Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
At some point in your weight loss journey, you will experience a setback. This is normal and nothing to be ashamed of. But most people just do not handle setbacks very well. They get down on …
Continue Reading about 176. Handling Setbacks Like a Badass →
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 176 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, handling setbacks like a badass. At some point in your weight loss journey, you will experience a setback. This is normal, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but most people just do not handle setbacks very well.
They get down on themselves, they feel gross feelings like guilt and shame. And most of the time they just give up. Do not do this. Instead, you have to learn how to handle setbacks properly. So in this episode, I’m gonna break it all down for you and explain what to do instead. So you’ll be handling setbacks, like a badass every time they happen.
first, let me ask you something. Can you relate to any of this? Do you struggle to lose weight? Does running more no longer work for you? Are you ready to be done with all the yo-yo dieting? The yo-yo gaining and losing the same way over and over again? Do you want running to be easier again? Do you just want to know what to do and how to do it? And are you ready to get started on your weight loss journey?
If you answered yes to any of the previous statements, then I have just a thing for you. You can join me for a free live training and coaching session called How to start losing weight as a runner, this is going to be held on Wednesday, May 17. And it is going to be live over Zoom.
So you just got to get yourself signed up. Once you do that you’re in and I’ll be there live. And during this call, you’re going to learn why we gain weight, the real reasons why we gain weight and what you can do about it. Why running more is not the answer, the right fuel to use for weight loss and for running. You’re gonna learn nutrition principles to get you started.
So the whole purpose of this is to get you started on your weight loss journey the right way. Okay. And I’ll be answering your questions live. So be sure to show up, bring your questions. If you’ve been thinking about working with me as your coach, join me on this live training and coaching session that is a great opportunity for you to show up, ask questions and kind of get some live coaching from me.
So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself, then you owe it to yourself to attend this free live event. If I didn’t mention that it’s free, there’s nothing you just got to sign up, you know, so I know who’s coming and be able to send emails to you and things like that. So you’ve got nothing to lose except a few extra pounds and everything to gain.
To sign up, just go to runningleancoaching.com/live and you can sign up, right up until the date of the event. I would just encourage you to sign up a little bit sooner so that you can get the reminder emails and make sure you can and you get the links to the meeting and stuff like that. Okay, runningleancoaching.com/live. I hope to see you there. It’s gonna be fun.
Okay, on to this topic today handling setbacks, like a badass. I’ve been thinking about this topic and sharing this topic for a while with you guys. And I’ve had a couple of people experience some setbacks, lately, which is very normal. I want to make that very clear here that, you know, having a setback, you know, you’re going along fine.
Maybe you’re losing some weight, you’re sticking to your plan. And then something happens. Like that’s normal. But a lot of times we don’t, we don’t think it’s normal. And we think that it’s bad for some reason, and we get down on ourselves when this happens.
So a common scenario is you’re on your weight loss journey. You’ve changed your diet, you’re exercising regularly, maybe you join a gym, you’re sticking to the program, losing weight, feeling great, feeling motivated, committed, all of a sudden, though, something happens, something happens and it throws you off your plan.
So you’re no longer sticking with it. You stop eating healthy food, you stop going to the gym, you’re not running, you just want to sit around and watch Netflix all day. Maybe even start gaining some weight. And you just feel like guilt and shame and disgust and you’re disgusted with yourself and oh my gosh, this sounds terrible. Right?
And you might be thinking I’m being a little overly dramatic here. Or is this just a little glimpse into reality? Because I can describe this scenario so well, because I’ve lived it. I’ve been there. I’ve lived this over and over again. I’ve had many setbacks in a lot of different areas of my life. And I know how much it sucks. And I know how hard it is. And I also know that the traditional ways that people talk about this stuff isn’t super helpful.
So what I’m going to share with you today is a little bit of a different take on some of this. And you have to understand, the first thing you have to understand here is that, you know, setbacks are normal, and we should expect them and nobody’s going to get through life without having any kind of setback. So as soon as we start accepting that things are gonna get a little bit easier for you.
But you just have to know that it is part of the deal. It just is. All right. And I think that one of the big problems is that there are a lot of messages that we get from outside. A lot of external messages that we get that tell us that, like, it should be easy. That’s the first message I want to kind of address here that most experts and coaches out there who are talking about diet and nutrition, they will tell you, well, here’s what you do, stop eating sugar. And I say this all the time, too, right?
I tell people this all the time, stop eating sugar, stay away from processed food, stick to eating, you know, whole food, real food, right? This, this is something we can all agree that’s, that’s probably pretty beneficial for you and works for most people. And then if you know what to do, like, that’s all you need. And I think the underlying message there is that it’s so easy. All you need to know is what to do.
But I have to tell you something, it is never that easy. If it were that easy, no one would ever experience any kind of failure or setback, I wouldn’t have a job if it was that easy. If I could just tell you what to do, I would just do that. I would just tell you, here’s what you do, here’s the 10 things you’re going to do. And everything will work perfectly for you. It does not work that way.
This whole idea that it should be easy, it’s very misleading. Because people think that, you know, if you just tell people what to do, then they’ll just do it. And if people aren’t talking about the fact that you fail, and that there are setbacks, and that they’re expected. If people aren’t talking about that, then it just must be easy for everybody else, except for me.
So this is a real tricky little place to be because you might be thinking that you’re the only one that’s having a hard time with this. And then everybody else finds this to be easy. But for you it’s hard. Right? But I have to tell you this, it is hard. This stuff is not easy. Right? It is supposed to be hard.
And I know this not just from my own experience, because I have experienced many, many challenging times trying to stick with my weight loss plan my, you know, exercise plan, my overall mental health and fitness plan. And I know from years of experience working with literally hundreds of runners, that this stuff that we do, it is not easy. It is hard, it can be challenging. It can really suck sometimes.
Success is never a linear path. It’s always kind of wonky. And that’s okay. It’s okay. I talk about embracing the suck all the time. Like just lean into that discomfort, right? This means that it will be hard. It is not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be hard. And if you have it in your mind that it’s supposed to be easy, but for you it’s not, that’s going to feel terrible.
I was talking to a client recently who told me, you know, early on the process she was like super committed, ready to go. She was all in and you know, we talked about hey, you know at times this is going to be hard. You’ve got to be willing to, you know, embrace the suck times. It’s gonna be hard, expect to be hard.
She’s like, yeah, I got this. I know it’s gonna be hard. I’m ready for it, bring it on. And then after a month or two something happened with work. She kind of went off the plan. And getting back on track was really, really hard. She found it very, very hard to get back on the plane. And I remember being on a call with her and she said she was like experiencing all this guilt and shame and just couldn’t get her mojo back and, and it was really hard.
And I said, yeah, remember back when I said, this was going to be hard and you need to embrace the suck? Well, this is what I’m talking about. This is what hard feels like she was like, oh, wow, that’s cool. Like, it just clicked for her. That like, for some reason, even though going into it, intellectually, she knew, oh, this is supposed to be hard, it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna be hard.
But then when you’re actually in it, and it gets hard, and you’re like, oh, it shouldn’t be this way. It should be easy. It’s not easy. And this is what hard feels like. So stop thinking it’s supposed to be easy. It’s not. And it’s not just you, it gets hard for everybody at some point. Expect it to be hard, because it will be.
And then when it does get hard, and it’s like, oh, this is very challenging right now, you can gently remind yourself, oh, yeah, this is what hard feels like. So that first message that I think we get from a lot of people out there, a lot on social media, other coaches, nutrition experts, dieticians, whatever. There’s this underlying sort of presupposition that it should be easy, and it’s not easy. It is hard. Okay. So first accept that.
The second thing is that we just shouldn’t have setbacks like we should, you should just do it perfectly. This is a message that I think we get from the outside world at times, but more often, internally. That you should be able to do this perfectly, and you should never fail. And that was always me. This internal dialogue always tells me that I am different. I don’t fail, I do things perfectly. And I shouldn’t have failures. I shouldn’t have setbacks.
This is a problem. Because here’s why. When you do experience a setback, and you will, you feel like you shouldn’t be experiencing that setback. And this is something that I call fighting against what is. You are fighting against the way things are. You are so keen on being perfect, that when things go awry, and they always do – you think well, it shouldn’t be this way. This is not the way it’s supposed to be.
But this causes a lot of suffering. This thing of where you’re like this, things should be different. As soon as you start thinking things should be different, you start suffering. That’s it. Most human suffering is due to this to us wanting things to be different, but they aren’t. Most human suffering is just us fighting against what is. And we do it all the freaking time.
When we refuse to accept that things are the way they are. When we refuse to accept the way things are we suffer, we experience inner turmoil that doesn’t change the way things are. We just experienced all kinds of inner suffering. So the way through this is to learn what I call radical acceptance. That means accepting the way things are. Accepting reality, just as it is. No judgments, no criticisms, no thinking and wishing things were different.
Practicing radical acceptance in every aspect of your life, if you do this, you will stop your own internal suffering. Everything will still be the way it is. But your inner turmoil disappears because you’re accepting of the way things are. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. You’ll know that things are the way they’re supposed to be because that’s the way they are.
It’s funny because we will do something, we will experience something and look back on it and go well, that shouldn’t have gone that way. And I always say well, you know, it was supposed to go that way because that’s the way it happened. That’s the way it happened. It was supposed to be that way because that’s the way it happened. As soon as you just accept all of this, everything gets easier. You’re no longer fighting against everything. So practice radical acceptance.
This does not mean you don’t work to improve things, or change or learn from your mistakes. Of course not. We always want to be learning and growing and evolving and becoming more, you can still accept everything just as it is and work to change. This is a very, very, very key distinction here.
Accepting the way things are does not mean that we are passive, that does not mean that we accept, well, I’m just going to like, gain two pounds a week for the rest of my life until I blow up and die. Like, no, it doesn’t have to be that way.
You can work to change, while accepting the way things are. This kind of a radical concept, right? Most people do not do this. And most people suffer through everything in their life. Setbacks are to be expected. As soon as you accept this fact, it’s going to make a big difference for you.
And I think the third message we get around experiencing setbacks is that see, we often get emotional about this stuff. And there’s this underlying message out there, that we shouldn’t get emotional. That we just shouldn’t be emotional people, especially guys.
This is a sneaky one, because it’s not something that’s often you know, actually said out loud. But I think there’s an underlying vibe that we just shouldn’t be emotional, shouldn’t show our feelings, shouldn’t feel our feelings, just get over it and move on. And especially in the health and fitness community, there’s a lot of, you know, macho bravado out there.
And I think there’s a place for that. And I kind of like some of that at times. But other times I’m like, you know, it’s okay, that as men, especially, that we can just, we do have feelings, we do have emotions, and it’s okay to experience that stuff. It’s okay to have those emotions and feelings.
Listen, we are human beings. Every human being has emotions, we are emotional animals. It’s what makes us awesome, what makes us human. There’s no other animals on the planet that experience the vast array of in depth emotions that we do.
There are animals that experience emotions, they’ve shown this before, but not the way that we do. It’s not to the extent that we do. So having emotions is normal. It’s a part of being human. So that’s cool. Being emotional, having emotions is not the problem. We get into trouble when we allow our emotions to dictate our behavior. That’s when we run into problems.
So, for example, you experience some kind of setback, like you have a big change at work, and you got all this new work to do. And maybe they let a couple people go, you’ve got to take over their responsibilities. It’s a lot of work that you have to do now, a lot of internal stress. So your goal now becomes just I gotta get rid of this stress as fast as possible. So how do you do that?
Well, how have you always gotten rid of stress? Eat, drink, binge watch your favorite shows on Netflix, sleep in, skip your workouts, do whatever feels good. Because that’s going to make you feel better, right? That’s going to remove the stress right now.
It doesn’t work and we know that, but we have the setbacks and then we allow the emotions of that experience to drive our behavior. When you allow this to happen, you are no longer in control. Your emotions have taken the wheel and they are driving the bus. Okay? We cannot allow our emotions to be in charge. We cannot allow our emotions to dictate our behavior. And this will also happen when we experience a setback and then we beat ourselves up about it. ‘I’m worthless. I can’t stick to my plan. I’m a failure. I suck at this. I’ll never lose weight. I’m ashamed of myself. I’m a piece of crap.’
