When it comes to accomplishing big goals, you have to expect things to get hard. For example, losing weight takes time, and for some it can be a long and challenging road to get there. Yes, …
258. The Truth About Comfort Food
It’s that time of year when the days are getting shorter and colder, the holidays are upon us, and all you feel like doing is staying in and eating comfort food. I get it. I feel this too. And just …
254. How Do I Know If I’m Self-Sabotaging?
Just about all of us will eventually engage in some type of self-sabotaging behavior. Most of the time though, you don't know when you’re doing it. Self-sabotage is often confused with failure, …
Continue Reading about 254. How Do I Know If I’m Self-Sabotaging? →
232. Achieving Impossible Goals
When most people set goals for themselves, they think small. They set goals that feel doable, safe, and comfortable, goals that won’t cause them too much suffering if they don't achieve …
Podcast Transcript
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there and welcome to episode 232 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Achieving Impossible Goals. When most people set goals for themselves, they think small. They set goals that feel doable, that feel safe, that feel comfortable, and goals that won’t cause them too much suffering if they maybe don’t achieve them, but is this really what you want for yourself? I don’t think so. Not me. Definitely not.
I want to set goals that feel kind of scary, uncomfortable, and downright impossible. So in this episode, I’m going to explain why you shouldn’t be setting small, easily achievable goals, but instead working on achieving those big, impossible goals.
But first, if you’ve been thinking about improving your health, your fitness, your running, if you’ve been thinking about losing weight, improving your diet, and you want a ton of guidance and support to help you get there, you might want to consider coaching.
The fact is, coaching works where other methods fail because it’s not about one particular diet or one particular exercise routine. It’s about understanding what works for you as an individual, and then learning how to do that on your own.
One thing I tell all my clients is that you need to not need me at some point. You got to get to this place where you can do this on your own. My job is to help you get to that point. What good is it to make these lifestyle changes if they’re not sustainable for you? They have to be sustainable for you, right?
This stuff has to become easy and effortless for you, so that you can do it on your own, so that you can stick with it. My job is to make sure you stick with it. So if you want to hit the easy button on your weight loss goals, on your running goals, on some big, impossible goal that you have for yourself. Let’s work together to get you there. Just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com click on work with me, and I will show you exactly how to become the most badass version of yourself yet Cool.
All right, let’s talk about achieving impossible goals. So right now we’re about halfway through the year. It is the beginning of June 2024, right now. So if you’re listening to this in the future, that is very cool, because it’s like time traveling. You’re like time traveling. But anyway, so if you are listening to this in real-time, then we’re about halfway through the year.
You may have set some goals for yourself, maybe some running goals. Maybe you ran a spring marathon or spring half marathon, or some spring races or ultra-marathons or whatever. And now it’s time to kind of reassess your goals. And you’ve taken some time off, or kind of in the off-season right now, and so you’re thinking about goals for the fall.
So you might be setting some intentions and some goals for some fall races, or maybe you have other health and fitness goals. Maybe you have a weight loss goal, and now would be a great time to get started on that. And so right now is a good time to be thinking about setting some big goals for yourself.
But here’s the thing, most people, when they set out to set a goal, when they decide on goals that they want for themselves, they they pick a goal that’s either too vague or too small. So they pick goals that are vague, like I want to lose weight, or I want to eat healthier, or I want to get stronger, I want to get stronger, I want to run faster, I want to run more.
These goals are very vague because there’s nothing specific to commit to, right? It’s much harder to commit to goals like I’m going to lose 20 pounds, I’m going to stop eating processed food, I’m going to I want to be able to lift 315 pounds in a deadlift. I want to be able to be able to do that three times. Or run a 23-minute 5k or run four times a week.
When we get specific with our goals, they become it’s a little bit harder, right? Because you now you’re kind of, you have to hold yourself accountable. You’re you’re on the hook for something. But a lot of people won’t do that. They’ll just pick vague goals, like, I need to eat healthier. What does that even mean? They don’t even know what it means.
Like, they’re just like, saying it because they they know that if they don’t achieve it, they don’t really have to fess up to anything. They don’t have to own up to anything. There’s no own ability. There’s no accountability there. So. Vague. We don’t want to set vague goals, and we don’t want to set goals that are too small.
A lot of people set goals that are very small. I want to lose five pounds, or instead of running a 5k I want to run maybe 6k okay, that’s fine if you’re just getting into running. But listen, set some goals that are bigger, because when you set these small goals, you know they’re easily achievable. They don’t require you to get out of your comfort zone at all. They are well within your comfort zone a lot of times.
You’ve probably already done these things. You’ve probably already lost five pounds. A bunch of times to say, like, oh, I want to lose five pounds. That’s something you know you can do. You already know you can do that? You’ve done it before, or you’ve got clothes, or it just seems easy for you.
The problem here is that setting these tiny little goals means that you’re probably going to achieve them, which is fine, but what did you gain in the process? What did you learn? How much did you grow? Who have you become in that process? Small goals. They feel safe, they feel comfortable, they feel doable. These are what people call realistic goals.
Oh, you need to be realistic. I say screw that. We need to set goals that are unrealistic. You need to set some goals that are way outside your comfort zone. And I call these impossible goals because they are impossible for who you are right now, who you are here today. You cannot achieve these big goals you know you, you should always have some, some goals that feel impossible for who you are today, that are not comfortable, safe or realistic.
Who wants to achieve realistic goals honestly? You need to be going after things in your life that feel impossible, because when you do, when you do achieve those goals. They can be life-changing.
