The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

117. Juicing, Detoxing, and Intuitive Eating: My Honest Take on These Popular Trends

• Kristy Castillo

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In today’s episode, I’m diving into 3 popular health trends that I’m frequently asked about - juicing, detoxing, and intuitive eating! With all of the Summer vacations, holidays, barbecues, and more happening this time of year, it seems that many of you think that juicing and detoxing are the best ways to help you reset and ‘get back on track’ after indulging a little too much. They’re almost like a form of punishment, and something to continually fall back on as you stay trapped in the vicious ‘on again, off again’ dieting cycle. Like..what’s the point of this, and what good is it really doing you?!

I’m also sharing my very real and unfiltered thoughts regarding intuitive eating, and what I see so often with the ladies I work with who are ‘eating intuitively’. I don’t believe you should just ‘wing it’, and simply guesstimate what/how much you should be eating - I would rather you take some time and learn how to track your macros, so you can properly fuel your body for the long-term! 

ALL of this comes down to intentionality with your health and fitness goals, and the habits you choose to build for yourself.  Ultimately, I want you to find freedom with your food and be in tune with your body so you CAN feel empowered and confident in your everyday life. If you need support doing so, I would love to help you do that!

In this episode about juicing, detoxing and intuitive eating, we cover:

  • Why you don’t need to do a juice cleanse or ‘detox’ after every vacation, holiday, special occasion, etc. + what would be more helpful to do instead
  • Taking time to consider WHY you continue ‘going off the rails’ or ‘falling off track’ so often + how to actually stop doing this
  • My thoughts on intuitive eating + the eye-opening results my clients typically see when they start accurately tracking macros
  • Why macro tracking doesn’t have to be a tool that you absolutely dread

Related episodes mentioned:

Episode 17 | Intuitive Eating: What Is It, And Should You Be Doing It?


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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? Welcome to today's episode. I am going to be talking to you today about my thoughts on juicing, detoxing which kind of can go together, hand in hand sometimes and intuitive eating. These are three things that I've been asked quite a bit lately, and so they're topics that I want to talk about, because if I'm getting asked, then it means you're wondering, you're struggling with it, you're you know it's on your mind and you want to know my thoughts, and so I'm happy to give them to you. So first I want to talk about the topics of juicing and detoxing. These are usually asked to me in the same sentence like hey, christy, what are your thoughts on juicing and detoxing? Is it good for me, is it bad for me? And usually it's in the context of punishment. Unfortunately, it's like I feel like I need to juice for a whole day after a weekend because I went off track, or I feel like I need a detox every Monday after a weekend because I went off track. It's something like that, or after a get together or after a vacation or after, like, a girl's trip or something like that. People I often get questions from ladies I mostly only talk to ladies, but it's a lot of women that are like struggling with the fact that they feel bloated, feel bad, you know, disgusting. I would just feel like I explain it in the sense of like when I feel kind of inflamed and bloated and I've eaten too much or, you know, had a weekend away or whatever it is like, I always explain it like my stomach feels like a garbage disposal, like it doesn't hurt. It's just kind of like feels grimy and gross. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I know that feeling of like. Oh my gosh, I ate too much, I drank too much, I ate like shit, I'm off my routine, and what happens is that can happen a lot after trips and vacations and girls weekends and even a simple weekend where you've had these barbecues and these get-togethers or parties or whatever it is right. It can be holidays, it literally can be any time, but here's the situation A lot of times when I get these particular messages, it's like what do you think about spending a day of detoxing, spending a day of just juicing after a weekend of basically eating bad is how it's worded to me.

Speaker 1:

When it's worded to me in that way, I want to say no, because you're using it as kind of like a punishment, also like a reset. I get where it could be a reset of like okay, I'm just going to fill my body with fruits and veggies and juice them and just drink and, you know, kind of get my body back to feeling good again. I understand that. The problem is that one we're using that as kind of punishment. Right, like I did so bad and I fell off track and I feel like shit after the weekend. We'll just use that example. So now I feel like I need a detox or just juice or whatever.

