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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Transformation

232. Achieving Impossible Goals

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When most people set goals for themselves, they think small. They set goals that feel doable, safe, and comfortable, goals that won’t cause them too much suffering if they don't achieve …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there and welcome to episode 232 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Achieving Impossible Goals. When most people set goals for themselves, they think small. They set goals that feel doable, that feel safe, that feel comfortable, and goals that won’t cause them too much suffering if they maybe don’t achieve them, but is this really what you want for yourself? I don’t think so. Not me. Definitely not.

I want to set goals that feel kind of scary, uncomfortable, and downright impossible. So in this episode, I’m going to explain why you shouldn’t be setting small, easily achievable goals, but instead working on achieving those big, impossible goals.

But first, if you’ve been thinking about improving your health, your fitness, your running, if you’ve been thinking about losing weight, improving your diet, and you want a ton of guidance and support to help you get there, you might want to consider coaching.

The fact is, coaching works where other methods fail because it’s not about one particular diet or one particular exercise routine. It’s about understanding what works for you as an individual, and then learning how to do that on your own.

One thing I tell all my clients is that you need to not need me at some point. You got to get to this place where you can do this on your own. My job is to help you get to that point. What good is it to make these lifestyle changes if they’re not sustainable for you? They have to be sustainable for you, right?

This stuff has to become easy and effortless for you, so that you can do it on your own, so that you can stick with it. My job is to make sure you stick with it. So if you want to hit the easy button on your weight loss goals, on your running goals, on some big, impossible goal that you have for yourself. Let’s work together to get you there. Just go to my website, runningleancoaching.com click on work with me, and I will show you exactly how to become the most badass version of yourself yet Cool.

All right, let’s talk about achieving impossible goals. So right now we’re about halfway through the year. It is the beginning of June 2024, right now. So if you’re listening to this in the future, that is very cool, because it’s like time traveling. You’re like time traveling. But anyway, so if you are listening to this in real-time, then we’re about halfway through the year.

You may have set some goals for yourself, maybe some running goals. Maybe you ran a spring marathon or spring half marathon, or some spring races or ultra-marathons or whatever. And now it’s time to kind of reassess your goals. And you’ve taken some time off, or kind of in the off-season right now, and so you’re thinking about goals for the fall.

So you might be setting some intentions and some goals for some fall races, or maybe you have other health and fitness goals. Maybe you have a weight loss goal, and now would be a great time to get started on that. And so right now is a good time to be thinking about setting some big goals for yourself.

But here’s the thing, most people, when they set out to set a goal, when they decide on goals that they want for themselves, they they pick a goal that’s either too vague or too small. So they pick goals that are vague, like I want to lose weight, or I want to eat healthier, or I want to get stronger, I want to get stronger, I want to run faster, I want to run more.

These goals are very vague because there’s nothing specific to commit to, right? It’s much harder to commit to goals like I’m going to lose 20 pounds, I’m going to stop eating processed food, I’m going to I want to be able to lift 315 pounds in a deadlift. I want to be able to be able to do that three times. Or run a 23-minute 5k or run four times a week.

When we get specific with our goals, they become it’s a little bit harder, right? Because you now you’re kind of, you have to hold yourself accountable. You’re you’re on the hook for something. But a lot of people won’t do that. They’ll just pick vague goals, like, I need to eat healthier. What does that even mean? They don’t even know what it means.

Like, they’re just like, saying it because they they know that if they don’t achieve it, they don’t really have to fess up to anything. They don’t have to own up to anything. There’s no own ability. There’s no accountability there. So. Vague. We don’t want to set vague goals, and we don’t want to set goals that are too small.

A lot of people set goals that are very small. I want to lose five pounds, or instead of running a 5k I want to run maybe 6k okay, that’s fine if you’re just getting into running. But listen, set some goals that are bigger, because when you set these small goals, you know they’re easily achievable. They don’t require you to get out of your comfort zone at all. They are well within your comfort zone a lot of times.

You’ve probably already done these things. You’ve probably already lost five pounds. A bunch of times to say, like, oh, I want to lose five pounds. That’s something you know you can do. You already know you can do that? You’ve done it before, or you’ve got clothes, or it just seems easy for you.

The problem here is that setting these tiny little goals means that you’re probably going to achieve them, which is fine, but what did you gain in the process? What did you learn? How much did you grow? Who have you become in that process? Small goals. They feel safe, they feel comfortable, they feel doable. These are what people call realistic goals.

Oh, you need to be realistic. I say screw that. We need to set goals that are unrealistic. You need to set some goals that are way outside your comfort zone. And I call these impossible goals because they are impossible for who you are right now, who you are here today. You cannot achieve these big goals you know you, you should always have some, some goals that feel impossible for who you are today, that are not comfortable, safe or realistic.

Who wants to achieve realistic goals honestly? You need to be going after things in your life that feel impossible, because when you do, when you do achieve those goals. They can be life-changing.

Achieving impossible goals means you have you’ve done a lot of work to get yourself to the point where you could become the kind of person to achieve that goal. It means you’ve accomplished something you never thought you could, and then you did that. That’s an amazing feeling, right there. So instead of small, vague goals, we want to set big impossible goals, goals that feel unrealistic, that feel uncomfortable, that don’t feel like they’re in your comfort zone, that don’t feel safe, that don’t feel doable, they should feel impossible.

And really this is the biggest benefit of setting and going after these big, impossible goals is who you become in the process. You know, think about a small goal like losing five pounds. You can do this with pretty little effort. It’s not going to take much time. You’ll probably gain it back pretty quickly too, because you didn’t set a goal like, oh, I need to, I’m going to lose 30 pounds, and then I’m going to keep it off, right?

But, okay, let’s just say you want to lose the five pounds. That’s great. Okay, fine. Who did you become in the process? What’s changed for you? What did you learn? What’d you learn about yourself? What’d you learn about sustainability? How have you grown? My guess is not much of any of that stuff. You probably didn’t learn much. Probably didn’t grow much. You’re basically the same person.

Okay, well, let’s use the example of losing 30 pounds and keeping it off. Now that might feel more like an impossible goal for you right now. So let’s say it takes you a year to lose the weight. It takes you a year to lose 30 pounds, and then you’ve maintained that weight loss for another year. So so far, we’ve talked about where you’ve invested two years of time into this goal already. Okay, that’s a lot of time.

What did you learn about what did you learn along the way? Maybe you had to learn how to plan meals around family vacations and social events and holidays and work trips. You had to learn how you could have some cheat meals here and there without going completely off the rails. That takes some time to figure that out.

You learned how to change your mindset around food, so you no longer have those cravings for sugar all the time. And then when you do occasionally have the cravings, you know how to deal with them. You don’t let them derail you like you can just move on, right? You’ve learned which foods work for you and which ones don’t.

You learned how to maintain your weight loss over time, which is actually the hardest part of all this. So you’ve grown. You’ve learned all these things, and you’ve grown in the last two years.

You no longer have the mental and emotional hangups around food. You feel like you’re back in control of your eating for once in your life, you’re no longer operating on autopilot. You’re no longer eating mindlessly. Basically, you’ve become a different person, the person you were two years ago when you started on this journey could not have done any of this stuff.

This was impossible for who you were two years ago, but that’s not who you are here today. You’ve become a completely different person. So. This is one of the most important outcomes of achieving an impossible goal. It’s who you become in the process, who you are here today. You can’t achieve that goal, that goal is way outside your comfort zone.

Maybe your impossible goal is running your fastest marathon this fall, and it’s impossible because the person you are here today cannot run. Let’s say it’s a sub-four. You want to run sub-four marathon, and you’ve never been able to do that, so that’s not who you are today. You cannot run a sub-four, four-hour marathon today.

So this is an impossible goal for you, but in order to achieve that goal, you have to get to work. You have to stick to a pretty rigid training schedule for months. You have to do all the speed work. You have to keep improving your tempo runs like improving the times, improving the distance, and improving the amount of time that you’re running fast.

You have to be able to sustain that, and it’s going to require that you stick to a strict eating plan to support your running goals, because you don’t want to gain a bunch of weight during this training season, right? If you’re trying to PR, you’re trying to run your fastest marathon ever.

So this is this all feels impossible for who you are today, but listen, you do the work. You show up for yourself, day after day, week after week, month after month. Come the fall, when you’re towing the line at the start of that marathon, you’re the kind of person who could run a sub-four marathon, because you’ve done the work, you’ve completely become a different person, but between today and who you are six months from now.

So this is one of those things where we think that a goal feels impossible to us, and it does feel impossible to us, but we think it’s impossible for us to achieve that goal. And in reality, there is a possibility that we can do we can pretty much do anything we want, right? But you got to set your mind to it. You have to commit to the process. You have to commit to becoming the kind of person that can do that.

And then listen, when you show up at the start line of that race, you’ve become a different person. You’ve learned, you’ve grown. You’ve become so much more than you ever thought you could become. It really doesn’t even matter if you hit the goal or not. So let’s say you run a 4:01. Is that a failure? Did you fail? I say no, because look who you are. Now, you’ve become this completely different person. You’ve learned, you’ve grown, you’ve become more it’s not about achieving the goal necessarily. It’s about who you become in the process.

Now, of course you want to achieve the goal, and of course you’re going to do the work to basically make sure that that outcome is inevitable, but the real underlying purpose of all of this is to learn about yourself, to grow and to become more and if you do that, I say that you have absolutely succeeded.

And then also keep in mind that every success requires a lot of failures to get there, right? Every success was built upon a big old pile of failures. I think Henry Ford said that, so don’t be afraid to try fail, try fail, try fail, until you succeed. The number one rule with all this stuff is you never, ever, ever give up.

You keep going until you achieve that goal, impossible or not, because if you never quit, you will eventually achieve that goal. If you’re committed to achieving that goal, you will get there eventually. So that impossible goal can become possible for you.

Now, I’ve done a few impossible things in my life. Some years ago, I completed a full Ironman. You know, I’ve run 50 miles, 100 miles. Last year I did a 12-hour solo run, unsupported, no headphones, no talking to anybody. Very much a solo in my own head event.

But for things like running 100 miles, you know, when I signed up for that, I could not run 100 miles. I was not the kind of person that could run 100 miles. I couldn’t imagine doing that. This was impossible. This felt impossible for me. And here I was paying the money on their website and signing up, and, you know, saying that I was gonna, like, sign up for this thing. And I’m like, “Who do you think you are, Patrick, signing up for 100 miler? This is ridiculous. You’re ridiculous. I don’t see how you’re gonna do this.” because I didn’t know at the time.

I was like, I know that somehow between now and, you know, a year from now, or however long it was, I think it was maybe 10 months, 11 months, something like that, that I signed up in advance. I knew that I was going to become the kind of person that could run 100 miles by the time I started that race.

And for me, showing up at the start line, knowing I did all the work, was the big accomplishment, and then doing it, obviously it was amazing, you know? But every time I set out to do something big like this, it feels impossible for me at the beginning of the process.

Yeah, and I know that in order to get there, I got to do the work and I have to level up. I got to learn and grow and become more and I know that by the time I show up at the event, I’m a different person, and I’ve already succeeded. In my mind, I’m it’s already a success.

And then when you do achieve something like that, when you do the hard work, and you set out to do something that is impossible, and you actually achieve it. You finish the race, you lose the weight, you’re able to keep it whatever that goal is for you, it becomes so much sweeter because it was so hard.

Listen, I am not a crier. I am not somebody who cries. Have a very hard time, like crying even. So, okay, I will say this about movies, I will cry. I do cry at movies, but every time I’ve completed something impossible, like, you know, finishing my Ironman, running my 100 miler, 50 miler, even half Iron Man like I’ve cried at the end of these things, because it’s such an emotional event.

It was, it was a life changing event. And so when you set out to do something that feels impossible and you actually do it, there’s no other feeling in life quite like that. So I want to encourage you to think about this. Think about something big, something that feels impossible for you today, something that you want to achieve, and pick one thing that really stands out, that gets you out of your comfort zone.

I want you go to go after that one thing. Don’t pick 10 different impossible goals, because it’s just too overwhelming. You need constraint. You have to practice constraint of focus. Focus on one goal at a time. Go all in on that one goal. When you finish that one goal, then you can move on to something else, right? And it kind of depends on the goal.

But for me, I like to have one impossible goal on my plate every year, or maybe one every other year. It depends on how big the goal is, how much time it takes. Blah, blah, blah, okay, but have something in mind. Pick something, and then I want you to go after that. I want you to go all in on yourself, see what you’re capable of. Don’t think small. Think big. Don’t think realistic. Think unrealistic. Don’t think doable, think impossible, and then get busy doing the work to become the kind of person who can achieve the impossible. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

181. Ultramarathon Redemption with Pete Caigan

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Today I have a special treat for you, I’m sharing a candid conversation I recently had with Pete Caigan. Pete is one of my clients who has had a pretty remarkable transformation over the last 6 …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there and welcome to episode 181 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today: Ultramarathon Redemption with Pete Caigan. So today I have a special treat for you.

I’m sharing a candid conversation I recently had with Pete Caigan, Pete is one of my clients who’s had a pretty remarkable transformation over the last six months or so. Before finding me Pete was training for an ultra marathon and found himself gaining quite a bit of weight, and ended up getting a DNF.

So he did not finish his first 50k attempt and was determined to try again and succeed. So he’s going to share his story of changing his diet, getting fat adapted, and the things he struggled with along the way, losing weight and then attempting that same 50k again.

I hope you enjoy this episode of Ultramarathon Redemption with Pete Caigan. His story is truly inspiring. But first, if you’re ready to learn what it takes to get leaner and stronger, run faster and longer than you ever imagined, then I have just the thing for you.

Check out my all new free training called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. This comprehensive training will teach you how to lose weight and keep it off for good without running an extra million miles per week.

It takes everything I’ve been teaching on this podcast for the last three years or so and distills it down into an hour long training program to teach you everything you need to know to get started on your weight loss journey the right way, and it’s all designed with you the runner in mind, just go to runningleancoaching.com click on free training to get started.

Okay, let’s just get into it. Without further ado, please enjoy my recent conversation with Pete Caigan.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so today we’re having a conversation. Me and Pete. Pete Caigan has been working with me for a period of time now, and has experienced some pretty amazing stuff, some pretty amazing transformations. And I want to talk about that. So welcome, Pete.

