we are the most vulnerable that you will though the most, the least stable when on our exhale. So if we’re always foot striking on the beginning of our exhale, we’re creating even more of a clobbed fatigue to one side. Most runners scientific most runners are taught to breathe, inhale for two, exhale for two. That’s old school. And that even number of breathing makes it so that the exhale and the foot strike are always on the same side.

The numbers show that most runners exhale, the beginning of the exhale is on the foot strike on the right side, which means most runners get stitches on the right side. So it’s just interesting to think about as listeners is let’s start not worrying not when they’re middle of mile five, or on a long run. But let’s start while we’re walking. Let’s walk and practice this breathing thing. Let’s sit in a chair, lie down and practice this breathing thing. And just to really exercise the muscles and get them tuned, tuned and get the maps of how they were born, were born and designed to function.

Patrick McGilvray
When I was training for my 100 miler a couple of years ago, I remember I came to you and I was like, Jen, I need some help breathing. Just anything you can tell me that will make running just a little bit easier, I need every little tweak I can get for this thing. And you gave me some advice, that was amazing.

And it was basically, like, try to stop doing the breathing on the to like every other foot strike, and switch it to three. So that you know, your in breath is on one foot, and then the next time it’s on the next and so you’re, you’re more balanced that way. And I practiced that and it was actually really hard to do at first, you know, it took a little bit of, you know, there’s a little mental like, because I’m just so used to just doing it the same way all the time.

And it requires you to slow down your breathing, because you’re not, you’re gonna breathe. You have to breathe slower in order to do it this way. But it was amazing. It allowed me to really be in a more peaceful state running it really, it was awesome. So that’s good advice.

What is a side stitch? Exactly?

Jen Wright
Ah crap, you know, it’s where the muscle’s contracting really fast, you know, it’s just spasming.

Patrick McGilvray
What muscles is that? Exactly? Do you know?

Jen Wright
It depends, but a lot of the time, it’s the diaphragm itself.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, because I know that one way of getting rid of a side stitch very quickly, is to breathe out really fast and hard. Like you’re blowing out candles on a birthday cake. You know, just as a lot of air really fast do that, like three times and then the stitches goes away. So

Jen Wright
Because you’re filling your body was oxygen, you know, it’s and it’s and you’re exhaling out old condensate, old CO2, you’re getting it out of the system and pushing out rather quickly. Those the old old stuff.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so it is like a diaphragm thing that’s really fascinating. This whole breathing thing.

Jen Wright
You brought up when you’re training for your 100 miler, because I just thought you were so brave into being open minded into considering a different way before such a, you know, a big event for you. And knowing how important the breath is, you’re right, it does take; we get used to it just happening.

And to bring awareness to it, it does insert a level of pause kind of slows it down. What’s happening in the brain is it what’s happening in the brain is happening at the level of the brainstem. So again, this is our basic survival brain. And it’s in the medulla.

The prebotzinger complex is basically like our it’s like a pacemaker for breaths. And so when that when that CO2 gets back to our lungs, because we’ve been breathing deeply enough to push the co2 back to the lungs to be expel, the messages get the signals are picked up from the medulla that sets our rhythm. The prebotzinger complex, the prebot-c is actually our our rhythm said it so it’s our pacer. And so when we get into a rhythm of breathing, the brain helps us out. Chicken or the egg, but it’s uh, it’s one of those things where it literally, it literally just makes life easier, makes running easier.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and I will, I will say that like that, slowing down the breathing and doing that diaphragmatic breathing when you’re running at all, even if it’s just a short run is it makes a difference, it makes a noticeable difference that you can go out there and do you know, a five mile run at a slower pace.

And it can be you can make it as hard or as easy as you want it to be. And I’m not talking necessarily speed because you can kind of maintain the same speed but you can make it harder or easier. Just by slowing down that breath. It’s wild. It’s wild stuff. There’s a beautiful book that talks a lot about this called, oh my gosh, what is it called? Mindful Running.

And it just talks about getting into that sort of flow state while running, and she talks a lot about the diaphragmatic breathing and, and that’s kind of where I learned the exercises to do before going out running. It’s a really great book, I think definitely people get a lot out of it.

