Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
I work with a lot of runners who are awesome at sticking with their running plans. They get up early on Saturday mornings religiously, regardless of the weather outside. They do the required …
Continue Reading about 185. Why It’s So Hard to Stick to Your Food Plan →
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 185 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, why it’s so hard to stick to your food plan.
So I work with a lot of runners who are awesome at sticking with their running plans. They get up early on Saturday mornings religiously, regardless of the weather outside, they do all the required speed work every single week, no matter what.
They never miss a workout even when they’re sick. And they should probably take a day or two off. So they’re really good at sticking with this plan, but when it comes to sticking with their diet so that they can lose weight, it all seems to fall apart.
Why is this? Why is it so easy for runners to stick to a very difficult marathon training plan, and it’s so hard to stick to a healthy eating plan? I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot lately. So in this episode, I’m going to explain why it’s so hard to stick to your food plan. And I’m gonna offer up some sound advice for changing this.
Okay, but first, when I first set out to change my diet so that I could lose weight, I did not do things perfectly. In fact, for the first few months, I kept slipping up, I kept reverting back to old eating habits. And I kept getting into cravings that I had for junk food.
And I used to think that every time I got off track, it meant that I was a failure. I thought it meant that I would never get this figured out, I would never lose the weight. I would stay on track for a while and I would slip up and then I would start again.
And I did this over and over and over again. And every time I failed, instead of quitting, I just got back on track as soon as I could. So I never did this perfectly, but I always kept going. I never quit, I never gave up on myself.
So instead of focusing on perfection, I focused on consistency. You won’t do this perfectly either. Actually, spoiler alert, nobody does. Nobody does this perfectly. So don’t aim for perfection. Aim for consistency. The key to losing weight and keeping it off for good is not perfection, but consistency over time.
Practice staying on your plan, practice avoiding those urges to eat junk food, practice being consistent over time, and I promise you, you will get there eventually. And if you want a little help with this, you want a little help practicing consistency, I’m here for you.
Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners.
Okay, why it’s so hard to stick to your food plan? So really, the big key to accomplishing anything that you want for yourself is to make a plan and then stick to the plan, right? This is so simple. It’s such a simple concept.
And if you’re part of my coaching program, you know I say this all the time. And we actually sort of joke around about it because I say it so much. But really, it’s ‘make a plan and stick to the plan no matter what’. That’s it. That’s the key.
And you guys are so good at doing this when it comes to running. You’re so good at doing this when it comes to training for some big event. You know, I work with runners all the time. And they are great with sticking to their running plan, their cross training, their weightlifting schedule, their stretching, all these things are easy. Like they’re like, oh, yeah, I got it. That’s not a problem at all.
But why is it so hard when it comes to food when it comes to sticking to a food plan so that they can lose weight and get healthier, and improve their life in all kinds of ways? It’s so hard. It’s so hard that most people don’t do it. Most people rarely will take the time and the effort to stick with a food plant to where they actually succeed at losing weight and getting healthier and failing, but some people do. And that’s great, but so many people don’t.
However, they are sticking with a running plan. They’re training for a marathon or ultra marathons and they’re great at that, they never miss a workout. So it’s interesting, isn’t it? I’ve always found this to be very interesting.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. And I’ve and I’ve got some ideas here that I’m going to get into in just a minute, but I just want you to be thinking about yourself. During this episode, think about where you fall.
In this scheme of mindset here, are you one of those people who was really good at sticking with a training program, but not a food program? And if that’s you, this is definitely going to be something you’re going to want to listen to maybe a couple of times, okay.
So we find it very difficult to stick with a food plan, but find it pretty easy to stick with a running schedule. Even though that running schedule, for all intents and purposes is hard, it is challenging, most people would say, oh my gosh, that is such a hard thing, I could never run a marathon, I could never do the work, I could never run an ultra marathon.
So let’s break this down a little bit. So when you are planning to, let’s say, I’m just going to use the running a marathon as our example here at a training schedule, because that’s pretty difficult, something that requires time and, and it is difficult.
So when you have a training plan written out, so you have a training schedule, you’ve planned this in advance, you know, you’ve signed up for something ahead of time, you’ve got all your training planned out, and you are most likely to stick to that training schedule, like your life depended on it, right?
Why is food so different? Why can’t we just apply that same concept to food? Logically, they are very similar things we’re talking about here. They’re very similar undertakings. Training for a marathon is hard. It requires, you know, a lot of hard work, it requires time, so does losing weight, it requires hard work, it requires time, they both require consistency over time.
They both require you to plan things out in advance and stick to the plan. Even if things aren’t, you know, perfect. Even if the weather is terrible, or, you know, you aren’t at home to make dinner for yourself or whatever, we still stay on track, right?
So logically, they require the same things like making a plan in advance, we have structure around that plan, there are steps involved. So for running, it’s your training schedule, this is a structured rigid thing, and it has very specific steps laid out, you’re going to run five days a week, you’re going to do speed work on these days, here’s when you’re doing your long run every week, you’re going to increase your mileage by so much every week, these are your days off, it’s all laid out for you.
And your food plan can be just as structured, in fact, I encourage you to, to create the structure around your food plan the same way you create the structure around your marathon training plan, eat these things, don’t eat these things. Only eat two, three times a day, cut out snacking, you don’t need to be snacking all the time, make protein your priority, eat mostly whole foods.
Stay away from stuff and packages and processed foods and you know, concentrated forms of carbohydrates. Again, this can be all laid out. It can be very structured and rigid. And it can be something that is all laid out. Right? They’re both the same.
And it’s interesting because looking at these two things on paper, they look identical, right? So what’s the big difference? Why is it so hard to stick with food? And I think that a lot of this boils down to your mindset. And here’s what I mean by this.
The mindset required to train for a marathon and successfully finish that marathon is exactly the same mindset that’s required to stick to a healthy eating plan so that you can lose weight. And I bet you’ve never really thought about it like that before because most people don’t.
They think they’re totally different. There are some differences. I’ll get into that in a second, but listen, here’s what’s required. From a mindset standpoint, to be successful at both running a marathon, you know, training for a marathon and running that and finishing it successfully, and losing weight, they both require a plan.
But more importantly, they both require sticking to the plan. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about here is focused on sticking to the plan. So the first mindset standpoint that they’re that they both need is this, this has to be something that is important to you. It matters. There’s a reason why you are doing this.
Why are you running a marathon or why do you want to lose the weight? It’s not just to be healthy. It’s probably to prove something to yourself that you can do hard things. It might be so that you can level up and grow and become more, evolve a little bit as a human being.
Maybe it’s to be an example to your kids. Or maybe it’s because you don’t want to die at age 60. Like, you know, you have a family history of that in your family. And yes, of course, to be the healthiest and most badass version of yourself.
So training for a marathon sticking to your food plan, they both require that same mindset, they are both important to you, it matters or, or it has to you, you have to adopt that same mindset across both. Okay.
The next thing I think you need to make sure you are doing, the other mindset you are adopting is that you have to have a clear end result in mind, what is your goal for this marathon? What is your goal for eating healthy? You need a very clear vision for the outcome that you want for yourself.
I want to finish this marathon, I want to finish it feeling good. I mean, relatively speaking, marathons are hard, and you usually feel pretty terrible at the end of it, but feeling good relative to maybe feeling really bad. Maybe not puking at the end too, I don’t know, maybe it’s to PR, or to, you know, qualify for Boston, that is a very clear outcome that you want for the marathon.
Okay, so what’s the clear goal that you can apply to your healthy eating, what’s the clear end result is it to lose weight is it to lose 40 pounds, is it to just feel better about yourself, to feel good about the body that you are carrying around, to have more energy, to wear those clothes you used to wear, to look better naked?
What’s the end result that you want for yourself? Be very clear about that. Because in order to stick to the plan, you need that clear end result in mind, you have to hold that vision of who you want to become at the end of this process.
Both of these things require a little bit of healthy fear of failure too, so you might not complete that marathon, that’s why you stick to the training plan. Training becomes very important. I remember training for things like my 100 miler that was very challenging.
Just you know, thinking about running 100 miles became one of those things where it pushed me through my training so much because I was failing, I had fear of failure, I did not want to fail, I really wanted to succeed at that.
There’s so many things that can go wrong, or training for an Ironman, lots of things can go wrong there because you’re talking about swimming, and I got kicked in the face, like within the first 10 minutes of being in the water almost knocked me out, gave me a black eye, somebody kicked my goggles and smashed my goggles into my eye socket. And just like really kind of gave me a black eye.
And I was like, oh my god, I could die in the water. I haven’t just started this thing, but you know, being out there on the bike, there’s all kinds of things that can go wrong there. And then, of course, running that marathon at the end of it.
So lots of points of failure can happen in these things that we do for ourselves, right? We can also fail at losing weight. And what does that mean? If we fail at losing weight, we tend to beat ourselves up, it means we’ll never be able to accomplish that, or we’ve tried in the past. And we’re afraid we’re gonna fail again, because we keep doing the same, we keep repeating the same things over and over again.
So there’s a little bit of a healthy fear of failure there. I think it kind of moves you away from what you don’t want, I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to be a failure. I don’t want to not succeed at this. So that’s actually not a bad thing.
Okay, that mindset can apply to both your marathon training and to sticking with your food plan as well. Another principle we need to apply here is that listen, both of these things are hard. They are both challenging, they will be tough to complete. They both require some hard work, some discomfort, some discipline, they both require a little bit of pain and suffering.
There’s pain and suffering involved in training for a marathon. Would you agree? Yeah, I think we would all agree with that. There’s some pain and suffering involved with giving up sugar. Or sitting there when everybody else is eating pizza and you have ordered a salad and you’re just gonna eat the salad that requires discipline, it requires grit, and requires enduring a little bit of suffering.
And then lastly, they both take time, like you can’t train for a marathon in two weeks, right? You just, you know, unless you are you’re already trained up but for most people anyway, training for a marathon takes time. It takes months right? And you can’t lose weight by just sticking with your diet for a couple of weeks. Right? These things both take time, months, sometimes years. years of work to succeed.
I know people who start running, and they’ve never run before, and they’re maybe a little bit older, 30s 40s 50s, whatever they’re like, I’m going to start running. And their goal is to run a marathon, but they know it’s going to take them like 18 months, two years or something like that, before, they’re ready to do that, they’re gonna start with a 5k, and then a 10k, and then half marathon, whatever, they’re gonna work their way up, and they, they plan it out.
And they know that if they stay committed and stay focused, and don’t get injured, that they can run that marathon in 18 months or two years. What if you committed to your food plan like that? What if you just said, you know what, it doesn’t matter how long it’s gonna take, I’m committed to this process, I’m gonna stick to this plan, you’d be a total badass, you’d be like, at your ideal weight, eventually, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take 12 months, 18 months, whatever, it doesn’t matter.
The point is that these things both take time. And so just make sure you understand that and apply that same mindset there. Okay. So I hope you can see that the mindset to be successful at both of these is the same, the mindset to stick to your marathon training program is the same as the mindset of sticking to your weight loss plan to your healthy eating plan.
So then, why is it so hard to stick to the food plan, when you have the same mentality around your training schedule, because you might be saying, oh, well, I do all those things. So we can talk about the addictive qualities of some foods. This is something we do have to consider here, sugar in particular.
So there’s certain foods, we call them hyper palatable foods, they are amazingly delicious. And it makes it hard to lose weight when all these foods are around. You know, it makes it hard to give up those kinds of foods because they light up our brain, they make us feel good.
And even with the right plan, and the right amount of structure around your diet and the right mindset, sugar, hyper palatable foods is a tough one. Every person that I work with has a little bit of struggle when they give up sugar, especially if they haven’t done this before.
So we do this because we want to get out of that addictive state that we’ve been in for a while. So we remove the quote unquote drug (the sugar) for a period of time, and then those cravings go way down. The cravings for junk food go away.
When you give up junk food, the cravings for sugar go away. when you give up sugar, stop eating donuts, and you won’t be craving donuts anymore. Stop drinking beer all the time, and you won’t be craving beer anymore.
And so these things don’t become a big deal after some time, but you’ve got to like have a period of abstinence in order to get to that place. But that’s where freedom comes from. That’s where true food freedom happens. Okay. So there are some addictive qualities of some foods that make it a little bit tougher, I get that part. Okay.
Also, there are a lot of marketing messages around food, like, oh, you can’t have a good time unless you’re eating doughnuts and pizza and drinking beer for breakfast, right? We get peer pressure from the big food corporations from friends and family to eat a bunch of junk food. There’s food pushers in our lives who are like, oh, come on, it’s just a little bit.
Just screw the diet for one day, just live a little bit. Enjoy. Can’t you enjoy your life? Come on. It’s my birthday. So please eat all this junk food with me, you know. And then there’s FOMO of course, which goes along with that.
We have fear of missing out like we feel like we’re missing out on something good if we don’t do what everybody else is doing. Okay, so there’s all that that we have to deal with. It makes sticking to the food plan a little bit more difficult, I get that. Also, food is most people’s go-to emotional management tool.
If you have a hard time coping emotionally without food, then it’s going to be harder to stick to a healthy eating plan. So part of what I do with my coaching clients is that we get to this place where we don’t use food as an emotional management tool anymore. And part of eating a healthy eating, diet or eating plan has to involve not using food to numb out to your emotions anymore. It’s a big part of what we do in my coaching practice.
I help runners to stop using food as a way of dealing with their emotions. And listen, if you’re doing this, if this is something that is an issue for you just understand that we all do it. Everybody uses food as an emotional management tool to some degree, okay, but we want to get out of that habit. You’ve just trained yourself over the years to use food to cope with your emotions. That’s it.
We’ve just got to train you and you can do this right. It’s not impossible to do it. But again, this can be a little bit challenging for people, okay, so there’s a few things here that do make, you know, sticking with a healthy food plan a little bit more difficult. And I get that.
But I think the biggest reason why it’s easy to stick to something like a marathon training plan, but not a healthy food plan is this, you haven’t made the decision. If you want to accomplish anything, first thing you have to do is make a decision that you are going to do it, you have to decide, like really decide.
And if you look at the root of the word decide it means to cut off like, you cut off all other options, except for this one, I am going to do X, I am going to stick to my training plan, I’m going to run a successful marathon. Right, you’ve made that decision. And that’s what you’re going to do.
What about food? Have you made that same decision about food? Probably not, I’m guessing. I know that when I personally make a decision to do something, it’s as good as done. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it, period.
16 years ago, I quit drinking. I wasn’t ready to stop for a long time, I knew that drinking was a problem for me. I knew that I had to stop at some point. But I hadn’t made the decision until I did when I did make that decision to stop, I quit and haven’t had any alcohol since then.
So for me, it’s like when I decide I’m going to do something, I do it. Training for an Iron Man. Once I decided I was all in, I knew I was going to do it. It was hard, hard work during all that training. And the race itself is very hard. But I had made that decision early on. And I did it.
Same thing running a 100 mile trail race. Recently, I sat down and did a 12 hour run and talked about that a few weeks ago on the podcast. I decided to do that back in like November or December of 2022. And I did it in May of ‘23. So I decided six months prior that this is something I’m going to do and I knew I was going to do it. Right.
So you have to make a decision, you made a decision to run a marathon, right? You signed up for it, you paid for it. And you committed to doing that race in your mind that is done. You are all in. So you can do this, right?
So sticking to your training plan, that’s a no brainer, right? Because you’ve already made that decision, you’ve decided I am going to do this, I’m going to run this marathon, I’m going to be successful, I’m going to qualify for Boston, I’m going to PR whatever that is.
So now you just have to make that same decision around food, just decide, I’m going to lose 40 pounds, no matter what I am all in, I’m going to put a plan together and I’m going to work the plan and I’m going to stick to it. And I’m not going to stop until I am successful.
I have decided. I’ve cut off all the other options. No other options. Now I’m just gonna do this. I’m gonna stick to the plan. So make that decision. Yeah, I’ve had this conversation with people, and they’ve told me, but Patrick, I’m stuck. I just can’t decide, I can’t do it. I can’t start. And this is all just BS. This is excuses and stories.
And it’s just you deciding that you don’t want to do it. There is a quote that has stuck with me since I first heard it back in 1980 from the band Rush. And it says this, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
So if you choose to do nothing, you’re making a choice to do nothing. If you decide that you want this for yourself, great. Take action, move forward, but don’t use these excuses about oh, I’m stuck. I can’t do it. I just can’t start.
Think about it like this. I heard another coach use this analogy. And I love it. She was saying like, oh people tell me they’re stuck. And they’re like, oh, I just can’t get up out of this chair. I’m stuck. I can’t get started. I want to go over there. I want to walk across the room, but I can’t because I’m just stuck in this chair. And it sounds ridiculous, right? It’s ridiculous.
But this is what we do all the time. It’s about making that decision and then taking that first step. It’s about just getting up out of the chair, making the decision and then going over there. If that’s what you want for yourself. It’s really that simple. We overcomplicate all of this stuff, okay?
So I hope you understand now why it’s harder to stick to your food plan. Yes, there are a few things that make sticking to a healthy diet a little more challenging than sticking to your training plan. But at the end of the day, I think it boils down to making that decision, decide what you want for yourself, make a plan, and then stick to the plan no matter what.
And that is also the important part is that very last little no matter what, because things will go awry. Your plan will meet challenges, obstacles will be in your way, all the time. This is called life. And it just happens. And that’s okay, we still stick to the plan, or we do our best, you know, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, and then go with the flow and do the best you can. Right.
But if we decide that we’re going to stick to the plan, no matter what this is, this is all you got to do, is make that decision. Okay, that’s it. That’s how easy this is. It’s not that easy, but it is simple. It’s a very simple concept. Make the decision, make the plan and then stick to the plan no matter what. Okay.
And if you want a little bit of help getting started I’ve got a great training program you can watch for free. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to get started. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
A lot of people set out to lose weight and then quit. They change their diet, start exercising, and then at some point just throw up their hands and give up. This was definitely me and it was …
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 184 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, The Incredible Power of Focus. So a lot of people set out to lose weight and then at some point they quit.
They changed their diet, they started exercising, and then at some point, they just throw up their hands and they give up. This was definitely me, and it was probably you at some point, I’m guessing.
And while there are a lot of reasons why someone might just give up on themselves, one of the most likely reasons is a serious lack of focus. Being focused means more than just paying attention to what’s in front of you, it can actually be the key to accomplishing all your health and fitness goals.
So in this episode, I uncover the incredible power of focus and how it can help you become the leaner, stronger, more badass runner you’ve always wanted to be. But first, I often get asked by runners who want to lose weight, how to get started, how to get started with proper nutrition, resistance training, how to get stronger how to improve their running, maybe run longer or run faster, or maybe they just want more energy, they want to improve themselves from the inside out.
