Ultrarunning

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 323 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today how to lose weight without tanking your running. So if you’re a runner and you’re trying to lose weight, you’ve probably run into this frustrating experience. You start cutting calories, you try to eat clean, maybe even start running more, and suddenly running feels terrible.

Your energy drops, your pace slows down. Workouts feel harder than they should, and sometimes you end up. Gaining the weight back anyway. And this happens all the time. This is why I do what I do, because runners assume that the solution is simple. Eat less, run more. But that approach almost always backfires.

So today I am gonna walk you through how to approach fat loss in a way that actually supports your running instead of sabotaging it. I am gonna talk about why so many runners tank their performance when they try to lose weight, what’s actually going wrong, and the smarter strategy that helps you to lean out while staying strong and consistent with your training.

If you want to get leaner and run better, this episode is for you. So this is something I see constantly with runners. Someone decides that they want to lose some weight. Maybe they’ve got a race coming up and maybe their running feels harder than it used to. Maybe they just wanna feel better in their body.

Lots of reasons why you’d wanna lose weight. Um, and listen, I would never suggest anybody needs to lose weight. And if you’re somebody that’s listening to this and going, Hey, don’t tell me I need to lose weight. I am not telling you you need to lose weight. I would never tell anybody that. But for the people that do want to lose weight, a lot of times, especially runners, they go about it the wrong way.

Um, you know, they do what most people do. They start cutting their calories, right? They start skipping meals. They try to be good all week. Good is in quotations. And then for a little while, it kind of works. They might see the scale go down a little bit, but then something starts happening, right? Running starts to feel terrible.

Easy runs don’t feel easy anymore. Long runs feel like a grind. Recovery takes longer pace drops, motivation drops, and then usually one of two things happens. Either they just abandon the weight loss effort altogether because running just feels terrible or they keep pushing through it. But their training just falls apart.

Like they just can’t make it work. Okay? So neither outcome is really good. ’cause the goal here isn’t just to lose weight, as always, the goal is to become a leaner, stronger runner. And if the strategy you’re using for fat loss destroys your running in the process. Then it’s not the right strategy. Okay, so I’m gonna unpack all of this and explain what’s actually going on here.

Okay? So if you’re somebody that is interested in losing weight without thinking your running, this is for you. So listen up. So the first big mistake that people make is approaching fat loss like a crash diet. People go from eating normally to suddenly trying to eat as little as possible. I see this. All the time, people come to me and they go, Hey, I’ve been really cutting back my calories and, and things are just not working well, you know, I’m skipping breakfast.

I’m having just a plain salad for lunch and a very light dinner. All the while they’re still trying to maintain their running volume and their intensity and their training, and this is really a recipe for disaster. Okay? Running is an energy demanding activity. Your body needs fuel to support training, to support recovery, to support adaptation.

And when you dramatically cut calories while continuing to train, your body doesn’t just burn fat, it goes into survival mode. Your body starts conserving energy. Your metabolism starts to slow down. Your hormones start to shift. Recovery gets worse, training quality drops, and eventually your performance just tanks.

It just suffers. This is why so many runners say something like, you know, I tried to lose weight, but my running went downhill, and so they just give up altogether. This is one of the main reasons why runners are told don’t try to lose weight as a runner. Like you can either run or you can lose weight, but you can’t do both.

I hear this all the time from people, and I think that’s funny. I just laugh at that. I’m like, I teach people how to do this every single day. Okay? It’s not that losing weight or losing fat is incompatible with running. It’s that crash diet mentality that’s incompatible with running, okay? Fat loss for runners has to be approached differently.

Okay. The second big mistake that I see runners make when they’re trying to lose weight is running more so that they, you know, can burn more calories, right? It’s all about this equation, this math equation of exercise versus food intake. You know? Um, and I think this is such a funny thing because. W We have lived for two and a half million years, arguably as human beings, and we didn’t need to count calories for all this time, except for within the last 20 years or whatever, or whenever, you know, MyFitnessPal became a thing.

So while all of a sudden in order to be fit and healthy, do we need to like count every calorie and track every morsel of food that we put in our body? It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. So this whole idea of like counting calories and doing the math and you know, if it worked so well. Uh, nobody would be overweight.

Nobody would have a problem losing weight because people tracked their, their macros crazy. I did this for like a year and a half, two years, tracked everything I ate, um, and it just never worked. I never lost any weight. I could not get the scale to move and I was, you know, running a lot at the time. So, but this is a big mistake.

Uh, running more to burn more calories. Um, just run more and that’s gonna be your solution to everything. You just eat whatever you want and just run more. Um, so a lot of runners will just start increasing their mileage. So they’ll add extra runs, extra long runs, extra workouts, more cardio, never taking a day off, doubling up some days, and on paper it seems like this is gonna work, right?

