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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Running Mindset

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.

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.

30. It’s the Challenges That Change Us

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Let’s face it, it’s been a challenging year for all of us. Just consider the impact the COVID-19 global pandemic has had on each of us - this year has been a huge challenge! We’ve all been forced …

Continue Reading about 30. It’s the Challenges That Change Us →

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 30 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host and the weight loss coach for runners. And if you’re just tuning in for the first time, you’re not losing your mind, I just recently changed the name of the podcast. So this is the podcast formerly known as The Running Mind podcast. And now we’re just Running Lean, boom.

So welcome to Running Lean, where you’re gonna learn all about how to get leaner and get stronger. So you can run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. You are capable of amazing things. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about. Today, we’re talking about facing challenges in order to unleash that amazingness that is lurking inside you.

Let’s face it, it’s been a challenging year for all of us. Just considering the impact that the COVID-19 global pandemic has had on every single one of us. It’s been a challenging year, it’s been a huge challenge for all of us. We’ve all been forced outside our comfort zones, and into a place that feels very uncomfortable, very challenging.

But what I want to talk about today is how it’s these, these very challenges that we face, that show us who we really are. It’s the challenges that force us to grow. It’s the challenges that change us sometimes in profound ways that we never would have experienced if it weren’t for going through all the discomfort of these challenges. The challenges that we face are essential for our growth as human beings. So I’m gonna get into all of that in just a minute.

But if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. It’s a group that kind of goes hand in hand with this podcast. And it’s a fun, thriving, engaging community of like minded runners who all want the same thing. They want to get leaner and stronger, run faster, and be able to run longer.

And speaking of challenges this month, we’ve been doing the no sugar challenge, and it’s been super fun. It’s hard. It’s a challenge. It’s why it’s called a town challenge. It’s not easy to quit eating sugar, trust me. But lots of people have been in the group ditching sugar and carbs and experiencing, you know, discomfort, but also amazing changes.

And here’s a recent comment from Sondra, she’s in the group and she’s talking about how she feels and she says, “I’m doing great. I’m finally over the headaches and the fatigue. I now have the energy to run consistently and longer. Oh, and I’ve lost inches and I’ve lost eight pounds. It’s day 16 for me, super excited about the results thus far.”

That is amazing, Sondra, that is amazing work. Giving up sugar is not easy. It’s a challenge. It’s hard. But it’s not quite as hard when you’ve got the support of all these people around you to kind of share the experience with you and help keep you motivated. So join the group just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and join us, I’d love to have you in there.

Also very important. Our next masterclass the next Running Lean weight loss masterclass for runners starts Monday, August 3, that is just 10 days from today. If you’re listening to this on Friday, it’s a six week intensive training program, you’re going to learn how to become a fat adapted runner. That means getting off the sugar and running on fat.

Running on your own body fat, which is an amazing source of fuel. Yes, you will lose pounds, you will lose inches but also you’ll become leaner and stronger you’ll be able to run. Running will be easier. I promise you. It’s hard at first but then it gets easier. I do have a couple of spots left. And I’m only accepting a small number of students per class. I keep it intimate. And it’s a select group of people so you’ll need to apply so if you want to get your application in do it now before the program sells out because it will sell out. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/masterclass to apply.

Okay, so let’s get into this topic today, which it’s the challenges that change us. So like I had mentioned, it’s been a challenging year for all of us, you know, we’ve got this global pandemic. I mean, who would have known that something like this would happen. It has radically changed our lives, it has affected the economy, it’s affected us as human beings like nothing we’ve ever experienced before.

There’s been layoffs and work furloughs, people have had to adjust to working from home, people have had to adjust to being at home with their spouses and with their kids. Not always easy. People have had to learn how to use Zoom, talk about stress. You know, parents are expected to homeschool their kids along with, you know, doing their job from home.

You know, our running groups have all been canceled, all of our races have been canceled. All of these big goals and dreams that we had for this year have been canceled, or at least, you know, put on some extended hold. And, you know, these are all big challenges. You know, if you can put all this stuff together, you know, it can seem like pretty overwhelming, right? Pretty big challenges.

So I’m going to share some stuff with you here. And I hope you don’t mind. But I’m going to ask your permission to get real with you. And I’m going to be vulnerable and talk about some things that I really haven’t talked about before. Here’s that cool, cool, cool. Okay, good.

So here we go. So here’s been some of the personal challenges that I’ve faced, in addition to, you know, the global pandemic, and all the fun that’s kind of gone along with that. So at the beginning of this year, I got divorced, you know, my wife said she was ready to move on.

