Want to run longer, feel stronger, and avoid hitting the wall? Then you’ll definitely want to check out this week’s episode of the Running Lean Podcast: “Unlock Metabolic Flexibility: Become a …
271. Top 10 Biggest Myths about Weight Loss
There is so much information out there these days about the right and wrong way to lose weight. Do this, not that, eat this, not that, and all these different diets and exercise routines all …
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269. Replay: 5 Dieting Disasters Runners Need to Avoid
When it comes to losing weight, there are many, many approaches you can take - some of them will work while others definitely will not. Runners especially need to be mindful of their approach to …
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258. The Truth About Comfort Food
It’s that time of year when the days are getting shorter and colder, the holidays are upon us, and all you feel like doing is staying in and eating comfort food. I get it. I feel this too. And just …
Podcast Transcript
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 258, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. And today, The Truth About Comfort Food.
So it’s that time of the year when the days are getting shorter and colder and darker, the holidays are upon us, and all you really feel like doing is staying home and eating comfort food. And I get this. I feel it too.
And just so you know, I’m not opposed to eating comfort food, but I believe there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. I also believe there are several misconceptions about using food to comfort ourselves, so I want to address those today here. So in this episode, the truth about comfort food, how to do it the right way, so you don’t completely screw up your food plan.
But first, if you’ve been considering coaching, if you’ve been thinking about working with me to lose weight, to improve your strength, to improve your running, whether it’s running longer or running farther, I want you to consider taking action.
Now, a lot of people want to wait. They put things off. They wait until, you know, the stars align, basically. And a lot of people at this time of the year are waiting until the first of the year to get started. Well, after the first, after the holidays, is when I’m going to get started. Can you imagine having a coach working with you through the holidays? Can you think about this?
How much better will you show up on January 1 when you have somebody helping you navigate all those crazy food choices during the holidays, the average American gains like eight pounds during the holidays. And so if you don’t want to be one of those people maybe get some help during the holidays.
But a lot of people will put everything off. They’ll say, well, I really want to, you know, get on this new plan. I really want to work with Patrick, or whatever it is, or somebody else, doesn’t matter. And they say, oh, I’ll wait till after the holidays. Well, you sort of get demotivated after a few weeks, and then you kind of lose your focus. You get busy with work and things like that.
And there’s this saying, “Delay is the killer of people’s hopes and dreams.” Delay is the killer of people’s hopes and dreams. I will wait till next week, next month, after the holidays, whatever. So don’t be one of those people that waits until after the holidays. Just take action now.
And the reason I’m telling you this is because if you’re feeling motivated to do something and to make a change, just do it. You know it’s not going to that motivation is not going to last forever, and it’s not something that you’re going to always feel I’ve had people that I’ve talked to, and then they’ve come back, you know, they didn’t really want to work with me, and then they’ve come back, like, a year later and said, I wish I had started this a year ago.
And I’m like, hey, it’s okay. We all learn our lessons, but think about how much progress you can make between now and the first of the year, if you get started now. So just consider that. Okay, so if you’re interested in coaching, I think it would be great to get started sooner rather than later.
Don’t delay. Don’t let that delay kill your hopes and dreams. Here, just go to my website, runningleancoaching com, click on, work with me. Fill out the application. You and I’ll have a conversation. We’ll see if this is a good fit for you. Cool.
And then just a little quick teaser. I guess I’ve got a little something coming in the new year that’s going to start right at the New Year, hopefully, which is going to have to do with running coaching. So just specifically running coaching. So I’m going to talk more about that in the next few weeks, but I just wanted to throw that out there.
If you’re somebody that just wants help with a training program and some guidance and feedback on running so just strictly running coaching, that’s something that I will be talking more about and hopefully offering right at the first of the year for you guys. Okay, so I think this is something that a lot of people have been asking me about, and I’ve been taking that into consideration. So keep an eye out for that.
Um, let’s see. The other thing I wanted to mention really quickly is that over in our Facebook group, so that’s the Running Lean Podcast Community on Facebook, we are in the midst of the running through the holidays challenge, which is basically just running every day between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day.
So it’s a total of 35 days of running. If you haven’t started that yet, start now. It doesn’t matter. You can start at any time, but just join the Facebook group. So find Running Lean Podcast Community on Facebook, join the group, and then all the instructions on how to do it. It’s not really complicated. It’s basically run outside if you can at least one mile every day. That’s it. That’s all you got to do.
If you’re somebody that walks and you want to walk it, walk it. If you’re somebody that you know prefers to cycle, do that instead. If you’re somebody who is doing a run walk thing, do that. If you can’t do it every day, don’t worry about it. If you want to do it indoors. Fine, do it on a treadmill, but the point of this challenge is to get you outside during this tough part of the year where it’s cold.
I just went for a run this morning, four miles. Usually that’s a pretty easy distance for me, and the route that I took is pretty easy, you know, just around the park up by where I live. But today was very, very cold, 21 degrees, but with the wind chill, it felt like 12. And so I was layered up still. I mean, that wind hitting your face is brutal, so it’s not easy getting outside every day.
I’ve committed to doing this challenge, and I’ve committed to running outside every day, and so far, I’ve been good. I’m on day number eight now, so just finish that up. It was cold, but I didn’t die. You know, it was just, you know, four miles, whatever that took about 40 minutes or something like that, of being outside in the cold, and then I could come back inside and get warm again.
But I got to tell you, it is cold out there, but you know, when you do get outside and get that sun in your eyes and get that wind on your face, it’s very invigorating. You know, we do need the sun on our eyes, especially in the mornings, it helps to reset your circadian rhythms, helps to regulate sleep patterns. Really just helps you to have more consistency with sleep and recovery and things like that.
So if you can get outside, that’s going to help you get through these cold, dark days a little bit easier, alright? So definitely check out the Facebook group. Okay, let’s get on to this topic today. So the truth about comfort food.
So I was thinking about this, Jill and I were talking about this this morning, how, you know, we’re thinking about, like, what are we going to do tonight? Let’s just stay indoors. You know, it’s so cold. It’s going to be so cold tonight. You know, we went out last night to see the Wicked movie, which was amazing, by the way. And, you know, we went out to dinner before the movie, and we’re like, let’s not go anywhere tonight. Let’s just stay home.
And we were thinking about what to eat. And you know, we were both like, oh, we just, we both wanted some comfort food, right? Because that time of the year, you know? And so we’re trying to decide what we want. We never did decide anything. So your guess is as good as mine, as to what we’re gonna do tonight. We’re gonna figure it out, though, but my point is that we started talking about comfort food and how that’s all we want this time of the year, right? Why is that?
