Episodes

Some of the most asked questions in the Running Lean Community on Facebook are about running-related injuries. Runners just seem to get injured pretty often. In fact, more than half of all recreational runners experience an injury at some point. Why is this? Why do runners get injured so often? What are the most common injuries that runners experience? How do we treat these injuries, and how can we prevent getting injured in the first place? In this episode of the podcast, I brought in a ver...

One of the most important principles that I teach here on the podcast, and work on with my clients is the principle of becoming the best, healthiest, most badass version of yourself. This is not meant to imply that there’s anything wrong with who you are right now, it just means that you have the desire to become more. It means that who you are right now is not the finish line, that you’re not done learning and growing and evolving. In this episode, I’m going to show you how, more than anythi...

When you set out to achieve a big goal, you have to change what you’re doing, right? You have to start doing different things because if you just kept doing the same things, you’d just have the same results you have now. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, then you should probably change what you’re eating. That’s great, and we all know this, but what else could you change? What other factors are affecting your weight loss results? One of the biggest factors affecting your ability t...

On Sunday afternoons, I do live training and coaching sessions over in the Running Lean Community of Facebook. This past week I brought on a special guest – Kelly French – for a fun and informative conversation all about her experience becoming a fat-adapted runner. Kelly is an ultrarunner who came to me for help transitioning to the low-carb way of life. She made it through the tough transition period and went from being primarily a sugar burner to becoming a super-efficient fat-burning mach...

Your mindset is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal. Armed with the right mindset, there’s almost nothing you can’t accomplish! Whatever it is you want for yourself – to lose weight or run an ultramarathon – the right mindset will get you there. Mindset is not always positive though, the wrong mindset can keep you stuck, and keep you from realizing your true potential. If you can’t ever seem to make forward progress and you’re feeling like a failure, your mindset got you...

As a weight loss coach for runners, I work with a lot of people whose main goal is to lose weight. As a runner, they may have put on a few dozen pounds over the years and no matter how many more miles they run, they can’t seem to drop the pounds. They want badly to get back to their “natural weight”, so they come to me for help reaching that goal. This all makes perfect sense, right? But once we start working together, I let them in on a little secret…weight loss is not the goal! What? The...

It’s pretty common knowledge that if you have a faster metabolism – meaning you burn more calories while at rest – you will lose more weight. What most people don’t know is that there are many different ways to increase your metabolism other than just running an extra 100 miles every week. Exercise is great, but it pales in comparison to other methods of increasing your metabolism. So today on the podcast, I’m going to share 7 surprising ways to increase your metabolism so you can burn more c...

If you really want to create change in your life, you have to focus on changing your habits, right? I think we all get this concept, but most people don’t really understand how habits actually work. Most people just focus on trying to change the behavior and don’t focus on the things that are actually driving the behavior in the first place. In order to change a habit, you first have to understand how the habit is created in the first place. You have to go deeper and get to the root cause of...

Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to fuel your runs as a low-carb runner. It might be because we’re back in marathon season and your runs are starting to get longer. I think it’s partly that, and also some fear around bonking when you get into those higher-mileage runs. I get it, I was also very skeptical about fueling without carb-loading and using gels because that’s just how I did things for the first 15 years or so of my running. It seemed to work…sort of…so how co...

As we come to the end of the #DryJulyChallenge, I’d love to know how it went for you. How was your experience giving up alcohol for a month? What’s changed? Are you sleeping better? Do you have more energy? Are your workouts better? Do you just feel better overall? A lot of people are asking themselves…now what? Do I keep going? Whether or not you choose to continue abstaining from alcohol, I want to make one thing very clear: you don’t have to commit to never drinking again. I think a lot ...

When you think of discipline, what comes to mind? For some, it conjures up images of obeying rules and doling out punishment for anyone who disobeys. But when I think of discipline I think of training myself to do something day in and day out, usually something I don’t feel like doing. I never think of discipline as punishment, but rather a method of achieving whatever worthwhile goal that I want for myself. If there’s something big that you want for yourself, I’m telling you, there’s no mag...

We often think of stress as being something annoying, a mental or emotional issue, but stress can also have serious implications on our physical health as well. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) says continued strain on your body from routine stress could lead to serious health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, anxiety disorder, and other serious illnesses. But stress is not always a bad thing. There’s another side of stress that’s considered not...

