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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

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175. The Comfort Crisis

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There’s a real crisis happening in our world today, one that’s been decades in the making. And I find it somewhat disturbing that no one is really talking about it. It’s not making the …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 175 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. And today, the comfort crisis. There’s a real crisis happening in our world today. One that’s been decades, centuries in the making.

And I find it somewhat disturbing that no one is really talking about this. It’s not making the headlines, it’s not in the news. And it doesn’t come up on our social media feeds. Well, it comes up in my social media feed, but probably not yours. But if left unchecked, if we allow this crisis to continue as is it could lead to the end of human life, at least as we know it today.

And you might be thinking I’m being a little overly dramatic here. But I promise you that I am not. In this episode of the podcast, I’m talking about the comfort crisis, and how our insatiable quest for comfort might just lead to our downfall.

But first, if you’ve been thinking about improving your diet, dialing in your nutrition plan and or losing weight, then I’ve got the perfect thing to get you started. I’m doing a free live training and coaching event. It’s called How To Start Losing Weight As A Runner. It’s going to be on May 17.

And in this live event, which I don’t do very often, by the way, but in this live event, I’m going to show you how to get started on your weight loss journey the right way. I’m going to talk about which foods to eat, which to avoid, what fuel to use if you want to lose weight and improve your running performance. How to create the right mindset to help you stay motivated so you stick with the plan, and tons tons more.

Also I am going to be answering your questions live. So be sure to show up on the live call. It’s going to be done over Zoom, and bring your questions. If you’ve been thinking about working with me, if you’ve been thinking about joining the coaching project, this is an awesome opportunity to show up, ask questions and see what coaching is all about.

You actually get some live coaching from me during this event. So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, and become the most badass version of yourself, then you owe it to yourself to attend this live event. You have nothing to lose, except maybe a few extra pounds, and you really have everything to gain. To sign up, just go to runningleancoaching.com/live.

All right, so let’s talk about the comfort crisis. So throughout human history, we have evolved as a species seeking comfort. We’ve always done this and it’s been a good thing. You know, seeking comfort seeking shelter from the freezing cold helped us to survive. You know, seeking foods that gave us a lot of calories, things like honey and berries helped us to survive the droughts and things when we didn’t have a lot of food available to us.

You know, putting on clothing and then learning how to like domesticate horses so that you know travel can be easier. All the things that we’ve done over the millennia to seek comfort have been mainly in the vein of comfort, safety, survival, really. So it’s kept us alive. Our seeking of comfort has kept us alive and thriving for millennia.

So we are creatures who naturally seek comfort, we’re really good at seeking comfort. And we’re constantly doing it. We’re constantly changing how we do things, especially now in the developed world, you know, to where we are experiencing so much comfort that we avoid any type of discomfort whatsoever.

Today, like most developed countries anyway, we don’t face any of the same hardships that we used to have to face back in the day, you know and we think that it’s evolution, and that it’s a good thing, you know, to always seek comfort. But I think that this might be wrong. I think that this might be something that is not causing us to thrive anymore.

I think the amount of attention and the amount of priority that we put on comfort today is actually causing our demise. It’s causing us to devolve. You know? Here’s something interesting. I came up across here back in the early or late 80s, early 90s, scientists built this research facility in Arizona, it’s called Biosphere Two.

And the biosphere was a controlled environment, it was an enclosed environment, think about it, like a big bubble city, so to speak, right? Wasn’t that big, but pretty big. So it was a closed ecological system. And it was used to kind of see like, okay, what if we build something like this on Mars, or on the moon or something, would we be able to live in here?

You know, and it had different biomes, you know, to let nature sort of happen and it had like rainforests and oceans and wetlands and desert and had people living in there, things like that, right. But something really fascinating happened.

So they had planted these trees there. And they found that with the right conditions, you know, soil and water and light and things like that, these trees would grow very quickly. But then before they could mature before they could, you know, become mature trees that could reproduce and, you know, produce more trees, the trees would all flop over. And they couldn’t understand why.

And they did all these experiments. And they were looking at the soil and looking at the structure of the trees themselves, and the root systems and all these things. And they found out that the reason the trees could not survive, and they just kept flopping over, is because there was no wind in the biosphere.

Trees need stress to survive, and to thrive, they can’t grow without it. Trees need to experience, you know, wind and that wind pushing on them. Discomfort, if you will, causes them to adapt and to grow stronger. And as a tree is growing and as it experiences more and more high winds and storms and you know, thunderstorms and hurricanes or whatever, these trees become stronger and stronger and stronger over time.

But without any wind without any adversity. Without any discomfort. The trees just flop over. And I bring this up because I think we’re doing the same thing to humans today. If we shelter ourselves from everything uncomfortable, what do we become? We’re becoming floppy trees. We can’t handle stress. We eat our feelings and become obese, we end up dying early. Because we’re not willing to be uncomfortable. We’re just choosing comfort over longevity.

Today’s children are the first generation in human history that has the same or lower life span than their parents. Meaning that this is the first time in the history of humans that our children are going to live as long or not as long as us. Why is this? And one of the big drivers of this is obesity.

It’s one of the biggest drivers of that lowering of the lifespan, as people are, you know, as the generations go on here. So this is not a good sign. This is a sign that if we keep going in this direction, what’s going to happen? You know, the average human lifespan can start to actually devolve and start going down. You know, I think right now, the average lifespan is something like 78 years old. But if we keep going in this direction, where’s it going to be? 60, 50, 40? I don’t know.

So just understand that this isn’t just some arbitrary idea I’m talking about here. This is like we’ve just become so comfortable. We’re always seeking comfort especially in the form of food, right? That it could lead to our demise.

And I talk a lot about leaning into discomfort here on the podcast and with my clients. I talk about embracing the suck, right? But are you doing it? Are you leaning into discomfort? Are you embracing the suck on a regular basis? I think for most of us, the opposite is probably true. Embracing comfort, embracing what’s easy. And I think we’re all really good at that. We’ve all become really, really good at that, too good.

In fact, I was watching Wall-e recently, the movie, the Disney movie, Wall-e, about the little robot that collects trash. And if you’re not familiar with the movie, I’m gonna probably do a terrible job of recapping it for you. But basically, the Earth has been uninhabited for 700 years. And this takes place like 800 years in the future or something like that.

And the Earth has been destroyed by too much garbage. No plants grow anymore. And all the humans have left the earth. And they’re all living on a giant space cruise ship, right. And over the last 700 years, they’ve had to do nothing themselves. All these people, all these humans on this giant cruise ship. They don’t have to walk.

First of all, they get carted around on these moveable chairs everywhere. So they’re sitting in these lounge chairs all the time. They don’t have to eat food, like with a knife and fork, everything is just like a smoothie, basically that they drink. Anytime I see somebody eating, drinking a smoothie, like with a straw, I’m like, oh, Wall-e, be careful. They’re all morbidly obese.

You know, they just, they’re just staring at screens the whole time. Everybody has their own individual screen, they’re sitting out, like by the pool, there’s thousands of these people that are all in these lounge chairs, drinking their smoothies, sitting by the pool, but they’re all staring at these little screens. Nobody’s even really talking to each other or anything like that, right.

And I see that scene and I kind of like I’m a little scared that we’re heading in that direction. Everything we do that we continually do to make our lives more and more comfortable moves us a little bit closer to a Wally reality in the future.

Think about all the ways that we choose comfort these days. Like we don’t have to hunt our own food anymore, right? We’ve done away with that a long time ago. In fact, we started growing our own food, we started becoming farmers and we would grow our own food, don’t even have to do that anymore. We can just go to the grocery store and buy all that stuff.

In fact, we don’t even have to do that anymore. We can just hit up Instacart and have all that stuff delivered right to your door. Right? In fact, you don’t even have to go to a restaurant to eat anymore. You can just have all that stuff delivered to your door, Uber Eats or whatever. You can do all your shopping from the couch.

And I ordered some protein powder the other day and an option was like same day delivery. Like I ordered it on Amazon and it was delivered here in like two hours. How is that even possible? I mean, I kind of know how it’s possible. But it’s kind of crazy, right? That’s where we are today.

Some years ago, this is like when Amazon had just started to get pretty ubiquitous and pretty huge, right? Some guy did this experiment where he lived for a year in his own house. Like without leaving his house, never went outside. He worked from home. He had all his food delivered, all his groceries delivered to him. Pretty much used Amazon for everything.

And I don’t know that he like worked out at all because you could have a treadmill and weights and stuff like that. I don’t know if he did that or not. I tried to look up some info on this guy and I couldn’t really find anything about it. I don’t think it was that big of a deal at the time.

But I just remember reading about this guy. And at the end of the year like he did it. He spent the whole year inside his house and ordered everything and just was like watching Netflix all the time or whatever. And at the end of the year he finally came out of his house and he was not happy. I think he was like overweight and out of shape and just like miserable.

But it’s like that’s the Wall-e cruise ship right there, that guy basically just did it, you know, for a year, it’s crazy. Other ways we choose comfort, like we don’t even have to walk anywhere anymore. I don’t know about where you guys live. But here in Cincinnati where I live, you know, I live in an urban area near downtown Cincinnati.

And when I go for a walk or go for a run through downtown, I have to like swerve around all the Bird scooters and Lime scooters. And if you guys have those where you are basically a scooter that you can rent and you can just hop on and zip around wherever you need to go. You don’t have to walk down the street. Oh, it was too far to walk, you know, two blocks, I’m just going to jump on this Lime scooter and just, you know, zip myself down the street.

Now I have considered using those especially after a long run and I have to run uphill on the way home. I’m like, I could just jump on this scooter right here. No, I don’t do that. What about those scooters at the grocery store? For people who you know are maybe a little more immobile or obese or you know, have injury or illness or whatever. 10, 20, 30 years ago, were those a thing? I don’t remember ever seeing those back in the day. And now there’s like, instead of being one at a store, there might be 10 or 12 or more, you know, it’s crazy.

We don’t even have to leave our couch like everything. We want all the streaming options that we want Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Disney, Apple, Amazon, all this stuff. They’re there, everything you want is there, you don’t have to leave the couch, everything you want, is just right in front of you on this big screen where you can just sit on your couch and you don’t have to like go interact with any humans.

In fact, we’ve made interacting with humans, something we don’t even have to do anymore. We just interact on social media. Instead just stare at your phone, just look at your phone, keep looking down at your phone all day. I see people in their cars who’re driving and they stop at a red light. As soon as they stopped their car, they pick up their phone and they’re scrolling and they’re seeing who liked my post, who texted me, there’s a funny cat video, whatever.

We can’t even interact with each other anymore. Most of us sit all day, which is so bad for you. And I’m guilty of this too. I sit for pretty long stretches of time during the day when I’m doing coaching calls and things like that. I have a standing desk that moves up and down like it, it can be a set standing or sitting desk. I’m actually standing right now to record this. But I’m guilty of sitting a lot as well.

But we don’t have to do manual labor. We have jobs where you know, we sit all day indoors. We never have to experience temperature changes, hot or cold, because we go from our temperature controlled house to our temperature controlled car to our temperature controlled office.

In fact, you can like lot of people can open up an app on their phone and turn on their car heat ahead of time. So you don’t even have to let your car warm up. You could just like soon as you get in your car, it’s already warm for you. There’s fast food, there’s escalators, they’re self driving cars, you don’t have to drive anymore.

There’s liposuction, like why change your habits and actually burn fat when you can just get it sucked out to you and just keep up with your terrible eating habits? All these things are, you know considered innovations, technological advances. And they’re all providing us with more comfort and more comfortable life but at what cost? What’s going to be the end result if we keep going down this path? The Wall-e cruise ship is what you want.

And listen, like I used to be someone who was always looking for comfort, like I drank alcohol all the time, smoked cigarettes, ate whatever I felt like eating. And honestly, it affected me negatively, profoundly negatively. I became really overweight. I was sick all the time. I was miserable. I could not handle stress at any time. I became one of those trees in the biosphere. I just flopped over under my own weight. I couldn’t hold myself up. No muscle mass. I wasn’t strong. I couldn’t run, couldn’t do anything.

And so I’ve chosen to choose or I’ve chosen to live my life in a different way now. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t seek comfort constantly. I mean, there’s things I do enjoy, like sleeping in a bed. I don’t need to sleep on a rock. You know, I like temperature controlled atmospheres, like that stuff’s okay.

But there’s a lot of times in my life where I choose discomfort on purpose. So I don’t end up like one of the people on the Wall-e cruise ship. And I want you to ask yourself this. Honestly, be honest about this. Who am I becoming? And I want you to play it out, roll the tape forward. What happens to you if you keep going down your current path? A floppy tree, a Wall-e cruise ship passenger? Who am I becoming? Ask yourself this and be honest.

And is that what you really want for yourself? If so, great. No problem. No judgment, no criticism, no pressure to change at all. Just do you. That’s all good. But be honest. If that’s not what you want, then what are you doing about it? What are you doing today? How can you lean into discomfort today? How can you embrace the suck today?

You’ve probably heard the saying do something every day that scares you. I like to say it, it’s a good one. It helps you to, you know, think like, oh, I gotta get out of my comfort zone. Because if I do something that scares me, that means I’m doing something that’s uncomfortable.

One of our mantras at the gym is this: do something every day that hurts. Every day experience some pain. If you’re not experiencing pain every day, you’re doing it wrong. When I go to the gym, I work out, I work out hard. It hurts. I work out until it hurts. But this is how you get stronger. This is how you grow muscle. You work out until it hurts. Your body adapts. And then you do it again. This is how you grow. You don’t grow by sitting around staring at a screen all day.

Now, if you’re listening to this, and you’re a runner, you know what I’m talking about when I say you got to embrace the suck. Because you know what? Running is hard. Running is hard and you show up and you do it anyway, you train for that 5k or that half marathon or that marathon. And you know how hard that work is.

This weekend I’m running my 10th Flying Pig marathon. That is our flagship race every year here in Cincinnati. Such a fun event if you ever get a chance to do the Flying Pig, do it. It’s a hard race. Hilly the first eight miles, pretty hilly. But it’s fun, super fun event. So I’m running my 10th one this weekend. Super fun. And the forecast calls for pain. That’s like something Mr. T would say right. And if you don’t know who Mr. T is, I’m sorry, I apologize for that. But Google it.

I’ve never run a marathon where there wasn’t pain involved at some point. Sometimes it’s mile 21. Sometimes it’s mile 15. Sometimes it’s mile 8, whatever. And one of the keys to being successful at running a marathon, especially if you want to run like a PR or qualify for Boston, if you want to run a fast marathon is being able to endure pain, being able to endure discomfort for a long period of time. And by a long period of time, I mean, like an hour or two or whatever, right. So I’m looking forward to this painful race this weekend. I know it’s temporary. I’ve done this before.

I’m not trying to PR this one. I’m not trying to qualify for Boston or anything like that. But I do know that every time I’ve run a marathon I’ve been like this pretty much sucks at some point. But I do it because it’s important to me. I do it because this is how I continue to grow. So here’s another question I want you to ask yourself, what am I going to do today that hurts? How can I experience some pain today? How can I experience some discomfort today?

Now I don’t mean to sit on a tack or like put your hand on the stove or anything like that, right? But what can you do to avoid the crisis of comfort today? What about your diet? How are you using comfort as a means of determining what you eat or when you eat or how much you eat or whatever.

I cannot tell you how many people would lose so much weight if they were willing to experience discomfort but they just won’t do it. They’re not willing to do it, they would rather be comfortable than get lean. They’d rather be comfortable and get strong, because lifting weights is uncomfortable. And I get it. Changing your eating habits is hard.

You’ve trained yourself over the decades to eat certain foods at certain times in certain ways, and to eat your feelings and all this stuff. And to change those ingrained habits means that you will be uncomfortable, you will experience discomfort. And nobody wants to do that.