Well, it’s because we have evolved to get pleasure from food. You know, we’ve evolved to enjoy food, and it’s become a part of our culture. It’s become a part of our growing up, and certain foods really feel comfortable for us now, one of the things if you do a Google search for comfort food, one of the things you’re going to find is that it’s basically all carbs. So that tends to be what people gravitate towards when they think of comfort food.
What do you think of when you think of comfort food? Think about that, you know, and see if it lines up with this. But if I did a Google search, if you do a Google search on comfort food, you’re gonna find pastas, tons of pastas and casseroles and pizza and chili and macaroni and cheese and what else? There’s just all kinds of stuff like that that people have kind of used as a way of comforting themselves.
Maybe it’s, you know, family recipes. Growing up, your mom cooked certain things. You know, I remember my mom. My mom was a great cook, and she really showed us love with food. And one of the things that was a comfort food was her spaghetti. She made this amazing, like, meat based pasta sauce, and it was so good and, and I love her particular spaghetti that I can, I can think about it, I know exactly what it tastes like, and that’s a very comforting for me.
But, you know, just, just know that most of the time when we think of comfort food, we are thinking of something that brings us a lot of pleasure. And so what are those foods that bring us a lot of pleasure?
Typically, they’re going to be foods that are very carb heavy, because eating a lot of carbs, eating a lot of concentrated carbs, you know, refined carbs, especially like pastas, they spike our blood sugar, they release dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin, like they release those feel good hormones. And so we actually do feel good when we eat those foods. And that is all good and fine.
The problem with that is, if you are trying to, you know, stick to some kind of food plan, and you’re trying to do sort of a lower carb type of approach, gravitating towards comfort food can be a problem because it’s not in alignment with your plan. You know what I mean?
It’s just not going to be in alignment with what you want for yourself. It’s not going to be alignment with your goals. If your goal is to lose weight, eating pasta every day is probably not going to get you there. I’m going to say it’s probably going to go in the other direction. You’re probably going to start gaining weight if you do that every day.
But we have just trained ourselves to use food to feel good, right? This is not necessarily a problem. We’ve used food for decades to soothe ourselves. We use food as an emotional management tool. We use food as a way of comforting ourselves when we’re going through tough times.
So if you’re having some sort of difficult emotion, food can actually be one of those things that helps to soothe you. It helps to dull that difficult emotion so it’s not as intense. So if you’re having a very stressful day, all you want to do is go home and eat some pizza. And it does. It makes you feel better. It does make you feel better.
Okay, the problem is the food that you’re choosing to feel better, to help you to feel better is not necessarily in alignment with your goals. Okay, so using food to comfort ourselves is not really that big of a problem, but there are some, some things we have to consider, the other, another, like kind of negative side effect of doing this is that the foods we choose to comfort ourselves typically carb heavy, refined carbs, very decadent, you know, tend to be the things where we eat them, and then we crave more and more of that stuff.
So when we crave more and more carbs, we tend to eat more and more carbs, and so it sort of has a negative spiral effect that happens when we’re using those particular carb heavy comfort foods to feel better. Okay? Now, one thing that we want to try to do is to avoid using any kind of substance to feel better that has some kind of negative impact on us.
So a lot of people use food to feel better. A lot of people use alcohol to feel better. Let’s use that as an example here, because a lot of people will choose alcohol to feel good. So they’re having a stressful day at work, they come home, they crack open a few beers, have a bottle of wine, whatever you know, a bourbon, and they’re using a drug to feel better.
Well, there are a lot of negative consequences that come from doing that, because you’re not learning how to deal with your emotions. You’re not learning how to deal with stress. You’re basically just masking that by numbing yourself to those emotions. So you can tamp those emotions down.
You can dull them with food or alcohol, but you don’t really you’re not dealing with them, so you’re they’re gonna still be there. You’re just sort of forgetting about them for a little while. Does that make sense? Yeah. So instead of using some kind of external substance, we want to learn how to deal with our emotions internally. We want to learn how to deal with these things ourselves.
And so that means just being uncomfortable, being stressed, being angry, being bored, being, you know, lonely, or whatever you’re feeling, you just feel that. Okay. I mean, nobody really wants to do that. This is the work though. Nobody wants to feel bad. But what if we learned how to just feel bad? This is like a pretty badass skill that you can learn to actually learn how to feel and how to feel these kind of negative emotions, and just how to let them be there and process them, let them process and then, then they’ll kind of go away.
You can also do something that’s a little bit healthier, like go for a run, get outside in the cold and go for a run, and you’re going to feel a lot better. You’re going to get the same sort of dopamine and oxytocin and endorphins and all that stuff going but there’s no negative side effects to that, other than, you know, you got to go out in the cold and you’re going to be cold for a little while, but there’s negative side effects to eating all the carbs, you know, and gaining weight, there’s a negative side effects to drinking alcohol to feel better, because you’re gonna, you know, that can be that can lead to, you know, addiction and things like that.
So we got to just be careful with how we’re using food to feel better, how we’re using anything external to make ourselves feel better. Another big problem we have to look at is the type of foods we’re eating and the fact that a lot of the foods that we’re gravitating towards when we want to comfort ourselves, are these hyper palatable foods.
You know, they’re just creating an unnatural desire in us, an over desire. You want to see what this is all about. Just go Google comfort food and click on images so you can just see pictures of comfort food is going to make you really hungry. You’re going to have this internal desire for junk food all of a sudden, because I just did it.
I literally just did that as I was looking up information for this podcast here. This stuff looks amazing, and I’m like, I want that, I want that I want that, I want that. Okay, so the problem really isn’t like the food itself, like using food to comfort ourselves. The problem is the types of food we’re gravitating towards, like these, highly carb laden foods that elicit this huge, huge spike of blood sugar. They’re so amazing, right? They’re so good, and that’s why they’re so comforting, okay?
But listen, we just have to understand that the truth of the matter is that there are other ways of doing this. There’s like a wrong way to comfort ourselves with food, and there’s a right way to do it and that we can do it the right way. We just have to make some better choices, you know, and really, awareness is the key.
You have to understand what’s happening here. You have to look at food a little more from a higher level, a little bit more with a bigger picture in mind. Instead of just what’s going to feel good right now, think about what’s going to be best for me long term.
Okay, so the wrong way to do this, the wrong way to use food to comfort ourselves, I believe, is going after those hyper palatable foods, the ones that don’t support your long term health and fitness goals, the ones that cause you to have an over desire for food and over desire for carbs, the ones that cause you to overeat in general, and the foods that cause you to do this emotional eating, where you’re just eating to feel better you’re not really dealing with your emotions.
