Setbacks

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 303 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today are you too focused on the wrong things. Have you ever felt frustrated because the scale isn’t moving or your runs aren’t going as well as you’d hoped, or you’re just not seeing the results that you want?

It’s easy to get caught up in these tiny details and feel like you’re not making progress like you’re failing. But the truth is. You’re doing the work, you’re showing up, you’re eating better, you’re training consistently, you’re probably just too focused on the wrong things. So in this episode, I’m asking that question, are you too focused on the wrong things?

We’re gonna take a step back and look at the entire picture of your health and fitness journey, because once you zoom out, you’ll see. That you’re actually doing a lot better than you think. So this is gonna be your reminder that progress doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be consistent. So get ready to feel a whole lot better about where you are right now with this episode.

Okay? But first, let’s be real for a minute. If running feels harder than it should, if you’re. Constantly struggling with energy and motivation or getting the results that you want. If you’ve been trying to change your body and your habits, but nothing seems to stick, then it’s time to do something different.

Nothing changes if nothing changes, right? Most runners think more miles. We’ll solve the problem, but if your body isn’t strong, if your nutrition isn’t dialed in, if your mindset is working against you, then running more is only going to make things worse. That’s why I created my coaching program. It’s designed specifically for runners who want to lose weight, get stronger, and make running easier.

We don’t do quick fixes, though. We don’t do one size fits all We do. Real change body, mind, lifestyle. So if you’re ready to feel better, run stronger and actually love the process, then let’s go. Go to my website running lean coaching.com, click on work with me to get started. Commit to yourself today. I know you are so ready for this.

Okay, let’s get into this here. Are you too focused on the wrong things? Here’s the deal. If you’ve ever obsessed over a number on a scale, or you’ve beaten yourself up for having a bad run, or maybe you missed a workout, if you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right, but you’re still not getting any results.

Probably you are probably too focused on the wrong thing. So today is about helping you to shift your perspective and seeing the truth about your progress and, and not letting these little things hold you back. It’s very easy to obsess over some of these small things, so maybe you had a slower than usual run, or you gained a pound.

Or you made a bad food choice, or God forbid you actually missed a workout. When you’re hyper-focused on these individual moments, you’re focused on the negative, and it can really feel like. You are failing, like you are a failure, right? But here’s something I want you to understand. First of all, you are not a failure, right?

You just, you missed a workout or you made a bad food choice and you’re not even failing. What you’re doing though, is you’re obsessing over these little things and you’re almost too close to the situation to be able to see it clearly. It’s like standing an inch away from a painting and all you see are those messy little brush strokes up close.

I did this, you know, a couple years ago I was at the Cincinnati Art Museum, which is a, an amazing art museum by the way, and always free to get in. So if you’re ever in Cincinnati, you gotta go. But I was looking at a Van Gogh painting that I thought was really cool, and I got up really close, um, as close as they would let me, obviously I wasn’t like touching it or anything, but you could like see the brush strokes and, and when you get up really close, it’s a, it’s chaos.

It’s just these random. Brush strokes, it’s really messy. It does not look like something worthy of being in a museum like I’m no art critic or anything, but I’m looking up close at this thing and I’m like, this just looks like sloppy, whatever. Like a 4-year-old could do this. But as you step back, this image starts to become much clearer and.

Literally, it’s only then when you take that, that bigger picture, that zoom out, that you can see the beautiful art that has been masterfully created. So it’s really, when you’re really up close, it’s messy, it’s chaotic. It doesn’t look like anything. But when you zoom out and you look at it from the proper perspective.

You can see the truth of the painting and it is beautiful. So I want you to think about that as we’re going through this topic today, because that’s how I want you to think about you and your health and fitness journey. So let’s say you, um, had a race recently and you didn’t hit your race goal. Well, that happens, right?

I don’t, can’t tell you how many times I’ve run a marathon trying to pr or hit some particular time goal and didn’t hit it like it. It happens all the time. But you have to remember that you still did the work to get there. You did the work to show up. You trained hard, you showed up on race day. Uh, you ran the race, you finished the race.

Those things are huge. Don’t take that away from yourself. Um. One time I got really bummed out about a race. So I was, I was doing this series of 50 Ks, uh, locally here around the Cincinnati area, uh, one summer. And, and if you’ve completed four out of, I think there were six 50 Ks in this series, but if you completed four of the, of the six.