But the part that I liked about it is how she talks about slowing down, you know, you start getting more oxygen exchange, you start, you know, becoming into this, like more peaceful kind of flow state that she calls it, which is just being mindful, you’re being mindful of your breathing, you can just kind of focus on your breathing, you’re being mindful of your body, you’re being mindful of your feet hitting the ground, you can actually take in what’s happening around you.

And it all starts with the breath. And you’re always kind of coming back to the breath, as in meditation, when you’re running in, that becomes your sort of anchor, you know, and so you can be mindful of what’s happening. And then you’re not focused on how hard this is, you’re not focused on what you’re going to do.

You know, later today, what’s on your to do list, you’re just being in the moment, and into this flow state, which is such a beautiful thing. And it all centers around the breath, just like mindful meditation centers around the using the breath as the anchor, you can do the same thing while you’re running, and get into this more relaxed, more peaceful state in I say this, because I want to enjoy running, I don’t run it one running to be hard.

And so when I learn things like this, and I practice them, it makes running more enjoyable for me. And it makes it easier for me and I and I look forward to getting out and doing those runs, when I know I’m going to be in a kind of a peaceful state. And it all starts with the breathing, with breath.

Jen Wright
Being with the breath is the most effective way of being present. And most runners that I know, love running, so we can get out of our head, you know, and really being or get into our thoughts being present with our thoughts kind of one or the other, but just getting kicked into that flow state, a place where we’re just sliding and just present and just one with nature, one with the road with a trail, it’s breathing provides us the ability to pay attention to what’s going on on the internal inside.

And at the same time as the ability to be present with the road, with the external. And it’s, we really don’t see a difference or experience a difference, we’re just kind of one with the road. And that, that fluidity is something that’s often described. And the key component of breath is just ever present.

So teaching people how to harness that on command, if you will, as kind of the default not, rather than that one run, we’re so amazing, you know…

Patrick McGilvray
Well you know, it takes practice, you know, like anything else, like you just have to practice it. And, you know, I will tell you that when I first went out and started like trying this, it was very difficult, you know, and my mind was wandering and my, my I was thinking this is so hard, I don’t get it, it’s not working, you know what all those thoughts that come into your mind.

But after a while, if you can get into this kind of flow state, it’s really something that you are always kind of working on, like you’ll never get there. 100% You know what I mean? But when you can practice it more, just like meditation, where you practice meditation, you never perfect it, you know. So if you can practice getting in this flow state, but with running, start with your breath, slow down, use that deep diaphragmatic breath, try it on the threes instead of the twos and start becoming aware of your body.

I think, as runners we were not good at really getting into our body and being aware of our body. We use running as a way, a lot of people, use rowing as a way of getting out of their body. Like say they can sort of just like give their body something to do while their brain just starts thinking about something else, you know, but when you start to become keenly aware, like radically aware, of what’s happening in your body while you’re running, it can be a kind of amazing thing to pay attention to.

I do this when I’m running out in on trails more than anything, because I’m just so like in my element and out there in nature and I just feel like it’s like there’s this primal thing going on. I’m and and I just, I am just so aware of like my feet and my legs and my arms and my, my torso and just like all these things working in unison, and I’m just always fascinated out there. So I tend to get into that flow state more on the trails. I don’t have as many distractions as when I’m running around, you know, downtown Cincinnati with cars and traffic and stuff like that.

Jen Wright
Well, I mean, that’s, that kicks back to the beginning of our conversation, it just makes so much sense I was having a conversation with a gal about this very thing that running on the road, we are still in our survival mind, we need to pay attention to the car to the bike to the person to the pothole, all those things that could inadvertently interests.

And on the trail, likely, we’re not going to run into a lion. There, there’s less distraction at our survival, for our survival brain just to narrow down where we are. And there’s more opportunity to explore. When we’re in nature, there’s more opportunity to explore our own nature.

