The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

147. The Steps I Would Take if I Was Starting My Fitness Journey in 2025

• Kristy Castillo

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Since we’re a couple of weeks into the new year, I want to dive into a topic that I believe will really resonate with you - especially if you’re just starting your fitness journey!



I’m 15 years into my fitness journey; what I’m doing now looks pretty different compared to what I was doing at the beginning. I’ve learned a lot along the way, so I want to share the steps I would take if I was starting my fitness journey in 2025.



One of the MOST crucial pieces to set you up for success is building a solid foundation. A strong foundation is essential to your long-term fitness success. While it can take some time to set this up, it will pay off weeks, months, and years down the road! 



When it comes to your workouts, your nutrition, water intake, and more, ALL of these habits should be simple and sustainable. Give yourself time to implement these into your life, and stay away from the quick fixes and detoxes that are EVERYWHERE this time of year (those aren’t doing you any favors - I promise)!



Ultimately, I want you to understand (and truly believe) that you CAN see progress on your fitness journey. This work isn’t something you’re doing for a 30 or 90 day challenge; these are habits you’re creating for LIFE, so let’s get you there!




In this episode, we cover:

  • Why it’s vital that you have a solid foundation when starting your fitness journey
  • Utilizing a workout program that includes weightlifting & mobility/flexibility
  • Tracking what you’re eating into MyFitnessPal
  • Focusing on more walking + water
  • What you can hone in on & personalize once your foundation (all of the above) is in shape
  • My best advice for navigating all of the quick fixes, sugar detoxes, GLP-1s, and more this time of year



Links/Resources:

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 sexy let's go hey guys, what's up?

Speaker 2:

Welcome to today's episode. This is the first episode that I'm recording in 2025. I know last week's episode came out and it was already the new year, but this is the episode that I'm recording in the new year, the first episode. And when I tell you that I've been sitting here for 45 minutes trying to get my microphone to work to record this, I'm not exaggerating, and I was getting so pissed off and I wanted to cry and I tried so many different things to get the mic to work. I have no idea what's happening. So I'm recording this episode with my AirPods and I'm just going to pray that my podcast producer, emily, can work some of her magic and make me sound great. On top of that, I'm still sick. It's been over a week and I still feel like shit, honestly. So, yeah, this is not starting off like I wanted it to, but for the podcast, for myself, for the new year, I'm not really bringing it in with enthusiasm, but here we are.

Speaker 2:

So life is busy and I obviously have a work schedule and I have client calls and I have things to do on the app and workouts to write and all the things, and, of course, I have set aside a certain amount of time to record a podcast or record an episode. And I have this set aside and I've already wasted 45 minutes of it trying to get my microphone to work. And so I thought should I just wait until tomorrow? Go buy new things? I guess I'm going to have to buy a new setup. I don't even know. I'm sitting here trying to figure it out and I thought, okay, I can relate this to my fitness journey in the way that I would say something is better than nothing. If you can't go to the gym, you can't have maybe the equipment that you're used to right my fancy microphone, that I love my setup. I love it. It sounds amazing, it's perfect, and I have to use this kind of makeshift mic for this episode, but I would relate it to that. Right, you don't have time to go to the gym, grab some dumbbells and work out from home. You can't eat all the meals that you had planned for the day. Eat as best as you can. So I'm kind of using this as an example for myself to just do the best I can, even though it's really frustrating. So, anyway, I didn't plan on obviously starting this episode with that, but that's what I've been doing for 45 minutes and it's really pissing me off because I wanted to have time to record two or three episodes but I have a client call in a little bit, so I'm not going to have time to record two or three episodes, but I have a client call in a little bit, so I'm not going to have time to do that. So it just it freaking sucks. So I'm trying to just be positive and get what I can done and that's the attitude we're starting this year with. So whatever goes wrong for you today, because something will just think, something's better than nothing we got this right. Christy said so, but I'm excited for today's episode.