Achieving impossible goals means you have you’ve done a lot of work to get yourself to the point where you could become the kind of person to achieve that goal. It means you’ve accomplished something you never thought you could, and then you did that. That’s an amazing feeling, right there. So instead of small, vague goals, we want to set big impossible goals, goals that feel unrealistic, that feel uncomfortable, that don’t feel like they’re in your comfort zone, that don’t feel safe, that don’t feel doable, they should feel impossible.
And really this is the biggest benefit of setting and going after these big, impossible goals is who you become in the process. You know, think about a small goal like losing five pounds. You can do this with pretty little effort. It’s not going to take much time. You’ll probably gain it back pretty quickly too, because you didn’t set a goal like, oh, I need to, I’m going to lose 30 pounds, and then I’m going to keep it off, right?
But, okay, let’s just say you want to lose the five pounds. That’s great. Okay, fine. Who did you become in the process? What’s changed for you? What did you learn? What’d you learn about yourself? What’d you learn about sustainability? How have you grown? My guess is not much of any of that stuff. You probably didn’t learn much. Probably didn’t grow much. You’re basically the same person.
Okay, well, let’s use the example of losing 30 pounds and keeping it off. Now that might feel more like an impossible goal for you right now. So let’s say it takes you a year to lose the weight. It takes you a year to lose 30 pounds, and then you’ve maintained that weight loss for another year. So so far, we’ve talked about where you’ve invested two years of time into this goal already. Okay, that’s a lot of time.
What did you learn about what did you learn along the way? Maybe you had to learn how to plan meals around family vacations and social events and holidays and work trips. You had to learn how you could have some cheat meals here and there without going completely off the rails. That takes some time to figure that out.
You learned how to change your mindset around food, so you no longer have those cravings for sugar all the time. And then when you do occasionally have the cravings, you know how to deal with them. You don’t let them derail you like you can just move on, right? You’ve learned which foods work for you and which ones don’t.
You learned how to maintain your weight loss over time, which is actually the hardest part of all this. So you’ve grown. You’ve learned all these things, and you’ve grown in the last two years.
You no longer have the mental and emotional hangups around food. You feel like you’re back in control of your eating for once in your life, you’re no longer operating on autopilot. You’re no longer eating mindlessly. Basically, you’ve become a different person, the person you were two years ago when you started on this journey could not have done any of this stuff.
This was impossible for who you were two years ago, but that’s not who you are here today. You’ve become a completely different person. So. This is one of the most important outcomes of achieving an impossible goal. It’s who you become in the process, who you are here today. You can’t achieve that goal, that goal is way outside your comfort zone.
Maybe your impossible goal is running your fastest marathon this fall, and it’s impossible because the person you are here today cannot run. Let’s say it’s a sub-four. You want to run sub-four marathon, and you’ve never been able to do that, so that’s not who you are today. You cannot run a sub-four, four-hour marathon today.
So this is an impossible goal for you, but in order to achieve that goal, you have to get to work. You have to stick to a pretty rigid training schedule for months. You have to do all the speed work. You have to keep improving your tempo runs like improving the times, improving the distance, and improving the amount of time that you’re running fast.
You have to be able to sustain that, and it’s going to require that you stick to a strict eating plan to support your running goals, because you don’t want to gain a bunch of weight during this training season, right? If you’re trying to PR, you’re trying to run your fastest marathon ever.
So this is this all feels impossible for who you are today, but listen, you do the work. You show up for yourself, day after day, week after week, month after month. Come the fall, when you’re towing the line at the start of that marathon, you’re the kind of person who could run a sub-four marathon, because you’ve done the work, you’ve completely become a different person, but between today and who you are six months from now.
So this is one of those things where we think that a goal feels impossible to us, and it does feel impossible to us, but we think it’s impossible for us to achieve that goal. And in reality, there is a possibility that we can do we can pretty much do anything we want, right? But you got to set your mind to it. You have to commit to the process. You have to commit to becoming the kind of person that can do that.
And then listen, when you show up at the start line of that race, you’ve become a different person. You’ve learned, you’ve grown. You’ve become so much more than you ever thought you could become. It really doesn’t even matter if you hit the goal or not. So let’s say you run a 4:01. Is that a failure? Did you fail? I say no, because look who you are. Now, you’ve become this completely different person. You’ve learned, you’ve grown, you’ve become more it’s not about achieving the goal necessarily. It’s about who you become in the process.
Now, of course you want to achieve the goal, and of course you’re going to do the work to basically make sure that that outcome is inevitable, but the real underlying purpose of all of this is to learn about yourself, to grow and to become more and if you do that, I say that you have absolutely succeeded.
And then also keep in mind that every success requires a lot of failures to get there, right? Every success was built upon a big old pile of failures. I think Henry Ford said that, so don’t be afraid to try fail, try fail, try fail, until you succeed. The number one rule with all this stuff is you never, ever, ever give up.
You keep going until you achieve that goal, impossible or not, because if you never quit, you will eventually achieve that goal. If you’re committed to achieving that goal, you will get there eventually. So that impossible goal can become possible for you.
Now, I’ve done a few impossible things in my life. Some years ago, I completed a full Ironman. You know, I’ve run 50 miles, 100 miles. Last year I did a 12-hour solo run, unsupported, no headphones, no talking to anybody. Very much a solo in my own head event.
But for things like running 100 miles, you know, when I signed up for that, I could not run 100 miles. I was not the kind of person that could run 100 miles. I couldn’t imagine doing that. This was impossible. This felt impossible for me. And here I was paying the money on their website and signing up, and, you know, saying that I was gonna, like, sign up for this thing. And I’m like, “Who do you think you are, Patrick, signing up for 100 miler? This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous. I don’t see how you’re gonna do this.” because I didn’t know at the time.
