Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
There seems to be a lot of misleading information out there about intermittent fasting. People think it will mess up your metabolism, or it’s unsafe, or it’s just plain crazy. The truth, …
Continue Reading about 36. The Myths and Benefits of Intermittent Fasting →
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 36 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And there seems to be a lot of misleading information out there about intermittent fasting, people think it will mess up their metabolism or they think it’s unsafe, or they say it’s just plain crazy. The truth, however, is very different.
Intermittent Fasting is not only safe, but it provides some pretty amazing health benefits, especially when combined with a low carb diet. So today, I’m going to separate fact from fiction and share with you all of the incredible positive health benefits that intermittent fasting provides.
And if you liked this podcast, you should come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. It is a fun, positive, energetic group that kind of goes hand in hand with this podcast. It’s full of fun, like minded runners who all have a common goal, we all want to lose weight, we want running to be easier. We want to live a more vibrant life.
And I do weekly trainings in there on a bunch of different topics. This month, we’re talking all about intermittent fasting. So you gotta come check out the group.
Here’s a recent review from iTunes from somebody that found me on Facebook, and this is from Tinkerboom. And Tinkerboom says, “For a long time I asked myself the same questions, why can’t I lose weight if I run every day? I’ve talked to trainers, doctors, etc. And not one of them told me or suggested that it could be my hormones. I found Patrick on Facebook and started listening to his podcast and found incredible information. And I found that I am not alone in this struggle. Patrick’s information is on point and has worked for me and I am on my way to being a fat adapted runner. Thank you, Patrick, you are amazing. I look forward to listening to all your information. #youarealifechanger.”
Well thank you Tinkerboom. I just want my message, this message I’m sharing with you today. And every day, I just want this message to resonate with runners like you, because I want you to become that badass lean running machine that you’ve always wanted to be.
Okay, so I’m talking about the Facebook group, we’ve got a big challenge going on right now, September is intermittent fasting month in the Running Lean community on Facebook. And just to be clear, it does not mean we’re fasting for the entire month of September.
But you’re gonna learn what intermittent fasting is, what it isn’t, how to do it safely, how to incorporate this into your training as part of your not only nutrition plan, but your training plan. And you’re gonna learn all about the amazing health benefits of intermittent fasting especially for running. And I’m gonna be sharing some of those with you here in this episode. So just search for the Running Lean community on facebook and join us.
Also, if you are interested in losing weight and becoming a fat adapted runner, it can be hard to do on your own, I totally get it. That’s why I offer one-on-one coaching. We’re all different. We all have different goals, different needs, different lifestyles, and what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for somebody else.
So when you work with me directly, you will learn exactly how to become a lean fat burning running machine in a way that works for you. So I’ll help you determine the right plan and the right system that works for you. I help keep you accountable. I make sure you’re reaching your goals and I help you to get results if you’re ready to make some big changes in your life.
If you’re ready to reap all the benefits of a low carbohydrate diet and intermittent fasting, then just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, that’s all one word, and apply. Apply for a one-on-one coaching with me. Do it now, I promise you it is life changing, you will not regret it.
Okay, let’s get into the topic today. So today I’m talking about the myths and benefits of intermittent fasting. And like I said there are a lot of myths in information out there. Some people think this is just crazy, you can’t do it. I’m going to address a bunch of these different myths here in a minute. But I want to back up just a little bit and explain how we lose weight.
Okay, so one thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that there are systems in place in our bodies that either promote fat storage, or promote fat burning. Okay, if we want to lose weight, we want to do that whole fat burning thing, right? We want to burn the fat, we don’t want to hold on to the fat.
So our body, we have two primary sources of fuel, we have glucose and we have fat. Glucose comes from eating carbohydrates, mainly, okay, you eat carbohydrates, any carbohydrates, you turn into glucose in your system, and they get stored as fuel as glycogen, or they get stored as fat. Okay, so that’s carbohydrates.
And then we have fat. This is our own body fat that we can use for fuel. The problem is, we can only use one of these fuel sources at a time, pretty much okay. Like in order to burn fat, you basically have to burn through the available glucose first, okay, so if you are eating a diet high in carbohydrates, then you know, getting that glucose out of your system is key, so that you can actually access your own body fat for fuel, okay?
Eating a diet high in carbohydrates, makes it very difficult to lose weight. If you’ve been listening to me for a while you understand this. We’re always going to want to use the available glucose as the primary fuel. That’s just the way our bodies are designed. Okay, we’re designed to use available glucose and glycogen first.
So when you have high glucose levels in your body, when you’re eating a lot of carbs and sugar, then you cannot access your fat stores, you know, maybe a little bit but not really. When glucose is high, insulin is also high. Insulin is produced when our blood sugar goes up insulin, its job is to bring blood sugars down. But when insulin is high, it puts our body into this fat storage mode. We hold on to our body fat when insulin is high.
When glucose is high, insulin is high, we’re in fat storage mode, when glucose is low. When we don’t eat a lot of carbohydrates, when we don’t have a lot of high blood sugar. When glucose is low, insulin is low, then our bodies are in fat burning mode.
Okay, so the key to this whole deal is keep insulin levels low, keep them low. And the way we do this, there’s two ways that we lower insulin to keep it low. We don’t eat carbohydrates, and we don’t eat. Insulin will remain low. As long as our blood sugar is low, as long as our blood sugar is normal, okay, it’s not elevated. Blood sugars go high when we eat a lot of carbohydrates, especially highly refined carbohydrates, the higher refined the carbohydrate, like pure sugar will spike our blood sugar like crazy, which spikes our insulin like crazy.
And then we’re in fat storage mode like crazy. All right, when we don’t eat carbohydrates, it keeps our blood sugars normalized. Another way of keeping blood sugars normalized is to not eat anything at all. Because every time you eat some food, your blood sugar goes up a little bit. So if you eat, you know, a pile of broccoli, and a steak, your blood sugar is going to go up a little bit, which is normal.
Insulin will get produced a little bit, which is normal, and it’ll come back down pretty quickly, which is normal. Everything is like working the way it should. But if you ate a big bowl of, you know, sugary cereal, and a glass of orange juice, your blood sugar is going to go up like crazy. Insulin is gonna go up like crazy. And then we’re in that insidious fat storage mode again, okay?
But anytime we eat any food at all, blood sugar goes up a little bit. So one awesome way of keeping blood sugar down, keeping insulin down, and getting us into fat burning mode is to not eat anything at all. And I’m not talking about you know, going on a 12 day fast or something like that.
We’re talking about intermittent fasting. I’m gonna break this all down in just a minute but I just want you understand that, for example, your blood sugars are very low in the morning, because you have been fasting all night long. So anyway, when we combine these two things a low carbohydrate, high fat diet, with intermittent fasting, both of these things work to regulate our blood sugars to keep our insulin levels in check, and to put us into fat burning mode.
So when we combine these two things, it’s like rocket fuel for your overall health and for your weight loss. This approach will keep blood sugars normalized, it’ll keep insulin down, and you’ll be able to access your own body fat for fuel. So what is intermittent fasting at its simplest?
It just means this. Don’t eat anything. It’s just like not eating for periods of time. Okay? The intermittent part means we don’t do it all the time. We do it intermittently, sporadically or periodically. So it’s basically, periodically we don’t eat. That’s all that it means. Okay.
A little bit about fasting in general. So fasting is something that is in our DNA. It’s something we’ve done as humans for millions of years. It’s not some new thing that was created by the CrossFit community or anything like that. Okay. I love the CrossFit people, by the way, I think they’re awesome.
But they love the whole low carb, high fat diet, they love their intermittent fasting. But people just have some notion that this is like all new. It’s not. We’ve been doing this forever. We didn’t evolve as humans by eating three meals a day, two snacks a day and dessert. We didn’t.
We didn’t have that much food available to us. We scavenged. We hunted. We foraged and we ate. And then we fasted. This is the way we’ve evolved as humans to get to where we are today, we feasted. And then we fasted. This was beautiful, everything was working beautifully for us. You know, we didn’t have ways of preserving foods until much later in our evolution.
So when we had food available, we ate it, right? Another kind of historical part of fasting is that cultures around the world today have been practicing some form of fasting for many 1000s of years.
Fasting has been used therapeutically since at least the fifth century, when the Greek physician Hippocrates recommended to his patients abstinence from food or drink, if they had certain types of illnesses. So, you know, back in the fifth century, Hippocrates was saying like, Hey, you want to get better, don’t eat or drink anything.
Religions have been practicing fasting for millennia. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Jainism, Hinduism have all been practicing some form of fasting for 1000s of years. Hindus, for example, are used to fasting on Ekadashi, which is the 11th day of the lunar cycle.
So they fast every 11th day. During the season of Lent, Catholics give up certain foods or practice fasting. In Judaism, they observed fasting on six different days of the year, like Yom Kippur, for example. The entire month of Ramadan and Islam as a period of penitence, sorry, and total fasting from dawn to dusk.
And then arguably three of the most influential people in the history of the world, Jesus, the prophet Muhammad, and the Buddha, they didn’t all agree on a whole lot, but they all agreed on one thing, the power of fasting.
And here’s something else that I just want you to understand about fasting. You are already doing it. You fast every day, you know, unless you eat while you’re sleeping. Like if you get up in the middle of the night and eat something and go back to bed. Most of us, I would say almost all of us fast for around seven or eight hours a day or more.
You know, you don’t you probably don’t need a couple hours before you go to bed. And maybe you don’t eat as soon as you wake up in the morning. So it might be 10 hours a day that you’re fasting anyway. Okay. And the word itself, breakfast means to break your fast, right? So this fasting is not something that is harmful. It’s not something that is weird. And it’s not something that is new. We’ve been doing this for a long, long time.
So I want to talk about some of the myths that people have around fasting and tell you what the truth is around some of these things. So here’s one of the first myths that people have: they say it’s not safe fasting is not safe. Well, like I just said you’re doing this every day, is that not safe?
And we’re not talking about going weeks without food here. This is intermittent fasting, this is sporadically not eating. You can safely go for days, weeks, probably even months without any food depending on how much body fat that you have on you.
And I’m not suggesting you do this. I’m not suggesting you try to go weeks or months without food. But you could easily go a couple of days without food without, you know, any deleterious effects. Okay? Can fasting be dangerous? Yes, if done recklessly, sure, just about anything can be done with reckless abandon and get you into trouble.
And consider the story of the marathon. According to legend. In 490 BC, the Greek soldier Pheidippides ran approximately 26 miles from the battlefield near the town of Marathon to Athens, he’s delivering a message on the news of the defeat of the Persians.
When he got there, he shouted Nike, which means victory. And then he promptly keeled over and died. And people say, well, yeah, you shouldn’t run marathons, they’re not safe, look what happened to this guy. And like, if we look at this, in today’s terms, if, if you took a sedentary middle aged out of shape person, and said go run of Marathon right now, as hard as you can, you know, at your maximum speed, without any type of preparation or knowledge, that person might very well keel over and die to okay.
But here’s the thing, just about anything can be done recklessly, can be done in a way that is not safe. But millions of people practice some form of fasting every single day on this planet and have zero problems. We have been doing fasting as a species for millions of years without any problems. Okay.
But just to address the safety issue, one step further. So there was this guy back in 1965, his name is Angus Barbieri, Scottish dude. And he was very overweight, he is obese at the time, you know, 1965 people weren’t this big, he weighed 456 pounds.
And his doctor suggested he’d go on a fast and so he fasted for like 10 days or something like that. And he loved it, he felt great, he was losing some weight. And he decided to keep going. And with his doctor supervision, he went on a total fast for 382 days. Think about that. This dude went over a year without eating any food.
He was living on his own body fat that whole time. Now, he was drinking water, obviously, coffee, tea, he had to take vitamins and electrolytes, you got to have, you know, some kind of nutrition coming in. But he lost like 276 pounds by living off of his own body fat for over a year. This is crazy, right? And I’m not suggesting again that anybody try this, but I just want you to see that, you know, this guy had doctor’s supervision, but you can go for a long time living off your own body fat. Okay.
So our fat is a great source of fuel for our bodies and for our brains. And, and this is the way we’re designed as people. So that’s kind of Myth number one that fasting isn’t safe. I think we can all agree that fasting is perfectly safe and something we do all the time. Another myth is that fasting makes you go into starvation mode.
I mean, get this. It’s not starving yourself. You don’t go into starvation mode when you fast. Your body has plenty of fuel onboard in the form of your own body fat. We all do. Even the leanest marathon runners have like 8% of body fat, plenty of fat on them to to last a long, long time without eating anything.
Calorie restriction diets actually will put you into starvation mode. And they did these experiments which sound horrible, the Minnesota starvation experiment where they took a group of men and they gave them a very, very limited calorie diet and they went into starvation mode. They became extremely weak, lethargic, emaciated, and were literally starving to death.
But here’s the thing, there’s a big difference between calorie restriction, severe calorie restriction and zero food. Something hormonally changes when you don’t eat anything, calorie restriction puts you in a starvation mode. Because your body can’t make the necessary hormonal adaptations that you get when you’re fasting when you have zero calories coming in, so you’re never actually getting to the point where you’re using your own body fat for fuel.
Everything changes when you go to zero calorie. So fasting the body switches from burning glucose to burning your own stored body fat. And this is exactly what your body fat is there for.
Our body fat is not for looks. It’s not there to make us look good. Right? It’s there, it’s used for food when no food is available, our stored body fat is used to nourish us when no food is available.
It’s a very well designed system and works very, very well. Again, humans have been feasting and then fasting for millions of years. If not eating for short periods of time would put us into starvation mode, we’ve become extinct a long, long time ago. Okay, so when you fast, you do not go into starvation mode. Okay.
Another myth is that when you fast you will lose muscle. So, consider the consequences of burning muscle for energy. During long winters, you know, back in the caveman days, there would have been many days where no food was available. After the first episode of like a period of no food available, your body was actually consuming muscle as fuel, you would be severely weakened after a couple times of this happening, you’d be so weak that you’d be unable to hunt, you won’t even be able to stand up.
Humans would never have survived as a species, if burning muscle happened when we didn’t eat. So your body, here’s the way your body works, you burn glucose first, then fat. And then when there’s no fat available, your body will start to use muscle as fuel.
But it’s a terrible source of fuel for your body. So it will not do that it won’t break down muscle until all the fat is gone. And I gotta tell you, it would be almost impossible for you to lose that much fat, think of Angus. He had so much fat on his body he was able to you know, use that as fuel for over a year. When you fast you burn fat that your body will only use muscle if there’s no more glucose, no fat available.
So you’d literally have to be at that point of like starving to death for your body to start using muscle. And studies indicate that intermittent fasting is actually better for maintaining muscle mass. In fact, intermittent fasting is very popular among bodybuilders because they find it helps them to maintain muscle alongside a low body fat percentage, right? So they’re lean, and super muscular. So you don’t burn muscle when you fast.
Another myth that I’m trying to bust here today is that fasting will make you tired, and lethargic. Oh, if I don’t eat all the time, I’m gonna be super tired. I need the energy. Well, have you ever been tired after eating a meal? Of course you have, everybody has. This is what happens when you eat.
There’s this moment of like drowsiness afterwards, lack of concentration. That’s your system like your stomach, your liver, your digestive system all working to process the food. When you fast, you don’t have these kinds of problems. Fat is a far superior source of fuel for your body and for your brain.
So when you fast your body can actually produce ketones, which is an amazing source of energy. And ketones along with your own body fat, actually increase your energy levels. Right? You get tired and lethargic when you’re eating a lot of sugar and carbs. And you have that crash after you eat.
Like if you’ve ever had a big lunch and then you want to go to sleep around two o’clock in the afternoon to three o’clock you’re just like dead. And you need your Starbucks, triple Mocha, caramel latte or whatever to get you through the afternoon. That’s because of you know, eating all that food, especially the sugar and the carbs.
But when you’re fasting this doesn’t happen. You don’t have those energy spikes and crashes. You have this like consistent energy throughout the day so no crashes at all. And I gotta tell you, my clients report a lot of increased energy and sustained energy when they become fat-adapted
When they stop eating the sugar and the carbs and they, their body is starting to burn fat. And then when we add in some intermittent fasting, their energy levels actually go up, not down. Okay? So fasting does not make you tired and lethargic actually gives you more energy. People think fasting will slow your metabolism.
And no, this is not true at all. It actually boosts your metabolism. When you fast it puts your body into fat burning mode, okay, which is boosting it actually boosts your metabolic rate. This is due to a drastic increase in blood levels of norepinephrine, which stimulates your metabolism and instructs your fat cells to break down body fat. And then you can use that body fat for fuel.
Studies have shown that fasting for even up to like 48 hours will boost your metabolism by something like 3% up to 14%. Fasting does not slow your metabolism. And there’s this misconception out there that you need to eat like six times a day, you know, to boost your metabolism. And it’s the opposite.
When you eat six times a day, you slow your metabolism down. Because you’re always hanging on to all that extra body fat. All that extra food is going into your fat stores. Okay, your your blood glucose is always elevated, insulin has always elevated and you’re holding on to all that extra fat. Okay, so you’re actually not burning fat when you do that. So eating less often or eating nothing at all for periods of time will actually speed up your metabolism.
Another myth is that fasting deprives your body of nutrients. So some people have concerns that fasting will lead to some sort of malnourishment, right, you’re not getting the right vitamins and minerals. And it’s been shown that fasting that lasts under 24 hours, like what we’re talking about here, intermittent fasting, there’s no real need to be concerned with missing vitamins or minerals, mainly because we replenish anything we lost.
When we eat food later in the day, like you’re not you’re you’re eating every day, okay? But for longer fasts, if you’re doing like a 24 hour or longer fast, doctors recommend supplementing with electrolytes. So sodium, potassium, magnesium, which is very easy to get in a supplement, right? I actually take these when I’m running in the heat, just because we all need electrolytes when we’re running, especially longer distances, especially when it’s super hot outside.