I get asked this so much that I put together a free training program designed to do just that to get you started on your health and fitness journey to get you started on your weight loss journey. And it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
If you’re looking for a great place to start, this is it. It’s an on demand video training. So you can go through it at your own pace, whenever it’s convenient for you, you’ll learn what it means to eat real food, how to improve your ability to burn fat, how to get stronger, how to increase your endurance as a runner, and so much more, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to get started.
Alright, let’s talk about the incredible power of focus. So if we look up the definition of focus, there’s a couple. One of them is, “The center of interest directivity.”
Another one is, “A clear visual definition.” That’s like when you take a camera and you bring something into focus into clearer visual definition.
And the third definition here is, “To pay particular attention to something.”
Okay. So when we think about focus, I want you to think about a couple different ways of looking at this, you know, this is the center of your interest, you’re putting your mindset on something, and you are paying very close attention to that something or paying particular attention to that area of interest or activity and bringing it into clearer focus, bringing it into clearer definition.
So I like all of those definitions of the word, focus, think about focus this way. And this, this describes the incredible power of focus for sure. If you were to take a 150 watt light bulb, and you are to put it on a lamp in the middle of a large room and turn it on middle of a dark room, and you turn on that 150 watt light bulb, it would scatter light all over the room and light up the room you wouldn’t be able to see in a dark room. Very cool, right?
But if you were to take that same 150 watts, and focus the light into a very small laser beam, you could actually cut through steel with that same amount of light, it’s the same amount of energy, the same amount of light being produced, but it is focused.
And you can see that the power of that focused beam of light is much more powerful than a light bulb that’s just scattered as its light all over the place. There’s nothing wrong with a light bulb, it’s doing its job, it’s lighting up the room. But think about how much more powerful that light is when it is focused.
Okay, your focus is similar. If it’s spread all over the place, if there’s no precise direction to it, if you’re scattered. I mean this is okay and most of us live our lives this way where we kind of scatter our focus and our attention everywhere. And that’s okay. But what would happen, if you took that same amount of energy and you concentrated it?
What if you were to concentrate that energy more precisely on certain areas of your life, on certain goals that you have for yourself? I think things would change dramatically for you. And I think you would agree with that, you would become unstoppable. You could accomplish amazing things.
You know, if you want to lose weight, this requires focused energy. And a lot of people that give up, that quit things, they do it because they lack the focus, they lack the ability to stay focused on the goal.
What do you need to succeed at anything, especially like, health and fitness goals? You need a very clear, focused vision for that end result that you’re looking for. Who is it that you want to become? What do you really want for yourself? What does the future version of you look like?
And we talk about this a lot in my coaching program, when you’re a client of mine, I kind of make you go through this process of like painting a very clear picture of what that future version of you looks like.
What do you look like? How are you sleeping? How? How is your life different than it is today? How are your clothes fitting you? What clothes are you wearing? Are you comfortable taking your shirt off at the pool? You know, things like that.
And when we have this clear vision of our future self, when we have this sense of purpose, and we know exactly what we want for ourselves, well, that’s good, because now we have focus, we have direction, we have a plan a path steps, we can change our actions and behaviors because we know where we’re going.
But you have to have a clear and organized version of that future self, you have to have a clear and focused vision for who you want to become if you want to become that person. Because without a clear vision for yourself, you’re just going to be like, whatever.
So when we have this clear focus, this creates a lot of consistency, it creates a lot of motivation. And we’ll talk about more of that in a minute. But you are more likely to reach those goals. Because you have a clear vision for who you want to become.
When you don’t have focus, you don’t understand where you’re going, you know, you have no clarity of purpose, no clear vision for your future self. There’s no like big picture here, or you have a big picture, but it’s very, it’s like a blurry big picture. It’s not focused, right?
And without focus, we tend to forget our purpose, why we want these things for ourselves. So your health, your fitness, your exercise, your nutrition, it’s all scattered, right? No direction, no motivation to do anything. Because it doesn’t really matter. Because you don’t have that sense of purpose.
You don’t have that clear vision for who you want to become which just drives your motivation down. And this is why people quit. Because they don’t have that focus, they don’t have that clear vision of their future self.
And when you don’t have motivation, you lack progress. You don’t get the results you want. And of course, you’re gonna quit, why would you keep going. But with focus, you create that clear vision of your future self, you have that clarity of purpose, you have very clear goals, and dreams and hopes and things that you want to accomplish for yourself.
This is amazing at helping you to maintain motivation. Because without focus, you get very, it’s very demotivating. You know, you’re just scattered all over the place. You don’t even know where you’re going. How can you even track progress? You know, and that’s where you kind of lose motivation and give up.
But with focus, you maintain motivation. You continually make progress because you’re, you’re taking consistent aligned action. And you end up getting the results that you want, you produce results consistently. And even small results, even if they are, you know, small wins, achieved consistently you will eventually reach your goal.
It’s like running an ultra marathon. It doesn’t matter how slow you go, you gotta run 100 miles, just keep moving forward. But when you stop moving, or when you go backwards, or your heart isn’t in it anymore, and you have no clear vision of where you want to be at the end.
And there’s no purpose for you to continue, why would you continue? It’s just so easy to give up. Okay, so you can start to see, I’m hoping anyway, I hope you can start to see that focus is the key here. Whatever it is you want to accomplish, you want to lose weight, it takes time.
If you want to run an ultra marathon, it takes time, it takes time for the training, it takes time to do that actual event as well. And these things mean that you are going to have to spend a lot of time staying focused, so you stay in the game.
And another way of thinking about focus is this word, constraint, think about constraint. So what is the definition of constraint? This means a limitation or a restriction. And I know when people hear this, they think of this in a negative way, oh, I don’t want to be restricted, I don’t want to be limited. But don’t think about it in a negative way.
Think about it as restricting or limiting your focus to you know, one thing at a time. So constraint of focus is very important. And they’re similar. But it’s almost like taking your focus and really fine tuning it, it’s like, you know, that laser that I’m talking about earlier, instead of being a light bulb, be the laser constraint helps you to do this.
So we don’t want to scatter our focus all over the place, we want it to be very laser like and so constrained is how we do this. So one thing to understand is that people make a big deal about their ability to multitask.
And I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but multitasking is really not something we do well. It’s just as nice as it would be to be able to do two things at once. Lots and lots of studies have shown that the human brain simply isn’t capable of paying full attention to more than one thing at a time.
In fact, our brain has evolved to be really good at single tasking, to only be able to think about or do one thing at a time. So when somebody says they’re multitasking, that’s just somebody who is scattered. They’re trying to justify it. Oh, I’m just, I’m a multitasker. It’s like, no, you’re just not focused. You lack focus and constraint. Okay.
So multitasking is not real, we want to focus on one thing at a time. And let’s, you know, see what this would look like. So if you want to achieve health and fitness goals, you know, and like I said, these things take time, you want to lose weight, it’s going to take time, you want to become a runner, and just be able to run a half marathon or marathon or a 5k, whatever this takes time.
It’s really hard to get out there and just like run and accomplish something big from a running perspective. Or lifting weights at the gym, you know, you want to build some muscle you want to, you know, get more toned, that is not something that you’re going to see right away, you can’t go to the gym three times and be toned, like it takes a while months of hard work to get to that place. Right. And so we don’t see results for a while.
So we need to stay focused. And we need to practice constraint. So here’s an example of someone who’s trying to lose weight, let’s say you’re, you want to lose weight. And you are really motivated to lose weight.
And so you are going to do everything all at once you’re going to cut calories, and give up sugar, and start intermittent fasting and cut out snacking. And you’re going to start logging all your food and tracking your food and an app and counting your macros and skipping breakfast and doing all your workouts fasted.
And I will tell you that this approach can feel way too overwhelming. It’s just too much to change all at once. And you are very likely to fail and or quit. And a quick story of one of my clients who was very motivated early on in the process. And he came to me and on our first call, he had said okay, I’ve made all these changes.
And he literally was doing everything I just said. And he was like I’m super motivated. I’m doing all these things. And I said listen, I really don’t recommend that because you’re going to kind of feel overwhelmed and you’re probably not going to be able to sustain this very long.
But he was determined that it was fine that he could do it all. And so I said okay, let’s see how it goes. And two weeks later, he was like I can’t do this. He could not maintain that type of lifestyle, you know, all those changes at once was way too much for him.
So I said, Okay, let’s just start over. Let’s start over. Okay. But I don’t know about you, I have done this before, too, because I get this, like, you know, what do they call it shiny object syndrome, where I’m like, oh, this is cool. Oh, look at this cool thing over here. Let’s try that too. Oh, that looks fun. I saw that on Instagram. Oh, let’s try that.
So when we have shiny object syndrome, and we try all these different things at once, that all sounds great, but it’s too much. It’s too much. And it’s really hard to maintain that, especially when it comes to, you know, lifestyle changes, like from a nutrition and exercise standpoint, okay.
So constraint means focusing on one thing at a time. So for this particular person, and for you, and for others, I would say, let’s just start with one thing, like, let’s give up sugar, let’s just give that a couple of weeks, see how you feel, get over the withdrawal symptoms, which are real, by the way, once you feel good about where you are, and you’ve gotten over that initial withdrawal from sugar, and you’re starting to feel better, let’s go on to step two. Let’s try something else. Right.
And this is my strategy with clients. It’s always a layered approach, we make one or two small changes, we wait a couple of weeks, we see how things are working or not working. And then we can layer on the next change. This is my, I call this like my layered approach, right?
We’re layering on different changes, making sure that your body and your mind adjust to these things, and give you enough time to adjust to these things. So that then when we move on to the next thing, it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. You’re like, oh, I already got this one thing, let’s, let’s go on to step number two.
So this practice is very effective. It gives you the ability to get used to one small change at a time, this is how you change habits. Right? You cannot change habits by changing everything at once. You have to do these one step at a time.
So this is where constraint is very important, right? This practice is effective because it gives you feedback. And so you know exactly what’s working. What isn’t? Because you’ve only changed the one thing, if you change 10 things, how do you know which one of these things is making you feel terrible, you just don’t know?
Alright, so we change one thing at a time. And then this practice is also sustainable, because we are constraining our changes to one thing at a time. You get used to each stage to each change before we move on to the next stage before we move on to the next change. And so building habits this way is very powerful, very effective.
Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about how to get started with this. How do you get started with practicing constraint and focus? And I want you to start with that vision for your future self. So who are you becoming? Where do you want to be in 6 to 12 months? What goals do you have for yourself?
Do you want to lose weight, improve your strength, you want to get faster, maybe you want to qualify for Boston or run that ultra marathon. Maybe you’re just someone who’s like, I just need to fix my dysfunctional relationship with food. Whatever it is, be very clear and focused on who you want to be. And then write it down.
And then spend at least five minutes a day thinking about this future version of yourself every single day, spend some time writing about it, journaling about it, reading those journal entries, recording a voice memos, talking to somebody else about your goals and your dreams for your future for yourself who you want to become.
Everything that you want for yourself, every accomplishment that you want to achieve starts in your mind. It starts with thinking about who you want to be, and what you want that end result to be, what is the outcome you’re looking for. And the more focused and the more clear that vision of your future self is, the more likely you are to achieve that.
So spend time every single day thinking about who you want to be, you have to have this very clear vision of who you want to be if you want to get there, right? If you don’t have focus around your goals and the vision for your future self you’re just going to fail. So don’t skip this step. Consistent focus on your future self will help you stay motivated. It will help you keep your head in the game and keep you making progress towards those goals.
Keep reminding yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. People who don’t do this, they will be motivated at the beginning of the process. You know, we all get motivated when we make a change. Oh I’m gonna lose weight. I’m gonna change my diet. I’m gonna stop eating sugar and they feel motivated at the beginning.
But over time, that motivation will fade and then they will think that they are just a failure, that they can’t do this, that it will never work for them. That is not true. The actual truth is they just lost their focus. That’s it. Clarity of purpose, that’s the key.
Keep reminding yourself of this purpose, keep reminding yourself why this is important to you, and you will stay motivated. And you will be much more consistent in your actions. And you’ll keep moving toward that vision of yourself for the future. Okay, so start with that vision of who you want to become. And then you have to practice constraint.
And this is the thing that is hard for most people, because I’m going to tell you, just pick one thing to change. You know, pick an area of your life, whether it’s, you know, running, getting faster, improving your endurance, whether it’s losing weight, or getting stronger, pick one area, and then pick one, you know, behavior that you want to change one action that you want to change, don’t get sucked into the shiny object syndrome, where you want to try to change everything at once.
Just choose one area, and then one action item that you can do and give it a couple of weeks, you know, like giving up sugar. Give that a couple of weeks and see how it’s going for you. What are the results? Is this working, or not? Is this terrible? Do I still feel terrible? Or am I feeling better now?
Okay, but don’t be tempted to keep changing things every single day. Don’t do everything at once, make one small change, and then make sure that you’ve adapted to that change before layering on the next thing. And then it’s just a matter of rinsing and repeating this process, because over time, you will find that changing habits is much easier if you practice constraint instead of trying to do it all at once.
And then the third part of this is to have a plan. Being focused means that you have a plan. And of course, you got to stick to the plan. But people who lack focus, people who are scattered, they don’t have a plan.
Their plan is to just wing it with everything that they do. And how does that work for you? That doesn’t work very good. I’m gonna tell you, it might work in the moment, and sometimes we do have to wing it. And that’s just because, you know, maybe something happened externally. And your plan has to change because of outside circumstances that you have no control over.
And that is completely fine. But winging it is not a plan, okay. So I always tell my clients that the key to accomplishing everything that they want is to have a plan, right and stick to the plan. That’s the important part, right? You got to have a plan, but then you got to stick to the plan, right?
Being focused and practicing constraint. This gives you the ability to stay on track. And it helps you to continue to make minor changes, tweaking the plan if necessary. But when you’re focused and you’re practicing constraint, it means you are working a plan very intentionally, not haphazardly.
Like you’re, you’re doing everything with intention. With direction you have a laser-like focus on what you’re doing. And then what the next thing is, what’s that next step that’s going to move you closer to your goals. Without focus, you don’t have any idea what the next step is, with focus.
And with constraint, you know exactly what the next step is, because you’ve planned it in advance, and then you do it because you’re not distracted by a million other things. So make a plan. And stick to the plan. This is simple, but it requires you to be focused and it requires constraint, okay.
Remember to continue focusing on your future self always. And anytime you feel like you’re stuck, or you’re lacking motivation, you don’t feel like going to the gym, you don’t feel like running, whatever it is, remember why you’re doing this, go back to that future version of yourself, spend some time in that place. And then the other thing should fall into place for you here.
And then lastly, be careful where you put your focus. So if you focus on the negative on the things that are not working for you, you’re going to feel terrible, you’re going to feel less motivated, and you’re probably going to quit. So if you focus on your failures, you’re destined to repeat them and continue to fail.
If you focus on how long it’s taking, or I can’t do this or I’m a failure or this is too hard. It will continue to be hard, it will continue. You will continue not to be able to do it and you will continue to fail, right. If you keep focusing on the negative, you’re going to feel more and more negative and keep getting more negative results.
You always get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you want. Have you ever noticed that negative people always seem to attract more and more negativity into their lives? Have you ever noticed that positive people seem to attract more and more positivity into their lives?
It all has to do with where they put their focus, you get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you really want. And I love this quote from Bruce Lee that says, “The successful warrior is the average man or woman with laser-like focus.”
So be the successful warrior. Maintain laser-like focus on your goals and your dreams, and you’ll experience success like never before.
And then lastly, have you ever thought about doing something hard and then just decided I can’t do that? I’ve done this many times. I’ve told myself, I can’t lose weight. I can’t run a marathon. I can’t finish an Ironman. And the problem with thoughts like I can’t is that that thought becomes the truth for you.
Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” And I love this quote so much because it sums up this whole principle beautifully. It means that whatever you believe you can or can’t do will be true for you.
So thoughts like ‘I can’t’, they don’t serve any purpose other than to keep you stuck and limit your potential. By the way, I stopped saying I can’t a long time ago. Since then, I’ve been able to lose weight. Keep the weight off for good. I’ve run like 20 marathons, I finished the Ironman Triathlon.
Stop saying I can’t and start saying I can and see what amazing things you’ll be able to accomplish. Let’s you and I work together to see what you can do. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re anything like most runners, especially if you live in the US, this is most likely the off-season for you. You’ve completed your Spring races and you’re not quite into the next training …
Continue Reading about 182. A Better Approach to the Off-Season →
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 182 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today a better approach to the offseason. If you’re anything like most runners, especially if you live here in the US, this is most likely the offseason for you.
So you’ve completed your spring races, and you’re not quite into the next training cycle yet. Most runners that I know of anyway, approach this offseason as a time to live it up, eat and drink whatever, slack off on your training and just have fun.
This is always my approach to the offseason, I figured I would you know get back on track as soon as training started up yet. The problem is that I ended up gaining weight feeling like crap. And then when training started again, I had to like make up all this ground, right?
So in this episode, I’m gonna offer a better approach to the offseason, one that will have you feeling your best when you start training for that next big race. Cool. All right, but first, when runners come to me, for help losing weight, they often experience some pretty amazing transformations.
They stop burning sugar, they start burning stored body fat, they start losing weight like they’ve never been able to do before. Their endurance improves, they become long distance running machines, they get faster, they’re able to run at higher intensities for much longer.
But one of the most unexpected transformations they experienced is that running becomes fun again. Since they’re not carrying around so much weight, running becomes easier. Gone are the days when running is a constant struggle, running actually becomes fun again. Can you even remember the last time you thought running was fun? I bet it’s been a while.
And if so, that’s okay, you can get back to that feeling anytime that you want, you just have to start doing things differently. If you’re ready to make running fun, again, join The Coaching Project.
This is my lifetime access weight loss coaching program for runners, you’ll get all the knowledge, support, guidance, and accountability you need to crush your weight loss and your running goals. To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/join.
Okay, let’s talk about this, a better approach to the offseason. So the way most runners approach the offseason looks like this, eat whatever you want, all the junk food all the time, no training structure. So you know, there may not be running consistently, they may not be sticking to any kind of a running schedule.
There’s no resistance training structure or schedule there, they probably just don’t do that at all. So no hitting the gym regularly. They’re on vacation, they’re drinking more. They’re eating just kind of whatever, lots of junk food, lots of sugar.
And I don’t know about you, but this is the way that I used to approach the offseason. This was my life for years and years, okay. When our Fall or Spring races were done, I would just go into, basically, hey, I’m off, I’m not training.
And so I would just kind of slack off on everything, skip the resistance training, don’t go to the gym, no structured runs, and then eat whatever, especially during the summertime, you know. This is the time where we’ve got the pool and the cookouts and the beer and the wine and the desserts and vacation and margaritas everywhere, right?
It’s a time where most people just kind of do whatever. So the effects of this though there’s a problem with this, right? Because this approach is not going to be sustainable. This isn’t something you can’t do all the time.
