The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

115. Food Timing and Workouts: What Really Matters for Your Fitness Goals

• Kristy Castillo

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I’m fresh from celebrating my 43rd birthday + my daughter's graduation and party; honestly, there were sooo many celebrations during the month of May! It has been a LOT, and I’m finally coming down from the ‘high’ of all of it. Even with everything that’s been going on in my world lately, I’ve learned that it’s STILL possible to make progress toward (or at the very least, maintain) your fitness goals! I thought this episode would be the perfect time to address a couple of questions I received regarding food timing + hunger cues, as well as what types of workouts are best to do.

I hate to break it to ya, but there’s NEVER going to be a ‘perfect’ time to start something new - whether it’s with your fitness, nutrition, or something else. You have to be willing to start messy, go slow, and get help where you need to. 

Perfection is not possible, and it’s not achievable - you shouldn’t be striving for that with your nutrition and fitness. No matter how jam-packed your schedule is, you should be able to navigate all of those ‘‘holy shit’ and ‘what if’ moments that life throws at you, and not feel like you’re going to completely fall apart. Ultimately, I want to help you unf*ck your fitness so you CAN make progress, and have some fun along the way, too!! 

In this episode, we cover:

  • Knowing that while life has seasons, there will NEVER be a ‘perfect’ time to start something new, and we all have our own sh*t going on 
  • Getting your foundations solid and in place first before worrying about all of the little details
  • Understanding that there is a certain amount of food/macros that your particular body needs + why you need to be eating close to that amount consistently
  • Finding an eating schedule with your meals and snacks that works best for YOU and your daily life
  • Listening to your body when it comes to eating before and after your workout + why your hunger cues are super important
  • Why the types of workouts you’re doing matter more than you may think + what to do when it seems like you’re growing muscle too quickly


How to work with me:

FIT CLUB is a monthly membership with workouts designed to take the guesswork out of your fitness routine and get you the body you want. These workouts can be done at home or at the gym.

PRIVATE COACHING is my 1:1 program, where we work closely together to cut the BS, and learn what to do to get the results you want-for life! This is the best way to fast track your results and truly understand the journey, and you can choose a 3 month or 6 month option!

MASTER YOUR MACROS COURSE is available now! Go at your own pace and learn how to make macros fit into your lifestyle.

💁🏼‍♀️ Where to find me:

Connect with me on Instagram @kristycastillofit & @unfuckyourfitnesspodcast so we can keep this conversation going! Be sure to tag me in your posts and stories!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, Christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed with giving you simple action steps to take you from feeling stuck to feeling sexy. Let's go, hey guys what's up?

Speaker 2:

Welcome to today's episode. I am recording this episode the day after my 43rd birthday, a couple of days after my daughter's graduation open house party, all the festivities, memorial Day weekend, all the things. And I want to give a little recap because I said that I would last week when I recorded and I am not joking when I say I am beyond exhausted, I am coming down off of I don't know how to explain it. I've kind of talked to different friends about it and I'm like I'm so. I was so overwhelmed with everything with the graduation party. Graduation, the feelings, the emotions, the getting ready, the getting. You know, all the busy, all the, all the planning, all of the things. It was a lot. It was so much more emotional and like a mental load than I thought it was. And I don't think I even realized how much of that it was until it was over and my brain could actually relax because I was just go, go, go, go, go, go go that's actually an understatement. And then, when it was over, I realized how exhausted I was and all I wanted to do was cry. I was so overwhelmed, so overstimulated, talked out, exhausted. I didn't sleep the night before the graduation party. Anyway, I'm making this sound like I threw this massive party. I can't even imagine how it's going to be when my daughter gets married. I might actually just pay her to do anything but have me throw the wedding, because I guess now I know what to expect and I just I'm learning so much about myself, not to mention right, if I am in the midst of, like perimenopause and all of those kind of symptoms. I'm not really understanding my body 100%, not that, not not that I could understand it 100%, but I'm really kind of like. I feel like my body is this foreign object to me sometimes, and in my and my brain as well, my mental health, my physical it's just kind of like what is happening with my body. And then, when I throw on any kind of stress or something new, I'm learning this about myself. And so, anyway, long story short, I was exhausted.

