Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
If you feel like you’re constantly struggling with food… If strength training always feels hard to stick to… If you feel like you’re forever “trying to get back on track”… …but somehow, your …
Continue Reading about 318. If You’re Always Struggling, You’re Doing It Wrong →
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 318 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, if you’re always struggling. You’re doing it wrong. If you feel like you’re constantly struggling with food, if strength training always feels hard to stick to if you feel like you’re forever trying to get back on track.
But somehow your running is just fine. Listen up. This episode is for you. It’s called If you’re always struggling, you’re doing it wrong. And yeah, I know that sounds kind of harsh, but hear me out here, because this isn’t about shaming you or telling you to try harder, it’s about something way more important.
I talk to runners all the time who tell me that they are disciplined, they’re motivated, they’re committed, yet. Their food plan, their strength training always feels like a constant battle. And the interesting thing is those same runners don’t say that about running. Okay, so today we’re gonna break all this down.
What the struggle really is, why it keeps happening, and how putting simple systems into place, not more motivation is the actual solution. Okay, so let’s just get right into this. Okay? I wanna start by saying this very clearly. If you’re struggling with your food, with your strength training, it doesn’t mean you’re weak.
It doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It doesn’t mean something is broken with you, okay? But what it does mean is that something in your approach is probably a little off, okay? The reason I’m talking about this now is because I keep hearing this over and over again from runners, and I’ve heard this many, many times in the last couple of weeks.
And these are different people, different ages, different experience levels. They all have different goals, but the story is the same. Okay. I hear things like, I’m running consistently, but I just can’t get my eating under control. You know, I know I should lift weights. Um, I know how important strength training is.
I, I know, but I just don’t do it consistently. I just can’t seem to stick with it. Or I always feel like I am starting over with all this stuff, and if you can relate to that, that, that, this is why I’m talking to you right now. Okay. Because I know so many people who can relate to this. Okay. Um, the crazy part is, is that they’re not struggling with their running, alright?
They don’t wake up every day debating whether they. Feel motivated enough to run. Okay? They’re not constantly second guessing their running training plan, maybe they’re training for a half marathon or a marathon. Um, they don’t, they don’t second guess that, you know, they don’t argue with themselves for 45 minutes before they put on their running shoes.
Okay? They get up and they go outside. Doesn’t matter how cold it is, doesn’t matter what the weather’s like and they run. Okay? So if you’re running feels. Solid, but somehow all these other things feel hard. We need to start asking some better questions. Okay? Not, you know, geez, what’s wrong with me? Um, but what am I doing differently?
Here. Okay, so the core idea of this episode, and I really want you to hear this, is this, if something feels like a struggle all the time, it’s not supposed to be that way. Okay. Now I am not saying that growth is effortless. Growth requires effort. Growth requires discomfort. I’ve talked about this a lot, where you know everything that you want but don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone.
In order to get something that you don’t have, it’s going to require you to get uncomfortable. Okay? So growth is one of those things that. Requires some discomfort. Okay, so growth is not effortless. And I’m also not saying that discipline doesn’t matter because it does matter. You do have to show discipline.
And the funny thing is, is I’m talking about. You know, runners who are very disciplined about running. Most people, most normal people would see us as runners who go out and run when it’s zero degrees outside or there’s snow on the ground or whatever, and they think we’re crazy. Like, how could you possibly do that?
I could never be that disciplined, you know? But I see it all the time with runners and we don’t even think about it. We’re just like, of course I’m gonna run. Well, it’s gonna be zero degrees outside, but that doesn’t really matter. I, I can wear the right gear. I, I’ve done this before, you know, so discipline is not the problem.
And I’m not saying this is, everything’s going to always feel easy either because stuff is hard sometimes, you know, sometimes it is hard to, to get out there and run when it’s that cold out and the wind chill is 15 below zero or whatever. But there’s a huge difference between, you know, sometimes things are challenging or uncomfortable, and then you’re constantly feeling exhausted and constantly struggling.
Okay. When something feels like it’s a daily battle, when you’re always. You know, negotiating with yourself, always feeling like you’re behind or feeling like you’re failing at stuff. It’s not a problem of, you know, not being disciplined enough. Okay. It’s a, it’s a problem of design, right? You don’t have a, a plan designed for that area, whether it’s food strength training.
Those seem to be the two that I hear most people talking about. And most runners have never been taught to really look at it that way. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about why running doesn’t feel like a constant struggle for most runners because you probably have set days that you run, right? You probably have a, a rough idea or, or a very.
You know, detailed idea of distance or time that you’re gonna run on those days. You know, you have a structure in place, you have a training plan that you are following, and you have a clear definition of what you know, what this week is going to look like, what this day is gonna look like, what this particular run is going to look like.
So you have those systems in place. You have that plan in place for running. And even if you’re not following a perfect plan, you know running still has. Well, you know, like rules, right? There’s a start time. There’s a route that you have in mind. There’s an end, you know, you don’t wake up and ask, you know, should I run today or not?
’cause you’ve already decided that ahead of time, that decision was made in advance. And because of that, because you made that decision ahead of time. Running doesn’t drain you mentally. You don’t have to make decisions every single day. Those decisions have been made so it doesn’t feel heavy. It doesn’t feel, uh, like a, like a struggle.
It doesn’t feel chaotic, right? It just feels normal. Alright, let’s compare that with, you know, sticking with a food plan and sticking with a strength training plan. So when we talk about food, especially if you’re someone who is trying to change their diet because you wanna lose weight, you know, a lot of times people say, I really wanna lose weight, so I’m gonna change my diet, but here’s what their food.
Plan looks like or lack of, like, they don’t have a clear plan. They are, there are too many options on the table constantly. Um, you’re making decisions in the moment all day long, every single day. And then there’s emotional baggage attached to every decision, every choice that you’re making. You know, we have a lot of emotions tied into food and what that means about us and about our, our sense of who we are and how we show up.
In the world and how we compare ourselves to others, right? So you don’t have clear plan, you have too many options. You’re making all these decisions. There’s emotional baggage attached to everything. Um, strength training, like sticking with that kind of a plan looks like this. You know, I should probably lift weights, but I just, I don’t know what to do, or, you know, I don’t have time.
In my schedule for another thing. So I just, I don’t know when I’m gonna work this in. I’ll just do it when I, when I have time or you know, I know I should be doing some strength training, so I’ll start next week. Okay. And then we label that as an a motivation issue. Okay. Like, oh, I just didn’t feel motivated.
I need to be motivated. Okay? But it’s not what I’m describing here around food, around strength training is decision fatigue. So every time you have to make a decision, what should I eat? When should I eat? How much should I eat? When should I lift weights? What exercises am I supposed to do? How long is this gonna take?
Where am I gonna do this? You gotta make all these decisions. You’re burning mental. Energy, and that’s why it feels like a constant struggle to you. Running doesn’t feel like a struggle to you because you already have a system in place and you just follow the system. Okay? Now let me say this very plainly.
You are not struggling with food or strength training. You are struggling with too many decisions and because you don’t see that you’re trying to solve the wrong problem, you’re trying to be more disciplined, you’re trying to be more motivated. You’re trying to lock it in this time, or you’re trying to push harder, and that works sometimes temporarily until.
Anything in life shows up until you’re tired or you get busy at work, or you get a little bit of stress and then everything just falls apart again. Right? Not because you failed, not because you’re undisciplined, it’s because your system. Is not in place. Okay. That’s all it is. Um, but I see this cycle over again, over and over again with runners.
You decide like, okay, I’m really gonna do this now. So you clean up your eating, you know, you commit to strength training and it feels good. Um, but nothing is automated. So every day you’re just relying on motivation and willpower and willpower. It is not reliable. Okay. The reason why is because willpower is a temporary resource.
Like you have willpower, like your willpower is strongest in the morning, if you’ve noticed that. And then as the day goes on, that willpower. Tank that you have like that, you know, reservoir of willpower that you have available to you throughout the day tends to dwindle down throughout the day. That’s why a lot of times in the evening, people have a very hard time sticking with their food plan, like they’re good during the day, but as soon as nighttime comes around because your willpower’s just gone.
By that time you’ve been making all these decisions, you’ve had all this stuff to do at work, kids have been bugging you, you know, you, it is just like too much stuff going on. And by the end of the day, you’re just done with making decisions. You’re just like, just don’t just gimme the pizza. Okay. So willpower, motivation, these things are not reliable.
They’re, they’re limited resources that we have available to us. Okay, so eventually you’re gonna miss a workout. You’re gonna eat something off plan. You’re gonna just go and eat that whole pizza by yourself, and then you’re gonna feel like a failure. You’re gonna feel like you’re running behind or, or falling behind with your plan.
And then you’re, you’re gonna start to talk to yourself and say, I blew it. I always do this. I’m gonna restart next week. Listen, this is not a lack of discipline, okay? It’s just a bad setup, right? It’s just a bad plan. Okay? Um, so. One thing I want you to really understand here. Is that hard? Is not the goal.
And I know endurance athletes love suffering, right? It’s glorified. It’s like a rite of passage. It’s a badge of honor. Uh, no pain, no gain, all that stuff. But food and strength training are not supposed to feel like daily emotional battles. Okay? Save those emotional struggles for. Uh, you know, out there trying to pr your, your marathon or whatever.
Okay? Sticking to your food plan, your strength training plan. These things should feel boring and predictable and repetitive. Not exciting. Not dramatic, not something you have to. Mentally prepare for every single day. If your nutrition plan requires daily motivation to stick to it, it’s flawed. Okay? If your strength training plan requires you to, you know, have motivation to, to feel like doing it, it’s flawed.
Okay? You need systems in place to avoid, you know, relying on motivation all the time. Let’s talk a little bit about systems. Okay? ’cause a system is something that you can follow without thinking. Um, and a real world example of this, this has nothing to do with like running or anything, but it’s brushing your teeth, right?
Think about you Don’t wake up every morning and ask yourself, Hmm, do I feel motivated to brush my teeth today? I’m just not feeling very motivated today. I, I, I don’t know, maybe I should brush later. I’ll just do it later. What if I just skip today and I’ll, and I’ll brush my teeth twice tomorrow? I know it sounds ridiculous, right?
But you don’t do this. You don’t debate it. You don’t negotiate with yourself. You don’t have to rely on willpower to brush your teeth. You just do it. Why? Because brushing your teeth has become a system. You have a system in place. Uh, it’s not a decision that you have to make. It happens at the same time every day in the same place, in the same way, with the same expectation.
And because it’s a system, it’s automated, it takes basically zero mental energy to do it. Okay? Now imagine if brushing your teeth work the way that most runners approach their diet. Okay? You’d wake up and think. I brushed last night, so maybe I don’t need to today, or let’s just see how the day goes. Okay.
Or I’ll be extra good tomorrow. Okay. That sounds ridiculous, right? But that’s exactly how people treat nutrition and strength training, and then they wonder why it constantly feels so hard, okay? The big takeaway here isn’t that brushing your teeth is easy. The big takeaway is this, things feel easy when the decision is already made.
Okay? You’re not disciplined. With brushing your teeth, you’re not motivated. You just have a system in place. That’s the point here. And if food and strength training feel heavy, emotional, or exhausting, it’s not because you lack discipline, it’s because you haven’t turned them into systems yet. Okay?
Running has systems like you run on the same days. Usually at the same times, there’s people that love to run in the morning or maybe they run after work, or maybe they switch it up, but they have like certain days they run at certain times. You just know when you’re gonna do it. You have the same expectations, right?
You don’t debate this stuff. You just execute, right? So food needs systems. You need to have some default meals in place. You know, you need to have some rules around the grocery store and what you get and what you don’t get. You need to have routines around. Eating strength training is the same way. You need fixed days.
You need simple workouts. You need a clear progression. And when you have these systems in place, the emotion disappears, the decisions disappear, um, and those emotions, that’s what’s really causing this. Struggle and it’s causing you to burn out. You know? ’cause you’re just getting too emotionally involved with all this stuff.
And we gotta remove that layer. When you remove that layer, because you have these systems in place, everything becomes easier. Um, and I hear this all the time from runners, you know, the a about the strength training, I just can’t stick to lifting. I’m like, well, what days are you doing this? What workouts are you doing?
How long do those workouts take? What you know? What exercises do you have in, in what order are you doing them? And they can’t answer any of these questions. You know, everything is like vague. I’m just gonna show up and do it whenever. I don’t know what I’m really doing. That’s the problem. Okay. You’re trying to build consistency without any structure in place, and you don’t do that with your running, so why are you doing it in other areas here?
Okay, so we gotta get out of this struggle. And if you want out of the cycle of constantly trying harder, falling off, starting over. The solution isn’t going to be more discipline, okay? It’s gonna be fewer decisions. So here’s what I want you to do instead. Decide once. Not every single day. Most runners don’t realize how much energy they waste deciding the same things over and over and over again.
What should I eat today? When should I do my strength training? Should I train now or later? That’s not flexibility. It’s friction. Okay? Running works because the decisions are already made. You don’t wake up and reinvent your training schedule every day. You just follow the plan that’s in place. So do the same thing with food.
Do the same thing with your strength training. Decide what you eat for breakfast on most days, or if you eat breakfast or not, decide which days you’re going to strength train. Decide which days you’re going to the grocery store. You don’t need to go every single day, decide, you know, when you’re gonna prep meals, if it’s, if it’s gonna be once a week, or you know, a couple times a week, whatever.
Make those decisions in advance and once those decisions are made, don’t question the decisions. Okay. You don’t need a new plan every Monday. You need a good plan that you can stick to long enough so that you can start seeing results. Okay? The point here is we’re trying to reduce options, more options feel freeing.
Like, oh, I have all these options here, but it’s actually exhausting. Okay? And if you’re choosing between five different breakfasts every single morning. You’re burning mental energy before your day even kicks into gear. Okay? So pick one or two, go-to breakfasts one, or go-to one or two, go-to lunches. Uh, maybe a small rotation of simple dinners, okay?
Not because you can’t eat other things, because you don’t need to be deciding these things every single day. Runners love routines, you know, when it comes to training. So apply that same thinking to your food. Repetition isn’t boring when it’s getting you the results that you want. Okay? And I like to use this term all the time, which is make it boring.
You know, this part messes with some people, okay? Because we’ve been taught that progress needs excitement and novelty and constant change. It really doesn’t. The most effective nutrition and strength routines are boring by design. Boring means it’s predictable, it’s low stress. It’s easy to repeat if your plan requires, you know, enthusiasm and, and.
Inspiration or perfect conditions, it’s not gonna last. Okay. Boring works because it is sustainable. Another way you can kind of make the change and start moving away from the struggle is to attach new habits to existing routines. Okay? This is one of the most powerful moves that you can make. Don’t create standalone habits that float around.