In fact, I’m going to argue that it’s not something you should ever really do. You don’t really want to ever get into this place where you just toss everything out the window, and then hopefully, you know, start it back up again. Right? What happens when you take this “toss it out the window” approach is that you end up losing fitness.
You know, you’re not going to be as strong if you’re not maintaining some sort of a resistance training routine. You’re going to lose endurance if you’re not running consistently. Most likely you’re going to gain weight if you’re just eating a bunch of junk food and drinking a lot more than you’re used to.
Your mindset also just kind of goes out the window, because you get into this mindset of like, I can just do whatever I want. And so you lack discipline. And all of this kind of just leads to a general feeling of like getting out of shape, you know, and feeling like you’re starting, if and when you do start up your next training cycle you got, you’re coming from this big deficit, like, you’re just got to, you kind of got to start over again, maybe you gain 10 or 12 pounds, and you got to lose the weight.
And then, you know, you’re probably not going to lose all that weight in the beginning of this training cycle. And this is always my experience, I would gain 10 or 12 pounds, I might lose a few of those, but then I would, you know, have netted a gain of three or four, eight pounds or whatever, every year, I did the same thing just over and over again.
And not only is it not healthy, but it’s like a terrible way to start your training cycle. When you’re getting ready to train for your next marathon or triathlon or ultra marathon, whatever it is, if you just keep doing this big cycle of like eating a bunch of junk food and gaining a bunch of weight and then trying to lose it again, it’s just not it’s not healthy for you, it’s much healthier to just maintain your weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
So I just want to kind of address this whole situation here where I think there’s a mindset that a lot of runners get into, which is “it’s the offseason I can do whatever I want.” And I want to argue that that is not a very good approach. Okay. It becomes this crazy roller coaster of like, Oh, I’m working out, oh no, I’m not working out, oh, I’m running, no, I’m not running, or I’m eating right now I’m not eating right.
And, you know, that can really mess with your mind and mess with good habits maybe that you’ve worked to establish. You know, you go from being like super committed and dedicated and disciplined to just throwing everything out the window. Like that is not how you want to approach any of this stuff.
Because one thing I have learned working with hundreds of runners on this stuff is that if you just stay consistent, this is so much easier than doing this whole roller coaster up and down thing, you know, where it’s like an all or nothing sort of mentality, way, way easier to just stay consistent with all of this stuff. Okay.
But like I said, this is how I did it for years. You know, I gained weight every offseason, I tried to run it off and you know, marathon training kicked in again, or triathlon training or whatever it was. And that never really worked. I always, you know, consistently just gained weight every single year and felt like crap.
And so when you start your training cycle, feeling like crap, like this is just not a good way to approach your training. Okay, remember, you’re an athlete, right? If you run, if you do any kind of consistent, working out training races, whatever, consider yourself and an athlete because you are one.
So just start acting like that, you know, elite athletes, they don’t approach their offseason in this way. They don’t totally go off the rails, you know, they stick to the plan for the most part. And I’m gonna talk about that too. Like, you can vary your plan a little bit, you’re gonna go on vacation, you’re probably going to have a margarita or two here and there. And that stuff is okay.
But we’ve got to do this in a more mindful, more, intentional way, as opposed to just like, just throwing the rulebook out the window and just going crazy, because it’s the offseason. Okay. So I’m gonna give you a few pointers here to make the offseason more fruitful for you.
And it’s just a better approach to the offseason and the offseason can be a month or two, sometimes it’s three months, depends on what you’re training for whatever but just know that there’s a period of time here where you know, you’re not going to be in that heat of the your training cycle. And so you will have to do things a little bit differently.
So let’s kind of go through this. The first thing I want you to do, before you even get into the offseason. We’re probably already there into the thick of it right now, but just set an intention, like how do you want to handle this offseason? What do you want this to look like for you?
Do you want to go crazy and go off the rails? Then be my guest. Totally fine. You’re probably going to regret it, but it’s totally up to you. Okay. What I want you to think about is who do you want to be at the end of this offseason when the training starts up again? Who do you want to be?
How do you want to show up for yourself? Do you want to feel good and energized and feel like you’ve made some progress? In maybe some of your habits, or in your diet or your weight? Or do you want to just maybe gain a bunch of weight and get a little bit ,you know, weak and dopey because that’s up to you, you get to decide that.
Do you want to maintain your weight, lose weight, gain weight, just make that decision ahead of time, and then just act accordingly. Right, so you get to do this any way that you want. My suggestion is that you at least try to just maintain where you are, which is fine. If you want to continue to lose weight, that’s great.
But during the offseason, if you want to just maintain where you are, I think that’s great. But decide ahead of time, don’t fool yourself, don’t think, oh, I’m just going to lose a bunch of weight when the off-season comes and then you’re acting like, you know, you’re just eating whatever and drinking all the time.
Because that’s going totally against what you really want for yourself, right? That behavior doesn’t coincide, it doesn’t really line up with your intention, right. So if you have an intention of wanting to maintain weight, then act accordingly.
If you have an intention of wanting to lose weight and act accordingly, if you have an intention of wanting to gain weight, you get to act accordingly. Okay, but set that intention. That’s step number one.
The second thing I want to encourage you to do is to maintain some sort of structure, that means that you’ve got to have a structured workout program, structured runs, structured diet, this does not mean that you can’t have fun and indulge a little bit you should do that.
You know, you go on vacation, you should have a drink, you should have a beer, you should have that Margarita while you’re sitting on the beach. I think that is amazing. I think that is, you know, how we enjoy our life sometimes.
And it’s okay to do that. And every now and then you gotta do it in a way that fits your long term goals, though. So you have to have a plan, you have to have a plan for when you’re going to work out for when you’re going to run for what you’re going to be eating or not eating.
You can’t just wing it, you can’t just expect that somehow you’re going to, you know, come out of this thing on the other side of the offseason, you’re going to feel amazing and lose a bunch of weight if you have no intention and no structure around any of this stuff. Right. So structure means here’s the days I’m running, here are the days I’m lifting weights, here are the days I’m doing my cross training or whatever. Here’s what my diet is going to look like. Create that structure for yourself.
It does not mean you have to be, you know, 100% perfect with it. But have some structure. Go into this with a plan. Don’t just wing it. Winging it never works, it doesn’t work. So make sure that you have some sort of structure, make sure that you have a plan for yourself, whatever that looks like.
Like for me right now I’m kind of focusing on strength and working out. I’m at the gym five days a week. I’m running three days a week. I’ve got speed work that I’m doing. I’ve got this all planned out. It’s all written down. I know what I’m eating right now. My diet looks a little bit different right now than it did a month ago when I was training for my ultra marathon.
So I’ve got all this kind of figured out and I don’t just wing it, right that winging it doesn’t work doesn’t work for me. Anyway, I like having that structure. Okay.
Next tip is to stick to the food plan. That’s it, like you got to stick to your food plan. First of all, you have to have a food plan. And then you got to stick to it. Right? Yes, you can deviate here and there, but no more than usual.
You know, I’ve talked about the 90/10 rule. 90/10 rule that is like, nobody’s going to stick to their food plan 100% of the time you’re going to, you know, have a piece of chocolate or eat a doughnut or whatever you’re going to do have a beer, do that stuff. 90% of the time, though, stick to your food plan that 10% which works out to be maybe like one meal a week that can be a little bit off the plan. But you got to plan those things.
You can’t just do it in the moment. Like you have to do these things intentionally and purposefully. Okay, enjoy your vacation, but do it mindfully. This is not an excuse to just go crazy with food. So have a food plan and then stick to the food plan.
This is a great time to work on your diet, the offseason, especially if you’re interested in getting fat adapted because it takes a few weeks to transition, you know from being mostly a carb burner to being mostly a fat burner. And that process of that fat adaptation process can be a little bit uncomfortable.
So your running performance might dip a little bit. It’ll come back but you know, there’s a few weeks there where running might dip a little bit. This is a perfect time to change your diet and focus on that area of improvement. Okay?
You don’t want to be doing this in the thick of a training cycle. So let’s say you got three weeks to go before your marathon or whatever, that is not the time to change your diet, do not do that. Okay?
But think about how amazing you’ll feel when your training kicks in again, in a month or two, and you’re fat adapted and running feels easier, and you’ve lost some weight and you’re lighter, like, and maybe you’ve stuck with some strength training too, and you’ve got a little bit stronger.
So normally lighter, but you’re stronger, like running is going to feel amazing, okay? So just make sure that you have a plan and then stick to that food plan during the offseason, right, this is not the time to go crazy and go off the rails, you’re going to pay for that, you know, you’re gonna see the weight gain, you’re gonna feel terrible.
And if you’re somebody that already is fat adapted, maintain that fat adapted status. Don’t go so crazy that you get out of that fat adapted state, you know, that would require and I’ve seen some people that have done this before, but it’s going to require you to kind of start the process over a little bit, it takes a very short amount of time to get back into it once you’ve been fat adapted for a while.
But to get out of it is means that you’ve just been really indulging in a lot of sugar essentially. So we got to like, keep that out of the picture, right? Just keep the sugar low. Don’t be tempted to go crazy with the sugar during this offseason. Okay, stay fat adapted, it’s much easier to just stay fat adapted than it is to keep going like back and forth with this whole thing. Okay.
Next suggestion here is to focus on an area of weakness or an area that needs improvement. So that’s why like food is a big one for most people. It’s a time where they can clean up their diet and get fat adapted and get off to sugar and all that. So if that’s the area of weakness for you, this is the time to focus on that area.
It could be where you just haven’t been working on your strength training very consistently. And so this is the time for you to get into a resistance training routine. Right? Maybe your speed work has been put on hold.
I know that was kind of the case for me over the last six or eight weeks prior to my ultra marathon I did recently, I kind of put the speed work on hold, I really focused on the long slow running for the majority of that, like a third part of my training cycle for my ultra. And so right now I’m back into regular speed work again. Okay?
This is a great time to pick an area of weakness or an area that you’ve wanted to work on in wanting to improve and focus on that. Okay, so it could be one of those things where maybe you want to focus on more flexibility, or mobility work, then do that, now’s the time to focus on that. So it also helps you to kind of stay in the game. You know, and this is all good for your mindset as well.
All these things I’m talking about here will keep your mind focused and keep you in that mode of like I’m an athlete, I’m acting like an athlete, I’m still kind of in training even though I’m in between training cycles right now. Like you’re still at this place where this stuff still does matter to you, your health, your fitness still matters to you, right.
And then my last suggestion is to use this time to start creating better habits, you know, because changing habits takes time, it takes commitment, it takes focus, it takes some discipline. And you’re gonna have a lot more time and commitment and discipline during the offseason season than you would like during the middle of your training for a big race that you have coming up. Okay.
So if you want to develop some better habits, especially around food or resistance training, maybe it’s something like you want to sleep better, like you want to establish a better sleep pattern, better sleep routine, this is the time to start working on it.
It could be where you want to focus more on cross training. So you want to do more regular cycling or swimming or yoga or maybe some of that flexibility work that I talked about. It could be just other personal growth stuff like reading every day, some meditation like establishing a good morning routine.
This is key if you want to, you know start your day on a positive mindset every single day get into a good morning routine. What does that look like for you? I don’t know. It’s different for everybody. Maybe you want to spend more time having fun playing with your kids.
I just had such a blast last Friday, took the second half of the day off and my girlfriend and I went up to run to the little Miami River and we did a little kayaking down the river. And when I say kayaking, I mean we sat in our kayaks and just floated down the river for like two hours, it was so nice as beautiful day.
There was nobody else out there. And because it was like a Friday, you know, and it was so just lovely to be out in nature and to just like kick back and have nothing to do and just have fun for a couple of hours off, so nice.
But just doing things like that, this is a great time to get out into nature, walk more, I’m actually spending a lot of time rucking right now. So I’ve got a good rucking backpack with the 25 pound ruck weight that I haul around.
And I’m up to a couple miles at a time, some hilly miles where I’m just rocking right now. And I’m having a lot of fun doing that. It’s a totally different kind of workout than running. But then when I take that thing off, and I go for a run, I’m like, oh man, I feel so light, this feels so amazing right now.
So any kind of habits that you want to work on, now is the time to start building those habits, right? This is why I talk a lot about using this time to change your habits around food. Because this is like the time where you gotta like, do something consistently for a period of time in order to make these, you know, different eating habits stick.
You know, this isn’t about short term, like quick fixes. It’s about like long term lifestyle changes, you know, and that just takes time to get there. And if you think you’re going to do it in the middle of, you know, training for your race, a marathon or ultra, it’s not going to happen, it’s not the time to change your diet. Okay, right now is a great time to change your diet.
Okay, so approach the offseason with intention with mindfulness with some structure with a plan and a little bit of discipline too, you know, you can still have fun, right? And you’re going to come out the other side of this feeling amazing and feeling good about yourself, you know, set that intention.
Where do you want to be in three weeks or six weeks or a month or whatever it is, this is such a better way to do it, then the way that at least I used to do it, which is feeling like crap about myself.
And having gained like 10 or 12 pounds, right. And then remember, we still want to have fun. This is, you know, summer for us here in the US and we want to enjoy time at the pool. We want to enjoy that margarita on the beach, you can do that. Just do it with intention and with purpose.
You don’t want to undo all the good work that you’ve done up to this point, you know, just because it’s the offseason. So maintain some structure, maintain some good habits, focus on some areas of improvement and come out the end of this offseason feeling amazing with yourself.
You know, having had your own back, having like set good intentions and then, like kept those promises that you made to yourself, you’re gonna feel so much better than doing it the other way. I promise you, cool.
All right, are you ready to learn what it takes to get leaner and stronger and run faster and longer than you ever imagined? If so, then I have just the thing for you. Check out my all new free training called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
It is a comprehensive hour-long training that will teach you how to lose weight and keep it off for good without running an extra million miles per week. It takes everything that I’ve been teaching on this podcast for the last three years and distills it all down into a training program that will teach you what you need to know to get started on your weight loss journey the right way.
And of course, it’s all designed with you the runner in mind, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to get started. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
Today I have a special treat for you, I’m sharing a candid conversation I recently had with Pete Caigan. Pete is one of my clients who has had a pretty remarkable transformation over the last 6 …
Continue Reading about 181. Ultramarathon Redemption with Pete Caigan →
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 181 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today: Ultramarathon Redemption with Pete Caigan. So today I have a special treat for you.
I’m sharing a candid conversation I recently had with Pete Caigan, Pete is one of my clients who’s had a pretty remarkable transformation over the last six months or so. Before finding me Pete was training for an ultra marathon and found himself gaining quite a bit of weight, and ended up getting a DNF.
So he did not finish his first 50k attempt and was determined to try again and succeed. So he’s going to share his story of changing his diet, getting fat adapted, and the things he struggled with along the way, losing weight and then attempting that same 50k again.
I hope you enjoy this episode of Ultramarathon Redemption with Pete Caigan. His story is truly inspiring. But first, if you’re ready to learn what it takes to get leaner and stronger, run faster and longer than you ever imagined, then I have just the thing for you.
Check out my all new free training called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. This comprehensive training will teach you how to lose weight and keep it off for good without running an extra million miles per week.
It takes everything I’ve been teaching on this podcast for the last three years or so and distills it down into an hour long training program to teach you everything you need to know to get started on your weight loss journey the right way, and it’s all designed with you the runner in mind, just go to runningleancoaching.com click on free training to get started.
Okay, let’s just get into it. Without further ado, please enjoy my recent conversation with Pete Caigan.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so today we’re having a conversation. Me and Pete. Pete Caigan has been working with me for a period of time now, and has experienced some pretty amazing stuff, some pretty amazing transformations. And I want to talk about that. So welcome, Pete.
Pete Caigan
Thank you. Good to be here, Patrick. Thank you for having me.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So give me an idea of, you know, what things were like for you before we started working together. So think back to that time. It’s been a while now. I guess it was back in probably October, September, October of last year. And you needed some help with some things and you had some goals. So just give me an idea, kind of a little bit of a snapshot of where you were at that time and what you were looking for some help with what your goals were at that time.
Pete Caigan
Sure. It was September of 2022. And I was feeling frustrated. I was 30 pounds more than I am now by running and slowing down to crawl. I had done a half marathon trail run in the fall of ‘21 and it went great. Started training the spring of ‘22 for 50k.
I took the advice of my cousin to eat a lot of carbs and load and just eat whatever you want and run a lot. And I did that and I gained about 20 pounds and attempted my 50k in the spring of 2022 got taken off the course at mile 10 by the sweepers. Mumbled and grumbled for a few months and then heard your podcast a bunch of times and decided to get in touch.
Patrick McGilvray
So that that experience of training for that first ultra marathon and eating all the what I’ll just call like “carbage”, right, all the junk food or whatever, will lead to 20 pounds of weight gain.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, I gained 20 pounds and slowed down. My endurance was really good. I was so slow and it was brutal. Everything was difficult.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and it’s crazy because we’re told, at least by traditional coaches and you know, this is you know, long standing principles, I guess, of running that you need all these carbs, but some of us are a little more sensitive than others to them and they have an adverse effect and even training for an ultra marathon isn’t going to undo kind of what your experience was of loading up on all those carbs and and you can’t outrun that bad diet.
Pete Caigan
As I said before, I was doing long runs over 20 miles. And so gaining weight, and you’re probably running 40 miles a week or that entire time gave me wings. It was very strange. I was going on and I was legitimately hungry. It wasn’t like, I felt hungry. It was signals, and I was listening.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And then you tempted this 50k. And you said around mile 10, you got taken off the course because you didn’t make a cut off?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, there was a cut off. And the sweepers came and the race director said, come on, get the bus. And I was like, no way. He’s like, well, you can keep going, but you’re not part of the race anymore if you want to keep going. And this is very bad country, Vermont. So I was, I think, wise and got on the bus. And I was really mad at the guy for like months. Like I was like telling all my friends and took me when whining finally hit me like maybe he was right. Like maybe I already got hurt, not made it. So that’s what I recommitted and called you.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so you were 30 pounds overweight at the time, or 30 pounds heavier than you are now. You were frustrated. Sounds like from not being able to finish this event that you train for, you’re probably frustrated that you gain all that weight in the process.
So give me an idea of what some of the goals were when you wanted to, you know, start working with me and like why you came to me and like what is it that you wanted out of that coaching experience? What did you need help with?
Pete Caigan
Well, I needed to get help, because I couldn’t figure it out. I was eating, I thought well, and I was working out a lot. So I wanted to initially lose 20 pounds and try to do the same race again. And finish. Be successful was my initial goal when I joined up with you.
Patrick McGilvray
So those are the big goals. To lose 20 pounds and then do this race and redeem yourself, you know, not be taken off the course or suggested to be taken off the course.
Pete Caigan
Yeah. Exactly.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, good. So you committed to those goals, we started kind of changing something. So what was that process like for you at the beginning? Like, what were some of the changes that that seemed to help you the most at the beginning, especially.