I was like, I know that somehow between now and, you know, a year from now, or however long it was, I think it was maybe 10 months, 11 months, something like that, that I signed up in advance. I knew that I was going to become the kind of person that could run 100 miles by the time I started that race.
And for me, showing up at the start line, knowing I did all the work, was the big accomplishment, and then doing it, obviously it was amazing, you know? But every time I set out to do something big like this, it feels impossible for me at the beginning of the process.
Yeah, and I know that in order to get there, I got to do the work and I have to level up. I got to learn and grow and become more and I know that by the time I show up at the event, I’m a different person, and I’ve already succeeded. In my mind, I’m it’s already a success.
And then when you do achieve something like that, when you do the hard work, and you set out to do something that is impossible, and you actually achieve it. You finish the race, you lose the weight, you’re able to keep it whatever that goal is for you, it becomes so much sweeter because it was so hard.
Listen, I am not a crier. I am not somebody who cries. Have a very hard time, like crying even. So, okay, I will say this about movies, I will cry. I do cry at movies, but every time I’ve completed something impossible, like, you know, finishing my Ironman, running my 100 miler, 50 miler, even half Iron Man like I’ve cried at the end of these things, because it’s such an emotional event.
It was, it was a life changing event. And so when you set out to do something that feels impossible and you actually do it, there’s no other feeling in life quite like that. So I want to encourage you to think about this. Think about something big, something that feels impossible for you today, something that you want to achieve, and pick one thing that really stands out, that gets you out of your comfort zone.
I want you go to go after that one thing. Don’t pick 10 different impossible goals, because it’s just too overwhelming. You need constraint. You have to practice constraint of focus. Focus on one goal at a time. Go all in on that one goal. When you finish that one goal, then you can move on to something else, right? And it kind of depends on the goal.
But for me, I like to have one impossible goal on my plate every year, or maybe one every other year. It depends on how big the goal is, how much time it takes. Blah, blah, blah, okay, but have something in mind. Pick something, and then I want you to go after that. I want you to go all in on yourself, see what you’re capable of. Don’t think small. Think big. Don’t think realistic. Think unrealistic. Don’t think doable, think impossible, and then get busy doing the work to become the kind of person who can achieve the impossible. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
225. Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone
One of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health and fitness is to regularly push past your comfort zone. This might seem obvious to you and pretty basic, but it’s an area where …
Continue Reading about 225. Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone →
Podcast Transcript
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 225 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, Pushing Past Your Comfort Zone.
So one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health and fitness is to regularly push past your comfort zone. Now, this might seem obvious to you and pretty basic. But it’s an area where most people really struggle, the idea of getting uncomfortable is easy to understand.
Most people are like, sure, Patrick, I’m totally willing to get uncomfortable. But when they come face to face with their own discomfort, all those good intentions kind of go out the window, most people end up running back to the safety and security of their well-constructed comfort zones.
So today here on the podcast, it’s all about pushing past your comfort zone so that you can grow so that you can evolve. And so that you can become the most badass version of yourself yet. Cool.
Okay, but first, if you’re listening to this podcast right now, it means that your health and your fitness, those things are important to you. You want to feel better, you want to get leaner run faster. And I’m here to tell you that all of that is possible for you. It really is. And I can help you get there.
You know, I listen to lots of podcasts, I listen to lots of books, and I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. But when it comes to applying all the stuff that I know, nothing has really helped me more than having a coach there for me, somebody that could guide me and mentor me and show me the way, like every step of the way I had somebody there with me.
I’ve had several amazing coaches in my life, I had a business coach, I had a strength coach, I had a nutrition coach, and those areas of my life have never been better. So the coaches that I’ve had have helped me become the person that I am today.
They inspired me so much that they kind of this is why I became a coach myself, because I saw what they were doing and I was like I want to do that too. I want to have that kind of impact on people as well. So if you’re listening to the podcast, right now, keep listening, keep learning, like that stuff is all good.
But when you’re ready to get down to business, when you’re ready to do the work, consider working with a coach and it doesn’t even have to be me. It’s okay if it’s somebody else, but find someone that can show you the way that can help you apply all of this knowledge that you’re taking in, okay, somebody that can hold you accountable, and somebody that can help you stay on track.
The only way you make progress with anything like this is to take consistent aligned action. And the best way to stay consistent with all this is to have somebody there holding you accountable and helping you stay on track. Cool.
So if you’re interested in working with me, awesome, just go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me. You’ll fill out a quick little application you and I’ll get on a call. We can have a conversation about coaching. I’ll tell you all about it, how it works. And we’ll see if this is a good fit for you. If it is, cool. If it isn’t, no big deal. All right.
But I want to help you to become the most badass version of yourself. You get yourself a coach, okay? It’s it’s a game-changer. I promise you Okay, runningleanoaching.com and click on Work With Me.
Okay, let’s talk about your comfort zone. What is your comfort zone? Well, your comfort zone is everything that you already have. Because when it comes to what is comfortable for you, it’s always going to be the things that you’ve already done. Those things are comfortable for you.
It’s everything that you continually do. It’s all of your current habits. It’s all your current behaviors. It’s how you think it’s how you feel, it’s all your beliefs. It’s it’s everything that is that is within your like zone of comfort. You know, that’s what your comfort zone is, you built this comfort zone.
You build your comfort zone around your psyche, like your, your model of the world, helps to shape your comfort zone and your psyche that’s just a fancy word that means your spirit your soul yourself. Like it’s the totality of your mind, your conscious mind, your unconscious mind, it’s everything that influences your thoughts, your behavior, it’s your personality, all of that is what your psyche is essentially, okay?