Pete Caigan
Thank you. Good to be here, Patrick. Thank you for having me.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So give me an idea of, you know, what things were like for you before we started working together. So think back to that time. It’s been a while now. I guess it was back in probably October, September, October of last year. And you needed some help with some things and you had some goals. So just give me an idea, kind of a little bit of a snapshot of where you were at that time and what you were looking for some help with what your goals were at that time.

Pete Caigan
Sure. It was September of 2022. And I was feeling frustrated. I was 30 pounds more than I am now by running and slowing down to crawl. I had done a half marathon trail run in the fall of ‘21 and it went great. Started training the spring of ‘22 for 50k.

I took the advice of my cousin to eat a lot of carbs and load and just eat whatever you want and run a lot. And I did that and I gained about 20 pounds and attempted my 50k in the spring of 2022 got taken off the course at mile 10 by the sweepers. Mumbled and grumbled for a few months and then heard your podcast a bunch of times and decided to get in touch.

Patrick McGilvray
So that that experience of training for that first ultra marathon and eating all the what I’ll just call like “carbage”, right, all the junk food or whatever, will lead to 20 pounds of weight gain.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, I gained 20 pounds and slowed down. My endurance was really good. I was so slow and it was brutal. Everything was difficult.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and it’s crazy because we’re told, at least by traditional coaches and you know, this is you know, long standing principles, I guess, of running that you need all these carbs, but some of us are a little more sensitive than others to them and they have an adverse effect and even training for an ultra marathon isn’t going to undo kind of what your experience was of loading up on all those carbs and and you can’t outrun that bad diet.

Pete Caigan
As I said before, I was doing long runs over 20 miles. And so gaining weight, and you’re probably running 40 miles a week or that entire time gave me wings. It was very strange. I was going on and I was legitimately hungry. It wasn’t like, I felt hungry. It was signals, and I was listening.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And then you tempted this 50k. And you said around mile 10, you got taken off the course because you didn’t make a cut off?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, there was a cut off. And the sweepers came and the race director said, come on, get the bus. And I was like, no way. He’s like, well, you can keep going, but you’re not part of the race anymore if you want to keep going. And this is very bad country, Vermont. So I was, I think, wise and got on the bus. And I was really mad at the guy for like months. Like I was like telling all my friends and took me when whining finally hit me like maybe he was right. Like maybe I already got hurt, not made it. So that’s what I recommitted and called you.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so you were 30 pounds overweight at the time, or 30 pounds heavier than you are now. You were frustrated. Sounds like from not being able to finish this event that you train for, you’re probably frustrated that you gain all that weight in the process.

So give me an idea of what some of the goals were when you wanted to, you know, start working with me and like why you came to me and like what is it that you wanted out of that coaching experience? What did you need help with?

Pete Caigan
Well, I needed to get help, because I couldn’t figure it out. I was eating, I thought well, and I was working out a lot. So I wanted to initially lose 20 pounds and try to do the same race again. And finish. Be successful was my initial goal when I joined up with you.

Patrick McGilvray
So those are the big goals. To lose 20 pounds and then do this race and redeem yourself, you know, not be taken off the course or suggested to be taken off the course.

Pete Caigan
Yeah. Exactly.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, good. So you committed to those goals, we started kind of changing something. So what was that process like for you at the beginning? Like, what were some of the changes that that seemed to help you the most at the beginning, especially.

Pete Caigan
I think getting off grains, sugar, and seed oils was really the beginning. And start to be more conscious of what I was eating. So I started to journal food. And I started to eat in a window. You know, like I was doing 16 hours a day not eating, eight hours a day eating.

That is really the biggest change and really not easy. It was extremely difficult. For me it was about two weeks of discomfort, but it wasn’t miserable. I was just a little cranky, little hungry. I was very slow as a runner. I felt like I was carrying a bag of rocks. And

Patrick McGilvray
How many times a day were you eating before? Like how often during the day were you eating prior to this?

Pete Caigan
Oh, seven.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, just like constantly eating all the time.

Pete Caigan
Well, I usually would like wake up, have some coffee, hang out and have a bowl of oatmeal. Maybe wait an hour, go for a run, get back. You know, have a protein bar. Work a couple hours more.

Have lunch, pretty good lunch, maybe a salad, chicken, maybe some rice. Mid afternoon I’d be back at it with some more food, whatever nuts, bag of nuts, maybe more bars or something. And then before dinner I was snacking a bit on whatever, chips. It’s pretty healthy.

Like I was shopping at the health food store. I was eating good foods, but then dinner, it could be like anything. I mean, could be anything. It could be a bowl of pasta with, you know, fish or whatever. It was a lot of carbs. No window, you know, I was eating like 14 hours a day.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, so you’re describing what I’ve talked about in the past, which is that typical runner’s diet. Which is just eating all the time, because you’re hungry all the time, and you’re eating all the carbs all the time.

And when you’re eating all the carbs all the time, that makes you more hungry. So you just got to keep eating the carbs so you can keep satisfying that hunger but the satisfaction never comes. And you end up doing a couple things.

Number one, a lot of that energy that you’re taking in, a lot of the food that you’re taking in, gets converted to fat stores and you, you recognize that from gaining 20 pounds during this process.

The other thing is that you’re never feeling really satisfied, you’re always hungry, you know, and the only thing that you’re your body, you’ve you’ve trained your body essentially to crave more carbs.

You know, the body will crave what you continue to give it, what you repeatedly do. And so when you repeatedly eat carbs, you’re just going to be craving more and more and more carbs. And that is a really kind of a downward spiral. It’s a cycle that you can’t get out of.

Pete Caigan
There for a little bit like when I was working out and I was working a lot. I was doing CrossFit three or four times a week, I was running four days a week, and I was stretching every day and my work is active.

So I was working out and feeling like when I did eat the carbs, I was like, okay, good. I’m good to go. And I’d have like an hour. I don’t know what it is, a sugar rush? But then the hunger would come quickly, you know, and I realized now, it wasn’t real hunger when it felt like hunger.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, it feels great eating that stuff. It feels amazing because it lights you up. You know it hits those dopamine receptors in your brain and produces serotonin and you know, all the good feeling hormones and things like that.

It’s very similar to the way drugs and alcohol light up our brains. You know, they’ve done all these studies on the poor little rats who you know, they make them take all this cocaine and sugar and things like that. And the rats kind of prefer the sugar to the cocaine because it just feels so amazing.

So even the rats will choose carbs over cocaine. It’s kind of funny. But yeah, so that that whole process is maybe, okay, for some people like what you just described there is the way a lot of people approach running, especially when doing ultras.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, my cousin who recommended it, he eats like that, and he came in third on the 50 miler on the same event. That he was like, wasn’t that great? I don’t know.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. And I followed a bunch of ultra runners early in my running career. And, and they were doing the same thing. And I was like, well, I guess this is what I need to do. And I had the same experience you did Pete, where I just kept gaining weight until I was like 40 pounds overweight, and like what is happening here, you know, so that doesn’t work for everybody.

And if you’re somebody listening to this, and you’re like, yeah, that’s my experience too. Just know that you can change like, you don’t have to keep doing that. And being in that cycle, that frustrating cycle of like, eating all the carbs, being hungry all the time, getting fatter and fatter as you go, like, that’s not a good place to be. It’s not healthy.

It’s just not, you know. And so, you know, the solution is not to just, you know, never eat another grain or carb again in your life. That’s not what we’re talking about here. So, what did that sort of diet look like for you, you know, at the beginning at least, Pete?

Pete Caigan
Well, I would drink coffee. I started to use heavy cream in my coffee, which I always avoided because that was taboo. And I love the taste. So I could put a couple of tablespoons of heavy cream in my coffee in the morning and feel like good.

So that would usually be the morning combined with a fasted workout. And I was at first struggling with that, the fasted workouts, but within a couple of weeks, it was better, actually. Surprisingly even the lifting and Crossfit was better.

And then I would wait till noon generally to eat and what it would look like was a nice serving a protein could be like 12 ounces of fish, or chicken, usually fish or chicken with the big salad, no starchy vegetables, but a big salad with olive oil, salt and pepper. Very satisfying.

So I would do that and then at first I was really struggling getting from lunch to dinner, like to get from noon to six for me because I’m pretty active was hard. And I did that for a while but I was constantly like kind of freaking out.

So I added a protein shake mid afternoon, like a whey protein. And if I’m really hungry, I might eat some nuts but not a lot. And then dinner would generally be another big serving of protein and not salad more like cauliflower or broccoli.

I could use cheese. I was using a lot of coconut oil. I mean it’s still scary but not crazy amounts, a lot of coconut oil, a lot of olive oil, a lot of avocado oil. And, you know, it could even be a big serving of protein like I can eat a 16 ounce steak, which I love.

And I got into blue cheese which I have to be careful about but it’s, I love it so much. And it’s so satisfying. I kind of can’t eat anything after a blue cheese, it’s overwhelming. I’ll eat that. And then if I was really craving dessert type food, you know, I’d have some berries like blueberries on Greek yogurt, maybe with some stevia and cocoa powder, had the feeling of like ice cream, a very satisfying and good amount of protein. But often nothing like I don’t, the no sugar thing is much better. If I hit any fruit, it’ll be like berries, maybe an apple? Well, you really just got a big part of my diet.

Patrick McGilvray
Yes, so for you a couple of the changes. Just to kind of recap here, you went from eating seven times a day to eating, you know, two or three times a day, which is normal. That’s kind of what normal human eating patterns should look like. You know what I mean, we shouldn’t be eating seven times a day.

Because when you do that, you just train yourself that you are going to be hungry all the time, you know, especially if you’re eating a lot of carbs in those meals. So when you switch to eating a couple times a day, two, three times a day, your body will naturally switch to being hungry those two or three times a day, which becomes normal, and then it becomes very easy to only eat a couple times a day. So you made that change, which is great. It was a little bit of a struggle at the beginning, but you got used to it. You know? Do you enjoy eating that way today still?

Pete Caigan
The thing I love is the high fat high protein because I avoided fats like the plague for so many years. And it’s really some of my favorite foods. So I love that aspect of it. You know, now that I’m fat adapted, I do eat carbs sometimes and it’s not a big deal. I mean, I do notice like the day after. I have to clean up a little bit but I don’t if I eat carbs once a week if I have sweet potatoes or something. I’m generally I don’t want it the next day, like maybe I’m loaded up or something. So it’s not even that big a deal.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, we’re not talking about like, birthday cake every week or something like that. It’s just some sweet potatoes like it’s fine.

Pete Caigan
Honestly, the sweet sweet stuff, I have a bite sometimes it’s so overwhelming. I don’t really enjoy it at all. Like I used to get it really barely once in a blue moon, I ate a marshmallow recently, and I was like woah. I’m so sensitive now to the sugar. I didn’t realize how strong it is.

Patrick McGilvray
So you’ve shifted. That’s good. That’s a good time.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It’s like, it’s almost a relief.

Patrick McGilvray
Another big change was focusing on more protein.

Pete Caigan
Right? Well, yeah, I’ve been keeping track, I use an app on my phone, right? I don’t do it all the time. But entering my food during a journal shows me the protein I’m getting. And I’m trying to get almost a gram per pound of body weight. Because I’m so active. I’m training for another 50k.

Patrick McGilvray
I think that’s a good place to be.

Pete Caigan
The macros are significantly different. It’s like 60/30/10 usually fat to protein to carbs.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay. Yeah, like 60% fat, 30% protein, 10% carbs. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that’s different for everybody. But you know if that works for you, awesome. Yeah, so you focused on more protein, not eating all the time. And, you know, what were some of the results of that? Or like, how did you feel through the day? Did your hunger start to like, go down?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, after two weeks, it was way better. And then the hunger went down. But it wasn’t gone. I also learned a lot working with you and the group about hunger and like, whatever. It’s not the end of the world, you’re hungry. And usually it goes away in like 10 minutes. It’s not that big a deal.

So one of the things for me is my life really shifted in a lot of ways away from other than food and running, which is I got way more motivated on what I do. And I started working harder and sleeping less, which was a very unexpected side effect of all this, like I was sleeping a solid hour to two hours more than a night than I do now.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so you’re sleeping less but how’s the quality of sleep?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, I’m sleeping a lot less and my quality of sleep is better. So that was an interesting thing that I didn’t, uh, I wasn’t planning on which is great. I feel way more energy.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, good. Yeah, typically, people would say that they need more sleep or they sleep longer when they get off of the crazy foods, but you’re saying you’re sleeping less, but it’s a positive change. Right?

Pete Caigan
Well, I would say maybe at the beginning I was sleeping more but after I feel like I cleaned up and lost the weight and got off that food, I just I was sleeping eight to nine hours a night and now it’s been seven.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, gotcha. So probably more in line with the way you should be then. Okay. Yeah, that’s cool. That’s good. So what else was your experience during this process of like shifting your diet and what you’re eating, how often you’re eating, upping in the protein, all those things. What was, or was there anything that you really struggled with, you know, during that transition?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, there were some things I struggled with me, I was very moody. I had to not be a jerk to my mate, my wife. I definitely was cranky for a while. So that was hard. And then, like, I just had to deal with myself more, my emotions, and reality.

And the accountability with you and with the group just made me be like, no, I really want to lose a pound this week, like, I don’t want to gain this week. And I would have moments, usually at night in front of the fridge, where I’d have to be like, don’t do it! But there were moments, so the struggle was really like dealing with my emotions, like if I had a really stressful day, and like figuring out other ways to deal with it.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and for how long did that like cranky pants last?

Pete Caigan
Probably a month. I mean, it still happens occasionally. Like in the morning, if I’m waiting till noon to eat. But I’ve learned how to do it. Usually if I’m not, if I haven’t worked out, really, I find I could do a fasted workout and then feel great, it doesn’t happen. But if I end up like waking up, having some coffee and ending up at a desk for two or three hours, I’ll get like, like, edgy.

Patrick McGilvray
So yeah, that sounds like it’s probably from lack of exercise, because you didn’t get your endorphin rush that you’re used to in the morning.

Pete Caigan
Exactly.

Patrick McGilvray
But that crankiness at the beginning, whenever we get off of a really high carbohydrate diet. It is basically like withdrawal symptoms. It’s one of the symptoms of withdrawal from like a sugar addiction, you know. And it’s the same, you know, kind of shows up the same way that when you stop drinking alcohol or doing drugs or something like that. It can have the same sort of withdrawal effects, which is crazy to think about. That sugar has that kind of an effect on us.

