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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

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226. What’s the Best Pacing Strategy?

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We’re in the middle of the Spring racing season here in the US and a lot of runners ask me questions about pacing for their upcoming race. Should you start slow and then try to finish …

Continue Reading about 226. What’s the Best Pacing Strategy? →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 226 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. And today, what’s the best pacing strategy? So we are in the middle of the spring racing season, at least we are here in the US.

And a lot of runners ask me questions about pacing for their upcoming race, should they start slow and try to finish fast? Should you start fast and try to make up for some time when you eventually slow down at the end of a race? Should you focus on your heart rate or cadence, your current pace or your average pace? Lots and lots of questions around pacing.

And believe it or not, there is one pacing strategy that has been proven time and again to be the most effective for most runners. So today, I’m going to answer the question of what’s the best pacing strategy so that you can go out there and crush your spring race this year.

But first, if you’re listening to this podcast, that means that your health, your fitness, it’s important to you, you want to feel better, you want to look better, you want to get stronger, you want to improve your running. And I want to tell you that all of that is possible for you. And I also want you to know that I can help you get there.

You know, I’m talking to you on the podcast and you’re listening to this and you’re taking in a lot of this information. I listen to a lot of podcasts, I listen to a lot of books. I hear from a lot of experts and a lot of different topics. I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff.

But when it comes to the practical application of all that knowledge, nothing has been more helpful to me than having a coach show me what to do to guide me to mentor me to help me stay on track. I’ve had a bunch of awesome coaches in my life. And I’m a different person today because I’ve had these coaches.

And because I’ve had such an amazing experience with these coaches, it inspired me to want to be a coach. That’s why I do what I do. So I know how powerful coaching can be because I’ve experienced it firsthand.

So for you, if you’re listening to the podcast, you know, keep listening and learning. But if you want help applying this, consider working with a coach. Find someone that can show you the way, that can help you apply all this knowledge, somebody that can help you learn what works for you. That’s very important.

You need somebody that can hold you accountable. And it can’t be somebody that’s close to you can’t be your your spouse or your best friend, that typically doesn’t work. You need somebody to hold you accountable and help you to stay on track and stick to the plan so that you can get the results that you want faster and more effectively than you could do on your own.

Okay, and if you are interested in working with me, I’m always here for you. Just go to my website runningleancoaching.com, click on Work With Me and we’ll get together we’ll get on a call. We’ll talk all about coaching and how it can help you to become the most badass version of yourself yet, cool? Runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. And hope to see you soon.

Okay, so it is spring season spring racing season. And we are in the midst of getting ready for a lot of spring races. Some people have already run, you know, maybe Boston or something like that. So just understand that there’s lots of races happening this time of the year. Typically here in the US, it’s spring and the fall. That’s our racing season.

But you know, there’s lots of stuff that happens in the summer and in the winter as well. But for now, let’s let’s focus on kind of some of the spring races. So if you’re running a 5k, 10k, half-marathon, marathon, and you are considering some sort of a pacing strategy, or you don’t know really what your pacing strategy should be. I’m gonna hope to answer that question for you today and give you a really solid pacing strategy that works for pretty much all runners.

It’s proven to be kind of the most effective pacing strategy. But one thing I want to start out with is just saying that you have to practice pacing in your training, okay, I can’t stress this enough.

You cannot show up on race day and expect for some miracle to happen. Like you can’t do all your training at a 10 minute pace and then just decide that you’re going to run a nine minute pace for your half marathon and be able to do that effectively. You have to practice your pacing in your training. Just stick to the script, okay.

And especially in your in your training, it’s important that you don’t get sucked into, you know, training at somebody else’s pace. You don’t want to get sucked into racing at somebody else’s pace, either. I’ve done that before, I’ve gotten excited at the beginning of a race.

And you know that, oh, I’m gonna run with my friend over here. And this person’s a little faster than me, and I just, I couldn’t hold on, you know, I didn’t stick to the script, I had a plan, I knew what I was going to do, this person was running faster than me. And I was trying my best to hold on.

But it really messed me up, because I wasn’t able to have a good race, because I started way too fast and was not able to handle that, because I wasn’t training that way. But this is important in your training as well, that you are running your paces that you are sticking to your plan so that you are fully prepared to run your, you know, hopefully predicted pace during your race.

But we get caught up in this as well like, especially if you run with a group of people or you want run with friends. And they might be faster than you or slower than you and you kind of get caught up in running with doing all your runs with them. But it’s not really at a pace that that you want to be running at. So you have to sort of do your own thing.

And a good example of this is that for me, I’ve slowed down this past year. Last year, I did a lot of slow running, I was training for this 12 hour event. And the whole point of that was just to, you know, be on my feet for 12 hours running, and be able to finish that and feel good at the end.

So I did a ton of slow running. And I just kind of took a break from the speed work and really wasn’t trying to race anything all last year. So my pace slowed down quite a bit. And then when I started running with my running group in January to start training for this half marathon I’m doing here next weekend, I couldn’t run the same speed as them, I couldn’t keep up with them.

And so it was fine. I was like you guys go ahead, I’m just gonna like hang back here. I actually started, I usually don’t run with headphones on with the training group because I like to talk to people. But I started bringing my headphones and started listening to podcasts and stuff because I was kind of running it at a pace that wasn’t really in line with the one of the pace groups in our in our room group.

So I was doing a lot of training by myself. But that was okay, I wanted to do that. That was what I needed to do, I was sticking to my plan. Okay, so I want you to do the same thing. So make sure that you are sticking to your plan in your training.

And then when you show up on race day, you have to stick to your plan, don’t get caught up in the excitement of the race, don’t get caught up, you know, just trying to keep up with somebody else.

And if you’re going to run with someone, you guys have to have a conversation ahead of time about what the plan is, you know, you might say like you, okay, I’m going to help you, I’m going to pace you for this because it’s your first half marathon, and I’ve done a dozen of them.

So I’m going to pace you, this is the pace we’re going to stay at, I’m going to stay with you no matter what, like that’s a conversation that you would have if you were you know, pacing someone, but if you’re just friends and you’re running, you might have to say, Listen, I’m feeling pretty good. Today, I’m going to you know, try to, you know, maintain this kind of pace. And if I leave you in the dust, you know, just don’t take it personally, you know, you got to have that conversation.

So everybody’s on board, and there’s no hurt feelings or anything like that. I think we put our feelings above, like what we really want for ourselves, you know, I don’t want to hurt their feelings. So I’m gonna try to stay with them. Like, don’t do that. If that’s not in your plan.

Okay, so probably the most important thing to start talking about here is that just stick to the script, do your training, make sure you’re following your your pacing plan, practice it in your training, and then on race day, make sure that you are following the plan that you have been practicing.

Remember nothing new on race day, right. Another thing I wanted to kind of touch on really quickly is this idea of a central governor. So there’s this concept called the Central Governor Model. And it’s not something that has been like 100% proven but it is very, there’s very compelling evidence that this actually is is a thing.

Okay, so the Central Governor Model says that your brain will monitor the body through your brain monitors to the body to make sure that your body doesn’t get too far from homeostasis. Homeostasis is like everything in balance, okay.

In essence, what we’re saying here is that the body is I’m sorry, the brain is the body’s control room. Okay? And it is like a safety mechanism and it’s keeping your body from dying. Alright, so when you’re out there running and you’re pushing yourself, and you’re trying to you know, PR your marathon or half marathon, your brain is going to tell you at some point this is dangerous, you’re going to die, you might feel like you’re going to die.

But a lot of times it is just your brain telling you that your body can continue. And they’ve done all kinds of studies where they’ve put people on treadmills or on on bikes, and they’ve just had them go until they couldn’t go any longer. And the people that could go longer, the way they structured the studies, they would, they would have people run on a treadmill or on a bike, and they would have them go as long as they could, until they completely fatigued, they kept cranking up the intensity.

And then they got to a point where they couldn’t go on any longer. And they repeated this over and over again. So they can only go to a certain distance before they crapped out, you know. But the interesting thing is, when they told them, oh, the person before you was able to go, you know, 28 minutes, well, then they were able to push past that.

And then they said, okay, with the person before he was able to go 33 minutes, and then they were able to push past that. So it’s interesting, because it isn’t the body that’s giving out, it’s the brain that’s telling them that they need to quit.

But if the brain is like, oh, I can go another three minutes, they’ll do it. It’s very interesting, right? So just understand that this has been a concept of Central Governor Model has been around or proposed by a physiologist, guy named Avi Hill back in 1924.

And he had this theory that the heart was protected by some sort of Governor so that you wouldn’t die from really intense activity, exercise. And then Tim Noakes has talked about this a lot. And he’s a modern day professor. And basically, he’s saying that, you know, the subconscious brain, there’s something in the subconscious brain, that sets the exercise intensity, that determines like how hard you are able to push, and just understand that, you know, the brain is going to be telling you that you want to stop, but chances are, you can continue going.

So just understand that that is a real thing. That Central Governor Model is probably something that we all have to deal with, when we’re pushing hard, especially in the late stages of a race. So if you’re trying to PR and you know that you’re getting close, chances are that you can keep going.

But if you’re like, if it looks like it’s not going to happen, it’s easier to give up, right? Because your brain is telling you one thing versus another, it’s telling you this is possible for you, you can do this, you only got you know, you just gotta like push it for the next five minutes, you can do it.

But if it’s like, oh, you’re probably not going to PR, you know, you’re just the the math isn’t going to work out, you’re not going to be able to do it, you might give up, you know what I mean? So it’s very interesting. So just keep that in mind.

I’m just putting this out there because I think it’s very fascinating the way that your subconscious mind can control what’s going on with your body. Okay, so and then there are also some different tools for pacing. So there’s assessment tools to kind of keep track of your pacing.

So, you know, heart rate monitor is one of them, your GPS, watch the time. And then there’s the RPE or rate of perceived exertion scale. So they these all have, you know, sort of pros and cons. You know, with your heart rate monitor, if you’re somebody that’s used to doing heart rate training, and you know that for you, keeping your heart rate at like a 140 is where you need to be, and that’s going to give you the best results, then then do that, again, you have to train with this stuff, right?

If you’re doing the GPS that might give you real time pace, that’s awesome. Sometimes the real time pace can be a little misleading because it bounces around a lot, you know, look down on my watch, you know, you have those different fields, you’ve got like the current pace, that’s your real time pace right now. And then you’ve got your average pace.

Some people like that current pace, because it’ll say, hey, I’m running an eight minute mile. But then you look down and your your nothing has changed. And it’ll say like 8:30, it’ll say 9:00, it’ll say 7:30. You’re like, what is going on here? Well, it’s not perfect. Okay, so GPS is not going to be perfect.

And then if you use your average, that tends to be a little bit better. But again, it’s not going to be perfect GPS, especially when you’re running a race in a urban area with a lot of buildings and stuff like that the GPS can be wildly off. People tell me all the time, oh, you know, this course was long, my watch thought it was, you know, 26.8 miles?

And I’m like, no, they measure the courses, they get that part, right, they get that part. They’ve done extensive measuring of courses to make sure that they are correct. So chances are, they’re not going to be half a mile or more off. You know, they might be a few feet off or something like that, but probably not even that. So just understand that GPS can be a little bit misleading and it’s hard to rely on that as a pacing tool, just so you know.

A better strategy is using time I think that If you’re trying to, you know PR a certain race, you know that if you’re wanting to run a four hour marathon, then you know that you have to cross the finish line, under four hours, like it’s just a matter of time, it doesn’t matter what your heart rate says, doesn’t matter what the GPS says just go by the time.

And at race expos, a lot of times, you can grab a pacing band. And so it is actually a band that you wear around your wrist. And it is a chart of what time you need to be at each mile marker.

Okay, so for me it let’s say, let’s just keep the math simple. Let’s say you want to run a 10 minute mile, that means your first mile, you need to hit that mile marker in 10 minutes or less, the next 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and so on. But once you get into like 16 miles or whatever doing the math can be kind of hard if you’re like trying to hit a 9:30 or something like that, right?

It’s like, oh, my god, I can’t do that kind of math. So having that band on your wrist is so awesome, because all you have to do is look down and go. Okay, my time is this, this is where I should be, I’m a minute faster than I need to be, perfect. I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing. So very, very effective pacings tool to use, it’s an assessment tool, you know. So go by time over pace, I think this is going to be very helpful for most people.

And then there’s the RPE scale. So that’s your rate of perceived exertion, just understand that you have to understand how it feels for you to run at 9 minute pace or a 10 minute pace or whatever. Like you have to be practicing this and you have to have gotten in touch with your own rate of perceived exertion so that you understand what that feels like for you.

When you get good at this though, this is awesome. Because you just know, Oh, this feels like a six on the RPE scale, this feels like a seven. Oh, maybe I need to slow down I’m getting into the eights. Or you can say this is a four, I can write this pace all day. So when you get good at that this is really an awesome strategy to use for pacing.

So most people make mistakes when they are running a race and some of the most common ones, especially for the longer distance races. You know, if you’re if you run a 5k, you’re going to be running pretty hard from the gun, you’re just going to run hard from the beginning.

And you’re going to, you know, put it all out there and you can kind of maintain a pretty high intensity for the duration of that. But then when we started getting into the longer distances, 10 K’s half marathons, marathons. One of the most common mistakes people make around pacing is just starting off too fast.

Probably the most common pacing mistake is getting caught up in the excitement of the of the event. I mean, it is super exciting. You’re down with thousands of people that got the music blasting or shooting off fireworks or whatever they’re playing, you know, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run as you cross the start line. It’s amazing, right? Probably the most overplayed song at the start of a marathon by the way, but just a little side note there.