And you have this very unique psyche. And all of that is what feels comfortable to you. Okay, so if there is something that you want for yourself that you don’t already have, you’re going to have to leave your comfort zone in order to get it.
Because remember, everything that you already have is in your comfort zone. If you don’t have it, that means it’s outside your comfort zone, everything you want, but don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone.
Which means that in order to get that thing, you’re going to have to get uncomfortable. And I talk to people about this all the time, and they say, I get it, Patrick, I’m so willing to get uncomfortable. You know, I say you’re gonna have to embrace the suck, and people are like, I’m ready to embrace the suck. Patrick, I can do that, you know.
And this could be with your diet, let’s say you’re you want to change your diet, you want to stop eating sugar, let’s say you want to stop drinking alcohol, because you’re trying to improve your health, you were trying to prove your fitness trying to lose some weight. sugar and alcohol are our throttles, if you’re trying to lose weight, those things are going to keep you stuck, right, they’re going to throttle your progress.
So my suggestion, my, my gentle suggestion would be if you want to lose weight, stop eating sugar, and stop drinking alcohol. Okay? Those two things, though, tend to feel really good, they’re really comfortable. It’s really comfortable to eat sugar, it’s really it feels really good to drink alcohol, you know.
So when I say oh, you’re gonna have to get uncomfortable, you’re gonna have to stop doing those things. People are like, I got it, I can do that. I’m really ready to embrace the suck, I’m ready to get uncomfortable. Like, okay, cool.
But then when you know, the rubber meets the road, when you actually do stop drinking or stop eating sugar. And you’re freaking out a little bit because people around you are drinking or people around, you’re eating sugar, or you walk into the break room and there’s doughnuts, or you walk into the kitchen, and your wife or husband or kids or someone has just made a bunch of chocolate chip cookies.
And the whole house smells amazing, like chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven. They’re all gooey, that chocolate chips are melty, oh my gosh, who wouldn’t want to eat that up? That’s discomfort. That’s when you’re like, I don’t think I can do this. This is too hard.
So when I talk about getting out of your comfort zone, it’s being in that moment you’re standing in the kitchen, you can smell the chocolate chip cookies, you can see them you see the chocolate just melty as they break apart, and you’re not eating them. That’s what I mean by discomfort. That does not feel good.
That’s you getting out of your comfort zone, right? Because you’re not eating those things. But they’re sitting there. And that’s the feeling I’m talking about. So people will say this when they’re having a call with me. And we’re just you know, it’s a Monday morning and we’re, you know, just having this one-on-one conversation. And they’re like, all fired up.
But as soon as those cookies come out of the oven, like all bets are off, you know. So if you want to lose the weight, you got to maybe take a break from eating those cookies for a while. And that’s what I mean by getting out of your comfort zone. All right.
So let me tell you a little bit of a story. So I had this dog. And we had this dog at our house. And this dog was kind of crazy. Her name was Daisy, she was a yellow lab. Cutest dog in the world so smart, like so ridiculously smart. And we had gotten one of those electric fences, you know, what do you call like an invisible fence, you know, it’s wires buried underground, she had the collar on, and we would train her so that she would go outside and not cross the line where the where the wires were under the ground.
So you put up flags and you train the dog that once they get near the flags, they have to back off because they get that little buzz in their neck or whatever and then it shocks them if they get too close. Well, this dog was a little bit crazy. And she figured out that she could get up against that line and start to feel that buzz or that shock and then she would just bolt through the line she would bolt through the line of the wire and get shocked and she was okay with that.
Most dogs would not do that. But she was I don’t know brave, courageous, crazy. I don’t know what you want to call it but she saw that there was a whole wide world out there. And the only way that she was going to get to that wide world out there was to experience the discomfort of, you know, going through that fence. Okay.
So this is a pretty good analogy, because that fence, that invisible fence is like our comfort zone, you know, and when we get close to it, we feel the pain. So discomfort is just our brain telling us that, you know, there’s something uncomfortable out there that we want for ourselves. And that discomfort that we feel means that in order to get that thing, we have to cross a threshold, you know, we have to cross this invisible line, from comfort to discomfort.
And our brain sees that as painful. Our brain’s job is to keep us safe to avoid pain, and seek pleasure to avoid discomfort and seek comfort, to avoid the unfamiliar and seek the familiar. So when we want something like I want to lose 40 pounds, or I want to run an ultra marathon, or I want to have a different relationship with alcohol, all those things are outside our comfort zone, the cost of achieving those things is discomfort.
And so it’s like that dog getting close to the fence and just sitting there and dealing with that buzzing and that shocking that’s going on and just bolting through it anyway. Because they know that dog knew that on the other side of that she could run that whole neighborhood.
And she did and our neighbors would always be bringing her back like, hey, your dog got out again. And I’m like, I don’t get it. You know, this is an invisible fence, she’s getting shocked here. She didn’t care. She was crazy. I loved her, but she was a handful I’m going to tell you.
So you see that that’s a good analogy, because it kind of puts your comfort zone into the 3D world here, you know, so you can actually kind of visualize what that looks like for you. So you stop drinking, or you stop eating sugar, or maybe you got to really increase your mileage to you know, go go after that ultra-marathon or something, and the discomfort is going to show up, the resistance to that thing is going to show up.
And you’ve got to just embrace it and go through that. That’s how you achieve those things. Like the cost of achieving those things is discomfort, right? So embracing the suck. That just means leaning into that discomfort standing there, at the edge of that invisible fence, feeling the shocks and then going after that thing anyway.