This is like self flagellation, right? And it sends you spiraling downward into the abyss of negative emotions. And again, how do you mitigate that? Will you turn to food and drink and Netflix and whatever to suit yourself and feel better. Even though you know, this is not a long term solution, you’re chasing immediate pleasure in the midst of pain because it just feels good. You just want to feel good.
And you end up sacrificing your long term goals for a little bit of short term pleasure. So the big problem here isn’t being emotional. The big problem isn’t having emotions, that’s normal. We’re human, we should have emotions, we should experience our emotions. The problem is when we allow our emotions to drive our behavior.
So you have to allow yourself to experience those emotions without trying to make them go away. You have to allow yourself to be emotional and experience an emotion. Process that emotion, feel your feelings, allow the emotions to move through you, without doing anything, to numb yourself or to, to feel different; just feel bad.
That is a crazy concept right there. Most people do not want to feel bad. People do not want to do this because it does feel terrible. It’s supposed to feel terrible, though they are negative emotions by default. They are negative feelings. It feels negative, it feels terrible. But what if you just could experience these emotions and not do anything about it? Ah, this is how you become an emotional badass right here.
Oh, I’m willing to experience that emotion. I’m willing to experience some guilt, or shame or feeling like crap. I’m willing to experience all that stuff. If you get good at that, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. So feel the emotion, allow it to be there, do nothing. Don’t try to numb it. Don’t try to make it go away. Just feel it, it will eventually fade and go away.
Think about the times you’ve been in emotional distress. And you’ve just felt so terrible. You can look back on those moments and say like, oh, yeah, that was like, a few hours, a few minutes a day, whatever. Depends on the type of emotion we’re talking about here and the intensity of it right? Most of the time, though, it always passes, it eventually goes away. You can choose to just experience it and feel it and process it. Or you can just numb yourself to that stuff. Don’t do that though.
Become an emotional badass. Instead practice this. This is something you do have to practice. It is not easy. It’s not for the timid. Okay, so, setbacks, they are inevitable. They are part of the process of growth and change and evolving and becoming more. Handling setbacks like a badass means knowing that your journey will be hard. And you keep continuing on anyway, you just keep going anyway.
It means accepting that everything that happens is as it should be. And then you can work to change when necessary, but accepting everything as is because that’s the way it’s supposed to be. And then allowing your emotions to be there without trying to numb them or push them away. And without letting them drive your behavior. This is how you handle setbacks, like a total badass.
If you want to learn more about getting started on your weight loss journey, join me for that free live training and coaching session called How To Start Losing Weight As A Runner on Wednesday, May 17. I’ll be going live to show you how to get started on your weight loss journey the right way. I’ll be answering your questions live. So be sure to show up. Bring your questions and get a little coaching, cool. Go to runningleancoaching.com/live to sign up. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will 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.
Most people think that losing weight equals suffering. If you want to lose weight you have to stop eating all “delicious” foods forever and you will suffer every single day. They use words like …
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 172 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, can losing weight be fun? So most people think that losing weight equals suffering. If you want to lose weight, you have to stop eating all the quote-unquote delicious foods forever. And you’re basically going to suffer every single day.
They use words like suffering and struggling and deprivation and starvation and white knuckling it. And I don’t know about you, but all of this sounds pretty terrible to me. If this is what you think losing weight looks like, if you’re suffering every day trying to lose weight, you are doing it wrong. Today, I’m digging into this concept of making healthy eating and losing weight fun.
Can losing weight be fun? Armed with the right mindset, I think it can absolutely be fun. But first, it’s been drilled into our heads that if you’re a runner, you have to eat carbs, lots and lots of carbs. The truth is, though, in two and a half million years of human evolution, we’ve never relied solely on carbs to run long distances, we just never have.
We burn fat, lots of fat, the idea of not using gels, and goos and stuff to run – this isn’t crazy. This isn’t some new fringe concept. It’s actually baked into our DNA. Humans are naturally excellent fat burners. But we’ve gotten far away from that in the last few decades. When you adapt to burning fat for fuel, you will have all the energy you need for running your own stored body fat, right?
We’re not talking about eating bacon and lard or whatever this is like your own stored body fat becomes your fuel source. Plus, if you want to lose weight, what do you have to do? You’ve got to burn fat, you’ve got to burn that stored body fat. So this whole concept of that adaptation, it’s a beautiful thing all the way around.
You really don’t need to eat a ton of carbs to run, you can eat some, that’s fine. You can become fat adapted, though and start using your own body fat as fuel. When you get fat adapted, you’ll never run out of fuel, you’ll be able to run basically all day, and you lose weight in the process. It’s a win win-win.
Learn more about my unique approach to weight loss for runners and join the Coaching Project. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. Okay, I mentioned something in last week’s podcast, or maybe it was a couple weeks ago about creating habits and trying to make things fun. And I just sort of touched on this idea of, you know, changing your habits eating healthy and how it can be fun.
And I got some questions about that. So I’m like, you know what, I need to just address this today. Because I think there’s this concept that when you change your diet, and when you start exercising, if you want to lose weight, like it’s just not going to be fun. Like you have to suffer your way through this whole process. I think most people believe that if you want to lose weight, you have to suffer. It has to be about suffering and struggling and excessive hunger and deprivation and white knuckling it. And this all sounds like super terrible, right?
The problem with this thinking, if you believe that in order to lose weight, you’re going to have to suffer for the rest of your life, that is absolutely not sustainable. There’s no way you can maintain that level of suffering forever. And so a lot of people believe this. They believe that losing weight equals suffering forever, never going to eat good food again. Got to eat bland, cardboard tasting stuff for the rest of my life. I’m going to be freaking out and feeling deprived every time I’m around some sort of quote-unquote delicious food. Like I just there’s no way I can deal with that. And so they just quit. There’s like, there’s no way I can do that for the rest of my life.
And many of you listening to this right now I know that you are good at suffering already. Like you’re a runner, like you’ve probably run marathons or ultra marathons or half marathons or whatever. Just training for an event like that and training for a marathon requires a lot of suffering.
Like you, there’s months of suffering, I gotta get up early. And it’s cold in the wintertime and like, you know, go run in the rain and run the snow and the ice and the wind and push yourself through the miles and you know that hurts. PR during a marathon is painful, there is pain involved in improving your time.
Every time you want to run a marathon, qualify for Boston, whatever that looks like for you. There’s pain involved, there’s suffering involved, not just in the race itself, but in the months of training that lead up to them. So we are good as runners, we are good at suffering, we can do that. We know what that looks like.
And I’ve suffered so much doing hard races. I have never run a marathon that at some point I didn’t say, ‘why do I even do this, this sucks so bad right now.’ And I remember running my 100 miler, and that’s a whole new level of pain and suffering, my friends, I’m just going to tell you right now, that this is something that I haven’t done again, since because there’s so much pain and suffering involved with that is like 28 hours of pain and suffering involved with that, right?
So runners, we can endure a lot of pain and suffering, we can deal with that, we’re good at this, right? But when I say to you, like, you know, what, just, you know, limit how much like pizza you’re eating or ice cream, like, you know, maybe just not eat that much. Immediately this becomes some type of suffering that you’re just like not willing to endure, right? Think about that for just a second.
You’re going to do all the hard work required to let’s say, qualify for Boston. So hard to do that. Right? You will suffer for months. And during that race itself, you’re going to be running so hard, you’re going to deal with so much pain, that, but if I say like, hey, don’t eat ice cream for 30 days, or 60 days or something like that, it’s like, oh, my god, I can’t do it. Right? It just becomes in our mind, it becomes something that we’re just not willing to deal with. Right? So this is why most people don’t even start.
Now, there is some suffering at the beginning. Like when you change your diet, there’s going to be a little bit of, you know, deprivation, you’re going to feel a little bit like, oh, what am I supposed to eat? I can’t eat sugar, I can’t eat, you know, processed flours and things like that. And whatever your plan looks like, everybody’s a little bit different.
But let’s just say you’re not eating pizza and ice cream. And you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m you know, this is hard, right? Yeah, it is hard at the beginning. Over time, that gets better. That gets better. Like it’s this is not going to last forever. I think we all know that, right. But if you believe that, you know, the rest of your life, you’re going to be suffering and struggling, no one’s going to sign up for that.
No one on this planet is going to sign up for that. I don’t care how much pain you can endure during an ultramarathon or something like that, nobody is going to sign up for a lifetime of suffering and struggling around food, right?
So there’s a mindset that this is too hard, I’m going to feel deprived for the rest of my life, screw this, it’s not worth it. And that mindset is just wrong, you have to change that, right? But most people, they just come at this whole process like losing weight, the whole journey of losing weight, is just going to feel so terrible forever that they quit or never start.
But when you do that, you’re really giving up what you really want for yourself. You want to get healthier, you want to be stronger, you want to feel good in your body, you want to feel confident, you want to run faster, whatever it is. Losing weight is actually just sort of a nice side effect of all those things.
Like you’re trying to become this healthiest version of yourself. And losing weight is just a little nice side benefit in the process. But you give all that up when you quit on yourself because you think it’s gonna be too hard or you make it too hard, right?
Becoming a fit, strong, healthy human being means you’re probably going to have to change some things. If you want to lose some weight, you’re gonna have to make some changes, you’re probably gonna have to give up a couple of these foods that you’ve been eating, or maybe not eat as much of some of these foods. Really limit how much pizza you eat.
I eat pizza every now and then. I eat some tacos here and there, I had some sushi a couple weeks ago. It’s great. I don’t do that all the time. But there will be some amount of discomfort there will be some amount of suffering involved. It should be minimal. It shouldn’t be temporary.
Changing your diet, changing anything for that matter, comes with some amount of discomfort, right? Just accept this, right? Let’s accept this and move on. It’s gonna happen. It’s typically at the beginning, it’s not a lifetime of pain and suffering and struggling. If it is, you’re doing it wrong. And I want to clear one thing up right away. The goal of all this, the goal of losing weight, or eating healthy, is not to have fun. It’s to be a fit healthy human being and do what it takes to stick with that, like make this your lifestyle.
To live your life as a fit, healthy human being, that means there will be some struggle, some suffering, some times that are not so good. That’s okay, that’s part of the process, there’s also going to be some times where it is fun, where it feels great, just like running.
But if you want to get stronger, let’s say, you’ve got to lift the heavy weights. Lifting heavy weights is hard, it hurts. There’s a certain amount of suffering involved, right. But is that fun? The results are fun. Looking in the mirror and seeing your abs for the first time since you were like 12. That’s fun. Having your shirts fit tight around your arms. That’s fun for the guys, maybe, maybe for the ladies, too.
If you want to lose weight, you have to endure a little bit of suffering like not eating pizza. That’s not fun. Not drinking any alcohol when everybody else at the table is drinking is not necessarily fun. But you know what is fun? Not waking up with a hangover the next day, stepping on the scale and seeing a lower number, that’s fun.
Fitting into that pair of jeans again, that’s fun. Feeling confident enough to wear a two piece bathing suit, or to maybe take your shirt off at the beach, guys only probably, depending on what beach you’re at, that’s fun. So it’s not going to be fun and games all the time. And you have to accept that, right?
You’ve got to kind of do some of the hard things in order to reap the benefits in order to have the fun. Running is hard, right? We do it anyway because we love how we feel afterward. We love pushing ourselves. We love accomplishing big things. We love seeing what we’re capable of. We love accomplishing more and running faster and running further.
But running is not always fun. Running is hard. A lot of times running is hard. I did two runs last weekend, I’m training for this Ultra. And on Saturday, I ran 24 miles. On Sunday I ran 10. Right, that was on the schedule. That’s what I told myself I was going to do. I did the 24 on Saturday and was pretty good. I felt good. Felt pretty strong, and recovered quickly from that run.
And the next day I set out to do 10. And every step of that 10 miles was terrible. It was so hard. I’m like oh my god, this is so hard. And if my belief is that running is supposed to be fun all the time. I’m quitting like right now, I’m not doing any of this, running is hard. Let’s just be honest, like running is hard.