Pete Caigan
I think getting off grains, sugar, and seed oils was really the beginning. And start to be more conscious of what I was eating. So I started to journal food. And I started to eat in a window. You know, like I was doing 16 hours a day not eating, eight hours a day eating.
That is really the biggest change and really not easy. It was extremely difficult. For me it was about two weeks of discomfort, but it wasn’t miserable. I was just a little cranky, little hungry. I was very slow as a runner. I felt like I was carrying a bag of rocks. And
Patrick McGilvray
How many times a day were you eating before? Like how often during the day were you eating prior to this?
Pete Caigan
Oh, seven.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, just like constantly eating all the time.
Pete Caigan
Well, I usually would like wake up, have some coffee, hang out and have a bowl of oatmeal. Maybe wait an hour, go for a run, get back. You know, have a protein bar. Work a couple hours more.
Have lunch, pretty good lunch, maybe a salad, chicken, maybe some rice. Mid afternoon I’d be back at it with some more food, whatever nuts, bag of nuts, maybe more bars or something. And then before dinner I was snacking a bit on whatever, chips. It’s pretty healthy.
Like I was shopping at the health food store. I was eating good foods, but then dinner, it could be like anything. I mean, could be anything. It could be a bowl of pasta with, you know, fish or whatever. It was a lot of carbs. No window, you know, I was eating like 14 hours a day.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, so you’re describing what I’ve talked about in the past, which is that typical runner’s diet. Which is just eating all the time, because you’re hungry all the time, and you’re eating all the carbs all the time.
And when you’re eating all the carbs all the time, that makes you more hungry. So you just got to keep eating the carbs so you can keep satisfying that hunger but the satisfaction never comes. And you end up doing a couple things.
Number one, a lot of that energy that you’re taking in, a lot of the food that you’re taking in, gets converted to fat stores and you, you recognize that from gaining 20 pounds during this process.
The other thing is that you’re never feeling really satisfied, you’re always hungry, you know, and the only thing that you’re your body, you’ve you’ve trained your body essentially to crave more carbs.
You know, the body will crave what you continue to give it, what you repeatedly do. And so when you repeatedly eat carbs, you’re just going to be craving more and more and more carbs. And that is a really kind of a downward spiral. It’s a cycle that you can’t get out of.
Pete Caigan
There for a little bit like when I was working out and I was working a lot. I was doing CrossFit three or four times a week, I was running four days a week, and I was stretching every day and my work is active.
So I was working out and feeling like when I did eat the carbs, I was like, okay, good. I’m good to go. And I’d have like an hour. I don’t know what it is, a sugar rush? But then the hunger would come quickly, you know, and I realized now, it wasn’t real hunger when it felt like hunger.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, it feels great eating that stuff. It feels amazing because it lights you up. You know it hits those dopamine receptors in your brain and produces serotonin and you know, all the good feeling hormones and things like that.
It’s very similar to the way drugs and alcohol light up our brains. You know, they’ve done all these studies on the poor little rats who you know, they make them take all this cocaine and sugar and things like that. And the rats kind of prefer the sugar to the cocaine because it just feels so amazing.
So even the rats will choose carbs over cocaine. It’s kind of funny. But yeah, so that that whole process is maybe, okay, for some people like what you just described there is the way a lot of people approach running, especially when doing ultras.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, my cousin who recommended it, he eats like that, and he came in third on the 50 miler on the same event. That he was like, wasn’t that great? I don’t know.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And I followed a bunch of ultra runners early in my running career. And, and they were doing the same thing. And I was like, well, I guess this is what I need to do. And I had the same experience you did Pete, where I just kept gaining weight until I was like 40 pounds overweight, and like what is happening here, you know, so that doesn’t work for everybody.
And if you’re somebody listening to this, and you’re like, yeah, that’s my experience too. Just know that you can change like, you don’t have to keep doing that. And being in that cycle, that frustrating cycle of like, eating all the carbs, being hungry all the time, getting fatter and fatter as you go, like, that’s not a good place to be. It’s not healthy.
It’s just not, you know. And so, you know, the solution is not to just, you know, never eat another grain or carb again in your life. That’s not what we’re talking about here. So, what did that sort of diet look like for you, you know, at the beginning at least, Pete?
Pete Caigan
Well, I would drink coffee. I started to use heavy cream in my coffee, which I always avoided because that was taboo. And I love the taste. So I could put a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream in my coffee in the morning and feel like good.
So that would usually be the morning combined with a fasted workout. And I was at first struggling with that, the fasted workouts, but within a couple of weeks, it was better, actually. Surprisingly even the lifting and Crossfit was better.
And then I would wait till noon generally to eat and what it would look like was a nice serving a protein could be like 12 ounces of fish, or chicken, usually fish or chicken with the big salad, no starchy vegetables, but a big salad with olive oil, salt and pepper. Very satisfying.
So I would do that and then at first I was really struggling getting from lunch to dinner, like to get from noon to six for me because I’m pretty active was hard. And I did that for a while but I was constantly like kind of freaking out.
So I added a protein shake mid afternoon, like a whey protein. And if I’m really hungry, I might eat some nuts but not a lot. And then dinner would generally be another big serving of protein and not salad more like cauliflower or broccoli.
I could use cheese. I was using a lot of coconut oil. I mean it’s still scary but not crazy amounts, a lot of coconut oil, a lot of olive oil, a lot of avocado oil. And, you know, it could even be a big serving of protein like I can eat a 16 ounce steak, which I love.
And I got into blue cheese which I have to be careful about but it’s, I love it so much. And it’s so satisfying. I kind of can’t eat anything after a blue cheese, it’s overwhelming. I’ll eat that. And then if I was really craving dessert type food, you know, I’d have some berries like blueberries on Greek yogurt, maybe with some stevia and cocoa powder, had the feeling of like ice cream, a very satisfying and good amount of protein. But often nothing like I don’t, the no sugar thing is much better. If I hit any fruit, it’ll be like berries, maybe an apple? Well, you really just got a big part of my diet.
Patrick McGilvray
Yes, so for you a couple of the changes. Just to kind of recap here, you went from eating seven times a day to eating, you know, two or three times a day, which is normal. That’s kind of what normal human eating patterns should look like. You know what I mean, we shouldn’t be eating seven times a day.
Because when you do that, you just train yourself that you are going to be hungry all the time, you know, especially if you’re eating a lot of carbs in those meals. So when you switch to eating a couple times a day, two, three times a day, your body will naturally switch to being hungry those two or three times a day, which becomes normal, and then it becomes very easy to only eat a couple times a day. So you made that change, which is great. It was a little bit of a struggle at the beginning, but you got used to it. You know? Do you enjoy eating that way today still?
Pete Caigan
The thing I love is the high fat high protein because I avoided fats like the plague for so many years. And it’s really some of my favorite foods. So I love that aspect of it. You know, now that I’m fat adapted, I do eat carbs sometimes and it’s not a big deal. I mean, I do notice like the day after. I have to clean up a little bit but I don’t if I eat carbs once a week if I have sweet potatoes or something. I’m generally I don’t want it the next day, like maybe I’m loaded up or something. So it’s not even that big a deal.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, we’re not talking about like, birthday cake every week or something like that. It’s just some sweet potatoes like it’s fine.
Pete Caigan
Honestly, the sweet sweet stuff, I have a bite sometimes it’s so overwhelming. I don’t really enjoy it at all. Like I used to get it really barely once in a blue moon, I ate a marshmallow recently, and I was like woah. I’m so sensitive now to the sugar. I didn’t realize how strong it is.
Patrick McGilvray
So you’ve shifted. That’s good. That’s a good time.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It’s like, it’s almost a relief.
Patrick McGilvray
Another big change was focusing on more protein.
Pete Caigan
Right? Well, yeah, I’ve been keeping track, I use an app on my phone, right? I don’t do it all the time. But entering my food during a journal shows me the protein I’m getting. And I’m trying to get almost a gram per pound of body weight. Because I’m so active. I’m training for another 50k.
Patrick McGilvray
I think that’s a good place to be.
Pete Caigan
The macros are significantly different. It’s like 60/30/10 usually fat to protein to carbs.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay. Yeah, like 60% fat, 30% protein, 10% carbs. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that’s different for everybody. But you know if that works for you, awesome. Yeah, so you focused on more protein, not eating all the time. And, you know, what were some of the results of that? Or like, how did you feel through the day? Did your hunger start to like, go down?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, after two weeks, it was way better. And then the hunger went down. But it wasn’t gone. I also learned a lot working with you and the group about hunger and like, whatever. It’s not the end of the world, you’re hungry. And usually it goes away in like 10 minutes. It’s not that big a deal.
So one of the things for me is my life really shifted in a lot of ways away from other than food and running, which is I got way more motivated on what I do. And I started working harder and sleeping less, which was a very unexpected side effect of all this, like I was sleeping a solid hour to two hours more than a night than I do now.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so you’re sleeping less but how’s the quality of sleep?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, I’m sleeping a lot less and my quality of sleep is better. So that was an interesting thing that I didn’t, uh, I wasn’t planning on which is great. I feel way more energy.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, good. Yeah, typically, people would say that they need more sleep or they sleep longer when they get off of the crazy foods, but you’re saying you’re sleeping less, but it’s a positive change. Right?
Pete Caigan
Well, I would say maybe at the beginning I was sleeping more but after I feel like I cleaned up and lost the weight and got off that food, I just I was sleeping eight to nine hours a night and now it’s been seven.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, gotcha. So probably more in line with the way you should be then. Okay. Yeah, that’s cool. That’s good. So what else was your experience during this process of like shifting your diet and what you’re eating, how often you’re eating, upping in the protein, all those things. What was, or was there anything that you really struggled with, you know, during that transition?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, there were some things I struggled with me, I was very moody. I had to not be a jerk to my mate, my wife. I definitely was cranky for a while. So that was hard. And then, like, I just had to deal with myself more, my emotions, and reality.
And the accountability with you and with the group just made me be like, no, I really want to lose a pound this week, like, I don’t want to gain this week. And I would have moments, usually at night in front of the fridge, where I’d have to be like, don’t do it! But there were moments, so the struggle was really like dealing with my emotions, like if I had a really stressful day, and like figuring out other ways to deal with it.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and for how long did that like cranky pants last?
Pete Caigan
Probably a month. I mean, it still happens occasionally. Like in the morning, if I’m waiting till noon to eat. But I’ve learned how to do it. Usually if I’m not, if I haven’t worked out, really, I find I could do a fasted workout and then feel great, it doesn’t happen. But if I end up like waking up, having some coffee and ending up at a desk for two or three hours, I’ll get like, like, edgy.
Patrick McGilvray
So yeah, that sounds like it’s probably from lack of exercise, because you didn’t get your endorphin rush that you’re used to in the morning.
Pete Caigan
Exactly.
Patrick McGilvray
But that crankiness at the beginning, whenever we get off of a really high carbohydrate diet. It is basically like withdrawal symptoms. It’s one of the symptoms of withdrawal from like a sugar addiction, you know. And it’s the same, you know, kind of shows up the same way that when you stop drinking alcohol or doing drugs or something like that. It can have the same sort of withdrawal effects, which is crazy to think about. That sugar has that kind of an effect on us.
Pete Caigan
Right? It’s so accepted that we eat tons of carbs all the time. Maybe that’s not how our bodies function best, but that’s how we were brought up. So you think you’re supposed to eat breakfast or you’re bad. Maybe you’re fine.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, that whole idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That’s just a marketing tactic. You know, that was made up by the cereal companies like Kellogg’s or someone made that up.
Pete Caigan
You can still have breakfast, but have breakfast at 11. Like it’s okay. Your first meal can be your bacon and eggs.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, eat some protein at that first meal for sure. Okay, so you went through this process, you got fat adapted, which just means that you, you know, we’re running without the need for all the carbs without the need for a bunch of fuel. And you trained yourself to use your stored body fat as fuel. And I’m guessing through this process, you started losing weight as well. Right?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, started to come off by two pounds a week at the beginning.
Patrick McGilvray
Nice.
Pete Caigain
A lot at the beginning. Yeah, I started to lose significant weight. And that’s always really great to see what the first person notices and your clothes fit. That’s a big moment.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. That’s motivating and it keeps you going because you’re seeing progress. I mean, you can literally see the progress happening. And it keeps you in the game.
Pete Caigan
In like 5 weeks I lost like 10 pounds or something. And the first person was like wow Pete, and I was like thank you. And then yeah, I’d like to think I don’t have a big ego, but at first it really feels good. Clothes fit better, it’s starts to be like actually fun. Because once I got fat adapted it was not difficult.
For me, it was many ways a pleasure because I was eating the fat switch I stayed with the running and I started to get better quickly too. So you think now put on a 10 pound pack and go for a run. That’s enough to make a big difference.
That first 10 pounds and as I say now I feel like free back to running like bouncing. I run in the woods and just fly around. I’d forgotten that a little bit. Like I kind of had it in my memory. But it wasn’t. It’s been a few years since I felt that so now it’s back and it’s just it’s incredible.
Patrick McGilvray
Well you get used to it. You know you get used to being overweight, you get used to carrying around an extra 30 pounds or whatever. And until you lose the weight again, it’s like oh, now I see what I was carrying around and you know, I had that experience too some years ago, lost 40 pounds and it was literally like running just became so easy.
It was so much more enjoyable. Yeah.
Patrick McGilvray
And then you started training. So let’s talk about that a little bit. So you decided you’re going to conquer this 50k, the same one, same race. And but this time, there’s no way you’re gonna DNF. So talk about the training a little bit with that, like, what, what was that like for you?
Pete Caigan
Sure. All Fall, I was doing three runs a week, kind of short, medium long, but not as a structured plan, which is keeping my fitness up and losing weight. And then I started, I think an 18 week training cycle in maybe the beginning of February, that you helped me design. That was four to five days a week of running, and I was doing strength training two days a week, which often ended up once a week. But I was hitting it hard, like I was getting a lot of miles on the trail.
And where I live is in the mountains in upstate New York. So I was dealing with running snow and the ice and very cold temperatures. And I was getting up in the mountains, which means carrying a 15 pound pack and wearing spikes. So it was very challenging in February March, but I got the miles in and I didn’t miss many runs.
And I was losing weight. I wasn’t as late as I am now. But I was probably down 20 pounds at that point, and feeling good, you know, struggles. I had definitely had a lot of struggles through the 18 week training cycle, I had two injuries that weren’t really injuries, they were just pain, which was a good thing for me to understand, and notice that just because you’re hurt, doesn’t mean you’re injured. That’s a big difference that I didn’t quite understand fully until this training cycle.
One day I finished a 20 mile run, which included a lot of concrete running and running shoes, which I don’t do I mostly do trails. I woke up the next day and there was like a peak on the top of my first metatarsal. Like it looked like I broken my metatarsal. It hurt, couldn’t walk. So I was just like, oh, I’m so screwed. So I just did and I hobbled around for a few days. And then like after like five days, I got back to like jogging lightly, like it didn’t really hurt. And then by the next week I was back out.
Patrick McGilvray just the joys of running, you know.
Pete Caigan
So that was a good lesson. And then I played golf, like four weeks out from my event, and I hurt my neck. And I couldn’t move. And I was like, I’m so dumb. So that put me down for like, over a week of no running, when I was in my peak phase. And I was really scared at that point.
Like I blew it like I can’t believe I hurt myself at the end. But again, you helped me to see like, you know, you’ve banked a lot of fitness here. Like don’t sweat it like it’ll be okay. And then I got back they did one more long run after that I did. My race was 32 miles, I went out and did like a 25 mile run with maybe 4700 feet a gain, in the mountains, it was big deal. And I did and I was like alright, I got this.
So yeah, then the last few weeks just took it easy as I was supposed to which was a challenge into unto itself to taper. But yeah, that was the training cycle. It was challenging in many ways. It was hard to make the time on my long runs because I’m in the mountains. It could be like an eight hour day. So it was challenging to just be like alright, family I’m leaving. I’ll see you tonight.
Patrick McGilvray
How was this training different from your approach last year when you were going for the same event?
Pete Caigan
I didn’t do nearly as many miles or as many runs last year, I was doing three days a week, I would do like a short run or medium run and a long run. But my longest run last year was 21 before the race, before the 32 mile race. And my you know I had done a few like 15-18 days as well. But like really slow, like way more walking than I did this time.
Patrick McGilvray
So more volume and a few longer runs. Yes, more work overall for sure.
Pete Caigan
More miles for sure. And more frequency. Yeah.
Patrick McGilvray
That’s one of the biggest things for an event like that because you are going to be on your feet for so long. You gotta you got to make sure you are putting in the time like time on your feet, you know, and increasing the amount of running that you’re doing per week has to go up pretty high to get you there. So good. Good job with all that.
So the race comes and where were you at? Give us a snapshot of where you were like for the race itself, like from what was your kind of weight loss at that point? How much had you lost? You know, come race day.
Pete Caigan
I got to 30 pounds down.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay. Beautiful.
Pete Caigan
And, you know, for whatever it’s worth, if you care about body composition was like I was at 18% fat.
Patrick McGilvray
Awesome. Yeah, no, that’s great.
Pete Caigan
Do you want me to tell you about the event?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, just like, how was it for you?
Pete Caigan
It was brutal and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I totally had many, many times the week leading up to it where I thought maybe I was gonna chicken out.
Patrick McGilvray
Really? Okay.
Pete Caigan
I just had like weird thoughts. Like, maybe this isn’t for you, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Every ghost came up into my mind trying to get me to not do it. It was like the one side’s the angel the other side’s evil and like telling me not to do it.
But I was like, just go, keep going. I made the hotel reservation, the race is about three hours for me. So I got a hotel the night before, and the night of the race. So Friday, Saturday. I went and I did some research on the race director Luis Escobar? You could look him up. He’s one of the guys in Born to Run. The guy had been personally before.
Patrick McGilvray
Oh, yeah. Cool.
Pete Caigan
So I was like, oh, this guy’s like legitimate. Like come on. Pete like get over yourself. So I went the day before Friday to get my race bed and I hung out at the starting line was 100 mile distance was starting that night.
So I like spent like an hour there with him and all the other race directors and CO race directors are also well known. ultra runners so I like really spend time with them chatted Luis was like, man, it’s so great. You came back you have good, you’re gonna do great. So that was cool, because it gave me like a vibe of the race and it’s a Spartan Race, and it’s really friendly environment.
There were 300 participants. So I spent some time with the people picking up their badges and just trying to get into like the vibe of what was going on in its a gorgeous place. It’s the guy who started Spartan, I don’t know his name. It was his home, of course, and beautiful Vermont. So I really enjoyed that.
And I went home, I had packed all my food which was smart. Last year I’d gone out to a restaurant and gotten like, I don’t even know like a bowl of cheesy fries for dinner. It was horrible.