This is the real work that we do together, you know, with my clients, this is the real work that we do. You know, it’s it’s less about, oh, here’s the foods you should eat. And here’s the kind of workouts you should do. It’s more about how do I deal with the discomfort and the challenges of not doing the things that are comfortable for me? Okay.
So you know, in, like I said, this can relate to your running, this can relate to getting stronger to changing your body composition, whatever it can relate to your relationships, it can really to your work, whatever that thing is that you want for yourself.
Whatever area of life we’re talking about here that you don’t already have, the cost of getting that thing is going to be discomfort. And listen, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a comfort zone like this is your safe place. This is something you’ve created for yourself. It’s everything that you know, it’s everything that you’ve done. It’s everything that you have accomplished already. And this is a good place to be.
But you know what? Growth doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. Change doesn’t happen in your comfort zone. The only way you can grow and evolve and become more is to get out of your comfort zone.
Here’s an example from my life lately. My running workouts lately have been pretty amazing. And the reason is because I have been consistently pushing myself out of my comfort zone. So last year, I was doing a lot of very slow running because I was preparing for a 12 hour running event. And I did a whole podcast and kind of talked about that you can look that one up.
But this year, I am focusing on a running a faster half marathon. And this is going to be in like three weeks or so it’s going to be early. The Flying Pig Half and I’m actually running the 5k and the 10k the day before the half just because I like to torture myself.
I like running nine miles the day before a half marathon, who doesn’t do that? But my point is that my running has been amazing lately because I have been regularly pushing myself to run faster. I’ve been doing tons of speed work, tempo runs. And my running is felt better than ever.
And the last few workouts I’ve done have been so good. Tuesday, I did three one-mile repeats. So this is, you know, this was yesterday, this was my, what do you call it, like my speed day, my speed work day. And I chose to do one-mile repeats, which is something I don’t do too often, because it’s hard and uncomfortable.
But I gotta tell you, I felt so amazing doing those. And I wasn’t running super fast, I think 8:38-40s something like that per mile. But, you know, felt amazing. On this past Saturday, I did a 12 mile run, and ran with some faster people to kind of pull me along.
And I ended up having a really amazing 12 miles it was kind of like I was my goal was to run six miles fast, and then kind of jog it back. But I ended up running with some other faster people on the way back. So both out and back, were fast.
So I did a 12-mile tempo run instead of a 6-mile tempo run that day. But I was feeling so good. I wanted to see what I was capable of. And I wanted to push myself a little bit. So the reason I’m talking about this is because in order to get faster, in order to improve my fitness and my running, I’ve had to really push myself and get out of my comfort zone.
The work that I’ve been doing lately has been uncomfortable. Running 12 miles at like a tempo pace is not comfortable. Doing three one-mile repeats in a row that is now uncomfortable. But you know what, my fitness is improving, my running is feeling better than ever. And I’m hoping that I have a really good half marathon. That’s the goal anyway. Okay.
So that’s the kind of work that we have to do in order to get out of our comfort zone and achieve those things that we want for ourselves, we have to be willing to be uncomfortable, that’s the price we pay to improve, right?
So people are super keen to this idea. You know, but once they get into it, everything in your being your whole psyche is telling you go back to safety. You know, whether you’re trying to run faster, quit sugar, quit alcohol, whatever it is, you’re gonna get to this place where it’s going to feel uncomfortable, and you’re going to want to run back to the safety of your comfort zone.
And I hear people talk about this all the time, when they’re like, oh, you know, I was doing really great with my food plan. And then this thing happened at work. And I got really stressed and I just you know, there were doughnuts in the break room. So I just ate the doughnuts. You know, that’s you running back to the safety of your comfort zone when you do that.
My suggestion for you is to notice when your psyche is telling you to run back to the safety of your comfort zone, when the donut sounds good to you. And it sounds like a good idea, even though you don’t eat that stuff anymore.
If that sounds like a good idea, that’s your comfort zone trying to pull you back. And you have to fight against that. You have to just say no, I’m not doing that. I’m gonna stay uncomfortable here. In this moment, I’m going to stay uncomfortable. Because everything when we get out of our comfort zone, everything out there that’s out of our comfort zone feels painful to your brain, your brain is trying to avoid pain.
So why the heck would you want to do something that to your brain seems painful? When you do that your brain is going to resist that your program is going to resist that we avoid pain, Patrick, remember, you know, and so that’s your brain telling you like go back to the safety and comfort of your comfort zone get get away from this pain, okay?
But you have to like fight against that you just have to ignore it and you have to move on. Just like my dog Daisy, who just ignored the stupid shock that she got. Every time she ran through that fence. She didn’t care because what was on the other side of that was amazing. She would run through the whole neighborhood check out all the other dogs, go wander up to people’s porches, run in the street. Like she was nuts. And she loved it.
She was living her best life and all it required was, you know, some temporary discomfort and like not eating the chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen is the same thing. It’s like just can you deal with a little temporary discomfort. It’s not gonna last that long.
It might be 10 minutes, it might be 15 minutes, give yourself 15 minutes just say okay, you know what? Those cookies look amazing, but I’m just going to wait 15 minutes and if in 15 minutes, you still want the cookies you can reevaluate at that point. Okay, chances are, that’s going to kind of go away.
So the discomfort, it’s not like, it’s days and weeks of this stuff, a lot of times, it’s just a few minutes here and there. Or if you’re running a, you know, an ultra marathon or something like that there may be several hours of discomfort that you have to endure, to get to that goal.
