The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast
If you've tried all the fad diets and are sick and tired of not achieving your health and fitness goals long-term, you've come to the right place! Welcome to the Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast with me, Kristy Castillo. I'm here to help you break the annoying diet cycle, gain confidence, and reach your health and fitness goals.
This podcast will show you how to be proud of the body you have, build the body you want, and enjoy the process along the way. I'll cover topics like how to get the most from your workouts, the importance of feeding your body what it needs, and key mindset shifts that will empower you. I've broken through the BS surrounding diet culture and built my dream body, all while being a busy wife, Mom and business owner, and I know you can too!
Connect with me on Instagram at @kristycastillofit
Learn more about working together by visiting my website: https://www.kristycastillo.com/
The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast
133. Taking ‘Breaks’ on Your Fitness Journey for Pregnancy, Injuries, Mental Health Struggles, and More
I’m excited to cover a highly requested topic in today’s episode - taking ‘breaks’ on your fitness journey!
This has come up a lot with clients - many ladies worry about taking a break, or taking time off from their fitness routine. Whether you’re navigating pregnancy, an injury that’s resulting in surgery, mental health issues, or something else, we all face struggles that require us to change and pivot.
It’s totally okay to take some time off and/or adjust when you’re experiencing a major life change - especially something like pregnancy. This is a time that can vary sooo much from person to person, and you’ve got to be willing to shift your mindset and goals along the way.
If you’re focused on making healthy choices for you and your baby and finding a balanced routine that works for YOU, it will be that much easier as you move into postpartum, too!
This also applies to an injury, illness, surgery, and even mental health struggles. Maybe you’ve had an injury or sickness that requires surgery, or maybe you’ve had extra stress due to a shitty life circumstance. Whatever the case may be, you’ve GOT to take a step back, and give yourself a chance to fully heal.
At the end of the day, we ALL experience life’s curveballs, but we’ve got to be willing to adjust and pivot along the way. Taking a break from fitness when needed doesn’t have to be a huge deal, because we’re in this for the long-term!!
In today’s episode, we cover:
- Why it’s okay to take time off when you need to heal, experience a major life change or setback, etc.
- Understanding that you will need to shift your mindset and goals as you navigate pregnancy
- Choosing to pivot and do the best you can when you’re going through a challenging (or different) life circumstance
- What can happen if you don’t take the time to truly recover and heal your body
- My personal experience with slowing down and allowing my body to ‘chill out’ when I need to
- Planning ahead + visualizing what your upcoming life event is going to look like
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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.
Speaker 2:I am going to be talking to you in this episode about taking some time off in your fitness journey and kind of what that feels like in your fitness journey and kind of what that feels like mentally, physically, and this has been a highly requested topic in terms of pregnancy. So I get a lot of questions, you know. What do you suggest if I'm pregnant? Do you suggest that I continue to work out? Do you suggest that I take some time off? I also get this question in terms of injuries. So a lot of my clients, or a lot of people, will come to me and say they've just experienced an injury and it's going to be a long period of time before they can work out that particular muscle group or area, whatever. And they want to know should they continue to work out the rest of their body? What's that going to look like? How much time do they need to take off Of continue to work out the rest of their body? What's that going to look like? How much time do they need to take off? Of course, in both of these circumstances they're talking to their doctor. But again, people want to know my opinion, and so here I am giving it. But I think that's partly because I give a dose of reality, right, I'm not going to bullshit and sugarcoat around the situation. I'm just going to kind and sugarcoat around the situation. I'm just going to tell you like it is and I can give some experience in this and also, obviously, some knowledge and just my thoughts of experience, whether it be for myself or my clients going through these things and what I've seen and what I honestly think. So, as far as this being pregnancy, obviously that's a nine-month situation and then then you have the baby and then you have, you know, all of that care and all of that time off as well, so that's a long period of time. We can look at it in terms of also, like I said, an injury or a surgery, or this could even be, honestly, mentally. I've had to take some time off myself. I wouldn't say specifically time off, had to take time off.
