Today we’re chatting about a few of the lessons that I learned via training for and completing my first half marathon and specifically how these lessons relate to fat loss, let’s dig right in…
The first thing that I learned was that I had been deceiving myself for my entire life about what type of quote unquote ‘athlete’ I was. I played just about every sport when I was a kiddo, however once I hit high school, football (American football) and basketball became my focus and…
I told myself and others countless times that I was a ‘short sprint/fast twitch’ type of guy and not a longer distance marathon type of dude. It was true that I was more of a sprinter than a marathoner at that time, but only because it was just what type of training that I chose to expose myself to. For example…
I quit playing soccer when I was about 10 because it was more running than I wanted to do and not because I couldn’t build my longer distance running capabilities…the kicker was that I began to tell myself that I was just a ‘sprint type’ of athlete and that I wasn’t built for or any good at the longer stuff and now that I’ve completed a half marathon, I know that via direct personal experience to be untrue!
The truth is that I’m perfectly capable of doing both, it’s simply a matter of how I choose to train my body or what I choose to expose my body to. Having said that, ya can’t be the best 100m sprinter and the best marathon runner at the same time just because there are trade-offs that need to be made in order to maximize your potential in each of these essentially opposite areas, but…
This doesn’t mean that I can’t be the best 100m sprinter than I can be and the best marathon runner that I can be at differing times based on how I choose to train. Also, I could totally choose to split the middle and be pretty decent at both instead of hyper-focusing on one or the other.
How does this relate to fat loss? I used to tell myself that I couldn’t lose weight because I was just ‘bigger boned,’ I convinced myself that I had a slow metabolism and that my body type was such that I was just a larger guy…all of these things turned out to be completely incorrect.
I appeared to be quote unquote ‘bigger boned’ because I was carrying 60+ lbs of excess body fat and that story that I told myself was actually keeping me from taking the necessary action to actually change my body.
I’ve shared this before, but when I was playing football in high school my nickname was literally ‘Stocky’ and if you’ve seen me at any point over the last 10-15 years, stocky would be the last word that you’d use to describe me. Point being…
Your physical attributes are malleable and so is your body composition, it’s just a matter of taking the action that aligns with the outcome that you want and this is AMAZING news because it means that the ball is in your court, you can lose fat and get super healthy if you so choose to!
Oh and just to drive this point home, I could put on that 60+ lbs that I lost very quickly if I changed my habits, predominantly my eating habits. My metabolism is the same, my genes are the same, my insert whatever you may think is keeping you from getting the fat loss results that you want is the same as it was when I was a chubster…the only thing that has changed are my habits via nutrition, movement, sleep and stress management.
The second thing that I learned was that I find it easy to be proud of my clients and other folks in my life, however this process has really magnified how much work that I have to do in terms of being proud of myself and running my first half marathon really brought this to my attention because…
I put together a 12 week half marathon training plan for myself where I was set to complete the half marathon on week 12, however…I ended up going out for a run during week 5 (7 weeks earlier than I had planned) and running a half marathon around Stanley Park in Vancouver. It was totally impromptu, I didn’t take a few days off prior to let my body freshen up, I didn’t specifically fuel nutrition wise for it…I just went out for a run, felt really good and kept going!
Originally I had a time target that I wanted to hit and I ended up missing it by 2 seconds and the whole thing felt like a failure to me. I understand that this makes no sense logically because I completed the half marathon 7 weeks early, I didn’t plan for it on that day and I only missed my target time by a couple of seconds…yet I still didn’t feel proud of myself in the slightest.
So much so that I ended up running another half marathon 5 days later because I just felt as though I had to hit that time target that I’d set out for myself originally and the funny thing was that even when I did hit my goal the second time around, I just felt neutral about it!
The key insight here that I came to was that when I set a goal for myself, my expectation is that I hit the goal and so when I do, I feel ‘neutral’ because it’s like well…that was the gameplan, I was supposed to do that BUT…if I miss the goal, it’s no bueno!
So essentially there is no winning via my current perspective, there is only losing if I miss my target or accomplishing the outcome that I was after and meeting my expectation of myself. I don’t know how many folks are going to relate to this specifically however, it’s more apparent to me than ever that I have work to do in terms of celebrating my wins and feeling proud of my achievements.
This relates to fat loss and anything really in the sense that it’s just more enjoyable to give yourself credit for hard work well done and it can also encourage you to keep things rolling and to accomplish even more…this area is definitely a work in progress for me.
The third thing that I learned was more of a re-learning, but in a different area of life and it is the power of bigger picture thinking. When I initially aimed to get into running, which was actually years ago and I did not stay consistent with it, I was too focused on any one day vs. making progress over the course of weeks and months, for example…
I had it in my head that if I was going to go for a run, there was no point in running less than 5km or a little over 3 miles. Where did I get that number from? I literally made it up and so instead of going out for a 1, 2, 3 or 4km run, I felt as though I had to hit that 5k target and that resulted in me being inconsistent because there were plenty of days that I didn’t want to run a full 5k and so I just wouldn’t run at all.
The correlate to fat loss and many many things is, letting quote unquote ‘perfect’ be the enemy of good. So, when I took a step back and looked at the week as a whole, it was super helpful because even if I did say four 3km runs, I’d be accumulating 12km over the course of the week vs. say one 5km run.