Speaker 1:

To quote unquote get back on track to kind of undo all of the shit that we did over the weekend, all the things that I ate. It's like for me mentally, that makes it seem like I'm undoing it, like it never happened, like it didn't enter my body and now it's gone, whatever. And that's not true. It doesn't undo what you did, right? You still ate those things, they still were there, your body digested them, so you can't really undo what you did. So when it's presented to me with the mindset of you know, I had a bad weekend, what are your thoughts on juicing and detoxing the day after a bad weekend? Basically I don't like that because of that, like I said, it feels like it's punishment. It feels like you're trying to undo what you did and this routine would go on and on if you let it.

Speaker 1:

It's the same thing as the start over every Monday mentality, where you fall off track on the weekends. Every Monday you're like I'm going to start Monday, I'm going to start Monday, then Friday, saturday, sunday, you fall off track and then you start over Monday. This, to me, would be no different than that. And so if you're messed up on the weekends and then you're juicing on Monday, and then you messed up on the weekend and then you're juicing on Monday, what is the point? What is the point of that? So I don't have a problem with juicing.

Speaker 1:

I don't have a problem with detoxing every once in a while. I have juiced before. I have done a couple of detoxes when my body was messed up and my gut was messed up, so I don't have a problem with them if they're done for a certain reason. They have rules and guidelines and you're doing it for a certain amount of time and you're doing it with a good mentality. What it boils down to is your intention matters so much. So if you are just going to juice for a couple of days so you kind of like clear your system and you feel better, that's fine.

Speaker 1:

But don't do that every single week to like fix what you did on the weekend. I don't like that. So I don't have a problem with juicing. I don't have a problem with detoxing for the short term. I do have a problem with juicing because a lot of times it's done incorrectly. So I have a problem with juicing if it's done incorrectly because you're not hitting your macros, you're not getting enough protein. If you're just winging it and having, like Pinterest, smoothies and juices and stuff, that is not okay. That is not enough fuel for your body. I do have a problem with that. But inherently I don't have a problem with detoxing every once in a while. I don't have a problem with juicing.

Speaker 1:

So I want to say that what I do have a problem with is the intention of kind of undoing what you did on the weekend. So I don't want to tell someone like, yeah, that would be a great idea, go ahead and mess up every single weekend. Drink, eat all the things, put your body through hell. You'll feel like shit. But don't worry, on Monday you're going to juice, you're going to detox it out Like no big deal, right? I don't like that because your intention is bad. What I would rather have you do is learn how to track your macros, learn how to fuel your body properly, because what are you going to do after Monday? If you juice on Monday, what's your plan on Tuesday? What's your plan on Wednesday? I don't like that.

Speaker 1:

I would rather you eat more consistently every single day of the week. And okay, if you're going out and you have a special event and you have something going on, absolutely live a little right. But figure out which ones of those special events mean the most to you. Not every party, not every weekend, not every time you go out to dinner or lunch or breakfast or whatever. Not every one of those events has to be a special event, because we could very easily make every meal every day, every week, there could be a special event, because we could very easily make every meal every day, every week there could be a special event, and you're never gonna get to true health if you're always using something as a special event and eating whatever you want. So the intention I would rather have your intention be to figure out your macros, figure out how to eat, figure out how to stay more so on track every weekend, right, and not feel like every single Monday you have to start over. So that's kind of my original thoughts on juicing and detoxing.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you are, I was talking to someone behind the scenes in the DMs on Instagram about this and I was like, listen, if detoxing is something that you enjoy, if juicing is something that you enjoy because there are a lot of people who do like juicing and they do like how they feel and all of that I love that. And if you want to have one day where I have some clients that do like meatless Monday and so they're trying to eat less meat, so they go meatless on Monday, right, I don't have a problem with you choosing a day and just having juice and really being intentional about that. Like, maybe on that day you're also not going to work out, you're going to go for a walk. You're going to kind of reset, you're going to clear your mind with the intention of it being so healthy for you. Not as a punishment, not as a oh my God, I messed up this weekend, right? Not as something negative or even to necessarily clean out what you just put in your body and kind of like undo it, but to change your mindset around it and say I really this is really healthy for me, right, I really want to do this. Maybe you do yoga on that day, right? Maybe you take a whole day and kind of just I don't know have it be your little reset day. I totally love that. Or, if you want, like a little self-care day where you're giving yourself facial and you know all the little things. You're maybe doing some gua sha, like I could see myself kind of doing those little things to kind of like give myself a little self-love, like why not give your gut a little self-love? I totally am on board with that.