Speaker 2:Maybe that isn't the right way to say it, but, cutting back on things, whether your mental health is kind of taking a beating and I've had to tell clients this as well like your mental health comes first. You need to start going to therapy, you need to start talking to people, you need to do things to heal yourself from the inside out and not focus so much on the physical part, when you have stuff going on mentally that you need to attend to. This can relate to a lot of different situations and I wish that I could name all of them, but I guess there's no way that I honestly can. I remember even when I was doing some autoimmune issue, more like an elimination diet, only eating certain things I was having to cut back a lot on my workouts then because of my energy levels, I wasn't getting enough protein, I probably wasn't getting enough calories I don't know for sure because I wasn't tracking but my goal at that time was to eat to heal my gut and to feel better. Not for muscle building, not for fat loss, right? So you kind of have a different goal in mind and that is exactly what I want to talk about in terms of taking breaks or cutting back or pivoting in your fitness journey.
Speaker 2:So let's go to the most popular topic I would say would be pregnancy. I have, you know, ladies coming to me quite often saying I'm either doing your program like your Fit Club program, christy, and I just found out I was pregnant, so how should I modify? Or I'll have one-on-one clients come to me and say I just found out I was pregnant. I need you to help me and coach me through these nine months and we figure out kind of what that looks like for them. So I'm not on this podcast going to give you medical advice. I'm not going to tell you how to work out. I think that's more of a doctor's place to be able to tell you personally whether you have certain medical issues, how your baby is. That's a very detailed thing, obviously, and of course, if I'm working with you, I'm going to take the doctor's input how you're feeling. All of that. If I'm working with you, I'm going to take the doctor's input how you're feeling. All of that stuff is going to be involved in your programming that I would design for you to work out and continue exercising throughout your pregnancy.
Speaker 2:But across the board, what I will say is, when you are leading into something like pregnancy and for me, I didn't start my quote-unquote fitness journey I kind of hate that term, but it is what it is I didn't start getting in shape or even working out. I was a runner up until I had kids and after, but I didn't know anything about macros or nutrition or eating healthy or workouts like nothing. I would say I knew nothing about any of that. So when I got pregnant, that was not something at all that I was thinking of. Sure, was I cautious of gaining weight? Was I afraid that I would gain weight? Was I afraid I wouldn't get my body back? All those normal things? Yeah, absolutely. But in terms of my fitness journey, I had no idea. I wasn't worried about losing muscle mass or not working out, because I wasn't doing any of that. So I honestly can't speak from experience on what that feels like.
Speaker 2:I can tell you right now, if that was a thing, that I was going I'm 43, so that's not really in the cards for me. That's not something I want. I don't want to be pregnant. But if that was something that not in my state of physical-ness but in my mentality right now, if I was in the shape that I am right now and I'm younger and in a position to have a baby, of course I would look at it in terms of okay, my focus for the next nine months would be my body, of course, because it's the baby's home for nine months, and then it would be the baby. So it wouldn't be building muscle and it wouldn't be necessarily.
Speaker 2:Obviously. It wouldn't necessarily be losing muscle and it wouldn't obviously be losing weight, losing fat, like your mindset and your goals have to completely change as you are becoming pregnant. But you will have to just look at it, as I can see where that would be terrifying. I mean, I have girls that are like I've just lost 100 pounds and I'm really proud of how I look and I feel great and I'm confident, and now I'm going to gain weight again and I'm going to put on a couple pounds and I'm going to have to get it back off and I'm terrified of whether I can even do that and I understand that fear. I've not experienced that, obviously in relation to pregnancy. But I can put myself in that position right now and say I would be also terrified. I know how I would get it back and I know that I would and all of that, but it's still just having that time off from your goals and thinking about you have the six weeks after where you can't do anything and then as far as physical workouts, things like that after having a baby, and then you can ease your way back in.
Speaker 2:So I would probably plan out the entire duration of the pregnancy for myself. I mean months one through three. You're kind of not feeling the best. So I personally would probably be doing some lightweight lifting and going for walks and things like that. And then months four through seven, you're feeling okay, it is what it is, but that's kind of per person as well. So I would tentatively, I think, plan for myself anyway to continue lifting light to medium weights, three, know, three, four days a week, just kind of see how I feel. I'm not going to be implementing progressive overload or like anything like that.