So I had like my two purple sweet potatoes and like a little chicken salad. At my dinner I had my race vest pack like before, which I highly recommend for anybody. So you’re not nervous in the morning packing. I woke up super early, race time was seven. I got up before, just like took my time, got my stuff together, got to the starting line by 6:00.
Everybody like it’s a really good camaraderie of these things. Spend time people are nervous talking, you know, people doing the 50 mile the 100 miler have been going down for 14 hours. So they’re still going and then went out. It was like in the front of the pack. Like I went too hot like but too hot. Really? Maybe in retrospect. So I kind of crushed the first 10 miles I did. I was really fast for me, which was also the reason is 6500 feet a gain 32 miles. So you know it’s a lot.
And a lot of it was bushwhacking, like difficult terrain where there’s puddles and mud and very little trail. But the first 10 miles was generally really nice, trails up and down, a couple more, got to the first checkpoint where I had been pulled off the year before. And the guys were like Pete, you’re doing great. You’re like, you know, you’re not at the back of the pack, so that was cool.
Miles 10 to mile 15 was up and over a huge mountain. Very difficult. Extremely difficult. But I did all this generally fasted. I only had about 200 calories an hour. You know, it was I had electrolytes. But I felt great. I felt fine. Up and down this big mountain who was cool. I was okay, but I was definitely not as fast.
And then there was a checkpoint it was like a party, like they had like barbecue and beer like music cranking, and I maybe made a mistake, and I had like two sips of beer. And I was like, This is bad. Don’t do it. And then they had it cut off. You had to get to mile 22 by 3pm, which was eight hours.
And at the beginning of the race. He stood up on a table he said does anyone disagree that if you’re not at mile 22 I’m taking you off the course? Nobody said anything, he shouted it so everyone understood. So now miles like 15 to 22 up and down many mountains.
At this point, it was little mountains, but up and down a few if something happened, I started to slow down significantly. But I did not stop. Like I didn’t stop and I sit down, I sat down once the whole race just to change my socks, like I was relentless for me.
Relentless forward progress zone for the majority of the time, which sounds crazy, but somehow my body held up. So anyway 15 to 22 miles I was slow, like things were falling apart a little bit, kept going, I got to 22 to seven and a half hours. And I’m like, pumping my chest. And now there’s a bus already filled with people who are calling it a day, even though they made the cut off the next.
The 22 or 32 is extremely difficult. 22 to 28 is extremely difficult. So a bunch of people quit and then like RIP, you’re done. Right? And you want to get on the bus. We’ll take you back. And I was like, no way, there’s zero chance of getting on your bus goodbye, and they were like alright.
So I took off. And now I’m going up and down three mountains, mile 22 to mile 29. Alone in the woods. The sweepers are behind me, but they’re not in sight. They’re back. And I just started to lose my mind. Like I was having a very, very hard time functioning.
My body was like leaning left, I kept on drifting left. I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, I’m gonna have a stroke, am I dying? Like, I didn’t really think that but I was hurting. And I didn’t know what was going on. But I just kept trudging forward going as fast as I could. And I got out into back to civilization, which is at mile 29 is the top of this mountain but there’s houses.
The last three miles is downhill. Three miles back to the starting line through country roads. And the checkpoint there. It was 6pm. And they say alright, well, Whoever didn’t get here by six, we’d have to take you down the hill. You got to get in the bus.
And I was like, I’m not getting in your bus. I don’t care what you do. I’m leaving goodbye. And they were like, really? I was like, really, goodbye. And I took off and I was holding myself up on my ribs because I couldn’t stand up straight. But I was okay. I was okay. And then I passed the guy’s house. He comes out of his house. He’s like, are you okay? Like you’re leaning all the way over?
I was like, I don’t know if I’m okay. I think I’m okay. And I sat down hung out with him. He was really cool. And older Vermont guy. And then the sweepers came by in a car and they’re like, go Pete. Okay, we’ll see you at the finish line. Right? I was like, yeah, I’m good. Like, yeah, go man go.
So I got down to the finish line. I was like, within 200 meters, I could see the finish line and straighten up and pull my head I’m talking my shirt like, act like I got my act together, went as fast as I could to the finish line got through and all those sweepers who were trying to get me off the course were cheering me on.
Good job, you made it. You made it, we love you! Giving me hugs, you’re the reason we do this. You’re so great. And I finished in 12 hours, and I got a DFL, I did not finish last. So there was a girl behind me, which was great. And so I accomplished my goal. I was so happy. It was like one of the great moments in my life. It was really, really cool.
Patrick McGilvray
That’s so awesome. And I love your determination of like, you know, nope, nothing you can do or say is gonna get me into that van at this point. Like I’ve trained for this. I’m ready for this. I’m doing it. What was the deal with you, like leaning to the left? What was that all about?
Pete Caigan
So Luis at the finish line personally came up to me, he’s like, I’m so happy you did this. I’m so happy you came back. You just show that like perseverance is I can work and use it was cool. And he said you got the leans, man. You got the leans, you gotta go take care of that. And I was like, what?
And I realized what had happened is that and I looked it up. And it’s a thing that can happen where your core fails. And you can’t keep your spine up, right. And it’s not entirely uncommon. So I realized it was going on and I just kind of took it easy. And I went to bed and I woke up I was fine, the next day, it was Mother’s Day. It was gone. I was totally fine. I was able to walk. it I wasn’t even that sore. But it’s called the leans I guess, in that community.
Patrick McGilvray
Shows you the power of like or the importance of strength training and core strengthening probably would help with that.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, I think so. It was definitely a weakness, maybe doing more that type of work would be helpful.
Patrick McGilvray
So what an amazing experience. I mean, super. I mean, it’s kind of life changing, right?
Pete Caigan
You know, it is and it completely translates to everything else. Because everything else that feels hard. I’m like, this isn’t that hard? It isn’t just running things, but things I’m talking about, like emotional things or work? You know, struggling to do the stuff I don’t want to do is not as big a struggle, because it’s like, oh, I freaking ran 32 miles.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you’ve proven to yourself that not only can you do hard things, but you can accomplish things that maybe you’re not even. Maybe you don’t even believe in yourself or you’re not even sure you can do it. But you can do it anyway.
Like, you can push yourself out of that comfort zone. And because you’re, you know, remember you were talking about how you were having some doubts in those weeks leading up to it and thinking about, you know, pulling out and things like that, but you didn’t do any of that you just kept moving forward, and you just stayed with the plan, and you trusted your training, and look what you did. It’s amazing.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, thank you. I mean, I do have such a long term goal to be so persistent and consistent with something and then see the results was a big lesson for me. Or, you know, sometimes it’s persistence over a long period of time that gets you somewhere, it’s not the two week effort could be the year of doing something, a lot of things, you know.
I will say thank you, Patrick, for your guidance. And you know, what you do is so valuable and like, I feel like I went to school, honestly, nutrition and fitness and in many ways, life. I had no idea you can eat like this or train like this, it’s gonna be like, it wasn’t something that I thought could be for me, people used to talk about being keto or low carb. Never seemed possible or appealing, just seemed like not normal. Now that I’ve been doing it. I see how, for me at least, it’s it’s a really good way to be.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah. And just for clarification, like everybody does this a little bit differently, you know, the way that Pete approached his nutrition and training was probably different from everybody else I work with.
So there’s no two people really doing this exactly the same, which is the way it should be, you know, there isn’t one plan, one diet, that’s going to work perfectly for everybody. I know, that’s what everybody wants you to believe out there. But it’s just not true.
So we got to figure out what works for us as individuals. And that’s a big part of what Pete and I did is kind of that figuring out process, you know, figuring out the right combination of foods and training and strength training and in the running to make these positive changes for you as an individual.
Pete Caigan
With me in terms of like, I’d be like, oh, I’m eating too many nuts, I’m going to again, and I’m going again, not losing weight. I mean, he’s not saying I can’t eat nuts, and you would often just be like, oh, you just eat less nuts. And that was so helpful for me. That was like one of those little tidbits to help me to realize that, you know, to do in my, what works for me, but maybe I don’t need to be so extreme.
Patrick McGilvray
So tell me where you are today with things. How’s everything going for you? How are you from like a nutrition standpoint? And from like a training standpoint?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, took the past month, I’ve been very light training. But I took a week off pretty much but not even off just not running a lot, or lifting a lot. And then the past three weeks, I’ve been running three times a week and lifting two to three times a week.
And actually, today was day one of the 13 week training cycle of doing another 50k.
Patrick McGilvray
Oh, heck yeah!
Pete Caigan
So I’m back in the game. I’m way ahead of where I was 13 weeks out from the last run. Now, that being said, I’m humble about this experience, I don’t expect this to be easy. And I have to do 20 mile uphill run on Sunday. So that’s no joke. So that’s good.
And the nutrition, I was a little lax after the race on the food for a couple of weeks. But I didn’t really gain weight. But now I’ve been eating really clean and on program for about 10 days, and I’m getting down to my lowest ever. Lowest weight ever for many, many years. And I’d like to get lower for this race I see, you know, even just five or 10 pounds less, thatwill make a big difference to be no faster. And I want to know I don’t expect to compete, but I’d like to be able to faster at this point. So that’s one of my goals for this.
Patrick McGilvray
Cool and how are you feeling about this next 50k having just completed this last one? Feeling a little bit different about this one?
Pete Caigan
You know, in my mind, I’m like, oh, this will be easier but it’s not easy. There’s nothing easy about this. So I do feel a little differently, but I’m also slightly reserved. Uh, in terms of letting myself feel like this is like a big deal, because it is a really big deal to do something like this again. Yeah, out there, in the woods all day.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you probably have more confidence. But you also know it’s still gonna be at some point you’re going to enter the pain cave out there, right? Because we all do.
Pete Caigan
This one has no time cut off, which is interesting. Oh yeah,
Pete Caigan
Oh yeah, interesting.
Pete Caigan
I’m excited. And it’s a lot different to train where I live in summer than in the winter. So I enjoy the heat. So I’m really actually, it’s good to be out there this summer where we live, which is blueberry, wild blueberries and you know, streams, you can drink water on them. It’s gorgeous.
Patrick McGilvray
Heck, yeah. That’s amazing. And then maintenance, like, how’s that for you feeling like, that’s pretty easy for you to do going forward? Like, this has become something that is more natural for you now?
Because I know, we talked about at the beginning of the process, especially with the change in diet, it was a little bit of a struggle, you know, there was a little bit of a transition period there where you’re like, you know, this is kind of hard. I’m a little hungry. I’m a little cranky, you know, um, uh, but now, like, how does all that feel for you?
Pete Caigan
I mean, it feels easy. Maintenance is a non-issue to get leaders challenging, because I’m kind of like anyone wants to be so, you know, when I get into like, eating, try to get leaner. It’s a little challenging. It’s okay, maintenance, though. Not hard, because I’m eating foods that I like. Intermittent fasting has gotten so easy.
Patrick McGilvray
That just feels normal to you now?
Pete Caigan
Yeah, I don’t want to eat after dinner or in the morning. I don’t want to be. So. Yeah. Okay. Make the window 14 hours just set to 16.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, one of the goals is that by this point of the process, this should all feel easy and effortless. It just should feel normal for you. Yeah.
Pete Caigan
I don’t have to talk about it with people anymore. I don’t have to make a big deal. And what to do. If I go to a restaurant, I can like whisper to waiters like keto. They know exactly what to do. You know, no low carb, no carbs. No problem. I don’t even talk about it with people anymore. I used to talk about whatever. You really care what I eat. Anyways, that was a big hard thing at first, which it isn’t now.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah. And then you mentioned something which is like, the maintenance is easy, once you get used to this, but then if you’re like, Okay, I want to, I want to lose a few pounds here, you know, I want to get down to a little bit lower weight, that’s easy to do, too. It just takes a little bit more discipline a little bit more, you got to be a little stricter about what you’re doing.
So sometimes I recommend to journal food again, you know, or track your macros again for a couple of weeks, you know, just to get you to the place where you’re like, okay, now I’m, you know, kind of recommitted. I know what I’m doing. And I can start to make some incremental changes here. Because it doesn’t take much to dial the weight down. You know, sometimes it’s just cutting back on the amount of food you’re eating, you know, and, you know, something as simple as that.
Pete Caigan
Yeah, it is a small margin between gaining and maintaining, small margin’s maintaining.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and it’s possible while you’re training, for an event like this, especially at the beginning of the training cycle, it’s a little bit easier to do. To lose weight, like you can, you can lose weight while you’re training for sure. I don’t recommend it as you’re getting into that last half of the training cycle, like the you know, as your race is approaching, you don’t want to be focused on losing weight, you just want to be like maintaining and focused on running and improving your performance and doing all the things you know and not be stressed out about trying to lose. But it’s possible, it’s possible to do that.
Pete Caigan
One other thing I want to say before we wrap up is it was a big step for me to take to decide to get in touch with Patrick to do the one on one initial consultation. You know, I somehow found the podcast I don’t know how. But I started listening to it a lot. I was like, I like this guy’s like my buddy like I felt simpatico with you.
But to like call somebody you don’t know to like do something over the internet was a big stretch for me and to think about spending money on it was a stretch and then I realized like investing in myself.
First of all, you eat less food so you’re gonna save money. But it was a big stretch to do it on this like kind of anonymous internet thing, but I can’t say like, how great it was of a decision for me to do it in the community is incredible.
I mean twice a week to have these group calls, which I still get on, at least one of them a week is very big, because these people who I’ve never met, are like my buddies, and we’re like working together on the same goals. And it seems a little weird that you’ve never met these people in person, but it really works. It works for me. So I highly recommend if you’re thinking about it, to have the faith that it can be real.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, it is a great group of people. And you’re right, I feel like you guys are kind of my family in a way, you know, because we do spend a lot of time together. And not only do I do all these one on one calls, where you and I spent a lot of time together over the last six months or so. But then we do the group calls where we all come together and, and can kind of share what’s going on share wins, you know, ask questions, and kind of…
Pete Caigan
They go through almost the same thing you go through. It’s like, we’re not all that different. Most of us and we each have our own issues, but there’s a lot of similarities. So to hear that someone else is struggling with something similar helps a lot, because then a lot of people have strategies that work out.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and I remember cracking up last week because somebody else shared a story of injuring themselves golfing right before their race, right. And I was like, and Pete, you were just like cracking up because you’re like, I did the same thing. And lesson here is like to stay away from golfing, you guys, okay? It’s a dangerous sport. It’s apparently very dangerous.
Pete Caigan
That’s serious.
Patrick McGilvray
Good stuff. Anything else you want to share? Pete, this has been awesome. Thank you for being here and sharing all this stuff with us.
Pete Caigan
Thank you for your work, Patrick, I know you’ve been working on this a long time. And you’re very thoughtful. And you put a lot of time into this. And, you know, just grateful for what you do. And it’s really what. So that’s all just gratitude towards you, and acknowledgement of all your hard work goes into this, as well.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, I’m just over here yammering on about stuff, you’re the one actually doing the work, you know, you showed up, you made a decision that you were going to conquer this 50k, you are going to lose the 30 pounds, you made that decision, which is really important.
And you said it was a little bit scary, because who is this guy, this random guy from the internet or whatever. But you made that decision. You committed to the process, you know, which was I’m going to change the way I’m doing things. Because what you were doing wasn’t working for you. It was, you were having the opposite effect. You were getting slower, you were gaining weight, you were feeling terrible. Like you needed to shift that you know, and that takes a commitment.
And that is scary. Because you’re getting into uncharted territory. When you do that, you know, you’re like, I don’t know if it was gonna work or not, you know, I don’t know what’s gonna happen here. But you committed to the process.
And anybody listening to this, if you just do that part right there, if you commit to the process, like I know, this is what I want for myself, here’s the goals that I have for myself. They’re very clear, very measurable goals. And then you commit to that process of change, I guarantee you can get there. As long as you don’t quit. The only way you can really fail kind of like with the 50k is if you just quit, you get on the van. But if you keep going, you’ll finish. Right.
Pete Caigan
So let’s keep going back every time you fall off, it’s like okay, well, I fell off. Well, we’re back on.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So you did the work. And I’m proud of you for showing up for yourself for making that commitment to yourself for making that decision that this is what you wanted for yourself. And then just doing it and like continually sticking with it.
Even though it was hard sometimes, even though it was a struggle sometimes. You didn’t give up. You kept going. And I can’t wait to hear about your next 50k. I want to I want to hear about how you crush your last time on that.
Pete Caigan
You know, yeah, I’ll keep you posted for sure.
Patrick McGilvray
All right. Well, thanks again, Pete for everything. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it.
Pete Caigan
Thank you, Patrick.
Patrick McGilvray
So a lot of runners who struggle to lose weight, wonder if coaching is a good fit for them. I’m going to be very honest about this. Coaching is a good fit for you. If you are willing to go all in on yourself.
You have to be willing to commit to the process of change. You have to be willing to get uncomfortable. You have to be willing to give it everything you’ve got.
The people in my program who do amazingly well are the ones who go all in on themselves. There are a few people who don’t do so well. And those are the people who kind of half ass it, right?
You cannot expect to accomplish anything of value in your life by half assing it, you just can’t. You have to full ass everything you do. So if you’re ready to commit to becoming the most badass version of yourself, then you’re ready for The Coaching Project.
That’s my lifetime access weight loss coaching program for runners. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. That’s all I got for you today, love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.
Recently, I completed a self-supported, solo 12-hour run. I’ve always wanted to do a 12-hour event, but I could never really find a race that spoke to me. So, I decided to take things into my …
Continue Reading about 180. What I Learned Running Solo for 12 Hours →
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 180 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today what I learned running solo for 12 hours. So recently, I completed a self supported solo 12 hour run.
I’ve always wanted to do a 12 hour event, but I could never really find a race that I got excited about and nothing really spoke to me. So I decided to take things into my own hands and just do it myself.
So in this episode, I’m going to share what I learned running solo for 12 hours. What prompted me to want to run alone for so long, how I approached my training, how I fueled during the event and some interesting lessons I learned along the way.
And if you’ve ever considered doing an ultra marathon, this episode is for you, I think you’ll learn a lot. Also, if you have no desire to ever do an ultra marathon, I think you’ll still get a lot out of this episode, because a lot of the training, and the fueling principles especially, apply to races that have many different distances. Cool.
But first, if you’re ready to begin your weight loss journey, then I have just the thing that gets you started on the right track, I put together a brand new hour long training just for you. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
I will teach you how to lose weight the right way and how to keep it off for good without running a million miles a week. Okay, some of the things that you’ll learn in this comprehensive training is why running more and eating less is not an effective way to lose weight and what to do instead.
One thing most runners don’t do or do wrong when they’re trying to lose weight, the best fuel to use to improve your endurance and lose weight, how to create the mindset shifts necessary to develop new habits that actually make all this last for life.
And then one thing that I did that was really the key for me being able to keep the weight off for good. And it’s something you should probably do too. And there’s a lot more in there. But those are some of the key points that you’ll learn.