You know, I’m putting in these miles because what I want for myself is to finish this Ultra and I, you know, I’m putting in the miles and I’m doing the hard things now so that I can reap the benefits and finish this thing. Now this Ultra I’m doing is going to be another level of heart. And that’s okay, I’m building the strength and the endurance and all that right now to be able to finish this thing.
But sometimes, running is hard. Sometimes, losing weight is hard, sometimes sticking with the plan, and not eating the pizza, and not drinking the beers after work or whatever is hard. Losing weight is hard sometimes, but we do it anyway because we’re committed to that process.
We’re committed to this as a lifestyle. I saw this quote the other day, which I thought was so awesome, it said, “How long does it take the average person to run a marathon?” That was like a question that was posed and the answer underneath it said, “Average people don’t run marathons.” I thought, damn, I love that!
I love that because we are not average people. We want more for ourselves. Average people don’t do the hard things. Average people will not deal with any amount of suffering or struggling in order to lose the way because it’s hard. But you’re not average. You’re willing to do the hard things so that you can become more, right?
Another thing I want you to think about is what does fun even mean to you? Is running intervals fun? I don’t know. Probably not. I’m going to say no. But how good you feel afterwards, that’s fun. Is doing the work to PR a marathon fun? No, but there’s some elation that you feel when you cross the finish line that is out of this world. I
s it fun to skip dessert? No. But when you see that number on the scale go down again, that’s fun. You got to reframe fun. Is it fun to binge out on like fried food? It might feel like it at the time, listen, I can’t eat this stuff. I eat fried food and I feel terrible for like three days. I’m sluggish, I can’t think straight. I got to stay away from this stuff. Stay away from fried food. If you just do one thing, stay away from fried food.
You know what is fun though? Waking up every morning feeling good. Having lots of energy, having a clear head. That’s fun. So we have to kind of reframe our idea of fun and maybe push some of this short term pleasure off the table, in favor of what we really want for ourselves long term.
And one thing I just have to say right here is like fun is subjective. What might be fun for me is not going to be fun for you necessarily. How you make weight loss fun, or how you make running fun is gonna be different for each person. So we have to come up with some ideas that feel good individually. But I’m gonna give you some examples here.
So how can you make running fun, let’s say one thing I love is running with friends. If you have a group of people you can run with regularly, that is fun. I have had more fun in my running group over the last, whatever, 15 years, basically running with the same people for that amount of time.
It is so amazing because we do hard things, but we do them together. And we laugh and we joke around, there’s always a joke of the day, usually super inappropriate. And super fun. Mix up your workouts, don’t do the same workouts all the time, change things up, leave your watch at home. That’s kind of fun. Just go out there and run. Leave your phone at home. They call this running naked.
It doesn’t mean running without clothes on, I want to make that very clear. Running naked means leaving your watch and your phone at home and just going for a run and paying attention to your breathing and to your surroundings. And like it’s just different, you know, run somewhere new, pick a new route somewhere you’ve never been before.
Get out in nature, run on a beach, one of my favorite things to do in the world is run on a beach. If you can do that, if you have any access to a beach, go do that right now. Run on trails, run up a mountain, get out in nature and run in nature, it’s amazing. This is what we do as human beings, we’ve just evolved to run in nature. So do more of that.
How can you make losing weight fun? Do it with friends. You know, one of the big reasons I have a group component to my coaching program is that we do it together. You know we support each other, we do coaching together, and we encourage each other and we’re there for each other.
We share ideas, and we share what works for us and what doesn’t work. And it’s more fun to do with friends. Plain and simple. Try new foods. What foods do you love? And by the way, there are so many choices for healthy foods out there. It’s literally limitless.
I hear people say this all the time. “I don’t know what to eat. There’s nothing to eat.” This is just a cop out. This is an excuse. There are a few foods that we try to stay away from like, I’ll tell people like maybe we start out with stay away from sugar, flour, vegetable oils, you cut out those three things.
“Oh my gosh, what’s left?” Literally everything else in the world. Everything else. Eat more protein, stay away from junk food. And then the choices are limitless from there. I love burgers and I found a bunch of new burger places around town here. And we go to these burger places and they do a great job of like making a burger with a lettuce wrap.
I don’t eat flour and leave you know the bun, whatever. So I’ll get a lettuce wrap burger. Oh, get an extra patty on there and put all kinds of stuff on there. Veggies, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, jalapenos, and a fried egg on there, whatever. It’s like super delicious and just love eating burgers again, you know?
I like pizza, all the pizza here. I’ll make my own crust. You know. Try new places, new foods, new recipes. Eating healthy can be fun. If it’s not fun to some degree, it doesn’t have to be fun all the time, you’re probably doing it wrong. Okay.
Another way of making this whole process of eating healthy and losing weight fun is rewarding yourself. Reward yourself for sticking to the plan. Don’t reward yourself with food. Don’t reward yourself with like, oh I stuck to my plan for the last week I’m going to eat a pizza, I’m going to eat ice cream, I’m going to, you know, eat a bunch of candy. No, don’t do that. That’s called self sabotaging behavior. We don’t do that.
Reward yourself with things like a massage, or go to a museum or get a new pair of running shoes. How about that, or a new shirt or pair of jeans or bathing suit or something. Reward yourself with something that feels good. Make it fun.
Go out in the woods, take a hike, get out in nature, take a weekend trip somewhere, it doesn’t have to be somewhere far away, or expensive or whatever. Just do something to reward yourself for sticking with the plan. Again, fun is subjective. So what’s fun for you? Like how many ways can you come up with to make losing weight fun for you?
And I talk about all this stuff here on the podcast. But listen, if you really want to change, you’ve got to do stuff, right? The only way you can produce results is by taking action. Action produces results, thinking about stuff doesn’t give you results.
So when this podcast is over, I want you to get a notebook or journal and I want you to spend a few minutes and write down all the different ways that you can make losing weight fun. Answer these questions. How can I make eating healthy, more fun for me? How can I make sticking to my plan more fun for me? How can I make exercise more fun for me? How can I make running more fun for me?
Ask yourself all these questions, write down all the answers, you should probably be able to come up with 100 different answers to these questions total, you know, something like that. 50, whatever, come up with as many as you can, the more fun you make it, the more likely you are to stick with it.
Another concept I want you to kind of wrap your head around is this. Over time, your palette will change. You may think that eating healthy is gonna be boring, I’m not gonna like it and it’s not going to taste good. And when you first change your diet, and you first stop eating some of these hyper palatable foods, your taste buds may be like where’s the good stuff, quote-unquote good stuff?
Where’s the overly processed hyper palatable foods? Like, over time your taste buds will change. And things will start to become more delicious to you, the simple foods will become more delicious to you. For example, one of the things that I love to eat, I love eating steak with salt on it like that is one of my favorite things to eat. It’s so simple. And this is from a guy who didn’t eat meat for like 10 years.
And now I just love it’s like such a beautiful thing. You know, a nice ribeye grilled with some salt. That’s it. It’s so good. And that’s all I need. Chicken and broccoli is one of my other favorite things. It’s just, you know, broiled chicken with broccoli. That’s it. And some butter and salt on that broccoli. Oh my gosh, so delicious. My mouth just like explodes with flavor. And I’m like, this is so good.
But it wasn’t good at the beginning. It was hard. It was like, this is like, I want a pizza, I want bread, I want sugar, or whatever. And I don’t need all that stuff anymore. My tastes have changed, my palette has changed. I find so much satisfaction and fun eating a super simple diet. It’s not complicated. It’s not, you know, super exciting. But it’s also fun to eat this way. It really is. Food can be fun, every meal doesn’t have to be some magical spiritual experience. Okay?
Over time when your tastes change these simple foods will become more fun for you to promise. If you’re trying to lose weight and you’re suffering, you’re suffering long term, you are doing it wrong. It’s not sustainable, you’ll quit. Right? It’s kind of like doing speed work every single day, you are going to hate running very quickly, you’re gonna burn yourself out, and you’re gonna quit because that is not sustainable.
And then listen, if you want to have more fun on your weight loss journey, consider joining us in the Coaching Project where we actually have fun. This is my lifetime access program. We support each other, we encourage each other, we learn from each other, you get live coaching with me every week, twice a week. And this makes the process of losing weight actually fun.
Just like running alone is not as fun as running with a group. Being on this weight loss journey alone is not as fun as doing it with a group like the coaching project. Cool. 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.
When you think about “endurance”, what comes to mind? Since you’re most likely a runner, your mind probably conjures up images of slogging out miles and miles on the roads or trails. And you’d …
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 161 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. Today I’m talking about the other side of endurance. So, when you think about endurance, what comes to mind, since you’re most likely a runner listening to this podcast, your mind probably conjures up images of slogging out a bunch of miles on the roads or on the trails, and you’d be correct.
Building this kind of physical endurance is one of the keys to being a healthy fit human being. But there’s another side of endurance one that doesn’t get discussed much. This other type of endurance is one of the most valuable life skills that you need to learn and master. So today, I’m going to explain exactly what this other side of endurance actually is, and why it’s so important to you becoming your most badass self.
But first, listen to this. Most people, even runners think that gaining weight is just a fact of life. And I understand why the average American gains an average of one to two pounds of fat per year from early adulthood through middle age. And even if you’re an avid runner, you’re not immune to these stats. The reason most people gain weight isn’t that they’re, you know, they’re not trying hard enough, or they don’t track their food properly, or they’re not running enough.
People gain weight because they’re eating what they think is a healthy diet. But it’s actually not, you know, you’ve probably been told to eat this high carbohydrate diet full of cereal grains and sugars and industrial seed oils based on the food pyramid or my plate or whatever the hell they’re calling it these days. And it just doesn’t work, right?
So listen, it’s not your fault. You’re just doing what you’ve been told to do, but it just doesn’t work at all. Okay, continually gaining weight as you age is not a fact of life, it’s actually something you can control with the right approach. In my unique weight loss coaching program for runners, I’ll put together a personalized plan that works for you based off of your goals, your personality, your lifestyle, your likes and dislikes.
And then I’ll help you stick to that plan so that you can actively hit all of your weight loss and your running goals. And all you have to say is Patrick, yes, I’m ready. Let’s do this. To learn more and apply for coaching, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. And you can get started right away.
Alright, let’s talk about the other side of endurance. So most people, especially runners understand what endurance means. And of course, we’re talking about sort of that physical side of endurance, right? If you’re a long-distance runner, building endurance means being able to run longer, being able to run farther, pushing the limits of how long you can last out there on the roads or the trails, right. And I’ve done this many times.
When I first started running many years ago, I could run like a mile. And I didn’t think I could ever run three miles without having to like stop and like completely catch my breath. And so I didn’t think I could ever run like a 5k until I did. And then I never thought I could run a 10k. And I remember training myself to run three miles and four miles and five miles, and then finally being able to run 10k, and so I did that. And then I just kind of skipped the whole half marathon thing and then just went from the 10k straight to the marathon. That’s just me, but I didn’t think I would be able to run a marathon.
Never in my life was somebody who was like, oh, yeah, you know, go run a marathon. I was drinking and smoking cigarettes and eating the crap diet and I was way overweight. And in those days, there was no way I thought, you know, if or be capable of running a marathon, but then I did. BTdubs, I you know, quit drinking and quit smoking and quit eating junk food and stuff like that.
And as part of this whole process of being a long distance runner it’s really hard to like smoke cigarettes and be a long distance runner at the same time, just so you know. But then I pushed myself even farther, 50k, 50 mile, 100 mile. So I’ve constantly pushed myself to see what I’m capable of, how much endurance can I handle?
And so over the years, I’ve actively built my endurance. So how do you build your endurance physically, right? You have got to improve your cardiovascular system, right, you have to build that aerobic engine. And one of the ways to do this is just to run a lot and run a lot of miles and continually increase the miles that you’re running.
And you’ve got to do this the right way, you don’t want to injure yourself, you don’t want to increase your mileage too, too much too soon. So increase your mileage slowly. But over the years, I was able to increase my ability to endure while running. Right. And this means that you’re more aerobically fit, this means you can get out there and you can run longer distances. And you’ve really built a strong aerobic engine, right?
