The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

125. Follow Your Fitness Plan, Not Your Mood

• Kristy Castillo

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When it comes to your fitness, do you tend to follow a plan..or your mood?

Maybe you’re not feeling motivated to work out, track your macros, or drink more water. Maybe you’re just not seeing the progress you thought you would by now, so you’re ready to say ‘f*ck it’, and throw in the towel all together. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from ladies over the years; I’ve felt like this many times too, but I’ve still showed up, and put in the work anyway. When it comes down to it, you should NOT be making decisions on your fitness journey, solely based on how you feel!

There are some factors to keep in mind here, like following a fitness plan that allows for flexibility so you actually CAN be consistent with it. When you start something that is doable for you in your current season of life, you’re way more likely to stay committed to it. Perfection is never required when it comes to your health and fitness, and it’s vital that you look for positive progress outside of just your body weight (like your nutrition, workouts, water intake, sleep, mindset, etc.). Getting into the habit of doing the boring and ‘unsexy’ stuff really matters, and even more so when you’ve hit a plateau, or just aren’t ‘feeling it’.

Yes, your feelings are very real and valid, BUT..that doesn’t mean they’re facts. I hope this episode is a valuable reminder for you to not only give yourself some grace (we all need it sometimes), but also, show up regardless of how you feel. I want you to get shit done so you can enjoy your life - this is how you unf*ck your fitness, friend!

In today’s episode, we cover:

  • Why you shouldn’t be making decisions on your fitness journey solely based on how you feel
  • The importance of finding consistency + practicing flexibility with your fitness and nutrition plan
  • Why redundancy with your plan/program is NOT bad thing
  • Focusing on progress beyond just body weight
  • Why paying close attention to how you feel one day matters, because it can easily change the next (especially if you’re feeling negative or ‘stuck’)
  • Getting into the habit of doing the boring and ‘unsexy’ things, no matter what
  • Understanding that feelings are very real, but they’re not facts
  • Following a plan that is flexible with both your particular life + the changing seasons

How to work with me:

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

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MASTER YOUR MACROS COURSE allows you to go at your own pace and learn how to make macros fit into your lifestyle.


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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. We are going to be talking today about following a plan, not your mood. This is based off of an Instagram post that I did not save, so I don't know who. I don't know who the creator of this was, but it wasn't me. Okay, I did not come up with this, but I think it's genius.

Speaker 2:

It's kind of like this shit is not optional, which I did come up with Probably not, but I did come up with it. So follow your plan, not your mood. If you're not in the mood, do it anyway. Right, what was your plan? You're going to stick to the plan, not your mood. Okay, this shit is not optional. You're tired, doesn't matter. You're bloated, doesn't matter. You don't want to do it, doesn't matter, right? Okay, same idea of this shit is not optional, but in a different way.

Speaker 2:

So I've had a couple of client conversations lately that have kind of been based off of this, not in terms of them not wanting to do things, but they want to change things, and so I'm going to get into that a little bit later. But this is kind of, yeah, like following your plan, not your mood, doing things that you don't want to do, not sure if you're in a plateau, you know like you feel a certain way, but you have to do it anyway. That's kind of the gist of this episode, and we're going to, of course, take a couple twists and turns here. But I'm excited because this, like I said, whatever my clients are dealing with, I know if they're always like kind of dealing with the same things at the same time. I think we as women are just a lot of times dealing with the same things at the same time and if we don't talk about it, we don't know. But I have a lot of clients who are dealing with this and so I'm having this conversation on repeat and it's a really, a really good conversation to have.