Speaker 2:

The party was just a couple of days ago. My best friend and her family were in town. Of course, there were so many people at the party and it was exhausting. It was. The party was beautiful, it was perfect, we had so much fun, it was great and everything was great. Really Like. Nothing really went really, really wrong, but I was just so tired and I'm giving myself a lot of grace I've been taking a lot of naps. Yesterday, on my birthday, it was actually not very sunny out, so I didn't get a drink and I didn't get a sunburn, but I honestly took two naps. I think I took two naps the day before that.

Speaker 2:

To say that I'm exhausted is just an understatement and it made me really happy that it was one of those moments where post-party like I'm talking about, when I've been exhausted the last few days in my house is a mess right. I'm just like I'm so tired I can't even put it into words. It's one of those things where I haven't worked out yet today. I don't know if I will. I didn't work out yesterday, I did the day before. But my body is just like it freaking, hurts. It feels like I'm coming down, my body's releasing all this stress and tension and my body is in like physical pain. I'm so sore, not from working out. But it makes me really happy that I have my nutrition on track right, that I do know that much about my body, that I do know I can take some days off, like I didn't stress about food, I didn't stress about my calorie intake. I was able to enjoy. I had a couple of drinks. I had way more cupcakes than drinks. I missed workouts right, I've been off track and I knew that was going to happen. I prepared for that mentally and I'm fine with that part of it. So at least I didn't have all of the stress of life going on around me and not feeling good about my body and missing workouts and all that extra stress. So it makes me really happy that that part of my life is under control and I have a grip on that anyway, because I seem to not have a grip on anything else at the moment. I'm just so, so tired.

Speaker 2:

But I wanted to mention too that I think we're always waiting for the right time to start a program or to get healthy. It's not the right time. I don't have time, I'm too busy, life isn't perfect and lined up correctly and I can't start something right now or I don't have the time to dedicate to it. And I just want to remind you that life has seasons. There will never be a perfect time to start something. Your workout program will never be perfect. Your macros will never be perfect. Life will never be perfect. You have to start so messy, start so slow, start knowing nothing. Just throw yourself in, hire someone if you need to purchase a program, right Like. Just start taking these little steps because it's so important.

Speaker 2:

This is a time for me in my life where my focus has been on my daughter graduating. It's been on preparing for that, everything in preparation to that right, getting clothes and the decorations and the food and getting my work set up and talking to clients about. You know, I'm glad you joined coaching with me, but it's going to be about two weeks before we can get started because I'm focusing on my daughter and there's a lot, you know, behind the scenes that goes into this and right now I've been focusing on that. So now I'm doing my shift of getting back my pivot, I should say of getting back into this routine of work and normalcy. And then it's going to be summer but I am, you know, going to be back working out more and focusing more on myself.

Speaker 2:

So there will be times where you can focus so much on yourself. There will be times when you need to focus on work, your significant other, your children, your dog I'm looking at my dog staring at me, right. A house project. There's never going to be a perfect time. Your body will never be perfect. You will always be aiming for something and you'll always be working towards something, and that's it. That's the beauty of it. So I want to remind you that I'm here to unfuck your fitness for you.

Speaker 2:

Your life is always going to be crazy. There's always going to be moving parts and situations and holy shits and what ifs, and you have got to be able to do this around it, otherwise life passes you by and you're extremely unhappy in your skin. You're overweight, you're unhealthy, you don't understand your body, your metabolism's fucked, your hormones are fucked. You can't keep making it an excuse, and I think a lot of times. I say this too, because a lot of times people look at me or influencers or whatever you know fitness people, and you think that's all we do, or we're so lucky because we have the knowledge and the time, and it's like, no, my life gets crazy. You have no idea. I have gone through some things and my life has been crazy, and you don't see all those moving parts. But everybody has shit. We all have crazy lives. We all don't have time for this right, it's not optional. You have to do it anyway and you have to start, even when you don't have the time and even when you don't know what you're doing and even when it's messy, because that's when it really really matters.