So we kind of understand this whole idea of endurance from that standpoint, right. There’s a couple other things about building endurance that you may not have thought about, maybe you do know some of these things. But getting more aerobic than fit also helps you physically in other ways, for example, you know, you get this improved cardiovascular health.
So your whole cardio cardiovascular system, your body’s ability to pump blood through your system and you know, pump blood to working muscles, and deliver oxygen to working muscles improves dramatically, you can lower your blood pressure. So regular aerobic activity helps to lower blood pressure is why most experienced runners tend to have pretty low blood pressure which helps you to regulate blood sugar.
So improving your cardiovascular system helps regulate insulin levels to keep blood sugar normal. Improving your aerobic engine also helps improve sleep. They did some studies, and they’ve showed that people that who exercise aerobically regularly have better sleep quality and and better duration of sleep. And then obviously, better sleep means less stress.
So, you’ll be more likely to lose weight as well, which is awesome. Having a strong aerobic engine means that you have a strengthened immune system, because being more cardiovascularly fit increases the amount of antibodies in the blood, these antibodies are called immunoglobulins, which is just a fun word to say.
So you get a stronger immune system, you get improved cognitive function, you know, having a better aerobic engine helps to boost brain power. And it helps slow the brain deterioration as you age. And I love this one so much: it makes you feel happier. Improving your aerobic engine will help stave off the feelings of depression, and boost your mood almost immediately and make you feel happier. So you get this immediate mood boost when you do some aerobic activity. I think we’ve probably all experienced that. Right?
So there’s lots of reasons why we want to improve our aerobic engine, why we want to become more aerobically fit, why wouldn’t we want to build our endurance, right? Endurance is about going longer. And just a little sidebar on this. The preferred fuel source for long distance aerobic activity is fat. So when you switch up your nutrition regimen, and you get fat adapted, this is going to greatly improve your body’s ability to burn fat, which means you’ll improve that aerobic engine even more, you’ll become sort of an endurance badass, right?
Fat is an amazing source of fuel for endurance athletes. So the longer you’re fat adapted, the more efficient you become at utilizing fat as fuel, the more your endurance improves. So just understand that, you know, one of the reasons why we switch our diet and get off of all the carbs and all the sugars and all that junk food is that we want to just create a much more efficient fat burning machine in ourselves, right? So just understand that that whole idea of becoming fat adapted has a lot to do with being able to run longer distances being able to endure longer. Okay.
So physical endurance, like we’ve been talking about, like being able to run long distances. It’s important, right? It’s vital to your life if you want to be a healthy, happy human being. But there’s another side to endurance that most runners and a lot of running coaches and people in general don’t really talk about. And that is not the physical endurance required for running hours and hours, but rather, this is the mental and emotional endurance that’s required for accomplishing just about anything that’s worthwhile. Okay?
When we talk about challenge of accomplishing big goals, big goals are challenging, right? If they were easy, everyone would do it, right. That’s why we call these big goals because they are hard, right? An example would be like losing weight and keeping it off for good, or starting your own business, or qualifying for Boston, or passing the bar, or maintaining a healthy, happy relationship with your partner.
All of these things are hard. They all present big challenges. And they all take a while, sometimes years to achieve, you know, I know, people who have been trying to qualify for Boston for years, they’ve put in a lot of hard work to do that. And it’s really hard sometimes to achieve these things, right? Nothing worthwhile comes easy. We have to remember that, right?
It’s the challenges that change us. It’s the challenges we overcome, in the process of going after these big goals that cause us to grow, to evolve, to level up to become those badass runners that we want to become. So, you have to understand that big goals come with big challenges, right?
In order to achieve these things, you have to develop that other kind of endurance, the mental and emotional endurance that’s required to get you through those big challenges. Another way of saying this, another word for this mental and emotional endurance would be mental toughness. Mental Toughness is your ability to endure all of the challenges, all of the stressors that come along with, you know, accomplishing something big.
Mental Toughness is what’s going to keep you going when the going gets tough. And it always does, the going always gets tough, right? Mental Toughness is actually something you probably do already, because it’s required for running, especially running long distances, right? You need mental toughness to get across the finish line. Because sometimes, you know, there’s this point during a race, it could be a hard 5k, or a half marathon, full marathon or ultra, whatever, there’s going to be a time during that event where your body just wants to quit, your body is like this is not a good idea what we’re doing here, your body’s going to tell you this is not something I want to keep doing; your mind has to override your body at that point. That’s mental toughness.
Your mind has to override the pain and the misery that you’re experiencing. Your mind has to override that natural tendency that your brain has to just seek pleasure, seek pleasure and avoid pain to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. That’s mental toughness, right? That ability to override what your body is trying to tell you in that in those moments, right. So mental toughness is required for running, it’s required for being able to finish a marathon or qualify for Boston or to like I said, lose weight and be able to keep it off for good. It’s, it’s required for all these things that are hard that are challenging for us.
Mental Toughness separates the finishers from the quitters, the people that quit, give up, not mentally tough. The people who stick with it no matter what, mentally tough, they have built that mental and emotional endurance. So this mental emotional endurance, it’s required to achieve any kind of goal that you want for yourself, right. And I mentioned an example of like losing weight and keeping it off for good, this is hard to do.
This is why I coach on this. It’s not something that is easy to do. If it was easy, you wouldn’t need me you probably wouldn’t be listening to this right now. So what would this look like? So having this kind of endurance, developing this kind of endurance is mental toughness means that, you know, let’s say you want to lose 50 pounds, right? It means you’re gonna have to develop a food plan, you’re gonna have to develop a nutrition plan that fits your lifestyle that also helps you achieve your running goals because, you know, we got to be able to do both.
You know, this isn’t about like restricting calories like crazy or doing the cabbage soup diet or something like that, right? You got to focus on protein, you gotta get enough fat in your diet. Like we got to make sure that we’re focusing on the right kinds of carbs and things like that. So we’re gonna put a plan together and then that mental toughness is required for you to stick to that plan.
That mental and emotional endurance is required. If you want to stick to your plan every day, no matter what. It means you’ve developed the endurance to stay on track. Even when it’s hard, even when no one’s watching you, even when you’re having a bad day, even when you’re just stressed out, or when you just don’t feel like it.
That mental toughness means you’re willing to do the hard things, and you do them consistently. That doesn’t mean that this is always hard, it doesn’t mean that sticking to your plan is always hard. There are times when it is hard, though. But you don’t quit. You don’t quit because you’re tired, you don’t quit because you don’t feel like it, you only quit when you’re done.
So that’s what we mean by building that mental toughness, that other side of endurance. And what it really means is that you are being in integrity with yourself. So you’re actually doing what you said you’re going to do. So what most people do is this, they say they’re going to eat right. And they don’t, most people say they’re going to run consistently. And they don’t. Most people say they’re going to you know, they join a gym and they say they’re gonna go to the gym three times a week.
And then by February 1, they stopped going all together, because they made this New Year’s resolution that said they were going to go to the gym three times a week. So they join that gym that had the great special going. And then they quit. This is not being in integrity with yourself, right? This is the opposite of that. Being in integrity with yourself means that your actions, the things you do, your actions are in alignment with your goals.
So if you want to lose weight, you stop eating junk food, and you stick to that plan. You don’t occasionally eat a bunch of junk food, you don’t binge out on junk food, you don’t, you know, swing by Wednesdays on your way home from work just because you’re having this craving, right? You act in alignment with your goals.
Your goals are, I’m not eating junk food, I want to lose this weight, I want to keep it off, I want to change my whole relationship with food, stop eating junk food, I want this to be a thing of the past, then you need to stick with that plan. That’s what it means to be in alignment in integrity with yourself. Your actions are in alignment with your goals, right? This is simple, right?
Not being in integrity is when your actions are not in alignment with your goals. So you want to lose weight. You know, you got to stop eating the junk food, but you keep eating the french fries and the pizza and ice cream. And you keep guzzling all those post run beers with the running group, I see you out there.
These actions are not in alignment with your goal to lose weight, right they are, they are going to keep your body packing on the pounds. So you’re going to keep packing on weight if you keep acting that way. So that’s not being in alignment with yourself that is not being in integrity with yourself. And this idea of being in integrity with yourself, it requires mental toughness. Because it’s hard to stick to your plan.
It’s hard to not eat the french fries, it’s hard to not eat the pizza, it’s hard to not drink all those beers after a run. It’s hard to eat right and do it consistently. But this is the work that you have to do. You have to learn how to develop this mental toughness not just for running. But for every goal that you have for yourself, everything that is important to you. That’s just like another type of training that you have to do. Right, you want to run longer distances.
So you train your body to run longer, you continually push yourself a little bit you build up your mileage, you improve your cardiovascular system, you improve that aerobic engine, and you keep doing the training so that you can build that endurance for running so for running longer and longer distances. Well, you have to build mental and emotional endurance the exact same way.
So with all my clients, we work on this we work on developing mental toughness. We work on developing the emotional and mental endurance required to help them stick to their plan to help them to stay on track to keep them moving in the direction of their goals to keep them making progress toward their weight loss goals and their running goals to so we work on doing the hard stuff of consistently acting in alignment with their goals.
And here’s the thing I wish I could tell you that this was super are easy, and it doesn’t take much time. And you’ll get it right away. And you’ll never fail. And it’ll be perfect. I wish I could say all that. But that is not the case at all. This is the hard work that we do. And sometimes this takes a while. You know, I mentioned someone that was trying to qualify for Boston has been trying for years. And they keep trying, they’re not going to give up. And you know what, they’re going to accomplish that at some point, because they’re not giving up.
Here’s the thing I have to say about this, though, this is probably the most rewarding work that you can possibly do for yourself. When you work to build mental and emotional endurance, then there’s almost nothing that you won’t be able to accomplish. You’ll set your mind to accomplish some huge, quote unquote, like impossible goal, something that today feels too big for you to too huge, it’s impossible for who you are today. And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to get busy doing the work required to get you there. And then staying on track with that plan, it’s not going to be a question. There’s no question.
Of course, you’re gonna stay on the track, of course, you’re gonna stay on the plan, because that’s what you do now. That’s who you have become, you’ve become a mental toughness, badass. You’ve developed the mental and emotional endurance you need to stay on track no matter what. And that big, huge impossible goal will be possible for you someday.
So, improving endurance. Improving your endurance means you improve your cardiovascular system so you can run longer, yes; but it also means building the mental and emotional toughness required to stick to the plan so that you can accomplish hard things like being able to lose weight, once and for all and keep it off for good.
Yes, endurance will help you continually improve your overall health and fitness, you’ll be able to run longer be fitter, you’ll even be happier. But when you think of endurance, I want you to think about this other side of endurance, the mental and emotional endurance, the mental toughness, and start building that along with your ability to run longer, start training yourself to develop that kind of endurance, okay, because that mental toughness will enable you to confidently accomplish anything you set your mind to. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will 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.
6 months ago, Natasha Sorensen was a little frustrated with where she was physically, mentally, and even emotionally. She was 18 months post-partum with twins and found it difficult to lose the …
Continue Reading about 159. Always Becoming More with Natasha Sorensen →
Patrick McGilvray
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.
Patrick McGilvray
Hey there and welcome to episode 159 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Always Becoming More with Natasha Sorenson. So six months ago, Natasha Sorenson or Tash, was little frustrated with where she was physically, mentally, even emotionally.
She was 18 months postpartum with twins, and found it difficult to lose the weight she gained during pregnancy. She was also a very active person running and doing CrossFit regularly. But she couldn’t seem to make forward progress. Like she couldn’t break that cycle of emotional eating, for example, she knew she was capable of achieving more, but could never really stay consistent long enough to get there.
In this episode of the podcast, Natasha talks candidly about her mental and emotional struggles with eating right with being consistent and with going after big goals. Personally, I’m very inspired by Tasha and I know you will be too. And if you’ve ever tried and failed to lose weight on your own, you’ve probably felt like a lost cause. Like this is just never gonna work for you.