So instead of, you know, using food to solve this emotional crisis you’re having, whatever, learn how to process your emotions. Okay, so stay away from the emotional eating. If possible, stay away from the hyper palatable foods. If possible, the right way to do comfort food. Again, I’m not opposed to using food to comfort ourselves, but you have to make better choices around food. It’s okay that we get pleasure from eating food.
I think there are some amazing benefits to using food as pleasure. You know, when we think about things like birthdays. You know, you’re gonna want a piece of birthday cake, and that’s gonna bring you a lot of pleasure. And there’s more to it than just the food that you’re eating. It’s the connection with other people. It’s the celebration of a milestone.
You know, there’s other things going on, rather than just, I’m eating tons of sugar right now, although that’s part of it too. Okay, so it’s okay to get pleasure from eating food, but choose foods that are on your plan. I gotta tell you, one of my go to comfort foods these days is a nice rib eye steak, like I love rib eye steak is like my favorite steak.
And I will grill up a nice steak, and I have to tell you, it is, it is just, it’s like, one of my favorite things to do, and I can eat that as my dinner. Like, that’s all I’ll eat. Is that one steak, and it is so comforting for me, and I look forward to it, and it’s so delicious. Another one that I really love is chili like, and right now is the time of the year where I’m like, I just want to eat some chili, you know, but a nice bowl of chili with cheese and sour cream and, you know, some hot sauce on there. So, so good.
So there are ways that we can use food to feel better that are comforting to us, that don’t have to be completely off the plan. Another thing I love is getting Indian food carry out. And instead of eating the rice that they serve, I just have my own cauliflower rice in the freezer, and I’ll just use that with it. Oh my gosh, it’s so good. I have no regrets eating something like that. And it’s really rich and delicious and tons of flavor and again, very comforting, okay?
And these foods that I’m mentioning here, at least for me, they don’t have negative consequences, they support my long term health and fitness goals, and they still feel really good to eat them. It still feels really comforting for me to eat them.
So some ideas I have for you here is, like, think about the things that you love and maybe, like, look for some low carb like versions, like some some substitutions for some of these things. You know, you can do, like a pizza crust. If you like pizza, and that’s one thing that you love is like a low carb or a comfort food. You can do a low carb pizza crust. There’s lots of options out there. Just Google it.
Lasagna bread. You can actually make some cool, low load, zero carb bread options. So there’s all kinds of things you don’t have to just like, you know, suffer through like, you know, these cold, dark days. You don’t have to be like, Oh, I can’t eat anything good, you know, I’m on this diet or whatever. Like, don’t think of it that way. You know, I always like to say it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.
You know, this is like, no diets always seem very temporary. There’s no finish line here, though. We’re just looking at the long term health and fitness implications of eating a healthy diet every day, or 90% of the time, you know.
So that means that sometimes you can, you can do something a little bit different. You can have the, you know, actual spaghetti, or whatever you want, like whatever feels good to you, but like 90% of the time, you’re going to be sticking to the good, healthy foods, and it’s okay to to eat a little bit of something here and there.
I like doing tacos, like I did tacos last night before we went to the movie, and that was amazing. You know, we go out to dinner with friends, you know. And you can indulge a little bit. But, you know, it’s not something we have to do all the time. It’s not something that we have to do all the time to make ourselves feel better, you know.
And another little tip I have for you guys is to make sure you’re just planning ahead with all this stuff like play. Plan ahead and stay in control. Plan ahead and stay in control. Plan ahead means that you’re making decisions about tomorrow today. If you ever feel like you’re just doing things out of habit, out of you know that’s just what you always do. If you’re just like eating out of control, if you feel like you’re eating out of control, like you’re on autopilot, then start making plans the day before.
So if you do that, then you tend to make better decisions. Plan on eating comfort food. Plan on doing something that feels good for you and is on your plan. Because there’s an answer there. There’s a way that you can do both. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. People think, Oh, I’m gonna change the way I eat, and it’s got to be terrible. It’s like, no, it does not. It can still be amazing.
I eat tons of amazing food, and I don’t have regrets about what I’m eating, and I’m not eating a bunch of junk. And I feel good about that, and I want you to too. Okay, so think about that. So we got, we got the holidays coming up, and we’ve got, you know, several months of winter, you know, here in the US anyway, several months of winter left, which means, you know, we’re dealing with a lot of shorter days of cold weather.
You know, a lot gets dark so early, and I know all you want to do is stay in and eat comfort food. So you can do that. Just choose the foods that are comforting, that are still on your plan. You know, whatever that looks like for you. If you want some ideas, look up some recipes for some low carb comfort foods. I bet you’ll find all kinds of stuff. We got to get creative sometimes with this stuff.
Okay, all right, that’s all I got for you today. I hope you all have an amazing day. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.
256. Why Runners Need Help Losing Weight
I’ve received a lot of comments on my social media posts over the years basically saying that if you are a runner, you shouldn’t need help losing weight. Comments like, “If you want to lose weight, …
Continue Reading about 256. Why Runners Need Help Losing Weight →
Podcast Transcript
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 256 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Why Runners Need Help Losing Weight. So I’ve received a lot of comments on my social media posts over the years, basically saying that if you’re a runner, you shouldn’t need help losing weight.
Comments like, “if you want to lose weight, just run more” or “I lost all the extra weight I needed to when I did this couch to 5k training program.” Or, “if you’re a runner, you shouldn’t even need to lose weight.”
And the main thought behind all these types of comments is that if you run, you shouldn’t be overweight, and that running, in and of itself, is all you need to do in order to shed those extra pounds. These are nice ideas, but they just don’t hold up in reality. So today, in this episode, I’m going to address all the reasons why runners need help losing weight and why it doesn’t involve running more miles.
But first, if you’ve ever thought about coaching, if you can, if you’ve considered having someone like me help you with your weight loss journey, with improving your strength, your overall health and fitness, your running performance, then this is a great time to take action, because we are in the off season, and this is the time where you want to make changes.
We can get you started on the right track now, so that when your training starts in January, you’re going to be all set, you’re going to be stronger, you’re going to be leaner, you’re going to feel better, you will have changed your diet, and you’re going to be setting yourself up for success for a spring race.
Coaching gives you all kinds of things that you don’t really get on your own. So you get guidance, you get knowledge. You get direction. There’s a feedback process. The way I do my coaching is all about you getting results. If you’re getting results, awesome. We keep going. If you’re not getting results, if something isn’t working, we make a change somewhere, until we get things working. All right.
