Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
So here’s the deal: runners are some of the fittest people on the planet, and yet so many struggle with weight. You put in the miles, the effort, the discipline… and the scale shrugs. Or, you …
Continue Reading about 296. Getting Lean Without Going Crazy →
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 296 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today getting lean without going crazy or how to lose weight as a runner without losing your mind. So here’s the deal. Runners are some of the fittest people on the planet, or can be yet.
So many of us struggle with weight, and I get it. You put in the miles, you put in the effort, you put in the discipline, and the scale does not move. Or maybe you train for a race and somehow you gain weight. That was my experience. I talk to people every day that have the same experience, and this can make you feel a little nuts.
So we’re gonna fix that today by walking through a SANE framework, how to think about food, how to plan without feeling restricted, how to make decisions that help you to get leaner. While enjoying your life, I know it sounds crazy. I’m gonna tell you exactly what to focus on. What levers are gonna move the needle without dumping all the tactical minutia on you here.
That tactical stuff is what I do with clients one-on-one. Today, you’re gonna get a big overview on this topic, and I’m excited to share this with you. Um, quick note though, before we dive in, if you want help applying all of this in a way that fits your training, that fits your lifestyle, that fits your preferences, head over to my website running lean coaching.com.
Click on work with me and we will build a plan that works for you. Okay. Cool. Um, so here’s the deal. Runners are fit. Uh, so many people struggle with their weight. Uh, they feel like they’re doing all the right things and then stuff just really does not work for them. They can’t seem to drop the weight and it makes them feel a little crazy and a lot of the.
Uh, diet advice out there. A lot of the nutrition advice out there doesn’t really work for runners. That’s why I do what I do, because there’s dieticians, there’s nutritionists, there’s weight loss coaches out there, and they just don’t understand how to fuel for running. What it takes to, uh, lose weight as a runner or how to maintain muscle mass as a runner and why these things are so important.
Um, I’ve heard weight loss coaches out there that say you should not do any sort of exercise while you’re trying to lose weight. And I just think that’s sort of crazy. ’cause are you gonna do that? No. Am I gonna do that? No. We’re gonna keep exercising, we’re gonna keep running, we’re gonna keep doing our strength training, we’re gonna keep doing all the things that we enjoy doing.
We just have to understand that those things are not the only way to lose weight. Okay, so the first thing I wanna talk about here is that, you know, exercise and running is amazing. But it’s not a weight loss plan by itself. It’s great for your heart. It’s great to build that cardiovascular fitness. It’s good for your mental health, for your emotional health, for your stress, but you can’t outrun a bad diet.
You know, I’ve said that before. I’ll keep saying it because I think it is absolutely true. You have to switch what you’re eating if you wanna lose weight. It’s just not about running more. Then there’s something that we call the hunger and reward drive. So a lot of runners, a lot of athletes out there do long runs, they do hard workouts and you know, some of this can, you know, make you feel a little bit hungry and make you feel like, oh, I earn this piece of cake.
I earned this pizza. I earned this ice cream. And without a plan in place, what happens is we tend to reward ourselves with ultra processed foods, with sugar, um, whatever we feel like eating because we’re, we’re kind of conditioned or we’ve conditioned ourselves that I can eat whatever I want because I’m a runner.
Um, so a lot of that mentality has to shift. We’re gonna talk about how to shift that in this episode here. Another, um, thing I want to address here and, and another reason why runners struggle with weight. So first is, you know, they’re just trying to run more. They have this reward, uh, drive that they’re, uh, you know, sort of conditioned to believe, and then there’s randomness disguised as just listening to your body.
So I love listening to your body. I think that is important. But there’s a difference between listening to your body and then rationalizing eating a bunch of junk food. Okay? If every day is a new experience with food, if every day is some, uh, random, you know, meal plan, random, uh, strength plan, random running plan, your results are going to be random.
You’re not going to get the results that you’re looking for. So. You know, winging it, randomness, whatever you want to call it. Is not a plan. It’s the opposite of a plan. And when you’re just winging it, when you don’t have a plan, you tend to not make good decisions. You tend to not make a lot of progress towards your goals.
You might have this goal to lose 30 pounds and what are you doing every day? Just whatever you feel like. How’s that working for you? Is it moving you towards your goals? Probably not because it’s just randomness. Okay. And then the last thing that, uh, I wanna just talk about and, and kind of. Set up this conversation and talk about why a lot of runners struggle with losing weight is they get to this all or nothing thinking, so they feel like they have to be super restrictive.
And most diets out there tell you that you can’t ever eat sugar again. It’s the worst thing in the world. You can never have a Diet Coke, you can never have a piece of pizza. You gotta stay away from all carbs or all grains or all meat or all dairy or whatever. And so when we have this all or nothing thinking, what happens is we, we tend to rebel against that.
When somebody tells you, you can’t do this, what do you want to do? You wanna go and do it more, right? So that all or nothing thinking, which a lot of diets. Preach and, and the principle, but behind a lot of diet advice is like, you can never eat this stuff again. I can’t tell you how many accounts on Instagram and Facebook, whatever that I follow, where it’s just all or nothing.
Like let’s say it’s a carnivore person and it’s just like you have to eat. You know, rib eye steaks every day, and that’s it. Like, that’s your whole life is just rib eye steaks. You know, that’s the only way you can be healthy. And I’m like, yeah, I, I’m not sure about that. You know, I don’t really think that’s the way I wanna live my life, and I want to eat that piece of pizza occasionally.
Hey, it’s somebody’s birthday, I want to eat the birthday cake and celebrate with that person. So. We tend, when we have this all or nothing thinking, we tend to rebel against that. We, we tend to just binge out on stuff. Um, and, and, and it’s really an unsustainable strategy if you really think about it. So that’s one of the main reasons, um, I wanted to talk about this today, is that I think a lot of us have this.
Idea that losing weight has to be frustrating. It has to make you crazy. You know, it has to be, uh, very, very restrictive. Um, but all those things are very unsustainable and the key with any sort of. You know, change in your nutrition plan. Your diet has to be something that is sustainable for you. Okay? Now, if you’ve answered yes to any of these things that I’ve talked about, or you can relate to any things I just talked about, just to understand that, that’s totally cool.
Nothing’s wrong with you. This is just normal. We all kind of go through this, but what you need. Is a, a better framework. Okay, so before I get into the framework, which I love this framework, um, but um, before I get into that, I wanna talk about a little bit of a mindset shift. So, uh. The mindset shifts that are gonna help you to stay sane, right?
We’re, we’re talking about not going crazy when we’re trying to lose weight. The first is a shift in your identity. You gotta remember that you’re not on a diet, you’re a lean, strong runner in training. You are an athlete. Your decisions today are what an athlete would do. You train like an athlete, you should eat like an athlete, and this is what it means to shift your identity, adopt the identity of an athlete, and then your decisions just become super obvious.
So we gotta make that shift in your identity. The second is. Choices over rules. Okay? Rules can fee feel very restrictive. Choices feel empowering. You choose your plan on purpose. When you have that mindset of choosing your own plan and making your own decisions, you are in charge. You have autonomy, uh, you feel in control, you feel calm, you feel centered.
You’re not. Crazy because somebody says you can’t ever eat oatmeal again in your life, or something like that. So instead of having all these, you know, restrictive rules, make choices. Make choices that feel good for you, ones that can make you feel kind of calm inside. Okay? And then remember that the process beats perfection.
So this isn’t about. Uh, perfection. Nobody does this perfectly. I don’t do this perfectly. I don’t know one person I’ve ever worked with that does all this stuff perfectly. So we wanna remember that it’s more important to adhere to the process, to to show up and commit to the process on a daily basis, rather than trying to, uh, ace everything every single day and trying to be perfect every single day.
When you try to be perfect, what happens a lot of times is you beat yourself up. ’cause you weren’t perfect. I failed because I had a cookie, uh, in the break room at lunch. ’cause they looked good. I’m a failure. Look, I can’t do this. Hey, listen, 90% of the day you did amazing. 98% of the day you did amazing. You had a cookie.
Who cares? Let’s aim for like b plus work here people. Okay? If you put 10 b plus days together in a row. That’s amazing. That’s gonna beat one a plus day, followed by a complete meltdown. And you, and you have a, a D minus or a F for the day, you know? So, um, one of my coaches told me this a long time ago, uh, aim for B plus work, you know, aim for B plus.
And I’m like, I can do that. I can do that. ’cause A plus feels. Very hard to attain. It feels very out of reach for a lot of us. So let’s go for that B plus. Um, remember that. Uh, remember to think about your future self as the person sort of calling the shots. Okay? Pretend your future you is the boss of you before you, um, want to go snack on a bunch of junk food from the pantry.
What’s the future me gonna tell me in this moment? Like, go out into the future, think about your future self and let that future self dictate what you’re gonna do in this moment. Is this something that’s really gonna help me to become that person or not? ’cause future, you knows. They know everything ’cause they’re from the future.
Um, but just like listen to that little voice in your head and say, you know, probably not, probably not eating this whole sleeve of Oreos is gonna help me become. That future me. Okay. Um, and then the last little shift in your mindset is, um, something very simple and, and we talk a lot or I hear a lot of people talk a lot about setting big goals and trying to accomplish 25 things every single day.
This can feel very overwhelming. You know, you’re trying to, you know, get your strength point training on point every single day and get your running plan together and stick with it every single day and get your food plan and be perfect with that. Listen, let’s chunk it down to like making one promise to yourself every single day.
Pick one thing you know you can do. Make that promise to yourself, I’m gonna do this today. Uh, it may be a little bit hard, it may make me feel uncomfortable to do it, but I’m gonna do this one thing today. Keep that promise to yourself. Stack up those wins. You’re gonna build so much trust and confidence in yourself over time, it’s gonna be amazing.
Okay, so that’s kind of the mindset shifts we need to make. Lemme talk about this framework. So. The backbone of getting lean, of, of, of losing weight and eating like an athlete. It’s not a detailed meal plan. I’m gonna tell you that right now. It’s a framework. So instead of thinking that, oh, you know, how many grams of carbs should I eat every day?
’cause I get people that ask me these questions, how many grams of protein should I eat every day? And you know, I will answer some of those questions with people and we’ll talk through that stuff. But instead, I want you to think about this framework, and I’m calling this the SANE framework. Okay? Instead of going crazy, SANE.
So just remember that. So the S is. Simple. Your plan needs to be super simple. Think about few. The fewer decisions you make, the less friction you have in in your day. Okay? So default to meals that you like. Have a short list of go-to proteins, veggies, good sources of fat, some good carbs that you like. Um.
You, you want to get into a predictable rhythm. I’m gonna talk more about that in a second. Um, but your plan needs to be really simple. The plan that I have for daily meals is stupid simple. You know, I have a, a protein shake. I might have some eggs, some avocado, maybe some bacon or something like that.
This is like meal number one. Meal number two. Um, might be some, uh, something I had last night, which was, uh, pre-made skewers with chicken wrapped with bacon. Oh my gosh, how good is bacon? Um, with a little bit of barbecue sauce on there. I just threw those on the grill. And some sweet potatoes like that.
How simple is that? Like that’s so. Stupidly simple, right? Um, now I’m not saying you need to eat those foods, that’s not what I’m saying at all. But what you do for yourself has to be something that is simple. It cannot be complicated. You don’t have to like get all your macros right and try to figure all that stuff out.
Eat what feels good for you. It has to work for you, obviously. And that’s the A in the SANE framework. So that’s gonna be a meaning that you know what you eat, your meal plan has to be aligned with your. Goals, your training, your schedule, your food preferences, your lifestyle. You don’t have to copy anyone else’s plan.
The best plan is the one that you can follow sustainably. So what? Whatever works for you has to be aligned with your goals and it has to work for you long term. So don’t let anybody tell you you’re doing it wrong. I can’t tell you how many people will say, Hey, uh, you know, I’m really struggling with my weight.
Well, here’s what you should eat. Just do this, this, and this. You know, and that’s such a dumb response to that because we’re so different. Like, I don’t even like those foods, or I’m allergic to those foods, or, you know, my culture says I shouldn’t eat those foods. Okay, well then the, you know, they don’t have an answer for you.
My answer is always what? Your plan should be. Simple. It should be in alignment with your goals, and it should be something you can actually follow. Okay? So make sure it’s in alignment with your goals. That’s the A. The nane in my SANE framework is that your food needs to be nutrient dense. Think about real food.
Mini minimally processed foods. That’s easy to say. Protein focused. Get some vegetables in there. Some good sources of fats, some good carbs that actually help you to serve a purpose, not necessarily just junk carbs, you know, some sweet potatoes, some, some rice, some oats, something that you can uh, uh, use around specific workouts.
When you adopt a a nutrition plan that is nutrient dense, you’re gonna feel more full, you’re gonna recover better, your cravings are gonna be lower. You’re not gonna probably eat as much as you used to because the food that you’re eating is very nutritionally dense and your body is getting everything it needs so you don’t have to keep stuffing your face with a bunch of empty carbs.
And that’s what a lot of people do, especially runners. I just eat whatever I want. I’m gonna eat all these Oreos. Well, then you’re hungry an hour later because that didn’t fill you up. All it did was just jack up your hunger signals. So when you’re eating nutrient dense foods, minimally processed foods, whole foods, foods that still look like foods, the foods our ancestors would recognize, this is what’s going to make you feel more full and give you the nutrient nutrients that you need and your satiety will be, uh, much more in check and you can lose a lot of weight this way.
And then lastly, the E of SANE in my SANE framework is it has to be enjoyable. If you hate it, you’re not gonna do it. If I tell you you have to eat nothing but Brussels sprouts and you hate Brussels sprouts, you won’t stick to that plan, I promise you. Now, if you love Brussels sprouts, you are gonna thrive with that plan, but obviously that’s not gonna be a plan that I would ever suggest.