Your schedule that you’re just hoping will get done, you gotta anchor them to something you’re already doing. Okay? So maybe you lift after your easy run. So you have like two easy runs a week, and you lift right after those. Attach the habit of lifting to your running habit that’s already in place. Okay?
Or prep your food right after your grocery shopping. Maybe you have a grocery shopping on Sunday afternoon. You do that regularly. Just prep your food right after that. Okay. Or, or do your stretching while your, your coffee is brewing in the morning. Okay. Attach the habit of stretching to an already made and established habit of like brewing your coffee in the morning.
Okay? You already have strong routines in your life. I know you do. Just use these to your advantage. Okay? When habit has a, uh, an attachment, a trigger, it stops being optional. It’s just something you do no matter what. Okay. Now here’s a question I want you to ask yourself, and I really want you to sit with this.
What can I automate so I don’t have to argue with myself anymore? Because arguing with yourself is exhausting. Okay? If you’re debating food choices, if you’re constantly debating the timing of your workouts or whether you’re on track every single day. That’s a sign that something needs to be automated.
Okay? It’s not about being perfect. The goal is not perfection. The goal is removing friction. So consistency becomes the default. Okay? We wanna remove the friction so that our default is. Being consistent. All right? You don’t need to become a more disciplined person. Uh, you just need fewer things competing for your attention, right?
When decisions are made in advance, when routines are boring and predictable, when habits are anchored to things you’re already doing. The struggle disappears, right? Not because you’re stronger or more, you know, mentally powerful. It’s because you finally have a system that works. Okay, let me leave you with this.
You don’t need to struggle less because you’re tougher. You need to struggle less because you are smarter, okay? You are not broken, you are not undisciplined. You’re just trying to succeed without systems. And once you fix that, everything else changes. And if you’re listening to this and you’re realizing that you’re not actually struggling because you lack discipline, you’re struggling because you don’t have a system in place, this is where I want you to pay attention.
Okay? The leaner, stronger Runner project isn’t a quick fix. It’s not another short term challenge. It’s a simple structured system designed to support you over time, so you’re not constantly guessing, restarting, or relying on motivation. Most runners who join don’t come in saying, okay, I’m all set forever.
They come in thinking, I just want this to feel easier. And that’s exactly what happens because they stop debating their food choices. They stop wondering if what they’re doing is right with their strength workouts. Um, they stop feeling like they’re behind all the time. And everything gets simpler because the decisions are already made.
This program is set up as an ongoing coaching program month to month. You’re not locking yourself into anything. You come in, you follow the system, and you give it enough time to actually work. And here’s the key. People don’t stay because they have to. They stay because they’re training, they’re eating in their day-to-day life.
Finally, feel aligned. Right. So if you’re tired of struggling, if you want running to feel better instead of harder, if you’re ready to stop arguing with yourself every single day, go to my website running lean coaching.com/ready and join the Leaner Stronger Runner Project. This is where things get clearer, calmer, and a whole lot more sustainable.
Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
In The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework – Part 3: Why Motivation Isn’t the Problem (And What Actually Creates Consistency), we’re talking about the missing piece that determines whether anything …
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 316 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the leaner stronger Runner framework. Part three, why motivation isn’t the problem and what actually creates consistency. So in this episode I’m gonna be talking about the missing piece that oftentimes determines whether anything you’ve learned so far actually sticks.
Most runners think they need more motivation, more discipline, or more willpower, but if that were true, you’d already have the results that you want. The real issue is an effort. It’s the system you’re relying on to stay consistent. When life gets stressful or motivation fades, or things just don’t go perfectly.
So in this episode, I’m gonna break down why motivation always runs out, why starting over feels so normal for runners and what actually creates long-term consistency. Without burning yourself out. This is about identity, structure and learning how to trust yourself again, not about trying harder or being perfect, so if you’re tired of resetting and ready to build something that lasts.
This episode is gonna bring everything together for you here. Okay. So this is the final part of a short but powerful series. Um, and if you haven’t already listened to the first two parts of this series, go back and and do that now. This is part number three, and today we’re talking about the piece that determines whether everything you’ve learned so far.
Actually sticks or just kind of quietly fades away like it always has in the past. Okay. And what we’re talking about to today more than anything else is gonna be consistency. Okay. Not motivation, not discipline, not trying harder, or you know, trying to force more willpower onto the situation we’re talking about.
Consistency. If you’ve ever felt like you know what to do, but you still struggle to follow through on that. Or if you’ve ever started strong and then you kind of drift off track over time, um, or maybe you’ve wondered why you keep restarting all the time instead of, you know, keeping the momentum going.
Then this episode is going to be for you for sure, and I wanna say this very clearly, upfront, that motivation is not your problem. Okay? So for the three part series that I’m doing here, this is probably the most important one of the series. In part one I talked about training. You know, why doing more often makes things worse.
Um, in part two, I talked about fueling and why restriction often backfires for runners, and those are. Tactical problems. I mean, they’re, they’re real issues and everything like that, but they’re, they’re strategic problems. Okay? This episode is about a foundational problem, okay? Because you can have the perfect training plan.
You can know exactly what to eat. And you can understand everything intellectually and still fail to change. And it’s not because you’re lazy, you’re a runner. You stick to your trading plan. I know you’re not lazy. It’s not because you don’t care. I know you care. This stuff is important to you because you’re relying on the wrong mechanism that’s actually driving your behavior.
Okay, so most runners believe something like this. If I could just stay motivated, then everything would work perfectly for me. Okay? So they think, you know, I need, I need more discipline, I need to want it more, or I need to stop falling off track. And when things don’t work perfectly, they blame themselves.
They beat themselves up, okay? But the truth here is that motivation. Is an unreliable resource. Willpower is a finite resource, and if you have discipline, that’s great, but discipline without structure is just gonna lead to confusion and eventually burnout. Okay, so motivation spikes. Sometimes you feel super motivated to do stuff, but then it fades and it, it will always fade.
Okay? When motivation fades, a lot of runners are thinking. You know, it must be me. Something is wrong with me. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with you, okay? I wanna talk about what is actually happening here, okay? ’cause runners and the people that I work with, and the people that I talk to every single day.
Oh, you guys are great at starting things. Okay, you got a new training plan. You got this new race that you signed up for, or maybe it’s a new distance. Instead of like a A 10 K, you’re going for a half marathon. Instead of a half marathon, you’re gonna train for that new marathon. You got a new goal. I’m gonna PR this time.
And you have this newfound motivation. And the first few weeks of this always feel pretty amazing, right? You’re focused. You’re super energized. Uh, you’re doing all the right things, okay? And then something happens. Life shows up, you get stressed out about work, uh, family stuff. Um, maybe you’re not sleeping well.
The weather turns super bad. You miss a run or two. You skip a workout, you eat off your meal plan, and instead of just adjusting and course correcting or pivoting or whatever you need to do, you’re like, I’m off track. Uh, and, and you try to snap back harder. Like you just try to, you know, force more energy into the situation.
Um, doesn’t really work right. Or a lot of people I talk to, they tell me that over time they just quietly give up. Right. They just lose that motivation and that’s it. They’re done. And then their, their idea is that they’re gonna restart later. Okay. And they’re going to, you know, pick it up again in a few weeks or a month, or when things calm down, or when you’re not stressed, or when you’re sleeping better, or when the weather turns different, or when the kids are outta school or whatever the thing is.
Right? And it’s not about, you know, being inconsistent or not caring or anything like that. It’s just you’re relying on a very fragile structure. So most runners have a plan. That assumes a few things. That assumes perfect weeks, like everything’s gonna go perfectly all the time. How’s that working out for you?
Your most plans assume some sort of high motivation factor, like you’re always gonna feel like. Doing the speed work or doing the long run in the rain, or the snow, or the wind or, or you know, a combination of all those things. Uh, most plans assume no stress and, uh, no setbacks at all, but that’s not reality.
Okay. ’cause real life is not perfect. It’s messy. Training is imperfect. Your energy levels fluctuates. Um, mo motivation comes and goes, right? And if your plan only works, when everything is perfect and everything is going right, it’s not going to work okay? It’s just not so one of the most important concepts.
That I wanna share with you in this episode is this id, this idea of identity versus behavior. Okay? ’cause most runners try to change their behavior. Their actions, what they’re doing without changing their identity. You know who they are at their core or how they see themselves at their core. So someone might say like, I’m trying to lose weight, or I’m trying to be more consistent, or I’m trying to eat better, and this is all very fragile.
Okay, because trying depends on mood. It depends on your motivation, it depends on circumstances, and, and again, it assumes everything is going perfect. Identity is different. Identity is who you are at your core or how you see yourself. So identity is. Usually it’s everything that follows the words I am.
Okay, so identity sounds like. You know, this is how I train now. This is who I am. This is how I eat now. This is who I am. This is how I take care of myself. This is just what I do because this is who I am. So identity removes the questioning of the decision. It removes the negotiation with yourself. Right, because if this is who you are and this is how you train, this is who you are, this is how you eat, there is no question, there’s no decision to be made there.
Do you see how much more powerful that is than just trying to change the behavior? I’m going to try to eat better, versus this is how I eat. You know, I eat like an athlete because I am an athlete. That’s very, very powerful and it’s an empowering statement, and it’s taking that, that power that you have about decision making about.
Uh, behavior about, you know, shifting and transforming yourself and improving yourself, and it’s putting it all on you, which is the good news end, the bad news. Because guess what? It’s all on you, but you know what, it’s all on you. Um, so when you’re, when you’re saying like, I’m trying to do this, uh, that’s very weak.
It’s a very fragile, it’s a very, um, disempowering statement to make. Okay. Instead, start thinking in terms of shifting your identity into, Hey, I’m an athlete. I train like an athlete. I eat like an athlete. I, uh, run like an athlete. Okay? So it removes the negotiation when you start shifting your identity.
Now a lot of runners I talk to, they, they, uh, haven’t got this part dialed in yet, and they end up, uh, starting over a lot. And runners are very good at starting over. In fact, they’re so good at it that it feels normal to them. Like every Monday they have to start over with their diet. Um. You know, uh, uh, I’m gonna start my new training plan on Monday, or, you know, my motivation hopefully will come back on Monday.
Uh, so new plans, new motivation. Hopefully they make new promises to themselves. They’re just starting over constantly. Um, stopping and starting over, stopping and starting over, and it feels. Productive. It feels like you’re doing something good. It feels hopeful. It’s a way of kind of exerting some control over the situation.
If you’re constantly starting over, then you’re constantly feeling that initial surge of motivation. Right. But starting over is also a sign that nothing was built, nothing was established, you didn’t create some momentum, um, and you didn’t really fail. It’s just like you didn’t, you didn’t give it long enough to actually, you know, um, have legs.
Okay, so you didn’t give it, uh, uh, enough time to where it could become stable and create that momentum. It’s kind of like. Uh, the plane takes off, right? There’s a lot of energy required to get that plane off the ground, but once it’s off the ground, you get some momentum going and you can just get up to cruising altitude and you can just, uh, glide almost.
You could turn off those engines. You could fly for quite a long time, or you don’t need as much energy once you’re, uh, in that, uh, gliding mode, you know, once you’re up at altitude. But. So many people give up before they get to that place. They love the surge, they love the, uh, energy and that motivation that comes at the beginning of something and, and they like starting over constantly subconsciously.
It’s not something they’re super consciously aware of. They’re like, why do I keep starting over? But underneath the surface, they kind of enjoy it. Maybe they’re a little addicted to that adrenaline, you know, of constantly having to start over again. Okay. And listen, I’m not talking about being perfect here.
This is where a lot of people, um, get this wrong or they, they misunderstand. They think that being consistent means never missing a workout or never overeating, or never sneaking a cookie or a cupcake. Never getting tired, never falling off track. That is not consistency. That’s perfectionism. You know, and perfectionism is.
Not based in reality, let’s be honest. Okay. When I’m talking about consistency, it looks like this. It means that, you know, maybe you fall off track a little bit, but you return quickly, like you course correct quickly, you adjust instead of. Quit like in, instead of giving up and starting over, you make a course correction, you adjust.
You’re staying in the processed, right, you’re staying in the process of training, in the process of, uh, making a food plan, whatever that looks like for you, and you are making the next best decision. You always tell people, um, don’t, don’t miss two workouts in a row. Don’t have two bad meals in a row. In other words, if you eat off plan.
At the very next meal, get back on track. If you miss a workout, don’t worry about it. Stuff happens. Sometimes we get sick or you know, the kids were demanding your attention or you had to, um, deal with some work stuff and you miss a work. Okay? No, no problem. Don’t worry about it. Just next workout, you’re back on track.
Don’t miss that second workout. Okay? Consistency is about. Continuity, not perfect compliance. All right? There’s no such thing as perfection. Nobody’s gonna do this stuff perfectly. So let’s talk a little bit about some emotions, because this is where a lot of runners, um, get themselves stuck because they, they get emotional about some things and.
We have to, we have to address this, okay. And talk about it. A lot of coaches out there aren’t really talking about this stuff, okay? And this is kind of subtle, but it’s very important, okay? Most runners, uh, their decisions are not super logical. They are emotional. Alright? You don’t skip a run because you decided to, you didn’t make that decision.
You skipped it because you were overwhelmed or stressed or tired, or something got in the way. You didn’t overeat because you’re careless. Uh, you overate because your nervous system is fried for whatever reason. Okay? If your plan doesn’t account for emotions, it will fail. And when I’m talking about emotions, I’m talking about things like stress and overwhelm and frustration and anxiety and boredom.
Is an emotion. Um, fear, uh, these are all emotions, sadness, grief. Um, these are all the kinds of emotions that drive us to, uh, go off our plan, that drive us to engage in behaviors that maybe aren’t aligned with our long-term goals. Okay. Um, so we have to understand that emotions are part of the process and that it’s okay.
To feel these things, it’s okay to, um, you know, have some sadness because something happened or to be stressed out. Like it’s okay that you’re stressed out. It doesn’t mean you have to give up the ship just because you’re a little stressed out. Okay. Okay. I wanna talk a little bit about willpower. ’cause a lot of people think that they just need to exert more willpower to fix a situation.
Willpower is a finite resource. Okay? It works when you’re rested, when you’re calm, when you’re motivated. Um, but it’s a, it’s a tank that’s kind of full at the beginning of the day. By the end of the day, it’s. It can be empty, right? Because you get stressed out, you get tired, you get overwhelmed, stuff is going on in your life, and by the end of the day, your willpower tank is drained.
