Additional menu

Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Struggles

119. Why Willpower Doesn’t Work

By

One of the biggest misconceptions about losing weight is that requires a ton of willpower. If you have enough willpower you’re good to go, but if you don’t - you’ll probably just fail. This …

Continue Reading about 119. Why Willpower Doesn’t Work →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 119, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, why willpower doesn’t work. So one of the biggest misconceptions about losing weight is that it requires you to have a ton of willpower.

Like if you have enough willpower, you’re good to go. But if you don’t, you’re just going to fail. And this couldn’t be further from the truth. Listen, willpower helps, but it will only get you so far. There are other forces at work that have to be addressed if you want to lose weight and be able to keep it off for good.

So in this episode of the podcast, I’m gonna explain why willpower doesn’t work and what you should be focusing on instead. And listen, if you’re the kind of person who wants a little help with all this with losing weight, with being able to keep it off, you know, maybe you do really well when you have some guidance and support, I want you to know that I’ve just opened up my brand new immersive coaching program called the Running Lean Coaching Project.

This program combines the best elements of group coaching and also includes personal one-on-one coaching with me to help you get the knowledge, the guidance, the encouragement, the accountability that you need to hit your weight loss goals and your running goals.

And our whole focus for the month of April is going to be on building healthy habits that stick. There’s an art and a science to habit change. And all month long, we’re going to be doing live trainings, q&a sessions, workshops and coaching to learn how to ditch the old habits, those old habits that aren’t serving you and replace them with healthy new habits that will actually get you to your weight loss goals.

I hope you’ll join us you can learn more and sign up now at runningleanpodcast.com/join, I would love to have you in the Running Lean Coaching Project where the project is you!

All right, this topic has been one that I’ve been thinking about for a while now, why willpower doesn’t work. And one of my clients actually asked me this question about the difference between willpower and mindset. And it really got me thinking about what I wanted to talk about today and how I wanted to frame this conversation.

So willpower is one of these things that is kind of misunderstood, I think. And willpower is actually defined as control exerted, to do something or restrain impulses. So willpower is actually your ability to control yourself and control the decisions you make in certain circumstances. The thing with willpower, though, it often reflects an internal conflict.

And willpower typically feels like there’s some sort of struggle, you know, just look at the definition: control exerted. So you have to exert some sort of effort and restrain impulses, like it doesn’t feel like there’s like this conflict and struggle going on when you think about willpower. So, here’s an example of what this might look like. So let’s say you’re trying to stick to your food plan, maybe you’d cut out eating sugar, because you know, it’s bad, sugar bad.

So you’re like, okay, I’m not eating sugar right now. And you’re going along fine. And everything’s good. And then you decide on a Sunday afternoon, you’re like, I’m gonna make some chocolate chip cookies with the kids, this will be fine. I haven’t been eating this stuff. It’ll be a fine morning for cookies, I’m just gonna help the kids make these cookies, though. They can eat them or whatever.

So you start making the cookies and everything’s going along beautifully, until you start cooking those cookies. And you can start to smell them. You know, you know where I’m going with this, right? Like the whole house is filled with that smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Hello. And then they come out of the oven and they’re all gooey and melty.

And this is where you have to have willpower, right? And you feel yourself struggling to not eat the cookies and then you’ve got this internal conflict going on. Because what you want right now in that moment, did you want to scarf down like six to eight of those amazing, gooey, gooey, warm chocolate chip cookies, right? So that’s what you want right now.

That’s what’s like driving your attention. That’s what all your attention is focused on, your energy is focused on, you want these cookies right now. But long term, what you want for yourself is to be, you know, to be the kind of person who’s no longer driven by this obsession with sugar, right?

Someone who has developed a better relationship with sugar delivers a different relationship with food. And you know that eating these cookies right now, will absolutely set you back. Right? It’s not in alignment with who you want to be. But there’s a struggle right? There, you’re fighting against this urge to not eat the cookies.

And that urge is so strong. And you’re just like, you know, white knuckling is like the willpower. That’s our definition and sort of the way we think about willpower, right? You’re just fighting this urge not to eat the cookies, right? So that struggle, that’s what willpower feels like, it’s a battle.

You’re battling against the cookies, like you against the cookies, who’s gonna win? Sometimes it’s you, sometimes it’s the cookies, right? So let’s say you’re in the same situation, but you’ve had a bad day, maybe you know, stress it, you’ve been stressed at work, or the kids have been driving you crazy, or you haven’t been sleeping well. Maybe you’re overtraining, you’re rundown and you’re tired, you’re already like drained of energy, then what?

Well, in that situation, your willpower is going to be greatly diminished, greatly diminished. And your ability to muster up the willpower to not eat the cookies in that moment is just not going to be there. And the cookies will win. I’m going to tell you right now, the cookies win, but when have you ever been there before? I’ve been there before I know exactly what this feels like. And this is not an uncommon situation.

I hear this all the time from people, they really struggle in these situations. And they think that they just don’t have the willpower to stick with it. But here’s the thing, most people are relying on willpower alone, because that’s all they know. Right?

When you even think about changing your diet, and like losing weight, just thinking about that is going to cause a little bit of an internal struggle with you, right, because what you’ve tried in the past maybe hasn’t worked. Or you’re thinking about the discomfort that’s going to be involved with changing your diet and not eating the cookies every time you make them.

And you have this preconceived notion about willpower, which is like, either you have it or you don’t. And you probably believe that your willpower, the willpower that you’re able to muster up isn’t going to be enough to get you through the tough spots, because maybe you’ve tried it in the past and it hasn’t worked.

So this is the way most people see willpower. They see it as an exertion of energy. And as a form of struggle, it’s a struggle, it’s a battle to stick with your diet. And this image comes to mind if somebody just like white knuckling it and like sweating, the sweat’s like dripping off their forehead, they’re frantically trying to keep themselves from eating the chocolate chip cookies.

And they keep looking at the cookies. And then there’s this internal dialogue going on. Right? This is the image that comes to my mind anyway. But this exertion of energy, it implies that what you’re doing is a struggle. And it’s hard. It’s hard work. It’s a battle. And there’s this internal conflict that you’re experiencing, right.

But here’s the thing, it doesn’t have to be a struggle, it can actually feel pretty much effortless, to change your diet and to not have that urge to eat the cookies. And that’s the freedom that comes from doing the inner work of actually changing your mindset and changing your habits. When you change your habits and you change your mindset, now even the cookies become easy and effortless.

There’s no longer a struggle. When you’ve created a new mindset and developed new, healthier habits, these internal conflicts that you used to have they’re just a thing of the past. There’s no more struggling, no more white knuckling it, no more sweating over the plate of cookies. Sticking to your plan becomes easy and effortless.

I know what you’re thinking you’re like, Patrick, this seems crazy. I don’t see how I could possibly do this. Because it’s so hard for me right now where I am. And I get that I really do. And I want to share a story with you about my experience with needing something more than willpower.

So About 15 years ago, actually, on April 9, 15 years ago, so April 9, 2007, was the day that I decided I was no longer going to drink alcohol. So this is actually just a few days from now. And this episode should come out on the eighth. So it’ll be the day after this episode comes out will be me celebrating my 15th anniversary of sobriety.

And I decided to quit drinking, because at the time, my drinking had become unmanageable. And I felt very out of control. And I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. For decades, really, I was using alcohol to dull difficult emotions. You know, I had all these feelings, and I couldn’t deal with them. And as long as I was drinking, I really didn’t have to deal with the failure.

And that way I didn’t have to feel anything really, I was just numbing out to whatever it was that was going on with me. And to the outside world. I seemed like I was doing okay, I had a job, you know, married, kids, house, dog all these things, right. But on the inside, I was miserable. I was drinking to excess every day, I felt physically sick, pretty much all the time. My marriage was falling apart. In fact, my wife left me because of my drinking.

I was a hot mess. I had two little kids at the time. And I decided one day I woke up one day, it was a Monday morning, it was the day after Easter 2007 April 9th, I woke up, I was feeling sick again. And I decided at that moment that I never wanted to feel that way. Again, I made a decision at that moment that I never wanted to drink again.

Now, of course, I’ve made this pledge to myself a million times before. But this time, it was different. Because I had this thought as I was laying in bed, feeling miserable, wondering if I was gonna be able to go to work or not. And I had this thought at that moment, that for the first time in my life, I was going to ask for help, that I couldn’t do this alone.

But I could do it if I had some help. And I didn’t know what that was gonna look like. But I knew that I was going to find somebody to help me, so I ended up getting some counseling and things like that. And it worked out pretty well in the end. But there were so many times where I had tried to quit before and I couldn’t do it.

And so, after making that decision, I started doing the work of developing a new mindset, this is where I kind of first learned of this concept of like, really, you know, you need a new mind, you know, when it comes to making big changes like this and the same, this exact same principles apply.

When you want to lose weight, when you want to stop eating sugar, when you want to, you know, start feeling better, and start getting healthier, these are big changes. And these things can be very challenging to do on your own especially. But they’re very challenging to do if you’re just going to rely on willpower alone, to get you through all the tough stuff.

And I’m going to tell you right now, if I was to rely on willpower alone, to keep me from drinking these last 15 years, I would not have been able to do it. I’m going to tell you right now, because there were many times over the last 15 years, where I did not have willpower. There were experiences that happened with me in my life where, you know, for example, I lost both my parents, you know, about two years apart early on in my sobriety. And that was very, very challenging for me and my family.

Because my parents were fairly young, you know, in their 70s. I ended up getting married in sobriety and then 10 years later getting divorced from that person. And these were all very challenging times to get through. I like quit jobs, I started new jobs, I changed careers, I did all kinds of things. And I’m going to tell you right now, that if I was relying on willpower to get me through all this stuff, if I was relying on willpower to keep me from taking a drink, it would never have been enough.

I wouldn’t be where I am today. I had to develop a whole new mind. I had to become the kind of person who no longer drinks alcohol. I had to become the kind of person who no longer used alcohol as a way of solving my problems as a way of numbing out, right, I had to start to experience life on life’s terms.

So I decided alcohol was no longer going to be a solution for me, and I had to figure something else out. And what I had to figure out was adopting a new mindset, a mindset of someone who no longer used something external, to feel better on the inside.

Same exact thing when it comes to food. If you’re relying on willpower to get you through, to help you to lose the weight, and get you through all the tough stuff, I’m going to tell you right now, it’s not going to be enough, you’re gonna get stressed out, you’re gonna have a hard day, you’re gonna fail, you’re not going to get enough sleep, you’re going to be, you know, fatigued, mentally, emotionally, physically.

And in those instances, if you’re relying on willpower, I’m going to tell you right now, it’s just not going to work. You have to develop a new mind. Gotta change your mindset. I wouldn’t be sober today, if I was relying on willpower to keep me sober. In order to make these big, profound changes in your life, like changing your diet, losing weight, no longer eating junk food, or training for a marathon, these things require more than willpower, they require a shift in your mindset.

Willpower comes and goes. It’s like an emotion, think about willpower, like an emotion that you have sometimes, right? Like, sometimes you have it, and sometimes you don’t, it’s very strong when it’s present. But when it’s gone, it’s like it’s gone. Right? Think about emotion, maybe you’ve recently had anger, frustration, stress, even a positive emotion, like motivation.

All of these emotional states come and go. They’re not constant. Sometimes they’re around for a while, but they’re always in motion. They’re like, they wax and wane, right. And that’s what happens with our emotions, which is good, we want to, we don’t want to be feeling the same emotion all the time. This is a good thing, right?

Because it means you’re not going to feel sad forever, you’re not going to feel lonely or stressed out forever. It also means that the positive emotions come and go too, and we just have to accept that as part of the deal here, right. So, for example, if you’re relying on the feeling of motivation to always be there, it’s not going to always be there. It comes and goes, you have to create your own motivation. If you want to, you know, go and do something, if you’re not feeling motivated to run, I’m gonna tell you right now, you need to create that motivation, it’s not going to just be bestowed upon you, in some magical way.

I talked about this in great length, in an episode called the secret sauce of self motivation, it’s episode number 62. Definitely check it out. Because it really talks about how to get yourself motivated and get out the door and things like that. But willpower is like an emotion and the way that it comes and goes. So it’s not something you can rely on to be there all the time.

You can’t rely on willpower alone to be there, to get you through the tough stuff to keep you from eating those chocolate chip cookies, or whatever. Whatever your chocolate chip cookies are. Mindset, on the other hand, when you change your mind, this is something that is much deeper, it’s stronger, it’s much more powerful and much more consistent.

Think about your mindset as like a standard that you set for yourself. Right? If you have a standard, like for me, I have a standard. It’s like I don’t drink alcohol. That’s a standard that I set for myself 15 years ago, and I never fall below that standard. So for me, not drinking alcohol is easy and effortless. It does not require any willpower at all.

Today, I can tell you with 100% certainty that I have no desire to drink alcohol, even when it’s like in my face. I can sit at a bar. And I do this sometimes, you know, I go to bars and I’ll eat dinner sitting at the bar talking to the bartender or people around me and things like that. And there’ll be alcohol all over the place.

I don’t even want it. That’s freedom right there. That is like True, true freedom. This can be the same with your relationship with sugar two. So if your standard is I don’t eat sugar, then, you know, eating those chocolate chip cookies I talked about earlier. That’s not going to be thing you have to worry about. Because that’s not who you are. You just don’t do that.

I haven’t had sugar in like two years. None. And that’s a lie. I had sugar about 18 months ago. On my birthday, I had some dessert. But I’ve had one, you know, serving whatever of sugar in last two years, which is why I put it that way. But not eating sugar is just something that I don’t do. It’s just not.

It’s a standard that I have set for myself, I don’t eat sugar. And so it’s easy. It’s effortless. I have this new mindset. And your mindset is based on on a lot. I mean, it’s a big topic, right? It’s based on your beliefs, your values, it’s based on the standards that you set for yourself.

Your mindset is your thoughts, your feelings, all these things, but your mindset beats willpower every single time. Your mindset is what’s driving your behavior. Your mindset is what’s actually creating, you know, whether or not you have this willpower.

Because willpower, think of it like an emotion, okay. So, you have to understand that you, you create your mindset, this is something that, you know, may may be something that you’ve had for a long time, but it’s something you’ve created, you’ve create your own mindset, and you can change it. It’s not set in stone.

Think about this, think about something you do easily and effortlessly right now. like brushing your teeth before going to bed. I’m hoping you do this regularly. Okay, if you don’t, get on that. Okay, so brushing your teeth before you go to bed, right? My guess is that this is like something that you do is so automatic, it doesn’t take willpower to do it, right.