So the most common mistake is going to be starting off too fast. And so one thing you want to do is not do this, right? Don’t try to keep up with people around you. Another common pacing mistake is running someone else’s pace, we talked about that already.

Don’t run a pace that somebody else has set, you have to set your own pace, you have to have been practicing this. And then the third common mistake that people make is running at varying intensities, you really don’t want to do this.

Most runners try to maintain the same speed. So they’re trying to maintain a certain pace, even when they’re running uphill. So what they will do is they will run hard and fast uphill, and then they will slow down a little bit on the downhills. And this is actually not a very efficient way of running. You don’t want to be varying your intensities. It’s not as efficient as just a smooth and steady approach. Okay.

And that really is the best racing or pacing strategy for a race is a smooth and steady approach. You don’t want to be bouncing all over the place. You don’t want to be all erratic with your pacing. You want to get into a pace pretty quickly. You know, for some races, you want a little bit of a warmup period and honestly the start of most races is going to give you that opportunity. If you’re running a crowded race, then the start is usually going to be pretty slow so you may be 30 seconds to a minute slower for your first mile or two. Whatever, that is completely fine.

And to do that, get into your, your effort level that you want to maintain for the duration of that race, a consistent effort level is the most effective pacing strategy. Okay? Please understand that that is different from your pace or your time. Now we want to pay attention to that stuff, especially the time if you’re trying to get you know a PR.

But the most effective pacing strategy is going to be to maintain a consistent effort throughout the duration of your race, that means that there will be times when you’re running uphill, and you might have to slow down a little bit or you’re running downhill, and you might be able to speed up a little bit, try to maintain that consistent effort level, I have used this pacing strategy to hit all my PRs, my 5k 10k, half marathon, a marathon is all all of those.

I applied this strategy right here consistent effort throughout the majority of the race, with a strong finish at the end. That’s it, that’s the that’s the most effective pacing strategy right there.

Think about it like this. If you have two cars, and they’re both driving the same distance, one’s driving steadily at 65 miles an hour. And the other one is constantly braking and accelerating, braking and accelerating, they’re going 40, they’re going at, both cars are going to arrive at the finish in the exact same time. One hour, let’s say, okay, but which one was more efficient, you know, which one had more gas in the tank at the end, you know, it’s going to be the one that just maintain a steady, smooth pace the whole time.

So this is a really good analogy for what your pacing strategy should look like. Okay, this does not mean that you don’t push hard in some areas of a race, it does not mean that you don’t finish strong, that is very important. You always want to have a race where you finish it strong.

And this is, again, something you have to practice in your training, you cannot just show up on race day and think that all this stuff is going to come together for you have to be practicing this stuff. Now, you’re not going to practice a whole half marathon like this, but you might do a nine mile or you know, or 10 miles at your race pace with a strong finish just to see like, where are you from a fitness standpoint, is this doable for you? Are you able to do 9 or 10 miles at race pace? And if you are, then your half marathon is going to be definitely doable. Okay.

So that would be my suggestion for the most effective about pacing strategy. And just keep in mind that, you know, we’ve got things to consider, we’ve got the excitement of the race, you gotta like make sure you’re calming yourself down, and you’re not getting caught up in the excitement or running somebody else’s race. We’ve got pacing versus time versus heart rate, all those things you have to consider.

I suggest if you can for longer races to get that pace band, so that you know where you’re supposed to be at each mile. And then settle into your your pace early or settle into your effort level that matches the pace that you want to that you want to hit early. And then maintain that just hold that smooth and steady pace for as long as you can.

Yeah, you might be able to run faster on some down hills, you might run a little bit slower on some of the uphill, it’s perfectly fine to do that. That’s going to give you the most energy efficient race, you got to conserve energy for the end. That’s why we like that strong finish because you have to conserve energy for the end. And if you’re running out of gas throughout the middle of the race, that end of that race is going to be terrible for you. I’ve done that so many times.

So I know exactly what it feels like where you get to mile you know 20 of the marathon, you’re like I am just done like this is like so hard because you went out too fast your effort level was all over the place. And you’ve just been wasting gas the whole time essentially. Okay.

So instead of going for some crazy erratic thing or starting slow or starting fast or anything like that, just try for smooth and steady for the majority. Okay, push it a little bit here and there but really smooth and steady and then aim for that strong finish at the end. Cool. And I hope you have an amazing race this season. I’ll let you know how mine goes here in a couple of weeks. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.

220. Should You Lose Weight While Training for a Race?

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A lot of runners are told not to lose weight while training for a race. There are many reasons why they are given this advice (which I cover in today’s episode), but I don’t necessarily agree with …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 220 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, Should You Lose Weight While Training For A Race.

So a lot of runners are told not to lose weight while training for an event. And there are many reasons why they are given this advice, which I’m going to cover in today’s episode, rest assured, but I don’t necessarily agree with all of it.

I believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to lose weight as a runner, even when you’re training for an event like a half or a full marathon. So in this episode, can you and should you lose weight while training for a race?

But first, I know I share a lot of information here about nutrition, weight loss, improving your running, and building strength. And if you’re new to the podcast, welcome. But all this stuff might seem a little overwhelming to you and might be a little confusing, and you may not know where to even begin with all of this stuff.

So if that sounds like you, no worries, I’ve got you covered, I created a free training to help you get started with all this stuff. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.

You’re going to learn the basics of nutrition, strength, endurance and mindset, all geared towards you the long-distance runner. So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself yet, this free training is exactly what you need. Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training and get started on your weight loss journey today.

Okay, so why I’m talking about this today, should you lose weight while training for a race? I have heard from a lot of people that I talk to out there in the running community that they’ve been told that they should not try to lose weight while they are training for some event, like a marathon half marathon, even for a 5k.

Like you don’t want to, to you know, try to lose weight, just focus on running. Don’t worry about the weight loss. And it could even be bad for you, it could hurt your running. And there are a few things that I want you guys to consider when we talk about this subject today.

So, the first thing before I get into some of the reasons why we’re told not to try to lose weight while training for some event, the first thing to think about is what most runners think the answer is to weight loss.

So most runners believe, and even most coaches that I talk to, that the way you’re going to lose weight is to run more. So pick a race, pick a marathon, and start training for the marathon up to your weekly mileage, you’re going to be running more than ever, and you’re going to lose weight like crazy.

And I don’t know about you guys, but that was not always the case for me. In fact, I went through periods where I was running a lot and gaining weight. And I talked to people all the time who told me the same thing.

They’re like, yeah, you’re the first person that’s ever actually said out loud. What happened to me, was I was training for a marathon and I was gaining weight. And I don’t understand what’s going on there. All the experts tell me I should be losing weight, because I’m doing all this running. But this is the exact opposite of what’s happening to me.

And so I had that same experience, you know, I think there was a period there over the length of two or three years where I was running a couple of marathons a year, I was training for a bunch of ultra marathons.

And in that process, and it was just a couple of years, I gained like 40 pounds, that’s a lot of weight gain over the course of a few years. So for me, I had that experience of trying to, you know, run more and trying to lose weight, but it wasn’t working.

I was actually gaining weight in the process. Okay. So let’s start with why most runners gain weight while they’re training for a marathon. So one of the reasons why is that increased activity levels can lead to increased appetite. This happens for most people.

So you start training more, you’re running a lot more miles and you’re exerting a lot more energy, you’re using a lot more energy. And so your body’s natural response is to want to replace that energy that you’re expending. So you are going to be more hungry and so you end up eating more.

And especially if you’re eating the wrong kinds of foods, you end up overeating. And that’s a really hard way to lose weight. If you’re constantly overeating, then you know, your weight loss is going to be very challenging for you. Okay?

Another reason why a lot of runners gain weight while training for some events is they’re eating the typical runner’s diet. So they’re eating not only more food, but they’re eating that typical runner’s diet of all the carbs all the time.

And so when you increase your carb and your sugar intake, you are going to be holding on to body fat, you won’t be able to burn that body fat, it’s very hard to burn fat when you’re consuming a high, high carb diet, you know, the more carbs you eat, the more you crave carbs, and that makes it very hard to moderate.

And people are like, well just eat sugar. It’s fine, everything’s fine in moderation, you know, but I gotta tell you, I don’t know about you guys. But for me, eating sugar in moderation is very hard for me. Because the more you eat that stuff, the more you crave that stuff, and then you can’t get enough.

Your brain, and your body just want more and more and more. And it’s really difficult to moderate that stuff. And if you are a runner who is eating that typical carbohydrate-laden diet, so I call this being a carb-adapted runner, you’re you’ve adapted to using carbs as fuel, you will naturally need to consume more carbs to maintain high mileage, which leads to even more intense cravings, and an even harder time burning fat.

So your weight is mostly affected by your diet, not by the amount of exercise you’re doing. And nutrition has a much bigger impact on your body composition, the amount of fat that you’re carrying the amount of muscle that you’re carrying, versus exercise, exercise can help you to put on muscle, obviously, it can help you to lose some fat, but nutrition is a much bigger driver of body composition.

Okay, so we just have to understand that these are some of the reasons why you know, it’s why a lot of runners gain weight, even though they’re training for a marathon, okay? It’s not as simple as just calories in calories out. If it was that simple.

You know, you would always lose a ton of weight when you’re training for a marathon. But that is definitely not the case. And I talk to people every single day who tell me this, okay, so it’s not as simple as calories in calories out, increased activity levels lead to increased appetite.

Increased carb and sugar intake means your body’s going to be storing more body fat, it’s really hard to burn the fat. When you’re eating that high-carb diet, the more of that stuff you eat, the more you crave that stuff, the more you rely on that stuff for fuel for running, the more you want that stuff. So all of these things lead to it being very challenging to lose weight as a runner.

Another reason why runners are told not to attempt to lose weight while they’re training for an event is because just about every diet out there is going by this principle of calories in calories out, right?

So they want you to get into a calorie deficit and maintain it. And that’s how you lose weight. And that’s the principle that most diets follow when it comes to weight loss. And it works until it doesn’t work. So if you spend enough time in a calorie deficit, this is going to lead to a dramatically slowed metabolism.

So for example, if you’re eating 800 calories a day, you’re gonna lose weight doing that, okay, but eventually, your metabolism will slow down to match that 800-calorie energy intake that you’re getting.

Because your body’s like, listen, we’re only getting 800 calories a day, our energy output is, you know, at resting metabolic rate is 2000 calories a day, we need to lower that we need to keep lowering this until we can match the energy that’s coming in and over time, people that are in a calorie deficit for a long period of time, they find that their weight loss stalls for a long time and then they start to gain weight, because now their metabolism has slowed down to match the energy that’s coming in.

And it’s even worse if you’re training for something because then you’re exerting more energy and you’re not giving yourself the food that you need and the fuel that you need to repair and recover from all the training that you’re doing. You know, a lot of runners go into a calorie deficit while they’re training. And that’s a problem because your body needs the fuel.

You know most diets that are going by the calories in calories out principle is not recommended because you’re going to be lowering your calorie intake while you’re training. And your body can’t deal with that, like you need the fuel for running, you need the fuel for your running performance, you need the fuel for repair and recovery.

So being in a calorie deficit, while you’re training for a half marathon marathon is not recommended. And so that’s the main reason why most people are like, you know, don’t try to lose weight while you’re training for something, it’s really hard. And your running is going to suffer and it’s not good for you.

So this is why a lot of runners are told not to try to lose weight, while they are training for something, okay? The reason why a lot of runners gain weight, while training is you know, they are eating a diet that literally locks fat in their fat cells.

So when you’re eating a diet that’s high in sugar, and high in carbs, you are literally going to be holding on to fat and those fat cells. So their energy output goes up, right, because they’re training more, their energy intake goes up, because they’re eating more than ever. And they’re locking all the fat in their fat cells. This makes for a very tough combination if you’re trying to lose weight, right?

So runners who are trying to lose weight, and they’re training for an event, you know, they’re making a lot of these mistakes. So there is a better way to do things, okay? And this all focuses around this idea of burning fat, right?

If you want to lose weight, you have to burn fat, I think we can all agree on that, right? And if you’re eating the all-carb all the time typical runner’s diet, burning fat is going to be very difficult for you.

So imagine your body has a fuel tank, and there’s fat in that fuel tank, and then there’s carbs in that fuel tank, sugar, whatever you want to call it, it’s all the same thing. It’s all carbohydrates, essentially, the very top of that fuel tank, the most easily accessible fuel is the carbs as fuel. And your body has a very limited supply of that, but it is available pretty easily.

Okay, once that’s gone, you can start tapping into that larger amount of fuel that you have, which is your stored body fat, you can use stored body fat as fuel, which is amazing. But when you’re eating carbs all the time, you’re eating sugar all the time, you’re you know, training with all the carbs and the sugar and stuff like that, it’s very hard to get into that fat-burning zone, it’s very hard to get into that fat burning state, you’re not going to dip into the fat as fuel.

So when you’re eating that high-carb diet, this is what locks your fat in the fat cells. Insulin is the driver of this. So high-carb diet means high blood sugar means high insulin, high insulin, it locks fat into fat cells.

When you do the opposite, when you do kind of a lower carb diet, that means fat is available to be burned. So the low-carb diet means that your blood sugar is low, or you know normal, your insulin levels are normal and then fat burning can take place.

Okay, so high-carb diet equals storing fat, low-carb diet equals burning fat. Just keep that in mind. That’s a good principle to follow right there. So, if fat burning is the goal, which it should be, then everything you do should be to optimize fat burning.