Okay? So if your entire plan is relying on willpower, as soon as things start to happen, it’s going to dissipate. And, and things are going to get difficult for you, okay? It’s not a weakness, it’s biology. This is why so many people do well during the day as far as their eating plan goes. You know, they, they stick to their plan, they’re great, and then later in the evening they blow it.
Can you relate to that? I used to do this all the time, and I can’t tell you how many people. Tell me this, that, oh, I did great during the day, but it’s at night. When I, when I struggle. It’s because you’re relying on willpower, not structure, not a system. You’re relying on willpower. It’s a finite resource.
By the end of the day, it’s gone, and that’s why you eat chocolate cake for dinner. Okay, so when I talk about structure. I’m talking about the kind of structure that creates freedom for you. Like we hear structure and we think, you know, rigid and, um, controlled and you know, very, um, narrow focus, but structure can create a ton of freedom for you.
Okay? There’s a shift in your mindset that I need you to make here, okay? And this is to stop trying to be more disciplined and start building. Better structure. Structure removes that decision fatigue that I talked about. You know, it removes, or I’m sorry, it creates pre predictability, right? Structure creates something that is reliable and predictable, and this is very important.
Structure makes consistency feel automatic, right? You probably don’t rely on motivation to brush your teeth every day. You just do it. Why? Because you have a structure in place. Um, you know, you get up in the morning, maybe you eat your breakfast, you brush your teeth, then you go to work. You’re not leaving the house without brushing your teeth, right?
That’s what I mean by structure. Okay? You’re not, you’re not disciplined because you brush your teeth every day, right? You’re not motivated to brush your teeth. You’re not relying on willpower to brush your teeth. You do it because that’s what you do, right? You’re the kind of person, again, we’re talking about identity here.
You’re the kind of person who brushes their teeth before they leave the house. And I appreciate that. I think we all do. I hope everybody’s that kind of person. Um, but our training and our nutrition plans should work the same way. We wanna have that same kind of structure in place around strength training, around our, our running and around nutrition.
So when runners finally get this part right, they say things like, you know, I don’t stress about food anymore. I just do what I do. It feels easier. Everything feels, um, you know, just much calmer. And I don’t feel like I’m constantly starting over or, or trying to figure out what to do. Right? And it’s not because they’re more disciplined or they have more willpower, it’s because they removed all the friction.
And that structure, uh, helps to do that. It removes that friction. Okay. And something that a lot of people I talk to, they don’t really want to admit, but it’s true. They don’t really trust themselves. Okay? ’cause they’ve quit before. They’ve fallen off track. They’ve restarted too many times and they’re constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop.
Okay? And what happens is they make a promise to themselves. They don’t keep that promise to themselves, and then they beat themselves up and they, and they break down the trust they have in themselves. And if you keep repeating the cycle over and over and over, you basically cannot trust yourself any longer because subconsciously you’re telling yourself.
I cannot rely on myself. I know I said I was gonna do X, Y, and Z instead. I didn’t. And you would never, I hope anyway. You would never do that to a family member or a friend. Constantly tell them you’re gonna do something and then not follow through on it. Like, think about that with your partner or uh, somebody at work.
Maybe you’re not gonna tell somebody you’re gonna do something and constantly. Uh, fail on that or let them down because you know, that’s gonna break down the trust in that relationship and they’re not going to wanna be friends with you anymore or married to you or whatever it is. Okay. So we do it to ourselves though all the time, right?
We break down that trust in ourselves, right? And that lack of self-trust creates a lot of anxiety, internal anxiety, internal turmoil, and this creates burnout really, because you’re constantly sort of stressing yourself out. Okay? Instead, we want to keep. The promises we make to ourselves. We make a plan.
We stick to the plan. We build a little self-trust. We make a plan, we stick to the plan. We build more self-trust. Keep doing this, and you build tons of trust in yourself. You build confidence, you recover quickly from mistakes. You stop making rules that you can’t keep, like you do what you say you’re gonna do.
And this is built through tiny little wins, not big giant promises that you make to yourself. It’s built through daily repetitions. You gotta get your daily reps in, okay? A lot of small, little, you know, commitments that you keep to yourself. They add up over time. And I’m telling you all of this because this is why the leaner, stronger runner framework actually works.
Not because it’s extreme, not because it’s rigid, not because it demands perfection, but because it’s designed for real runners with real lives who have real stress and experience real setbacks. It assumes imperfection and it survives it. Now when I talk about structure, again, I’m not talking about rigidity, right?
I don’t mean rules that make your life harder, and I definitely don’t mean some perfect plan. You follow until the first thing that happens that blows everything up for you. Okay? I mean, simple guardrails that remove decision making and keep you moving forward even when life gets in the way or motivation is low.
So I’m gonna give you a couple of examples of what structure can look like, things that you can put into practice starting today. Okay. The first is a default training week, right? We’re gonna take the guesswork out of this one. Okay? And one of the biggest mistakes that runners make is deciding what they’re going to do every single day.
That is exhausting. Okay. Structure instead looks like having a default week, uh, not a perfect week, but a default week that you can always fall back on, um, or at least something you can use as a template. So, for example, these are my run days. These are my non-running days. This is when I do my strength training, and these are my recovery days.
Okay? Even if your mileage changes, even if the intensity changes, your training, whatever, the framework stays the same. So when life gets busy, you don’t think, oh, what should I do today? You already know it’s written down. Okay, you have a, a default training week. It’s penned in ink and it’s non-negotiable.
Okay? Um, and you just execute the plan to the best of your ability. Okay? Again, you may not do it perfectly. Stuff gets in the way sometimes, but have a default training week. Um, number two. Is having a non-negotiable minimum? This one is huge. Most runners think consistency means doing everything exactly as they planned.
It does not. Consistency means knowing that your minimum standard, the smallest version of the habit that you’re trying to establish still counts. Okay. For example, if a full run feels like too much. The minimum might be 20 easy minutes. Okay. If a full strength session feels overwhelming to you or you don’t have time, the minimum might be, you know, one circuit.
You know, one full body circuit takes you 15 minutes. If your nutrition feels off, the minimum might be three solid meals instead of, oh, I’m just gonna start over tomorrow. Okay. Again, having a non-negotiable minimum prevents the all or nothing trap. Okay? ’cause you’re never quite off track. You’re just operating at the minimum, and that still counts, and it still builds trust and confidence in yourself.
Okay, and then number three, a simple food framework, right? Not daily decisions about food. That’s a recipe for disaster right there. I’m telling you right now, you need structure around food. And it doesn’t mean eating the same thing every single day. It means removing that daily negotiation, for example, um, getting protein in every meal.
Eating regularly, you know, at regular times instead of just eating whenever you feel like it or eating reactively, you know, because you’ve had a stressful day, um, fueling your training days intentionally stop trying to make up for what you did yesterday, right? When food decisions are made in advance, stress goes down, consistency goes up.
You’re not relying on willpower, you’re relying on the plan that you put in place. Number four, having a reset rule instead of constantly starting over. Okay, this one might be the most important one. Structure includes a reset rule, a rule that says if I miss a workout, I’m not going to punish myself. I just get back on track.
If I overeat, I don’t restrict myself. I don’t try to make it up. I just normalize what I’m doing again. Or if a week kind of gets outta control, things go a little bit sideways. I don’t quit. I just simply come back to home base. I reset. Right? No drama. No guilt, no restarting from scratch. You simply return back to your structure and this is how consistency is built over time and, and if you have a reset rule in place, this might be the most important thing that you can do starting today.
Get this in place because you are going to have setbacks. You’re going to fall off your plan. You’re going to eat the chocolate cake for dinner or whatever that looks like for you. And if you beat yourself up and you have to start all over again, every time that happens. You break down the trust, you break down the confidence, you don’t get the results that you want.
Um, you end up quitting and we don’t wanna do any of that stuff, okay? We wanna get back to normal and start building that consistency. Okay? Again, consistency is not perfection. Okay. And then number five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay. Finally, structure means tracking the right thing, not your scale weight every single day, or perfect weeks or flawless execution.
Um, maybe tracking things like how often did I return back to normal? Um, did I follow the structure more than I didn’t, you know, did I, did I hit like a, a a b plus instead of an a plus? Um, did I get, you know, 25 out of 31 days where I stayed on track? Um. Am I building momentum instead of stopping and then starting over all the time?
Because this stuff actually matters. This is what’s actually going to move the needle for you. Okay? So that’s what structure can look like for you. Um, and again, these are just examples, but I’ll, I’ll recap these really quickly. One, a default training week instead of guessing two, a non-negotiable minimum.
Uh, three, a simple food framework for a reset rule instead of starting over. And then five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay, now here’s the important part. These examples work, but they’re, they work best when they’re part of a complete system, okay? So when training, nutrition and mindset are all structured together, consistency stops feeling like something you have to force.
It just becomes something you do, okay? Again, it becomes part of your identity. This is who I am, this is what I do, and that’s exactly what the Leaner, stronger Runner Project is designed to give you. So I wanna zoom out a little bit here. Um, in part one of this series, you learned how to train without breaking yourself down.
Uh, part two, you learn how to eat without fighting your bio, your, uh, body and your biology. And in part three here today, you learn how to stay consistent without relying on motivation. This is the system. It’s not a bunch of hacks or shortcuts or, you know, contests to see how disciplined you are. It’s a framework.
That actually works with you. Okay. If you’ve listened all the way through to this part of the episode. I want you to hit pause for just a second. Okay. Because getting to the end here tells me something important about you. You care. You want this to work. You’re tired of starting over. You’ve probably tried pushing harder.
You’ve probably tried being more disciplined. You’ve probably tried relying on motivation to carry you through and now. You know the truth, motivation isn’t the problem. You don’t need more willpower. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? What’s been missing is structure a system one that works in real life, not just on perfect weeks, okay?
And that’s exactly why I created the Leaner, stronger Runner project, right? It’s not about grinding more being perfect, it’s about having a clear framework for how you train. How you eat and how you stay consistent, especially when life gets busy, stressful, or unpredictable, because it always will. It’s all about building strength without breaking yourself down, fueling in a way that supports your recovery instead of fighting your body and your biology, and it’s finally trusting yourself to be able to follow through.
Okay, so if you’re ready to stop resetting and you wanna start building something that actually lasts. Go to running lean coaching.com/ready, okay? That’s where everything you’ve learned in this series all comes together. Okay? That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
The holidays can feel like a minefield for runners—parties, travel, family dynamics, big emotions, endless food, disrupted routines… it’s a lot. That’s why in this week’s episode, “The Holiday …
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 311 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the holiday survival plan for runners. Stay lean, stay strong, stay sane. So the holidays can feel like a minefield for a lot of people, especially runners. We got parties and travel and family dynamics and big emotions and endless food and disrupted routines.
It’s a lot. It really is a lot. That’s why in this week’s episode called the holiday survival plan for runners, I’m giving you some simple. Realistic, no nonsense plans, tips, strategies to help you navigate this season with some confidence. Listen, this is not going to be another Avoid the cookies conversation.
This is about staying mentally grounded, honoring your goals, staying consistent with your training, and actually enjoying the holidays without, without feeling like you’re constantly battling temptation or starting over in January, don’t want to do that. You’re gonna learn how to handle parties and food pressure, and travel and stress and emotional eating and schedule chaos.
Without losing momentum and without feeling deprived. So if you want this holiday season to feel easier, calmer, and more intentional, you’re absolutely going to want to listen to this one. But first, listen, if you’re feeling stuck at all right now, if running feels harder than it should, if you’re constantly trying to get back on track, if you’re tired of doing this on your own and not seeing the results that you want, this is your moment.
Most runners think they just need a better plan. More motivation, more willpower. But what they really need is a proven system, real accountability. Someone who actually understands the unique challenges that runners face with things like fueling and training and mindset and body composition. And that’s exactly what you get when you work with me.
My coaching program is designed to make running feel easier, uh, make your body feel stronger, make your mind feel clear, and your results finally feel predictable. You get one-on-one guidance, personalized nutrition, structured strength training, mindset work, and a coach who is fully invested in your success.
If you’re ready for running to feel fun again, who isn’t, and to become the strongest, leanest, most confident version of yourself, now is the time to take action. Just head over to running lean coaching.com and click on work with me. Let’s do this. All right, let’s get into this topic, the Holiday Survival Plan for runners, how to stay lean, stay strong, and stay sane.
First of all, let’s start here. Why do the holidays feel so hard? Um, if you’ve struggled with staying consistent during the holidays in the past, welcome to the club. Uh, I’ve done that many, many years. Every runner I coach deals with this. Every coach I know deals with this. You’re not lacking willpower.
You’re not lazy. There’s nothing wrong with you. The holiday season is like the perfect storm for losing progress. Here’s some reasons why your routine gets disrupted. Kids are off school travel ramps up, work deadlines pile up. Social events explode, your stress goes up. Stuff like family dynamics, financial pressure, emotional triggers, expectations, your operate operating under more low than normal.
Uh, food is everywhere and not just any food. Hyper palatable, nostalgic, emotional food, comfort food. Sugar. Alcohol consumption increases even if you’re usually pretty moderate. A lot of people tend to drink more this time of the year. Sleep takes a hit, late nights parties travel, stress. It all adds up to reduce the quality of your sleep.
Weather sucks for many people, which means running gets harder to commit to and then daylight decreases, which affects your mood, your motivation, your energy. And on top of all of this, as if that wasn’t enough, there’s this pressure internal and ex external pressure to quote unquote, like enjoy the holidays, which often people will just translate to.
I’m just gonna give up for now and get back to things on January. In January. But those weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, they add up. A few pounds of fat, uh, a few weeks of lost fitness, and suddenly February rolls around and you’re asking yourself, why do I feel so behind? So, the goal of this episode is pretty simple.
I wanna help you to enjoy the holidays and keep your health and fitness goals on track. Without feeling deprived or stressed out, not one or the other. You get to have both. So let’s build a plan. First of all, you gotta get your mindset dialed in before the holidays start. So right now is the time to get started with this.
If you want to go into the holidays with, you know, no plan, no boundaries, no intentions, you’re gonna default into whatever’s easiest and that, and what’s easiest usually is not what you want. Okay? So number one, step number one here is to decide right now. Who you are going to be this holiday season, you can choose to be the runner who spirals outta control every December, or the runner who becomes a stronger, more resilient version of themselves because of the TA challenges they’re facing, not in spite of them.
So just make this decision now. Seriously, stop what you’re doing and decide who are you going to be this holiday season. Say it out loud if you need to. If you’re driving in the car, if you’re by yourself, if you’re with other people, it, it would be weird, but I think you should do it anyway. Nobody’s gonna judge you.