Speaker 2:

So, when it comes to your fitness journey, do not make decisions based on how you feel. You have to look for the proof. Based on how you feel, you have to look for the proof and in order to have proof, you would have had to collect some data, entered some data for you to have, so that you have the facts. It's like when I've had clients before, you've heard people like I think I'm eating healthy enough, I think I'm hitting my macros, I think I'm doing all the right things. Well, if you think you're doing all the right things, that's unfortunately not good enough. I talked about this a couple episodes ago, where you have got to track your macros. You have got to know are you going over calories or not? Because if you are, it would be really good to know and really simple to then cut back. But aside from the data that you need, you also do not make decisions based on how you feel. So I had posted one night I was bored, couldn't sleep in bed late scrolling social media and found this follow your plan, not your mood. I'm like that is so good, I'm going to share that. People will be motivated. Love that.

Speaker 2:

The next day I'm struggling to work out. I do not want to work out. I'd had some zucchini brownies a zucchini brownie that morning, my stomach kind of hurt, it was hot. I did not want to work out at all and I did. Okay. I talked myself into it. But I was in the garage and I made a video, posted that on my stories, like I do not want to do this right now. My stomach hurts, I'm not in the mood. But I conveniently posted follow your plan, not your mood. So that's exactly what I'm doing. That's exactly what I'm doing and I showed that on social media.

Speaker 2:

Because when you have a plan, you stick to it.

Speaker 2:

When you know the outcome of that plan, you do it either way.

Speaker 2:

You do it either way. But a lot of times, if we're feeling fluffy, right, we want to eat less. If we're feeling bigger in our genes and we're feeling, yeah, bloated, fluffy, inflamed, gross, maybe like I'm building muscle too quickly, which is not a thing. You're just not losing fat fast enough, okay. But either way, when we're feeling bigger, we're feeling fluffy, we're feeling whatever. Our first instinct is I should eat less or I should adjust my training. And that is absolutely not what you should do.

Speaker 2:

Because if you are trying to teach your body consistency and like this is what I'm feeding you now, these are our macros, you know, trying to love your body and do that consistently If you then back off every time your body feels a certain way, that's not good. That's not teaching your body consistency. So if you are working with a coach who has a plan for you based on the goals that you talked about with your coach, stick to that plan. If you have a plan that you know will get you to your goal, stick to it, no matter how you feel. If you feel bloated, do it anyway. If you feel tired, do it anyway. If you're on your period and you're like, oh my freaking God, hopefully your plan allowed for that, some of that flexibility.

Speaker 2:

Of course you don't have to like crush a workout that day when you feel like shit or you're sick or super tired. But go for a walk. You can still hit your macros, you can still drink your water, you can still do things right Even though you don't feel great. So you still have to right, get close to your macro targets. You have to hit your daily steps. You have to drink lots of water. You have to resistance train over and over and over and over for the rest of your life, consistently, anyway, not every single day. You have to do these things over and over and over, not just when you feel like it, not just when you're in the mood, not just when you oh, I have time for this, right, you have to do it, okay. So kind of got that little pep talk out of the way.

Speaker 2:

Do not make decisions based on how you feel. Do not Okay, you have to do it. If you're committed to something, do it. If you're half-assed committed to something. Sorry about your luck, it's not going to work and you should be fully committed to something that is doable for you. I've talked about this many times in the podcast. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be working out five to seven days a week. You don't have to be absolutely perfect, but you should have a plan. Right, you're going to work out maybe four days a week. You're going to walk six days a week. You're going to hit your water goal every day. You're going to hit these macro targets pretty close to every day. Right, it should be a flexible enough plan that you can hit it consistently, and if not, that's the problem.

Speaker 2:

I set up my plans for my clients so that it fits consistently into their life habitually. But I do have a lot of clients especially in the beginning of them working with me they'll lose a little weight, a couple pounds, and they're feeling really good, and then they plateau, which is totally normal. But they'll ask, and not just in that situation. There are other situations where they'll ask when are we going to change up my macros? Is it time to change up my macros? And they tell me that they have plateaued a little bit or they feel stuck, and so I think we need to change up my macros. Maybe I need to eat less, maybe I need to eat more. Like they don't know, of course, they're coming to me to tell them the answer.