And so I take a supplement that’s just sodium, potassium, and magnesium, and no sugar or anything like that, and gives me everything I need. And I do all my runs fasted. And we’ll talk a little bit about that in a second here. But actually, fat is one of the best things your body can use for fuel, right, it’s one of two essential nutrients that we have to have.
And so, you know, you’re not depriving your body of nutrients when you fast for short periods of time at all. Okay, if you’re concerned, just make sure you’re getting enough salt on the electrolytes. But other than that, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to get all the food, all the nutrients you need from the food that you eat. Okay.
And then the last myth I want to just talk about here, as people say, fasting is just crazy. And at this point, I want to say isn’t eating six times a day crazy? Yeah. Keeping your insulin levels elevated all the time. So your body is constantly in fat storage mode, you become insulin resistant when you do this. You know, you get fat, you can’t lose the weight. Isn’t that crazy? Yeah, I think so.
You know, think about all these millions of people around the world who have been fasting for 1000s of years. Muslims, Christians, Jewish people, Hindus, are they all crazy? No. What about all the human ancestors who feasted and fasted millions of years of evolution and we thrived as a species? It’s not crazy. It’s perfect. It’s how we’ve evolved is how we’re designed to function optimally.
And I just wanted you to think about this. Think about animals, the animal kingdom Okay, so bears hibernate every winter, right? They gorge themselves on salmon and berries, which sounds delicious, by the way, and then they live on their own body fat all winter long when they hibernate, right? Are they crazy? Are they just you know, insane? No, is the way they’re designed.
And just a little sidebar here humans were like the only animal on the planet It eats foods that we’re not designed to eat. So all the sugar and the highly refined carbohydrates, we’re not supposed to eat that stuff. That stuff makes us fat. It makes us obese. It creates all kinds of health problems for us. But we eat tons of that stuff. No other animal on the planet does this.
Humans are the only overweight animal on the planet. Think about that. No other animals get fat and obese. You know, obviously, there’s fat animals, like Wallace’s and elephant seals, right? They have a lot of body fat, but they’re not overweight. That’s the way they’re supposed to be. They’re designed to be this way. But it’s perfectly healthy for them. That’s, that’s optimal for them. But it’s not perfectly healthy for humans to be as fat as a walrus. To me, that’s crazy.
Okay, so I hope you understand that fasting is not crazy, it’s perfectly normal. So let’s quickly I’m gonna talk about some of the benefits of fasting, sorry, I get all worked up about this stuff. And I crack myself up sometimes, okay, the benefits of fasting, especially for runners.
So here’s the benefits we can experience. And I’ve kind of talked about some of the stuff already. But I’m gonna reiterate a few things and tell you about a few things I think are kind of cool here. So what happens when you do some fasting? What’s good about it, especially for runners?
Well, number one, glucose levels go down. So when our blood sugars, you know, normalized insulin levels go down, it improves insulin sensitivity, which means our bodies can react to insulin the way they’re supposed to, we get out of fat storage mode, and we get into fat burning mode, right, so we have this boost in metabolism. And our bodies can actually get out of fat storage and into fat burning mode. So there’s a huge benefit for everybody right in it.
The second benefit is that it induces weight loss, because our metabolism is speeding up, not slowing down. It speeds up weight loss and fat loss and fat adaptation. So if you want to become a fat adapted runner, one of the best ways to get there is obviously you have to stop eating sugar and carbohydrates. And then number two, start doing some intermittent fasting.
And when you do it, you will get your body into fat burning mode faster, you’ll lose more weight, obviously, but becoming a fat adapted runner will happen quicker if you include a little intermittent fasting along with the low carb high fat diet.
Another benefit is that intermittent fasting helps you to break through weight loss plateaus. So with all my clients, invariably, at some point, weight loss kind of stalls a little bit, this is perfectly normal. And we anticipate this happening.
And there’s all kinds of tools that I help us and we implement to help my, my clients break through some of those weight loss plateaus, and one of them is intermittent fasting, it’s a great way to bust through when you get stuck at a certain weight, especially when it’s done intermittently. So not all the time, but periodically.
Because here’s what happens when we do the same thing over and over again, our bodies adapt, our body’s very good at adapting, right, so what we want to do is we want to kind of shake things up a little bit every now and then we want to cause our body a little bit of stress so that it can adapt in a different way and change things. Okay.
This is why we don’t work the same muscles at the exact same workout at the gym every single time we go if you want to actually build muscle because your body will adapt, and it’ll stop seeing that as a stressor, and it will stop building the muscle, right. So that’s why if you follow any kind of workout routine or a plan that somebody put in place for you, then you know, they always want you to be doing different things and mixing it up.
And that’s how you get stronger and build muscle. Also, this is why we don’t run the same distances and the same pace. Every time we go out and run right you got to mix things up. We want our bodies to adapt to some super hard super fast running like sprints or hill repeats. And then we want to do some really slow long running.
And then we want to do some stuff in between and then we throw some fartleks in there. I just love saying fartleks and then we want to do some interval training in there. Right? Well, we want to just keep mixing things up so our bodies can respond to these changes of stressors. Same thing happens with fasting it helps us to respond to changes in a different way and really helps to break through some of these weight loss plateaus that we get.
Another huge benefit of intermittent fasting is increased mental and cognitive abilities. So our brains love fat and ketones for fuel is an amazing source of fuel for our brains. And when we do intermittent fasting fat and ketones are produced, we get this flood of amazing fuel for our brain.
It helps improve our mental clarity or concentration, you’ll think more clearly, you’ll be more focused, you’ll be smarter, you get smarter when you do intermittent fasting. FYI. Another amazing benefit is that intermittent fasting enables cell regeneration, including immune cell regeneration, which is very important during things like global pandemics. Okay?
Intermittent fasting also helps to lower blood cholesterol levels, it helps to decrease inflammation in your body, which is amazing, especially as runners, we don’t want to be inflamed, we want to decrease inflammation, right. And intermittent fasting will help with that.
Intermittent fasting helps to lower blood pressure, so reducing hypertension. And then studies have shown that intermittent fasting can also help to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, it helps to extend your life by reversing the aging process. So fasting actually provides some anti aging benefits.
And studies have actually shown that intermittent fasting helps to lower the risk of certain types of cancer. Now, here’s some benefits that are particularly interesting for you as a runner, number one, increased energy, not a loss of energy, but an increase of energy.
So when you practice some intermittent fasting, Adrenaline increases, you actually have more energy, so you can train harder, you can run harder, you can do some more intense workouts, you know, if you’re lifting weights at the gym, you can lift a lot more, because you have all this increased adrenaline and energy. And you’re gonna get some pretty amazing results. Because you have more energy.
Also another huge benefit is there is an increase in growth hormone production during those fasting periods. When you have more growth hormone being produced in your body, this helps to increase your bone density. So this is good for people over 40. I don’t know if there’s any of you out there, well, it’ll help to increase muscle mass. So this is good for everybody.
Right, you can build more muscle because you’re producing more growth hormone. When you’re producing more growth hormone, it also allows you to recover faster from these harder runs and workouts. So intermittent fasting allows you to train harder, and recover faster.
And then one of the big benefits I want to talk about here is that and I kind of mentioned this already, but this is that intermittent fasting helps to speed up the fat adaptation process. The key to fat adaptation, becoming a fat adapted runner, is to get your body used to using your own body fat for fuel.
And the best way to do this, is just don’t eat anything. That way, your body will not have any glucose available for energy. So it will have to go into your fat stores for energy, this is good, this is what we want. And this process of switching from burning glycogen to burning fat, is what we call the fat adaptation period.
And that takes a couple of weeks, you know, two to six weeks depending on how you do it, and your body type and all kinds of other factors. But it’s kind of different for everybody. But generally speaking, it’s somewhere between two and six weeks to get to that point of where you become fully fat adapted. Fasting really helps to speed up this process, okay? It’s an uncomfortable period, because running really sucks during that period.
So when you combine low carbohydrate, high fat diet, along with intermittent fasting, it helps to shorten that uncomfortable fat adaptation period. Okay, so all of these amazing benefits that I just listed. You get all these amazing health benefits without taking any kind of medications without buying any kind of supplements, without any cost at all to you without doing anything at all, except just donate. I think that’s pretty freakin amazing if you ask me.
Okay, so we will be continuing this conversation. We’re talking all about intermittent fasting this month over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So here’s a little preview of what’s coming up in the Running Lean community. September intermittent fasting challenge.
And so over the course of the next several weeks, talking about how to do intermittent fasting is a lot simpler than you might think. I’m going to be offering tips on how to succeed with intermittent fasting, like how to make sure we’re getting enough electrolytes, what electrolytes should you take? When should you take them?
And what to do when you feel like, when you feel like eating something because like when we’re intermittent fasting, one of the things I talk about the first thing we’re doing this week is no snacks, right? Not eating between meals. And people are like, well, I feel hungry. And I’m like, Well, what did we do about that? You know, that never happens, people never feel hungry between meals. So I’ll give you some tips on how to deal with stuff like that.
So it’s like about how to curb the cravings between meals, how to deal with those urges and stuff like that, okay. I’ll be going over all the different types of intermittent fasting. So there’s different ways of doing this. There’s something called time restricted eating. There’s something people do called alternate day fasting.
There’s some advanced fasting regimens like a 36 hour, 48 hour, 24 hour fasts, one meal a day that people like to do. So there’s different ways of doing this. And I’ll just be giving you some information on all these things, and how to do some of them safely.
And then one of the big things I’ll be talking about over in the Running Lean community on Facebook is training in a fasted state. I call it running on empty. So this is where you don’t need fuel before, during or even after your runs. What? I know it sounds crazy, right? But I gotta tell you, it’s pretty amazing. I have not used fuel.
For months, I do all my workouts, all of my runs in a fasted state. So I haven’t eaten anything for like, at least 12 hours before running, just do some coffee, you know, I gotta have my coffee in the morning. Just honestly, I take electrolytes with me on my runs. And my runs have been amazing.
I’m up to about 15 miles doing this, alright, and I don’t need to have fuel with me. It’s kind of an experiment I’m doing. You know, I could take some fuel with me if I wanted to, but I don’t need it. And that’s the point I’m trying to get out here is like, you don’t have to have it. And when you train this way, and you train in this fasted state you’re building, you’re producing all this growth hormone, and you’ve got an amazing amount of energy. So you can actually run harder, run faster, run longer, and recover faster. So amazing, right?
So honestly, becoming a fat-adapted runner, this is one of the best things you can do for yourself. We’ll talk about how we do all that. So join us for the September intermittent fasting, and see what not eating can do for your overall health, energy, weight loss, and running. Cool. That’s all I got for you guys today. As always, lots and lots of love to each and every one of you. Keep on Running Lean 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 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.
For decades, we’ve been taught that saturated fat is bad, it causes all kinds of health issues like obesity and coronary heart disease, and that the solution is to replace all the “unhealthy” fats …
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 34 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host and the weight loss coach for runners. And today we’re talking about oil. What I know is the ultimate guide to oil. For decades we’ve been taught that saturated fat is bad AND to stay away from it.
It causes all kinds of health issues like obesity and coronary heart disease and that the solution is to replace all those unhealthy fats like lard and butter with hard healthy fats like vegetable oil. The problem though, is that ever since we’ve increased our consumption of vegetable oils, we’ve just gotten fatter and sicker.
So what the heck is going on? In this episode, I get to the bottom of this issue, and I explain why vegetable oils are actually pretty bad for us as humans, and what oils are better options and what you should use instead.
So if you liked this podcast, then I think you got to come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. This is a positive energetic informative group that goes hand in hand with the podcast. So it’s a fun group of like minded runners who all share common goals. Goals like wanting to run their first marathon or just make running easier or living a more vibrant life or losing weight.
And in that group, I do a series of live trainings on topics related to the stuff I’m talking about here on the podcast, things like running mindset, nutrition, weight loss, all kinds of fun stuff. And actually one of our members, one of the members of the Running Lean community, Melissa, asked this question recently.
She said, “You’ve mentioned a couple of times that canola oil is poison/garbage.” Yes, that sounds like me. “Can you do a podcast episode on fats and oils? I’m fairly well educated on general nutrition principles and good fats. But I would be interested to hear more of your perspective on which oils are best and why. Thanks.”
Well, yes, Melissa, that’s what I’m doing today. That’s a very good question. And so I’m devoting this whole episode to answering that. So come and join us in the Facebook group in the Running Lean community on Facebook. And you can get your questions answered, too. So just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community, and you’ll find us also.
Did you know that I do one-on-one coaching? I do. Listen, doing this stuff, trying to figure all this nutrition out, especially as a runner becoming fat adapted, you know, knowing what to eat, when to eat, and all that other stuff can be kind of challenging to try to do it all on your own. So that’s why I’m here to help you.
Listen, we’re all different. We all have different nutritional needs, different genes, different values, different lifestyles. And when you work with me, I help you develop a eating program, a nutrition program, a weight loss program that works for you. You get my help and guidance. You get my personal attention, you get a step by step action plan, you get to be held accountable for all your results, which is awesome.
And then I help motivate you and help keep you moving forward and give you tools and skills to help you improve not only your nutrition and your running but other aspects of your life as well. Just imagine how much easier it would be to lose weight when you have somebody right there walking you through it step by step showing you exactly what to do and holding you accountable.
Just go to innerfiretribe.com/weightlosscoaching, all one word, and you can apply for coaching with me. I’d love to talk to you about it. Okay, let’s get into this. This is the ultimate guide to oil. And in doing my research for this podcast, I realized that the whole vegetable oil industry kind of was birthed right here in Cincinnati, Ohio. No.
So back in the 1800s Cincinnati was known as porkopolis because there were a lot of pork processing plants around here. So they did a lot of rendering of animal fats. And a lot of pork was being consumed. There’s a lot of slaughterhouses and all that stuff. So Cincinnati was known as porkopolis. That’s why we have the Flying Pig marathon. It’s kind of a play on that and some other things but anyway.
Oh, and another really cool thing is the pork. This may sound gross but the pig disassembly lines in the slaughterhouses. So they would have these kind of factory lines where they would disassemble pigs for different purposes.
Henry Ford actually took that idea and reverse engineered it, basically reverse the process to create the first assembly lines for cars. So even like the whole assembly line thing, got it? Started from Cincinnati and porkopolis. The things you learn, I’m telling you, it’s amazing.
So anyway, Cincinnati, late 1800s, lots of pork being, you know, rendered and stuff like that, lots of animal fats being consumed. And there are these two guys, William Procter and James Gamble that had this little soap and candle company called Procter and Gamble.
And at the time, and just another side note, if I look at my apartment window, I live near downtown Cincinnati. And if I look at my apartment window, I see the Procter and Gamble global headquarters building right there. So like I live kind of in the shadow, this whole Procter and Gamble thing.
And so when I was doing this research, I was just like, this is really hitting close to home. Anyway, okay, enough time digressions, I’m gonna keep moving forward here. So at the time, they were making soap and candles, right, Procter and Gamble, and animal fat, the lard that they were using, from the animal fat from the pork rendering facilities and stuff was expensive.
And so they started trying to find a cheaper alternative. And so they were using like palm oil and coconut oils instead. And they made this soap that floated in water using these oils, and it’s called Ivory soap, right. And, and so this was going along pretty well.
But even that was kind of expensive coconut oil, palm oil was kind of expensive. So they found an even cheaper alternative. And it was a waste product from the cotton farming industry, cottonseed oil. And so before processing cottonseed oil is this cloudy red, and very bitter oil.
And it has this toxic chemical in it called and I don’t know if I’m gonna pronounce this right, but gossypol, and it’s toxic to most animals. It causes dangerous spikes in the body’s potassium levels, it causes organ damage, and it causes paralysis.
Okay, so they had this very toxic cottonseed oil. And they decided, at some point they were going to use this to feed to humans. Now, an issue of Popular Science at the time kind of sums up the evolution of cottonseed oil. Here’s what they said. They said, “What was garbage in 1860 became fertilizer in 1870. Switch to cattle feed in 1880 and then table food and many other things in 1890.”
So it slowly entered our food supply. And then there was this new invention that took cottonseed oil to the next level that really got it into America’s kitchens and restaurants in our homes. And this is in 1907 when Procter and Gamble started using this new chemical process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenation that took this liquid cottonseed oil and produced a solid fat.
Okay, so the company’s researchers had been trying to produce a more solid form of cottonseed oil for a long time. And it was very important for them in the soap manufacturing business. They wanted an oil that was solid at room temperature. So the company’s scientists took this hydrogenation. And they created this new creamy pearly white substance out of cottonseed oil to use in soapmaking.
And it looked a lot like the most popular cooking fat of the day, which was lard. And so Procter and Gamble, grabbed onto this stuff and said, you know, this kind of looks like lard, I mean seems innocent enough. And so they sold this new substance. And today we know this is hydrogenated vegetable oil.
So they sold it to home cooks, as a replacement for animal fats. And they called it Crisco, short for crystallized cottonseed oil. Okay, so they took this stuff and they were really intending to use it for the creation of soap. And they actually got a patent for this stuff in 1910, for Crisco, and in the patent, it says, a food product consisting of a vegetable oil, preferably cottonseed, oil, partially hydrogenated, and hardened to a homogenous white or a yellowish, semi solid, closely resembling lard, the special object of the invention is to provide a new food product for a shortening in cooking.
Okay, so they just had this idea, let’s just start feeding this to humans. No real research went into this about the deleterious effects of this stuff, or about the health consequences of eating this stuff. But they started selling this now food product. And it was unprecedented at the time.
They sold 2.6 million pounds of this stuff, Crisco, in 1912 2.6 million pounds. And then just four years later, they were up to selling 60 million pounds of Crisco. So this new, quote, unquote, food bolstered the bottom line of Procter and Gamble. Keep in mind, their only products at the time were things like Ivory soap, Lennox soap, White Napa, laundry soap, and star soap.
This was their contribution to the, you know, dietary nutritional needs of America and the world really. And this sort of ushered in this whole age of vegetable oils in low fat foods later on, but this was all marketing. Okay, it wasn’t healthier by any means. Like, they didn’t have any science to prove any of this stuff. They didn’t do any real deep scientific testing.
