Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
Your mindset is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. But most people do not spend any time at all working on improving their mindset. This is crazy to me because without the …
Continue Reading about 179. Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs to Know Part 3: Mindset →
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.
One of the biggest fears you face when you set out to better yourself is the fear of being criticized. You want to lose weight but you are so afraid of what people will say about you that you quit …
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 168, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: dealing with criticism. One of the biggest fears you face when you set out to better yourself is a fear of being criticized. You may want to lose weight, but then you’re afraid of what people will say about you.
And so you quit or you never even start in the first place. The fear of being criticized is one of the main three reasons why most people don’t succeed with losing weight, or with really accomplishing anything big for that matter. The other two are the fear of failure and the fear of success, which I talked about in the last two episodes of the podcast.
So today, I’m taking a comprehensive look at the fear of being judged and criticized and how dealing with criticism might be one of the most important things you do on your journey to becoming your best self. But first, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight and failed, you’re probably worried that you’re going to fail. Again, this is very common for most people.
Just because you’ve tried and failed in the past, though, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again, your past does not determine your future. The real problem is that being so afraid to fail means that you don’t ever try anything new. You don’t ever try. You don’t ever start anything. And the only surefire way to actually fail is to never start in the first place. Right?
So in my coaching program, we look at failure in a whole new way. We never expect to do this stuff perfectly. Nobody does. We accept that failure is part of the process. So we fail. We learn our lessons from it, and then we move on. Every success is built upon a big ol pile of failures.
So don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Just start. Imagine what you could accomplish if you weren’t afraid to fail. To learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. All right.
So I’ve been thinking about this episode for a while now since I’ve started talking about the three big reasons why people don’t achieve their goals. So this is the third episode in that series. So the first one was the fear of success, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Last week, we talked about the fear of failure. And then today I’m addressing the third big reason why people don’t succeed, or don’t achieve their goals, which is a fear of being criticized.
So what is the fear of being criticized? What is this all about? Well, fear of being criticized as being afraid of what people are saying about you. So you’re afraid that people are going to think negative thoughts about you, or say negative things about you? It’s not really a fear of being criticized positively. Get out. It’s like, Oh, I’m so afraid that people are talking wonderfully about me.
No, it’s a fear of being negatively talked about negative feelings towards you negative thoughts towards you. It’s a fear of being judged, being judged unfairly. And we all judge people unfairly all the time, then you might be thinking to yourself, but, but those people shouldn’t judge me like that. They don’t know me, they don’t know my story. None of that stuff matters, people look at what they see on the outside.
Then you might say something, you might put a picture out there on social media, and you’re gonna get judged. So welcome to Reality. It’s just part of being a human being, unfortunately. But a fear of being criticized, the fear of being negatively thought about, or maybe somebody has negative feelings towards you, or says negative things to you, writes a negative comment about you.
And really, it’s a fear of being seen as well. It’s a fear of being exposed, of being vulnerable. We don’t like to put ourselves out there. We don’t like being vulnerable. And here’s why. Here’s where this fear comes from: this fear that we have about being criticized and being vulnerable and being exposed and being judged.
It all comes from, you know, this ancient ancestral fear of being kicked out of the tribe, like it’s that we, it’s that fear of being alone. And the fear of not being a part of this is really what’s at the root of all of this, okay? This is something that’s baked into our DNA. So for millions of years, it was certain death to be kicked out of the tribe, if you were shunned from the tribe, it meant that you had to go it alone.
And going in alone, in those days was pretty dangerous. You needed the safety, the safety and the protection from the people around you, to help you hunt and help you gather food and help you stave off enemies and animals and things like that. So being alone meant that you were probably going to die.
So this fear of being criticized when we get criticized, or somebody says something negatively towards us, it kind of feels like we’re being kicked out of the tribe, like we’re not a part of, we’re different. We’re being shunned. We’re being exposed for who we really are. And those people don’t like that. They don’t like who we really are. Okay. So, how this shows up for us today, you know, obviously, we’re not afraid of being kicked out of the tribe, so to speak, like literally or being eaten by saber toothed tigers, I hope that’s not an issue we have to deal with.
Most of us listening to this podcast probably don’t have to deal with that. But this could be something where you have been working to better yourself. So maybe you are working on losing weight, and you start running, and you’re feeling pretty good. And you’re feeling confident. And you know, you’re starting to feel more like oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna share my story, I’m gonna put some pictures up there on social media and kind of talk about my journey here.
And you might get some positive comments. And you might get a lot of positive comments, and no might make you feel good, you know, but then you’ll get that one person that says something negatively, or is critical of you. And you, it makes you feel terrible, because you don’t really focus, we don’t ever focus on all the 20 or 30 positive comments we get, we focus on the one negative one, that’s the only one that really stands out where we’re like, why they’re saying something bad about me.
So people can be really, people are mean, people are idiots, and people are mean sometimes that’s the bottom line, right. And when we’re dealing with stuff online, especially, you’re dealing with a bunch of people who are, who don’t feel good about themselves, and they just want to put other people down.
And so you’re gonna get some criticism, you’re gonna get, if you put yourself out there, you’re vulnerable, you’re seen, you’re gonna get judged, whether people are judging you internally, or externally by like actually writing some sort of a negative comment. But you’re being judged, no matter what, whether you see comments from people or not, they are criticizing you internally, they are judging you. And, and we just have to accept this. We have to accept this, okay.
They’re critical of you for wanting to better yourself. I know, it’s crazy. Like I said, people are stupid. They’ll make fun of you for not eating junk food, or like not drinking alcohol. Really, really, that’s not a thing. So why do people do this to us? Like, why are people critical of us? Well, mostly, it’s because they don’t feel good about themselves. You know, so they kind of hate themselves.
They hate where they are, they hate how maybe they let themselves go. And so when you try to improve yourself, and you start losing weight, and you start looking better, and you start feeling better, then saying something negative about you, will help make them feel better about themselves. They feel bad about themselves. So they’re trying to make you feel bad too. And this doesn’t really work. And the people that do this kind of stuff are generally pretty miserable. People will talk about that in just a minute.
But the reason people do this is that they’re just trying to pull you down to where they are, right? So there’s this story, principle, whatever you want to call, it’s called crabs in a bucket. And if you’ve ever seen fishermen like catching crabs, they will put them in a bucket. And if you put one crab in that bucket, it will eventually be able to pull itself up by its little claw or whatever, and then pull itself out of the bucket.