Well, people might judge you. I’m not gonna judge you. So that’s step number one. Decide right. Step number two, choose your non-negotiables. You don’t need 30 rules. You need like two to four things that are non-negotiables for you. So some examples might be, I’m gonna run four days a week no matter what, or I’m gonna strength train twice a week.
I’m gonna eat real food. 90% of the time I’m gonna drink water before I have any alcohol. I’m gonna get at least seven hours of sleep most nights. I’m not gonna skip my morning routine. These are non-negotiables that act like guardrails ’cause, so they help you from veering off the cliff. Okay? So just pick a couple of these, pick two or three, write them down and just own them.
Step number three is to expect obstacles. So you gotta decide ahead of time how you’re going to handle these obstacles, but you have to expect them. If you think there’s not gonna be obstacles, you’re gonna be in for a, a, a sad surprise, most people get derailed because something unexpected happens. But guess what?
None of the obstacles during the holidays. Are actually unexpected. You know, there will be parties, you know, there will be family stress. You know, people will pressure you to eat and drink. You know, you’ll be tired some days. So instead of, whoa, where did all this come from? Ask yourself, how do I want to respond when this thing happens?
Because it will happen. So create responses ahead of time. This is one of the most powerful mindset tools that you can use. Okay, so next part here is how to handle holiday parties like a pro. Holiday parties aren’t the problem, it’s how people think about them. Most runners go in with a very vague plan, like, I’m gonna try to be good.
That is not a plan, that is a wish. So here’s how to navigate parties without feeling deprived or obsessed. So strategy number one. Eat like a normal person earlier in the day. Don’t starve yourself to save calories for later. That’s the fastest path to overeating. Bingeing drinking too much, feeling outta control.
I know a lot of people that do this are like, I’m just not gonna eat anything that way. You know, I’ll when I eat at this party or whatever. Um, it won’t be too bad, but the problem is you’re just, it can lead to some really outta control behavior. So eat some food, eat real food, eat protein, eat fats, eat veggies, drink lots of water, go into the party, feeling satisfied, not starving.
This is a huge strategy and this works for any kind of social event. Uh, doesn’t have to be just around the holidays. Uh, strategy number two, decide ahead of time what your 24 hour plan is. So. Ask yourself, will I drink tomorrow night? If yes, how much will I have dessert at this party? Yes. Okay. How much, um, what’s my food plan gonna be at this party?
Plates of snacks or one intentional meal? Decide ahead of time. ’cause when you do that, you’re using that prefrontal cortex, you’re. Uh, your, your thinking part of your brain when you decide in the moment you’re using that, uh, primitive brain, your amygdala, and we don’t wanna be relying on that to make decisions for us.
So one of these, uh, one of these wants long-term success. The other just wants to eat a bunch of cookies right now. Okay? So use that prefrontal cortex, decide ahead of time. Strategy number three for handling holiday parties like a pro is one plate and one dessert. So it’s a simple rule, but it works beautifully.
Just make one plate of food. Sit. Eat it slowly, enjoy the hell out of it. If you want dessert, just pick one thing and enjoy that one thing, and then you’re done. No grazing. No, going back four fourths, no mindless snacking because someone left a tray of brownies next to you. Um, uh, another thing I would say is don’t hang out by the desserts.
Don’t hang out in the kitchen where all the food is, or on the table. Uh, a lot of people like to just hang out and graze. Um, so just stay away from the food, but one plate and one dessert. Equals freedom Strategy number four. If you do drink alcohol, not a problem, but just be intentional about it. Alcohol isn’t evil, but alcohol plus no plan equals a mess.
You know, it’s just a disaster waiting to happen. So use the one for one rule, one alcoholic drink. And one glass of water. Set a limit before you walk in and stick to it. So if you decide you’re gonna have one glass of wine, and no, we’re not talking about one of those two liter glasses, okay? Just have one normal glass of wine and then be done, and then have a glass of water to go along with it.
Okay? But definitely set your intention. Ahead of time. We’re talking about the difference between being in intentional and acting with no purpose whatsoever. We’re talking about the difference between being mindless and mindful. We wanna be mindful about what we’re eating and how much we’re drinking.
And then strategy number five, leave when you need to leave. You don’t owe anyone. Anything. You don’t owe anyone your health especially. So if people are, are drinking too much or overeating or just pressuring you, you don’t have to stick around. You can just simply leave. You’re an adult. Uh, you can do the um, Irish goodbye where you just sneak outta there, ghost, you know, we call it whatever.
Um, just walk out the front door at any time. Um, I did this at a party recently. And my fiance and I were, were like, okay, ’cause we don’t drink and stuff. And there was a lot of people drinking and we were like, I think it’s time to go. And so we, we just quietly snuck out and somebody’s like, oh, I see you guys are doing the Irish goodbye.
And I’m like, oh yeah, definitely. Um, I’m not afraid to do that at all. And these people are still our friends. They don’t, they don’t care. Okay. Next section here is how to navigate family, food, pressure, and holiday triggers. Okay, this is a big one, right? Family. Let’s get into this part. Nobody can push your buttons like the people who installed them.
I wrote that and I thought it was very funny, so just don’t mind me. Common triggers for runners during the holidays can be things like people pushing food on you. Come on, it’s the holidays. Just have a little, live a little bit. Let your hair down. People treating your running or eating habits like they’re weird.
Hyper emotional food. Oh, but grandma made this just for you. Come on with the guilt trips, right? Old family dynamics that bring up stress. Being around people who don’t support your goals. Guilt, shame, obligation. People pleasing. Oh my gosh. Family. There’s nothing like family at the holidays. Right. Let’s reframe all this.
So here’s a few more strategies for you here. Um, strategy number one, food pressure is all about them. It’s not about you. So when someone says, why aren’t you eating that? Uh, why are you being so strict? Why don’t you just relax? That isn’t about you, it’s about them. They feel uncomfortable with their own choices.
Um, people want company in their indulgence when you say no, they feel judged even though you’re not judging them. So just remind yourself, this isn’t personal. This is about them, not about me. Strategy number two for handling the family. A simple phrase that solves 95% of food pressure. Um, just say No thank you.
I’m good. You don’t need to explain, you don’t need to justify, you don’t need to defend. Just say it with a smile and repeat as necessary. No, thank you. I’m good. Practice it. Seriously. Say it out loud. You’re gonna use this a lot. No, thank you. I’m good. No, thank you. I’m. Strategy number three, allow yourself to enjoy special food intentionally, just, just like alcohol, okay?
This isn’t about avoiding everything bad, this is about choosing on purpose and being intentional. So some examples here is I’m gonna have one slice of mom’s Christmas pie because I truly love it. Or I’m skipping the store-bought cookies because they don’t do anything for me. Or I’m gonna have a glass of wine with dinner, not five.
Again, we’re being intentional. An intentional indulgence is actually very empowering. It’s very different from mindless overeating, which is not empowering at all. You get to choose. So be intentional about these choices. And then strategy number four is to shake off guilt like it’s glitter. You’re not a failure.
If you eat something off plan, you’re human guilt is just a wasted emotion. It doesn’t help you make better decisions ever. You don’t need to punish yourself with extra miles. You don’t need to be super restrictive the next day. You don’t need to repent like you’ve committed. Of mortal sin, just make the decision, uh, the next decision, uh, something that you feel proud of.
Okay, so the next meal, the next, you know, decision you need to make, whether it’s to not have a drink or something like that. Make that one something that you feel proud of. Okay? So just shake off that guilt and be done with it. Okay? Next, how to stay consistent with your running during the holidays. So consistency is gonna be your superpower, uh, during the holidays, okay?
Not perfection, consistency. So let’s make this incredibly simple here. Strategy number one, schedule your runs, like your doctor’s appointments. Put them in the calendar, put them on the family calendar. Put them in your phone. When it’s scheduled, it happens when it’s vague, when it’s just some idea floating around in your head, it doesn’t happen.
Okay? So make it real. Put it in the calendar. Pretend like it’s a doctor’s appointment. You’re not gonna not go. Strategy number two. If you’re traveling, scout the routes in advance. Use Strava, all trails, MapMyRun, local running groups on Facebook, running stores in the area. Do this before you travel so you know where you’re going to run.
I do this all the time. I look up, you know, what’s a good route around here and I’ll go on, um, Strava or Garmin or all Trails or something like that, and I’ll see where people, uh, have run in that area. Map my run has a lot of those. That feature too. Um. So know where you’re going to run, pack what you need, gloves, lights, different layers.
Running shoes that aren’t 10 years old. Your fuel, your, your watch, and your charger, all that stuff. Um, ’cause when you remove the friction, running becomes easy. Just make it so that it’s like a, a no brainer. And then number three, let’s see. Short runs still count. Do not fall into, into the all or nothing trap.
Like a 20 minute run is still a run. A 30 minute run still builds fitness. A 10 minute run just keeps your habit going. Consistency beats, you know, the length of your run every single time. So just do what you can. Strategy number four, uh, for sticking to your runs, uh, and running consistently during the holidays is plan for the weather.
Uh, not, not some idea that you have about the weather should be right. Winter running takes preparation where layers bring gloves even when you think you won’t need them. Wear a hat or a buff. Use hand warmers if you need to. You’re not weak. If you hate the cold, you’re human. I hate the cold. I really do.
Um, cold weather running is uncomfortable at first, but after five or 10 minutes, you warm up, you’ll be fine. The hardest part is just getting out the door and getting started, honestly. And then strategy number five, use this time to build your aerobic engine. If you’re not in race training mode, that is perfectly fine.
This is base building season. So base building means low stress, low pressure. Your job here is to just keep your habit alive, keep your body moving, maintain your fitness, maintain your metabolic flexibility. Stay mentally grounded, you’re setting yourself up for uh, uh, a year of running success. Right.
You’re, you’re not going to make or break a whole lot during this kind of off season. So you don’t have to go all out. Um, you know you’re gonna be working towards something that is months ahead of you. Um, and so just take it easy, but enjoy the running, it’s low pressure, uh, and just keep your body moving and maintain that cardiovascular fitness during the holidays.
Okay, next. How to crush a holiday travel without losing your mind or your fitness. So travel’s one of the biggest disruptors that I, uh, experience with my coaching clients, not because of. Not just because the logistics are complicated, it’s because you’re changing environments, you’re changing habits. Um, so in, in, in this case, you really need a plan.
Um, and when you do, traveling becomes a non-issue. Okay? So strategy number one here control what you can control. You don’t have control over the food that’s being served or the schedule or the temperature, the flight delays. The in-laws, but you can control what time you wake up, how much water you drink, whether or not you get a quick run in, whether you walk after meals.
Um, you have control over how much alcohol you consume, how much you sleep, what you put on your plate, uh, your attitude. So focus on these things that you can control and it lowers stress instantly. Strategy number two for traveling. Pack your runner’s emergency kit. This is one of my favorite things here.
Just make sure you have all this stuff in your car, in your, in your luggage, whatever, electrolytes, protein, power, nuts, jerky, uh, one or two meals that you can rely on. Running shoes, running clothes, resistance bands, a water bottle, headlamp if you run in the dark. If you got the basics, you’re never gonna feel stuck.
You’re gonna have what you need. Next strategy. Build in movement every single day. No gym, don’t worry about it. Body weight workouts are great. No time, not a problem. 10 minute runs exist. Uh, if there’s snow on the roads, okay, you can walk or maybe find a treadmill. You’re never stuck. There’s always something you can do.
Movement keeps you grounded. Movement keeps cravings down, movement reduces stress and helps improve sleep. This one thing alone, if you can just build in movement every day will make your holiday season so much easier. Alright, dealing with stress, emotional eating, and just overall mental overload. So this is the part most runners ignore and it’s the reason most runners struggle to be honest with you.
When stress goes up, the primitive brain takes over and the primitive brain, that amygdala it wants comfort, pleasure, quick energy, safety, familiarity, and guess what? Checks all those boxes. Carbs, sugar, alcohol, skipping workout, saying, screw it. So we need tools, real tools. Strategy number one here for dealing with stress.
Emotional eating and mental overload. Build a daily emotional buffer. So an emotional buffer is something that keeps your stress level manageable. So some examples might be a morning routine or journaling, or meditation or walking. Intentional breathing, sitting in silence, listening to music, prayer, gratitude, practice reading, strength training, stretching.
Pick one of these things. Do it every single day. This is the foundation of staying sane during the holidays. Strategy Number two, use the pause and ask technique before eating. So before you grab something to eat, pause for three seconds and just ask yourself in your mind, why am I eating this? If the answer is I’m bored, I’m stressed, I’m anxious, I’m overwhelmed, I’m sad, I feel awkward.
Everyone else is eating. That is emotional eating. Okay? If the answer is, God, I’m, I’m very hungry, or This is part of my plan, or, I really want this and I’m choosing it intentionally, that is aligned. Eating right? No judgment, just awareness. So awareness creates control. So do the pause and ask, why am I eating this?
And then, um, if the answer is, you know, Hey, this is part of my plan, or I really want this, I’m being intentional, go for it. Strategy. Number three, stress and overeating don’t solve each other. This is the big lie that keeps a lot of people stuck. I’m stressed so food or alcohol is gonna help. Here’s the truth.
Food doesn’t reduce stress. Alcohol doesn’t reduce stress. Sugar doesn’t reduce stress. They numb you temporarily, and when the numbness wears off, the stress is still there. Plus now you feel physically worse mentally or disappointed and emotionally drained. So ask yourself instead, what do I actually need right now?
That food cannot give me. Rest, connection, breathing, movement, a conversation, maybe some boundaries, especially with family members, right? This is how you break emotional eating cycles by meeting your actual needs. Okay. All right. We’re into, we’re almost done here. Okay. I got a lot of stuff to cover here, so I hope you’re taking notes.
There’s a lot of good strategies here. So we’re getting into this section of how to enjoy the holidays without feeling like you totally went off the off the rails. So we wanna be able to enjoy ourselves, right? You’re allowed to enjoy the holidays and still kind of stay on track. This is not a season of restriction.
It’s a season of intention. So I wanna rewrite some holiday narratives. Okay. And some sort of myths that people have. So myth number one is that the holidays are a six week free for all. The reality is the holidays are a handful of special meals surrounded by thousands of regular moments where you can make great choices.
Okay? It’s a couple of days. We’re talking about like Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, new Year’s Eve, new Year’s, day, four days, something like that. Right. It’s not, uh, it’s not, uh, six whole weeks of just being crazy. Myth number two, if I eat something off plan, I blew it. The reality is one choice does not de derail you.