Speaker 2:

So I just want to talk about that really quick For today's episode. I want to touch on I got a question in Instagram DMs the other day. That was a really good question about food and kind of the timing of eating and not really even what to not what to eat. It was just like when? When is it important to eat? I'm going to read the exact question that she wrote to me, and then I also kind of want to talk about workouts and why those are important too and why we have to structure those a certain way. I'm not going to get in depth on either of these topics, but I think they are something that I will go in depth in another episode. But basically, we're going to be talking about food timing Is that important? And the types of workouts that you do. Are those important? So let's start with food timing.

Speaker 2:

I got this message and she said hey, I have a great podcast idea. When is it most important to eat when I'm hungry after my workout? What if I work out in the morning but I'm not hungry until noon, those types of things. So I want to just kind of touch on this briefly, because the details of most things don't matter, because you have to get this foundation first. I've talked about this a lot on here.

Speaker 2:

A lot of the questions I get asked and a lot of the things that are holding you back and a lot of the things that you're questioning as far as even the food, timing and do my workouts matter? And yes, it does to an extent, but not in the way that you're thinking right. So let's take this question. For example, when is it most important to eat? When I'm hungry after my workout, right? What if I work out in the morning but I'm not hungry? Because you've heard like eat right before, eat a certain amount of protein and carbs before your workout, eat right after your workout, you know. Eat certain times a day, snack six times a day, eat three big meals a day. It's like there's all this conflicting information. You have to eat breakfast to break your fast and all the things. So here's my take on it, and I've done this a lot of different ways, because I've been through all the diets and I've had all the questions that you've had. I've been through that, I've tried it.

Speaker 2:

What matters and there's a balance, and this is where your journey and making it work for you comes in handy, because there is a certain amount of food that will fuel your body. Those are macros. Your body takes a certain amount of calories broken down into proteins, fats and carbs to fuel it ideally, but that doesn't mean you're always going to be hungry enough to eat that amount. It doesn't mean that that amount will necessarily fill you up. It doesn't mean that it's going to be perfect, but ideally there is a certain amount of fuel that your body needs. The overall thing that matters is that you eat that amount of calories, or close to it, period. It doesn't really matter what time of day you eat, so that's number one. The most important thing is that you hit your protein, no-transcript, that's it, that you consume them, period.

Speaker 2:

Everybody's work schedule is different. Wake schedule is different. Everybody's lives are different. Some of us are on the go all day long. Some of us work in an office all day long. Some of us work from home all day long, so it's going to look extremely different.

Speaker 2:

When is it most important to eat? Whenever works for you, you can break it. You can take your macros and kind of divide them out and make them fit into six different snacky kind of meals, if that works for you. You can break it into three meals, if that works for you. You can eat whatever works for your schedule If you're not hungry in the morning.

Speaker 2:

Right now I'm actually going through this cycle where I'm not Typically I'd be starving in the mornings, but my schedule is a little bit off. I'm not really hungry in the morning. So right now I'm drinking my pre-workout with some L-carnitine EAAs and eating two chocolate rice cakes, and that's my morning. That makes me feel good. Sometimes I put chocolate hummus on them, sometimes I put peanut butter on them, sometimes I put banana on them, sometimes I eat them plain, so that doesn't really matter. And then a lot of times I'll go work out after I eat that little carby meal. There's no protein in that, by the way, right, I mean a little bit in the peanut butter, but not enough to even talk about. So a lot of times I'll go work out a little while after I've had that meal if I don't want that. And I feel like if I eat that and go work out I'm going to throw up. I won't eat anything before a workout.

Speaker 2:

You will be fine if you eat a little bit before a workout and you'll be fine if you don't eat before a workout, unless you're feeling lightheaded, of course, right. But if you're not hungry before your workout, don't freaking eat those. Things don't matter. Ideally, the basis is to have something in your system to fuel your workout. So that's the idea of like, hey, eat a little bit of protein, a little bit of carb, you know, 30 minutes before your workout, because your body is going to use that for energy for the workout. But honestly, for the vast majority of people who are just trying to lose some weight, tone up, build muscle we're not trying to be bodybuilding competitors, we're not trying to be in a competition, right, it doesn't really matter.