It’s just something you do, you don’t have to be like, okay, I really, really got to brush my teeth here, right? It’s just part of your daily routine. It’s what you do, it’s who you are, you would never think of going to bed, I hope without brushing your teeth.

But it wasn’t always like this for you. Like when you were a kid, brushing your teeth was a struggle, try getting your kids to brush your teeth today, like before going to bed, it’s a struggle, it’s a battle, right? They don’t know what’s good for them, you’re telling them it’s good for them, but they just don’t want to do it.

There’s no internal motivation, they haven’t developed the mindset yet. They haven’t developed the mindset of somebody who just brushes their teeth every night before they go to bed. They will eventually, right, but it takes a while. Just like us, it’s the same way with when we’re trying to change our diet or stick to our workout schedule or stick to our food plan.

Think of yourself as that little kid who doesn’t want to brush their teeth, you’re not going to always feel like doing it. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes, the more you do it, the more it just becomes a part of who you are, the more you do it, the more effortlessly it becomes for you.

You develop your mindset over time, it doesn’t happen overnight. And I know a lot of people get impatient, they want to go fast, they want to stop, they want to stop eating sugar and then stop craving it right away. Because it’d be way easier to give up sugar if you didn’t crave it, right. But that’s the part that takes time.

Just like anything else worthwhile in our lives, it takes time to change your mind. Okay? So you’ve got to be patient with yourself. And one big part of your mindset is how you talk to yourself. So trash talking yourself will not get you there, you have to love yourself through this process of change.

Change can be hard, it can be hard, I get that totally. But beating yourself up every day, because it’s not going fast enough just makes it harder. You can’t hate yourself thin. So I just want you to understand that willpower is fine. And it’s something that you know, you can use at times, and you’ll have it at times, but there’s going to be times where it’s just not going to be there.

And what you need instead is to have developed the mindset of somebody who stays on track of somebody who doesn’t give in to those urges of somebody who doesn’t rely on sugar, or junk food or alcohol to feel better. You have to develop the mindset of somebody who does these things, and it becomes easy and effortless for you.

Because willpower is not going to be there all the time. You can’t rely on it. But you can definitely rely on your mindset. Okay. And remember that we’re going to be spending the whole month of April over in the Running Lean coaching project on the art and science of habit change. So you’re gonna learn exactly how to create the mindset you need to ditch those old habits and make healthy eating healthy habits.

Healthy workout habits, healthy running habits, something that you do easily and effortlessly. And we’re gonna have fun doing it. Just so you know. I hope you’ll join us just go torunningleanpodcast.com/join. Love you all keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

115. Overcoming Weight Loss Fears and Insecurities

By

When you set out to reach big goals like losing weight and getting fit, you will eventually come face-to-face with all your fears and insecurities. Even just thinking about changing your diet can …

Continue Reading about 115. Overcoming Weight Loss Fears and Insecurities →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode 115 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today overcoming weight loss fears and insecurities.

So when it comes to reaching big goals, like losing weight and getting fit, you will eventually come face to face with a bunch of fears and insecurities it’s going to happen. Even just thinking about changing your diet can get you feeling pretty anxious, right?

You might even just say like no thanks to the whole idea. So you don’t have to deal with all the negative stuff that’s bound to come up when you engage in this process.

But I want to offer another approach, I want you to think about what it would feel like to actually deal with all those fears and insecurities instead of trying to avoid them. In this episode, I’m spending some time talking about overcoming these weight loss fears and insecurities.

This is a topic that’s been on my mind a lot lately. And it’s a very powerful thing. It’s a very powerful skill that you can learn if you’re willing to do the work and face your fears head-on.

But first, I wanted to give you a heads up about something cool that’s coming up here. Next week, I am teaching a live workshop, it’s all about how to effectively transform yourself from the inside out into a leaner, stronger, more badass runner, it’s called five simple steps to becoming a leaner, stronger runner.

This will be the most informative and one of the most comprehensive live workshops that I’ve ever taught. I don’t do this kind of thing very often. But I was feeling pretty excited about this topic, and I wanted to share it with you guys.

And I thought, you know, instead of doing a podcast about this, I wanted to teach it live, there’s this real energy when we all get together when we can ask questions, and there’s that interaction. And so it’s gonna be fun, we’re gonna have a good time doing this.

Okay, you’re going to learn how to get leaner, how to become stronger, and how to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet, that is the goal. That’s what I want you to walk away from, with this workshop.

To sign up, just go to runningleancoaching.com/workshop. And it’s next Thursday, the 17th at 8 pm Eastern time. Now I’m going to be doing this a couple more times. I’ll give you more updates on that later.

I can’t really schedule those just yet just because of the whatever scheduling software that I’m using and things like that. So as soon as this one is over, I’ll let you know about that other one that’s coming up, the next one that’s coming up.

So if you can’t make it on the 17th, no worries, I’m gonna give you a couple more opportunities. Cool. If I didn’t mention it, this is free and fun. We’re gonna have fun together. Okay. So to sign up, just go to runningleancoaching.com/workshop, I hope to see you there.

Alright, let’s get into this topic of overcoming weight loss fears and insecurities. This is something that has been on my mind lately, it’s something that I really wanted to take a deep dive into.

Because it’s one of those topics that comes up for every single person, every single person that I work with has this issue come up where they have to deal with the fears and insecurities around their own weight loss journey, whether they can do it or not, you know, whether they have failed in the past or not and all this stuff comes up.

But it’s one of those things that we don’t want to talk about. It’s one of those things we just want to pretend isn’t there. And so what a lot of people do is, you know, they set out to do something like lose weight, you know, they set out to like, make a big lifestyle change like this.

And then all this stuff starts coming up and they just want to avoid it. So it kind of looks like this. Like, let’s say you make a decision that you want to lose some weight. And you embark on some sort of weight loss plan. Like you join a group program, you hire a coach, you know, whatever.

As soon as you decide to make a big change like this, then commit to making that change. That’s when things are gonna start to get all scary for you. Just thinking about changing your diet like making some permanent lifestyle changes, just thinking about it can put you into freakout mode, right?

I want you to know something. There’s nothing wrong with you if this has happened to you or if it’s happening to you right now, this is super normal. It’s just your brain, your brain doing what it does best. It’s trying to keep you safe. It’s trying to keep you comfortable. It’s trying to avoid pain and seek pleasure.

So I want you to do this experiment right now, I just want you to think about this. Think about changing your diet, think about what it would take to lose those 30 pounds or 20 pounds or 50 pounds or whatever it is.

Are you starting to freak out a little bit right now is your heart starting to race orare your palms sweating? If they are, again, this is totally normal. What’s happening here, just thinking about this is starting to put you outside of your comfort zone.

And this idea of getting outside your comfort zone in order to grow in order to become more. Your brain does not like this idea. Your brain wants to keep you safe. That’s what your brain’s job is.

Your brain is sensing something unfamiliar here. It’s sensing something uncomfortable here. It’s sensing something dangerous. It’s not really dangerous. But it feels unfamiliar and uncomfortable. And so your brain is like, get me out of here, and you go into that freakout mode.

This is why most people just don’t ever start. They never even take on the challenge of you know trying to lose weight or get stronger, get fitter, get leaner run faster, whatever it is. Because just thinking about it seems overwhelming, it seems too hard.

You start to have all these fears and insecurities come bubbling up to the surface, you go into freakout mode, and you’re like, haha, I don’t want anything to do with that. So you just stay where you are.

But when you start to make these uncomfortable changes, when you actually start to do this stuff, your brain senses the danger. And then these fears and insecurities are going to start to come up to the surface, okay? And your thoughts and your feelings are going to come up stuff like, this is going to be so hard.

‘I don’t know if I can do this. I’m going to be hungry all the time. What if this doesn’t work for me? I mean, this never worked for me in the past? Well, what’s gonna be different this time? What if I can’t make it last, right? What if I can’t sustain this? What if it’s not something I can do forever? What if I gain the weight back? I’ve never been able to do this before, it’s always been hard for me. I know I’m going to fail. People are going to judge me, I’m going to lose friends over this.’

And on and on and on. Like, we can just go into this mode of like, thinking about all the insecurities and all the fears and all the anxiety that we have around this topic of wanting to get healthy and do something good for ourselves. And all these thoughts begin to dominate your brain.

And honestly, this is why most people just won’t even start there. It’s just too much for them. There’s too much fear and insecurity there. And the funny thing is they haven’t even done anything yet they haven’t even started.

You’re just like thinking about this and all this stuff comes up. Okay, they haven’t even actually begun the work, they haven’t started changing their habits, they haven’t done anything differently other than just like had these thoughts. So you can see how detrimental this can be for you. Right.

So I’m going to talk about this in two ways. What I’m talking about right now, this is like part one of this because before you even begin the process before you even embark on your weight loss journey before you actually start making any changes, all this stuff’s gonna come up for you.

Right, just thinking about it, all this stuff’s gonna come up for you. So this is kind of like the first part of this, okay? The negative thoughts will come up to the surface, and they can just completely stop you in your tracks, they can keep you from doing anything at all keep you from taking any action keep you from making any progress keep you from ever embarking on this journey.

It’s kind of like, hey, I talk to people all the time who are like, I’d love to run a marathon someday, but I’m too afraid it’s gonna be too hard. The training’s going to be hard, I’ve never been able to run that far before. I just don’t know.

And so they just say, you know, maybe that’s just not for me, and they just don’t do it. Deep down inside, they want that for themselves. But all this stuff is coming up. Before they even get into it.

They haven’t even looked at a training plan. They haven’t started doing the work to start training for a marathon. And they’re already like, convinced they can’t do it. This is what I call pre-failing, right? You’re pre-failing, you’re failing ahead of time. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. Okay.

But this stuff just like thinking about it is going to bring up all this stuff. And you know whether or not you can lose weight, how hard it’s going to be all that. All those thoughts are going to come up. And you’ve got to be careful not to get mired down by all that stuff. It’s just a bunch of negative self-talk, right?

You have to override your brain’s natural functions, you have to override your brain’s default behavior here, right, you’re going to experience some of those thoughts, you’re going to experience some of that fear and some of those insecurities.

But that does not mean you don’t start. It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. You can. You have to feel the fear and do it anyway. You have to understand that in order to make big changes, like to your health and fitness, you’re going to get uncomfortable, it’s going to be uncomfortable, you’re going to have to embrace the suck, okay.

And this is what it means to override your brain’s default functioning, right, you’re still going to have the fears, you’re still gonna have these insecurities. But you move forward anyway. And this takes courage, and it takes determination and discipline.

But this is the work that you have to do if you want more for yourself. And remember, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is having the fear, doing the thing anyway, and showing up. Think about a warrior going into battle.

The warrior going into battle is not lacking fear, they have the fear. But they put on their armor, they grab their shield and their sword, and they head into the melee. They embrace the discomfort, they embrace the fear, they do it anyway. It’s not a lack of fear. It’s action in the face of fear. That’s what courage is.

Okay, so part one is all the stuff that’s going to come up when you just start thinking about this right. And before you even get started.

Part two of this process is all the stuff that actually comes up when you stop using food as an emotional management tool. Because when you’re using food, to avoid feeling negative emotions, as soon as you stop doing that, all those negative emotions are going to be right there. Yay.

So all the fear and the stress and the anxiety and the anger and the frustration and all that stuff that you’ve been avoiding. By eating food, now you got to deal with all that stuff. So this is kind of part two of this when you start changing your diet, and you start and you stop using food as a way of coping with life and with stress and with feelings and sadness, and loneliness, or whatever it is you’re experiencing.

When you stop doing that, all that stuff’s gonna come up for you. Okay? All of those same, like negative self-talk, things are going to come up for you except now, you’re not using food as a way of stuffing that down. You’re not using food as a way of dealing with those difficult emotions. So now you’ve got to start feeling your feelings.

And if you’ve never done this before, I’m going to tell you right now, you are not going to like it. Isn’t that awesome? Most people do not like feeling their emotions, not the difficult ones anyway, people don’t mind feeling happy and joyful, excited and loved and stuff like that.

But the negative emotions, the ones that we label as negative like anger, sadness, grief, loneliness, hurt, stress, boredom, are all emotions that we experience, people do not like to feel those things. So what do they eat instead? You know, and some people drink.

Some people just scroll through Instagram mindlessly for hours on end. Some people drink alcohol, some people shop, we do all these things, to try to dull the feelings that we’re experiencing. So we don’t have to feel those things, right we have we are trying to do all these difficult emotions. So you eat.

Instead, you use food to feel better. And listen, it kind of works temporarily, like you get a hit of dopamine. Those pleasure centers in your brain, they get all lit up. And it feels good for a minute, and the strategy of like, eating instead of feeling your feelings, kind of works for a minute.

That doesn’t make you feel better, but only for a minute. It’s very, very brief, very temporary. Once that sugar buzz wears off, or you know, whatever you’ve been eating, all those emotions you’re trying to avoid, they just come back. Plus you get the added benefit of like feeling terrible because you went off your plan and you ate a bunch of junk food and you feel bad about that and you still have those other emotions.

And so what do you do then? You just eat more to try to make yourself feel better and it’s a vicious cycle. It’s never-ending, you’re constantly eating your feelings, trying to avoid your feelings, eating more, feeling bad about yourself, beating yourself up feeling even worse. So then you eat more, and on and on and on, rinse and repeat forever.

So what you’re doing here is you’re just postponing the whole process of actually dealing with your emotions, what you have to do is deal with the emotions, eventually, right, you have to do something about this, right? You’ve got to feel those feelings.

So you’ve set out on your weight loss journey, and you’re no longer using food as an emotional management tool. Awesome. That is good. But now, all your fears and insecurities come up. And you have to finally deal with all of that. This is when the real work begins.

Because if you can get good at handling all of the negative emotions that come up, when you stop eating your feelings, I’m telling you, you can handle just about anything, you become a total emotional badass.

By the way, we’re having some really cool conversations about this in the coaching group right now, this month, we’re talking all about overcoming emotional eating for good, and we’re taking a kind of deep dive into this topic.

And I was talking to one of my clients yesterday about this, and she was like, she didn’t realize what she was doing was emotional eating. So we have this vision in our heads of what emotional eating is.

And it’s like, you know, somebody’s like, in bed with the covers around them with a half-gallon of ice cream and a spoon crying, you know, like, that’s not really the what emotional eating looks like for most people.

