Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
It’s that time of the year again when many people set big goals for themselves. They decide that starting January 1st, they are going to lose weight, get in shape, quit drinking, start that …
Continue Reading about 104. Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work →
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 104, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, why New Year’s resolutions just don’t work. It’s that time of the year again, when many people set out to change their lives for the better.
They set out to make these big goals and they set New Year’s resolutions. And they decide that starting on January 1, they’re going to lose weight or get in shape or quit drinking start that business or start working on whatever big goal they’ve been putting off for way too long.
The problem is that almost 90% of people who set new year’s resolutions will fail at keeping them by around mid-February. This is why the gyms are full in January and then empty again in March. Right.
So why is it that most people can only stick to a goal for around six weeks or so? Well, in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to go over exactly why New Year’s resolutions just don’t work and offer up some ideas for what to do instead.
But first, if you like this podcast, definitely come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. And we are still in the midst of our running through the holidays challenge. The challenge is to run a mile every day between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day. And so far, it’s been super awesome. People are having a lot of fun, posting pictures and being accountable and getting inspired, and feeling encouraged and supported. So definitely come check us out. It’s not too late to join us. You can join us at any time just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and come have fun with us.
Nextly people ask how they can work with me. And I’ve got to tell you about two things. The first one is one on one coaching. So I’m a coach, this is what I do. I help people to dial in their nutrition to become the most badass, healthiest versions of themselves. I help with losing weight and becoming stronger becoming a more powerful runner.
And I do it all with one on one personalized approach. It’s a one on one approach. It’s the guidance, the support, encouragement, the accountability that you need to make it work for you. And if you’ve never had a coach before, I can tell you it’s a very, very powerful way of achieving results and reaching your goals.
So you know, this is kind of what we’re talking about in this podcast, these goals. And if you have a big goal for yourself, hiring a coach might be just the thing that you need. So just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And you can learn more about my coaching and apply you and I can jump on a conversation and see if this is a good fit for you.
And then I wanted to mention that the Running Lean coaching group is doing something cool in January. So we’ve got this big challenge we’re going to be doing together as a group in January, which is to lose eight pounds by January 31. Okay, and don’t worry, I’ll show you exactly how to do it, you’re going to get the support of me and everybody else in the group and show you how to do this and help you and encourage you and give you the motivation that you need to help you reach that goal.
January is a good time to get started with this and I know that it’s that that New Year’s resolution season or whatever, but it’s just a good time to get started. Because this is when you’re just getting into marathon training, and becoming a fat-adapted runner takes a few weeks. So this is going to be perfect to help you crush those spring races.
Okay, I want to help you transform yourself into that lean fat-burning machine. And we will help you through that exact process and help you develop the mindset that you need to and the habits that you need to make this last it’s not just a temporary thing we’re looking for here.
What we’re trying to do together is develop the permanent changes to your mental state to your emotional state so that you can just do this easily and effortlessly for the rest of your life. We’re interested in lifestyle changes, not short-term gains here okay. So if you’re interested in joining the coaching group, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join and I hope we see you in the coaching group in January.
Okay, so speaking of January and speaking of New Year’s resolutions, let’s talk about why these don’t work typically. So yeah, this is the time of the year where everybody’s like, Okay, starting in the new year, I’m going to make some big changes in my life.
And I’ve been talking to quite a few people recently, who have told me that they are ready, they’re ready to make some changes in their life. And they’re ready to get healthy, and they’re ready to lose the weight for good this time. And they’re ready to finally do something about how they feel about themselves. And they’re ready, they’re ready, they’re ready.
And then they end up just saying, like, well, I’m just going to wait until after the holidays, I’m just going to wait until after the new year. And I’m like if you’re ready, now, you need to take action. Now. If you’re ready to make some kind of change in your life today, then you need to do something about it today.
And this is like the first thing that I want to talk about why New Year’s resolutions don’t work is because you’re picking some arbitrary date to start. And most people are just not ready on January 1 to like, make a change. If you’re not ready today, why do you think you’re going to be all of a sudden be ready on January first?
What’s gonna happen between now and then, you know, so I just want to encourage you that, you know, if you’re ready to make a big change in your life, if you’re ready to lose weight, or become a stronger runner, get into some strength training, if you’re ready to, like, become the healthiest version of yourself, and you’re ready to do that like you’re ready to commit to that just start today.
You know, don’t just do it because you think you should on the first of January, for whatever reason. So many people do this. So many people wait. So they may not be ready today, and they think they’re gonna magically become ready on the first or maybe they are ready today.
But they don’t do anything about it. And so then the first comes and they’re like, and now I’m fine. You know, you sort of lose some of that momentum that you built up some of that motivation that you had. But thinking you’re just going to be ready on the first is what’s called a false first step.
You know, we were taking the step that isn’t it isn’t true. It isn’t solid, it isn’t grounded in anything. It’s like a false step. Right? It’s like, you’re just doing it because it’s this date. That’s all right, you’ve got to be ready to make that commitment to yourself.
And like I said, if you’re ready to make that change, I suggest you just start doing something about it today, the best time to start, the best time to start improving your health was yesterday or a year ago. Right? But the next best time to start is right now.
But listen to this. Imagine, imagine if you had started on your weight loss journey this time last year, where would you be today? Imagine if you stuck to it for the last 12 months? Where would you be today? I’m going to tell you right now you would be a different person today.
I don’t want you to get to this point in 2022. I don’t want you to get to this time of the year next year, and be asking yourself that same question. Well, what if I had started? What if I had done something about this, you know, a year ago, no. Do something today, now you’ve got to be ready, you’ve got to be ready to make that commitment to yourself, you’ve got to be ready to go all-in on yourself.
You’ve got to be ready and willing to do what it takes to make those changes for yourself. Okay. But I’m just going to tell you like do not use the date of you know, January 1, as any kind of excuse or, or any sort of an arbitrary start date for you if you’re ready to go. Start now.
So that’s the first reason why New Year’s resolutions really don’t work. The next thing here is that typically when people make New Year’s resolutions, they’re very vague. They’re very vague, they’re like, I want to lose weight, I want to get healthy, I want to get back in shape again, whatever that means.
They’re just very unspecific, right? They’re not measurable, you don’t know when you’re going to get there. You know, instead of saying like, Oh, I want to lose 40 pounds by you know, April 30, or whatever,
You’re just like, I just want to lose weight, like, get healthy get in shape. And I think the reason most people use these kinds of New Year’s resolutions is because they don’t want to have to commit to anything. Because if you say to yourself and say to the world or whatever, hey, I’m going to lose 30 pounds by you know, May 1 – if you say that and then you fail you’re gonna feel like a failure. You’re gonna feel like you know, what if I let people down or what If I let myself down, I’m gonna feel like a failure.
And like, who cares? Honestly, my thing is like, if you’re just saying something vague, like lose weight or get healthy or get in shape, that doesn’t mean anything. And so you really don’t have to commit to anything.
You don’t have to actually take any action around a goal like that. Because how do you know if you even get there. In other words, there’s no risk involved, because there’s no specific like endpoint, there’s no outcome you’re actually going for.
So people will say this all the time, and I go, I’m gonna finally get healthy, I’m gonna finally lose the weight, I’m gonna finally get in shape, but then they don’t have any sort of like, measurable goal that they’re looking for.
So what I’m going to encourage you to do instead is make us make a SMART goal, you know, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant time-bound. So instead of losing weight, you know, I’m going to lose 40 pounds by May 1, or instead of getting in shape, I want to be able to do 20 unassisted pull-ups by June or something like that, like these are very specific.
Or if you want to, you know, improve your running, or be able to run longer, you can say, I’m gonna run a half marathon on May 2, you know, these are specific, measurable goals, and they’re time-bound, and they’re achievable, right?
So instead of being vague, and not committing to anything, get super freakin specific with your goals. Just say what you really want. And you know what, in the process of going after this goal that you have for yourself, you will change. You will become the kind of person that can accomplish that goal. I’ll talk about that in just a second a little bit more too.
Okay. Yeah, so the other thing I want to encourage you to do is to make your goals bigger. So this is another reason why New Year’s resolutions don’t work as people make these really small goals. They’re too small, they’re like, I want to lose three pounds in six months or something like that.
And so you don’t have to get out of your comfort zone, you don’t have to, like, do anything that’s challenging, you don’t have to do anything that’s gonna push you to become more. So you know, kind of what I was talking about as making these specific goals, I want you to also make them big, set big, scary, uncomfortable, impossible goals.
Because in the process of going after a big impossible goal, you have to transform yourself into a new person, you become a different person than you are today. So if you’re somebody who has never run a marathon before in your life, and you have a goal to run a full marathon in 2022, you got some work to do, you’re going to have to put the training in that’s required to get you not just to the starting line, but to get you across the finish line of that race.
But the work involved, if you put in the time and you do the work, then by the time you get to the starting line of that race, you will have become a marathon runner. Now you just have to finish it up by completing the actual race itself, right.
But think about it, think about the transformation involved from where you are today, to where you need to be in order to run a marathon. There’s a lot of work involved there. Most people are just not willing to put in the work there. They don’t want to get uncomfortable. They don’t want to do what it takes to become that kind of person. It’s scary. It’s hard. What if you fail, blah, blah, blah, who cares?
Do the impossible, set out to do something big next year, I’ve got some big goals for next year. And I’m not talking about them right now. Because they’re kind of personal. And some things that I’ve just not really shared with only my coach, honestly. And I think I just want to keep it close to my chest for now. I’ll talk about them later.
But um, you know, my goals are big and scary. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to share. I’m like, I don’t know. But my goals are big and scary and they make me uncomfortable. They’re outside of my comfort zone.
Listen, everything you have already is in your comfort zone. If you don’t have it, it’s out of your comfort zone. That’s the stuff you want to be going after. Not the easy little stuff, right? We don’t want the low-hanging fruit, we want the high-hanging fruit. We want the opposite of low-hanging fruit.
So what we want is the fruit at the top of the tree. We want the good stuff. We want the stuff that is not easily accessible. We want the stuff that causes us to grow, that challenges us that causes us to become more, right?