But if you put a bunch of crabs in the bucket, as soon as one starts to pull itself up, other ones will grab it and pull it down and keep it in the bucket. So the crabs will be able to climb out of the bucket. I don’t know if this is actually true in practice or not. But let’s just use this as our analogy here today, okay.
People are just like crabs in a bucket, you know, they want to pull you down so that you don’t, you know, you don’t advance that you don’t get out of the bucket, they don’t want to see you doing well, they don’t want to see you improving yourself, they don’t want to see you losing weight, and looking better and feeling better about yourself, they just want to pull you down to where they are.
So one thing we have to understand about this is that criticism and judgment, this stuff does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up, you will have people who have improved themselves and who are successful. You will not have those people criticizing other people who are trying to improve themselves and who are working on being successful, they just don’t do it.
Successful people don’t put other people down, emotionally evolved, people don’t spend any time putting other people down writing negative comments on people’s posts and things like that. Think about somebody like Oprah Winfrey, sitting behind her keyboard and writing some sort of like crappy little comments about you online, that’s just never gonna happen. It’s never gonna happen. Why? Because she doesn’t hate herself. She doesn’t need to put others down so that she feels better. She’s an emotionally evolved woman, I’m assuming.
I have a lot of respect for Oprah. And she doesn’t need to do that because she’s a successful woman, successful people, people who are working to better themselves do not spend time writing negative stuff about other people. They just don’t need to do that. Okay. And then there’s a big difference here. Now, listen, this is important because there’s a big difference between when we’re talking about randos on the internet, and then the real people in your life, people that are important to you.
For the randos, for the people that are just randomly writing negative comments about you, people that maybe you are friends with on Facebook, or that follow you on Instagram, just forget about those people, they don’t mean anything to you, right. And if you’re friends with these people, and they are doling out some criticism to you about what you’re doing, you’re trying to improve yourself, and you got people that are sending negative energy your way, then unfollow those people, unfriend those people block those people get their energy out of your life, you don’t need that, get rid of them. Okay, so let’s just start there.
For the people in your life, who you actually know, this would be spouses, partners, friends, family members, coworkers, kids, even, there will be some people in your life who are critical of you, who don’t fully support you. They may not be on board with your goals and dreams. We have to accept this, we have to accept that there will be people in our life, maybe people that are close to us who don’t support us.
Now, in this case, it’s a little bit different. We can take some of these, you know, if we’re talking about your partner, or a family or a close family member, you know, you can take some of their criticism and really say like, is this, maybe I need to work on this, this could be something that I need to improve and work on. And yeah, maybe they’re right. Maybe I am, you know, being ridiculous here or whatever, right?
So there are times when you want to take some of this criticism to heart and really look inside and see like, is there truth to this, you know, a lot of times there isn’t. A lot of times, it’s just people that are even though they love you and they’re close with you, they feel uncomfortable when you start to move ahead. I see this a lot with partners, like spouses, husbands and wives who want to better themselves and they start losing weight and they start eating better, and they start feeling better, and they’re running and they’re getting healthy and they feel great.
And their partner is not doing those things and their partners kind of feeling left behind. And they will kind of lash out at the spouse that’s doing better and want to pull them down crabs in a bucket, you know. And so sometimes we have to look at some of those relationships and decide if we want to stay in that relationship.
Now I’m not telling you to go leave your partner or anything like that, but just like sometimes we may need to find new people to hang around. If the people we’re hanging around are critical of us and they’re negative towards us, and they’re judging us, you know We can’t control what other people think or feel or what they say or what they do nothing, right. But you don’t have to hang around that and you don’t have to be a part of it. Okay?
So I forget who said it, maybe Jim Rohn said, like you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. If you spend enough time with four millionaires, you’ll probably be the fifth, if you spend enough time with four criminals, you’ll probably be the fifth. Spend enough time with four people who are ultra marathoners, and you’ll probably end up running an ultra marathon at some point, right?
When I quit drinking, which was, gosh, almost 16 years ago, now, I had to get a whole new group of friends because all the friends that I had were people that I drank with, and people who drank a lot. And for me like to go and hang out with those people was very challenging. And I realized that when, when I was sober, like they weren’t that great of friends anyway. I was like, wow, we don’t have a whole lot to talk about here. We don’t have a whole lot in common.
I think I needed to start getting some new friends. And that was hard. That was a hard transition to go through, where I started, you know, have to kind of find new people to hang around with and stuff like that. But listen, here’s what I’m trying to say. If there are people in your life, who don’t support you fully, who aren’t on board with your health and fitness goals, they don’t want you to lose weight. They make fun of you for eating the way you do.
You know, you go out to dinner, and you’re like, oh, no, thanks. I’m not going to have the bread. And they’re like, what seriously? Or if you don’t drink, and they’re like making fun of you for not drinking and trying to push drinks on you or something like that? Are these people really your friends? Do you really want to spend more time with these people? Think about that.
Do you want to spend more time with those people? And if the answer is no, then don’t. Like if you can avoid it, like don’t spend time with those people. Maybe you need some new friends, new friends are great. It’s great having new friends. And then here’s a good reality check for you, just understand that people already don’t like you.
There are already lots of people out there who don’t like you who don’t like me. And you cannot make anyone like you. You certainly can’t make everyone like you. So if you think that everybody in your world, in your sphere of influence, all your friends and friends of friends and everything is going to like you, you’re mistaken, because they already don’t.
You can’t control what other people think, or say or feel or what they do. All you can control is how you think, feel and act. That’s it. So don’t worry about any of that stuff. Don’t worry about the fact that there are people who don’t like you, like those people, just there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can do about it. Okay?
Do not let your fear of being criticized or judged, stop you from becoming the person you want to be. You know what it takes to grow, evolve and become more? It takes trying hard things, and maybe failing and risking criticism all along the way. It takes being willing to be vulnerable, because vulnerability is the cost of growth.
So how willing are you to put yourself out there and possibly be criticized to be seen maybe for the first time ever to be really seen to be judged? How willing are you to be criticized because there’s no way you’re going to do great things and become more without judgment, criticism. In fact, the more you achieve, the more you are going to be criticized.
So most people are not willing to do this. Most people just want to say stay small, they want to stay unnoticed. Because their fear of being criticized or judged is too big. So they want to stay and be criticized and judged. People already see you though, they’re already judging you whether or not you know it. They’re already criticizing you, whether they say it out loud or not. So you might as well do your thing and like kick some ass along the way. Okay.