And so this person was like, “I’m not an emotional eater, you know, but I’ll tell you, I had a really stressful day at work. And you know, I eat when I get stressed out like that, you know, I just go for potato chips, and you know, all these nuts and stuff, and I just can’t stop, I just, you know, it feels better.”

And I said, “Well, that’s emotional eating stress is just a feeling right?”

When you’re stress eating, it’s emotional eating, or you’re eating because you’re bored. That’s emotional, eating out of boredom, feeling bored is just a feeling. It’s an emotion. And so anytime you use food to try to dull whatever emotion you’re feeling, that’s emotional eating, okay?

So the process of overcoming your fears and insecurities around weight loss is actually dealing with your emotions. That’s what it is. That’s the process. That’s how you do it.

You actually have to embrace feeling your emotions, you have to feel your feelings, it means you have to learn how to sit with your feelings, without doing anything to change them. Without doing anything to make them go away. Just feel your feelings.

Does this sound terrible to you? It does for a lot of people. And I used to be this way too. I was like, I don’t want to feel my feelings. So ever since I was a kid, I’m very sensitive. I was a very sensitive kid, I’m still a very sensitive person.

And I used to feel things very deeply, I still do. You know, I had a very acute sense of these emotions, right? I’m just a sensitive person. So when I stopped using food, and alcohol, to numb myself to my feelings, I had to deal with that stuff, right?

I couldn’t handle feeling those negative emotions. So I would eat and drink over them, you know, I drank a lot. So I didn’t have to feel those things. I ate a lot. But then I stopped doing that at some point. And I couldn’t handle the intensity of my emotions.

And so I would freeze, I would withdraw, I would act very passive-aggressive, you could ask both of my ex-wives about this, they can attest to this. But eventually, I had to learn how to deal with all of these emotions that I was experiencing, without using food or alcohol or scrolling through Instagram or whatever.

And I did, I’ve gotten really good at sitting with my emotions and just letting them be there. And letting them sort of process through and not trying to make them go away. Not trying to change them. Not trying to squash them down. Just walking around, feeling my feelings.

And I have to tell you, my emotions are very manageable now. I don’t feel them as intensely as I used to because I’m just allowing them to be there. I’m not trying to make them go away. I’m not trying to change anything. And I don’t have to eat over them.

You know, I can still feel things intensely sometimes, but it’s not a problem for me. I don’t see like having a feeling is like an emergency that I have to fix. And I want you to know this is available for you, you just have to start practicing actually feeling your feelings, right.

Embrace the discomfort of having an emotion without doing anything to change it without eating over it. And just letting it be there. And I have to say this goes for you guys too. Like dudes are generally like, “Really, feel your feelings? Come on, bro. No thanks, don’t I just need to like man up and grow a pair?”

No, this is actually a very powerful skill that we are, none of us are taught men and women alike. We are not taught how to do this. And if you’re a dude, and you’re listening to this right now, I promise you that when you get good at just dealing with your feelings and actually experiencing them and processing them, this is a pretty badass skill.

It’s a badass skill that you have to get good at if you want to accomplish really anything in your life. Because when you do this, men and women, when you do this when you get good at handling your emotions and dealing with them. There’s like nothing you can’t do.

When you’re no longer afraid to feel your feelings, to experience your insecurities. Oh my god is what it means to be free. You have total freedom from emotional eating, you’re in control again.

And I promise you, you can lose a lot of weight this way. And you can keep it off for good. And I say this all the time – losing weight, getting healthy, getting stronger, running faster, all of it. It’s an inside job, right? You have to commit to doing this work.

Because this is how you accomplish big goals like losing weight. This is how you accomplish big goals like getting healthier, getting stronger, and making it last for life. This is how you become that badass that I know you want to be cool. And remember that if you’re ready to overcome your fears and insecurities around losing weight and make it last for life.

If you’re ready to learn the simple steps to becoming a leaner stronger runner then you have to come check out this free live workshop next week, March 17. To sign up just go to runningleancoaching.com/workshop.

I would love to see you there. I promise you’re gonna learn a lot. And we’re gonna have some fun together. Cool. All right, love you all keep on Running Lean. Talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

114. Winning The Inner Game

By

When it comes to making lasting habit change, there are two main areas of “work” that you have to address. There’s the outer work, which is what to do and how to do it, and then there’s the inner …

Continue Reading about 114. Winning The Inner Game →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 114 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, winning the inner game. When it comes to making a lasting habit change there are two main areas of work that we have to address. First, there’s the outer work, this is what to do and how to do it. But then there’s the inner work, which is all about making profound shifts in your mindset.

Most people only focus their attention on the outer work. Just tell me what to do, Patrick, that’s what they say to me, just tell you what to do. But the outer work is only a small fraction of the game. If you want better results for yourself, and you want to create new habits that actually last, you have to shift your focus internally, you have to start working on your inner game.

So in this episode, I’m going to be taking a deep dive into what this means what it means to be winning the inner game, and why it’s actually a very critical component of becoming a leaner, stronger runner, and a healthier, more badass human being.

But first, if you’re ready to do the inner work, if you’re ready to start winning the inner game, if you’re ready to start making that shift in your mindset, so you can start becoming the healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet, then you have to take action, you have to start doing things differently. Nothing changes if nothing changes, right.

But most people just want to keep doing what they’re doing over and over again, expecting something to magically change. And it doesn’t work that way, right? Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. I think that’s the definition of insanity. So don’t go insane. Just we got to change something, okay.

And if you’re not sure what to do, or you want a little bit of help with this, this is what I do. Apply for coaching with me, there’s no commitment to apply. It’s just me and you having a conversation about what coaching looks like and what this could possibly do for you. And how it could be one of the best things you ever do for yourself. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And take that first step, make that first change, make that first change to become that badass future version of yourself. Cool.

And then I wanted to give you guys a heads up about this workshop that I have coming up. In just a few weeks, I’m going to be teaching a live workshop all about how to effectively transform yourself from the inside out into a leaner, stronger, more badass runner. So this is going to be one of the most informative and most comprehensive live workshops that I’ve ever taught. I’ve never done this in this format live before.

And honestly, I’m just so excited about this. And I think it’s gonna be super fun. There’s like this cool energy when we do these things live. And we all come together and you can ask questions and get feedback. It’s super fun. So in this workshop, you’re going to learn the simple steps you need to get leaner get stronger, and make healthy habits last for life. That’s the whole point of this.

It’s not just about, hey, let’s lose some weight and get a little bit stronger. You know, and then in six months, we’ll just go back to doing what we’re doing before. No. How do we make these things last? So that’s what this workshop is all about. To sign up, just go to runningleancoaching.com/workshop, and I’m gonna give you a couple of opportunities to attend.

The first one is coming up on March 17. Yes, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. You can go drink your green beer after the workshop. Okay, it’s going to be March 17. And then I’ll share more about the other two opportunities to join in the weeks in the coming weeks here. Okay.

If I didn’t mention it, it’s going to be free. It’s a free live training just for you to help you understand the fundamentals of becoming the healthiest and most badass human being that you can possibly be – runningleanpodcast.com/workshop. I would love to see you there. We’re gonna have a lot of fun and it’s free. It’s fun. It’s free. It’s all good. And we can celebrate St. Patrick’s day together. Cool. Awesome. All right, let’s get into this content.

I want to talk about winning the inner game. I am so passionate about this particular topic. And I’ve been talking a lot with my clients about this lately, especially in the group program that I have in the monthly coaching group. So you know, we’re talking a lot about emotional eating and how to eliminate emotional eating, how to stop doing it for good in the coaching group.

So if you’re somebody that’s been on the fence about joining the coaching group, and you’re like, oh, man, that’s me, I’m an emotional eater, for sure. And it doesn’t mean you’re like sitting in the corner, you know, crying over him with a whole, you know, gallon of ice cream in your lap.

You know, that’s not what I mean by emotional eating, emotional eating, and stuff, like stress eating, eating, because you’re bored, because you’re tired, because you’re angry, because you’re frustrated, whatever it is your eating to feel better using something external to feel better, okay?

So we’re talking a lot about the inner work that we have to do in order to make a shift, a profound shift in the way we think and feel about ourselves and about our emotions and our feelings and stuff, so that we don’t have to eat over them.

The truth is, you don’t have to be an emotional eater, we all are, to some degree, I’m just gonna tell you right now, we all are to some degree. But if you’re done with that, if you want to be done with that forever, then you got to make some changes.

And a lot of what we got to do is the inner work, it’s not necessarily about what you’re doing on the outside, it’s about what you’re doing on the inside, okay. So that’s an example of the inner work, okay, and so we’re gonna be talking a lot about that this whole month over in the coaching group. And you can always join us over there, you can just go to runningleancoaching.com/join, to kind of check it out.

But here’s the thing. And why I wanted to talk about this today is because when you have a goal for yourself, like let’s say you have a goal of losing weight, and you’re just having a really hard time with that, and you’re struggling to keep it off, you might be able to keep it off for a little while, like you’ve probably all have experienced this, right, you lost some weight, then it comes back after a while. You keep finding yourself reverting to old behaviors.

If you can’t keep the weight off, then it means that you probably aren’t doing the inner work. You know, you have to have a mindset shift in order to accomplish these big goals. And most people do not want to do this, most people only focus on the outer work. So they will be like, just tell me what to eat Patrick, tell me what I shouldn’t eat. Just tell me how many carbs I should be eating every day, Patrick, that’s it? How many times a week should I be running? When should I lift weights? That’s all good.

I mean, this is all part of this is all strategy. But most people only want to know this part. Most coaches only focus on this part. Strategy is fine, it’s good. It’s important, it is part of the process. But it’s the outer stuff. Like you know, I’m not trying to minimize the importance of strategy, you got to know what to do. And you got to know how to do it. And I teach a lot of strategies in my coaching programs.

So there’s a right way to go about losing weight, there’s a right and a wrong way to go about becoming a fat-adapted runner. There’s a right and wrong way to go about getting stronger. You know, there are also ways that we do these things that are very frustrating, especially when you’re trying to figure it out yourself.

But the thing is that our work this strategy stuff I’m talking about here, it’s like 20% of the equation, right? It’s a small piece of the puzzle, right? The inner work is learning how to shift your mindset so that you make all the strategies work long term.

The inner work is learning how to break old habits and create new ones that last, the inner work is learning how to make the new healthy habits that you’re creating, how to make those habits stick. The inner work is going to help you to say no to a food craving when it’s sitting right there in your face.

The inner work is required if you want to learn how to eliminate those old cravings for junk food, the cravings that had you eating and that whole pint of ice cream, you know right before going to bed because you just can’t say no. The inner work is the other 80% of the equation.

And when you look at it that way, it becomes glaringly important, because I know that you have tried all the different things. You’ve tried the different types of diets, the Mediterranean diet and the South Beach diet and the vegan diet and the pegan diet and you know, low carb and the Keto and the plant-based or whatever it is, right. We’ve all tried all these different things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, most of the time they don’t. Because we’re just focused on the outside stuff. We’re just focused on what to do. What do we do?

I did this for years, I tried all those different diets I just mentioned, trying them all, didn’t work for me. Because I didn’t know about the inner work, I was just focused on, you know, the outside stuff. And I got to a point in all of these different diets, where maybe things just didn’t start, didn’t keep working for me, you know, and maybe I started to gain a little bit of weight back, or I didn’t feel like I had as much energy as I wanted, or whatever it is you know. Something, something in my mind was like, Oh, this isn’t working. This isn’t for me, this isn’t gonna last, I can’t keep this up. And then I quit. I wasn’t doing the inner work.

So what is the inner work? Here are some examples of what I’m talking about here. So for example, one of the things I recommend a lot of my clients do when they’re trying to shift their habits around food, and they’re in they’re using food to kind of deal with boredom or frustration or whatever it is stressed throughout the day and things like that, are we eliminate snacking throughout the day snacking is one of those things, you just don’t need to be snacking.

Snacking is always an emotional event, you don’t need food, you don’t need to eat, like, you know, a handful of nuts or you know, a few chips or whatever it is that you’re snacking on, you know, you aren’t really hungry, like your body isn’t craving nourishment. If you’re just going to be eating a few, you know, nuts or something, you know.

So how snacking is almost always just emotionally eating, right? It’s just because we’re stressed out or bored or something like that. So one of the things we do is we stop snacking, okay, and most people kind of freak out a little bit, you know, because they want to eat, they’re like, Oh, I just always eat every time I feel a little bit hungry, I eat. So managing hunger is a form of doing the inner work, right?

When you’ve done the inner work, and you’ve you you have this new profound understanding of what hunger really is, and what it’s not; how hunger isn’t always an emergency. Like, you don’t have to just solve the problem of hunger, every time it comes up for you. Like you can just practice feeling a little bit hungry. Sometimes it’s not a problem. Right? It’s not a problem.

When you’re just okay with that feeling inside. And you’ve kind of learned how you’re not going to die of hunger if you don’t eat for two hours. When you’ve done this work, and you learn to experience a little bit of hunger, maybe in a different way, it’s no longer a problem for you, it’s not a problem that has to be solved. It’s not an emergency that has to be fixed right now. It’s just a sensation in your body that you can handle, and you’ll be fine. And you can get through it.

And you don’t have to eat every time you, you know, get a little bit stressed out. That’s an example of doing the inner work. Okay, so you got to work on your thoughts about this stuff, you got to work on your beliefs about what you believe about hunger, what does that mean to you.

Another example of doing the inner work is just sticking to your food plan. Especially when you don’t feel like sticking to your food plan. So I have my clients, you know, plan what they’re going to be eating, we do this thing where we plan ahead, it’s very important that we plan things in advance because when you plan things in advance, you’re much more likely to stick to them, right? So we create a plan.

And then the rule is that once you’ve created your plan, you stick to that plan. So for example, let’s say you’re going out to dinner with some friends Friday night, and you’re not eating bread right now, as an example. And you go out to dinner and you’re at some kind of restaurant, they just keep bringing out the bread basket and there’s bread going around, everybody’s like, you know, literally like breaking bread in front of you and eating it and you can like smell it, you know?

And you’re like, ah, you’re kind of freaking out about that, right? But when you do the inner work of learning how to understand why you’re not choosing this particular food because it’s not good for you. It’s not serving you. It’s not part of your plan. And you’ve learned that you’re not going to you don’t have to freak out in that situation.

When you see the bread sitting there and you don’t have to give in to that urge or craving that you have to eat the bread. So you learn how to stick to your food plan even when you don’t feel like it. This is an example of what it means to do the inner work.