Everybody wants the results. Nobody wants to do the work. Everybody wants to get leaner. Nobody wants to experience the discomfort. But the cost of success is discomfort. That’s it. Discomfort is the price you pay. If you want to change your habits, and you want to lose weight, if you’re willing to get uncomfortable, you will be successful. Period. But so many people are unwilling to do this.

They say they’re willing, I might be talking to them on a call. And they’re like, oh, yeah, Patrick, I got this, I’m willing to be uncomfortable. I’m willing to do this. You might be thinking right now, while you’re listening to this podcast, you might be saying this to yourself, like, I’m ready to be uncomfortable.

But then I promise you when your partner brings home a pizza and you smell it, and your desire goes through the roof, you start salivating? How about then? Are you going to be willing to experience the discomfort then? Because that’s when it matters. That’s when it actually happens. That is the work. Not while you’re out running and listening to this podcast, that’s great. But like, you got to sit there in that moment when you want the pizza, and you’re and you’re not going to eat the pizza and it’s uncomfortable. And you want nothing more than to just eat the pizza. And you don’t. That’s discomfort.

That’s what I’m talking about. If you’re willing to give up comfort, you can become anything you want. Are you willing to give up comfort to become your most badass self? It’s a good question. Think about that. Think about who you could become if you’re willing to embrace the suck more often? What would that look like for you? How much weight could you lose? How much healthier could you be?

How would your quality of life improve? Because to continue down the path of comfort, always seeking comfort, more and more and more comfort. That’s not working for you. I know because I’ve been there. It doesn’t work. You think you’re playing it safe, but you’re really destroying yourself.

The older you get, the weaker and more fragile you become. You become weak, your muscles atrophy, you become overweight, can’t pick up your grandkids, you can’t run in the falling down, you break a hip because your bones are so brittle. Now you can’t even get out of bed. And this scenario is not made up. It’s actually so common that it’s probably the leading, I believe it is the leading cause of death and the older and the elderly.

And it’s happening more and more as the baby boomers are getting older and needing more care and things like that. And it scares the crap out of me actually. And it should scare the crap out of you, too. I do not want that for myself. I do not want to be bed bound in my 70s or 80s or 90s. You know, I don’t want to be one of those passengers on the Wall-e cruise ship. I want to stay strong and lean and fit and athletic.

I want to have strong bones. I want to be able to lift weights and run until I’m 100. And the way I’m gonna get there is that I’m going to avoid comfort. Most of the time, I’m going to do something hard, something that hurts something uncomfortable every single day. And I’m going to do everything in my power to avoid the comfort crisis. Now, how about you, are you willing to do this with me?

Let’s do it. Alright, that’s all I got for you. Remember, join me for a free live training and coaching session called How To Start Losing Weight As A Runner. This is going to be on Wednesday, May 17, 2023. You know I’m going live. I’m going to show you how to get started the right way on your weight loss journey, I’ll be answering your questions live. So show up, bring your questions, you’ll get them answered, then you can get some coaching from me. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/live to sign up. That’s all I got. 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.

171. Getting Unstuck

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One of the biggest problems people talk about when they can’t seem to take action toward a goal is feeling like they are stuck. Feeling stuck can literally stop you in your tracks, make you lose …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 171 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, I’m talking about getting unstuck. One of the biggest problems people come to me with when they can’t seem to take action toward a particular goal is feeling like they are stuck.

Feeling stuck can literally stop you in your tracks. It can make you lose all your motivation, drain you of any willpower you might have had, and generally make you feel pretty terrible. The solution then becomes pretty simple. You’ve got to get yourself unstuck. But what does that even mean?

How do you get yourself unstuck when you can’t seem to make any progress at all? What do you do when you feel like you’re unable to do anything? So that’s what I’m here to share with you today. This episode of the podcast is all about getting unstuck.

So I’m going to share some ideas for getting yourself out of stuck mode and into action mode so that you can keep making progress toward all of your health and fitness goals. But first, are you following the typical runner’s diet?

And if you’re not sure what I’m talking about, it looks something like this. Pretty much. The vast majority of your calories are coming from carbs, you carb load in the days before long runs, you load up on carbs, right before you run, you suck down all the sugary gels and stuff during your runs. And then you refuel with lots of carbs after running. Then to reward yourself for running, you eat all the pizza and the beer and the fries and the doughnuts and the ice cream. Because, hey, I ran today.

So I’m kind of joking about this. And you may think I’m exaggerating here. But this was exactly my diet for years. And even though I was training and running ultra marathons, I kept getting fatter and fatter. And I’ve said this before, but you can’t outrun a bad diet. I discovered the hard way that it’s virtually impossible to lose weight, while stuffing yourself full of sugar and refined carbs. It’s just really, really hard to do that. Okay.

For me, the typical runner’s diet was fighting against me every step of the way. And if this approach isn’t working for you either, then I want you to know that there is a better way. This doesn’t mean you never eat a piece of pizza again in your life. But you need to get off the sugar wagon, you need to get your body working the way it’s supposed to work.

And this is exactly what you’ll learn in the Running Lean Coaching Project. The Coaching Project is my lifetime access program, where you get weekly live coaching online courses and workshops, a private podcast just for members and all the support you need to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself.

And I’ve talked to literally hundreds of people about my program. And I’ve gotten a lot of feedback, I want you to know that. I’ve heard you. And so I’ve recently made some changes, I’ve made like three big changes to the way that I structure my program and the signup process. And I’m going to tell you about those really quickly here.

The first is that you asked for more transparency and openness. You just want to know how much the program costs. And I’ve heard this, and now the prices are clearly posted on my website. And the reason I didn’t have these prices on there before, it was suggested by several of my coaches and my mentors, that for a program like this, you typically don’t list your pricing.

And honestly I just never really felt good about this, but I did it the way that was suggested. But I want you to know that for me personally, I want to know what I’m getting into like financially before I can make a good decision about something. So now I feel like having the prices out there. It’s all in alignment with who I am and what I want to do. And it’s all there for you too. So you can just definitely check it out.

Number two, a lot of you have asked for another option, a kind of a less expensive option for coaching. I get it, hiring a one on one coach is maybe a little more than you’re used to paying for stuff but the time and effort that goes into one on one coaching experience and the amazing results that you get are totally worth it. But that being said, I’ve now included a group only option that’s very affordable.

And you still get lifetime access to everything in the Coaching Project, live coaching, community courses, all that just without the one on one coaching part of it. Okay, of course, you can always add six months of one on one coaching, if you want to do that, or add coaching later, one on one coaching later. But now there’s a couple of different investment options. So definitely check those out.

And then lastly, many people who’ve gone through my program have gotten so much out of it. And they want an option to be able to continue with that. And I just didn’t really have a good way of doing this. And I felt like I was kind of stuck with that. So I finally decided that I was just going to give everybody who joins the Coaching Project lifetime access to everything; lifetime access to the weekly live coaching calls, lifetime access to the private podcast, all the online courses and workshops that I have, and everything new that I create going forward all of it, okay.

So if you’ve ever thought about coaching in the past, or maybe you and I have even talked about it on a call, I want to encourage you to check out my revised website where everything is laid out there for you. All the information you need to make an informed decision is right there.

There’s even an option to message me if you have any other questions about the program. Cool. I am super excited about these changes. And I hope you are too. But I’m most excited about seeing you in the Running Lean Coaching Project. So to learn more, and get yourself signed up, just go to runningcoaching.com/join. Go! Awesome.

Alright, let’s talk about getting unstuck. So, so many people I talked to get to a point where they just feel stuck. And this can look very different for different people. I’m going to give you a quick little story about my “being stuck” experience.

I remember trying to lose weight for years, and counting calories and trying different, you know, fad diets and things and none of that stuff was really working for me. And I remember one summer where I was spending a lot of time out in LA because I was attending some coaching workshops and seminars and I remember having to stand up in front of people and give a talk. And I was getting ready to do that.

And I was putting my shirt on which is like a button down shirt. And my belly was so big that my buttons were almost like popping up and like my shirt couldn’t hold me in anymore. And I was like, oh my god, what is happening? Like, why? Why am I here? How did I get here?

Because at the time I was training for marathons, and ultra marathons, I was running all the time. And whatever I was doing just really wasn’t working for me. But it just all came to a head to where I just felt like nothing I was doing was working, nothing would ever work. And I just felt super stuck and then putting your shirt on or trying to put the shirt on. I was so embarrassed to stand up in front of people.

Because here I am, this guy who’s a runner and running ultra marathons and training for this 50 miler or 100 miler. And my clothes don’t fit me, you know, and I have this big belly, you know, and I don’t know if you can relate to what I’m sharing here, if this is you now or if you’ve ever been at that point in your life, but it is a really terrible place to be.

And I really didn’t know what to do. And I really did feel like I was stuck. Like, all the things I was trying weren’t working, and all the things that I thought were supposed to work, were not working. And I just got to this place where I finally had to make a decision to do something about it.

So first thing I want you to understand is that if you’re feeling stuck, and where I was in that moment, I wasn’t really stuck in that moment. Okay, it wasn’t real. Being stuck is not a real thing. Being stuck is a mental construct. It’s a feeling. It’s a feeling of not being able to take action or not being willing to take action or feeling like you don’t have the choice to take action.

When in reality none of those things are true. You always have a choice. You can always get into action mode. But feeling stuck is more of an excuse than anything else. It’s an excuse because you don’t want to take action. And I didn’t want to take action because what I was doing at the time felt amazing. I was eating all the junk food, I wanted all the pizza and the ice cream.

And, you know, at the time I was like plant based, but all these things I was eating was sugar, and refined grains, like that’s the whole diet was just that it was not a good place to be. And I just kept packing on the pounds. And I really wasn’t stuck. I just didn’t want to change that. Because what I was doing felt amazing. It feels amazing to eat sugar all the time, at every meal. It feels amazing to make every single meal basically dessert. Right? Why would you want to change that?

So for me to sit there and say like, I’m stuck, I finally had to get real with myself and say like, this is not what’s happening here, I am not stuck. I just have to do something differently here. And what I had to do was to get uncomfortable, and do the hard things and do the hard work.

And that’s where most people would rather just say they’re stuck than do the actual hard work. Because doing the hard work is by definition hard work. It’s uncomfortable. It’s getting yourself into unfamiliar territory. You’re used to rewarding yourself with junk food, and sugar, and you’re used to feeling a certain way. And eating certain foods.

And to think that you can give those things up is really uncomfortable. Nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to give up eating amazing chocolate and ice cream and pizza and all the things, right? So one thing that we have to really wrap our heads around is that feeling stuck is just that it’s a feeling. It’s not real. It’s kind of like saying, I’m stuck in this chair. I’m sitting here recording this, I’m sitting down. And it’s like me telling you like I’m stuck in this chair, I just can’t get out of this chair. No matter what I do, I just can’t get out.

And you’re probably there going like, dude, just get up. Just get out of the chair. Nope. But I’m stuck. You know, I’m just stuck here. You know, I have, I’ve tried to get out, but I just can’t. It’s like no, dude, just get up out of the chair. It’s ridiculous to think about it that way, right?

But when we’re feeling stuck, and the next time you think you’re feeling stuck, I want you to do this, just remember the chair, like just get out of the chair, just do something, take some action because feeling stuck, really, it’s just an excuse for not wanting to take action for not wanting to do the hard work for not wanting to feel any amount of discomfort.

And I get it. Nobody wants to do hard work. Nobody wants to feel discomfort, but you know what, if you want more for yourself, the only way you’re gonna get there is to go through the gauntlet, is to go through the hard work. You don’t get bigger muscles by thinking about lifting weights, you don’t run faster by thinking about running faster, you don’t lose weight by thinking about eating healthy, you have to do the actual work of showing up for yourself every single day, and doing the hard things that make positive changes in your life.

That’s it, you’re never really stuck. You never are. You just think you are because you don’t want to change. Or you say you want to change but you don’t want to do the work to change. You say you want to lose weight, but you don’t want to give up pizza and ice cream and candy bars and french fries.

You say you want to run faster, but you don’t want to do the speed work. You don’t want to run hill repeats, you don’t want to do fartleks runs. You say you want to look good naked, but you’re not willing to lift the heavy weights, you’re not willing to go to the gym and put in the sweat equity required to get there. So I want you to just stop saying that you’re stuck because you’re not. You’re never stuck.

What I want you to do is start saying that you’re just not willing to do what it takes to change. And if you’re not willing to do what it takes to change, then, you know, that’s not a good place to be. I’m just gonna tell you right now.

What would it take for you to flip that switch? What would it take for you to be willing to take action? You got to really want it for yourself first of all, because if you if you just think like, well, you know, I want to lose weight, because you know, I want to, you know, just, I should be at this weight, but I’m at this weight, maybe that’s not big enough for you.

So what is it really going to take like, you want to do this because you want to set a good example for your kids maybe, or you want to do this because you know, your, your parents, they passed away at a very early age and you don’t want to follow suit. Now, sometimes, you’re stuck because you don’t know what to do.

And this can seem like a very valid excuse, or a very valid reason for being stuck like, oh, well, you know what, I just don’t know what to do. But listen, this is 2023. This is not a valid excuse at all, just go on the Google’s, google it, watch those YouTube videos, try something, get a coach, join a program like the Coaching Project, surround yourself with like minded people who are doing the work.

Right, there’s so many options to get you out of that place of like, well, I just don’t know what to do. Come on, honestly, you know what to do, you’ve got to just take action. The first step in getting yourself unstuck is to get out of the chair, just do something. I don’t know, I don’t know what that looks like for you. I tell people all the time, if you want to make a change in your diet, like you want to start feeling better, and maybe get yourself started on a weight loss journey, just stop eating sugar, just cut that out of your life, pretty much 95% of the time, that will make a huge difference for you.

That’s one thing you can do right now, to start moving in the direction of oh, I want to be a healthier, leaner, stronger person. Getting unstuck means you stop it with all the excuses, and the stories, and the reasons why you can’t do it. And it’s about getting yourself into action, just get out of the chair.

And this all boils down to one thing, it boils down to you making a decision, you have to decide that you are done being stuck. Decide that you want to lose the weight once and for all. Decide that you want to look good naked, even though you know it’s gonna take some hard work to get there. Decide who you want to become. And then just start, get yourself into action.

Get into action mode, and stay in action mode. Because when you are in action mode, consistently, you become unstoppable. Now one of the keys to getting unstuck, is to keep yourself in the game, you got to stay motivated, you got to keep your head in the game, right? When you’re motivated, when your head’s constantly in the game, you’re consistently taking aligned action towards your goals. This is how you make progress and build even more motivation to take more action, right. And it’s a beautiful cycle to be in.

The people who are most successful with weight loss, they keep their heads in the game consistently. But consistency can be hard sometimes, and I get that it’s hard to stay on your food plan when everyone around you is eating pizza. It’s hard to get out there and run on a cold Saturday morning, when your bed is so warm and comfy. There’s just no motivation there. Right.

So I want to tell you about something really quickly, I created a brand new online course called Creating Unstoppable Motivation. It’s an online course/workshop that will show you exactly how to stay motivated, stay on track and keep making progress towards your goals, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s a self paced training you can get right now.

As soon as you sign up, you’ll have instant access to the course and you can take as much time as you need to complete the work. There’s no rush to go through it, you’ll have lifetime access to it. So you can go back through the material at any time and actually going back through the course at a later date, maybe when you’re feeling stuck, could be just the thing you need to get you motivated and get you back on track.

Again, I’m super stoked to share this with you this little workshop that I put together to learn more in graduate training right now just go to runningleancoaching.com/motivation. Okay, so let’s stop being stuck. Stop it with the excuses. Get out of the chair, take some action and start making actual progress toward all of your health and fitness goals. Cool. 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.

162. Understanding The Different Types of Hunger

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Have you ever felt hungry? I know stupid question, of course, you have. We’ve all felt hungry, we all know exactly what hunger feels like. But did you know that not all hunger is “real” …

Continue Reading about 162. Understanding The Different Types of Hunger →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 162 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, understanding the different types of hunger. Have you ever felt hungry? I know, stupid question. Of course, you have. We’ve all felt hungry. We all know exactly what hunger feels like. But did you know that not all hunger is quote unquote, real hunger?