Um, your plan must include foods that you enjoy. And a sane way to eat fun foods is to eat them on purpose, without the guilt, without the drama, without beating yourself up. In other words, you gotta enjoy the food that you’re eating. I enjoy the food that I eat. I really enjoyed my, my dinner last night.
Chicken breasts wrapped in bacon with barbecue sauce on it, on the grill. Come on. That was so enjoyable. I love that so much. Um, or if you’re like, Hey, I’m gonna have a piece of cake, you know, tomorrow when I go to that party, you’re doing that on purpose. You’re gonna enjoy that and you don’t feel like you have to be restrictive while everybody else is eating the cake.
Just eat the piece of cake. It’s completely fine. Okay? So we’re trying to to to live a sane life, but we want food that is simple. Not complicated. It’s in alignment with your goals, nutrient dense and enjoyable. That’s the, that’s the food plan that’s gonna work for you. Okay. So I talked about rhythm. So, um, we want to talk a little bit about a flexible structured food plan.
Okay. So a rhythm means that, um, you want to get into a daily rhythm. So you want to decide ahead of time, you know what you’re gonna do as far as I’m gonna eat twice a day, I’m gonna eat three times a day. Um, you wanna reduce the decisions that you have to make. Throughout the day. So we’re not talking about counting calories, we’re talking about getting into a rhythm of planning your food and then sticking to that plan and planning your food and sticking to that plan.
The other part of a of flexible structure is that we wanna make sure we’re focusing on protein. This is very important. Protein is satiating, helps preserve lean muscle mass. It supports recovery. Um. Uh, how you do this is gonna be different for each person. You know, some people like plant-based proteins, some people like, you know, going with, uh, animal-based proteins or whatever.
Um, so whatever feels good for you, but make that the priority. Another way we can be flexible with our nutrition plan is to do smart carbs on purpose. So this is not about no carbs or. It’s not about all the carbs either. We want carbs that work for you. Okay? Time to support your training. Choose whole food carbs.
Use them strategically around key workouts. Um, we want to use carbs, but we want to use them to help us. To improve our running. Uh, we don’t want to just be eating all the carbs all the time because, hey, I’m a runner, so I get to eat all the carbs, and this isn’t about never eating carbs again, but it’s about timing them mo for the most part, around key workouts.
Um, natural fats for satiety. That fat helps you to stay full. Protein helps you to stay full fat, helps you to stay full. Add enough to, uh, your diet, to make sure your mood and your hunger are stabilized. Um, you know that you’re gonna be on the right track when you’re not constantly thinking about food.
You know you’re eating enough, okay? If you’re constantly thinking about food. You’re probably not eating enough protein, probably not getting enough fat. Don’t be afraid of fat. We don’t need to eat a super low fat diet. Um, but fat is something that will help you to, uh, feel more full for longer. And again, it kind of helps you to not eat as much in general.
Um, things like fiber, micronutrients, hydration, these things are all important. Make sure you’re eating colorful veggies. Drink plenty of water. Get your electrolytes in, especially when you, when it’s really hot out or you’re doing some super long runs. Um, this just needs to be something that is part of our, our diet.
And then plan your joy. You can eat for joy. The key word is that you’re planning it. Decide ahead of time what you’re gonna do, when you’re gonna do it, how much, and enjoy it, and then move on. There’s no guilt, there’s no I blew it or anything like that. Okay? So that’s what it means to be flexible with this and to have some structure, but flexibility around that structure.
So when you’re looking at different food choices. Think about these quick little filters. There’s these three decision filters. There’s is this, is this real? Is this mostly real minimally processed food? Is it purposeful? Am I doing this on purpose or am I just feeling like I have to eat this in the moment?
You know, is this supporting how I wanna feel today? Uh, is this supporting how I’m going to feel tomorrow? Okay, so is it real? Is it purposeful? And then is this plan, did I, did I decide this ahead of time? Or am I just reacting to how I’m feeling in the moment? Oh, I’ve had a, you know, stressful day at work, so I just want to eat a whole pizza by myself.
No, uh, make sure that it’s real food, that you’re doing it on purpose, and that it’s something that is planned. Okay. And, um, something that, uh, I wanted to just kind of touch on really quickly, which is a big fear that people have, which is like, if I change how I eat, isn’t this gonna really affect my running?
And the short answer is not if you’re strategic about it. And this is what I do with a lot of my coaching clients, because we change your diet, but we don’t want it to affect your running negatively. So what to focus on would be make sure that you’re matching your fueling to your workout. You know, if this is an easy effort, you don’t really need to do much, uh, just eat what you’ve been eating, um, during your run.
Fueling can be something that is, uh, something you want to think about, and it’s conditional depending on how long you’re running, how hot the day is, how hard of your effort it is. So you might want some carbs. Post run fueling, though is something that I would say is just not negotiable. You need to eat something after running.
It doesn’t have to be, you know, directly afterwards. It can be within an hour or two, but get some protein in, add carbs when your, uh, session or your goals call for it. You know, some people like to just stay super low carb, which is completely fine. Sometimes adding some carbs in after a run, especially a super long run, can help replenish glycogen stores and help just promote a little faster recovery time.
Um, and then beware of the I earned buffet. Refueling is great, but it’s not a free for all. It doesn’t mean you should go and, and eat all the ice cream that, that you have in the, in the freezer. Okay. So, um, couple things just to kind of recap a little bit. Um. Uh, fat loss and performance, uh, are sort of the, if you fat loss and performance are your goals, you wanna make sure that we’re focused on food quality and structure.
Remember, real food, protein anchored meals, purposeful carbs, plan, joy, consistent rhythm around your diet. Um. Strength training runners need to get stronger, you know, um, focus on lifting heavy so you get stronger. One to two sessions a week is probably, you know, good for a lot of people. If you can get to three.
That might be ideal, but make sure you’re doing, I would say, at least two strength sessions a week. Uh, your running programming should also help you to improve your, uh, metabolism. You know, so if you’re, if you’re doing your runs properly, you’re doing a mix of easy, longer runs, some, some middle distance runs that are moderately harder than some short runs that are.
You know, pretty hard, some high intensity interval type of stuff. Um, making sure you’re getting enough recovery, uh, and sleep and keeping your stress low. All this stuff is gonna help you move the needle. It’s gonna help you to, uh, you know, lose the fat without losing your mind. Okay, so food quality, strength training, run programming.
And then the recovery. Um, couple quick wins. I want you to think about. Uh, here’s a couple of things that are gonna help you change the game for yourself pretty quickly. So these are things you can do this week. So just think about these. Plan your food 24 hours in advance. Write down what you’re going to eat and include something of joy, something that will bring you joy.
And write this down the day before. Focus on protein first at every meal. This is something you can do starting right now. Um, fuel certain workouts on purpose. Decide beforehand, again, what you’re gonna do. What’s your run? How, how are you gonna fuel, what are you gonna use for, for fueling before and during?
Make sure you have at least one or two strength sessions on the calendar. Book it ahead of time. You notice a theme here, right? Um, and then maybe create a, a simple and effective bedtime routine so that you can start to get better quality sleep. So just. You know, focus on maybe a lights out ritual. Start getting the lights out an hour or so before you’re planning on going to sleep.
Dim the lights, maybe read a book or something. Get off your screens, turn off the tv. You know, get the, the room nice and dark and cold, and that’s gonna help you to sleep better and promote, you know, less stress. So if you’re hearing all this and you’re thinking, yes, I want all of this, Patrick, but I want somebody to help dial it in for me, for my training, for my preferences, for my lifestyle, that’s what I do inside my coaching program.
We take this framework, we build your plan. You know, we want make it simple. We want to help you achieve your goals. Uh, we want it to be nutrient dense and. Something that is enjoyable for you. Okay? We also work on the mental side of all this so that your plan feels something that is easy and repeatable.
It doesn’t feel like punishment. So when you’re ready, just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click on work with me, and we’ll talk about what it looks like for you. You can absolutely lose weight as a runner without losing your mind. You just gotta keep it simple, aligned with your goals, nutrient dense and enjoyable.
Tune these levers, okay? And then make that one promise to yourself today, and then keep it. Okay? That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
When it comes to eating right and losing weight, there is so much information out there that it can feel incredibly overwhelming. While I can’t address every misconception out there on the internet …
Continue Reading about 212. 3 Things You Should Stop Doing if You Want To Lose 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 212 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, three things you should stop doing if you want to lose weight.
So when it comes to eating right and losing weight, there is so much information out there, it can feel incredibly overwhelming. And while I can’t address every misconception out there on the internet here in one podcast episode, I do want to go over a few things that you might want to stop doing right now because sometimes the best way to start is to stop.
So in this episode, I’ve got three things you should stop doing if you want to lose weight and be able to keep it off for good. But first I know I talk a lot about you know proper nutrition, losing weight, improving your running and building strength here on the podcast.
And if you’re new, and all this feels a little overwhelming, that’s okay, I’ve got you covered, I created a free training that will get you started on the right track. It’s called 5 Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
You’ll learn the basics of proper nutrition, how to build strength, how to build endurance, how to build the right mindset, all geared towards you the runner. So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself yet, this free training is exactly what you need. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on free training to get started on your weight loss journey today.
Alright, before I get into the topic today, I just wanted to drop a little disclaimer here that I have been really sick, I got sick a few days ago, you know, woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach bug and was up all night. And I won’t go into the gory details, but let’s just say that it was a pretty awful night.
And I haven’t gotten sick like that in like 15 years, I can’t remember the last time I was sick like that. And must have picked up some kind of stomach bug at the gym or at the grocery store or something. I don’t know where I got it, but the gym is my primary suspect. So I’m still recovering.
And I actually had to take a day off of work. And I haven’t done that in like 10 or 15 years. So I know it was not good. It was a really, really horrible sickness for me to actually have to take a day off work. And so it’s taken me a couple of days to kind of come back.
So if my voice sounds a little scratchy today, or I don’t sound like myself, it’s because I’m still kind of recovering. But I’m giving myself a little bit of time I actually drove to the gym yesterday sat in the parking lot and was like no, I don’t think this is a good idea for me to go in there today. I still don’t feel 100% civilian, I’m a little lightheaded. Still a little bit nauseous. And I was just like, no, I’m gonna give it another day or two.
So just a little side note here, if you find yourself up, you know, sick this winter, which a lot of people are sick right now I’ve talked to a lot of people who are getting over something or in the middle of something, give yourself time to rest and recover, drink plenty of fluids, take your vitamins, make sure you’re eating right, or just not eating. Fasting is a great way to help, you know, alleviate the symptoms of viruses and it will speed up the recovery process too.
So just know that there are things that you can do out there that will help you to get through this a lot faster. But also don’t try to do too much too soon. I know that as runners, you want to get back out there and run right away or you want to hit the gym and get back into your weightlifting.
And I’m feeling that way right now. Right now I’m like, man, I really wish I was at the gym lifting weights right now or I was out there running today. It was a run day for me and I was gonna run this morning and I just I’m not up to it, you know, and I’m listening to my body.
And I’m just like, okay, this isn’t about embracing the suck. This is about doing what I need to do to take care of myself and to make sure that I don’t go back too fast too soon, you know. So I’ll make tomorrow run day or I’ll hit the gym tomorrow, as long as I’m feeling up to it and then I’ll ease my way back into working out again. I’m not going to go run 10 miles on Saturday or anything like that.
So for me, it’s about giving my body that time it needs the rest, proper hydration, proper nutrition, and just waiting until I really feel like I’m ready to go again. Okay, so that’s just a little sidebar today. That’s where I’m at right now I’m just gonna get through this. So I appreciate your understanding if I don’t sound like myself.
Okay, now all that’s out of the way, let’s get into this topic today, three things you should stop doing if you want to lose weight. And one of the reasons I’m bringing this up today is because I hear about so much information out there that is so confusing to all of us. It’s even confusing to me.
I’m constantly following people on social media, and reading articles on the internet, that completely contradict one another. And I’ve made a decision a long time ago that I wasn’t going to, you know, hang my hat on any one principle out there that I was going to figure out what works best for me.
And we’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But my goal here on the podcast is always to help you make good decisions, and help to simplify things, and clear up some of this information so that you can make good decisions for yourself so that you can start getting results right away.
Okay, so just understand that there are things that people recommend that you do constantly do this, do that. And what I’m going to ask you to do today is to stop doing a few things. And if you just stop doing these three things here, today, I guarantee you, you’re going to start seeing some results.
You know, I can’t guarantee that, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to start seeing some good results if you just stop doing these three big things here. Okay, so I’m not going to waste a bunch of time. You know, previewing this, I’m just gonna get right into it.
Number one, the one thing I want you to stop doing right now is to stop counting calories. Okay, just stop doing that. I talk about this a lot. Listen, if counting calories worked, it would have worked by now, our ancient ancestors did not do this, they did not track their food, they did not have my fitness pal, and they did not have Weight Watchers points.
They did not need to count how many macros they were eating, okay, they ate real food they ate when they were hungry, and they did not eat when they weren’t. And they did just fine. You know, we evolved as a species over two and a half million years to where we are today. And only in the last 40-50 years have we put this huge focus on counting calories.
And all that has done is made us bigger, we’re bigger than we have ever been in the history of the species. So to me, this is not a very sustainable solution. And it’s also not sustainable. From a weight loss standpoint, if you are somebody who reduces calories, in order to lose weight, just keep in mind that there’s going to come a point in time when your metabolism will slow down to match the amount of energy that’s coming in.
And this starts to become a problem because now you have to reduce your calories even more to get the weight loss to keep happening. Okay, so reducing calories and counting calories to lose weight. You know, it does work in the short term, but it does not work in the long term.
It also causes muscle loss. And if you’re somebody who is an active athlete, if you’re a runner, or you’re trying to get stronger or build muscle, which you should be, then causing muscle loss is not something that you want.
Restricting food and restricting calories is a great way to start to experience muscle loss. And you know, this is going to affect your runs, it’s going to you won’t be fueling, you won’t be giving your body enough fuel for running, you won’t be giving your body enough fuel to get stronger in the gym.