More running equals more calories burned, right? This is what the math tells us. But in reality, things are a little bit more complicated because when you. Increase your training volume without increasing, fueling properly or the adequate recovery. Stress begins to accumulate your body starts holding onto energy.

Instead of letting go of it, your sleep gets worse. Hunger, hunger hormones, spike cravings, increase training, fatigue builds up and ironically. Fat loss becomes harder, not easier. So now you’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re slower, and you’re frustrated. And again, runners often conclude the wrong thing. They think, maybe I just need more discipline.

But discipline is not the problem. Your strategy is. So the real goal here is to protect your running while you’re losing fat. If you wanna lose weight without tanking or running, the goal isn’t to be, you know. Aggressive and aggressively chase fat loss. The goal is to protect your running while gradually reducing your body fat.

This means the fat loss process has to support your training, not sabotage it. So let’s talk about what this actually looks like. Okay. The first strategy I wanna cover here is to slow down. Slow down the fat loss timeline. Most runners want fast results, and that’s understandable. I get it. When you decide you wanna lose weight, the natural instinct is to get it done as quickly as possible.

But quick fat loss almost always comes with trade-offs. Energy drops, recovery suffers. Workouts start to feel harder than they should, and in a lot of cases, the weight loss doesn’t even stick. This is especially true for runners. Your body is already under regular physical stress from running like every run creates a demand for recovery, repair, and adaptation.

And when you add aggressive calorie restriction on top of that, you’re essentially piling stress on top of stress. And your body doesn’t interpret that as, Hey, let’s burn a bunch of fat. It interprets that as a threat to survival. Your body goes into survival mode. Metabolism slows down hormones shift.

Energy becomes more tightly conserved and suddenly you feel flat. You feel tired and sluggish on your runs. This is why runners who try to drop weight quickly often end up saying something like, my running just fell apart because. The, the approach is wrong. Okay? The smarter approach is to take a longer view instead of chasing rapid weight loss, aim for slow and steady progress.

Something like a half a pound a week on average is perfectly fine. Think about this. If you lose a half a pound a week, where are you gonna be a year from now? That’s like, what? 26 pounds? Okay, on average. That’s amazing. That is truly amazing. I know it doesn’t sound super exciting. You’re like, it’s gonna take me a year.

Like it’s not dramatic. I get it, but it works because when fat loss happens slowly, your body has time to adapt. You maintain muscle mass. Very, very important. Your metabolism stays healthier, and most importantly, your training quality stays intact. And when your training stays consistent, everything else improves.

Running performance improves, body composition improves, and the results they tend to stick. Okay, so the goal here. Isn’t to lose weight as fast as possible. The goal, remember, is to become a leaner, stronger runner, and that takes a little patience. Okay, so let’s slow down the fat lost timeline. Strategy number two, to lose weight without tanking, you’re running Train your body to burn fat.

So this is where things get a little different from the standard advice you hear out there in the running world. A lot of coaches will tell you that you need to constantly fuel your runs with carbs, eat carbs before the run, eat carbs during the run, eat carbs right after the run, and while carbs absolutely have their place, especially for hard workouts and races.

I talk about this all the time with my coaching clients. Many runners have become overly dependent on them. Their bodies are basically trained to run on sugar all the time. They are carb adapted essentially, and that’s not ideal if one of your goals is fat loss. Instead, we want something called metabolic flexibility, and this just means that your body can efficiently burn both fat and carbohydrates for fuel depending on what the situation calls for.

And the way we build that ability is by giving your body opportunities to burn the fat. And one of the best ways to do that is through easy aerobic training. Easy, easy runs, basically in a lower insulin state. In practical terms, that often means doing some of your easy runs in the fasted state, and that just means having not eaten anything for, you know, 12 hours.

Ish. Okay. Especially shorter runs. Uh, and, and this is easiest to do in the morning. In other words, you eat dinner the night before, just don’t eat breakfast. Just go and run. Do your easy runs in that fasted state. And it doesn’t mean you do every single run fasted. And I think some people misunderstand this.

You know, I see people posting about how, um, it’s like a badge of honor to do as long a run as you can. 18, 20 miles fasted. Oh, I did all these fasted. Okay. If that’s your thing, great, but it, I don’t think you’re going to want to do that all the time. Um, because that can lead to, um, feeling terrible, sabotaging your training, you know, not being able to use carbs strategically on race day.

So let’s stick with, you know, runs of 90 minutes or less. Typically I say fasted and then runs that are 90 minutes or more. You can. You’re gonna definitely want fuel for those. Okay, so these easy aerobic runs, that’s what we’re talking about. It’s actually a great opportunity to train your body to rely more on fat for fuel.

And when you do this over time. This improves your metabolic efficiency. You become a better fat burner. Energy levels become more stable and your body becomes less dependent on constantly topping up with carbs just to get through a run. And then when it’s time for your harder workout, like temple runs intervals, those super long runs, that’s when you use carbs more strategically.