Then you got this, um, special like gym bag essentially, and it had like, embroidered on it. The, the name of the race or the challenge that you won or whatever it was. So I was like, oh, I’m gonna get that bag. You know, so I, I did three of these 50 Ks and it was time for the fourth one, and I had just gotten back from vacation.

I didn’t really train much while I was on vacation. Literally the day before I had, I got off the cruise ship or something like that and then showed up the next morning and I was just tired and not feeling it. And. I was like, I’m, it’s fine. I don’t need to, you know, crush this thing. I just gotta finish. I gotta get the bag, you know, so I, I started running the first mile, was on the road, kind of separate people out before it turned and went onto the trails.

Well, as soon as we got on the trails, about a hundred yards in, I tripped on a, on a route or a rock or something. I didn’t even see what it was. And. Fell on my knee and like busted up my knee and my knee sw up really big and I got up and I was limping and I, I couldn’t even walk on, I couldn’t even put any weight on it.

But I, I was, you know, determined to finish this thing. So I, I just hobbled along for a while. It did kind of loosen up a little bit and start to feel a little bit better and I could, I kind of walk on it without limping and then I could kind of run and walk and then I could run and I was like, maybe I’m gonna be okay.

Um, it was killing me and it was super swollen, but I’m like, okay, I can still run. So I ran and. I ran. I got to 26 miles, so I basically ran a marathon on a busted up knee. I had one more loop to do and that last, the, the loop that got me between like miles 20 and 26, I had to basically walk the last five miles of that.

I could not even bend my leg. Uh. By the time I finished that 26 miles, there was no way I could go on and I was so bummed out. I had to DNF, it was my one and only DNF. Um, and I was so bummed out about it because I had, I had done all this work and I had, you know, I was focused on this challenge and, you know, running these four races and then race day came, I showed up, I did my best, and it just wasn’t my day.

But I was so bummed out about it, and so I was talking to a friend about it and I was telling him about this, and I was like, man, I’m so bummed out. And I explained the challenge and, oh yeah, you’re gonna get this bag and stuff. He goes, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get a gym bag and I’m gonna have an embroidered that says you are a runner and I’ll give it to you.

Would that help? I was like. Well, first of all, you’re kind of being a jerk right now. But second of all, that does make sense and you’re, you’re, you’re right, you’re putting this into perspective for me. And I was so focused on the bag, or, you know, finishing this one race or focusing on this one failure that I didn’t step back and look at the bigger picture.

And he told me that too. He is like, what, what have you done this summer? You, you trained for and ran successfully? Three 50 ks. Who does that? Like most people don’t do stuff like that just because you like, you know, had a, a fall and an injury and you did your best. Like you, you showed up and you ran a, basically you ran a marathon on a busted up knee.

Like that’s pretty badass. That’s, um, David Goggins stuff right there. And like, he, he really helped me to see the bigger picture and that I wasn’t a failure. I felt like a failure. You know, I had never d NFD anything before, and I felt like a total failure, you know, but he really helped me to see the bigger picture.

So this is just one story, and I talk to runners every single day who deal with stuff like this. You know, maybe the scale hasn’t budged. It’s, you know, it’s been a couple of weeks. Um, but listen, you’re still eating right? You’re still fueling your body with the right foods. You’re still focused on being a healthy person and eating well.

You know, you’re still doing the work and taking care of yourself. Um, you know, maybe you. Had a, uh, cheat meal. You ate something off plan, you skipped a run, or you had a, a rough week of running and it was just you had a bad run. That happens quite a bit. You know, we just, we have a bad run sometimes. Guess what?

You’re normal. Welcome to the club. You’re a human being. Okay? None of these little moments. Can undo the progress that you’re making. So you gotta take a, a beat sometimes and zoom out and look at the bigger picture, because it’s only then that you can actually see what’s really going on. We get so stuck in, you know, the failure of a moment that we don’t see how much progress we’re actually making.

Some other things you can see when you zoom out, Hey, you’re running regularly. You’re eating healthier than you used to. You’re creating better habits around food and exercise. You’re stronger, you have more energy, you clothes fit better, you’re more disciplined. Maybe you’re sleeping better. You know you’re becoming.

The kind of person who shows up for themselves. All those things right there, that’s all progress to me. That’s what success looks like. You’re committed to the process of improvement. That’s what actually matters. And if you’re doing all these things, why are you letting like one bad run or, or one cheat meal, steal your joy.