I get criticized pretty regularly. And as I get more exposure, more people listen to this podcast and follow me on social media, whatever, I get more criticism. All throughout my weight loss journey. I’ve posted pictures and I’ve shared my story. I’ve shared a lot about myself here on this podcast too. And occasionally, I’ll get some negative comments or like a negative review on iTunes podcast, Apple podcast or whatever.
And I’m gonna go off on a little rant here because the reason I get these I’ll get a one star review and I’m like, what, really on Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever and I’ll look at the review and it’ll say They like, oh, this guy is just, you know, talking about his coaching program on the podcast. So one star.
You know, listen, I put my heart and soul into this podcast and it takes me hours and hours every single week to do this. And I do it nonstop. I have not missed a week in like three years of doing this. And I made a decision early on in the, whatever journey of this podcast, where I wasn’t going to advertise stuff on this podcast.
So a lot of podcasts you listen to will advertise stuff like every 10 minutes, like you got another ad that pops up, right. I’ve even listened to podcasts where I had to sit through 20 minutes of them advertising different products and stuff, before they actually got into the interview or whatever it is they were going to be talking about. Right? I talk about my program. I do it for like 30 seconds. Have you ever listened to a podcast without advertising? No, there aren’t any, there aren’t any.
It’s like going to the movies and complaining about giving the movie a one star review because they advertise popcorn and coke at the beginning of the movie. Stupid, it’s stupid. I’m tired of it. Alright, so this is my little rant here. I’m in integrity with what I’m doing on this podcast. And I feel really, really good about how I do things here. Okay, so I just wanted to say that okay, I’m done with that now. So I had to be okay.
And I’m okay now with these negative reviews, because for every one like negative I get, I get like 20 or 30 positive reviews, right? So I get criticized, and it’s been one of those processes where early on it kind of stung a little bit. I was like, oh, he’s paying up someone like me, oh, my gosh, what am I doing now? It doesn’t matter.
You know, I get criticized for how I look for pictures, I have people body shaming me, I get body shaming comments from idiots on the internet, I just don’t worry about it, I just blow it off, right? Here’s the important thing. I don’t let the criticism stop me from fulfilling my mission. You know, my mission is to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire you to do the same.
My prime directive is to always become more to always improve myself to grow, evolve, become more, the more I grow. The more criticism I get, the more I put myself out there, the more I am seen, and judged and criticized. But I do not let my fear of this criticism stop me from what I’m doing. I just keep going. So do not let the fear of being seen, judged or criticized stop you from becoming more.
Do not allow your fear of critical criticism to stop you from going after your goals and your dreams. You want to lose weight, you will be criticized. You want to run a marathon, people will judge you for it. You want to stop drinking alcohol, you know, people will see that and they will call you crazy or stupid until you’re no fun anymore or whatever.
Do not let any of this get in your way. Do not let any of this stop you from doing what you know, feels good. What you know it’s right for you. Remember, emotionally evolved people don’t spend time criticizing and judging others. The people who do this are typically people who are not where they want to be. They are definitely afraid to try anything that will cause them to get criticized. They are the crabs in the bucket that will just pull you down.
So stay away from the crabs, get the crabs out of your life, do the things you want to do because they’re important to you. They’re meaningful to you. They cause you to level up, keep digging, keep taking action to fulfill your purpose. And you just have to accept all the criticism and all the judgment along the way. It’s the price you pay to become your most badass self. 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.
Failure, or rather the fear of failure, is perhaps the biggest reason why you do not achieve the important things you want for yourself. People are so afraid of failure that oftentimes, they never …
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 167 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, reframing failure. Sounds really dramatic, doesn’t it? And today we are reframing failure. But here’s the thing: failure, or the fear of failure, is one of the biggest reasons why you do not achieve the important things that you want for yourself.
People are so afraid of failure that oftentimes they just never even try anything. They decide ahead of time that failure is inevitable, so they quit before they even get started. The truth is, though, failure is always going to be part of the process. So instead of fearing failure and giving up, you need to reframe what failure actually means for you.
So in this episode of the podcast, I’m gonna explain exactly how reframing failure can help you reach your goals, your weight loss goals and your running goals. But first, as a licensed sports nutritionist, I get asked a lot of questions about using nutrition to improve running performance.
And one of the most common questions I get is this, ‘what does fat adapted even mean?’ What does it mean to be fat adapted? And people think that being fat adapted means that you eat nothing but fat all day long. This is not about eating fat all day long. This is not about eating sticks of butter wrapped in bacon.
Okay, being fat adapted means you’ve adapted your body to burn fat to burn stored body fat as a steady source of fuel. And your own stored body fat is what we’re talking about being burned here, which is how you lose weight. So burning fat, we all know that if you want to lose weight, you got to burn fat, right?
So becoming a fat adapted runner is an amazing way of losing weight and improving your endurance. When you burn fat more efficiently, you lose weight, you have all day energy, your endurance improves, you can think more clearly your food cravings go away, you sleep better, you generally feel better. And this is just a partial list just for starters, okay?
Being a fat adapted runner means you are on your way to becoming the healthiest version of yourself. If you want to learn more about this, you can check out my unique weight loss coaching programs for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. And you could apply to join the Running Lean coaching project where the project as always, is you.
Alright, let’s talk about reframing failure. So last week, on the podcast, I talked about overcoming your fear of success. And I got a lot of good feedback on that episode. So I thought this week, I would talk about the other side of that, the other side which is overcoming your fear of failure. And the key to overcoming your fear of failure is really reframing failure. What does failure really mean to you? What should it mean? How can we look at failure differently?
So first of all, let’s kind of talk about how failure kind of shows up in our lives. So a lot of times, we think of failure, you think of it as being like the end, I have failed, and therefore, this is the end, right? Have you ever tried something? And then it didn’t quite work out for you? And so then you said, Well, I failed and then you quit, right? That’s the way most of us look at failure.
It’s a negative thing. It’s bad. We shouldn’t ever do it. It should be avoided at all costs. And it is the end. But that’s not really a failure. So first of all, let’s look at how failure shows up. So fair, fear of failure can show up like this. Number one, it can be just never starting. So so many people are overcome by a fear of failing at something that they never try anything. They never start.