Only the story you tell yourself afterwards derails you. Myth number three. January 1st is when I’m gonna get serious again. Oh God. How many people do this? The reality is that most successful runners stay consistent year round. They don’t sprint January through March, and then crash November and uh, November and December.
Okay. And then myth number four, I can’t trust myself around holiday food. The reality is you can trust yourself if you have a plan and you honor your commitments that you make to yourself, which you now do. Okay? You’ve got a plan. So your simple doable holiday survival plan, I’m just gonna wrap everything up here into a.
Very clear, step-by-step plan that you can follow. So if you’ve been following along, um, and taking some notes, I’m gonna kind of recap everything right here. Uh, number one, set your identity. I’m a runner who stays consistent during the holidays. Number two, choose three to four non-negotiables. Some examples, I run four days a week.
I lift twice a week. I drink water, first one plate and one dessert rule. Seven hours of sleep. Choose three to four non-negotiables. Number three, plan each day, 24 hours in advance, food, alcohol, movement, and yes, even sleep, uh, strategy or, or step number four here, eat before parties, protein and veggies and healthy fats.
That way you’re not going in starving. Number five, navigate parties with intention. One plate. One dessert. One for one. Alcohol to water. Boom. Good to go. Number six, handle food pressure with calm confidence. Remember the phrase, no. Thank you. I’m good. Number seven, stay consistent with your running. Schedule it travel, proof it, modify it when needed.
Number eight, manage stress deliberately. Daily emotional buffer practice. What is that? Journaling A little music, a little, you know, quiet time. A little yoga. What does that look like for you? Number nine, use the pause and ask technique. Why am I eating this? Really be honest with yourself too. And then number 10, celebrate wins every single day.
Your brain needs that reinforcement. Progress piles up. So celebrate the little things, um, every single day. Okay. The holidays don’t have to be something you just survive. They can be something you enjoy, actually really enjoy while staying aligned with your health, your weight, your running, and your mental wellbeing.
This is the first year that you’re gonna walk into this season with intention and clarity and confidence, and a plan. Okay? So if you want help with. Implementing any of this stuff too. Just remember, you know, reach out to me. This is what I do every single day. Go to my website running lean coaching.com, click on work with me and we can get started right away.
All right? That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
Today on the podcast, we’re talking about something that most runners think they understand but almost always get wrong. It’s the subtle, sneaky stuff we do around food that feels harmless… but …
Continue Reading about 308. The Hidden Ways Runners Overeat (Without Realizing It) →
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 308 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the hidden ways runners overeat with even realizing it. So today I’m talking about something that most runners think they understand, but almost always get wrong. It’s the subtle, sneaky stuff we do around food that feels harmless, but consistently slows our progress, stalls our fat loss, and keeps us struggling more than we should.
So this episode is called The Hidden Ways Runners Overeat Without Realizing It. And once you hear these patterns, you’ll start seeing them everywhere. I’m gonna take a deep dive into mindless eating, healthy overeating, weakened creep training, hunger, emotional snacking, and most importantly. How to take back control if you’ve been running consistently, but not seeing the changes you expected.
If your eating feels mostly fine, but something still isn’t working, or if you’re tired of feeling like you take one step forward and one step back, this episode will give you the clarity that you’ve been missing. But first, if you’re listening to this and realizing, oh, wow, I’m doing a lot of this stuff, that’s actually a good thing.
Okay? Awareness is the first step, but awareness alone doesn’t create change, not the kind of deep lasting change that you want as a runner and as a healthy human being. Most runners are out there doing all the right things on paper. They’re logging miles, they’re eating what seems like the right foods.
They’re trying to stay motivated. But some, something still feels harder than it should runs. Feel heavier. Your progress feels slow. Sometimes your body doesn’t respond the way you expect it to, and it gets frustrating, you know? ’cause you’ve been putting in all this work. This is exactly why I created my coaching program.
You don’t need another meal plan, another training plan, or another. Try harder pep talk. You need a comprehensive, high touch system that helps you to get leaner. Get stronger and feel more energized and more confident without relying on willpower or guesswork. I will help you fix your nutrition, dial in your running, build the strength you’ve been missing, and develop the mindset that makes all of this feel sustainable and even fun.
So if you’re ready for that kind of transformation, just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click on work with me. Let’s do this together. All right, let’s dive into this. So we’re talking about the hidden ways runners overeat without even realizing it, and this is one of those topics that. Once you see it, you’re not gonna be able to unsee it.
Okay? You’re gonna start noticing all these little patterns in your life. The mindless munching, the I earn this meals, the weekend splurges, the emotional snacking after a stressful day, and then suddenly all these things are gonna start to make sense to you. A lot of runners come to me thinking that they have a running problem or a metabolism problem, or an age problem when what they actually have is an unintentional overeating problem.
They’re not binge eating. They’re not out of control eating, you know, they don’t sit down and eat a gallon of ice cream. I’m talking about subtle, quiet, sneaky overeating. That feels kind of normal because it’s so common. And for runners, especially runners trying to lose weight, um, getting leaner or getting stronger, this stuff really matters.
Okay, so today I’m gonna break down the five biggest hidden overeating traps that runners fall into why these habits feel harmless, but actually stall your fat loss and just completely wreck your consistency. And then what you can do right now to regain control without counting calories, starving yourself, or giving up running fuel.
So if you’ve ever felt like you eat pretty healthy, but you can’t lose weight, or you’re running a ton, but the scale isn’t budging, or you do awesome all week only to sabotage yourself on the weekend, this episode is for you. So why overeating is so sneaky for runners? So most runners think I run a lot. I burn a ton of calories.
I can’t be overeating. Overeating can’t really be my issue. And listen, I get it. I used to say the same things. I used to think there was absolutely no way I was eating too much. But here’s the truth. Runners tend to overeat because they run not in spite of. Running makes you feel hungrier. Running gives you the, uh, I deserve this mentality.
Right? It gives you the, the excuses to snack and pretty much eat anything in front of you and it convinces you that you’re being healthy even when you might not be. And because overeating is subtle, it goes unnoticed. Most overeating is not big binges or giant drive, drive-through orders or, you know, for extra slices of pizza.
Most overeating looks like just a little extra handful here and there. Grabbing a snack without really thinking about it. Finishing the kids’ leftovers, pouring a second bowl of whatever eating while standing in the kitchen. I used to do that a lot. Eating at the wrong times. It’s death by a thousand tiny bites.
Okay? And those tiny bites they add up, right? So let’s get into some of the hidden overeating traps that runners fall into, starting with the most common trap of all, which is mindless eating. This is the silent saboteur. So mindless eating is kind of the sneakiest form of overeating because it doesn’t really feel like you’re overeating.
It feels like. Nothing really feels like something happening in the background while you’re focused on something else. So this could be snacking while you’re cooking or you know, snacking while you’re watching TV or scrolling or while you’re at work or in the car snacking, just because something is there.
Mindless eating is eating that’s disconnected from physical hunger. It’s not driven by need. It’s driven by habit and environment, and it’s you operating on autopilot. Okay? It’s why we call it mindless, because your mind isn’t really involved here. Okay? Here’s how runners get hit. Hard with this though.
You come home from a run, you’re a little depleted. You’re sweaty, you’re tired. You walk into the kitchen, and then something goes into your mouth. You know, not because you consciously chose it, because you walked. Buy it. You know, and this does stuff, doesn’t really get logged in your brain as eating.
Doesn’t even really register. But if you’re grabbing a couple handfuls before dinner every night, that could easily be three to 500 calories that you didn’t even notice. Okay? So why mindless eating happens? Your brain wants to conserve energy and making decisions around food takes mental effort. Your brain hates mental effort.
Okay? So it just automates things like tying your shoe or driving a car. You do these things automatically. You don’t have to think about all the steps involved with driving your car. You just get in your car and you drive now. Okay? Could you imagine having to go through all the steps when you first learned how to drive?
Remember how hard that was and how tedious it was and how long it took. Um, if you had to do that every single time, your brain would just go into overload. It’d be too much information, right? So your brain automates a lot of stuff, and for a lot of us, we’ve automated eating, okay? And automated eating rarely leads to good outcomes.
Okay? So how we stop this, the solution to stopping the automatic eating is. Is simple. It’s not easy, but it is simple. Okay? And this is just creating intentional eating moments. Like sit down when you eat, put your food on a plate, stop eating while you’re standing up. Stop eating straight out of a bag or whatever.
Don’t just grab a bite here or there. If you wanna make one rule from this episode, make it this one. If it’s worth eating, it’s worth paying attention to. So mindless eating is the opposite of paying attention. Mindless eating is the opposite of mindful eating. Okay? We wanna be mindful about how we eat and the kinds of foods we eat, how often we eat, all that stuff.
Okay? Another trap that runners fall into. Is healthy overeating. This is when good food can become a problem, and this one hits a lot of people hard, especially runners because runners love eating healthy food for the most part, right? We’re proud of healthy eating. We’re obsessed with whole foods, real foods, natural foods, and that is awesome.
But there’s a big trap here and it’s kind of subtle because food is healthy, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to help you to lose weight. Healthy overeating is just eating too much. Um, good food. Convincing yourself that it really doesn’t matter because it’s good food. Okay. You know, I hear all the time. Is, I don’t know why I can’t lose weight.
I, I only eat healthy or I don’t eat junk food, so calories don’t really matter as much. Uh, it’s all healthy stuff, you know, so it must be okay, you know, I track all my macros or it’s only nuts or fruit or yogurt or, or hummus or whatever. Okay. This is all great, but you, you can really overeat anything.
Okay. And I’ve talked before on this podcast about calories and how at some point, you know, calories matter. Like I don’t think it’s the place where you want to start with, uh uh, your weight loss journey. I think what I’m talking about today is. Gonna be the solution for a lot of people when it comes to, uh, eating too much.
Okay. So just keep listening. Okay. And we’re not really talking about counting calories and all that. I, I think that’s very tedious and it’s not really necessary. Somehow, as human beings, we’ve, we’ve been able to live very healthly for, you know, two and a half million years or so without. Counting calories.
Why all of a sudden do we have to log all our food into MyFitnessPal now? Right. Um, maybe if we just be more mindful about our food, we won’t have to, you know, count our calories and, and put all our food into an app. Okay. That was a little sidebar, so thank you for indulging me. Okay. You can really overeat anything.
Um, there’s a lot of healthy foods out there that you can actually overeat. Things like nuts. Nuts are super calorie dense, nut butters, even more so super calorie dense. You can really overeat that stuff easily. Um, I love a good, like, you know, good fresh apple with some almond butter, but I gotta be careful about how much that almond butter I put on that thing, or I, I use it like as a little dipping.
Uh, type of sauce, whatever you wanna call it, but I gotta be careful because that stuff adds up pretty quickly. Stuff like granola, um, some fruit smoothies, um, healthy trail mixes, avocado, hummus, Greek yogurt, protein bars, oatmeal. All these things are pretty good, you know, in and of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with some of this stuff.
We need some good carbs, you know, we need some, some good fats. We need some, some good protein, but at the same time. They can be a problem and the problem is just in the quantity. Okay. So healthy food is still, it’s still good food, it’s still healthy. Healthy calories are still calories And healthy overeating, uh, is still overeating.
Okay. So there’s just some issues with the overeating thing that we have to be mindful of, even if it is healthy food. So it’s very easy to overeat healthy food, and a lot of people do this and they’re not even aware of it. Okay. And a lot of this sounds good. It’s like, Hey, I’m, I’m, I, I’m eating healthy food, so it’s just fine.
Or it’s better than junk food, so I don’t really have to worry about it. And this is where you’re doing something called permission-based overeating. It feels harmless, it feels justified, it feels like you’re being responsible, but it keeps runners overweight all the time. And the solution here is just.
Nothing crazy, just you don’t need to count calories or weigh your food or anything like that. But just, you know, would I still eat this if it wasn’t healthy? Ask yourself this question. Would I still eat this if it wasn’t healthy? And if the answer is no, then you might be emotionally overeating healthy food.
Okay? So just be careful with that one. The next trap that a lot of runners fall into. This is number three, is the weekend creep. This is the two day undo button, and this one gets so many people. I can’t tell you how many people tell me they do great during the weekend. On the weekend, everything just sort of falls apart.
So weekend overeating is so common that people don’t even recognize it as overeating. They think it’s normal. Um, you know, you’re doing great Monday through Friday structured. Uh, you got a good routine going. Everything is predictable. Then Friday night hits and you. You just wanna relax and give yourself a break and treat yourself.
Uh, so that’s Friday. And then Saturday becomes just all day food free for all. You know, Sunday is starting with brunch and, and alcohol and bloody Mary’s and pizza, watching football and snacks and beers and the game. And by Sunday night you’re like, I don’t even know what happened. Um, but I gotta start all over again tomorrow, you know?
Well, I’ll tell you what happened. You just didn’t undid your entire week basically. Okay? Most overeating doesn’t happen during the week. This is the time when people are structured. They have a lot of parameters. They’re working around. They have work and kids and, and a lot of structure. But on the weekends, structure disappears.
Um, here’s just some math on some calories here I’ll give you, um, this might blow your mind a little bit here. Let’s say you overeat by just 400 calories on Friday. Um, 800 on Saturday and 600 on Sunday. That doesn’t seem like a a lot, but that’s 1800 calories. This is almost a full additional day of eating for a lot of people.
And if you’re doing this every weekend, every week, month after month, after month, um, it doesn’t matter how much you’re running, you’re just gonna stay stuck. Okay. And a lot of runners fall into this weekend creep because the, the weekends feel like a reward. You know, you think I earned this? I had a big long run today.
I’ve been good all week. It’s just this one meal. But you know what? Be honest with yourself. It’s never just one meal. It’s a pattern. Okay. And to fix the weekend creep. Um, you just have to be more intentional about everything that you’re doing. And I, I teach my clients some rules to live by, which is if you’re gonna have some indulgence, especially on the weekend, plan it in advance.
It’s fine if you want to go out and have a beer and a piece of pizza or something, just make a plan with that. Be intentional about what you’re doing. Don’t eat to numb yourself or, or, um. Uh, because you’re bored or you’re tired, uh, we don’t wanna use food as a, as emotional management tool. Okay. And then just stop eating when you feel satisfied, not when you feel uncomfortable or stuffed.
Right? That means you, you’ve just eaten too much. Okay? So take back your weekends, and I promise you this is, this is huge for so many people. You’re gonna really take back your progress too. You’re gonna stop being stuck. Okay? The fourth trap that a lot of runners fall into is training hunger. And is this real or is this fake?