So most resolutions are just way too small. And I think we need to be instead of playing small I think we need to be playing big. I think we need to be going out to the big stuff, okay?
The other reason why most resolutions fail is that there’s no real commitment. There’s no, I’m all in on this, and I’m gonna do whatever it takes to make this happen. This is more of ah, oh, it’s New Year’s all I guess I should pick something to do.
And then it’s kind of like, oh yeah, maybe get healthy, maybe run a half marathon. It’s kind of a half-assed commitment, right. And we know we don’t have this thing, we full ass things here, right.
So there’s no real commitment with these New Year’s resolutions, right. And they’re just like, you feel like you have to do something, or else you’re not part of it, you know, who cares? Like just when you’re ready, and you’re in, you’re going to make that commitment to yourself, go all in on that commitment to yourself, you’re going to do whatever it takes to succeed with that sort of an attitude, you cannot fail.
Because as long as you’re making progress, you’re going to succeed, eventually, the only time you really fail is when you just throw up your hands and quit, and say, screw it, I’m not doing this anymore. I give up, I quit.
And I want to encourage you to never ever do that. Never ever do that. Always be making progress, relentless, forward progress, not backward progress, forward progress. You need to learn how to make that commitment to yourself, and then honor that commitment to yourself.
You make your promises to yourself, and then you keep those promises to yourself, right? You commit to working on becoming a better person and you do it, you work, you know, you commit to losing weight, or you commit to running faster, you commit to getting stronger, and you do the work it takes to get there.
The progress might be slow, it may seem like it’s not working, it may seem like it’s taking too long. Like if you want to get stronger, and you want to build bigger muscles, you know, and you start working out at the gym. I’m going to tell you right now, it takes a while before you’re going to start to see changes, you know, there’s there, it’s slow, steady progress, is what we’re looking for here, okay.
But the only way you get there is you got to commit to the process, you’ve got to commit to going out and lifting those weights a few times a week. You’ve got to commit to doing the hard work to like, you know, work until exhaustion to like, you know, really lifting until your muscles hurt.
And there’s a period of time where they do hurt, you know, and then it gets better. But it takes a while. Okay, so you’ve got to do the hard work at the gym, if you want to get the bigger muscles. And without a real commitment, at some point, you’re probably just going to throw in the towel, because it’s going to be hard.
So I want to encourage you to not do what most people do, which is just be vague, not really commit, I want to encourage you to commit to whatever it is you want to do. And then honor that commitment to yourself every day by showing up for yourself and doing what it takes to move forward. Okay.
Another reason why New Year’s resolutions just don’t work as you’re not really focusing on that habits. So many people try to do something new in the new year so they have that new year new me, I’m going to go ahead and workout more.
I’m going to change my diet, okay. And they start doing something different, they start changing their behavior, but they’re not working on these habits and, you know, thought, feeling, action patterns that they’ve developed over the last 30 years or so. They’re just trying to change their behavior, which is the least effective way to change a habit is to just change the behavior, you’ve got to work on the mindset.
That has to be the foundation, your thoughts and feelings are driving your actions and you have to work on that mental and emotional part of your habit or you’re not going to see these changes actually happen, you’re not going to be creating the new habits.
It takes a while to build up to these new habits. You know, it takes a while it takes like you know, I’ve heard some experts say around 90 days to change habits to break old habits and to establish new ones. And that means 90 days of doing the same things over and over again.
And again this goes to that commitment level to like are you committed to changing your habits because if you are you’re gonna have to go through a period of discomfort. There’s discomfort involved with let’s say you want to like not snack during the day you just want to like eliminate snacking.
The way to do it is to just stop snacking, and be uncomfortable because it’s going to be uncomfortable, right? I tell people this all the time, and they just look at me, like, you know, with one eyebrow raised, like, are you serious, I’m like, yeah, you just got to stop snacking. And then and then sit there and be uncomfortable.
Embrace the discomfort of not eating the snack, even though you want it. That’s how you break a habit like that. It’s hard to do I get it, it’s really hard to do. But the important thing here is that you understand that it’s a simple process, stop doing this one thing, and, you know, sit with the discomfort of not doing it and then do something else instead.
You know, if you’re, if you’re used to, you know, if you want to get into the habit of running every morning, then you gotta set your alarm earlier and get up to go for your run. You know, if you don’t do that, if you just keep saying to yourself, like, you know what, I’m just gonna, today I’m just gonna stay in bed.
And then you do that every other day, it’s like, you’re not really building a new habit, you’re just kind of reinforcing that old habit that you have of sleeping in. And if what you want for yourself is to run every morning, then you got to set your alarm and you’ve got to, you know, that alarm goes off, those feet have to hit the ground, and you’ve got to get out there and, and run even when you don’t feel like it.
Even when it’s hard, even when it’s cold, even when it’s raining, even when you’re just like I just want five more minutes of sleep, you’ve got to just get up and do it if you want to change that habit. So most people don’t focus on the habit change, they just want to like they just focus on the behavior.
You know, they just focus on oh, I’ve just got to like, get up early every day. But you’ve got to work on the mindset behind that you got to work on the foundation, which is your thoughts and feelings about it.
You know, you got to do that thought work that’s involved with changing how you think and feel about getting up in the morning, how you think and feel about running how you think and feel about yourself. And what is this going to mean for you?
And when you work on that stuff, getting up in the morning is kind of a no-brainer, but you’ve got to work on the mental-emotional stuff first, okay. So most people there just don’t work on the habits, they’re just trying to change behaviors. And that just doesn’t work.
Another reason why New Year’s resolutions don’t work is too often we’re focused on perfection. You know, like say you want to lose some weight, you want to lose like 40 pounds. So you change your diet, and you’re sticking your plan for the most part, but then you blow it and you cheat here and there.
And then, you know, you’re just, you just feel like you keep falling short. And if you can’t do it perfectly, why do it at all? And so you just quit. And I want to encourage you to not do this. Perfection, doing things perfectly is just not possible. It’s not possible for any of us, right? I don’t do things perfectly. I know you don’t either. And it’s okay.
Instead of focusing on perfection, I want you to focus on progress. Are you making forward progress? Yes or no? It’s pretty easy to tell, is what you’re doing moving you closer to your goals or further away from your goals? Is you know, eating this donut on the plan for you or not?
Pretty simple, pretty simple to know. Is this going to help me to make progress or not? And if you’re not, then you got to switch your focus a little bit, you need to focus on the things that are gonna move you forward.
It doesn’t mean you’re going to do it perfectly, does not mean you’re going to do it perfectly. You know, think again about where you want to be at the end of next year. You know, this time next year? How did you get there? Did you do it perfectly? Probably not.
You probably missed a workout here or there. You probably snuck in a donut here. You probably drank more than you wanted to here or there. Right? It’s okay. You can do it. What I want to encourage you to do is not skip two workouts in a row not have two bad meals in a row.
In other words, if you have a cheat meal or whatever, get back on track with your next meal. If you miss a workout, don’t miss your next workout. Never miss two workouts in a row, never two cheat meals in a row. Slow and steady. Progress wins the race every single time.
That’s what we want to focus on not perfection, you will never do this perfectly. And if you’re striving for perfection then you’re going to fall short and you’re going to get disappointed and you’re going to feel discouraged. So I want you to focus on doing it to the best of your ability and making slow and steady progress instead. Okay.
And then the last thing I have the last reason why most New Year’s resolutions don’t work for people is that you’re not holding yourself accountable, there’s no accountability and there’s no support system in place.
Right what you’re doing, especially when we talk about changing habits, changing our health and fitness – becoming leaner, becoming stronger, becoming a faster, more powerful runner, whatever it is that you want for yourself – I’m going to tell you right now, it will get hard, it will become challenging at some point.
And if you don’t have a support system in place, and you don’t have somebody that’s there to hold you accountable, your chances of quitting, your chances of giving up are going to be much higher, right.
You’re going to get down, things aren’t going to work out, you’re going to get bummed out, you’re going to be hard on yourself. And you’re going to have no one there to help you get out of that. And most people just quit way too easily in these situations. Okay.
Accountability is huge, you know, get an accountability partner, if you have somebody. Let’s talk about running. Like if you want to run more regularly, you want to get up earlier to run, have somebody that you run with – get a running partner.
That way you guys have to, like show up for each other. You know, I encourage people to join a running group, I love my running group, they’ve helped me to stay accountable for running. I’m not going to get up on a cold Saturday morning to run by myself. I mean, I do.
But I’m much more likely and more excited and more motivated to do that when I know that my running group is out there, you know, all they’re all going to be running with me. Plus we have tons of fun. So that’s super fun.
But this is a big part of what I do as a coach, right? I show you things that you know, maybe you don’t see about yourself, I hold you accountable. I help you to overcome the things you struggle with, you know, the self-sabotage.
I encourage you to do things you don’t want to do I help you stay on track, always moving towards your goals. You know, I offer the support and encouragement, and motivation that you need to keep going.
But then there’s this accountability piece, which is so huge. People tell me all the time, they’re like, yeah, I was going to eat this like cake, but I knew I was going to have my call with you today. So I just decided not to do it. I didn’t want to have to tell you I did this.
Or I have people telling me they just love the fact that they get to check in with me every week. And they can be like, oh my gosh, I just love the accountability, because this is what’s helping me to stay on track. Okay.
So make sure that whatever you’re doing for yourself, that you have either an accountability partner, group, a coach, something like that, and remember that our coaching group starting in January, it can be your accountability partner, you know, we’re going to be creating a lot of momentum in January by learning exactly how to become fat-adapted, and how to lose those eight pounds by January 31. That’s our goal.
That’s our challenge – to help each other and hold each other accountable. And to offer the support and encouragement and motivation for each other to hit this goal by the end of January.
So if you’d like to join us, I’d love to have you in there. I think it would be super fun. And we can all do New Year’s resolutions the right way we can all do. Goal setting the right way. So if you’re interested in joining us for January, we’d love to have you just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join.
Alright, that’s all I got for you guys today. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season here. 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.
One of the hardest things about losing weight is feeling like no one is supporting you in your weight loss journey. Not only do you feel a lack of support, but you feel like the people closest to …
Continue Reading about 95. Getting Your Family’s Support with Your Weight Loss Plan →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 95 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m talking about getting your family’s support with your weight loss plan.