Speaker 2:I'm literally just going to be moving my body and maintaining what I have as far as muscle mass. That's something you can control sort of. Is your muscle mass during pregnancy? You can control that. You can control the quality of what you eat. Yes, you're going to have cravings and, yes, give in to them because why not? But within reason, there are things that you can control. So I would do that. And then the last few months, it's just enjoy being pregnant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would want to again keep up my muscle mass. I'm going to eat healthy and move as much as I can, but I'm going to be tired, I'm going to be huge, I'm going to feel like shit, I'm going to want this baby out of me. The reality is I know what that feels like, so I'm going to give myself some grace to be like listen, if I can chill for the last two months, three months, whatever. I'm going to do that If but it's six weeks is not a big deal. Like, take the time to chill, be kind to your body. You're growing a human. Like just pivot and think about it as just that. Have the best, most healthy pregnancy and the most healthy baby that you can and do everything in your power you know to do. Do that.
Speaker 2:That's your main priority, and then secondary would be obviously staying in the best shape that you can so that after you don't have to work harder than you want, the healthier you are and the more you move and maintain your muscle mass during pregnancy there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not telling you to go balls to the wall and do CrossFit and all those types of things People do, and that is what it is. I'm not telling you personally what to do For me. I'm still going to push myself to as far as I know I can in that situation. It probably wouldn't be that far. These days I give myself a lot of grace, but just knowing that after that then it's game on again, right and you can. You can get your body back like it's. It's not. It's not that big of a deal, but the healthier choices you make during pregnancy, the easier it's going to be after to get your body back and you know to recognize yourself again and you'll be really proud that you did that.
Speaker 2:You can relate that also to a surgery. Okay, if you're going in for surgery and you're going to have a I don't know two to four-month recovery process I have no idea, I'm just picking numbers that's a long time as well and you could say, wow, I just lost 100 pounds and now I've got to have surgery on my knee or my elbow or my shoulder and I'm not going to be able to lift and I've got to take some time off Pivot. Okay, do what you can. If you can't lift upper body for two to four months again, I'm pulling that number out of nowhere then you can go for walks, you can maybe jog a little bit, you can still do some lower body weight movements if that's what you're new to. You can do lunges, you can do some squats, you can do some glute bridges without your arms.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, until you can kind of work some of that in, but you're going to have to pivot, like there's always going to be circumstances where you're pregnant, where you had surgery, where you're working on autoimmune issues, where you're so depressed and anxious and you know whatever that life's brought you down and you can't get out of bed and you're crying through your workouts. I've been there, so it's not the same. Obviously, pregnancy is not the same as surgery, is not the same as mental health, depression, those types of things right, but they are similar in the sense of you have to still pivot. You have to still make the choice to get up every day and do what you can and choose the healthiest thing for yourself. And if the healthiest thing for yourself is going to therapy and laying in bed and crying all day, then do that. If the healthiest thing for yourself is to take two full months off of any kind of physical activity, because that's what your body needs to recover from a surgery, then do that. If your body needs six weeks off of any kind of activity after having a baby which it freaking does because that's hard then take that.
Speaker 2:But what you can control is your protein intake, your carb and fat intake, your calorie intake, the quality of your food. You can control things. You can control your mindset. You can journal, you can write, you can maybe pick up a side hobby online. If you need something to occupy your time and feel like you're contributing and feel like your worth is still there. If you're feeling like I'm literally a sack of shit lying on the couch, I need something to make me feel good. I understand those types of things, but it's all just about pivoting and it's all about creating this mindset of longevity.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of these things come from this perfectionist mindset and I think for me that came from Beachbody and it was like this I start a program, it's a three-month program. I have to finish it, start to finish. I have to be perfect. I can't miss a day, I can't miss a meal. I have to do this perfect, perfect, perfect. And life happens and we don't know what to do in those times. We are meant to slow down, we are meant to stop sometimes. We are meant to pivot. We have things going on. We have pregnancies, we have surgeries, we have health issues. We have whether that be like an injury surgery, whether that be an elective surgery, whether that be your kids need you for a week and you won't be home, whether that means you as the reasons that you could have to pivot in your journey. Honestly, it's just that it's just figuring out how does your life look different right now and how can you make use of what you have and what you're able to do, and that's it.