Speaker 2:

As far as post-workout, in my opinion, I've never seen a lot of significance to my own body physically. If I'm super, super hungry right after my workout, absolutely I'm going to drink a post-workout shake. If I'm not and I'm feeling lightheaded and gross and like, oh my God, that workout made me feel like trash in a good way, I'm not going to eat because that's not right. So that's a little bit of listening to your body. The goal is to like eat to fuel your body. But also, if you're not hungry, why would you stuff food in your mouth? I feel like that's almost disordered eating in a way. So there is a balance there and that's where intuition comes into play.

Speaker 2:

And a couple episodes back I talked about really listening to your body, and this is where this comes in. So, in general, if you work out in the morning and you're not hungry until noon, don't eat until noon. Listen to your body. Eventually, if you continue to work out in the morning, you probably will start. You know, if you start hitting your macros and you start fueling your body properly, your body will start running and operating differently and it will start to get more hungry.

Speaker 2:

I have that happen to clients all their time. They're like oh my God, I'm hungry now when I wake up in the morning I never used to be hungry in the morning and I'm like good, that means your body is wanting fuel. It's using the fuel you're giving it properly and it would like a little bit more. So listen to your hunger cues and eat. If not, I don't like to teach my clients to shove food in their mouth If you have macros left over, at the end of the day, I don't have them eat. Typically, I am like if you are really really full and you have macros left over, don't eat, because I don't like to practice that concept or that habit of just I'm not hungry but I need to eat. I don't like that because eventually that turns into I'm not hungry but I want some Oreos, I'm not hungry but I want some ice cream. No, we're not going to do that. And eventually, when your body is, like I said, running better, you will be more hungry, but I want you to listen to your hunger cues as far as that goes. So, to answer this question overall, when is it most important to eat? When you are hungry, choose some really good options, and I've been working on this and a friend of mine have been working on this together about listening to our hunger cues.

Speaker 2:

A lot of times, we get into these habits of this is my breakfast, this is my lunch, this is my dinner, these are my macros. Right, it's like go, go, go, go, go, go go, and we forget to listen to our bodies and maybe our bodies are saying we need a little more food. Right now. We're stressed, we're busy, we're building muscle. Or maybe we're not working out as much and we're right, we're doing a little less. Or maybe we're going through something, maybe we're super stressed and our body's like, hey, let's slow down on the food, right, we don't need as much, we're not as hungry. So listen to your body and, yes, absolutely eat when you're hungry.

Speaker 2:

I think it's so important to learn to eat when you're hungry. That's very overlooked, because if we're taught to finish our dinner plate and we're taught to eat everything at the table and we're taught to right, that's not good. I want you to eat when you're hungry, but I want you to make really wise choices within your macros when you are hungry. If you're hungry after your workout, please eat some protein. It does help to build your muscles up. It helps to repair them. It helps to grow them.

Speaker 2:

The first form, formula One post-workout shake, is the only post-workout shake I've ever taken that I did see a difference. I love it. It tastes good and I did feel like my muscles grew, they repaired quicker, I didn't get as sore and I freaking loved it. But otherwise, whatever you take, you know would be fine. But yeah, that's my thoughts on that.

Speaker 2:

Again, there's feeding your body enough fuel and then, on kind of the other side of that, there's eating when you're hungry and kind of finding a balance. But as far as fat loss goes, as far as weight loss goes, as far as any of those kind of things, if you're like I'm not losing weight and I think it's because I'm not eating at the right time of day, no, that's bullshit. You can literally eat up until you go to bed, as long as it's within your macro window, your calorie window that your body needs, and you'll be fine. So the timing of your food can be really really flexible and up to you, which I think is really really fun. We can kind of get rid of some of the rules around it and just kind of listen to our bodies. Imagine that, being in tune enough with your body to know when and what you should eat. I love that.