Um, so runners swear that they are just hungrier than normal people. And yes, sometimes this is true. Training does increase hunger, but not most of the time. Okay. Training hunger is not real. Physical hunger. Most training hunger is related to things like dehydration, under fueling the day before or over fueling during a run.
Uh, your brain rewarding you for exercise. You get all those feel good hormones going, um, habit driven, snacking, emotional relief after a hard workout, stress hormones, post run, dopamine seeking, like you’ve, you’ve just depleted your body of everything and so you just want some, something to bring you back up, and so you reach for.
Food to do that for you. Um, or the belief that you burn more calories than you actually did. Okay? So training hunger feels real because your brain is, is very convincing to you. But if you’re one of these people that gains weight while you run, and I know so many people, uh, tell me every day that this is a, a problem with them, or if you’re stuck at the same weight year after year, you’re just likely eating far more than the run actually requires.
Yes, sometimes we get a little bit more hungry, uh, because we’re, our training has increased, but it’s rarely that much. Okay. And I can remember training for ultra marathons and eating everything in sight and really probably overeating quite a bit. I remember training for, um. Uh, a couple of ultra marathons and I, I gained, within about two years, I gained like 40 pounds.
I, that’s crazy, you know, but I was like, well, I’m training. I’m, I’m hungrier than normal, but. Honestly, 40 pounds. That’s a, that’s nuts. Okay. But this training hunger idea kind of tricks runners, because a lot of runners overestimate, you know, how much energy they’re really using, how many calories they’re burning.
They underestimate how much they’re actually eating. They think that refueling, uh, in a big way is mandatory. Uh, they’re eating to recover, not because they’re hungry. Uh, they eat because other runners tell them they get to eat whatever they want. Uh, they eat because they’re afraid of losing performance.
Um, so you finish a run, you’re sweaty. You, you worked really hard. Your brain is like, feed me all the carbs right now. Guess what? You might not really need food yet. What you might need is water and electrolytes. So start with that. Okay? Do that first. Cool. Off. Let your body, you know, get back to baseline.
Okay? And then you can ask yourself like, does something like salmon and broccoli feel good right now? Or whatever, food. If you don’t like that stuff, don’t, don’t use that as an example, but what kind of food feels good to you? Not junk food, not a bunch of carbs, not donuts, you know? Um, but if, if chicken and rice sounds good to you, or salmon and broccoli, or something like that, if the answer is yes, then you’re, you’re physically hungry.
If the answer is no. Then you’re probably more like dopamine hungry. Okay? Training hunger will fade fast, okay? Dopamine hunger will grow quickly, right? So just keep that in mind. Alright. Another trap number five that runners, uh, find themselves falling into is emotional snacking. This is using food to feel better.
So this is maybe the most important section of this episode ’cause emotional eating. Is very, very prevalent. Okay? It’s not a, it’s not a character flaw, it’s not a weakness. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person or anything like that. It just means that your brain is, you know, trying to solve an emotional problem with food.
And runners are extremely vulnerable to emotional snacking. Why? Because runners are using running most of the time to manage stress. But running does not fix emotional patterns. All it does is mask them. Okay? When life gets stressful and chaotic and overwhelming or even painful food becomes the backup coping mechanism.
Um, and there are some common emotional eating patterns that a lot of runners fall into here, which is stress, snacking after work, eating out of boredom, eating because of loneliness, or because you’re overwhelmed or you might feel. Like you’re falling behind in your training. You’re eating because you’re not seeing the progress that you want or because you’re tired or because you feel like you blew it today.
Emotional eating is almost always overeating, and it’s almost always hidden. Okay. People don’t say. I’m upset, therefore, I shall eat 12 ounces of almonds. You know, it’s, it’s more subtle. It’s like a bite here, a bite there. A handful of this, a nibble of this, you know, if you just keep finding yourself going to the pantry or going to the refrigerator and just snacking on stuff and always wanting something.
This is probably emotional eating okay? And emotional eating, um, almost always goes past the point of satiety. Okay, so how do we stop this emotional snacking? Just recognize that you might be doing it. Okay? That’s the first step, right? Just understand that, you know, oh, I want to eat something right now, but what am I feeling like?
Name the emotion. If it’s something like stress or boredom, just name that and then just let it be there for a couple minutes. You know, like maybe 90 seconds. Uh, emotions have short half lives, okay? You just allow it to be there. Usually within 90 seconds it’ll go away. Um, then decide if food would actually solve the problem for you.
And you know what? It really never does. So if you’re stressed or bored, find something else to do. Another way of, of relieving that stress or boredom. And then choose a non-food solution. Take a walk, do some journaling, take a shower, stretch, talk to someone. Rest. Deal with the emotion directly. Okay? You don’t need to use food to deal with your emotions, okay?
This is how you break emotional eating forever. Okay? So name the emotion, feel it for a few minutes, decide if food’s actually gonna solve the problem, probably not. And then choose a non-food solution. So how do you regain control around food? So if, if you’re recognizing yourself in any of these traps, in any of these patterns, this is actually a good thing.
It means you’re becoming aware and awareness is really the first step to change. So lemme give you a, a strategy that I help my clients, uh, to help them regain control around food. So number one is just slow down. Like, slow down your eating, slowing down creates awareness. Awareness creates control. Put your fork down between bites.
Take 20 minutes to eat. Chew more. Breathe between bites. It’s very hard to overeat when you eat slowly. Okay. Overeating almost always requires fast eating. Okay, so number one, slow down. Number two, stop eating when you’re satisfied, not when you’re full. This one is huge. Most runners have no idea what satisfied feels like.
Right? You only know hungry and stuffed. This is so much me. Um, satisfied is in the middle somewhere. It’s kind of subtle. It’s kind of quiet, but it feels kind of calm, right? So practice ending meals with the feeling of, you know, I could eat more, but I don’t need to. This single habit right here, this is gonna change everything for you.
Um, think about it like this. Like I, I talk to my strength clients about doing, um. When they’re doing their weight training to lift heavy, but still leave a couple reps in the tank. Okay, so you could do 12, but you’re gonna stop at 10. Same thing with food. You could eat more, but you’re gonna stop when you feel satisfied, not when you’re stuffed.
Okay? So just think about that. Number three, create eating windows. So this isn’t like strict fasting, this is just creating a little structure around food. So when you have eating windows, you kind of reduce the mindless snacking. So for example, you could say, I don’t eat breakfast until 10:00 AM. I eat lunch at two, and then I eat dinner at snack at six o’clock.
And there’s no snacking at those times or between those times unless you’re really dealing with some physical hunger. Okay. Most of the time, if you’re eating two or three times a day, that is plenty of food. You don’t need to eat snacks all during the day, but I get it sometimes, you know, you do experience some hunger and you do need to eat something, which is perfectly fine.
But creating these little windows around, around food just helps to bring some predictability and some structure around your day. Uh, number four, mentioned this earlier plan. Your indulgences, indulgences are fine. Exceptions to your plan are fine. Um, just do them with intention. Okay? Surprise, indulgences.
Those are the problems. You know, enjoy a dessert or a drink or a pizza or something like that, but just plan it ahead of time. When you plan your indulgences to magical things happen. Number one, you don’t eat ’em as often. You eat less, uh, of them. You don’t do it as often. And then number two, you enjoy it more because they’re intentional.
You don’t feel guilty. You’re like, I made a plan and I’m sticking to my plan. You know, my plan was to eat dessert at this nice restaurant we went to, and I did that and I feel good about it. That’s a big difference between that. And I promised myself I was gonna be good and I really blew it. Like, don’t, don’t do that to yourself, okay?
Be intentional. Um, number five, honor your physical hunger cues. Learn what real hunger feels like. This is like your stomach growling, that feeling of like hollowness in your belly, low energy. Um, uh, it’s not urgent. It’s not emotional. Um, if hunger feels emotional, desperate, or urgent or impulsive, that’s what we call dopamine hunger.
And you know, that’s, you don’t really need food. You’re just looking for a fix. You know, you’re looking for that feel good fix. Okay. So understand though that sometimes we are physically hungry and that’s okay. You know? And if you’re physically hungry and your stomach is growling and you’re like, God, I really, you know, I’m really hungry, but I’m not going to eat for another two hours.
Maybe see if you can go for a couple hours without food and just get used to feeling hungry sometimes. ’cause that’s not a big deal. Hunger is not an emergency. Uh, let’s see. Number six is to keep run fuel to what you actually need. So this is a big one. A lot of runners tend to over fuel, so they, they just are just eating all the food all the time.
You know, I, I have this one friend in our running group, little tiny woman. She was really cool, loved her. Um, but she said that before running, she would eat like this giant stack of pancakes. And we were talking about this at breakfast after our run where she was eating more bre, more pancakes and stuff, you know, and she said, oh yeah, before all my runs I have to eat this big stack of pancakes.
And I’m like, woo, that’s a lot of food for, for a couple hours of running or whatever. But you know, it’s okay to fuel before you run. I usually tell people, listen, if you’re running for under 90 minutes, you probably don’t really need to fuel much. Anything over that. We’re gonna use some simple, minimal fuel.
Um, we’re, we’re fueling for performance, not just for entertainment. Okay? And a big stack of pancakes before you run that might be more entertainment. I don’t know. Um, let’s see, number seven. Uh, the last one of, uh, these ideas of gaining control around food, again, is to build an identity of a runner who eats like an athlete.
Okay? So often runners will see themselves as, uh, someone who just, uh, runs so they can eat right. Athletes on the other hand, see themselves as I eat in a way. That supports my body and my my goals. You know, identity drives behavior. If you shift the identity, the identity of an athlete, then the behavior follows.
Okay? You train like an athlete, eat like an athlete. Okay. Very, very important one right there. Okay, a few final thoughts here. Overeating is rarely obvious. It’s rarely dramatic. It rarely looks like overeating, but those little things, they matter. The unconscious eating matters, the emotional eating matters.
The weakened creep. Matters. The I Earn this meal matters. The healthy overeating matters, and none of this makes you bad or weak or broken. It just means you’re operating without awareness. So when you slow down, when you start to pay attention, when you eat more intentionally. When you learn to feel your feelings and emotions instead of numbing yourself to them, when you train your brain to tolerate discomfort instead of reaching for food, every time you feel a little uneasy or a little discomfort, everything can change for you.
This is when you start to lose weight. You get leaner, you get stronger, you run faster, you recover better. You feel more in control around food, and maybe for the first time ever. This is what I want for you. Okay? And if you want help with any of this, if you want help implementing this, if you want the coaching, the accountability, the structure, the support, and the real strategies that are gonna help you, uh, solve this problem.
Uh, we’re not talking about dieting or gimmicks, gimmicks, or shortcuts. I, I would love to help you with this, okay? Just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click on work with me. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.
Sometimes it’s during a marathon when your body just says “no more,” but other times, it’s just life that stops you cold. You lose motivation, faith, or direction — and it feels like there’s no way …
Continue Reading about 305. What to Do When You Hit the Wall →
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 305 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, what to do when you hit the wall. So we all hit walls. Sometimes it’s during a marathon when your body just says, no mas. But other times it’s just life that stops you cold.
You might lose motivation or faith or direction. And it feels like there’s just no way through. But what if the wall isn’t the end? What if it’s actually the path? In this episode, I’m talking about how to face the hardest moments in your life and find the strength to move through them, whether you’re struggling in your running, your health, or just life in general.
This episode will help you reframe those challenges and see them for what they really are. Opportunities to grow stronger, wiser, and more resilient than ever. This one’s gonna be honest, emotional, and powerful. Stick around. But first, listen, if you’re tired of feeling stuck, if running feels harder than it should, if you’ve been doing all the right things, but you’re still not seeing the results that you want, you don’t have to keep trying to figure it all out yourself.
What most runners don’t realize is that the struggle isn’t just physical, it’s mental, it’s emotional. It’s about mindset, nutrition, training, recovery. All of it working together, and that’s exactly what I help my clients do every single day. When we work together, you’ll get a customized plan for running, for strength, for nutrition, but more importantly, you’ll get coaching and accountability to help you to follow through.
You’ll finally build the consistency. The confidence and the strength that you’ve been missing. So if you’re ready to break through your wall in running and in life, go to running lean coaching.com. Click on work with me and we can do this together. All right, let’s get into this topic. What to do when you hit the wall.
Um, and I’m not just talking about that moment in a marathon, when your legs feel like cinder blocks, your brain starts telling you it’s time to quit, and every cell in your body is screaming for mercy. I’m talking about the kind of walls we hit in our life, those things that stop us dead in our tracks that kind of make you question everything.
Maybe you’ve hit a wall in your health and fitness journey. You’re doing everything right, but the scale won’t budge. Maybe it’s in your training, you’ve lost motivation. The joy of running is gone. Maybe it’s something much bigger, something personal, emotional, spiritual, something that shakes the ground under your feet, whatever form it takes, hitting the wall can feel like the end.
But what I wanna offer you today is a different perspective because the wall. Isn’t the end. It’s not a dead end. It’s actually the beginning of something much deeper, A chance to grow, to evolve, to become someone new. Uh, there’s an amazing author and book out there. Ryan Holiday wrote this book called The Obstacle is The Way, and he says this beautifully in this book, the Impediment to Action Advances Action.
What stands in the way? Becomes the way, and that’s the essence of what we’re talking about here today. The obstacle that you see in front of you is the way the wall is, the path. The only way through is through. So I wanna start by defining what I mean when I say the wall in running. It’s that physiological crash.
You know, you’ve burned through your glycogen, your brain starts shutting systems down. You just can’t go on. You’re weak, foggy, unmotivated. Every step feels terrible. The reason I’m bringing this up is because I was talking to somebody last night who recently. Ran the Marine Corps marathon. She did it some years ago.
Um, my fiance Jill and I were just in Washington, DC for the Marine Corps Marathon. And we were working the expo, as you know, Jill is the assistant race director for Air Force Marathon. And so we were representing Air Force Marathon at the Marine Corps Marathon Expo. And so we, we watched 40,000 runners cross the finish line.
We were handing out some challenge medals at the end. It was, it was really an amazing experience. But we, um. We’re talking to someone last night who said she, she ran the Marine Corps marathon, and we were like, oh my gosh, that’s so awesome. She goes, yeah, I didn’t finish. I got to mile 20 and I quit. And we were both like, oh my gosh, that’s terrible.
You know? Um, and, and in reality, my thought was. Come on. You only had a 10 K to go. Like, you gotta push through that, uh, feeling of, uh, wanting to quit. You know, your body is shutting down. I totally get that. And, and listen, if you have ever, you know, uh, given up at the end of a marathon because of physiological reasons, you got, uh, really bad.