They were just like, well, I mean, you can eat it, I guess it’s okay. You know, but it was all marketing. So they were like, hey, this seems like it’s probably better than animal fat. So, you know, it’s healthier for you. And so that’s why they marketed it, it’s just a marketing thing. Okay.
But this stuff, Crisco, you know, remember it was made for the soap industry, it was 50% trans fat. And we know that trans fats are very bad, right? It wasn’t until the 1990s, really, that we understood the health risks of trans fats. But they estimate that for every 2% increase in the consumption of trans fats, which are still found in many fast foods and processed foods today, your heart disease risks increase by 23%.
So every 2% increase in the consumption of trans fats, the risk of heart disease increases by 23%. What’s interesting, though, and surprising is that animal fats, the fact that, you know, people have said that animal fats increase your risk of heart disease is not supported by science. Okay, that’s very important to understand.
So they took this stuff that they wanted to make, whether we wanted to make soap cheaper, and quote unquote, better, and they started feeding it to humans. basically selling it as healthier than animal fats. And this was the birth of the vegetable oil industry, everybody started to get in on this, okay. And it birthed the whole new era of cooking oils.
So prior to this time, you know, we used to cook with tallow, which is beef fat suet, which is like lamb or sheep fat, and lard from pigs, and then butter, right, that’s what we used to cook with. And for thousands of years, humans, wow, I’m gonna go back millions of years, humans used an eighth of those for saturated fats, mostly from animals as part of their diet, with no of the health issues that we experience from eating vegetable oils.
Thousands and thousands and thousands of years of eating this stuff, and that we, you know, we also consumed in certain parts of the world, you know, back, you know, a million years, a few 100,000 years, we also consumed coconut oil, palm oil and olive oils in some of the tropical more Mediterranean regions. But seed oils, these things like we’re talking about here, cottonseed oil, safflower seed oil, stuff like that, were not eaten by humans.
It wasn’t until the modern era and the industrial revolution that the seed oils were produced at all. And actually they are produced to be used as lubricants and machinery. And did you know that you can use vegetable oil in a diesel engine? Like you can pour in vegetable oil? I think you have to modify something.
But my understanding is that you can run a diesel engine perfectly fine on vegetable oil. Why are we eating this stuff? It just seems so bizarre, right? Okay, so that’s kind of the history of, you know, where this idea of eating these industrial oils comes from.
And now I want to talk a little bit about you know, why these are bad for us. Okay. But I gotta before I get into that, I need to talk about a couple of sciency type things, just so we understand. The first is like, the vegetable oils we’re talking about here are the polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Okay, that’s kind of the bad part of these things, or PUFAs, polyunsaturated fatty acids. These are the oils like corn oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, safflower seed oil, sunflower seed oil, peanut oil, canola oil, which is made from rapeseed, and grapeseed oil. So these are all the what they technically call seed oils, or industrial seed oils.
And the USDA, or the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that we eat around two tablespoons of these oils every day. Okay, so they’re basically just saying, like, eat this stuff. It’s good for you. So, polyunsaturated fatty acids, that’s the kind of stuff we’re talking about here.
And then there’s a difference between saturated and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats are or saturated oils are typically very stable. They’re solid at room temperature, like lard, butter, coconut oil. And then the unsaturated types are very unstable. They’re liquid at room temperature and when you heat them up, terrible things happen.
But anyway, in order to make these seed oils edible, they have to go through a massive refinement process. Okay, so this is where things get pretty weird with this oil. Okay, so think about something like coconut oil which is so natural or even olive oil.
To get olive oil, you just smash some olives and the oil comes out right and they do it at a cold on a cold press, you know, they don’t have to heat it up. And there’s basically zero refinement involved at all. So you just squeezing olives and olive oil comes out. And it’s beautiful. It’s delicious. And very, very healthy, good for you, right.
But these see these seed oils in order to get the oil out of them, and to make it edible for humans have to go through a massive amount of refinement. So for example, let’s look at how they make canola oil and pretty much all the seed oils are made the same way.
Canola is made from grape seeds. Grape seeds are almost entirely GMO genetically modified, they are heavily treated with pesticides. And then they take these seeds and they have to heat them to super high temperatures just to get the oil to start to get the oil out of them, so they are under high heat and pressure to get the oil out of them and get the oil out to have to use a chemical solvent.
It’s a petroleum based chemical solvent called hexane. Hexane actually causes nerve damage to humans. But anyway, so they have to use this industrial solvent to extract the oil from the seeds. Okay? The resulting sludge that comes from this process is this rancid, super bad smelling and gray sludge.
And it’s inedible at this point, it’s actually very toxic for humans. And so they have to heat it again to remove the toxins, they have to deodorize it so they go through another heating process to get that odor out of it. And then they bleach it to remove the gray color.
Okay, then they add some enhancements, like artificial colors, and some synthetic vitamins. So by this time, we have something that is an industrial oil. And it’s great for running diesel engines and really good for lubricating machinery and stuff like that.
If people were to like just come up with this idea today and propose that we eat this stuff today, there’s no one in their right mind that would say like, this is a good idea. But because you know, industry got behind this, you know, 100 years ago, it’s just stuck with us. And oh my gosh, this stuff is just, it’s horrible.
And when I say this stuff is garbage, slash poison. This is what I’m talking about. We’re taking something that is unfit for humans to eat. And we’re not only, not only are we suggesting people eat it, the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest we eat it and suggest we all eat this stuff. And it’s just causing all kinds of problems, all kinds of heart or health and heart problems for us.
But you know what, there’s a lot of money going into this stuff. There’s a lot of profits. And there’s a lot of like bad science that is promoting this stuff as being healthy, even though they’ve never really proven to be healthier at all. So just as an example. And there’s so many studies out there, I’m just going to mention a couple of things here.
But there’s like so many good studies that prove that these vegetable oils have not helped at all. But just think about it this way. Animal fat consumption went from around 12 pounds per year in 1900 to around five pounds per year in the year 2005. So in roughly 100 years, we’ve lessened you know more than halved our consumption of animal fats.
The polyunsaturated fats consumption went from around 10 grams a day in 1900 to basically almost zero to around 40 grams a day in 2005. So we’ve quadrupled the amount of these vegetable oils that we’re eating. The problem though, since 1900, is that heart disease, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension, cancer, all of those have steadily increased along with the consumption in it tracks very nicely.
If you look at it on a graph from vegetable oils, how much we’ve been consuming to the amount of heart disease and obesity and diabetes and all these other things. Today, the average American consumes around, this is crazy, 70 pounds of vegetable oil per year. 70 pounds of this stuff per year. Whoa, that was crazy.
And you don’t have to be like pouring it into a pan or like doubling it to get that much into your body because all fast food almost all processed food most packaged food contains these industrial seed oils, potato chips, granola, fried chicken, french fries, burgers, quote unquote healthy cereals, processed meats, plant based meat substitutes, crackers, pretzels, practically everything you see at a store has vegetable oil in it.
It’s crazy. And so we’re eating like 70 pounds of this stuff per year. And this is not good. So why, why is this bad? Like, why are vegetable oils bad for you? If you’re not convinced already that these industrial seed oils are not bad for you, here’s some more things to understand about these kinds of oils.
So they did these animal studies on rats back in the 1940s. Poor rats, they always get the brunt of these studies. But anyway, these poor rats, so they took these rats and they fed them linseed oil, corn oil, soybean oil. And they realized that eating this stuff was very toxic for these animals that caused them to grow poorly. They suffered massive diarrhea, they had enlarged livers. They had gastric ulcers, heart damage, and they died prematurely.
And then this part is kind of gross. But they had this like varnish like substance that they found in their feces that actually caused these poor rats to actually be like, stuck, like glued to the wire mesh floor of their cages. So they had this like, byproduct of eating this stuff that was like this toxic varnish that glued them to their cages.
Why are we eating this stuff? Right? It’s horrible. So this is done in the 1940s. But these kinds of studies were summarily dismissed. Because it didn’t fit with the agenda of the big food companies that were like, well, you know, we’re trying to promote something heart healthy here, so, and they put big money into studies that showed that this stuff didn’t have those kinds of effects.
Anyway, when you heat up these vegetable oils, they become extremely toxic. So this is like, the worst thing you can do with these vegetable oils is to heat them up. So they break down inside our bodies, they create free radicals, they create aldehydes. Aldehydes cause rapid cell death, aldehydes interfere with our DNA and our RNA.
They basically screw up the way our cells function. They cause extreme oxidative stress to all of our tissues. They cause really terrible effects to our health like heart disease and cancer. In fact, they took one piece of fried chicken from a fast food joint, and they were able to isolate 130 volatile compounds found in this one piece of fried chicken. And honestly, you’re not going to like this part.
Virtually all restaurants use vegetable oil to cook with because that’s what’s recommended. So virtually all restaurants are heating up this vegetable oil, creating this toxic very toxic sludge. And that’s what we’re they’re feeding to all their people. I know that sucks, right? It’s hard to get away from it. It really is.
So polyunsaturated fats tend to, you know, react with oxygen in our bodies and they cause oxidative stress. This is important to understand. So you’ve heard that we should be eating foods that are high in antioxidants, right? Eat dark chocolate, eat blueberries. We should be eating these foods to combat or prevent oxidative stress. That’s why they’re called antioxidants.
But these fatty acids in vegetable oils actually sit in our cell membranes. They increase the they cause oxidative stress increase these harmful oxidative chain reactions. And they actually lead to structural changes within our cells within our fat stores within our cell membranes. These kinds of oils create a very pro-inflammatory state in our bodies, while the mono unsaturated fatty acids like olive oil, for example, are anti-inflammatory. Okay.
One more kind of sciency thing to talk about here is the omega six versus omega three. So you’ve probably heard that we should be getting lots of omega threes and kind of limit our omega sixes, right? I think we all kind of understand that. Just so you understand, like, our bodies need both. Our bodies need Omega sixes and Omega threes, and they just have to be in a certain kind of balance.
And it depends on who you talk to what that balance is some people say four to one, Omega six to Omega three, some say one to one. But whatever it is, we want to make sure we have enough omega threes in our system. So omega threes. The problem is though, when omega sixes are high, it really lowers the amount of omega threes, it throws that thing off balance, okay.
And these oils that I’m talking about here, these industrial seed oils are very high in Omega sixes, and they throw off that balance. And so you want to like limit the Omega sixes, you want to really just eliminate these vegetable oils, and increase your omega threes to get the optimal kinds of fats that you need.
So the only way we can get these two very important types of fats is by eating certain types of foods and fats that can or foods that contain these fats, right. So we want to make sure that, you know, we’re limiting the amount of omega sixes, so limit the vegetable oils basically is the easiest way to do this, and increase the Omega threes.
Omega six oils are very unstable. They’re made of these polyunsaturated fats, and when you cook them at high temperatures, like I said, or microwave them or, you know, cook, fry food in them, they oxidize the fats. And like I said, oxidized Omega sixes damage your DNA, they cause inflammation of your heart, they raise your risk of several types of cancer including breast cancer, they also interferes with brain metabolism.
So, get that foggy brain Omega sixes or inflammatory omega threes or not, you need both, but because of that inflammation factor, you want to maximize omega threes, minimize Omega sixes, okay? Overconsumption of omega sixes, and under consuming omega threes, has been shown to increase all kinds of diseases like heart disease, obesity, type two diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome, macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, hormonal disorders, kidney, liver damage, infertility, cancer, I mean, the list goes on and on and on, of not having these things in balance. Okay?
When you have a diet, though, that’s high in omega threes and low in omega sixes, when you’re eating more natural fats, and I’m gonna get into some of what you should be doing in just a second here, but things like coconut oil, let’s say, that will help to keep your Omega three to sixes in balance. Okay?
Some of the good sources of Omega threes, just so you know, would be things like wild caught salmon and grass fed beef, sardines, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, avocados, walnuts, flax seeds, all these things are really high in omega threes.
And then there was this 2018 study that the title of the study was omega six vegetable oils, as a driver of coronary heart disease, the oxidized linoleic acid hypothesis. And I’m just gonna read you the summary of this paper, it’s really good and really well done. Well, well documented. Lots of experts in the field in science and fats and things like that.
But here’s the summary. It says: “In summary, numerous lines of evidence show that the Omega six polyunsaturated fat linoleic acid, promotes oxidative stress, oxidized LDL, chronic low grade inflammation and atherosclerosis, and is likely a major dietary culprit for causing coronary heart disease, especially when consumed in the form of industrial seed oils, commonly referred to as vegetable oils.”
That’s enough evidence right there for me, and should be for you that this stuff is no good. So I’m going to talk about some better choices for you in just a second, but just really quickly, you know, when I when I start talking about these things, and say, Hey, we need to get off the industrial seed oils and start using just the natural fats.
Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, whatever, carnivore, but this whole idea of eating saturated fats as being bad for us, has just been drilled into our heads and that’s just not true. There’s never been a randomized controlled trial, which is the the actual good science, okay? There are two basic types of studies.
There’s epidemiological studies which study a group of people and what they eat. And then they make conclusions based on that. And that’s okay, it can show it in association but doesn’t show cause. A better type of study is RCTs, or randomized controlled trials. These are where you take groups of people and you separate them, you control everything about their environment, and make sure everything is the same except for certain types of diet, okay?
And when you can randomize the groups and control exactly what they’re eating and study that, that is good science. Okay. So anytime I see association studies, I’m very skeptical, I really don’t go by that, I always want to look at the randomized control trials, okay, that’s important to understand.
And so this idea of like saturated fat being bad for you in the 1960s and 70s, all these governments from around the world got together and looked at all these randomized controlled trials that had been done and, and they, and they did all these studies that included over 75,000 men and women.
And these experiments that they’re talking about these randomized control trials, lasted anywhere from 1 to 12 years. So there’s long term studies, right? Very expensive to do this. The results from all these studies from a meta analysis like looking at all these studies, showed no effect of saturated fats on cardiovascular mortality, or total mortality are sometimes known as all cause mortality.
In other words, these people eating saturated fats were no more likely to die of heart disease, get heart disease, or die from these kinds of problems than the people that were eating the low fat, non saturated fat diet, it’s very important to understand that. So my takeaway from looking at data like that is saturated fat is not bad for you, and never has been proven to be bad for you.
In fact, it’s proven to be just fine. So what are some better choices? So if we want to get away from the industrial seed oils, what should we eat instead? It’s a great question. So stick with cold pressed very minimally processed oils, oils that are produced without high heat or chemical solvents. Okay, this is just standard.
So things like coconut oil, coconut oil is one of the best. It’s a saturated fat. It’s like one of the best things very versatile. You can use it in a lot of stuff. It’s great for cooking because it has a very high smoke point, you can heat it up to very high temperatures and it won’t oxidize so it doesn’t break down.
It’s also solid at room temperature, much like Crisco or lard. And so you know, the coconut oil is very versatile, you can use it in baking and all kinds of good stuff, and it tastes good. So that’s a super awesome alternative to vegetable oil.
Another one is olive oil. Olive oil is very, you know, always get the cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and only use olive oil cold you don’t want to heat up olive oil, so don’t cook with it because it has a very low smoke point, it’ll start to break down if it’s heated up to to too high of a temperature. So I just want to use cold olive oil.
Another great option is avocado oil, which a lot of people love. And it has a higher smoke point than olive oil. It’s great for cooking as well. You can use it cold or hot. So it’s great for salad dressings and things like that. And you can cook with it as well.
Macadamia nut oil is another good one. It’s low in the polyunsaturated fatty acids, it’s good for dressings, and it’s good to make mail out of. Apparently I have not done that but that sounds amazing.
And then one of the best oils you can use would be fish oil, it has tons of great omega threes. It helps to promote proper cell function, good lipid numbers, and actually has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity. Okay, so these are the oils you should stick with. I would say olive oil and coconut oil would be my to go to and I always have that stuff around. And I use that stuff every day.
The bottom line seed oils, these industrial seed oils should not be consumed for humans. They were not created as food. I think they’re unfit for human consumption. They harm your health. They create oxidative stress. They break down ourselves, they damage our DNA. They’re highly inflammatory. They throw off our omega three omega sixes ratio, basically depriving our bodies of the good fats that we need for optimal health.
The solution is to replace these industrial seed oils with good oils, good heart healthy oils, the real hard healthy oils like olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, or just used butter. And these things restore the Omega three omega six ratios, they don’t promote oxidative stress. Some oils, like olive oil, are actually anti inflammatory.
And these will dramatically improve your health a little bit of a bigger picture, look at things here like we’re consuming, you know, less animal fat and more vegetable oil than ever before. And yet we’re sicker and fatter than we’ve ever been. And honestly, we can look at vegetable oil as just one of the key players to this and I call the three key players here.
Sugar, refined grains, and these industrial seed oils. I call this the Vile Triumvirate. It’s this horrid toxic concoction of these three things it’s like making us fat and sick and killing us all. And yet, these three things make up most of the processed food available in the supermarket today. These three things are found in almost all processed and packaged food.
And it’s kind of what the United States dietary guidelines recommends we eat. You know, since the induction of the dietary guidelines in 1980, the overall health of Americans has sharply declined. The guidelines have had a profound effect on our health in a bad way. And the guidelines affect more than just like us sitting at home.
Okay, so like all school lunch programs are based on the US Dietary Guidelines, and 19% of school aged kids are now obese. The Dietary Guidelines affect all military rations and mess hall food. And now 7% of troops are obese, not just overweight, but obese. The guidelines effect special nutrition programs for women, infants and children like WIC. And now 15% of toddlers in WIC are obese.
The guidelines determine what food is served in hospitals. The guidelines determine what food programs we give to the elderly, and life expectancy is actually going down. Alzheimer’s is going up diabetes has gone up rapidly. Cancer has gone up rapidly among the elderly. The guidelines affect agricultural production. So they actually because of the guidelines, they incentivize farmers to produce more and more cheap carbohydrates like soy beans, wheat, and corn.