Sometimes what you think is real hunger is just a mental or emotional response to your current situation. Stress, boredom, even certain social situations can cause you to feel the need to eat. But are you experiencing real hunger in those situations. So today, I’m going to break it all down for you and help you understand that there are different types of hunger so that you can take back control of how often and how much you eat. Because understanding the different types of hunger is key to you being able to lose weight and keep it off for good.

But first, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight in the past, then you probably know that most diets fail. They fail because diets are looked at as a temporary change in behavior. Even the saying I’m going on a diet implies that at some point in time, you’re going to be going off that diet, right? Diets are marketed to you as a short-term solution to get the weight off.

And then there’s this promise that you can kind of go back to doing what you’re doing before. This is a bunch of BS, and it just never ever works. Okay. In my coaching program, we do things differently. Instead of focusing on a diet, we focus on breaking old habits, and creating healthy new ones, you’ll learn exactly how to make healthy choices that can become your new way of life. Stop going on a diet and start making sustainable changes to your lifestyle.

If you want to learn more about this, you will learn exactly how to do this, you want some help with this. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply Learn more on apply for coaching that’s runningleancoaching.com/apply. I hope to see you in the Running Lean coaching project.

Okay, so let’s talk about this. Understanding the different types of hunger. why I’m bringing this up today is because I think there’s some misconceptions out there about what it means to be hungry. I talk to people every single day, who struggle sometimes with eating, and it feels very out of control. It feels very automatic. Like they don’t have control over their eating because they they’re feeling hungry. And they’ll tell me this all the time.

They say, well, you know, I was hungry, so I had to eat something. And I always challenge that with people, I always ask them, you know what was going on right before that? Why did they make that decision? Why did they feel like they were out of out of control in that moment, like what was going on around that?

And a lot of times we can get to kind of the root of why they were feeling hungry in that moment, or whether it was actual hunger or not real hunger versus these other types of hunger that I’m talking about today. This is important because you have to get good at differentiating these different types of hunger. You got to get good at this because you most likely need to change your relationship with.

If you’re like most people in the Western world, you have been conditioned over most of your life, to eat a lot and eat often during the day. And this is due to all kinds of situations and different reasons. And it’s different for different people. But for the most part, there’s like emotional reasons why we eat there’s social situations, situations where we eat, there’s peer pressure while we’re there, stress and that’s why we eat.

So, there’s a lot of conditioned eating that’s been going on in our lives, especially here in the United States, right? So, if you’re the kind of person that has just conditioned yourself to eat every time you feel this little urge this little nudge this little bit of hunger, then changing that is going to help you completely change your relationship with food. If you’re somebody that’s had a hard time losing weight in the past, it could be because your hunger signals are messing with you.

And you need to get good at understanding these different types of hunger so that you can start changing that whole way that you think and feel about food and nutrition and diet and all that stuff. Okay? So, instead of eating just because you feel hungry, every time you feel hungry, you need to understand that there are different types of hunger and there’s like a real hunger and then there’s like, kind of false hunger, right?

And there’s these times when, you know, we feel like we need to eat something, but it’s really just an automatic kind of learned behavior, right? And so this is like being on autopilot, when you just find yourself reaching for food and eating it sort of unconsciously, you got to change this autopilot behavior if you want to lose weight, and if you want to be able to keep it off for good.

So, it doesn’t matter so much what you do in the short term, days, weeks, months, but over the long term for years is what makes the biggest difference. And to learn the difference between real hunger and what’s you know, like false hunger, then this is going to go so far in you being able to sustain a healthy lifestyle to sustain a healthy relationship with food. Hunger is rarely ever an emergency.

We, human beings, we can go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. This is like the rule of threes. You learn this in like boy scouts or whatever, three weeks without food. So, for us here in the Western world, we eat every single day. The fact that you could literally go three weeks without food and be fine. This means that hunger for us is almost never ever an emergency. Just think about that for a minute. Okay?

I’m not saying you should go three weeks without, let’s make that very clear. In fact, I think there’s some benefit to some extended fasting, maybe for one to three days or something like that. But you know, beyond that, it’s really not necessary. I’ve done a three day fast in the past, and I never felt like I was going to die. I didn’t feel terrible.

I never felt like I was it was an emergency situation. I was thinking about food a bit towards the end. And that first meal when I broke my fast was pretty amazing. But I don’t think it’s necessary to go three days or four days or five days or three weeks without food. But what if you didn’t treat every time you got hungry as an emergency? How would that change your whole relationship with food?

Most people cannot go a few hours without food because they feel like they’re going to die. And your brain is probably telling you in those moments that if we don’t need something right now we’re going to, you know, a murder somebody or die. And a lot of this has to do with the diet that people are eating the types of foods they’re eating, change the way certain hormones get expressed.

So processed foods, highly refined carbs, tons of sugar, this is going to really mess up your hunger signals. These foods are not satiating. In fact, they do the opposite. They make you feel really hungry all day long. Those foods high in refined carbs and sugars will suppress your satiating hormone like leptin, and they increase your hunger hormone ghrelin, which makes you feel more hungry, not feel satisfied with the food that you’re eating.

And so this is what kind of ramps up those hunger signals. That’s why eating a very high carbohydrate or a very high sugar diet is really hard to lose weight that way because you are super hungry all the time. So, if you get off of those types of foods and just start eating whole foods, more, you know protein, more fat and get off the sugars, then you’re going to do yourself a big favor and that’s going to go a long way in sort of resetting your, your hunger hormones and your satiety hormones back to baseline.

Okay, so that in itself is going to help you a lot. But just because you feel hungry does not mean that it’s an emergency. You don’t have to eat something. We look at hunger as a sign thing that we have to eat right now.

But what if you could just like be a little hungry for a couple of hours, or even like, a few minutes. Sometimes we can’t even go a few minutes; when we feel hungry, we just have to do something about it right away. But listen, when you get good at this, when you start to understand that there are different types of hunger, and you can really tell the difference between ‘Do I really need something right now? Or is this just like me being bored, you know?’. Then this is a game changer for you.

Because you no longer feel this urgent need to eat all the time, you’re no longer eating out of habit and doesn’t feel out of control anymore. You’re not eating because of emotions, or social cues, you’re back in control, and you’re eating like a healthy human being should. Okay, so let’s look at the different types of hunger. So you can start to recognize, you know, what each of these looks like, I think you’ve probably experienced all of these I think we all have.

And something I need to say here, everyone’s a little bit different. And for each of these different types of hunger, you know, we’re all going to experience these a little bit different. And there’s also some crossover here.

So sometimes you might be actually hungry, and you’re in a social situation, and you’re wanting a reward. So just understand that sometimes there’s a little bit of a crossover here, and that’s okay. But just start tuning in to your own body, your own thoughts, your own feelings. So you understand this whole picture and how it relates to you. And your goals. If you’re somebody that wants to lose weight, and you want to be able to keep it off, then understanding this is going to be super key for you to be successful with that. Okay.

So the first one I want to talk about is one that I’m calling withdrawal hunger. So withdrawal hunger is something that most people experience when they start to get off of certain types of foods, usually sugar. So when you cut out sugar, let’s say you just decide you’re going to stop eating sugar, your brain is going to miss the dopamine and all the you know all the oxytocin and the serotonin, all the good feeling hormones that you get when you eat these highly refined carbohydrates like sugar, your brain is going to miss that.
And so this is going to feel pretty terrible at first because your body has become kind of, you know, accustomed to eating sugar. And if you just stop eating sugar, you’re going to experience some withdrawal symptoms, okay? One of those things is like physical hunger. Right? So this is going to happen, when you get off foods that are high in sugar and carbs, especially the ultra processed and ultra refined carbs, you’re going to feel some withdrawal hunger, okay.

This usually just lasts a few days, maybe three to five days or something like that, until your hunger hormones start to calm down, the ghrelin starts to kind of normalize. But then something else kind of happens, it becomes more psychological in nature. So you’re going to still experience some of this, this hunger, you’ve probably gotten over the physical withdrawal, maybe after the first five to seven days.

But now there’s this like mental and emotional withdrawal that’s happening. So your brain is like, oh, yeah, like our body is fine. But our brain is like, oh, man, where’s that dopamine we used to get, you know? And so this kind of feels like real hunger, but it isn’t, okay. It’s just an imbalance of hormones. Again, it’s like ghrelin and leptin going crazy.

And this is kind of to be expected when you cut out those junk foods when you cut out all the sugars. And maybe you start out on a little bit of a lower carb way of eating. You’re going to experience some of this withdrawal, hunger, okay? Kind of feels like real hunger, but it’s really not. It’s just a withdrawal from sugar, all right?

So understand that you really don’t have to do much about that. Just understand that this is going to be part of the process. When I talk about embracing the suck of changing your diet. This is one of the things that we have to deal with. Okay, you’re gonna have some withdrawal symptoms, but you can get through it.

Alright, the second type of hunger is something you use, you’re going to know this one. This is a craving or an urge for something specific and you know that this is a craving or an urge because you are craving a certain specific food and maybe pizza or french fries or ice cream or like warm chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven.

Like when you get yourself thinking about something like that. That’s a craving. Now, this is going to kind of start to create maybe some of that, you know, rumbling in your stomach and you’re going to be like, oh, I’m really hungry. I have to eat pizza right now. But you don’t have to eat pizza right now. It’s just something that you’re kind of mentally creating, you’re creating this, this desire in your mind for this specific food.

Here’s an example of this just this morning, totally out of the blue. I’m like in the shower. You know, and I just had this craving for pizza. And I’m just like, what the hell? This is like for a very specific type of pizza from a place here in Cincinnati called Dewey’s pizza, amazing pizza, by the way, and there’s a specific pizza there called the Don Corleone, red sauce, mozzarella, cheese, pepperoni, salami, ham, oregano, it’s oh, my God is like so amazing.

I had to look it up here just to kind of see is that the right name for it, and there’s a picture of it there. And that even increased my craving even more. But just out of the blue, I have this craving for this pizza. And this is not real hunger. This is like I’m recording this in the morning, I’m not hungry. I just got back from a run, I’m really not even feeling hungry right now. I’m not going to go and eat pizza, you know, in the morning here.

But this is just something that came to me as a thought: it was a mental craving, it’s a mental urge to go and eat some pizza. So urges and cravings, they kind of come on fast, they come on pretty quickly. It’s just like I experienced this morning standing in the shower, it’s like out of the blue, I have this thought, wouldn’t pizza be good right now?

And then they kind of leave just as fast, they don’t really stick around for very long, it’s just a thought that you have maybe creates that desire inside of you, but then it goes away. So just give it a few minutes. And usually that will go away. Okay, but if you’re having a specific craving or urge for a specific type of food, whether it’s ice cream, or you know, french fries or whatever, just know that not real hunger, and you don’t have to do anything about that. Okay, just let it go. Get back to what you were doing. Give it a few minutes, and chances are, it’s going to go away pretty quickly. Okay.

Now, another type of hunger. And this is a big one. This is one that we all can relate to. I’m sure this is called reward hunger or emotional hunger. And this is where we want to eat some food to feel better. So typically, this is in response to some emotional state that we’re in usually some kind of negative emotional state that we’re in, we might be feeling bored, or anxious, or tired, or lonely or stressed out. And you know what we want to do we want to go eat something because we know that if we eat something, we’re going to feel better.

We don’t have to feel as much of that stress or anger if we just eat something and kind of numb ourselves a little bit. And what do you go for when you’re looking for a reward? When you’re looking to solve that emotional problem, you don’t go for like some raw broccoli, I’m guessing you go for those highly refined carbohydrates. You want the pizza, you want the french fries, you want the cookies, the Oreos, the ice cream, the candy, right?

People don’t emotionally eat raw vegetables, typically, okay. So you’re looking for a reward, you want that dopamine hit, you’re looking for something to make you feel better. Your brain is doing what it does, naturally, which is seeking pleasure. And avoiding pain, the pain that you’re perceiving is this emotional state that you’re in, I’m stressed out about work, I’m bored here sitting at home working. really angry about the situation or whatever negative emotion it is.

And you just want to find something pleasurable to kind of replace that. This is not real hunger. This is one that you have got to get good at recognizing because we all do this. And it feels very automatic. It feels like you’re not in control. It feels like you just go to the fridge and you just start eating stuff and you don’t even think about it. You know, or you grab a bag of potato chips. And before you know it you’re like how did how to eat this whole bag of potato chips? I didn’t even realize I was doing this.

So reward, hunger, reward or emotional hunger is one of those things where you have to understand what’s happening in that moment. Understand why you’re doing that. And you got to get good at stopping that automatic behavior. And really, when you’re feeling that urge to eat something in that moment, you just don’t have to do anything. about it, you can just sit there and not eat anything and just feel the emotion.

Yeah, you can just be bored. You can just feel stressed, you can just be angry, doesn’t matter, you don’t have to eat to feel better. There are other ways of dealing with those emotions. There’s other ways of trying to soothe yourself or reward yourself that don’t involve, you know, eating junk food. Okay? This one is probably the one that we do most often. And a lot of times, people don’t even realize they realize that they’re doing it.

So this is what I want you to really start to notice within yourself, am I eating because I’m bored? Am I eating because I’m stressed out? Or I’m eating because I’m actually hungry?

Okay, another one, which is pretty interesting, I think is what I’m calling social hunger. So this is where you’re in a social situation. And you’re just eating because that’s what everybody else is doing. So I want to say like, maybe this would be peer pressure, but it’s not even people like telling you that you should eat something. Although that does happen sometimes in social situations where people are like, oh, you’re not eating anything here, try this, eat this. Come on, you know, they’re trying to push their food onto you. And you can just say, no, thank you in that situation.

But a lot of times we’re eating because everybody else is eating. Right? How many social events have you been to where there’s no food, right? Zero, everything we do involves food at some point, right? Pretty much. So this is a situation where people are eating around you. And because we, as human beings are essentially herd animals, you know, we like to do what everybody else is doing.

We don’t want to stand out. We don’t want to be the weird one at the party. You know, we just want to do what everyone else is doing. We see everybody else eating. And so we want to fit in. And we do this so automatically. And it’s so much like engrained and kind of in our DNA. We don’t even realize we’re doing it. But we may not even be hungry. But we’re just sitting there eating around the snack table just like everybody else, you know, just because that’s what everyone else is doing. Okay?

This isn’t real hunger. We’re just doing it to fit in. We’re doing it because everyone else is doing it. Have you ever noticed that like when you’re sitting at a table and somebody like grabs their phone, and they start looking at it, and you see everybody else at the table, grab their phones start looking at their phone, it’s like this, this like, cue, it’s a social cue when somebody picks up their phone that everybody else does.

And it’s the same thing with food in the social situations. If somebody starts eating something, then everybody else is kind of following along. And I hear this a lot when people talk about being at work. And there’ll be like, yeah, so I’m at work, and everybody’s snacking around me. So it’s really hard for me not to snap. But I want to encourage you to just like do your own thing.

Be the lone wolf in that situation. You don’t have to go along with the herd mentality here. Do your own thing, be an individual, take a stand, be different. It’s okay to be weird. It’s okay. Like, what everybody else is doing is nest is not necessarily good, right? what everybody else is doing is they’re eating unhealthy junk food, they’re overweight, they’re, they’re not going to live as long.

If you just look at the trends here in the United States, there’s a lot of unhealthy eating behaviors out there. There’s a lot of disease, a lot of obesity, there’s a lot of, you know, lifestyle diseases caused by you know, diet and lack of exercise and things like that. Don’t be normal, be different. Okay.

So and then the last type of hunger I want to talk about here is what is real hunger. So these other things I’ve talked about here are not necessarily real hunger. Now, you might be feeling actually hungry in a social situation, fine, whatever. But just understand that that’s not always the case. What is real hunger? Well, real hunger is when your body has this physiological need to replace fuel. Like you need fuel. Right?