Speaker 2:

Now are the types of workouts that you do important? Yes, I get this a lot because I have clients that come to me and they want to work with me and they're like okay, but I'm training for a 5K or I love Pilates, or I love yoga, or I take this group class with my friends, so they want to work with me, they want to figure out how to incorporate these things, how to incorporate some weightlifting, and how do we do that? And I am absolutely on board with you doing your own types of workouts that you enjoy. Let me say that right off the bat.

Speaker 2:

But you've also heard this all movement is good movement and as long as you're doing something, it's better than nothing. That's kind of true, but not completely. It depends on your goals and, quite honestly, for longevity we talked about the smart scale a couple episodes ago If you want to improve your muscle mass and if you want to improve your skeletal muscle and you want to improve your body fat and you want to improve your body fat and you want to improve all of those numbers, you have to be including some resistance training into your workout regimen. That's it. It's for health purposes. You need muscle on your body to protect your bones, to protect your organs, to be healthy, to help you not fall, to help you, when you do fall, to not break things, to be able to get back up, to be mobile, to be limber, to live longer. Muscle is a huge factor and it's very, very important. So I'm not just going to stand here and say all movement is good movement and it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you enjoy it. That's not true. All movement is good movement, yes, but if you have specific body goals, if you want to look strong I don't look super strong, but for example, I mean I look strong no-transcript you have to do what I do.

Speaker 2:

You can't do Pilates and you can't do yoga and expect to grow muscle like I have. You can do the yoga. You could do the Pilates. I encourage that. I don't mind the Peloton, I don't mind like adding those things. And if you're training for a 5K, we absolutely have to incorporate these things. If you love group classes, we incorporate these things. Okay, incorporate these things. If you love group classes, we incorporate these things, okay.

Speaker 2:

But I have a lot of ladies come to me and they're like I'm doing Orange Theory, I'm doing these group classes and I love it, but I'm not seeing the results that I want to see and I'm like, yeah, that's because you're not doing progressive overload, they're not tailored to you, it's fun and you, maybe you do better and you're encouraged and you have these numbers and there's a leaderboard and it's super fun and you talk to your friends and I love that and I would never take that away from someone. But in addition to that, you do have to do things to get you to your goals. I love mobility, I love core work, I love stretching. I don't personally love yoga and Pilates it's freaking hard. But I do think you should do it and I do think you should keep all of those things in your life that you love, especially if you're training something or challenging yourself or trying something new.

Speaker 2:

But point blank, and the honest answer is yes, the workouts that you are doing matter. Because if you are just working out three days a week and you're doing some online, you know kind of hit or miss, run of the mill, one size fits all workout program and you're like, well, I'm working out three days a week and I'm getting 10,000 steps and I'm hitting my water and I'm hitting my macros, okay, but if you're just doing yoga three days a week which is great you're not going to build muscle like someone who lifts weights would. You're not going to increase your muscle mass in a healthy way just doing yoga. So please, in addition to that right, do some weightlifting. So, to be honest, yes, your workouts do matter and yes, even if you don't like resistance training. You should do it. And yes, even though I hate mobility training, I do it because I need to right and it's hard training. I do it because I need to right and it's hard.

Speaker 2:

Another thing is I have a lot of clients who build muscle really quickly, and so they do love the classes, they do love the cardio, they love to add on things because they feel like they grow muscle too quickly and then they feel big and bulky. This is common. What's happening is you're growing muscle and you're keeping the fat on your body, because when you grow muscle, I mean muscle is smaller than fat. When you see, like me, I have a lot of muscle on my body and I'm not big, I don't look big, I don't look extremely muscular, I don't look manly, right. But when I have a layer of fat covering my muscle, I do feel bigger. I look bigger, right. It's not that the muscle made me feel that way or look that way. It's that I have this extra fat. So usually what's happening? And so if this has happened to you before and you're like I grow muscle so quickly, when I start hitting the gym, I just feel big and I grow big and my legs get bigger and I don't like it and my clothes don't fit as nicely, that's because you're growing the muscle and you're not losing the fat on your body.