Speaker 1:

It's just the way that it's usually presented to me is what do you think about juicing a day after a crazy weekend or a day after an event? And I don't love it because your body still needs food? Yeah, you gave it too much. Yeah, you drank too much. Yeah, you kind of feel like shit, but it's like go back to normal. I am never tempted to do that. I would always rather just go back to normal, right, whether you're hungover. That's one thing. You need to get over that. But you can use the extra calories that you consumed for fuel for a workout. You can use those things. It's not a big deal.

Speaker 1:

I know that you're feeling sluggish, but you don't have to always do something about it to kind of act like it didn't happen, to undo it right. What you could do instead that would be more proactive and more helpful is to actually sit with yourself in that moment and say I'm kind of sick of doing this every weekend. I'm kind of sick of the way that I feel after I go off the rails on the weekends. How can I stop doing that? That would be healthier. That intention would mean more to your body overall than to just be winging it.

Speaker 1:

Go off track, eat, drink, all the things, treat your body like shit you know very often on the weekends and then try to recover on Monday Instead. How can I not do that right? How can we? Talked about this last week's episode just about drinking. But like, what are some things that I can drink that aren't alcohol, that are maybe still fizzy and maybe still kind of taste the same, and they're still kind of fun and they look cute, right? Still fizzy and maybe still kind of taste the same, and they're still kind of fun and they look cute, right? What are some things that I can eat that are chocolatey but they're not so sweet and they don't ruin my gut and make me feel like shit the next day? Try to help those things, because that's going to matter long term.

Speaker 1:

Your habits make such a difference in your overall life and if your habit is to wing it every weekend and then recover by juicing and detoxing every Monday, that's not great. But, like I said, I don't have anything inherently wrong with juicing or detoxing on occasion, so that is not bad. I don't think anything is really bad. There's no diet that I would say like don't ever do this certain thing, even with intermittent fasting, even with intuitive eating, like we're going to talk bad. There's no diet that I would say like don't ever do this certain thing, even with intermittent fasting, even with intuitive eating, like we're going to talk about in a minute. Even with a lot of these things, there's nothing that I would say. It's not going to kill you, it's not going to ruin your life or anything but your intention. Your time, your energy would be better spent somewhere else, trying to improve your overall life, rather than to just kind of like try to punish yourself and undo what you did on the girls trip or what you did on the weekend, right? So that's kind of my two cents on that. I hope that was helpful.

Speaker 1:

And then I want to give my thoughts on intuitive eating. I have a previous podcast episode about this but of course my thoughts change. They don't actually change a lot, but they expand, we'll say, as I get more into my authenticity and I believe what I believe and I have more clients experience and I have more experience myself and I feel like I'm good to go and say whatever I think. So I have mixed feelings with the intuitive eating kind of community. It's funny because I cannot remember the woman's name who asked this in the Facebook group, my Christy Castillo Fit Facebook group but she basically was asking for my thoughts. She would love my thoughts on intuitive eating. She said something in terms of it seems like a big F you to kind of the diet community, where it's like, you know, we count calories, we count macros, we are very specific with things.

Speaker 1:

And then this intuitive eating movement comes along and is like you don't have to do any of that, you don't have to track your macros, you don't have to track your calories, you don't have to track anything, you can just listen to your body and intuitively eat. And that's not correct. It's interesting because if you would have asked me this in my beach body days, I would have said absolutely intuitive eating is the best, it's what I do. I remember saying that a couple of times. That's what I do, I don't track anymore. And there were times when there are times now that I don't track my calories and I don't want you to track your macros and calories forever. That's not the goal. I do want you to be able to be intuitive with your body.