Self-sabotage is one of those terms that you hear and you think you have a pretty good handle on what it means. But do you really? Because if you find yourself engaging in self-sabotaging behavior, then you may not understand it as well as you think. Until you have a better understanding of what self-sabotage really is and how it shows up in your life, you can’t change it or prevent it from happening. So in this episode, I’m going to help you understand what self-sabotage is, how it prevents ...

Desire is one of those things that most people struggle with, mainly because they just don’t understand what it really is. Desire can feel very strong and very powerful, and it can lead you to do things that are not in alignment with your goals – like eating or drinking. You may think that having an intense desire for something like alcohol is normal and just “the way it is” and there’s nothing you can do about it. The truth is, it doesn’t have to be this way. You can absolutely change your ...

When it comes to habit change, there’s this idea that if you do something every day for a period of time – 30-60-90 days – then you will automatically develop a new habit. I cannot tell you how wrong this idea is. It just doesn’t work this way; there’s a lot more to habit change than doing a behavior every day. How many times have you ever had a streak going like you’ve given up sugar or alcohol for weeks or months straight, and then one day something happens and just like that, the streak is...

There’s a lot of talk out there in the personal development world about happiness. There are so many books on how to be happy all the time and how to be happy about everything, and honestly, I see this as a problem. My take on happiness is a little different – I believe happiness is overrated. I don’t think the purpose of your life is to be happy and content all the time. I believe you are here on this Earth to pursue something much bigger and much more powerful than just “being happy.” In ...

It’s vacation season! The kids are out of school, COVID travel restrictions are easing up, and you are going on a trip. And taking a vacation means you go completely off the rails, eat and drink your way into oblivion, and come back hating yourself right? At least that’s what I used to do, you probably don’t ever do that. But if you’re thinking there’s no way you’ll be able to get through your vacation without gaining 5 or 10 lbs, and coming home feeling like crap, then I’ve got some good new...

I have a very special guest joining me here on the podcast today. A few months ago, Latisha Simmons was facing some pretty serious health issues and decided she needed to make some big changes in her life. She changed her entire approach to diet, running, and strength training. But most importantly, she changed her mindset around all of this. She’s worked really hard on making being healthy her new lifestyle. She’s come a long way in just a few months so I thought it would be beneficial for...

If you’re like most runners, you probably don’t fully understand the importance of protein in your diet, and you might not be getting enough. Protein is one of those topics that can divide people in the health and fitness community, so I wanted to take a comprehensive look at protein, including some new research on the topic. In this episode of the podcast, I’ll be answering the questions I get asked most about protein, like… How much protein should I be getting? How does protein help promote...

This is part two of a two-part podcast series called “Becoming a Lean, Fat-Burning Machine and Making It Last For Life”. As a Sports Nutritionist, Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and Master Life Coach, I help runners transform themselves into lean, efficient fat burners so they can end the yo-yo dieting and finally get to their ideal weight…and stay there for good! I have a vested interest in this subject matter since I struggled with gaining over 40 lbs in just a few years…while training for m...

This is part one of a two-part podcast series called “Becoming a Lean, Fat-Burning Machine and Making It Last For Life”. As a Sports Nutritionist and Weight Loss Coach for Runners, I help runners transform themselves into lean, efficient fat burners so they can end the yo-yo dieting and finally get to their ideal weight. This subject is near and dear to my heart since I gained over 40 pounds in just a few years while training for marathons and ultramarathons. This did not make sense to me at ...

I recently decided to do a little nutrition experiment on myself. I trained for a marathon while following a zero-carb diet, and then I ran that marathon without carb-loading and without the use of any fuel at all. Why would I do this? How did my training go? How was the race? Did I crash and burn? Is this something you should consider trying for yourself? In this episode of the Running Lean podcast, I answer all of those questions and share the results of my experiment training for and then ...

There’s one big difference between people who consistently reach their goals and those who do not. It doesn’t have anything to do with how bad they want it or how early they get up in the morning. It’s more about whether or not they are living their life as an emotional adult. So yes, this episode of the Running Lean podcast is all about feelings! I will be talking about the very important role your emotions play in whether or not you are getting the results you want in your life. Whether y...

Honestly, there are probably more than 5 ways you sabotage your own success, but in this special edition of the Running Lean podcast, I’m talking about the BIG ones. I coach a lot of runners on nutrition, weight loss, and overall health and fitness, and I see the same self-sabotaging behavior over and over again. Why do you do these things to yourself? Why can’t you ever seem to make any significant progress toward your big goals? Why do you always seem to sabotage your own success? I mention...