Coaching is all about support. Supporting you. It’s about accountability, holding you accountable. It’s about motivation, giving you the motivation that you need to keep going. It’s about encouragement, making sure that you’re, you know, praised for doing well, and sometimes I gotta dole out a little tough love here and there. But really, you don’t have to figure all this stuff out yourself.
Coaching gives you what you need to be successful, helps you to stay on track so that you can get your results much faster than doing it on your own. So if you’ve ever thought about coaching, now is a good time to have a conversation with me about it. Just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com, click on work with me, and I’ll show you exactly what you need to do to become the most badass version of yourself yet. So go to my website, running leancoaching.com, click on work with me. We’ll have a conversation. We’ll talk about coaching. I’ll answer all your questions. We’ll see if this is a good fit, and we’ll get you started right for the new year. Cool, awesome.
Okay, so this topic came to me recently because I have been seeing some comments on some of my social media posts about runners. The gist of it is this, runners shouldn’t need help losing weight. Runners should just run more, and that’s all you need to do in order to lose weight. And this is not just stuff that I see on social media.
These are comments that I hear from people in real life and around the web, and from, you know, other coaches who are running coaches and things like that. And the sentiment out there just seems to be that runners shouldn’t need help losing weight. They shouldn’t be overweight. If you’re running and you’re doing it right, then you shouldn’t be overweight. Like running is all you need to do.
And I think this is such a huge misconception for people that some people truly believe this first of all, and the other thing to understand is that this is not true for the vast majority of people out there. I’ve been involved in running for many, many years. I have run many, many, many races where there’s tens of thousands of people in these races, and I can tell you a lot of those people are not super skinny and lean.
You know, there are a lot of runners who are, you know, pretty lean, and those are the typically anyway, the faster runners. You’ll see a lot of leaner, faster runners who fit that sort of stereotype of what you would think of when you think of a runner, you know, see these like Olympic athletes, and you think that’s what runners should look like, you know, these marathoners or whatever.
The reality is, runners are all shapes and sizes. There’s all kinds of people who run marathons and half marathons and 10k and 5k or whatever. And lots of runners are overweight, and they struggle with their weight, and it’s like some sort of taboo that you’re not allowed to talk about it, or it’s like something that people just don’t want to acknowledge. You know, it’s like there’s something wrong with you if you’re a runner and you’re overweight, and I just want to say that this is a bunch of BS, and that everybody, regardless of what you do for exercise, everybody has not, I shouldn’t say everybody, most people struggle with their weight.
You know, at least here in the US, the vast majority of people in the US are somewhat overweight, and it’s okay. You know, there’s things we can do to help with that, but just understand that just because you’re a runner doesn’t mean you’re gonna fit that stereotypical look of an Olympic athlete that you see. You know, that’s probably the the rarity, the exception, not the norm.
The norm is just like everyday people, you know, and we’re all different shapes and sizes, and it’s okay, but if you’re somebody that is a runner, and you feel like, I don’t know, maybe you’re feeling like you’re talked down to, or you’re bullied or something like that online, or you feel misrepresented because most runners don’t look like me. You know, you have this mentality, most runners don’t look like me.
Just know that there’s lots and lots and lots of runners that don’t fit that typical stereotypical look. Okay, and so there’s a lot of runners out there that need help in this area. That’s why I do what I do. And the reason I started doing this.
The reason I started helping runners with their weight is because there are so many runners that I see and that I have experienced and that and I was one of them that struggled with their weight, and I just wanted to bring it out into the open and talk about it openly and say, hey, listen, if you need help, I’m here for you, and when I decided I was going to call myself the The Weight Loss Coach For Runners, that was really scary for me, because I’m putting myself out there and saying like, I’m addressing this issue that people don’t want to talk about.
I’m addressing this issue that is very important to me, that I’m very, very passionate about, that I’ve devoted my life to solving this problem for people, helping people to become their best selves, and if that means losing some weight and getting to a more ideal weight for them, that’s my goal in life. That’s what lights me up. That’s what fulfills me. T
his work that I do is incredibly important to me. I’m incredibly impassioned. You know, this is something that is fulfilling for me to help people to overcome these stereotypes and these struggles that they’ve had for a lot of times it’s their whole life. Like a lot of people have struggled with their weight for most of their life, and nobody has been able to really help them.
They may have started running because they wanted to lose weight and it didn’t work. Maybe they gained weight in the process. I can’t tell you how many people I talked to say, Oh yeah, Patrick, I started running because I thought I could lose weight that way, and I just started gaining more weight. Why is that? Well, there’s a lot of reasons why.
One of the reasons is that when you train more, when you exercise more, your body is burning a lot of energy, and your body is going to want to replace that energy. Your body is going to want to replace the calories that you’re burning when you’re exercising, you know. And so your hunger signals go up, your desire for food goes up. And if you’re eating a lot of sugar and high carbohydrate foods, which a lot of runners do, you know, runners are told they should just eat the all carbohydrate diet all the time.
When you’re eating a lot of that stuff, it messes up your hunger signals, and you’re just generally more hungry. And so when you combine being generally more hungry and a diet that’s mostly carbs, you’re going to be hungry for more carbs. That stuff just tends to keep the fat on your body, as opposed to a diet that helps burn the fat.
And then, you know, your exercise intensity goes up, you know your volume of training goes up, and so you’re more hungry, and this is a bad situation to be in, because you’re more hungry, you’re more hungry for carbohydrates. You’re already eating a ton of carbohydrates, and your body is just holding on to all of that extra energy, and no amount of running is going to really fix that.
Okay, so that’s that’s one thing to just sort of consider that a lot of people have this misconception that all you have to do is run more, just run more, and it’s going to fix everything. Well, not everybody, not everybody’s body works that way. I think the vast majority of us, our body doesn’t work that way. Some of us are more sensitive to carbohydrates, some of us are more sensitive to overeating, and we have to be careful, and we have to be more mindful about what we put in our body and how much we eat, and no amount of running is really going to fix that.
You know, my story is that when I was training for, what was I training for my 100 mile race and and then I was doing other ultra marathons. I did a summer where I did, like, four or five different ultra marathons and I did my 100. That was back in like 2017 and during that period, there was about a two year period there where I was doing all this training. I was running a ton, and I remember like a peak week for me when I was training for my 100 was like 85 miles for a week. And some people run more than that.