So that means keeping the carbs low, getting into that fat-burning state and then maintaining it, you know, so switching from being a carb-adapted runner to a fat-adapted runner. So you’ve adapted your body to using your own stored body fat as a fuel source.

If you want to lose weight, you have to burn fat. And eating the typical runner’s diet of all carbs all the times means that you have effectively shut down fat burning and losing weight will be extremely difficult for you.

Okay, but what about running? Aren’t you going to crash and burn without all the carbs? Don’t you need carbs to run? And I think you know the answer to this already if you’ve been listening to this podcast at all, but I’m going to break this down a little bit for you.

So carbs, yes, they’re a great source of fuel for running. This has been pretty well established since the 1980s. You know runners have been using this all-carb approach to running since then. The problem with this is you’re relying on one fuel source, you’re relying on carbs for fuel and that’s it.

And it’s a finite amount of energy that you can store as you know blood glucose and glycogen that’s stored in your liver and your muscles. It’s like around 1800 to 2000 calories of fuel essentially. And this is going to run out in it’s different for each person. But let’s say around 90 minutes or so, and you’re gonna hit the wall and you’re gonna crash and burn.

This is like so many runners hit the wall in the later stages of a marathon, they literally run out of gas in the tank, you know. And for most people, that means that even if you’re running half marathon, you’re gonna be probably hitting the wall, three-quarters of the way into the race.

All right, you know, unless you’re super fast, and you get it done in less than 90 minutes. But for most of us, I think, you know, two hour-ish, you know, half, you know, somewhere around that range is pretty normal.

But if you’re relying on carbs for that, then it’s going to be tough for you. Okay. Another issue with relying solely on carbs as fuel, is that you have to keep ingesting carbs in order to sustain the running. And this can cause a lot of stomach distress with people, it can cause disaster pants, which is something you definitely don’t want to happen while you’re out there running a race.

Have you ever seen somebody sprint off to the Porta Potty, they’re like, oh, maybe a little too much sugar, I don’t know. But the other source of fuel that your body produces naturally is fat, stored body fat. This is an incredible fuel for endurance athletes.

And listen, the whole reason we store fat is to use it later for fuel, you know, eat some food, some of that energy gets used right away from the food that we eat. And some of that gets stored as fat. This is the natural order of things.

This goes back to our ancient ancestors, who went through periods of feasting and fasting, they were very well adapted to use their own stored body fat as fuel, you know, they would find food, meat, berries, honey, whatever some of that energy would be used right away, some would be stored as body fat, then they would have periods were fasting, where they were fasting. And food was kind of scarce, you know.

But it wasn’t a problem because they had all the fuel they needed on board. And they tapped into that stored body fat they were they were fat-adapted, essentially. And I think this is our natural state as human beings to be fat adapted. In order, it’s during these times of limited food availability, that we develop the ability to use our own stored body fat as fuel, and it’s very effective. And we use it very, very well.

Humans do it, animals do it. Think about a bear fattening up for the winter. And then they can live all winter long, hibernating, essentially using their own stored body fat as fuel. And you see those bears coming out of hibernation, they’re all skinny. It’s pretty funny looking, actually.

But they’ve essentially been using that stored body fat as fuel. And so we have that same mechanism built in basically, you know, I kind of feel like hibernating all winter, that would be amazing.

The problem with us as humans, though, is that we never stopped storing the fat we’re just constantly eating the kinds of foods and overeating and just always adding fat to the equation and never burning the fat, right?

So if you want to lose the weight, you have to burn the fat you have to get your body into that fat-burning state and maintain that fat-burning state. So you need to get fat-adapted, you need to adapt to using your own stored body fat as fuel.

So using your own body fat as fuel against the natural state of is humans, we’ve been doing it for millennia. It’s a very effective fuel for endurance activities like persistent hunting or running a marathon. You know, if you can only store 1800 to 2000 calories of glucose or glycogen, as you know for sugar.

Basically, as a carb-adapted athlete, you can easily store more than 100,000 calories as fat. Even the leanest runners have enough body fat to run for days and days nonstop without the need to refuel. That fat is an amazing source of fuel for endurance athletes, okay?

And again, this isn’t some weird fad. Using fat as fuel is something we’ve always done as human beings. Lots of endurance athletes, lots of the top endurance athletes in the world are actually using this approach this fat adaptation approach as a tool to improve their endurance and their racing performance.

So it’s not something they’re doing because it’s detrimental to running, they’re doing it because it’s really beneficial. And it actually gives them an edge it gives them a tool that most runners are not using. When you can get really good at burning fat you have a tool that most other people are not using.

And then fat-adapted doesn’t mean that you never use carbs for fuel. It means improving fat burning immensely. And also using some carbs as fuel so you can get the best of both worlds. So you can use both of these fuel sources very effectively. And you can kind of go back and forth between the two and use two at the same time.

And most runners don’t do this. They’re just using the one form of fuel they’re using the sugar as fuel and they’re trying to I just rely on that as the only source of fuel. So they’re leaving this whole other thing on the table. So don’t do that.

But when you’re using fat as fuel, what happens? You burn the fat, your you lose the weight, like this is an amazing way of not only improving your running performance but also losing weight. And yes, you can do this while you’re training for an event or a race. Okay.

So I think you know, the answer here is pretty clear, you can do both, you can train for a race without inhibiting your performance. And you can lose weight in the process. But you have to take a different approach, you can’t do the all-carb approach because for most people, that just doesn’t work.

For some people that works great, and that’s fine. If you don’t have a problem getting you know, gaining weight while you’re training and stuff like that, then you keep doing your thing. That’s awesome. But if you’re somebody who gains weight, well, whenever you even look at carbs, or when you’re training for something, and you’re like, why am I gaining weight while I’m training for this marathon?

If that sounds like you, then cutting down the carbs might be a way to get your body burning fat. And that might work really well for you. You know, don’t cut your calories. That approach probably isn’t going to work either. You know, you got to give your body the fuel that it needs, but cut out the carbs and the sugar and see if that helps.

Okay, get your body into the fat-burning state. It’ll help improve your weight loss. It’ll help improve your running performance. And I think it’s definitely something you should try. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.

218. You Have to Change How You Think

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If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you probably already know that you have to change your diet. This is obvious and we all know this, but that’s where most people stop. They change …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 218 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners today, you have to change how you think. So if you’re somebody who wants to lose weight and keep it off, you probably already know that you have to change your diet, right?

This is obvious, we all know this. But that’s where most people stop, they change their diet, they get some results. But it rarely lasts. Because they’ve only changed the behavior, not the thinking that’s driving the behavior. They keep slipping back into old eating patterns because they haven’t changed the thoughts that create those patterns in the first place.

So if you think you can change your diet, but not your thinking, you’re always going to struggle. So today on the podcast, if you want to change behavior and make it last, then you have to change how you think.

But first, I know I talk a lot about nutrition, weight loss, running strength training, all that stuff here on the podcast. And if you’re new to the podcast, welcome. And also this all might seem a little overwhelming to you. And you might just want to know where to get started with all this stuff.

If that sounds like you, awesome, I’ve got you covered, I created a free training, it’s about an hour long, it’s a video that you can watch, you can check it out anytime it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner, you’re gonna learn all the basics, nutrition, strength, endurance mindset, all geared towards you, the runner who’s interested in becoming fitter, stronger, faster, and the most badass version of yourself yet.

If this sounds like you, check out this free training, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on free training. I know it’s pretty obvious, right? And you can get started on your weight loss journey today. Cool. Awesome.

Okay, let’s get into this topic today, you have to change how you think. So one of the things that prompted me to talk about this today is that I talk to people every single day. And they just want some of these people just want me to talk to tell them like what to do, like, just tell me what to do. You know, give me a plan and I’ll follow the plan.

They just want to know what’s, the when’s, the how’s, like what should I eat? When should I lift weights? How often should I run? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. And I jokingly say, half-jokingly I say, yeah, knowing what to do is easy. If it were that easy, though, all I would do is write a book and hand it over to you right?

But knowing what to do is only a small part of the equation. All right? How often have you known what to do and you still haven’t done it anyway, like, you probably know that you shouldn’t be eating some things like Dunkin Donuts, right? But you do it anyway.

And you’re not doing it and you’re not like doing the things that you want to be doing consistently. So that’s where, you know, we see this behavior that we’re engaging in, we want to change the behavior, but we stop there, we just stop it like, well, I just need to stop doing that I need to do things differently. I need to take different actions, okay?

The problem with this is that you’re not changing the thing that is actually driving the behavior that’s actually creating the thoughts, the feelings that are actually driving the behavior. Okay, you can’t just change a behavior, you have to change the thinking behind the behavior, okay?

But when it comes to, you know, things like, okay, I shouldn’t be eating Dunkin Donuts every day. I get that. But they find themselves they just keep eating the Dunkin Donuts every day. And they’re like, how come I can’t do that? Because they haven’t changed the thinking that’s driving the behavior.

So if you’re somebody who struggles with sticking to a plan, like sticking to a food plan, you know, you might have experienced this in the past, and lots of people I’ve talked to have experienced this where they’re like, yeah, I did that.

For a while I was able to change the behavior, I started to eat real food, and I started to do pretty well with that. But they never did like the deeper work of changing the thinking that drives the behavior. And so they just slip back into those old patterns that keep slipping back into those old eating patterns.

You know, slipping back into, you know, binging on stuff and in, you know, eating the junk food, and they can’t understand why because they know what to do. But they’ve never done the deeper work. The deeper work is changing. The thinking changes the doing, the thinking that actually drives the behavior.

Okay, so I’ve said this a couple of times now, your thinking drives your behavior, how does all this work? So, you know, here’s, here’s what, what I want to talk about next, this is how your thinking actually drives your actions. Okay?

So when we want to change something complicated, like eating patterns, this can be kind of challenging, okay? And for most people, they just look at the action itself, I’m either eating broccoli, or I’m eating potato chips, I’m eating, you know, the chicken that I put out, or a meeting the Dunkin Donuts, you know.

And when it’s when you think about the action like that, it is, it is very surface level, when you just try to change the action, you are going to get minuscule results, I’m just telling you right now, if that’s what you’ve been working on, then you are going to get very short term results, and you’re never going to make lasting change.

What you want to do is get down to the thinking this is the deeper work, you get down to the thinking that’s driving the behavior because this is where you can actually start making real lasting change.

So most people believe that whatever they’re doing is some sort of automatic behavior. Like they’re some sort of a robot, they have no control over their actions, you know, the Dunkin Donuts just sitting there and I eat them. I just find myself eating them, I find myself eating them. Like I am an automaton, I see doughnuts and I eat them.

This is not really going on. This is really not what’s happening. You are not a robot, you are a human being you have free will, you have agency, you have the power to make decisions and you are making decisions, you are not out of control. You can choose something different in that circumstance.

But in that circumstance, you’re making a choice, you’re choosing this over that you’re choosing, typically, you’re choosing what feels good right now, you’re choosing immediate gratification, you’re choosing immediate pleasure over your long-term goals, over long-lasting gratification and pleasure, a fit body, a long and healthy life and all the good stuff that you actually want for yourself.

Most people think behavior works like this, they see the Dunkin Donuts saying eat them, period, right? Here’s how your thinking actually drives your behavior, though. So you see the Dunkin Donuts sitting there. And then you have a thought about the Dunkin Donuts.

So it’s not the donuts themselves that are driving the behavior, but it’s your thoughts. So you have a thought about the donuts, oh, man, those look so good. You know what, I’ve been good all week, I just ran 10 miles, I deserve a little treat. You know, I’ve been pretty consistent with all this, it’s not gonna hurt that much. It’s going to feel really good to eat, though.

So you have all these thoughts that go through your mind. You know, a lot of times you don’t even know you’re having those thoughts. It just goes, it happens really fast. Really, it’s very, very quick. It’s just in an instant, where you have these thoughts, but you do have these thoughts.

And those thoughts are very powerful. Because those thoughts create a feeling inside of you. Immediately, they create a in this case, they create something like desire. And the feeling could be anything really it could be a feeling like you can have a thought that creates a feeling of stress or anxiety or anger.

But in the case of you know, looking at some Dunkin Donuts and you just ran 10 miles, it could just be an intense desire, which is just a feeling it’s an emotion, a desire. You have this intense desire that wells up inside you that desire to eat a Dunkin donut.

What is actually driving the action of eating the doughnut? If the desire wasn’t there, you wouldn’t eat the doughnut. So the desire to eat the donut is not created by the donut in the box. That’s not creating the desire. The desire is created by your thoughts about the donut sitting in the box.

Oh, this is gonna taste so good. This sugar is gonna make me feel really good because it does that sugar lights up those pleasure centers in your brain. Oh, I’m gonna get a nice sugar rush for the next 20 minutes or so.

All these thoughts that you have create that desire and they really ramp up that desire. It’s like turning up the volume on that desire. And the reason we know this is true is because some people they just don’t have that. They don’t like Dunkin Donuts and they don’t have it. The desire to eat the doughnuts, the doughnuts are not causing the desire because some people can see them sitting there and just be like, not so great. I don’t really like those things, you know, they have no thoughts about, oh my God, these are gonna be so amazing.

They have no thoughts about oh, I just deserve this, you know, just ran 10 miles, they don’t have any of those thoughts. And so they have no desire to eat the doughnut, and so they don’t eat the doughnut.