And, and so I had to go through that, which is a challenge. And that meant, you know, finding my own place to live. So I moved into my own place, I had to get used to living alone again, which is kind of weird. After being married for like nine and a half years, you know, I had to figure out how to pay my bills, because honestly, at the time, she was the main income earner for our relationship in our marriage. And so I had to hustle, right, I had to, like, get some jobs and stuff.

So I did, I like, I had my coaching business and I was you know, doing some coaching which was good, kind of building my business at the time. But I went out there and I got some jobs so that I could have some more income coming in. So I got a job working at a running store, local running store, selling running shoes, basically, which was, you know, was fine.

I got a job working as the head coach of one of the local running groups here in Cincinnati, and that was fine. And you know, paid a little bit of money, just good. In addition to those three things, so my coaching, the running store, the running group, head coach, I was doing some rideshare you know, driving just picking up some, some extra cash, driving people around for Lyft, and all that was fine. Like I was fine, I was making ends meet, I was hustling. I was very busy. I was working literally like all the time. And then COVID hit and things really changed in a big way for me, personally.

The two jobs that I had the two paying jobs that I had I got furloughed from both of those so we had to stop the running group and obviously the running store had to shut down. So those two things went away immediately. And then I had to like stop doing that ride share thing because I did not want people in my car.

You know, I did not I just don’t trust you know, people I wanted to stay safe and I didn’t want to get sick. So I stopped doing that. And that all brought a lot of fear to me and a lot of financial fear like how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to buy groceries? That kind of stuff.

And so I started delivering food for Uber Eats so I just did some of that food delivery and I gotta tell you, during the stay at home order that was a pretty lucrative gig. You know what I mean? I could work on my coaching business in the day and then deliver food dinner time basically and I and I did that for quite a while and really made a lot of good money doing that.

You’d be surprised people were ordering a lot of food during the lockdown. Okay so working on my coaching business during the day, recording podcasts, sharing content, you know, creating programs and things like that. And then at night out there hustling, delivering food and I gotta tell you all of this stuff dealing with all of this and and the divorce and all of that all at once was very challenging for me, there was a lot, a lot of stress going on in my life.

And, and I didn’t choose any of it. You know, it wasn’t like I went out there and was like, I think I’m going to get divorced and start my life kind of all over again, at 53 years old. You know, I didn’t want that. Choose that. I mean, I’ve chosen plenty of challenges like I’ve chosen to do hard things, plenty of times, I’ve run dozens of marathons and ultra marathons, you know, I did an Ironman, I ran 100 miles, I did a 100 mile trail race, all these things are very hard, but I chose them.

They all made me feel very uncomfortable. They got me out of my comfort zone. I knew they would, though. But I made a decision, a conscious decision ahead of time to do these things. Okay, I didn’t choose to get divorced, I didn’t choose to get furloughed from those jobs. I didn’t choose to kind of start my life all over again, on my own. I certainly didn’t choose a global pandemic, to just add to the fun of all this stuff going on.

All of this stuff forced me to get out of my comfort zone. It forced me to get uncomfortable. And inevitably, it like forced me to grow and to change. And this is the powerful lesson that I’m going to share with you here today is that whether or not you choose the challenge, if you face it head on, you change for the better.

You’ve got to embrace the discomfort that these challenges bring. The key is to step up and face the challenge head on, embrace the discomfort. Discomfort is the cost of growth, it’s the price you pay, if you want to change. Because when you avoid discomfort, you avoid all the change and all the growth, you stay right where you are.

Yeah, it feels comfortable, feels good. It’s what you know. But you’ll also never have the experience of becoming anything more than you are right here now in this moment. And one big way that we avoid discomfort is we try not to feel our feelings, you know, we don’t want to feel bad, we don’t want to feel any negative emotions, because that feels bad.

So a lot of times what we do is we buffer away our emotions. And buffering means we put something external between us in our emotions. So we use something like food or alcohol, to make us feel better on the inside. So we might, we might feel scared or lonely or angry. And so we eat something or drink something and it does feel better temporarily.

But we’re basically, we’re resisting those feelings, we’re resisting those emotions that are coming up during that challenging time. You know, we reject anything that’s so called like a negative emotion, because they don’t feel good. And we want to feel good.

Like right now. I can’t tell you how often I used food to feel better at the beginning of this year. You know, the first couple of months after our separation. I was eating a lot of pizza and a lot of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. And it did feel good. It was kind of like the best part of my day.

I would you know, like I was saying I was working all day and then working all night. And then I would be like I’m getting a large pizza and a couple of pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. And this is going to be like the best part of my day. I look forward to it.

I mean, honestly, that’s probably not awesome, if that’s the best part of your day. But that’s a topic for another day. But anyway, it works for a minute like it does, does feel good. Eat all that sugar and stuff. It works for a minute, but then it doesn’t work right like you come down after sugar.