But for me, that was crazy, because normally my marathon training, you know, I’m like, at 40-45, miles a week, something like, that’s like half of that. So my running increased, like double what I was used to. And during that two year period, I gained like, 40 pounds. I gained a lot of weight because I was telling myself, and my brain was going like, hey, you’re running a lot, you’re training a lot, you’re running a lot of miles. You can just eat whatever you want.
And I did, you know, full pizzas, pints of Ben and Jerry’s all the time. Like I was just, I was going to town on all that stuff and and it caught up to me after some time, and the weight just started piling on.
And finally, I was like, I really have to do something about this. Like, this is getting crazy. I’d been pretty overweight, and then lost a lot of weight, and then, you know, started running more, and then started gaining the weight back again, and I didn’t go back to where I was before, you know, back in the early 2000s I was really overweight, smoked cigarettes, drank a lot of alcohol, just ate a crap diet, you know.
And I was super overweight and had a big like, pot belly kind of thing, like, I carried my weight in my belly, and I was just really unhealthy and really unhappy, and I had to make changes in my life. And once I started, you know, eating better, and I started exercising more and started running, the weight did come off, but I had to really be careful.
One of the big things I did was quit drinking alcohol. That made a huge difference, but I had to be careful about not slipping back into old habits, you know. And so the food was a really big thing for me. And once I changed my diet and stopped drinking, a lot of the weight started to come off, and I did get pretty lean, and I felt much better. And then, you know, started running more and all this other stuff. And I was okay for a while there, until things started to catch up to me again.
And this was like, in the 2016-2017 something like that. And so for me, it was like I really got to this place where I needed to make some big changes to my life and and I needed to really address the fact that all this running wasn’t working for me, and that I needed the help, and I needed the help figuring out what to eat so that I could continue running, you know, I was told, like, if you’re a runner, you need to eat all the carbs, you know.
So that meant donuts and pasta and pizza and ice cream, like, that was my diet, right there. That sounds amazing, right? It was amazing. I was like, I was in heaven. I was like, This is so great. But then it stopped, stopped working for me. It just started to catch up to me. And I was like, Okay, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got to start eating better.
So I know a lot of other people that are listening to this right now, if you’re somebody listening to this, and you’re like, yes, Patrick, I can relate. That’s me as well, then please reach out to me and let’s just have a conversation. I can help you. I want to help you and and this is, like my life’s passion is to be able to help people that were in that position that I was in.
You know, this is why I do what I do, because I want to help end the struggle for other people, because I figured some stuff out. And really what helped me more than anything else was just having somebody show me the way. I had a coach, and, you know, I had some guidance and some direction and some feedback. And, you know, kind of took a personalized approach to this whole thing, and that’s what really worked for me. And so that is one of the main reasons why I do what I do.
But understand that if you’re a runner and you’re somebody that has struggled with your weight, you’re not really doing anything wrong. You know, it’s just you’ve been given bad advice. You know, you’ve been hearing from a lot of you know, normal sized runners who, honestly, they don’t have a problem with their metabolism. They don’t have a problem with carbohydrates. They can do whatever they want.
I know people that can eat whatever they want, and they never gain weight, and it just seems to be like they have some crazy metabolism. I always tell a story about this friend of mine who was the same age as me, and this guy was about 145 pounds, soaking wet. He was a skinny little guy, and this guy would out eat me and out drink me like he could eat more food than me and drink more alcohol than me and never gain weight. It was crazy.
So people like that do exist, and some of them are runners, and that’s awesome. If you’re one of those people, you’re probably not listening to this podcast, but if you’re one of those people, more power to you, like, keep doing what you’re doing. That’s awesome. I love that. But if you’re somebody that does struggle, then we got to start doing something differently, right?
Like, because what you’re doing is not going to work for you. Doing that like eating whatever you want is probably not going to work for you. And I talk about food so much because, listen, I’m going to say, like, 90% of the problem is going to be your diet. It’s not about exercising. You know, there’s things you should be doing from an exercise standpoint.
You want to be lifting weights, you want to get stronger, you want to improve your cardiovascular fitness. You know, running is a great form of exercise. I’m a big fan of running. I’m a big fan of getting stronger. But those things, in and of themselves, aren’t going to be the solution for you to burn the fat and lose the weight. It’s just not like you gotta fix the diet.
So, you know, one of the things that runners struggle with is changing anything really, but changing their diet is because they’re so ingrained with this one way of doing things. And if that’s you, and you’re shaking your head, yeah, I totally understand, then you’re not alone, because so many people struggle with that.
So many people struggle with, you know, being told all this advice about how they should be eating all the grains and all the sugar and all the carbs all the time, and it just doesn’t work for most people. And taking a different approach is kind of scary, because you’re like, well, this isn’t what normal people do.
Well, guess what? Most normal people are overweight. You know, most normal, quote, unquote, normal people are unhealthy. You know, there’s something like, you know, over 70% of the population here in the US. I’m, I don’t have this number in front of me. It’s probably higher. I know it’s higher than that. It’s like 78% or something like that, of the population is, like, overweight or obese, or, you know, has some sort of, you know, chronic metabolic illness, you know, some sort of chronic metabolic disease, you know, whether that’s like heart disease or type two diabetes or pre diabetes, or something like that.
So the norm, what’s normal is not being healthy, it’s not being fit, it’s not being lean. What’s normal is to be overweight and diseased. So to me, it’s a no brainer. It’s like, I don’t want to be normal. I don’t want to be one of the quote, unquote, normal people out there, you know, I want to be somebody that is fit and healthy and lives a good, long life with a lot of quality years in there. It’s not about how many years I live. It’s about the quality of life during those years that’s important to me.
You know, I want to be strong until the day I die. I want to be running till the day I die. I want to be able to lift weights and open up jars and, like, walk upstairs and do all these things when I’m like, 100 you know? I want to just be like, fit and healthy until the end, and whatever that is, and the only way I know how to do that is that I have to watch what I eat, and I have to exercise, and I gotta lift weights like I gotta, you know, improve my cardiovascular health, improve my strength, and stay at a lean body weight like those are the things that are important to me and that are going to facilitate a long quality of life for me as an individual.
And I’m going to say for you too, like these things are proven to help you not only live longer, but have those quality years. You know, the last 10 years of our life or so should be high quality years like that’s what we want for ourselves, and just running more is not the answer. We’ve got to get stronger. We got to, you know, be at a healthy body weight, and we have to have a good cardiovascular system. You know, we need good cardiovascular health. Health as well.
So improving your VO2 max, getting stronger, you know, being able to do all sorts of strength exercises, and then, you know, being at a healthy body weight, those are the things are going to help you to live longer and feel great as you get older. You know, one of the main issues that people have, and one of the main reasons why people die early is that they lose muscle as they get older.