You know, I’ve talked to a lot of people who tell me that, you know, they want to lose weight, but they are so afraid that they’re going to fail again, that they won’t even try something something new, even though you know they say they’ve tried every thing, quote unquote, everything, they’ve never really had a coach helping them through the process, which can make a big difference and not for everybody, but for a lot of people can make a big difference.
But they’re so overcome by a fear of failure that they will not even try that they won’t try anything. Right. So never starting is one way that fear of failure really manifests and shows up in our lives. Another way that we fail, and I like to call this pre failing, this is where like, you might even get started with some things.
So you might make some progress toward your weight loss goal, let’s say, but then you have some sort of minor setback, and then you just start believing that you are destined to fail, and you start coming up with all the reasons why this time is going to be just like all the others. And I’ll probably end up quitting sometime in the future. I never stick to anything like this long term, this never really works out for me. And you end up pre-failing.
So you, you have maybe made a little bit of progress. But you’ve decided that failure is inevitable. And so you give up, right? So that’s pre failing. And then the most common way that failure shows up for people is they just quit like they give up. And this is the only true way that you fail. The only true definition of failure is quitting. Because if you don’t give up, if you don’t quit, you won’t fail.
People who never give up, people who just keep going, in spite of failing, will eventually succeed. Think about that for a second. If you don’t give up, you will eventually succeed. If you never quit, you can never truly fail. But so many people are so quick to quit stuff, like any minor setback, and they’re done. That’s it, check, please, I’m done with this.
Do not do that. Do not do that, don’t ever quit. I’m just telling you like, if you take nothing else away from this particular episode, do not quit. Because if you do not quit on yourself, you cannot fail. Another way that fear of failure shows up in our lives is giving up on what’s important to you. So you may have decided that for you. Losing weight is super important.
You know, you want to live longer, you want running to be easier. You want to be healthier, you want to be there for your kids, you want to be a good example to your kids. But then you start to maybe experience a little bit of a setback. Or maybe it’s harder than you think it is.
Because listen, losing weight is not easy, right? It can be a challenge. It can be tough to get through those first few months, especially. And it’s uncomfortable, the process is uncomfortable. And a lot of people can’t deal with that. And so they start to make these excuses for why they need to change, their why they need to change their minds around why they really want to do this.
So they’ll be like, well, actually, I don’t really need to lose 20 pounds, I’m fine being like 20 pounds overweight, nobody else really seems to mind. So it’s okay with me. I mean, I’ll probably live long enough anyway, it’s fine. I know. I said I wanted to be a good example to my kids. But there’s other role models for them like, nobody’s perfect anyway, like, you know, this is, maybe this issue isn’t meant to be like you just give up on these things that are that you’ve set are so important to you.
And here’s the funny thing, none of the stuff I’m talking about here is actually really failing. This is all just stuff we do based on our fear of failure. This is just stuff we do. Because we think that we might fail sometime in the future. Or we try something that doesn’t really work. And so we fail. Right?
So when we actually think about this, the first thing we need to do is really reframe this whole conversation. We need to develop a keen sense of awareness around when your fear of failure starts to show up, right? It’s usually a lot of head chatter. And in your mind, it can sound like justification. You try to justify your behavior. It’s excuses. Oh, you know, I can’t do this because of XYZ. It’s stories. It’s blaming other people. It’s blaming your circumstances.
And all this head chatter can lead to never starting or quitting or giving up on those big reasons why these goals were important to you in the first place. And this is all just negative self-talk, right, it’s typically a deep seated belief that you will fail. A deep seated belief that you cannot lose weight, or you cannot run faster, or whatever you want for yourself. And we call these limiting beliefs. A limiting belief is a belief that you have, and you believe to be true, that isn’t actually serving you.
In fact, it’s a belief that limits your potential. We all have limiting beliefs, but we need to see them for what they really are. And they’re really just fears, they’re fears of, I’m afraid, I won’t be able to do this, I’m afraid I won’t be able to lose weight, I’m afraid I’ll fail again. And so firmly believing I can’t do it means that you don’t have to actually start and then you don’t have to suffer that inevitable failure that thinks gonna happen in the future. So get rid of these limiting beliefs, stop the head chatter.
And we got to start reframing all of this, because start reframing what all of this means, okay. And by the way, the three biggest reasons why people don’t achieve their goals, fear of failure, fear of success, which I talked about last week on the podcast. So if you haven’t listened to that one yet, definitely check that one out. And then the third one is the fear of being criticized or judged, which I’m going to talk about next week.
These are the three biggest things that come up when people set out to do something big. And it’s all just a bunch of BS. And it’s all just stuff that we need to reframe, and we need to rethink, okay. So when you see this fear, fear of failure, when you see this head chatter start to happen, when these negative thoughts come into your mind, when the negative self talk starts to happen. When you notice your fear of failure is keeping you from starting something, or making you feel like quitting. Or when your fear of failure is making you give up on your hopes and dreams. And you start justifying staying where you are staying small, you got to be really aware of all that stuff.
Be ultra aware when these things are happening to you. Don’t let this stuff get in your way. Don’t let this stuff stop you from making progress. Don’t let this stuff stop you from getting started. Don’t let this stuff keep you from continuing like don’t let it make you quit. Because once you stop letting your fear of failure get in the way then you can start taking aligned action. Start doing things you can change your behavior, you can do things that’ll start moving you forward.
Aligned action is anything that you do that helps move you towards a goal. If your goal is to lose weight, aligned action might be cutting out sugar, and grains and seed oils. Goal is to run faster, aligned action might be doing speed work twice a week. And aligned action could be things you don’t do, too like, maybe if your goal is to lose weight aligned action might be like say no to the Girl Scouts, when they come to your door selling their delicious cookies. They’re evil, those little girls with their green uniforms. You know what I mean? So hard to say no. They’re so cute.
But if that’s not what you want for yourself, then you have to like take that action of like, oh, no, thank you. I’m good. Right? Hard to do. But that’s what aligned action looks like, right. And once you start taking aligned action, this is where you start making progress toward a goal. You can’t make progress without taking action, right? You can’t get results without doing something.
But inevitably, something will happen. And you will experience what we call failure. Okay, cool. Failure comes in many forms. When you start taking aligned action, you start doing something to move towards a goal, you set a plan and you start working the plan, failure can come in a lot of different ways. You might go off your food plan, you might eat the Girl Scout cookies, fine, no big deal. You might gain some weight, you know, you’re on this journey to lose weight.