Speaker 2:

I was going to kind of spend a little time diving into just life with me right now. Actually, before I was fighting with my microphone, I was fighting with my daughter's kitten, who was just climbing all over my desk, all over my stuff, driving me crazy, and Mac, my golden doodle, and Ollie, the kitten kitten, as I call them, both, I don't know. Anyway, they were fighting and I was just like I should give a little update on I'm sick and what I've been doing with workouts and just a little catch up. But I don't think I'm going to do that. So that was a little teaser, just because I've already talked a little bit about just making the best of situations. But I want to give you a little update on things in my life, of course, like what's been going on. I know we talked a lot of last year about my daughter graduating and obviously now she's in college and we do have basketball games and, like you said, my daughter got a kitten, so he is ruling the roost right now. I've been sick and just a lot of things going on and, honestly, business-wise, a lot of things going on too that are going to help you and affect you. So I want to dive into those things as well. But I think I'm going to do that maybe just in the next couple of weeks as we get started in this year. There's no rush.

Speaker 2:

One thing I do want to talk about quickly is my friend Erin Burns. She was here with me and two episodes a while back. She and I started our own podcast over on Patreon and it's called SoulFit. I will link it in the show notes, the description, but it's S-O-L-F-I-T, so SoulFit. Hopefully that name sticks We'll see but it's over on Patreon. So Patreon is a website. It's also an app that you can download and there's all kinds of stuff over on Patreon and it's a new place. It's a free platform for you guys to go listen and it's also a place where, as our podcast grows, we can create courses and different things to really really help you dive into the topics that we're going to be talking about over in that podcast.

Speaker 2:

So I wanted to mention that. Go look it up. Erin and I are going to. We chose the name SoulFit because her business is soul healing. Fit because her business is soul healing, her therapy, counseling practice, and so we really want to merge the gap between mindset and fitness and talk about all things as mind, body, soul and really encompass that and really hit the pieces that are missing in both a therapy field and the fitness field, and so I'm super excited about that. More about that to come, of course, but I wanted to get that out there. So it's free and at least for now it's free. So go check that out.

Speaker 2:

The first episode is kind of a get to know us. The second episode is about self-sabotage and we are recording more episodes soon, so they will come out weekly as well, but I'm really, really excited about that. So that's something that I've been working on behind the scenes with Erin. She's incredible Love, her Love talking to her, and she actually has her own podcast that we'll talk about over in the other show as well, and I've been talking about that on my Instagram stories on Chris Castillo Fit and on Fuck your Fitness podcast on the Instagram. So I just wanted to mention that, for sure, and there's more things coming this year, but again, I will dive into that because I've already talked for six minutes and I haven't even started the topic yet.

Speaker 2:

So what I want to talk about and I did create a post, a reel on Instagram quickly about this just yesterday and I think it's a really great topic and I'm going to be talking more about this and it's basically exactly how I would approach a fitness goal starting in 2025. I think it's important to know how I would start things, because it's easy for me to say this is what you should do, and then you look at me and you're like, well, you're doing something different, but that's because I'm 15 years into this journey. So the way that I start this year off for myself isn't the way that I would start off if I knew basically nothing. If I needed to set that foundation right. So I want to talk to you about how I would approach a fitness school starting in 2025. What that means is this is very much how I think you should start your fitness school in 2025.

Speaker 2:

And I know this episode will be coming out in the middle of January. But let me just say I know y'all have started some resolutions and said you have New Year's resolutions and you're going to get fit, you're going to get healthy and you're going to work out and you're going to blah, blah, blah and I know a lot of those things you've already fluffed up on. So there's nothing wrong with starting in the middle of January and going two to four weeks doing the things that I'm going to talk to you about and then really continuing to go forward, because nothing strong is built without a foundation. We have to start there. I've talked in other episodes back in the beginning. You know earlier on in the podcast about a foundation and how we have to start with that foundation.

Speaker 2:

A lot of us, a lot of you, a lot of people start every single year with these resolutions and we get stuck in this cycle and it's like why do I keep starting a diet I can't finish. Why do I keep starting a program I can't finish? You keep starting, starting and starting. It's like trying to build. I'm looking at my shed out in the backyard. It would be like trying to build a shed without the bottom right. It would be like trying to build my deck here that. I'm also looking at out my back window trying to build our deck.

Speaker 2:

Without the foundation, you can't just put the top on it, you can't just put the roof on it. You can't just throw it up without a foundation, it's going to fall. Everything strong that lasts is built with a foundation and your fitness journey cannot please hear me, cannot be an exception to that. If you take the time right now in January and February to set your foundation track, get on some consistent behaviors, habits, walking water, all the things I'm going to talk about today. If you spend, even through February, doing those things, you have March, april and May. I know summer's coming right, everybody's freaking out all of a sudden, or soon we'll be freaking out about summer, but you have to set this foundation, otherwise you're literally going to be starting in May because you're just going to be doing nothing, wasting time, thinking, trying to plan, blah, blah, blah and take no action and no foundation. So please trust me when I say you have to set this foundation. Ask any of my clients and they will tell you it took a while, but you have to set this foundation.