So they lose a lot of their strength, they lose a lot of their cardiovascular fitness, and they become more sedentary, and then something happens, like they fall and break a hip or something like that, because they’re not strong. They don’t have the muscle mass to be able to even hold themselves up, and so they fall down. And once they become sedentary like that, like once you know something like that happens, and they’re bedridden for extended periods of time, then their quality of life goes down dramatically, and their death becomes much faster. It just becomes imminent, unfortunately.
So that’s the reality for a lot of people, and some data that I was just reading came out recently where they’re showing sarcopenia starting to happen. Muscle loss starting to happen in people, starting in their 30s. So people start losing muscle mass, beginning in their 30s, until whenever they die. Like that is not a good situation, so we need to reverse that.
And you can start today, get stronger, starting today, improve your strength, start lifting weights, improve your cardiovascular health, and then get to a healthy body weight. Those are the three things that you can do that are really going to improve your quality of life more than anything else. And if you’re a runner and you need some help losing weight, then get the help. Like, there’s, don’t, there’s no like taboo about this, you know what I mean?
And you know, don’t let these people that say like, oh, you should just run more like that doesn’t make any sense. It just doesn’t make any sense. There’s so many people that have tried that and it doesn’t work for them, and I’m one of them, and I talk to people every day who tell me this, like, oh, yeah, I started training, and I thought, you know, running, training for this marathon, was going to help me to lose weight, and it didn’t. I actually gained weight. And I’m like, Yeah, I get it.
I remember working with a guy who was on this running streak, and he ran at least a 5k every day, and he had done this for seven years. When I was working with him, he had been running a 5k every single day, never missed a day no matter what, for over seven years, and gained 50 pounds in the process. So that’s another just example of saying, like, this doesn’t really work. All this running just doesn’t work. So thinking that you know, if you’re if you’re a runner, you shouldn’t be overweight, that’s just stupid. Like, let’s stop thinking that. Okay.
And if you are a runner and you feel like you have some weight to lose, then don’t be ashamed of that. Just start doing the work. Change the diet. That’s number one. You got to change the diet. Keep running. Yeah, running is great for you, but it’s not going to help you to lose weight. So definitely change the diet and then start becoming that best version of yourself, that version of yourself that you ultimately know that you can become.
You know, we all have this idea of who we should be. We have this like vision inside of us, in our mind, of like who we want to be and what we should look like, and what we should how we should act, and you know, the things that we want to do in our lives, and a lot of times, what we’re presenting on the outside is not the same as this vision that we have of ourselves on the inside, and so what I want for you is I want that vision that you have on the inside to match what’s on the outside.
That means changing what you do and getting you to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself from the inside out. Okay, that’s the work. That’s the work with just become the best version of yourself, okay? But this is something that we should all be striving towards, that we should all be moving towards every single day. We should be taking little, tiny actions that are moving us in that direction.
So think about that this week, what is that best version of you? And if it is somebody that is 20, 30, 40, 50, pounds lighter, then keep that vision in your mind, but then start doing what you need to do in your day to day actions to move you to that in the physical presence. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
246. The Macronutrient That Matters Most for Runners
I talk a lot about carbs here on the podcast, mainly why it’s advised to keep your carbs low if you’re a runner who wants to lose weight and use body fat as fuel for running. I realized I haven’t …
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Podcast Transcript
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to Episode 246, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, the Macronutrient That Matters Most for Runners. So I know I talk a lot about carbs here on the podcast, mainly why it’s maybe advised for you to keep your carbs low. If you’re a runner who wants to get fat adapted, use body fat as fuel for running and wants to lose weight, I think keeping your carbs low is a very good plan for most people, not everybody, but for most people. But I realized I haven’t spent much time talking about the other macronutrients, fat and protein. Fat and protein are essential nutrients that often get overlooked when it comes to low carb diets and fat adapted running. So I’m hoping to remedy that here today. So this episode is all about that one macronutrient that matters most for runners, and how it benefits your overall health and fitness.
But first I want to talk a little bit about what being a coach means to me. So I’m someone who struggled with eating properly, struggled with my weight, struggled with getting stronger, struggled with my business, and I decided at some point that I was going to get some help, and so I reached out, and I got a nutrition coach that helped me greatly, and I figured out a lot of important things for me, and it was really the key to me losing weight and be able to keep it off forever. I really wanted to get stronger and leaner and build more muscle, and I just was trying to do it on my own. It really wasn’t working. So I got a coach. I had a personal trainer that was working with me to help me get stronger and showing me what to do and correcting my mistakes and keeping me accountable and keeping me on track. And then I had a business coach that really helped me to get my business started, and get my business to a place where it was something that was very sustainable for me. And all along this process, I learned so much from having coaches guide me, show me the way, show me what to do. You know, they’ve already made all the mistakes so they can just teach me what to do without me having to make all those same mistakes, which is really awesome. It’s like taking everything that they know and then just downloading it into me and going like, Okay, perfect. You know, I’m good to go here. But having that accountability, having somebody to bounce ideas off of, having somebody to talk to when things aren’t going well, having somebody to help keep me on track all of those things were vital to me becoming the person that I am today, to losing the weight, to keeping it off, to improving my strength, my overall fitness, to having a thriving business. All those things were benefits of me reaching out and taking a little bit of a leap of faith here, because I had never really done too much in the way of coaching prior to doing all this stuff, and it was a game changer for me. So this is why I became a coach, because it was so impactful for me. And this is why I’m so passionate about being a coach, because I had such an amazing experience with my coaches. And I was just talking to someone the other day who is a coach herself, and she was reaching out to me to get some help. And, you know, we both agreed that all the best coaches have coaches, you know. So it’s just one of those things that if you’re looking for some help, you want somebody to just show you exactly what to do. You’re looking for some guidance and some accountability. You want somebody that’s had all the experience that can just, you know, really take everything that they’ve learned and just dump it into you then, then coaching is probably a good fit for you. And if you want to know if working with me is a good fit for you, just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, and click on the big button that says, work with me, and I’ll show you exactly how you can become the most badass version of yourself. Yeah, cool. Running, leancoaching.com. Click on work with me, and let’s do it. Let’s work together. I think it would be super fun. Cool.
Okay, so today, let’s talk about the macronutrient that matters most for runners, and I know that we talk a lot about carbs here on the podcast, because I’m a big proponent of just keeping the carbs low. What does that mean? It’s different for each person. You know, we kind of take a break from eating sugar and some of the really starchy grains and try to lower our carbohydrate intake at the beginning of this process. That’s kind of like phase one that I go through with most of my clients.