And then you’re still left with all those emotions, you still feel all those feelings. But only now you feel worse because you’re getting fat on top of feeling hurt or lonely or scared. So avoiding the discomfort does not work. It only makes things worse, you have to embrace the discomfort of your challenges. So I had to learn how to allow these emotions in.

I had to learn how to allow them in and process them just to let them be there. The negative emotions the quote unquote negative emotions, the positive emotions, all of them. I had to stop using food as an escape from my emotions. And this is not something most people are willing to do.

Most people will not do this because it’s hard, it does not feel good, it is uncomfortable. But if you want to step up, if you want to face your challenges head on, you have to allow these emotions in. You know, like, a good example is right before the start of Ironman. So if you’re not familiar with what Ironman is, it is a brutal, it’s like one of the toughest sporting events you can do as a human being.

So it starts with a 2.4 mile swim, and then 112 mile bike ride, followed by a full 26.2 marathon. And so I trained for a long time for this thing, but then, right, you know, the morning of the event, we’re standing there ready to jump in the water. And I was like, feeling so scared, so scared, full of fear. And I just allowed that fear to be there with me, and I, and I, the gun went off, and I jumped in the water.

And I just did it anyway, as a good example, I tuned in to that feeling I had at the time of just allowing that emotion to be there with me, while I was doing this really hard thing. And I was kind of feeling that same way, about the separation and the divorce.

At the beginning of this year, I was feeling so hurt and angry about the divorce, you know, I didn’t want to feel that way. But I allowed the feelings to be there. I allowed those emotions to be there. And I carried on anyway, I just kept doing the next right thing. Anyway, it’s kind of like you’re driving in a car, and you look over in the passenger seat and you’re like, hello, fear, hello, hurt, hello, anger.

Yeah, you guys can come along with me, but I’m driving, you’re not in charge here. So don’t allow those feelings to overwhelm you or overtake you, or dictate how you’re going to show up. You know, keep moving forward, allow the feelings to be there with you. That’s what it means to embrace the discomfort.

You know, think about this sugar challenge or no sugar challenge we’re doing in July, it’s uncomfortable, it’s uncomfortable to not eat sugar, if you’re used to eating it, it doesn’t feel good. You can there’s some like withdrawal symptoms that you get, your head aches, maybe a little lethargy.

And it just doesn’t feel good. And you don’t have that thing anymore, that buffer to use to feel better. So there’s this period of like discomfort and most people are just not willing to feel that discomfort. But I’m telling you, discomfort is the price you have to pay to become more when you embrace discomfort and you face your challenges, you grow.

Because growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. Oh, you get in your comfort zone is more of what you already know and have you know, you don’t get to be more. When you embrace discomfort, you learn what you’re capable of. And let me tell you, you’re capable of way more than you realize. When you embrace discomfort, you build trust in yourself, you build confidence in yourself. And you begin to change in profound ways that you’d never even imagine.

If you weren’t faced with this particular challenge, you become more of that amazing human being that you already are, but you just become more. You know, you get to become an example of what’s possible. And honestly, when you embrace discomfort and you like, face your challenges and move through them. It just, it feels amazing. The sense of accomplishment and pride that you have in that, oh my gosh.

Now, here’s the best and worst part about all this, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the change. So, if you want to make some big changes in your life, you’ve got to like face some big challenges head on. You know, and a lot of times, what we do is we say, well, I’m gonna do this little challenge, I’ll stop eating a little bit of sugar. I’ll cut it down a little bit, you know, and then you might get a little bit of a change, you know, but if you really want to elicit big changes in your life, you’ve got to like face these big challenges whether you choose them or not.

You know, I faced some very big challenges this year so far. And because of those big challenges, I’ve changed in big ways. You know, right now sitting here talking to you today. I feel so good about myself. I’m very comfortable living here on my own, I’m very comfortable financially, I’m very comfortable with myself.

I actually love being alone, in love living by myself. I actually have a good relationship with my ex wife. Like we still talk. And just a little sidebar, like who wouldn’t want to be married to me? I just want to know that, right? I mean, because I’m awesome. But anyway, that’s another, another topic.

But I’ve gotten myself off the sugar, I’ve gotten myself off the carbs I’ve lost 40 pounds this year. And it’s not because of stress. Actually, I was gaining weight, because of the stress eating that I was doing. I was one of the reasons why I was like, dude, I gotta do something about this now.

So I got off the sugar and the carbs, I started eating high fat, low carb diet, lost 40 pounds, running is so much more enjoyable again, I’m actually like, at the best weight, and I’m in the best shape of my life that I’ve been at since I can remember, I don’t remember ever being in this good shape. And I’m 53 I’m not like you know, super young.