And it could be, you know, a lot of a lot of uncomfortable runs, you know, uncomfortable training regimen, you know, whatever, whatever it is, it’s, it’s not a forever thing, right? But it is one of those things that, I want to encourage you to regularly step out of your comfort zone, because when you do this stuff regularly, it gets easier, your comfort zone gets bigger, the more you do it.
So things don’t end just because you got out of your comfort zone, once you get out of your comfort zone, you do something you accomplish something you never have before, guess what your comfort zone just got a little bigger. Oh, that’s kind of goal, right?
But your goal as a human being is to continue to grow, to continue to evolve to continue to become more, which means you have to regularly expand your comfort zone, you have to regularly do things that are uncomfortable, so that your comfort zone can continue to expand with your growth with your personal growth. So does your comfort zone grow.
So you got to be willing to bet against your comfort zone every day, all the time, like forever. This is just something you have to do. If this sounds terrible to you, it’s because it is it’s kind of it’s uncomfortable to do this. I’m not saying it’s comfortable. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s not. But this is the work that we do.
You don’t grow, evolve and become more and just like say, Well, I did that once and now I’m done. You don’t do that once and then go sit on the couch for the rest of your life. No, that’s not how we approach life. There’s no finish line. It’s not a destination we’re trying to get to it’s a way of living, we regularly leave our comfort zone to become more. And then we continue doing that.
Honestly, I wouldn’t want to live my life any other way. So all these hard things that you want to do in your life, and they’re hard, I get it. But I want you to approach these things with courage and with consistency. Consistently show up for yourself, have the courage to keep going even when things are hard, have the courage to feel uncomfortable. Sometimes things are hard, they take a long time. They don’t work, right? It doesn’t matter.
We don’t stop, we don’t quit. We don’t give up. We keep moving forward, we keep butting up against the edge of our comfort zone and keep making that bigger, keep expanding that comfort zone. That should be your goal. So your work becomes pushing yourself to the edge of that comfort zone daily. feeling that pain, right?
Deal with the discomfort and then move through it. And I hear people say this all the time, like oh, it’s such a struggle. I’m struggling with sugar. I’m struggling with alcohol. I’m struggling with my workouts, you’re not struggling. You’re just not willing to be uncomfortable for long enough.
Chances are your only struggle is your brain is telling you don’t do this. Go back to the safety of your comfort zone. So, you know they say the struggle is real. The struggle is actually not real. It’s just a story. You keep telling yourself the struggle is in your mind. Okay, it’s not easy doing this stuff. And it is uncomfortable. That’s the nature of it. But it’s not a struggle. Okay. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean. And I will talk to you soon.
222. How to Stop the Mindless Eating
Have you ever found yourself at the end of a sleeve of Oreos or at the bottom of a bag of potato chips and thought…did I really just eat all that? I know I have…and too many times to count! If …
Continue Reading about 222. How to Stop the Mindless Eating →
Podcast Transcript
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 222 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today how to stop the mindless eating. So have you ever found yourself at the end of a sleeve of Oreos or at the bottom of a bag of potato chips and you thought did I really just eat all that? I know I have, probably too many times to count.
So if you have ever found yourself in that situation, then you’ve probably done some mindless eating. Mindless Eating is something that we’ve all done at one point or another. And it’s something that you can absolutely change. You don’t have to continue to eat mindlessly, there are some practical things you can do to change this behavior.
So today here on the podcast, what Mindless Eating is and how to stop the Mindless Eating once and for all. But first, I know I talk a lot about nutrition, weight loss, running, and strength training here on the podcast. And if you’re new, welcome, I’m glad you’re here.
But this all might feel a little overwhelming for you. If you want a great place to start, I’ve got you covered, I created a free hour-long training video that you can check out at any time it’s called Five Simple Steps to Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner.
You’re going to learn all the basics of nutrition and strength training and endurance and mindset all geared towards you, the runner. If you’re a runner, you want to lose some weight, you want to get stronger, you want to become the most badass version of yourself, then this free training is exactly what you need to get started. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on free training. It’s pretty self-explanatory. And then get started on your weight loss journey today. Cool. Awesome.
Okay, let’s talk about this. I’ve been excited to talk about this for some reason. I don’t know why, but I think it’s one of the things that people have been telling me that they want to change. I talk a lot of people, I talk to a lot of people every day about coaching.
And I always ask them like, you know, what do you want some coaching on? And you know, how can I help you? What goals do you have? And inevitably, most of the people I talked to that they list like the mindless eating, the automatic eating as one of the things that they want to change.
So if you’re somebody that wants to lose weight, then you really have to change your whole relationship with food. All right, if I just sit here and I say here, here’s what you’re going to do, you’re going to eat these things, and not eat these things. And you’re going to be fine. I got this, I got this, Patrick, I’m good. Just tell me what to do. And I’ll do it.
Okay, but in reality, you don’t got this, I’m just going to tell you, what you got is a lot of conditioned behaviors, you what you’ve got is a lot of habits that you’ve been practicing for years, decades, probably around food, a lot of learned behaviors around food, you’ve been doing the same things for years and years and years for decades.
Like I said, when it comes to how you eat, how you approach food. And if you want to lose weight, and you want to do it in a way that is sustainable for you, then you’re going to have to make some major changes to all of this, you got to change these habits.
You can’t keep doing the same things that you’ve been doing right, nothing changes, if nothing changes. You know, if what you’re if you’re what you’re doing isn’t working, then you have to change it. If you’re doing automatic eating, then you have to change it.