What version of me is going to be a better runner? The one that runs 5km once per week or the one that runs 3km three or four times per week? Absolutely the latter, meaning…
If your goal is fat loss, be sure not to let yourself get bogged down by hyper-focusing on any single day in isolation. If your scale weight goes up slightly one morning, don’t sweat it, focus on the weekly trend and as long as that trend is going down over the course of weeks and months, you’re losing fat! The minor day to day fluctuations are just background noise.
Also, if you happen to slip up at some point on any given day, that doesn’t mean that the rest of the day or week is a complete write off and so you should just toss in the towel. No…slip ups happen, they’re a part of life, just make the rest of the day and/or week the best that it can be.
I tell my clients all the time that I would much prefer that they be consistently good with their eating habits as opposed to occasionally great because consistently good gets much better results than occasionally great, for example…
If you follow your program at 80% 7 days of the week, that’s a total of 560%...
If you follow your program 100% 3 days of the week and the other 4 are write offs because you let one minor deviation completely throw you off track, that’s only 300%.
Zoom out and keep the big picture in mind because it’ll produce far better results!
The fourth thing that I learned was that I needed to be willing to feel a new type of discomfort in order to progress and in this specific case, that could be summed up as ‘running pains.’ Sore quads, sore hamstrings, even some joint, tendon and ligament discomfort and it’s worth mentioning that these sensations are not necessarily a bad thing because…
My joints, tendons and ligaments needed to adapt and strengthen just like the muscles in my legs did and I noticed that as soon as I embraced that soreness or discomfort, I was able to be more consistent with my running and therefore I gave my body the necessary time that it needed to adapt vs. thinking that I could only run if I felt 100% pain or discomfort-free.
If I only ran under absolutely perfect conditions i.e. no inklings of any soreness, stiffness etc. I’d rarely if ever run, point being…changing your eating habits is almost certainly going to feel uncomfortable at times because it requires additional effort and awareness, for example…
Your current habits are a perfect reflection of your current body composition and so in order to change your body composition, you’ll need to do things differently…put simply, nothing changes if nothing changes and so there are going to be times where you may prefer to order pizza or grab a burger and fries let’s say, instead of cook your own meal, however…
There are only so many slices of pizza that you can have before it just sabotages your fat loss goals. There are only so many beers or glasses of wine that you can drink before it gets in the way of your commitment and so you’re going to feel uncomfortable and that’s okay because very little growth happens without it…
Embrace it…and that doesn’t mean that you have to love it or even like it…but you can develop a workable association with discomfort because it does goes hand in hand with growth and improvement.
The fifth thing that learned or again in this case re-learned in a different area is about shiny object syndrome. Before I began to build more consistency with running I was doing all sorts of research on different types of running shoes, watches, heart rate monitors and the list goes on...and I’ll be honest, I got caught up a little bit and I had to remind myself that at the end of the day I’m going to improve and improve the fastest by actually doing the thing vs. having the best gadgets and…
A more experienced version of myself is going to best a less experienced version of myself every day of the week with the worst pair of shoes on the planet, it’s not about the gear or gadgets, it’s just about putting in the work.
In terms of fat loss and health, I’d relate this to focusing on things like supplements instead of the fundamentals like what and how much you’re eating as well as your movement and sleep habits. Gadgets just like supplements are not the base of the cake, they’re not the icing, they’re not even the toppings…they are the sprinkles!
Also, just to save you time, effort and resources…there are no supplements that you can take that are going to result in fat loss…there are fat burning drugs and steroids that come with serious health trade-offs that do burn fat in and of themselves, but no supplements…those don’t exist.
So if you want to start running, just pick up a comfortable pair of shoes and get out the door and if you want to lose fat, focus on your nutrition first and foremost, go for some walks and get great sleep. The fundamentals are the fundaments for good reason, they work!
I’ve got one bonus lesson for ya and it is the power of accountability / who you surround yourself with. I went out for a run a few weeks ago with a friend of mine who is a far more experienced runner than I am and we did a 10km run with three 1km sprints periodically throughout the 10k.
Each sprint got progressively faster and on the last one I was struggling…my lungs and my legs were burning like crazy and if he wasn’t there pushing me, I can say with certainty that I wouldn’t have completed all the sprints…no way, I might have done half of them and that’s probably being generous!
If you want to lose fat, find someone or something that can support you through the process…that could be a coach, an accountability buddy, a group of some sort, a friend, a partner…someone or something outside of yourself because this will produce faster and more effective results. Again, I wouldn’t have completed those sprints if I was solo, but…
Because my bud was there supporting me especially during the hardest parts of that run, I did something that not only I didn’t actually know if I could do, but also I just straight up wouldn’t have completed!
So…you can lose fat no matter what type of body that you may think that you have. I’ve been coaching for over 12 years and I’ve worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients and I’ve yet to see someone that doesn’t get great results when they do the right things consistently.
Do your best not to get caught up in the newest diet trend or bullshit quote unquote ‘fat loss supplement’ because that’s not what’s going to produce the lasting results that you want, keyword lasting because we’re after sustainability here!
I’m not going to lie to ya, it’s going to feel uncomfortable at times throughout the process, change can be hard and that’s okay because…you’ve already persevered through plenty of discomfort in other areas of your life and you’ve become a stronger more resilient version of yourself as a result of it!