So if you’re ready to get started, if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, run faster, longer become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself, check out this free training, just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. There’s never going to be a better time than right now to get started. So just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. Alright, cool.
So let’s talk about this: what prompted me to want to run solo for 12 hours? So I came across a podcast where some people were talking about the 12 hour walk. And ‘The 12 Hour Walk’, if you’re not familiar, is a book that Colin O’Brady wrote.
Colin O’Brady is a pretty badass adventure guy. Like he’s done all kinds of endurance events like walking solo across Antarctica, and actually breaking the record for doing it faster than anybody else.
So he walked across Antarctica, pulling a sled with all of his, you know, food and equipment and everything that he needed for this track. And he ended up walking something like 12 hours a day, because I guess that’s how much daylight they had.
And he covered I don’t know, 50 miles a day or something close to that, 48 miles a day. But he ended up doing this for like 53, I believe, straight days. So that is pretty insane to do something like that.
So during the pandemic, he, you know, was back home and, you know, was itching to get outside and do something. And of course, you know, all this stuff is shut down. He couldn’t travel.
And so he decided to just take a walk and he left his house and he ended up walking for like 12 hours by himself without his phone. And he was just like, this is really fascinating. And he learned some interesting lessons along the way by doing this.
It’s a very personal sort of inward journey. It was for him anyway. And he thought, wow, I think a lot of people could benefit from doing something like this. So he wrote the book, the 12 Hour Walk.
And it’s a great book, if you want to check it out. It really goes into a lot of detail about all the things that he’s accomplished, and he’s accomplished some crazy events, some crazy endurance events.
But in the book, he talks about this 12 hour walk and encourages people to just do this. Leave your house, go walk for 12 hours by yourself unplugged. And some of the rules that he puts down are this, so it’s supposed to be done solo. So you do it by yourself, no friends, no dogs, no turtles, cats, anything, any other animal, it’s just supposed to be you. So it’s a solo journey.
And the length of time needs to be 12 hours. You know, it can be longer if you want, but that’s like the minimum right? So 12 hours is the length of time we’re talking about. And you need to be by yourself and there’s no, no phones involved.
So no headphones, no texting, no talking to anybody on the phone, no listening to podcasts, no listening to audiobooks, no listening to music. No, you know, FaceTiming people while you’re out there, it’s supposed to be a solo journey. Now you can take your phone with you, which I did. And I recorded a few short videos or a few voice memos or typed in some notes. I especially took some notes about my fueling during the event, just so I could keep track of when I was, you know, fueling.
So I could, you know, know how much time had elapsed between the last time I fueled. But it’s supposed to be done in silence, like you’re supposed to be just quiet, you know, and really not talk to people. And so that’s what the 12 hour walk is.
Okay, so I heard about this. And I heard some people talking about this on a podcast. And it really started, the wheels in my brain started turning because I was like, oh, man, I’ve always wanted to do a 12 hour event. And a lot of the 12 hour events or 24 hour endurance events, if you’re familiar with these things, a lot of times they do them on a short, one mile or two mile loop.
A lot of times they’ll do it at a track. So you’re running around a track for like 12 hours. And to me, that sounds terrible. The few miles like loop through the woods would be doable, but also you get sort of, you know, just used to the same things over and over again. So that really never spoke to me.
Like I just never was really interested in doing an event where I’m going to be running for 12 straight hours or 24 hours around a track or something like that. So I thought wow, this is pretty interesting. Because I get to do this anywhere that I want, I can go and run around my neighborhood, I can go down, you know, I live close to the Ohio River, I can go down to the river and run along the river.
And I’ll tell you about what I ended up doing and where I ended up going in a minute. But it was just sort of like this free form event like you can do it any way you want. So that really appealed to me. The solo adventure part of it appealed to me because I’ve you know, I’ve done a lot of running by myself for sure, I’ve done a lot of long distance running where I’m by myself for long stretches of time, but never more than an hour or two, something like that.
And then you’re like you hit an aid station or you’re running with other people or maybe you’re listening to something on the phone or talking to somebody. And then that aspect of not having your phone on and not having that distraction and, and listening to a podcast or an audiobook or something like that.
I love listening to podcasts and audiobooks when I run. It’s like I get to learn while I’m running. You know, I get to learn about you know, some badass, you know, adventurer guy, or whatever it is. And I really enjoy that. I don’t do that all the time, but I do enjoy that.
And so that appealed to me, like unplugging basically for 12 hours. So that part appealed to me. So this is kind of my, what prompted me, you know, and why I decided I wanted to do this. And then, of course, being a runner, I was like, well, I’m not going to walk this thing, I’m going to run it.
And I ended up doing a run-walk approach. And I’ll talk about that next and I want to talk about the training but just understand that this is something that you can do anytime you want. And if there really aren’t any rules other than what I just mentioned there, like if you need to take breaks, take breaks.
If you need to use a bathroom somewhere, use a bathroom, if you need to get some food, get some food, but the idea is that you kind of carry the food that you need, take a backpack or a Camelback or something like that. And then it should be self supported. There should be no distractions, it should be an internal journey, as well as an external physical journey. Okay.
So how did I approach my training? What did I do there? So, my idea was, my focus was always going to be on 12 hours. I wasn’t concerned about distance or time or pace or anything like that. I just wanted to be out there running for 12 hours.
And so I was going to I made a decision early on, that I was just going to do this slow and easy, that I wasn’t going to try to break any records here. And that if I could get to 50 miles, I would consider that to be a huge success. So that was kind of my goal, really, my big goal was like, you know, just to finish it, and just to keep, you know, running for 12 hours.
So, the way I approached my training, I started training for this thing back in like December, January. And the event was on May 27, that’s the day that I picked, so that was Memorial Day weekend, which was about three weeks after the Flying Pig Marathon, which I did, which was the Floating Pig Marathon since we had so much rain that day, it was crazy.
But I knew I wanted a little bit of time to recover from that race until before I did this other Ultra event. So 50 miles was the goal, May 27, was the date I picked. And I started training in December, basically January, and I was just building my base at the beginning.
I divided my training into three main sections. So the and as we get closer to the race, the running becomes more specific to the race. So at the beginning of my training cycle, I was doing more speed work, doing shorter, faster runs doing hill repeats and, and sprint intervals, and tempo runs and things like that.
As I got closer to the race, I stopped doing a lot of the speed work. And I just focused on, like dialing in sort of that race pace that I was going to use during the event itself, which was very slow. It’s like 13 minute miles, which is what I ended up averaging for the event itself, which I thought was fine, you know, it’s fine for me.
And that’s the way that I kind of approached the training. So, you know, I did a lot of miles, especially in that second and third phase of my training cycle, a lot of miles at a slow pace, and kept my heart rate down. And really the whole point of this was just to be out there for 12 hours, and enjoy it. I guess as much as you can enjoy running for 12 hours or being out there running and walking for 12 hours. And really just to finish.
And so I didn’t I didn’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I did have that goal of 50 miles. And so that was one thing where I was like, I do want to hit 50 miles. And that was totally doable. I knew that if I could get to about a 14 minute pace 14 something I knew that I would get to 50 miles.
So that was kind of the goal from a pace standpoint. So a lot of my training was just done by myself without my phone. So I just leave my phone at home and start getting used to running without any sort of distraction. Okay.
That was interesting, because think about this, how much time do you spend completely unplugged. Not looking at a screen, not watching TV, not listening to music, or podcasts, or books, or the radio in your car. Not talking to other people. Not calling someone or texting someone.
Think about this. This is one of the big lessons I learned because I was like, I do not spend much time during any given day completely unplugged. And that’s what was really interesting to me, that it made me hyper aware of how much time I actually spend distracting myself from whatever’s happening in the moment.
Think about it, like I was at the gym this morning. And I usually have my headphones when I’m at the gym and I’m listening to a book or something like that. And I forgot them right. I left them at home. So I’m just like, whatever. I’m just going to sit here in between sets and just look around, I guess I don’t know, what do you do? It’s kind of weird.
I was like, what did we used to do back in the day when we didn’t have cell phones? I guess we would just sit there and look at each other. Right? So I was just sitting there and I looked around and I started to see every single person in the gym staring at their phone.
Every single person that wasn’t actively lifting was like staring at their phone. Every person. It was wild. And I was just thinking wow, that’s so interesting. We are so connected to our phones that even two minutes in between sets we can’t not be sitting there staring at our phones, you know.
So for me, one of the biggest lessons that I learned really is that I can spend time away from screens and I can spend time away from distracting myself from the moment and that I want to be more mindful, I want to have more mindfulness in my life, I want to be more present in the moment, not just for myself, but for other people as well.
And so that was a huge lesson that I learned. And it took training for this event, and then actually doing the event to sort of bring that really into my focus and into my attention. So during the event, there were so many times where I was wanting to whip out my phone and call somebody, or text somebody, oh, I just thought of something I need to tell my kids. I better just text him.
And I was like, nope, I had my phone with me, but it was just for taking a couple of quick videos and some voice memos that I was recording, and a couple of notes that I was writing just because I wanted to keep track of my fueling, right.
So I did have my phone with me, but it was in airplane mode. So it was basically all I could do it use it for was recording messages, taking pictures, that kind of stuff. And I didn’t pull it out that often I was really just focused on being in the moment.
And that was one of the biggest lessons I learned is that I distract myself a lot. And we all do. We are constantly distracting ourselves. Aside from sleeping. We either have, we’re talking to someone, we’re listening to something, we’re watching something, we’re reading something, we are constantly bombarded with information, and constantly connected and constantly distracted from the moment. So just think about that.
How can you maybe change that? What does that look like for you? Can you spend some more time just in silence, maybe mindfulness meditation, maybe just leave your phone at home, when you go for a run, leave those headphones at home, take your phone if you want to, if you need it for emergency or something like that, but just take leave the headphones at home. Interesting, right? It may be an interesting experiment to do.
Okay, so the training I did was pretty standard, nothing really fancy there. Other than, you know, I shut down the speed work during that last six weeks or so and really just focused on really hammering the long distance getting used to running with a backpack because I did carry a backpack with water and fuel and things like that.
And that was it, like the training was pretty, you know, standard and really not a whole lot to discuss there. Other than, you know, just those last six weeks or so I just really ramped up the mileage. You know, I was doing you know, my weekly mileage ended up being I think at the peak was something like 60-65 miles a week.
But the long runs on the weekends were, you know, 25 and 12 was like the longest I did. 26 and 10, something like that. So that was the training. And then so my approach for the race itself, I decided I was going to bring the minimal amount of fuel that I needed.
And I was thinking because I’m fat-adapted, I don’t really need a whole lot in the way of fuel for something like this, but I wanted to maintain some semblance of energy. So I did use some fuel. And the idea was that I was going to start to run fasted and have some coffee before I left the door or headed out the door. I had some coffee about 6am and was out the door by 6:22 is when I started on a Saturday morning.
So I started fasted, just had some saltwater before I started and some coffee and that was it. The saltwater was actually an LMNT that’s an electrolyte drink. So I did my electrolyte drink, no calories, really no sugar or anything like that. And just some coffee, headed out the door.
And then my goal was to fuel every hour, and to get about 150 calories per hour 150 to 200 calories per hour. That’s all I wanted. I didn’t want more than that, because I don’t really need more than that. So, and I practiced during my training with this and this is something important for you.
If you’re doing a half or full or any kind of long distance event, you’ve got to practice your fueling during training, like all your long training runs should be dress rehearsals for your event. Okay, so just make sure you’re training the way that you’re going to be racing, right so I did this regularly.
And I’ve tried a few different types of fuels and things like that, I ended up going mostly with the Muir energy gels and those things, they have like four ingredients. It’s like almond butter, cacao, some blackstrap molasses, that’s the carbohydrate that they use in there. And then some salt, something, maybe there’s five ingredients, some other kind of flavoring in there, but they’re very clean.
Some people don’t like the way they taste, I think they taste fine. They’re kind of good, actually, I think they have almond butter as another ingredient depending on which one you get: cashew butter, almond butter. But they’re pretty good and have good, clean ingredients.
There are a little bit of carbs, like 12 carbs per packet. And they’re 150 calories. So one of those per hour was kind of my goal. And I had a couple other things that I had just had in my closet that I just pulled out a couple other types of fuel. But they were all very similar and all about 150 calories each. So that was what I planned on doing. And I stuck to that plan pretty well.
So after about an hour of running, I did my first Muir, and then kind of kept doing that every hour or so there was a couple of times where I lost track of time, and I looked down, I’m like, oh, it’s been like an hour and a half and I haven’t fueled at all, better do something. And then the next one I did a little bit shorter, like, you know, I just had to kind of tweak it a little bit.
But at the end of the day, I think I only used eight or nine of those. So it should have been 11. And I think I brought 11 with me, and there were a couple left when I got home. So maybe I used eight or nine of them in total. So it didn’t even need as much as I brought with me, you know, and I was really trying not to weigh myself down the pack that I had fully loaded with water, two liters of water plus all the, you know, goos and the phone and stuff like that, we’d like eight and a half pounds, so it wasn’t super heavy.
But eight and a half pounds is eight and a half pounds added to, you know, your body weight as you’re running for 12 hours, right. So I wanted to keep things as light as possible. So I just brought the bare minimum and I didn’t even use all of it. And I felt fine.
The race itself was pretty uneventful other than so I headed out of my house. And it was cool in the morning. You know, it’s very cool, probably in the high 50s, right. And I was like, oh my god, this is perfect, you know, but it got hot that day, it ended up being in the high 70s.
And two things that really helped. Number one is that I chose a rail to trail, also the little Miami Recreation Trail, that was kind of the majority of the run for me was on that trail. And I hit that during the peak of the day. And it’s very shaded because there’s trees on both sides.
And most of it, there’s some sections that are totally exposed, and it was getting hot. So that helped. So the location that I picked for this thing really did help. Also, it ended up getting cloudy in the afternoon, which was amazing because when the clouds came over it dropped the temperature down and kept me from like, I was getting hot with the sun out I was really getting hot.
And so the clouds really helped a lot. And so for that second half of the day, you know, I finished at 6:20pm. The second half of the day was warmer, but it could have been a lot worse. So I was thankful for the clouds. So I took off from my house. I ran out to this trail, which is about 12 miles from my house. So I took another path called the Watson Way, it’s another rail to trail that sort of connects to this other one.
And I ended up running from my house 26.2 miles to a little town called Loveland. And, you know, that is the farthest I’ve ever run by myself. The farthest I’ve ever run in one direction, that’s for sure. And so when I was in Loveland, I was like, 5 hours and 36 minutes into this thing. So I wasn’t quite halfway but close to it. And I decided that was a good point to turn around. And my goal was to make it a double marathon.
So if I got to, like 52 miles, that was the goal. At that point, I was like, I think I can do this. You know, I’m padding my time a little bit because I might slow down towards the last half of this thing. And I did slow down a little bit towards the end just because I did have a little bit of extra time and so I did a little bit more walking during the last hour or so, a little more walking, and a little less running and it felt fine.
You know, all in all, the event was great. I did stop to refill water a couple of times, because the two liters of water that I had wasn’t going to be enough. I ended up stopping at a Starbucks on the way out towards Loveland.
So during the first half, I stopped at Starbucks and got some ice water, took that with me, that felt great. Stopped at a little bike shop that had cold waters and filled up my backpack with cold waters on the way out. I did that again on the way back, stopped at that Starbucks again, on the way back in, I ended up getting an iced coffee, which was amazing. So delicious.
And then that gave me a little bit of an extra boost there for the last few hours that I have out there. And then you know, I ended up just finishing feeling pretty good. The only problem I had during this thing was that my knees are kind of messed up, like I’ve fallen down on the trail so many times that my knees occasionally will kind of start talking to me and my right knee was kind of talking to me towards the end of this thing.
And I was like, yeah, I think I’m ready to be done. And then as soon as I finished and I stopped, and I sat down, and I took a shower and stuff like that my knee just swelled up, it was huge. And just bending, it was very painful. And walking was hard.
Like, I messed myself up pretty bad, like, not even knowing that I was in, you know, doing any kind of damage to the knee. That knee is fine now like it just took a couple of days for the inflammation to go down. I don’t know what the issue is with that knee. But it does do this every now and then.
And I’m just going to take it easy and not overdo it here during the next few weeks. But it’s been fine since then. It took a couple of days for that swelling to go down, but it’s been fine. So the event itself was great. I did it solo, I did it without talking to people.
For the most part, when I did stop, I had to like, you know, talk to the people that sold me the water or the coffee or whatever. But other than that, and one guy that ran past me, there were some running groups running on Saturday morning. And one guy in a running group said, Hey, I love your podcast.
And I kind of just looked and waved because I didn’t want to say anything because I’m like I’m trying to be quiet and not say anything. So for the guy that ran past me and said, hey, I love your podcast, on the Murray trail, I think you’re with the tri-state group, then hey, I’m gonna say, hey, thank you for listening. I appreciate that. And I appreciate that you gave me the shout out during the run, but I was being quiet at the time.
So I wasn’t talking to anybody. And I did run into my son. I’m like, you know, he was running towards me on one section of the trail. And I’m like, what are you doing out here and he’s like, I just went out for a run today. And he didn’t know where I was running. And so he didn’t know he was going to run into me. I’m like, hey, I’m not supposed to be talking to people. He’s like, cool, I’m gonna leave. And I’m like, cool. Alright.
So that was kind of fun. And by the way, I ended up running almost 53 miles total. So it was a double marathon and a little bit more. So that was cool. So a couple of lessons that I learned through this whole thing, number one, that you have to get out of your comfort zone if you want to grow.
And I’ve talked about this before, but this brought it all home to me in a big way that this was an uncomfortable event fFor me. It was uncomfortable for a lot of reasons: because of the silence because of no distractions, because I had to be in the moment. And because it’s 12 hours of running, come on.
It was hard, you know, something that was very challenging to do the training was hard. For this event, the event itself was hard. But coming out of this, I feel like a little bit of a different person. You know, I feel like I have learned some things and I’ve grown and I’ve like, every time I challenge myself and I try to do something like this, like, once a year.
Every year, I try to pick some event, something that I’ve never done before and do it. So anytime I do something like this, it causes me to level up, causes me to grow and it causes me to become more and become closer to that ultimate version of myself that I’m always working towards. It’s a work in progress. It always is.
But doing things like this. I want to encourage you to do something like this because things like this cause you to level up, they cause you to grow and they cause you to evolve as a human being, okay.
The other lesson that I learned is that being alone in silence without the distractions for 12 hours is really hard. We are so used to using our devices and distracting ourselves that to do this was a challenge but it was great. I loved it. At the end of the day. I was like, wow, I’m like I didn’t need it. You know, I don’t need to distract myself, I could just be in the moment.
And it got me thinking about when I was younger. You know, we grew up without the internet without cell phones. Well, we did have like a Sony Walkman you could wear you know, and listen to tapes, you know, that was awesome. But even so, like, we didn’t take those everywhere we went, you know, and so there was so much more in the moment.