And of course, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans affect what the food industry produces. So the food industry is producing more and more and more of this garbage loaded with sugar, refined grains and vegetable oil. So what’s the solution here? The solution is my favorite thing, eat real food.
Let’s just go back to eating whole food. You know, and I use this example a lot of like, what a caveman eat this or a cave woman? And if the answer is no, then you probably shouldn’t be eating it either. If it’s highly processed, if this thing you’re about to eat has been highly processed, it involves multiple steel, that’s high pressure, high heat, toxic chemicals, deodorizers and bleaches to make it, probably take a hard pass on that.
If it comes in a package, I would say, really examine it carefully before you eat it. Really take a look and see what it is you’re eating. If it’s something deep fried, I would say don’t eat it. Unless they’re using something like, you know, beef tallow or duck fat to fry in, which some places are starting to do this.
Now, if you go to a restaurant and you’re worried about eating vegetable oil and them heating up this vegetable oil, you can tell them you’re allergic to vegetable oil, just say hey, I’ve got a vegetable oil allergy. Do you think you can cook my food in butter? And a lot of restaurants will actually do this for you.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re being super honest about it, they take it seriously and they will. They’ll do this for you. And the ones that won’t, you know, maybe don’t eat there. That’s an option. But honestly just like let’s go back to eating real food, none of this highly processed stuff.
And when it comes to highly processed food vegetable oils are probably one of the most processed and refined foods in existence today. And one of the things that’s making us really sick. So that’s why I say this stuff is poison slash garbage. Okay.
All right, we will be continuing this conversation over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So just join us over there jumping on the conversation, it will be fun to have you in there and ask your questions, and I’ll see if I can answer them right here. And if you do enjoy this podcast and if you’ve got something out of this, you can show your support by just leaving a quick review on iTunes. I would super love that.
Okay, that’s all I got for you today. As always, lots and 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 lean running machine.
In this episode of the Running Lean podcast, I break my silence about making the switch to eating meat again. Many of you know that I’ve been a big proponent of the plant-based diet for the last 10 …
Continue Reading about 32. Why I Changed My Mind About Eating Meat →
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 32 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and weight loss coach for runners. And if you’re just checking out the podcast for the first time, or recently, and you are hoping to find The Running Mind podcast, well guess what? I changed the name. That’s all, same content, just a different name. It’s called Running Lean. And eventually I’ll change the website. That’s a whole nother thing I got to do.
But welcome to Running Lean. That’s the name of the podcast now. Cool, cool. Awesome. How are you today? I’m good. I just got done with a five mile run. I ate some food, some eggs, some bacon, some avocado, a little Greek yogurt with a couple of strawberries. And I feel good. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about today.
The fact that I have recently changed my mind about eating meat. I’m breaking my silence, I’ve made the switch to eating meat again. So if you know me, if you’ve known me for some time for awhile, you may know that I’ve been a big proponent of eating a plant based diet for like the last 9 or 10 years.
So now hearing that I’m eating meat again, may come as a surprise to you, it may be shocking to you. So I wanted to just be completely forthright with all of this and record this episode to explain what led me to this decision why I made this switch and answer questions about you know why now and talk about the impact that it’s had on my overall health and my athletic performance.
And then I also want to talk about what this means for you, you know, whether as a listener of the podcast, or as a potential or current coaching client of mine. So I think this is going to be very interesting episode. It was very interesting for me to like, write some notes about this, and really just speak from the heart. But that’s what’s going on today. So that’s what you get to look forward to hear in a moment.
If you haven’t already, come and check us out on Facebook, we got this awesome community of people. It’s the Running Lean community. And it kind of goes hand in hand with this podcast. It’s an energetic positive group of like minded runners who share common goals like losing weight, wanting to run easier and living a more vibrant life. You know, I do these weekly live trainings on a host of topics like running mindset, nutrition for runners, weight loss, and just a bunch of other stuff.
Here’s a recent comment from one of the members of the Running Lean community on Facebook, Josh and Josh says, “Thank you for doing such great work. You’re gifted with simplifying the complex and confusing jargon. We are bombarded with your experience and understanding of the runners mindset hits a home run by me.”
Oh my gosh, Josh. Thank you. That was really sweet. And it is something that I really work hard on. So I’m really glad that you made this, this observation. Because I work hard to learn everything I can. I soak it all up, I read the scientific papers, I read the books, I follow all the leading experts. I’m constantly learning, constantly consuming information about nutrition and diet and weight loss and mindset and what this all means for us as runners. And not just like the elite athletes, the Olympic gold medalists, like we’re weekend warriors, you know, we’re middle of the pack here.
So what does this mean for us? And it doesn’t mean we’re not capable of amazing things because we are. We are capable of some amazing, incredible things. And my job, my goal here is just to break all this information down. Let’s apply it for us. Let’s see what works. I want to help you accomplish those amazing things. So check us out. Just go to Facebook search for Running Lean community. Join us it’d be fun to have you there.
Also, I want to let you know that losing weight and becoming a fat-adapted runner, it’s kind of hard to do on your own. Part of that is why I have the Facebook group so you can get some some motivation and some support. I also want you to know that I offer one-on-one coaching.
Listen, we are all different, we all have different goals. We all have different needs. We all have different lifestyles, working one on one with me, you’ll learn exactly how to become a lean fat burning running machine in a way that works for you. You get the help and guidance, you need to work through obstacles, you get a personalized step by step action plan that will get you to your goals.
You get the accountability for your results, you get the motivation you need from me to keep you moving forward. And you get these tools and these skills that you’re going to learn that will help you improve every aspect of your life. Just imagine how much easier losing weight will be when you have someone right there with you. Someone like me showing you exactly what to do and holding you accountable.
Ditch the sugar and carbs, get fat-adapted, lose weight, feel better, have more energy, run easier, get leaner, get stronger, run faster, run longer than you ever thought possible. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/weight-loss-coaching. That’s a terrible URL. I’m sorry for that. I gotta fix that.
Weight Loss coaching with dashes in between, there’s basically what it is.
And then you can apply for one on one coaching with me, we’ll get on a call, we’ll talk about if this is a good fit for you. You can also, anytime I mention a link, you can just go to the show notes for that episode. And if you’re looking at it on your let’s say on your iPhone, in your podcast app, just click that Details button. And you’ll get all the notes and the links are right there. You can just click the link. You don’t have to remember all these slash dash and all this other stuff. Okay, just click the link in the show notes. And, and let’s get you to your goals. Cool. Awesome.
Okay, so just so you guys know, I’ve been thinking about recording this episode for some time. Now, I have not really been talking about this publicly that I’ve switched from being plant based to a more omnivorous type of diet, that I started eating meat again, I’ve been sort of hiding this. And it didn’t feel right to me, I felt like I was not being truthful.
I didn’t feel like I was being honest and open about what I was doing. And here’s why I was afraid, I was afraid of what people would think of me. If they found out that this plant based guy has now switched to you know, eating meat.
You know, I might lose some friends. I’ve got a lot of friends who are big proponents of like a vegetarian or a vegan or plant based diet. And these are great friends. And I love these people and I don’t want to lose their respect, or I don’t want to lose them as friends. And that’s what I’m afraid of.
But I can’t keep my silence any longer. I just feel like I have to talk about this so that I can be completely in alignment with who I am publicly and privately. I want to be transparent. And I want my message that I communicate to you guys to be in full alignment with my personal values and beliefs. Okay, and I was afraid to do that.
Now, I know that no matter what I do or say that some people will not like me. And that goes for all of us. Some people will, some people won’t. No matter what stand I take. Some people will not like what I’m about to say here today. And basically talking about, you know, how eating meat is not that bad, okay.
When I went to a plant based diet, and I started talking about that, and I’m gonna give you a little backstory here in a minute, but when when I went to that kind of a diet, I got people calling me stupid, people telling me I was going to be sick and diseased and ruin my life. Because I wasn’t eating animal based proteins.
Basically the same thing I’m finding is happening. Now that I’ve switched back to eating meat I get people they’re not really calling me stupid not yet. Probably after this episode comes out and I share it. But I’ve had some interesting comments from some people that have, you know, kind of found out that the cat kind of got laid out of the bag a little bit recently in a comment on Facebook that I made about what I eat.
And I mentioned bacon and eggs or something like that. And then I got a few comments from people about you know, I’m going to kill myself basically. So no matter what you do, you guys just so you know, there are going to be people that don’t like it or don’t agree with you, and that’s okay.
So I might, I might get some unfollows, I might have some unfriends. And that’s okay, it means that I’m just taking a stand and I’m standing up for what I believe in, it means that I actually have a stand to take, it means that I actually have strong values and beliefs, and I’m not afraid to share them.
It really doesn’t matter what people think of me, it really doesn’t. It has nothing to do with me at all. And honestly, what I eat has nothing to do with you either. Now, I say that and I get it that I’m out here, talking about nutrition and talking about athletic performance and sharing this information that I know that there’s a certain amount of bias there, I get that. I try to be as unbiased as possible in my message, just so you know, we’re gonna get into that too, today.
But here’s the thing, I don’t base my friendships, or the respect I have for other people based on what they eat. I really don’t. I have friends who post pictures of food that they eat on Facebook. And it’s a bunch of crap. Okay, fast food 180 ounce sodas, or whatever they are. And you know what? I click ‘love it’. I say, ‘I love you’. I think that you do you, you know what I mean?
I don’t judge people based on the fact that they’re eating, you know, McDonald’s and funnel cakes and drinking large sodas, I don’t really care. Now, I don’t really think that’s a really healthy way to live your life. But that’s not for me to decide, okay. And here’s the thing, I’m not sharing this information today to try to convince you that you should do what I do.
Or that one way is right. And another way is wrong. I’m not trying to change hearts or minds here. I’m sharing this information because I want to be in integrity with myself. And I want to be in integrity with you. And I want to be transparent and honest. And I want you to know the truth. Cool. Cool. That’s why I’m doing this here today.
So here’s a little bit of a backstory. I started running later in life back in like, ‘04, ‘03, ‘04. And from the very start, I was very focused on nutrition. I was reading everything I could and trying all kinds of things. To try to make running better. Like I wanted running to be easier. I started running marathons.
And I was like, I’ve got to figure out a way to make this as easy as possible, what can I do. And all the evidence at the time was really pointing towards this high carbohydrate, low fat diet, the same thing the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggested back in the 80s. And in the carbo loading, that, you know, early marathoners, we’re proponents of and things like that.
And then the low fat part of that, you know, so lean meat, you know, stick with like just chicken or turkey and maybe some fish, but stay away from red meat and bacon and eggs and all this other stuff. And so my diet progressively got more higher carbohydrate, I guess, and less fatty. So I just went like, if meat was bad, basically, then vegetarian was better.
And so after a few years, I went pretty much full vegetarian, I don’t know ‘06, or ‘07, something like that. And then went fully like plant-based at the end of 2011, somewhere around there sometime in 2011. And because I kept thinking, okay, if I just get rid of these fats, then that’s going to be the answer, right?
And so I just kept limiting the amount of fats and the animal products and all that stuff. So totally plant based, starting in 2011. I even got so into it. I like started this recipe blog called The Vegan Road, and it’s still out there and I got a bunch of recipes out there. Honestly, though, even as a plant based, they’re like, a lot of sugar high in carbs like I did. They’re probably not awesome recipes. I wouldn’t go, you don’t need to go check it out. There’s a lot of sites out there that have better recipes these days.
Okay, but anyway, at the time, it was a passion of mine. I was really passionate about plant based nutrition for runners. Okay. I saw this movie called Forks Over Knives and it just talked about the plant based diet and how it was so good for you. And then they kind of put out this call for people to share their stories, you know, and that they would publish them on their website or whatever.
And so I submitted a story, I got kind of a before and after picture, and they published it. And so I got a lot of attention from that, you know, a lot of attention, it was actually like, overwhelming in a way, you know, because here I am, I’m really into this topic and really into nutrition and stuff like that, but I wasn’t like a big expert.
So and then I figured, you know what, I should probably become an expert. And so I actually attended this program through Cornell University, which was a plant based nutrition certification program. And so I did this program, got certified and was kind of like sharing a lot of the information.
And that’s kind of when when I started sharing more of this information, that’s when people started telling me that I was stupid and telling me that this was dumb, and, you know, whatever. But it was something that I believed in, you know, at the time, and it was, it was working for me, you know, I was able to do a lot of long distance running and a lot of endurance events.
I mean, pretty much all the stuff I’ve done, for the most part has been on a plant based diet. You know, I ran like 14 plus marathons, dozens of ultra marathons, I did a 50 miler, a 100 miler, an Ironman, and it pretty much had good results, for the most part. Now, could they have been better based on what I know now, you know, if I had adopted more of a low carb, higher fat type of diet?
Even plant-based, but becoming fat-adapted, is kind of the key that a lot of endurance athletes are latching on to now. And the data that’s coming out, and the scientists coming up about the benefits of that are pretty incredible. So could those results have been better? Yeah, probably.
But at the same time, I was having some, you know, pretty decent results. And I was able to do a lot for somebody on a plant based diet back then. And the other thing is like, at the same time, there were plenty of people out there that have always gotten great results, eating an omnivorous diet, plenty of people.
So what’s the answer here? You know, is there an answer? Is there a right way to do this or a wrong way to do it? And then really quickly, I want to talk about the difference between a plant-based diet and vegan. So I always talk about following a plant-based diet. That’s the kind of diet that I focused on. Basically, you’re just eating nothing but plants, so no animal products whatsoever. So no dairy, no eggs, not even honey, because it comes from bees, they consider that an animal product.
But a plant-based diet is nutrition centric. You hear a lot of athletes talk about a plant-based diet. And so the focus is on the food that you’re eating, and your personal health and athletic performance, basically, okay. And then there’s vegan. Vegan is a little different, same type of diet, you eat nothing but plants, no animal products, no dairy eggs, no honey. Also no leather. So you wouldn’t like, buy a leather belt or leather shoes or anything like that, or any other thing that comes from animals.
Vegan is more animal rights centric. So when you say I’m vegan, that kind of means, you know, for most people that it’s a, it’s a lifestyle, it almost has more of like a religious feel about it. Vegans tend to be more vocal about animal rights and things like that, they tend to be a little more evangelical.
Typically, they want to try to convert people. And think that’s where the kind of religious aspect comes from, you know, they want to change hearts and minds. And I was just never like that. I was never super vocal, I wasn’t really telling people what to do, or telling them that what they’re doing is wrong or bad.
And a lot of people in the vegan community. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the term militant vegans. I mean, I’m not trying to paint a bad picture of anybody or anything like that. But that’s a term out there that people use that are pretty hardcore. And that will kind of shame people for eating meat and things like that. So I was never into that. Okay, I just that’s not my jam at all.
Okay, I kind of stayed in my own lane. I did my own thing. And really just tried to be a good example, I guess more than anything else. So I lived in this world, this world of eating a plant based diet, specially for endurance athletes, like I developed a profound understanding of the plant-based diet, especially for runners.
And so here I was the plant-based runner guy. I was quietly advocating for what I thought was really the best diet for everyone. You know, if everyone would just go plant-based we’d all be much healthier, the world would be a better place. And this is kind of what I was taught in my certification program and what a lot of stuff I was reading and listening to kind of pointed to.
So things were humming along pretty well for me, until things began to go kind of terribly wrong for me. So in 2017, I did my 100 miler, the Hallucination 100 at the end of 2017. And after that, I had run like 2000 miles that year, over 2000 miles out here, I was just running all the time. And I decided I was going to kind of back off on my running. So I slowed down.
I kept running, I kept up with it, but just not as much. So maybe running twice a week, three times a week, doing more walking, some strength training, still that kind of thing. And then, over the course of the next three years, basically two to three years, I gained like 40 pounds, you know, I was down to like 160 or so. And I was pushing 200 again. And I was like what is going on here? I really had to figure something out. I mean, I know what’s happening. I knew what was happening with my body.
Now, I didn’t know at the time though, because I’m like, Hey, I’m eating, you know, plant-based diet. I should be fine. Everything should be fine. So I had to really take an honest look at what was happening to me. So at the beginning of this year, at the beginning of 2020 I really started looking at what I was eating.
So here’s what my diet kind of look like, you know, over the last three years, very hard, high carbohydrate, so lots of refined grains, lots of bread, cereals, granola, pancakes, maybe not a ton of gluten because my wife was a big proponent of gluten free so I didn’t do a lot of gluten, but I did enough.
And also, man, I was a cereal addict. I would eat this huge bowl of cereal and granola all mixed together, maybe three or four different kinds of cereal with blueberries or bananas with like maple syrup on it. Oh my gosh, I was a big proponent of maple syrup, too, loved it. So very high refined carbohydrates, lots of Clif Bars, lots of goos and gels while I was running, it was also a very low fat diet, because a lot of the stuff I was reading about was like any kind of fat as bad all fat is bad.
And so when I was eating fat, it was like vegetable oils, you know, the ones that say heart healthy, like canola oil, which I know are just like industrial seed oils, industrial oil in there. It’s just toxic. It’s poison, don’t eat that stuff. By the way, I was eating lots of processed foods.
So one of the things I was a big proponent of was the Beyond Meat brand of products. So they make these beyond burgers. They make these likes, quote unquote, like sausages. But it is like the definition of highly processed foods with a ton of canola oil and things like that. And then so, but they were very satiating to a point.
I liked that idea of eating, getting my protein in and things like that. But they were all plant based. It was all like a plant-based meat substitute kind of a thing. Very processed, though. And then of course, lots of sugar. I was eating tons of fruit because fruit is good for you. Right? I was eating tons of maple syrup.
You guys ever seen the movie Elf and he like carries around a little flask of maple syrup with him? That was like me, okay. Not really, but pretty close. I was eating lots of vegan ice cream. Because it’s vegan, right? It’s fine. I would pour maple syrup on my ice cream. Oh my God, that’s the greatest thing ever.