So you’re understanding what’s really empowering to your own health and fitness, that’s what’s important to you, not what other people think of you. Because sometimes people are like Hey, why aren’t you eating the bread? We’re all eating the bread, how come you’re not eating the bread and you’re like, Hey, back off, I’m just, you know, I don’t want the bread, it’s okay.

You know, we get a little worked up about those kinds of situations sometimes, okay. But when you do the inner work, those kinds of situations, they don’t bother you anymore. Because you’ve, you’ve learned how to process those situations and those feelings that come up for you, okay? That’s what it means to do the inner work.

And these things are all about your mindset. It’s making shifts in the way that you think and feel about yourself, and the way you think and feel about your diet, nutrition, and exercise, and running. All of that stuff.

And these internal shifts are what will keep you going when the going gets tough. And here’s a little thing that going will always get tough. It always does, right? We’re always going to be faced with different challenges in our lives, we’re always going to be faced with, you know, the people eating the bread in front of us, or people like shoving donuts in our face, you know? I don’t know, do people do that? Do they shove doughnuts in your face? I don’t know. Maybe that’s just me.

But here’s the thing, but the inner work is very powerful. And here’s a little bit of truth for you. If you’re not where you want to be, you know, if you’re not at the weight you want to be at, if you’re not as healthy as you want to be, you’re probably not doing the inner work, you’ve probably got some work to do.

Because the results that you get on the outside your outer results are a direct reflection of whether or not you’re doing the inner work, your thoughts, and feelings. In other words, your mindset drives all of your actions and all of your behaviors. Your current weight is just a direct result of whether or not you’re doing the inner work.

So who you are on the outside is actually created by who you are on the inside. So losing weight and being able to keep it off for good. It’s an inside job. And if it’s not working for you, if you’re struggling with this, if you’re not where you want to be, you have to shift your focus internally, and you have to start doing the inner work.

But people don’t want to do this work. They don’t want to do it. They fight me on this all the time. And I think it’s so interesting. And so I started looking into this, like why, why don’t people want to do this? Why don’t they want to do this introspective self-awareness type of work?

Why don’t people want to challenge their own beliefs about how they see things? Because of the beliefs you have about how you see things are keeping you stuck? Why wouldn’t you want to change that? You know, it just seems logical to me that you would want to loosen your grip on your belief systems and make some changes so that you can start to make progress.

And you can start to like start moving towards your goals instead of just staying stuck and frustrated all the time. But that’s just me. But this work is hard. It’s hard for people. And the thing is people will do just about anything, they’ll do all kinds of crazy stuff except this inner work, right?

So they try all sorts of crazy diets, the cabbage diet, the hot dog water diet, the juice cleanses the counting calories, the starving themselves, and they feel like you know, murdering somebody, whatever the deprivation, all that stuff. They’re gonna suffer through all sorts of painful, frustrating stuff.

But they’re unwilling to take a look at their own thoughts and feelings and how that might be contributing to their current situation, how their own belief systems might be creating their current weight. People are unwilling to spend time working through the stuff that comes up when you stop eating junk food.

So, for example, let’s say you want to like get off the sugar train, right? So you just stop, you know, you stop eating sugar, you want to stop using sugar as a coping mechanism. All right.

We do this we use sugar as a coping mechanism. As a reward system. We use sugar as an emotional management tool. And a lot of us have been doing this our whole lives, okay. So when you stop doing that, when you stop trying to manage your emotions with sugar, all this uncomfortable stuff’s going to come up.

You’re going to start to feel all these feelings and emotions and stuff that you typically squash down with food with sugar because the sugar just lights up the pleasure centers of your brain. And so you don’t have to really think about that.

The negative emotions you’re experiencing; the stress, frustration, anger, whatever it is. So this is the resistance that comes up, right? This is your brain trying to tell you, Hey, this is not good, what you’re doing here, stop doing this, like, we want sugar, give us back to sugar, or we’re gonna sit here and we got to actually feel these emotions, we can’t do that. Danger, danger, bring on the sugar, right?

Instead of dealing with all the stuff that comes up, when we stop eating sugar, we just give in to eating sugar, it’s way easier to do. And just so you know, I just did a podcast episode about this called battling the resistance, it’s episode 110. Definitely check it out. Because I take a deep dive into this whole topic of the resistance and how our brains work and stuff. It’s a good one.

So just know that you’re normal if this is happening to you. And if you’re like, if you’re resisting doing the inner work, it’s because your brain just wants to keep you safe. And when you start to feel these emotions and stuff, it feels unsafe, it feels uncomfortable, it’s not a comfortable situation to be in – not emotionally eating.

So not using sugar as a coping mechanism is hard. And here’s the thing that I think is really interesting. Runners are really good at some of the stuff like they’re really good at sticking to like you’re good, you’re sticking to your marathon training plan no matter what. So it doesn’t matter what the weather is, doesn’t matter if you’re sick or not, doesn’t matter if you’re lacking motivation. It’s like you’re going to absolutely, make sure you do all of your training runs.

Oh, it says I have to run six miles today. It’s pouring down rain, I’m doing it. I’m just gonna run in the rain. It’s no problem, right. And I love this commitment that we have as runners, it’s amazing. Like, you’re super committed, nothing’s gonna stand in your way, boom, you just command you’re gonna do your thing, right.

But when it comes to food, runners have this like, kryptonite, that’s like this weakness. You know, they’re, they’re like superheroes over here. But then they come over here to do the inner work. And they just like melt, like cotton candy in the rain, you know, just blue.

They lack the commitment to healthy eating, they have plenty of commitment and motivation when it comes to their training programs. But that lack of commitment to healthy eating, that lack of motivation to stick to your food plan, it’s just because you haven’t done the inner work. That’s all.

It’s not that you don’t have it, you can get it, it’s not something that like you’re either born with it or you’re not, you just need to do the inner work, you need to, to do the inner work so that you can have that same level of commitment, and that same motivation when it comes to things like sticking to your food plan.

So this doesn’t mean you’re weak-minded, or you’re a failure, you have no willpower, right? It just means you got some work to do. Like I said, you know, we’re talking all about this in the coaching group. This month, we’re focused on eliminating emotional eating for good. And this topic is really resonating with people right now.

You know, emotionally eating is just using something external to feel better inside. Right. And the way we accomplish this, the way we eliminate the emotional eating is we do the inner work, right? There’s some strategy involved on top of talking about that in the group and stuff too. But it’s such an inside job, it really is, you know.

So as a group, we’re kind of committing and doing this inner work together. It’s very powerful stuff, okay. So when you shift your focus internally, and you begin to take responsibility for your own results, so you start doing the inner work, and you start saying, Hey, this is on me, I am going to fix this, then good things start to happen. Right?

Remember, your outer results, like your current weight is a direct result of whether or not you’re doing the inner work. So if you want to start moving the scale, then you know you have to do the inner work. You may have all these deep-seated beliefs about how you can’t lose weight because you’ve tried all this stuff in the past. And it’s never worked for you and you always gain the weight back.

And you so that’s a belief that you have that is just keeping you stuck. So we call these limiting beliefs because they actually limit your ability to grow. And to accomplish your goals, right, they limit your ability to accomplish things like, become healthier, like losing weight. But when you can let go of the limiting beliefs that are keeping you stuck where you are, what do you think is going to happen?

Yeah, you start to grow, you start to make progress, you become limitless in a way, those things that used to seem impossible for you, all of a sudden, they become possible. And it’s really not because you’re doing anything differently. It’s because of who you are being on the inside, right?

The inner work, it’s not because of some secret strategy that you just hadn’t heard about. It’s because you’ve had this profound shift in how you think and feel about stuff. It’s like a profound mindset shift has to happen.

So if you’ve failed in the past, at sticking to your diet, or losing weight, whatever, and you believe really strongly that this is just the way it’s gonna be for you, then this is a limiting belief for you, we have to like let go of that limiting belief. When you make that internal mindset shift, to start questioning all of your beliefs, you start questioning your thoughts and feelings.

Eventually, you can completely drop those old beliefs that are keeping you stuck. That’s when the cool stuff starts to happen. That’s when the magic happens. Because you’re no longer driven by your thoughts about the past, you can begin to create the future that you actually want for yourself. That requires inner work.

So that’s what it looks like to start winning the inner game. Cool. And remember that if you’re ready to start winning the inner game, if you’re ready to start doing the inner work required to make long-lasting changes to your physical, mental, and emotional health and fitness, check out this free live workshop I’m doing here, March 17. To sign up just go to runningleancoaching.com/workshop. I would love to see you there. I think it’s gonna be super fun. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

113. Getting Out of the Gap and Into the Gain

By

Have you ever found yourself wishing your life was somehow “better”, that there was some future version of yourself that was leaner, stronger, and healthier? Of course you have, we all think about …

Continue Reading about 113. Getting Out of the Gap and Into the Gain →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 113, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today getting out of the gap and into the gain. Have you ever found yourself wishing that your life was somehow better, that maybe there was some future version of yourself that was leaner, stronger, and healthier? Of course, you have. We all think about stuff like this, I teach you to think about stuff like this, there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this.

The problem is when you’re so focused on what you don’t have, that it completely consumed you. When you’re obsessed about where you’re not, that’s when things begin to break down for you. So today I’m talking about the difference between being in the gap. And being in the gain.

When you’re in the gap, you only see the negative, you never feel like you measure up, you never feel like you’re making progress towards your goals. In fact, making any progress toward your goals feels virtually impossible.

There’s a better way to do this, there’s a better way to think about all of this, and it’s called being in the gain. When you’re in the gain, you’re focused on the positive, you feel more energized, you feel more motivated, and you begin to make significant progress.

I’m going to talk all about this today, I’m going to break down why getting out of the gap and getting into the gain is so important for your long-term health and fitness goals. Cool. This is exciting. I’m excited about this one.

But first, if you’re ready to do this inner work, you know, this stuff that I talked about here, like getting out of the gap and into the gain, this is the inner work, you got to shift your mindset. If you want to become that healthy, badass version of yourself, right?

You have to take action, that action involves doing a lot of this inner work, your outer results are just a reflection of whether or not you’re doing the inner work, okay? The mistake most people make is that they focus on the outer stuff, tell me what to eat, Patrick, just tell me how many times I should lift weights each week, just tell me how many carbs I should eat whatever.

Instead, let’s focus on changing our mindset. Because when you do that, your chances of success go up dramatically. I’m going to talk about this today, I’m going to talk about how when we’re focused on the negative and when we’re focused on what we don’t have, it can affect us profoundly.

But when we start to focus on the positive, the progress we made, it can affect us profoundly in a different way, in a positive way. So if you’re ready to do this inner work with me, then maybe coaching is a good fit for you! Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply, apply for coaching with me, we’ll get on a Zoom call, we’ll have a short conversation. But I want you to take that step, take that first step of becoming that future badass version of yourself. Cool. runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And let’s have a conversation.

And then I wanted to give you guys a heads up about something, something very cool. That’s coming soon. So in just a few weeks, I’m going to be teaching a live workshop, all about how to effectively transform yourself from the inside out into a leaner, stronger, more badass runner.

This is going to be probably the most informative and most comprehensive live workshop that I’ve ever taught. And I don’t do this kind of thing very often. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever really done this exact same kind of thing before. I like to teach here on the podcast.

But sometimes, sometimes I’m just so excited about the topic that I want to teach it live. There’s a real energy when we get together for a live workshop like this, you know, I get the feedback from you. Are you enjoying this? Are you getting something out of it?

You get to ask questions you get to you get your questions answered, I get the feedback. We all have a lot more fun doing this. It’s very interactive. So I just want to put this on your radar. That’s all I’m gonna say about this right now. This is a little teaser, I know.

But I’m going to keep you updated on dates and times when this thing is coming. It’s a few weeks out yet, but I’m just I’m so excited. I can’t wait for you guys to take part in this. I can’t wait to share more about this with you.

And if I didn’t mention it’s going to be free, it’s going to be a free live training to help you understand the fundamentals of becoming a healthy, badass human being. That’s all. That’s all. Just that. So more is coming soon on this I promise I’m so excited about this is going to be super fun. So just keep your ears peeled for that. I’ll be talking about it. More on the podcast here, don’t worry, you’ll know when it’s coming.

Okay, let’s talk about this today getting out of the gap and in the gain. So I talk to clients every single day who are working towards goals, right? They want to lose weight, they want to get stronger, they want to improve their body composition, they want to run faster.

And every time we get on a call, and my clients will attest to this, I always ask, tell me what’s good. Let’s talk about something positive share a win from this past week, big or small, doesn’t matter, some victory, some win around your health and fitness, maybe you lost a pound or maybe running felt better or easier, or you’re sleeping better. Or you realize for the first time in a long time that you just weren’t hungry all day long.

Like these are all little wins that we want to talk about and celebrate. Whatever it is, maybe it’s an “aha” moment, like, you know, I just realized that I can run perfectly fine without eating a bunch of sugar. Or when I make a plan ahead of time, and it’s a lot easier to just stick with it. What an aha moment, you know.

So this is the kind of stuff I always like to talk about, I always want to start out our conversations with wins, right? I want to give equal airtime to the good stuff to the positive to the wins, and to the negative to the problems to the obstacles to the struggles.

But sometimes when I ask people, “Hey, tell me something different this past week”, they just sit there and stare off into space. And they’re like, “I don’t know, I can’t think of anything, just crickets. Nothing positive from this whole past week.”

But then I’ll go like, “Hey, okay, well, let’s talk about what’s going on, like, what’s wrong, what issues you’re having, what’s the problem?” and then the floodgates open, there are all kinds of stuff they talk about, they can go on for days telling me what’s wrong, why things aren’t working, the stress thrown at work, the kids are driving them crazy, blah, blah, blah, right?

So there’s a real issue here, right, you’re consumed by the negative, when you’re consumed by all the negative stuff that’s going on in your life when you can’t even articulate one positive thing that has happened for you this past week. You’re in this constant state of like, inner turmoil. It’s a very negative state to be in, by the way.

It has a compound effect on your life. And I’ll talk more about that in a minute. But there’s a real issue here, there’s a bigger issue here because this is a negative state to be in. Right?

This is a place where you are constantly in your whole mental, emotional, physical being is a state of negativity. All right. And I was talking about this recently with my coach, and I was saying, “Listen, I have these clients, and they have a hard time articulating what’s good, and how can I help them?”

You know, why do we have this negativity bias? You know, how can we can’t see the good things in our life. And she started telling me about the gap. And being in the gap. I’d never heard of this concept before.

And so she recommended a book to me. And the book is called The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan. And Dan Sullivan is a coach. He’s awesome. I love him. I read the book. It’s a very simple concept. I’m going to break it all down for you here. I just felt compelled to share with you sort of this concept from this book.