You can’t be a mindless eater, and expect to be able to lose weight because we have to start taking control of what we’re doing. We have to start taking control of our behavior. So the mindless eating, it’s really, it’s an automatic type of behavior that we engage in. It’s not something you just picked up out of the blue you’ve trained yourself to eat and not think about it, right.
So Mindless Eating is is an automatic learned behavior, right? So you go into the kitchen, you grab something, you start eating it and you’re not even aware that you’re doing this, right? Mindless Eating is it’s kind of an unconscious behavior. I like to say it’s similar to tying your shoes tying your shoes is an unconscious behavior.
So when you go, you’re getting ready for work in the morning, you put your shoes on, you tie them and you go, you don’t even think about it. It is unconscious. You don’t even remember doing it today, probably.
So you just do it and you don’t even have any thought or there’s no effort there. There’s no thought there. You don’t have to sit there and think, Okay, what am I doing now? I’m putting my shoes on. And now I have to take these lace things. And I had one goes under the other like, no, no, no, no, you just do it. It takes you two seconds.
Well, we’ve done the same thing with food. You know, we go into the kitchen, and we scarf down a whole sleeve of Oreos, you don’t even notice that you’ve done that until it’s done. And then you’re like, wait a minute, who ate all these oars? Did I eat all these? What the heck is going on here? Honestly, I have done this and Oreos was one of them.
Let’s see kettle chips, those kettle potato chips that are just like super salty. Oh my gosh, those are the best I can eat a giant bag that I get the family style bags, and then I just eat it until they’re gone. Oh, but that’s just me. But these are unconscious learned behaviors just like tying your shoes. Okay. And you’ve trained yourself to do this over years and years and years.
Okay, so it’s a habit is just a habit. Okay, we can if you if you’ve developed a habit, if you learn a habit, you can break the habit, okay? You’ve just trained yourself that when you go into the kitchen, you grab something and you eat it, and then you walk out of the kitchen, don’t even remember, it’s just like tying your shoes, you don’t think about it, you’ve been doing it for so long, it’s unconscious, it doesn’t take any effort, you just do it, okay.
Also, a lot of times we use food to feel better, we want to use food as a way of changing the way we feel. So we grab this thing that’s external to us, we ingest it, it becomes internal, and it helps us to feel better on the inside. This is called emotional eating. And emotional eating to some degree is also just a habit.
Emotional eating can also be automatic mindless eating. And again, it’s just a habit that you’ve developed. You know, emotional eating is when you’re bored, or you’re tired, or you’re stressed out or you’re anxious, and you just want to eat something to kind of feel better, you want to kind of numb the feelings that you’re experiencing, you want to numb the emotions that you’re experiencing, and food will do that it has that effect.
You know, especially if you go for something like sugar, sugar lights up the pleasure centers of your brain like nothing else. And if you want to feel pleasure, just eat some sugar, and you’ll feel pleasure for a short period of time. And you might stop thinking about the stress or the boredom or the anxiety that you’re experiencing for a short period of time, but then it’ll come back.
And then what do you do? Well, you gotta go back to the kitchen and eat something else. And again, this emotional eating can also be a very mindless eating, it can be an automatic behavior that you’re not even aware that you’re doing. Okay? So again, mindless eating, it’s just a learned behavior, you’ve trained yourself to eat, and you’ve trained yourself to not think about it.
This is important, listen to this. Because really, who wants to think about it? So you just, you just blank, this little snack out of your brain. So you’re just like, ooh, some cookies, you eat them, and then you go, bloop, and it’s gone from your brain. Like, it never really happened.
Because if you have to acknowledge it, and if you’re doing it in an intentional, conscious way, you know, you shouldn’t be eating the cookies, you just had lunch, you don’t need to be eating all these cookies. And so you sort of blank it out of your mind. You don’t want to think about it because you love it feels good.
And you know, it’s probably something you shouldn’t be doing. Right? So you have trained yourself to not think about it. Right? So you just do it, you do it automatically. And I think it’s interesting when people tell me this, they’re like, yeah, I don’t even know I’m doing it. And I say well, yeah, you do know, but you’ve chosen to blink it out of your mind. This is a little trick you’re playing on yourself, okay?
So, why is it important to change this behavior? So, mindlessly eating means that you are just eating you know, whenever you feel like it, not when you are actually in need of some nutrition. So this can lead to over eating so eating all the time, it’s really just not good for us. It’s really not the normal state for human beings. The human body is designed to eat a couple of times a day, you know, but not just mindlessly eating snacks all the time, right? It’s just not good for you, it puts a lot of stress on on the system.
You know, also, let’s, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about what you are eating. When you are mindlessly eating. I’m guessing it’s probably not broccoli. Have you ever like walked in the kitchen, and you’re like, man, I’m a little bored and a little, I just want a little snack of some time and you open up the fridge and there’s some like leftover broccoli sitting in there and you start eating that? No, nobody does that.
You want something crunchy, and salty and sweet, like chips, pretzels, nuts, chocolate, or like chocolate that has pretzels and nuts mixed into it. You know, like, whatever you can get your hands on that’s going to, you know, light up the pleasure centers. And that’s usually the crunchy, salty, sweet stuff, okay?
So, mindlessly eating is really a way of overeating, you end up over eating, and you end up over eating junk food, like you’re just eating junk, right? And so this is a bad combination. Like if you’re trying to lose weight. If you’re trying to improve your health, you know, change your diet, change your habits, mindlessly eating, you’re overeating, you’re eating junk food, this is a bad combination. Stop doing that. Okay?
Now I get it, you’re like, but it’s so automatic. I don’t even know that I’m doing it. How am I going to stop doing this? Well, I’m going to tell you right now. So the opposite of mindless eating is what it’s mindful eating.