So one of the hardest things about losing weight is feeling like no one is supporting you in your weight loss journey. No one’s got your back. Not only do you feel a lack of support from the people closest to you, but you actually feel like these people are going out of their way to make it harder for you to stay on track.
Why are they doing this? Why do we feel unsupported when we decide to make these big changes in our health and diet? How do we get through this? How do we get the support that we need to be successful with being healthy and sticking to our plan with making this our new way of life? I’ve been getting these questions a lot lately.
So in this episode of the podcast, I’ve got some helpful tips for getting your family support with your weight loss plan. But first, if you’d like this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook.
It’s a group of like-minded runners who are focused on improving their health improving their fitness getting stronger, getting leaner, getting faster, and we support each other, we encourage each other we inspire one another, we motivate one another.
And it’s a place where you can ask questions. And it’s a place where you get a voice. You know, this podcast is great, I get to talk to you. But I don’t get to hear from you. And you don’t get to share what’s going on with you.
Join the Facebook group and you can share what’s going on with you. You can ask questions you can get answers. And it’s a lot of fun. That’s fun. So just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and hope to see you over there.
And then people ask how they can work with me. And there are really two ways. There’s the Running Lean coaching group which meets once a week we do a live group coaching call. And this is a great way to introduce yourself to becoming a fat adapted runner to understanding how your thoughts and feelings drive your actions to learn all about, you know how to succeed with your weight loss goals with your running goals.
You get to hear from like-minded people, we get to share what’s going on, we do a little coaching and teaching in the group once a week. And you get access to all my online training materials. So this is a great introduction to coaching and a great way to kind of get yourself started and make some progress. And to learn more and join the group just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join.
And then the other way of working with me is as your coach, I’m a one-on-one coach, this is my jam, this is what I do, I can show you exactly how to become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself. I’ll show you how to do it, you can get there.
And when you sign up to coach with me, you get the personalized meal plans, you get personalized attention, you know, it’s you and me working together to get you to your goals. It’s a results-oriented coaching program.
It’s not about just like I don’t have like a blueprint that I just give to everybody that’s exactly the same. It’s you and me figuring out together, what works best for you what makes you feel the best.
What gets you to your weight loss goals, what gets you to your running goals? What helps you to become the best, healthiest version of yourself? That’s what we do. And we do it together and we have fun here. Are you sensing a theme here? Like we try to have fun with all this stuff.
Losing weight, getting healthy does not have to be a suffer fest, we can have fun doing it. Anyway, if you’re interested in coaching with me just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And you and I will jump on a quick Zoom call, have a conversation and we’ll talk about your goals. We’ll see if this is a good fit for you. Cool. Awesome. All right.
So I’ve been mulling around this topic for a while now because it’s something that is recurring. I keep hearing people talking about this and variations of this topic of like not feeling supported by their family and I’ve been working on this for a while and I think I have helpful tips for you guys today.
So make sure you listen to this whole podcast. I don’t know, don’t like just skim through these sometimes because if you do, you’re missing out on the good stuff. But today I’ve got some really helpful tips at the end of this episode, so stick around for that.
But the issue is that I hear a lot of people talking about how they don’t feel supported in what they’re doing, especially when they change their diet when they change what they’re eating. And then they try to stick to their plan. And this is especially true at the beginning of their weight loss journey.
And they tell me, they feel like they’re all alone. They feel like they’re just on their own, they feel lonely, they feel like no one is supporting them, their spouse isn’t supporting them, their kids maybe aren’t supporting them, and they just and their friends aren’t supporting them. And they just feel all alone. And it makes it very difficult to want to stick to their plan.
So I really think this is an issue for a lot of people and we need to, you know, figure this out. Right? So that’s what we’re going to be talking about today is what do we do in these situations, when we don’t feel supported, especially from the people closest to us, like our spouses, okay.
So one thing I want you to understand here is that if you want everybody in your family, if you want your spouse, and your kids and everybody, your family and all your friends, to just be on board with what you’re doing, and to totally support you, and to think the way you think and feel the same way you feel and do the things that you’re doing.
I’m just gonna tell you right now, this is an exercise in futility, you are going to be disappointed when you are expecting other people to think the way you think and do what you’re doing and say things that support you all the time, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. I’m just going to tell you right now, when you expect people to say this thing or do that thing, I promise you, they will let you down.
Okay, so we just have to understand that the number one thing we have to understand here is that you cannot control what other people are thinking what other people are feeling, what they are saying what they’re doing. And you have to stop pretending like you can control all of that. Okay, because you cannot.
And one thing that keeps coming up for me is when people say, Well, you know that my husband isn’t saying these things to me that he’s not talking to me in a way that feels supportive. He’s saying negative things, you know, he’s saying, Well, why don’t you just, you know, live a little, you know, just enjoy yourself for once, you know, these kinds of things are not helpful. Okay?
And I hear people say this, and I’m like, okay, I get it, you wish that they said different things to you, which isn’t really going to happen. Okay, first of all, but are you saying these things to yourself? Are you being encouraging to yourself? How are you talking to yourself? This is an important thing for you to think about. And really be honest with yourself.
Are you saying to yourself, “I don’t know if I should do this? Maybe I should just live a little? Oh, maybe I am. I’m doing great. And I deserve a little something. Maybe I should reward myself because I’ve been staying on my plan all week. So I can just eat like a cake.” Right?
I mean, that’s fine. Like, how are you talking to yourself? What are you saying to yourself? What’s that inner dialogue look like for you? Because if you’re not supporting yourself in the way that you’re talking to yourself, do you really expect other people to do that for you? Yeah.
And listen, I understand that it can feel like people are supporting you like no one is supporting you. You can make everything that they do and say mean that they’re not supportive of you. Right?
So you go out to dinner with your husband, and he’s like, You know what, I’m going to get extra french fries, because I’m like, really hungry. So and you’re like, “Ah, see, he’s not supporting me.” Or, you know, you’re you come home from work and your wife brings home a pizza for her and she’s eating pizza with the kids and you’re like making yourself some chicken and a salad or whatever. And you’re like, “See, she’s not supporting me.”
Or, you know, you go out to dinner with your friends and they’re ordering all these fruity cocktails and you’re not drinking, you know, and you’re just sitting there like feeling sorry for yourself and like, look, my friends aren’t supporting me. See how all these people aren’t supportive.
You can make everything mean that people aren’t supporting you. Okay? Look what they’re doing. See, they’re not supporting me in reality, none of this stuff. None of this has anything to do with you. This is just them doing them. Right? You’ve got to do you let them do them, and you do you.
And when you start making everything mean that you’re not being supported, you’re going to start to find evidence for that everywhere. Everywhere you look, every person you talk to, you’re going to feel like they’re not supportive of you see, here’s another person that’s like eating something that I can’t eat. So that means they’re not supportive of me.
And we’ve just got to get over this. Alright, you have to learn how to support yourself like this is my number one tip for you here today, is that you have to be your own number one best supporter, you have to have your own back all the time. What does this mean?
What does it mean to have your own back? Having your own back means that you speak kindly to yourself the same way you would speak to a friend. So if you and a friend were trying to stick to a healthy eating plan, and you were doing it together, and your friend was feeling like, I’m not sure about this, what would you say to that friend?
You’d be like, “Listen, you got this, you can do this stick with the plan, we’re gonna, we’re gonna get through this.” Like, that’s how you would treat your friend. That’s what you would say to your friend. That’s the way you need to dialogue with yourself.
Because the way you dialogue with yourself is whether you had your own back or not. So speak kindly to yourself, encourage yourself. Don’t talk trash to yourself. Don’t be like, “Oh, look at you, you screwed up again. Nothing ever works for you, you can’t do this. You know, you might as well just give up.” Like this is trash talk that you do to yourself. And listen, we all do it, right? But you’ve got to stop doing that. So speak kindly to yourself, stop the trash-talking to yourself.
Having your own back means keeping the promises you made to yourself, you make a commitment. I’m going to stick to my food plan today. And then you honor that commitment that you made to yourself, that’s having your own back. Right?
You say you’re going to do something, you commit to doing that thing. And then you do that thing. You honor the commitments you make to yourself, that’s having your own back.
What’s not having your own back is constantly breaking those commitments to yourself. Letting yourself down, making a plan and saying, “Okay, tomorrow, I’m sticking to my plan no matter what.” And then tomorrow comes and you’re like, you know what, I just feel like Chick-fil-A, and you go eat a bunch of, you know, get a bunch of junk food on your way home from work and just gorge out on that. Right?
Like that’s not having your own back. You have to be your own best supporter. This is like the number one thing I want you to take away from this episode right here is that when it comes to who’s supporting you and who isn’t?
If you’re not supporting you, how can you expect other people to? If you’re not supporting yourself, and you’re expecting everybody else to do it for you, you’re going to be very disappointed. Every single day, it’s not gonna work for you, okay? So you have to have your own back, you have to be your best supporter.
And here’s something I really think is important, something that you have to understand. You have to stop trying to control your circumstances. So stop trying to control what other people are thinking what other people are feeling when other people are saying what other people are doing. These are all circumstances.
And if you heard me talk about this ever in the past, you know that circumstances are things you cannot control. What you have control over are your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. That’s it. So you can’t control what other people are doing or saying or thinking or whatever.
So, your husband will say what he says and he’s gonna think what he thinks he’s gonna do what he does. And if you’re hoping he’s gonna change all that stuff, you will forever be in turmoil around all of that. Alright, because he is not going to change except that he is the way he is.
He’s going to say what he says, he’s gonna think how he thinks, and what he does, he’s just gonna keep doing right. You have to take responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings and actions. You have to take responsibility for your own decisions for your own choices.
Don’t blame other people for your bad choices. Don’t blame other people because you didn’t stick to your plan. It’s not their responsibility for you to, you know, stick to your healthy eating plan. It’s yours. It’s on you to take ownership.