So not eating the doughnut is not hard for those people because their thinking is different. They are not thinking all these thoughts about how amazing this is going to feel. And so the desire is not there to eat the doughnut, and so they don’t eat the doughnut.

So this is what is called a thought-feeling-action pattern. Your thoughts create feelings and your feelings drive your behavior. And I just call this for simplicity, a thought pattern, right? Thought patterns are things that we have learned over the years and years and years of our lives. And we have thought patterns about all kinds of stuff in our life. Some are good, some are not so good. Right? You’ve been practicing certain thought patterns for your whole life, decades.

Like, Dunkin Donuts are amazing. To be honest with you. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a Dunkin donut, just a little sidebar here. I know people love their coffee, they talk about how good the coffee is. I just can’t imagine that it would be that good.

Because I’m sort of a coffee snob. I love really good, you know, single-origin coffees that I grind the beans myself, and I just don’t think that it would be that good. But in no way I don’t know, maybe I’m missing out on something. But I don’t have the desire to eat the Dunkin Donuts. I’m just using this as an example.

So you’ve had these, you’ve been practicing these types of thought patterns for decades. Like if you’ve always loved Dunkin Donuts, and you’ve probably thought, oh my God, these are just so amazing all the time. So you’ve created a thought pattern. And you’ve done this so many times, it just creates a habit. The habit is when you see the donuts, you eat them.

And you think it’s an automatic thing. But it really isn’t. It’s a thought-feeling-action pattern that you’ve been practicing over and over and over and over again. This is the same as practicing any other behavior. Behavior that’s become a habit for you, like running.

So when you first started running, you have all these thoughts about running, like, running as hard. I don’t feel like running today. I’m not getting any faster. Running is really hard. Why is running so hard? I hate running. It’s really hard. It’s stupid. Those are my thoughts about running when I first started doing it, and it took me so long before I got better, you know, running, running takes a long, it takes a long time to get better at, right?

And these thoughts that I was having would keep me in bed, most mornings, you know, because they would, when I started thinking these feelings about running being so hard, and I’m not getting better. And I you know, I’m not getting faster, and running is stupid. It’s not working for me.

All those thoughts that I had about running, were causing feelings of demotivation inside me, a lack of enthusiasm. I’m not good enough, feelings of frustration and anger, like those feelings of demotivation, frustration, anger, and lack of enthusiasm, these feelings will drive a certain type of behavior, which is to stay in bed and don’t go run. Because running is stupid. Okay?

That is a thought-feeling-action pattern at play right there. So you don’t feel like running and you don’t run. But over time, over time, you do squeak out a few good runs here and there. And you do eventually get a little bit faster. And running becomes a little bit easier. And you kind of surprise yourself that oh I actually ran like five miles and it actually felt okay.

Like you start to see that this might actually be working, you start to enjoy it. You start to feel good after you run, you start to look forward to it. And so then you have all these new thoughts about running that start to change the way you feel about running to the point where now you never miss a run no matter what even if it’s really crappy outside.

Even if it’s cold and snowy and rainy. Even if you’re sick, you’ve got the flu, even if you’re on vacation, you’re gonna go out there and run because it feels so good for you. So you’ve created for yourself without even knowing it a whole different set of thought patterns around running.

And so the behavior, you think, you know, the behavior just changes by itself. No, you have changed that behavior over time. I hope this is an example that you can relate to. Because this is a really good example of the amazing power of your thought patterns.

Running can be a hard thing, but you can get through it. And you can get over that and you can become a person who loves to run. The very same thing can happen with any other thought patterns in your life. Running just didn’t naturally come easily to you and be handed to you all of a sudden, you know, running just got easier. No, you had to like, work through it.

And you had to learn thought patterns, it took a while you had to practice it for a long time before it became something that was easier, and it was a habit. So thought patterns can be learned thought patterns can be unlearned, too, right?

If you want to train yourself to hate running, just go back to all the crappy thinking about running, how hard it is how you don’t like it, how you’re not getting any faster, why so hard. All that stuff, just keep thinking those kinds of thoughts, and it’ll be super demotivating. And you’ll not feel like running ever again. Okay?

If you have a thought pattern, like mindlessly eating the Dunkin Donuts every time you see them, even though you know it’s not what you want, it’s not good for you, it’s not going to help you lose weight, it’s not healthy, it’s not in alignment with your long term goals, then you can unlearn that thought pattern, okay?

And it starts with changing the way you think you have to change the thoughts that are creating those feelings of desire within you. So how do you change your thinking? So changing your thinking is not as easy as it sounds, you just can’t be like, well, I’m just going to think differently.

Especially if you’ve been practicing the same thought patterns your whole life, it takes time. And it takes some effort, it takes a little bit of work. And when I say work, that’s where most people like tune out. They’re like, oh, please, I don’t want to do any work.

But listen, if you want to change, you have to do some work, right? And I promise you that if you’re willing to work on this particular area, when you’re starting to talk about changing thought patterns, this can be an absolute game changer for you. And it applies to any thought patterns in your life, whether it’s Dunkin Donuts, running, whatever it is that you want for yourself, you can change this.

And I’ve got a three step little process here that I’m going to go through with you that I think is really powerful. And it’s the three R’s. And the three R’s are to recognize, record, and reframe.

So the first R, if we’re talking about changing thought patterns here, the first R, the very first step is to recognize you got to recognize that something is going on here. You know, you have to see that you’re engaging in a behavior or a thought pattern that you want to change.

You have to recognize that what you’re doing may not be in alignment with your long-term goals. So this is self-awareness, understanding that you’re not a robot, this is not automatic behavior. You’re just practicing an old thought pattern. So you have to recognize that something is going on here.

That is the critical first step. And you have to be honest with yourself that oh, yeah, I’m doing something that you know, I am eating the Dunkin Donuts mindlessly what’s happening here, like what’s going on? So recognize that something is happening here. Okay, step number one.

Step number two, the second R is to record, record the thought pattern in as much detail as possible. So as soon as you can, once you recognize what’s happening, or that there’s something happening here, stop and record some thoughts and feelings about the behavior.

Ask yourself some questions like, what just happened there? Like why did I do that? What was the thought that I had right before I did that? What was the feeling that I had right before I did that?

This doesn’t have to be complicated, you can just grab a notebook and write it down, use a pen and a piece of paper, use your journal, write it on a note on your phone, you can even record a voice memo and just record it into your phone. I like doing that because sometimes I can’t write as fast as my brain is, you know, can think and I can talk so I just talk it’s a lot easier for me.

But the more you record, the more you can start to see that yeah, these are the types of thought patterns that I’m engaging in. These are the types of thoughts I’m thinking these are the types of feelings that are being created within me that are actually driving the behavior.

And then the next step is to and the third R is to reframe. Reframing means you change the thought to create different feelings, which drive a different behavior. This simply means you need to start to choose different thoughts in those moments, and this is a practice this is not something you’re going to do you know, you, you know, and then you’re going to do one time, you’re gonna be like, oh, I got it. No, it takes time.

Reframing is a powerful tool. It’s used in a lot of psychological practices like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. And they have a similar like three steps sort of process that is similar to this. But I think this one applies to us very profoundly. Okay.

So you have a thought, like, you know, I’ve been good all week, I deserve this donut, I just ran 10 miles, it’s not that big a deal. All those kinds of thoughts, right? Those thoughts are creating a desire inside you. And then you just use that desire to drive you to eat the doughnut.

But a reframing, reframing thought might be something like, oh, that donut looks really good. But my health is more important to me than how good that donut might taste in the moment. My weight loss goal is bigger than the tiny amount of pleasure that this stupid little donut is going to give me. Or I’m not the kind of person that eats that crap anymore.

Right, these thoughts, these reframed thoughts, start to create feelings of motivation, you start to feel more confident, you have a different desire not to eat the doughnut, but to stay consistent and reach those health and fitness goals that are so important to you.

And so in that moment, the desire to stay committed to your goals is much more powerful than the stupid donut sitting there. And so you make the choice tonight the donut. That’s a reframe.

Okay, so the whole thing, this whole process, recognize, record, reframe, only takes a couple of minutes to do, it only takes a few minutes, but you want to practice this, you want to practice this every day.

Recognize there’s a thought pattern you want to change. Record your thoughts and feelings about it. Reframe those thoughts and feelings to produce a better outcome next time.

It’s a very simple process. Simple, but not easy. This is the work that we have to do. This is the work that most people don’t want to do or not willing to do. Most people would rather stay stuck and just blame everything around them for why they’re stuck.

Like, oh, if those donuts weren’t sitting there, I’d be fine. Actually, no, because the donuts are not the problem. It’s your thoughts about the donuts. That’s the real problem. Okay. So get out there, start seeing all the thought patterns in your life, and start recognizing that these things are happening and that you are creating them.

Alright, so there’s some good thought patterns that are happening in your life and there’s some that are not so good, but recognize all of them and start to see them for what they really are, okay?

There’s going to be some that you want to continue doing. There are going to be some thought patterns that you want to change. And that’s when we put the three R’s into practice. Recognize, record, and reframe. Cool. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. I love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

217. 5 Ways to Improve Your Endurance

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Whether you are just getting into running or have been at it a while, you should be actively working on improving your endurance. While there are many methods out there that are designed to help …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 217 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. Today, I’m talking about five ways to improve your endurance. So whether you are just getting into running, or maybe you’ve been at it for a while, you should be actively working on improving your endurance.

And there are many, many methods out there that are designed to help you improve your endurance. But there are a few key principles I think most runners overlook. So today, I’ve got five ways to improve your endurance to help you run longer, and make running easier in general, who doesn’t want that? I know I do.

But first, I know I share a lot of information here on the podcast about running and nutrition and weight loss and building strength and all these topics. And if you’re new to the podcast, this might all feel a little bit overwhelming and confusing to you. And you just don’t know where to start.

You’re like Patrick, where should I start? Well, funny, you should ask because I created a free hour-long training video that can get you started. It’s called 5 Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.

You’re going to learn all the basics of nutrition and endurance and mindset and building strength. All for you the runner who is maybe interested in improving your body composition, losing some weight.

So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, and you’re ready to become the most badass version of yourself yet, which you are, I know you are, then this free training is exactly what you need.

Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training. I know it’s so logical, right? And get started on your weight loss journey today. Okay, so five ways to improve your endurance. Why am I talking about this today?

Well, lots of runners that I talked to don’t know where to begin with this, or they are not really working to improve their endurance, and they don’t understand why they’re not improving their endurance.

So if you’re a new runner, you might have no idea how to build your endurance, you might be just thinking that you’re just going to run and just keep running and just see if it pans out, you know, see if it works.

Somehow see if some magic happens, where you’re going to be, have more endurance, be able to run longer, and maybe run easier. Seasoned runners that I know, might not be feeling very good when they run and they’re like, I don’t understand what’s happening here. I’m running all the time, but I can’t seem to get faster, I can’t seem to run longer, running still feels really hard all the time.

So you know, whether you are a new runner, and just getting started with all this or you’re a more advanced runner or a seasoned runner, and you want to improve your endurance, then you should be actively doing a few things to help you improve that endurance.

Okay, so, and like I said at the beginning here, there’s a lot a lot of principles, if you just start Googling, you know how to improve your endurance as a runner, you’re going to find 20, 30, 40 different ways of doing that. I’m going to narrow it down to a few that I found, or that I that I tend to help people with more than others.

Because these are the things that kind of get overlooked a lot. Okay, so I’m going to talk about some things that may be overlooked. Okay. So why would you want to be actively improving your endurance as a runner?

Well, you might want to run longer distances. So maybe you’ve got a certain race distance that you’re training for, or that you would like to do someday. So maybe you’re a 5k runner, and you want to be able to run a 10k.

Or maybe you’re doing half marathons and you want to run a full marathon, or maybe you run full marathons and you’re ready to take on an ultra marathon. You know, so whether you want to run, you know, five miles or fifty miles, I think that building your endurance as a runner, or improving your endurance as a runner is key, it’s just going to make running feel easier. Okay?

So you might run a longer race, you might just want to run more miles every week. So you might love running, and you just want to be able to run more. So you just want to instead of running, you know, 10 or 15 miles a week you want to bump that up to like 15 or 30 miles a week.

So you don’t necessarily want to train for some ultra marathon, but you just want to be able to run more days or, you know, longer distances. For each typical training run that you do, you might want to run a faster race. So you might want to get faster for a particular distance.

So that could be whatever, whatever distance your jam is, but you may want to get faster and improve your endurance. Sounds kind of counterintuitive, but it can actually help you to get faster, I’m gonna talk about that here in just a minute.

And you might just want to improve your endurance for your heart health because improving your cardiovascular system is so good for your heart, right? The bottom line here is that you probably just want running to feel easier.

And I think most of us would agree that yeah, I want running to feel easier. Now I have to say this running is never going to feel easy, but it can feel easier. Running is hard. You know what I mean? Like, you get out there and you run. And it’s kind of hard, you know, but have you ever had one of those runs where you’re like, that just felt it felt easier, like that felt really good, you know, for a change?

That’s what we want, we want running to feel easier, it’s still going to be a workout, you know, just like swimming is a workout, cycling is a workout, but we want it to feel a little bit easier. Because when it feels easier, you’re going to want to do it more, and you can go longer if it’s feeling easier, right?

So I’m going to give you guys a couple of keys, here, I have five different ways that we can improve our endurance. And the first one is this, and this is going to come as no surprise to you, but it is to just run more so increase your volume.

So increasing your volume is the easiest way that you can build your endurance and build that aerobic system. So the aerobic system, you know, is the slow running system that you use, for most of your running, hopefully, something around like 80% of your running should be done in that aerobic zone.