It’s a very simple concept, but very powerful. It explains why we’re so focused on the negative, why it’s so hard to see the good things in our lives. And how we can change our mindset so we can start getting better results.

So what are we talking about here? What is this gap? What’s the gap? So the gap is the space between where you are right now, and where you want to be in the future. So this is awesome. Like I said earlier, if you have a goal of wanting to get leaner, stronger, and faster, that’s awesome. I encourage you to create a very detailed, very compelling future version of yourself. Create that vision of where you want to be that’s important to do you got to know where you’re going if you want to get there, right.

But when you’re not there yet, it can be very easy to focus all of your attention on that gap between where you are today. And where you want to be. There’s a gap you’re not there. And you can focus on the fact that you’re not there.

You can focus on the gap between where you want to be and where you are right now and where you want to be in the future and this can start to feel very terrible, right? You’re focusing on the fact that you’re not there. This is what I don’t have, I am not this person yet.

When you’re in the gap, you start to feel this inner conflict is inner turmoil. So let’s say you want to lose 30 pounds, and you’ve lost 20. So far, right? But you’re so focused on those last 10 pounds that you haven’t, that you haven’t quite lost it that you’re in the gap.

Or let’s say you want to improve your running performance, you want to go from 10-minute miles for half marathon to 9-minute miles, and you’ve made some progress. you’ve increased your speed to 9:39:30 per mile. But you still got like 30 seconds per mile more to go. When you’re just focused on that you’re, you’re in the gap here again, okay.

You may not be in control of your food choices, you’re still binging you’re feeling completely out of control, sometimes, you know, you’re not acknowledging that all the other times that you didn’t binge eat ice cream, that like you used to do. So you’ve made some progress here. But you’re only focused on the gap, you’re only focused on what’s wrong.

Maybe you look in the mirror, and every time you look in the mirror, you just see your flaws. You see the flab, and the wrinkles and the sagging skin, but you don’t see that you’ve already lost inches, your clothes fit better, you’re sleeping better at night, you have a ton more energy throughout the day.

But you don’t see any of that stuff, you just see where you’re not you just see what’s wrong, you are in the gap.

So what happens to us when we’re in the gap? Like when you’re in the gap, you’ll never measure up, you’re not going to see the progress you’ve made, you’re not going to see the good stuff, you’re not going to see the incremental improvements in your health and your well being you’re only going to see what’s wrong. Being in the gap creates this state of inner conflict.

When you’re constantly focused on what’s wrong, and how you’re not where you want to be, you are going to feel pretty miserable, like all the time. And you may not even know why you’re feeling so miserable.

But you’re constantly comparing yourself to some arbitrary place that you’re not there, right. And this conflict, I want to be there. And I’m not, this is what’s going to make it very hard for you to keep going. Alright.

So being in the gap creates this state of inner conflict. It’s also very demotivating. Why the hell would you want to go out there and run faster? Or why would you want to stick to your food plan when all you do is ruminate about how crappy everything in your life is.

Being in the gap will destroy your motivation. Even if you’ve had a little bit of motivation, it’s going to just break it down.

In order to feel motivated, you have to focus on the progress you’ve made, right? motivation comes from within. And focusing on how you’ve been making slow and steady progress can help create this feeling of motivation within you.

Being in the gap, though, has the opposite effect, you feel less motivated, you feel frustrated, you feel like why bother trying, you’re just like tired and frustrated. And you just want to give up.

I talked to a lot of people who have a decent amount of weight to lose, like let’s say you’ve, you know, I’m talking to someone who’s got like 50 pounds to lose, right? And they start making some progress.

So they might lose one or two pounds a week. But they get super frustrated because they’re consumed by this idea of they’ve got like 45 more pounds to go. And it all just feels so overwhelming. I’m never going to get there. Why should I even bother? They just want to throw in the towel.

And I want to just encourage them to stop doing this stop being in the gap. You’re in the gap when you’re getting frustrated and focused on where you’re not.

And it creates these feelings of unworthiness within you, you might know you’re in the gap when you compare yourself to others. Have you ever done this before?

Everybody’s hand should be going up right now. We have all done this. We all compare ourselves to others. But is this ever a good idea? Do you ever come out on the winning end of this comparison? No, never.

Other people are losing weight faster than me. Other people are running faster than me. Other people are making progress, more progress than me. It’s easier for other people. It’s harder for me like this is all the stuff we tell ourselves. When you get caught up in these comparisons. When you’re comparing yourselves to others. You are deeply into the gap.

Alright, you start to feel less than you don’t measure up. And again, you’re like, it leads to frustration and these feelings of just unworthiness, and you feel like a failure. Because you’re like, this isn’t working for me, look at how it’s working for everybody else.

Right. And in this just your perception, the truth is, we all have our own journey, and it looks different for everyone. You have to stop comparing yourself to others because that’s being solidly into the gap. When you’re doing that you’re comparing yourself to others, you are absolutely deep into the gap, okay?

Also, when you’re in the gap, you’re going to have a very hard time making progress, because all of your thoughts and feelings are consumed by where you’re not. And this is demotivating. So you’re demotivated, you experienced this inner conflict, you feel unworthy, you feel like a failure.

Do you think you’re going to feel like you want to stick to your food plan when this is your mental and emotional state? Do you think you’re going to want to stick to your workout schedule when you’re feeling like this? No. Most people just give up, they quit. They can’t see past the gap.

So what about this idea, Patrick, of creating a clear vision of your future self, I mean, should we not be doing that? And, and like I said earlier like I teach people to do this, I think it’s important that we do this, we have to know where we’re going, we have to create this vision of ourselves.

So I want you to, this isn’t about not having a future vision for yourself, okay? You can’t make progress towards your goals if you don’t know what you want for yourself if you don’t know where you’re going. Right?

So I strongly encourage you and I work with all my clients on this to create a vision for their future self, right? Who do you want to become? How do you want to feel? What do you want your life to look like? What do you want your body to look like? What do you want running to look like for you?

These are all things that it’s important to know. Got to know where you’re going, right?

So when I talk about being in the gap, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a vision for your future, what I’m saying is stop obsessing about not being there. That’s the part where we’re in the gap.

Okay, it’s important to have that future version of yourself that future vision for yourself. But we have to be, we have to approach this in a different way. We can’t be focused on “Oh, I’m not there yet.” Okay, so there’s a, there’s a difference there. Okay.

So at this point, I think we can all relate to being in the gap, right? We’ve all been there happens to all of us, it’s okay. I don’t want you to freak out about it. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, you’re broken, or you’re a negative person, or you’ll never reach your goals.

If you find yourself in the gap, even regularly, it just means that you’re normal, okay? Just means that you’re a normal, healthy human being with a normal human brain. That’s it. Nothing wrong at all.

And I see this all the time with clients, we all do it. This is normal. As humans, we have this bias towards negativity, this is how we have evolved. We’ve evolved as humans to recognize dangers, right?

We are really good at spotting the problem. “Oh, this other human creature that’s coming towards me does not look like one, one of the human creatures that I know, danger, danger.” Or “This plant that I’m about to eat looks just like the one that Grok ate last week. And now he’s dead. Danger Danger!” Like spotting danger is hardcoded into our DNA.

Now, you know, if everything’s cool and safe, it doesn’t set off any alarms in our brain, right? Everything’s just copacetic or everything’s cool, no big deal. But as soon as something seems dangerous, we go on high alert.

And the funny thing is that there’s no real danger for us these days, right? There’s no other human that’s trying to murder us, I hope not really. We shop at Whole Foods. So we really don’t need to worry about eating poisonous plants.

You know, we see things like, “Oh, I’m not at my goal weight yet.” That’s the danger we see in our lives, right? That’s the problems that we experience in our lives or our half marathon time doesn’t measure up to other people we run with. This is what we perceive as being a threat to us or dangerous. So just know that your brain is normal. It’s doing what it’s been conditioned to do. It’s not your fault.

But there’s a different way of seeing things, there’s a better way to experience everything in your life. And this is called being in the gain. So when you’re in the gain, you’re focused on the progress you’ve made up to this point. Being in the gain, means you’re no longer obsessed about where you’re not instead, your focus is on how far you’ve already come.

Being in the gain means you have a bias towards positivity, not negativity. Your focus is on positivity is on progress, not on the gap between where you are and where you wish you were.

So what does it look like to be in the gain? Well, let’s go back to that example, if you want to lose 30 pounds, and you’ve lost 20 stuff tend to go. So being pissed off about why those last 10 pounds are taking so dang long, you celebrate the fact that you’ve lost 20 pounds already, you focus on the progress you’ve already made.

You see now that you’ve got your sugar cravings under control, maybe for the first time in your life, you feel better, you’re sleeping better, you have a ton more energy running is getting so much easier.

Or maybe you’ve improved your running pace by that 30 seconds per mile, you still have you know, another 30 seconds more to go by, instead of getting all worked up about it like “Oh, I’m not as fast as I want to be.”

You can see how your running is improved, your running form has improved, your running efficiency has improved, you keep increasing your lactate threshold, your heart rate is going down even when you’re running faster, all of the signs that you’re becoming a total running badass, right.

But when you’re in the gap, you don’t see any of this, you’re just focused on where you’re not. I have this goal, and I’m not there. Right.

Instead, we want to focus on the gain, we want to focus on the progress we made. Here’s the cool part about this: when you’re in the game, things will begin to shift for you internally, you’re going to begin to create a whole new mindset for yourself.

When you’re focused on the gap, this is very demotivating, right. But when you’re focused on the gains you’ve made, it has the opposite effect. Being in the gain means you’re focused on progress.

And when you track progress, and you see you’ve made progress, and you’re always moving a little bit closer to your goals, this is very motivating. This builds motivation, it builds confidence, it builds your self-esteem, it creates momentum, making little itty bitty bits of progress creates a little bit more momentum and a little bit more and a little bit more. And this momentum keeps you feeling even more motivated, which keeps you making even more and more progress, right.

So the more you focus on the gain, the more gains you make. And the more you focus on the gain, the more games you play, it’s a cycle. It’s a beautiful little cycle that continues to repeat, creating more momentum and more positive results.

So the secret really to making any kind of big changes in your life, especially when it comes to things like long-term health and fitness. The big secret is consistency, right? I guess it’s not a secret, really. But like, you’ve got to stick with it, you’ve got to stick with it for the long haul. Like these are changes we make for life. And you’ve got to be committed to being a healthy human being as a way of life.

But if you’re in the gap, this is going to be incredibly frustrating and super, super hard to do. I’m just going to tell you right now, it’s going to be almost impossible.

On the other hand, if you’re in the gain, this is how you do it. This is how you become the healthy badass runner that you want to be and how you make it last for life. Being in the gain feels light, it feels energizing, it feels free.

You build confidence and trust in yourself you create momentum towards your goals, you create these feelings of motivation. And then you just want to keep going.

So if you’re at someplace in your life here, where you’re experiencing the gap. I’m going to just give you a couple of tips on how to get out of that. Okay. So I want to give you an example. Like, let’s say you’re at a point in your weight loss journey where you’ve experienced a stall. So maybe you’ve hit a plateau in your weight loss and you’re you’ve lost some weight, but it hasn’t changed for like four or five weeks and you’re getting super frustrated. You just want to give up right?

Do this one thing. Make this one change and see what happens. Stop being in the gap and start being in the gain. Start focusing on incremental progress. start focusing on all the little things that are good. Start focusing on all the tiny little bits of progress you’ve made, and see how that doesn’t feel for you.

Start celebrating all that progress is going to create momentum and motivation within you and you’ll want to keep going and you know what, I have a feeling that scale just might start to move again.

Or maybe you want to run faster and you say, can’t seem to get past that 9:30 pace, right? Start really tracking your progress, celebrate all the metrics that are improving: heart rate, VO to Max, you know, speed, overall pace, you know, splits, you know, interval paces, all that stuff, start to track all of that.

And start to celebrate the progress that you’re making. And I have a feeling you’re going to see your times improve because you’re going to feel more motivated, you’re going to want to keep going.

Slow and steady progress is how we win the game, right? Slow and steady progress, track it, and celebrate it, all of it.

And I talked to people all the time about how long it takes to lose weight. And the truth is that first some people, it just takes a while, right? It just takes what it takes.

So let’s say you want to, you know, lose those last 10 pounds. And it’s super frustrating. It’s taking forever, cording to you.

And you’re like, “Oh, this is just taking so long.” I’m like, “How long is it supposed to take?” So let’s just say for S’s and G’s like to lose the last 10 pounds, let’s say took a year.

Now when I just said that, did you freak out a little bit like, “Oh my god, it shouldn’t take that long.” Whatever. Let’s just say it took a year.

Think about this a year from now, would you rather be at your goal weight? Or would you rather be upset because you gave up because you got frustrated? Because you quit on yourself.

If you are feeling like it’s just taking too long, and you say screw it and you give up this is what most people do. They just say you know what? Why bother.

But even though you’re making progress, even though you’re on track to lose a pound a month, or whatever it is, when you’re in the gap, you cannot see this progress, you can’t see that you’re making changes, and it’s incremental, slow and steady. And you’ll get there eventually, but you can’t see it.

And so you just end up, most people just end up getting frustrated and quitting. throwing in the towel. Do not do this.

Here’s your call to action for this week, I want you to identify one area of your life where you’re in the gap. I know you know what this is you’ve probably already been thinking about this, right? Where are you focused on where you’re not. Alright.

And then I want you to stop doing that. Okay, stop being in the gap and start being in the gain instead. Don’t be obsessed about where you’re not, start being obsessed about all the tiny little incremental progress that you’re making.

And when you start focusing on that, you’re going to start to feel energized about that progress. And then you’re going to start to feel more confident. And you’re going to start to feel more self-esteem, right? And you’re going to start to make slow and steady progress and you’re going to start to create this unstoppable momentum for yourself. You’re going to feel more motivated to keep going.

So that’s your work for this week. Stop being in the gap. Find one place in your life where you’re, you know, you’re in the gap, and start being in the gain. Start being obsessed about progress. Cool, I think this is super fun, and life-changing. Do this this week. Don’t put this off. Do this for sure.

And remember, if you’re ready to get out of the gap for good and stop comparing yourself to where you’re not, and start focusing on the real progress you’re making towards your goals. You might want to see if coaching is right for you. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. Let’s have that conversation. Let’s get you out of the gap and into the gain. Cool? Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

112. Taking Back Control of Your Life with Melanie Millaway

By

Today I have a very special guest for you. I recently sat down with Melanie Millaway and we had a candid conversation about her experience of changing her diet and getting fat-adapted. But the …

Continue Reading about 112. Taking Back Control of Your Life with Melanie Millaway →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 112, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, taking back control of your life with Melanie Millaway.