I want you to take extreme ownership of your own health. And listen, this is not bad news. This is good news, this is very empowering. Because when you rely on other people and other people’s opinions, then this can be very disempowering because you’re giving your power away to others. You’re letting others’ thoughts and feelings about us determine how we think about ourselves that’s not good, or their opinions don’t matter.
So friends, moms, spouses, they all have their opinions about what you’re doing. Everybody has an opinion, right? And most people are more than happy to share their opinion with you whether you ask for it or not, especially when it comes to what people are eating.
And I think this is so crazy, and like weird, like, people will tell me all the time, like, why would you eat that? Or that’s weird. Or I was standing in line recently at this little breakfast buffet thing. And I was, you know, it kind of just loaded up my plate with eggs and bacon. And that was it. And somebody next to me was like, well, that’s a lot of protein. You know, and I was like, thanks for your opinion, didn’t ask for it. But thank you.
But people are just more than happy to share their thoughts with us. Isn’t that funny that we do that? I don’t understand. I would never say anything to somebody about what they’re eating.
But here’s a story I heard recently, from one of my clients, they were feeling good. They had started a couple of weeks into their weight loss journey. And they were feeling great. They changed their diet. They’re losing weight, they had tons of energy, and they were just like, feeling great about themselves.
And so they were talking to a co-worker about it. And they said, you know, hey, this is what I’m doing. And I feel so amazing. And this person they were talking to at the office was like, oh, yeah, I tried that low carb thing. It didn’t work for me after a few months.
And so this person came back to me, and she was very concerned about this, like, “Oh, is this gonna happen for me, too?” Like she really internalized this, right? And she believed that because this other person who she doesn’t even know that well had this one experience that that’s going to be her experience, too.
And I was like, listen, you don’t have to. First of all, you don’t have to believe what other people are telling you. Their opinions are just that they are their own opinions, it’s their own experiences. And what they’re saying and what their experiences were don’t mean squat to their experiences, they’re not yours.
Maybe they did it wrong. Maybe they didn’t really do it at all, maybe they thought they were doing it right. But they weren’t, I don’t know that. Who knows what happened with that person, it doesn’t really matter.
To be honest with you, most people try some sort of dietary change, and then give up after some time, and then say it doesn’t work, or that didn’t work for them when they really didn’t like stick to it long enough.
Or they didn’t make some minor changes or whatever. Like there’s always something we can do. And this is one thing I do with all my coaching clients is like, we always check and see how are things working? Are we getting the results that we want? Are you feeling good? Or is running getting better? How are your energy levels? Are you hungry?
Are you losing weight?
But we keep looking at all these metrics, and then we keep making minor changes to stay on plan and to keep moving in the right direction. But we don’t quit. But this is what most people do. They get to a point with their diet or whatever they’re doing. And they’re like, this isn’t working anymore, that diet doesn’t work.
And so if you internalize that and say like, oh, maybe this doesn’t work, because this one person had this one experience, and I don’t even know what they were doing. Just we got to stop doing that. Okay?
Other people’s opinions are just that – they’re their opinions, what their experiences were or what their opinions are, does not matter to you, you get to choose what you believe about yourself. Even if your spouse is like, I don’t think this is a good idea.
You know, we can really internalize that and think like, oh, maybe it’s not a good idea. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. But really, do you feel good? Are you enjoying this? Are you getting results? Are you becoming healthier? Like, then just stick with it. You know, don’t worry about their opinion, let them have their opinion, because they will share it with you.
But at the same time, you get to choose what you want to believe about yourself, period. Right? It’s on you. So people will have their opinions. You don’t have to internalize all that stuff, okay? But here’s what happens when you do internalize that stuff.
When you start to believe all the BS that people are telling you or whatever, you start to doubt yourself. You stop believing in yourself, you lose confidence. You know, you get frustrated you get worried and so what do you do when you start feeling frustrated and you start feeling worse? A lot of times you give in, you go off your plan, and then you eat a bunch of crap, you start to feel like crap.
And then you slip into these old behaviors because you’re going to start using food to feel better again, and the cycle continues. And then you’re back to where you were at square one. This is not having your own back, this is the opposite. Okay?
This is like self-sabotage stuff that we do. Okay? So what I’m saying here is that, like, you have to have your own back. And you have to just like trust in yourself, trust the process, you have to believe in yourself. And you don’t have to believe what other people are telling you. Right? Take control of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, you get to choose what you believe. Isn’t that awesome? I think that’s amazing.
You get to choose what you believe people can say whatever they want, you get to choose your own beliefs about yourself. So own this, own it. Really be in control of your own beliefs, your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Take 100% ownership of your own health. Stop giving away your power to other people, you’re in control. You get to choose what you want to believe about yourself.
Okay, so this is like my number one, like, big overarching tip here today is you, you have to take ownership, and you have to be your own best supporter. Okay. Here are a few other tips for you. Tell your family, your spouse, your kids, whoever it is that’s closest to you.
Tell them that, make sure you explain to them that this is about me and not you. I’m doing this thing, I’m making these changes. I’m not going to force my plan on you, you get to do what you want. If you want to come along with me great, if not great, but this is what I’m doing. And I’m doing it for me. I’m not doing it for you. I don’t care what you think. I don’t care about your opinion.
I don’t care, you know, uh, whether or not you want to join me in this journey, but this is what I’m doing. For me. It’s not about you, you get to do whatever you want you to do you let me do me, okay. So make sure that you explain that.
And that, especially with your spouse, right, because a lot of times the spouses can just be like, they can say things that get under our skin, or they can try to pull us down to what they’re doing. They’re like, Come on, just have some french fries. Come on, let’s just get some pizza tonight. You’ve been doing great. These little things can be really subtle, but also very dangerous for us. Right?
Because then they’re starting to like influence you, you’re letting them influence you. You just have to let them know like, Listen, you do you and I’m going to do me okay? It’s not about you, it’s about me. My next tip is that you have to explain that you may be a little bit of a cranky pants at times, especially at the beginning. Okay?
Listen, I’m not gonna candy-coat here, change is hard. Change is uncomfortable. And when you’re changing your diet, and let’s say you’re used to eating a bunch of junk food and a bunch of sugar and a bunch of comfort food, all that stuff that you’ve been eating for a long time and you’re like, I’m going to stop eating the junk, I’m going to stop eating sugar.
And when you do that, it’s going to be uncomfortable, you’re going to go through a period of discomfort, okay, it’s part of the process. Like being uncomfortable is like the price you have to pay to make that change. Alright, it’s required, it’s a requirement.
So embrace the discomfort and just let them know, listen, I may be a pain in the butt here. Please understand, this is not about you, but I’m just doing something that is, you know, it’s challenging, and I’m going to feel a little uncomfortable doing it. I’m going to be embracing the discomfort and I’m going to keep going alright, you have been warned.
But just let them know it’s not about them, it’s just about you and it will pass you know, usually you know a few weeks into it, it starts to get a lot less uncomfortable.
Another tip here, make your environment work for you. And this is going to look different for different people. But you may have to go through your kitchen and get rid of the crap food that you’ve got sitting around okay. You may have to like just totally get rid of the cookies and the chips and all this stuff.
If this is not an option for you, if you’ve got somebody kids or spouse in your household that eats a lot of this stuff still and is not willing to give up some of this junk food, then put that stuff in a designated cabinet. This is just for them and you stay away from it.
Like this is a little environment hack to help us stick to our plan because every time you open the cabinet to get you to know, whatever it is you want for yourself, and you’re seeing all the junk food, you’re just going to keep getting reminded that that stuff is there.
And it’s gonna make it very difficult for you. So do your best to make your environment work for you. Right. And sometimes that’s throwing stuff away. Or sometimes it’s like just putting it into a place where you just have limited access to it. Okay.
Here’s another tip. And this one’s going to sound hard. But it’s actually really cool. It’s really, really empowering. And that is like practice, being around people being around food being around situations that are tempting for you. Say what now? Yes, I’m telling you to put yourself in situations where people are eating junk food in front of you.
And I want you to just be in those situations and do nothing. Because here’s the reality of life, you are going to be in situations like this, whether you want it or not. And if you’re trying to control for all of this, and you’re just trying to like live in some sort of bubble, where everything is just perfectly formulated around you, and everybody’s eating the right foods, and you’re never going to see tempting foods or alcohol or whatever, it’s going to be a really tough life for you.
Like, you’re just you’re going to be around these situations, whether you want to or not. So my tip is to practice being in this in these situations and do nothing. Practice being around people who are eating junk food or drinking and you’re not drinking.
Practice being around people who are eating a bunch of junk, sugar, candy, whatever it is, and don’t do it, you know. Let other people order their dessert and just watch them eat it and just like, notice what comes up for you, how are you feeling in those situations? It’s gonna feel probably a little terrible, it’s okay, embrace the discomfort, don’t do anything about it.
Because the more you do this, the more you build the skill of being in these situations without giving in to the urges and the cravings and stuff, right. And if you’re just trying to shelter yourself from these situations, and that’s how you’re going to deal with it, there’s going to be a time where you just find yourself around people who are eating dessert or drinking or something like that, and you’re just like, screw it, just give in, because you haven’t developed that skill.
So what I’m telling you is to embrace some of those situations, put yourself in those situations. You know, I wouldn’t do it like, every single day. But practice being in those situations. You know, your husband brings home pizza for him, and the kids just sit there with them and enjoy your salad while they’re eating pizza.
You’re going to smell it, it’s going to look great, that cheese is all gooey and just gonna look amazing. But just like you know, what, just be like, Yeah, that’s cool. How was your day?
And just be with the discomfort, you know, embrace the discomfort and don’t, don’t give in. And the more you do this, the easier it becomes. This is a skillset, a habit that you need to learn, okay.
And then another tip I have for you is to create your own support system, alright. So it can be very helpful to have a support system around you. And it doesn’t have to be your spouse or your immediate family members or whatever, or your mom or whoever. Like you can like have, you can sort of create your own support system. Okay.
And here’s what I mean by this. You might have some like-minded friends that are on board with you – spend more time with them. You might belong to Facebook groups, like the Running Lean community on Facebook, which is a bunch of like-minded people who support you, you might read books that support what you’re doing, or listen to podcasts that support what you’re doing.