It’s kind of like, you know, your car is running low on gas, like you got to put gas in that car. It’s not going to keep going anymore, right? But you know, having you know, three quarters of a tank doesn’t mean you got to fill up the tank, right? So it’s kind of the same way with food like when we’re when our gas gauge so to speak, dips low enough, then we actually need to replace that fuel. And real hunger comes on kind of slowly. It never feels urgent and never feels like a craving.

It doesn’t you know happen, you know in every situation It gradually increases that kind of comes on like a wave like a slow, gentle wave. And it happens a couple of times a day, typically once or twice a day. So we as humans, we’re not meant to eat all day long. Our systems are not designed to be digesting food and metabolizing food 24 hours a day, our systems are designed to metabolize food once or twice a day. And that’s plenty for most people.

I think that, you know, there’s probably some outliers that need a little bit more often, but for the most part, we can do just fine on eating once or twice a day. That means that you should be naturally really hungry a couple times a day. Not all day long. You know, and you’ll know that it’s real hunger, because you could sit down and eat a meal, you feel like eating some chicken and a salad and some broccoli, like not just a couple of cookies, or a handful of nuts. That’s not real hunger. If a handful of nuts sounds good to you, that’s just emotional. You know, that’s just a reward type of hunger. That is not the need to eat a meal, that is not the need to refuel.

So you might do a hard workout and you get hungry afterwards. That’s your body sending signals to replace spent fuel. And you got to like replace the fuel totally fine. That’s real hunger. Interestingly, a lot of people do not get hungry right after a workout. So working out, exercise, can act as an appetite suppressant in a lot of people. And this is definitely true for me, I usually do not feel hungry right after a workout, a long run, or a hard workout at the gym.

I usually need to wait a couple of hours after that exercise session in order to, you know, kind of feel like I’m ready to eat. Right. So even you know, when you work out, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to eat like right away. I know that. Back in the day, people used to say like, Oh, you got to eat right after you workout right after every run, you got to eat something right away. And you just don’t have to do that.

And I’ve gotten really good at just kind of understanding my body and my hunger signals. And what I need and what works for me, and waiting a couple hours after I work out is is what works for me feels great if I do that. Okay, so I want you to get good at recognizing the difference between real hunger and these other types of hunger, these false hungers so that you can take back control of how often and how much you eat, you’ll completely change your relationship with food, and you’ll be able to lose weight and keep it off for good without all the struggling without all the suffering. Okay, 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 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 runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

159. Always Becoming More with Natasha Sorensen

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6 months ago, Natasha Sorensen was a little frustrated with where she was physically, mentally, and even emotionally. She was 18 months post-partum with twins and found it difficult to lose the …

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Podcast Transcript

Patrick McGilvray
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Patrick McGilvray
Hey there and welcome to episode 159 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Always Becoming More with Natasha Sorenson. So six months ago, Natasha Sorenson or Tash, was little frustrated with where she was physically, mentally, even emotionally.

She was 18 months postpartum with twins, and found it difficult to lose the weight she gained during pregnancy. She was also a very active person running and doing CrossFit regularly. But she couldn’t seem to make forward progress. Like she couldn’t break that cycle of emotional eating, for example, she knew she was capable of achieving more, but could never really stay consistent long enough to get there.

In this episode of the podcast, Natasha talks candidly about her mental and emotional struggles with eating right with being consistent and with going after big goals. Personally, I’m very inspired by Tasha and I know you will be too. And if you’ve ever tried and failed to lose weight on your own, you’ve probably felt like a lost cause. Like this is just never gonna work for you.

But I want you to know something, it’s not you. You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you, you can do it, you just need a few things in order to succeed. Specifically, you need knowledge, you need support, you need accountability, you need knowledge, you need to know what to do, you need to know how to do it, you need someone to guide you, you need a personalized plan. Right?

‘ve coached hundreds of runners on nutrition, strength, endurance and mindset. And I’ve helped them to become the healthiest versions of themselves. And I can help you too. You need support. If you want to accomplish anything big, you need support to help you get there to help you stay on track. You need people in your corner, people who understand what you’re going through, people who’ve been there themselves.

That’s why I include group coaching as well as one on one coaching in my program, I want to make sure that you have everything you need and all the support that you need to keep making progress to keep moving forward. And then lastly, you need accountability. You have to have someone there holding you accountable.

It’s one thing to say you’re going to stick to your food plan. Let’s say it’s quite another thing to have someone there holding you accountable for your actions. Accountability is really the key to making consistent forward progress towards your goals.

My unique weight loss coaching program for runners delivers all three all the knowledge, support and accountability that you need to crush your goals. Let’s work together and make 2023 your best year yet to learn more and apply just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply.

So, Tash is an inspiration to me. She was struggling for a while, mostly with the like mental and emotional side of things of eating, diets, nutrition, weight loss, she knew deep down that she was capable of becoming more, she had these goals that she wanted for herself, she just found it difficult to get there, she found it difficult to stay on track, you know, she would put together some consistency, she would lose a little bit of weight and get back again.

This cycle continued for quite some time, she found it very difficult to make any kind of progress. And one of the reasons why I find her story so inspiring is that she never ever gave up on herself. It was difficult for her at times. And she pushed through that. She knew that she had this amazing version of herself kind of lurking inside, right, and she just needed a little bit of help to let her out. Right?

And so in this interview today, she talks about her struggles with all this. She also talks about some of the amazing accomplishments. She’s had, in a very short amount of time, physical accomplishments around running and CrossFit, but also mental and emotional accomplishments, like completely changing her relationship with food and where she is today with all that.

So today, she’s committed to this process of always becoming more. And this is a concept that I think we all need to embrace. Always becoming more should be all of our goals. That should be your goal, should be my goal. It is my goal. It should be how you live your life. It should just be like who you are and what you do, and Tash embodies this concept beautifully.

I know you’re gonna love this inspirational conversation with Tasha Sorenson. Well today I am talking with Natasha Sorenson and you prefer Tash, right, you’d like to be called Tash?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah.

Patrick McGilvray
And today, we’re just going to kind of go through a little bit of your journey, because I think you were able to accomplish some pretty amazing things in the relatively short amount of time that you and I’ve been working together.

And every time I talk to you, it’s such a pleasure, and it’s so uplifting for me, because you are doing the deal, you know, like, you show up and you and you take instruction well, and you and you are very disciplined about what you do.

And then it’s obvious because you’re getting these amazing results. So I kind of want to talk a little bit about where you started and some of the things that you know you were struggling with. So give us a little bit of an idea of where you were six months ago, when you and I started working together and and what it is you were looking for some help with everybody that seeks out coaching or seeks out some help.

It’s because you’re struggling with some things, things aren’t working for you. And you need some help and some guidance. And so kind of give us a little bit of a feel of where you were at that time and what you wanted for yourself and what you were kind of struggling with.

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, okay. So six months ago, I would have been about 18 months postpartum with my twin boys. So that was a pretty epic life event for me. And I put on roughly, sort of 50-60 pounds during my twin pregnancy. And I think when we met, I was still holding on to, you know, roughly 30 of those pounds.

And that was despite going back to walking and running and CrossFit. And I think what comes in hand in hand with being a mum, and, you know, being a mom of twins is an amazing experience. But it’s also been amazingly difficult. And it triggered some pretty deep set, you know, postpartum depression and anxiety and I just really had a very hard time early on.

And my way of sort of dealing with those really big emotions is to basically just feed them and shove them down with food and really not deal with them at all. So in reality, I wasn’t dealing with those emotions at all, I was just eating over the top of them. And, in March, last year, I was, you know, I was doing a lot of walking, I was out sort of two hours a day walking with my twins in the pram and listening to a lot of podcasts, and I stumbled upon your podcast.

And I sort of binge through all of your episodes, because it really felt like you were speaking to me, it felt like basically, every episode you made was tailored to my situation. And, and, yeah, so I felt like there was this big change that needed to be made in my life.

I felt very stuck, when we met, and I didn’t know how to help myself, I had never really been in that position. Before I was I’ve always been very strong willed and, and I’ve, you know, been able to stay fit and healthy and achieve my goals with a fair amount of ease. And I just found myself in a really bad position. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and there was just a lot going on for me.

So I felt like this was the big change that I needed. I needed to address, address all of the important issues around being your best self. And that obviously included diet. And also, you know, for me running and and you addressed the importance of strength training in that learning journey.

But I think a really big one for me was addressing mental health and mental well being and really knowing why I was, you know, choosing to eat when I felt bad and why I would constantly sabotage myself constantly. And so I’d you know, I’d lose a few kilos here and there, but at the end of the day, it would never amount to anything and I’d go straight back to where I was before.

And this cycle had been going on for, you know, at least 18 months, but, you know, sort of leads back into my previous life before I was pregnant, pregnant as well. You know, I’d kind of always done this so there was a yo-yoing between good and bad situations, so I felt like receiving coaching with you is really going to help me address all of those aspects. But probably most importantly, it was going to, I was focused on resetting my mindset, and using my mindset to my advantage, rather than my disadvantage.

Patrick McGilvray
Hmm, that’s such a big thing, I want to touch on that a little bit here. So that mental and emotional piece is so important and so common. And so, you know, it’s so like, normalized, you know, because we all can relate to what you just described there, you know, yeah, but nobody wants to talk about it, you know, nobody wants to really address that issue.

And I work with a lot of runners and, and a lot of guys too, and a lot of the guys are like, oh, you know, I don’t have I don’t, I’m not an emotional person, you know, they don’t want to really talk about that, but they do some emotional eating, you know, they call it stress eating, or something else.

But it’s all the same thing, right? You’re eating because you want to feel better, or you’re stressed out, or you’re anxious, or you’re bored, or you’re lonely, or you’re tired, whatever it is, and you’re just using food as a way of, of feeling better and dealing with, or not dealing with the actual things that you’re feeling inside, you know, so if we can just like, if everybody would just like, admit that, like, we all do some type of emotional type of eating, then we can start to address it and start to look at it.

So you were keen on that early on to just say, like, hey, this is an issue and I’m struggling with this. And I think that was good to sort of admit that, you know, the other thing that is good about you and your approach to this and wanting to help is that you understood that it required a shift in your mindset. And it’s not just about, like, what do you do, because we all kind of know what to do.

Or we can, we can learn about what to do. But it’s a whole different thing to adopt a different mindset around all of this stuff. So that you change your default thinking, and you change your default feeling. And you change how you handle these different situations, whether it’s stress from work, or dealing with the kids or whatever it is, you know.

So you’re really good about that mindset is such a huge piece to all of this, whether you’re trying to lose weight or trying to, you know, win a CrossFit competition or, you know, PR your half marathon, or any emotional eating habit, you know, it’s the right mindset, with the right mindset, you are very powerful and capable of all kinds of things, which you’ve proven, you know, so I just want to address that.

And it’s so important that you looked at that and made that a priority for you of addressing that mindset piece and, and making that shift for you.

Natasha Sorenson
So yeah, I think one of the most important lessons I’ve learned from you is that this isn’t a game of willpower. You can go through the processes of, you know, eating right and, and getting out there and running. But at the end of the day, something’s going to challenge that. And if you don’t have the mindset to cope with that, then your willpower is eventually going to fail you. So yeah, I think mindset over, over just relying on pure willpower is really, really important.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So when you, when you start to make those, like really profound internal shifts, then the things that you’re doing externally become much easier, you know, developing good habits and things like that.

So, okay, so give us a little bit of an idea of what that process looked like for you, not just shifting your mindset, but making changes to, you know, your diet to how you looked at exercise, whether it’s running or CrossFit or whatever. So what were some of the things that were easy for you during this process, and what were maybe some things you struggled with?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, so I’d say I didn’t really struggle with the change in diet as much as I thought I would. I always felt really well nourished, and, and really satisfied. And I think the way that you taught me how to adopt this way of eating, meant that I was eating fairly intuitively. And, you know, I suppose we can revisit that concept, if you want to, but I certainly felt like, the initial fighting of the cravings. That was a tough gig.

And that lasted a few weeks, but I had kind of you’d set me up to expect that that was going to happen. And so I knew that if I could just push through that I’d be in a good place and really within a few weeks, I stopped craving, you know, all the sugar. And I was losing weight. So I was feeling great.

Probably the one doubt I had was what sort of effect the low carb eating was going to have on my training. And initially, I was like, I can’t handle it. And then I sort of started incorporating it into my training and trying to do my usual running and my usual CrossFit. And I felt pretty dreadful initially. So much slower, I felt sluggish, my legs were heavy in my runs, and everything just felt really hard.

And keeping my mind right to push through that it really was quite difficult. I think the things that worked to help me get through that, doing some faster training, and fasted running that helped, but I’d say sort of three to four weeks of feeling pretty average. Yeah, until I was sort of truly fat adapted.

And then suddenly, everything started ticking into place. And, my running improved. And I was able to lift heavier and I was managing my CrossFit sessions much easier. And, you know, I was doing better than even before I was pregnant. So I did see the gains. But getting to that place was really difficult. And I think that was a huge part of that was the coaching that I received in sort of the interim, of getting from one place to another.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that fat adapted process like getting your body used to burning fat really efficiently is, but you know, it’s a little bit of a struggle, it really is for everybody. And it’s like by design, because your body is like not getting the fuel source that it loves – sugar. And so you kind of deny that nice, easy fuel source. And it takes a little bit of time for your body to adapt, usually two to six weeks for most people.

You’re right in the middle there, three to four, something like that. But here’s the thing: a lot of people just give up when they try to do this, they give up because it is hard. I remember doing this, like I got fat adapted years ago. And I remember like getting on these forums and Facebook groups and like saying, like, how long is this supposed to last because I feel like crap.

And it just, it’s continuing, it’s not letting up like I just can’t seem to. And people in these groups were telling me just like, stick with it, it’ll get better. And eventually did it for some reason, like when maybe it was because of the amount of carbs and sugar I was eating at the time. But it took me a long time, like eight weeks to get fat adapted.

And then I, you know, went back to the normal carb, high carb diet sometime after that. Second time I got fat adapted, which was three, four years ago. Again, it took me like eight weeks. So I’m just one of these. I’m a long study, I guess.

So imagine putting up with that. Running and struggling for eight weeks. I mean, that’s a lot, you know. So three to four weeks is no big deal. But here’s the other thing. I wasn’t doing it right, because I didn’t have the kind of guidance that you have, like, I’ve got a lot of experience helping people with this.

So I understand some things that kind of speed up the process a little bit. So that helps, you know, I don’t know anybody really that I’m working with that has taken that long – eight weeks. That’s really on the extreme end. So you’re welcome and I took one for the team there. Thank you.

I think yeah, something else you mentioned, I just want to touch on really quickly, which was those cravings. So a lot of times we think, okay, running sucks, right now, this is hard, I’m having all these cravings. And really, you just want to quit, right? You just want to just like why am I doing this? You know? How long did it take for those cravings to sort of, you know, fade away to where you really didn’t really experience those anymore?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I’d say at least two weeks, but maybe even as long as three weeks I was still you know, like I could go for a block of chocolate right now but uh, you know, as the process went on, it got much easier to just say no. And I gave up drinking in that early stage as well. And I was just astonished that I found it so easy to just say no, I really explored the psychology behind drinking with you and why we do it and you know, it’s very similar I suppose to why we eat sugar and, and just a matter of making us feel better and making us feel part of some sort of social etiquette. But I found that I really just didn’t need it, as much as I thought I did, not to de-stress at least, if anything, it made me more stressed. So, yeah, very interesting to just explore that, something I’ve never really done before.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and those cravings for sugar, you know, a lot of people have a heart, a lot of people have a hard time losing weight, because they, the cravings are very intense at the beginning. And so a lot of people again, they give up, you know, but if you can get through those first couple of weeks, they get, they get much easier, much easier.