But I want you to know something, it’s not you. You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you, you can do it, you just need a few things in order to succeed. Specifically, you need knowledge, you need support, you need accountability, you need knowledge, you need to know what to do, you need to know how to do it, you need someone to guide you, you need a personalized plan. Right?
‘ve coached hundreds of runners on nutrition, strength, endurance and mindset. And I’ve helped them to become the healthiest versions of themselves. And I can help you too. You need support. If you want to accomplish anything big, you need support to help you get there to help you stay on track. You need people in your corner, people who understand what you’re going through, people who’ve been there themselves.
That’s why I include group coaching as well as one on one coaching in my program, I want to make sure that you have everything you need and all the support that you need to keep making progress to keep moving forward. And then lastly, you need accountability. You have to have someone there holding you accountable.
It’s one thing to say you’re going to stick to your food plan. Let’s say it’s quite another thing to have someone there holding you accountable for your actions. Accountability is really the key to making consistent forward progress towards your goals.
My unique weight loss coaching program for runners delivers all three all the knowledge, support and accountability that you need to crush your goals. Let’s work together and make 2023 your best year yet to learn more and apply just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply.
So, Tash is an inspiration to me. She was struggling for a while, mostly with the like mental and emotional side of things of eating, diets, nutrition, weight loss, she knew deep down that she was capable of becoming more, she had these goals that she wanted for herself, she just found it difficult to get there, she found it difficult to stay on track, you know, she would put together some consistency, she would lose a little bit of weight and get back again.
This cycle continued for quite some time, she found it very difficult to make any kind of progress. And one of the reasons why I find her story so inspiring is that she never ever gave up on herself. It was difficult for her at times. And she pushed through that. She knew that she had this amazing version of herself kind of lurking inside, right, and she just needed a little bit of help to let her out. Right?
And so in this interview today, she talks about her struggles with all this. She also talks about some of the amazing accomplishments. She’s had, in a very short amount of time, physical accomplishments around running and CrossFit, but also mental and emotional accomplishments, like completely changing her relationship with food and where she is today with all that.
So today, she’s committed to this process of always becoming more. And this is a concept that I think we all need to embrace. Always becoming more should be all of our goals. That should be your goal, should be my goal. It is my goal. It should be how you live your life. It should just be like who you are and what you do, and Tash embodies this concept beautifully.
I know you’re gonna love this inspirational conversation with Tasha Sorenson. Well today I am talking with Natasha Sorenson and you prefer Tash, right, you’d like to be called Tash?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah.
Patrick McGilvray
And today, we’re just going to kind of go through a little bit of your journey, because I think you were able to accomplish some pretty amazing things in the relatively short amount of time that you and I’ve been working together.
And every time I talk to you, it’s such a pleasure, and it’s so uplifting for me, because you are doing the deal, you know, like, you show up and you and you take instruction well, and you and you are very disciplined about what you do.
And then it’s obvious because you’re getting these amazing results. So I kind of want to talk a little bit about where you started and some of the things that you know you were struggling with. So give us a little bit of an idea of where you were six months ago, when you and I started working together and and what it is you were looking for some help with everybody that seeks out coaching or seeks out some help.
It’s because you’re struggling with some things, things aren’t working for you. And you need some help and some guidance. And so kind of give us a little bit of a feel of where you were at that time and what you wanted for yourself and what you were kind of struggling with.
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, okay. So six months ago, I would have been about 18 months postpartum with my twin boys. So that was a pretty epic life event for me. And I put on roughly, sort of 50-60 pounds during my twin pregnancy. And I think when we met, I was still holding on to, you know, roughly 30 of those pounds.
And that was despite going back to walking and running and CrossFit. And I think what comes in hand in hand with being a mum, and, you know, being a mom of twins is an amazing experience. But it’s also been amazingly difficult. And it triggered some pretty deep set, you know, postpartum depression and anxiety and I just really had a very hard time early on.
And my way of sort of dealing with those really big emotions is to basically just feed them and shove them down with food and really not deal with them at all. So in reality, I wasn’t dealing with those emotions at all, I was just eating over the top of them. And, in March, last year, I was, you know, I was doing a lot of walking, I was out sort of two hours a day walking with my twins in the pram and listening to a lot of podcasts, and I stumbled upon your podcast.
And I sort of binge through all of your episodes, because it really felt like you were speaking to me, it felt like basically, every episode you made was tailored to my situation. And, and, yeah, so I felt like there was this big change that needed to be made in my life.
I felt very stuck, when we met, and I didn’t know how to help myself, I had never really been in that position. Before I was I’ve always been very strong willed and, and I’ve, you know, been able to stay fit and healthy and achieve my goals with a fair amount of ease. And I just found myself in a really bad position. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and there was just a lot going on for me.
So I felt like this was the big change that I needed. I needed to address, address all of the important issues around being your best self. And that obviously included diet. And also, you know, for me running and and you addressed the importance of strength training in that learning journey.
But I think a really big one for me was addressing mental health and mental well being and really knowing why I was, you know, choosing to eat when I felt bad and why I would constantly sabotage myself constantly. And so I’d you know, I’d lose a few kilos here and there, but at the end of the day, it would never amount to anything and I’d go straight back to where I was before.
And this cycle had been going on for, you know, at least 18 months, but, you know, sort of leads back into my previous life before I was pregnant, pregnant as well. You know, I’d kind of always done this so there was a yo-yoing between good and bad situations, so I felt like receiving coaching with you is really going to help me address all of those aspects. But probably most importantly, it was going to, I was focused on resetting my mindset, and using my mindset to my advantage, rather than my disadvantage.
Patrick McGilvray
Hmm, that’s such a big thing, I want to touch on that a little bit here. So that mental and emotional piece is so important and so common. And so, you know, it’s so like, normalized, you know, because we all can relate to what you just described there, you know, yeah, but nobody wants to talk about it, you know, nobody wants to really address that issue.
And I work with a lot of runners and, and a lot of guys too, and a lot of the guys are like, oh, you know, I don’t have I don’t, I’m not an emotional person, you know, they don’t want to really talk about that, but they do some emotional eating, you know, they call it stress eating, or something else.
But it’s all the same thing, right? You’re eating because you want to feel better, or you’re stressed out, or you’re anxious, or you’re bored, or you’re lonely, or you’re tired, whatever it is, and you’re just using food as a way of, of feeling better and dealing with, or not dealing with the actual things that you’re feeling inside, you know, so if we can just like, if everybody would just like, admit that, like, we all do some type of emotional type of eating, then we can start to address it and start to look at it.
So you were keen on that early on to just say, like, hey, this is an issue and I’m struggling with this. And I think that was good to sort of admit that, you know, the other thing that is good about you and your approach to this and wanting to help is that you understood that it required a shift in your mindset. And it’s not just about, like, what do you do, because we all kind of know what to do.
Or we can, we can learn about what to do. But it’s a whole different thing to adopt a different mindset around all of this stuff. So that you change your default thinking, and you change your default feeling. And you change how you handle these different situations, whether it’s stress from work, or dealing with the kids or whatever it is, you know.
So you’re really good about that mindset is such a huge piece to all of this, whether you’re trying to lose weight or trying to, you know, win a CrossFit competition or, you know, PR your half marathon, or any emotional eating habit, you know, it’s the right mindset, with the right mindset, you are very powerful and capable of all kinds of things, which you’ve proven, you know, so I just want to address that.
And it’s so important that you looked at that and made that a priority for you of addressing that mindset piece and, and making that shift for you.
Natasha Sorenson
So yeah, I think one of the most important lessons I’ve learned from you is that this isn’t a game of willpower. You can go through the processes of, you know, eating right and, and getting out there and running. But at the end of the day, something’s going to challenge that. And if you don’t have the mindset to cope with that, then your willpower is eventually going to fail you. So yeah, I think mindset over, over just relying on pure willpower is really, really important.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So when you, when you start to make those, like really profound internal shifts, then the things that you’re doing externally become much easier, you know, developing good habits and things like that.
So, okay, so give us a little bit of an idea of what that process looked like for you, not just shifting your mindset, but making changes to, you know, your diet to how you looked at exercise, whether it’s running or CrossFit or whatever. So what were some of the things that were easy for you during this process, and what were maybe some things you struggled with?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, so I’d say I didn’t really struggle with the change in diet as much as I thought I would. I always felt really well nourished, and, and really satisfied. And I think the way that you taught me how to adopt this way of eating, meant that I was eating fairly intuitively. And, you know, I suppose we can revisit that concept, if you want to, but I certainly felt like, the initial fighting of the cravings. That was a tough gig.
And that lasted a few weeks, but I had kind of you’d set me up to expect that that was going to happen. And so I knew that if I could just push through that I’d be in a good place and really within a few weeks, I stopped craving, you know, all the sugar. And I was losing weight. So I was feeling great.
Probably the one doubt I had was what sort of effect the low carb eating was going to have on my training. And initially, I was like, I can’t handle it. And then I sort of started incorporating it into my training and trying to do my usual running and my usual CrossFit. And I felt pretty dreadful initially. So much slower, I felt sluggish, my legs were heavy in my runs, and everything just felt really hard.
And keeping my mind right to push through that it really was quite difficult. I think the things that worked to help me get through that, doing some faster training, and fasted running that helped, but I’d say sort of three to four weeks of feeling pretty average. Yeah, until I was sort of truly fat adapted.
And then suddenly, everything started ticking into place. And, my running improved. And I was able to lift heavier and I was managing my CrossFit sessions much easier. And, you know, I was doing better than even before I was pregnant. So I did see the gains. But getting to that place was really difficult. And I think that was a huge part of that was the coaching that I received in sort of the interim, of getting from one place to another.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that fat adapted process like getting your body used to burning fat really efficiently is, but you know, it’s a little bit of a struggle, it really is for everybody. And it’s like by design, because your body is like not getting the fuel source that it loves – sugar. And so you kind of deny that nice, easy fuel source. And it takes a little bit of time for your body to adapt, usually two to six weeks for most people.
You’re right in the middle there, three to four, something like that. But here’s the thing: a lot of people just give up when they try to do this, they give up because it is hard. I remember doing this, like I got fat adapted years ago. And I remember like getting on these forums and Facebook groups and like saying, like, how long is this supposed to last because I feel like crap.
And it just, it’s continuing, it’s not letting up like I just can’t seem to. And people in these groups were telling me just like, stick with it, it’ll get better. And eventually did it for some reason, like when maybe it was because of the amount of carbs and sugar I was eating at the time. But it took me a long time, like eight weeks to get fat adapted.
And then I, you know, went back to the normal carb, high carb diet sometime after that. Second time I got fat adapted, which was three, four years ago. Again, it took me like eight weeks. So I’m just one of these. I’m a long study, I guess.
So imagine putting up with that. Running and struggling for eight weeks. I mean, that’s a lot, you know. So three to four weeks is no big deal. But here’s the other thing. I wasn’t doing it right, because I didn’t have the kind of guidance that you have, like, I’ve got a lot of experience helping people with this.
So I understand some things that kind of speed up the process a little bit. So that helps, you know, I don’t know anybody really that I’m working with that has taken that long – eight weeks. That’s really on the extreme end. So you’re welcome and I took one for the team there. Thank you.
I think yeah, something else you mentioned, I just want to touch on really quickly, which was those cravings. So a lot of times we think, okay, running sucks, right now, this is hard, I’m having all these cravings. And really, you just want to quit, right? You just want to just like why am I doing this? You know? How long did it take for those cravings to sort of, you know, fade away to where you really didn’t really experience those anymore?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I’d say at least two weeks, but maybe even as long as three weeks I was still you know, like I could go for a block of chocolate right now but uh, you know, as the process went on, it got much easier to just say no. And I gave up drinking in that early stage as well. And I was just astonished that I found it so easy to just say no, I really explored the psychology behind drinking with you and why we do it and you know, it’s very similar I suppose to why we eat sugar and, and just a matter of making us feel better and making us feel part of some sort of social etiquette. But I found that I really just didn’t need it, as much as I thought I did, not to de-stress at least, if anything, it made me more stressed. So, yeah, very interesting to just explore that, something I’ve never really done before.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and those cravings for sugar, you know, a lot of people have a heart, a lot of people have a hard time losing weight, because they, the cravings are very intense at the beginning. And so a lot of people again, they give up, you know, but if you can get through those first couple of weeks, they get, they get much easier, much easier.