So the goal, the first step here, the first goal that you want to accomplish here is to start being more mindful about everything that you eat, you have to start being mindful about every bite that you put into your mouth. The easiest way to do this, is to write it down. This is a really great place to start. And I think that everybody should do this.
Not just for the mindless eating, but for all kinds of habits around food. But everything has to be written down. And the easiest way to do it is to just grab a pen and a piece of paper and write it down. So every time you eat something, just write it down.
Now I like to talk to people about this. And they’ll say, well, I could use this app I use My Fitness Pal, you know, Carb Manager or whatever. Fine. Use whatever you want, it doesn’t matter. But just make it simple.
Okay, apps can sometimes be complicated. They’re kind of clunky to use, sometimes it takes a little bit of effort, and you just want to it has to be something you can do easily. It has to be simple and easy. Pen and paper is simple and easy. But if you’re on the go, maybe use a note on your phone, you know, just open up a note and just start taking inventory of everything you’re eating throughout the day.
And every time you eat or drink something, anything goes into your mouth. You want to write it down in that note on your phone or on a piece of paper. Okay, that is step number one. So what we’re doing here is we’re creating awareness about what is really going on with you and food, what’s really going on?
There’s no lies here. There’s no tricking yourself. There’s no deception. There’s no you know, tricking yourself into thinking you’re doing something you’re not or not doing something that you are, you’re actually just writing down everything that goes into your mouth, every bite, lick taste, okay?
So record everything that you do. Let’s do this for like a week. All right. And every time you eat something, every time you drink something, write it down. This is going to create a lot of self awareness. This is going to be the first step in being mindful around food instead of mindless.
Okay, so what starts happening here? Well, you start noticing that you’re eating stuff all the time you’re eating stuff, when you’re not hungry, you’re eating stuff, when you’re bored, you’re eating stuff when you’re feeling a little anxious, you’re eating stuff that you know isn’t on your plan. You know, you you start to see when and where you get triggered to eat stuff, you know, oh, every time I go in the kitchen, I have to eat something.
Oh, you know, every time I go in the break room, I have to eat something. You know, you don’t have to keep doing that. But you need to know what you’re doing first. So this is like creating such amazing self awareness. Okay.
And you have to develop this self awareness, you have to know what you’re doing before you can change it right, you got to know what you’re doing before you can change it, you have to know what you’re doing day in and day out before you can stop doing i,t before you can start creating better habits, before you can stop the automatic behavior.
So self awareness is the main goal here. So you got to write everything down, start creating that self awareness. So that’s step number one.
Step number two is this once you start noticing what you’re doing, when you’re eating, how often you’re eating the types of foods you’re eating, you can begin to start practicing the pause.
The pause is you pause before you put any food in your mouth. So you might get to the kitchen, you open up the pantry and you start looking around for some, you know, Girl Scout cookies, or whatever. But you pause right there with the cupboard open. And you notice oh man, I’m really looking for these Girl Scout cookies right now, aren’t I? Because you’ve created that self awareness. Okay, this is really cool.
This is very important and very easy to do. Okay, so you just take a moment and you pause. I’m about to engage in some kind of like mindless eating, I’m going back to these old habits. And so now you started to create a little bit of awareness, we’re starting to move into more of a mindful state, okay.
Next thing I want you to do is ask yourself a few questions. You can do this in your brain, it only takes a few seconds to do this. But ask yourself these questions. Do I really need to eat something right now? Am I really hungry? Or am I just bored or stressed out or anxious? Am I just trying to use food to feel better? What can I do instead of eating if I need to feel better?
Maybe I can go for a walk. Maybe I can walk the dog? Maybe I can, you know, pet the dog? What can you do that it doesn’t involve eating to feel better? Do I really need to feel better at all, maybe I can just be okay, feeling a little stressed out or a little bit bored or whatever.
Like, just go through these few questions in your mind really quickly. Okay. So what you’re doing is you’re going from mindless eating, to being mindful about eating. And listen, when you take that pause, you ask yourself those questions. And if you still want to eat something, then fine, eat the Girl Scout cookies or whatever, it doesn’t really matter.
But what you’re doing here is you’re not eating mindlessly. Now you’re eating mindfully, you’re you’re checking in with yourself before you make the decision to eat or not eat. And I’d much rather you are mindful about eating the Girl Scout cookies, then making that decision to eat the Girl Scout cookies, right? So you’ve made a conscious decision than eating the Girl Scout cookies unconsciously.
We don’t want to be mindless about what we’re doing. We want to be mindful, we don’t want to be unconscious. We want to be conscious. You know what we don’t want our body and our brain operating on autopilot here. We want to be in control.
And if you’re in control, and you’re saying you know what? Eating those Girl Scout Cookies feels like a really good decision for me right now. And you do that fine. Now over time, it would probably be great if you cut out the Girl Scout Cookies altogether. But listen, baby steps I get it. And this first baby step is moving from mindlessness to mindfulness around food.
This is very important. It’s a game changer if you want to lose weight. This is a game changer. It’s really hard to lose weight when you’re eating mindlessly and automatically all the time. You make this one change, and I promise you, your weight loss journey is going to get easier. Okay?
So you want to go from being a mindless eater to a mindful eater. This is where the good stuff starts to happen for you. This is where you can begin to break those conditioned behaviors and habits. This is how you start to change your whole relationship with food.
You’ve got to get away from the unconscious behavior and move towards consciousness get away from mindlessness and start moving towards mindfulness. Okay, this is a critical first step to losing weight and keeping it off. Cool. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.