Cramps or you’re injured or something like that. What she was telling us was a little bit different. She just didn’t feel like she could go on, you know, there was nothing, uh, majorly wrong with her. She just kind of, you know, was tired and just felt like she couldn’t do it. And so she kind of gave up on herself and she sort of regrets that.
And, and I started thinking about that and, and I thought, you know, that’s a, that’s a good metaphor for life because life throws things at us all the time. Um. We have these moments in our life where, you know, things seem un insurmountable. These problems that seem like there’s just no way that we can get through them.
You know, there’s these huge obstacles to our, what we feel like are obstacles to our success, and we just can’t see a way forward. You know, maybe you’ve lost someone you love, maybe a relationship ended. Maybe you failed at something big like a business or a goal or a dream. Maybe you’re just exhausted from trying so hard for so long.
And here’s the thing, we all do this. Everyone at some point in their life hits a wall. You know, runners, parents, entrepreneurs, coaches, leaders. No one is immune to this. The wall is something universal. It’s part of the human experience, and it’s not a sign that something’s wrong. It’s a sign that you’re on the edge of transformation.
Our natural instinct, though, is to avoid it, we want to go around it, go under it, find a shortcut, or pretend it’s not there. And that’s a problem because growth doesn’t happen by avoiding walls. Growth only happens when you go through them. Here’s a truth that took me a long time to really grasp the wall.
Isn’t your enemy, it’s your teacher. Every wall you hit in your life is trying to teach you something. It’s showing you what’s not working. It’s revealing what still needs to change inside of you. It’s refining you, burning away what’s weak and temporary, what’s not in alignment with who you’re becoming.
You know, one thing in my life that was a big struggle was. Uh, 18 and a half years ago, I, I was really struggling with this addiction to alcohol and I had kind of hit a rock bottom and it felt like the end of my life. Like, this was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to like, deal with, you know, to, to stop drinking.
Um, because it was really destroying my life. It was, it destroyed my marriage. It was, um, threatening to destroy my relationship with people, with my kids. Um, and it was something that just felt like the end of me. But really it was the thing that I had to go through in order for me to become the person that I am today.
And today, that wall that I hit, I’m grateful for that wall. Right in the moment though, it did not feel like that. It felt like the end of the world to me. It felt like the end of my life. It was painful. It felt like a loss. It, I felt like a failure. But I can look back on this, you know, years and years later, and I can realize that.
The wall wasn’t blocking me. It was actually guiding me toward who I needed to become. I wasn’t being punished, I was being shaped. Okay, so when you hit the wall, it kind of brings everything to the surface. The fear, the doubt, the excuses, the stories you tell yourself. It’s like stripping away all your armor, your raw, you’re vulnerable, and you can’t hide behind things like willpower anymore.
And that’s why it’s so uncomfortable. That’s also why it’s so powerful ’cause when you’re standing there face to face with whatever it is that your wall is in that moment, you get to see who you really are. It reveals that about you. It reveals who you are. You see what you really believe about yourself.
You can see how much you can actually trust in your own strength. You see whether or not you’re willing to fight for what really matters to you. And most people never get to that point because they quit. They quit before they get there. They feel the discomfort, they see the wall and they run the other way.
But if you stay, if you stand your ground and you choose to go through it, that’s where you find the version of yourself that’s been waiting on the other side. You know, it’s like pushing through the marathon when you only have those last 10 Ks to go. And I can relate to this because I’ve been there before, back in 2012.
I know this was a long time ago. That’s when I hit my marathon pr. Um. Like a 3 43, uh, which is pretty decent for me back in the day. I, I felt great about this. Um. It was in Indianapolis, it was in November. It was cold. We were dealing with, uh, an ice storm. Uh, the wind and, and, and ice were blowing in my face, heading back towards downtown Indianapolis.
And I had a friend running me in those last 10 Ks, like he met me at mile 20 right around there and, and was running me in. And I actually said to him out loud, like, I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can keep running like this. And he just said, you, yes you can. But I was like, forced to deal with this wall that was in front of me, you know?
And it was like a, literally like a wall of wind and ice, you know? And, and, and I was doubting myself and the pain had set in and I was exhausted. Um. And, and he just said, you, you can do this. And, and that was the thing that’s just, I just kept running that through my head. Like I just have to push through, you know?
I know what’s on the other side of this. I’m going to hit my PR if I can keep going like this, and I really, really, really wanted to quit and I didn’t. Right. Most people though, when they’re in that situation, when they feel like they just can’t go on when they. See the wall. When they hit the wall, they do one of three things.
They stop, you know, they give up. They tell themselves, it’s too hard. I’m not good enough. I can’t do this. Or number two, they try to go around the wall. You know, they look for the easy way out. What’s the shortcut? What can I do to avoid this discomfort here? Or number three, when they see the wall, they pretend it’s not there.
They numb out with food, with alcohol, with scrolling, with busyness, anything to just avoid feeling that pain of dealing with the wall, of going through the wall, but all those things, stopping going, trying to go around it or pretending it’s not there, they keep you stuck. You can’t outsmart the wall, you can’t ignore it.
You can’t run from it. Eventually it’s gonna find you again, usually in a bigger way. So you have one real option, and that is to face it. And that is terrifying, but it’s also where freedom lives. So the first step in breaking through any wall is facing it and accepting that, that it’s there, accepting it.
You gotta stop seeing it as a problem and start seeing it as part of the process. The wall isn’t a detour, it’s not a roadblock. This is the path. This is where you shift from. Why is this happening to me? To what is this here? To teach me that question. What is this teaching me? This changes everything for you.
Because it takes you outta victim mode and puts you in power mode, right? You stop fighting reality and you start working with it and acceptance. It doesn’t mean resignation. It doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means you’ve acknowledged that, okay, this is real. This wall here, this is a real thing. And then choosing to go through it.
An ex good example of this is when I first started working as an entrepreneur and I was coaching other entrepreneurs, um, I was working with people who own small businesses and were trying to get started and I had some experience with this and so I started, you know, coaching them and this never really felt right for me.
Um, I had to accept the fact that this wasn’t really where I needed to be and it wasn’t the right. Fit for me and, and I had to sort of give up on that idea, you know? And when I finally did that, when I finally accepted that this wasn’t really where my heart was, and I started working with runners instead, everything fell into place beautifully for me.
But that was really hard to do because quitting something that I had started, I am not a quitter. I don’t quit anything. And when I had started this business and, and I had to make a decision because it just wasn’t working, I had to make that decision to shift into a different sort of genre here, a different, uh, niche.
And so I had to, uh, make that decision to shift gears and do something else, but it felt like a failure. It felt like I was a complete failure. And, and I didn’t wanna be a failure to myself or anybody else, but I realize now that I just pivoted. All I did was, was made a little, you know, shift in my direction and everything became clear.
And, and of course, this business that I have has become a. Incredibly successful, and it was facing that wall and going through it and not trying to avoid it, not pretending it wasn’t there. You know, my wall was, this wasn’t the right fit, you know, and, and this isn’t working. And, and I had to go through that in order to get where I am today.
But listen, going through the wall. It sucks. Okay. It’s like an emotional rollercoaster. It’s not graceful. It’s not easy, it’s messy. It’s emotional, it’s raw. You’re gonna cry, you’re gonna want to quit. You’re gonna feel lost. You’re gonna question everything. Your faith, your purpose, your strength, and you might even get.
Angry at yourself, at others, at the universe, and all that is okay. It’s part of the process, but you can’t numb your way through the wall. You can’t just check out and avoid it. You have to feel your way through it. The emotions that come up, the fear, the anger, the sadness, the grief, they’re not the enemy.
They’re signals. It’s like an alarm going off saying like, Hey, this is some stuff going on that you need to move through. Okay. And when you let yourself feel all that stuff, when you a, allow yourself to, to go on that emotional rollercoaster, ride without judgment, without, you know, uh, beating yourself up about it, something shifts for you.
This is when you actually start to heal and the wall begins to crack. And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in all of this is that. Resilience isn’t built in comfort. It’s built in the moments when you think you can’t keep going, but you do anyway. Yeah. Every time you face a wall and you refuse to quit, you’re building that muscle of resilience.
That’s how you grow stronger mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Runners understand this better than most people ’cause every hard run, every tough race, every miserable workout, it’s training your body and your brain to handle the tough stuff, to handle adversity. And that’s why I always say like running is such a perfect metaphor for life.
’cause if you can learn to push through the pain during a really tough run, you can do this anywhere, right? The key though is that you can’t just like survive it. You have to be present in it. You have to notice what’s happening. You have to be aware. You have to be there. You can’t just check out. Notice what your mind is telling you.
Uh, notice how much stronger you are than maybe you think that awareness is what transforms that pain into power. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run in the freezing cold. Or the pouring rain or push through a really hard race. And every time I’ve done something really hard like that, it’s built up just a little bit of mental toughness.
It’s like building that mental toughness muscle. And little by little, my mental toughness, my resilience has grown and gotten stronger and stronger and stronger, and it’s taken years. And it’s taken going through a lot of tough stuff, tough runs and divorces and you know, a addiction. And cancer, like I’ve I, back in 2003, I was diagnosed with cancer and I had to go through all of that really tough times, but I came out the other side of that a lot stronger.
It didn’t feel like it at the time. I can look back on it now and say, yes, that was something that I had to go through in order to become who I am today. But you can’t avoid these things. You can’t avoid. The wall because all that does is just keeps you stuck. It just delays the growth and compounds your suffering.
Every time you avoid discomfort, you reinforce the belief that you can’t do it, that you can’t handle it, that it’s too hard for you, and you’re teaching yourself, Hey, when things get hard, we quit. Like the person I was talking to yesterday about the Marine Corps marathon, she got to mile 20 and it got hard.
There’s a hill there and she couldn’t do it. She quit. And that becomes your default for life. But the truth is you can handle it. You’ve already handled so much more than you give yourself credit for. Think about all the walls you’ve already gone through. Every challenge, every loss, every heartbreak.
You’ve made it through. Every single one. I always tell people you’ve got a hundred percent, uh, uh, track record of getting through tough stuff. We all do. We all have a hundred percent track record of getting through tough stuff. You didn’t think you could do it at the time, but you did. You always did. So when the next wall shows up and it will remember, this isn’t new.
You’ve been here before. You know what to do. You gotta just keep going. So I wanna give you guys a couple of practical tips for a minute here. ’cause this isn’t just about thinking, it’s just not just about mindset. It’s what you do when you hit the wall that really matters. And here’s a few things that can help you to move through it.
Number one. Pause, right? Don’t panic. Don’t freak out. When you hit the wall, your first instinct is to, um, you know, freak out and panic and think the world is about to end. But instead just take a beat. Okay? Take some deep breaths. Remind yourself. This is temporary and you don’t have to fix it right now.
Just breathe and stay present. Number two, just name what’s really going on. What’s the real wall here? Is it fear or self-doubt or burnout? When you name it, you get power over it. Okay. When, when you just, when you’re thinking about something as being so overwhelming that you can’t deal with it, then it has power over you.
But when you give it a name, because it might be something like addiction, but what’s, what’s really behind that? It’s like fear. You know? When you give it that name, then it becomes something that you have power over. Okay. So pause, name it. Number three, ask better questions instead of like, why do things always happen to me?
Why is this so hard? Maybe ask a question to of yourself, like, what’s the real lesson here? How can I grow from this? You’re gonna start to see opportunities instead of obstacles. Alright, those questions are terrible. Why is this so hard? Well, you can come up with all kinds of ideas and reasons why it’s so hard.
But when you say, how can I grow from this? You can come up with lots of ideas there too. Focus on those questions. Those are much better questions. Number four, lean on your people. You don’t have to go through anything alone. Talk to your friends, your family, your coach, your running community. Sometimes just being seen and heard makes the wall feel less heavy and it it becomes something that you can get through and maybe you need help from others to lean into that.
Okay? Don’t, don’t neglect that. Number five, recommit to the process. The wall will test your commitment. It’s like, how bad do you want? This is what it’s saying to you, okay? Reconnect to your why. Why are you doing what you’re doing? Remember what you’re fighting for. Okay? And then number six, take the next step.
Don’t worry about the whole wall, just take the next step and then the next one, then the next one, then that’s how you get through it. One small, messy, but brave step at a time. That’s what’s gonna get you there. Okay. And I get it. Sometimes the wall just feels too big, it’s too painful, it’s too much. And there are things that happen in life when you hit wall after wall, you just don’t have the strength to go again.
And I get that. And if that’s you. Hear me when I say this. You’re not broken. You’re not weak. You are being refined in fire. Sometimes the wall doesn’t move because you’re not ready yet. You’re still becoming the person who can move it, who can push through it. Don’t rush this process. Sit with it, learn from it.
Let it change you. And when you’re ready, when you’ve built the strength, the courage, the faith, that wall that once felt impossible will start to crumble. This took me years and years and years when I wanted to quit drinking. I knew I had a problem with alcohol. It was too big, it was too painful. It was too much.
I couldn’t do it. And it took me years and years and years to sit with it and learn from it. And eventually I had enough strength and courage and faith in myself to attack that and quit, you know? But it felt impossible at the time. It felt like there’s something I could never do. I had to sit with that one for years.
Hmm. When you finally do come out the other side though, something beautiful happens. You’re not the same person who, you know, walked into that wall on the other side of it, you’re stronger. Now, you’re wiser. You’re more grounded, more compassionate. The things that used to scare you, maybe they don’t so much anymore.
The thi things that used to break you or you know, you felt like they could break you. They don’t have that power over you anymore. Because you’ve been through the fire and you didn’t just survive, you transformed yourself in the process. And once you’ve gone through that, once you know you can do it again.
And then once you do it again, you know you can do it again. That’s where freedom, uh, really begins. That’s where your strength really comes into play. That’s where growth really happens. Circling back to Ryan Holiday’s book, the Obstacle is the Way. It’s not just a catchy quote, it’s literally a roadmap for life.
So whatever’s in your way right now, whatever wall you’re facing, it’s not blocking your path. That is your path. It’s the training ground for your soul. Every wall you face prepares you for the next one, and every obstacle builds the strength that you’re gonna need later. And when you start to see life that way, life really changes for you.
You stop dreading hard things. You start welcoming these hard things as opportunities to evolve. Now, we don’t wish these things on ourselves. We don’t wish for, you know, these huge obstacles to show up in our lives. But when they do, you’re not as afraid of them. You realize that the wall isn’t, you know, punishment.
It’s how you build your purpose. Okay. Now, a lot of you, uh, are, are runners and I want to talk a little bit about running here because. What it’s like to hit the wall. Uh, physically, we understand that as runners, right? You, you get that fatigue, that moment where you can’t just, you can’t go another step, but you do anyway.