You might follow people on social media, you might hire a coach, these are all ways of creating a support system for yourself. Because listen, you can have your own back and that’s awesome. And that’s great. Honestly, it is helpful to have supportive others around, but sometimes you just have to create it yourself.
You can’t expect other people to just magically be your support system. Okay? So create your own support system. When I get into something when I’m making a big change. Like when I was training for my Ironman, that’s a big deal, right? It’s a super challenging event and there are so many moving parts. Like when you talk about doing basically an all-day event that involves three different sports like there’s so much involved with that.
I created my own support system around that I was reading books and listening to podcasts and following people on social media and you know started to develop these friends who we would train together and talk about stuff together, and drive to different places to, to swim in open water, or go on long bike rides together. Like I just surrounded myself with my own support system, I created my own support system. And it was very, very helpful.
You know, instead of just sitting there by myself, you know, wondering, I don’t know what to do, or, you know, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this, or I’m afraid of not being able to finish this thing or whatever. Like, I created a support system, and it was so helpful. So this is something I want you to do for yourself, okay, take ownership of this stuff for yourself.
And then here’s the thing, sometimes people in your life will eventually get on board with what you’re doing. Sometimes, your spouse might see what you’re doing.
They see you’re doing great, they see you’re losing weight, they see that you’re feeling better, you’re in a better mood, you have lots of energy, you know, you love running, again, you’re working out, you’re getting fit, you have this halo about you, you’re just radiating good health.
When you get to this point, some people be like, hey, I want some of that, too. And I see this a lot with spouses, especially, who aren’t very supportive at the beginning, they’re like, I want nothing to do with your stupid diet, you know, I’m not doing any of that I’m sticking to my thing over here. But once they see their spouse making all these amazing changes and feeling great and losing weight, they just are this beacon of good health and happiness.
And then a lot of times the spouses are like, Hey, um, what is it you’re doing again? They all of a sudden want some of that, okay, so this can happen. And it’s awesome when it does. But listen, that’s not the goal, the goal is not to get people on board, right?
Because if that’s your goal, if you’re expecting people to come around, eventually, you’re probably going to be disappointed. It does happen sometimes. And what I always tell people is I just say, like, be an example. Be an example for your husband, be an example for your wife, be an example for your kids, or your grandkids, or whoever it is, that’s important to you in your life. Be a good example.
And a lot of times people will come around and want what you have because they see so many positive changes in you. And this is an awesome thing. If it does happen for you, but don’t expect it. That’s the key here like it can happen, but not all the time. Okay.
So listen, the biggest takeaway here and I kind of mentioned this before is like, it doesn’t matter who’s supporting you who isn’t, you have to be your own best supporter, you have to have your own back. I want you to take 100% ownership of your own health, your own fitness, your own diet, whatever it is that you’re doing, be your own best supporter.
Remember that you control you have control of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions and nothing else. Everything else that other people are doing, saying thinking, feeling whatever is on that. You get to believe what you want to believe about yourself.
Choose to believe the good things, have your own back, speak to yourself in a way that is kind and supportive, and encouraging of yourself. Because at the end of the day, it’s just you, right? This is the good news though, right? Because when you’re only relying on yourself, which you can do, then you can absolutely make so much progress.
When you’re relying on yourself and you have your own back it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world is thinking or doing or saying it doesn’t matter who’s on board and who isn’t who’s supporting and who isn’t. None of that stuff matters. What matters is that you 100% have your own back and that you are your number one supporter and always be there for you to just know that okay, you totally got this all right, that’s all I got for you today.
And if you’re looking for a little bit of help with all this, that’s what I do. I can offer the expert guidance, support encouragement, accountability, and experience you need to make this work for you. No matter what your goals no matter what your lifestyle no matter what your tastes we can make this work for you just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And we can just jump on a call and see if coaching is a good fit for you. Cool. All right, you guys have an amazing day 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.
I talk a lot about losing weight and eventually getting to your “natural weight” but I’ve never really taken the time to explain what your “natural weight” is. Several people have been asking me …
Continue Reading about 93. How to Tell When You’re at Your Natural Weight →
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 93 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m talking about how to tell when you’re at your natural weight. You know, I talk a lot about weight loss here on the podcast. And I talk about eventually getting to your natural weight, whatever that is for you. But I’ve never really taken the time to explain what that means.
What is your natural weight? What does this even mean? And people have been asking me about this lately. They’re like, Patrick, what does this mean? So I thought it’d be a good idea to dig into this topic here on the podcast today.
Listen, I get it, losing weight is a very challenging and very personal thing, there’s not one right way to do it. Okay, lots of different things work for different people. And the same goes for what your natural weight should be. It’s a very personal thing. And yet, lots of people have different opinions about what your natural weight should be. So in this episode, I’m going to talk about some of the standards we use to determine ideal weight, why they don’t really work for everyone, what natural weight really means and how to tell when you’re at your natural weight.
But first, if you liked this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean podcast community. On Facebook. It’s a group that goes hand in hand with the podcast, it extends the conversation, it gives you a voice, you can ask questions, get answers, and be a part of a very positive, very supportive, very encouraging group on Facebook, just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and join us in the fun.
And then here’s a message that I received from a listener the other day on Instagram. And I just have to tell you guys that I love getting messages like this, and I get them all the time. And I really, really appreciate it. And it means a lot to me. And it means that what I’m doing is having an impact on you. And so I really appreciate these kinds of messages from you guys.
Anyway, this person wrote, “Hey, I really appreciate your podcasts. I found it at a troubling time in my life. And you’re helping me get my mind straight and help me motivate myself to be a better me.” Thank you. Wow, I love that. This is why I do what I do, guys.
Okay. Speaking of what I do, people ask me how they can work with me two ways you can get more out of the Running Lean program. Number one is the Running Lean coaching group. This is my group where we meet once a week, and we do a group Zoom call, I do a little bit of coaching and training in the group.
But it’s a place where you get to ask questions. It’s a place where you get to feel supported, and you get to have your voice heard and get some answers and hear from other people like you that are going through the same kinds of things. Each month, we kind of dig into a different topic.
The month of October, we’re talking about injury prevention, we’re talking about building strength and increasing our flexibility. And I’ve got a couple of special guests coming in to share some of their expertise on the subject. So it’s going to be super fun.
If you want to join the group, you can do that at any time, just go to lunch runningleanpodcast.com/join. And then the other way to work with me is you can hire me as your coach, I’m a one on one coach, this is what I do. working one on one with me is probably the best way to get whatever results you’re looking for.
If you want to become a different person you want to, you know, make some sort of transformation in your health and fitness, having a coach there to help you every step of the way is probably the best way to do it. And hey, it doesn’t even have to be me, it can be anybody, any coach that you feel like you have a connection with. Okay, so I just want you to know that coaching is extremely effective, extremely effective.
And when you sign up for one on one coaching with me, you also get access to the group calls and all the group stuff too. So it’s kind of a win win. If you want to apply for coaching, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply.
Okay, let’s talk about this natural weight thing. What does this even mean? People ask me all the time, like what is your natural weight mean? And I thought about it. I’m like, I guess I really haven’t taken the time to explain this very well. Some people keep asking about it. So I thought I would take the time today to do that. So we’re going to talk about what what your natural weight means and how you can sort of tell if you’re there.
How do you know? When you’re at your natural way? What does what does all this mean? Okay? First I want to go back a little bit and talk about sort of some standards that we use to determine ideal weight. And one of those standards, kind of the big standard out there you guys have heard of is probably BMI, right? This is your height to weight ratio. That’s all it is.
It’s like how tall are you? How much do you weigh? Oh, you know, you’re either this either says you’re, you know, average or below average or above average, or is it’ll say you’re overweight or obese or whatever. And this is not a really good measure of of where you are on the health and fitness scale because it’s not considering things like your age, or your gender, or your muscle mass, or your body type, or whether you’re an athlete or not.
When I plugged my numbers into the BMI calculator on the National Institute of Health’s website, it says I’m overweight, I’m in the overweight category, because I weigh like 175 pounds. I’m 5’11.
And I’m just going to tell you right now, in my opinion, I’m exactly where I want to be, and I am not overweight, my body composition kind of looks like I’m about a 12.9% body fat right now. And this is down from about 15% at the beginning of this year. So I’ve gained about 12 pounds of muscle and lost some percentage of fat, I can’t remember the exact number, but I’ve lost like 8 or 10 pounds of fat or something like that. So I’m like, if you look at like some other ways of measuring your your body composition, I’m in the excellent category like gold star for me, okay.
And another example, and I’ve mentioned my son Jack before, he’s a bodybuilder and this dude is huge, right? He’s the same height as me. But he weighs probably 25 pounds more than me, he would be considered like almost on the obese side of things, according to the National Institutes of Health, but he’s super fit. He doesn’t have a ton of body fat on him. He has a ton of muscle, right?
So when we look at BMI, it’s not telling the whole story, there’s a lot more stuff going on. And there are other like, ideal weight calculators that you can find online, and they will factor in things like your age and your gender. But it’s still like age, gender, height, weight. That’s about it. You know, there’s just more to the story. Okay.
So this is like the one big standard out there is like BMI. Another standard, and I’m using this word standard in quotes here. Okay, I’m doing finger quotes right now, the other standard we tend to go by is what other people think our weight should be. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what your weight should be, right?
Even well-meaning people like your husband or your wife, they might say things like, you don’t need to lose weight, you look fine. You know, I love you just the way you are, oh, I don’t want you to get too skinny. When are you going to stop losing weight? Like these things are not helpful. These kinds of statements are not helpful. These people they mean well, but they don’t get decide what your body weight should be.
And when people start to say things like this, I just have to tell you, when people see you start to lose weight and maybe get healthier, it makes them uncomfortable. And when they say something like, “You don’t need to lose weight, you’re fine. You know, you need to eat something, don’t get too skinny. You’re too skinny.”
Like people will say these things. And they’re saying this stuff because they feel uncomfortable about themselves. So these kinds of statements are really about them and not about you at all. They start questioning their own choices. They start questioning their own body weight to they start questioning how they feel about themselves.