Pete Caigan
Right? It’s so accepted that we eat tons of carbs all the time. Maybe that’s not how our bodies function best, but that’s how we were brought up. So you think you’re supposed to eat breakfast or you’re bad. Maybe you’re fine.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, that whole idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That’s just a marketing tactic. You know, that was made up by the cereal companies like Kellogg’s or someone made that up.

Pete Caigan
You can still have breakfast, but have breakfast at 11. Like it’s okay. Your first meal can be your bacon and eggs.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, eat some protein at that first meal for sure. Okay, so you went through this process, you got fat adapted, which just means that you, you know, we’re running without the need for all the carbs without the need for a bunch of fuel. And you trained yourself to use your stored body fat as fuel. And I’m guessing through this process, you started losing weight as well. Right?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, started to come off by two pounds a week at the beginning.

Patrick McGilvray
Nice.

Pete Caigain
A lot at the beginning. Yeah, I started to lose significant weight. And that’s always really great to see what the first person notices and your clothes fit. That’s a big moment.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. That’s motivating and it keeps you going because you’re seeing progress. I mean, you can literally see the progress happening. And it keeps you in the game.

Pete Caigan
In like 5 weeks I lost like 10 pounds or something. And the first person was like wow Pete, and I was like thank you. And then yeah, I’d like to think I don’t have a big ego, but at first it really feels good. Clothes fit better, it’s starts to be like actually fun. Because once I got fat adapted it was not difficult.

For me, it was many ways a pleasure because I was eating the fat switch I stayed with the running and I started to get better quickly too. So you think now put on a 10 pound pack and go for a run. That’s enough to make a big difference.

That first 10 pounds and as I say now I feel like free back to running like bouncing. I run in the woods and just fly around. I’d forgotten that a little bit. Like I kind of had it in my memory. But it wasn’t. It’s been a few years since I felt that so now it’s back and it’s just it’s incredible.

Patrick McGilvray
Well you get used to it. You know you get used to being overweight, you get used to carrying around an extra 30 pounds or whatever. And until you lose the weight again, it’s like oh, now I see what I was carrying around and you know, I had that experience too some years ago, lost 40 pounds and it was literally like running just became so easy.

It was so much more enjoyable. Yeah.

Patrick McGilvray
And then you started training. So let’s talk about that a little bit. So you decided you’re going to conquer this 50k, the same one, same race. And but this time, there’s no way you’re gonna DNF. So talk about the training a little bit with that, like, what, what was that like for you?

Pete Caigan
Sure. All Fall, I was doing three runs a week, kind of short, medium long, but not as a structured plan, which is keeping my fitness up and losing weight. And then I started, I think an 18 week training cycle in maybe the beginning of February, that you helped me design. That was four to five days a week of running, and I was doing strength training two days a week, which often ended up once a week. But I was hitting it hard, like I was getting a lot of miles on the trail.

And where I live is in the mountains in upstate New York. So I was dealing with running snow and the ice and very cold temperatures. And I was getting up in the mountains, which means carrying a 15 pound pack and wearing spikes. So it was very challenging in February March, but I got the miles in and I didn’t miss many runs.

And I was losing weight. I wasn’t as late as I am now. But I was probably down 20 pounds at that point, and feeling good, you know, struggles. I had definitely had a lot of struggles through the 18 week training cycle, I had two injuries that weren’t really injuries, they were just pain, which was a good thing for me to understand, and notice that just because you’re hurt, doesn’t mean you’re injured. That’s a big difference that I didn’t quite understand fully until this training cycle.

One day I finished a 20 mile run, which included a lot of concrete running and running shoes, which I don’t do I mostly do trails. I woke up the next day and there was like a peak on the top of my first metatarsal. Like it looked like I broken my metatarsal. It hurt, couldn’t walk. So I was just like, oh, I’m so screwed. So I just did and I hobbled around for a few days. And then like after like five days, I got back to like jogging lightly, like it didn’t really hurt. And then by the next week I was back out.

Patrick McGilvray just the joys of running, you know.

Pete Caigan
So that was a good lesson. And then I played golf, like four weeks out from my event, and I hurt my neck. And I couldn’t move. And I was like, I’m so dumb. So that put me down for like, over a week of no running, when I was in my peak phase. And I was really scared at that point.

Like I blew it like I can’t believe I hurt myself at the end. But again, you helped me to see like, you know, you’ve banked a lot of fitness here. Like don’t sweat it like it’ll be okay. And then I got back they did one more long run after that I did. My race was 32 miles, I went out and did like a 25 mile run with maybe 4700 feet a gain, in the mountains, it was big deal. And I did and I was like alright, I got this.

So yeah, then the last few weeks just took it easy as I was supposed to which was a challenge into unto itself to taper. But yeah, that was the training cycle. It was challenging in many ways. It was hard to make the time on my long runs because I’m in the mountains. It could be like an eight hour day. So it was challenging to just be like alright, family I’m leaving. I’ll see you tonight.

Patrick McGilvray
How was this training different from your approach last year when you were going for the same event?

Pete Caigan
I didn’t do nearly as many miles or as many runs last year, I was doing three days a week, I would do like a short run or medium run and a long run. But my longest run last year was 21 before the race, before the 32 mile race. And my you know I had done a few like 15-18 days as well. But like really slow, like way more walking than I did this time.

Patrick McGilvray
So more volume and a few longer runs. Yes, more work overall for sure.

Pete Caigan
More miles for sure. And more frequency. Yeah.

Patrick McGilvray
That’s one of the biggest things for an event like that because you are going to be on your feet for so long. You gotta you got to make sure you are putting in the time like time on your feet, you know, and increasing the amount of running that you’re doing per week has to go up pretty high to get you there. So good. Good job with all that.

So the race comes and where were you at? Give us a snapshot of where you were like for the race itself, like from what was your kind of weight loss at that point? How much had you lost? You know, come race day.

Pete Caigan
I got to 30 pounds down.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay. Beautiful.

Pete Caigan
And, you know, for whatever it’s worth, if you care about body composition was like I was at 18% fat.

Patrick McGilvray
Awesome. Yeah, no, that’s great.

Pete Caigan
Do you want me to tell you about the event?

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, just like, how was it for you?

Pete Caigan
It was brutal and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I totally had many, many times the week leading up to it where I thought maybe I was gonna chicken out.

Patrick McGilvray
Really? Okay.

Pete Caigan
I just had like weird thoughts. Like, maybe this isn’t for you, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Every ghost came up into my mind trying to get me to not do it. It was like the one side’s the angel the other side’s evil and like telling me not to do it.

But I was like, just go, keep going. I made the hotel reservation, the race is about three hours for me. So I got a hotel the night before, and the night of the race. So Friday, Saturday. I went and I did some research on the race director Luis Escobar? You could look him up. He’s one of the guys in Born to Run. The guy had been personally before.

Patrick McGilvray
Oh, yeah. Cool.

Pete Caigan
So I was like, oh, this guy’s like legitimate. Like come on. Pete like get over yourself. So I went the day before Friday to get my race bed and I hung out at the starting line was 100 mile distance was starting that night.

So I like spent like an hour there with him and all the other race directors and CO race directors are also well known. ultra runners so I like really spend time with them chatted Luis was like, man, it’s so great. You came back you have good, you’re gonna do great. So that was cool, because it gave me like a vibe of the race and it’s a Spartan Race, and it’s really friendly environment.

There were 300 participants. So I spent some time with the people picking up their badges and just trying to get into like the vibe of what was going on in its a gorgeous place. It’s the guy who started Spartan, I don’t know his name. It was his home, of course, and beautiful Vermont. So I really enjoyed that.

And I went home, I had packed all my food which was smart. Last year I’d gone out to a restaurant and gotten like, I don’t even know like a bowl of cheesy fries for dinner. It was horrible.

So I had like my two purple sweet potatoes and like a little chicken salad. At my dinner I had my race vest pack like before, which I highly recommend for anybody. So you’re not nervous in the morning packing. I woke up super early, race time was seven. I got up before, just like took my time, got my stuff together, got to the starting line by 6:00.

Everybody like it’s a really good camaraderie of these things. Spend time people are nervous talking, you know, people doing the 50 mile the 100 miler have been going down for 14 hours. So they’re still going and then went out. It was like in the front of the pack. Like I went too hot like but too hot. Really? Maybe in retrospect. So I kind of crushed the first 10 miles I did. I was really fast for me, which was also the reason is 6500 feet a gain 32 miles. So you know it’s a lot.

And a lot of it was bushwhacking, like difficult terrain where there’s puddles and mud and very little trail. But the first 10 miles was generally really nice, trails up and down, a couple more, got to the first checkpoint where I had been pulled off the year before. And the guys were like Pete, you’re doing great. You’re like, you know, you’re not at the back of the pack, so that was cool.

Miles 10 to mile 15 was up and over a huge mountain. Very difficult. Extremely difficult. But I did all this generally fasted. I only had about 200 calories an hour. You know, it was I had electrolytes. But I felt great. I felt fine. Up and down this big mountain who was cool. I was okay, but I was definitely not as fast.

And then there was a checkpoint it was like a party, like they had like barbecue and beer like music cranking, and I maybe made a mistake, and I had like two sips of beer. And I was like, This is bad. Don’t do it. And then they had it cut off. You had to get to mile 22 by 3pm, which was eight hours.

And at the beginning of the race. He stood up on a table he said does anyone disagree that if you’re not at mile 22 I’m taking you off the course? Nobody said anything, he shouted it so everyone understood. So now miles like 15 to 22 up and down many mountains.

At this point, it was little mountains, but up and down a few if something happened, I started to slow down significantly. But I did not stop. Like I didn’t stop and I sit down, I sat down once the whole race just to change my socks, like I was relentless for me.

Relentless forward progress zone for the majority of the time, which sounds crazy, but somehow my body held up. So anyway 15 to 22 miles I was slow, like things were falling apart a little bit, kept going, I got to 22 to seven and a half hours. And I’m like, pumping my chest. And now there’s a bus already filled with people who are calling it a day, even though they made the cut off the next.

The 22 or 32 is extremely difficult. 22 to 28 is extremely difficult. So a bunch of people quit and then like RIP, you’re done. Right? And you want to get on the bus. We’ll take you back. And I was like, no way, there’s zero chance of getting on your bus goodbye, and they were like alright.

So I took off. And now I’m going up and down three mountains, mile 22 to mile 29. Alone in the woods. The sweepers are behind me, but they’re not in sight. They’re back. And I just started to lose my mind. Like I was having a very, very hard time functioning.

My body was like leaning left, I kept on drifting left. I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, I’m gonna have a stroke, am I dying? Like, I didn’t really think that but I was hurting. And I didn’t know what was going on. But I just kept trudging forward going as fast as I could. And I got out into back to civilization, which is at mile 29 is the top of this mountain but there’s houses.

The last three miles is downhill. Three miles back to the starting line through country roads. And the checkpoint there. It was 6pm. And they say alright, well, Whoever didn’t get here by six, we’d have to take you down the hill. You got to get in the bus.

And I was like, I’m not getting in your bus. I don’t care what you do. I’m leaving goodbye. And they were like, really? I was like, really, goodbye. And I took off and I was holding myself up on my ribs because I couldn’t stand up straight. But I was okay. I was okay. And then I passed the guy’s house. He comes out of his house. He’s like, are you okay? Like you’re leaning all the way over?

I was like, I don’t know if I’m okay. I think I’m okay. And I sat down hung out with him. He was really cool. And older Vermont guy. And then the sweepers came by in a car and they’re like, go Pete. Okay, we’ll see you at the finish line. Right? I was like, yeah, I’m good. Like, yeah, go man go.

So I got down to the finish line. I was like, within 200 meters, I could see the finish line and straighten up and pull my head I’m talking my shirt like, act like I got my act together, went as fast as I could to the finish line got through and all those sweepers who were trying to get me off the course were cheering me on.

Good job, you made it. You made it, we love you! Giving me hugs, you’re the reason we do this. You’re so great. And I finished in 12 hours, and I got a DFL, I did not finish last. So there was a girl behind me, which was great. And so I accomplished my goal. I was so happy. It was like one of the great moments in my life. It was really, really cool.

Patrick McGilvray
That’s so awesome. And I love your determination of like, you know, nope, nothing you can do or say is gonna get me into that van at this point. Like I’ve trained for this. I’m ready for this. I’m doing it. What was the deal with you, like leaning to the left? What was that all about?

Pete Caigan
So Luis at the finish line personally came up to me, he’s like, I’m so happy you did this. I’m so happy you came back. You just show that like perseverance is I can work and use it was cool. And he said you got the leans, man. You got the leans, you gotta go take care of that. And I was like, what?

And I realized what had happened is that and I looked it up. And it’s a thing that can happen where your core fails. And you can’t keep your spine up, right. And it’s not entirely uncommon. So I realized it was going on and I just kind of took it easy. And I went to bed and I woke up I was fine, the next day, it was Mother’s Day. It was gone. I was totally fine. I was able to walk. it I wasn’t even that sore. But it’s called the leans I guess, in that community.

Patrick McGilvray
Shows you the power of like or the importance of strength training and core strengthening probably would help with that.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, I think so. It was definitely a weakness, maybe doing more that type of work would be helpful.

Patrick McGilvray
So what an amazing experience. I mean, super. I mean, it’s kind of life changing, right?

Pete Caigan
You know, it is and it completely translates to everything else. Because everything else that feels hard. I’m like, this isn’t that hard? It isn’t just running things, but things I’m talking about, like emotional things or work? You know, struggling to do the stuff I don’t want to do is not as big a struggle, because it’s like, oh, I freaking ran 32 miles.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you’ve proven to yourself that not only can you do hard things, but you can accomplish things that maybe you’re not even. Maybe you don’t even believe in yourself or you’re not even sure you can do it. But you can do it anyway.

Like, you can push yourself out of that comfort zone. And because you’re, you know, remember you were talking about how you were having some doubts in those weeks leading up to it and thinking about, you know, pulling out and things like that, but you didn’t do any of that you just kept moving forward, and you just stayed with the plan, and you trusted your training, and look what you did. It’s amazing.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, thank you. I mean, I do have such a long term goal to be so persistent and consistent with something and then see the results was a big lesson for me. Or, you know, sometimes it’s persistence over a long period of time that gets you somewhere, it’s not the two week effort could be the year of doing something, a lot of things, you know.