You dig deep, you find something inside of you, something primal, something fierce that refuses to quit. Well, that same spirit and strength that’s inside you when you’re running and you want to quit, but you keep going. That’s what you need to tap into when life gets hard, when everything starts to fall apart, when you’re tired and broken and scared.
That same, you know, runner’s heart that got you across the finish line, that’s what you need to tap into. You just have to remember that that’s there and it’s available to you. And you’ve done this before and you can do it again. So if you’re standing and, and staring at your wall right now. Maybe it’s a health challenge or a relationship, or your job or your training.
I want you to know this. This moment is not the end. It’s the middle. It’s, it’s the part of the story where everything starts to change for you, but you can’t run from it. You can’t numb yourself to it. You can’t pretend it’s not there. You have to face it and feel it and then move through it. ’cause on the other side of that wall, that’s where freedom is.
And power and peace, and you will make it through this. You always do a hundred percent track record so far of getting through tough stuff. And if any of this spoke to you in this episode, if you’re in the middle of your own wall right now and you want help getting through it, that’s what I do every day as a coach.
I help runners get unstuck physically, mentally, emotionally, so they can do hard things. Lose weight, get stronger, become the best versions of themselves. If you’re ready to break through your wall, just go to running lean coaching.com, click on work with me, and we can do it together. That’s all I got for you today.
Keep on running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.
Have you ever felt frustrated because the scale isn’t moving, your runs aren’t going well, or you’re just not seeing the results you want? It’s easy to get caught up in the tiny details and feel …
Continue Reading about 303. Are You Too Focused on the Wrong Things? →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.
Hey there and welcome to episode 303 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today are you too focused on the wrong things. Have you ever felt frustrated because the scale isn’t moving or your runs aren’t going as well as you’d hoped, or you’re just not seeing the results that you want?
It’s easy to get caught up in these tiny details and feel like you’re not making progress like you’re failing. But the truth is. You’re doing the work, you’re showing up, you’re eating better, you’re training consistently, you’re probably just too focused on the wrong things. So in this episode, I’m asking that question, are you too focused on the wrong things?
We’re gonna take a step back and look at the entire picture of your health and fitness journey, because once you zoom out, you’ll see. That you’re actually doing a lot better than you think. So this is gonna be your reminder that progress doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be consistent. So get ready to feel a whole lot better about where you are right now with this episode.
Okay? But first, let’s be real for a minute. If running feels harder than it should, if you’re. Constantly struggling with energy and motivation or getting the results that you want. If you’ve been trying to change your body and your habits, but nothing seems to stick, then it’s time to do something different.
Nothing changes if nothing changes, right? Most runners think more miles. We’ll solve the problem, but if your body isn’t strong, if your nutrition isn’t dialed in, if your mindset is working against you, then running more is only going to make things worse. That’s why I created my coaching program. It’s designed specifically for runners who want to lose weight, get stronger, and make running easier.
We don’t do quick fixes, though. We don’t do one size fits all We do. Real change body, mind, lifestyle. So if you’re ready to feel better, run stronger and actually love the process, then let’s go. Go to my website running lean coaching.com, click on work with me to get started. Commit to yourself today. I know you are so ready for this.
Okay, let’s get into this here. Are you too focused on the wrong things? Here’s the deal. If you’ve ever obsessed over a number on a scale, or you’ve beaten yourself up for having a bad run, or maybe you missed a workout, if you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right, but you’re still not getting any results.
Probably you are probably too focused on the wrong thing. So today is about helping you to shift your perspective and seeing the truth about your progress and, and not letting these little things hold you back. It’s very easy to obsess over some of these small things, so maybe you had a slower than usual run, or you gained a pound.
Or you made a bad food choice, or God forbid you actually missed a workout. When you’re hyper-focused on these individual moments, you’re focused on the negative, and it can really feel like. You are failing, like you are a failure, right? But here’s something I want you to understand. First of all, you are not a failure, right?
You just, you missed a workout or you made a bad food choice and you’re not even failing. What you’re doing though, is you’re obsessing over these little things and you’re almost too close to the situation to be able to see it clearly. It’s like standing an inch away from a painting and all you see are those messy little brush strokes up close.
I did this, you know, a couple years ago I was at the Cincinnati Art Museum, which is a, an amazing art museum by the way, and always free to get in. So if you’re ever in Cincinnati, you gotta go. But I was looking at a Van Gogh painting that I thought was really cool, and I got up really close, um, as close as they would let me, obviously I wasn’t like touching it or anything, but you could like see the brush strokes and, and when you get up really close, it’s a, it’s chaos.
It’s just these random. Brush strokes, it’s really messy. It does not look like something worthy of being in a museum like I’m no art critic or anything, but I’m looking up close at this thing and I’m like, this just looks like sloppy, whatever. Like a 4-year-old could do this. But as you step back, this image starts to become much clearer and.
Literally, it’s only then when you take that, that bigger picture, that zoom out, that you can see the beautiful art that has been masterfully created. So it’s really, when you’re really up close, it’s messy, it’s chaotic. It doesn’t look like anything. But when you zoom out and you look at it from the proper perspective.
You can see the truth of the painting and it is beautiful. So I want you to think about that as we’re going through this topic today, because that’s how I want you to think about you and your health and fitness journey. So let’s say you, um, had a race recently and you didn’t hit your race goal. Well, that happens, right?
I don’t, can’t tell you how many times I’ve run a marathon trying to pr or hit some particular time goal and didn’t hit it like it. It happens all the time. But you have to remember that you still did the work to get there. You did the work to show up. You trained hard, you showed up on race day. Uh, you ran the race, you finished the race.
Those things are huge. Don’t take that away from yourself. Um. One time I got really bummed out about a race. So I was, I was doing this series of 50 Ks, uh, locally here around the Cincinnati area, uh, one summer. And, and if you’ve completed four out of, I think there were six 50 Ks in this series, but if you completed four of the, of the six.
Then you got this, um, special like gym bag essentially, and it had like, embroidered on it. The, the name of the race or the challenge that you won or whatever it was. So I was like, oh, I’m gonna get that bag. You know, so I, I did three of these 50 Ks and it was time for the fourth one, and I had just gotten back from vacation.
I didn’t really train much while I was on vacation. Literally the day before I had, I got off the cruise ship or something like that and then showed up the next morning and I was just tired and not feeling it. And. I was like, I’m, it’s fine. I don’t need to, you know, crush this thing. I just gotta finish. I gotta get the bag, you know, so I, I started running the first mile, was on the road, kind of separate people out before it turned and went onto the trails.
Well, as soon as we got on the trails, about a hundred yards in, I tripped on a, on a route or a rock or something. I didn’t even see what it was. And. Fell on my knee and like busted up my knee and my knee sw up really big and I got up and I was limping and I, I couldn’t even walk on, I couldn’t even put any weight on it.
But I, I was, you know, determined to finish this thing. So I, I just hobbled along for a while. It did kind of loosen up a little bit and start to feel a little bit better and I could, I kind of walk on it without limping and then I could kind of run and walk and then I could run and I was like, maybe I’m gonna be okay.
Um, it was killing me and it was super swollen, but I’m like, okay, I can still run. So I ran and. I ran. I got to 26 miles, so I basically ran a marathon on a busted up knee. I had one more loop to do and that last, the, the loop that got me between like miles 20 and 26, I had to basically walk the last five miles of that.
I could not even bend my leg. Uh. By the time I finished that 26 miles, there was no way I could go on and I was so bummed out. I had to DNF, it was my one and only DNF. Um, and I was so bummed out about it because I had, I had done all this work and I had, you know, I was focused on this challenge and, you know, running these four races and then race day came, I showed up, I did my best, and it just wasn’t my day.
But I was so bummed out about it, and so I was talking to a friend about it and I was telling him about this, and I was like, man, I’m so bummed out. And I explained the challenge and, oh yeah, you’re gonna get this bag and stuff. He goes, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get a gym bag and I’m gonna have an embroidered that says you are a runner and I’ll give it to you.
Would that help? I was like. Well, first of all, you’re kind of being a jerk right now. But second of all, that does make sense and you’re, you’re, you’re right, you’re putting this into perspective for me. And I was so focused on the bag, or, you know, finishing this one race or focusing on this one failure that I didn’t step back and look at the bigger picture.
And he told me that too. He is like, what, what have you done this summer? You, you trained for and ran successfully? Three 50 ks. Who does that? Like most people don’t do stuff like that just because you like, you know, had a, a fall and an injury and you did your best. Like you, you showed up and you ran a, basically you ran a marathon on a busted up knee.
Like that’s pretty badass. That’s, um, David Goggins stuff right there. And like, he, he really helped me to see the bigger picture and that I wasn’t a failure. I felt like a failure. You know, I had never d NFD anything before, and I felt like a total failure, you know, but he really helped me to see the bigger picture.
So this is just one story, and I talk to runners every single day who deal with stuff like this. You know, maybe the scale hasn’t budged. It’s, you know, it’s been a couple of weeks. Um, but listen, you’re still eating right? You’re still fueling your body with the right foods. You’re still focused on being a healthy person and eating well.
You know, you’re still doing the work and taking care of yourself. Um, you know, maybe you. Had a, uh, cheat meal. You ate something off plan, you skipped a run, or you had a, a rough week of running and it was just you had a bad run. That happens quite a bit. You know, we just, we have a bad run sometimes. Guess what?
You’re normal. Welcome to the club. You’re a human being. Okay? None of these little moments. Can undo the progress that you’re making. So you gotta take a, a beat sometimes and zoom out and look at the bigger picture, because it’s only then that you can actually see what’s really going on. We get so stuck in, you know, the failure of a moment that we don’t see how much progress we’re actually making.
Some other things you can see when you zoom out, Hey, you’re running regularly. You’re eating healthier than you used to. You’re creating better habits around food and exercise. You’re stronger, you have more energy, you clothes fit better, you’re more disciplined. Maybe you’re sleeping better. You know you’re becoming.
The kind of person who shows up for themselves. All those things right there, that’s all progress to me. That’s what success looks like. You’re committed to the process of improvement. That’s what actually matters. And if you’re doing all these things, why are you letting like one bad run or, or one cheat meal, steal your joy.
You know, a lot of times we’re so focused on where we’re not, uh, we lose sight of how far we’ve come. This is the, the gap versus the gain principle. So it’s very easy to focus on the gap between where you are right now and where you ultimately want to be. So maybe you, you, uh, set out to lose 50 pounds, you know, and you still got, you know, 20 more pounds to go.
Or maybe your body composition isn’t where you want it to be. You know, you still have 10% of body fat to lose, or maybe you’re not running as fast as you want be. You still have to improve by, you know, 30 seconds or a minute per mile. Focusing on the gap, you know, where you’re not. Does this help you? No, just makes you feel like crap.
It makes you feel like a failure, like you’re never gonna get there. Like it’s always gonna be so far away and it’s frustrating. The truth is, though, this is not reality. Because when you look at how far you’ve actually come, when you look at the gains that you’ve made and you focus on that, Hey, I’ve lost, you know, 20 pounds already or 30 pounds, I’m, I’ve, I’ve lost 6% of my body fat.
I’m running faster than I did three months ago. When you actually look at the progress you’re making, that is what’s, what’s reality. That that’s the truth. The truth is you are making progress, but you don’t see it because you gained a pound. And now you’re miserable, right? Doesn’t that sound crazy when you say it like that?
But it’s true. We do this all the time. Can’t tell you how many people I talk to who get very upset if the scale goes up. I’m like, I’ve never seen anybody lose weight in a straight line that goes from, you know, the top, uh, to the bottom. Like it goes up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Now, of course, we wanna see it trending down, and it usually is, but it’s gonna go up.
It’s gonna come down, it’s gonna go up, it’s gonna go down. And if you’re, if you get upset every time the scale goes up a little bit, you are gonna be upset a lot. I’m just gonna tell you. So think about your journey, like the graph that I was just describing, right? If you, if you zoom in and you’re looking at those little bumps, it’s gonna be up, up, down, up, down, oh my gosh.
You know, I’m, I’m not making any progress. I’m two steps forward. You know, three steps back, whatever. But if you zoom out, you get that. You can see the clear trend. You know, you can see that things are actually moving in the right direction, right? You just gotta, you gotta just zoom out, okay? So you’re not the result of the scale, uh, you’re not the result of a bad run, you’re not the result of, uh, uh, a fall that you had on a run.
You’re the result of what you do consistently day in and day out, that’s who you are. So if you’re consistently showing up for yourself, even when you don’t feel like it, if you’re doing the work, even when it’s hard, if you’re staying on the path, even when you feel like you’re failing, that’s when you really win.
Look, I get it. It’s easy to get caught up in like metrics and numbers, your pace, your mileage, how many calories you meet, how many pounds you weigh, your, you know, PR or not a pr, whatever. But that stuff doesn’t tell the whole story. What matters more is like, are you becoming more disciplined? Are you showing up for yourself?
Are you proving to yourself that you can do hard things consistently? Are you getting stronger, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally? Yeah, because that’s what’s going to carry you through the hard times. You know, you’re not gonna have a perfect run every time you go out there, but if you’re consistently working on becoming the best version of yourself, mind, body, soul, then that’s what’s gonna get you through those tough times.
So you’re not every run’s gonna be perfect, and you’re never going to have a, a perfect, uh, scale reading every time you look at the scale. What’s going to help you get through all of that stuff though, is, is this mindset, this mindset of, Hey, I’m, I’m making progress. I’m showing up for myself. I’m doing something today to become the person that I ultimately want to become.
So if you’re in a place right now. Where you’re feeling discouraged, like maybe you’re doing everything right, but it’s not working, or it’s not working fast enough, or you’re feeling stuck, or you’re not seeing the results that you expected. You know, maybe you had a timeline. Oh, I was supposed to lose X amount of pounds in three months, or whatever it was.
Just take a pause, take a breath. Zoom out. Look at what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve already done. Look at how far you’ve come. Focus on the gains. Look at who you’re becoming. Look at what you’re doing each and every day to become that person. And chances are you’re doing much better than you think.
You just need to stop focusing on those wrong things, okay? So keep showing up for yourself. Keep doing the work, keep believing in yourself. I believe in you. And then lastly, never ever, ever quit. ’cause that’s the only time you really fail is when you give up, right? Failure. Is part of the process. Failure is how we succeed.
You gotta fail to succeed. You fail your way to success every single time. There’s not one person who’s done anything of of value that wasn’t, uh, challenged with a bunch of failures along the way, right? So the only way you truly fail is if you give up and quit. Okay? Don’t do that. That’s all I got for you today.
Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.