And when you’re on a different path than them, maybe you’re improving yourself, they start to feel a little uncomfortable. So when it comes to other people not feeling comfortable about themselves and trying to sort of like look at you and maybe pull you down a little bit.
There’s this theory called crabs in a bucket and it’s just a funny thing. And it’s like if you have one crab in a bucket, it’ll it’ll crawl out of the bucket and it’ll figure out a way to sort of grab on to the edge and sort of crawl out of that bucket. Okay, apparently this is what crab fishermen do or whatever they figured this out.
But when you put more than one crab in the bucket, as that one starts to crawl out, another crab will pull it down, the other crab in the bucket will pull it down, because it doesn’t want it to escape. It’s like, oh, you’re not going anywhere, you’re gonna stay right down here with me.
And this is the way people in our lives are, sometimes they’re like crabs in the bucket, right? They pull us down to their level, they pull us down, because us leaving and going somewhere else and getting out of the bucket, it feels uncomfortable for them. Okay.
So just understand that when other people have opinions about what you should weigh, or what your diet should be like, or how you look or whatever, that’s all about them and not about you. Right, and you don’t have to listen to those people.
Okay, another sort of like standard of weight out there. It’s not necessarily like a standard of weight. But it’s a theory, it’s called the set point theory. And the set point theory states that our bodies have sort of a preset weight, that is hardwired into our DNA, it’s like a genetic thing. And according to the setpoint theory, our weight, and how much we can change our weight from this, whatever set point is, might be limited.
And the set point theory says that some of us have higher weight points, and some of us have lower weight points, and then it’s like our bodies are fighting to stay within this range that we have, okay. So your weight may go up or down temporarily, but eventually, it’s going to try to return to whatever this comfortable like setpoint is, okay.
So you may gain some weight, you may lose some weight, but there are these biological signals that are being sent to help you stay at this, whatever is like normal for you, okay. And according to the setpoint rate, you can change the setpoint. Right. So it’s not something that is like, necessarily fixed, but it requires a little bit of work.
So a lot of people can lose weight and keep it off for good. Like many, many, many people do this, right? A lot of people find it very difficult to but your your metabolic setpoint, you know, maybe right now, maybe like 50 pounds overweight, basically, right? That just because that’s where you’ve been for a long time.
And to change that setpoint, you have to lose some weight, and you have to keep it off for a period of time. And once you keep it off for a period of time, your body begins to adapt to this new normal sort of setpoint, this becomes your new normal setpoint. And the longer you stay at the lower weight, the easier it is to maintain.
Now, I just have to say, this is very important. This is just a theory, it’s not really proven in science. And I don’t necessarily think this is 100% true, because I’ve seen many, many people, in my experience and my coaching experience, I’ve helped many, many people to maintain a lower weight without much of an issue. I think maintaining your weight has more to do with your mental and emotional states and your relationship with food than it does with some hardcore, hard coded like DNA setpoint or whatever.
Okay, so that’s just something I wanted to throw out there as something some people have mentioned and asked about, and is this, you know, kind of regulating our natural weight? And there may be some evidence there that says, yeah, could have something to do with it. There’s also some evidence that’s like, no, it doesn’t really matter. Like, you can change that. Okay.
So I don’t believe these ways that we measure, quote, unquote, ideal weight, I don’t think they’re super helpful, because they don’t work across the board for everybody perfectly. They might get you in a ballpark. But then again, it’s like what, what is your natural weight? What’s gonna work for you as an individual? And these standards, they don’t factor in things like your body type, your body shape, how athletic you are, how much muscle mass you have, how long have you been at this weight, etc. So this is why I kind of use the word natural weight instead.
And so what do I mean by natural weight? And how do you know when you get there? Well, your natural weight is something that is very personal to you. It’s not how you measure up according to some government chart. It’s not how you compare yourself to people on Instagram. It’s where you feel good about yourself. Your natural weight is where you feel your healthiest.
So many people come to me and they’re like, I just want to feel healthy. I don’t feel healthy right now. So they would just want to get healthy. So when you feel healthy when you feel your healthiest, then you’re probably going to be close to your natural weight. When you feel confident about yourself. You’re probably getting close to your natural weight.
Lots of people don’t feel confident about their body. They’re always trying to hide their body. They wear baggy clothes, they don’t like being in photos. They do things to cover up their body because they don’t feel confident they don’t feel comfortable. When you feel comfortable and confident in your body and your skin, you’re getting close to your natural weight.
Can you wear clothes that flatter your body, maybe show off your body? Maybe you rock a bikini, this could be a sign that you’re at your natural weight. Can you wear those jeans you used a lot, but the ones that make your butt look amazing? Yeah, that’s you feeling good about yourself, where you feel sexy, where you feel like where you have this positive self image, where you can look at yourself in the mirror and like what you see.
What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror today? Are you seeing just flaws and wrinkles and sagging skin and all the stuff that you hate about yourself? When you look in the mirror and you like what you see this is a good sign that you’re at your natural weight, where you feel good about your whole self.
And this is not necessarily a number on the scale. If you’ve like been listening here, I haven’t really mentioned the number on the scale, or how much weight you should weigh or what you know that number should be for you. It’s more about how you feel about yourself. And it’s also where you feel comfortable maintaining your weight. When you can easily maintain your weight, with little effort, where it all just feels pretty easy and effortless. You’re getting there. You know, if you’re busting your ass every day at the gym and starving yourself just to maintain your weight. That’s not easy. That’s not effortless, that’s not sustainable. You know, that’s, that’s a struggle.
When you stop the struggling and you just feel good about yourself. This is when you’re at your natural weight. And honestly, only you will know, when you get there, it may not be the number you think it should be on that scale, it might be more might be less, like, let’s say you, your your ideal is like 140 pounds, you’re like you know, if I can just get to 140, I’m gonna feel great about myself.
But then you get to that number and you keep losing a little bit of weight. And maybe you get to 135 pretty easily and you kind of stay there great, that’s kind of your natural weight for you. Maybe this is easy and effortless for you. And you can maintain this boom, you’re there good.
So maybe you think you should be at 140. And you sort of hit a good place with yourself at 145, this feels good to you. You’re confident, you’re happy, you feel healthy. You love how you look in that bikini, boom, you’re at your natural weight, right? Only you will know when you get there. It’s like how you see yourself on the inside matches what you see on the outside, then you know you’re there.
And I’m guessing that you may have never thought of it this way before but your natural weight is a decision. It’s a decision that you get to make and only you can make this decision only you can decide what your natural weight is for you. You get to make the decision for yourself, not your wife, not your husband, not your personal trainer. Only you I want you to take ownership of this, I want you to take ownership of your weight, your health, your fitness, all of that.
I want you to be empowered to make your own decisions about what’s best for you because only you know what’s best for you. I don’t even know what’s best for you. When I’m working with clients we decide you know around where they should be. But we usually kind of target a range and then we see where they feel the best.
So even I can’t make this decision for you. It has to come from you. And this may sound weird, but like you can’t decide this today, what your natural weight is going to be. You’ll know it when you get there. Because it’s more about how you feel than anything else. It’s not about a number, you know.
So you might think, Oh, it’s 140. But then you’re like, I don’t feel good at 140. And you won’t know it until you get there. So the important thing is is to do the work to commit to the process. Commit to learning and growing and bettering yourself every single day. Commit to being disciplined about your nutrition, being disciplined about exercise, sticking to the plan no matter what. And you’ll get there and you’ll know it when you’re there.
Now one more thing I wanted to share. I want to make sure that you guys understand that this is not in contrast to body positivity. Body positivity means loving yourself exactly as you are right now. No matter what that weight is, the weight doesn’t matter. It means you don’t look in the mirror and criticize yourself. Doesn’t mean you’re disgusted with yourself or ashamed of who you are because you weigh a certain number of pounds, whatever.
It means taking a good long look at yourself in the mirror and loving every inch of who you are right now, this is what body positivity means. You have to love and accept yourself exactly as you are always.
And here’s the part a lot of people miss when it comes to this idea of body positivity. A lot of people think you can’t love yourself as you are and want to change it like it’s like these two things have to be mutually exclusive. And they’re not.
You can feel amazing about how you look right now and still want to lose some weight. If that’s what you want for yourself. You can love and accept yourself exactly as you are right now, and still want to change. They’re not mutually exclusive ideas. It’s not an either, or you can have both.
In fact, if your goal is to lose weight, you can’t do it by beating yourself up every day, you’re gonna have a much, much harder time losing weight. If you’re talking trash about yourself all the time, you can’t hate yourself thin.
And if you’re comfortable where you are right now. Awesome, do you, you don’t have to be skinny, you don’t have to be lean. I know this is the Running Lean podcast. But this is not a mandate, okay? You get to decide what feels good for you.
You know, I talk a lot about becoming a lean runner about losing weight. This message is for people who want that for themselves. I’m in no way saying that everyone has to lose weight. I’m in no way judging anybody for how much they weigh. It’s not about what I think. It’s about what you think about yourself.
The beautiful thing about being a human being is that you get to decide who you are, you get to decide what you do, you get to decide what you want for yourself. And only you can decide what your natural way should be not a BMI chart, not your husband, not your friends, not someone you follow on Instagram. Only you can decide what your natural weight is. And you’ll know when you get there.
This is what I want for you. I want you to show up every day, and do the work and love who you are in the mirror every day work to change if that’s what you want for yourself. And when you get to that place where you feel good and you feel confident, and you feel comfortable. And you’re rocking that bikini or that pair of jeans or whatever it is for you, whatever.
However you want to measure what your natural weight is for you and where you feel good about yourself. When you get there, you’re going to know it. And this is what I want for you. I just want you to to know when you get there. I want you to do the work to get there and love yourself through the whole process. Cool. Awesome.
That’s all I got for you today. Remember, October is strength and flexibility and injury prevention month over in the Running Lean coaching group. We’re going to be talking about building strength becoming more flexible, so we can stave off injuries. Runners get injured a lot. We want to make sure we avoid that.
Okay, so just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join. And I hope you’ll join us over in the Running Lean coaching group. That’s all I got for you today. 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.