I will say thank you, Patrick, for your guidance. And you know, what you do is so valuable and like, I feel like I went to school, honestly, nutrition and fitness and in many ways, life. I had no idea you can eat like this or train like this, it’s gonna be like, it wasn’t something that I thought could be for me, people used to talk about being keto or low carb. Never seemed possible or appealing, just seemed like not normal. Now that I’ve been doing it. I see how, for me at least, it’s it’s a really good way to be.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah. And just for clarification, like everybody does this a little bit differently, you know, the way that Pete approached his nutrition and training was probably different from everybody else I work with.

So there’s no two people really doing this exactly the same, which is the way it should be, you know, there isn’t one plan, one diet, that’s going to work perfectly for everybody. I know, that’s what everybody wants you to believe out there. But it’s just not true.

So we got to figure out what works for us as individuals. And that’s a big part of what Pete and I did is kind of that figuring out process, you know, figuring out the right combination of foods and training and strength training and in the running to make these positive changes for you as an individual.

Pete Caigan
With me in terms of like, I’d be like, oh, I’m eating too many nuts, I’m going to again, and I’m going again, not losing weight. I mean, he’s not saying I can’t eat nuts, and you would often just be like, oh, you just eat less nuts. And that was so helpful for me. That was like one of those little tidbits to help me to realize that, you know, to do in my, what works for me, but maybe I don’t need to be so extreme.

Patrick McGilvray
So tell me where you are today with things. How’s everything going for you? How are you from like a nutrition standpoint? And from like a training standpoint?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, took the past month, I’ve been very light training. But I took a week off pretty much but not even off just not running a lot, or lifting a lot. And then the past three weeks, I’ve been running three times a week and lifting two to three times a week.

And actually, today was day one of the 13 week training cycle of doing another 50k.

Patrick McGilvray
Oh, heck yeah!

Pete Caigan
So I’m back in the game. I’m way ahead of where I was 13 weeks out from the last run. Now, that being said, I’m humble about this experience, I don’t expect this to be easy. And I have to do 20 mile uphill run on Sunday. So that’s no joke. So that’s good.

And the nutrition, I was a little lax after the race on the food for a couple of weeks. But I didn’t really gain weight. But now I’ve been eating really clean and on program for about 10 days, and I’m getting down to my lowest ever. Lowest weight ever for many, many years. And I’d like to get lower for this race I see, you know, even just five or 10 pounds less, thatwill make a big difference to be no faster. And I want to know I don’t expect to compete, but I’d like to be able to faster at this point. So that’s one of my goals for this.

Patrick McGilvray
Cool and how are you feeling about this next 50k having just completed this last one? Feeling a little bit different about this one?

Pete Caigan
You know, in my mind, I’m like, oh, this will be easier but it’s not easy. There’s nothing easy about this. So I do feel a little differently, but I’m also slightly reserved. Uh, in terms of letting myself feel like this is like a big deal, because it is a really big deal to do something like this again. Yeah, out there, in the woods all day.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, you probably have more confidence. But you also know it’s still gonna be at some point you’re going to enter the pain cave out there, right? Because we all do.

Pete Caigan
This one has no time cut off, which is interesting. Oh yeah,

Pete Caigan
Oh yeah, interesting.

Pete Caigan
I’m excited. And it’s a lot different to train where I live in summer than in the winter. So I enjoy the heat. So I’m really actually, it’s good to be out there this summer where we live, which is blueberry, wild blueberries and you know, streams, you can drink water on them. It’s gorgeous.

Patrick McGilvray
Heck, yeah. That’s amazing. And then maintenance, like, how’s that for you feeling like, that’s pretty easy for you to do going forward? Like, this has become something that is more natural for you now?

Because I know, we talked about at the beginning of the process, especially with the change in diet, it was a little bit of a struggle, you know, there was a little bit of a transition period there where you’re like, you know, this is kind of hard. I’m a little hungry. I’m a little cranky, you know, um, uh, but now, like, how does all that feel for you?

Pete Caigan
I mean, it feels easy. Maintenance is a non-issue to get leaders challenging, because I’m kind of like anyone wants to be so, you know, when I get into like, eating, try to get leaner. It’s a little challenging. It’s okay, maintenance, though. Not hard, because I’m eating foods that I like. Intermittent fasting has gotten so easy.

Patrick McGilvray
That just feels normal to you now?

Pete Caigan
Yeah, I don’t want to eat after dinner or in the morning. I don’t want to be. So. Yeah. Okay. Make the window 14 hours just set to 16.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, one of the goals is that by this point of the process, this should all feel easy and effortless. It just should feel normal for you. Yeah.

Pete Caigan
I don’t have to talk about it with people anymore. I don’t have to make a big deal. And what to do. If I go to a restaurant, I can like whisper to waiters like keto. They know exactly what to do. You know, no low carb, no carbs. No problem. I don’t even talk about it with people anymore. I used to talk about whatever. You really care what I eat. Anyways, that was a big hard thing at first, which it isn’t now.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah. And then you mentioned something which is like, the maintenance is easy, once you get used to this, but then if you’re like, Okay, I want to, I want to lose a few pounds here, you know, I want to get down to a little bit lower weight, that’s easy to do, too. It just takes a little bit more discipline a little bit more, you got to be a little stricter about what you’re doing.

So sometimes I recommend to journal food again, you know, or track your macros again for a couple of weeks, you know, just to get you to the place where you’re like, okay, now I’m, you know, kind of recommitted. I know what I’m doing. And I can start to make some incremental changes here. Because it doesn’t take much to dial the weight down. You know, sometimes it’s just cutting back on the amount of food you’re eating, you know, and, you know, something as simple as that.

Pete Caigan
Yeah, it is a small margin between gaining and maintaining, small margin’s maintaining.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and it’s possible while you’re training, for an event like this, especially at the beginning of the training cycle, it’s a little bit easier to do. To lose weight, like you can, you can lose weight while you’re training for sure. I don’t recommend it as you’re getting into that last half of the training cycle, like the you know, as your race is approaching, you don’t want to be focused on losing weight, you just want to be like maintaining and focused on running and improving your performance and doing all the things you know and not be stressed out about trying to lose. But it’s possible, it’s possible to do that.

Pete Caigan
One other thing I want to say before we wrap up is it was a big step for me to take to decide to get in touch with Patrick to do the one on one initial consultation. You know, I somehow found the podcast I don’t know how. But I started listening to it a lot. I was like, I like this guy’s like my buddy like I felt simpatico with you.

But to like call somebody you don’t know to like do something over the internet was a big stretch for me and to think about spending money on it was a stretch and then I realized like investing in myself.

First of all, you eat less food so you’re gonna save money. But it was a big stretch to do it on this like kind of anonymous internet thing, but I can’t say like, how great it was of a decision for me to do it in the community is incredible.

I mean twice a week to have these group calls, which I still get on, at least one of them a week is very big, because these people who I’ve never met, are like my buddies, and we’re like working together on the same goals. And it seems a little weird that you’ve never met these people in person, but it really works. It works for me. So I highly recommend if you’re thinking about it, to have the faith that it can be real.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, it is a great group of people. And you’re right, I feel like you guys are kind of my family in a way, you know, because we do spend a lot of time together. And not only do I do all these one on one calls, where you and I spent a lot of time together over the last six months or so. But then we do the group calls where we all come together and, and can kind of share what’s going on share wins, you know, ask questions, and kind of…

Pete Caigan
They go through almost the same thing you go through. It’s like, we’re not all that different. Most of us and we each have our own issues, but there’s a lot of similarities. So to hear that someone else is struggling with something similar helps a lot, because then a lot of people have strategies that work out.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, and I remember cracking up last week because somebody else shared a story of injuring themselves golfing right before their race, right. And I was like, and Pete, you were just like cracking up because you’re like, I did the same thing. And lesson here is like to stay away from golfing, you guys, okay? It’s a dangerous sport. It’s apparently very dangerous.

Pete Caigan
That’s serious.

Patrick McGilvray
Good stuff. Anything else you want to share? Pete, this has been awesome. Thank you for being here and sharing all this stuff with us.

Pete Caigan
Thank you for your work, Patrick, I know you’ve been working on this a long time. And you’re very thoughtful. And you put a lot of time into this. And, you know, just grateful for what you do. And it’s really what. So that’s all just gratitude towards you, and acknowledgement of all your hard work goes into this, as well.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, I’m just over here yammering on about stuff, you’re the one actually doing the work, you know, you showed up, you made a decision that you were going to conquer this 50k, you are going to lose the 30 pounds, you made that decision, which is really important.

And you said it was a little bit scary, because who is this guy, this random guy from the internet or whatever. But you made that decision. You committed to the process, you know, which was I’m going to change the way I’m doing things. Because what you were doing wasn’t working for you. It was, you were having the opposite effect. You were getting slower, you were gaining weight, you were feeling terrible. Like you needed to shift that you know, and that takes a commitment.

And that is scary. Because you’re getting into uncharted territory. When you do that, you know, you’re like, I don’t know if it was gonna work or not, you know, I don’t know what’s gonna happen here. But you committed to the process.

And anybody listening to this, if you just do that part right there, if you commit to the process, like I know, this is what I want for myself, here’s the goals that I have for myself. They’re very clear, very measurable goals. And then you commit to that process of change, I guarantee you can get there. As long as you don’t quit. The only way you can really fail kind of like with the 50k is if you just quit, you get on the van. But if you keep going, you’ll finish. Right.

Pete Caigan
So let’s keep going back every time you fall off, it’s like okay, well, I fell off. Well, we’re back on.

Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. So you did the work. And I’m proud of you for showing up for yourself for making that commitment to yourself for making that decision that this is what you wanted for yourself. And then just doing it and like continually sticking with it.

Even though it was hard sometimes, even though it was a struggle sometimes. You didn’t give up. You kept going. And I can’t wait to hear about your next 50k. I want to I want to hear about how you crush your last time on that.

Pete Caigan
You know, yeah, I’ll keep you posted for sure.

Patrick McGilvray
All right. Well, thanks again, Pete for everything. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it.

Pete Caigan
Thank you, Patrick.

Patrick McGilvray
So a lot of runners who struggle to lose weight, wonder if coaching is a good fit for them. I’m going to be very honest about this. Coaching is a good fit for you. If you are willing to go all in on yourself.

You have to be willing to commit to the process of change. You have to be willing to get uncomfortable. You have to be willing to give it everything you’ve got.

The people in my program who do amazingly well are the ones who go all in on themselves. There are a few people who don’t do so well. And those are the people who kind of half ass it, right?

You cannot expect to accomplish anything of value in your life by half assing it, you just can’t. You have to full ass everything you do. So if you’re ready to commit to becoming the most badass version of yourself, then you’re ready for The Coaching Project.

That’s my lifetime access weight loss coaching program for runners. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. That’s all I got for you today, love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.

179. Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs to Know Part 3: Mindset

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Your mindset is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. But most people do not spend any time at all working on improving their mindset. This is crazy to me because without the …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode 179 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today: Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know, Part Three: Mindset.

Your mindset is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. But most people do not spend any time at all working on improving their mindset. This is crazy to me because without the right mindset, doing things like losing weight and keeping it off becomes nearly impossible.

However, armed with the right mindset, losing weight becomes easy, and effortless and your success is basically inevitable. Everything you want for yourself but don’t already have requires a shift in your mindset in order to get it. Change happens from the inside out, okay?

This inner work, this mindset work, is the most important and most powerful work you can do for yourself. So today, I’m going to lay out a whole bunch of mindset principles that you absolutely need to know if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

And again, this is part three of my three part series called Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know. Part One focused on nutrition principles. Part Two was all about the exercise principles you need to focus on in order to lose weight, get stronger and become the most badass version of yourself. Cool.

Alright, but first, if you have ever struggled to lose weight and keep it off, I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone, you’ve probably just been given the wrong advice, or you’re just not following any kind of plan. Alright, and it’s okay. I get it. I’ve been there, we’ve all been there.

But if you’re ready to actually do something different to actually do something to change, and follow a plan that was custom built for you and have someone there supporting you every step of the way, then I’ve got you covered. I created The Coaching Project with you in mind.

The Coaching Project is my lifetime access weight loss coaching program designed specifically for runners. You and I will work closely together to put together a custom nutrition and exercise plan to get you to your goals.

Then we meet regularly to see what’s working and what’s not and then course correct if needed. One thing you need to understand about coaching is that it’s not a one size fits all approach. There just isn’t one diet or one exercise plan that works for everyone. There just isn’t.

You are an individual, you have your own goals, needs and your own lifestyle. And I want to meet you where you are. What works for others may not work for you. So why try to force yourself into some cookie cutter program that isn’t made for you and probably won’t work for you?

So if you’re ready to stop struggling and start getting results, check out the coaching project just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. I would love to see you in The Coaching Project.

Okay, let’s get into this, the most important mindset principles runners need to know in order to lose weight and keep it off. This is like my favorite topic. As a coach I’ve worked with a lot of runners and helped them develop the mindset that allows them to to become their most badass selves to lose weight, get stronger, run faster, and become their best selves.

And the mindset work is probably the most important work that you have to do if you want to lose weight and keep it off. If you want to live a happy, healthy lifestyle easily and effortlessly, this all requires a big shift in your mindset.

Your mindset is the foundation of everything that you do. Everything that you do is built upon this foundation. With the wrong mindset though you are doomed to failure. But with the right mindset, you’d become basically unstoppable. There’s nothing you can’t do.

So I’m gonna go over a few mindset principles that runners need to know in order to lose weight and keep it off. Okay, there’s more than a few. This is very challenging for me to narrow down this list. But I don’t know, I have like 18 or 19 principles I want to share with you today. I just couldn’t I couldn’t choose just a few.

So I hope you’ll enjoy, but let’s start with the first one, and these are in no particular order, by the way. But the first one is this: your environment is everything. So when we talk about changing your environment in order to promote healthy changes in your life, like if you want to create new healthy habits, you got to change your environment.

This means changing things like what foods you keep in the kitchen and the fridge and the pantry. What’s in that snack cupboard? Do you even have a snack cupboard? You probably don’t need one. But your environment is more than just your kitchen.