We keep the carbs pretty low at the beginning, and then at some point we start to increase the carbs. We time carbs around workouts. You go to a place where you’ve kind of maybe hit your ideal weight, and you can dial in your carbohydrate intake to determine, okay, I can eat this many carbs until I start to gain weight again. Oh, maybe I need to back it off a little bit. You know, maybe 100 grams. 150 grams is good for you. Maybe it’s 75, maybe it’s 20. I don’t know. Just everybody’s a little bit different. Everybody has the sweet spot that they feel good about.
So we know we talk a lot about carbs, and being a low carb runner is something that is pretty amazing. Getting fat adapted as a runner is pretty amazing, because now you have this unlimited fuel source of stored body fat that helps improve your endurance, helps improve your athletic performance, and it gives you a whole nother tool that most runners just don’t take advantage of. You know, burning fat as fuel, so keeping the carbs low is a really amazing tool. It helps with weight loss and helps improve your running.
And I realize that I talk a lot about carbs. And if you want to go back to many, many episodes, there’s lots of episodes where I talk about carbohydrates, you know, good carbs, bad carbs. Why carbs are not the enemy, how we feel with carbs, all that kind of stuff. Just go back through my different episodes. You can actually, if you go on to, I don’t know what Apple podcast or Spotify, you can actually scroll back and see all the different episodes. Or you can go to my podcast website, which is runningleanpodcast.com, and that will give you all the episodes that I’ve ever put out there. And you can, you know, just have a scroll through all of those as well.
So anyway, lots of information about carbs, right? But I realized I haven’t talked about the other macronutrients too much, and protein is one of those ones that does not get the air time that carbs get, even fat. Fat gets talked about a lot, you know, especially people who are trying to watch their weight and so they cut out all the fat, which is, we’ll talk a little bit about that in a second. That’s really not recommended, but protein is one of those things that we really need to focus on, especially as runners and when we’re talking about macronutrients, I just want to set the stage here.
The macronutrients that we’re talking about are fat, protein and carbohydrates. Fat and protein are both called Essential macronutrients. That means that your body does not produce fat or protein, so you have to get that in your diet. And when I talk, when I say fat, it doesn’t mean that your body doesn’t store fat. It does store fat, but your body needs fat in order to survive. If you were to go to a zero fat diet, this would be a problem. If you were to go to a zero protein diet, this would be a problem. You would die.
But carbohydrates are not essential. There is no essential requirement for the human body to consume carbohydrates. I’m not saying you shouldn’t consume carbohydrates. I’m just saying, isn’t it interesting that they are not essential, and I’ll talk more about that in a minute, too. But the macronutrients are the things that make up kind of the majority of our diet, fat, protein, carbohydrates. If you look at the back of most labels, it’ll give you the macronutrient breakdown. But there’s also something called micronutrients. And I’m not going to get into a lot of this, but just understand that micronutrients are not, they are required, and we, there are certain essential micronutrients that are required because our bodies that make them so we need to to get in our diet, things like vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin D, iron, iodine, folate, zinc. There’s all kinds of essential micronutrients. And then there’s something called micro minerals, which is salt, potassium, magnesium, calcium. These are all essential as well. So we need to get those in our diet as well, because our body doesn’t produce those things. So as long as you’re eating a well balanced diet, you’re going to be getting all of the micronutrients and all the macronutrients that you need to be a healthy human being.
Okay, so now that we know there’s a difference between macronutrients and micronutrients, I wanted to talk a little bit more about carbs. So carbs are kind of considered non essential nutrients, so proteins and fats, vitamins, minerals, all those things I just mentioned are essential because your body doesn’t produce those. So your body actually produces glucose, which is carbohydrate on its own. And your body can actually use other energy sources if there’s no glucose available or very little glucose available. So fat is a good example of this, right? So just understand that you do not need to load up on the carbs all the time, because your body doesn’t really require that much in the way of carbs. Actually, there’s no essential amount of carbs that are required, you know?
And I’m not opposed to carbs, like I said, you know, I think they’re great for helping to improve your athletic performance. It’s fun to just eat some cake sometimes, or ice cream or whatever. So carbs are fine. They’re kind of addicting to a lot of people, though, I know I’m one of these people where I start eating carbs and I can’t stop, you know, so it’s one of those things where I need to really keep my carb intake in check.
Okay, so carbs are fine, but they’re just not essential in the same way that fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals are, but just understand it’s one of the macronutrients that’s talked about a lot, and the other one being fat. So fat is often touted as, like, the enemy of weight loss. Like I know, back in the 80s, they determined, you know, with some pretty shoddy science, that the reason people were getting fat is because they were eating fat. The reason people were overweight is because they were eating too much fat, so stop eating the fat. So they took all the fat out of everything. Everything became low fat, no fat, non fat. And with most of those food products, they replaced the fat with sugar. Because taking the fat out of stuff made it taste terrible. You know, you take the fat out of whatever. There are people who were like, oh, this is disgusting. And so they were like, oh, we’ll make this better, don’t worry. And so they added sugar to it, okay. Well, now everybody became even more overweight. And they’re like, See, you’re not eating all the fat, so you’re healthier. But everybody, the obesity rates have just skyrocketed in this country since we’ve done dumb stuff like that.
So you gotta eat fat like, fat is important. It is an essential nutrient. Fat and protein are both essential nutrients. If you don’t eat fat, you’ll die. There’s actually something called dietary fat deficiency. It’s kind of rare, but it can happen if you just, like, cut all the fat out of your diet. I know some people who have tried this, they’re like, Oh, I’m just gonna go super, I’m just gonna eat no fat, like zero fat. But it leads to things like vitamin deficiencies, dermatitis, slow wound healing, hair loss, sickness problems with your eyes not functioning properly because of like, vitamin deficiencies. There’s like, all kinds of problems that happen when you completely cut out fat. So don’t do that. Fat is a essential macronutrient. We have to get fat in our diet. Don’t be afraid of the fat. The fat is not causing you to get fat.
There’s other factors involved here, and carbs have a bigger role to play when it comes to gaining weight. So we don’t want to just cut out all the fat. We don’t want to go to some kind of a low fat diet, because a lot of times when you do that, you know, you’re replacing a lot of that fat with sugar, and your carbohydrate intake tends to go up pretty high. So just keep the fat in check. You know, I’m not saying you need to be wrapping bacon around sticks of butter and eating that every day. That’s not what we’re talking about here. But don’t be afraid of the fat. I eat lots of fat in my diet.