Yeah, and drinking is interesting, because it’s one of those things that is very detrimental to our health and performance, it really is. So if you’re a runner, and you’re an active person, drinking alcohol, even a few drinks per week is going to diminish your performance, it’s going to affect you kind of profoundly, and if you’re trying to get fat adapted, if you’re trying to like keep your body burning fat, that alcohol just shuts down that whole process.
So people that have a hard time losing weight, or maybe their athletic performance isn’t where they want it to be, you know, try not drinking for a period of time. But again, there’s that social, that mental, emotional, social piece that you talked about, which is like, it’s hard to do. It’s hard to like be around friends and family who are all drinking and not drink.
It’s hard to be around friends and family and everybody’s eating pizza and ice cream and chocolate bars and not partake in that. Yeah, but it’s not impossible, you know, we can do that. And, and if you want to be a healthy person, maybe it’s worth being the kind of weird one at the table for a while.
But okay, so let’s fast forward just a little bit. So you got through this kind of transition period where the cravings were there. And then they kind of went away. The running was really hard. CrossFit was hard, but then they started to get better. And then what kinds of improvements did you start to see after that? So now that you’ve like done the hard work, you’ve gotten through that really challenging phase of getting fat adapted? What kinds of improvements did you start to see?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I just want to mention that I think a pivotal part of getting through those first few weeks was not only the one-on-one coaching that I do with you, because I was able to sort of debrief those situations as and when I needed to. But the group coaching was very effective in dealing with that, like speaking to other people that have been through that initial process and sort of had some success. That was reassuring.
And, and I think very important for me, that sort of camaraderie of like other people that knew what you were going through, but it had successfully sort of got to the other side. So I think, like you said, you did the hard work, hard work. And I think that a lot of people in that, when if they’re trying to do this alone, that self doubt is usually going to get the better of them, and they’re gonna give up.
So having both you and the other sort of students, I suppose, to fall back on, that’s been a really important part of the success, I think, in terms of how things just sort of started to improve for me after that. So I’ve lost, I’m closing in on if not already there, 20 pounds. And I’m almost, you know, I’m pretty much back at what I was pre pregnancy, if not, maybe even a little better.
I’ve certainly lost body fat and increased sort of lean muscle mass. I’ve lost as much as 10% body fat. So while I may sort of be heavier on the scale, than I was pre pregnancy, I feel like my body composition overall is just astoundingly better than what it was before.
Patrick McGilvray
That’s really what we want. It’s not necessarily like about the some number on the scale. It’s about getting healthy, getting strong and feeling good.
Natasha Sorenson
And my clothes, you know, they fit the same. So I think, really, it’s a lot of the time it’s about nonmetric successes as well as it is the scale. And so even though like in that sort of weight loss process, I did hit a plateau or two along the way. It honestly didn’t bother me because I was making a lot more progress in sort of other areas of my life. So my running, was regularly doing 5k sort of Time Trial style. And my 5k time went from 31 minutes, sort of the middle of last year to 23 minutes. And I was running that with a double pram and toddlers.
Patrick McGilvray
Kids in the pram and yeah, 23 minute 5k?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah. And like, I wouldn’t have been, I don’t think I would have been capable of that pre pregnancy. So like, I just, maybe even when I was 25, I would have been capable of that. And I ran my first half marathon after you know, sort of a few years, I’d say three or four years and I ran that fasted with just electrolytes. And I beat my previous time by about five minutes.
I entered my first trial run, because you inspired me to give trail running ago, and that was at the end of last year, and I, my first trail run, I got a podium. Just like, I don’t even recognize the person that I am. I did a slightly longer one over the weekend, last weekend gone, and I placed fifth in that one. So just my running has just like, taken off in ways that I didn’t know it was possible.
And I mean, I’m certain that that’s because I’m leaner and fitter and stronger. But also I trust myself to take those leaps of faith and my confidence has come through in leaps and bounds because I’ve attended to the mindset as well as the, you know, the physical and the mental stuff.
Patrick McGilvray
I want to talk about running just for a second here because Yeah, a couple of things that I think are interesting. One is that you are fitter and stronger, and leaner. Yes, but running has improved substantially for you. You know, and it’s because you’ve done the hard work, you’ve you’ve, you know, shifted how you kind of train a little bit.
But I think, you know, from a fuelling standpoint, I wanted to touch on that, which is like, you’re doing a lot of these runs without fuel, like you’re not you don’t need to, you know, carb up and carb load and do all the stuff before you take on a half marathon or fast 5k. Like, you can just do it with very minimal or zero fuel and still perform exceptionally well, if you’re winning or taking the podium or whatever, you know, kind of accomplishments. I mean, amazing. You’re doing amazingly well.
So how does that feel like how does it feel to run? Because it’s very counterintuitive to what, you know, a lot of the running community will tell you out there. Yeah, I think it’s an amazing feeling like how does that feel for you?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of like mind blowing. I, you know, six months ago, if you’d told me that I could run my fastest 5k. And like, I think in like almost 10 years, fasted, then with a double pram, like, I would have laughed at you, really. So it’s quite amazing. And, you know, like, I think a point that you’ve driven home for me as well is that low carb doesn’t mean no carbs.
And really, we can use carbohydrates to our advantage. So if there is a really important race coming up, or, you know, with my CrossFit camps, I can have half a banana or, you know, you’ve we’ve picked out some sort of better tailored gels to low carb eating, and you can use those and they really have an effect, because they’re not just like, an everyday piece of your of your diet.
And so they give you just like this propulsion of energy, that your body is just like, wow, but actually, so much of the time you can get that just from, you know, having a glass of electrolytes. I think, an enormous part of the sort of low carb life is making sure that you’re well hydrated and your electrolytes are topped up all the time.
I feel like it’s this hack that nobody really knows about. How important salt is in the body and being well hydrated. It’s almost like you know, like, yeah, like a biohack in terms of the energy I can give you for just a standard workout. I always feel better when I’m optimally hydrated. And I think that’s when you are eating low carb, it’s very easy to become dehydrated. So yeah, that answers your question.
Patrick McGilvray
No, yeah, that’s perfect. So, it’s just so interesting because people think that if you’re not using all the sugar and gels, or herbs to run, like, you’re just not gonna be able to perform at your best, and you’re just living proof that you can.
Natasha Sorenson
I come from a triathlon background, I can’t tell you. It’s like just the amount of carbohydrates I used to eat, just sort of all day every day. And the gels and the, you know, just crazy, crazy amounts in the hundreds of grams of carbohydrates a day. Whereas now I’m, you know, probably sitting around 50, although, like I said, I’m very intuitive about that I don’t count carbs, low carb, I’ve kind of found what works for me in that in a range that I can easily find without looking at what the carbs are in each item of food.
And as long as I sort of maximize my protein, I think protein’s really important. That’s another lesson I’ve learned from you; protein, you basically can’t have too much. And, and yeah, I just, I can’t even believe how I used to eat. And I’m really getting not only getting the same results as I would have when I was doing that, but better results than when I was doing that. And I’m maintaining my health. And, you know, my physical appearance is not important, but my sort of like physique far easier than I was when I was fighting 500 grams of carbs today.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah, because yeah, your body’s fighting against that process right there. All that sugar intake. So running improves this substantially it sounds like. Have you tried doing one of those 5k’s without pushing the twins?
Natasha Sorenson
I’m going to, I’m actually going to, I’m thinking of trying it this weekend. Make my hubby take the pram and we’ll see. My PB when I was about 23 is 22 minutes and like, a few seconds, so you’re gonna be maybe I’ve got it in me.
Patrick McGilvray
You’re gonna beat that. I mean, I can just I can just tell you’re gonna be faster.
Natasha Sorenson
if it doesn’t happen now. It will happen over I, I honestly didn’t think it would have happened ever again. You know, six months ago. So it’s nice to have the confidence to think that I can maybe do it again.
Patrick McGilvray
Oh, you can absolutely do it. Yeah, I have no doubt. So let’s talk a little bit about CrossFit. How long have you been doing CrossFit? And kind of where have you been? And what were you able to accomplish in CrossFit? Because CrossFit is a whole different ballgame. It’s a more high intensity type of exercise and it’s really focused on strength, you know? So when we talk about fat burning, a lot of people think oh, yeah, that’s great for, you know, the long slow running old they think ultra runners or whatever. But what about for high intensity exercise like CrossFit? is it applicable?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely applicable. And while in the same breath that those early few workouts and now would have been, it would have been maybe a handful workouts, like, 5 to 10 workouts that I was like, oh, I feel heavy and sluggish. Now, I don’t even I don’t even think about it.
I’ll go in the morning and do fasted workouts or, you know, sometimes in the afternoon I’ve even done one meal Monday and gone and done a CrossFit workout. That was like, one of my most epic workouts. I just felt amazing the whole way through it, and I hadn’t eaten all day. I haven’t eaten in like 24 hours. And I’m not to say that, you know, that’s a necessary part of the lifestyle.
I was just sort of playing around at that stage, but I just don’t think, yeah, you certainly don’t need absorbent amounts of food to fuel those workouts. In terms of you, like I said, it’s really strength based. I mean, it’s an overall program where we try and be good at many different things. But it’s got a huge strength base component where they do a lot of Olympic lifting, and I’ve basically PB’d all of my lifts in that component of the sport.
So you know, deadlifts and squats, cleans and snatches, I’m lifting heavier than what it was, even before I was pregnant. And I was, admittedly, still quite new to CrossFit, pre pregnancy, like, I’d only been doing it maybe eight to 10 months. But I wasn’t foreign to the concept of lifting heavy weights. It was just, I was taking on CrossFit as a new way of exploring that.
And, yeah, I mean, I just, I still, I see improvements every day. And I think that’s the beauty of CrossFit is that it’s always about how much you challenge yourself. And there’s always somewhere to go and grow and be better. And even stuff that I thought, I’ll never be any good at that, particularly the gymnastics.
So now that I’m leaning down, I’m finding I’m actually able to do movements that I thought, I’ll never do that. That’s ridiculous. Like, I’m a 35 year old woman, I’m never gonna do that, like, and now, here I am, like, I can do, I can do some of them. And I’m seeing I’m like, hey, I can do that last week, or I can do that last month. And it’s just, yeah, I think, again, it’s gone. It’s given me the confidence to try to try these completely different things.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and you had a CrossFit competition not too long ago. When was that?
Natasha Sorenson
In November, and it was my coach kind of pushed me to just give it a go. And they entered me into the beginners category, just simply because there’s a lot of stuff in both the intermediate and obviously, the, they call it the fire breathers category, or the RX category that I wasn’t able to do.
And if you’re not capable of doing the movements, well, you’re not going to do any good. So you entered me and beginners, and I found it incredibly challenging, but I placed fourth overall, in fact, for maybe the first half of the weekend, I was on the podium. But that’s okay. I mean, I was just astounded to even be up there at all.
And I’ve got another one coming up in about two weeks time, with a slightly different format, where the first two days you compete, the whole group competes together, and they seed you into a category based on your performance in the first two days. And then the third day you compete in the category that they seed you into. So it’ll be interesting to see where I kind of fall as the natural progression of my capabilities and my ability to lift and do the gymnastics and do the cardio.
Patrick McGilvray
And yeah, six months ago, did you see yourself like on the podium for CrossFit competition or for these runs that you’ve been doing?
Natasha Sorenson
No way, no way. And it’s done so much for me. Not only, you know, physically, but I’ve just said a different, much more lighter person. I really believe in myself. And that’s following through into a lot of other aspects of my life, including my professional and my academic life. So yeah, I think it’s been a really important process. And it’s just nice to believe in yourself. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m, I don’t ever feel like I’m going to be at the Olympics or be at the CrossFit Games, but it’s just nice to succeed in your own little world, you know?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And when you talk about being a little bit lighter, I mean, I think you mean like, mentally and emotionally, right?
Natasha Sorenson
Yes, yes.