Other big ways I’ve changed, I’m doing work that I love every single day. Talking to you right here on this podcast is a great example of the kind of work I’m doing. Not because, not in spite of the challenges I’ve had, but because of them. Because I’ve been forced to like step up my game.

You know, I’m building this amazing community of runners. And it fills me with gratitude and with love. I mean, this is an amazing positive group of people that I get to surround myself with, I feel so grateful for that. I have this great coaching business that I just love. Coaching people, by the way, like, when I’m coaching someone, I’m in my zone, and I just feel amazing. You know, right now, this podcast, it’s like one of the top ranked podcasts on iTunes. What? That’s crazy.

I’ve rekindled all these amazing friendships with people, from people from high school and people that I just haven’t been, you know, friends with for a while or haven’t really communicated.

But I have all these people reaching out to me and saying, Hey, Patrick, how are you doing? I just, I feel overwhelmed with love and support from my friends and from family. And today, I show up in everything I do as like the best and most authentic version of myself yet. And I know there’s even more to come.

But today, I can honestly tell you sitting here today, I love myself unconditionally. This is not something I would have said four or five months ago. I love myself unconditionally. And this is one of the most amazing changes I’ve ever experienced in my life. And here’s the crazy part about all this, I would not be here today in this place with all this. All these amazing changes that I’ve experienced. I would not be here today, if I was still married, I just know that I would not be who I am today.

If I was still in that comfortable life that I had. I was forced out of that comfortable life and into all this discomfort. It was very uncomfortable. If I haven’t stressed that enough, it was very uncomfortable, the divorce, the loss of jobs, the pandemic, all of this. But it was the catalyst for my change in my growth. And I know it sounds crazy. But I’m grateful for all of it.

I’m not where I am today despite these challenges. I’m here and who I am today because of those challenges. And I look at challenges differently today. I see challenges as opportunities, opportunities to grow, to change, to become more to get stronger to thrive. I don’t want to just survive. I’m not here to be a survivor, I want to thrive. I want to be amazing.

I just want to be like, fine. You ever ask people like how are you doing? And they’re like, fine. Like of all the emotions you could choose to feel? You just want to feel fine? No, I want to be amazing.

Now are our challenges hard? Are they hard to do? Is it hard to like face your challenges? Yes. Is giving up sugar hard? Yes it is. You know you feel terrible at first,running sucks for a little while. But then is it worth it when you get through all that and you get to the other side of that again? Hell yes. It is so worth it.

Is running a marathon hard? You know it is, but are you profoundly changed when you cross that finish line, especially with your first marathon, oh my gosh, you know you are. So here’s my challenge to you. What are you avoiding doing because it’s hard? What are you not doing because it’s uncomfortable? I want to challenge you today to do that. Do the hard stuff, face those challenges, whether you’re choosing them or not, get out of your comfort zone. Do it off.

And if you can’t do it every day, if you can, you know whether the challenge is something you’re choosing or not choosing, embrace the discomfort because there will be discomfort. Learn how to feel your feelings, learn how to allow them in and keep moving forward. You know, don’t use those buffers against your emotions, don’t eat to feel better, don’t drink to feel better, don’t do drugs to feel better.

Because that stuff that does not work, you have to learn how to feel your feelings. But when you do, when you get out of your comfort zone, when you show up as your most authentic self, when you face your challenges head on, you get to show yourself what you’re made of. You get to become more you will blow your own mind with this work, I promise you.

And you can see what amazing big changes you can make in your life. Who you can be? Who do you want to be? Not despite the challenges but because of them. Ah, that was good. I’m glad I shared that stuff with you guys here today. And honestly join the Facebook group because we talk about challenges a lot in there.

And every Sunday I do kind of like a little free training in there. Sunday afternoons. So last Sunday, we talked about what it means to become a fat-adapted runner and all the benefits of that. And it’s good, we have lots of fun discussions in the group. So please join us over on Facebook, Facebook land, just go to find the Running Lean community on Facebook.

And then remember the next Running Lean weight loss masterclass for runners starts in just 10 days, you will learn exactly how to become a fat adapted runner. It’s an intensive six week training program taught by me live, you get to ask questions, get all your questions answered, you will lose weight, you will run faster, you will become stronger. You will become a bonk proof runner and build around those long distances without ever worrying about like crashing and burning.

You’ll learn how to end the emotional eating and learn how to allow and process those emotions will help you work through embracing the discomfort of all of this. Yes, it’s a challenging program, but it will change you. You will be transformed as a runner and as a human being in just six weeks. And I do have a couple spots left.

So please get your application in now. innerfiretribe.com/masterclass. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you, my friends keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

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.