Speaker 2:

If you lose the fat and grow the muscle, the muscle will make you smaller and it will make you more quote unquote toned looking and more strong and sculpted looking. So what that means is that you have to get your workouts in line with your macros. You have to have your macros in a fat loss, you know, deficit, or at least a maintenance. You can't be, you know, eating too much, because then your body is going to keep the fat and build muscle. So if you have done that before, it's not that you grow muscle. You do. You probably do grow muscle quickly. That's not necessarily a bad thing. What's happening is you're not losing the fat as quickly as you'd like to be or as you should be. So in that sense and what I do for a lot of clients is I, when they first come to me, keep doing what you're doing. We'll keep going to the classes, we'll keep doing what you're comfortable with. We'll get your macros in line, we'll get your water, your walking, all those things where you feel like you're in a good place, and then we will add on some weightlifting so that you're losing fat, we've already started your fat loss and so we'll keep going with that. I have a lot of ladies who will start doing that with, so that they can see that the muscle that they're building isn't the problem, that's not the scary part. We definitely have to get them into a fat loss phase first.

Speaker 2:

I am the kind of person who's like I'm good with putting on a little fat with my muscle because I know I can lose the fat later. So I'm okay in the fall and winter, building a little bit, feeling a little bigger, feeling a little fluffy. That's a true bulk, because you have to eat enough to build muscle fast enough to build muscle fast enough to be able to build it in like three, four months to shed that fat and see the muscle. So I'm okay with that. But I understand that this time of year when clients come to me, they don't want to get bulky, they don't want to look big right. So I totally understand that that's not something that people want to do and I get that. So that is something that I wanted to talk about too.

Speaker 2:

So the timing of when you eat does that matter? Not really, in a general sense, the types of workouts that you do. Does that matter? Yes, absolutely, and the two combined together, not necessarily when you eat, but how much you eat along with the workouts you're doing. That does matter too. I have clients come to me a lot that are I'm hitting my macros, I'm doing these workouts, I'm doing my steps right, I'm doing all the things, but it's not working. So there's something missing. And it takes a couple of weeks for me to assess what they're truly doing, because sometimes what we think we're doing, we're doing all the things correctly. Sometimes we're doing we're doing all the things correctly, sometimes we're actually not, and so it takes a little time to assess. You know, what's actually going on. For me to see, this is what you thought you were intaking for macros or calories, but this is what you're actually intaking, and you're not growing muscle fast enough because we're not doing any progressive overload, or we're not doing the right types of workouts, or you're moving too much and you're not consuming enough food, and so your body is holding on to fat. There's a couple different things that could be going on, but in general, when we're talking about do these things matter, the timing of when you eat doesn't really matter, but the types of workouts that you are doing does matter. So I hope that that was helpful.

Speaker 2:

I wanted to dive into a little bit of what I've been going through and what's been going on and how I'm feeling and then kind of navigating through these questions that I've gotten. You know commonly and I, as far as me, getting back on track. You know it was just a holiday weekend and a lot of times we struggle with getting quote unquote back on track and back to our routine. I'm very slowly getting back on track, on track and back to our routine. I'm very slowly getting back on track. I've had cupcakes for breakfast for the last four days at least, so I'm cutting cupcakes out for breakfast. I'm just very slowly getting back to my workouts and taking this entire week to just kind of reset, get myself back into a groove, and then I'll kind of jump back into things next week and this is kind of just my pivot week. So I'm doing exact.

Speaker 2:

No one asked but I just thought I would tell you. I'm doing exactly what I tell you to do after you've had something happen, you've had a trip, you've had an event, you're stressed, whatever it is. Take a look at things, pivot what needs to happen. I don't need to be eating cupcakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To be honest, I, you know, I do need to be walking more again. I do need to be catching up on my sleep. I do need to be just kind of letting myself come down and de-stress and then I need to slowly get myself back on track and remind myself of my goals. So I really do hope this episode was helpful. If you have questions and you have episode ideas, please, please, please, send me a DM on Instagram at Christy Castillo fit, and I will absolutely read them on here, possibly, and answer them. If I think it's something that the world needs to know, that would help unfuck your fitness.

Speaker 1:

So I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to today's show. Go ahead and leave a rating and a review and, of course, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And I would love it so much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time.