But here’s what was going on, I was like hungry all the time. I was eating all the time. I never felt full. And so I was like way over eating, way over eating the wrong kinds of foods, was never full, and I felt tired all the time. I was lethargic. Running was terrible. I was only running a couple days a week but it was terrible. My clothes were not fitting any longer. Everything was like super tight. I would put these shorts on that were like I couldn’t even button them up. I just had to throw them back in the drawer. I couldn’t even put them on anymore.
I’d put a shirt on like a button down shirt and it would be so tight. The buttons would be like the shirt would be stretching across the front. It was embarrassing. I didn’t even want to wear those kinds of clothes. You know, I was bloated, my body was inflamed. I had a lot of inflammation. I looked very puffy, very doughy.
Okay, if you can imagine the Pillsbury Doughboy, that’s kind of where I was getting to, okay. And I like was like, Oh, my God, something has to change. So I did this analysis of looking, really taking a good, hard look at what I was really eating. And I had to figure something out. I didn’t really know what to do. But I knew what I didn’t want.
And what I was, all the things that I was doing, all the stuff I just laid out for you there, was definitely not working. And then, you know, I went to the doctor, and I had some blood work done at one point, I don’t know, a year ago or so. And it wasn’t good. You know, she told me I had to, you know, get some of these numbers lowered, or else I was going to be having some issues.
And anyway, so how did I get to the point where I was like, I made the decision that meat was the answer. Well, I thought back to a few years back. So back in 2016, I tried keto for a while because I had been running Ultras and started kind of following some people who were doing like more of a ketogenic type of diet.
So very low carb, high fat, and they were having these great results. And talking about becoming a fat-adapted runner. And I was like, that sounds really appealing to me. How do you do that? And so I started like, just took a deep dive into the low carb high fat diet. Now, I was doing it then as a plant-based person. And so there are differences when you do it that way.
For example, like you wouldn’t be eating meat, obviously, or butter and things like that. So you got to substitute with other good healthy types of fat, like coconut oil, it’s a great saturated fat avocados and avocado oil, olives, olive oil, that kind of stuff.
So there’s plenty of good options. You can do a Keto type of diet, as plant-based, or vegetarian. It’s not that hard. There’s so many good resources out there for stuff like that. So I tried this, I was like, I’m going to do the Keto thing. And so I started counting my carbs.
And I’ll tell you, I got fat-adapted, running got easier. I could run all day, I actually did a couple of 50K’s that summer, without any sugar, without any carbs. And I felt amazing. I felt like I could run all day. I go out for a 20 mile training run. And I just felt like amazing at mile two and amazing at mile 19. Like it was just great.
When I was like, wow, this is awesome. I need to just keep doing this. But here’s the thing. I didn’t keep doing that. I was like why didn’t I keep doing that? And I didn’t have it all figured out. So first of all, number one, I was still eating all the time, I was constantly eating, like, you know, from the morning time I got up in the morning till the time I went to bed just eating all day long.
I was also eating a ton of these artificially sweetened, like desserts. Like I made this like keto ice cream, kind of a thing with some kind of sweetener, like erythritol or something like that. And I was eating this stuff all the time. Well, I know now that the artificial sweeteners will kind of increase your cravings and increase your appetite. So you got to be careful with that. I didn’t know that at the time.
I was eating a ton of highly processed foods like the Beyond Meat and like vegan cheeses and things like that. Lots of vegetable oils. And while I was, you know, running had gotten easier. I wasn’t really losing weight. I wasn’t getting the results I had hoped for. And one of the biggest things is it got really stressful for me, I was counting all these carbs, I had to put everything into an app.
You know, you gotta keep everything below, like 50 grams of carb net carbs a day. And I was just like, this is like crazy. And I look to some people in the ultra running community, the elites like Scott Jurek, who just eats whatever he wants. I mean, he’s a plant-based guy, but he just needs tons of grains and cereals and things like that. Or at least that was my impression.
Maybe he doesn’t, I don’t know, you really don’t know what people eat unless you watch him. But he has like this cookbook and I was kind of following that. And I just gave up what I was doing. And I went back to the high carbohydrate, low fat diet and I wish I had just stuck with it and figured it out.
Because a year later I did my 100 miler, and it was really tough. There’s a lot of very challenging moments there. I was just loaded up with sugar and carbs and my stomach was a mess. I was a wreck for most of that, and I think it would have been a better experience had I stuck with the low carb, high fat type of diet, but I didn’t, I just went back to doing things the other way. And I started gaining weight.
And then, you know, eventually 40 pounds of weight came back over the last couple of years.
So in order to me for me to like go back to that like because this is what I was thinking about earlier this year when I decided I need to change something and I was thinking like, Oh, I got really, I got some good results, and I was doing the Keto thing, I need to revisit that.
So if I was gonna go back to that I had to figure out some of this stuff. I had to find some good sources of saturated fats and complete proteins, I had to get off the highly processed foods and get off the loaded, the toxic oils that are just loaded with toxins and stuff like that. So I had to get rid of that. So what do I do?
And I was doing a bunch of research and reading and watching documentaries and stuff like that. And I read The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Ty Schultz. Oh my gosh, amazing, amazing book. I recommend you read that for sure. I watched ‘Fat’, a documentary, I read the case against sugar by Gary Taubes. I watched that sugar film, which is fun and disturbing. And I read, one of the biggest things that changed my whole beliefs here was reading the obesity code by Dr. Jason Fung.
He’s a nephrologist, a kidney doctor who treats people with type two diabetes and obesity and basically cures them with a low carbohydrate, high fat diet and intermittent fasting. And he has this clinic up in Toronto, and he treats thousands of people. And they have these amazing results.
And you know, I’ve listened to his podcast, and I’ve consumed a lot of what he’s done, a lot of the weight loss teaching and coaching that I do is based on Dr. Jason Fung’s methodologies, which he teaches in his book. So you know, I just started to paint this picture that things are not what I thought they were.
And I came to realize that really, the saturated fats, especially coming from animals are not the problem. You know, this is not why we have heart disease, obesity, type two diabetes, stroke, and a slew of other diseases. The reality of this is that it’s not the fat, it’s the sugar. And sugar is a carbohydrate. It is like the purest form of carbohydrate. So it’s the refined carbohydrates that are the problem.
You know, it’s not the bacon, it’s the bagels, it’s not the eggs, it’s the eclaires. And this was creating a very clear picture for me that, you know, carbohydrates, like sugar and flour, are the reason we gain weight. They are the reason we have tripled the obesity rates here in the US, since implementing the high carbohydrate, low fat diet in 1980. This is the sugars, the refined grains are why so many of us have type two diabetes and heart disease and a host of other what they call Western diseases.
Saturated fat and meat have never been proven to be harmful to our health. The science is very clear on this. And I’m not just making this up, I would encourage you to do your own research and really look into this stuff, you know. And then something interesting here, like when I was in my plant-based in the throes of my plant-based certification program, and really researching all that.
There was a lot of talk about how we’ve evolved to be vegetarians, basically, that, you know, we look at the way our jaws are in our stomachs and things like that. And they can just say like, oh, yeah, so we, you know, we didn’t evolve to eat meat. And I never really felt on board with that. The archaeological evidence just doesn’t point to that at all.
And so, you know, I started doing a deep dive into this and really looking at what the unbiased archaeological evidence shows. And here’s what it shows. The unbiased archaeological evidence shows that humans started eating meat around 2.6 million years ago. This is like just the beginning of the Paleolithic period, or the old stone age, right, which was a period that lasted two and a half million years ago to 10,000 years ago. So it’s a huge swath of time, right, and actually fits nicely with the Pleistocene era, which is the timeframe 2.6 million years ago to 10,000 years ago, when we had our last major ice age.
Okay, this was a major evolutionary change for us eating meat. So we began to hunt down and eat animals. We began eating the meat and the bone marrow and the fat and the organ meats and things like that. And this provided us with essential amino acids that we needed. It provided us with the macronutrients that we needed, that helped our brains to grow and our bodies to become larger in size and stronger.
So our brains got bigger, and we became bigger and stronger because we started eating meat, our relatives that were still in the trees, eating fruit and nuts and things like that did not evolve the way we did. So humans did not evolve solely as plant eaters, or solely as meat eaters, either. Also, the archaeological evidence points to us eating plants to like, there are some tubers and bulbs.
But you’ve got to understand this is like most of this period of evolution was during an ice age. So there wasn’t an abundance of fruit and vegetables and seeds available. They would hunt animals, they would hunt woolly mammoth and Mastodon, and smaller animals like antelope size creatures, whatever those were at the time.
And we learn this thing, which is really cool, called persistence hunting. So we as humans, we sweat very efficiently, right? I know I do, like I sweat like crazy out there. You know, and this is a cooling mechanism and keeps our body temperature low, which enables us to go out and run long distances, we can run literally for 12 hours or 24 hours straight. I mean, I did 100 miles, it took me 29 hours, I was pretty much running the whole time.
And we sweat and we can call our bodies that way. Most animals don’t do this, though. Especially like think about those herd animals, you know, antelope and things like that. They can’t keep running, or they’ll die of heat exhaustion, basically, you know, their bodies will overheat, they’ll die of exhaustion, they have to stop.
And so what we learned how to do is we learned how to chase down these animals over these long ranges, which is awesome, like, so we evolved to be long distance runners, which I just love that, I think that’s so cool. So our ability to control our body temperature made us better hunters, we could just chase these animals down and wear them out, basically.
And then we would just, you know, smash them on the head with a rock or whatever we did. I don’t know. I crack myself up sometimes just so you know. So that was one part of it. The other part of it is we have these big butts, right? We have these big glutes, the glutes are the biggest muscle in our body.
Why is that? Why are our butts so big? Isn’t that weird that we have these big butts? No, it’s that it’s perfect to balance this out when we’re running. So think about as you’re running, how your your butt actually kind of counterbalances the front of your body, you lean forward just a little bit. And then those big muscles propel your legs forward, allowing you to push off and then keep you balanced.
So like we are the perfect long distance hunting animal, you know, we’re perfect for that we evolved to, you know, chase animals down and eat that we didn’t develop these abilities to run long distances and out sweat other animals so we could hunt down, you know, sweet potatoes, we just didn’t, okay.
We wouldn’t be here where we are today without eating meat, like our brains never would have evolved. We never would have become bigger and stronger and then we survived like two and a half million years of an ice age by eating a diet rich in fish and meat. Because there just weren’t all the options available all over the planet now.
Evidence also shows archaeological evidence also shows there were times and areas on the planet where meat may have been scarce. And so, you know, people around the planet would eat tubers and nuts and yams and some fruit and even honey. And, and this is very important because there isn’t just one paleo diet, there isn’t one caveman diet.
You know, we evolved as humans to eat a lot of different foods. Because there wasn’t, there isn’t, just one ideal human diet. You know, we’ve evolved this unique ability to combine many different types of foods throughout the year seasonally, to create many different healthy diets. You know, there’s the Inuit up in the Canadian Arctic that eat nothing but fish and seals.
You know, there’s some people that live in the mountains of Afghanistan that eat nothing but animals because nothing grows up in these higher elevations, no crops or anything like that grow. And then there’s other peoples in India that have been vegetarian for thousands of years, and they do fine.
So, really, there isn’t like one ideal human diet. And I think that’s really important to know. And this is one of the messages I really want to make clear here. Is this archaeological evidence that I’m talking about in this evolutionary evidence? Am I oversimplifying things? Absolutely. Am I telling you the complete picture of our evolutionary history? Oh, my gosh, no, because I couldn’t do that in, you know, 45 minutes on a podcast. Maybe I’ll just do that one day, I’ll talk about it. Nothing but that.
But here’s the thing, what I’m trying to say is like, we have evolved to be meat eaters, we have evolved to be plant eaters, we’ve evolved to be omnivores, basically, okay. The only thing I will tell you, that we have not evolved to be is to follow that modern Western diet, which is high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, that is not something we have been evolved to eat.
In fact, that is what is making us sick. And that is what is making us fat. And that is what is making us dying earlier and earlier. So I’m a science nerd. I’m all about the evidence based science, you know, I study all these theories. I look up what the new scientific papers and I read them.
And honestly, when I was taking this plant based nutrition certification, I was kind of questioning a lot of the stuff they were putting out there. And they were just suggesting that, oh, humans didn’t really eat meat. You know, we’re natural vegetarians. Eating any meat at all will cause all kinds of health issues. And it’s just, it’s just not true. It’s not supported by actual science, okay.
But at the time, I wanted to believe at all, because it matched my worldview. And I wanted it to be the truth, I really did. But now I can just say that I can’t really stand behind that, because it was kind of flimsy science. So I finally had to let go of that. And I did.
So where am I today? So I made that decision that I was going to give it a try. I was going to try eating meat again. And then people asked me this question all the time, like, what was it like eating meat for that first time? What did you have?
First of all, I had bacon. And it was delicious. And there were no problems at all. I felt fine. I didn’t get violently ill. My body didn’t reject it. There’s no negative consequences. It makes me just really realize that we are omnivores, you know, our bodies digest meat perfectly fine. We can absorb tons of nutrients from meat, and other animal products. My body had no problem at all.
Yeah, and your body’s not going to forget what it’s like to eat meat after 10 years of not eating, it handles it just fine. And so I really have taken a deep dive into this topic of being an omnivore. Basically, eating meat, eating saturated fat, what does saturated fat do to us? How is it detrimental? Is this the problem?
And I’ve even looked into really finding some interesting information about the carnivore diet, which is basically no plant products at all. So you got the plant based people on one end, and then you got the carnivores who basically, they believe that all plants are toxic to our bodies at some degree. And so they don’t eat any plants at all.
And they believe that the bioavailability of the nutrients in meat is more beneficial for us and the nutrients we can actually absorb the nutrients better than we can from plants, because plants have all this fiber. And they have these natural defense mechanisms that stop us from absorbing the nutrients.
But meat does not have that and it’s easier to digest. And the animals eat the plants. And then the animals that we’re getting the nutrition from all that anyway, that’s kind of a very brief, high level, look at the carnivore diet. But anyway, my point is that it’s all very interesting. There’s lots of new science coming out all the time.
There’s experts in these fields that I listened to and read and I’m taking a more open viewpoint of all these things. I’m taking it all in. I want to know about it all, tell me everything. There’s world class athletes out there who are switching from a traditional high carbohydrate diet to more of like a carnivorous approach and they’re having these amazing results.
So today, I eat meat pretty much every day. I eat bacon, beef, chicken, pork, coldwater fish, and eggs. I eat eggs, full fat dairy cheese. And I’m very particular about what I eat. I really am very particular about the kinds of meat that I get and where I get it and what I buy. So for example, I only eat wild caught salmon, never farmed. The salmon in the wild eat other fish and stuff like that. Farmed salmon eat grains, salmon aren’t supposed to eat grains. Okay, salmon need a lot of krill, these little shrimp, like dudes that turn their skin orange. That’s why salmon are orange because they eat a lot of this particular little shrimp or whatever, that guy has an orange color.
The farm salmon, they color them, they add some kind of color to their food or something like that to turn their gray flesh orange. So anyway, don’t buy farm salmon. I only buy local organic, free range eggs from chickens who eat bugs and things like that, right? No grain fed animals. No factory farmed animals ever, no big agriculture.
So I try to buy everything local, like grass fed local beef, and pork and things like that. And chicken, no fish farms, no grain fed anything, no growth hormones, no antibiotics. So anyway, I pay a little bit extra for these things. But it’s very, very important to me, that I’m eating really clean meat. And that, you know, it’s humanely raised and things like that.
So basically, I’m just trying to eat real food the way that our ancestors ate, you know, maybe a few 100 years ago, maybe a few 1000 years ago, you know, they were eating just regular food. They weren’t, there was nothing processed, they didn’t have to count calories. You know, they weren’t adding up, you know, how many macros they ate, you know, they were just, it was intuitive, and they ate when they’re hungry.
They didn’t when they weren’t and that kind of stuff. So that’s what I’m trying to go back to. But I in particular about the kinds of foods I eat, especially meat. So what are my results so far? So I’ve been doing this for about six months now, the low carb high fat omnivorous diet. And here’s something pretty dramatic, I think pretty dramatic, benefits and changes that I’ve experienced.
So no more bloating or inflammation, like my body is no longer puffy. I am no longer the Pillsbury Doughboy. I’ve lost 40 pounds, and I am super lean. I am cut up like never before. Running is amazing. I’ve become fat-adapted. I can run five miles, 10 miles, and I feel great. I just have tons of energy. In fact, I just have tons of energy all the time, all day long.
I am not hungry all the time. I reaped the benefits of fasting, I do some fasting and some intermittent fasting. Sometimes I eat once a day or twice a day. And I’m not hungry in between. Sometimes I do a longer fast, maybe a 48 hour or something like that. The important part here though, is that I am not starving all the time, like I used to be when I was eating a high carbohydrate diet.
I don’t take any supplements, I don’t have to like suck down protein powders and take a multivitamin every day. So when I was plant based, I had to take a multivitamin. Like you have to take certain supplements, you know, and depending on who you ask, but here’s the list of supplements that you should take if you’re following a plant-based diet: calcium, iron, B12, vitamin D, omega threes, zinc, among others. And it’s interesting to me that our ancestors who ate an omnivorous diet, they didn’t take multivitamins, they didn’t have to take protein supplements. And this is just a little bit of a red flag.
For me a diet that requires you to supplement certain vitamins and minerals means that it’s maybe not a complete diet. Maybe it’s not the best diet, I don’t know. But I don’t think we evolved to eat a diet where we would have to supplement certain vitamins or else we’d be really deficient and maybe get sick or die.
So I just had my annual physical a month or two ago and the bloodwork was perfect. The doctor said she wished all of her patients were doing what I was doing, which was a huge compliment to me. I love that. I’m seeing gains at the gym, like from strength training after just a couple of months that I never saw in years of lifting weights on a plant based diet.