Yeah, and drinking is interesting, because it’s one of those things that is very detrimental to our health and performance, it really is. So if you’re a runner, and you’re an active person, drinking alcohol, even a few drinks per week is going to diminish your performance, it’s going to affect you kind of profoundly, and if you’re trying to get fat adapted, if you’re trying to like keep your body burning fat, that alcohol just shuts down that whole process.

So people that have a hard time losing weight, or maybe their athletic performance isn’t where they want it to be, you know, try not drinking for a period of time. But again, there’s that social, that mental, emotional, social piece that you talked about, which is like, it’s hard to do. It’s hard to like be around friends and family who are all drinking and not drink.

It’s hard to be around friends and family and everybody’s eating pizza and ice cream and chocolate bars and not partake in that. Yeah, but it’s not impossible, you know, we can do that. And, and if you want to be a healthy person, maybe it’s worth being the kind of weird one at the table for a while.

But okay, so let’s fast forward just a little bit. So you got through this kind of transition period where the cravings were there. And then they kind of went away. The running was really hard. CrossFit was hard, but then they started to get better. And then what kinds of improvements did you start to see after that? So now that you’ve like done the hard work, you’ve gotten through that really challenging phase of getting fat adapted? What kinds of improvements did you start to see?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I just want to mention that I think a pivotal part of getting through those first few weeks was not only the one-on-one coaching that I do with you, because I was able to sort of debrief those situations as and when I needed to. But the group coaching was very effective in dealing with that, like speaking to other people that have been through that initial process and sort of had some success. That was reassuring.

And, and I think very important for me, that sort of camaraderie of like other people that knew what you were going through, but it had successfully sort of got to the other side. So I think, like you said, you did the hard work, hard work. And I think that a lot of people in that, when if they’re trying to do this alone, that self doubt is usually going to get the better of them, and they’re gonna give up.

So having both you and the other sort of students, I suppose, to fall back on, that’s been a really important part of the success, I think, in terms of how things just sort of started to improve for me after that. So I’ve lost, I’m closing in on if not already there, 20 pounds. And I’m almost, you know, I’m pretty much back at what I was pre pregnancy, if not, maybe even a little better.

I’ve certainly lost body fat and increased sort of lean muscle mass. I’ve lost as much as 10% body fat. So while I may sort of be heavier on the scale, than I was pre pregnancy, I feel like my body composition overall is just astoundingly better than what it was before.

Patrick McGilvray
That’s really what we want. It’s not necessarily like about the some number on the scale. It’s about getting healthy, getting strong and feeling good.

Natasha Sorenson
And my clothes, you know, they fit the same. So I think, really, it’s a lot of the time it’s about nonmetric successes as well as it is the scale. And so even though like in that sort of weight loss process, I did hit a plateau or two along the way. It honestly didn’t bother me because I was making a lot more progress in sort of other areas of my life. So my running, was regularly doing 5k sort of Time Trial style. And my 5k time went from 31 minutes, sort of the middle of last year to 23 minutes. And I was running that with a double pram and toddlers.

Patrick McGilvray
Kids in the pram and yeah, 23 minute 5k?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah. And like, I wouldn’t have been, I don’t think I would have been capable of that pre pregnancy. So like, I just, maybe even when I was 25, I would have been capable of that. And I ran my first half marathon after you know, sort of a few years, I’d say three or four years and I ran that fasted with just electrolytes. And I beat my previous time by about five minutes.

I entered my first trial run, because you inspired me to give trail running ago, and that was at the end of last year, and I, my first trail run, I got a podium. Just like, I don’t even recognize the person that I am. I did a slightly longer one over the weekend, last weekend gone, and I placed fifth in that one. So just my running has just like, taken off in ways that I didn’t know it was possible.

And I mean, I’m certain that that’s because I’m leaner and fitter and stronger. But also I trust myself to take those leaps of faith and my confidence has come through in leaps and bounds because I’ve attended to the mindset as well as the, you know, the physical and the mental stuff.

Patrick McGilvray
I want to talk about running just for a second here because Yeah, a couple of things that I think are interesting. One is that you are fitter and stronger, and leaner. Yes, but running has improved substantially for you. You know, and it’s because you’ve done the hard work, you’ve you’ve, you know, shifted how you kind of train a little bit.

But I think, you know, from a fuelling standpoint, I wanted to touch on that, which is like, you’re doing a lot of these runs without fuel, like you’re not you don’t need to, you know, carb up and carb load and do all the stuff before you take on a half marathon or fast 5k. Like, you can just do it with very minimal or zero fuel and still perform exceptionally well, if you’re winning or taking the podium or whatever, you know, kind of accomplishments. I mean, amazing. You’re doing amazingly well.

So how does that feel like how does it feel to run? Because it’s very counterintuitive to what, you know, a lot of the running community will tell you out there. Yeah, I think it’s an amazing feeling like how does that feel for you?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of like mind blowing. I, you know, six months ago, if you’d told me that I could run my fastest 5k. And like, I think in like almost 10 years, fasted, then with a double pram, like, I would have laughed at you, really. So it’s quite amazing. And, you know, like, I think a point that you’ve driven home for me as well is that low carb doesn’t mean no carbs.

And really, we can use carbohydrates to our advantage. So if there is a really important race coming up, or, you know, with my CrossFit camps, I can have half a banana or, you know, you’ve we’ve picked out some sort of better tailored gels to low carb eating, and you can use those and they really have an effect, because they’re not just like, an everyday piece of your of your diet.

And so they give you just like this propulsion of energy, that your body is just like, wow, but actually, so much of the time you can get that just from, you know, having a glass of electrolytes. I think, an enormous part of the sort of low carb life is making sure that you’re well hydrated and your electrolytes are topped up all the time.

I feel like it’s this hack that nobody really knows about. How important salt is in the body and being well hydrated. It’s almost like you know, like, yeah, like a biohack in terms of the energy I can give you for just a standard workout. I always feel better when I’m optimally hydrated. And I think that’s when you are eating low carb, it’s very easy to become dehydrated. So yeah, that answers your question.

Patrick McGilvray
No, yeah, that’s perfect. So, it’s just so interesting because people think that if you’re not using all the sugar and gels, or herbs to run, like, you’re just not gonna be able to perform at your best, and you’re just living proof that you can.

Natasha Sorenson
I come from a triathlon background, I can’t tell you. It’s like just the amount of carbohydrates I used to eat, just sort of all day every day. And the gels and the, you know, just crazy, crazy amounts in the hundreds of grams of carbohydrates a day. Whereas now I’m, you know, probably sitting around 50, although, like I said, I’m very intuitive about that I don’t count carbs, low carb, I’ve kind of found what works for me in that in a range that I can easily find without looking at what the carbs are in each item of food.

And as long as I sort of maximize my protein, I think protein’s really important. That’s another lesson I’ve learned from you; protein, you basically can’t have too much. And, and yeah, I just, I can’t even believe how I used to eat. And I’m really getting not only getting the same results as I would have when I was doing that, but better results than when I was doing that. And I’m maintaining my health. And, you know, my physical appearance is not important, but my sort of like physique far easier than I was when I was fighting 500 grams of carbs today.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah, because yeah, your body’s fighting against that process right there. All that sugar intake. So running improves this substantially it sounds like. Have you tried doing one of those 5k’s without pushing the twins?

Natasha Sorenson
I’m going to, I’m actually going to, I’m thinking of trying it this weekend. Make my hubby take the pram and we’ll see. My PB when I was about 23 is 22 minutes and like, a few seconds, so you’re gonna be maybe I’ve got it in me.

Patrick McGilvray
You’re gonna beat that. I mean, I can just I can just tell you’re gonna be faster.

Natasha Sorenson
if it doesn’t happen now. It will happen over I, I honestly didn’t think it would have happened ever again. You know, six months ago. So it’s nice to have the confidence to think that I can maybe do it again.

Patrick McGilvray
Oh, you can absolutely do it. Yeah, I have no doubt. So let’s talk a little bit about CrossFit. How long have you been doing CrossFit? And kind of where have you been? And what were you able to accomplish in CrossFit? Because CrossFit is a whole different ballgame. It’s a more high intensity type of exercise and it’s really focused on strength, you know? So when we talk about fat burning, a lot of people think oh, yeah, that’s great for, you know, the long slow running old they think ultra runners or whatever. But what about for high intensity exercise like CrossFit? is it applicable?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely applicable. And while in the same breath that those early few workouts and now would have been, it would have been maybe a handful workouts, like, 5 to 10 workouts that I was like, oh, I feel heavy and sluggish. Now, I don’t even I don’t even think about it.

I’ll go in the morning and do fasted workouts or, you know, sometimes in the afternoon I’ve even done one meal Monday and gone and done a CrossFit workout. That was like, one of my most epic workouts. I just felt amazing the whole way through it, and I hadn’t eaten all day. I haven’t eaten in like 24 hours. And I’m not to say that, you know, that’s a necessary part of the lifestyle.

I was just sort of playing around at that stage, but I just don’t think, yeah, you certainly don’t need absorbent amounts of food to fuel those workouts. In terms of you, like I said, it’s really strength based. I mean, it’s an overall program where we try and be good at many different things. But it’s got a huge strength base component where they do a lot of Olympic lifting, and I’ve basically PB’d all of my lifts in that component of the sport.

So you know, deadlifts and squats, cleans and snatches, I’m lifting heavier than what it was, even before I was pregnant. And I was, admittedly, still quite new to CrossFit, pre pregnancy, like, I’d only been doing it maybe eight to 10 months. But I wasn’t foreign to the concept of lifting heavy weights. It was just, I was taking on CrossFit as a new way of exploring that.

And, yeah, I mean, I just, I still, I see improvements every day. And I think that’s the beauty of CrossFit is that it’s always about how much you challenge yourself. And there’s always somewhere to go and grow and be better. And even stuff that I thought, I’ll never be any good at that, particularly the gymnastics.

So now that I’m leaning down, I’m finding I’m actually able to do movements that I thought, I’ll never do that. That’s ridiculous. Like, I’m a 35 year old woman, I’m never gonna do that, like, and now, here I am, like, I can do, I can do some of them. And I’m seeing I’m like, hey, I can do that last week, or I can do that last month. And it’s just, yeah, I think, again, it’s gone. It’s given me the confidence to try to try these completely different things.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and you had a CrossFit competition not too long ago. When was that?

Natasha Sorenson
In November, and it was my coach kind of pushed me to just give it a go. And they entered me into the beginners category, just simply because there’s a lot of stuff in both the intermediate and obviously, the, they call it the fire breathers category, or the RX category that I wasn’t able to do.

And if you’re not capable of doing the movements, well, you’re not going to do any good. So you entered me and beginners, and I found it incredibly challenging, but I placed fourth overall, in fact, for maybe the first half of the weekend, I was on the podium. But that’s okay. I mean, I was just astounded to even be up there at all.

And I’ve got another one coming up in about two weeks time, with a slightly different format, where the first two days you compete, the whole group competes together, and they seed you into a category based on your performance in the first two days. And then the third day you compete in the category that they seed you into. So it’ll be interesting to see where I kind of fall as the natural progression of my capabilities and my ability to lift and do the gymnastics and do the cardio.

Patrick McGilvray
And yeah, six months ago, did you see yourself like on the podium for CrossFit competition or for these runs that you’ve been doing?

Natasha Sorenson
No way, no way. And it’s done so much for me. Not only, you know, physically, but I’ve just said a different, much more lighter person. I really believe in myself. And that’s following through into a lot of other aspects of my life, including my professional and my academic life. So yeah, I think it’s been a really important process. And it’s just nice to believe in yourself. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m, I don’t ever feel like I’m going to be at the Olympics or be at the CrossFit Games, but it’s just nice to succeed in your own little world, you know?

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And when you talk about being a little bit lighter, I mean, I think you mean like, mentally and emotionally, right?

Natasha Sorenson
Yes, yes.

Patrick McGilvray
Physically, too?

Natasha Sorenson
Certainly, I think everybody in my life can tell that I’m, I’m just a happier, mentally stronger person.

Patrick McGilvray
And it’s so interesting how these types of changes bleed over into all different areas of our lives. So this isn’t just about running. This isn’t just about CrossFit, or, you know, low carb or anything like that. Like these are all just, you know, tools.

Really, these are all things that we do because we love them. And we feel amazing when we do them. And it makes life better. You know, when we’re taking care of ourselves, and when we’re becoming that healthiest version of ourselves. We are better in relationships, we’re better with our kids, we’re better at work, you know, so there’s all these things that bleed into other areas of our life. There’s this ripple effect, right, that happens. And then I’m assuming that the people around you are, you know, probably feeling better too and stressed out and those relationships improve, and work improves and all those good things, right?

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of my sort of main reasons for taking this on was so that I could be a better mom to my boys, and more present an emotionally stable mum so that I could help them be, you know, emotionally stable and grow in a healthy way, and teach them how to be physically active and eat well, but also be more present and emotionally stable wife.

And I think, coming back to those reasons, every time there’s like a moment of doubt, or things haven’t gone my way for a day, or I’m just not feeling well, you know, coming back to those reasons has been really important, because they’re always more important than eating a block of chocolate or, you know, a piece of cake, or they’re always more important. Yeah. And so I guess that goes back to mindset.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, a big piece of that mindset is having that very powerful reason why you’re doing this stuff. And like you always had that Northstar sort of guiding you. And when you have that, it makes it a little bit easier to get up in the morning and hit the gym, or put on the running shoes and do a workout. Or to not eat the chocolate bar, not drink the wine, because you have these higher, there’s a kind of a higher purpose to this, you know, and I love this idea of sort of the ripple effect.

And part of my mission is to, you know, be an example of what’s possible to help other people like you become an example of what’s possible. Now you’re spreading that to your sphere of influence, you know, the people in your life, you’re showing them what’s possible. And hopefully, you know, you’ll touch other people’s lives.

And so we have this really awesome ripple effect that we’re creating here of, positivity of mindset of, you know, mental and emotional health and well being of you know, eating right and feeling good and being healthy. And being a healthy, strong, fit human being in all areas of our lives. So I love this. I love your story. And I love your progression here. And I love the things you’ve been able to accomplish. And you’re such an inspiration, you really are.

Natasha Sorenson
Thank you, I owe it to you. But thank you, I’m really happy with how things have gone for me.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So give me an idea of what’s next for you to hash. So you’ve got you know, you talk about doing this 5k, maybe getting that personal best, right, without, without the pram without pushing the kids. So what else is on the list for you for this year?

Natasha Sorenson
Um, well, I’ve got a bee in my bonnet that I want to do an ultra. So I’m going to try a 50k ultra marathon in July, end of July. And I’ll do a marathon in the sort of LEED AP as part of my training, I’m gonna go and do the Gold Coast marathon on the east coast of Australia with my sister.

That probably won’t be sort of like a targeted run where I’ll, I’ll try and get my most amazing marathon time, just because I’ll try and sort of roll it into my training, which might just be mostly easy, especially if I’m running sort of 42k in preparation for a 50.

But yeah, I’m just really looking forward to changing it up and a completely different terrain. I’m strictly a road runner up to this point. So gonna finish the Perth summer trail series, and they’ve got a winter one as well, where I can sort of dabble a little bit more in that. And I’d like to do quite well in this up and coming CrossFit competition, but potentially at the end of the year. I’ll repeat the one that I did.

And I know that I’ve already admitted this to you, but it always feels a little bit strange, but I’d really like to win it. So we’ll see. Yeah, that’d be that’d be cool. Even just on the podium would be good. I feel like fourth kind of was like, a bit crappy. But um, but yeah, just I just want to see how much I can achieve in a year and really, I feel like it’s going to be enormous. So not not unachievable. I just need to have some faith in myself.

Patrick McGilvray
When was the last time you ran a marathon?

Natasha Sorenson
2019.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so not that long ago.

Natasha Sorenson
So I mean, realistically, it was probably safe to say that I could probably beat my time. Yeah, I mean, it’s possible. It’s very possible.