If you’re working out and lifting weights regularly, which you should be, you won’t be able to build muscle. So instead of you know counting calories and restricting calories, I want you to do something else instead. And what I want you to do instead is to eat to satiety, stop when you’re full.
You don’t need to count your calories. You don’t need to count your macros, and I talked about this. I’ve talked about this several times on the podcast but I talked a lot about tracking your food in the last episode, so definitely check that one out.
But if you focus on eating real food, so this is like food that still looks like, you know that food that you find around the perimeter of the grocery aisle, you know, so we got fruits, vegetables, we got meat and dairy and cheese. You know, we have nuts and seeds. You know, we have eggs, and fish, you know, all that stuff.
If you just focus on eating that stuff, again, this is the food that our ancestors have been eating forever. You’re going to feel more satiated when you eat, you won’t be eating the food that messes up your hunger signals. This is very important here. Okay.
So foods like sugar and refined grains, which most processed food is full of sugar and refined grains, that kind of food will really mess up your hunger signals, you will feel more hungry after you eat that food, you will have more cravings for those type of foods.
So for more sugar and more refined grains, you won’t be able to really get in touch with what hunger feels like for you. Because your hunger signals, pardon me, will be so messed up from the sugar and the refined grains, those things tend to reduce the amount of leptin that your body produces leptin is the hormone that makes you feel full.
And it increases the amount of ghrelin that you produce. And the ghrelin is the hunger hormone that makes you feel hungry. And so with those two things being you know, out of whack, you’re going to feel hungry all the time, and you’re going to be craving more of those foods.
And when you’re craving more of those foods, you just can’t get enough to eat, you tend to overeat, you tend to eat the wrong kinds of foods, and you tend to be kind of miserable all the time. And so trying to fuel properly and eat less or whatever, it’s really, it’s really hard to do not okay. So you have to start to get in touch with what real hunger feels like for you.
One of the biggest lessons I teach my clients and people that I work one one-on-one with, is to start to understand the difference between these cravings and hunger. The false hunger is what I call it. And real hunger. real hunger is when you could sit down and eat a meal. Like you can sit down and eat, you know, a whole bunch of chicken and broccoli and some carrots or whatever.
And that’s real hunger, if you could eat, you know, an actual meal. That means that, hey, I’m actually really hungry right now. And I should probably eat something. But if you’re like, oh, I’m feeling hungry, and you go browsing through the cabinets, and you’re like, oh, I’ll just eat six nuts, you know, and I’ll eat a few potato chips. Like, that’s not real hunger.
You know what that is? That is you being bored. That is you looking for something to make you feel good right now. You know, that’s you being stressed out. That’s what I call emotional eating.
Emotional Eating is when you’re just trying to dampen some kind of emotion that you’re feeling. Usually, it’s some kind of strong emotion. And that could be boredom. It could be stress, it could be anxiety. And you just want to feel better, and you want to dampen that emotion.
So you’re using food as a coping mechanism there. Okay? Well, we don’t really need to do that. If you’re eating the right kinds of food, you’re not going to mess up your hunger signals, you’re going to feel full when you eat, and you’re going to stay full for much longer.
You’re not going to be having those cravings for the chips and the nuts and the crackers and the junk food, you know. So you have to learn what hunger feels like for you. This takes time. It takes time and it takes practice.
And so you have to kind of devote the time and the effort into this process. But it is totally worth it. You know, once you start to eat and understand what your body feels like when it’s full and it’s had enough food. This is a game-changer. Right? So we don’t need to be people who overeat.
We have never been that way in the past because we’re eating food that kept us full and we didn’t have this food that was hijacking or hunger signals. Okay. So again, this is about you know, eating like our ancestors ate, we don’t need to count calories. So stop doing that. Eat real food food that, you know, fills you up and feels good when you eat it. Okay. So stop counting calories.
Number two, is to stop eating all the time. There is so much gym bro advice out there that says you should be eating six times a day. You have to eat 6, 7, 8 times a day to keep your metabolism going. So eat like you don’t want your meals and just keep eating constantly throughout the day.
And I’m gonna go back to what our ancient ancestors did. They did not eat six times a day. First of all, they did not have snacks or anything, that was invented like in the 1950’s. And it wasn’t a thing before that.
Snacks were a food category that was created by the food companies. It was a marketing thing like, hey, let’s, let’s try to sell more food to people. Let’s create a snack category. Oh, okay, that sounds great Bill, you know, let’s do that.
And so Bill and his buddies got together and they decided, I don’t know if his name was Bill could have been Steve or something like that. But they just got together and they were like, Hey, let’s create this whole new category of food that we can sell people on, it’ll be great.
And it worked. It works like crazy. People love snack foods, right? But this is not our DNA. This is not how we were programmed to eat. In fact, if you look at a lot of the systems in our body, I was reading an article recently about the pancreas and about how our pancreas is designed to only operate a couple of times a day, you know, it secretes, you know, whatever it does hormones to help us process food and whatever. And it’s only it’s the system is only designed to work a couple of times a day, it’s not designed to work six times a day.
So we’re sort of overloading our systems when we eat that often. You know, our liver plays a role in this too, and other, you know, organs and stuff. So what our ancestors did was they feasted, and they fasted. That was their MO, they would eat when the food was available, and then they didn’t eat and they didn’t eat for long periods of time.
And there’s lots of evidence that shows that there’s lots of tribes today that do the same thing where they eat, they, they hunt, they gather the eat when food is plentiful, and then there’s times when they don’t eat, but they’re not sitting there snacking all day long. All right.
And they did a study pretty recently that showed that participants in this study, who ate six small meals a day, versus people who ate three larger meals. And there was no metabolic advantage over those who ate six meals a day over the three meals a day.
So the people who ate six small meals, their metabolism didn’t speed up, because they were eating more often, that was exactly the same as the people who are eating three times a day. What was different from the two groups was that the people in the six meal a day group reported higher levels of hunger, and an increased desire to eat.
So they were more hungry, they had an increased desire to eat, so they were eating more and eating more often, and they had higher levels of hunger. And so this is not something that we want, I think we want the opposite of that. Okay.
You also have to understand there’s an insulin response, every time you eat food, you will produce some blood sugar, unless you’re eating pure fat, which really doesn’t raise your blood sugar at all. But anything else really is going to increase your blood sugar a little bit.
And insulin will be produced in order to bring that blood sugar back down to normal levels, which is the way your body is supposed to operate. And this is completely fine to eat this way or for your system to function this way when you’re eating three times a day, or six times a day or whatever.
But one thing that we have to understand is that when insulin is present in the system, that puts your body into that fat-storing mode. So your fat is locked up in your fat cells. While insulin is present. We want to get the insulin down in order to burn the fat. And if you’re eating six times a day, then your body never has a chance to recover that insulin level.
You’re always going to have insulin present, which means that you are never burning fat throughout the day. And so if you’re somebody who’s trying to lose weight, and eating six times a day is not working for you. This is why right here. You are constantly in fat-storing mode, you’re never in fat-burning mode, right?
So we’ve got to make sure that we eat a diet that keeps our blood sugar at pretty normal levels, we want our blood sugar to rise a little bit, and then come back down again. We want insulin to rise a little bit and come back down again, a couple of times a day that is normal. That’s the way we should be functioning.
We are naturally good fat burners as human beings, but we’ve gotten away from that. And we want to get back to that state that natural state that we are so good at our body burns fat as fuel. This is in our DNA.
You know, we store body fat to be used as fuel later, but the way we eat the types of foods we eat the the amount of times a day we eat can really make that fat or that storage mode just constant and we’re just constantly adding you know, we’re Just constantly adding to those fat stores and never able to burn the fat. Okay?
So I’m a big fan of intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting just means you’re not eating constantly. It’s not some weird fringe thing. Again, this is kind of the way we’ve evolved as human beings. The intermittent fasting is just not eating constantly, it’s prolonging the amount of time between your meals, think of it as meal spacing.
The way that I do it, and I suggest a lot of people do this, and they have good results from doing this is just skip breakfast. This is one of the easiest ways that you can start intermittent fasting. So you know the time from dinner the day before. And let’s say lunch, the next day might be 16 hours or so.
Most of the time, we fast for about 12 hours. So all I’m saying is like, hey, just extend that like four more hours. It’s easy to do, right? So what I’m suggesting you do, instead of eating all the time is to not eat all the time, just stop doing that.
Right, don’t eat all the time, space out your meals, and allow your body more time for fat burning to kick in. And for fat burning, to ramp up. Skipping breakfast is the easiest way to do it. It is not the most important meal of the day.
That again, is a marketing message that was created by like Kellogg’s, they wanted to sell more cereal. So they’re like, you gotta have breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Just stop doing that.
Okay, and exercising in that fasted state is a great way to improve fat burning as well. And people report more energy when they exercise in the fasted state. They report increases in their endurance when they’re running, and they report increases in the amount of weight they can lift when they’re lifting weights.
So there’s some positive adaptations that happen when you train your body to exercise in that fasted state. So number two, stop eating all the time, and practice some intermittent fasting, I think you’ll see some some good results from that.
And then the third thing I would say to stop doing is just stop following the conventional advice out there. The conventional advice is like the food pyramid, the MyPlate, or whatever they’re calling it these days. A lot of this stuff is you know, they’re telling you to eat 60 to 70% of your calories from carbohydrates.
This is a problem because people are generally following this advice. The food guidelines, so food guidelines were created in like 1980. And if you look at since 1980, if you look at the rates of obesity here in the United States, they go up dramatically starting in 1980.
So I’m, you know, maybe doing some correlation, not causation. But it’s pretty clear that things have not been working for us as a country since 1980. And we may want to just rethink this whole food guidelines thing, okay. So if you’re somebody that’s like, well, I’m just going to follow the food guidelines. I’m going to suggest maybe not doing that.
Okay, so stop following the conventional advice out there. The thing with the food guidelines is that they show up everywhere they show up in hospitals, the hospitals have to follow the food guidelines. It dictates what we feed our children in schools.
There’s more obesity among children now than there ever has been in the history of human beings. Even these food guidelines show up in the military. I get people in the military constantly reaching out to me, Hey, I need some help losing weight because what they’re feeding me here is not working.
The food guidelines dictate what they serve in nursing homes. Most dietitians, and health coaches follow the food guidelines, and that’s the advice they’re giving you. Even a lot of running coaches that I know and talk to and running certification programs for coaches out there, preach these food guidelines and I just have to say that you know it this might work for some people, but for the vast majority of us, it does not work.
A recent study shows that 88 to 93% of the US population is considered metabolically unhealthy. So that is not a good stat right there. So that means like 7-12% of us are considered metabolically healthy. That is a very small number. That is actually frightening. That is a very frightening number and it’s going up because it was 88% and now they’re showing new numbers that show it could be up to like 93% that is frightening. We need to fix that.
Okay, so whatever we’re doing, following this conventional advice is not working. So we got to do something else instead. So what should you do? This is where this gets a little bit meta, because I can’t really tell you what to do, because you got to figure out what works best for you.
We’re all different. We’re all a little bit different when it comes to how our metabolisms work, how our lifestyle is structured, the foods that we enjoy our culture, you know, our weight loss goals, or our running goals, or weightlifting goals, do we want to build muscles? Do we want to maintain? Do we want to lose fat? Do we want to improve our running endurance? Do we want to get faster, there are so many different factors to consider there.
But I just want you to ditch that conventional advice out there. And it’s okay if what you do doesn’t look like what anybody else is doing. Because that’s that’s the way I am to things what I’m eating doesn’t fall into any category of any specific diet.
You know, it might be close to something like a paleo diet or primal eating, I don’t know what you want to call it, I just tried to eat something that is mostly whole foods related, you know, like I eat real food, like 90 plus percent of the time, I pretty much don’t eat packaged food.
I don’t eat processed foods, these things are mostly junk, they’re there to sell you more food. If I do eat foods that come in a package, it’s like some cheese or some you know, heavy cream, or like some frozen broccoli. It’s like hey, prepping all this food and cleaning up the kitchen.
So I buy like frozen broccoli, frozen cauliflower, stuff like that. But I want to encourage you to take control of your own health. And you don’t have to follow the norm out there. Because the norm is not working, the norm is 88-93% of the population who is metabolically unhealthy, that is the norm. So don’t be the norm.
So stop doing the norm, and start doing what feels good for you. And you start you have to start to get in touch with your own body and how your body feels when you eat certain foods. Does eating this food make me feel good? Does this make me feel bad? Does this make me feel extra hungry? Am I getting cranky?
A couple of hours after eating this food, I’m getting anxious to have more cravings for junk food. If I eat this particular thing, you need to be an experiment of one and figure out what feels good for you and what helps to keep you satiated, because the diet doesn’t mess up your hunger signals.
That keeps you feeling full throughout the day and provides proper nutrition is going to be the one that helps you to become the healthiest version of yourself. And the weight loss will happen as a side effect of all the good things that you’re doing for yourself here. Okay?
The real goal here is always to become that healthiest version of yourself. And the weight loss happens as a result of that, you know, we’re not just trying to lose weight. And that’s one thing I always make sure I tell people that I’m working with, I’m like, listen, our goal here is to get you as healthy as possible to get you operating at peak performance, you know.
And when we do that, when we start aiming in that direction, and moving towards that path, the weight loss, it will happen as a nice side effect of all of them. Okay, so number one, stop counting calories. It doesn’t really work. It certainly doesn’t work long term, stop eating all the time.
Eating six times a day does not speed up your metabolism. In fact, it makes you overeat and tends to make you feel more hungry and keeps that fat locked up in fat cells and then stop following the conventional advice because it’s not working. Don’t be normal. Be abnormal, okay?