Your environment is the books you read, the movies you watch, the podcasts you listen to, the audio books you listen to, the TV shows you watch. All of these things have an influence on you as a person and what you choose to do and not do and how you live your life.

We are very influenced by all these outside influences that come into us. What about the people you spend time with? You know, they say you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with?

Who do you follow on social media? What friends do you spend time with? What family members do you spend time with? You may have some toxic family members that you probably shouldn’t spend as much time with. I know sometimes that’s out of our control.

But sometimes you need to just say like I’m not gonna go over to Aunt Janet’s because she’s a little cuckoo, you know, or whatever you need to do. But these people have an influence on you, even the people you follow on social media, right?

So make sure that the people in your life are supporting you, they have your back. There are positive influences on your life, okay? They say you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you spend time with five marathon runners, you’ll probably be the sixth. If you spend time with five lean, strong human beings, five faster runners, five people who are into self improvement, you’ll probably be the sixth.

Conversely, if you spend time with five couch potatoes, five junk food junkies, you’ll probably be the sixth. Okay, so your environment is everything. It really is everything, okay?

Next one, your feelings are not in charge. Okay? And you are not your feelings. So don’t allow your feelings to drive your actions. Your brain is a powerful thing, that we don’t use it, we allow ourselves to be driven by our feelings a lot of the time.

So for example, if you’re having a stressful day, you’re feeling very stressed out about what you want to do, you just want to go drink a bunch of alcohol or eat some junk food. But listen to your mind, your mind is smarter than your feelings, your mind knows what’s good for you.

Your mind should be driving the bus, your feelings can come along for the ride, but they’re a passenger, they’re sitting in a passenger seat, they’re not allowed to drive. And we think we have to do things a certain way. Because we feel a certain way. This is just not true.

You don’t have to do anything, you can just have a feeling. So instead of being driven by your feelings, use that intuitive voice that you have inside you. Your intuition knows what’s right, or what’s wrong in any particular moment.

So let’s say you had a stressful day and you just want to eat cake for dinner. This is a feeling that’s dictating a behavior. But in that moment, there’s a part of you that’s like, this is not right. I shouldn’t be eating cake for dinner. That’s not who I want to be. That’s your intuitive voice. That’s your intuition. Listen to that voice.

Okay, your feelings are not in charge. Listen to that voice of reason. Let that drive your actions. Don’t let your feelings drive the bus. Okay? If you get good at this, this is a game changer for every aspect of your life.

All right, the next principle is this: you have to know the difference between knowledge and know how. So knowledge is knowing about something. Know how is knowing how to do that thing.

So for example, if you read books on how to swim, and you listen to, you know, podcasts about how to swim, and you read all these books, are you a swimmer? No, of course not because you’ve never been in the water. You’ve never practiced.

You’ve never, like gotten from one end of the pool to the other without having to stop and be like, oh my god, this is super hard. I did this when I was learning how to swim because I decided I was going to do my first triathlon some years ago and I signed up for a half Ironman. Who does that? Right?

I’ve never done a triathlon in my life and I’m like, I’m gonna sign up for half Ironman, how hard could it be? It’s a half, it’s a half thing, you know, so it can’t be that hard. But I really didn’t know how to swim I kind of assumed, but I wasn’t good at swimming at all. I couldn’t make it across the pool without having to stop and like catch my breath or whatever.

So I got on YouTube, and I read some books and I learned the principles of swimming but It wasn’t until I got into the pool and I practiced that, that I actually knew how to do it, it took me a long time to get good at the right form, because you have to be able to breathe on both sides.

And you have to be able to look up out of the water and sight where you’re going and keep yourself going in a straight line. Because when you’re swimming in open water, there’s no black line at the bottom of the lake or whatever to keep you on track. So you have to be able to look and so you’ve got to practice all this stuff, knowing how to do it is completely different than actually doing it. Okay.

So you got to know the difference between knowledge and know how. And when I coach people, I always kind of tell them, like, coaching is like 20% knowledge, yeah, I’m going to show you what to do to show you how to do it. But it’s like 80% application, it’s 80%, practicing these principles, it’s 80% doing the thing.

That’s how you become good at something. That’s how you develop good habits. That’s how you become a good swimmer. You know, you’ve got to practice that good form over and over and over again. But reading a book on it does not give you what you need, you’ve got to do the thing, and you’ve got to spend time doing it. Okay, so this applies.

Specifically, we’re talking about weight loss here. So we’re talking about sticking to the food plan, what works for you, what doesn’t work for you? How do you work in all this running that you want to do? How do you train for this event? And stick to your food plan and lose weight, if that’s what you want for yourself?

So it’s 20% knowledge and like, 80% application, okay, but the know how is in the doing. It’s in the practicing. It’s in the repetition. Okay.

That leads me to my next principle, which is this: You crave what you repeatedly do. So the things that are easy for you, and that you enjoy doing are probably the things you do regularly. So if you’re somebody who goes to the gym regularly, like I go to the gym most days, right?

So right now I’m in this phase where I’m going to the gym like five days a week, and I love it. I love it. There was a time in my life where going to the gym one day a week would have sucked. And I would have been like, this is stupid, I can’t believe I would have to force myself to go because I didn’t love it, because I wasn’t doing it regularly.

But those things that we continually do. We get good at, they start to fill us with joy, and we crave those things. All right. So maybe you’re somebody who runs marathons regularly, you begin to crave the training and the feeling of crossing that finish line.

Let’s look at the other side of this though. If you repeatedly eat junk food, you’re going to keep craving it more and more and more. Instead, if you start eating healthy food repeatedly, guess what? That begins to be what you crave.

I will tell you right now I crave certain foods that seem crazy to me. That like few years ago, I would have been like, who is this person, you know, like a good salad with some crispy vegetables on there. And a big steak like that is something that sounds amazing to me.

Now, if you’re not somebody that likes to eat salad, and likes to eat steak, whatever do, you do you it’s fine. But this healthy, simple food right now, I crave it, you know? So as human beings, the reason why this kind of works for us is that we perceive anything familiar as good.

So anything that seems familiar to us that we do repeatedly, we see that as good, anything unfamiliar, we see as bad. Even if that thing is not actually good for us like eating junk food as an example, right? We do this repeatedly and our brain’s just like this is good, because we do it all the time.

But we know it’s not good for us. But your brain doesn’t care. It just sees that as good because it’s something you do repeatedly. Okay. So the more you do something, the more familiar it becomes, and the more your brain perceives it as good so you begin to crave it, you crave what you repeatedly do. So choose those things wisely. Okay.

Next principle, I’ve talked about this once or twice before, embrace the suck. Listen, change is uncomfortable. Change is hard. And change, it just plain sucks sometimes. And in the ultra running community, we talk about this a lot.

There’s this concept called ‘embrace the suck’ because the suck is that point that will happen at some point during your race where you’re going to feel terrible. I don’t know when it’s going to happen. Let’s say you’re doing a 50 miler. It could happen at mile 30 or 45 or minus eight, I don’t know, but at some point, it’s going to suck. And it’s better to know this in advance to accept it. To embrace it, don’t wish it didn’t suck, don’t don’t wish it was easier because it isn’t going to be.

So accept it and embrace it. That’s the only way you’re gonna get through it. What we do here, when we’re trying to change our diet, lose weight, create better habits, become healthier, get stronger, this stuff is not easy. If it was easy, I wouldn’t have a job, I wouldn’t do what I do.

This is hard work. But it’s in the hard work that we grow, it’s in the hard work that we evolve, and we become our best selves. So don’t try to avoid the suck, don’t try to make it easier, don’t wish it was easier. You know, embrace the suck, because it will always be a part of the process. Okay?

Next principle, you have to commit to the process of change. If you want to lose weight, let’s say you wanna lose 40 pounds, and all your energy is focused on 40 pounds, I gotta get to this goal weight by this date, I’m just, you know, kind of got to hit that 40 pounds, I got 40 pounds lose.

If you just focused all of your energy on this one long term goal, you’re just going to feel kind of miserable all the time. I’m just telling you right now from experience of helping people through this kind of thing and seeing people with these weight loss goals.

And I’m just telling you that it is a miserable place to be if all you’re focused on is hitting that goal. Because your weight changes, it fluctuates, it goes up and down. And it’s just sometimes the the date that we have for a goal isn’t realistic, you know, it’s like I’m gonna lose 40 pounds in the next 60 days. I don’t think that’s realistic. I mean, it might happen. But what if it doesn’t, then you’re just disappointed. So let’s just scrap all that out.

I want you to instead commit to the process of change. What does that mean? That means doing the stuff you need to do today, and just focus on that, focus on the process of change, focus on your plan, the steps that you’re taking.

What are you doing today to move yourself towards that goal? Are you skipping dessert? Are you eating more protein, doing a HIIT workout, lifting heavy weights, saying no to fried food and sugary treats? Yeah, do those things just focus on that be in the moment, focus on the process of change instead of the end result.

Because I’ll tell you what, you’re going to enjoy that process way, way more if you just focus on the process of change, okay. And when you do this, your goal becomes inevitable, it may take a little bit longer than you want, or it may not take as long as you think it just takes what it takes, we’re all different, but you’re going to enjoy the process so much more.

So just commit to that process of change and not focused all your energy on the end result. Which leads me to my next principle, which is the gap versus the gain, you’ve got to be focused on the gain, not the gap. So the gap, what is the gap? The gap is when you’re focused on where you’re not. So let’s say you want to lose those 40 pounds.

The gap is, you know that you have 40 pounds to lose, you have 40 pounds, that 40 pounds is the gap from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. And when all of our attention and energy is focused on what we don’t have, what we haven’t accomplished, how far we have to go, that is not a good place to be.

Because you’re going to get down on yourself, you’re going to feel frustrated, it’s going to feel like this is a never ending journey. And you’re just focused on the wrong thing. Instead, I want you to focus on the gain, what’s the gain?

The gain is every little success that you have along the way. When you focus on your little successes, and these could be oh, I lost a half a pound this week. Or it could be that my pants fit a little bit better. Or, oh, I can get into those shorts that I wore last, that I couldn’t wear last summer, you know, or I just feel like I have a lot of energy today. That’s a good thing.

When we focus on the positives on the gains that we’ve made along the way, we feel more motivated to keep going. We feel more confident that this is working. We’re no longer focused on what isn’t working. We’re focused on what is and it’s like just shifting into this whole new positive mindset instead of this negative one. So stop focusing on the gap, the gap doesn’t matter.

Focus on the gain, focus on those little things you do every single day that feel good and that move you inch by inch closer to that goal. You’re going to be much happier and enjoy the process much more if you do this, okay?

Okay, next principle, it’s okay to be the weirdo at the table. I love this one. Because we are so worried about trying to fit in, and please other people, and go along, just get along with everyone just do what everybody else is doing. Stop doing that. Okay?

If you’re somebody who is like working on their weight and trying to improve their health, and you’re not just not eating junk food, but you’re going out with some friends, and they’re all want to order a bunch of junk for dinner or something like that, or a bunch of alcohol or something, you do not have to go along with that.

If you choose in that moment, though, that everybody else is getting, you know, garbage food, you know, but you’re choosing to eat a salad or, or not have the drink when everybody else is drinking, you’re going to feel like you’re a little left out like you’re the outsider, like you don’t fit in.

They may even say something to you like, Hey, why aren’t you drinking? Hey, why aren’t you eating pizza like everybody else? You know, what’s wrong with you? Come on, just live a little, you get a little peer pressure going on there.

But they may just think you’re the weirdo at the table. And I want to encourage you to just be the weirdo at the table. It’s okay. Listen, you don’t want to be like everyone else. 88% of Americans suffer from some sort of metabolic dysfunction.

We’re talking overweight, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, high cholesterol, all that stuff. These are all lifestyle diseases. And they call it metabolic dysfunction, or metabolic disease. You want to be in the 12%. The different the, the outlier, the weirdo, that is not like everybody else, okay? Just own it. Just own it.

Like be okay being the weirdo at the table. All right. Don’t be like everybody else. And we can’t please other people by our actions, you know, like, it doesn’t matter. Like, you could be the perfect person. And somebody’s not gonna like you. So it doesn’t matter, like, stop trying to please other people. It just doesn’t work. I wish it did. But it doesn’t.

Okay, next principle is this: the 90/10 rule. I love this one. I hope you do too. So we don’t have to do everything 100% perfectly. Nobody does, not even me, honestly. Instead, you’ve got to take a day off every now and then from your workouts or have a piece of cake or a piece of pizza every now and then.

Otherwise, you know, you might feel discouraged and miserable, we don’t want to be discouraged and miserable. So when I’m working with clients, I try to encourage them to follow the 90/10 rule when it comes to diet and even exercise, primarily diet.

That means that 90% or 90% of the time you are like on the money, you’re not eating sugar, you’re not eating a bunch of processed junk food, no fried food, no vegetable oil, nothing like that, right.

But then there’s that 10% of the time where you can have the cake, or a sugary treat, or some pizza or a beer or a doughnut or whatever, do what makes you happy. Right? If you can do this the right way, and this is very important, you have to be able to do this right where you can allow yourself to binge out on junk food because you have one donut gotta be able to practice restraint, right, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do cheat meals.

But if you can do this the right way, and you have a plan that you know is working for you 90% of the time, then this is something that might be sustainable for you. Right. So if we talk about 10% of your meals can be a little bit of a cheat meal kind of a thing. That means that we’re talking about one meal per week. That’s it.

So this isn’t a cheat day, this isn’t a cheat week or a cheat month. This is a cheat meal, like once a week. So I’ll tell you like and I don’t do this once a week, but probably once or twice a month I get like tacos, that’s my thing. I just love tacos full of chips and salsa and guacamole and, and I get tacos.

And so that is what I consider my cheat meal. I do that once every other week or something like that. And it makes it so enjoyable to live this way. You know because the other 90% of the tim my diet is on point. Right?

But then I get to you know, enjoy something that is hyper palatable food that’s Uber delicious. I know it’s not super good for me. But at the same time it’s so small the amount of tortilla chips that I eat versus you know how much good clean food I’m eating that it doesn’t have a big effect on me. Okay.