Speaker 1:

I do feel like that is part of what we've taken away in the diet industry. Is intuitiveness, like what feels good to you, what feels natural to you, right? And a lot of times it's like no, you have to lift weights, or you have to do yoga, or you have to do Pilates, or you have to eat one gram of your body weight and protein and all these rules, and it does take us away from our that intuitiveness in our bodies. But I would have said, yeah, I eat intuitively, so it's totally possible and everyone should be doing it. I would have said that Now when I looked back and kind of dissected that and it's been a long time since I've done that but when I finally did actually get real with myself, I'm like the reason I'm able to eat intuitively is because I tracked my food for so long. I know exactly what I need. So I'm essentially not eating intuitively. Let's be real If I were to eat intuitively, I would not hit my protein goal because I don't really want that much protein.

Speaker 1:

I don't crave it. My body doesn't. It's not something that I like, crave, that I go to, that I choose from that. I think, oh, my body is really needing some protein. Right now I feel like my intuition is telling me that my body needs protein. Like I wouldn't hit my protein goal, I wouldn't hit my calorie goal, and that's just honest, and so I'm actually not eating intuitively.

Speaker 1:

What I do currently, when I don't track, is I know exactly what I'm supposed to eat in a day to fuel my body. And, yes, I know how my body feels. I know when I really want some sugar. I know when because, like I have a headache and I really need some energy, I need some quick carbs, I need some sugar, I need whatever right Like some carbs. I know how my body feels on the inside when I'm lacking protein. That's because I tracked it so long and I've eaten it so long and I've given my body a specific amount of calories and macros for so long. My body and I have a pretty great relationship.

Speaker 1:

So I don't eat intuitively. I actually think it's bullshit there. I said it Because that's just not a thing. Yeah, okay, like you can eat intuitively 100%. So eating intuitively is not bullshit. But can you fuel your body intuitively perfectly for your goals, for your health? No, I don't believe that you can, and that's just me. That's just me. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my thoughts. So the way that you can go toward eating intuitively and the way that you can learn to listen to your body and, you know, kind of pay attention to that is by tracking your food.

Speaker 1:

I have a lot of clients that come to me and they first join Fit Club or they first join my one-on-one coaching and they start tracking their food. One of the first things I do is set their macro targets for them and I'm like, hey, just set some macro targets for you, work toward them, but you don't have to hit them perfectly. Mostly, I want to just see about two weeks of your food logs and your calories and your macros and what you're currently doing, so that I can give you suggestions on how to work toward that, how to improve your macros. And it never fails that people are like I'm not eating enough protein. I thought I was doing well, but it turns out not that I'm eating bad, but I'm not eating anywhere near what I should have been eating. And I would do the same thing. I will start maybe gaining some weight or I'll start maybe feeling a little fluffier.

Speaker 1:

I start whatever it is in my body that I know is off and I'm like man. I am doing all the things. I'm walking, I'm eating enough food, I know that I'm doing the right things, I'm hitting my workouts. What's the problem? And as soon as I start to track, I realize Rusty, you haven't hit your protein goal in months because you're not tracking and you're not aware of it. So it never fails that once we start tracking our food, we realize, wow, I was not getting enough food, I was not getting enough calories, I wasn't getting enough nutrients. No wonder I'm not hitting my goals.

Speaker 1:

So I think intuitive eating I don't really honestly know where it came from. I'm sure that I researched it previously, but it might be a big fuck you to the health industry, I don't know. It's something that people say and they probably certain people probably have courses around it and they teach intuitive eating, which probably has you track your food so you know what to be eating and then you can stop tracking your food and eat intuitively, which that's not intuitively If you have already learned how to do it. You're not listening to your body, you're eating right, like if I am not tracking my food, but I can look at the back of containers and be like okay, I know how much protein is in this, I know how much carb, like I know, I know I've been doing this long enough, but I still have to look. I still can't just wing it and eat intuitively. I just I can't. If I did that for a day and then I tracked it at the end of the day, it would be such a shit show.