Patrick McGilvray
Do these goals scare you a little bit? Do they feel a little bit? Outside Your Comfort Zone?

Natasha Sorenson
I feel very uncomfortable.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, saying like, okay, I’m making this declaration that I’m going to win this CrossFit competition. That’s it. That’s a little scary.

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, it feels a little top heavy. So we’ll see. But, like I said, I definitely don’t think it’s unachievable. I just need to stay dedicated to the cause. And if I keep seeing the improvement in my, you know, week to week progressions at CrossFit, and my running, then the sky’s the limit, really. I’m excited. And I think, you know, even if it doesn’t happen, the progress I make over the course of the next year trying to achieve it will be rewarding enough in itself.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, cool. Yeah. And like, let’s say you don’t, you know, win the thing this year, there’s always next year, you know, there’s, so we’re not, we’re not really like focused on, oh, I have to accomplish this by this date. But it’s like setting goals for ourselves, and wanting to improve. And in setting this goal of winning this CrossFit comp, if that’s the goal that you have in your mind. And that’s the goal that you’re constantly working towards. Eventually, you’ll get there as long as you don’t quit.

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this is going to be a long term thing for me, I’m always going to be chasing something different, something that’s going to push me out of my comfort zone. And that’s like a really exciting part of my life.

Patrick McGilvray
Do you feel like this whole, you know, shift that you’ve made and your diet and exercise and all this? The low carb lifestyle, whatever we want to call it? Do you feel like this is something that is sustainable for you, and something that you can do going forward pretty easily? Or is it a little bit of a struggle still?

Natasha Sorenson
No, absolutely. I don’t find it hard at all. In fact, if I will never go back to what it was before. Never. It is not worth it, in my mind, not for anything. In fact, if anything, I want to just try and yeah, just I want to say, influence those around me. I’m not really about shoving stuff on people, though. But already my husband, you know, he eats like I do. And he’s seen changes, I’d like to influence my little carb eating gremlin children. But that’s a process I may tackle a little bit later. But yeah, I don’t struggle with it at all. And I really can’t ever imagine going back to what it was before because nothing feels as good as distance.

Patrick McGilvray
Love that. And one thing I’ve learned over the years, is that you cannot force your agenda on anybody else. All we can do is just lead by example, just be a good example. Eat healthily, you know, your fitness will improve, your health improves, your mood improves, you lose weight, you look better, you feel better. People see that. And then they’re like, Wow, maybe I’m maybe I’ll do that. Maybe I should make some changes here too. But anytime we try to try to get people on our agenda, it just doesn’t work. Nobody wants to do so.

Natasha Sorenson
And I don’t want to be part of that process, either. So it really is, I think it really needs to come from you. You need to be ready to take it on because otherwise it’s just gonna fail.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you have to be ready to change. Have to be ready. Yeah. Love it. So anything else you want to share any other takeaways from this whole experience for you?

Natasha Sorenson
Um, I mean, I guess for anybody else that that’s sort of in this position where they’re on the fence. They’re thinking about doing something like this to just do it. And, particularly from a place of mother. Your body is not it’s, it’s not over. Like, it felt like it really was for me, I felt like my best days had come and gone.

And my mom bod was just going to be weighing me down for the rest of time, both physically and emotionally, and, and I really, I can’t believe how much I’ve changed my body in the last six months and, and if anything, it is stronger and better than it was before I had my kids.

And that’s, you know, for a few other reasons in terms of like I carried and birthed two babies. Not much can be harder than that. But I think, I think, yeah, just it doesn’t have to be the end for you, you really can make a comeback and you can be your best self in spades. And, you know, for the guys out there. And non mums, this process is the same.

You really can be your best self, but it requires dedication. And it requires an all in effort for all aspects of your life. But it is achievable to cook the right food as it is achievable to be in social situations where you have to deny what other people are eating or drinking. And drinking is obviously a personal choice. But it’s very, very achievable. And accomplishable.

Patrick McGilvray
Awesome. Love it. Well, thank you so much for being here and just kind of sharing your experiences and your story. Like I said before, you are an inspiration.

Natasha Sorenson
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Honored to. Yeah.

Patrick McGilvray
And it’s just such a pleasure to see the progress and to see the accomplishments and to see the way you’re handling all of this with such grace, you know, and just like, yeah, you’re laughing, but from where I’m sitting, that’s the way I see it. And I know, it’s been challenging for you at times, but really, you’ve just shown up and, and been very disciplined about all this and it’s gotten easier for you. And I just love the whole like sustainability for you that this is something that you’ve really eased into and feel like it’s something that is very sustainable for you going forward. I love it. So great, great stuff. Thank you so much. Tash.

Natasha Sorenson
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Patrick McGilvray
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.

157. Lessons Learned This Year and What’s Next

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It’s the end of the year and time to look back at everything that’s happened this past year…good and bad. 2022 has been a challenging year for a lot of people and I’m no exception. I’ve had my …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 157 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, lessons learned this year and what’s next. So it’s the end of the year. And time to kind of look back at everything that’s happened this past year, the good and the bad.

2022 has been a challenging year for a lot of people. I’m no exception. I’ve had my share of setbacks and difficulties this year. But I’ve managed to get through them all. I’ve also had some pretty amazing accomplishments this year. And it’s this time of the year when I like to reflect on that stuff as well.

So in this episode of the podcast, I share my biggest lessons learned this year, and what’s next for me, and it is the end of the year. And I want you to do something, I want you to start thinking about what you want for yourself in 2023. This is a good time of the year to kind of set intentions for yourself and decide who you want to become next year.

How do you want to feel about yourself? What do you want to have accomplished by this time next year? Think about that. And if you’re ready to take action now to start making these things happen for you then I’m here to help consider coaching with me. And I’ll help you to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself in 2023. Cool? To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, you and I will jump on a call and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. If it is awesome, let’s get you started in becoming that most badass version of yourself.

All right, so this time of the year, I like to kind of look back over what I’ve learned over the year, I like to look at some of the things that maybe I’ve accomplished, or some of the failures, setbacks, disappointments that I’ve experienced, I like to look at all of it. I’m not just concerned about, you know, the things that I did well, the successes, that would be easy to focus on that stuff.

Instead, I like to look at some of the things that maybe didn’t go so well. And I like to look at the lessons that I’ve learned from some of those things I’ve had a kind of a challenging year, I’ve had some surgeries and had to recover from those and had to kind of put my training on the back burner for a while when I experienced an injury.

And so I’ve had to deal with a few challenging things this year. And to be honest with you, this entire year, my training has been less than ideal. But I’m sitting here as we close out the year and I’m really grateful that everything that has happened this year has happened the way it has because it’s given me a chance to learn a lot about myself, and to see what really is important to me.

Alright, so I’m going to talk about all of that, in this episode. And I’m going to share with you some of the lessons that I’ve learned this whole year. And understand that I have talked about a lot of this stuff on the podcast.

So for everything that I’m talking about today, you can kind of scroll back through these episodes from this past year from 2022. And you kind of find most of what I’m talking about here is buried in a lot of those episodes. Okay, so go back and listen to some of the previous episodes and you can kind of get a feel for when I talked about these things and maybe take a little bit of a deeper dive into a lot of these topics. Okay.

So some of this might be, you know, kind of not new information. But I’m reiterating some things that I’ve talked about earlier this year. But these are lessons that I’ve learned this year that have been really valuable for me, and have really helped me to see things a little bit differently. Okay.

So, with that in mind, and with that kind of feeling in mind, I just want to go ahead and dive in here. So the first lesson that I learned this year that has really resonated with me is that you are tougher than you think. You are tougher than you think and I am tougher than I think. So like I said I had to come back from two big surgeries and an injury.

So, this time last year, I had my rotator cuff surgery in December of 2021. And that was a long, slow recovery. I also had a hernia surgery in January of 2022. So within about a month, I had two pretty major surgeries that I had to recover from. And it was kind of good that I had them back to back because, you know, I was already laid up, so might as well just get it all over with.

And that was a very interesting time for me, because there wasn’t a whole lot that I could do from a physical standpoint. So I really had to work on my mental game and my nutrition game. So I couldn’t do a whole lot of exercise. But I did what I could, you know, I showed up at the gym, I did sort of my physical therapy type of exercises, I worked on the things that I could do, you know, I couldn’t lift a lot of heavy weights, I couldn’t use my right arm wasn’t allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds for a while there, you know, that whole post surgery deal.

So I was really out of my element, you know, I was not doing the things that brought me joy, I wasn’t doing the things that got my adrenaline going, got me feeling good. And I had to learn that even though I was going through a tough time that I was tougher, that no matter what, you know, I could handle anything, no matter what was thrown my way.

So once I did finally get my training back up and was training for a half marathon in the fall, I had an injury where I, you know, fell when I was running, and busted up my knee. And this was in August, and then I had to take about three months off of running because my knee was just not cooperating, you know, I did something to it, and caused a little bit of traumatic damage there. But it’s better and I’m back to running and the knee is not bothering me anymore.

And so one of the things that I was worried about was like, maybe I’ll never be able to run again. But the knee did slowly start to get better. But that was pretty frustrating because I had just, you know, recovered from the surgeries. And I had come back and I was feeling good. And my training was on point. And I had this half marathon that I was training for. Granted, I’m used to running marathons and ultra marathons. And, you know, training for a half didn’t seem like much, but it was what I could do at the time.

And I felt like I was, you know, kind of making my way back and making a comeback. And then I had that knee injury, which set me back again. And here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens if you get a setback, if you experience an injury, if you experience a disappointing event, if you have a failure, it doesn’t matter that you are tougher than you think you can get through all of that stuff.

So I had to really adapt to this mindset that I am tough and that I can get through this, that I’m capable of way more than where I am today. And that, you know, no matter what things are knocking me down, I’m going to get back up again. Knocked down six times, I’m going to get up seven, you know, that I do hard things, whatever this setback is, does not matter. I will persevere. I will continue going. I will continue pushing forward.

And where I am today, I’m feeling good. Because, you know, I’ve definitely recovered from the surgeries, you know, that was, you know, maybe five, six months or something where I felt like I was back to normal again. But I’m definitely back to running again now after the knee injury. And I’m feeling really, really good.

And I’m so glad that I stuck with it. And that I persevered and that I didn’t push it and I didn’t get down about it. I wasn’t like oh my gosh, woe is me. I’m never going to run again. I mean, I could have really gone there, but I didn’t. Okay, so I kept my mind in the game, and realized I’m tougher than I think that I can get through anything. And I did.

So that’s a big lesson for me, that I’m tough and I can get through anything. And I want you to take this lesson to heart, that you are tougher than you think.

The next lesson I learned this year is that discipline equals freedom. That discipline is not a bad thing. And I think that a lot of people think that when you’re disciplined it means you have less freedom. That discipline is the absence of freedom.

You know, they think of discipline as being, you know, chained to a desk or, you know, chained to a schedule, or something like that. And in reality, being disciplined is how you achieve true freedom. You know, if you want to be free from your sugar addiction, then you have to be disciplined about not eating sugar.

If you want to be, if you want to have financial freedom, you have to be disciplined about how you save money. If you want to have time freedom, then you have to be disciplined about how you schedule your time and how you use your time. If you want to run freer and faster and you want running to be easier, be disciplined about how you train, the more running you do, the better it gets, the easier it becomes.

You know, if you want to be free of the whole diet, culture, the whole feeling of deprivation, always trying to lose those last 20 pounds. You want to be free from all that nonsense? Then be disciplined about changing habits around food, be disciplined about changing your relationship with them.

Discipline is not a bad thing. And I think people give it a bad rap. Like, oh, you know, discipline is something that is bestowed upon you from above. And it’s some negative thing. And it’s really not, it’s just how you live your life, right. And so discipline, to me, is not a bad thing. discipline to me is how I achieve freedom. Okay, so discipline equals freedom.

Another key lesson that I learned this year, and this is something I’ve been kind of playing around with this last couple of years, but really solidified it this year is that ancestral eating is the key to health and happiness. So, when I talk about ancestral eating, I want you to understand that I’m talking about how humans have evolved over the last like 3 million years, and the food that we ate, and the way that we ate is much different.

How was much different for 3 million years than it has been for the last few 100 years. And that, especially the last 50 years, when we you know, introduced the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and, you know, they started pushing this crazy diet of like, all sugar and grains on us and trying to tell us that this is, you know, healthy, and that we got to start eliminating meat and fat and things like that, from our diet, like this is crazy.

Just eat like our ancestors have eaten, you know, just eat like humans have been eating for the last, you know, a few million years, and you’re going to do just fine. We’re talking about eating meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, dairy and honey.

You know, some of the most natural and most simple things that we have done as human beings and most nourishing foods that we’ve eaten as human beings. You know, people are telling us, they’re, they’re bad for us, we should stay away from them. And the whole idea is just crazy. So I tend to eat very ancestrally. My diet is very simple.

You know, I eat meat and eggs and fruit and some vegetables, but not a ton. And about the sweetest thing, it would be some honey, every now and then. But you know, for the most part, it’s very simple and very nutrient dense. So I stick with nutrient dense foods, foods that still look like real foods, foods that our ancestors would definitely recognize, okay.

The way that we’ve been told to eat over the last 50 years is just awful, right? It’s just wrong. So stick with ancestral eating. And I think this is going to be the key to human health and happiness.

And that leads me to the next point that I learned this year, which is that sometimes we just have to buck conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It just is wrong. Conventional wisdom tells us to eat all the sugar and grains, sugar is not a problem. It’s fine. Stay away from meat, stay away from eggs, dairy from dairy. And it’s just wrong. And I think that if, in general, if we do the opposite of what everyone else is doing that I think you’re going to be just fine because what everybody else is doing is causing obesity and diabetes and heart disease and high blood pressure and cancer and strokes and all kinds of other issues.

These are all metabolic issues. These are all diseases of lifestyle. And if the conventional wisdom is causing all these diseases of lifestyle, why don’t we just do something else? Right? So I’m not afraid to say that, you know, what’s being recommended by dieticians, for the most part, by the government, by the big food industries, I think it’s just wrong.

And I think we have to take our health and our fitness into our own hands. You want to be a healthy human being, do the opposite of what most people are out there telling you to do, you’ll probably be okay. Now obviously, there’s a grain of salt here, you do have to understand what proper nutrition is.

And, gosh, there’s so much information out there around this topic. I’m going to share more about this with you though, over the coming weeks and months, just so you know, that you know, I want to make sure you understand what the difference is between crappy the crappy Western diet and what it means to eat a healthy human diet. Okay, so I’m going to make sure that it’s very clear over the next weeks and months, okay, but for the most part, duck conventional wisdom, because it’s wrong.

Another lesson that I learned this year, which I love, and this is kind of changed the way I kind of have lived my life really, that’s like to eat and live like an athlete, because you are one. Think about this. Are you currently training for something? Are you training for a marathon? Are you training for a race? Are you training for a triathlon? Are you training for a CrossFit event? If you are, that’s awesome. If you’re not, why not?

Here’s the thing, you should always be training, you should always be eating and living like an athlete. If you do that, then you’re going to be fine. I’m just going to tell you right now, if you eat and live like an athlete, then you are going to be healthy, you’re going to be fit, you’re going to be in top physical shape, right, because that’s what athletes do. And honestly, I don’t think you should ever have to really like “get ready” from scratch for a race, like you should always be ready. Just be ready. Stay in training mode.

Yeah, put goals out there and go races and things that you can train for. But for the most part, train, eat, live like an athlete, because you are an athlete. And if you live your life that way, I promise you, you’re going to be so much healthier, and so much happier and so much stronger. And so much more fit, and you’re going to look and feel amazing.

So eat and live like an athlete, I’ve been doing this. And I have to tell you that I just feel so good right now. Now, I do have a goal out there, I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. I do have a big goal that I’m working towards. But for the most part, I want to stay ready. I want to stay strong. I want to stay fit. Like if you tell me hey, you know, you want to run a marathon next weekend? I’ll be like, sure, I’m ready. I’m ready. Because I’ve been doing the work consistently. All right. So eat and live, like you’re an athlete, and you will be so much healthier and so much happier. And always ready for whatever comes your way.