Mindfulness, I guess you would call it, we didn’t know, it was called that at the time. Now we have to call it a certain thing, because it’s so different from what we’re used to doing. But that’s just how we were back in the day, you know. And so it just really made me realize how distracted we are all the time.
And how much I am craving, and I think we all kind of crave a little bit of like silence and internal, an internal journey, so to speak. Okay. Another lesson I learned was this, that we all have an inner dialogue, we all have an internal voice that’s kind of talking all the time.
And I realized that that voice never really stops, it’s there’s always going and even being out there, I thought, this voice has got to stop at some point here. And it sort of did at least it got quieter after about four or five hours, but it took four or five hours out there running by myself for this to even like calm down at all. Okay.
And then I noticed that there were times where I started just talking to myself out loud. So that into your internal voice that I had, maybe I was missing it, I don’t know, but I would just start talking to myself out loud. And it wasn’t like seeing anything, you know, mind bending or anything like that.
I would just be like, oh, hey, I wonder if it’s time to drink some water. Maybe I need to grab a gel. Maybe it’s time to feel? Gosh, that tree is cool. Oh, man, I’ve been on here for a long time, those clouds look interesting. Like just whatever. I was sort of, like narrating things, and I had to like, stop myself and be like, dude, what are you doing? I was craving some sort of, I don’t know if it’s a distraction, but some sort of a dialogue.
And so I started just creating a dialogue to myself, Okay. But all in all, I would suggest that if you want to challenge yourself, and if you want to level up and if you want to see what you’re capable of, and if you want to learn some lessons that you know are going to be personal to you, then I would suggest doing something like this, you don’t have to run it, you could walk it. It can be something that you do once a year, twice a year, I’m considering doing this again in the fall as a walk.
And I might invite you to join me, not in person, but virtually and we can all do this, maybe we pick a date. And we all do this together, so to speak. You know, we all do it on the same day in our separate towns in our separate cities, separate countries, whatever. And it could be something where we all learn some lessons together, we kind of come back and commiserate on what we’ve learned together. Sounds cool.
So all in all, this was a successful event. For me. It’s my first 12 hour timed event. And I enjoyed it. I really did. I enjoyed the the aspect of doing it however, I wanted to do it, you know, picking my own route, picking how I wanted to approach the fueling and, and hydration and all those things myself.
Making all those decisions myself and not having to, you know, have it be dictated by a race director and a certain location and a certain day in a certain time and certain types of fuel they have out there. Like I just did it myself. And it was awesome.
And actually, it was one of those things that like wasn’t that big of a deal. It really wasn’t. I devoted one day, one day to bettering myself to being mindful with myself being alone with myself. And I would suggest that you kind of do the same thing. Cool. All right.
So that’s all I got for you here. And listen, if you’ve ever struggled with losing weight, if you want to lose weight and keep it off and you want some help doing that, I want you to know that I have a great coaching program, and it was created with you in mind.
The Coaching Project is my lifetime access weight loss coaching program for runners. You and I will work closely together to put together a custom nutrition plan for you to get you to your goals. And we also talk about building strength and we talk about endurance and we talk about mindset, okay, and then we meet regularly to see what’s working and what’s not and then course correct as needed.
And one thing you have to understand about coaching is it’s not like some other diet or something like that. It’s not like a one size It’s all cookie cutter approach, right? You’re an individual, you have your own sets of goals and lifestyle and food preferences and the way you want to work out and things like that. And I’m going to meet you where you are.
And we’ll put together a plan that you feel good about because you have to enjoy what you’re doing. You have to enjoy the food, you got to enjoy the way you work out. Because if you don’t, you’re not gonna stick with it.
So if you want to just stop struggling, you want to start getting results, check out The Coaching Project. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more, I’d love to see you in The Coaching Project. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
Nutrition is going to be the number one driver of your body composition. If you’re a runner and you want to lose weight, you have to get your nutrition game on point. The thinking that just …
Continue Reading about 177. Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs to Know Part 1: Nutrition →
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 177 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today: Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know, Part 1: Nutrition.
So nutrition is going to be the number one driver of your body composition. If you’re a runner and you want to lose weight, you have to get your nutrition game on point. The thinking that just running more is going to solve the weight problem for you is outdated. And frankly, it just doesn’t work.
There’s a lot more going on when it comes to weight loss; the types of foods we eat, the timing of our meals, what happens in our bodies, when we eat certain foods and so much more. There’s a lot to consider here. So don’t worry, I’m gonna break this all down here for you today.
My hope is that by the end of this episode, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of just how important nutrition is for weight loss, even if you’re a runner, especially if you’re a runner. And this is part one of a three part series called Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know.
Part two will be focused on exercise principles. And part three will be all about the mindset principles runners need to focus on in order to lose weight and keep it off for good.
But first, if you’re a runner, and you struggle to lose weight, then I have just the thing to help you get started on the right track. I put together a brand new fun and free training just for you called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. I will teach you how to lose weight the right way and keep it off for good without running a million miles a week.
Here’s some of the things that you’ll learn in this in depth training. You’ll learn why running more and eating less is not an effective way to lose weight. You’ll learn the one thing runners don’t do properly when they’re trying to lose weight.
You’ll learn the best fuel to use to improve your endurance and improve your weight loss. You’ll learn the mindset shifts required to make these changes last, and you’ll learn the surprising key to losing weight and keep it off for good and a lot more.
You’re going to learn how to crush your weight loss goals and your running goals directly from me, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. And this is about more than just losing weight. It’s about not doing the same things over and over expecting different results. It’s about changing your whole relationship with food and diets and nutrition and exercise.
It’s about becoming the healthiest version of yourself from the inside out. It’s about changing your mindset and creating new habits that last for life. Are you ready to get leaner and stronger, run faster and longer and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself? If yes, then you’ve got to check out this free training now.
Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. Do not put this off, there’s never going to be a better time to do this to get started on your weight loss journey than today, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on free training.
So when I started thinking about putting together this episode on weight loss principles every runner needs to know I started listing out all the principles I thought were important. And my list got massively huge. So I decided to split it up into three parts.
So today we’re going to be focusing on nutrition principles. Next week, we’ll talk about exercise principles. And then the following week, all talk all about mindset principles. So today is going to be focused on nutrition and the nutrition principles that you need to understand if you want to lose weight.
If you’re a runner, and you want to lose weight these are the principles that you really have to understand. And it’s not a list of every nutrition principle possible. But it is a pretty comprehensive list. There’s a lot that I’m gonna be talking about here today.
And these are the ones that I talk about with my clients the most and the ones that we focus on the most, and the ones that seem to have the biggest impact on your weight loss. So that’s why I’m kind of focusing on these here today.
I don’t have these in any particular order. They’re not numbered or anything like that. I don’t know if there’s 12 or 18 principles here. I don’t even know, I didn’t even count them but the thing is that these are all important and they will all contribute to your overall health and fitness and especially to your weight loss journey. Cool.
Okay, so let’s just get into this, I’ll just start rattling off these principles. The first one is this. And you’ve heard me say this before, but I thought it was like one of the most important. So I’m just gonna lay it on you right now. And that principle is this: you cannot outrun a bad diet.
I know that we’ve heard for decades that you know, cardio is king. And especially the sugar companies will tell you this, right, just move more, eat less and move more, and you’re fine. The real thing that we have to understand, though, is that the biggest driver of your weight, the biggest driver of your overall body composition is not cardio, it is nutrition.
I work with runners who are in massive amounts of training, who are training for ultra marathons, and who gain weight during a training cycle. This happened to me several times, I was training for ultra marathons and was gaining weight. And I was like, this does not make sense. I’m not eating a ton more, what’s going on here?
And it had a lot to do with the types of foods I was eating, which I’ll talk about here in a minute. I had a client a while back, who was running at least three miles a day. So he was doing at least a 5k every single day. And he had done this for seven straight years.
And he’s probably still going seven straight years of running at least three miles a day. That is a lot of running. And he gained like 15 pounds in the process. That’s crazy, right? So you cannot outrun a bad diet, what you eat is way more important than how much you run. And I’m going to get into this, you know, and several of these principles, you’ll understand this more as we go but just understand that running more is not the answer. Okay.
So the second principle you have to understand is that if you want to lose weight, you have to burn fat. And, I mean, we all know this, like intellectually, but we don’t put our bodies into a state of fat burning. We eat the kind of diet that really keeps our body storing fat. So I want to explain this process really quickly here.
When you eat certain foods, like sugar, for example, this will spike your blood sugar, this will also cause a spike in the hormone insulin. When insulin gets produced in a high amount, it will drive that blood sugar down and you’ll kind of feel terrible, and you’ll want to eat more sugar so you can feel normal again, right? So that’s one part of it.
The other thing is though, every time insulin is present, your body is holding on to fat in its fat cells. So insulin is like the jailer that has locked up your fat, and it’s fat cells. And you cannot, you know, burn fat, you cannot lose weight while your insulin levels are high all the time.
So really, what you want to do is you want to eat the kind of diet that keeps your blood sugar regulated, pretty normalized, and you got to get your body into fat burning mode and get out of fat storing mode.
Okay, so we are naturally good fat burners, human beings. But we’ve gotten very far away from that, especially in the last 50 years or so. We started eating more processed food, more junk food, a lot more snacking, a lot more sugar, and we are just storing and storing and storing that fat.
Well as humans, you know, we evolved to store some body fat, and that’s good for us. It’s good to store some body fat, it helps us insulate us in the wintertime. But it’s also a good fuel source. For times of famine, you can survive for a long time off of your own stored body fat.
But we never put our bodies in the state where we can actually burn that fat. All we’re doing is just adding more wood to the woodpile, so to speak. So we just keep making that woodpile larger, but we’re not using that wood as fuel that fat as fuel.
So really, you have to understand that there is a fat burning state that your body needs to be in, versus a fat storage state that your body might be in, right? And in order to get the fat burning optimized, you have to eat a diet that regulates your blood sugar a little better. Okay.
The next principle is the order in which your body burns fuel, you have to understand that we metabolize certain macronutrients in a certain order. And this is important because I’m going to shed some light on what foods you want to kind of focus on here.
So, the order that we metabolize different nutrients is like this. First is alcohol. So that’s the first thing that gets metabolized. So, if you drank a couple drinks of alcohol, let’s say you have a couple of drinks on a Wednesday night, and then that is going to slow down or stop your fat burning from happening while your body is processing that alcohol.
And it takes about 48 hours, 48 to 72 hours for your body to metabolize that alcohol fully, and get you back into fat burning mode. Okay, so if you’re trying to lose weight, maybe take a break from alcohol, that’s something to consider. So alcohol is number one.
Number two is sugar. As long as sugar is available as a fuel source, your body will use it, it loves using sugar as fuel, it’s very easy for your body to use sugar as fuel. The problem is it doesn’t utilize it 100% gram for gram of sugar.
You eat a chocolate bar, some of that is going to be used for fuel. And some of that is going to be stored in your fat cells to be used as fuel later. You know, you drink a Big Gulp, which I don’t know if you guys know what that is. But it’s a giant soda, a giant sugary drink and you drink that drink, your body cannot process that much sugar all at once.
I don’t even know how many teaspoons of sugar is in something like that, but it’s probably a lot. My guess is that it’s way more than your body can metabolize at once. So you’re going to store some of that as body fat, and which is normal, that’s the way your body’s supposed to work.
The problem is that you’re not going to be able to burn that until you kind of get rid of that sugar. So we’ve burned alcohol first as fuel, then we burned sugar.
The next thing we can use as fuel is what we call exogenous fat. So that is fat that you eat. So if you eat, you know, some bacon, and then you go for a run, you might be using some of that exogenous fat as fuel, which is fine. You know, fat is not a bad fuel source.
Most people won’t be really good at burning fat until you get fat adapted until you’ve trained your body to become fat adapted. But you can use exogenous fat as fuel to some extent. Okay, the next order of metabolites that your body will use as fuel would be stored body fat.
So this is important to understand, because we want to limit the amount of alcohol and sugar. And the exogenous fat is not as big a deal because once your body gets good at burning fat, you’re going to be burning more stored body fat anyway. But we want to, you know, limit the amount of sugar and alcohol especially that we are consuming in order for our body to kind of force our body to use its own stored body fat as fuel, okay?
So you want to get really good at burning your own stored body fat. So the typical way we think about this is just think of a fuel tank, and at the top of the tank is sugar and at the bottom of the tank is like your own stored body fat. And you got to get rid of that sugar first you got to like get rid of that as a fuel source, you got to burn through that. And then you can start tapping into that stored body fat, okay.
So this is why it matters, the kinds of foods that you eat matter, more than just like calories, you know, calories do matter. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But just understand that it is important to eat the right kinds of foods and not go too crazy on the sugar side of things especially, or alcohol. Okay.
Next principle, what you eat is more important than how much you eat. So the types of foods you eat, like I just was explaining here, matter more than the number of calories. Yes, calories do matter. But typically, the right diet will help to regulate caloric intake, and do that in a way that is nice and easy and sort of effortless.
You know, if you’re eating the kind of diet where you feel pretty full throughout the day, and you’re not having these crazy cravings and over desire for sugary carbohydrate laden foods, then, you know, you’re going to feel more satiated and you’re going to be less hungry throughout the day and you’ll probably naturally just drive those cravings down and drive the number of calories that you’re eating down, which is fine, right?
The wrong diet, on the other hand, though, tons of carbs and tons of sugar will make you crave more of that stuff. It will drive hunger up, it will cause you to overeat. It’s very easy to overeat carbohydrates, refined carbohydrates, especially.
And sugar especially because your body will respond to those things, and will release some hormones that make it very difficult for your body to regulate your hunger signals. Like ghrelin is the hunger signal, and it actually ramps up that signaling of that hormone when you eat more sugar.
Leptin is the fullness hormone. And that gets down regulated when you’re eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrates, right. But if you’re eating more protein, and you know less on the on the refined carbohydrate side of things, your hormones start to work the way they’re supposed to, insulin won’t be produced in a great amount, and your leptin and ghrelin will be in check, your blood sugars will be regulated, and you’ll feel more satiated and full throughout the day.
So just understand that what you eat, the types of foods you eat is going to make a bigger impact than just trying to focus on the number of calories that you’re eating.
Okay, next principle is this, the typical runner’s diet just doesn’t work. So the typical runner’s diet, I talk about this, half jokingly, but really not is that it’s all carbs, it’s all sugar. So we do carb loading in the days leading up to runs. And then you know, the morning of or we’re loading up with carbs before we run, and then we’re fueling with carbs during the run. And then after the run, we need to recover. So we eat a bunch more carbs.
And then basically, every day is just like, I’m gonna eat as many carbs as I want, because I run and it just doesn’t work. Or if it did work for you in the past, it probably doesn’t anymore. Or for some people, it really does not work at all, ever. So we just have to understand that that typical diet of like beer and donuts, and burgers, it just doesn’t work, you know.
So we have to understand that if you’re the kind of person that is a little more carbohydrate sensitive, that you’re a little bit intolerant to carbohydrates, then just get rid of that stuff. That’s all, get rid of that stuff. There’s a way we can do this that will absolutely help you to fuel your running and lose weight and do it all. And there’s an answer.
You know, there’s a way of doing this that will allow you to hit all your goals, your weight loss goal and your running goals simultaneously, right? But we just have to understand that that typical runner’s diet is probably not going to work for you. Okay.
Next principle. The goal here is to eat a diet that helps to regulate your blood sugar. Now, I kind of talked about this a little bit, that insulin spikes, that constant insulin spiking and crashing will cause massive hunger, you’ll never feel satiated.
It causes overeating, it causes poor running performance too. So you get those blood sugar spikes and crashes, insulin is high all the time you’re hungry all the time, running becomes more difficult. You need a lot of fuel for running, you’re constantly hitting the wall because you don’t have enough fuel.
It takes longer to recover from those harder workouts, sleep becomes compromised. You don’t have all day energy, you kind of crash in the afternoons, right? Focus and concentration are impaired and you’re gaining weight. So this is all what happens when you eat that typical runner’s diet, that diet that is spiking your blood sugar constantly, right?
So we want to make sure that we are doing the opposite of that, right? Get to a diet that helps to regulate your blood sugar, and helps you to keep your blood sugar normalized. This is going to be key, okay. And it’s a little bit different for each person. But I’m going to give you some examples and some ideas of what to do here in a second, okay.
Next principle is this: all foods in moderation does not work for everyone. So I hear a lot of people, especially dieticians, talk about all foods in moderation, like there should be no foods that are off the table, like you can eat everything, but just moderate, just moderate it. Okay?
This is like telling somebody that has a drinking problem, just moderate your drinking. Why can’t you just moderate it? Why can’t you just control it, just drink like normal people. So I think we have to be very careful when we lump everyone together and say everyone should be able to eat everything that they want. Just do it in moderation.
I don’t hold this belief, this ideology. I believe there are some foods that we should kind of stay away from and that or should be consumed very sparingly. And that some people just have a very hard time doing that in moderation. Some of these foods, so why not just stay away from it? It’s not a big deal.
Like for example, I used to drink alcohol and I don’t anymore I quit like 16 years ago. And for me, I don’t know, I don’t have any desire to drink alcohol anymore. I used to smoke cigarettes, I have no desire to smoke cigarettes again, I stopped smoking cigarettes, I don’t know, 20-25 years ago, something like that. I couldn’t imagine not having a cigarette or having a drink every day. Now, it’s something I don’t ever need to think about.
So what if you took that same approach to something like sugar, where you just, you know, took a break from it for a while, and you got to this place where you just don’t even want it anymore. You just don’t even want it. That’s a great place to be. Okay.
Some people can moderate their sugar intake, and maybe just have, you know, a piece of chocolate every now and then. And it’s no big deal. Some people, they have one piece of chocolate and it’s like they’re off to the races, they start binging on that stuff. That’s kind of an unhealthy relationship with that particular food.
But it’s also something where maybe just stay away from it, at least for a while. And in my coaching program, we do this thing where we help to turn down the volume on our desires for these kinds of foods so that we don’t feel like we have to moderate or we don’t feel like we have to avoid them altogether.
Like we can just take it or leave it because there’s not a big deal anymore. That’s a good place to get to. Okay. So just keep in mind that all foods in moderation, it doesn’t work for everyone. Some people maybe should stay away from some foods, you know, but I’m not saying that everybody has to, okay?
So the next principle is this. You need to avoid what I call the Vile Triumvirate. What is the Vile Triumvirate? The Vile Triumvirate does this. It’s three things, it’s sugar, refined grains and vegetable oils. If you stay away from these three things, I’m telling you right now your health will improve. And you’ll probably start losing weight.