And now granted, these are all anecdotal my evidence like, you know, will your results differ, of course, everybody’s different. But I can tell you right now, I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m 53 years old, and I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m leaner now than I was back in 2013, when I was training over two hours a day for Ironman, I’m leaner and more fit, I’m stronger and more cut up than I was then.
I’ve never had like, this little body fat on me feels amazing. I do work out pretty regularly. But kind of the same that I always have the last few years, I run maybe three times a week. My long runs are like 10 or 12 miles. And then I run like maybe three miles one day, maybe five miles another day. So I don’t know, 18 miles a week, something like that.
I do a lot of walking, I walk, you know, a couple miles three times a week, let’s say I do a little bit of yoga, stretching, and I lift weights. So I’m not exercising two hours a day, by any stretch. I’m eating about the same number of calories that I was eating, when I was doing the plant based diet with lots of carbs and sugar and all that stuff, maybe, maybe more calories, actually.
So I’m somewhere between and I don’t track this stuff. But I have tracked it recently, a few days just to like, so I could share this stuff with you guys. And give you a ballpark of where I am. Because people ask me all the time, like how many carbs you eat, and I’m like, I don’t know. But anyway, so I’m probably at around 2000-2500 calories, probably getting net, maybe 50-60 grams of carbs a day, something like that, again, I don’t really track it. So I can’t tell you exact numbers, but it’s somewhere in that range 50 to 100 grams of carbs net a day, right?
So it’s pretty low. I eat when I’m hungry. And I don’t eat when I’m not hungry. That’s amazing right there. And that’s a very freeing thing. This whole thing I’m doing now this eating real food, it’s stress free. It’s very satisfying too. And I feel like I’m absolutely thriving in my body right now.
I feel like this is how my body is supposed to look and feel. You know, I feel like I’ve hit my natural weight. And now staying there is effortless. And I weigh myself every day. Just so I know. And I’ve been at like 157-158, somewhere in that range. And remember, I was close to 200. So I’m below 160. And I eat a lot of food. I’m never hungry, I’m not starving myself. And I can just maintain that way. It’s no problem. So that’s where I am. What does this mean for you?
That’s a good question. Here’s what I think it means for you. Number one, I am no longer stuck with this one sort of narrow minded point of view. This whole experience of going back to an omnivorous diet is making me a better coach, I’m a more well rounded coach. And it gives me authority to speak on a wider variety of topics, especially, you know, eating meat and animal products and the nutrition that you get from that, and how it, how its effects on weight loss and running and things like that.
Also, I don’t believe in this idea that there’s one right way to fuel your body, there’s not one right way to do this. And I was kind of into this myopic view of things before, whereas like plant based or everything else is stupid, you know, I don’t believe that anymore. I’m willing to take a deep dive into these different options and learn multiple ways of helping you get the results that you want.
So all in all, I think that just me making this shift in my own diet makes me a better all around authority, and a better all around coach. And, you know, in my coaching, I try to take on a very informed but unbiased approach. So my goal is to help you figure out what works best for you. And it’s not the same thing that works for me.
So whether you do plant-based diet, whether you do carnivore, whether you do something in between most people or somewhere in between, right, you can get great results. I do however take a solid stand against the whole high carbohydrate approach. I don’t think that’s necessary. We shouldn’t be eating all the sugar and the carbs, carbs cause all kinds of health issues they need to be avoided. So I am firmly attached to this principle. I will take a stand there for sure. That’s where I draw the line.
But you can run half marathons, you can run full marathons, you can do Ultra triathlons, you can be a long distance swimmer cyclist, rowing, bodybuilding, speed golfing, whatever you want to do whatever floats your endurance boat, you can do all of it on a low carbohydrate, high fat diet, whether you’re a vegan, plant based carnivore, omnivore, vegetarian, whatever.
So the bottom line is, I’m not going to tell you that you should or shouldn’t eat meat, I don’t want that to be the message you take away here. You know, my job as a good coach is to help you get the results that you want. That’s it, and do it in a way that works for you. So you can do this in a way that works for you.
And I’ll help you make those decisions and tweak things until you get the results that you’re looking for. I just want you to have all the information. So I’m going to continue to talk about these kinds of topics, you know, I want to like, get some people on here to share their expert opinions and experiences on running on a plant based diet or a carnivore diet or vegetarian diet or whatever it is.
So I’m actually actively looking for some people to talk to about those things. So if you have some people in mind you’d like me to check out, send me a message and give me some ideas, and we’ll try to get them on the show. That’d be really fun. I want you to make good decisions for yourselves. That’s all.
So I’m giving you all the information so you can decide what works for you. I’m open to new ideas, I’m willing to admit that. I don’t know everything I really don’t. I’m always learning and when, when the science and the evidence. Sort of like goes against what I believe in my heart. Let’s say I’m willing to take a really serious look at that, and change what I believe, based on what’s real, you know, what’s the truth? What’s the real evidence out there?
So I’m not, I don’t need to die on my sword while holding on to some ideology that may or may not be right for everyone. Okay. So that’s my story. That’s why I made the switch from a plant based diet to eating meat. I hope this was informative for you. I hope you got something out of this.
We will be continuing this conversation over in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So just go to Facebook, search for Running Lean community join in the conversation, it’s going to be fun. That’s all I got for you today, my friends. As always, lots and lots of love to each and every one of you keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.
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I think we can all agree that sugar is not good for us. And yet, there seems to be sugar hidden in just about everything we eat! And I’m not talking about the sugary cereals or the soft drinks - we …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Well, hey there, and welcome to episode number 27 of The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m a weight loss coach for runners. And today I want to talk about sugar. In fact, there’s sugar in everything. And I think we can all agree that sugar is not good for us, right? And yet, there seems to be sugar hidden in just about everything we eat.
And I’m not talking about the sugary cereals and the soft drinks, because we all know about that stuff. We all know there’s sugar added to all that right. The real problem, I think, is all the sugar hidden and foods that normally we wouldn’t think would have added sugar. From crackers to coffee drinks, pasta sauce to peanut butter, salad dressing, and salsa, you can find sugar virtually everywhere you look.
So why is this? Why do they have to add sugar to everything? And why is this such a big problem? In this episode, I’ll be answering all of those questions, and offer a few tips on how to avoid all that added sugar in your life. So this whole month we’re going to be talking about sugar is like sugar month, okay, or maybe we should call no sugar month.
But over the next few episodes, I’m going to be talking about the addictive nature of sugar, how to make the switch from sugar to fat as fuel for running, which is amazing, by the way, how you can possibly have a life without sugar like, oh, we’re gonna answer that question. A lot of people are like, how can I live my life without all the sugar?
So we just started the July, no sugar challenge over in the Facebook group. So the Facebook group is the Running Lean community on Facebook. And if you haven’t already checked it out, go to Facebook, just search for Running Lean community. And click the button that says join, ask to join, or whatever. It says join the group.
And then you can join us for the no sugar challenge if this is something that you’re interested in. So for the whole month of July, we’re kind of doing some extensive training on the topic around sugar, how to give up sugar, how to eat less of it. I’m answering questions like what am I supposed to eat now that I’m not eating blank, questions about fruit, about grains, and about alcohol. So we’re answering all those questions.
The best part is the community aspect of it. So when you do something like this, like when you take on a challenge, like stopping eating sugar, it is challenging, but it’s more fun and more supportive, and a lot easier to do with an encouraging group of people to do it with you. So when we’re all doing it together, we all support each other, it’s a lot easier.
In fact, here’s a comment from Tammy in the group. She said, “It feels great to have support and doing this with a group that makes me feel like this time I can make cutting sugar happen, which has felt like an impossible feat in the past. I’m thankful to have connected with Patrick and his group, we’ve got this.” Absolutely, Tammy.
And by the way, she’s a little bundle of positive energy. And I love that. But there’s lots of amazing people, just like Tammy in the group. So come check it out. So if you’re ready to get off the sugar wagon, and actually by the end of this episode you might be. Please join us in the Facebook group.
Remember, just go to Facebook search for Running Lean community. And it’s not too late, you haven’t missed anything we’ve just started. It’s the beginning of the month. So jump in, you can jump in any time seriously and join us and you’ll get a lot of great information. Okay. So we’ll see you over there in the Facebook group.
Okay, so today’s topic is all around how there’s sugar in everything. And I want to just kind of lay out why this is a problem. So what’s the problem with sugar? Like why are we so concerned about sugar? So here’s a few things that you might know already but I’m just going to go over kind of some of the issues around sugar.
Okay, so the way sugar works in our body is that sugar raises our blood, our blood sugar, okay, so anytime you eat sugar that gets turned into glucose on our body which raises As our blood sugar, and then insulin gets produced to bring the blood sugar down, anytime insulin goes up in our body, we start storing fat. So when insulin is consistently high, in our body, when our insulin levels are always really high, we are always storing fat, we can’t burn fat. Okay?
That is, that’s the biggest problem right there. In order to burn fat, or I’m sorry, in order to lose weight, you have to burn fat. And you can’t do that when insulin is high. So basically, if you want to lose weight, you got to stop eating sugar. It’s very hard to lose weight when you’re eating sugar in all its forms and I’m talking about, you know, sugar, fruit added sugar.
You know, a lot of fruits that are really high in sugar, and a lot of grains that turn into sugar and starchy vegetables, like white potatoes, or rice, those kinds of things will get turned into glucose and spike your blood sugar quite a bit. And so when that happens, you’re going to produce a lot of insulin. And you’re going to be in that fat storage mode.
And it’s really hard to get out of that, while you keep eating those kinds of foods. And here’s the thing. Obesity is up in this country over 30% in the last 30 or 40 years, like since the early 80s. And a lot of that has to do with how much sugar we’re consuming. Type Two Diabetes is up. High blood pressure, obesity, excess body fat around the waist, heart disease, stroke, even cancer.
In fact, according to the World Health Organization, as much as a 40% of cancer is diet related. 40% of cancer is related to diet. So, all of these things are kind of tied back to consuming sugar. Okay, so other side effects of eating sugar, other negative consequences of eating sugar. So when you consume sugar, your appetite actually increases.
You know, it releases these chemicals into your body, it produces certain hormones that block certain hormones, but it increases your appetite and you feel hungry all the time. And you never really quite feel full. Your body doesn’t really process sugar calories the same way it does, you know fat calories for instance, or protein.
So you feel full or you never feel full, you feel hungry all the time. And you end up craving more sugar. So you have this like sugar rush where you feel some energy but then you kind of crash from that you’ve all experienced this. I’m sure a lot of people do this in the afternoon, they’ll have lunch maybe you know some kappa Frappuccino, whatever they call it at Starbucks, you know, with all the, you know, sugar and the whipped cream and the caramel sauce and everything.
I mean, it’s amazing in the caffeine and it gives you this amazing rush but then you’re going to like crash hard after that you need a nap. I used to do that. So I’d be like, oh my I need to take a nap now. So and what happens is when you crash like that, the only thing it’s gonna bring you back up is what? Yeah, eat more sugar, because then you’ll have more energy again, right?
So anyway, you get these sugar cravings, these very powerful, uncontrollable cravings for more sugar. There’s mood swings that happen, you know that you can get very irritable from eating a lot of sugar. There’s lethargy, you know, you just feel a lack of motivation. And people say they feel more of a lack of motivation to exercise when they’re eating a lot of sugar.
And which actually kind of compounds the whole issue, right? So there’s all these negative side effects and all these negative consequences of eating sugar. And these should alone like what I just mentioned, should be enough for you to just say like, okay, maybe I should probably just stop eating sugar altogether, pretty much right?
But as a runner here, here’s a couple things I want to mention that really directly have to do with us as runners. So in general, runners carry around too much body fat. And the reason for this is that runners, most runners, are pretty much addicted to carbs and sugar. So, I mean, we rely on this for fuel. I’ve done it for years, you know, I just carved up all the time. Tons and tons of carbs, tons and tons of sugar.
The issue though is that that puts you into fat storage mode. And you’ll actually gain weight as a runner. And you think running is going to be the cure all for that and like counterbalance it, but it really doesn’t work. Because when you run a lot, you increase your appetite. When you run a lot and you increase your appetite, you tend to overcompensate by eating way more calories than you would had you had not been running all the time. So that actually kind of works against you.
And because we’re so addicted to carbs, we know we’re relying on this for fuel, especially if we’re doing any kind of long distance running, right? And when we do that, we have to have the carbs and we have to have the sugar all the time. And we can’t do a five mile run without a couple of energy gels, we can’t do a 15 mile run without a whole bunch of you know, energy gels and sports drinks and all this stuff, right.
And this causes a lot of GI issues for people I know a lot of people have a really hard time ingesting all these carbs, but they kind of forced themselves to do it, which causes a lot of GI distress call causes a lot of difficulty running actually, it’s kind of counterproductive for you actually, you tend to hit the wall faster, when you’re doing all these carbs, you kind of get burned out faster.
And so you can only burn so much sugar, so you only have so much sugar in your system that you can use for fuel at a time for a couple of hours, maybe at most, and then you have to keep resupplying that sugar. And when you do this, you’re constantly filling your belly with something that your body has to digest and something that you have to process.
And so all the blood and all the energy that you would want to be in your muscles and your legs, is being used to digest all this sugar, basically. So the alternative, though, is that you can use fat for fuel, all that body fat we have carrying around with us, you can run for days and days on your own body fat, okay, you don’t need to kind of replenish it the way you do sugar. You can run easier and farther when you become fat-adapted.
And so you can use your own body fat as fuel. And you know, one of the things that’s kind of cool about this is when you can get to the point where you become fat adapted and you are accessing your own body fat for fuel. Fat is a better fuel source than sugar. It’s not as easily accessible.
And that’s why you’ve got to get all the sugar out of your system first in order for your body to start using the fat because it’s not used to using fat as fuel. Especially if you’re carrying around a little extra weight. If you’re 20, 30, 50 pounds overweight, your body is definitely not used to burning fat.
And so in order to access that fat, we got to get all the sugar out of our system first. But granted, yeah, a gram of sugar can produce four calories of energy. Whereas a gram of fat can produce nine calories of energy. Now what’s awesome about that is that you’re gonna get basically twice as much fuel from fat than you would from sugar.
And you have hundreds of thousands of calories of fat just hanging around on your body. Even if you’re a pretty lean runner, you have so much fuel on board that you really don’t need to even like bring fuel with you on long runs I’ve done.
I did a 50K a couple of years ago, I did a couple of 50Ks, where I just brought some almond butter as fuel, so just some fat little protein and was doing some electrolyte drinks. So you definitely want to keep your salt and your electrolytes in. But you don’t need all this sugar and stuff. And I gotta tell you, those were a couple of the best really long runs I’ve ever done. I just felt amazing the whole time. Tons of energy.
I mean, it’s still hard, you know, running 30 miles is still hard, but it was way easier than the ones I did when I was sucking down all the energy gels and stuff like that. Okay. So those are some reasons why as runners, we might want to consider just getting rid of the sugar and becoming fat adapted.
Okay, so just think about that as I’m going through some of the stuff we’re talking about here and sugar, you know, and I get it the hard part is when we say like stop eating sugar in his runners. We’re like, nope, not doing that. It’s too hard. It’s too hard to give up. I love it. I love my sugar, and I get it 100%. I was a huge sugar addict completely addicted to sugar, grew up on carbs. And I’ve, I’ve changed my habits. And you can do it too.
But we’ve like been conditioned to love sugar, we’ve been conditioned to crave sugar. And that conditioning, it all kind of started back in the late 70s, early 80s, with the whole low fat diet craze, you know, they decided that fat was bad. And we needed to start eating a low fat diet, which is weird because we had survived as a human beings for a couple thousand years, just fine eating lots of saturated fat and animal products and butter, you know, and meat, and, you know, lard and then all of a sudden they’re like, nope, this does not good for us.
And it’s like, huh, nobody really questioned it. And the science they had to back it up was marginal. There was very, it was, it wasn’t really good science. Alright, we know that now we know that the science was not good. We believed it. I mean, we’re doing the best we could with what we had available to us. But now we know that science was not very good.
And we know better now. So anyway, they were like stop eating fat. You know, start making foods lower and fat. And everybody’s like, cool. Well, we’ll get on board with the no fat thing. We’ll make everything low fat or no fat or nonfat. But what do we use instead? Because when we take all the fat out, the food doesn’t taste good anymore.
And the USDA was like sugar, just put sugar into sugars, fine, sugar’s not a problem, just start using that. And so the food industry was like, Cool, man, we can put sugar in everything. And so they started putting food in all kinds of herbs, starting putting sugar in all kinds of food to make it taste better. You remove the fat, the food tastes terrible. So they just started putting sugar in everything.
So they would start putting sugar in things like pasta sauce, and yogurt, and crackers, and granola and like healthy cereals, oatmeal and salsa and potato chips and processed meats and cheeses, juice, salad dressings, non dairy, milk, bread, all these things they started adding sugar to they never had put sugar in bread.
You know, prior to this vitamin water, hey, lots of sugar in their iced tea, beef jerky, sports drinks, energy bars, protein powder, even vitamins themselves are loaded with sugar. And these are all products that we normally wouldn’t assume would have any kind of added sugar. You know, we know about cookies, we know about ice cream, we know about the sugary cereals. But when it comes to like bread or crackers or yogurt, we think we’re eating something healthy.
And we’re not, a lot of times we’re not. And they hide the sugar because they know, you know, over the last 10-20 years, things have started to shift a little bit. Food labeling laws have changed. They have to list added sugar. And they have to list the ingredients. And then if you notice something they put the ingredients in the order of like how much of a certain substances in things. So if you look at a thing of salad dressing, let’s say let’s say it’s like olive oil based or something like that, which they really don’t make much olive oil based salad dressing, which is a crime, I’d pay for that. But they don’t. They use these cheap seed oils that are just toxic for us. Anyway, different topic. That’s a topic for another day.
But the labels have to list the ingredients and kind of the order. So if you had a salad dressing those olive oil based the first ingredient basically should be olive oil, right? And then they go from, you know, the most prominent to the least prominent. Well, sugar is very prominent in a lot of foods, but they don’t want you to know that.