And as always, if you want help with any of this or all of this, I’m here for you. Just go to runningleancoaching.com, click on work with me, hit me up and you and I can have a conversation about coaching. Cool. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
There have been some eye-opening discoveries recently around dietary advice doled out by influencers on social media. It turns out that the food and beverage industry has been paying registered …
Continue Reading about 195. Taking Control of Your Food Choices →
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 195 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, taking control of your food choices.
There have been some eye opening discoveries recently around dietary advice doled out by social media influencers. And it turns out that the food and beverage industry has been paying registered dietitians to promote diet soda and sugar and supplements on Tiktok and Instagram. And while this may not come as a big surprise, it speaks to a much bigger issue.
The food industry is deliberately confusing us into eating more junk foods, so they make more money at the expense of our health and well being. In this episode, I’m going to shine a light on this quite alarming topic, in my opinion, and explain why it’s important to know who’s paying who to say what, and encourage you to take control of your own food choices.
But first, if you want a little bit of help getting started with all this stuff that I talked about here on the podcast, with improving your body composition, maybe losing some of that fat weight and gaining some muscle, getting stronger, running faster, running longer.
I’ve put together a brand new training just for you. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. In this training, I’m going to teach you how to lose weight the right way and how to keep it off for good without running a million miles a week.
You’re gonna learn why running more and eating less really doesn’t work when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off. I’m going to talk about one thing runners don’t do when they’re trying to lose weight, that they should be doing the fuel to use to improve your endurance and weight loss. The mind shift sets required to make these changes last and more and more and more.
So if you want to learn how to crush your weight loss goals and your running goals, then you’re ready to get leaner, get stronger, run faster, run longer, and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself. Check out this free training it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. Super simple. Cool.
Okay, so taking control of your food choices. So I came across a really interesting investigative article recently that showed that the food industry is paying influencer dieticians to shape our eating habits. Registered Dietitians are being paid to post videos to promote diet soda, sugar and supplements on Instagram, and Tiktok.
So the food beverage and dietary supplement industries are paying dozens of registered dietitians that could collectively have like millions of social media followers to help sell their products and deliver industry friendly messages on Instagram and Tiktok.
According to this analysis by the Washington Post and the examination, which is a new nonprofit newsroom that specializes in global health reporting. So the analysis of thousands of posts found that companies and industry groups paid dieticians for content that encouraged viewers to eat candy, eat ice cream, and downplay the health risks of highly processed foods and pushed unproven supplements.
Messages that run counter to decades of scientific evidence about healthy eating. The review found that among 68 dietitians with 10,000 or more social media followers on Tiktok, and Instagram, about half had promoted food, beverages or supplements to their combined 11 million followers within the last year.
One particular registered dietitian from Vancouver, British Columbia, posted videos of herself eating ice cream and peanut butter cups, while telling people that denying themselves sugary foods will only make cravings worse.
These and other posts were paid for by the Canadian Sugar Institute. The trade group, which is funded by sugar producers, includes the videos on its Instagram page to in one video This woman held a glazed doughnut and chocolate chip cookie and she mocked advice to reduce sugar intake.
She said, “The best ways to cut sugar are with a knife with my hands and even with my teeth.” Another Dietitian with a large social media following from Vancouver posted a video on Instagram where she added a lollipop to a dinner plate.
And she told parents the strategy will prevent sweets obsession, and to help kids develop healthier eating relationships with food. And another Instagram video she told parents that they can make Halloween less stressful by allowing kids to eat as much candy as they want when they’re done trick or treating.
And she said this helps decrease the stash and makes it less of a big deal she wrote in the text alongside the video. Yes, they may barf but that’s a great life lesson for them. She was also paid by the Canadian Sugar Institute to promote these posts to create these posts and promote them.
Since last year, The Sugar Group has paid at least a dozen registered dietitians to post videos about sugar on Instagram. One person said if your kiddo is obsessed with sweets, they likely need more access to sweets rather than less. Wow, okay.
The food and beverage industry has for years nurtured a close relationship with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AMD). This is the trade group that oversees registered dieticians, which has accepted millions of dollars in donations from leading producers of soda, candy, and ultra processed foods including Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle.
The Academy has allowed these companies to provide continuing education courses to its dieticians and has invested in food industry stocks to the academy sponsors are American beverage, and Tate and Lyle, one of the world’s largest producers of high fructose corn syrup, and other sweeteners.
So I just read a few blurbs from the article that came out about a week ago or so in the Washington Post, and I was really blown away by this. Like I know that registered dieticians AMD has been funded by these sugar companies and by the food industry, I’ve known about that.
I’ve also known that they teach their registered dieticians and give them courses on proper nutrition. And I’m using finger quotes proper nutrition meaning like, eat lots of sugar, it’s fine for you sugar isn’t bad. You know, you know, drink diet soda, that’s fine.
Kids should be eating more sugar, like all these things, in my opinion, are kind of crazy, right? The sugar, the food industry, sugar industry, food industry is blatantly influencing our food choices. They have billions of dollars to spend on marketing, and advertising. And they’re very influential.
They are supporting the community of registered dieticians out there. And now listen, not all registered dietitians buy into this. There’s a lot that don’t, but a lot of them do. The food industry also pays scientists to write research papers to promote their products as the healthier choices.
And the idea here is to keep us confused, right to make it impossible, for you really know what’s healthy and what’s not. Because if they keep us confused, then we buy more of their junk food. And I’m just going to call soda diet soda and sugar industry a bunch of junk food because I think it is because they make more money and it’s all about the bottom line.
And so they’ll spend billions of dollars, you know, in marketing and advertising and influencing to make it really confusing for us as human beings who are concerned about our health, right? They just want to sell you more of their foods so they make the food hyper palatable by loading it up with sugar and grains and vegetable oils and they don’t care about your health.
They just want to sell more food and they know this hyper palatable food. This highly processed food is amazing, tastes amazing and it’s really hard to stop eating it once you start and they know that you are going to crave this stuff so they make more and more and more of it. And you know they are just concerned about making more money regardless of whether it’s good for you or not.
Over the years, they’ve convinced us that things like meat and eggs are bad for us. And sugar and grains are good. So they don’t make money off of meat and eggs, right? I mean, there are companies that do, but it’s not highly subsidized like the sugar industry. Highly processed foods full of sugar and grains sell like crazy and they’re super cheap to make. This stuff is super cheap. So the profit margins are a lot higher than a steak or eggs or whatever.
A lot of these companies receive subsidies from the government to grow more grains to the federal government, at least here in the US has long subsidized America’s farmers, significantly affecting our food supply and what we eat as a whole.
The most highly subsidized crops corn, soy, wheat and rice are the most abundantly produced and most consumed, often in the form of these ultra processed foods. Sugar is also highly subsidized, which drives up prices even though sugar is widely over consumed.
Fruit and vegetables, on the other hand, receive very little subsidization. And Americans eat much less produce than recommended, we eat much more sugar than we should and much less fruit and vegetables than we should.
So this is all to say, listen, if you think that the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has your best interests in mind, think again, if you think the US government considers your health a priority, think again.
Even the healthcare industry here in the US is highly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. Your doctor’s job isn’t to get you as healthy as possible. It’s to sell more drugs. Hey, Doc, I’m suffering from all these diseases of lifestyle, should I change my lifestyle? And the doc says, hey, no, here’s a pill that you can take every day for the rest of your life instead.
Listen, the cards are stacked against us. Okay, it’s time that you take things into your own hands, it’s time to take back control of your own food choices and your own health. How do you do this? You’ve got to make your own decisions about what you feel is good for you, and what you feel is healthy for you and what isn’t.
And if you’re paying attention to people on social media, fine, but no, who’s paying them to say what they’re saying. Now, full disclosure about me, I have zero paid relationships, I do zero advertising of any kind of food products or supplements or anything like that. I don’t receive any money from anybody.
I have this coaching business that I freaking love. And that’s it. The only thing you’re gonna hear me talk about from a promotion standpoint here. I have on occasion mentioned certain supplements like LMNT, which is a sugar free electrolyte drink mix. I mentioned it because I use it. I like it. And it works great.
But I don’t have a paid relationship with them. I don’t advertise their products. You know, like I said, if I mentioned something, it’s because I recommend it to my clients and I use it.
And by the way, there’s another electrolyte drink that I really love. It’s called Redmond Real Light. And it’s by Redmond, the salt company. And so they make this electrolyte drink that is really tasty. And it comes in a little tub. So you can scoop out the amount that you want, which is a little bit different than LMNT which comes in packets. So they’re like pre portioned packets.
Anyway, that’s about the extent of my promotion right there. So you got to pay attention to who’s paying who to say what, right. Someone mentions a study, be sure to see who funded the study. I recently came across a study on the health benefits of canola oil. And then I skipped to the end and I see that this study quote unquote study was funded by The Canola Council.
And listen, canola oil, it’s a highly refined industrial seed oil. It’s been linked to higher inflammation, negative impacts on memory and heart health. It’s just not something I believe is healthy. Even if some of the stuff they’re talking about isn’t quite true. There’s enough evidence out there to say it’s probably best to stay away from canola oil and other industrial seed oils like that.
So pay attention to who’s saying what. Pay attention, who’s paying for the study? Who’s paying for the message? Who’s paying for that health care advice that your doctors are giving you? Is it the pharmaceutical industry? Does he have a certain number of, you know, prescriptions he has to write for pills every month? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
But I’m just telling you, we have to take things in our own hands. Right, you have agency in your life, you’re in charge of your own health. If eating candy for dinner, giving your kids candy with their dinner sounds like a bunch of BS to you then go with your gut on that one. Okay?
If you think eating steak and eggs for breakfast sounds good, and that feels good. It helps you to stay lean and strong, keeps you full all day, helps you lose weight and improves your blood markers. Do that, okay?
My suggestion is always like, let’s eat more like we always have been as human beings. You know, two and a half million years of evolution, humans have been eating kind of the same things, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, dairy, nuts, seeds, legumes, and we’ve we’ve not had highly processed foods loaded with sugar, and grains and seed oils, those things are new, those things have only been around for 50 to 100 years or so. Maybe less in some cases.
And so for the food industry to say this stuff is really awesome for you, you should be eating more highly processed foods that have sugar, grains and seed oils in them. I would just say like, I don’t know about that. And I would just question that. It doesn’t mean you can never eat a piece of pizza again, or never eat a candy bar or whatever. Like it’s okay to do that.
I mean, but geez, we got to be careful. And don’t confuse like the occasional Snickers with thinking that that’s healthy for you. Right. And a lot of these messages that they’re promoting out there are saying, hey, this stuff is actually healthy for you that canola oil, the refined grains, the sugar, and I just I don’t I don’t feel good about that doesn’t feel right to me.
And listen, it doesn’t matter what like diet you follow, you know, if you want to eat more plant based, and that feels good to you, and that works for you. And that promotes good health for you do that if you want to eat more of an animal based diet, and that makes you feel good. And that promotes good health for you, do that.
That part to me is less important than staying away from the stuff that is clearly junk food that is clearly processed that is clearly not healthy for you. The right diet is one that works for you, you know the one that you feel good about, but you have to take control here.
You can see what people are talking about out there on the internet. But be mindful and be skeptical. I think having healthy skepticism is really good for you. You know, it’s a good thing to look at who’s paying for these people to say these things, right?
Take back control of your health, take back control of your food choices. Do what feels right for you to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet. Okay. That is your charge for this week. Take back control.
Okay, and as always, if you’re looking for help with any of this stuff, we can talk about coaching, just head over to runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me, fill out an application, we’ll have a conversation and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. If it is great. If not, that’s cool, too. All right. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
It’s the end of the year and time to look back at everything that’s happened this past year…good and bad. 2022 has been a challenging year for a lot of people and I’m no exception. I’ve had my …
Continue Reading about 157. Lessons Learned This Year and What’s Next →
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 157 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, lessons learned this year and what’s next. So it’s the end of the year. And time to kind of look back at everything that’s happened this past year, the good and the bad.
2022 has been a challenging year for a lot of people. I’m no exception. I’ve had my share of setbacks and difficulties this year. But I’ve managed to get through them all. I’ve also had some pretty amazing accomplishments this year. And it’s this time of the year when I like to reflect on that stuff as well.
So in this episode of the podcast, I share my biggest lessons learned this year, and what’s next for me, and it is the end of the year. And I want you to do something, I want you to start thinking about what you want for yourself in 2023. This is a good time of the year to kind of set intentions for yourself and decide who you want to become next year.
How do you want to feel about yourself? What do you want to have accomplished by this time next year? Think about that. And if you’re ready to take action now to start making these things happen for you then I’m here to help consider coaching with me. And I’ll help you to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself in 2023. Cool? To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, you and I will jump on a call and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. If it is awesome, let’s get you started in becoming that most badass version of yourself.
All right, so this time of the year, I like to kind of look back over what I’ve learned over the year, I like to look at some of the things that maybe I’ve accomplished, or some of the failures, setbacks, disappointments that I’ve experienced, I like to look at all of it. I’m not just concerned about, you know, the things that I did well, the successes, that would be easy to focus on that stuff.
Instead, I like to look at some of the things that maybe didn’t go so well. And I like to look at the lessons that I’ve learned from some of those things I’ve had a kind of a challenging year, I’ve had some surgeries and had to recover from those and had to kind of put my training on the back burner for a while when I experienced an injury.
And so I’ve had to deal with a few challenging things this year. And to be honest with you, this entire year, my training has been less than ideal. But I’m sitting here as we close out the year and I’m really grateful that everything that has happened this year has happened the way it has because it’s given me a chance to learn a lot about myself, and to see what really is important to me.
Alright, so I’m going to talk about all of that, in this episode. And I’m going to share with you some of the lessons that I’ve learned this whole year. And understand that I have talked about a lot of this stuff on the podcast.
So for everything that I’m talking about today, you can kind of scroll back through these episodes from this past year from 2022. And you kind of find most of what I’m talking about here is buried in a lot of those episodes. Okay, so go back and listen to some of the previous episodes and you can kind of get a feel for when I talked about these things and maybe take a little bit of a deeper dive into a lot of these topics. Okay.