Today I have a very special guest for you. I recently sat down with Melanie Millaway. And we had a candid conversation about her experience of changing her diet and getting fat adapted. But the real change didn’t happen on the outside. Yes, she lost weight. Yes, she improved her running performance. Yes, she got stronger. Yes, she has more energy now. And yes, she generally feels a lot better.

But the real change happened on the inside. Melanie made this massive shift in her mindset. And I just have to say that this is the real work we do here in my coaching program, you will learn how to become a leaner, stronger runner. But you do it by making the internal shift by doing the inner work just like Melanie did. And I’ll let her tell you more about that.

Here’s the thing, the way you look on the outside, for example, your current weight, it’s just a reflection of whether or not you’re doing the internal work. If you’re unhappy with the way that you look and feel and you want more for yourself, then you have to do that internal work. Okay. This is the work that Melanie did. And in this episode of the podcast, she shares how she’s absolutely transformed herself her entire life from the inside out.

But first, if you love this podcast, come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook, just search for Running Lean community on Facebook, come join us join in the fun, we have a lot of fun over there. We post selfies, we do challenges, we support each other, we encourage each other, and we have a good time doing it. It’s all about running. It’s all about diet and exercise and becoming your best self. Just search for Running Lean Community on Facebook and join the fun.

And then if you’re somebody who is ready to do that inner work to make that shift in your mindset so that you can start becoming the healthiest and most badass version of yourself, then you have to just take action. One of the biggest mistakes people make around changing their health is procrastination. They put off taking action.

They always think later. Like when I have more time or when I feel more motivated or after the kids go to college later, is a dream killer. It’s a killer of hopes and dreams. It’s a killer of goals. If you want something more for yourself, if you want to make a change for yourself for the better, then you have to start today.

Apply for coaching with me. There’s no commitment. It’s just a conversation, you and me just going to have a conversation about what coaching would look like for you, and how it might be one of the best things you ever do for yourself.

Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply and take that first step take action, stop putting it off. Take that step towards becoming that badass future version of yourself. Cool.

All right. As I said, I’m excited to share this interview with you. Melanie experienced this profound transformation and affected a bunch of different areas of her life. And I’m gonna let her tell you all about it. So I’m gonna stop talking. Here’s my interview with Melanie Millaway.

Patrick McGilvray
All right, cool. So today I’m talking with Melanie and Melanie has a cool story that I felt was worth sharing with you guys. So Melanie and I started working together a few months ago. And
Melanie just is one of these people that at the beginning, things were very challenging for her. And at the beginning, she may have had some doubts, and she may have struggled a little bit and we’re going to talk about that. But I want you to know that at the end of our coaching together and the end of our sort of time working together. Melanie just had this amazing, like,
attitude, and this amazing transformation, and I wanted to make sure that we sort of captured that and shared it with you guys, because I think it’s very inspirational. And I hope I’m not, you know, setting this up too, too big for you here, Melanie. But I thought it was very inspirational. And I wanted to make sure that we sort of had this conversation and talked about all this stuff.

So, Melanie, why don’t you just introduce yourself and kind of tell us like, where you were, before you and I started working together?

Melanie Millaway
Awesome. Well, Patrick, first off, thanks for having me. Man, all the way back to the beginning with this process, I think when we started…

Patrick McGilvray
So where did you find yourself and by the way, this is like such a common story. This is one of the reasons I do what I do is because so many runners have this mentality of “Oh, I just run to eat, I can eat whatever I want. I just need to run more. And that’ll solve the problem.” You know, and so what you’re describing here is completely normal. We can all relate, we’ve all been there. Okay. But where did you find yourself that you thought “I need help with this?” Like what was the biggest issue that you really wanted to be solved, or the biggest issue you wanted help with?

Melanie Millaway
Well, you know, what I was doing wasn’t working, I was spending more time running and kind of prioritizing that over other things. And it was really was creating a strain for me to balance everything. Like I have a lot more responsibilities in my life, like family and career now than when I trained for my last full marathon. And, you know, I wasn’t blessed with like Olympic DNA. So I’m just your average runner based on age and kind of finish time. And, you know, it takes me a couple of hours to knock out a 10-15 mile run. And yet, I felt like I was stuck. And I wasn’t really making any material progress. I wasn’t getting faster, I didn’t look any different. In general, I kind of felt like garbage. And I wasn’t in a great mood most of the time. Yet, I was investing all this time running and I was feeling frustrated.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and this is so interesting because you’re one of these people Melanie who has come to me and said like, “Listen, I don’t have like a bunch of weight to lose. I’m not super overweight or anything like that.”

You did lose some weight in this process. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But you didn’t come to me saying like, “Oh, I just can lose the weight you just you know you had a lot more going on and there was just so many things like you described it just feeling like garbage.

I think that pretty much sums it up there. But it’s like we want more for ourselves. We want to feel better. We want running to be something we enjoy. We want it to be easier.

And so those are some of the things that I remember from when we started working together where you were just like, I’ve got to figure this out, you know?

And so we started kind of working together describe like, what, what are some of the things you, you experienced when we started making some of these changes? Because I know it didn’t know, it wasn’t all like super easy or work super well, for the beginning.

Melanie Millaway
Yeah, you know, I think when we first started, got started, really what I wanted some guidance, I wanted to be held accountable. Like I knew that was something I needed for myself. Because I have a tendency to kind of put others before me, just a kind of a pleaser, by nature that way, and if you overuse that formula, a lot of times you end up kind of sacrificing your own goals and desires. And that’s not very empowering, and it leaves you feeling like you don’t have a lot of control in certain circles, you know, situations or circumstances.

And then kind of looking outward, you know, I’ve had a lot of success, other aspects of my life working with a mentor, kind of specifically, in my career with, you know, whether it’s like an individual development plan or your career growth, I’ve had mentors in the past that were supporting me with a variety of goals, and kind of seeking their advice or guidance on something, but I never really thought to make that kind of investment in my own personal life, until I cross paths with you.

But, you know, how did they get started? Or how did it go? You know, it was challenging in the beginning, you know, I made the conscious choice to begin this journey heading into what I perceive to be the most challenging time of the year, the holiday season, that quad factor of Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and New Years, like, they are all packed in there. And it’s kind of crazy to, you know, experience growth and discomfort to the holidays, like the ultimate gauntlet of obstacles. But I thought if I could come out of that specific time of the year successful, it would be a huge boost to my self-confidence. And I could kind of wear it like a badge of honor.

And as I worked to get kind of fat-adapted, you know, I experienced the headaches and the sugar withdrawal symptoms. And looking back on it, I was probably a little more than grouchy. But I was really committed. You know, I started my food journal, and I was logging meals consistently. And I started planning and buying different things at the store and set my protocol and knew what I wanted to eat ahead of time.

And, you know, when it comes to running, like, I’m not gonna lie, the running sucks for a while going through this process. Yeah, there were weeks when I felt sluggish, and my body was heavy. And I was basically sucking wind.

And I had run a half marathon just a few weeks prior to kind of starting to want the Running Lean program. And I had a PR in that race. And then fast forward, like, as I’m in the midst of getting fat-adapted, I had forgot I had committed to a friend that was gonna, I was going to help pace her during a local, like half marathon. And that race felt hard. But I wasn’t quite over the hump yet at that point.

And then I just remember kind of coming out on the other side, eventually, my runs, they started getting easier. You know, my times were improving. I felt like less effort. And it was just kind of gradual onset. And I remember sending you a text message, like, you know, ran five miles this morning, and it felt really good. And I was back but I was like better.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you bring it up. Um, a couple of things I want to touch on number one is like you did take this on during candy season, which is Halloween through New Years, you know, and we’ve talked about that. And you were like, I don’t know if I really want to do this right now. But I think I need to do this right now.

And that takes a lot of courage like to stand up and do that because most people they don’t you know, most people are like, “You know what, I’m gonna wait till the New Year’s I’m just gonna like, binge my way through this holiday season. I need a bunch of garbage and feel terrible, and gained a bunch of weight. And then hopefully on New Year’s, I’ll make a resolution and be able to stick with it this time, which will be different, you know?”

And nobody does that. Do you know what I mean? It’s just, it doesn’t really work, you know? And you were like, “You know what, no, that’s not what I want for myself. I want to do something different. I want to just get started now. And I want to make these changes now. And I’m going to get through the holidays and feel good about myself. I want to come out on the other side of the holidays feeling like I had my own back through that whole process.”

So how did that go for you? Like how was the how’d you come out of the holidays?
Melanie Millaway
I came out and felt like I was well ahead of the game, you know, and I had been training along the way for my event in January and I mean, I was so far ahead. So that felt that part of felt amazing.

Patrick McGilvray
Awesome. Yeah. So you came out of the holidays, you came into January, with all this momentum. And you had actually lost weight over the holidays, which is something most people don’t do.

So that was really cool. And then yeah, then you had your race in January. What was that? What was the race?

Melanie Millaway
Yeah, so that was I ran a half marathon in Houston, which Houston’s a really special city to me, and I just, I love that event. And this time, you know, I was fully fat-adapted, like, it seemed so simple.

I didn’t have to do anything different than any other typical day when I was down there. Like, I didn’t have to carb load the night before. And I never, I never liked that feeling of carb-loading before a race anyway, it always kind of made me feel lethargic or gross.

But, you know, now I didn’t have to do that. And I didn’t eat anything pre-race, like I completely fasted aside from a cup of coffee. And, you know, I didn’t run with any carbs on me, like I was naked. With carbs, like, you know, I still carry my own hydration. But my running back was a little lighter. And I wasn’t ravenous post race, you know, like, I ate a standard meal a few hours later. So it was kind of surreal at first, but just strangely liberating, like to go through that transformation and to, for it to just be so easy.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and how’d you do in the race?

Melanie Millaway
Yeah. So I broke a course record for myself. So improved my time for the last time that I’d run in person. So you know, it was, it was a really smooth race, I got to see my dad along the way, like at mile two. So it’s always encouraging to have, you know, family there to support you.

But it just the overall experience of felt good. And I was really energized and happy to be there. And just overall, an incredible weekend.

Patrick McGilvray
Awesome, super awesome. Just goes to show you that just because you’re running on fat instead of carbs, like you can still run fast. You know, a lot of people, there’s a lot of misconceptions out there about that, you know, you want to get faster, you can work on getting faster, and you can do it as a fat-adapted runner, for sure. That’s awesome.

So something I wanted to kind of go back to you mentioned, like drinking and sort of like, you know, taking some time off from drinking, what was that like for you? Was that something you were just kind of struggling with a little bit and you want to do like, you knew that was maybe something that was contributing to you feeling like garbage? Is that kind of why you decided you wanted to take a break from drinking?

Melanie Millaway
Yeah, I just wasn’t very happy with who I was. And I’ll kind of go back a little bit on my relationship with alcohol, you know,

I wanted to just kind of take a pause and kind of figure out the role it was playing in my life. And, you know, alcohol was a challenge. Like, I think I’ve had established some enduring habits over the past 20 years, like, when I was younger, and you know, you’re seeking social acceptance, like, I was one of those, I had to put effort into acquiring a taste for alcohol. But then like, fast forward, you know, now I’m in a position where I find myself thinking about having a beer after I’m done working for the day, or after a stressful week, or maybe it’s the start of the weekend, and like, let’s kick it off with a drink. Or I’m at a business meeting, and I want to be the first to meet my colleagues at the bar. So like, I had some legacy habits there. But I didn’t like the way I was feeling.

And I think with coaching, I ended up making some really positive and just lasting changes with that relationship to kind of pause on it kind of reflect on, you know, what are the positives and the negatives from drinking, like, I’m not getting a whole lot of benefits here. Like I don’t feel good. I’m not really motivated. That’s an area where I think I’ve just been wanting to make a change for a while. And this is an aspect of kind of shame with the struggle.

And that’s where you kind of provided just a safe place for me and kind of understood that the challenge that comes with it, and being like how empowering to re-evaluate that relationship over the holidays like I think it’s December and it’s holiday parties and gatherings and get-togethers and I just did like a complete dry December and like it was really challenging at first but as each day kind of passed by and I had those successes, you build more confidence and like it’s so much easier at the end and then again, looking back on it like for something I had looked so forward to like the race that year, okay, well, now I’m going to have a sip of it. And it’s just kind of neck like it kind of lost its luster by the end, like, my feeling towards it is so different now.

Patrick McGilvray
If you could identify like kind of what that mindset shift was for you because what you’re describing is awesome. And a lot of people that I work with kind of experienced the same thing. So you know, just to lose weight and kind of get fat-adapted and change our, you know, body composition and things like that. I do recommend maybe taking a break from alcohol, some people freak out a little bit about that. Some people are like, okay, no big deal I can take or leave it. And, but something interesting happens along the way.

There’s always a mindset shift. There’s like a way we think about alcohol and what it does for us. Like before we give it up for a period of time. And then there’s the way we think about it afterward. Like, can you tell me kind of what that looked like for you? Like, what was the biggest shift for you and your mindset around that?

Melanie Millaway
I think it was feeling like, I needed some sense of control, like, at some point, it kind of had control over me. And I needed to have that, that shift of power kind of back into my favor, like it’s really not all that it’s cracked up to be.

And I think just more awareness to my thoughts and the feelings that they’re generating and slowing down a little bit kind of pause for a moment.

And I kind of liken it to thinking before you speak but on a more like a deeper, subconscious level. But is this really what I want at the moment and I still, you know, I still have a beer every now and then. So it’s not like I’ve completely ended my relationship with alcohol, but it’s just, I have better control. And my thought process is different towards it. And yeah, it’s been a shift, it’s, it’s not as sexy as it used to be. Because I can take it or leave it at this point.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s so cool. Because that’s the place where you want to get to, and when it comes to drinking alcohol, or eating sugar, for example, these are like two things that are like drugs, if not our drugs, you know, the way that they affect our body and the way they affect our brain, the way they light up our pleasure centers.

And we have a hard time, you know, not doing these things when we’re used to doing them on the regular basis, right. And so when we’re like, okay, you know what, maybe, you know, stop eating sugar, stop drinking alcohol, and then all this resistance comes up and all this, we start freaking out about that, because we’re just so used to having it whenever we want it. So we use it to feel good, we use it as a reward system for ourselves, we use it to deal with our emotions, all that stuff.