So what they do is they call sugar, a bunch of different names and they listed in there six or seven times. So it kind of confuses us as to how much sugar is actually in a product. So instead of listing just sugar one time at the very beginning, and we would all look at that and go oh my gosh, there’s a lot of sugar in this thing.
They’ll use names like agave nectar, or maltodextrin or fruit juice. Hey, it’s got fruit juice in it sounds healthy, right? It’s just another name for sugar, or dextrose or barley malt. Barley malt, that sounds delicious. That sounds like what is that oatmeal? No, it’s just sugar.
All of these things sound innocent. They don’t they don’t sound anything like they would be sugar but they are. They’re just sugar. There’s actually something like 98 different names for sugar that they include in food labels. So you gotta be you got to know what you’re looking for. Have, you got to be an informed consumer? Okay.
Here’s the crazy thing though, if you went into the grocery store, and you removed all the products that contained added sugar, you’d be left with only around 20% of the products in the grocery store. 20%. So 80% of every food product, everything that you could possibly buy at the grocery store contains added sugar.
And most of it is highly processed, and most of it is hidden. You know, what you’re left with is things like meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, cheese, eggs, some full fat dairy products, like there’s, you know, there’s quite a bit left, but 20% of the store is what you’re left with. That’s crazy.
So here’s a here’s a good example. Like, let’s say you’re, you’re trying to eat healthy, right, and so you sit down, you have a breakfast, you’re like, I’m just gonna have a nice healthy breakfast, I’m gonna have a glass of apple juice and some granola and some fat free yogurt because this is healthy, right?
Well, in that little simple little breakfast that I just mentioned, there’s more than 20 teaspoons of sugar. Now, if I said to you, here, I just put 20 teaspoons of sugar in this glass, just drink this down just like, eat the sugar, you’d be like, no way. No way am I gonna eat that much sugar. But when we sit down with some apple juice and some low fat for yogurt, that’s exactly what we’re doing. If you want to good, if you want a really eye opening look into this, there’s a movie that I would recommend you watch. It’s called That Sugar Film. And you can watch it free on YouTube. Or if you have Amazon Prime, you can watch it there too. But he lays out just how much sugar is hidden in foods at the grocery store. And it is very, very eye opening. You’ll get some good visuals on exactly what I’m talking about here.
Here’s another issue. You know, I talked about the kind of addictive nature of sugar or how we’ve been conditioned to crave sugar. And one of the reasons is that scientists like food scientists over the last few decades have worked really hard to produce the food that creates the biggest desire and the biggest, like, feel good sensations within us that produces the best, like dopamine hit.
So when you eat some sugar, you get a little hit of dopamine, you get a little serotonin release, you know it feels good, right, you get all these chemicals going through your body, much like somebody gets when they do drugs, or drinks alcohol, it’s very similar kind of thing and effects the same area of the brain. So food scientists have created this thing they called the bliss point.
And they work really, really hard to combine the right kinds of ingredients to make our food hyper palatable, and to produce this incredibly unnatural high within us. So they’ve been doing this for decades. And we have consumers who are, you know, now conditioned to want that rush.
We kind of crave it and we kind of need it there’s a psychological addiction and there’s a physical addiction I’m gonna get into more of the addictive nature of of sugar in a in a upcoming episode here, but I just want you to understand that they’re doing this they know that this is a highly addictive substance and they’re kind of doing this on purpose. So it’s a little insidious, if you ask me, it’s a problem.
I was reading a book recently, and there was a quote in this book from a guy named Howard Moscowitz. And he’s an expert on consumer behavior and studies. The way the food industry creates these highly, hyper palatable foods and stuff like that and, and of the, of the science of creating foods. He said that, as he’s said, “If you can find that optimal point in a set of ingredients, you may be well on your way to converting that array of chemicals and physical substrates into a successful product.” Wow, an array of chemicals and physical substrates.
This is the way that the food industry looks at creating these hyper palatable foods for us. Yay. You know, they’ll just look at it as like how can we make this as addictive as possible? This pile of garbage we have here, how can we, like combine these ingredients in such a way that make people crave it like a drug. And they’re very successful at doing this. The food industry is very successful at this.
Okay, so here’s something I really want you to understand. And this is an important point, we actually really don’t need sugar to survive. We, as humans have lived without sugar without eating, you know, pasta sauce with added sugar and yogurt with that, and sugar. And even with a lot of fruit, you know, because the fruit we have today, here’s just so you understand, like, the fruit we have today is so different from the fruit that was available to us a couple thousand years ago, even a couple of hundred years ago, you know.
We’ve genetically modified our fruits, and made them super sweet, like a banana today is not what it was a couple hundred years ago. Apples, watermelon, all these things have been, you know, the sweetness factor has increased a thousand times over the years, you know, so the fruit we’re eating, that we are eating for centuries for millennia, was very different and did not contain the kind of sugar it does today.
But we’ve lived for you know, thousands of years without all this sugar, okay? Our bodies actually produces our own sugar, we produce all the sugar we need in our liver through a process called gluconeogenesis. And this is a process where our liver produces glucose, because we need some glucose to survive, but we don’t need to get it from externally. Okay.
There are some cultures out there that still today they don’t eat sugar at all. They don’t eat carbohydrates at all. They don’t even eat vegetables. You know, there’s like the Maasai tribe in Kenya, who, you know, subsist on mostly high, high fat, raw dairy, like milk and blood, animal blood. And they don’t eat vegetables or carbohydrates.
There’s the Inuit Eskimos that eat nothing but fish and you know, seal meat and blubber. So they survive on protein and fat mostly. And they don’t see vegetables. They don’t eat bread, they don’t eat pasta. You know, they don’t drink frappuccinos from Starbucks or whatever. And they’re fine. They’ve lived for thousands of years like this.
And here’s a couple of facts that I thought kind of blew my mind. So just a few 100 years ago, let’s go back to like, the 1700s. So not even like caveman days, just 1700s you know, Americans were consuming something like four pounds of sugar per year. And that’s naturally occurring sugar and fruits and grains and added sugar as well. Four pounds a year. It’s not bad, right?
Today, though. We as Americans consume over 150 pounds of sugar per year. This is mind blowing. That’s like three pounds of sugar a week. Again, this is total sugar. This includes naturally occurring sugar and fruits and grains and starches and things like that. But a lot of this is added sugar as well.
There’s some we consume something like 66 pounds of added sugar a year, which is a pound and a quarter a week of added sugar. But that is a lot, a lot of sugar. Okay. And here’s something else we have to understand that sugar is sugar, your body kind of treats sugar, all the same, they all raise insulin. They all put you into fat storage mode.
So if you’re if you’re eating grains, if you’re eating starchy vegetables, like you know, white potatoes, if you’re eating sugary fruits like bananas and apples, you know, your body is just like, Oh, they’re sugar and they kind of treat kind of treats that the same way. And I tell people like you know, if you have to choose between eating a chocolate chip cookie, and an apple, I would say, you know, obviously choose the apple, you know, you’re gonna get some good fiber.
There’s a little bit of you know, there’s about a 15-16 grams of sugar in there. And you know, it’ll, it’ll spike your blood sugar a little bit. You’ll get a little bit of an insulin rush and if you’re eating apples all day long, that would be a problem but every now and then, eat an apple. It’s totally fine.
You know, and if you’re one of those people that likes to have oatmeal with bananas, like I used this used to be my favorite morning thing. I used to eat oatmeal and bananas all the time, I loved a huge bowl of oatmeal. I even put some granola on there because granola is all healthy, right? This is all very healthy right? This was causing me a lot of issues, though, like I was just gaining weight, I could not lose the weight, I just couldn’t understand why either. Because sugar is kind of sugar.
And so just know that if you want to do the oatmeal, and bananas, if you want to keep eating all the fruit, it will kind of slow down your weight loss progress. More than likely, it’s gonna put you in a fat storage mode. And you might start gaining weight. And so it’s just something to be careful of, you know, you know, once you get to where you want to be when you get to your goal weight, you can always add in more fruits and some grains and things like that.
But at the beginning, like if you’re trying to get off sugar, just get off sugar, just stop eating it altogether. Okay, so how do you do that? Like, what is the answer here. And this is where I got a really easy tip for you. Are you ready? Here it is.
Eat real food. That’s it. I’m just like, so passionate about eating real food and kind of going back to eating the way our kind of recent ancestors ate. So this is eating just a lot of whole food, with saturated fats with good fatty meats and fish and fresh vegetables, and very little sugar and very little refined grains and not much fruit.
You know, so this is like my main focus of my programs. And the main focus of the work that I do with my clients is teaching them how to just go back to eating real food. One way you can do that is the simple first step is just kind of eliminate the packaged and processed food from your life.
You know, it actually makes your life much easier when you just get rid of all this packaged and processed food, you know, you got to get into a routine and you may have to prep a little bit ahead of time. But once you do this, life becomes easier for you actually.
So just stop buying food in packages. Okay, now I get it, there’s going to be some exceptions to that rule. And I have exceptions to that. I love my riced cauliflower. Because I use this as a substitute for rice, I make pizza crust out of it. It comes in a bag, it’s pre riced, all it contains is one ingredient: cauliflower. But it’s just simple. Like I don’t want to my half my day shredding cauliflower into rice, you know what I mean? But, so there’s, there’s obviously exceptions, you know, I want life to be easy for me for you to, but pretty much stay away from packaged food.
You know, if you do buy packaged food, though, read the labels carefully. Know what you’re looking at, you know, look for the hidden sugar, I’m actually posting a picture that I found that lists all these like 98 different terms for sugars, that would be something helpful for you to check out.
And I’ll put that in the show notes for this episode. So you can just go to therunningmindpodcast.com/27. Or I’ll post it in the Facebook groups, just join the Facebook group, the Running Lean community. So watch out for all that hidden sugar. So read your labels carefully. And then just shop the perimeter of the grocery store. You know, avoid those aisles with all the packaged foods in them, right just you know shop in the produce section.
Eat tons of edge, you know, shop in the meat and fish department, you know shop in the dairy section, get some real butter, like just go back to eating the way that our grandparents and their grandparents ate. And I guarantee you’re going to start to see a lot of significant changes in your weight in your mood, in your energy levels. And we just got to get off all these refined pseudo foods with all the added sugar in them, okay.
So I’m going to be continuing this conversation in the Facebook group over the Running Lean community on Facebook. Remember, we’re doing the July no sugar challenge we just got started. It’s not too late. Come join us grab a few friends to do it with you. It’s more fun with friends. And let’s do this. Let’s just, let’s stop eating sugar.
And let’s start using our own body fat for fuel. We can survive for days and days and days on our own body fat. And we’ll lose a bunch of weight and we’ll become those lean running machines that we want to want to be right. Awesome. All right, that’s all I got for you today. As always, lots and lots of love to each and every one of my friends and keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles, are starving yourself, and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a Lean Running Machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss, and you’ll learn the three secrets of losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to therunningmindpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become a lean running machine.
There are more diets out there in the world right now (and more conflicting information about those diets) than I even care to think about. There also seems to be a common recurring theme about all of …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Well, hey there, and welcome to episode number 25 of The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m a weight loss coach for runners. Today, I want to talk about why diets don’t work. Honestly, there are more diets out there in the world right now, and probably more conflicting information about all those diets than I can even think about.
But there’s one theme that I keep seeing, and it keeps repeating and keeps coming up over and over again. And that is that diets don’t work. Why is this? Why don’t diets work? Every one of them claims that they are the answer to your weight loss problems. And basically, every one of them fails to produce lasting results.
So today, I’m going to do a little bit of a deep dive into what I think are the five biggest reasons why diets don’t work. And I’m going to give you a few options for what you should focus on instead.
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. This is a Facebook group that I created and it goes hand in hand with this podcast. We take a deeper dive into these topics, you can ask questions, you can get answers. It’s totally free. If you listen to this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. Just go to Facebook and search for the Running Lean community. Pretty simple. Right?
Awesome. So why don’t diets work? What is going on here? So I’ve got five things I want to talk about today. And the first is this. The first thing that I think is why diets don’t work. Number one diets, they only address one thing, what you should or shouldn’t eat. So I have tried many, many different diets.
I did the vegetarian thing for a while and then I eventually moved to pescetarian. And then plant-based or vegan. I did keto paleo Adkins, I did something called TR E or time restricted eating, which is kind of a form of intermittent fasting. And then I did like a raw food diet, and actually started a raw food diet when I was training for a marathon, like just a couple of weeks before a marathon.
I was like, I’m gonna try this raw food diet. And it was terrible. I had really terrible results from doing that. And then there’s a lot of diets out there that I haven’t tried. There’s things like Jenny Craig, which is super popular. Weight Watchers is another super popular one.
And then, you know, like the Mediterranean diet, the South Beach Diet zone, which I had to look up what that even was. And I’m still not exactly sure what that entails. But the common thread among virtually every one of these diets is that they just focus on one thing, what you should or shouldn’t eat. So eat this. And not that, which is fine, I get it. It is important. It is one of the components of, you know, creating a healthy eating lifestyle, but it’s only one part of it. It’s not everything. It’s not the whole picture.
And I think when these diets focus on just telling you what you should and shouldn’t eat, we’re, you know, they’re really missing the ball, they’re really missing the point. Because if it was that easy, if it was as easy as just like telling people what they should and shouldn’t eat, then there would be no problem with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, all that stuff that we got going on here in this country.
Also, most of these diets are just kind of handing out bad advice. So they fall along the same lines as the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is a diet that is high in carbohydrates, and low in fat. And we know without a doubt, now, we know that this approach does not work. I mean, we started doing this back in the late 70s, early 80s.
And the country the US as a whole has been compliant you know we’ve reduced the amount of fat we eat, we’ve increased the amount of carbs we eat. And we as a nation keep getting, you know, fatter, and all these issues of heart disease, diabetes and obesity just keep increasing. So we know for a fact that this type of diet really doesn’t work. Okay?
But this is what a lot of these diets are putting out there. The Mediterranean diet, the Zone Diet Weight Watchers, Jenny, Greg, South Beach, a lot of these are just telling you to eat more grains, eat more carbs and limit the amount of fat that you take in, okay? It doesn’t work. And here’s something that is interesting.
Runners on the whole are really very carb dependent. Runners on the whole carry around too much body fat in general. And the reason for this is simple, that runners are addicted to carbs. So runners eat way more carbs, then even the average American.
Think about it like you got to fuel up for all those long runs, you know, so the day before, let’s do some carbo loading, you know, fettuccine alfredo, like Michael Scott training for the 5k or, you know, the the pre run meal of, you know, carbs or pancakes or whatever you like to do, and the gels, all the gels, and this constant sucking down of sports drinks, and energy bars.
And then there’s the post workout fuel and carbo loading that we do as well. I mean, I’ve done this gladly, too, because it’s just an excuse to eat as much, you know, as many pancakes and syrup is that one, you know, so I get it. But runners on the whole, eat way too much sugar and way too many carbs, which creates a chronic state in our bodies of fat storage mode. You know, because our insulin goes high insulin is a fat storage hormone.
And so we’re constantly storing fat. You know, when we run, especially when we’re training for long distance events, we can burn off some of that fat, but typically no, typically, we’re not losing weight during training like that. In fact, if you’re a long distance runner, and you’ve ever like, scaled back your running, like scaled back the intensity of your workouts, or maybe the mileage you’re doing per week or per month, you will start gaining weight pretty quickly.
I hear this all the time from runners. Oh, yeah, you know, I injured my foot. And so I had to take a couple weeks off and I gained like five pounds. It’s crazy, right? Because you are not, your body’s in this state of chronic fat storage mode. You’re not in fat burning mode, the only way you can lose weight is to burn fat. That’s that we all know that. Okay, but anyway, I went off on a little bit of a tangent there about runners and being addicted to carbs. But it’s important, I think it’s important for us to understand that.
So diets, they, you know, they only tell you what to eat, and they’re not addressing the stuff that’s going on, underneath all of that, which is the mental and emotional obsession that we have with food, you know, we’ve become a culture that has become addicted to food, we crave it like a drug, specially certain types of foods and it depends on you know, on the person. But there are a bunch of different foods out there.
Pizza is one that we crave, like a drug, you know, fast food like burgers and french fries, we crave like a drug. I used to crave Ben and Jerry’s ice cream like a drug. And the food scientists know this. They are taking advantage of this mental obsession that we have with food. So every time we eat something, we get a little bit of a hit of dopamine in our brain, you know, which makes us feel good.
It’s the same kind of response you get when you drink alcohol, or do drugs like cocaine, for instance, you get a little hit of dopamine and it feels good. And you’re like, ooh, that was good. I want more of that. But when you eat certain types of food foods that are high in sugar, especially like McDonald’s, french fries, and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and french fries, just by the way, you know, it’s the fat content, but it’s also the starch that turns in no sugar.
So those kinds of things really give you a big hit of dopamine. And so your brain is like, whoa, we need more of that right now. It’s crazy. They’ve kind of created this culture of food addicts, you know? Which I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
I don’t I don’t I don’t I well, I do know I don’t think that’s good. It’s crazy, though. Like they even you’re gonna start to notice this now. driving around town, you’re gonna see giant billboards with pictures of food, they call this food porn, because it like, creates that same sort of release of dopamine in our brain, when we see a picture of like a close up picture of a juicy hamburger and french fries on a billboard, we get that same response in our body.
Like, if you were like looking at a picture of, of a naked person, you know, I mean, like, there’s a physiological response to that. Notice it. Next time, you’re driving around, and you see a billboard with like, you know, close up of some kind of food, pizza, you know, steaming or that close up of a burger or whatever. Notice what’s going on in your body, chances are, you’ll notice one thing especially which is like your mouth will start to water like Pavlov’s dog here, you know?
So notice that the next time you’re driving around, you see a billboard like that, what do you start to think about? What feelings do you have in your body? Are you like, salivating? Do you all of a sudden want that burger or whatever.