So some of this might be, you know, kind of not new information. But I’m reiterating some things that I’ve talked about earlier this year. But these are lessons that I’ve learned this year that have been really valuable for me, and have really helped me to see things a little bit differently. Okay.
So, with that in mind, and with that kind of feeling in mind, I just want to go ahead and dive in here. So the first lesson that I learned this year that has really resonated with me is that you are tougher than you think. You are tougher than you think and I am tougher than I think. So like I said I had to come back from two big surgeries and an injury.
So, this time last year, I had my rotator cuff surgery in December of 2021. And that was a long, slow recovery. I also had a hernia surgery in January of 2022. So within about a month, I had two pretty major surgeries that I had to recover from. And it was kind of good that I had them back to back because, you know, I was already laid up, so might as well just get it all over with.
And that was a very interesting time for me, because there wasn’t a whole lot that I could do from a physical standpoint. So I really had to work on my mental game and my nutrition game. So I couldn’t do a whole lot of exercise. But I did what I could, you know, I showed up at the gym, I did sort of my physical therapy type of exercises, I worked on the things that I could do, you know, I couldn’t lift a lot of heavy weights, I couldn’t use my right arm wasn’t allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds for a while there, you know, that whole post surgery deal.
So I was really out of my element, you know, I was not doing the things that brought me joy, I wasn’t doing the things that got my adrenaline going, got me feeling good. And I had to learn that even though I was going through a tough time that I was tougher, that no matter what, you know, I could handle anything, no matter what was thrown my way.
So once I did finally get my training back up and was training for a half marathon in the fall, I had an injury where I, you know, fell when I was running, and busted up my knee. And this was in August, and then I had to take about three months off of running because my knee was just not cooperating, you know, I did something to it, and caused a little bit of traumatic damage there. But it’s better and I’m back to running and the knee is not bothering me anymore.
And so one of the things that I was worried about was like, maybe I’ll never be able to run again. But the knee did slowly start to get better. But that was pretty frustrating because I had just, you know, recovered from the surgeries. And I had come back and I was feeling good. And my training was on point. And I had this half marathon that I was training for. Granted, I’m used to running marathons and ultra marathons. And, you know, training for a half didn’t seem like much, but it was what I could do at the time.
And I felt like I was, you know, kind of making my way back and making a comeback. And then I had that knee injury, which set me back again. And here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens if you get a setback, if you experience an injury, if you experience a disappointing event, if you have a failure, it doesn’t matter that you are tougher than you think you can get through all of that stuff.
So I had to really adapt to this mindset that I am tough and that I can get through this, that I’m capable of way more than where I am today. And that, you know, no matter what things are knocking me down, I’m going to get back up again. Knocked down six times, I’m going to get up seven, you know, that I do hard things, whatever this setback is, does not matter. I will persevere. I will continue going. I will continue pushing forward.
And where I am today, I’m feeling good. Because, you know, I’ve definitely recovered from the surgeries, you know, that was, you know, maybe five, six months or something where I felt like I was back to normal again. But I’m definitely back to running again now after the knee injury. And I’m feeling really, really good.
And I’m so glad that I stuck with it. And that I persevered and that I didn’t push it and I didn’t get down about it. I wasn’t like oh my gosh, woe is me. I’m never going to run again. I mean, I could have really gone there, but I didn’t. Okay, so I kept my mind in the game, and realized I’m tougher than I think that I can get through anything. And I did.
So that’s a big lesson for me, that I’m tough and I can get through anything. And I want you to take this lesson to heart, that you are tougher than you think.
The next lesson I learned this year is that discipline equals freedom. That discipline is not a bad thing. And I think that a lot of people think that when you’re disciplined it means you have less freedom. That discipline is the absence of freedom.
You know, they think of discipline as being, you know, chained to a desk or, you know, chained to a schedule, or something like that. And in reality, being disciplined is how you achieve true freedom. You know, if you want to be free from your sugar addiction, then you have to be disciplined about not eating sugar.
If you want to be, if you want to have financial freedom, you have to be disciplined about how you save money. If you want to have time freedom, then you have to be disciplined about how you schedule your time and how you use your time. If you want to run freer and faster and you want running to be easier, be disciplined about how you train, the more running you do, the better it gets, the easier it becomes.
You know, if you want to be free of the whole diet, culture, the whole feeling of deprivation, always trying to lose those last 20 pounds. You want to be free from all that nonsense? Then be disciplined about changing habits around food, be disciplined about changing your relationship with them.
Discipline is not a bad thing. And I think people give it a bad rap. Like, oh, you know, discipline is something that is bestowed upon you from above. And it’s some negative thing. And it’s really not, it’s just how you live your life, right. And so discipline, to me, is not a bad thing. discipline to me is how I achieve freedom. Okay, so discipline equals freedom.
Another key lesson that I learned this year, and this is something I’ve been kind of playing around with this last couple of years, but really solidified it this year is that ancestral eating is the key to health and happiness. So, when I talk about ancestral eating, I want you to understand that I’m talking about how humans have evolved over the last like 3 million years, and the food that we ate, and the way that we ate is much different.
How was much different for 3 million years than it has been for the last few 100 years. And that, especially the last 50 years, when we you know, introduced the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and, you know, they started pushing this crazy diet of like, all sugar and grains on us and trying to tell us that this is, you know, healthy, and that we got to start eliminating meat and fat and things like that, from our diet, like this is crazy.
Just eat like our ancestors have eaten, you know, just eat like humans have been eating for the last, you know, a few million years, and you’re going to do just fine. We’re talking about eating meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, dairy and honey.
You know, some of the most natural and most simple things that we have done as human beings and most nourishing foods that we’ve eaten as human beings. You know, people are telling us, they’re, they’re bad for us, we should stay away from them. And the whole idea is just crazy. So I tend to eat very ancestrally. My diet is very simple.
You know, I eat meat and eggs and fruit and some vegetables, but not a ton. And about the sweetest thing, it would be some honey, every now and then. But you know, for the most part, it’s very simple and very nutrient dense. So I stick with nutrient dense foods, foods that still look like real foods, foods that our ancestors would definitely recognize, okay.
The way that we’ve been told to eat over the last 50 years is just awful, right? It’s just wrong. So stick with ancestral eating. And I think this is going to be the key to human health and happiness.
And that leads me to the next point that I learned this year, which is that sometimes we just have to buck conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It just is wrong. Conventional wisdom tells us to eat all the sugar and grains, sugar is not a problem. It’s fine. Stay away from meat, stay away from eggs, dairy from dairy. And it’s just wrong. And I think that if, in general, if we do the opposite of what everyone else is doing that I think you’re going to be just fine because what everybody else is doing is causing obesity and diabetes and heart disease and high blood pressure and cancer and strokes and all kinds of other issues.
These are all metabolic issues. These are all diseases of lifestyle. And if the conventional wisdom is causing all these diseases of lifestyle, why don’t we just do something else? Right? So I’m not afraid to say that, you know, what’s being recommended by dieticians, for the most part, by the government, by the big food industries, I think it’s just wrong.
And I think we have to take our health and our fitness into our own hands. You want to be a healthy human being, do the opposite of what most people are out there telling you to do, you’ll probably be okay. Now obviously, there’s a grain of salt here, you do have to understand what proper nutrition is.
And, gosh, there’s so much information out there around this topic. I’m going to share more about this with you though, over the coming weeks and months, just so you know, that you know, I want to make sure you understand what the difference is between crappy the crappy Western diet and what it means to eat a healthy human diet. Okay, so I’m going to make sure that it’s very clear over the next weeks and months, okay, but for the most part, duck conventional wisdom, because it’s wrong.
Another lesson that I learned this year, which I love, and this is kind of changed the way I kind of have lived my life really, that’s like to eat and live like an athlete, because you are one. Think about this. Are you currently training for something? Are you training for a marathon? Are you training for a race? Are you training for a triathlon? Are you training for a CrossFit event? If you are, that’s awesome. If you’re not, why not?
Here’s the thing, you should always be training, you should always be eating and living like an athlete. If you do that, then you’re going to be fine. I’m just going to tell you right now, if you eat and live like an athlete, then you are going to be healthy, you’re going to be fit, you’re going to be in top physical shape, right, because that’s what athletes do. And honestly, I don’t think you should ever have to really like “get ready” from scratch for a race, like you should always be ready. Just be ready. Stay in training mode.
Yeah, put goals out there and go races and things that you can train for. But for the most part, train, eat, live like an athlete, because you are an athlete. And if you live your life that way, I promise you, you’re going to be so much healthier, and so much happier and so much stronger. And so much more fit, and you’re going to look and feel amazing.
So eat and live like an athlete, I’ve been doing this. And I have to tell you that I just feel so good right now. Now, I do have a goal out there, I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. I do have a big goal that I’m working towards. But for the most part, I want to stay ready. I want to stay strong. I want to stay fit. Like if you tell me hey, you know, you want to run a marathon next weekend? I’ll be like, sure, I’m ready. I’m ready. Because I’ve been doing the work consistently. All right. So eat and live, like you’re an athlete, and you will be so much healthier and so much happier. And always ready for whatever comes your way.
Another big lesson I learned this year is that simple wins. Every time, simple wins, whatever you do, make it simple. Everything I do when I’m working with clients, I try to simplify things for them. Because there’s so much complicated information out there around food and exercise and running and how to be healthy and people you know, that want to, you know, look at heart rate, and VO2 max, and calories and macros and percentages, and there’s so much data and we can sort of get lost in all of that data, we can get lost and make all of this very, very complicated we can make being healthy, very complicated.
We can make eating very complicated. It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler that you can make something, the easier it’s going to be for you to stick with it. And food especially when it comes to food, the simpler that you can make it, the easier it’s going to be to stick with it. I talk about this all the time. How you know, when I sit down to eat dinner at night, it’s usually something like ground beef. Maybe I’ll slice up an avocado with it, maybe melt some cheese on there, and I’m done. Or I’ll eat a steak or I’ll eat some chicken. That’s it. Like it’s that simple. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. It’s just simple. It’s easy. It’s delicious. And I love it.
But let’s simplify things when it comes to running. Just go out there and run. Don’t worry about your heart rate. Don’t worry about your pace. Don’t worry about trying to, you know, hit some percentage of your VO2 max or stay in zone three or two or whatever. Like, just go out there and run and enjoy it and go by how you feel? Does it feel good? Does it feel too hard to slow down? Does it feel too easy to speed up, run fast, run really hard? Some days, other days run really slow. Let’s just make it simple, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
I think that as runners, we love our data. And I get that part of it. And I love data too. And I love looking at it. But I also try not to be consumed by it, or driven by it, I try to simplify things as much as possible. This is another topic I’m going to be talking about over the next weeks and months, which is going to be how to make running, how to run efficiently, effectively. And simply, gosh, every time I read a new book about some concept of running and how to improve your running performance, there’s all these complicated methods of achieving goals. And I’m just like, man, can we make this simpler? So my job is gonna be to make this simpler for you guys. Okay.
The next lesson I learned this year, this is a big one, is that consistency will beat perfection every time. And that I’m a perfectionist, and I love to do things right. And I’m like, if you can’t do it, right, don’t do it. That’s kind of my mantra a lot of times. And the thing is, though, is that nobody does anything perfectly, nobody does anything perfectly.
You’re not going to eat right all the time, you’re not going to crush every single workout perfectly, you’re not going to lose weight, exactly in linear fashion, like, you know, a pound a week or whatever. Like, everything’s a process, everything has its ups and downs, everything has successes and failures, you’ll experience progress, and you’ll experience setbacks, and you know what, it’s all good. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about doing things consistently, over time, that’s what’s gonna get you to every single one of your goals, stop trying to do it perfectly.
Let go of that idea that there’s some sort of a plus that you’re gonna get a gold star if you do a perfectly let go of that. And do your best but be consistent. And what does it mean to be consistent, that means like, you know, don’t have two bad meals in a row. Let’s say you screw up and you eat some, whatever chocolate chip cookies for dinner. Next meal, get back on track. That’s it.
Now, don’t ever do two bad meals in a row. Don’t ever miss two workouts in a row. You miss a workout, you don’t feel like working out fine, whatever, stay in bed, just no big deal. Don’t miss that. Next one, though. Get back on track, consistently, consistent, consistently do these things and you will eventually reach your goals. But don’t focus on perfection because there’s no such thing.
Another big goal, or another big lesson I learned this year is that there is no finish line. I talked about this on the podcast last week. And it’s such a huge lesson for me and for you. That’s what we do here, when we’re focusing on our health and our fitness, when we’re focusing on improving ourselves and becoming more. This is the way we live our lives. But there is no finish line. There isn’t a destination we’re trying to get to but rather, this is how we live our life. This is a lifestyle that we lead, right? It’s not something we do temporarily. We’re not trying to get to some number on the scale, or just some number on the scoreboard, you know, on the timer.
We’re not trying to just you know, that’s it. You know, once we do that, then we can go back to doing what we’re doing before now. We want to live our lives in a way that supports our becoming more consistently. And in that we’re never done with this, that our work is never done. We’re always working. We’re always living like athletes. We’re always trying to simplify things. We’re always trying to do things consistently. We’re always trying to better ourselves. We’re always trying to, you know, stay disciplined and toughed it out, and that it’s okay. It’s okay.
We don’t have to be finished. Like when I first thought about this, I first heard somebody talk about that. You know, we’re never finished with this . We always have to stay on top of this stuff when we always have to be focused on becoming more. It kind of scared me a little bit at first, because I thought oh my god, do I really want to commit to this for the rest of my life? Is this really who I want to be?
And the answer that I found myself coming up with was a resounding Hell yes, hell yes. This is how I want to live my life. I want to do this for life. This is how I want to live my life every single day, I don’t want to be that overweight couch potato that I used to be, that sick person who drank too much and ate too much and smoked cigarettes and was just a human garbage can. I don’t want to be that person ever again.