First of all, nobody that I know of ever loses weight exactly like one pound a week or two pounds a week or something like that just doesn’t really happen. It always goes up and down. You have to just expect that as part of the process. So you might gain some weight, okay, big deal. Or maybe you’ve been training for a marathon PR, and then that race comes up and maybe you just miss it by a minute. Right? All of these things can look like failure.
Maybe you want to hit the gym three times a week you’re trying to get stronger and you want to lift weights and you want to be consistent with that and you just haven’t been consistent. You keep missing days you’re sleeping in or you don’t feel like it. All these things can look like and feel like failure, you gain weight, you miss your PR, you didn’t, you know, do what you said you were going to do hitting the gym.
But you know what? None of this is actually failure. You just think it is you’re looking at it as failure. This is where we have to reframe all these situations. Reframing failure means not thinking that some setback or some disappointment is the end and an excuse to quit. You didn’t fail. You did not fail. The only thing the only way you can possibly fail is if you quit. If you give up, yes, then you have failed.
But trying and failing and then trying again is not true failing. So instead of seeing these things as the end, you have to see them as stepping stones on your way to succeeding. Failure is a part of the process. Every success is built upon a pile of failures, you cannot succeed at anything without experiencing some failures along the way, it just doesn’t happen.
Michael Jordan is famously quoted as saying this, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and I missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Babe Ruth was known as the homerun king. And I did not know this. But he was also known as the strikeout king. In 1923, Babe Ruth broke the record for the most homeruns in a season. It was amazing, right? That same year, he also broke the record for having the highest batting average of anybody ever, in Major League Baseball, crazy.
The third record he broke that year, and most people don’t know this, I didn’t know this, was in 1923. He also had more strikeouts than any other player in Major League Baseball, you fail your way to success, there’s no other way to do it. If you’re afraid to fail, you will always fail.
The alternative is to reframe failure, you’ve got to look at failure as the only way to succeed at anything and everything. Failure has to be an option. There’s this quote, failure isn’t an option. I think this is a stupid quote. Because you know what, if failure isn’t an option, then success isn’t an option, either. You have to embrace the idea of failing, if you want to succeed at anything.
I talk to people all the time who, you know, maybe struggle with their weight. And they fail a lot. Things don’t go as planned. They give into an urge or craving. You know, they can’t say no to the Girl Scouts. The scale doesn’t go the way they want it to. And sometimes they feel like a failure. And we talk through this and we work through it all. But at the heart of the matter.
There’s this idea that failure is bad, and failure should be avoided. But this is not true. Failure is neither good nor bad. Actually, if I was to pick one or the other, I would say failure is actually a good thing. Failure is part of the process. Failure is what it takes to reach your goal. The only way you can reach a goal is if you fail your way to that goal. The only way to figure out what works is by trying things, figuring out what doesn’t work.
Thomas Edison tried like 10,000 different ways to get the light bulb working. And somebody once asked him like if all that failure, all that failing was just like a big waste of time? And he said I have not failed 10,000 times. I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work. I love that. Because this is exactly what I’m talking about here. This is exactly what reframing failure looks like.
Failure is not the end. Failure’s not bad, failure’s not a problem. Failure’s part of the process. So the most important thing here is that you have to learn from your failures. Thomas Edison learned what doesn’t work. Michael Jordan learned what doesn’t work, Babe Ruth, learned what doesn’t work.
When you try different foods and your weight goes up, you just learned something. Hey, this doesn’t work for me. I can’t eat a large pizza by myself and then expect to keep losing weight. Okay, I can’t eat a whole box of Tagalongs by myself and then expect to lose weight, right?
So you have to ask yourself when you fail, or when you have a setback or something happens, a disappointment, you let yourself down, whatever. What’s the lesson here? What do I need to learn from this? What am I going to do differently next time?
So the biggest reframe of failures, this failure is just feedback. It’s an opportunity for you to learn and grow. You don’t learn from your successes, you learn from your mistakes. I hate that it works that way, but that’s the way it works. Success is a terrible teacher, failure is the only way you learn.
Right now I’m learning something, I’m training for an Ultra. This is a self supported 12 hour event that I’m doing completely on my own, never done a timed event like this before. And just thinking about running for 12 hours brings up all kinds of fear of failure. What if I can’t finish? And there’s a good chance that maybe I won’t, that’s a long time to run, right?
What if I get injured, I’m coming off of a knee injury from last year, there’s a real possibility that that could flare up again, especially during all this training. That’s a real possibility. It’d be easy for me to just justify not doing this, I could just easily say like, you know what, this, maybe maybe I shouldn’t do it. I don’t want to hurt myself. It’s a lot of work, a lot of training, I could really give up on this goal.
So I’ve been doing a lot of training. I’m really ramping up my mileage now. And I’m getting somewhere around 45-50 miles a week right now. And that’s going to increase to 60-65 miles a week. But right now my running has been pretty good. But I’ve had some pretty crappy runs. I did a 12 miler last week and felt completely terrible. Wasn’t a long run, but it just felt terrible.
Like what’s going on here? I did a 17 miler the week before and it felt amazing. So it’d be really easy to look at this bad run as like a failure and like a reason to quit training. I could look at it as evidence that I’m not cut out for this, like, proof that I can’t do this. But I’m not doing that. I choose not to do that. Instead, I’m looking at this bad run as an opportunity to learn something.
What do I need to do differently from a fueling perspective? What did I eat the night before? What did I eat that morning, did I eat anything? How did I fuel during the run? What did my hydration look like? Do I need to drink more water, less water and more electrolytes? How was my heart rate? Can I keep it lower? Well, how was my pacing? Maybe I started too fast. What was the terrain like? Was it flat, was it hilly, could I even cut my effort on the hills like all of this is great feedback, right? It’s good info.
And I wouldn’t consider any of this unless I had a crappy run, and essentially had to look at this failure. And now I can learn something from it. Another way that I failed is like when I first started out at getting fat adapted, I was trying an approach that really wasn’t working, I didn’t really understand what I was doing at the time, I was new to all this.
And it was taking a long time for running to feel good again, like eight weeks, and I still wasn’t where I wanted to be like running was still really hard. And this is not normal. It should only take like one to three weeks, right? And you’re good to go. But I didn’t really know what I was doing. I do now, but at the time, I was eating a lot of carbs during that process.