When we take it away, it becomes challenging, and we got to deal with all that stuff that comes up. So you got to deal with the emotions, you got to like, reward yourself in different ways. You got to make yourself feel good in different ways, you know. But the other thing that people don’t realize is that that desire that you have for alcohol or sugar, will actually go away once you’ve abstained from it for a while.

And that desire, you can actually, when that sort of desire goes away, you actually start to not crave it anymore. You don’t. You’re no longer like thinking about it, you’re no longer dreaming about it. It’s no longer the solution for you anymore. And so you don’t even really want it anymore. That’s a place you want to get to. That’s a beautiful place to be because if you’re craving alcohol, but you’re not drinking, that’s terrible. I just want to murder somebody, right? But when you’re like, all of a sudden you’re like, and I remember you told me this, you’re like, it’s lost its luster. I just don’t even want it anymore. I was like, yes, that’s where we want to get to because now it’s easy to say no. Right? Yeah.

Melanie Millaway
Yeah, I just feel so much better. So like how I feel is more powerful than the thing than the food than the sugar than the drink. Like, that doesn’t make me feel as good as like how I feel now with the clarity and how much better I sleep at night or how much better my mood is or like I’m more engaged with my family or connected with the world like, that feels better than the beer ever made me feel.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, I love that. I love that and we get into this place sometimes where we start to feel good. And you know, we start to feel good without using you know, food or alcohol to make us feel good and we think this can’t last. This isn’t sustainable. And all these like stories will start to come up and excuses and things like that, because we get some comfortable.

It’s like feeling good. Actually, it doesn’t make sense. But feeling good. Like that actually makes us feel uncomfortable because we’re not used to it. And you even said this to me, and I took a note of this of some time into our working together, you were like, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop in our heads if like, this is all gonna just come crashing down. But it didn’t, did it?

Melanie Millaway
No, I felt guilty, like for feeling so good. Like when I first felt the impact and kind of just the transformation. And I honestly had no idea that I could feel this good. It was like euphoria, like, and I just wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Like, I didn’t trust it.

And, you know, I also had to kind of remind myself not to go back to the things or the habits that got me where, where I was before, and I certainly where I don’t want to go back to you. But it was, it was a strange feeling to feel so good.

Patrick McGilvray
I just think that’s so funny in a way that we, we do that to ourselves, we actually start to feel good. And then we’re like, there’s got to be something wrong here. When is this gonna change? This is not normal, this is weird, is uncomfortable. But it’s like, no, we want to feel good. We want to feel good. So tell me about something else that shifted for you. Because, you know, you’ve you’ve experienced some profound shifts in your, in your mindset and in the way you think and feel about yourself. Tell me something else that you’ve experienced through this process.

Melanie Millaway
You know, just seeking some clarity in my life, there were things I wanted to change about myself. But I was lacking direction or certainty on kind of how to make that meaningful and lasting change.

And, you know, I had celebrated a milestone birthday earlier last year. And I think that natural progression, kind of when you enter a new decade of your life is to get introspective and start kind of conducting your own personal inventory. So you know, my satisfied with where I am right now, is there something more out there? Is this what life is really all about? Like, is this it? Or is it time for change?

And I think I coupled those kind of internal thoughts with the fact that I’ve always been interested in health and fitness and nutrition and learning new things. And, you know, identify as a runner, you know, I was an athlete in high school. And after college, I ran my first marathon, and I was hooked. I love the sport. But that also started me down the path of adopting the mindset of like, now that I’m a marathon runner, like, I can eat whatever I want like I run to eat. And if I’m training, logging miles, and burning tons of calories, and naturally, I get to eat and drink, whatever I want, as much as I want, whenever I want, like, I love food.

And my childhood and upbringing certainly revolved around food. So it seemed like a natural fit. You know, all this to say that you know, the strategy that I had adopted, you know, I run to I can eat that wasn’t really working for me anymore. I wasn’t feeling great, I was not really motivated. So what did I do? I leaned in further with what I knew, I thought, well, clearly, I just need to run farther. So let’s increase the distance.

So I signed up, and I started training to run another full marathon. And that was my goal. It had been a few years since my last full marathon, I have been running half marathons kind of for maintenance. And it was at this point that I kind of discovered the Running Lean podcast on Audible, and I was listening during my training runs. And that led me to you. And kind of just the start of this new beginning and understanding that you can’t outrun a bad diet. And what I needed was to change my relationship with food and alcohol. And if I wanted to feel better, and to achieve, like greater things for myself, like those changes needed to happen. You know, I was just kind of searching for more.

Patrick McGilvray
I mean, absolutely. It’s normal to start the year that way and to not feel like you’re in the hole, so to speak of you, you know, overindulge to the holidays, and maybe ate more drank more than you normally would have any other time of the year and have to start just to start building.

Melanie Millaway
You know, just, you know, I remember early on, I had some anxiety or apprehension with an upcoming business trip, you know, meeting with vendors, typically, that’s meals out, like a reason to overindulge with food or alcohol or otherwise and used to use support me to ensure that I had a solid plan kind of going into that situation, it’s as simple as thinking like about, how do you want to come out of that week? You know, how do you want to feel about yourself that really resonated with me. And again, just I felt supported, that was a big boost to my confidence.

You know, another simple situation where a friend had brought me lunch, like, I think it was a roast beef sandwich. And I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was doing this high fat, low carb thing. And basically, I didn’t want to eat the bread in front of my friends. So I’d not eat the bread. So I ended up, you know, kind of caving and eating the entire sandwich.

And I just remember, kind of, I felt disappointed with myself afterward. I took a good thing like someone bringing me lunch, and I turned it into something else. And I remember you kind of breaking it down. And obviously, the situation was deeper than just the bread, like leaving that conversation, feeling more confident in my choices, and being empowered to kind of stick to stick with those was really important to me.

And then really just, I mean, again, mindset, just being more aware of my thoughts and the feelings that those are generating and slowing down. Kind of just taking a pause for a moment. I didn’t realize I’ve always felt frustrated for a long time. And I couldn’t really figure out why or kind of put my finger on it. And it all makes a lot more sense.

Now it’s like, the thought is the thing. But I have control over the thoughts, how it makes me feel, and ultimately kind of what my actions are. So I feel like my life is I feel less frustrated. And I feel like I have more control in despite not being able to control the circumstance, but just how I react to the situation and just being more at ease. Like I feel less frustrated.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. Do you feel like you have more control over your thoughts and feelings?

Melanie Millaway
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love just being able to, I’m more intentional, I think with my thoughts. And even if the thoughts maybe don’t feel good kind of marinating enough for a minute or kind of reflecting on it and trying to connect it back to the why.

And just having a better mindset in general. And feeling like I have control. Like, and I do. And that’s incredibly empowering. Like, I can think about having a drink. And again, pause for a second and think with that thought and contemplate it. That’s what I really want. And occasionally I may want to eat the thing like maybe it’s cake. But I got the power back like I get to decide for myself I get to choose.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s really cool. And I love the way you phrase that too because you do have the power. And it’s incredibly empowering when we can learn how to manage or control our thoughts and feelings. We go through life thinking that what other people do or say, makes us feel a certain way. And when we start to take control over that and start to take responsibility for our own stuff, and for our own emotional state, it becomes, it becomes so empowering, because now you’re not blaming other people for how you feel. You’re not blaming other people for how you’re reacting to situations.

Do you see this work that we’ve done together? Do you see it sort of spilling over into other areas of your life?

Melanie Millaway
Absolutely, I mean, that part of it, it is positively impacted so many other areas of my life. Like I said, with just being more engaged at home, I have more energy to spend time with my kids in the evening, after, you know, working all day or kind of fulfilling my responsibilities. At work, I think I’m more inspiring to my team of leaders that I work with, my colleagues, and just kind of energizing them and it’s infectious. Like, it’s pretty, it’s pretty incredible how I can like just spill over and impact so many other areas of my life in such meaningful and positive ways. Like that feels really good.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and, and I just want to point out, Melanie, that this is all you, you know, I’m, I’m over here, like yammering on about stuff, and, you know, kind of, you know, offering some suggestions and things like that, but you’re doing the work.

And that’s something I want everybody that’s listening to this to really hear that, you know, having a coach is great. And it’s great to have somebody that can guide you, that has the experience and that expertise with this kind of stuff. But really, you got to show up, and you got to actually do the work, you got to like, do things that you don’t want to do, you know, you’ve got to, you know, practice being disciplined about your diet and about exercising and about getting your runs and getting your strength training in and working through the mindset stuff.

And so I just wanted to point out that you have done an exceptional job with all that stuff, you know, you are the one that has shown up and actually done the work. So good job.

Well, what’s been like the most, like, if you could just identify like one big, the best part of this for you are the biggest transformation you’ve experienced with all of this, what would you say that was for you?

Melanie Millaway
I would say it’s having your own back. I mean, life isn’t easy. You know life is full of struggles. But you have choices. And I think I learned you have more control than you know, like, you get to choose your own adventure. Choose your struggles, right.

So personally, I’d rather be focused on controlling aspects of my diet, or sitting with an uncomfortable thought or emotion than struggling with diabetes, or heart disease or alcoholism, all of which, you know, run in my family, I think you’ve got to give yourself some grace and kind of self-love along the way.

Like, I’m going to make mistakes, the reality is I’m going to fail at things. But just keep going and keep working towards making those small, incremental changes. Because they all add up in time and, you know, you’re moving forward and getting closer towards the things that you want, and just never quitting.

And I think lastly, kind of coming out of this process, you know, I learned that nothing is impossible like we all have or should have like what I call a big, hairy, audacious goal, and you need to go after it, like see it as part of your identity, and who you are and believe in it. I think most importantly, just believe in yourself, because anything is possible.

Patrick McGilvray
Oh my gosh, I love that. Yeah, and I totally agree with you, I think we should have big, huge, impossible goals, we should all have those kinds of goals for ourselves. Because if we don’t, if our goals are small, that means they’re because we a lot of people, we set small goals for ourselves because we know we can attain them.

But those small goals feel kind of comfortable for us. But we want those big or bigger things that are uncomfortable, the ones that require us to change and to become more in the process of going for them. Right. So love that.

Let me ask you this. How do you feel about going forward of all this? So you and I worked together for a few months. But now do you feel like you have like what it takes to like continue this as a way of life? Is this something that you just did temporarily? Like where do you stand with all that today?

Melanie Millaway
I think it’s I’m more confident than ever. It’s completely sustainable. It is a life track, like a lifestyle choice. It’s not like a diet or something that’s a fad that’s, you know, quickly slips away. Like I feel like I’ve acquired a set of skills that are transferable across all facets of my life.

And again, I think when I started this journey I was, I thought my goal was one thing. But really what I was seeking was something else and just the skill set that I’ve acquired make it easier for me to have a positive mindset. Being able to take back control, like, it’s a huge and just the self-confidence that comes from it. It’s life-changing. And it’s been a transformational process for me.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s so awesome. I love that. And that’s really the goal is to make this something that is pretty easy and effortless that you can carry forward. You know, we’re not about it’s not about the short term, it’s not about like, losing weight, or, you know, improving your running for a month or two. This is about lifestyle changes.

You know, it’s about becoming the healthiest version of yourself and being able to continue that going forward. You know, I always say that health is not a destination that we’re trying to get to. It’s how we live our lives. And so you’re sort of an example of that, you know, and that’s why one of the reasons why I want to talk to you is because now you’re just like, Yeah, this is how I live my life now. I love that. So awesome.

Last question, really, like, what would you say to someone who isn’t sure about this stuff? Or isn’t sure if they’re ready to change? You know, or, or they’re on the fence? Or they’re undecided? Or they’re not sure if it’s the right time? Like, what would you say to that person?

Melanie Millaway
Put yourself out there, you’ve got nothing to lose. I mean, just kind of the growth through discomfort, make an investment in yourself. It works if you go all in and you’re truly committed to the program, and you’re willing to get uncomfortable, but it can change your life and how you experience the world.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, heck yeah. I think just like starting is just so important for people. You know, just like start, just get started. I know. But what happens is we start to think about, oh, I want to change my diet. I want to get healthy, I want to lose some weight, I want to get leaner, I want to improve my running, I want to get faster.

And then we start like, we just think about it and all this stuff starts coming up for us like oh, I’ve never worked for me in the past. Or maybe this is not the right time. I need to wait till after the holidays, or you know, whatever. But yeah, I think that’s good advice. Just start, just get started today, get started, do something for yourself today.

Anything else you wanted to talk about or anything else you wanted to mention before we finish up here?

Melanie Millaway
No, I mean, just yeah, be fully committed. Trust the contents of this program it is life-changing. It really appeals, it’s very logical. Makes a lot of sense. It’s very simplistic, kind of easy to understand and follow.

It’s built on a bunch of principles that build upon themselves. So it’s, it’s just so different than I know, I totally ditched the idea of because I’m a runner, I can eat whatever I want. Now that thought process is gone.

And I guess one other final thought too, is just again, it’s just a huge sense of relief that I can do things more efficiently with this process. Like I don’t have to spend hours running. Like I can work smarter, not harder.

And being a fat-adapted runner is so much easier. Like I’m not constantly eating I don’t feel hungry all the time. You know, I have two meals a day, I don’t snack. I can distinguish hunger from cravings and I’m just amazed at how little food I need to eat. And I’m always leaving a meal feeling satisfied. And you know, fat is your friend like it gets a bad rap. I think fat needs a new PR agent, because not only does it taste delicious, but again, it leaves you feeling satisfied. So yeah, it’s good.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. Focus on fat, focus on protein. Those are the macros we want to be focused on. Awesome stuff, Melanie. Well, thanks again for coming on here and sharing your story and sharing about your transformation. And we’re gonna keep an eye on you and just kind of see where things go with you. Do you have any races coming up anytime soon?

Melanie Millaway
I’ve got one in April, I’ve got a half I’m looking forward to. And then I’ll be focused on you know, building some lean muscle mass. So that’s what’s next for me.

Patrick McGilvray
Love it. Well, we’ll stay in touch and we’ll do an update here. Once you start getting strong and ripped. Okay. All right. Well, thanks again. I really appreciate it and thanks for just sharing so much about your story. It’s been really cool.