Which means you’re not pushing it too hard, you’re going pretty easy. So the simplest way to run to increase your endurance is to run more, you know, it’s just like anything else, when you practice doing it more, it becomes easier.

You know, like, if you want to play the guitar, you got to practice playing the guitar and you’re gonna suck at it for a while, it’s gonna be hard, but the more you do it, the easier, it’s gonna get the same with running, you want to run longer than you have to practice running longer. If you want to run more, you gotta practice running more. Okay.

So why this works is because you are building an aerobic engine here, right? This is your endurance engine, this is probably the most important factor in long-distance running is building that strong aerobic engine.

Okay, so most training programs, they feature a lot of aerobic running, and some of them have some speed work built into them. But that that aerobic engine, your ability to run longer, at a slower pace is slower, you know.

Pace is the number one thing you can do to improve your endurance, okay? So if you want to improve your aerobic engine, increase the volume that you are running, and that will help you to build a stronger aerobic engine, it also helps to increase your running efficiency.

So when you can run more efficiently, you’re going to be able to run further, this is going to improve your endurance as well. And running, you know won’t use as much energy. You know, a lot of running, especially when you get into longer distance stuff is about energy conservation, right? We don’t want to be spending energy, flailing your arms around, or running all weird.

I’ve seen some people that run pretty weird. And I’m like, man, how do they do that? Like they, they can run long distances, and they have some strange gaits, you know. But when you run more, you can typically improve your gait. And one thing I’ll just say, a little sidebar about improving your gait or changing your gait as a runner.

As a running coach, we’re sort of taught that we shouldn’t really mess with people’s gaits too much like you should just run the way that you run because that is going to be the most natural way for you to run.

So don’t think that you’re running wrong. Just because you’re going to gradually when you increase your volume, your running volume, you are going to get more efficient running the way that you run naturally.

So I know it sounds kind of weird, but like don’t worry about if you have a weird gait or something like that or if you don’t think your running form is very good. Don’t worry about it seriously. Just run the way you run and over time, you’re going to be very efficient running that way.

Okay, for the most part now, there are some rare exceptions of people that have really weird flailing legs or arms or something like that, which we probably want to check out a little bit. But for the most part, your running gait is fine. So don’t don’t stress out about that too much.

Okay, so we want to improve our running efficiency, we want to be more efficient as a runner, and we want to use less energy as a runner, and increasing your volume will help with this. When you increase your volume, you also are preparing yourself for fatigue in races especially the longer runs right, when you increase your mileage, you’re going to be dealing with fatigue pretty often, and you’re going to get better at dealing with fatigue, fatigue is something that will happen.

It just happens, you know, it’s part of running. And so consistently dealing with fatigue and pushing yourself to that point of like, oh, I’m feeling pretty tight, this is really hard. That’s a good thing.

And that leads me to the last reason why increasing volume will help you improve your endurance is it helps you to build resilience and helps you to build mental toughness, you know, you’ve done all this hard work, you’ve you know, hit fatigue a bunch of times in your training, you’ve run longer distances, you’ve improved your volume immensely.

Now you have some resilience and mental toughness, some grit, okay, so when it’s time to dig deep in a race when you got to like really push it towards the end of a race in order to hit that PR or something like that, you’re going to have that mental toughness that’s going to be there. Okay?

Now, a little pro tip about increasing your mileage. Don’t feel like you can just do a huge increases in your mileage, you know, week to week, you don’t want to do too much too soon. This is what most new runners do. They’re like, oh, I can run. You know, I ran five miles last week, I’m gonna run 10 miles next week, don’t do that.

Try to stick to the 10% rule. That means that we never increase our mileage more than 10%. So for new runners, I would stick to this pretty hardcore. If you’re a pretty experienced runner, and you have been running for years and you’re not injured or anything like that you can be a little looser with the 10% rule. You can do 15%, you know, sometimes 20%, but don’t want to go too much too soon. This is a recipe for disaster, especially for most new runners.

Most new runners, they get injured because they do too much too soon. So increase your volume slowly. That means if you run 10 miles this week, next week, you’re gonna run 11 miles, and then you’re gonna just keep using that 10% rule. Okay, it takes time. So just give it the time that it needs, but increase your volume. That’s number one.

Number two, and this is one where I don’t see a lot of people talking about this, but you probably want to change your diet, you probably want to start training your body to use a fuel source that you have onboard already. That will help improve your endurance immensely. That is your own stored body fat.

And this is called getting fat-adapted, it means that you are basically switching your main fuel source from sugar to fat, from carbohydrates to your own stored body fat. If you want to take a deep dive into this, I talked about getting fat-adapted and using fat as fuel in the last episode of the podcast, number 216: An Alternatieve Way To Fuel Long Distance Running.

So definitely check that out. But here’s some little key takeaways here. Number one, think of your energy stores as a fuel tank. And at the very top of the fuel tank you have this tiny little sliver of sugar or carbohydrate that’s available as fuel.

And then below that sugar, you’ve got this massive storage tank of stored body fat as fuel. So most runners what they’re doing is they’re using the sugar at the top a little tiny bit of the fat. Yeah, we always are burning a little bit of both.

But most runners are burning primarily sugar and when that is available, that’s all they’re going to burn so they have to continually feed with carbohydrates in order to keep that sugar fuel tank that sugar part of the fuel tank topped off.

When you’re doing that you are just relying on sugar as a fuel source and it is a good fuel source for running it does work, but there are problems with that. Eating a lot of sugar causes a lot of people to gain weight and I’m one of those people.

Eating a lot of sugar, especially during running can really upset a lot of runners’ stomachs. And that is not something you want. You don’t want to have disaster pants while you’re out there running. I hear too many stories about that actually, and I don’t really need to know about what’s going on during the run when you’re eating too much sugar.

But people have really upset stomachs with trying to consume all that sugar. And most runners are not really fat-adapted, so they’re not using that stored body fat as fuel. So they hit the wall pretty often, like they just run out of fuel, because that that small little bit of fuel once it’s gone, they haven’t trained themselves to tap into that stored body fat.

So getting fat-adapted just means you’re primarily burning fat as fuel, and you’re not really relying on all the sugar, which is such a good way to go. Because then you don’t need to feel as much during these longer runs, you won’t get the stomach upset.

And you can basically, you’re going to feel like you can run forever like you’re going to feel like you can run long distances much longer. So this is a great way to improve your endurance that just not a lot of people are talking about out there. Okay.

That’s one principle that most runners overlook. But it is key if you want to improve your endurance as a runner, change your diet, get fat-adapted, ditch the sugar, and start you know, relying on your own stored body fat as a fuel source and your endurance is going to go through the roof. Again, check out the last episode number 216 on a deep dive into getting fat-adapted.

Okay, the third way to improve your endurance is to get stronger. So you want to be intentionally building strength as a runner. And this means like head to toe, actively building strength every single week, this has to be part of your training regimen.

You can’t just go well you know, I do strength training a couple of times a month or whatever, once a week, that’s just not enough. And again, I did a whole episode talking about how to build strength and the benefits of building strength in episode number 199. So check out that episode for sure I take a deep dive into how to do it and, and how to actively build strength.

But when we’re talking about building strength, we’re talking about building stronger muscles, you go to the gym, you lift something heavy, you overload the muscle group that you’re working, and then you have a positive adaptation, you build stronger muscles, okay?

Stronger muscles take longer to fatigue, this is a good thing as a runner, that means you can run much longer before you hit the wall because you have stronger muscles and you can go longer before your muscles are going to give out on you. Okay?

Building strength does not just mean stronger muscles, it also means you build stronger connective tissues like tendons and ligaments, and stronger bones as well, which is really important. But that tendons and ligaments, this is where most runners get injured.

Most running injuries are tendon injuries, like a tendinitis type of thing, which basically just means like you have a pulled or strained tendon of some sort, you know. And if you are a runner, and you’re ramping up your mileage and you want to build your endurance, you do not want to get injured through this process, right?

So actively building strength on a regular basis will help you to stave off injury, and help you to improve your endurance at the same time. So win-win.

Now running will help you develop stronger muscles, especially stronger leg muscles. And runners are like, well, I’m running and so that’s enough. That’s all I need to do. But it’s really not enough, okay, it’s not enough to just run.

First of all, you have to understand that running is a catabolic activity, meaning it breaks down muscle tissue, especially if you’re running a ton of mileage. So if you’re not actively doing some strength training to offset that and getting enough protein, you’re probably going to be losing muscle in the process.

Now it doesn’t mean you’re going to you know, waste away to nothing because running does help to develop muscle. But there’s a little bit of a breakdown that’s happening as well. So what you want to do is you want to hit the gym, and you want to be actively building stronger muscles, especially the stronger leg muscles in the gym.

Because when you do that, that’s going to help improve your running endurance, it’s going to help improve your speed as a runner, it’s going to help you become a more powerful runner. Strong runners are fast runners, strong runners are more powerful runners and strong runners can go longer.

So the third key really to improving your endurance is to get stronger because you’ll be able to go longer, you’ll stave off injury, and you’re going to be running is just going to feel easier for you.

Okay, number four is to run faster. I know this sounds counterintuitive if you want to improve your endurance you have to run faster. But speed work is one area that gets overlooked by runners who want to improve their endurance.

Most people have a love-hate relationship with speed work, they hate doing it. Maybe it’s a hate-hate relationship. They hate doing it. And it feels terrible. But the love part of it would be this: when you do speed work consistently, running will get easier.

You know, if you want to be a faster runner, you probably understand that you need to do your speed work, right? But doing the speed work. And doing it consistently will also help to improve your endurance as well. And most runners don’t realize this.

And when I talk about doing speed work, we’re talking about anything where you’re running and you’re pushing it, you start to feel like you’re pushing it a little or pushing it moderately hard, too hard.

So if you’re not pushing it, then that’s what we call the aerobic zone or easy running, this is a good thing. Just think of the cutoff as just being like, I don’t really feel like I’m pushing it at all. That’s when you’re in the aerobic zone.

But if you’re like, oh, I’m pushing it a little bit or I’m pushing a priority right now, that’s then you’re into the doing the speed work type of zones, okay. So really, I love HIIT training and I love tempo runs.

Tempo runs are where you’re running consistently, at a faster pace than your goal, half marathon or marathon pace, whatever your race pace is, let’s say your race pace is a 10-minute mile, then tempo runs need to be done 30 to 60 seconds faster.

So you might do a mile warm-up. And then you’re going to run 2, 3, 4 miles at that tempo pace. So that is like 30 to 60 seconds faster than your race pace. And then you’re going to do like a mile cooldown, okay, that’s a tempo run.

HIIT training is high-intensity interval training, this can be any kind of interval, it could be four hundred repeats, it can be thirty-second sprints, it can be hill repeats, it can be, I like to do longer repeats like 1/3 mile repeats, that you could do eight hundreds, like there are so many different ways of doing HIIT training, but it is so good for you.

So doing the speed work is key. If you want to run longer, then you need to improve your speed. So you want to do the speed work. Here’s why. When you do speed work, this will help to improve your VO2 max. This is the maximum amount of oxygen that you utilize while you’re running.

Higher VO2 max levels will indicate better aerobic capacity and improved endurance. Also, the speed work helps to improve your lactate threshold. So it can raise your lactate threshold doing the speed work will cause your body to produce lactate while you’re training.

Your body will then adapt and burn the lactate more efficiently the next time, so you have a positive adaptation from doing this kind of HIIT training especially. So this means that at higher intensities, you can go longer before fatigue or pain slows you down. So you got to improve that lactate threshold in you know, raise the lactate threshold speed work is how you do it.

The other reason why speed work will help you build endurance is because it helps to improve your body’s ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles. Oxygen delivery is key in endurance. And one really good way to improve your endurance is to do the speed work.

It also helps you with energy production. So your body has this ability to produce energy with oxygen and without oxygen. So when you’re without oxygen is like what we call the anaerobic zone, that’s when you’re doing like sprinting, you’re gonna just run out of gas at some point, you can only sprint for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, something like that.

And then you’re going to absolutely hit the wall. So when we practice that kind of interval training, you’re training your body to use oxygen more effectively. Another key to doing this speed work is that it helps to improve your ability to use both fat and carbohydrates as fuel sources, which is really a key right there, okay.

Because when you’re doing the speed work, you can bump up your body’s ability to burn fat. And a lot of people say well, you know I’m running faster, so I have to have the sugar. I need gels I need to fuel up I need to use sugar. You really don’t.

There have been a lot of athletes. One that comes to mind is Jeff Browning. He’s an ultra runner. And this guy’s been fat-adapted for years. He’s an elite ultra runner, he wins all kinds of stuff. Amazing guy. But he has been proven.

They’ve done some testing on him. And they’ve shown that he has the ability to burn fat, like more than just about anybody else out there. So most runners who are carb-adapted, they hit this switchover point around 65% of their VO2 max where they’re going from burning mostly sugar, or I’m sorry, burning mostly fat to burning mostly sugar.

So 65% is the traditional cutoff point or changeover point for most carb-adapted runners. But guys like Jeff Browning, he’s trained his body to use fat, mainly fat as fuel up to 90-95% of his VO2 max.

Even some people can go up to 100% of their VO2 max using just fat as fuel, it’s pretty awesome. You know, because that means that you can go much faster than previously thought possible. Right.

And then lastly, running faster helps to improve your cardiovascular fitness, it helps to improve your muscular endurance, and just helps you to improve as an athlete overall. So the speed work is key to improving your endurance for all these reasons.