Really pay attention to these elements, oxygen, that sustain us, it’s in the trees, we’re work, there’s a relationship, the trees, and ourselves, there’s a relationship with our breath and our footstrike and just becomes relational. It’s not so, uhm, not so, alone.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s cool. I love all this, Jen. We got to do this again, we got to talk more about some other things in regards to breathing and the nervous system. But for now, I think we’ve covered a lot. And I think we’ve given people a lot of amazing things to think about and to go and practice. So that’s awesome.

So where can people like learn more about you? I know you were talking about a workshop that you got coming up in August. So what is that? And where can people find out more about it?

Jen Wright
We will be posting the link, and you’ll find it in the comments, in the notes. August 11 is Breath Workshop: Fueled Up and Stitch Free. We’ll be spending two hours really learning the mechanics of breathing. And working with what we’ve got. If I could add one thing to pay attention to between now and August 11, is notice what takes your breath away, not just on the trail, but in life.

Notice what takes your breath away. Notice when your nostril breathing nasal breathing versus mouth breathing. I train so many people that when I ask them to take a breath, it’s breathing into the mouth, sucking in that oxygen. And that’s a topic in and of itself. So I would love to get into another podcast but certainly won’t be in the workshop, the importance of nasal breath, and how breathing is so important.

We have two ways of doing it primarily through our nostrils and secondary through our mouth. But nostril breath is controlled breath filters the air, it communicates more concretely and directly with the brain creates a human environment in our lungs. So the blood itself can absorb the oxygen molecules and efficiently carry it through the body.

Mouth breath is there when we need it, emergency breath taking the hill all these things that we’re used to, and yet it’s more fatiguing. So we’ll be talking about in the workshop, breath awareness, nasal breath, mouth breath, we’ll be working to create our most complete breath.

We’ll be working with resistance breathing to help build capacity. Because once we build, once we become skillful at Complete Breathing, the place to go is working with modulation to expand our capacity. Literally the way that those air sacs exchange the CO2. We can work with them. We’re not beholden to that first thought.

But we think that first feeling that we have that first breath that we take we thankfully breeze throughout the day. And so we can use breath to reset to reorient ourselves when we drift off. Use breath to build rhythm to recharge throughout the day.

And then we can use it to kind of prime ourselves to set up at the end of the day so that we can restore appropriately based on our demands like meeting really meeting the demands of the day. Every day is different. And these days, my goodness. We are at a greater capacity

Patrick McGilvray
Who knows what’s gonna happen? Every day is an adventure. Cool. What was the name of that workshop again?

Jen Wright
it’s called Fueled Up And Stitch Free, August 11, two hour session over zoom, I look forward to the day that we can meet at the park. We’ve been talking about that when we could do that. But first, we’re going to meet over zoom, because we can meet in the comfort of wherever we choose to, and work on this thing we call breadth.

Patrick McGilvray
Awesome. And where can people find out more about that?

Jen Wright
Well, I am always at real human performance.com Reach out to me directly via questions my emails, jen@realhumanperformance.com. A little bit about my business partner Chris Amis listed on our website. But we are all about physical fitness and mental well being. So just training, training up our human to become more ourselves.

Patrick McGilvray
We want to be the best humans we can be Jen, I love it. Love it. Thank you so much for this conversation. This has been really fun. And we’re gonna get deeper into some of these things and explore some other topics. I really love these conversations. Really cool. Thank you, Jen.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you, Patrick.

Patrick McGilvray
Oh my gosh, that’s so awesome. Jen is so amazing. Love her so much. So good. And just to give you guys a quick heads up, she’s got that breath training workshop for runners called fueled up and stitch free. That’s coming up on August the 11th.

She’s going to teach you all about how to oxygenate prior to a run, how to stay fueled with oxygen during a run and for recovery after your run. And she’s going to teach you practical skills that you can put into practice in your real life.

She’s going to teach you the practices that will build breath capacity, which is so important for running, especially for the long distance running you want to have you want to be able to increase your oxygen capacity. I’m gonna have a link to this event on the show notes page over at the running mind podcast.com forward slash 31 And you’ll have all the information there.

So definitely check it out. And then lastly, remember the next Running Lean weight loss masterclass for runners begins in just a couple of days. If you’re listening to this on Friday, when it comes out, there’s still a couple of spots available, learn more and apply at innerfiretribe.com/masterclass. That’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

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