Melanie Millaway
Awesome. Thank you for having me.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

110. Battling The Resistance

By

Oftentimes, when you set out to improve your health and fitness, you find yourself feeling all of this negative stuff. Just thinking about changing your diet will bring up all of these thoughts and …

Continue Reading about 110. Battling The Resistance →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode 110 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: Battling the Resistance. Oftentimes, when you set out to improve your health and fitness, you find yourself feeling all this negative stuff. Just thinking about changing your diet can bring up all these negative thoughts and feelings like this is just going to be too hard. What if I fail, these things never work for me, and on and on and on. Right?

This is called the resistance. And it shows up in the form of fear, worry, self-doubt, excuses, procrastination. It can absolutely stop you from ever achieving your goals. It can actually even keep you from ever starting anything.

So today on the podcast, I’m going to show you how to recognize when the resistance starts to show up for you and what to do about it. Because it’s all about battling the resistance, not getting into it.

But first, if you like this podcast, if you’re a fan of the Running Lean podcast, then you got to come and check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. This is a group of like-minded runners who all share similar goals. We post inspirational posts, we encourage each other, we support each other on our goals. And it’s a very positive place to hang out if you do social media. If you want to find a fun group to kind of be a part of and feel like you’re included in this awesome positive community, then please come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook, just search for Running Lean Podcast Community and join us. It’ll be fun, it’s fun.

And listen, I understand that I talk a lot about losing weight, about changing your nutrition about becoming this future version of yourself this, you know, healthiest and most badass version of yourself. And I also understand that it can be confusing, it can feel frustrating or overwhelming sometimes, and trying to figure it all out on your own can be very challenging.

So if you’re one of those people that’s like, you know what, I just want to hit the easy button on this, you know, I just want somebody to show me what to do. I want somebody there that can hold me accountable, and to offer encouragement, and just give you that support that you need to reach your goals, then I absolutely have your back.

Hiring me as your coach will give you all of those things, you’ll learn exactly how to become that future version of yourself, whatever that looks like for you. Because we’re all different, we all have different goals, we all have different needs. We all have different desires. We all have different likes and dislikes. So we’re going to put together a plan that works for you, that feels good for you that feels like something you can do for the rest of your life.

This is about long-term health and fitness. If you’re interested in some kind of short-term, I just want to lose, you know, some weight really fast. That’s not what this is about. This is about making changes at the core of who you are. It’s like changing your habits. It’s changing your identity. It’s making this big shift in how you think and feel about food and exercise and nutrition, all that stuff.

So who is it that you want to become and if you want some help getting there? Let me know. I gotcha. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And you can apply for coaching, you get to fill out a short little application, you and I need to jump on a call and have a conversation and see if this is a good fit for you. And if it is, boom, let’s do it. Let’s go battle the resistance together. Cool. All right.

So I love this topic today. I was talking with my personal trainer Chris Wissman recently, and I started talking about this stuff that comes up for people. These things that come up when people start to want to change something.

So you know I work with a lot of people who are changing their diet, they’re changing their workout routines, and I get get a lot of excuses and reasons why they can’t do it or why it’s too hard. And he and I were having this conversation. He said oh yeah, that’s the resistance. And I was like boom. Yes, that’s exactly what it is.

And it reminded me of this book by Steven Pressfield called The War of Art, in it he talks about the resistance, and he’s talking about how he shows up for creative types, people who are, you know, writers, and people who are creating, you know, written content and things like that, and how when they set out to, you know, create something, they get all this self-doubt and worry, and all these things kind of come up for them, right.

But it’s the same thing. It’s that resistance that comes in whenever we want to change something whenever we want to do something that’s bigger than us, or that maybe we haven’t done before. So many people I talk to want more for themselves, they want to become more, they have that picture in their head of who they want to become. But when it comes to taking action, there’s something that comes up. And there are these excuses. And these reasons why it’s not going to work. And these stories, they keep telling themselves. There’s something that’s like pushing against them.

And whatever it is, they’re trying to do whatever they want to accomplish for themselves, there’s, resistance there, okay. And this resistance can come in a lot of different forms. It can come in the form of excuses and stories and reasons why it’s not going to work.

It can come from things you’ve done or not been able to do in the past, it can come in the form of fear, a lot of it is fear, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, self-doubt, worry, anxiety, it can come in the form of self-sabotage or procrastination. Or I’m going to wait to do this because maybe it’s just not the right time.

And so we procrastinate, right. So why do we do this? Why? Why do we have this resistance? Where’s it coming from? Because it’s counterintuitive, right? It’s counterintuitive to what you want for yourself. You want to lose weight, but you’re telling yourself, you’re probably just going to fail, like all the other times, you want to get stronger, but you keep putting off going to the gym, I’ll go tomorrow, or next week or things at work are a little crazy right now.

So once things calm down and work, then I’ll start going to the gym. So when is this showing up for you like, the resistance shows up in a lot of different times and a lot of different places. But one place it shows up a lot is just when it’s time to start something.

You know, I talk to people every day who want to become that future badass version of themselves, and they want it so badly for themselves. And they tell me like, “Oh, I just want this so bad.” And they tell me why it’s so important to them. You know, they want to be there for their kids, they want to be a good example to their sons or daughters. They want to inspire other people to get healthy. They want to live their life feeling good about themselves for a change.

You know, they tell me they’re ready to go all-in on themselves and they’re ready to get started. I say, Okay, let’s do this. Let’s start and then that resistance comes in and they say “I don’t know, maybe, maybe I’m not ready for this. I’m afraid I’m gonna fail. Like all the other times that failed. I just, it may be too hard.”

So people tell me this stuff all the time. And I, I kind of just cock my head and look at them sideways and be like, you know, like, let’s fight this resistance together. You know, think about when you decided the first time, let’s say you ran a marathon before, like the first time you decided to run a marathon. That was a big deal. There’s probably all these thoughts and feelings that came up for you all this resistance that came up for you. But you did it anyway.

I talk to people all the time who say like, “Oh, I’d love to run a marathon someday.” I’m like, Cool, let’s do it, pick a race. Let’s get you signed up. And then boom here comes the resistance. I’m afraid I’ve never run that far before. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know, if I’ll have time to train, it’s a lot of training. It just almost seems too hard. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a marathon runner.

And all this resistance comes in and just puts this big dark cloud over what they really want for themselves. If you want to be a fit, healthy, strong person, and you got to start something new to get there, it’s gonna feel scary, it’s gonna feel uncomfortable, you might think you might not be able to do it. That’s okay. That’s all the resistance okay.

The resistance also shows up anytime you face an obstacle, or you experience some sort of setback. So first you have to understand that failure is part of the process. You have to accept this principle, okay?

Most people do not accept failure at all and when things don’t go as planned, and by the way, they never do. When things don’t go as planned, then the doubt and the fear and the worry and the resistance all comes up in just pushes against them. And then they just quit.

Like, if you’ve ever changed your diet and you start losing weight, and you start making progress, and you’re feeling good, you’re feeling kind of amazing. But then things kind of slow down or stall for a few days or a week and you start to freak out. And in reality, this doesn’t really mean anything, your weight fluctuates up and down all the time.

But we make it mean, it’s not working, we make it mean that we can’t do it. See, I told you these things never worked for me. All this hard work and no results, screw it, I’m just gonna eat cake for dinner tonight. Why bother? This is all just the resistance, showing up, you got to recognize when this comes up for you. And just knowing what it is, knowing that it’s just your brain kind of freaking out. This is a powerful first step in battling against it, you have to see that this is what this is, and this is coming up for you.

Resistance also shows up when you start comparing yourself to others. Do you ever do this? I don’t do that I don’t compare myself to others. Not true. I do. And it’s something that I have to like, think about and work on constantly. But this is kind of a sneaky way that resistance will show up for you.

So you’ll see what other people are doing. You’ll see what other people look like, you’ll see where other people are on their health and fitness journey. Maybe they’ve lost a bunch of weight in a short amount of time, or they’ve gotten a lot faster, you know, they can run a faster marathon than you or whatever, and you start comparing yourself.

You start comparing yourself to these other people. And for whatever reason, whenever we compare ourselves to others, we always come out on the losing end of that comparison. Isn’t that interesting? I think that’s very interesting. Why don’t we always compare ourselves to others and come out ahead like, “Oh, look, I’m so amazing compared to all these other people!”

No, we don’t do it that way. We look at other people and we say, “Oh, I’m not as fast, I’m not as healthy. I’m not as strong, not as fit. I’m not as lean. Oh, look, she can run a lot faster than me, it must mean that she’s special. And I’m not.”

So for me, this came up when I was, you know, before I kind of got fit again, a couple of years ago, I’d kind of let myself go, I did gain a lot of weight. And I compare myself to these young fit dudes with these big muscles in the six-pack abs. And I would tell myself stories like I could never look like that. I’m too old, I’m a lot older.

And these guys, I don’t have their genes, you know, they’ve got some kind of genetic, you know, thing that helps them to become like ripped like that. And I just don’t have that I don’t have that same determination. I don’t have what it takes, I can never do it. This is for them, but not me. And when I recognize that all of this was just noise, this resistance was just my brain freaking out about all this stuff. I stood up to it, I’m going to battle against resistance.

And I was like, why not? Me? Why not? Maybe I can look like that. Or get close to that. So instead of comparing myself to other people, I don’t do that anymore. I compare myself to my former self, I compare myself to where I was a year ago, six months ago, a couple of years ago, whatever.

I always want to improve myself over where I used to be. And I really work on not comparing myself to where other people are. Sometimes I catch myself I see people I’m just like, dang, you know, I’ll never look like that. And then I’m I recognize that all there’s the resistance. There’s the resistance, it’s just my brain, looking for problems and finding them. When you start looking for problems. You will find them everywhere I promise you. But here’s the thing, the resistance is keeping you stuck if you’re feeling stuck.

If you’re feeling like you’re not making any progress or you’re not making any changes or you just can’t get motivated to do something. It’s probably resistance is showing up for you. It’s what’s keeping you in this loop of wanting more for yourself but never actually doing anything about it.

And keep in mind resistance this resistance is powerful stuff. It’s so powerful can stop you from making any progress and it can keep you stuck for a long time years, decades. And the resistance will try to convince you that you’re not good enough that you can’t do it that you always fail. You’ll never amount anything. You can’t be that badass person you want to be. You’ve always failed. You’re doomed to be a failure.

We’ve got to like fight against these thoughts and feelings that come up, we got to fight against this resistance. Because that’s all they are is just thoughts and feelings. And when you start to notice this, you start to notice these are just your thoughts and feelings.

You’ve got to recognize that you’re embarking on something that’s out of your comfort zone. stuff you’ve never done is outside your comfort zone, you know, things that are challenging or outside your comfort zone, everything you want for yourself, but don’t already have is outside your comfort zone. If it was in your comfort zone, you’d already have it. If it was easy and comfortable for you, you’d have it already. But it’s not, it’s hard.

It’s something you’ve never done before. It’s something that you may have tried and failed at in the past, all that stuff is out of your comfort zone. And when you get outside your comfort zone, even thinking about getting outside your comfort zone will bring up the resistance. So you have to understand something, that the resistance is not something that is out there. It’s within you, it’s you, it’s your mindset.

The resistance is not how things are. It’s just your perception of how things are in this moment. I’m going to repeat that because I think it’s so important for you to understand the resistance is not how things are. It’s just how you perceive things are in this moment.

So this is both good and bad news. Okay, the bad news is that it’s all you. You can’t blame anybody else. You can’t blame anyone or anything else on this, the resistance is you, sorry, you create it, you’re perpetuating it. You’re making yourself stuck in this loop. It’s all you. Okay, that’s the bad news.

The good news is, it’s all you. Because it’s just you, it’s just your mind, it’s your brain, and you have the power to change it. If it was somebody else, you couldn’t change it, if it was something, doing something to you, you wouldn’t have the power to change it. But it is just you, it’s your thoughts and feelings. And you can change all of that stuff.

You can decide if you want to, you know, listen to the resistance and give into it and let it consume you. Let it overwhelm you, and let it keep you stuck. And let it keep you feeling like you’ll never be good enough. Or you can start battling against it.

You’ve got to start working on that mindset, you’ve got to develop an empowered mindset. And whatever it is you want for yourself, you have to understand that battling the resistance is going to be part of the process, it is required for you to become the person that you want to become, it’s the price you pay, it’s the cost of becoming that amazing, healthiest version of yourself that badass, lean, strong runner that you want to be.

So you have to stand up against the resistance, recognize it, and then take action, despite the resistance coming up for you, you’re going to feel the resistance, it’s going to be there, those thoughts and feelings are going to be there. You’ve got to take action despite thinking and feeling these things, awareness, and then taking action. That’s how you battle against the resistance. Not today, resistance. I’m gonna get out there and do what I have to do.

I did this today, I’m back to running again. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve ran and you know, it’s okay. It’s it feels actually pretty good. But I can’t do a whole lot I’m supposed to, you know, take it easy. So today I had about 15 minutes on the schedule to run.

And we’re having this crazy ice and snowstorm here in Cincinnati right now. And I was like, I do not want to go out there and fall on my butt and like hurt my shoulder again or something like that. So all this resistance came up for me. I was like, I’m just not going to do it. I don’t want to do it.

And I have in my building here I have a gym and I have access to several treadmills and stuff. And I was like, I just don’t like running on the treadmill. But you know what I was like, Okay, I’m just gonna do it. So I put on my shorts and my running shirt, laced up my running shoes, and I headed down to the treadmill, I turn that thing on and I started running.

And the whole time I was like, I hate this. Max resistance was coming up for me and I was just like, I don’t run on the treadmill. I just don’t ever do it. I’ll run outside despite the weather, but I was just trying to be safe today and not wipe out. Normally I would go outside and run and whatever. But because I’m still recovering from this, I got to be careful.

So I had to battle that resistance that came up for me and I was like yeah, this is exactly what I’m going to be talking about today on this podcast, because it’s so prevalent, it’s always going to be there in some form.

So recognize when it shows up for you. Okay? And then, you know, take action despite feeling the resistance. Okay? Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to think about that future version of yourself. That strong, lean, healthiest, badass version of yourself. How did you get there? Did you get there by giving into the resistance and staying stuck? And not taking action? And being full of fear and worry, and having excuses and self-doubt and self-sabotaging and procrastination? Is that how you got there?

No, no, that’s not how you got there. You got there by fighting against that resistance. It was still there, but you fought against it. And that’s how you became that future version of yourself. Yeah, I love this idea. I love this idea of going into the future and thinking about who you want to be. And thinking about how did I get there? That is powerful stuff right there, my friends. All right.

And if you ever want a little help with all this I got you just go over to runningleanpodcast.com/apply, and let’s go to battle against that resistance together. Cool. All right, love you all. Keep on Running Lean. We’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.