And then lastly, number five. The fifth way to improve your endurance as a runner, and this is probably the biggest key to all of this is you have to be consistent, it takes time to build endurance as a runner. And consistency is going to be the key to doing this.

If you only do these things here and there, so if you do the speed work, you know, once a month or something like that, because you hate it. I talk to so many people are like I hate doing speed work. But I want to get faster, oh, I want to run longer. Okay, well, then you got to do the speed work.

But if you do these things inconsistently, you’re gonna get inconsistent results, right? You’re just not going to get there. You need to be consistent with your training volume, with your diet, with your strength training, and with your speed work. Consistency is key.

The way you accomplish anything in this world really is to take consistent aligned action, what are the actions that you need to take that are going to get you to this goal? Okay, make sure you know what to do. That’s key, right? But then practice doing those things consistently. That’s it. That is the key right there. Okay.

I mentioned like learning how to play the guitar earlier. If you want to learn how to play the guitar, you have to practice it and you have to be consistent with it. And it’s going to suck at the beginning and you’re going to be terrible. And everybody’s going to tell you to stop playing because it sounds awful. But you have to stick with it. And you got to keep doing it.

You have to take consistent aligned action if you want to accomplish anything in this world. Okay. Practice consistently improving your endurance and you’ll be running longer and easier before you know it. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. I love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

214. Replay: Why Running Doesn’t Work for Weight Loss

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Being overweight is not something that’s not talked about very much (or at all) in the running community. There seems to be some stigma around being a runner and being overweight. Like you’re not …

Continue Reading about 214. Replay: Why Running Doesn’t Work for Weight Loss →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 214 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, why running doesn’t work for weight loss. Being overweight is not something that’s talked about very much or at all in the running community.

There seems to be some stigma around being a runner, and being overweight, like you’re not doing it right. You’re not running enough. You’re doing it all wrong. If you’re training for a marathon and you’re overweight, you’re you’re doing it wrong.

And I know exactly how this feels. This is definitely my story, which I’ll share with you here in a minute. But in this episode, I’m going to share why running is not an effective tool for weight loss, and why you need to treat the underlying physical, mental and emotional aspects of overeating if you really want to lose weight for good.

But first, I know I share a lot of information here on the podcast about losing weight, about proper nutrition for running about improving your running about building strength. And if you’re new to this podcast, well welcome first of all, but I can tell that for some of you this might feel a little overwhelming and you not might not know where to start with all this stuff.

And if that sounds like you, no worries, I’ve totally got you covered, I created a free hour-long video training that you can check out at any time it’s called 5 Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.

You’re going to learn the basics of nutrition, strength, endurance, and mindset, all geared toward you, the runner. If you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself yet, then this free training is exactly what you need. Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training. I know right? It’s so simple. And get started on your weight loss journey today.

Okay, so this is actually a replay episode, if you’re listening to this, I’m probably sitting on the beach in Hawaii right now. And I decided that this is a topic that I really wanted to share with you guys. And I thought I would go ahead and replay this is one of my very, very early episodes.

So if I sound a little bit different, that’s why. It was from several years ago. But the message still rings true. And I’m talking about overeating, especially in this episode. And it’s one aspect of losing weight and improving your health and fitness that a lot of people really don’t address or don’t talk about. So I really wanted to get into this and share this with you guys today. Okay, so let’s get into this replay of why running doesn’t work for weight loss.

Today I want to talk about a subject that is really important to me and something that I’m really passionate about, and that is why running doesn’t work for weight loss. So being overweight is not something that’s talked about very much, or at all in the running community, there seems to be some sort of stigma around being a runner, and being overweight. It’s like, hey, you’re not doing it right. You must not be running enough. If you can’t lose weight, or if you’re overweight. Oh, I see you’re training for a marathon. Still can’t seem to lose weight. What’s wrong with you?

These are some of the things that I’ve heard around the running community. And some things that people have shared with me and I felt as well. Okay, so I know, I know how this feels. I really do. I know this is something that not a lot of people are talking about. And so I wanted to sort of just like shine a light on this subject and talk about this today, because it’s really something that I’m really passionate about. And I haven’t shared this really before. And I think now’s the right time. So here we go.

So back in the day, back in, like 2003, I was seriously, I was overweight, I was I was probably 50 or 60 pounds overweight. And I was very unhealthy. I was very sick, I had cancer, I was drinking too much. And I was in a very, very bad place. I was basically just really sick and really unhealthy. And I needed to change some stuff in my life.

So I did, I quit drinking, which was a big part of the problem for me. I started eating better. And I started running. And obviously I got treated for the cancer and I’ve been cancer-free for many, many years now. So that’s all good. But the running was like a big catalyst for me to like, do something that would help me to lose weight.

You know, like that was the thing was like, oh, if I just run I’m gonna lose weight. And for me, it was like a change of lifestyle completely. You know, I gave up the crazy eating that I was doing. And I started running and stopped drinking. So all those things combined. I lost a lot of weight and I lost probably 60 pounds and kept it off for a long time and continued to run and train and do all these awesome things.

I’ve run like 14 marathons, I’ve done an Ironman, I’ve done countless other triathlons and ultra marathons, including a 50 miler and a 100 miler. And I’ve done all these things, and was able to kind of maintain this, this weight that I was at for a long time. And I felt pretty good about myself.

Well, in the last few years, I’ve sort of backed off my running a little bit. After I did my 100 miler at the end of 2017. I wanted to scale back my running, and I just didn’t want to put anything on the calendar and I just wanted to be like, I just want to go out there and run and have fun and enjoy it and not to have all these goals out there.

So I stopped kind of signing up for races and having goals like that, and I started gaining weight. And I couldn’t figure out why because I was still training and I was still running and I was still like I would do a marathon a year or whatever. But I was running all the time.

Well, I ended up, you know, gaining like 15 or 20 pounds back, you know, look, looking back over time, it was like, it happened slowly, but it happened. And I found myself in this place of like, okay, I need to lose this weight, what am I going to do? And so I tried all these different things to help me to lose the weight.

And I tried like calorie restriction where I was just like counting calories. And that is very challenging to do, by the way, I had to have this app. And I had to log every bite of anything that I ate, and I had to know all the ingredients in it, and all the breakdown of all the nutrition breakdown of it according to the label.

And it was challenging to try to keep track of that. When the idea there was like, oh, yeah, if you eat, you know, 1500 calories, but you burn off 2000 calories a day, you’ll lose weight. I gotta tell you, I did not lose weight. And I was constantly stressed out about entering all this data into this app. Okay.

Maybe that’s how you lose the weight, you’ve spent so much time and energy, and you’re so stressed about trying to figure out how to enter all that data into this thing. You just lose weight. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work. But you know, I’ve done a plant-based thing for many years. Vegetarian, I tried sort of a vegan-paleo thing, a vegan-keto thing, I’ve tried to eat nothing but fat, nothing, but no carbs. Like, I’ve tried all these things. And I couldn’t get anything to work, I can’t get anything to work.

I’ve always felt like I just haven’t had control of what I eat. I know what the problem is now. And I’m gonna get to that in just a minute. But getting here, you know, I just felt like I did not have control over what I was eating. I didn’t have control over myself. You know, I felt tired all the time. I found myself doing a lot of emotional eating. I’ve been doing that lately, too.

By the way, with the lock down here, The Stay At Home order. And some other things going on in my life, I’ve been doing a lot of emotional eating. And I’m not sorry about it, but I even eat when I’m not hungry. And you know what, I’ve just felt stuck.

I felt like, I am never going to lose this weight. And I’ve keep running. You know, I ran back in August, I did 31 days of running. And I thought for sure that would help me to lose weight. No, I gained weight. Starting in November, I did a running challenge running through the holidays. And I ran for something like 80 days straight. And I thought that would help me to lose weight.

And it didn’t, I didn’t lose weight at all, I actually gained weight. And so I’ve realized that the problem really isn’t about running. It’s not about like, oh, I’m not running enough. The problem is that I’m overeating. The problem is that I overeat, I eat too much. I have an addiction to food. I’ve programmed my body to become so addicted to food, not just my body, but my brain as well, to become so addicted to food, especially sugar.

That not even you know, training for a marathon is going to help me to lose weight. Okay? So, believe me, I’m frustrated by this or have been frustrated by this. And I feel like the advice out there is just like here, Here, eat this. Just eat this over here or eat this or just do this diet over here. And it just this just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for most people.

You know, just changing your behavior, changing what you eat, does not address the underlying issues. You know, I feel like everyone’s out there just saying, eat this as if it’s that simple. It’s not that simple. In order to lose weight in order to be at your ideal weight to be at your natural weight. You need to identify and fix the causes of your over eating. Not just treat the symptoms. We’re so focused on treating the symptoms or not getting to the root of the problem. Okay.

So all these different like diets I’ve tried or whatever, I’ve tried these things and then said, that doesn’t work because I gained weight, or I kept overeating. And the problem isn’t in what I’m eating, necessarily, although that is part of it. The problem is, I wasn’t addressing the mental and emotional part of overeating, okay?

There’s three parts to overeating that have to be addressed. There’s the physical causes of overeating, there’s the mental causes, and then there’s the emotional causes. I’m going to talk about all three of these. But I want you to know something, if you’re out there and you’re a runner, and you’re having a, you know, a struggle with you’re struggling to lose weight or struggling to feel good about your body.

I know what you’re going through, I feel I feel your pain, I really do. And, and I want to help you, and I, and I coach people through this. I’m coaching myself through this and I want to coach you through this. So here’s what we’re gonna talk about today, we’re going to talk about the three causes of overeating. And, and the things that aren’t really addressed. And if you’re a runner, I want you to pay attention. And I want you to really take in what I’m going to say here and be open to trying something that’s a little different, okay?

Because whatever, whatever you’ve been trying is not working. Okay? So let’s try something different. Okay? Okay, so the three causes of overeating. The first is the physical causes. So this is, most overeating is caused by a hormonal imbalance, okay? Overeating, especially sugar, causes too much insulin to be produced in your body. Insulin is a fat storage hormone, okay, the more insulin you produce, the more fat will be stored on your body, the more you way, okay?

If you continually produce insulin, you are going to continue to gain weight. Okay, this is just straight up science, okay? The problem is that when you’re trying to lose weight, the most important thing for you to consume is what it’s your own body fat you want to consume, if you will, you want to burn for energy, your own body fat, in order to lose weight, you cannot do that when your body is full of glucose sugar, your insulin is too high. And you’re in fat storage mode, and you got to, you got to shift that, okay.

So the first thing you need to do is you need to get your insulin levels down. And you can do this by eating less often. And by reducing the amount of sugar you consume. We all know that sugar is bad for us. Okay? It’s actually the worst thing you can put in your body. And I’m saying this, as, as the words are coming out of my mouth here. I’m thinking of the Ben and Jerry’s that I have in the freezer, and I’m like, Oh, my God, I love Ben and Jerry’s. I absolutely love it.

But I’m giving it up, because I know how bad it is for me, and I’m just tired of feeling the way that I felt lately, okay. So I’m giving it up. And here’s the other thing, when you eat too much sugar, you get this huge over desire for food, you get this like physical craving for food.

Because what happens is, sugar is super concentrated, it causes a super concentrated dopamine response in your brain. It causes an excess of dopamine to be produced, which feels really good, right? So much so that the neurotransmitters that are producing the dopamine, they actually down regulate over time.

So it takes more and more sugar for you to get the same amount of pleasure. So you got to eat more sugar to feel good. And your brain and your body or just being there like it’s like a Drug Act, okay? A drug addict needs more and more of the drug to produce the same result. And so what happens there then your insulin goes up again, you get more cravings, you can’t handle the cravings, you eat more, and there’s this crazy cycle that happens, right.

And you know what? This isn’t your fault. We’ve all been programmed this way. For decades, the food industry has made it their mission to make food as delicious as possible, you know, as desirable as possible, they put sugar in everything, for the love. And the food that we eat, it’s so concentrated and processed that it gives us this incredible hit of dopamine when we eat certain foods. And then we have to eat more and more just to get that same feeling.

Okay, so it’s like being addicted to drugs or alcohol, you need more to produce the same effect. So in order to fix the physical cause of overeating, you have to get that insulin level down, you have to eat less, eat less often and eat less processed foods like sugar and flour. Okay? When you do this, you actually can start to get your hormones back in balance and start burning fat instead of burning to sugar. Okay. So that’s how we fix the physical part of overeating.

Okay, next is the mental part of overeating, the mental causes. So mental cravings, this is a real thing. Again, the food industry has concentrated this sugar in our foods so much that we are constantly craving more and more food, more and more of this delicious sugar, right? Our brains are actually responding the way they’re supposed to, though. They’re not,your brain is working normally. Okay, this isn’t your fault.

You eat the sugar, you eat the flour, you release the dopamine. And then your brain wants more of that. It’s just like your primitive brain, the amygdala, part of your brain responding to this like, it’s like a life or death situation, you know, are primitive brains, they’ve learned over time that when food is good, we’re going to produce a hormone that makes us feel good. So that will remember that, hey, this is good, okay.

So when you know when we would be eating blueberries back in the caveman days, you know, back in the day, we’d be eating some blueberries and be like, ooh, these are really good. And you get this little tiny dopamine response, right? That’s good. Oh, I want to remember this, I want to eat more of those because they made me feel good. And so you’ll go back and eat more of the blueberries.