But we see these images all over the place, we see them posted on Instagram, and Facebook, and we see him on billboards, and we see him, you know, in magazines, and in commercials and all this stuff. And so we’re constantly bombarded. Our brains are bombarded with thoughts about this food, it’s creating a mental obsession for us.
Not only is the food being created and designed in a way, and they call this the bliss point, which is what the scientists create, with the right amount of sugar, fat, and salt, or whatever they use to create a food that makes us crave it the most. It creates the biggest dopamine hit in our brains, which makes us feel the best. I call it the bliss point, because it creates a sense of bliss in our body when we eat it.
They know this, they’re doing all of this on purpose, okay. So, in order to break out of this, you got to start breaking the pattern, and you got to work on your thoughts about food, you have to change the way you think about food. And we do this with my clients, we work on that mental obsession, and we work on the cravings. And one thing we do is like, anytime you have a craving, we just allow it to be there and don’t react to it.
So anytime you can not give into a craving, like let’s say you have some ice cream in your freezer, and you’re like, man, that ice cream would be really good right now. But if you don’t give into that craving, you can start training your brain to allow those cravings to be there without reacting to them without doing anything about them. It’s a process though, and it takes a while.
And you have to be okay with like feeling kind of uncomfortable for a little while. And that’s what a lot of people have a hard time with. Okay, we’re also a society that does a lot of emotional eating. Right, instead of feeling our feelings, we eat food, just like I was explaining, you know, you get uncomfortable when you have this craving for something, you just want to eat it, it’s the same thing when we have a negative emotion.
So when we have a negative emotion, like hurt, or anger, or stress or overwhelm, or you know, we’re lonely, or something like that, what we want to do is we want that feeling to go away right away, we want it to go away, like right now. And one way that we do that is with substances.
So we’ll grab alcohol, you drink some alcohol, and it’ll immediately make you feel good. So instead of feeling lonely, let’s say you drink some alcohol, and you’re going to your blood brain is going to be flooded with dopamine and adrenaline and it’s going to just feel amazing. And you kind of forget about the fact that you’re lonely, okay?
Because your body is flooded with these other feelings. So alcohol does that. Food does that the same exact way shopping for a lot of people. It gives them that same kind of sense of that feeling of like flooding your brain and body with dopamine. And there’s a variety of other things that people get into drugs and you know, sex and gambling and other things like that.
And here’s the thing, all of these things that are outside of us when we reach for something that’s outside of us to make us feel better inside it not only does it not work, so it doesn’t we’re not dealing with the emotion that we’re feeling. You know, if you’re feeling hurt or lonely. Eating is going to feel good, just because you know you’re getting that little hit of dopamine, but it’s not dealing with the fact that you’re feeling hurt or lonely, that emotion is still there.
So when the buzz of your food or alcohol or whatever it is wears off, you still have the negative emotion. In fact, you feel worse because now you’ve created, you’ve done something very negative, something with negative consequences, like you gain weight, or you have a hangover or whatever. And now you feel bad about doing that.
And so it’s kind of like, you even feel worse. So these things we think are helping or making us feel better actually make us feel worse. You know, we call this buffering when we’re using something external as a buffer between our ourselves and our feelings, you know, we want to dampen the emotions, so we put a buffer between the emotion and ourselves, the emotion doesn’t go away, you just, it just sort of numbs it a little bit, okay. And you feel something else instead.
So when you eat, you might feel full, which gives your brain you know, big hit of dopamine, it feels great. And you sort of forget about those other emotions for a little bit. But it doesn’t work for the long term, because you’re not dealing with the emotions. Okay, so if any of this is resonating with you, I just want you to know that you are perfectly normal. This happens to all of us, welcome to the human race.
So number one, diets only address one thing: they address what to eat or what not to eat, they don’t address any of this other stuff. They don’t address the mental obsession that we have with food, this unnatural craving that we have for food, they don’t address the emotional eating that we do. And most diets are kind of handing out bad advice about what to eat and what not to eat. Okay. All right. So that was number one. Diets are only talking about what to eat, what not to eat.
Number two, diets are very restrictive. Have you ever been on a diet and just wanted to punch somebody in the face? I know that I had, this is my experience. Like, I remember doing this calorie counting thing a couple years ago, because I was gaining weight I was running and I was gaining weight. And so I’m like, okay, I gotta start tracking all my calories, because that’s how you lose weight, right? You gotta like, eat fewer calories than you burn.
So I was like, you know, running extra miles every week and tracking every single mile I ran, every mile I walked, every step I took, every time I like, did, you know, weightlifting, I was tracking all these calories that I was burning. And I then had to put in how many calories I was was consuming. So I had to like, put in this app that I had this tracker app, I had to put in exactly how many calories I was consuming each day, which meant that every time I ate a bite of anything, I had to input it into this app, right?
Which at first was okay, it’s like, you know, cereal, you know, find the cereal in the database. And you know, they had a pretty good database of food in there, find the cereal. How much did I use? Probably a lot more than they say, as a serving whatever. Blueberries, I could find that. And that was fine. Like if I could just put in things like that.
But sometimes I would, I would make my own recipe or you know, make a casserole or something, right. And then you got to put every one of those items into this app to create the recipe then divided out by how many portions sizes, like the whole, the whole thing was so stressful for me.
And honestly, I got so stressed out about doing this, that it just made me like, you know, it kept me up at night, like, every time I ate something I had to like, do all this inputting into this app and do all this math and everything. And besides that, besides it being super stressful. I was hungry all the time because I was restricting calories. Okay. I was like hangry. I was hangry right, hungry and angry. Hangry and, and I wasn’t losing weight either. Right. So awesome. I’m angry, hungry, and then I couldn’t lose weight. So that’s amazing, right?
But why is this what is going on here? I had to figure out what’s happening here. So most diets are based on this concept of restrict and restriction. So typically, diets restrict fat or calories or both. So low fat or low calorie diets are probably the biggest culprits here. And they create an environment in our bodies of over hunger and over desire, they kind of do the opposite of what you would think they would do.
So what happens in your body is when you restrict calories, your body starts sending signals to your brain that you’re not getting enough food. And so you produce more ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone, your appetite actually increases, because you’re restricting calories. So your body is always trying to maintain homeostasis, it wants to get back to neutral.
And so it says, like, Hey, we’re not getting enough food here, you need to feed us and so your, your body’s doing what’s supposed to, it’s increasing your appetite. But since you’re restricting calories, you’re not eating as much, you’re gonna have this like really massive disconnect from your brain, your body, your body is saying, like, feed me now.
But your brain is like, oh, no, we have to stick to 1000 calories a day, no more. And you’re gonna just feel miserable and hungry all the time. This is my experience, there’s a lot of what a lot of people experience with restrictive diets. It creates a, it just feels terrible, it creates a lot of inner turmoil.
You know, when you restrict food, especially foods that are high in fat say, you also create a sense of deprivation. So, you know, you start saying to yourself, like, I can’t eat this, I can’t eat that. Or maybe you go out to dinner with friends, and everybody’s eating, you know, wings, and pizza and french fries. And you’re like, I’ll just have a side salad, because you know, I’ve kind of had most of my calories for the day. And boy, that feels terrible, right? You get FOMO fear of missing out.
It’s like, there’s all this food here around you, and I can’t eat it, it just feels terrible. Okay, so number two diets don’t work because they are restrictive. And this restricting of calories, especially calories from fat leads to uncontrollable cravings. And almost inevitably will lead to non compliance, people will no longer comply with this kind of diet, because they just can’t do it, they can’t deal with those cravings, usually at least a binging and then just quitting the diet altogether.
And then what happens is, a lot of times people will go back on that kind of a diet, and then they will lose some weight, and then they will feel terrible, and then you can’t do it. And then they gain a bunch of weight back. And then they do that again. And that’s what we call like a yo-yo diet, where people are constantly restricting what they’re eating and like trying to white knuckle it, and then you know, quitting, because it’s so hard. And then, you know, getting a bunch of weight back and then doing it again. And that cycle just continues. It’s really not good for you, by the way.
So number three is that diets are complicated. You know, I was talking about that calorie tracking app, and I had to input everything I was eating. This was extremely complicated. You know, when you got to like, count every calorie in every macro, you know, how much protein, how much fat, how many carbs of everything you’re eating, oh my god, I was crazy.
When I did the keto diet for a while there and had some good results from that. But keto in general, to get your body into ketosis means you have to eat very, very few carbs. I think it’s like less than 50 a day or something like that. And it is very hard to do that for most people, especially since I was plant based at the time.
And so it was like, you know, you had to get most of your calories in the day from fat and you know, as eating a plant based diet, it’s kind of challenging unless you’re like chugging olive oil all day, you know, which I did not do that. But you know, I was eating a lot avocados. Anyway. So when I was doing the Keto thing, I had to track all these macros and actually created this Excel spreadsheet for calculating all this stuff.
How much protein was, you know, the protein, fat, carb ratio had to get it all straightened out every day. I had to keep track of every single morsel that I ate. And honestly, eating was no longer enjoyable for me. Eating wasn’t fun for me. It was a chore; it was like a math assignment. You know, diets they really think they’re making things simple for us but they really are very complicated.
You know, Weight Watchers has their points just eat so many points. Well, you got to like keep track of all your points. You can only buy food that has certain points. Jenny Craig, you’ve got to buy all their food you have to like only buy the food that they tell you to buy other diets have you supplement with all these shake mixes? And pills and probiotics and prebiotics and cleanse kits.
And, you know, all these things, and it just seems so overly complicated. Some diets have you, you gotta weigh all your food. So, you know, what do you have to bring a scale to the restaurant? So you can like weigh your food? I don’t know. They’re just very complicated. You know, and they’re trying to tell you, it’s simple. They’re trying to sell you on an idea that, Oh, it’s just simple. Just count on your points, or whatever.
But it really isn’t, you know, it isn’t simple. The reality is that diets are very complicated. And what happens is they create a lot of stress for us. You know, my experience has been, when I’ve had to, like input everything into an app, or you don’t track everything on an Excel spreadsheet, I got really stressed out about food.
And when I get stressed out, what do I do? Probably the same thing you do, I just want to eat to feel better. You know, and that’s not the goal of these diets. But far too often, it’s the outcome. You know, the diets are trying to be simple, but they are very complicated. And they and they create a lot of stress, and then you end up just binging. Okay, so that was number three. Diets are complicated.
Number four, diets are based on this one size fits all concept. Every diet out there is like we are the best one for everyone. Like everyone should be on this diet, everyone should be on the Zone diet, or the South Beach diet, or everyone should be plant based.
Like they can’t all be right, right? If everybody’s saying they’re the one, and there’s, you know, 60 diets out there, or 100, or however many, they can’t all be right. But I totally get this, I really, really do. So for around 10 years, I was plant based 100%. And I swore that this was the only way to go. And this is best for everyone I preached about being plant-based.
And I was you know, my thoughts, my understanding was that if everyone would just switch to eating plants, they would all be super healthy. And, and I really firmly believe this for a long time. The truth is, though, that we are all different. We are all different people, we all have different dietary needs, we all have different metabolic needs.
We all have, you know, our genes are slightly different. I don’t know a ton about genes. But I will say this, I’ve started really getting into this new science of ancestral eating. And this is where, you know, you want to focus on eating what your particular ancestors have evolved to eat over the last, you know, couple 1000 years.
You know, if your ancestors were Inuit Eskimos living in the Canadian Arctic, you’re gonna be, you know, very genetically different and thrive on a very different diet than if your ancestors like mine, you know, we’re from Ireland and Scotland, you know, or if your ancestors come from the plains of Africa, or from East Asia. So in all of these different parts of the world, people have been thriving for 1000s of years on different types of diets, different types of foods, some of them super high in fat, and super high in animal fat, and very few vegetables.
And some are kind of the opposite. Lots of rice, and lots of seafood and lots of vegetables and things like that. So really the truth of the matter is there isn’t one diet that’s best for everyone. But that’s not true. There is one, there is one diet, it’s that’s best for everyone. And that’s the one that works for you.
You know, like South Beach diet might work for you. But it might be terrible for somebody else. So what I teach, and what I would suggest that you start thinking about is choosing food that works for you, you know, choosing an eating protocol and I use this word protocol with my clients because it’s not a diet, it’s a it’s kind of a way of of eating that you can sustain over time.
So we choose a protocol that works for each person individually, and we figure it out together. So if you want to lose weight, eating a vegan diet or plant based totally fine, we can figure out a way to do that. If you want to do it as a carnivore or doing paleo or primal or, you know, whatever, fine vegetarian, fine, whatever pescatarian. We will make it work, you can lose weight on all kinds of different diets, okay? There’s not one size that fits for everyone. There’s not one diet that’s best for everyone out there.
Okay, there’s so many different factors involved here, you got to figure out what works best for you. Now, I will say one thing here. And this is my, my caveat, which is, any diet that’s high in sugar and carbohydrates will not work. Any diet that’s high in sugar, and refined carbohydrates especially, will keep you in a state of elevated insulin will keep you in this chronic state of fat storage mode in your body and you’re constantly going to gain weight, you’re going to you know, massively increase your chances for obesity, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, sugar and carbs.
Bad, okay, you absolutely cannot lose weight, while eating a diet that’s high in sugar and carbs. I don’t care what anybody says or what you believe, that’s just the facts. This is just science where our bodies work, okay. So you got to get your insulin down. That’s the only thing I would say about this. So there, there it is. Well, there isn’t one particular diet that works for everyone, we do know that there’s one thing that does not work for everyone, and that’s lots of sugar and carbs.
So choose foods that work for you, if you want to eat, you know, whatever, if you want to eat, you know, a plant based diet, do it. And you know, we can work on that we can, we can make it work for you. But just don’t assume that every one of these diets is going to work for everyone, because they don’t, you know, diets don’t work because they assume that what’s good for one is good for all there really is no one size fits all, when it comes to what food you should be eating.
So choose wisely, my friends. And then number five, and this is probably the most important factor in why diets don’t work. And that is the main concept of a diet, the whole idea of a diet is that it’s temporary, it’s a temporary thing. You know, when we think of a diet we think of as something we do for a short period of time, you know, I need to go on a diet to lose weight.
So most people think they can go on a diet for a few months, get to their goal weight, you know, lose the 20 or 30 or 50 pounds, and then go back to the way they were eating before. You know, eating the same stuff that got them to gain all that weight in the first place. Which makes no sense at all right? This is going back to that whole yo-yo dieting thing. You eat all this crappy food, you gain a bunch of weight, then you’re like, I need to go on a diet.
So you pick one of these diets. It works for a little bit, until it doesn’t, you gain all the weight back. And then you do it again. And this is really bad for you and really bad for your health. And you know, it sets you up for a lifetime of struggle and weight loss failure. And it sets you up for all kinds of things for stress.
For this over desire for food, you’re constantly thinking about and stressing out about food. And, you know, it’s because of all the other things I’ve mentioned here, you know that all the complications, all the restrictions of diets, the deprivation, we feel the cravings we experience is why people just can’t wait to just go back to what they were eating before. Because, frankly, diets kind of suck.
The whole idea that a diet is something that’s temporary, and we got to get rid of that idea. Instead of a diet I teach my clients like I said, how to create a protocol, a way of eating that you can do for the rest of your life. It doesn’t do you any good just to be able to do this temporarily. Just doesn’t work.
Whatever you choose to do, whatever kinds of food you choose to eat, when we talk about what foods you want to eat, and how often you want to eat, and your mindset around food and how you process your emotions. When we talk about taking this holistic approach to nutrition and health and feeling vibrant and thriving in our bodies. It’s not a diet, it’s a way of life.
You’ve got to create a whole new way of thinking about food. You got to change the way you feel about food. You need to change the way you feel about yourself. What I do with my clients is I help them to create a whole new relationship with food And with themselves. You know, if you’re struggling with a diet, yes, stop doing that. You need to create an eating plan that works for you protocol.
And once you get that dialed in, and you get the mindset, right, and you get your emotional state, right, you’ll be able to lose the weight, you’ll, it’s kind of magical, actually, the way it works is you kind of the fat starts coming off. And when you stick to it, it’s something you can do forever, you lose the weight, the fat starts coming off.
And it’s something you just you want to keep doing because it feels so good. And then one of the things that I really want to say here, because I think it’s important is that eating should be a joyous thing. We’ve, our whole culture is like, you know, we celebrate with food a lot of times and I don’t want you to stop doing that.
And so I encourage my clients when they’re creating their protocol to include things like birthdays and holidays like account for those kinds of days. And, and enjoy. You know, the wedding cake when you go to your best friend’s wedding. You know, if it’s your birthday, no one wants to eat a birthday salad, you know, so eat the birthday cake, it’s fine, just go back to what you were doing the next day. It’s not an excuse to just like, say, screw it and go back to eating all the sugar and carbs all the time. But every now and then, you know, eat the birthday cake, you know, and plan ahead for things like this.
But for the most part, what we do is we create a plan that involves eating the kinds of food that properly fuels your body, and keeps your body thriving and working optimally. You know, the food you eat should help your body to thrive. And it should be something that you can do forever.
So you have to change the mindset of like this diet as a temporary thing. And get into the mindset of how you fuel your body today. And how you fuel your body tomorrow is how you’re going to fuel your body a month from now or a year from now or for the rest of your life. So the biggest reason why diets don’t work is that it’s a temporary concept.
Instead, eat real food, food that encourages your body to thrive and live this vibrant, healthy, long life, something that you can do forever. Cool. Cool. We are going to be continuing this conversation in the Running Lean community on Facebook. So I’d love for you to join the group.
We’re talking about diets and what different kinds of diets people have tried and why they haven’t worked. I would love to hear about your personal experience with some kind of diet. Maybe something I mentioned, maybe something I didn’t mention. I know there’s a lot more diets out there. I’ve tried a lot of them. And obviously not all of them.
But why? What have you tried? And why didn’t work for you? That’s kind of what we’re talking about in the Running Lean community on Facebook. Just search for Running Lean community on facebook and join in the conversation. Well, that’s all I got for you today. Lots of love to each and every one of you as always and keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.
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