Speaker 2:A lot of this comes down to the mental piece. So, as far as someone struggling with pregnancy again, this is my main and this probably won't relate to a lot of you in the moment, but this is a very common question that I get from a lot of ladies is this pregnancy piece, and so I really kind of want to drive that home because it's sad in a way that we feel like we won't be able to get our bodies back, and so it's like we're almost I mean I almost. I get the question sometimes, not every time, but it's like I'm pregnant and it's almost like they're sad and scared to be pregnant because of their own body. Like I feel like they're not going to enjoy pregnancy when they're asking me these questions because they're so nervous about their own bodies, and I want you to focus on the pregnancy and the baby and your health, not necessarily your body. The rest will follow. If you keep maintaining a good amount of protein every day and you keep getting some steps in and you keep drinking your water and you keep eating well, yes, you're going to grow a beautiful baby and you're going to give birth to this beautiful baby and then after that you can get back to your body. But this time has to be about your body growing another human when you're recovering from surgery. That time period has to be about recovering your body. If you don't recover and heal your body well in that surgery recovery time, then you're going to have more issues down the road.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of clients that will try to rush healing certain body parts and you absolutely cannot do that. Over and over and over again I've seen with my clients rushing through healing knees, shoulders, hips, elbows and just pushing and pushing and you have got to heal it. If something is almost healed and then you start lifting heavy weights and kind of re-injuring it, re-irritating it, it's not going to heal properly. You have to heal it first before you can use it again. Same with depression, anxieties, having something happen you lose your job, you're depressed. Your relationship changes, you're depressed. Whatever it is For me. I'm naturally kind of anxious and depressed, unfortunately. So this seems to be a recurring kind of thing in my life that I fight through. But in times when I'm seriously, seriously low, I have to remember that pushing my body harder is not going to help. That's going to create more pain and tension in my body. It's going to actually make my gut issues flare up.
Speaker 2:If my body is saying something is wrong, I need you to slow down, I have to do that, and so it doesn't mean that we're taking away from our physical health. What I've learned is that when I slow down and give my body some time to chill out, let me just give you an example. I think it was three weeks ago now that there was full moons, and I've talked to a couple of clients about this. I don't know exactly, so I might sound like a crazy person, but there was a couple, I feel like, full moons in one week. I don't remember what exactly was going on, but I'll say at least one and I had a crazy week Mentally. I was so off, and a full moon does mess with me mentally, so my sleep and, oh my gosh, I was just a mess, and a couple of my clients had said the same thing and I'm like, yep, I can totally relate.
Speaker 2:Last week was my luteal phase. So I was so tired, so sore, I felt so gross, I was completely out of it again. So I'm following a crazy full moon week up with my luteal phase week Still felt like a complete maniac mentally, physically drained, nothing, exhausted. And then I started my period and still felt like absolute shit. So for me these last few weeks have felt like that, a little bit of like I have got to give my body some grace and if I push through something right now it's not going to be good. I'm going to hurt, my autoimmune system is going to be flared and pissed off and I've got to slow down so that I can heal, feel better and then push again. I have learned that you've got to stop and slow down when your body's telling you to. If you try to push through it, you'll be down longer. So just an example in my own life currently that slowing down and pivoting is not such a bad thing.
Speaker 2:In that time I'm like I need to be very good with my food choices. I can't be slacking off. If I'm not getting all my workouts in, then I absolutely cannot be eating Oreos and all the things. I need to be very intentional about my walks, be very intentional about my mindset, my self-talk. I need to be intentional about resting. If I'm going to let myself rest, it needs to be worthwhile rest, if that makes sense, like actual rest, watching movies, taking extra time for my skincare, just chilling the fuck out. So that's an example of why it's okay and obviously that's different than being pregnant. I'm not saying that they're the same, but the mindset is the same. As far as this is what my body needs right now, it's okay. I can still do a lot of things that are in my control to help myself, to help my health to be better and kind of regroup and move on.