And now I know that that approach doesn’t work. But at the time, I really didn’t have any idea. I wasn’t tracking how much I was eating, I was just kind of guessing. And this is like, I had to just fail my way to success. I had to fail my way and figure out what actually did work for me, right.
So another chance for me to learn something but I didn’t quit. I just kept going. I tried something, it didn’t work. I tried something else, it worked. But you’ve got to keep going. So here’s your work. Stop being afraid to fail. Don’t let your fear of failure prevent you from getting started. Don’t let your fear of failure drive you to giving up on yourself and start looking at failure as essential to achieving any goal.
Yeah, remember, it’s just part of the process. So don’t try to avoid failure. instead embrace it, because it’s the only way you’re actually going to succeed at anything. And then lastly, remember, failure is just feedback. Learn from your mistakes. What are the lessons you need to learn from this? And then change something course correct. And move on. Try something else.
Rinse and repeat this whole process until you succeed. Because the only way you really fail is if you quit so never ever, ever, ever, ever quit. The people who succeed are the people who never give up. Period. 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 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 that 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 Running Lean podcast.com forward slash lean for life and start your transformation today.
If you’ve ever struggled to lose weight and keep it off, then this episode is for you. There are many different ways to lose weight - cutting calories, cutting carbs, cutting out snacking, more …
Continue Reading about 164. How to Achieve Weight Loss Success →
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 164 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today: how to achieve weight loss success. If you’ve ever struggled to lose weight and keep it off, this episode is for you. There are many different ways to lose weight, cutting calories, cutting carbs, cutting out snacking, or fasting, eating less meat, eating only meat, eating only cabbage and celery and on and on and on right.
Some of these weight loss methods are more successful and more sustainable than others. But they all work to some degree for some people. But despite all these different weight loss methods and their relative effectiveness, there is one master principle that you must follow if you want to achieve long term weight loss success. This one principle will also enable you to achieve success in every other aspect of your life, not just in terms of your weight loss or your health or your fitness.
So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to share this one master principle with you that will show you exactly how to achieve weight loss success and more. But first, one of my favorite clients Kelly had this to say about her experience she said, “Before finding Patrick, I was not in a good place. I was struggling mentally, drinking alcohol and eating garbage. I felt like other women were faster and stronger than I was. And this program has helped me to break through those limiting thoughts and really take control over my life. I started eating real food, I started lifting weights, and I’ve become more determined. I’m a stronger runner. I’m 20 pounds lighter, I ran a 50k and I even did an Ultra Ragnar. Trusting the process and gaining the confidence to keep moving forward helped turn this into a lifestyle change. I now have goals that I feel I can meet and feeling weak is in the past. I feel physically and mentally stronger than ever. You are one of a million and you changed my life.”
Thank you, Kelly. But here’s the thing, Kelly’s story is not uncommon. Every day I watch your owners like Kelly, take back control of their diet, lose weight, get stronger, and do things they never thought they could do. So think about this, what limiting thoughts are holding you back? And are you finally ready to ditch those limiting thoughts and take control of your life? If so, maybe coaching is an option for you. To learn more and apply, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply.
Okay, so let’s talk about how to achieve weight loss success. So like I mentioned, during the intro here, there’s many different pathways to weight loss success, you can cut out calories, you can, you know, ditch the carbs, you can cut out snacking and you can do more fasting. You know a lot of people do really well with intermittent fasting or even some extended fasting.
Some people do really well doing more of like a carnivore diet, they eat just meat, some people do better if they’re eating zero meat, some people do better if they’re doing the cabbage juice diet, I don’t even know what that is. But there’s just so many different methods of achieving weight loss. Now, some of these are more effective than others. I think some of these, especially when we get into things like really drastically reducing calories, you run the risk of slowing down your metabolism. This is not something that would really be sustainable.
I think if you limit a lot of nutrients, like if you’re just doing the cabbage diet, I don’t even know, is that a thing? But whatever if you’re just doing something where you’re just eating like cabbage for months on end, can’t be good for you. Like you’re probably not getting enough protein, probably not enough micro and macro nutrients in that. So anyway, some of these are more effective than others. Some of these are better than others. Some are more sustainable than others.
But here’s the thing, every diet that’s out there will work to some degree for some people. There isn’t just one thing that works for everybody. And I’ve said this so many times. Every person I work with I make sure we really understand that there isn’t one method, there isn’t one diet, no fad diet or whatever, that’s going to work perfectly for everybody.
Now, for me personally, I tend to gravitate toward a more low low carb sort of higher protein approach. So this isn’t no carbs. This is not like a totally carnivore type of approach. But I tend to eat lower on the carb scale. I definitely eat a higher protein than the average American for sure than the average runner definitely. And I don’t eat constantly, I’m not eating six or eight times a day.
And this approach seems to work well for a lot of endurance athletes who want to get fat adapted, who want to improve their fat burning capabilities, who want to run longer, who want to lose weight. But you know, even with this low carb approach, there’s a lot of room for differentiation, no two people are going to do this the exact same way, we’re all going to have our own sort of set point, as far as carbs go, like how many carbs do we need to feel good to make sure that our running is is still improving, to make sure that our weight loss is happening?
We don’t want to go too high on the carb scale. But we don’t want to go too low either. Like, are you making improvements at the gym? Are you seeing improvements in your running numbers, like all these things are worth considering. And it’s going to look a little bit different for each person. Okay, so just understand that there’s lots of pathways to success and weight loss, lots of different methods, lots of different quote unquote, like diets, you know, and to some degree, they all work, you know.
But if you want to achieve long term weight loss success, there is this one master principle that you must embrace if you want any of these things to work. In fact, this principle is just one word. But it’s a very, very powerful word. This word is so powerful and so important that I’ve made this one word, my mantra for the year for this year 2023. I printed out this word, I have it taped to my monitor. I’m looking at it right now. And I see this all the time, I’m constantly being reminded of this one master principle.
This word is so powerful, that it not only allows you to achieve weight loss success, but if there’s anything that you want to achieve in your life, in any area of your life, this one word principle is how you get there. And if you only embraced one mindset concept, this is what we’re talking about today. This is a mindset concept.
If you were to just ditch everything and just adopt this one mindset concept. This is the one that you should embody in everything that you do. Because if you do, your success is basically guaranteed, you basically cannot fail if you embody this one principle. Okay, I’m trying to be very dramatic and build this up. I don’t know why. But it’s fine, I guess. So I’ve probably teased this out enough for you.