Which leads me to my next principle: Whatever you do, it has to be sustainable for you. That means that it has to be enjoyable for you, or else you won’t want to do it. And if you don’t want to do it, and it’s a miserable process, and you feel like you’re deprived all the time, you’re not going to stick with it.

Sustainability means that you have a plan that you follow for life, like this is not short term. This is for good, right? not temporary. This is just how you do things from here on out. Okay. So this has to do with the foods you eat, how you exercise, all that stuff.

So if you’re trying to follow some plan that says you can never have sugar again, in any form the rest of your life, and you have to run every single day. Like, to me that sounds terrible. Because there’s going to be a moment where I’m going to be like, oh, it’s like Christmas, I really want to have this Christmas cookie that my kids made for me or something.

Or, you know, I’m kind of tired. And I feel like I need to take a day off, but I can’t because I’m on this plan. Like that’s not sustainable. Right? So whatever you have to do, you have to enjoy it. And it has to be sustainable.

That’s why when I work with new people, we come up with a plan and we always have the discussion about what foods do you love. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about putting together a plan that includes a lot of those foods that you love, so that you’re more likely to stick with it.

Which leads me into my next principle, which is consistency beats perfection. Do not focus on perfection. Nobody does this perfectly. Instead, focus on consistent consistency. Over time, that’s what’s gonna get you there. That’s what’s gonna make a huge difference for you. Okay?

When you focus on perfection, you beat yourself up every time you go off the plan. And this leads to self doubt, and a lack of motivation and giving up on yourself. Instead, practice consistency, you make a plan, and then you stick to the plan even when you don’t feel like it. It’s that simple.

You don’t go ballistic on yourself if you mess up because you are going to mess up and it’s okay. Here’s a good rule of thumb to follow: never have two cheat meals in a row. Never miss two workouts in a row.

That means if you do have that one cheat meal that next meal, you are right back on plan again. That means if you missed that workout, the next scheduled workout you make that workout no matter what.

You know, maybe you didn’t feel like running because you were super tired. It’s not a big deal. But you got to hit that next workout no matter what. Same with the food plan, right next meal, you’re back on track. Consistency over time is what’s going to get you there because nobody does it perfectly. So don’t think you have to do it perfectly. And don’t think that anybody does it perfectly, because nobody does.

Alright, next principle is this, you have to take radical responsibility. So this means that you cannot be a blamer or a complainer. Most people have a very hard time sticking with some kind of a diet or exercise plan. And they will have all kinds of stories and reasons and excuses. And they will blame everything and everyone else for why they can’t stick to their plan.

I had a job change, or my hours changed at work, or my kids are home for the summer or my husband doesn’t eat the same foods as me or is too cold outside, or it’s too hot outside, or Mercury’s in retrograde or whatever. These are all just excuses. And I could go on and on. I’ve heard every excuse in the world, you know.

And I want to tell you to just stop it with the stories. Stop it with the reasons stop it with the excuses, stop blaming everybody else. Start taking radical responsibility for your own results or lack of results. If you want to lose weight, and you want to maybe run faster, and you really want this for yourself, then take the responsibility of doing the work to get those things. No excuses.

No more blaming anyone or anything that’s outside of you. If it’s to be it’s up to me. Have you heard that quote before? I don’t know who said that. But I love it. If it’s to be it’s up to me that means you got to do it. It’s your fault. If it works, it’s your fault. If it doesn’t work, it’s your fault. Just take responsibility, good or bad.

If you’re getting good results take responsibility. If you’re not, take responsibility. Don’t blame anybody else. So here’s the thing: when you start doing this, when you start taking radical responsibility for every result you’re getting or not getting in your life, it becomes a game changer.

This is like total freedom for you because you’re no longer allowing anything outside of you to control what you’re doing or not doing or stop you from becoming who you truly want to be. This is a very beautiful empowering place to be, okay? People who take radical responsibility, get results, period. Okay?

Next principle, coaching is only for people who can’t do it on their own. So this is actually a myth. This is not something that I want you to follow. But I want you to just hear me on this. I hear people talk about coaching. And they think that coaching means that it is only for people who have no willpower, no discipline, and who just can’t do stuff on their own.

And I just have to tell you, this is not true at all. I was always somebody who’s very disciplined, I trained for an Ironman Ironman on my own. I trained for a 50 mile race on my own, 100 mile race on my own, countless marathons, countless ultra marathons, all on my own. And I was fine with all that I did great with all that.

Now, there was a blind spot that I had, when it came to nutrition, I did not have a plan that was working for me, I didn’t know what to do. And I didn’t have anybody helping me. And I thought I could figure it out myself. And I just couldn’t, I tried everything. And I really couldn’t.

Nothing really clicked for me until I got some coaching. Once I got some coaching, I had a custom plan that was designed for me, I had a lot of say in how I wanted to make this work. And I began doing the mindset work I needed to do to make this a lifestyle. And that was never going to happen on my own.

I learned a lot of the mindset principles I’m sharing with you today from various coaches that I’ve worked with. And doing this inner work has been the game changer for me. And the other thing I have to tell you is that the best coaches have coaches.

I work with a lot of coaches, there’s a lot of people that are clients of mine who coach other people. Some of them coach them on health and nutrition and diet and running and exercise. Some of them are life coaches and things like that. The point is, though, the best coaches have coaches.

So coaching isn’t just for people who can’t do it on their own, coaching is for anybody that wants to improve, and that wants the help and the guidance and the support to basically make those results inevitable. Okay.

Which leads me to my next principle, which is this change happens from the inside out, right? It’s this inner work, these mindset principles I’m sharing with you today, for example, this is the inner work that you have to do, you cannot expect to change by simply like, Oh, I’m just going to run more miles or I’m going to eat, you know, these 10 foods.

Yeah, you’ll change temporarily, like some of that you might be able to lose some weight, if you change your diet a little bit. But permanent change, it’s a whole different thing, a whole different thing. You have to fix your mindset. If you want long lasting change to happen, you have to do the inner work.

That’s why so much of my coaching program is focused on this inner work, on the mindset work. Because change happens from the inside out, it doesn’t happen the other way around. It doesn’t happen from the outside in. It’s not like oh, I’m going to make all these changes and I’m going to lose this weight. And I’m going to run faster, I’m gonna get stronger. And then I’ll have this great mindset.

Nope, it happens the other way around. You improve your mindset. First, you adopt a powerful, successful mindset. And then you become powerful and successful because of that. Okay, so just remember that change happens from the inside out, not the other way around.

Alright, next principle is this: you need to become an emotional badass. So human beings, we are emotional beings. It’s normal and natural for us to experience a wide variety of emotions and we have emotions that we call negative and some that we call positive.

We love the positive emotions you know love joy, happiness, ecstasy, calmness, peacefulness. These are all what we would consider positive emotions. But we hate the negative ones, fear stress, anxiety, guilt, shame.

All these are what we would call negative emotions. And we love feeling the positive emotions but we try to repress the negative ones. We try to push them down. We numb ourselves out to those negative emotions. We don’t want to feel those things, emotions and feelings same things right. So we numb ourselves to those feelings.

And how do we do that? We use food, we use alcohol, we use shopping, sex, gambling, drugs, and on and on and on. There’s so many things, scrolling through social media as a way of numbing ourselves. The two most common ones, and the ones that I help people with a lot, are the food and alcohol.

Those are like the two kind of most common ways that we numb ourselves. So if you’re trying to lose weight, and you’re eating, to make yourself feel better, you got to learn how to stop doing that you got to learn how to stop soothing yourself, or numbing yourself with food, or alcohol.

Because you’ve probably been using food as an emotional management tool for way too long and has to stop. If you want to become healthier, leaner, stronger, you got to change your whole relationship with food. So the real work actually begins when you stop using food as an emotional management tool, when you stop using food to numb yourself when you stop using food to feel better.

Now, you got to feel all these emotions, hmm, that does not feel good. That is the stuff that we actually have to deal with. So when I talk about becoming an emotional badass, that means that you have to get good at having those emotions and experiencing the feelings, that you have all of them without doing anything to make them go away without eating over them. And it sounds easy enough, right?

Okay, you stop emotional eating, you’ve got some emotions you’ve got to deal with, you just deal with those, and then you’re good to go. Sounds easy. But this is the work. This is the hard work and some of the hardest work that we do in the coaching project.

You know, I guarantee that most coaches out there and most programs out there are not going to help you in this area. Especially people that are helping runners and stuff like that, like it’s just not on their radar to help people in this way.

Most coaches don’t know how to help you stop the emotional eating and what to do instead, right. They, most coaches, are just like eat this, don’t eat that. Run this many miles, whatever. I do things a little bit differently, just so you know. So we have feelings. And we have to feel those feelings, we have to be able to feel them, we have to be able to process them, we have to be able to learn from them without eating because of that without drinking because of them.

And honestly, this is probably one of the most important life skills that you can and should learn. Because when you become an emotional badass, you’re no longer afraid to experience any emotion, positive, negative, whatever, like you’re, you’re just like grinding it all on, you become unstoppable. There’s nothing that you can’t do. There’s nothing that you can’t accomplish.

Most people don’t want to try to lose weight because they’re afraid they’re going to fail. And then they’re going to feel bad about themselves. That’s why they don’t do it. They’re afraid they’re going to fail. And they’re going to feel bad about themselves. They’re afraid of a feeling they’re afraid of feeling that feeling.

But what if you weren’t afraid to feel the feeling? There’s just like, nothing you wouldn’t be willing to try. So you got to become an emotional badass, just know that. Okay. Next on my list of principles that every runner needs to know, is the idea of a fixed versus a growth mindset. A fixed mindset.

So this is where your brain and your mindset is basically fixed. This is who I am. This is how I’ve always done things. This is how I will continue to do things I cannot change. And end of story. And I’m being sort of funny about this, but so many people think that their mindset is fixed. That’s just, this is the way I do things.

Oh, I’ve got a sweet tooth. I’m an emotional eater. You know, I’m a stress eater, whatever. But you don’t have to be that way. You can change. But if you’re stuck in that fixed mindset, it is going to stifle your growth, it’s going to cause a lot of stress in your life. It does kind of let you off the hook though.

Because you don’t really have to do anything, or stick with anything because you’re never going to like get better or improve anyway. So you don’t really need to bother with any of that stuff. It basically keeps you stuck and small. The fixed mindset is not where you want to be. You want to adopt a growth mindset.

A growth mindset is like I’m always learning, I’m always growing. I’m always improving. I’m always becoming more. I’m always capable of growth. I’m always open to change and learning and growing. This opens you up to amazing new experiences and opportunities. It helps you to try new things even though you might fail. But you know that you can try because you might also succeed. And so why not just try?

So the growth mindset is one that you have to adopt, if you want to change. If there’s anything you want to improve in your life, you can’t do it with a fixed mindset, you have to have that growth mindset, okay? So you have to adopt that. And you will be able to accomplish great things in your life, right? But with that fixed mindset, you’re going to just kind of stay where you are, you don’t want that.

Alright, next principle is this. Taking aligned action is the key. So this means that you have to take consistent aligned action, if you want to create progress, what is consistent aligned action. So aligned action is actions that are in alignment with your long term goals.

So if you want to lose weight, one of your actions that would be in alignment with that goal is like, I’m just not going to eat ice cream for dessert every night, boom, okay, doing that action. In this case, it’s not doing something that is in alignment with who you want to be. And when you take consistent aligned action, you make progress, you’ll start to see the weight coming off of you. Cool.

Well, making progress helps you to build confidence, you’re like, Oh, I’m doing this, I can actually do this. And that confidence creates motivation to keep going and take more aligned action. And this is the cycle of motivation. This is the cycle that you want to stay in.

All right, taking consistent aligned action, making progress, building confidence, being motivated to continue to take more aligned action, that’s the cycle you want to be in. There is another cycle that most people kind of find themselves in, by the way, and this is the cycle of demotivation, where you take misaligned action, so action that is not in alignment with your long term goals.

I want to lose weight, but you know what, I’m going to eat twice as much ice cream every night for dessert. That would be called misaligned action. Misaligned action causes misaligned results or lack of progress. So you start gaining weight, you want to lose weight, but you’re gaining weight. And that lack of progress causes doubt and worry and uncertainty and a loss of confidence. And that lack of confidence causes you to be demotivated.

So you’re no longer motivated to keep going. So you just quit. Have you ever experienced that? And I know I have. But I want to tell you something. Just don’t do that. Take consistent aligned action. If you’re not taking consistent aligned action, ask yourself why?

Why am I not doing the right thing in this moment? Maybe go back to that intuitive, asking yourself intuitively, like what is right in this moment, okay, because you know, you know what’s right.

Next principle is this: never, ever, ever, ever give up. People who are successful at losing weight, know that it takes some time to get the results that they want. So they don’t quit when they have a weight loss stall or a plateau. They keep going day in and day out. They keep doing the work, they keep showing up for themselves. And they never give up no matter what. They’ve committed to the process of change, and they keep going no matter how long it takes.

What if you adopted this mindset around one key area of your life like weight loss? What could you accomplish? How much weight could you lose? If you just never quit? What if you applied this principle to every area of your life, you could transform yourself into a whole new person no joke.

So commit to becoming the healthiest and most badass version of yourself. And then never, ever, ever give up. You don’t quit when it gets hard. You don’t quit when you get tired. You only quit when you’re done. Okay.

Which leads me to my last principle, which is this there is no finish line, you’re never done. I hope this doesn’t bum you out. Really, I hope it doesn’t. But there is no finish line. This is a lifestyle. You know, weight loss, getting healthy, becoming our best selves isn’t a destination we’re trying to get to, there isn’t a finish line, you’re going to cross and then you’re going to be like, oh, cool, I can rest and relax now and eat whatever I want.

No, it doesn’t work that way. We commit to these principles. We commit to this lifestyle. And it is a lifestyle. It’s the lifestyle that we live our life from here on out. So there is no “done”. There is no finish line. We just keep going. We keep showing up for ourselves because it’s the right thing to do.

We keep improving and growing and evolving and becoming more because it’s the right thing to do. Because we want to constantly transform ourselves. We don’t want to stay where we are. We don’t want to be the same person in 10 years that we are today.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always growing and evolving and I couldn’t look back where I was two three years ago and go, gosh, I’m like a different person today. And it’s because I kept showing up for myself every single day. A day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year.