Speaker 2:As far as the surgery and the pregnancy, you can kind of plan for those. So I would absolutely recommend laying out that timeline of you know kind of how you're feeling, check in with yourself and plan ahead, and that way you have kind of a goal and for me I like to have a goal as far as what I'm working on. So it would look like me breaking that up into you know how many months I'm pregnant, how many months my surgery recovery is going to be, what that's going to look like, what I'm going to be able to do as far as surgery. You're going to have PT, you're going to have things that you're going to be doing, and then after that, what is it going to look like? Set yourself up for that.
Speaker 2:A lot of times I talk to my clients about visualizing and I used to think that that sounded like totally woo-woo, like visualizing just seemed so weird to me and I don't do a lot of that. But I don't even know if it's visualizing necessarily. I personally think myself ahead of time, unfortunately, and that gets me into a lot of overthinking in some situations. But in good situations what it'll look like is, let's say, I have an upcoming dinner with friends that we're going to on a weekend and that's stressful for some people because macro-wise and drinks and all the things that we can get ourselves into if we're going out for the night. I will kind of visualize or at least think about what that's gonna look like.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm gonna see all my friends, we're gonna sit down, everybody's gonna order a drink. Am I going to order a drink or am I ordering water? If I order water, what is that going to look like? Are people going to make fun of me? What are they going to say? That's fine, I just need to prepare for it.
Speaker 2:What am I going to have for dinner? Am I going to allow myself to have a little fun with food, or do I just want to have salad? Am I going to have a salad and a drink? That way I can get my carbs through my drink, so kind of you know tit for tat I don't know equals out. Or am I going to let myself like or we know what fits in my macros? Am I going to let myself have some pizza or spaghetti and garlic bread and then am I getting dessert?
Speaker 2:If I am getting one drink, what am I going to say when they come back and ask me to refill my drink? Am I going to say no, kind of think it through? What is that going to look like when everybody's going bar hopping afterwards and I want to go home because I don't want to be hungover the next day? What am I going to say? What does that feel like when I say it out loud, so kind of thinking ahead? I would do that with the surgery and I would do that with pregnancy as well.
Speaker 2:How am I going to feel? You don't have any idea, but how am I going to think? How do I think I'm going to feel If I do feel that way? What am I going to do If I'm nauseous every single day? This is what that's going to feel like. If I'm not, then I'm going to get workouts in. I'm going to try to hit my steps at least four days a week. If I'm feeling really shitty one day, I'm going to let myself rest and take a nap and stay in bed later, and I'm not going to feel guilty for it.
Speaker 2:So just kind of think about it long term and then, as soon as that time's over and I can focus on myself again, what's that going to feel like? How good is that going to feel? And just think yourself through it, because this is lifelong. This isn't a beach body program. This isn't a program where you're starting and finishing right. This is your life, and a surgery, recovery, a mental health situation, a pregnancy is fortunately just a little blurb in it, okay, and we just have to kind of maneuver, pivot. It's not optional. We got to think ourselves through it and you totally can.
Speaker 2:So think about these things as a way to figure out how to get past them and not give up, not be stressed out about it necessarily, but think and move differently. Maybe in the past you've had a pregnancy where you totally went off the rails and you're like I gained 50 pounds and kept it all during my last pregnancy. I don't really want to do that again. Then don't Do things differently. Plan it out, think about it, visualize it, plan it right. You totally are in control of these situations. So I hope that helps and I hope that did justice to all of you who reach out and ask me about pregnancy.
Speaker 2:I didn't just want to talk about pregnancy because in my mind, when I'm thinking about how I would encourage you and how I do encourage my clients to approach their pregnancy and get through it healthy, it's the same as how I would approach and have a client get through something if they're struggling again with any kind of mental health issue or they've had a really sad, serious life change or if they're going through a surgery and pregnancy kind of alike.
Speaker 2:So I just kind of grouped them in there and I know this will help a lot of people when I kind of frame it in this way and, honestly, you can use these tools as you approach anything in life that comes up in your fitness journey. It doesn't have to be just these main things I've talked about. It can be any situation where you're like, oh, this is to be a definitely a switch up in my plan and I'm really nervous about it and this is how you can get through it. So remembering that a large part of your fitness journey is this mental part, and changing your mentality and your mindset to be able to get through these things, will absolutely help you to make this a long-term adjustment.
Speaker 1:So I hope this episode was very, very helpful 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 ChristyCastilloFit. I will see you next time. Bye.