You fuel the efforts that actually require it. Okay? This is where you become more fat adapted, okay? And, and again, we’re talking about metabolic flexibility, the ability to use both fat and carbs for fuel. But when you’re more fat adapted, you can do these medium runs, no problem. You don’t need fuel. Uh, your body’s burning fat, and this is how you lose weight too.

By the way, if you wanna lose weight, you gotta burn fat. Okay, so instead of constantly flooding your system with carbs all day long, we’re gonna use them strategically as a tool to help with your running. But that, that combination, the fat adapted aerobic running with strategic carbohydrate use, this is what’s incredibly powerful for runners who wanna lose weight without sacrificing their performance.

This is the part that most coaches and most runners get completely wrong. This is the key right here. Okay? This is how you become leaner. This is, you know, also how you become a more efficient endurance athlete. Most people aren’t using fat as fuel. So they’re leaving this tool on the table. Okay? That’s the real goal here though, is to become more efficient, uh, as an endurance athlete, okay?

And lose weight in the process. Okay? So that was number two. Train your body to burn fat. Number three, you gotta focus on building strength. If there’s one thing that protects your, protects your running while you’re losing weight, it’s strength training. And this is still something that a lot of runners resist.

I’m hoping if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you’re not as resistant as maybe you used to be to this idea, because I’ve been talking about it so much, but it is that important. Okay. So most runners think that, uh, strength training is gonna make them bulky and sore, and it’s gonna interfere with their running.

But the opposite is usually true. Strength training is one of the best tools you have for maintaining muscle. While you’re losing body fat, you don’t wanna just be losing quote unquote weight because then you’re, you’re, you’re categorizing muscle, you’re losing muscle tissue. What matters is that people lose weight.

Um. The right way so it doesn’t negatively impact their running. Okay. Okay. Uh, when people lose weight without strength training, a significant portion of that weight comes from muscle. This is not what you want. Muscle is incredibly valuable for you as a runner. It supports power and stability. It protects your joints, it improves your running economy, uh, helps maintain a healthy metabolism.

And if you lose too much muscle while you’re dieting, your body essentially becomes less capable, less efficient. Your stride gets weaker, fatigue sets in sooner. Performance tanks. When you combine fat loss though with strength training, something different happens. Okay? Your body holds onto muscle, sometimes even gain a bit of strength along the way, which is amazing.

That means the weight you lose is almost always gonna come from body fat instead of lean tissue. Okay? When that happens. Something interesting happens. Runners notice that they don’t get lighter. Don’t just get lighter. They get more powerful. Their stride feels stronger, their posture improves. Running starts to feel easier again.

Wouldn’t that be nice? You don’t need to spend hours in the gym to do this either. Just two or three focused strength sessions per week is plenty. Compound movements like squats, deadlifts, lunges, pushing and pulling exercises and core work. That’s all you need to do. All that is gonna go a long way to help you to become leaner and stronger again.

We’re not trying to become bodybuilders or bulk up. None of that stuff is gonna help your running. The goal here is to build a durable, capable body that supports your running. Okay, so the third strategy to lose weight without tanking Your running strength training, especially functional strength training designed for runners.

Strategy. Number four, prioritize protein. So another key factor in protecting your running while losing fat is protein intake. And this is an area where a lot of runners unintentionally just fall short. If you look at the typical endurance athlete’s diet, it’s. Tends to be very carb heavy. You know, bagels, pasta, oatmeal, sports drinks, energy bars, carbs absolutely play an important role in endurance performance.

Okay? But when fat loss is the goal, protein becomes even more important. Protein does a few very valuable things for you. Okay? So first, it’s gonna help you preserve that lean muscle tissue, right? Strength training helps. Getting enough protein helps. Um, if you’re in a calorie deficit, your body is looking for energy sources and without adequate protein, some of that energy can come from breaking down muscle tissue.

We don’t want that, okay? That’s what we’re trying to avoid. Secondly, protein helps regulate your appetite. It’s the most satiating macronutrient, meaning it helps you to feel fuller and more satisfied for longer, especially between meals. And this makes it much easier to maintain, you know, a modest calorie deficit without feeling constantly hungry.

Okay, third, protein supports recovery. Running creates microscopic damage in muscle tissue, and that’s part of the training process. But protein provides the building blocks your body uses to repair and rebuild those muscle tissues. Okay? So if you’re trying to lose fat while continuing to train, protein becomes even more important.

And a good general guideline is somewhere between 0.7 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Per day. Okay. I usually tell people, start with 0.7. That’s a good place to start. And if, you know, use that as like your kind of ballpark. If it’s a little bit less, you know, you could increase it a little bit.