I’m okay, that I’ve chosen to live my life in such a different way that I’m willing to continue doing this for good. This is how I want to be for good. Alright, so there is no finish line, you got to embrace that concept. I’ve embraced that concept this year. For sure. So this is what we do. This is who we are. Right? This isn’t there’s no finish line, there’s no destination or trying to get to this is how we live our lives. Cool.
Okay, so those are the big lessons that I’ve learned this year, there’s a lot more, there’s so many more, but those are the big ones. Okay. So what’s next for me. So I’ve kind of, you know, mentioned it a few times that I’m going to be sharing some of these concepts, on the weeks and months to come on the podcast here, because I’ve got a lot of good content coming your way, a lot of good content, I’m gonna continue bringing you all the good stuff, focusing on nutrition and strength and endurance and mindset, all next year.
So keep, you know, just keep listening. I’m going to continue to bring all the good stuff your way, and hopefully give you some inspiration and encouragement to take action on these things and start making some changes for yourself.
I can’t tell you how gratifying it is, when I get a message from somebody who’s just been listening to the podcast, it’s not somebody I’ve been working with, but somebody who’s just been listening to the podcast, and they’ll say, “Patrick, Hey, I just want to tell you, you’ve really changed my life. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a year or two. And, you know, I’ve just, you know, done all these things that you’ve suggested over the years and, and I’ve really changed my life, and I’ve lost all this weight, and I’m so much healthier, I feel so much better about myself. And just thank you so much for doing this.”
Like that those kinds of messages that I get from you guys, oh my god, it just warms my heart, you know what I mean? Makes me feel so good. Because it means the message is being received, and, and that you’re taking action. So take action on this stuff. Because this isn’t about conceptualizing. These aren’t just ideas, these are things I want you to do. These are things that in order for you to change that you have to actually take action on. Cool.
So I’m going to continue bringing you all the good stuff, I got lots of good topics coming your way. And then I’ve got a big goal that I’m working towards, I’ve got this big alter event that’s going to be in May. And more on that later. But I just want you to know that it’s a big goal, it’s going to cause me to level up. It’s not something I’ve ever done before. So it’s kind of a new thing for me. It’s an ultra running event. And really like after taking last year off, like 2022 was not a great year for training for me. Like I feel like I’ve taken the whole year off from significant training.
You know, after taking all this time off, I feel like I’m ready. I’m ready, I’m back. I’m back to running some more significant mileage. And I’m feeling really good about this event. And it’s a little scary. It’s one of those events that’s a little bit scary. It’s causing me to, you know, question my decision here, like, why, what I decided to do something like this, but at the same time, it’s also something that I’m very passionate about and feel good about. So I’ll be sharing more about that as we get closer to the event. But just know that it’s a big Ultra running event. And it’s going to cause me to, you know, get out of my comfort zone in a big way, in a big way.
Okay, so that’s something I’m really looking forward to. And then after that, I’ve got another big goal for the fall. So stay tuned. I’ll share more about this as we go. Last thing I wanted to say is that I just want to really thank you for listening to the podcast for your support this year. Whether you listen, just listen to podcasts, whether you read my social media posts or allow me in your inbox.
I know you get a lot of emails and I appreciate you, you know allowing me to email you whatever where it is that you get from me and how you consume this content, whether you’re listening while you’re out there running, or walking the dogs or whatever, I just want to say that I really appreciate you, I’m doing this for you, you know, I do this because I want to help you to become the best version of yourself, you know, I want to help you to become the most badass version of yourself.
And I want to help to make 2023 your best year ever, I want it to be my best year ever as well. So let’s make 2023 the best year ever, we can do this, right? It just means that we put in place some of these principles that I’ve been talking about, and we kicked some serious butt this year. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Happy New Year everybody. 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.
I’ll bet you’ve thought about eating healthy at one point or another in your life and then thought, nah…that’s going to be way too boring. If this sounds like something you’ve thought (or even said …
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 139 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, eating healthy is so boring. I bet that you’ve thought about eating healthy at some point in your life. And then you’ve thought, man, that’s going to be way too boring.
If this sounds like something you’ve thought or even maybe said out loud, then you are definitely not alone. People tell me all the time that they can’t stick to their food plan, or they don’t even want to start in the first place. Because it’s all going to be so boring. And I used to think this way too, but definitely not anymore. I’ve embraced the idea that food can be a little bit boring. If it means I get to live a long, healthy, happy life.
So today, I’m going to be talking about this big lie, this lie that eating healthy is boring. And how you might be able to radically improve your health by rethinking this by rethinking how exciting your meals really need to be. And as a licensed sports nutritionist, my focus is on food, it’s on nutrition, that’s like my number one focus, I want to help you make good choices I want you to I want to help you change your eating habits, I want to help you to change your body composition, to lose weight to gain muscle.
But really, what I want to help you with is to become the healthiest version of yourself to become healthy, fit and strong. So my main focus is on nutrition. This is the main driver of good health in my opinion. And I understand that you also want to crush your running goals. So this is where I’m a little bit different from other coaches.
So you might be training for a half marathon or a full marathon, or your first 5k. You know, maybe you’re just getting started with running. And lots of coaches out there will tell you that you cannot lose weight while you’re training for some race or while you’re running. You should stop running to lose weight. And I think this is ridiculous.
Okay, so for us, we, the people in my coaching program, we change our eating habits while we’re training for a marathon, lose weight feel better, running gets improved, our health is improved. And we do it all in a way that feels good for you. It’s not about severe caloric restriction, because we can’t do that when we’re training for a marathon. Right?
We’re not focused on counting calories and doing all this math about how many calories you should be eating because you ran this many miles, which means you burn this many calories and all that stuff, right? That’s just that’s too much. It’s ridiculous. That’s not how we do this, right? I do things differently.
I focus on helping you simplify nutrition, we don’t want to make it more complicated. And I want to help you change habits around food, simplify change habits, and make healthy eating just a way of life. It’s like it has to be part of who you are and what you do. Right. It has to be something you can do without a coach without me.
So the goal is to help you develop new habits, develop a new mindset. So that how you eat just becomes effortless. And it’s just what you do from here on out. So if you want help simplifying your nutrition, you know, maybe you’re ready to embrace the boring. I’ll talk about that more in a minute here.
And if you want a plan that also supports your love of running, then I want to encourage you to apply for my coaching program, you can just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a short application and we’ll talk about coaching. We’ll see if this is a good fit for you. Sounds good. I would love to have you in the Running Lean coaching project. That’s where the project is you.
Alright, let’s talk about how eating healthy is so boring. The reason I’m talking about this today is because I’ve had a lot of people say this to me recently. I’ve had clients, potential clients, I’ve had friends and family all tell me that they don’t want their food to be boring, and that some people haven’t even engaged in any type of, you know, change of their nutrition regimen, and they’re just thinking about it. And they’re just thinking about like, oh, I could never do that because it would be so boring.
Here’s the thing that is really just a thought. It’s a thought that you have in your head. And it’s a thought that stops you from making any kind of changes. And if you want something different for yourself, then you have to, like drop that thought that eating healthy is going to be boring, okay?
Eating healthy, can be fun, and can be sort of exciting. But if you think that it’s going to be boring, then you’re, that’s what’s going to be reality for you. If you think eating healthy, nutritious food on a regular basis is going to be boring, then that is your reality.
So I just want you to like embrace this idea that this idea of food being boring, is just a thought, okay, but it definitely is something that comes from somewhere. Right? So there’s this idea that food has to be exciting. Food has to be amazing. Every time we sit down to eat a meal, it has to be an experience to remember forever.
And really, this is all just marketing, right? This is all just marketing. It’s the big food companies that are coming together to market an idea to us. And the idea is this. The idea is that if you want to have an amazing, fulfilling, happy life, then every time you sit down to eat a meal, it has to be amazing. It has to be an entertainment experience.
Everything you eat has to be so delicious that you are compelled to post about it on social media. And there’s a term for these photos of food that make you drool and make you crave whatever food is in the picture. And they call it food porn, like porn. But for food, that’s kind of weird, if you think about it, okay. But this is what this is the term I didn’t make it up to this is the term that a lot of people use for this idea of posting all these pictures that make you drool and make you say, oh my gosh, I have to have that.
Another term for this feeling that you get is called euphoric recall. So you see a picture. And you remember how amazing the food was, and you remember an experience similar to that. So you may have eaten that exact thing, but it reminds you of something else that you’ve had. Or you can just be sitting around talking to friends and you can, you know, recall, this amazing meal that you had, or this amazing dessert that you had.
And it brings back all these thoughts and feelings of euphoria, like you start to feel amazing, your mouth will start to water and all you’re doing is just thinking about food. Right. And so this idea of euphoric recall, really, it’s a, it’s a mechanism that’s happening in our brains, where we are driven to remember very deeply and very vividly an experience.
And it’s a good evolutionary thing, because in the past, we may have, you know, encountered some berries or some honey as hunter gatherers, and we would, you know, eat that particular food. And we would want to remember that because it will be like, hey, this is a really good source of calories, or this is something that we can, you know, that is that tastes good. It’s delicious, it feels good. We want to remember that.
So your brain sort of locks that into your memory. But now we’re doing it about everything that we eat, and it’s becoming a problem. It’s becoming a problem, because people can’t even imagine switching their diet and eating a more healthy diet because they’re like, Well, what’s going to happen to all this amazing food that I remember, this is all just stuff that’s happening in your brain, by the way.
And food never used to be like this. Like this is a relatively new phenomenon. This idea of like food being so amazing, and there’s a meta or a scientific term for this. It’s called hyper palatable food. Hyper palatable means it’s uber uber palatable, like, like I mentioned, some berries, like you know, we’d find some wild blackberries, you know, as, you know, ancient hunter gatherers, and we’d be like, oh my god, this is so amazing, or fruits that we would find back in the day.
Now, those things have been engineered to become hyper palatable. And then there’s all these scientists that are actually creating hyper palatable foods in the lab, you know, and they really light up our pleasure centers in our brain, these foods light up our pleasure centers, just like alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines. And they know what they’re doing. They know that it’s going to give us a rush of dopamine, they know, it’s going to give us a high.
And we’re just buying into this whole idea. I’m gonna sound a little crazy here. But that, to me, this is very much like what drug dealers do, they want to get you hooked on their product. Because once they get you hooked on your product, you can’t stop thinking about it, you want to get that feeling again. You know, and they know what they’re doing, they put it right on the label, like once you pop, you can’t stop.
They know that we’re addicted to these hyper palatable, processed foods, and we can’t get enough of them. So the scientists that are creating these things are creating something that really, really lights up our pleasure centers. A lot of times even more so than those drugs I mentioned.
They did this experiment with rats, I think poor little rats, right? They’re always like experimenting on them. But they gave them a choice between sugar and cocaine. And over time, the rats preferred the high that they got from the sugar, so they would go for the sugar or the cocaine.
So when you talk about something that’s addictive, I mean, is sugar addictive? I mean, we crave it like a drug. We get hooked on it, like it’s a drug, we can’t stop thinking about it, and how amazing it is, like a drug. But they say it’s not a drug. And that’s okay. I mean, they can say that, but we sure act like it is. We sure buy more and more and more of this stuff, because we can’t stop eating it and are hooked on the product. We’re hooked on the quote unquote, drug. Okay?
If we stop, we’re gonna have withdrawal symptoms. I see this all the time, I help people get off sugar all the time, by the way. And when we stop eating sugar, our brains start to freak out. And we have withdrawal symptoms, we have headaches, and we feel nauseous, and we’re grumpy. And it’s just like coming off of other drugs like cocaine or alcohol. Right.
And if we stop just the idea, just thinking about stopping makes us feel like we’re gonna be missing out on all that good stuff. All that amazing stuff. Everyone else is having all these amazing experiences, how come I can’t. So just the idea of like, not eating sugar, kind of freaks us out. You know, food can’t be boring. I can’t live a boring life. Everybody else is having an amazing life. They’re living their best life. Thank you, Cheesecake Factory.
So they’ve created this product that really gets us hooked on their product. And when we think about not using the product, we feel bad. So we don’t want to give it up. And we were being sold this idea that food has to be amazing. And it has to be an experience. And if you’re the kind of person that’s like, hey, I just want to eat healthy food. I just want to live a long, healthy life, healthy life, right?
But we can’t even do that. Because we have sort of convinced ourselves or we’ve been programmed to think that it’s just going to be too boring. Eating healthy food and living a long happy life can’t do it. It’s going to be too boring. It’s going to be too boring. So we have this. We have a physical addiction to food. We have a mental and emotional addiction to food, or obsessing over food just like an addict obsesses over their particular drug of choice.
And we’re certainly acting much more like this as a drug than a food. So I just want you to know that if you’re feeling like you cannot make a change like this in your life, like you can’t stop eating, you know the junk food and you can’t stop going to Cheesecake Factory or whatever it is that you’d like to do. Because this idea of like, oh my life is going to be boring. I’m never going to be happy again.
I just want you to rethink that. Because you know food did not used to be like this. This is a recent thing in the last 50 years especially really the last probably 20 years since the Internet, this has really become this has exploded, right? This idea that food has to be amazing or whatever. But really in the last few 100 years, let’s just say, that’s really no time at all in this, you know, in the life span of humans.
So we hunted and gathered, we came together to celebrate with food. And we came together with our tribe and with our families, we socialized, we connected we bonded over food. It was nourishment, it was fuel as a source of life. It was something to be set to celebrate, you know, it was important. And nobody would ever say like, oh, God, this is so boring.
You guys, woolly mammoth again, geez, this is so boring. I know, it sounds kind of ridiculous. But that’s kind of where we are today with all of this, right. But again, this is all just a big lie. And you don’t have to believe it. You don’t have to buy into this idea that food has to be super exciting and that it has to be a source of entertainment. And every meal has to be amazing.