Okay, but over time, it’s kind of developed into this thing of like, life and death kind of situation with our brains. Because now we have like blueberry syrup, blueberry pie, blueberry toaster strudels. We juice everything. So it’s super concentrated, and we get this super intense hit of dopamine. And then when we don’t get it, our brains are like, we need this now or we’re going to die.

Your brain actually literally thinks it’s like a life and death situation happening here. Okay. So that’s kind of like what’s happening with your brain. And then you get these thoughts. So the thoughts will start to come into play here, you get these thoughts of, I’m restless, I’m bored. I feel deprived.

You know, when you stop overeating, even for a little bit. You start to feel like, you know, oh, I just deserve this. I’m deprived. What’s one box of Oreos? You know that you can justify that all you want. And all that mental chatter. All it’s doing is just continuing to build into that idea and support that idea that your brain is thinking like you need this or you’re going to die. And so you give in to it, you give into the mental craving, okay.

And we’ve just been programmed our whole lives, we’ve essentially programmed our minds to over eat and buy now. It’s our subconscious mind that’s running the show. Our subconscious minds have been programmed to make us think we have to overeat or will die. Okay, we get these intense cravings for something sweet.

And I know I talk about Ben and Jerry’s all the time, but it’s just a good example. It’s so good. But it’s like Ben and Jerry’s. You know? I think about that. And I’m like, I’ve just got to have it. And these thoughts go through my mind. Like if I don’t have it, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might die. And I’ll go to the store and I’ll get some.

I’ll go drive miles to the store to get Ben and Jerry’s just so I can like satisfy that mental craving. And there’s a physical craving there too. But here’s the thing. The good news is that you can reprogram your mind to not overeat, you can reprogram your mind to just just eat normally. This is actually one of the most powerful things I do with my coaching clients is I help them change their brains literally by creating new habits, new neural pathways.

And if you really want to stop overeating, you have to break those old habits and create new habits that serve to reprogram your mind, especially the subconscious. But even if you can get the physical piece to work, and you can get through some of this mental stuff, there’s still that emotional side of overeating that has to be addressed.

One of the biggest underlying factors in weight gain is emotional eating. And you know what? Runners just don’t want to talk about this. Runners think I’ve got this. I’m a runner, I know what to do. I know all this stuff about nutrition, I’ve read the books, like I’m good, thanks. They just don’t want to talk about it. Okay.

Runners do love talking about food, though, but not overeating. You know, we talk about donuts and ice cream and pizza and chips and cake and all that. What are we going to eat after the run? And I would do that too. And I would just eat all that food. But then I noticed something happening to me, I started to feel bad about myself.

You know, I started gaining weight. And I started feeling guilty about overeating. And I started to feel like shame around it. I felt shame about how I looked and how I felt I’ve been fit for a long time and had been really in great shape. And then I got to this point where I didn’t even want to like, take my shirt off at the pool or whatever. Because I was like, oh, I you know, feel fat again, okay.

And I felt judged by other people, like people were talking about me. They probably weren’t, it’s probably all in my head. But I just felt that way. And I felt like a failure. Like, I used to be really fit. I used to be in good shape. And now I’m not anymore. And like, I’m never going to be that person again. And honestly, I just felt depressed about it and sad.

And you know how I know how I dealt with all these emotions I was feeling? Yes, I ate over them. Because eating gives me that little dopamine hit and it feels good. Does that make any sense whatsoever? As I’m saying this, you’re probably like, dude, that makes no sense whatsoever. Or maybe you’re like, yep, I get it.

Here’s the problem, though. When that little feel good, dopamine wears off, you’re still left with feeling all those emotions. But now it’s worse because you feel bad about overeating. So you eat more to feel better. And then like, oh my gosh, it’s this crazy vicious cycle that just goes on and on. But you know what? Emotional eating is a very common thing. It’s a very, very common theme. A lot of people do it, they eat, so they don’t have to feel their feelings. Especially right now during this like stay at home order people are dealing with this crisis by going to the refrigerator. I’ve seen a lot of people joking about it on social media, but I think there’s an underlying like, oh, yeah, that’s me. You know?

I mean, I’ve been doing it. I know that it’s been me, okay. I mean, it does work for a little bit like you do feel a little bit better while you’re eating the Ben and Jerry’s. But when you stop, what happens? Like what results are you getting? Who are you? Who are you becoming in the process of stuffing down your feelings and feeling good momentarily, like you’re using this? It’s like a false pleasure.

You know, to just try to feel good in the moment we were so afraid to feel our feelings that we will become overweight, instead of feeling our feelings. You know, if you want to stop overeating, if you want to lose weight, you have to be able to manage your emotions, you have to be able to feel your emotions. Well, how do you do that?

Well, one of the things you do is you need to stop using food to feel better. Okay, that’s one thing. And you need to learn how to just sit with your feelings, how to sit with your emotions, how to allow them to be there, without reacting to them, or without eating to now feel them. And you know what, here’s some truth I’m gonna drop on you right now.

This is not a comfortable place to be. Sometimes it’s not comfortable, to feel sad, or to feel frustrated or to feel angry, or to feel shame or guilt or whatever it is, it might suck pretty bad sometimes. And honestly, in those times, it’s really good to have somebody there and help you. And that’s where I come in.

And I, one of the most powerful things I do as a coach is I help my clients work through their emotions, I help them to learn to allow those emotions to be with them, to allow them to be present in their body, to embrace that temporary uncomfortable feelings so they can get to the other side of that because on the other side of that is all the stuff that you want, okay, on the other side of those uncomfortable feelings are the results that you want in your life, okay?

All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

206. Random Thoughts about Weight Loss for Runners

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Sometimes, I have a bunch of thoughts that I want to share with you here on the podcast and I’ll create an episode for each one of those random thoughts. This is a great way of taking a deep dive …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 206 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, some random thoughts about weight loss for runners.

So sometimes I have a bunch of thoughts that I want to share with you here on the podcast. And what I do is I create individual episodes for each one of those random thoughts. This is a great way of taking a deep dive into each topic and looking at it from several different angles.

However, today’s podcast is going to be a little bit different. Instead of focusing on just one topic, I’ve got several sort of random thoughts about weight loss for runners that I’m going to share with you here today.

And these thoughts and topics might all seem kind of random, but they do all focus on weight loss and running. So maybe they’re not so random after all. But first, I know I talk a lot about losing weight and improving your health and your fitness here on the podcast.

And all this stuff can feel pretty overwhelming. So if you’re looking for a good place to just get started and understand the basic core principles that I talked about here, and that I have talked about for the last four years here on the podcast, I’ve got a free training that I created, it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.

In this training, you’ll learn how to fuel your body so you can lose weight and improve running, you’ll learn about strength training, and how important that is for you. You’ll learn how to make mindset shifts to make all of these changes of lifestyle, sustainable, and tons more.

If you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, if you’re ready to run faster and longer, if you’re ready to become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself, then you need to check out this free training now just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. Easy peasy.

Okay, so today, some random thoughts about weight loss for runners. So like I said at the intro here, a lot of times when I set out to do a podcast, I’ll have lots of topics that I kind of choose from, and I’ll pick one topic.

And I’ll take a deep dive into that one topic. And I love doing that because I get to really delve into each particular thought or principle or topic or whatever it is. And look at it from a bunch of different angles and really give you a very clear picture of that one principle.

And if you look at my past episodes, you’ll see that this is the case that most episodes take a deep dive into one particular topic. But occasionally, I have a bunch of topics or a bunch of thoughts that I want to get down. And they’re just not enough for an entire podcast episode.

Sometimes I share those thoughts on social media. And sometimes I just kind of put them in a little, you know, little file, you know, keep a little note on my phone where I keep all my ideas for future podcasts and stuff. And I’ll just kind of keep them on the phone and just keep looking at them and go I don’t know, I don’t have enough to really do a podcast with all of these little random thoughts.

But today, I thought I’m just going to take a bunch of these random thoughts. And I’m just going to beat them out to you here. And please understand that all these things are related to running and to weight loss and to diet and exercise and stuff. So they’re not entirely random, but sometimes they are inspired by some comments that I get from people on social media.

Sometimes it’s just some basic principles that I want to make sure that you understand. And so just understand that today’s podcast is a little bit different. I’ve just got some random thoughts I want to share with you.

So I’m just going to dive in and start going through some of these and just keep in mind these are in no particular order or anything like that. They’re just some thoughts that I had, and I’m just mashing them all together here today.

Okay, so the first thing I wanted to talk about is some comments that I’ve gotten from some people on social media. So I occasionally share this podcast episode, and I do a Monday Motivation post. I try to do that every week. I miss a week here and there, but I’ve tried to stay pretty consistent with that.

And occasionally I will get some comments from people bored on those posts, and they’re not always super positive. Now there are lots of positive people out there. And if you’re somebody that has commented on my stuff regularly or shared some of my stuff, thank you for doing that, I appreciate that.

If you’re somebody that has been posting some hateful comments, then stop doing that. There’s really no reason for that kind of stuff. But some of the comments I think, are kind of interesting. And I’ve gotten a few similar comments from people recently. And I wanted to kind of address some of those.

And I want to preface this all by saying that I hate social media, I really do. I do not think social media is good for us. I think it is dumbing down us as a society. I think it’s causing a lot of, you know, FOMO, fear of missing out, I think it’s causing a lot of resentment with people.

I think it’s causing a lot of, you know, thinking that other people are better than we are. I think there’s a lot of negativity around social media, there’s bullying that happens on social media, it’s very divisive. People take things out of context. There’s so much now they’re doing with AI, where they’re actually creating videos of people saying things that it’s not, they never said those things.

But they can use AI and, you know, chat GPT, or whatever it is, and create a very convincing video of somebody saying some words that they haven’t said. So a lot of the stuff we’re even seeing out there isn’t even the truth. It’s not true. But we’re seeing these things. And it’s filling our feeds with just garbage and nonsense and divisiveness. And I think there’s a problem there.

So anyway, I just wanted to say that I try not to use social media very often, I do it because it helps to spread the word about this podcast, and helps to share some of the principles that I’m sharing out there in the world. But I don’t do a whole lot on social media.

But occasionally, I’ll get some comments from people. And some of them are, I’m gonna go through a couple of these that I’ve gotten recently that have, you know, I’ve gotten several comments that are very similar to this.

One of them is like, you shouldn’t tell people they have to lose weight, stop telling people they need to lose weight. And I just have to say, like, what, first of all, I have never told you or anybody that you have to lose weight.

I have never ever, ever said that and I’ve never thought it. If I have implied that, then I apologize. I don’t mean to think I’ve implied that. So I’m here to help you lose weight, if that’s something that you want help with. If you don’t want help with that, move on. That’s it, you just need to walk away.

If you’re somebody that doesn’t feel like they need to lose weight, and you’re listening to this podcast every week about me telling people how they can lose weight and how to be healthier and how to improve your diet and running, then, and you’re getting really resentful about listening to that. Just stop listening to that.

Okay, I’ve got no problem with that. I’m here for the people who want help. That’s it. And there are lots and lots of people, millions of people in this world who want help losing weight, they’ve tried all the stuff, it doesn’t work for them.

So I’m not telling you, you need to lose weight, but I’m here to help you if you want the help. Okay. So first of all, I’ve never told you, you need to lose weight.

Another comment that I’ve heard, or seen recently from several people is the gist of it is this. It’s not about losing weight, it’s about losing fat. So stop telling people, they need to lose weight, you need to tell them they need to lose fat.

Okay, so we’re now the semantic police out there. We’re like telling, you know, using these little phrases, I talk about weight loss because everybody understands what that means. Yes, it means losing fat weight. I’m not telling you, oh, I’m going to help you lose weight. And I really hope you lose muscle and bone mass because that’s my goal is to make sure that you know, develop osteoporosis and sarcopenia you know, no, it’s not about that.

Of course, it’s about fat loss. You know, people don’t like the word fat, you know. So I do use the word fat a lot. We talk about getting fat-adapted and being a fat-burning machine. But if you tell people, if you put it out there like, hey, I’m the Fat Loss For Runners Guy like people are not gonna like that. I don’t know. It just has some negative connotations.

So I think we all know, I’m talking about losing fat weight, right? I’m not talking about losing muscle. In fact, one of the big principles, I make sure that every one of my clients understands when they start working with me is that we don’t want to lose muscle.

We want to make sure we are preserving or gaining muscle mass while we are losing weight. And there’s a way that you can do that. A lot of people when they set out to lose weight, they just cut their calories back really significantly.

And yeah, they do lose weight, but that is muscle and bone, and fat. And we don’t want to do that that’s not the right way to do especially if you’re an athlete, and you’re a runner, and you’re training for something like you just need to make sure you’re losing weight the right way.

A/nd I always make sure that my clients are losing weight the right way. Okay, so of course, it’s about fat loss. Of course, it is. Right? I don’t explicitly say that. But please understand, that’s what I’m talking about. So if you’re somebody out there, that’s like, oh, I didn’t know you meant fat weight. Well, now you do.

And speaking of fat, as somebody has mentioned, you know, a couple of times in the past, like, oh, you fat shame people, you fat-shamed people like, listen, again, I have never, I’ve never shamed anybody about anything.

Again, I’m not telling you, you need to lose weight. I’m talking about, I’m talking to the people who are interested in becoming leaner, who are interested in changing their body composition for the better, who are interested in becoming healthier. That has nothing to do with if you’re overweight, good for you.

I’m old, I was overweight. You know, I was overweight for a decade or more, a couple of decades. And then I lost a bunch of weight. And then I gained a bunch of that back again. And I had to lose it again. Like I know what it’s like to be overweight.