And if it’s a little bit more than that, that’s okay. But up to like one gram of protein per pound of body weight, that’ll work. Spread that across your meals throughout the day so your body is, um, consistently getting access to the protein, to those building blocks. Okay. This doesn’t have to be complicated.

Eat eggs and meat and fish and Greek yogurt and cottage cheese and protein shakes if you need to supplement something. Okay? There’s also a lot of plant-based sources of protein out there, like Tempe and tofu and you know, hemp protein and all kinds of stuff. Pea protein. This is simple whole food sources we’re talking about here.

This isn’t supposed to be super complicated, okay? But when protein intake is dialed in, fat loss becomes easier. Recovery improves and your running stays strong. All right, so strategy number four, prioritize protein. And then finally, strategy number five, you’ve gotta protect your recovery. This is the last piece of the puzzle here, and this is the one that is most overlooked, um, from a fat loss and a performance standpoint, because runners tend to focus heavily on training, you know, run a bunch of miles, complete a bunch of workouts, getting your weekly mileage totals to, to be where they’re supposed to be.

They do not focus on recovery or rest. Okay? But listen, adaptation doesn’t actually happen during the run itself. It happens after the run. When your body has time to repair and rebuild, and when you’re trying to lose weight, recovery becomes even more important. Because fast fat loss is already a stressor.

Running is already a stressor. Strength training is another stressor on your body. And think about this life stress work, family, sleep disruption, all these things put stress on your body and they accumulate and they add up and they compound. And if recovery isn’t prioritized, the system eventually starts to break down.

You feel constantly tired, runs feel harder than they should. Your motivation drops and then fat loss stalls because your body’s operating in a chronically stressed state. So the fundamentals here really, really matter. Okay? Sleep is huge. Most runners need around seven to nine hours of sleep per night for optimal recovery.

And if you just laughed at that because you get like four or five hours, then fix that. Okay. Hydration really matters too. Rest days really matter. Easy runs should really be easy. Okay. This is something I see runners, runners struggle with all the time. They turn. Every run into medium hard, you know, everything’s moderately hard, but those aerobic runs, those easy runs, those conversational pace runs a lot of times that’s where your adaptation actually happens.

So you have to respect recovery. You gotta get enough rest. You gotta get enough sleep. Your body can handle the stresses of training so much better When you do okay, your metabolism will stay healthier. Fat loss will happen more smoothly. Think of recovery. You know, not as a luxury, but as part of your training plan because it really is.

Okay? So strategy number five here is to protect recovery, protect and prioritize recovery. Okay, let’s put this all together. I wanna zoom out for a second here and put all this together, because when runners, you know, try to lose weight, their instinct is usually push harder. Eat less, run more, train, more grind through it.

But as I’ve talked about here today, that approach almost always backfires. So instead of getting leaner and stronger, they end up tired, frustrated, and wondering why their performance is getting worse instead of better. Okay. The smarter approach is. Pretty much the opposite of that. Slow the process down.

You train your body to burn fat more efficiently. Through easy aerobic running and metabolic flexibility. You strength train so your body holds onto muscle. And stays strong and powerful. You prioritize protein, so recovery and muscle maintenance stay strong and efficient, and you protect recovery so your body can actually adapt to all the work that you’re doing.

When you line up these pieces correctly, something interesting happens, fat loss becomes more sustainable. Energy becomes more stable and your running often improves instead of declining. So you’re no longer trying to force weight loss through brute effort. You’re creating the conditions where your body can gradually become leaner, stronger, and more efficient.

Okay? And that’s really the whole idea behind running lean, right? It’s not just losing weight, it’s about becoming the kind of runner whose body is built to run. Well, like that is the real goal here. Okay. And listen, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, yeah, this is exactly what I need, then I want to invite you to take the next step because here’s the reality for a lot of runners, you love running.

You want to feel strong and capable out there. You want your pace to improve and your runs to feel smoother and easier. But maybe something has just been feeling off lately. Runs feel harder than they should. You feel like you’re working harder, but not getting faster energy isn’t where you want it to be.

Deep down, you know, there’s a gap between where you are and where you could be, not because you’re lazy or you lack discipline, but because no one has shown you how to bring all this stuff together. Nutrition. Strength training, fat loss, endurance training in a way that actually works for runners. This is exactly why I created the Leaner Stronger Runner project.

It’s not another diet. It’s not another generic training plan. It’s a complete coaching system designed specifically for runners who want to become leaner, stronger, and more capable athletes. Inside the program, we focus on the things that actually move the needle building strength that supports your running.

Improving metabolic health so fat loss becomes easier. Dialing in nutrition so your body has the fuel it needs to perform, and developing the mindset and the consistency that keeps you moving forward. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start following a proven path, go to running lean coaching.com/ready.

Just read the information on the page, check it out, see if it’s a right fit for you. Cool. Alright, that is all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I’ll talk to you soon.