I actually found that I was trying to cut back on the fat a little bit as an experiment. So I did this for, I don’t know, for four to five months, something like that, and I noticed I just was more lethargic. My running wasn’t going as well. I just didn’t feel as good. Generally, I wasn’t making gains at the gym, and so I added more fat back into the diet, and I noticed that I started feeling better. I was sleeping better. I had more energy. My running improved. My energy levels throughout the day improved. My workouts got better. I started putting on some muscle again, like, so for me, eating a little bit more fat is good. It works for me. And everybody kind of needs to figure out their own fat intake or whatever. But just understand that.
You know, we don’t want to be just cutting all the fat out of the diet, but fat gets so much, you know, whatever you want to call it, press, people talk about fat a lot. Talk about carbs a lot. The one macro that I think you should really be focusing on here is protein for a lot of reasons. And I mean. Give you a few of them here.
Like, one of them is that when you eat more protein, you typically don’t eat as much food. So I’m a person who is, I’m a chronic overeater. I just eat a lot of food when I sit down to eat food, like, if you give me a large pizza, I can put a big, huge dent in that large pizza. People are like, oh, we’re going to be taking some of this home. I’m like, Yeah, I don’t think so. Like, I can put away some food, and I’m not a big person, but I just, especially when it comes to eating carbs. Carbs mess up your hunger signals. When you’re eating a lot of sugar, a lot of carbs, they make your body, they make you feel more hungry. You know, they increase the production of ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone, so you feel more hungry. So if you’re eating a lot of carbs, you’re going to be hungry all the time. They suppress the production of leptin, which is the fullness hormone, so then you’re hungry all the time, but you’re not feeling full when you do eat.
So that’s a bad combination, because now you’re just you tend to overeat, and you’re eating and you’re more hungry and eating more all the time. So when we increase the number of the, or the amount of protein that we’re eating, I think what happens for most people is they reduce the amount of fat, and they reduce the amount of carbs that they’re eating. And I would say, if you’re going to replace something on your plate, you know, I would say, just cut out some of the carbs and replace it with protein. We want protein to be the main event at every meal. We want protein to be the main event, and I’m not gonna, you know, necessarily tell you, you got to get so many grams of protein every single day.
I think there’s some new data out there that suggests that a good place for most people who are athletic, like for runners, I think a 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight is a pretty good place for most people to be. If you’re non athletic, you could probably go a little bit less than that, maybe 0.5, 0.6, some people, if you’re highly athletic, you know, maybe bodybuilder type of person, you might need closer to 1.0 gram of protein per pound of body weight, but I think runners can do really well at about 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight.
And this is some new data that’s been coming out. And you know, I’ve been trying this and working with a lot of clients who have been doing this, and it seems to work pretty well for most people. Again, you’re an individual, you got to do what works for you. But when you’re eating more protein, you tend to not eat as much and so and when you do eat, you tend to be more full, because protein is very satiating. And when it comes to, you know, satiety per calorie, protein is going to give you, you know, one of the best bangs for your buck there, okay?
Plus, you’re giving your body what it really needs. Protein is required to build lean muscle. And when most people try to lose weight, they just cut their calories. They lose weight, but they lose muscle through this process. We don’t want that. You definitely do not want to do that. So when you increase protein, and, you know, do some consistent strength training, this is going to stop this from happening. This is going to prevent the loss of muscle. So we want to make sure that you are eating enough protein to build lean muscle, not lose that if you’re trying to lose weight, especially if you’re training for any kind of you know, half marathon or a marathon, then you do not want to be losing muscle in the process.
Getting enough protein also means that you’re going to recover better from those hard workouts, whether at the gym or on the track or whatever, long runs, anytime you get out there and you push yourself hard, that you break down muscle tissue. Running is a catabolic activity. It breaks down muscle tissue, and you need to recover from those workouts, and so getting enough protein helps support the repair of muscle tissue and the building of new muscle tissue.
So if you want to make sure that you’re recovering properly from your workouts, you want a low inflammatory diet. So that means a diet that’s not going to keep you in a state of inflammation and bloating, which is, you know, the low carb diet tends to work pretty well for that, and you want to make sure you’re getting enough protein. So we want a higher protein diet.
Also, when you eat more protein, you will perform better as a runner, because you’re going to get stronger, you’re going to build stronger muscles. You can run harder, you can run faster, you can recover faster. Stronger muscles means you are less likely to get injured. It helps improve your immune function as well. So if you’re somebody that gets sick a lot, especially as you’re running more. I used to get sick all the time, late stages of marathon training when I’d be, you know, getting out there and doing these super long runs. You know, it’s just a lot of stress on your body, and it can really break down your immune system and compromise your immune system and help, you know, getting enough protein helps you to stay strong and build muscle tissue and helps to improve your immune function, which is amazing.
And then understand that when you’re eating more protein, this can really help with improving your weight loss for a few reasons. So you’re not as hungry all the time, like you stay more satiated throughout the day. You don’t need to eat as often. So you can eat a couple times a day. You don’t need to eat six or eight times a day, and you start to get in tune with your body’s natural hunger signals, which is a really powerful thing, if you think about it.
When did we start having MyFitnessPal to count all of our calories and track all of our macros? We started that. What, 6, 7 years ago, 10 years ago, I don’t know, but it hasn’t been that long, and before that, what did we do? How did people stay in shape? How did people not just blow up and get super fat? They just listened to their body. They just did what their body was telling them to do. Are you hungry? Eat something. Are you not hungry? Don’t eat anything. Don’t eat because you’re bored. Don’t eat because you’re stressed. You eat because you’re hungry, and when you’re eating more protein and fewer carbs, your body tends to be much better in tune with your natural hunger signals, and you tend to just eat less in general, you tend to eat fewer carbs in general too, because you’re satiated, you don’t need more.
So more protein has, gosh, so many benefits. You know, it also means you don’t need to count your macros, you don’t need to count your calories. You’re just going to feel better. You’re going to notice that you’re getting results. You’re going to lose more weight. You’re going to improve your strength, you know, more protein plus strength training. This is like magic for weight loss, it just helps improve your metabolism. Helps improve fat burning. There’s so many benefits. So for runners, especially runners who want to lose weight, or if you’re a runner who maybe you don’t need to lose weight, but you want to maintain a lean, strong body, you don’t want to keep breaking yourself down. You want to recover faster. You want to make sure that you’re building lean muscle tissue, then it’s more protein for the win every time. Cool.
All right, that’s all I got for you today. Hope that was helpful, and love you all. Keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.