When you have this principle, there is no finish line that this is just the work we do and it continues. This is a game changer because this just becomes a part of your identity. Being healthy, exercising, eating right, it just becomes a part of your identity becomes part of who you are and what you do. It’s not a struggle. It’s not hard. You’re not missing out on anything. It’s just what you do. It’s who you are.

Okay, just remember, there is no finish line, this work continues. Okay. I hope you’ve enjoyed this three part series called Weight Loss Principles Every Runner Needs To Know. You can really listen these three episodes anytime you need a little refresher course on what to do to kind of get yourself back on track.

Next week on the podcast, I’m going to be recapping my recent 12 hour ultra marathon, how I trained for it, my nutrition plan during the event, what went well, what didn’t go so well. lessons I learned and lots more. So that should be a fun one. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast and whatever podcast app you use so you never miss a future episode, okay.

And then if you’re a runner and you’re ready to lose the weight for good, then I have something that you need to check out, I put together a brand new free training program called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner.

I’ll teach you how to lose weight the right way and keep it off for good without the suffering and the deprivation or running a million miles a week. And just like you know, this is about more than just losing weight. It’s about not doing the same things over and over expecting different results.

It’s about changing your whole relationship with diets and nutrition and exercise. It’s about becoming the healthiest version of yourself from the inside out. And it’s about changing your mindset and creating new habits that last for life.

So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, if you’re ready to run faster, run longer and become the healthiest version of yourself yet. Check out this free training, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. There’s never going to be a better time than right now to get started, that’s runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.

168. Dealing With Criticism

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One of the biggest fears you face when you set out to better yourself is the fear of being criticized. You want to lose weight but you are so afraid of what people will say about you that you quit …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 168, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: dealing with criticism. One of the biggest fears you face when you set out to better yourself is a fear of being criticized. You may want to lose weight, but then you’re afraid of what people will say about you.

And so you quit or you never even start in the first place. The fear of being criticized is one of the main three reasons why most people don’t succeed with losing weight, or with really accomplishing anything big for that matter. The other two are the fear of failure and the fear of success, which I talked about in the last two episodes of the podcast.

So today, I’m taking a comprehensive look at the fear of being judged and criticized and how dealing with criticism might be one of the most important things you do on your journey to becoming your best self. But first, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight and failed, you’re probably worried that you’re going to fail. Again, this is very common for most people.

Just because you’ve tried and failed in the past, though, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again, your past does not determine your future. The real problem is that being so afraid to fail means that you don’t ever try anything new. You don’t ever try. You don’t ever start anything. And the only surefire way to actually fail is to never start in the first place. Right?

So in my coaching program, we look at failure in a whole new way. We never expect to do this stuff perfectly. Nobody does. We accept that failure is part of the process. So we fail. We learn our lessons from it, and then we move on. Every success is built upon a big ol pile of failures.

So don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Just start. Imagine what you could accomplish if you weren’t afraid to fail. To learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. All right.

So I’ve been thinking about this episode for a while now since I’ve started talking about the three big reasons why people don’t achieve their goals. So this is the third episode in that series. So the first one was the fear of success, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Last week, we talked about the fear of failure. And then today I’m addressing the third big reason why people don’t succeed, or don’t achieve their goals, which is a fear of being criticized.

So what is the fear of being criticized? What is this all about? Well, fear of being criticized as being afraid of what people are saying about you. So you’re afraid that people are going to think negative thoughts about you, or say negative things about you? It’s not really a fear of being criticized positively. Get out. It’s like, Oh, I’m so afraid that people are talking wonderfully about me.

No, it’s a fear of being negatively talked about negative feelings towards you negative thoughts towards you. It’s a fear of being judged, being judged unfairly. And we all judge people unfairly all the time, then you might be thinking to yourself, but, but those people shouldn’t judge me like that. They don’t know me, they don’t know my story. None of that stuff matters, people look at what they see on the outside.

Then you might say something, you might put a picture out there on social media, and you’re gonna get judged. So welcome to Reality. It’s just part of being a human being, unfortunately. But a fear of being criticized, the fear of being negatively thought about, or maybe somebody has negative feelings towards you, or says negative things to you, writes a negative comment about you.

And really, it’s a fear of being seen as well. It’s a fear of being exposed, of being vulnerable. We don’t like to put ourselves out there. We don’t like being vulnerable. And here’s why. Here’s where this fear comes from: this fear that we have about being criticized and being vulnerable and being exposed and being judged.

It all comes from, you know, this ancient ancestral fear of being kicked out of the tribe, like it’s that we, it’s that fear of being alone. And the fear of not being a part of this is really what’s at the root of all of this, okay? This is something that’s baked into our DNA. So for millions of years, it was certain death to be kicked out of the tribe, if you were shunned from the tribe, it meant that you had to go it alone.

And going in alone, in those days was pretty dangerous. You needed the safety, the safety and the protection from the people around you, to help you hunt and help you gather food and help you stave off enemies and animals and things like that. So being alone meant that you were probably going to die.

So this fear of being criticized when we get criticized, or somebody says something negatively towards us, it kind of feels like we’re being kicked out of the tribe, like we’re not a part of, we’re different. We’re being shunned. We’re being exposed for who we really are. And those people don’t like that. They don’t like who we really are. Okay. So, how this shows up for us today, you know, obviously, we’re not afraid of being kicked out of the tribe, so to speak, like literally or being eaten by saber toothed tigers, I hope that’s not an issue we have to deal with.

Most of us listening to this podcast probably don’t have to deal with that. But this could be something where you have been working to better yourself. So maybe you are working on losing weight, and you start running, and you’re feeling pretty good. And you’re feeling confident. And you know, you’re starting to feel more like oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna share my story, I’m gonna put some pictures up there on social media and kind of talk about my journey here.

And you might get some positive comments. And you might get a lot of positive comments, and no might make you feel good, you know, but then you’ll get that one person that says something negatively, or is critical of you. And you, it makes you feel terrible, because you don’t really focus, we don’t ever focus on all the 20 or 30 positive comments we get, we focus on the one negative one, that’s the only one that really stands out where we’re like, why they’re saying something bad about me.

So people can be really, people are mean, people are idiots, and people are mean sometimes that’s the bottom line, right. And when we’re dealing with stuff online, especially, you’re dealing with a bunch of people who are, who don’t feel good about themselves, and they just want to put other people down.

And so you’re gonna get some criticism, you’re gonna get, if you put yourself out there, you’re vulnerable, you’re seen, you’re gonna get judged, whether people are judging you internally, or externally by like actually writing some sort of a negative comment. But you’re being judged, no matter what, whether you see comments from people or not, they are criticizing you internally, they are judging you. And, and we just have to accept this. We have to accept this, okay.

They’re critical of you for wanting to better yourself. I know, it’s crazy. Like I said, people are stupid. They’ll make fun of you for not eating junk food, or like not drinking alcohol. Really, really, that’s not a thing. So why do people do this to us? Like, why are people critical of us? Well, mostly, it’s because they don’t feel good about themselves. You know, so they kind of hate themselves.

They hate where they are, they hate how maybe they let themselves go. And so when you try to improve yourself, and you start losing weight, and you start looking better, and you start feeling better, then saying something negative about you, will help make them feel better about themselves. They feel bad about themselves. So they’re trying to make you feel bad too. And this doesn’t really work. And the people that do this kind of stuff are generally pretty miserable. People will talk about that in just a minute.

But the reason people do this is that they’re just trying to pull you down to where they are, right? So there’s this story, principle, whatever you want to call, it’s called crabs in a bucket. And if you’ve ever seen fishermen like catching crabs, they will put them in a bucket. And if you put one crab in that bucket, it will eventually be able to pull itself up by its little claw or whatever, and then pull itself out of the bucket.

But if you put a bunch of crabs in the bucket, as soon as one starts to pull itself up, other ones will grab it and pull it down and keep it in the bucket. So the crabs will be able to climb out of the bucket. I don’t know if this is actually true in practice or not. But let’s just use this as our analogy here today, okay.

People are just like crabs in a bucket, you know, they want to pull you down so that you don’t, you know, you don’t advance that you don’t get out of the bucket, they don’t want to see you doing well, they don’t want to see you improving yourself, they don’t want to see you losing weight, and looking better and feeling better about yourself, they just want to pull you down to where they are.

So one thing we have to understand about this is that criticism and judgment, this stuff does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up, you will have people who have improved themselves and who are successful. You will not have those people criticizing other people who are trying to improve themselves and who are working on being successful, they just don’t do it.

Successful people don’t put other people down, emotionally evolved, people don’t spend any time putting other people down writing negative comments on people’s posts and things like that. Think about somebody like Oprah Winfrey, sitting behind her keyboard and writing some sort of like crappy little comments about you online, that’s just never gonna happen. It’s never gonna happen. Why? Because she doesn’t hate herself. She doesn’t need to put others down so that she feels better. She’s an emotionally evolved woman, I’m assuming.

I have a lot of respect for Oprah. And she doesn’t need to do that because she’s a successful woman, successful people, people who are working to better themselves do not spend time writing negative stuff about other people. They just don’t need to do that. Okay. And then there’s a big difference here. Now, listen, this is important because there’s a big difference between when we’re talking about randos on the internet, and then the real people in your life, people that are important to you.

For the randos, for the people that are just randomly writing negative comments about you, people that maybe you are friends with on Facebook, or that follow you on Instagram, just forget about those people, they don’t mean anything to you, right. And if you’re friends with these people, and they are doling out some criticism to you about what you’re doing, you’re trying to improve yourself, and you got people that are sending negative energy your way, then unfollow those people, unfriend those people block those people get their energy out of your life, you don’t need that, get rid of them. Okay, so let’s just start there.

For the people in your life, who you actually know, this would be spouses, partners, friends, family members, coworkers, kids, even, there will be some people in your life who are critical of you, who don’t fully support you. They may not be on board with your goals and dreams. We have to accept this, we have to accept that there will be people in our life, maybe people that are close to us who don’t support us.

Now, in this case, it’s a little bit different. We can take some of these, you know, if we’re talking about your partner, or a family or a close family member, you know, you can take some of their criticism and really say like, is this, maybe I need to work on this, this could be something that I need to improve and work on. And yeah, maybe they’re right. Maybe I am, you know, being ridiculous here or whatever, right?

So there are times when you want to take some of this criticism to heart and really look inside and see like, is there truth to this, you know, a lot of times there isn’t. A lot of times, it’s just people that are even though they love you and they’re close with you, they feel uncomfortable when you start to move ahead. I see this a lot with partners, like spouses, husbands and wives who want to better themselves and they start losing weight and they start eating better, and they start feeling better, and they’re running and they’re getting healthy and they feel great.

And their partner is not doing those things and their partners kind of feeling left behind. And they will kind of lash out at the spouse that’s doing better and want to pull them down crabs in a bucket, you know. And so sometimes we have to look at some of those relationships and decide if we want to stay in that relationship.

Now I’m not telling you to go leave your partner or anything like that, but just like sometimes we may need to find new people to hang around. If the people we’re hanging around are critical of us and they’re negative towards us, and they’re judging us, you know We can’t control what other people think or feel or what they say or what they do nothing, right. But you don’t have to hang around that and you don’t have to be a part of it. Okay?

So I forget who said it, maybe Jim Rohn said, like you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. If you spend enough time with four millionaires, you’ll probably be the fifth, if you spend enough time with four criminals, you’ll probably be the fifth. Spend enough time with four people who are ultra marathoners, and you’ll probably end up running an ultra marathon at some point, right?

When I quit drinking, which was, gosh, almost 16 years ago, now, I had to get a whole new group of friends because all the friends that I had were people that I drank with, and people who drank a lot. And for me like to go and hang out with those people was very challenging. And I realized that when, when I was sober, like they weren’t that great of friends anyway. I was like, wow, we don’t have a whole lot to talk about here. We don’t have a whole lot in common.

I think I needed to start getting some new friends. And that was hard. That was a hard transition to go through, where I started, you know, have to kind of find new people to hang around with and stuff like that. But listen, here’s what I’m trying to say. If there are people in your life, who don’t support you fully, who aren’t on board with your health and fitness goals, they don’t want you to lose weight. They make fun of you for eating the way you do.

You know, you go out to dinner, and you’re like, oh, no, thanks. I’m not going to have the bread. And they’re like, what seriously? Or if you don’t drink, and they’re like making fun of you for not drinking and trying to push drinks on you or something like that? Are these people really your friends? Do you really want to spend more time with these people? Think about that.

Do you want to spend more time with those people? And if the answer is no, then don’t. Like if you can avoid it, like don’t spend time with those people. Maybe you need some new friends, new friends are great. It’s great having new friends. And then here’s a good reality check for you, just understand that people already don’t like you.

There are already lots of people out there who don’t like you who don’t like me. And you cannot make anyone like you. You certainly can’t make everyone like you. So if you think that everybody in your world, in your sphere of influence, all your friends and friends of friends and everything is going to like you, you’re mistaken, because they already don’t.

You can’t control what other people think, or say or feel or what they do. All you can control is how you think, feel and act. That’s it. So don’t worry about any of that stuff. Don’t worry about the fact that there are people who don’t like you, like those people, just there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can do about it. Okay?

Do not let your fear of being criticized or judged, stop you from becoming the person you want to be. You know what it takes to grow, evolve and become more? It takes trying hard things, and maybe failing and risking criticism all along the way. It takes being willing to be vulnerable, because vulnerability is the cost of growth.

So how willing are you to put yourself out there and possibly be criticized to be seen maybe for the first time ever to be really seen to be judged? How willing are you to be criticized because there’s no way you’re going to do great things and become more without judgment, criticism. In fact, the more you achieve, the more you are going to be criticized.

So most people are not willing to do this. Most people just want to say stay small, they want to stay unnoticed. Because their fear of being criticized or judged is too big. So they want to stay and be criticized and judged. People already see you though, they’re already judging you whether or not you know it. They’re already criticizing you, whether they say it out loud or not. So you might as well do your thing and like kick some ass along the way. Okay.

I get criticized pretty regularly. And as I get more exposure, more people listen to this podcast and follow me on social media, whatever, I get more criticism. All throughout my weight loss journey. I’ve posted pictures and I’ve shared my story. I’ve shared a lot about myself here on this podcast too. And occasionally, I’ll get some negative comments or like a negative review on iTunes podcast, Apple podcast or whatever.