So here’s the one word principle that you need to embody: discipline. That’s it. Discipline. That’s the word that I’ve chosen as my mantra for the year. That’s the word that’s taped to my monitor right now. And this is the way that you achieve success and anything that you want for yourself.
So what is discipline? The definition of discipline is to train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way. Another way of saying this, and I liked this definition a little better, it’s sticking to the plan, even when you don’t feel like it.
Alright, so your plan might call for chicken and salad for dinner tonight. But your husband just brought home a large pizza. And it smells amazing. And he opened up that box. And he said that pepperoni is all glistening with the grease on top of it and you can smell the cheese and you know how doughy that crust is going to be and how, oh my god, it’s like, you know, you just your whole brain is lit up now.
Your desire has increased like crazy. Being disciplined means in that moment, you eat your chicken and your salad because that’s what you said you were going to do. No one feels like eating chicken and salad when there’s pizza right there. But being disciplined means you do it anyway. Discipline means you go out and run for an hour because that’s what’s on your schedule. It said you run for an hour today. Even though it’s cold outside, even though it’s raining outside because your training plan says you run for an hour. That’s what you do no matter what.
Now I have an interesting story about this today. I have to tell him myself a little bit here. I run outside in whatever conditions and I have this whole training season I have for years actually And it’s very, very rare that I will ever skip a run. I really don’t skip runs but instead I’ll go run on a treadmill, which I have access to in my building there are a bunch of treadmills.
I could do this anytime I wanted to. But I don’t, I run outside. Today, I had this one, you know, hour block of time that I could run. And that was it. I didn’t, I don’t have time to go later. During that one hour block of time that I had to run, and I had to run an hour. During that one hour block of time, we were under a severe thunderstorm warning, there was lightning, the rain was coming down so hard with lightning and thunder, it was insane outside.
And I made the decision in that moment to go run on the treadmill. And that was a tough thing for me to do. Because I was like, oh man, I know that I need to be disciplined about this. And I know that I’ve committed to running outside no matter what. And I don’t mind getting wet. And it wasn’t warm outside. It wasn’t too cold, like 50 degrees, it was actually pretty decent temperature for like a rainy thunderstormy day.
But I was feeling really undisciplined about like not running outside. I was like, oh, I gotta go run on the treadmill. But then I started thinking about running on the treadmill. And I hate running on the treadmill. I hate it. I do not like it. The time on the treadmill just seems to go by so slowly. It’s not interesting for me, it’s boring.
My pace never really matches up to what I know my pace is like I can run at a certain heart rate. And I kind of know my paces. And on the treadmill, it’s like, you know, normally that’d be like a 10 minute mile or something like that, for me it’s a super easy pace. And on the treadmill, it’s like a 12 minute mile. I’m like, that’s not right. It’s not right. It’s boring. I don’t like the way it calculates my pace. It takes too long.
There’s all kinds of reasons why I don’t like the treadmill. So for me, being disciplined today meant putting aside my, whatever ego and getting my run in and doing it on the treadmill, just sucking it up and just, you know, not being a big baby about it. And just getting it done. And I did, that’s when I did I ran on the treadmill.
The only reason I didn’t run outside is because of the safety factor with all the lightning and stuff because I don’t mind getting wet, whatever, my skin is still waterproof. So I’m not concerned about that. I didn’t want to get struck by lightning. And it was pretty crazy out there this morning.
Okay, so being disciplined means you get it done. Even when you don’t feel like it. I didn’t feel like running on a treadmill, I did it anyway. Being disciplined means you do the things that you don’t want to do. So that you can become the person that you want to become. Discipline means choosing the hard things. When the easy thing is right there, the pizza, the couch, the warm bed, Netflix, the cookies, whatever that is for you.
Discipline means you are consistent with the way you eat, the way you train. How often you lift weights, when you go to bed, you’re consistent with reading and journaling and meditation and yoga and stretching, whatever that looks like for you. Whatever that thing is that helps you make progress towards your goals towards becoming that better future version of you. Doing that thing consistently takes discipline.
Alright, so what does this look like? How do you do it? How do you practice discipline, because discipline is a practice. It’s not something you just turn on. And then you’re like, good to go. It’s not something you say, well, I’m going to be disciplined. And then it’s just you never have to worry about it. It’s something you have to practice, just like learning to play an instrument takes practice or doing yoga, it takes practice.
I did yoga last night for the first time in a few weeks. It was hard, and I’m like, oh, I need to be more disciplined about yoga. I need to practice yoga more often. Because when I don’t do it for a while, it’s hard. Yoga is hard. Especially for runners. We are the tightest people in the world. So in order to be successful at anything, you have to have these three things, you have to have a plan, you have to take action and you have to get some kind of result.
Okay, this makes sense, right? So being disciplined means that you make a plan. Whatever that looks like for you, if you are wanting to lose weight, then you need to have a food plan. What is it you’re going to eat? What are you going to not eat? You know, if you’re used to eating pizza and cookies all the time. Maybe that’s something you got to take away.
So for you, making a plan might mean what foods you’re going to avoid and what foods you’re going to include. Right? Okay, so you make a plan. And then you take action on that plan, you work the plan. And this is where the majority of discipline happens, you’ve got to be disciplined about what you do, you will not feel like it, you will not feel like sticking to that plan, but you do it anyway. That’s discipline.
Because the only way you make progress is by taking action. The only way you achieve results is by taking action. And the way you take action consistently is discipline. All right, so you’ve made a plan, you’re taking action, you’re doing a consistently good job. Now you’re gonna get a result or not get a result. So what did all that action achieve for you? What are your results?
Is this what you want for yourself? Or are these results moving you closer to your goals or further away, so you got to analyze the results. And then if you need to course correct, make a change. Okay, then you repeat this process, you maybe tweak the plan, and then you start taking new action based on that new plan. And then you look at those results. And then you just keep doing this.
And modifying your plan, or course correcting, has to be part of the process. And this is part of the plan right here, this part of this process of being disciplined and getting results and achieving goals. The modifying your plan part is where a lot of people get stuck, because they try something, it may not work, you know, perfectly. And so they quit.
We don’t quit though, we look at the results. And if something isn’t working, we change something. Because a plan does not work 100% of the time for every person. That’s it. And we expect this, the people that I work with my coaching clients, we look at the results that we’re getting. And if something isn’t working, we freaking change it.