Food was pretty boring for like 2 million years of human evolution. Why all of a sudden does it have to be some amazing experience? Now, every meal doesn’t have to be an entertainment experience, it could just be a meal. And listen, would you rather experience a little tiny bit of short term pleasure now, or a lifetime of health and happiness in the future?
Because here’s what we’re doing, we’re choosing one over the other. When we choose short term pleasure, we’re choosing to feel good momentarily, we’re choosing the effect that the drug has on us. We’re choosing the dopamine hit that we’re going to get. And we’re choosing that. We’re forgoing our health or forgoing what makes us healthy human beings and what really is going to drive our fitness, our health, improve our running, all those things that we want for ourselves.
So we’re programming ourselves to choose short term pleasure over long term health and happiness. What if you just delayed that pleasure? Like, what if you just said, you know what, I’m not going to give in to the idea that I have to have something amazing right now, in this moment? What if we just forego the immediate pleasure, for feeling amazing for the rest of your life? Like, what if you did that?
And runners are kind of bad at this in general, I’m just going to say that because the typical runner’s diet is just bad, like lots of refined carbs, lots of sugar, lots of alcohol, really kind of the worst things you can do for your health. But they think that, hey, I’m a runner, so I get to eat and drink whatever I want. You know, I’m gonna drink like crazy. Like, if there’s anybody else, it’d be like, Hey, I think you might have a little problem with drinking. But no, it’s like, I’m a runner.
So it’s okay. And if this is working for you, you get to eat and drink whatever you want, as often as you want, as much as you want. Donuts, you know, all the refined carbs, tons of sugar, alcohol, whatever. Like, that’s all good. If this is working for you, more power to you. But I’m gonna tell you right now, it’s probably not gonna work for long. It’s probably not sustainable. If it is, and you’re that rare person that can just do that for your whole life, and you can stay super healthy. That’s amazing.
I don’t see that happening, especially as you get a little bit older. You know, once you get into your 40s, things start to change, things get a little bit different. And I’ve found myself running with friends on Saturday mornings, and we talk about food. And we’re talking about what we’re going to be eating when we’re done running and people will be like, oh, yeah, I can’t wait.
I’m gonna have this huge stack of pancakes and waffles and doughnuts and croissants and drink some beer. And I’m like, really, beer on a Saturday morning? And they’re like, yeah, what are you going to be eating Patrick? I’m like, bacon, eggs, yogurt, fruit, and they’re like, boring. And I’m like, Hey, listen, I’ve been there. I’ve done all that. I’m done with that now, though. I’m 55. And then the best shape of my life. I’m fine with my food being boring. You call it whatever you want. I enjoy it.
Can we just embrace boring, though? Can we just drop the idea that food has to be amazing? Can we just accept that our food can be a little boring? I teach my clients how to simplify their meals. Meaning that every meal doesn’t have to be different. Every meal doesn’t have to involve recipes, and shopping, and tons of ingredients and lots of time and effort to prepare.
And I really think we do ourselves no good by holding on to the notion that every meal has to be an experience for the ages. One of my favorite meals that I love to eat and I eat this a lot, is a grilled ribeye steak with sea salt. Here are the two ingredients. It’s a ribeye steak and sea salt. And I put some salt on the steak and I cook it on the grill, and then I eat it. And that’s my meal.
Sometimes I’ll do like some steamed broccoli on the side with some sea salt and lots of grass fed butter melted on there. Simple, delicious, effortless, two ingredients, almost no time to prepare. It’s simple. You can call that boring if you want to. I love it. And it’s so delicious. Boring does not mean it has to taste bad or it can’t be delicious. I love the simplicity of food these days.
Because when I eat food now I can really taste the flavors. Because I’m not making everything into this big ordeal, right? You can change your palate, your tastes will change over time. When you start to simplify, and you get off the hyper palatable foods and you start eating real foods, foods will start to taste much better than they ever have before.
So you could eat something like a plain chicken breast with salt and pepper on it. You’re like, oh my god, this is like the best thing I’ve ever had. And I never realized this until I stopped eating all the junk food. And when I stopped eating all the junk food, all that stuff that’s been designed to be like super, hyper delicious or whatever. All of a sudden, the simpler things just taste so, so good.
I think you know, we should still enjoy food. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying food should not taste good. And I’ve heard people say that food is fuel and it should just be fuel and you shouldn’t even enjoy it. And I’m like, no, we should enjoy food. We’ve been programmed to enjoy food, it’s what’s kept us alive for millions of years, if we didn’t enjoy food, we wouldn’t go back to it, we wouldn’t seek out nourishment when we need it. You know.
So I think food can be both simple, and delicious. I think food can be kind of boring, and still tastes amazing. So this isn’t about not enjoying ourselves or not enjoying food. I just think we have to get away from this idea that every food experience has to be amazing. Now I went out to dinner last night, and I had a steak and it had this kind of like South American sauce on it. And it was really delicious. It was really good. I really enjoyed it.
And every now and then I will go out to dinner. And I will do something that is a little bit more of an experience around food. And, you know, I might go out with friends or my girlfriend or something like that, and we come together and we can enjoy food. And we like I mentioned, you know, our ancestors would come and celebrate around food and it’s how we bonded and connected and how we grew closer together. And I still think we should do that.
But I think we can also simplify things. And that every food experience doesn’t have to be, you know, something amazing, right? Because when we have this idea when we have this thought in our head that every food experience has to be amazing, then, just the idea of changing our our nutrition plan, changing our diet is gonna seem just undoable, it’s just gonna seem too hard. It’s gonna seem too hard.
So, the idea that food has to be an experience, we just have to squash that idea. Start by simplifying food, make it simple. What can you do to simplify a meal? Stick with real food food that still looks like food. Try to stay away from anything that has a marketing message behind it right? So don’t be eating that stuff that’s been concocted in a lab to get you hooked on the food like an addict is hooked on the drug. Gotta get away from that.
Start to make better choices and start to simplify your food. And yes, it can be boring. Eating healthy can be boring, and it can be delicious. And it can improve your health and it can improve your fitness and it can help you improve your running all those things.
And remember, if you want help with this, if you want help simplifying your nutrition, you know maybe you’re ready now to embrace the boring and you want to be able to support your running performance reach out. I’m always always here for you. Cool, love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
If there’s one sure-fire way to make sure you stay unhealthy and die early it’s eating the modern, westernized diet. We’ve gotten very far away from eating the way our ancient ancestors ate and …
Continue Reading about 132. Ancestral Eating to Improve Health & Fitness →
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 132 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, ancestral eating to improve health and fitness. If there’s one surefire way to make sure you stay unhealthy, and most likely die early, is to continue eating the modern westernized diet.
We’ve gotten very far away from eating the way our ancient ancestors ate, and it’s causing us irreparable harm. Chronic lifestyle diseases like obesity, type two diabetes, heart disease, and stroke are all linked to an unhealthy diet. And these afflictions were virtually non-existent in ancient populations for two and a half million years, humans evolved beautifully on a very simple diet.
So if you want to take control of your health and become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself, and I know you do, then you might want to consider following in the footsteps of your ancestors.
So in this episode, I’m going to break it all down for you to explain how ancestral eating can dramatically improve your health and fitness. And listen, I understand that getting healthy, losing weight, maintaining your weight, training for marathons, and changing your diet and trying to fit all this stuff in becoming the strongest version of yourself and the healthiest version of yourself.
All this stuff is complicated. There’s a lot of confusing information out there. And this stuff is not easy to do on your own, becoming the healthiest and most badass version of yourself. It takes time. It takes discipline, it takes consistency, it takes knowing what to do and how to do it. And this is everything that I do in the Running Lean coaching project.
This is my coaching program that gives you all the knowledge, the support, the accountability that you need, in order to reach your goals to improve your health, to get leaner, to get stronger, to run faster, to run longer. And to do it in a way that is sustainable. We are not about quick fixes.
In the Running Lean coaching project, we are about long term health and fitness, creating new habits that last for life. And this is about longevity more than anything else. It’s about improving your health, improving your fitness, improving your athletic performance, so that you can stay strong and healthy and live longer. Don’t you want to live longer? Yeah, absolutely.
I know, we all want that for ourselves, we all want to become healthy, we all want to live longer, we all want to, you know, become the most badass version of ourselves. Not many people are willing to do the work to get there, though. So that’s why I’m here to help you. If you’re feeling compelled to change your health for the better, and to do it in a way that is sustainable, then I want to encourage you to apply to join the Running Lean coaching project, you can go to my website, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply, fill out a short application, you and I will jump on a call and we’ll see if this is a good fit for you.
You know, it’s not for everybody. And I talk to people every single day. And a lot of people are like, you know, I’m just not sure if this is right for me. And that’s totally fine. You have to be willing to commit, you have to be willing to kind of get uncomfortable and do some hard things. Because what you’re doing right now feels good, it feels comfortable, but it’s not working for you.
So in order to change we need to do some things we need to get out of our comfort zone. Getting out of your comfort zone is by definition uncomfortable. So I’m here to help you with that process. If you want that kind of help, if you’re looking for that kind of help, if you want to improve your health and make it last, join the Running Lean coaching project that’s runningleancoaching.com/apply. I would love to have you join me in the Running Lean coaching project.
Alright, let’s get into this topic today: ancestral eating to improve health and fitness. So why am I talking about this today? Well, there’s been a lot of talk out there and a lot of concern about some of these like crazy fad diets that people are doing right. There’s the South Beach diet and then there’s Weight Watchers and there’s Jenny Craig and there’s like keto and carnivore and paleo.
And all these other things that are for the most part, newer kind of diets based on you know, more modern research and, and some modern studies and things like that, but they’re pretty new. They’re pretty new there. And a lot of these are based on calorie restriction and trying to, you know, they’re focused on losing weight and things like that. And, and a lot of this stuff is, is really eating in a very modern, very new kind of way.
Okay, so the thing I want to bring to you today and the big, you know, the big sort of message that I want you to take away from this episode today is that when we engage in ancestral eating, we’re talking about doing things, the way we used to do them a long time ago.
And for millions of years, and you know, humans have evolved over the last two and a half million years, we evolved eating a certain type of diet. And we have gotten very far away from that diet. So what we’re eating today as human beings, is crazy compared to what we used to eat, for the vast majority of those two and a half million years.
And if you think about the way that we did things, we were more like wild animals of today than we are, you know, these modern thinking humans that we are in this modern society that we live in, in all the comfort and all that, you know, we’re more like wild animals, think about animals in the wild today, there’s no obesity.
In the animal kingdom out there outside of domesticated animals, there are obese dogs, I’ve seen people with dogs who are wildly overweight. And that’s because they’re, they’re eating a diet that wasn’t made for dogs, right? They’re eating a lot of grains. A lot of these dog foods have additives and they’re full of grains and things like that, that make dogs gain weight. Don’t feed your dog that stuff. Give it dog like real dog food, what do dogs eat? Meat mostly, right?
But think about animals in the wild. Today, there’s no heart disease, there’s no cancer, there’s no obesity, you know, there are some issues here and there. But for the most part, that stuff is non existent, that stuff is non existent. And why? Because those animals in the wild are eating a diet that is specific for them, they’re eating an animal specific diet, we want to go back to doing that.
So all these new diets that you see out there today, most of them are based on, you know, modern, you know, modern studies and, and modern ways of thinking about food, and nutrition. And my suggestion is we just kind of ditch all that BS, and just go back to doing things, the way we’ve always done them as human beings.
You know, think about us more like wild animals. You know, when you eat an animal specific diet, you thrive, all the animals out there in the animal kingdom that are eating, they don’t eat food that is not designed for them. They just don’t. You know, elephants are vegetarians, they eat grass, and whatever leaves and things like that.
And, you know, we don’t you don’t see elephants, you know, going off and eating a bunch of meat and you don’t see and vice versa. You don’t see cows, or I’m sorry, you don’t see lions snacking on grass and stuff. Like, they don’t eat that stuff, right? They eat an animal specific diet. Have you ever seen an obese lion? No, the lion doesn’t need to snack during the day because it eats the right kinds of food, and then it fasts. It doesn’t need to eat after it eats.
So I was looking this up. And I think this is really fascinating. Lions eat like every three or four days. And they need an average of about 11 to 15 pounds of meat every day. And lions can go without food for more than a week. And then they can eat up to 110 pounds of meat at a time. That’s crazy. I mean, that’s the way I feel. Sometimes I could do that. Right?
But that’s almost a quarter of their body weight. And they can eat that all at once. And then they don’t need to eat for another 3-5-7 days. So you know, lions don’t need to be snacking on food during the day because they’re getting all the nutrition that they need from eating those few times a week. It’s very interesting, right?
So, you know, when we snack as human beings, we’re doing it because we are eating the wrong diet and the diet that we’re eating is jacking up our hunger signals. It’s making us feel hungry all the time. When we eat food, it’s not filling us up. It’s not giving us the nutrition that we need. It’s not triggering the sensors to say, hey, you’re full, you know.
A lot of carbohydrates will do that, they will make you feel like you are constantly hungry, and you need to eat more. But then you eat more of that same type of food and you’re still hungry. It’s all messed up, just doesn’t doesn’t work, right. It’s not designed for humans that carbohydrates are really not designed for human consumption. We’ve, you know, we can eat that stuff. And it’s okay, you know, it gives us some nutrition, you know, a little bit of nutritional value, but not a lot, but it causes more harm than good.
So, when we live more like wild animals, we are going to see improved hormonal responses, we’re going to see food, we’re going to eat food that makes us feel full when we eat it, it’s going to satisfy us for longer and then there won’t be a need to snack between meals. So let’s just get off these foods that really aren’t designed for human consumption. I’m mainly talking about sugar, grains, seed oils, processed foods, that kind of stuff, right? And live more like our ancient ancestors did.
Now I’m not talking about, you know, sleeping in a cave, you don’t have to sleep on the ground in the dirt, you can still sleep in your big comfy bed with all the extra pillows, all the unnecessary pillows.