Making lasting changes like permanently losing weight is not an easy thing to do. It requires you to do more than just change a behavior. Any kind of meaningful, lasting change requires three …
Continue Reading about 65. The Three Requirements for Making Lasting Change →
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.
Well, hey there, and welcome to episode 65 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, sports nutritionist personal trainer, health and fitness expert, and the weight loss coach for runners. And today we’re talking about the three requirements for making lasting change.
So making lasting changes like permanently losing weight, is not an easy thing to do, it requires you to do more than just change your behavior, it requires you to do more than just change what you’re doing. Any kind of meaningful, lasting change requires these three key things and you have to have all three, or it just won’t work.
Think of it like a three-legged table. You know, if you’re missing one of the legs, the thing just falls over. It does not stand up on its own, you need all three to make meaningful, lasting changes in your life. So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to share the three requirements for making lasting change and show you where you can find all three of these things in one place.
If you haven’t already done so please go check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. It is a fun group of runners who are encouraging one another positively, support one another, and ask great questions. And all are sharing similar health and fitness goals. And I’ve got something big coming this Sunday in the Running Lean podcast community.
On Facebook, I do a live training or a Q&A session every Sunday afternoon. And I’ll tell you more about that at the end of this episode. But you will want to pay attention to the end of this episode when I talk about that because it’s a fun little surprise for you. So just go to Facebook and search for Running Lean community and join us over there. It’s fun, we have so much fun.
All right, I’m gonna just jump right into this here the three requirements for making lasting change. So whenever we set out to make some kind of big change in our life, we focus on one thing we focus on, what do I need to do? We focus on action or behavior, what action do I need to take?
So we go to Google, we go to YouTube, and we search how to do blank, right? How-to videos are arguably the most-watched content on YouTube, right? Just tell me what to do. And I can do it right. So the first requirement for any kind of lasting change is knowing what to do this is important, okay, but it’s not the whole picture.
But knowledge is that first leg of the table, that’s the first thing that we need, in order to make any kind of lasting change in our life. So knowledge is important. Here’s how it plays out for a lot of people. Let’s say you’re a runner, just hypothetically, and you’ve been gaining weight over the last few years. Again, just hypothetically, right?
Actually, this is very common, by the way, especially as we get older, so you’re not alone at all. This is me too. So I feel ya. Let’s say you’re a runner, you’ve been getting some weight. You’re still logging a lot of miles each week. So it’s not the running, we know this, it’s your diet, you change your diet, right?
So you decide you’re like, okay, I’m gonna change my diet, I’m gonna lose the weight. I’m committed to doing this. I’m ready. I’m serious this time. So you go to Google, and you type in weight loss, and oh, my god, they do this. I encourage you to do this because I don’t think I’ve ever done this before.
But I just did it just to see what would happen. I typed in weight loss in Google and it came back with almost 3 billion results on the internet. 2,970,000,000 results in 1.4 seconds, by the way, so Google good job and you know, indexing everything on the internet is crazy. 3 billion results for weight loss.
People tell me that figuring out what to do is overwhelming. I just said I can prove this just by going to Google and typing in weight loss. It is overwhelming. I mean, that’s beyond overwhelming, right? It is incredibly confusing. There are so many different diets, so many weight loss supplements, so many meal replacement drinks, and bars and shakes and pills, and it goes on and on and on.
But let’s just say like you find something that sounds good to you like the Paleo diet, and I’m a fan of the Paleo diet, I think it’s pretty good. You know, because it’s based on human evolution, you know, how we evolved, eat over the last two and a half million years or so. So let’s just say you’re like, you know, I’m gonna give this a go.
And so maybe you find a website and some blog articles and you read some stuff, maybe you buy a book, and they tell you exactly what to do. And you start following the plan. And it seems to be working, okay, it works, okay, for a few weeks, maybe you lose a few pounds. But then everything comes to a grinding halt, the scale stops moving, you get frustrated, and you end up quitting, because you know what, that diet doesn’t work.
So then what do you do? You go back to Google, you type in weight loss, and you get a scour through another 3 billion results and try to find something else that works, right. This is not a made-up story. This is not make-believe, this is exactly what I’ve done. This is exactly what I did.
And this is exactly what I hear from runners every single day who try to lose weight, and they fail time and time and time and time again. It’s exactly what they’ve done too. So knowledge is great. Like, you have to have the knowledge, right? You have to know what to do. But it’s not the whole picture.
You know, you may know what you need to do. But what happens when it stops working for you? Or why like, why can’t you make it work beyond a couple of weeks? Why can’t you make these changes last? You know, it’s just because knowledge alone, it’s not enough, it’s only one leg of the table. And without all three, this table of lasting change is not going to stand up on its own.
So just knowing what to do, it’s not enough to make these kinds of lasting changes, especially when it comes to things like completely changing your diet and losing weight and making it a permanent change. Right. So knowledge is good, it’s definitely required. It’s invaluable. You have to know what to do, but it’s not the whole story.
The next thing that is absolutely required, if you want to make any kind of meaningful lasting change is the second leg of the table is support. Okay, so once you know what to do, you can get to work on taking action on changing your behavior on doing what you need to do. And maybe you’ll start getting some results. So that’s the knowledge piece.
But then, what do you do when you encounter an obstacle. And I will promise you right now, that if you want to do something big, like change your diet and lose weight, something that it’s been really, really hard for you in the past, you will encounter obstacles along the way. You cannot accomplish anything meaningful without failing a bunch of times on your way to getting there.
Every success is built upon a pile of failures, we expect failure. In fact, we embrace it, we know that it’s part of the process. But that’s not what most people believe. Most people look at failure as the end. They say, look, the scale stopped moving, I have failed. This diet is a failure. I am a failure and they quit. I see this all the time. Failure is not the end. It’s just a step. It’s one step along the path to success.
But most people don’t see it this way. They fail once and it’s just game over. They’re done. Why? Because they don’t have the support. They need to get them through the failures. So knowledge is great, but without the proper support, making big changes last is incredibly difficult. Without the proper support, you don’t know what to do when things go wrong.
You know, what do you change? Do you change your macros? Do you eat more carbs? Fewer carbs? Do you run harder? Should you eat more often? The guys at the gym telling me I should be eating eight times a day should I be doing that? Should I be eating once a day like should I run 60 miles a week instead of 20? What do I need to do? I need some support.
So without the proper support, it can be very frustrating and confusing. So you need some sort of a support system to help you navigate all the stuff that comes up when you want to make a big change, like changing your diet and losing a bunch of weight.
So what’s the best support system? Well, honestly, the best support system you can have is, is someone that’s already got what you want somebody that can support you, who already has been there, done that, figure it all out, and they can show you the way, a guide, a mentor, someone who has the experience and expertise, expertise to guide you.
And that can always help you make the changes that you need to make so you can keep moving towards your goals. So for example, I have a coach to help me, I actually have two coaches, I have a business coach, and I have a fitness coach. And these two coaches helped me to stay on track.
They show me things that I’m doing, or they show me how I’m thinking that I cannot see, you know, we all have blind spots. There are things about the way that I think sometimes that I think is just the way it is like, oh, yeah, this is just, you know, the way it is. And then my coach will say, Patrick, this is just a thought in your head. You’re just making this stuff up. And I’m like, Oh my God, you’re right.
So a lot of times, a good coach will show you what you can’t see about yourself, which is really, really important. You know, but most importantly, my coaches helped me overcome obstacles, they helped me to embrace failure. They helped me to get over it already. And they helped me to keep moving forward. Yes, they pushed me, but in a good way.
So I’m a big believer in coaching. If you want the best support system around, I would say, get a coach who has what you want, and who can offer their experience and their guidance. And all the best heroes think about this. This is awesome. I love this all the best heroes have coaches where they have guides that can show them the way you know, Luke Skywalker had Obi-Wan Kenobi, Frodo had Gandalf, Neo had Morpheus.
And for me, and I just love the nerdy references. And if you do, too, then you’re my people so awesome. For me, I will gladly invest in a coach who can give me the support that I need. While I’m going through these big changes in my life, if I want to accomplish something big, it’s so worth it to me to invest in someone that can help get me there faster, without all the frustration and the can support me now.
That being said, you don’t have to invest in a coach. Honestly, if you have a partner that supports you, this is such a great place to start. It can just be a spouse or a family member. Here’s a little backstory, like when I was married, I worked a corporate job, I worked this job for 16 years, doing the same thing. And over and over every single day, 16 years.
And at one point, I was like I’m done with this. And I really wanted to set out on my own, I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it was a big change to make. It was scary. Like leaving the safety and security of that corporate job with the health insurance and the paid vacations, and going to be an entrepreneur where you gotta like, you know, hustle and make ends meet.
It’s all up to you. And there are no paid vacations, there’s no health insurance like you got to take care of all that stuff on your own. The idea of leaving that safety net that I had in that job was very, very scary. And I remember one day, I’ll never forget this day, I came home from work and I was so frustrated again, it was another hard day. And I was just exhausted and fed up and angry.
And my wife at the time looked at me and said, I hate seeing you like this. This is no way to live. You need to quit that job. You need to follow your dream of being an entrepreneur, and I fully support you in that. I’m 100% behind you on this, we will make this work together we’ll figure it out.
When she told me that I was floored because I didn’t think I’d ever be able to quit that job. But suddenly I’m like, filled with this conviction and confidence. Because I had that person supporting me. And that’s exactly what I did. Like the next day I went in and I gave my notice and I quit that job and I never looked back.
So support is so important to have like you’ve just got to have somebody that’s supporting you or some sort of support system. Okay. So we’ve got two legs of our table. Now we’ve got the knowledge, okay, you need to know what to do. You need to know how to do it and We’ve got the support. So we’ve got someone to guide you, you got your Obi-Wan Kenobi, to somebody show you the way to help you overcome the obstacles and the failures.
And this brings us to the third, and maybe the most powerful of all three of these requirements for making lasting change. And that is accountability. The definition of accountable is an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions. So I love this, I love that it’s a willingness to accept responsibility for your own actions. How are you at taking responsibility for your own actions? Who did that just make you cringe a little? If it did, you are not alone. Most people are not good at this.