Patrick McGilvray
Physically, too?
Natasha Sorenson
Certainly, I think everybody in my life can tell that I’m, I’m just a happier, mentally stronger person.
Patrick McGilvray
And it’s so interesting how these types of changes bleed over into all different areas of our lives. So this isn’t just about running. This isn’t just about CrossFit, or, you know, low carb or anything like that. Like these are all just, you know, tools.
Really, these are all things that we do because we love them. And we feel amazing when we do them. And it makes life better. You know, when we’re taking care of ourselves, and when we’re becoming that healthiest version of ourselves. We are better in relationships, we’re better with our kids, we’re better at work, you know, so there’s all these things that bleed into other areas of our life. There’s this ripple effect, right, that happens. And then I’m assuming that the people around you are, you know, probably feeling better too and stressed out and those relationships improve, and work improves and all those good things, right?
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of my sort of main reasons for taking this on was so that I could be a better mom to my boys, and more present an emotionally stable mum so that I could help them be, you know, emotionally stable and grow in a healthy way, and teach them how to be physically active and eat well, but also be more present and emotionally stable wife.
And I think, coming back to those reasons, every time there’s like a moment of doubt, or things haven’t gone my way for a day, or I’m just not feeling well, you know, coming back to those reasons has been really important, because they’re always more important than eating a block of chocolate or, you know, a piece of cake, or they’re always more important. Yeah. And so I guess that goes back to mindset.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, a big piece of that mindset is having that very powerful reason why you’re doing this stuff. And like you always had that Northstar sort of guiding you. And when you have that, it makes it a little bit easier to get up in the morning and hit the gym, or put on the running shoes and do a workout. Or to not eat the chocolate bar, not drink the wine, because you have these higher, there’s a kind of a higher purpose to this, you know, and I love this idea of sort of the ripple effect.
And part of my mission is to, you know, be an example of what’s possible to help other people like you become an example of what’s possible. Now you’re spreading that to your sphere of influence, you know, the people in your life, you’re showing them what’s possible. And hopefully, you know, you’ll touch other people’s lives.
And so we have this really awesome ripple effect that we’re creating here of, positivity of mindset of, you know, mental and emotional health and well being of you know, eating right and feeling good and being healthy. And being a healthy, strong, fit human being in all areas of our lives. So I love this. I love your story. And I love your progression here. And I love the things you’ve been able to accomplish. And you’re such an inspiration, you really are.
Natasha Sorenson
Thank you, I owe it to you. But thank you, I’m really happy with how things have gone for me.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So give me an idea of what’s next for you to hash. So you’ve got you know, you talk about doing this 5k, maybe getting that personal best, right, without, without the pram without pushing the kids. So what else is on the list for you for this year?
Natasha Sorenson
Um, well, I’ve got a bee in my bonnet that I want to do an ultra. So I’m going to try a 50k ultra marathon in July, end of July. And I’ll do a marathon in the sort of LEED AP as part of my training, I’m gonna go and do the Gold Coast marathon on the east coast of Australia with my sister.
That probably won’t be sort of like a targeted run where I’ll, I’ll try and get my most amazing marathon time, just because I’ll try and sort of roll it into my training, which might just be mostly easy, especially if I’m running sort of 42k in preparation for a 50.
But yeah, I’m just really looking forward to changing it up and a completely different terrain. I’m strictly a road runner up to this point. So gonna finish the Perth summer trail series, and they’ve got a winter one as well, where I can sort of dabble a little bit more in that. And I’d like to do quite well in this up and coming CrossFit competition, but potentially at the end of the year. I’ll repeat the one that I did.
And I know that I’ve already admitted this to you, but it always feels a little bit strange, but I’d really like to win it. So we’ll see. Yeah, that’d be that’d be cool. Even just on the podium would be good. I feel like fourth kind of was like, a bit crappy. But um, but yeah, just I just want to see how much I can achieve in a year and really, I feel like it’s going to be enormous. So not not unachievable. I just need to have some faith in myself.
Patrick McGilvray
When was the last time you ran a marathon?
Natasha Sorenson
2019.
Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so not that long ago.
Natasha Sorenson
So I mean, realistically, it was probably safe to say that I could probably beat my time. Yeah, I mean, it’s possible. It’s very possible.
Patrick McGilvray
Do these goals scare you a little bit? Do they feel a little bit? Outside Your Comfort Zone?
Natasha Sorenson
I feel very uncomfortable.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, saying like, okay, I’m making this declaration that I’m going to win this CrossFit competition. That’s it. That’s a little scary.
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, it feels a little top heavy. So we’ll see. But, like I said, I definitely don’t think it’s unachievable. I just need to stay dedicated to the cause. And if I keep seeing the improvement in my, you know, week to week progressions at CrossFit, and my running, then the sky’s the limit, really. I’m excited. And I think, you know, even if it doesn’t happen, the progress I make over the course of the next year trying to achieve it will be rewarding enough in itself.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, cool. Yeah. And like, let’s say you don’t, you know, win the thing this year, there’s always next year, you know, there’s, so we’re not, we’re not really like focused on, oh, I have to accomplish this by this date. But it’s like setting goals for ourselves, and wanting to improve. And in setting this goal of winning this CrossFit comp, if that’s the goal that you have in your mind. And that’s the goal that you’re constantly working towards. Eventually, you’ll get there as long as you don’t quit.
Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this is going to be a long term thing for me, I’m always going to be chasing something different, something that’s going to push me out of my comfort zone. And that’s like a really exciting part of my life.
Patrick McGilvray
Do you feel like this whole, you know, shift that you’ve made and your diet and exercise and all this? The low carb lifestyle, whatever we want to call it? Do you feel like this is something that is sustainable for you, and something that you can do going forward pretty easily? Or is it a little bit of a struggle still?
Natasha Sorenson
No, absolutely. I don’t find it hard at all. In fact, if I will never go back to what it was before. Never. It is not worth it, in my mind, not for anything. In fact, if anything, I want to just try and yeah, just I want to say, influence those around me. I’m not really about shoving stuff on people, though. But already my husband, you know, he eats like I do. And he’s seen changes, I’d like to influence my little carb eating gremlin children. But that’s a process I may tackle a little bit later. But yeah, I don’t struggle with it at all. And I really can’t ever imagine going back to what it was before because nothing feels as good as distance.
Patrick McGilvray
Love that. And one thing I’ve learned over the years, is that you cannot force your agenda on anybody else. All we can do is just lead by example, just be a good example. Eat healthily, you know, your fitness will improve, your health improves, your mood improves, you lose weight, you look better, you feel better. People see that. And then they’re like, Wow, maybe I’m maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I should make some changes here too. But anytime we try to try to get people on our agenda, it just doesn’t work. Nobody wants to do so.
Natasha Sorenson
And I don’t want to be part of that process, either. So it really is, I think it really needs to come from you. You need to be ready to take it on because otherwise it’s just gonna fail.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you have to be ready to change. Have to be ready. Yeah. Love it. So anything else you want to share any other takeaways from this whole experience for you?
Natasha Sorenson
Um, I mean, I guess for anybody else that that’s sort of in this position where they’re on the fence. They’re thinking about doing something like this to just do it. And, particularly from a place of mother. Your body is not it’s, it’s not over. Like, it felt like it really was for me, I felt like my best days had come and gone.
And my mom bod was just going to be weighing me down for the rest of time, both physically and emotionally, and, and I really, I can’t believe how much I’ve changed my body in the last six months and, and if anything, it is stronger and better than it was before I had my kids.
And that’s, you know, for a few other reasons in terms of like I carried and birthed two babies. Not much can be harder than that. But I think, I think, yeah, just it doesn’t have to be the end for you, you really can make a comeback and you can be your best self in spades. And, you know, for the guys out there. And non mums, this process is the same.
You really can be your best self, but it requires dedication. And it requires an all in effort for all aspects of your life. But it is achievable to cook the right food as it is achievable to be in social situations where you have to deny what other people are eating or drinking. And drinking is obviously a personal choice. But it’s very, very achievable. And accomplishable.
Patrick McGilvray
Awesome. Love it. Well, thank you so much for being here and just kind of sharing your experiences and your story. Like I said before, you are an inspiration.
Natasha Sorenson
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Honored to. Yeah.
Patrick McGilvray
And it’s just such a pleasure to see the progress and to see the accomplishments and to see the way you’re handling all of this with such grace, you know, and just like, yeah, you’re laughing, but from where I’m sitting, that’s the way I see it. And I know, it’s been challenging for you at times, but really, you’ve just shown up and, and been very disciplined about all this and it’s gotten easier for you. And I just love the whole like sustainability for you that this is something that you’ve really eased into and feel like it’s something that is very sustainable for you going forward. I love it. So great, great stuff. Thank you so much. Tash.
Natasha Sorenson
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Patrick McGilvray
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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 …
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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.
There’s a powerful principle that you absolutely must embrace if you want to continue growing, evolving, and becoming more. That principle is this: There is no finish line. This means that …
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 156, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, there is no finish line. There’s a powerful principle that you absolutely must embrace if you want to continue growing, evolving and becoming more.
And that principle is this: there is no finish line. This means that whatever you’re doing to improve yourself, you must continue doing for the rest of your life. Now, if this idea scares the crap out of you, rest assured you’re not alone. Most people do not live their lives this way. Why? Because it feels too big, it is too daunting.
Most people think that there’s an end to eating healthy or running consistently. And then they can get back to their comfy cozy life. But the truth is, there is no end. So today, I’m going to explain why there is no finish line, and how this is actually a good thing and the key to you becoming your most badass self.
And if you’re one of these people who thinks that constantly improving yourself is too overwhelming or too daunting, and it feels like it would just be too hard. And you just can’t wrap your mind around that I totally understand, I get that. That’s kind of why I do what I do as a coach.
My job as a coach is to help you set big goals for yourself goals that you don’t think that you can accomplish right now, maybe it’s losing 40 or 50 pounds and keeping it off for the rest of your life. Maybe it’s running that ultra marathon that you’ve been thinking about forever or running that half marathon that you’ve been thinking about forever, whatever it is that you want for yourself, that thing that’s looming out in the distance that feels impossible for you. Let’s work together and let’s make that happen for you.
Yes, you can lose the weight. Yes, you can keep it off. Yes, you can run further or faster than you ever thought you could before. You just need the right plan. And I’m here to help you with that. So if you’re interested in becoming that most badass version of yourself, and you want to make it last, and you want to understand the concepts and the principles of how to make it last and how to make these changes are just part of who you are, what you do, then I’m here for you. Okay, this is what I do. This is my jam. This is what I do as a coach.
This is why coaching works so well because it’s you and I working together, setting big goals, putting together a plan, and then helping you stay on track to reach those goals and helping you develop the mindset, the habits to make this last for life. This isn’t about the short term. This isn’t about quick fixes. This is about long term health and fitness. And the only way we do that is by really changing your lifestyle. Okay, so this is what I do.
If you’re interested in working with me, I’m here for you, this is a great time to get started. Let’s start 2023 on the right track and set some big goals for you and start working towards those goals. Cool. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, you and I’ll jump on a call. I’ll explain all about the program, and we’ll get you started.
So I think there’s a big misconception out there. When it comes to making changes, like we talked about a lot here on the podcast, you know, we talk about changing your habits, changing your eating habits, changing your diet, we talk about changing the way you approach exercise, we talk about changing your approach to running.
And I think there’s this big misconception where people think that these changes are temporary. Even the term diet itself is a very temporary thing, right? I mean, just the concept of going on a diet means you’re probably gonna go off that diet at some point, right? That’s why I try to stay away from that word, because I think it has some negative connotations. It has some limiting connotations or some temporary connotations. So I don’t really use the word diet too often anyway.
But the thing is, we think I think for the most part, we think that doing these things is something we do for the short term and somehow we’re going to improve our health, we’re gonna improve our fitness, and then we can go back to doing things that we used to do and go back to, you know, our life as we knew it before.
And I think we got to really just, I say it right at the beginning here of this podcast, which is like, that is not how it works. That’s not how it works. When you make changes and start improving your health, let’s say you start running consistently, and you start improving, running, and you and you start lifting weights, and you change your diet and you start eating properly, and you start feeling better, and you start losing the weight.