Speaker 2:

And what we talk about is, first of all, I'm not going to change macros unless I feel like something's really, really off. Of course. But if you have just plateaued for two weeks and haven't lost any overall weight, chances are your muscle mass is still changing, your body fat's still changing, right, that's totally fine. I will leave someone in a plateau, myself included, for six to eight weeks if you are still seeing other wins, because that overall number on the scale is unfortunately not our main priority. It's not our main priority because the things you do to get that number to move are our main priority. So, unfortunately, I have to tell these clients I'm not changing your macros, that's not the problem. Your macros are great. Keep being consistent with them. We have to work on these other things right. Or they'll say they're plateaued, like I said, or they feel stuck. Maybe it's just getting redundant. Who knows. If something's feeling redundant, that's good.

Speaker 2:

We don't always need that dopamine hit of a new program or a new workout move or a new gym equipment or a new right. Get used to the redundancy. You'll be fine. But the redundancy is really good for your body. So doing the same workouts three to four weeks in a row, that's fine. Your body is going to love that. Your body loves consistency. Your brain maybe not so much, because that's not really what we give it and so it wants always the next hit, always the next thing, go, go, go, go go. And that's not good. So redundancy is fine. I'm like we're going to have to get used to that. I can do a couple of things within the workout to maybe mix it up a little bit, but it's okay to be uncomfortable. It's okay to be uncomfortable and we need to know that as well.

Speaker 2:

But a lot of times when my clients will say I'm feeling plateaued, I just, you know, I'm feeling stuck, I'm not losing weight, I'm not all the things right, and those are physical things that they're feeling literally, physically and usually literally things that they're feeling literally, physically and usually literally. Their pant size hasn't changed or the number, the overall body weight number, on the scale hasn't gone down. But when we look back to the data, they're making huge progress. So you haven't plateaued. If the scale is down overall let's say it's been eight weeks and the scale is down that's a win. If your muscle mass is up, you're feeling strong. If your fat percentage is down, if you're taking photos and you're noticing a difference, if you're eating more, if you're feeling less bloated, if you're sleeping better, if you have more energy, if you have better habits in place that are allowing you to show up and to get your shit done and still enjoy your life, those are all wins.

Speaker 2:

So when I will talk about this with a client and they'll say, oh, I'm feeling stuck, I'm feeling stuck, I don't know, it's kind of this attitude of like, oh, I'm just feeling really frustrated. Well, is the scale down overall? Maybe not as fast as you'd like it to be be, but is it down? Is your muscle mass up? Are you feeling really strong? Are you eating better? Are you learning things? Are you tracking? Do you understand your body better? Are you listening to your body? Have you been able to take days off and still see results? Have you been able to not be perfect and still see results? Are you sleeping better? Do Do you have more energy right? Like all these things in there A lot of times. It's a yes to almost every single one of those.

Speaker 2:

But, for whatever reason, when that goddamn body weight number doesn't move for God forbid a month or something, we freak out, right. So look at the data. If you feel like, oh my God, I'm plateaued, I'm not making any progress, look at the proof. You are making progress. You feel like you're not making progress. The proof is telling you that you freaking are making progress, right. Yes, it might be taking a little longer than you hoped and, yes, you might be focused on the wrong things when you feel like you're not making progress, but you're good, okay.

Speaker 2:

Something I've talked a lot about with clients, especially recently, is to notice how you feel and realize that you will likely not feel that way again tomorrow. I have my clients my one on one clients on an app called Voxer and they get to talk to me on that app. I check in there a couple of times a week, but they can leave messages in there anytime. I tell them this is where I want you to leave messages for me. Them. This is where I want you to leave messages for me Whenever you're feeling something or you have a question, or you feel literally anything. If you're feeling like I said, stuck, you need a food suggestion, you need to send me a picture, a supplement, anything. A lot of times they will send me a message and say I'm just feeling really frustrated, I'm feeling really bloated today, I feel like shit. I'm feeling kind of down and out. If I don't respond to them that day, a lot of times the next day they'll send me a message and be like disregard, I'm feeling really good today. I think that was just like a fluke and I need to calm down and I need to slow down and they kind of like auto-adjusted themselves. But I will always respond and say let's take note of that.