Most people do not do well when left to do things on their own. Most people do not succeed with something like losing weight when they try to do it on their own. This is why Weight Watchers was such a great concept early on.
So they were mostly these accountability groups, right where you would have to, you know, check-in each week and share, you know, with everybody, whether you stuck to your plan or binge down on French fries all week, like you had to show up and be accountable.
And the rest of the group was there to hold you accountable, and to support you as well, right. So very effective, very effective. And all kinds of support groups are like this, its support is important. But it’s that accountability, it’s just showing up. That is so important that you have to report to someone.
Another great example of an accountability group, and this is, my favorite one is my running group. So my running group, we meet every Tuesday evening and Saturday morning for these group runs. And I usually can’t make the Tuesday evening workout workouts because I’m coaching people in the evenings.
But Saturdays, I block out that time every Saturday to show up to run with the group. And this is when we do our long runs. And I promise you that if it were up to me alone, I would not get out of bed at six o’clock on a Saturday morning in the winter when it’s cold outside and dark outside to go run like 20 miles by myself. I’m telling you right now, I would not do that. I would not have run the number of marathons and Ultras if I had just left been left to try to do this all on my own.
I just don’t think I would have done it. But I know when there’s a bunch of people counting on me to be there that are expecting me to show up because I said I’m going to show up. I’m there every single time every Saturday morning, I never miss those group runs. The accountability is so important.
And when I ask people, because I talked to people about this all the time, I talked to people who are struggling to make changes on their own. And I always ask them like, why is it so hard for you to make this change on your own? How come you can’t stick with your diet plan? Or how can you stick with the exercise program? What is so hard about this? Why can’t you do it on your own?
The number one reason I get from people, the number one reason why they can’t stick to something is they have no accountability. They tell me this every single day. They have no one to report to. They have no one holding them accountable. They have no one that’s making them take responsibility for their own actions. They have no one pushing them.
There’s this incredible power in accountability. I did this little bit of research when I was looking up the information for this podcast. And I found this interesting study by the American Society for Training and Development. And they did this study where they were trying to measure the power of accountability. And they found that people who took action toward a particular goal so you know, they had all these people that had a goal.
And the people that took action on that goal had around a 25% success rate in achieving that goal, right, not bad. But the people who had a goal and who took action on that goal and who had an accountability partner, and had the scheduled appointment with that accountability partner.
These people had a 95% success rate. Basically, a done deal, right? That’s so fascinating to me that accountability and having somebody to check in with on a regular basis is the difference between hitting your goal about a quarter of the time or basically almost 100% of the time. And when I’m working one on one with a client, we have a standing weekly check-in, I’m holding them accountable every single week, did you stick to your plan or no?
And guess what, pretty much everyone always sticks to their plan, there’s a very, very few compliance issues with my coaching clients. Because people are just much more likely to stay on plan when they have to report into me each week, and they even tell me this, they’re like, I was gonna, like, give in and eat this whole chocolate cake because I was, you know, having an emotional moment or something.
And then I thought, I’ve got to talk to Patrick later today. So I’m just not going to do it, you know, because I don’t want to show up and tell him that I screwed up or that I, you know, gave in to this urge or whatever. So just having that person there to hold you accountable can be the difference between making lasting change in your life or just throwing in the towel. Find an accountability partner, it doesn’t have to be a coach, but it can be a group or a spouse, or a friend, or a family member, these can all work.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that sometimes there are issues with people you’re close to like family dynamics, you know, or you know, drama between spouses. And maybe they’re really not as committed to your success as you are, okay. And an accountability group is a great option because you’re surrounding yourself with people who are all doing what you’re doing.
So they share similar goals. And obviously, the best type of accountability partner would be a coach, because they definitely won’t give up on you there. It’s their job to be there for you and to hold you accountable. So it’s in their best interest to hold you accountable as well. So when we talk about making lasting change, this is what it’s all about.
It’s about making changes last permanently, right, anyone can change their diet, or they can start exercising for a couple of weeks, or we see it all the time the gyms fill up in January, and then they’re empty by March. What we’re really after here is permanent, lifelong changes. And there’s no easy path. It’s a challenge. I mean, if it was easy, you’d already have it, you probably wouldn’t be listening to this right now.
But in order to make meaningful changes in your life that will last you have to have all three legs of the table knowledge, support, and accountability. So now the question is, how do you get all three? How do you get the knowledge, support, and accountability that you need to make meaningful, lasting changes in your life, I’m going to make this super simple for you.
I have something that will absolutely give you all three. And this is the Running Lean monthly coaching group. This is my monthly membership program and support group where you get everything you need to make lasting changes in your life. So I’m going to talk about this for a moment here. And I want to say this if you’re the kind of person who listens to this podcast, and you get what you need.
And then you’re like, I’m good to go. I don’t need your membership program. That’s fine. I love that. I come here every single week. And do this for you guys because I want to help you get results. And I teach what I teach here on the podcast and in my Facebook group because I want to help you I really honestly do.
So if this is you and you don’t want to hear about this program, you can stop listening now and go see what Joe Rogan is up to or something, okay. I love Joe Rogan. But he’s kind of not my style, but that’s okay.
But if you’re the kind of person who’s like, I want to learn more about this Patrick, like I want some help. I want knowledge, support, and accountability. I want it all in one place. If that’s you then keep listening because I think this program might just be perfect for you.
Okay, so just for a few minutes, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna talk about the monthly coaching group. So with the Running Lean monthly group, monthly coaching group program. With this membership program, you get the knowledge so you get my entire library of online training materials. These are self-paced, that you can go through at your own leisure.
There’s the weight loss training course for runners. So this is everything you need to know about becoming a fat-adapted runner, what to eat, what not to eat, how to break through weight-loss plateaus, how to manage hunger and cravings so much more. And I’m always adding to that particular course. And I’m also adding to my training library all the time.
In January, I created a new course called achieving the impossible. This is how to create an extraordinary life by going after unrealistic goals. And I’ve got a ton of great feedback on this course already. So you can go through these training materials on your own, learn at a pace that works for you and your schedule, then you can start implementing these things.
So you have the knowledge, and you can start taking action and changing your behaviors, okay? Then you can take your questions, or maybe your struggles or your failures, you can take these to the support group. So then you get the support and encouragement from, from the group and from me, an experienced sports nutritionist, a personal trainer, and a master life coach.
But it’s not just about support from me, right. It’s about the support from me and the community of people that are like you that are runners who are sharing similar experiences and similar goals, we all come to the group as ourselves with what what we’re going through at the time, like, these group calls are very powerful, we show up and we’re real move or vulnerable.
We share what we’re struggling with. And we offer our support or encouragement, our experience, our strength, our hope. And we lift each other up when we fail, and we help each other to course correct. This is the power of the support group.
Then when we try to do hard things alone, it’s challenging, it’s frustrating. But when we set out to do hard things, and we do it together, it’s motivating it’s energizing, are much more likely to succeed. So much easier when we do it together.
And then with this membership program, you get the accountability to like to stay on track, and always moving towards your goals. If you want to make lasting change, you have to have accountability. And you’re much more likely to stick to a healthy eating plan or an exercise plan if you have to show up and report it to the group.
It’s kind of like Weight Watchers in that way. But a lot cooler, we’re cool. We have fun. You got to show up and check in. How did it go this past week? What did you do? Did you do what you said you were going to do? Wow, that’s powerful right there.
So these are the three biggest reasons why this membership program is so successful, why it’s helping so many people because you get the knowledge, support, and accountability all in one place. And how does it work? Well, we do live group coaching via Zoom with me and your fellow members. So you get the personal guidance and feedback that you need, you can ask questions, and I’ll coach you.
And all these group coaching calls are recorded and archived onto a Members Only website. So you’ll have 24 access to all the recorded coaching calls so that you can catch anything you might miss. You also get access to a private Facebook group where you can ask questions and get help in between the coaching calls.
This is just a very, very cost-effective way to get results. And I have to say this, we have a lot of fun, I believe, I believe so hard that making big changes, like losing weight should be enjoyable. It has to be enjoyable, it has to be fun. If it’s not fun, why are we doing it? Like you don’t have to suffer your way to good health and fitness.
And the group aspect of this program makes eating right losing weight and doing this big thing. It makes it so much more fun. So here’s the thing, I’m opening the spring session of the Running Lean monthly coaching group this Sunday, March 28. And I don’t open the group very often.
So if you’ve been thinking about this, this is the time for you to take action. If you don’t take action now you’ll have to wait a few more months. All right. And just think about how much change you can make in a few months. You can either be like three months into your health journey. Or you can just be like right where you are today.
Three months from now. The choice is yours. So if you want to learn more, and you want to get notified when enrollment opens, it will be on Sunday at some time. Just head over to runningleanpodcast.com/join. Get your name on the list. Okay.
So this is something I wanted to mention earlier and I want to share this with you. I’m doing a live launch event this Sunday over in the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. Right. So that’s this Sunday, March 28 at 4 pm Eastern Daylight Time, daylight time we change our clocks you guys. Did you know that?
I’m going to do something fun this week that I’ve never really done before, I have a special offer for everyone who attends that live on Sunday. Okay, it’s a little something cool that I’m doing. I’ve never done this before. But it’s, it’s a little way that I want to say thank you for being a part of the group and showing up on that live.
I won’t be offering this fun little surprise to the general public. The only way you’ll know about it and be able to take advantage of it is if you show up on the live training this Sunday in the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook, okay, you will want to get in on this. I promise you, it’ll be really cool.
Okay, so that’s all I got for you today. Remember, head over to runningleanpodcast.com/join and save your spot. And then I’ll see you on the Facebook Live launch event this Sunday. It’s going to be fun, right? It’s fun. We have so much fun. All right, you guys, as always, lots of love. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’ve tried to lose weight by running miles and miles or starving yourself and you’ve had zero results, you are not alone. This model of weight loss is broken. It’s never worked, and it has to be replaced. That’s why I created a powerful new training just for you called How to Become a lien running machine. You’ll discover why running more and eating less does not work for weight loss and you’ll learn the three secrets to losing weight and keeping it off for good to get this free training right now just go to runningleanpodcast.com/lean and learn how you can become lean running machine.