And then you get to this place where you’re like, yeah, this is pretty good. I’m feeling good. I’ve got to my goal weight, or, you know, I ran that marathon that was so big for me is such a huge accomplishment for me. And then you think what, you’re done? Are you done? Are you just gonna like, give up and throw in the towel and go back to your comfy cozy life? Is that the way that this works?
The answer is no. It’s not. When you make these kinds of changes for yourself, that is bettering yourself. When you set big goals for yourself, and then you accomplish them. Oh, my gosh, that is amazing. These are great accomplishments, celebrate those things. But then ask yourself, what’s next? So you do what you do. And then you do it again, you do what you do to become more. And then you reach that next version of yourself, that next level of yourself.
And then guess what? It’s time to level up again, there is no finish line, there is no stopping. And another concept we have to get out of the way here at the top of this episode is this, like life is hard. And it’s supposed to be hard, life is not supposed to be easy. And I think that this is a big misconception that somehow when we change our diet, or we, you know, start running more often that somehow, you know, you’ll never have any cravings for junk food again, or like running is just going to be so easy. It’s going to just feel effortless.
I’ve been running for a long time, I’ve run a lot, a lot of miles. And running is never easy. It’s never like effortless. You know, there’s some effort involved with running, always. And when it comes to food, I still struggle sometimes with some cravings or with you know, I guess peer pressure is the right word for it, you know, social pressure from others. Peer pressure is so funny, it reminds me of like middle school, right? You know, hey, try cigarettes, good. What’s the same thing?
People are like, hey, just eat some french fries, patties? Fine. Everybody else is doing it, just do it. And I’m like, dude, what is this? It feels like junior high. But I digress. So there’s this concept that like, at some point, you know, eating and choosing the right foods all the time is going to be simple and easy. And there’s times when it doesn’t feel easy. And there’s times when it is hard.
There’s times when I just want to like dive face first into a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, because that was my jam. And that was something that really made me feel good, you know, eating that much sugar all at once. Boy that lights you up, I’ll tell you what, you want to forget your problems for a few minutes. That’s a good way to do it. Right?
Of course, it comes with all those negative consequences. And of course, I don’t do that. But I still have those feelings. You know, I still have the struggle at times. You know, of course, it’s easier. And of course, running is easier than it was 5 or 10 years ago. But it’s still challenging. I actually just got done with a 10 mile run here this morning. And it wasn’t I would not say that there was really much during that run that felt really easy.
Now I did notice my heart rate was low the whole time. And I was running pretty slow. And I purposely was just making this an easy run. We’re supposed to get some terrible weather here in Cincinnati in the next few days over Christmas. So I was just like, It’s a Thursday morning. I’m gonna go get my 10 miles done now. And I’m not, I don’t normally run 10 miles on a Thursday morning, but I did it. It was cold. It was raining and windy, but you know, there was no part of that where I was like, oh, this is great. Like, this is so easy and effortless.
No, you know, I’m building my endurance again. I had to take some time off because of an injury. And coming back to running has been a bit of a challenge and it’s hard and I thought to myself, this is hard, but it’s okay. It’s hard, but it’s okay. And I approach food the same way like sometimes it’s hard but it’s okay. That can be hard. Life is supposed to be hard. It doesn’t really get easy.
I think we’re missing the point if we think we’re chasing some easy life. I think the opposite should be true. You should be chasing a hard life. You should be chasing hard things constantly in your life, this concept of there is no finish line. That means there’s no end to doing hard things and accomplishing hard things so that you can level up so that you can become more easy, it is easy, everybody can do easy.
It’s the strong, it’s the unique, it’s the dedication, the discipline to achieve hard. And that’s what you want to do. If you want to level up, you want to get outside your comfort zone and become a different person, you got to do the hard things, right? Hard is where you want to live, you want to you don’t want to live in easy, right? You can do hard things. So do hard things.
And life should be constantly a challenge for you, you should be challenging yourself to do harder and harder things. So combined with this concept of there is no finish line, when we are constantly pushing ourselves and constantly setting the bar higher for ourselves, and we’re constantly leveling up.
This is great, because it means you’re constantly growing and evolving and becoming more and becoming stronger and accomplishing more. And this isn’t just about running or losing weight. This can be about every area of your life, relationships, work. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re building a business, this is hard work. Trust me, I know, I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s not easy.
In your spiritual life, you know, sometimes it can be very hard to have faith. You know, in your family dynamics, your family relationships, dealing with kids. It can be challenging, and it should be challenging, and you should be setting the bar higher for yourself constantly and constantly leveling up. We always want to be leveling up. This is a way of life, right? becoming healthy, becoming the best version of yourself, becoming stronger, becoming your best.
Your most badass self is not a destination. It’s how you live your life. It has to become who you are at your core, it has to become part of who you are at your core. When it becomes who you are at your core, it no longer is an option to stay small, it’s no longer an option to stay in the comfort zone. It’s no longer an option to not go after bigger and bigger things for yourself.
When you constantly level up and constantly push yourself beyond your comfort zone, where all the new stuff is because if you have it already, it’s in your comfort zone. But if there’s something you want that you don’t already have, it’s outside your comfort zone, right? By definition, it’s uncomfortable out there, though, right?
But by constantly pushing yourself, you know, this idea of who you are at your core will continue to drive you. There is no longer a debate in your mind of whether you should stay on your healthy eating plan. There’s no longer a question in your mind, whether you should put on your running shoes and go outside and run even though it’s cold and windy and raining outside.
You do it and then you do it again. You level up, you accomplish something, you set another goal for yourself and then you do it again. There is no end. There is no finish line. This is who you are. Recently, I was running with a friend of mine. And she had another friend, you know that I didn’t know. And she said oh, you know, Patrick, this is so and so. Patrick is an ultra marathoner. He’s one of those guys that runs, you know, these ultra marathons.
So she introduced me as this ultra marathoner. And I thought to myself, like, is that really who I am? At my core? Is that who I am today? Because I haven’t run an ultra marathon in a few years. And so I kind of thought to myself, like, is that still who I am? I think the last time I ran an ultra was two years ago, in December. Yep. But is that who I am? If I don’t do this consistently, does that mean I’m no longer an ultra marathoner?
And I had to think about that for a minute. And it really made me look inside and see like, am I leveling up consistently? And if I’m not, why not? Why am I not pushing myself and creating bigger and better goals for myself so that I can continue to become more and continue to grow and continue to see what I’m capable of?
I’ve done some pretty amazing things in my opinion, you run 100 miles, that’s pretty amazing. Finished an Ironman. I ran 50 miles, I’ve done a bunch of 50k ultra marathons. This stuff is great. But is that like, am I done? And so the last couple of years, I’ve had some setbacks. I’ve had, you know, some injuries, some surgeries, and you know, had to take a lot of time off from running and stuff.
And I thought, you know, now I’m feeling pretty healthy, I’m feeling pretty strong, I’m building mileage. Again, my cardiovascular system is really improving. And my endurance is improving. And I’m just feeling pretty strong where I am right now. I’ve stayed consistent with strength training, which is awesome, but I’m feeling very strong from a running perspective today.
And, and I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna continue leveling up as an ultra marathoner and continue pushing myself to see what I’m capable of. Does that mean I have 100 miler in my future or a 50 or 12 hour, 24 hour? I don’t know. But I’ve got some ideas. I actually have an idea of something I’m going to be doing this spring, and you’ll learn more about it later.
But I do have this big goal for myself, that I decided, you know, if I’m going to continue leveling up, if I’m going to practice what I’m preaching here, then I need to set some big goals for myself. So I did and I have this big goal that I’m going to be working towards. And again, like I said, when I’m ready to share more about that I will with you guys, right, but I’m just not ready yet.
But the thing is that I want to continue becoming more, I want to continue evolving. I want to continue leveling up. What does that mean for me? And so you have to decide for yourself, what does that mean for you? Who are you at your core, who do you want to be and then act accordingly. So for me, if I want to be the ultra marathoner guy, then I need to be running ultra marathons regularly. And that is who I am at my core.
And that makes me feel like kind of a badass about myself. And it’s not an egotistical thing. This is just like me being confident and feeling good about myself. I’ve accomplished a lot in the running world. And I feel really confident in my ability to go out there and run 50 miles or 100 miles or whatever it is. And I want to continue doing those kinds of things. I want to continue to see what I am capable of.
So with all of this, there’s that underlying idea that there is no finish line. And in this idea that there’s no finish line means that it’s actually a good thing, because you are constantly leveling up, you’re never going to be stagnant, you’re never going to stay dormant. So you decide who you want to become. You set big goals for yourself, then reach those goals, like work hard to get those goals, like accomplish those things that you want to accomplish for yourself, absolutely.
But decide who you want to become. become that person, then you get to decide who you want to become next. And this reminds me of just the whole concept of like leveling up, like in a video game, you know, you get to this place where you have reached the next level, things get harder, you know, you got that new boss, you got to face and defeat, you know, and this is true for us as well.
Things do get harder as we push ourselves. And we push ourselves further outside of our comfort zone. But what’s cool is that when we push ourselves further outside our comfort zone, what we thought was uncomfortable, what we thought was impossible becomes possible for us becomes more comfortable for us. And we kind of surprise ourselves and what we’re capable of. But if you think that you’re going to be done with this at some point, like an actual video game, where I guess there’s an end, I don’t know, video games even have ends anymore. I don’t really know how they work anymore.
Back in the day when I was doing the PlayStation1, I don’t even know when that was, back in the 90s I guess. But the idea that there’s not a finish line can feel a little daunting for some people, it can feel like why even bother if I just have to do this for the rest of my life. But no, that’s the wrong way to think about it. The right way to think about it is yeah, I’m doing it because there is no finish line.
I’m doing this because this is who I want to be in if I want to become this better version of myself. If I want to become the most badass version of myself. That means there’s no stopping and it’s okay. Embrace that idea that there is no finish line, embrace the idea that this work continues. Embrace the idea that you’re constantly leveling up. And I promise you this, when you do that, when you embrace the idea that this work does not end and that life is going to be hard, and it’s you’re going to continue to challenge yourself and you’re going to continue to push yourself.
When you embrace this and just accept it all, it actually becomes easier because you’re just convicted and dedicated. And the discipline is there, the motivation is there, you don’t have to be convinced that you need to do this, because this is just what you do now. You don’t need to ask yourself, well, do I really feel like running or not? Because that question has been answered. Yes, you feel like running? Yes, you’re gonna go do your run. Even if you don’t feel like it? Yes, you’re going to commit to that healthy eating plan that you said, you’re going to stick to? Yes, you’re going to commit to that training schedule that you know is going to get you to the finish line of that race.
But the thing is, this work continues, you’re never done. That’s okay. Embrace the idea that you are always leveling up, embrace the idea that you’re always going to set big goals for yourself, always push yourself to that next level, always pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, always reaching for more. And when you do that, you become more. And then you guess what you do it again, you set a new goal, you set a higher bar, and then you achieve that. Think about where you could be in your life, if you just embrace this idea that the work continues.
Where could you be in your career, in your relationships, financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically? Where could you be, if you just continued to push yourself and continue to level up, this is what I want for you. So think about this, as we begin a new year, think about this idea that what you want for yourself is achievable. With the right attitude, with the right discipline with the right consistency. And sometimes you need help, and I get that sometimes you can do it on your own. But if you want help, I’m here for you. But what you want is achievable. And then you got to like pick the next goal. So just keep that in mind.
I know I’ve talked to a lot of people who have these goals for a spring race, they want to do the spring marathon ultra marathon. And, and I’m encouraging them to, you know, kind of yes, let’s, let’s work towards that goal. But then what’s what’s after that, start thinking about that, thinking about what’s next, what’s around the corner? So that you’re always driven so that you’re always moving towards that next thing. Okay, constantly leveling up.
There is no finish line, this work continues. We’re constantly in the work of becoming more and becoming the best version of ourselves. And then once we get there, we set the bar higher and we do it again. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean, happy holidays and parties.
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.