And for some people, it can be pretty dramatic, the health improvements and weight loss that you experience when you just stop doing these three things. So sugar, no one’s going to tell you that sugar is good for you. I don’t care. If you’re a dietitian, if you’re a doctor, if you’re some other type of like health or fitness expert, nobody’s going to tell you that sugar is good for you. It’s not, I think we all know that.
Moderating is hard, and we probably all need to eat a lot less of it. Okay. And listen, you don’t need sugar to run, you don’t need to eat sugar in order to run, you can get fat adapted, you can use your own body fat as fuel. When you get fat adapted, and you are burning fat really effectively, then you can run for long distances with basically almost no fuel doesn’t mean you don’t, you can’t use fuel for running but you don’t need all the sugar to run. Okay, so sugar, all the forms of sugar, just get rid of that.
Refined grains, those are wheat, corn, rice, oats. This stuff, especially when it’s refined, is very concentrated. It’s a very concentrated form of carbohydrate. This spikes your glucose, in some cases, even higher than just eating pure sugar does. That’s crazy, right? So it’s also hard to digest.
Some people have a real problem with this stuff, right? So if you just get rid of that, if you get rid of sugar and refined grains, I’m going to tell you right now that your blood sugar is gonna start to get more normalized, right? So those are the big two.
And then vegetable oils. These are just gross industrial seed oils. Go look up how they make vegetable oil at some point and you’ll never want to eat that stuff again. Okay, it’s disgusting.
Stick with good healthy fats, you know, like olive oil, butter, ghee, coconut oil, that kind of stuff. Those are all good for you. Avocado oil. There’s much better sources of fats and oils out there than using industrial seed oils. Okay, just get away from that stuff.
Okay, so what should you eat? Here’s another principle. I love this one. One of my favorites is eat real food. Just eat real food. That’s it. What’s real food? It’s food that still looks like food. It’s not processed food. It’s maybe minimally processed. It’s not packaged food. Or maybe it’s you know, maybe it’s in a package, but it’s like, doesn’t contain a ton of ingredients, you know.
But what’s interesting is a lot of the processed packaged food tends to have those three ingredients I just talked about: sugar, refined grains and vegetable oils. Like sugar, flour and vegetable oil seem to be the three main ingredients in most junk food.
So if you just stop eating processed packaged foods, you’re going to get a lot of that out of your diet. So that’s awesome, right? So food that still looks like food, you should be able to recognize that our ancestors should be able to recognize it. Oh, this is an apple. Oh, those are berries. That’s fish. That’s meat. That’s beans. That’s cheese. That’s potato. That’s some nuts, right? Just eat stuff like that, and you’ll be fine.
Honestly, there’s so much you can do with that kind of food that this doesn’t have to be complicated, you guys. Like you don’t have to make some crazy, complicated recipe every time you eat something. My diet is so simple and so easy. I’m almost embarrassed to talk about it. Because it’s so ridiculously simple.
You probably think like, I’m some, like, I’m a prisoner or something like for lunch today, I had a bunch of egg whites and salt. That was my lunch. Okay, that’s it. And it was amazingly delicious. Tonight, I’m having a big piece of meat and some sweet potatoes and some salad. Like that’s dinner. That’s it. It’s very simple, very simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
Okay, so real food, eat real food, food that looks like food, food, our ancestors would recognize food that doesn’t come in a package. You know, for the most part, sometimes I get the packaged, like frozen broccoli or something like that, right food that doesn’t have a million ingredients. Or at least you know, it has a few ingredients, and you can pronounce them all.
And you know what? Each of them is food that doesn’t come with all the marketing messages, right? If you’re eating packaged food, chances are it’s got some kind of marketing message, a bunch of ingredients, processed stuff, like just just stay away from that for the most part, okay?
If you just stick to these things, here we go: meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, eggs, dairy, tubers, potatoes, that kind of stuff. Nuts, seeds, healthy fats, salt, spices, just eat that stuff. Boom, you’re good to go. Okay.
All right, next principle, say no to snacking. You don’t need to eat all the time. What happens when you eat all the time is that every time you eat some food, even though it might be not sugar, but it’s some food, you know, it will, you know, raise your blood sugar a little bit. And again, we want to keep your blood sugar pretty regulated, right.
So if you keep your blood sugar lower, most of the time and you’re not snacking constantly, you’re eating like six or eight times a day, then your blood sugar is going to be pretty chill most of the day, which means your body is going to be burning fat most of the day. Right.
So just one of the easiest ways you can keep your meals spaced out and give your body a chance to tap into that stored body fat as fuel is to just stop snacking. You don’t need to snack. Snacking is not hunger. It’s not real hunger.
Real hunger means you can sit down and eat a meal. And if you’re thinking like, oh, I’m hungry, I should eat something. Can you eat a meal? If the answer is no, then don’t eat something. If the answer is I want like six nuts. That’s not hunger. Come on.
Snacking is almost always an emotional event anyway, like you’re bored, you’re lonely, you’re anxious, you’re stressed out, you’re tired, you’re angry, whatever. It’s some kind of emotion is driving that trip to the pantry. So just understand that you don’t need to snack. Okay, you’ll be okay. Give your body a chance to burn fat. Do that instead, right?
Listen, snacking wasn’t a thing until like the 1950s between 1950 and like today, you know, here especially in the US, we’ve just become a nation of snackers. And the food industry, they introduced all these packaged snacks that cater to our basic cravings for sugar, salt and fat.
And by the 80s, by the 1980s, people were eating snacks everywhere at home, at work, at school, while in the car, walking down the sidewalk. We did not evolve to snack all day long, right? This was never a thing until like the 50s. Right? It is a relatively new thing. You don’t need to snack just stop doing that. Okay, say no to snacking. The people who tell you you need a snack all day long is the food industry that’s telling you that and they want you to buy more food.
Okay, this leads me to my next principle, which is this. The food companies do not care about your health. They just don’t. They don’t care that you’re healthy. They don’t care that you’re lean and strong. They just want you to eat more of their garbage. That’s it. They do not care about you know, your health, you are not their priority.
Their priority is selling more food. So they make their foods hyper palatable. That means they are so amazingly delicious that you crave them day and night. Their goal is to sell as much food as possible. How do they do that? They just make it irresistible.
You cannot say no, you can’t stop. They even say it on the package. You know? “Once you pop you can’t stop. You can’t eat just one.” Right? They just tell you right there, like here’s what we’re doing to you, we’re gonna make it so that you cannot eat just one of these chips or whatever it is. They just care about making money and their bottom line.
And the end result of this is we are a nation that is metabolically unhealthy. We’re terribly unhealthy here in the US, right? We’re buying into all these marketing messages from the food companies, you know. And what you need to do is you need to go against that.
You need to go against the grain, and pun very much intended here. You need to take control of your own health and well being and on your own terms, that means do what people are not doing, do what the majority of people are not doing. Okay?
88% of the US population has some form of metabolic disease. They’re overweight, especially in the midsection. They have high blood pressure, high blood sugar, pre diabetes, diabetes, and on and on and on, you do not want to be a part of that 88%. You want to be in the 12%, who are considered metabolically healthy. That’s a very small percentage of the population, right?
But be that weirdo at the table who’s not doing what everybody else is doing. Be okay with that. We’ll talk about this more and when we get into the mindset stuff, but just understand that what everybody else is doing is not working. And the food companies, they don’t care about your health or you know, your weight or anything like that. They just want you to buy more of their junk, okay. Okay, rant over.
So, next principle is this: you are an athlete, so eat like one. This means that you should be eating like an athlete all the time. Whether it’s the offseason, or you’re in peak training mode, II, like an athlete, be intentional about what you’re doing.
Don’t just say like, well, you know, I got this marathon coming up, so I’m just going to kind of do whatever I want. But then afterwards, after this marathon, I’m gonna like really dial in my nutrition, like, don’t do that. Stay on track, always, it’s so much easier to just maintain a healthy lifestyle than it is to like, start and stop. Again, that’s kind of more of a mindset principle. But listen, you do not want to eat like crap for three months, and then try to get back on track just so you can like train for the next race or whatever.
Actual athletes do not do this. And you shouldn’t either. Now I’m not saying you got to train like an athlete, or, you know, you know, these elite athletes who are Olympic quality qualifiers and stuff like that. Like, that’s not what I’m talking about here.
But just like adopt this mindset of like, I am going to take care of myself, my health, my fitness, my running is a priority. And I’m going to eat like it all the time. Yeah, that means that you can have a beer here and there, that means you can eat that doughnut every now and then. But it doesn’t mean that this is like, you know, three months of the year you eat right, the rest of the time you just eat a bunch of junk, right?
If you started acting like an athlete and eating like an athlete, how would things change for you? Think about that.
Okay, next principle is this: there is no one size fits all. There’s not one diet that works for everyone. There just isn’t. Every single person I’ve worked with, I’ve worked with hundreds of runners. And we’ve put together custom nutrition plans for each one. And nobody does this the same. No two people do the same, which is cool.
I mean, it would be awesome if everybody could do it the same because I could like write a book or something and just hand it to you. And you know, you give me 20 bucks, and then we’re good to go. It just doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t.
And any book that tells you what to do. Just take it with a grain of salt, you know, because it may not work for you. I’ve read all these diet books and listen to so many experts tell me what to do. And I have to tell you that it just doesn’t always work. You know, the South Beach diet, vegan, vegetarian, plant based paleo whatever, I’ve done all these different things. And none of them really worked perfectly for me until I kind of figured things out on my own. Right?
There’s so many factors that make us all individuals like my specific goals, my current diet, the way I exercise day to day, my food preferences, my dietary restrictions, my family and cultural considerations, my work and travel considerations, like there’s so many things to look at, that what somebody else is doing may work for them beautifully, but it may not work for me. Right?
So the goal here is that you have to figure this out. So a big part of what we do in the coaching project is we figure out what works for you. Right, and it does take a little bit of work to get there.
All right, next principle is this: the 90/10 rule. So you’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule, right? I think that is fine for most things, but when it comes to sticking with your diet I love like more of like a 90/10 better.
I think that we can, most of us, can adhere to that. The 80/20 rule seems to be a little too loosey goosey for people. Okay? So 90/10. That means that 90% of the time you’re going to eat on plan, and then 10% of the time, you can eat a little bit off plan, right? That’s like one meal per week, essentially, is what we’re talking about here the rest of the time, just stick with the plan.
Listen, life is meant to be lived, we should be able to indulge every now and then to celebrate with family and friends. We just got to do it the right way. Food is a big part of our culture and how we come together as human beings, there always has been. It’s important. We celebrate special events in our lives with food, it brings family and friends together. And it’s how we connect. And you should enjoy that.
But you have to do it the right way. And that means you just don’t do it all the time. Okay. So, and I love this, somebody said this, I love this little quote. And it says, “It matters more what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas than what you eat between Christmas and New Year’s.”
So just think about that 90% of the time, stick to your plan that 10% of the time, you can be a little loosey goosey with it. You can indulge you can enjoy, you can celebrate, just do it the right way. Okay. All right.
Next principle, carbs are not the enemy. Okay, so I talk a lot about sort of the low carb approach to running. And if you if we kind of take a low carb approach, we can tend to lose weight a little easier, okay. But this does not mean zero carbs, right? So you do not need carbs to run, but we don’t avoid them altogether.
You can use carbs to help with running, you can use carbs to help build muscle, to improve your exercise performance, you just gotta do it the right way. The types of carbs that you choose, it matters, the timing of the carbs matters, how much you’re eating, that stuff matters. This is not an excuse to eat junk food 24/7. And there’s whole food types of carbs, like, you know, rice and potatoes and sweet potatoes.
And then there’s like carbage, which is just junk food, you know, is that carbohydrate, super refined carbohydrate, junk food, candy bars and cake and you know, bread and pizza and stuff like that. I mean, that stuff is fine, in moderation, very, very limited. Remember that 10%.
But if you’re using carbs strategically, you want to stick with whole foods, types of carbohydrates, right? And then the timing of how you do it matters, okay, but just understand that carbs are not the enemy and that like, it’s okay to indulge in some carbs here and there and to use them strategically around workouts and things like that. But we just got to be careful with how we do that. Okay.
Next principle, eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Listen, we need fat to live, we need it to survive as human beings, you have to eat that. That is what’s called an essential nutrient. Protein is also an essential nutrient. That means that we have to get it in our diet or we die. So fat and protein are what we call essential nutrients. If we don’t get those in our diet, we will die. There’s just no way around that right.
By the way, there’s a nonessential nutrient called carbohydrates. We don’t need to eat carbohydrates, our brains do need some glucose to function properly, but our liver will actually produce all the glucose that we need on a daily basis. So you could like just never eat carbs again, and you’d probably be fine. I don’t recommend that. I’m not saying you should do that.
I’m just saying like fat and protein, essential nutrients. Carbohydrates, nonessential. Just interesting, right? But there was this huge low fat craze in the 80’s and extended into the 90’s to some degree. Basically, that was like don’t eat fat, fat is bad. People were having all kinds of adverse reactions like being cold all the time. It was affecting their eyesight because they just completely eliminated fat from their diet. You can die if you do that, actually.
And what they ended up doing in the 80’s especially is they replaced a lot of the fat with sugar, you know, so they had these processed foods like, oh, here’s a low here’s no fat yogurt, but it’s like full of sugar, but it says no fat and people were like, oh yeah, let’s gravitate towards that.
How come I’m gaining weight? Well it’s because of all the sugar, right? Just choose healthy fats and I talked about that a little bit earlier. Animal types of fats. If you eat that stuff it is fine. And then you know things like butter and dairy and avocados, nuts, olives, olive oil, coconut oil, all those things are good sources of fat.
Okay. Another principle is this: train low, race high. What does this mean? That means that it In training, we want to, you know, train pretty low carb, okay. But for races, we want to have more carbs. So we want to train low carb and race high carb, high-ish. Okay, once you’re fat-adapted, you don’t need a whole lot of fuel for running and other workouts right? You need a lot less fuel than you think.
So for example, I did a couple of 25 mile runs recently, I’m training for a 12 hour event coming up here in a couple of weeks. And in these 25 mile training runs I did, I only took a few little Muir energy gels with me, which are about 12 grams of carbs, they also have some nut butter in there like almond butter, and some fat and protein, so fat and protein, a little bit of carbs.
And I had like three of them over 25 miles, it was very low in carbs, like I didn’t have to have, you know, a Gu every 30 minutes or whatever. And I was fine because I’m fat adapted because I use my own stored body fat as fuel very effectively. Okay. So just understand that there are benefits to exercising without fuel.
So exercising in that fasted state, you get a lot of benefits, you get improved performance due to more adrenaline being produced, you get a clearer head, better focus and concentration, faster recovery times due to more growth hormone being produced. So there’s lots of reasons why we like to exercise in that fasted state.
And it also helps emphasize fat burning, you know, so when you get really good at burning fat, then you go to, to race and you’ve been training low carb, you go to race and you add more carbohydrates for that race. That’s like adding rocket fuel, right, and you’ll get the you can optimize your running performance when you do that. Okay, so train low, race high.
Next principle, at some point, calories do matter. So there’s this concept called CICO. C-I-C-O.
And that stands for calories in, calories out. And this is the energy balance theory, which says, you know, the more energy you consume, the more you need to burn, basically, the cardio in order to maintain that energy balance, okay.
So this is what most people adhere to when they try to lose weight, the energy balance theory, and I tried this for years with an app. And I was tracking all the calories I was eating, like literally every gram of whatever I was eating, and then I was tracking all my exercise. It just wasn’t working. I was gaining weight in the process. Because there’s more to it than that, right.
And stuff we’ve talked about already, hormones like insulin have to be considered, the type of foods you eat have to be considered, all calories are not the same. The human body is not a steam engine. If we are a steam engine, this CICO theory might work, okay, but we’re not.
The human body is a complex, complicated, interconnected multi system living organism and trying to simplify it to work the same as a steam engine is just ridiculous, because it’s not. Right. Okay, all that being said, at some point over consuming calories is going to be a problem.
You have to be mindful not to overeat, you have to stop the automatic eating, the out of control eating, the emotional eating, you have to learn to know when you’re actually hungry and when you’re not. I know this sounds simple. And it is a simple concept. But it’s not easy. Because you’ve probably trained yourself to use food as an emotional management tool, right?
We all have. We all use food to feel better. We use it as a reward. We use it to feel better. We use it to manage our emotions, especially when we’re having negative emotions. We’re feeling really stressed out. Oh, I was doing great until I got really stressed out at work. And then everything went to you know hell in a handbasket?
Well, it’s because you haven’t learned how to deal with those emotional stuff. This is one of the most talked about topics in our coaching program, the coaching project, because everybody has to deal with this. Every single person I’ve worked with has had to deal with this to some degree. Okay.
So yes, at some point, overeating has to be addressed. Calories do matter. But keep in mind, when you change your diet, when you start eating real food, you start getting enough protein, you stop eating all the refined grains and sugar, your hormones start working properly, your blood sugar’s regulated, you’re not going to be hungry all the time. And not eating will be easy.
It’ll be effortless, and overeating will be much less of an issue. Okay? You got to learn how to deal with your emotions without food. And I’m going to talk more about this in our mindset principles episode that’s going to be part three.
So stick around for that one, because that’s going to be good. It’s important. This is one of the most important things that we have to address if you want to lose weight, okay? All right. So that’s what I got for you today.
Those are the principles that I think are the most important when it comes to losing weight as a runner. And remember, this is episode one of a three part series called Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know.
And next we’re going to be talking about exercise principles for weight loss like running, walking, resistance, training, rest, recovery, cross training, flexibility, mobility exercises, tons more, all with a focus on, you know, helping you to lose weight guide. So definitely be on the lookout for that one.
And then listen, if you ever want help with all this, consider joining us in the coaching project. That’s my lifetime access, a weight loss coaching program. It’s designed specifically for runners to help you crush your weight loss and your running goals simultaneously.
The three things that you need to succeed at anything are number one, you need knowledge, so you need to know what to do and how to do it. You need the strategies you need, you need the knowledge, okay?
Number two is you need support. You need someone there to have your back, somebody to guide you through the process every step of the way, someone to encourage you and keep you motivated and help you stay on track.
And then number three, you need accountability. You need someone there to hold you accountable, so that you do what you said you’re going to do. Right and my unique weight loss coaching program delivers all three.
The coaching project will help you dial in a custom nutrition plan that works for you, your goals, your lifestyle, you’ll learn how to stay on track, even when you don’t feel like it. You’ll develop the mindset skills necessary to do the hard things. You’ll learn how to do cheat meals the right way, and I use cheat meals in quotes. I don’t really believe in cheat meals.
You’ll learn how to stop the emotional eating, the stress eating, the automatic eating that makes it so hard to lose weight. You’ll learn how to improve your running performance. Whether that means running faster or farther, you’ll be able to basically crush your running goals. And then you’ll just learn how to become a lean, strong fat burning machine right.
So to learn more and sign up today, just go to runningleancoaching.com/join. And I would love to see you in the coaching project. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