And I’m gonna go off on a little rant here because the reason I get these I’ll get a one star review and I’m like, what, really on Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever and I’ll look at the review and it’ll say They like, oh, this guy is just, you know, talking about his coaching program on the podcast. So one star.

You know, listen, I put my heart and soul into this podcast and it takes me hours and hours every single week to do this. And I do it nonstop. I have not missed a week in like three years of doing this. And I made a decision early on in the, whatever journey of this podcast, where I wasn’t going to advertise stuff on this podcast.

So a lot of podcasts you listen to will advertise stuff like every 10 minutes, like you got another ad that pops up, right. I’ve even listened to podcasts where I had to sit through 20 minutes of them advertising different products and stuff, before they actually got into the interview or whatever it is they were going to be talking about. Right? I talk about my program. I do it for like 30 seconds. Have you ever listened to a podcast without advertising? No, there aren’t any, there aren’t any.

It’s like going to the movies and complaining about giving the movie a one star review because they advertise popcorn and coke at the beginning of the movie. Stupid, it’s stupid. I’m tired of it. Alright, so this is my little rant here. I’m in integrity with what I’m doing on this podcast. And I feel really, really good about how I do things here. Okay, so I just wanted to say that okay, I’m done with that now. So I had to be okay.

And I’m okay now with these negative reviews, because for every one like negative I get, I get like 20 or 30 positive reviews, right? So I get criticized, and it’s been one of those processes where early on it kind of stung a little bit. I was like, oh, he’s paying up someone like me, oh, my gosh, what am I doing now? It doesn’t matter.

You know, I get criticized for how I look for pictures, I have people body shaming me, I get body shaming comments from idiots on the internet, I just don’t worry about it, I just blow it off, right? Here’s the important thing. I don’t let the criticism stop me from fulfilling my mission. You know, my mission is to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire you to do the same.

My prime directive is to always become more to always improve myself to grow, evolve, become more, the more I grow. The more criticism I get, the more I put myself out there, the more I am seen, and judged and criticized. But I do not let my fear of this criticism stop me from what I’m doing. I just keep going. So do not let the fear of being seen, judged or criticized stop you from becoming more.

Do not allow your fear of critical criticism to stop you from going after your goals and your dreams. You want to lose weight, you will be criticized. You want to run a marathon, people will judge you for it. You want to stop drinking alcohol, you know, people will see that and they will call you crazy or stupid until you’re no fun anymore or whatever.

Do not let any of this get in your way. Do not let any of this stop you from doing what you know, feels good. What you know it’s right for you. Remember, emotionally evolved people don’t spend time criticizing and judging others. The people who do this are typically people who are not where they want to be. They are definitely afraid to try anything that will cause them to get criticized. They are the crabs in the bucket that will just pull you down.

So stay away from the crabs, get the crabs out of your life, do the things you want to do because they’re important to you. They’re meaningful to you. They cause you to level up, keep digging, keep taking action to fulfill your purpose. And you just have to accept all the criticism and all the judgment along the way. It’s the price you pay to become your most badass self. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

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

159. Always Becoming More with Natasha Sorensen

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

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Podcast Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natasha Sorenson
Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natasha Sorenson
Yes, yes.

Patrick McGilvray
Physically, too?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natasha Sorenson
2019.

Patrick McGilvray
Okay, so not that long ago.

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

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

Natasha Sorenson
I feel very uncomfortable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natasha Sorenson
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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

136. How to Avoid Weight Loss Discomfort

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Lots of runners come to me for help losing weight, getting stronger, and running faster. One common question that keeps coming up is, “How do I lose weight without all the discomfort?” They want …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode 136 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: how to avoid weight loss discomfort. Lots of runners come to me because they want help losing weight, they want help getting stronger and running faster. One common question that keeps coming up is how do I lose weight without all the discomfort?

So they want to make big sweeping changes to their health and fitness, but they want to avoid feeling uncomfortable during the process. I get that. Totally. That was definitely me. Back in the day, I was always looking for shortcuts and hacks, anything that could help me lose weight that would help me get to my goal weight without feeling any kind of discomfort, or I wanted all the gains without any of the pains.

But this is not how things work in the real world. So in this episode, I’m going to take a look at what it actually takes to reach a weight loss goal. I’ll also share the secret of how to avoid weight loss discomfort. And avoiding weight loss discomfort, avoiding the discomfort of change is something that I am very familiar with, and something that a lot of people want help with.

And what they really want though, is they want help overcoming or getting through the uncomfortable bits. Because I think we all know that it takes some discomfort in order to grow and to change and to lose weight and to get healthier and to get stronger. Like all those things that we want for ourselves. You know that it does require you to get uncomfortable.

This is one of the reasons why I created my coaching program. And why I do personalized coaching is because we all need a little help getting through those uncomfortable places. This does not mean that the rest of your life has to be riddled with discomfort. And that you’re setting yourself up for a life of discomfort. That’s not what we’re talking about at all here.

But when we’re making changes when we’re growing, when we’re changing, when we’re improving our body composition, all of those things require a certain amount of discomfort. Because what you have right now where you are right now in your comfort zone isn’t what you want for yourself like this is easy, you know how to do what you’re doing now.

But in order to get to that next level, whether it’s running faster, getting stronger, losing 30, 40, 50 pounds, it requires some level of discomfort, okay? This is why I do personalized coaching. I’ve created an immersive coaching program that delivers all the knowledge, all the support, the encouragement, the inspiration, the motivation and accountability that you need to stay on track, to improve your health to make changes that last permanently.

This isn’t about quick fixes. This isn’t about losing weight as fast as possible. And I’m going to tell you right now, this is not about doing it without any discomfort. This is about learning how to lean into the discomfort so that you can become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself. And you can do it in a way that is sustainable. That’s what we’re all looking for here.

Anybody can lose weight quickly for a short period of time. We’ve all done that. But then you put the weight back on. Anybody can get a little bit strong or a little bit faster. But what if you want to PR? What if you want to BQ? You know what, if you want to radically improve your body composition, you’re gonna have to lean into some serious discomfort.

So if you’re ready for those kinds of big changes, if you’re ready to finally drop the weight and keep it off for good, if you’re ready to get stronger, to look better, to run faster, to run longer than you ever have before; then you’re ready for the Running Lean coaching project. There is an application process to join this program. You can just fill out a short application, schedule a free Zoom call with me. We’ll talk about your goals and we’ll see if this is a good fit for you.

It may not be but if you’re interested, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply, fill out the application, you and I will get on a call, and we’ll talk about it. Cool, I would love for you to join me in the Running Lean coaching project, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. And we’ll see you there soon.

Okay, so this whole idea of leaning into discomfort is what we’re talking about today. And I titled this episode how to avoid weight loss discomfort, because I think that’s something we all want. And I will actually tell you, at the end of this episode, how you can avoid that discomfort.

But I want to, I want to like, first of all talk about how we really need to change our way of thinking around this, okay, so when people come to me, and they tell me that they, that they want things to be easy for them, they want things to be as comfortable as possible. So this is what they think they want, they think they want weight loss to be easy, they want it to be easy and effortless. They don’t want to give up anything, they want to continue to eat their favorite foods.

They don’t want to experience any level of discomfort whatsoever. And the truth is that this is just not the way things work in the real world. If you want to lose weight, you’re going to have to make some changes to your diet. If you want to run faster, you’re going to have to practice running faster. And these things do not feel good.

These things are by their very nature, they are uncomfortable things to do, because they’re pushing you out of your comfort zone. So people think they want weight loss to be easy. They think they want running faster to be easy. What they also want is they want to lose all this weight, they want to run a Boston Qualifying time, they want to look better, they want to feel better, and they want to do it without any kind of discomfort whatsoever.

And I think this is an interesting concept. But here’s the thing, you’re just you cannot have both. You cannot stay comfortable, and become more, it just doesn’t work that way. Think about everything you’ve done in your life that you’re proud of, or anything you’ve gotten through in your life. That was hard, but maybe profoundly changed you. Maybe you’ve had a child, or three, maybe you’ve raised a child through the teenage years, that’s some hard stuff right there.

Maybe you’ve run a marathon, or a half marathon or a 5k, or an ultra marathon or an Ironman or whatever. Maybe you’ve built a healthy relationship with a significant other. This is very hard work. This is years and years of work. Maybe you’ve gotten through a divorce or a health scare or a health diagnosis like cancer, maybe you’ve had a loved one passed away, like a parent, or a friend, or sibling or child.

All of these things have a profound effect on you. All these things change us profoundly. And I’ve said before, it’s the challenges that change us. It’s the challenges that teach us lessons. It’s through these challenges that growth happens. And none of this stuff is easy. It’s all hard. All of this stuff is hard to do.

But it’s those challenges that actually cause us to learn and grow and to evolve and to become more. It’s the challenges that change us. I hate that it works that way. I really do. I wish it was easier. I wish we could learn lessons from just reading a book. And we can learn some lessons from reading a book. But the profound life changes that the or life experiences that change us the most and cause us to grow, are those things that are hard to do, the ones that are uncomfortable.

You know, think about the weight loss or the strength training analogy where you have to, you know, go to the gym and lift weights, lift heavy weights, you have to overload your muscles in order for your muscles to grow and get stronger. You cannot build muscle and get stronger by lifting super lightweights. It just doesn’t work that way.

There’s a former Mr. Olympia Champion, Ronnie Coleman. And he has this saying he has this quote that I love. I say this all the time. And he says, “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy ass weights.” And oh my god, isn’t that the truth? Everybody wants the body, but nobody wants to do the hard work. Everybody wants the gains, nobody wants the pains.

So if you want something more for yourself, if you want to lose weight, if you want to evolve, if you want to grow, if you want to get stronger, all that stuff is going to require that you endure some discomfort. And instead of trying to avoid discomfort, I want you to think about doing the opposite, I want you to actually embrace it.

Instead of trying to stay comfortable, and have everything be easy peasy. I want you to know that it will be hard, and know that you will get uncomfortable. You need to accept this, you need to embrace it, and then get on with it. Get on with doing what you need to do. And this discomfort is something that you have to choose. And you have to choose this on a regular basis. You have to choose to do the uncomfortable things.

If you want to grow, you have to decide that this is what you want for yourself. And you have to make a decision and decide that you want to embrace discomfort. And in Latin, the Latin origin of the word decide means to cut off. So you’re cutting off all other options when you make a decision.

And when you make these decisions, and you make decisions every single day, you’re going to make a decision to eat the pizza, or to eat the salad, you’re going to make a decision to have ice cream or not. You’re going to make a decision to, you know, get drunk tonight, or just drink sparkling water. And it’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.

That’s a Tony Robbins quote, by the way, it’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. There’s no growth in the comfort zone. And there’s no comfort in the growth zone. You have to be able to, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable in order to grow in order to change in order to become more.

And there actually is one way to avoid discomfort. And I told you at the beginning I was going to share this with you. There’s a way that you can avoid discomfort with all this and a lot of people don’t talk about this. Okay. So if the idea of embracing discomfort is too much for you, that is totally fine.

Here’s the answer: if you want to avoid discomfort, do nothing. Don’t try to lose weight. Don’t try to run faster. Don’t try to improve your health. Don’t try to get stronger. Don’t try to get off your meds. You know, don’t grow, don’t evolve. Don’t worry about ever trying to be anything more than who you are right now. Right, problem solved.

Stay comfortable. Stay in your comfort zone. But just remember, there’s no growth in the comfort zone. And there’s no comfort in the growth zone. But if you don’t want to experience any kind of discomfort, that’s fine. That’s an option for you. Just don’t worry about changing, just stay where you are.

Is this what you want? Is this okay for you? Is that really what you want for yourself? I don’t think so. If you’re listening to this podcast right now, I’m gonna say probably not there’s probably something more that you want for yourself. And you’re willing to experience some discomfort to get there, right.

But what most people do is what I just mentioned, they do nothing. They don’t try to improve their health. They don’t try to lose weight. They don’t try to run faster. They don’t try to get stronger. Because it’s hard. Because that doesn’t feel good. Your brain is programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Pleasure equals in our minds, in your brain, pleasure equals eating ice cream. Pain equals not eating ice cream. Pleasure equals sitting on the couch and watching Netflix pain equals going for a run or doing speed work. That is painful, right?

So your brain just wants you to be safe and comfortable, and just, you know, everything to feel good. And what I’m asking you to do here is to kind of override your brain’s natural way of doing things, and to seek discomfort in order to become more in order to grow, in order to evolve. And I have to say this to like, more discomfort is not always better. We’re not getting uncomfortable for the sake of getting uncomfortable. That’s not what I mean here.

Like, don’t put a rock in your shoe before you run out. Patrick said, I need to get uncomfortable. So I’m just going to be really uncomfortable and just, you know, make this run really suck. No, that’s not what we’re talking about here. Okay. We’re not talking about pushing yourself so hard all the time, that you’re creating chronic stress in your body, and you’re not getting the rest and recovery that you need.

You don’t need to be go, go, go, go go all the time, you have to prioritize rest and recovery. Right? This is what I’m talking about rest and recovery, I mean, mental rest and recovery, emotional rest and recovery too, as well as physical. But we don’t want to put ourselves in a chronic state of stress, you know, I gotta stay uncomfortable all the time.

No, we can be comfortable sometimes. It’s okay. So just don’t don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here, I do want you to have some comfort in your lives, you know. And you can of course, you can eat that ice cream. Occasionally, of course, you can like watch Netflix, you know, here and there.

But we also have to remember that if there are things that you want for yourself, those things that you want for yourself that you don’t already have, why outside your comfort zone, the things you want for yourself, but they exist out of your comfort zone. So you gotta get out of your comfort zone in order to get them.

And there’s no end to this, just understand this, like as a human being, you should always be striving to grow and evolve and become more. I think this is something that we should all be working towards. And there’s no end to changing and evolving. So there’s really no end to this idea of embracing discomfort, it has to just become part of your identity, it has to become part of who you are, and what you do on a regular basis.

Today, I am someone who regularly seeks out and embraces discomfort. Because I know that if I’m doing that I am growing and evolving and I’m becoming more I’m becoming more of the person that I was put on this earth to become. This is what I want for you. I want you to embrace the idea of embracing discomfort and knowing that that is the goal. That is the path to get you to your goals. Okay, I want this for you. You should want this for you as well. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

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