Speaker 2:

One day you probably felt great. You were kicking ass. You feel so good. The next day you wake up, you feel like shit. You're bloated, you feel gross. Maybe the scale is up a little bit and all of a sudden you feel like you're totally defeated. You're doing everything wrong. Isn't that crazy how, if you look good, the number on the scale is good, you feel good.

Speaker 2:

The next day, you kind of are a little bloated probably nothing to do with your fitness journey, you're. Probably your hormones are crazy. You're going to start your period right, like wherever you're at in your cycle. It's probably something to do with that. But we think, oh, I'm not doing something right Now the scale is up, whatever. Maybe you drink more water, maybe you ate a little bit later than usual who freaking cares? But for whatever reason, that puts you in a funk and now you're like oh, I feel so bad today. I probably need to cut my macros. I probably need to stop eating so many carbs. It's probably the rice, it's probably the bread, it's probably blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2:

Right, the next day you wake up, you're probably not feeling like that anymore. You're feeling okay. Right, you have to notice. Okay, today I'm looking in the mirror and I'm feeling pretty gross. Yesterday, I looked in the mirror and I felt pretty freaking good. The only thing that's changed is my mindset, not my body. You did not gain fat overnight. That would make you look in the mirror and feel gross. Right, it's how you feel. Yes, you could be a little bloated, but who cares? That doesn't define you, but I understand that. It's not like who cares, but you can get to a place where you will look in the mirror. I look in the mirror now and I'm like ate a little bit later last night Can't see my abs this morning. Okay, moving on, it doesn't matter, right? I do the things, no matter what. If I want to do the things or not, I freaking do them and I notice and I want my clients to notice.

Speaker 2:

If you are having a rough day, if you're having even a rough week where you feel defeated and you feel like you're plateaued and you're not making any progress, chances are the next day or the next week you will feel fine. But also notice, on the weeks that you feel fine, know that you will have weeks, like this week's going to end, where I feel really good. I'm probably going to feel like shit here in a couple weeks. Just know, right, that these feelings are not going to last. Just because you feel fat doesn't mean you are fat.

Speaker 2:

Feelings are not facts. They're real but they're not facts. Just because you feel like you've plateaued doesn't mean you are fat. Feelings are not facts. They're real, but they're not facts. Just because you feel like you've plateaued doesn't mean that you are. Just because you feel bigger, your jeans are fitting a little tighter, doesn't mean anyone else can notice. It doesn't mean that you gained any fat. You could actually have lost a little bit of overall weight on the scale and feel a little more fluffy, okay. That's why it's important to know that this shit is not optional and you need to do it, no matter how you feel, because the next day you'll feel better and you'll be pissed that you didn't stick with it. So keep that in mind, just notice how you feel and know that. Okay, it's okay to feel this way. I'm noticing it. Maybe there's a pattern. Maybe you're after tuesday girl night, girls night you wake up up on Wednesday and you kind of feel like shit. Okay, yeah, that's probably going to happen. So either get used to it or make a change, but the next day you'll probably feel fine. So you need to stick with the plan, no matter what. That's why hitting your macros, drinking your water, hitting your step count, doing your training program that's why it's all important to do period consistently, no matter how you look, no matter how you feel. Okay, let me say this part again you might feel fat, but you are not fat, okay. Just because you feel something, you feel like you've plateaued, doesn't mean you've plateaued. Just because you feel like you're not doing aed doesn't mean you've plateaued Just because you feel like you're not doing a good job doesn't mean you're not doing a good job okay. That's why it's so nice to have a coach in your corner so I can say you're doing a good job. You've literally been consistent to this program this entire time. Give it a couple more weeks, right. Your body is still learning to trust you. I can walk you through these things and help you gain that confidence. But that confidence will also come from doing the things that you don't want to do when you don't want to do it.