You know, a lot of times we’re so focused on where we’re not, uh, we lose sight of how far we’ve come. This is the, the gap versus the gain principle. So it’s very easy to focus on the gap between where you are right now and where you ultimately want to be. So maybe you, you, uh, set out to lose 50 pounds, you know, and you still got, you know, 20 more pounds to go.

Or maybe your body composition isn’t where you want it to be. You know, you still have 10% of body fat to lose, or maybe you’re not running as fast as you want be. You still have to improve by, you know, 30 seconds or a minute per mile. Focusing on the gap, you know, where you’re not. Does this help you? No, just makes you feel like crap.

It makes you feel like a failure, like you’re never gonna get there. Like it’s always gonna be so far away and it’s frustrating. The truth is, though, this is not reality. Because when you look at how far you’ve actually come, when you look at the gains that you’ve made and you focus on that, Hey, I’ve lost, you know, 20 pounds already or 30 pounds, I’m, I’ve, I’ve lost 6% of my body fat.

I’m running faster than I did three months ago. When you actually look at the progress you’re making, that is what’s, what’s reality. That that’s the truth. The truth is you are making progress, but you don’t see it because you gained a pound. And now you’re miserable, right? Doesn’t that sound crazy when you say it like that?

But it’s true. We do this all the time. Can’t tell you how many people I talk to who get very upset if the scale goes up. I’m like, I’ve never seen anybody lose weight in a straight line that goes from, you know, the top, uh, to the bottom. Like it goes up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Now, of course, we wanna see it trending down, and it usually is, but it’s gonna go up.

It’s gonna come down, it’s gonna go up, it’s gonna go down. And if you’re, if you get upset every time the scale goes up a little bit, you are gonna be upset a lot. I’m just gonna tell you. So think about your journey, like the graph that I was just describing, right? If you, if you zoom in and you’re looking at those little bumps, it’s gonna be up, up, down, up, down, oh my gosh.

You know, I’m, I’m not making any progress. I’m two steps forward. You know, three steps back, whatever. But if you zoom out, you get that. You can see the clear trend. You know, you can see that things are actually moving in the right direction, right? You just gotta, you gotta just zoom out, okay? So you’re not the result of the scale, uh, you’re not the result of a bad run, you’re not the result of, uh, uh, a fall that you had on a run.

You’re the result of what you do consistently day in and day out, that’s who you are. So if you’re consistently showing up for yourself, even when you don’t feel like it, if you’re doing the work, even when it’s hard, if you’re staying on the path, even when you feel like you’re failing, that’s when you really win.

Look, I get it. It’s easy to get caught up in like metrics and numbers, your pace, your mileage, how many calories you meet, how many pounds you weigh, your, you know, PR or not a pr, whatever. But that stuff doesn’t tell the whole story. What matters more is like, are you becoming more disciplined? Are you showing up for yourself?

Are you proving to yourself that you can do hard things consistently? Are you getting stronger, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally? Yeah, because that’s what’s going to carry you through the hard times. You know, you’re not gonna have a perfect run every time you go out there, but if you’re consistently working on becoming the best version of yourself, mind, body, soul, then that’s what’s gonna get you through those tough times.

So you’re not every run’s gonna be perfect, and you’re never going to have a, a perfect, uh, scale reading every time you look at the scale. What’s going to help you get through all of that stuff though, is, is this mindset, this mindset of, Hey, I’m, I’m making progress. I’m showing up for myself. I’m doing something today to become the person that I ultimately want to become.

So if you’re in a place right now. Where you’re feeling discouraged, like maybe you’re doing everything right, but it’s not working, or it’s not working fast enough, or you’re feeling stuck, or you’re not seeing the results that you expected. You know, maybe you had a timeline. Oh, I was supposed to lose X amount of pounds in three months, or whatever it was.

Just take a pause, take a breath. Zoom out. Look at what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve already done. Look at how far you’ve come. Focus on the gains. Look at who you’re becoming. Look at what you’re doing each and every day to become that person. And chances are you’re doing much better than you think.

You just need to stop focusing on those wrong things, okay? So keep showing up for yourself. Keep doing the work, keep believing in yourself. I believe in you. And then lastly, never ever, ever quit. ’cause that’s the only time you really fail is when you give up, right? Failure. Is part of the process. Failure is how we succeed.

You gotta fail to succeed. You fail your way to success every single time. There’s not one person who’s done anything of of value that wasn’t, uh, challenged with a bunch of failures along the way, right? So the only way you truly fail is if you give up and quit. Okay? Don’t do that. That’s all I got for you today.

Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.