Speaker 1:

So intuitive eating is not something to aim for. I don't think it's real, because if you are not tracking your food and you're still hitting your macros, that's very much on purpose. There's not a person in the world that just automatically was hitting their macros perfectly came to me, started tracking their macros and was like, oh my God, I'm actually hitting these numbers exactly perfectly. Holy shit, I never tracked, I didn't know what I was doing, I was just winging it. And here I am hitting my macros. Absolutely not, you would never. You would never. It's the same thing with your money, right? You don't get a paycheck, spend all this money and be like, oh my god, I literally broke. Even at the end of the month, I have literally zero dollars. No, you're either in the hole in credit card debt, car debt, house debt, or you have money in the bank. It's not ever going to zero out accidentally.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but what you can work toward is tracking your food for a couple months, really seeing. Okay, these are the staple foods. If I have a Greek yogurt every day and I have a protein bar and I have this protein shake and I have oatmeal and I have salmon for dinner and I have a big salad for lunch and I have a tuna fish packet with some hummus and some chips. This is literally what I'm eating right now, every day. So it's really easy for me to say, and I have two Oreos, that's my macros, like that's exactly what I need to eat every single day. I'm not doing that, but that's just what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

If you knew exactly what to eat because you've been tracking it so meticulously that you knew exactly what to eat yeah, you could take a few days off and get pretty dang close without tracking. But you can only do that because you tracked for so long. You know yourself and you can do it right, but eventually you're going to slack. So that's my thoughts on intuitive eating. I hope that they were great, but I think a lot of these things are just bullshit. Right, we would like to think that we don't have to track our food forever, and we don't. We'd like to think that we don't have to budget our money forever, and we don't. Properly, we'll never have money in the bank and we'll never be rich, and we'll never save enough money for the house that we want, or X, y and Z, or be able to afford our kids college. If we don't track how much money we're making and how much money we're spending, and that's just how it is. You can get very, very close to those things after you've done it long enough to earn the privilege of stopping tracking.

Speaker 1:

And it doesn't take very long for a client to come to me and say I'm getting really close to my macros, I'm killing it. And then they start to love it. It becomes this game of like oh I ate this today and it wasn't on my plan, but I tracked it and it's actually pretty close. Or I tracked it and I'm way over and I really screwed up and I won't do that again, or I'll pre-plan for that later. And you start to kind of fill in the puzzle pieces and it becomes this game because it's fun, because tracking helps you feel better, it helps you look better, it helps you perform better, and so it becomes something that is not okay. Maybe I shouldn't say fun, but it is fun for some people. I actually really like it and I have a lot of clients who like it too, but what it becomes is a tool that you don't have to dread. It becomes a tool that gives you freedom, that helps you to stay on track and helps you to feel empowered and confident. It's something that you're tracking so that you can't have certain things and it's like no, you can have whatever. You just have to log it in there first and make sure that it fits.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I think that intuitive eating is kind of bullshit. But you can learn to listen and be intuitive with your body and your health and your fitness. But there are times, too, when you'll have to tighten it up and and the same goes for juicing and detoxing it's not inherently bad. It's your intentions behind it, and the reason for doing something does impact how you feel about it. It can stress you out and it can make you, you know, hold on to even more inflammation if you're stressed. If you're stressed and you're detoxing to get rid of inflammation, you're still going to have inflammation because you're stressed, not necessarily just because of what you've eaten. So that's another reason, too, why these things aren't just black and white. There's not just like a cut and dry answer to a lot of this stuff. But those are my thoughts on detoxing, juicing and intuitive eating.

Speaker 1:

So keep the questions coming in the DMs. I'm really enjoying those conversations. I'm getting a lot of them lately like, hey, I have this question if you want to talk about it on a podcast. So I have a lot of ideas coming. I'm trying to kind of group them a couple different topics per episode so that I'm not just kind of talking about one kind of killing a couple more birds with one stone.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, it's been really fun to hear from you all and to chat about these topics and I do really love to get to know you and to hear what you're struggling with and what your questions are, because it really helps me. So I appreciate it. Share this episode with a friend or share it and tag me on social media. I would love that and I'll talk to you next week on social media. I would love that and I'll 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.