And I’ve never been shamed by anybody in my life for that. And I’ve never shamed anybody else or not intentionally shamed anybody else for being overweight. Like, it’s such a common thing these days for people to be overweight. It’s like, okay, great. If you want to lose weight, great. If you don’t, that’s completely fine, too. I’m okay either way.

I’m here to help you if you want to lose the weight. But I’ve never fat-shamed anybody. I did have a friend that sort of fat-shamed me. Like, when I was pretty overweight, I was working with this guy. And he used to call me fatty Patty from Cincinnati. That was his little nickname for me. And he thought it was really funny.

And I, you know, kind of went along with it. He was a good friend of mine. So he could say that, you know, he didn’t mean it in a really mean way. But looking back on it, and I’m like, oh my god, he was fat-shaming me, but it never really bothered me that much.

A couple other random thoughts. Okay. So I’ve heard from a lot of people, some people mentioned this on social media. Some people mentioned this when I get on calls with them, where they’re like, oh, you know, I’ve been told that, since I’m a runner, I shouldn’t try to lose weight, like you shouldn’t do that. It’s not okay to do that. You shouldn’t, you know, try to lose weight while you’re training for a marathon or half marathon or something like that.

And I want to challenge that. And I want to, I want to dive into this just a little bit. So a lot of people I talked to tell me, Patrick, I am a runner. I’ve been running for a long time. You know, I used to eat a ton of you know, carbs, and sugar and junk food or whatever it was always fine and never really bothered me at all.

But as I get older, I tend to put on more weight. In fact, the more I run when I get into my training cycle, and I’m training for a marathon or half marathon, I gain weight, and what’s going on there? Like how come things aren’t working for me? They used to work for me.

And, you know, they’ve heard from people like, oh, you know, I’ve heard that I shouldn’t try to lose weight when I’m training for something. And I’m always training for something. I’ve got, like two races a year.

So I’m kind of always training for something. I have a short offseason. But you know, I gain weight while I’m training. But what am I supposed to do here because like just every year, year after year after year, I keep gaining more weight.

And I think this is interesting, because there are people out there that will tell people, like you shouldn’t try to lose weight if you’re a runner. But apparently, it’s okay to gain weight as a runner, like that’s okay. But you shouldn’t try to lose weight.

I think that’s kind of backward. I think that’s kind of stupid. So a lot of people think that the answer to losing weight is just running more and more and more. And if you’re running a lot, you know, you’re putting in 60 miles a week or whatever it is, you’re training, you know, some massive amount of training, and you’re gaining weight in the process or not losing weight in the process, that you’re just you know, you’re doing it wrong, you there’s something wrong with you, you know, it’s genetics, whatever.

And listen, it isn’t genetics, it isn’t that there’s something wrong with you. You’re just doing the wrong you’re focusing on the wrong thing. You know, it’s not about you. It’s not about your diet. It’s about, wait, I’m sorry, it’s not about your exercise. It’s about what you’re eating.

It’s really more about the diet than it is about the training that you’re doing. Really, I talk to people every day who are like I gain weight, the more I train, and I’m like, yeah, because your diet is terrible. And the more you train, the hungrier you are, typically, and the more you end up eating of that junk food, and so you’re just gonna gain weight, your body’s gonna keep storing a lot of that junk food is excess fat, even though you’re running a lot doesn’t matter.

So the answer is not to run more. But this idea of not losing weight, as you are training for something, I don’t think that is valid for all people. Now, some people are like, listen, when I’m training, it puts my body under a lot of stress. And that stress will cause me to hold on to more weight, which is kind of true if you’re training the wrong way.

In other words, if you’re overtraining, you could be putting your body into a state of chronic stress. Chronic stress equals chronically elevated cortisol levels, chronically elevated cortisol levels to the stress hormone will lead to chronically elevated blood sugar, and insulin, and you’re basically staying in that fat storage mode, you’re always storing fat, and your body cannot burn fat, while you’re in a state of chronic stress.

So I get that part of it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t or can’t lose weight, while you’re training, you just need to fix your training and fix your diet. The other side of this is that when most people set out to lose weight, they cut their calories and they lose muscle and they lose bone mass.

And they lose fat weight too. But when you’re training for something, you do not want to be losing muscle mass, like you need to maintain muscle mass while you’re training, otherwise, you’re gonna like really mess yourself up, and you risk getting injured. And there are lots of reasons why you don’t want to lose muscle and bone while you’re training for a marathon. It’s just pretty obvious, right?

So you risk injury, you risk burning yourself out. Really, it’s really bad for you to do that. And so we never want to lose muscle and bone, we always want to just focus on fat loss. That’s why I always talk about fat burning, turning your body into a fat-burning machine, getting you fat adapted.

Once you’re fat-adapted, that means your body is burning fat the way it’s supposed to. It means that you have tons of energy for running fat stored body fat is a great source of fuel for runners. Plus, if you want to lose weight, we’re talking about fat weight here, you have to burn the fat.

How do you burn the fat? Well, you got to stop storing the fat and you got to get into that fat-burning mode instead, right?

So another couple of reasons why people say you shouldn’t try to lose weight while you’re running or shouldn’t run while you’re trying to lose weight. So some people say, oh, you’re losing weight, great, just focus on that.

Don’t work out, don’t run, because it’s going to put your body under too much stress. It’s too many changes all at once. You should just focus on one thing at a time. That way, you’re going to be more compliant with your diet, like just change your diet first. And then you can work on exercise later.

And I’ve heard this quite a bit and people that I talk to tell me this and they’re like, man, I’m not doing that. I don’t want to go on some diet where I can’t exercise for three months or something. That’s crazy. I’ll go crazy, right? Because the exercise is so good for you. There are so many reasons why it’s so good for you.

It produces dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, like, it’s our feel-good hormones, our feel-good neurotransmitters. It’s like, it puts us in a good mood, it helps us to sleep, it helps us to focus it, you know, gives us plenty of energy throughout the day. Why would you stop doing that?

Oh, because you know, it’s going to be too hard for you to stick to your diet and exercise at the same time, well, then you need some help with that. You’re doing it wrong, right? You just need some help with the mindset around this stuff. So you can lose weight while running. You can lose weight while working out. You can do both.

And if you’re somebody who loves working out and you want to focus on your nutrition and change you should be able to do that and you can do it. I help people with this all the time. It’s totally doable.

Another thing I hear people say and a lot of these comments are coming from social media. A lot of these topics are coming from social media. This one is oh, you know you don’t need to change your diet or anything just you know, eat right and exercise.

You know, I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to understand. Like these are comments that I hear from people that you know kind of on I’m paraphrasing here, but you know, just the writing exercise, it’s easy to do. You know, that’s all you need to do.

And listen, if it was easy, there would be no overweight people in this world, there’d be nobody that really needs to lose weight ever if it was easy. If it was just that simple. Of course, we know that we should eat right and exercise. Of course, we know that.

But what does it mean to eat right? I mean, if you get out there on the internet, you start looking, okay, what’s the right diet, like, you’re gonna get 10 million different answers. It’s stupid. Like, we’ve just got this wrong, where we think there’s like one answer that’s going to work forever. It doesn’t, it doesn’t.

Whatever you did, whatever this random person over here did, whatever the latest fad diet is, whatever the trend is, whatever that book is, you just read, none of that stuff is going to work for everybody. I’ve tried all that stuff. And until I just kind of put together my own sort of protocol, my own food plan. That’s the only thing that really worked for me.

And that’s what I help people do, you know, I help people figure out what works for them. Because all this other nonsense that’s out there, you know, vegan diet, or a carnivore diet, or South Beach diet, the Mediterranean diet, whatever it is, whatever, whatever diet that’s like, pre-made, that you’re trying to follow, it’s not going to work for you.

I mean, it’s just not going to, well, it’s not gonna work for everybody, we’ll put it that way. Right, there isn’t one diet that works perfectly for everybody, we all have to just get our heads around that. And so I don’t encourage people to follow any particular diet, instead, I help you get off the junk food.

I help people start eating real food, start focusing on getting enough protein, ditching the really problematic carbohydrate-laden foods, processed foods, the seed oils, the sugars, that kind of stuff. And just focus on eating the kinds of foods that fill them up, and that make them feel great.

And that improves their body composition that helps them to lose the fat weight and gain muscle and maintain muscle. Like that’s so important. And related to that, I’ve seen comments in like Facebook groups from people who are like, oh, man, I, you know, I’m, I’m struggling with gaining weight while I’m training for a marathon.

I’m in a lot of running groups and stuff on Facebook. And I’ll see people post, you know, questions like, oh, you know, I’m gaining weight, what should I do, and all these people, random people who know nothing about this person, are telling them what they shouldn’t, should or shouldn’t eat.

You know, how, oh, here’s what you should do. You know, here’s the diet, you should do blah, blah, blah, eat vegan, eat, you know, nothing, but meat, eat nothing. But you know, broccoli, nothing, but whatever. Like, there’s all these crazy diets out there. And listen, you know nothing about that person you have, you’re not qualified to give that person advice.

Even if you are a doctor, you shouldn’t give that person advice, because you don’t know them, you don’t have a relationship with that person. Again, this is why I do coaching. And I don’t just sell a book about this stuff, because I can’t put it in a book.

Because the same thing doesn’t work for everybody, you’ve got to really understand that, okay. But these randos that are just giving people this unsolicited advice, and sometimes it’s solicited, but you know, most of the time it’s not, and just telling people what they should do. It’s so stupid, just don’t do that.

If you’re one of those people who like feels compelled to give people advice on what they should do. Don’t do that. Okay? Because you don’t know what’s going to work for them.

Okay, a little bit of this as ranting, I get that I’m just like, I wanted to get this stuff off my chest for a while. So thank you for letting me do that. Related to all that there are tons of like running coaches out there. And even like nutritionists and dietitians that I’ve seen, who you know, preach about certain ways of doing things. And they have, they follow this traditional coaching style, which is, it’s really not even coaching, it’s just they tell you what to do.

Like, here’s what you’re going to do, here’s the protocol, you’re going to follow, you know, I have this 10-step plan, this is what’s going to work for you right, again, it’s a one size fits all, but they’re not taking into account that you know, that you’re an individual and that you have certain metabolism and certain lifestyle needs that need to be considered here.

And, and lots of other factors that make you an individual, you know, genetics and food preferences and how you like to work out and you know, how much running you do and all these other things.

But there are lots of coaches out there dietitians, nutritionists, whatever, who don’t have a one-size-fits-all program, they just tell you what to do. Here’s what you’re gonna do. They don’t consider the fact that it’s hard to, like you know what to do, but it’s hard to stick with it.

It’s hard to keep doing those things. And they don’t even consider that. Oh, you didn’t, I told you to eat these foods, you didn’t do it. Why not? Well, because, you know, I really struggle with this stuff. And, you know, I think I might be like, eating emotionally, because I find that I just, I need to eat to feel better. And they’re just like, I don’t get any of that, you know, you just need to stick to the plan here.

You know, you need to have more willpower, you need to be more disciplined. That’s not helpful. And all these people that I’m talking about these coaches, these, a lot of these people I’m thinking about here are like elite athletes, who decided they want to be a coach, they have never been overweight in their life.

They’ve never had to lose 40 or 50 pounds, they don’t know what that feels like they’ve never struggled with, you know, food. You know, emotional eating, or with food issues, you know, they’ve never struggled with their weight. They never struggled with working out or running, you know, maybe they did early on.

But they’re not a four to five-hour marathoner who struggles to, you know, PR, or struggles to, you know, maybe you’re trying to qualify for Boston or something like that. These are people who are like, elite athletes, top athletes in the world. And they just think they, they’re a little disassociated with the common people like me, and you, you know, and, and I see these people doling out advice and telling people what to do.

And I just look at it and kind of shake my head, because I’m like, that is not gonna work for everybody. And it might work for some people who are, you know, of elite caliber, but you’re trying to reach the general population out here, you’re talking way over their heads like they’re not there, they just can’t relate to that stuff, and you can’t relate to them.

So how can you help these people if you’ve never been there before? How can you help these people if you, you know, lose weight or change their diet? If you’ve never struggled with that stuff? You know, you’re somebody who’s like, oh, you know, like David Goggins? You know, it’s like, oh, you know, just run 200 miles a day, you know, and it’s no big deal. Like, just, you just do it, man, you know?

And well, that’s hard for people sometimes. And what do you do when that kind of stuff is, is challenging? It’s hard to get out of bed and put those running shoes on and go out the door? How do you deal with that stuff? How do you deal with the fact that you’re used to eating, you know, junk food, because you know, you’re not dealing with some of the mental and emotional stuff that you’re going through and you keep turning to food?

Like, how do you deal with the stuff that comes up, when you stop eating that food, like, there’s going to be all this stuff that comes up when you stop eating the junk food that you got to start dealing with, you know, and I’m not saying I’m like a therapist or anything like that. But we do a lot of work around emotional eating, we do a lot of work around helping people to change their relationship with food.

So it’s not about just eating automatically and eating emotionally, it’s about eating intentionally, and eating mindfully, you know? And of course, eating good food, eating real food, not junk food. Okay, so I think that’s about it for these random thoughts that I had today.

Thanks for listening to all of this stuff here. I wanted to just get all these out and share them with you because they’ve been topics that have been on my mind for a while. And every now and then I’ll put together a little list of random topics and I’ll share them with you guys.

I think this is kind of fun for me to do. Today. Actually, it just can kind of go off on a tangent on these little things. A little bit of a rant here and there too, which is okay. I hope that’s okay with you. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.