Another big lesson I learned this year is that simple wins. Every time, simple wins, whatever you do, make it simple. Everything I do when I’m working with clients, I try to simplify things for them. Because there’s so much complicated information out there around food and exercise and running and how to be healthy and people you know, that want to, you know, look at heart rate, and VO2 max, and calories and macros and percentages, and there’s so much data and we can sort of get lost in all of that data, we can get lost and make all of this very, very complicated we can make being healthy, very complicated.

We can make eating very complicated. It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler that you can make something, the easier it’s going to be for you to stick with it. And food especially when it comes to food, the simpler that you can make it, the easier it’s going to be to stick with it. I talk about this all the time. How you know, when I sit down to eat dinner at night, it’s usually something like ground beef. Maybe I’ll slice up an avocado with it, maybe melt some cheese on there, and I’m done. Or I’ll eat a steak or I’ll eat some chicken. That’s it. Like it’s that simple. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. It’s just simple. It’s easy. It’s delicious. And I love it.

But let’s simplify things when it comes to running. Just go out there and run. Don’t worry about your heart rate. Don’t worry about your pace. Don’t worry about trying to, you know, hit some percentage of your VO2 max or stay in zone three or two or whatever. Like, just go out there and run and enjoy it and go by how you feel? Does it feel good? Does it feel too hard to slow down? Does it feel too easy to speed up, run fast, run really hard? Some days, other days run really slow. Let’s just make it simple, it doesn’t have to be complicated.

I think that as runners, we love our data. And I get that part of it. And I love data too. And I love looking at it. But I also try not to be consumed by it, or driven by it, I try to simplify things as much as possible. This is another topic I’m going to be talking about over the next weeks and months, which is going to be how to make running, how to run efficiently, effectively. And simply, gosh, every time I read a new book about some concept of running and how to improve your running performance, there’s all these complicated methods of achieving goals. And I’m just like, man, can we make this simpler? So my job is gonna be to make this simpler for you guys. Okay.

The next lesson I learned this year, this is a big one, is that consistency will beat perfection every time. And that I’m a perfectionist, and I love to do things right. And I’m like, if you can’t do it, right, don’t do it. That’s kind of my mantra a lot of times. And the thing is, though, is that nobody does anything perfectly, nobody does anything perfectly.

You’re not going to eat right all the time, you’re not going to crush every single workout perfectly, you’re not going to lose weight, exactly in linear fashion, like, you know, a pound a week or whatever. Like, everything’s a process, everything has its ups and downs, everything has successes and failures, you’ll experience progress, and you’ll experience setbacks, and you know what, it’s all good. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about doing things consistently, over time, that’s what’s gonna get you to every single one of your goals, stop trying to do it perfectly.

Let go of that idea that there’s some sort of a plus that you’re gonna get a gold star if you do a perfectly let go of that. And do your best but be consistent. And what does it mean to be consistent, that means like, you know, don’t have two bad meals in a row. Let’s say you screw up and you eat some, whatever chocolate chip cookies for dinner. Next meal, get back on track. That’s it.

Now, don’t ever do two bad meals in a row. Don’t ever miss two workouts in a row. You miss a workout, you don’t feel like working out fine, whatever, stay in bed, just no big deal. Don’t miss that. Next one, though. Get back on track, consistently, consistent, consistently do these things and you will eventually reach your goals. But don’t focus on perfection because there’s no such thing.

Another big goal, or another big lesson I learned this year is that there is no finish line. I talked about this on the podcast last week. And it’s such a huge lesson for me and for you. That’s what we do here, when we’re focusing on our health and our fitness, when we’re focusing on improving ourselves and becoming more. This is the way we live our lives. But there is no finish line. There isn’t a destination we’re trying to get to but rather, this is how we live our life. This is a lifestyle that we lead, right? It’s not something we do temporarily. We’re not trying to get to some number on the scale, or just some number on the scoreboard, you know, on the timer.

We’re not trying to just you know, that’s it. You know, once we do that, then we can go back to doing what we’re doing before now. We want to live our lives in a way that supports our becoming more consistently. And in that we’re never done with this, that our work is never done. We’re always working. We’re always living like athletes. We’re always trying to simplify things. We’re always trying to do things consistently. We’re always trying to better ourselves. We’re always trying to, you know, stay disciplined and toughed it out, and that it’s okay. It’s okay.

We don’t have to be finished. Like when I first thought about this, I first heard somebody talk about that. You know, we’re never finished with this . We always have to stay on top of this stuff when we always have to be focused on becoming more. It kind of scared me a little bit at first, because I thought oh my god, do I really want to commit to this for the rest of my life? Is this really who I want to be?

And the answer that I found myself coming up with was a resounding Hell yes, hell yes. This is how I want to live my life. I want to do this for life. This is how I want to live my life every single day, I don’t want to be that overweight couch potato that I used to be, that sick person who drank too much and ate too much and smoked cigarettes and was just a human garbage can. I don’t want to be that person ever again.

I’m okay, that I’ve chosen to live my life in such a different way that I’m willing to continue doing this for good. This is how I want to be for good. Alright, so there is no finish line, you got to embrace that concept. I’ve embraced that concept this year. For sure. So this is what we do. This is who we are. Right? This isn’t there’s no finish line, there’s no destination or trying to get to this is how we live our lives. Cool.

Okay, so those are the big lessons that I’ve learned this year, there’s a lot more, there’s so many more, but those are the big ones. Okay. So what’s next for me. So I’ve kind of, you know, mentioned it a few times that I’m going to be sharing some of these concepts, on the weeks and months to come on the podcast here, because I’ve got a lot of good content coming your way, a lot of good content, I’m gonna continue bringing you all the good stuff, focusing on nutrition and strength and endurance and mindset, all next year.

So keep, you know, just keep listening. I’m going to continue to bring all the good stuff your way, and hopefully give you some inspiration and encouragement to take action on these things and start making some changes for yourself.

I can’t tell you how gratifying it is, when I get a message from somebody who’s just been listening to the podcast, it’s not somebody I’ve been working with, but somebody who’s just been listening to the podcast, and they’ll say, “Patrick, Hey, I just want to tell you, you’ve really changed my life. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a year or two. And, you know, I’ve just, you know, done all these things that you’ve suggested over the years and, and I’ve really changed my life, and I’ve lost all this weight, and I’m so much healthier, I feel so much better about myself. And just thank you so much for doing this.”

Like that those kinds of messages that I get from you guys, oh my god, it just warms my heart, you know what I mean? Makes me feel so good. Because it means the message is being received, and, and that you’re taking action. So take action on this stuff. Because this isn’t about conceptualizing. These aren’t just ideas, these are things I want you to do. These are things that in order for you to change that you have to actually take action on. Cool.

So I’m going to continue bringing you all the good stuff, I got lots of good topics coming your way. And then I’ve got a big goal that I’m working towards, I’ve got this big alter event that’s going to be in May. And more on that later. But I just want you to know that it’s a big goal, it’s going to cause me to level up. It’s not something I’ve ever done before. So it’s kind of a new thing for me. It’s an ultra running event. And really like after taking last year off, like 2022 was not a great year for training for me. Like I feel like I’ve taken the whole year off from significant training.

You know, after taking all this time off, I feel like I’m ready. I’m ready, I’m back. I’m back to running some more significant mileage. And I’m feeling really good about this event. And it’s a little scary. It’s one of those events that’s a little bit scary. It’s causing me to, you know, question my decision here, like, why, what I decided to do something like this, but at the same time, it’s also something that I’m very passionate about and feel good about. So I’ll be sharing more about that as we get closer to the event. But just know that it’s a big Ultra running event. And it’s going to cause me to, you know, get out of my comfort zone in a big way, in a big way.

Okay, so that’s something I’m really looking forward to. And then after that, I’ve got another big goal for the fall. So stay tuned. I’ll share more about this as we go. Last thing I wanted to say is that I just want to really thank you for listening to the podcast for your support this year. Whether you listen, just listen to podcasts, whether you read my social media posts or allow me in your inbox.

I know you get a lot of emails and I appreciate you, you know allowing me to email you whatever where it is that you get from me and how you consume this content, whether you’re listening while you’re out there running, or walking the dogs or whatever, I just want to say that I really appreciate you, I’m doing this for you, you know, I do this because I want to help you to become the best version of yourself, you know, I want to help you to become the most badass version of yourself.

And I want to help to make 2023 your best year ever, I want it to be my best year ever as well. So let’s make 2023 the best year ever, we can do this, right? It just means that we put in place some of these principles that I’ve been talking about, and we kicked some serious butt this year. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Happy New Year everybody. Love you all, keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

153. 5 Tips to Avoid Gaining Weight This Holiday Season

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It’s officially the Holiday Season and that means it’s time to gain a bunch of weight over the next 30 days and start the new year feeling like crap, right? I know it seems kinda crazy when I say …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 153 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, five tips to avoid gaining weight this holiday season. So it’s officially the holiday season. And that means it’s time to gain a bunch of weight over the next 30 days and start the new year feeling like crap, right?

I know it seems crazy when I say that out loud. The truth is, though, that’s the way most people do it. Most people gain a bunch of weight during the holidays. And then at some point, they swear a solemn oath that they’re going to change everything and get back on track in January.

And I know what this feels like. I’ve done this many, many times. I also know how terrible it feels when January comes around. And you have to lose a bunch of weight just to get back to where you were before Thanksgiving. So in this episode, I’m gonna offer a better approach for this whole time of the year.

Okay, I have five tips to avoid gaining weight this holiday season. And listen, if you’re the kind of person who’s ready to make some changes, right now, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to wait until January to actually start improving their health to start losing the weight to start changing their relationship with food to start becoming the healthiest version of yourself, then I want to encourage you to apply for coaching.

There’s no obligation, you can just fill out a quick application, you and I’ll jump on a quick zoom call, we’ll have a conversation, we’ll talk about coaching, I’ll explain exactly what coaching looks like, I’ll explain my approach which is a little different for most coaches, we’ll see if this is a good fit for you. And if it’s a good fit, great if it’s not no harm done, maybe you learned a little bit more about yourself, you maybe learned some tips that can help you get started in the right direction.

But here’s the thing, if you’re ready to change now, don’t wait, you don’t have to wait till January one in order to to begin a program like this or to begin changing the how you feel about yourself, or changing your health or improving your health or improving your running or losing weight, you can start now just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. Again, fill out that application and you and I can get started, I want to encourage you to just take some action.

Now whatever that looks like, if it’s coaching, great if it’s not, do something today, to start improving yourself to start improving your health to start improving your fitness to become that best version of yourself. Cool. So just you know, go to runningleancoaching.com/apply I would love to have you in the Running Lean coaching project where the project as always, is you.

Okay, so today, I got these tips for you. I got some tips to help you avoid gaining weight this holiday season. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. And so many people think that this time of the year they will automatically gain weight. In fact, so many people think this because the average adult American says that they expect to gain around seven pounds during the holidays. That’s a lot of weight to gain in a month, right.

And one in four of those people say that they’re still carrying extra weight from the previous year. And so you know, let’s just say it’s a few pounds, I mean, you’re this is just this time of the year, you’re just going to be continually gaining weight. And if you multiply this by 10 or 20 years, this is a big problem. This can be a huge problem, right?

So, let’s stop this trend right now. Let’s take control of our health and our fitness and our weight for once. Don’t be average. Don’t be the average American. You know, I’ve talked to so many people about changing their diet and eating differently and maybe, you know, giving up things like sugar and grains. And people are like well, but I don’t want to be different. I just want to be able to do what everybody else is doing.

And I’m like to listen, listen, what everybody else is doing isn’t working, there’s like 78% of people in this country have some sort of metabolic dysfunction? Do you really want to be one of the normal people? Do you really want to be one of the average Americans? And this applies to other countries as well. But I say no, I say let’s be, let’s be the minority, let’s be different.

Embrace that, like, don’t be normal, don’t be average. Okay. So instead of expecting to gain a bunch of weight during the holidays, we need to have a different approach, you got to do things differently than the way most people are doing things. And yeah, that means that you might not be indulging in all the Christmas cookies, and all the booze at the parties and all this other stuff that other people are doing.

But guess what, you’re gonna feel so much better when January 1 comes around, and you haven’t gained that seven pounds. And that’s kind of average, I think some people gain more, you know, 10-12 pounds. So for me, here’s kind of the way I used to do it. So this time of the year was always the, well it’s still is pretty much the offseason for running.

And so we’ll do a full marathon. And then we sort of take a break from running. But for me, I never really changed my diet, like I just kept eating the same amounts of food and the same types of food. And of course, I was eating a ton of sugar and a ton of carbs. And so this time of the year, I would always gain weight.

And I would always gain 5-10 pounds somewhere in that range. And then I would always tell myself that yeah, come January 1, everything’s going to change, I’m going to get serious, I’m going to lose weight, I’m going to, you know, start focusing on eating better, and all this other stuff.

And guess what, January 1 would come around, and I would sort of start some of that stuff, I would kinda maybe watch my calories, or start adding food into a food tracking app. And you know, you know, going lower fat and trying to exercise more, and all the things that we’ve tried that really don’t work long term. And I might do it for a short amount of time. But then it became problematic, it became frustrating, became too tedious, and I would just stop doing it. And I would always, you know, I might lose a few of those pounds, but I would always gain a few extra pounds every year, during this time of the year.

And you know, you do that for 10 years. And, you know, I found myself 40, more than 40 pounds overweight. And I was eating what I thought was a really clean diet. You know, I was plant based and I was just eating a ton of carbs. I was a carb-atarian, let’s just say it that way. Eating nothing but sugar and carbs, and running a lot. I was running and training for marathons and ultra marathons.

And it wasn’t that I wasn’t exercising, I was going to the gym two or three times a week, doing yoga a couple of times a week, like I had a regular exercise regimen, I was running like crazy every year. And still I would gain weight during the holiday season. And I couldn’t, couldn’t lose it. And that just kept you know, adding on and packing on more weight and more weight.

So there’s a better way to do this, there’s a better way to get through the holidays. And, and I’m going to give you a few tips here for you to apply and actually take action on because these tips are great. If if you’re listening to this and you’re like, oh, these sound great, Patrick, that’s one thing.

It’s a whole other thing if you take action and actually do what I’m going to suggest that you do here today. Because if you do what I suggest you do here today, you’re gonna get through the holidays in a much different way than somebody who doesn’t take action. Any kind of program like this, anytime we’re talking about improving yourself, it requires something on your part.

You’re not just going to lose weight by listening to somebody talk about what to do, right? You’ve got to take action, you got to do this stuff. Okay? So if you’re the kind of person who loves getting into action and loves, you know, doing, you know, these kinds of tips, then do it. I want to encourage you to just start today.

So here’s the tips I’m gonna give you tip number one, and this is probably the one that most people won’t do. And this is why I’m sort of prefacing this by saying like you have to take action here because most people don’t want to do this. And that is to create a vision for who you want to be on January 1, create a vision for who you want to be on January 1.

How do you want to show up for yourself? How do you want to feel about yourself? How do you want to look? How do you want to feel mentally, emotionally, physically? How do you want to have approached this holiday season? Like, I really want you to get detailed about this future version of yourself. So we’re only talking about 30 days in the future. As we record this, it’s December 1. And so we’ve got, you know, what, 31 days, 32 days, something like that until January 1. So create a vision today.

And I want to encourage you not to just think about this, but to actually write it down. So grab a piece of paper, grab a journal, whatever it is that you want to use, do it on your computer, it doesn’t really matter. But write down in detail as much as you want. How do you want to show up for yourself on January 1, who do you want to be?