We change the plan. People are so afraid to do this, though. Why are you afraid to change the plan? Who cares? If what you’re doing isn’t working? Let’s try something different. Let’s make a small change here. Oh, you’re eating, you know, 80 grams of carbs a day? Well, let’s change that, you know, maybe you’re not improving your running speed that you want to, maybe we go to 100 grams and see how that works for you.
Maybe you need more protein in your diet. If what you’re doing is not giving you the results that you want, why do you keep doing? It doesn’t make any sense. But most people get stuck there. And that’s when they quit. And that’s one of the beautiful things about having a coach, whether it’s me or somebody else, having somebody there to help you look at the results and see specifically for you what kinds of things you can change to start getting some different results is really, really, really helpful. Okay, just keep that in mind.
Okay, so you have this plan, you’ve modified the plan, and now you’re taking, you’re practicing discipline, again, because you’re taking new action. And again, this is where most people give up, they don’t want to try different things. They’re not willing to go through this whole process of trial and error. But that’s the only way you figure out what works and what doesn’t, it’s the only way to accomplish anything – is you go to try something, see if it works or not, and then try something else and you just keep going.
This is one of the reasons why these fad diets don’t work because the same plan doesn’t work the same way for two different people. It just doesn’t they don’t work the same. People need to understand that. The same diet, whether it’s the Mediterranean diet, the South Beach diet, or whatever it is, doing it the exact same way for everybody will not work for everybody just doesn’t work that way. There’s no one diet that’s going to get everybody the same results never ever, ever going to happen.
Okay, so we make a plan. We take action, we work the plan. We do it, we stick to the plan, even when we don’t feel like it. That’s discipline. We look at our results. Do we need to change anything? Let’s be disciplined about analyzing results. Let’s be disciplined about making a new plan if we need to. And then take new action and rinse and repeat this process. Okay?
You cannot be afraid of this process. It’s how you accomplish everything you want in your life. In fact, it’s the only way to accomplish the things that you want in your life. And the only way. In the end, the key to accomplishing all these things is that backbone of discipline, right? Being willing to stick with the process of change, even when things don’t seem to be working the way you want them to requires discipline.
You have to be disciplined enough to make a change and keep going. being disciplined means you don’t quit If you don’t ever, ever, ever give up, you keep going, no matter what this can relate to losing weight, being disciplined about food, about when you eat, when you don’t eat, how often you eat, how many times a day you’re eating, how much food you’re eating, and each of those meals, how many carbs you’re eating a day, how many grams of protein, whatever that looks like for you.
Be disciplined about how you do that. Maybe you want to get faster as a runner, you got to be disciplined about running faster, you got to do the speed work, you got to do the hard work of pushing yourself hard past the point of, of comfort way past the point of comfort. Sometimes if you want to get faster. If you want to get stronger, you want to build muscle, you got to lift heavier weights, you can’t just keep lifting the same amount of weight and expecting to get stronger, it’s just not going to happen. You’re not going to have an adaptive response. You’ve got to lift heavier weights.
Same thing with your work with starting a business being an entrepreneur as your career. You want to be disciplined about or you want to achieve big things in your business life, you got to be disciplined about how you approach the work. And same thing with relationships, and raising children. Be disciplined about improving how you interact with your children, how you inspire them, how you motivate them, how you keep them on track.
Be disciplined about how you approach your relationship with your partner, be disciplined about communicating about expressing your feelings about expressing your wants and needs. So all these things, all these different areas of your life can be improved by practicing discipline. Now discipline gets a bad rap sometimes. Because people see discipline as being negative like they see it as a punishment.
And that’s like a definition of discipline. The practice of training people to obey rules is a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience, like disciplining your child, right? This is clearly not the kind of discipline we’re talking about here. Okay. People think discipline means, you know, giving up all their freedom, you know, their free time, their sleep, not having any fun being miserable all the time, never being able to eat any good food.
Discipline is not negative. In fact, the opposite is true. Being disciplined means you gain massive amounts of freedom. When you’re disciplined with your time, and you use your time wisely, and strategically, then you have time for play and fun and Netflix. When you’re disciplined about what you eat, like 90-95% of the time, it means you can have the pizza or the cookie every now and then. And it’s no big deal. Because you know you’ve been disciplined the other 95% of the time.
Being disciplined means you have freedom to wear whatever you want at the beach this summer, because you’ve consistently done the hard work to improve your body composition. So you can take your shirt off or wear the two piece bikini or whatever it is for you. Right. Discipline is not a bad thing. It’s the means to achieving everything good that you want in your life.
Now, there are some negative consequences that go along with not being disciplined. Like if you lack discipline, you lack progress. You don’t make progress. If you lack discipline, you’re going to lack motivation. Because being disciplined actually creates motivation. You create progress, you get motivated, you lack progress, you lack motivation. If you lack discipline, you’re gonna lack consistency.
Discipline is how you stay consistent. Being disciplined is how you create massive consistency. If you lack discipline, you’re gonna lack mental toughness. You know, mental toughness is developed through this whole process of being disciplined. And if you lack discipline in one area of your life, chances are you’re going to lack discipline in most if not all areas of your life. Because how you do one thing is how you do everything, right?
And if you lack discipline, you will lack results, period. Now, the opposite is also true. There’s a beautiful positive ripple effect that happens when you practice discipline. When you practice discipline, you make progress. This increases your motivation, you become very consistent. You build mental toughness, you develop discipline in all areas of your life, you get the results that you’re looking for, or at least you get results and then you can kinda like tweak some things and then start to get better results you know, but the only way you make progress the only way you can achieve anything is by practicing discipline. Okay.
So just to recap, how do you do this? How do you practice being disciplined? Make a plan. So what are the steps required to get you from where you are to where you want to be. So if this is like losing weight, that’s your food plan. If this is improving your running performance, this is your running training schedule. So you make a plan, then you stick to the plan, no matter what.
You stick to the plan, even when you don’t feel like it. And then you look at your results. Am I moving closer to my goal or further away? Am I gaining weight? Am I losing weight? Are my runs improving? Am I getting faster, and then make changes if you need to tweak the plan, stick to that plan, analyze those results, rinse and repeat. Okay? I’ve chosen this word discipline as my one word mantra for the year. And I’m giving you permission to adopt it as your one word mantra for the year if you want as well.
Remember that whatever you want for yourself, whoever you want to become. Discipline is how you get there. 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.
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.
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