Why do we do that? By the way, here’s a little sidebar, but I have pillows on my bed that every night before I go to bed, I take them off, and I set them aside. Do you guys do that? Isn’t that weird? Why do we do that? Why do we have extra pillows? Anyway, just think about that every day when I’m taking those off my bed? Why do I have these extra pillows that I don’t use?
Anyway, but you don’t have to sleep in the dirt, you can still shop at Whole Foods. You can buy, you know your groceries at the grocery store, you don’t have to go hunt your own food or anything like that. That’s not what I’m suggesting here. What I am suggesting is that we go back to eating a proper human diet.
What happens when you feed a cow, which normally would just eat grass? What happens when you feed a cow grains? You know, they get fat, right? Have you ever seen grass fed, grass finished meat at the grocery store? If you see it, take a look at it, you’ll notice something in it, there’s very little fat in there, that muscle meat is like just red, there’s not those big streaks of fat in there.
And then look at the grain finished or grain fed grain finished meat and you’ll see that it’s very fatty. So when you feed cows grains, they get fat. This same thing happens to humans, when you feed us fat. Or I’m sorry, when you feed us grains we get fat. We store lots of that energy as fat that we’re eating from grains and sugars.
So if you want a surefire way of fattening yourself up like we do with cows then just eat a high carbohydrate diet. Right? I mean, this is just science, just the way it works. Okay. So my proposition here, my suggestion here is just to go back to doing things the way we used to, for two and a half million years of evolution. It’s not some new, weird fad thing.
Let’s just go back to eating the way we always have been eating. So how does this improve our health? Well, when we eat the proper human diet, we keep our blood sugar low. So we’re not eating foods that spike our blood sugar like crazy. We’re not eating foods that cause an insulin spike, which causes us to stay in that fat storing mode.
If you’re eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrates, you’re constantly storing energy as fat, you’re never giving your body a chance to tap into that stored body fat as a fuel source. You know, going back to our lion example, that lion is really good at, you know, consuming large amounts of food, and then going for days and you know, up to a week at a time with nothing. And they do that because they’re able to burn fat very efficiently.
We do the same thing as human beings, we’ve evolved to be really efficient fat burners, and we’ve gotten away from them. Because we’re constantly eating a diet that keeps us storing fat and doesn’t allow us to sort of lock that fat in our fat cells.
You know that insulin will, you know, when insulin is high when insulin is present, locking up that fat in our fat cells and not allowing us to tap into it as a fuel source. When we change the diet, we become more fat adapted, we’re able to tap into that stored body fat and not only lose the weight, but we have this amazing all day energy.
So one of the best ways that eating ancestrally will help you improve your health is that it improves fat burning. So you keep your blood sugar low, keep insulin low. Have all your hormones get balanced, you know, and we’re talking about hormones like leptin, and ghrelin.
Ghrelin is the hunger hormone, and it gets jacked up and it gets really elevated when you are eating a high carbohydrate diet. Leptin is the is the satiety hormone. When you have leptin, leptin is present, that means, you know, leptin gets released when you are full. So if you eat a big ol ‘steak, by the time you’re done with that steak, you’ve got leptin present and you’re full, it says, hey, don’t eat any more, you’re full. Carbohydrates do not trigger that leptin response, so you stay hungry.
So ghrelin, the hunger hormone is increased, which means you’re gonna be hungry, and then leptin is suppressed, which means you’re not going to feel full. This is a bad combination, if you’re trying to lose weight, right? If you’re trying to improve your health, you’re just going to be storing and storing more fat, right? So we don’t want that, we want our hormones balanced. We don’t want our hormones all jacked up.
Okay, so eating the proper human diet will reduce inflammation, it will reduce bloating, it will reduce the water retention, it’ll improve fat burning and helps you balance your hormones and then helps improve athletic performance. When you’re an efficient fat burner, you can run for longer periods of time.
So endurance improves, you know, your adaptive hormones are working the way they’re supposed to. So when you work out when you do a hard workout, you will improve, you know more quickly, your strength will improve the intensity of your workouts can improve, your recovery improves because you’re you’ve reduced inflammation so you can work out harder, and you can recover faster, you can work out harder because more adrenaline is being produced.
Some other ways that eating the proper human diet, eating ancestrally can improve your health is you’ll sleep better, you’ll have more energy throughout the day. You’ll have more vitality, more longevity, live longer and improve body composition. So there’s all these amazing health benefits of eating ancestral eating the proper human diet. Okay.
So how do we do it? Like what do we do? So the first thing I would say is like, let’s just get off of all these modern processed foods, you know, Franken foods, foods that are like, you know, super processed, they don’t look like food anymore. Right? Shop the areas of the grocery store where you buy meat, and eggs and produce, dairy. Stay away from all the packaged foods right?
Stay away from sugar and seed oils and liquid calories. Stay away from refined grains and anything that would be considered like hyper palatable foods. And those things contain all those things I just mentioned, which will be sugar, refined grains, and seed oils, like hyper palatable foods or foods that have been manufactured in a laboratory to be extremely delicious and make you basically addicted to them. Okay.
So we want to eat what our ancient ancestors ate: meat, eggs, fish, fruit, dairy, some honey, some vegetables, like tubers, and other vegetables that are not super high in carbohydrates. So it’s a very simple way of eating, it’s not complicated. And our ancient ancestors ate the whole animal that ate nose to tail.
One of the best things you can eat, one of the best things you can eat as a human being, one of the most nutritious things and most nutrient dense things you can eat on this planet would be liver, and organ meats, but I have to tell you that I cannot eat that stuff. I don’t like it. I don’t like the way it tastes. So instead, I use a supplement. So I use a beef organ supplement that I take and you know, this is kind of my equivalent of, of eating nose to tail, okay?
And if you’re vegetarian or vegan or something like that, you know, you don’t have to eat animal products, and you can still eat very much like our ancient ancestors. Right? But here’s the thing, like what is the way we evolved as human beings. All I’m suggesting is that we go back to doing what we’ve always done. The way we’re eating today in this modern westernized world is very, very different today than it was 100 years ago, or 500 years ago, or 5000 years ago.
And for the vast, vast majority of human existence, we ate very simply we ate animals. We ate some fruit and eggs and fish and some dairy. And we just did not go to town. on sugar and refined grains, this is a new thing. And what if we just, you know, eliminated that stuff from our diet? How would you feel, I wonder? I think you’d feel pretty amazing.
And then people always ask me, but what about this, Patrick? What about that and just fill in your favorite cheat meal or treat, you know, fill in pizza ice cream, you know, whatever it is that you love gummy worms, you know?
What about this? And what about that, you get to decide what you do for yourself, right? And this all depends on your goals, you know? So I always tell people, like, let’s try to follow the 90/10 rule, right. The 90/10 rule states that 90% of the time, I’m just gonna stick to my plan. And that means that about once a week, I might have a meal one meal a week that is a little bit different, you know, it’s a little bit off that very simple ancestral eating plan.
You know, I had dinner with my girlfriend last night, and we went to an Indian restaurant, and I ate some rice. That was my way of sort of saying, like, okay, I’m gonna eat some rice tonight. Like, it’s not crazy. It’s a grain. And I have to be honest with you, I don’t feel good today. I don’t feel good today. And I’m thinking to myself, like, why do I do this? I feel much better when I stay on track. And so do most of my clients. We feel so much better when we just stay on the plan.
But every now and then, it just seems like a good idea. Or it seems like it would be no big deal. And yet, it kind of moves us away from our goals a little bit, right? And it tends to be all about comfort versus discomfort, like what are we willing to do in these situations, to stay comfortable? What are we willing to do to keep moving in the direction of our goals? Is this choice I’m about to make here at this moment, going to move me closer to my goals or further away from my goals?
What am I feeling in this moment that makes me think I want to make this choice? Is it FOMO, fear of missing out? Is it wanting to fit in and be normal and do what everybody else is doing. And I say, let’s be abnormal, let’s get uncomfortable. Because the norm is being overweight. The norm is feeling sick, most of the time, the norm is being sluggish and feeling out of shape and not having energy and dying early.
Dying early has become a thing. And like in 2020, the average life expectancy in the United States went down 1.5 years, this is the largest one year decline since World War Two. We are not getting healthier, living longer, that’s starting to go the opposite way. This is not a good thing. Think about this.
I follow a lot of doctors and I hear them. I listen to podcasts and stuff where they’re talking about, you know, longevity and health and fitness and diet and exercise and all these things. And I hear all these doctors talk about how they never see obese 90 year olds, you know, people that live to be 90 plus years old, are not obese, because they don’t live that well. And the people with all these chronic diseases are living or not living as long as our ancestors did, you know, even 100 years ago.
So we’ve got to be concerned about this. Right? Now, I understand that ancient humans didn’t live as long as we do now. They, you know, would you know, die of certain types of viruses and things like that, which, you know, we live longer now because of modern medicine, for sure.
But the fact that we have access to all this modern medicine, and yet we’re choosing to live a lifestyle that is killing us earlier, this is not a good thing. It’s not a good thing, right? The food that we’re eating a lot of times is more like a drug than it is fuel for our bodies. Especially carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are addictive.
There are people who cannot moderate carbohydrate intake. I’m not one of those people. If I start eating sugar, it’s hard for me to stop. And when you look at the definition of what a drug is, a drug is something that is a substance that is not necessary for human existence for human health and carbohydrates fit that category.
Fat is necessary for human health. We have to eat fat or we will die. Protein is necessary for human health, we have to eat that or we will die. Those two things are called essential nutrients. We have to get those in our diet. Our body does not produce those things. We have to eat them.
Carbohydrates are not an essential nutrient. We don’t have to eat carbohydrates. Your body produces the glucose it needs. It takes some of the protein you eat, it turns it into glucose, the process in your liver called gluconeogenesis. And this is just something that we have to understand. I’m not saying don’t ever eat carbohydrates, I’m just saying they’re, they’re not necessary for human health.
Okay, so the definite definition of a drug is something that is not necessary for existence. It’s something that when you eat it, or ingest it, or smoke, or drink it or whatever, it gives you an instant reward. It lights up your dopamine centers, your pleasure centers, and releases dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin and endorphins and all that stuff, right.
So you get this buzz from eating or drinking or whatever. So it’s not necessary for human health, it gives you a reward, and then it causes harm in excess. So in excess, eating carbohydrates will cause negative consequences. If there’s no harm from the substance, there’s no addiction. Right? So people that drink alcohol, if you drink, moderately, if you drink, have, you have one glass of wine twice a week or something like that, and you can just put it down. There’s no addiction there. Right, because it’s not causing negative consequences.
But if it does, when you are in excess, when it does cause negative consequences in excess, that’s a drug. And that’s something that’s an addiction, that’s an addictive behavior. And then another criteria is if you try to control your intake, and you cannot, so the absence of control is, you know, means that there’s some addiction happening there, too. Right? Once you start, you can’t stop.
And for a lot of us eating sugar is our once we start eating it, we can’t stop. It’s the definition of addiction, right. And also, another criteria is that there’s a dysfunctional way of managing emotions. So this becomes an emotional management strategy. People use drugs like nicotine, alcohol, and things like food, especially carbohydrates, sugar, to manage their emotions, they just want to feel better.
So instead of dealing with the actual emotions they are experiencing, they eat this food that makes them feel good. And it’s impossible to get obese from eating food. You cannot get obese from eating real food. You can only get obese by eating carbohydrates by eating drugs. Like if you just ate an ancestral human diet. I mean, you might get overweight, you might gain some weight. But you know, a lot of that might be muscle weight. You might get a little bit overweight, but you’re not going to become obese.
You can’t get morbidly obese from eating real food. You only get that when you’re eating, you know, drugs, essentially. Okay? Food is not addictive. You don’t get addicted to eating steak and broccoli. You don’t. Carbohydrates are very addictive, though. Right? So we want to get off of the food as a drug and start eating the way our ancestors have eaten for millions of years. Just eat real food, food that still looks like food.
And listen, I get it, you probably have a million questions about stuff and everybody wants to complicate things, I’m trying to simplify things I want to simplify my life. I want my dietary choices to be so simple, I don’t have to think about it, I don’t have to make some extravagant meal with all these recipes and ingredients and things like that. Every meal does not have to be an amazing entertainment event.
Every now and then I will go out and have a nice meal in a restaurant. And I enjoy that I had a nice meal last night and I enjoyed that, you know, maybe overdid it on the rice a little bit. But besides that, you know, I can do that every now and then it’s fine. But for the most part for like 90% of the time, the way I eat is extremely simple. And it makes me happy. Eating a steak, or a big piece of salmon at night for dinner makes me happy. I look forward to it. And I might have a little bit of Greek yogurt with a little berries afterwards. You know, it’s like a little treat or something.
But this is all real food. This is all food our ancestors would say oh yeah, I guess I know what that is. We’ve been eating that for millions of years. Patrick, that’s cool. This cannot be simpler. We want to make things very, very simple. Go back to the simple ways of living our lives. Go back to those simple ways of eating and see how it might improve your health. Like what would it look like if you started living more like our ancient ancestors?
If you started eating more like your ancient ancestors, you know what if we all got off the addictive substances, alcohol, nicotine and carbohydrates you know, what if we just simplified? What if you improved your health? What if you got leaner and stronger? How would that feel for you? What if we all live to be 100 years old? Because we are so healthy and strong, going into old age? And you know, these diseases of lifestyle were no longer a thing?
And what if we modeled that for our kids? And what if they modeled that for their kids?
Think about the impact we can make in this world. Not to mention how badass you’re going to feel when you PR your next marathon. Because you’re so lean and you’re so strong, and you’ve improved your health, you’ve improved your athletic performance.
Or imagine how amazing you’re going to look in that bikini next summer because you’ve improved your body composition, you’ve lost the fat weight, you’ve gained the muscle weight and you feel amazing and you look amazing. Just imagine what that might look like for you. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re 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.