Most people don’t do this. Most people are just like, yeah, yeah, whatever, I want to feel good, but whatever. But they don’t really spend any time really thinking about this. But here’s something that’s very interesting. There’s this very powerful thing that happens, when you start thinking about who you want to be in the future, your subconscious mind will actually start moving you in the direction of that vision, your subconscious mind will actually get on board with this plan.

Everything that we want for ourselves, we first have to create in our mind, there’s not one thing on this planet that’s been created that hasn’t first been a thought and a vision, you know, think about things like a rocket ship, or an airplane or the iPhone, all these things were first an idea and a thought.

And then they were written down, and they were then you know, expanded upon, you know, so all these things that we want for ourselves have to start with a thought they have to start with a detailed vision. And when we create this vision for ourselves, it’s important that you get into that emotional state of how you want to feel on January 1.

Do you want to feel like you are regretting your decisions over the last 30 days? Do you want to feel like you have fallen behind or fallen off the wagon, or let yourself down? Or do you want to feel like you’ve built some confidence in yourself, you’ve built some trust in yourself, you said you were going to do some things, and you actually did them. Because that is available to you.

But you first have to start with a vision, you have to start with a detailed accounting of how you want to show up on January one. So don’t skip this step. Do it, I’m gonna encourage you to just do it, write it down, it’ll take you 10 or 15 minutes, spend about that much time writing free, write just as much as you want, or as little as you want. But do this step. Okay.

So that’s step number one, create a vision for who you want to be, and how you want to show up for yourself, and how you want to feel that’s the important part. Because once we get into that emotional state of how we want to feel, we can access that throughout the month, you know, you might have a day where you wake up and you’re like, I really don’t feel like running today, or I really don’t feel like you know, sticking to my plan my food plan today or whatever, you’re gonna be like, oh, but you know what that feeling that I want on January 1? I’m only gonna get that feeling.

If I stick to this plan, if I go out and run, if I go lift weights or whatever. So make sure that you get into that emotional state of how you want to feel on January 1, okay? That’s a very, very powerful state to be in. Okay, that’s how all visions come to life is just creating that vision getting into that emotional state. Okay, so that’s step number one.

The next tip I have for you, after you create a vision, you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan. Most people think that they will just sort of wing it. And I’m just going to tell you right now winging it does not work. If you think well, I’ll just kind of like I’ll get through the holidays, it’ll be fine. I’m not too concerned about it.

But if you’ve got some weight to lose, and you really want to make some changes and you want to get through this unscathed, you want to, you know, show up on January 1 really feeling good about yourself. You have to have a plan. Okay? So that means that you need to write down what you’re going to do to get to that vision that you have for yourself on January 1.

So you have a vision, great, how are you going to achieve that vision? You have to have a plan. I’m going to not eat sugar this month, that’s a plan. I’m going to, you know, work out every day, that’s a plan, I’m going to do yoga three times a week, I’m going to strength train twice a week, I’m going to run three times a week, I’m going to, you know, eat, you know, a good amount of protein at each meal, these are all plans, and you write these things down.

And there’s things that are going to happen this month. So we got holiday parties, we got a couple of holidays, really, we’re only talking about a couple days here, we got like Christmas, and New Year’s right, and then maybe New Year’s Eve, right? So maybe, or maybe even Christmas Eve for some people.

So three or four days really is all we’re talking about, you know, from here on out. So, plan those days, then if you have holiday parties, you’re gonna be going to or family’s gonna be in town or whatever, plan for that stuff, make a detailed plan of how you’re going to achieve your vision for yourself.

And this is what I do with all my clients. We work together on a plan and we get very detailed about what they’re going to eat and what they’re not going to eat, when they’re going to work out, when they’re not, when they’re going to recover. And we put together a detailed plan. And then obviously, you have to work the plan, you have to actually stick to the plan.

But you’re more likely to stick to the plan when you’ve created that vision for yourself. And then you’ve written it down. And then you’ve also written down a plan. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got it written down. You can look at it every day and say, okay, what am I doing today, and then just follow the plan. It seems almost too simple. Create a plan, and then stick to the plan no matter what. But that’s how simple it is. Create a plan and then stick to the plan no matter what.

And it’s that no matter what part that’s kind of important, right? For example, I am working on running every day during the holidays. So if you’re part of the Running Lean Facebook group, and if you’re not, you can join us just search for Running Lean community on Facebook. We are doing the running through the holidays challenge right now, which is to run every day, outside from Thanksgiving Day through New Year’s Day. And that’s 39 days of running.

And it’s just, you know, just gotta run at least a mile each day. So some days, I’m running one mile, some days, I’m running 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever. But the other day, I did not run during the day, I had a busy day. And I wasn’t able to get outside and you know, it gets dark early, it gets dark at like 5:30. And this is like 7pm and it was raining. And it was cold. And it was windy. And I did not feel like running. Not at all did I feel like running.

I had already eaten dinner and stuff. And I’m like, oh my god, I forgot I have to run still. And so you know what I did? I put on my running shoes, and I put on a rain jacket and I just headed out the door. And I got my mile in outside in the rain and the wind and the cold. And I have to tell you that it didn’t feel awesome. When I was out there I was you know, I had to put a headlamp on and you know, watch out for debris in the streets and roads and stuff like that.

But I did it, and I felt good about myself because I stuck to my plan. So I had a plan to run every day. That’s a plan. And then I stuck to the plan no matter what even though I didn’t feel like it. It could have been so easy for me to just say screw it. I am not doing this. I don’t feel like it. And it’s cold and it’s raining and I could have used all the excuses.

But I didn’t do that. I had a plan and I stuck to the plan no matter what. Okay? It’s that no matter what part that’s important, okay, so create a vision and have a plan and then stick to the plan no matter what. Cool.

Alright, my third tip is this. You’ve got to manage stress, you cannot go through this holiday season super stressed out about everything you just can’t. Stress will cause you to hold on to body fat. Stress will cause you to gain weight. The stress response is a glucose response. Being stressed out will spike your blood sugar, will spike your insulin levels and will put you into fat storage mode. And if you’re chronically stressed out and a lot of people are during the holidays, they stay kind of in this chronic state of stress from Thanksgiving through January 1.

I’m going to tell you right now it is going to be very difficult for you to lose weight, in fact, you will probably gain some weight just based on being stressed out during the holidays. So you have to have a stress management regimen, you have to have some sort of routine that you’re doing regularly like every single day to keep stress levels to a minimum.

Because if you don’t, you’re going to have a very hard time losing weight or have a hard time maintaining your weight during the holidays. So there are two types of stress. There’s the stress that we put on our bodies when we work out and maybe we lift weights or we go for a run. And maybe we do some sprint intervals or something like that.

This is called acute stress. And this is the good kind of stress. This is a positive type of stress, we stress our body, we stress a muscle, we stress our cardiovascular system. And then we have a positive adaptation because of that stress. So our muscles get stronger, our cardiovascular system improves, our speed improves, we raise our lactate threshold. So when we put acute stress on our bodies, this is acute and short term, very short term stress, this is a positive thing, this is a good thing we want to stress ourselves out in that way.

The kind of stress that we don’t want to be engaging in is like we’re constantly thinking about, you know, work or relationships or family issues. And we’re just constantly, you know, in a state of chronic stress, chronic stress is the kind of stress that is going to cause us to have that glucose response and cause us to keep our insulin levels high. You know, cortisol is a stress hormone.

When cortisol is high, our body is in that fight or flight mode, we’re in that sympathetic mode. Remember, the sympathetic mode is stress sympathetic for stress s for stress, the parasympathetic mode is, is peace, P for peace. So parasympathetic is when we are calm and relaxed and at peace and the sympathetic nervous system is when we are stressed out.

So we want to tap more into that parasympathetic nervous system and reduce the amount of stress we’re in. So that means that we can’t wait until we’re super stressed out to start working on it and that we have to work on it continuously. That means you have to have some sort of stress relief plan in place every single day.

Some of the things you can do to help reduce stress, meditation, journaling, going for a walk, going for a run, doing some yoga, just taking a nap. Maybe. Naps are very underrated, by the way. Getting enough sleep is super important. Getting good quality sleep, you know, we need seven, eight hours of sleep most of us as adults.

Just doing anything, playing a game, laughing, going to see a movie, doing something with friends, doing something with family, just being silly with your kids, anything like that is going to help to reduce stress, you need to figure out what works for you, everybody’s different. So figure out what works for you and what you can do every single day to make stress management a priority.

Because if you do that, I guarantee you, you’re gonna have a much easier time getting through the holidays and your body won’t be holding on to as much body weight, you won’t be holding on to as much fat you’ll be able to burn fat, we always want to be burning fat, not storing fat. So you’ll get into fat burning mode instead of fat storing mode. And you’ll get through the holidays without all that extra weight.

Okay, so that’s tip number three is to manage stress, and you have to do it every single day. You can’t wait until you’re stressed out to start working on it, you have to manage stress every single day.

And this brings me to my fourth tip, which is to exercise daily. So not only does daily exercise help with stress management, it also helps you to burn fat, you know, so obviously exercise can be helpful to fat burning, especially if you’re doing the lower intensity exercise, you know, you stay in that zone one, zone two, you know, you’re in that aerobic zone. That’s what’s considered sort of the fat burning zone, right?

So if you’re doing some sort of exercise every day, go out and run a few miles. Really easy. Go for some, you know, do a power walk, do some yoga, walk the dogs, play with the kids. It doesn’t have to be something intense but do something every day. And I promise you, you are going to not only feel better, but you’re going to help you to maintain your weight and probably help you to lose a little bit if that’s, you know, one of your goals here.

So, one of the reasons why we want to exercise every day is that when we exercise we get our dose of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. So we get that rush of feel good hormones, and neurotransmitters. And when we have these feel good chemicals kind of running through our body, it puts us in a better mood, it helps us stay in that parasympathetic nervous system state. And we feel good.

It’s not only a good way to manage stress, but it’s a way of keeping our body feeling happy, like it improves our mood as well. You know, also more burning fat, you know, like I said, but it’s just this way of continually feeling good and feeling good about ourselves and feeling good about who we are and what we’re doing. And it’s such a better way to go through the holidays feeling good, as opposed to being, you know, super stressed out and freaking out about all the junk you’re eating and all this other stuff.

So when you’re in a good mood, you tend to make better decisions, when you’re exercising every day, you tend to build some momentum and want to keep exercising, it helps you to, you know, stay on track with your food plan, when you’re exercising daily. This is one of the big reasons why we have this running through the holidays challenge going on right now is because I want to encourage you to get outside every day, and do some exercise and the outside part is important.

During the winter, we tend you know, the days get shorter, and we tend to spend a lot more time indoors, the days are shorter, it’s darker in the morning is darker in the evening, there’s not as much sunlight during the day, we need to get outside and get some sun in our eyeballs, like we need to, you know, have that sun in our face on our bodies, if we can, it’s so important for us to you know, be outside in the elements in the sun.

And it helps to put us in that, you know, good mood, it helps with our serotonin levels. You know, we build serotonin during the day. And that’s what helps to create melatonin to help us sleep better at night. It helps with our circadian rhythms and helps us to sleep, you know, improve our sleep quality during the night when we can get outside into the sun every day.

So I know a lot of days around here, you know, I’m in Cincinnati, and a lot of days around here in the wintertime, it’s just gray, and dark. And there’s no sun. But those days that there is sun, take advantage of that and get outside. We’ve had a lot of gray days here. And then this morning, I went for a run and had to bring my sunglasses with me because it was so beautiful out, very, very cold, very cold.

But the sun was shining and it felt so amazing to be outside and to see the sun and to be in the sun. So exercise daily, put together you know, make exercise daily part of your plan. You know, make it part of your plan, part of your daily plan. And you’re going to get through the holidays feeling so much better about yourself, okay.

And then my last tip is going to be this when it comes to nutrition. We’re all a little bit different. And it’s hard for me to make some recommendations as here’s what you should eat or whatever. So I’m going to give you this tip. And I think this is one of the most powerful tips around nutrition that I can give you and it’s one that is underrated and something that most people just don’t do or maybe they’re not aware of, or they think it would be too hard.

But it’s this, skip some meals, skip some meals, you don’t have to eat three meals a day, every single day all the time. You don’t have to eat three meals a day, plus three snacks a day, plus dessert every single day, you really don’t have to eat that much skip breakfast, skip breakfast and lunch one day.

Skip snacking, skip dessert, like just pick something that you think would work for you. And you don’t have to do this every single day. But just consider skipping some meals. You know, there’s a lot of benefits that you’ll gain from exercising in the fasted state, which means that, you know, if you exercise in the morning, don’t you don’t have to fuel up before you get outside and run.

Just skip it, just skip fueling, you know and try some what we call intermittent fasting. And when people hear that word fasting, they’re like, oh my gosh, that’s, you know, I’m gonna die. I can’t do that. It’s like, dude, no, listen, it’s just like, skip breakfast is our target about here. It’s not that big of a deal.

You know, we’ve been doing this as human beings for millions of years. We didn’t eat all the time. We didn’t have snacks. We didn’t eat dessert, like there were no three meals a day, kind of a deal. Like a lot of times, and a lot of cultures, they eat like once a day, maybe twice a day. And so I think we’ve, you know, in the Western world, we’re under this impression that we have to eat a lot, just all the time. And it’s just not true.

Like we just don’t need to eat that often. Okay, so, one thing I did recently is Thanksgiving Day. And so that was Thursday and then a couple days later on Saturday we did another Thanksgiving with my girlfriend and our kids, well, we all got together. And so we did like two different Thanksgivings, super fun.

But each of those days, I only ate that one meal each day. So I ate one big meal on Thanksgiving, and then one big meal on that Saturday, and I just skipped breakfast, I typically eat twice a day, you know, I’ll have a pretty good sized breakfast around noon, and then I eat dinner around 6pm, 7pm, something like that.

And, and that’s usually good for me. But some days, I just skip that first meal. And, and I feel so much better when I, you know, can skip a meal and, and then I can maybe eat a little bit more at that second meal and still be in a bit of a deficit and still not be overeating and still not be eating, you know, a ton of calories that day.

So for me, it feels really good to skip a meal every now and then. And this is one of the simplest things that you can do to help manage your weight and help you to not gain weight during the holidays. It’s just like, pick a few days a week here and there and skip some of these meals. And you might be surprised how good you feel. You might be surprised how much easier it is to exercise in that fasted state and take advantage of the adrenaline that you get from exercising in the fasted state.

So you actually, you know, people think, oh, I won’t have the energy. But now your body will produce the glucose that you need, your body will produce the adrenaline that you need to be able to actually work out a little bit harder. And then there’s another positive benefit from exercising in the fasted state, which is an increase in growth hormone.

So after exercise, your body will produce more growth hormone, which will help you to recover faster. So not only can you exercise harder in a fasted state, but you can also recover faster. So these are good benefits. And you don’t have to do this all the time. But try it every now and then and see how it goes for you.

Okay, so quick recap, you know of my five tips to avoid gaining weight this holiday season. Number one, create a vision. Who do you want to be on January 1? How do you want to feel and write it down?

Okay, number two, have a plan. Write down your plan. And then write down your plan every week and consult your plan. And make sure you’re staying on track with your plan no matter what.

Number three, you have to manage stress and it has to be something you do every single day.

Number four exercise daily. Get outside if you can do whatever it takes to move your body and to release the endorphins and get the dopamine and the serotonin and all those good feeling chemicals that you get. So power walk yoga, walk the dog, play with the kids, go for a run, lift some weights, swim, bike, whatever you need to do, but do something every day. Do it outside if you can get in the sun.

And then lastly, skip some meals here and there. You don’t have to eat all the time. This is like intermittent fasting simplified, right? It doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to do some sort of long three day fast or anything like that. Just like skip a meal here and there. And you might be surprised how much easier it is to get through the holidays without gaining weight.

Cool. All right, you guys, I hope you take some action on these tips here and actually do these things because I guarantee you it’s going to make a difference on how you show up for yourself on January 1. Okay, 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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