Speaker 2:

When I finished my workout yesterday, I was sweaty. My knees were sweating so much. I wear those little knee bands, but my knees were just sweating. It was so hot and I'm like well dumbass. If you hadn't talked to yourself out of this workout for an hour, you would have been done already and maybe got it done before the sun came out. But now you're sweating. That was my fault, obviously, but I was so proud of myself. Had I had not done the workout, I would have got later in the day and been really annoyed with myself for not showing up, because I know that I'm going to do it. I might as well do it sooner rather than later. I know by now that I'm going to do the things I don't want to do, whether I'm happy about it or not, and that's just come with consistency of noticing right on these days I do feel like shit. The very next day I do feel fine. So I might as well do the things on the days I feel like shit and I might as well do the days when I feel fine.

Speaker 2:

On the other side of that, there's this other side I was talking to a client about this just earlier this week where sometimes, when we are feeling gross and bad about ourselves and we won't work out because we're just not feeling good and we don't feel like the plan is working, on the other side of that, when you really are kicking ass, you look in the mirror and you're like, wow, I'm really making some great progress. I bet I could not hit my protein goal for a couple of days. I bet I could kind of slack off for a couple of days, right, feeling so good about myself, not like in a vacation way Of course you can enjoy a vacation but in a way of where it's like kind of met my goal. I feel like I could slack off. I feel like I could add some of these crappy foods back in. When you do that, the opposite happens as well, where you do eventually go too far, and that's not good either.

Speaker 2:

So that's why it's important to have a plan to where you can follow it when you feel like it and when you don't. That's also why it's important to have a plan that's flexible with your life and that's also why it's important to have a plan that's flexible with the seasons. Myself and my Fit Club members, we're gearing up to get started with more progressive overload, more muscle gain throughout the fall and winter, and so I'm strategically moving these workouts and moving our plan, and myself as well, into this programming where we will be lifting a little bit heavier for those of us that want to gain muscle and work out a little bit differently for the fall and winter. And I personally love that part because it feels different. It is a little bit of a change in the plan where I get into fall and my mood's a little bit different and I do want to eat some different foods and my goals are different, and so it is nice to be able to kind of have a little bit of a change up but also know it's going to fit seamlessly into my life and I can still be very, very consistent with it. And I now have a different outlook of like yes, I do need to hit my macros. Yes, I do need to lift heavier.

Speaker 2:

If I'm not consistently showing up for my workouts, I won't build muscle, and my goal is to build muscle in the fall and winter. So I have to freaking show up for myself, right? That's kind of a push in the right direction too. If I'm not eating enough, then my body won't build muscle. So I have to be eating enough. I have to be working out consistently. Obviously I have to be hitting these workouts. I have to be hitting these body parts with the right amount of weight or my muscles not going to grow, and then there's no point in any of this. So it all kind of feeds off of each other. So that's another way to follow your plan and not your mood to know exactly the point of your workouts. So that way you're like oh, if I miss this workout, then I've missed a lot of muscle building opportunity, and that's just not an option. So we're not going to do that, we're going to show up regardless. So that's a really good way for me to kind of look forward to my workouts and not have them be so much of a pain in the ass.

Speaker 2:

I do love to show up for them and feel like I really did build my biceps. I really did work on building my quads today. I really did work on building my glutes today and not just showed up for a workout. Right, working out with purpose and working out with a plan is really, really important. So I hope that you enjoyed this episode as usual, and I think it's a really good reminder that you need to show up no matter how you feel. You are not necessarily your feelings, your feelings are not necessarily facts, but you're allowed to feel them Absolutely and know that, like I don't feel like working out today, I'm going to freaking, do it anyway, and that's how we get shit done over here. That's how we unfuck your fitness. So I will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

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. Bye.