Speaker 2:

So this is exactly what I would do. There are four steps here that I want to talk about. So number one I would start out with a workout program that includes weightlifting and mobility and flexibility. Both of these things, weightlifting and mobility, flexibility I'm putting those in the same section. Okay, they're both important for longevity and a foundation, and we can't neglect either one. So just starting out doing cardio is a terrible idea. Just doing weightlifting without mobility and flexibility isn't great, and just doing mobility and flexibility isn't going to help you burn fat, build muscle, anything. So I would start out doing a program, a workout program, that includes weightlifting and mobility and flexibility. Both of those things are important. You need both of them and I'm really going to be focusing heavily on that this year stretching, mobility, flexibility all of that because it's so important for our bodies.

Speaker 2:

But I would probably start if I were just starting right. This is me just starting. I would start with four days a week of lifting, and the other three days I would work on my mobility, my stretching, my flexibility. I go for walks. That's it. I was going to say I do some yoga, I do some Pilates. I probably wouldn't do that. I don't like those things. If you do yoga, pilates, those are great. Active rests right. Four days a week, lifting, three days of active rest day and really on purpose, mobility and flexibility. That would be the number one thing I would do and I would start there and not with macros, because it's easier to start with a workout program than it is to count macros. So I would start with workouts. I'd get four days a week, four days the next week, four days the next week, and start feeling like I've got some consistency, I'm feeling good, I got this right, get a little motivation under my belt. That's where I would start. Number two I would track all the food that I ate into MyFitnessPal. I would set a target, but the point of the tracking would be to see where I am right now. So I suggest you do this, I suggest you start with that workout program and then I also suggest you start tracking your food into MyFitnessPal.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I know it's not free. I also know that the price that it charges you monthly or per year is not going to break the bank. So, freaking, pay for it. Okay, please, please, pay for it. It seriously is not that bad. I'm sure if you cut a couple other fun things out of your budget for the month, you'll be fine.

Speaker 2:

Paying for MyFitnessPal you can voice. You can say I ate Greek yogurt with Heath bar, toffee chips which I'm addicted to and chocolate chips. You can say I had a Shamrock Farms protein shake. You can say I had overnight oats package such and such a flavor. You can talk into MyFitnessPal and it'll log it for you. You can scan the UPCs. You can click every single day of the week what you're going to have one food. If I'm having a Shamrock Farms protein shake on Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, I can click that and not have to go into every single day. So it's worth it to pay for it. Just do it, okay.

Speaker 2:

So I would set a target to kind of aim for and be like okay, this is where I should be, but I'm going to be logging every single thing that I'm eating just to see where I'm at. The point is, to see where I am, I have to know which direction to go. To be able to start, you have to know which direction to go. To start, you don't know if you need to add calories, if you need to add protein, if you need to add fats or if you need to be in a deficit. You don't have any idea which way to go with your macros if you don't know where your starting place is. Okay, if you're headed somewhere on a map, you need to know am I going east, west, south? Where am I going? Okay, this is my starting starting place. I have to know which direction to go. Same thing with your macros.

Speaker 2:

And then I would also find staple foods that I love, that will help me achieve more protein. So tracking food would just be literally to find out, and this would be from two to four weeks. I would do this and I wouldn't worry about a damn thing. Otherwise, I would just be entering food, entering food, entering food. It creates a habit for you and you're going to notice along the way like, oh, I thought I was getting more protein, I'm not. So let's increase protein, let's find some staple foods. You're going to tweak things along the way because you can't look at it and be like I'm doing a terrible job and not want to change it. You're going to change it in between there, but don't try to hit deficit numbers or surplus numbers or maintenance numbers. Just find out, maybe, what those numbers will be. You can find an online calculator for those. You can join my fit club and I'll set them for you.

Speaker 2:

Whatever you want to do, but in the beginning just track, track, track, track. Okay, and get used to that. That would be the second thing I would do. And the third thing I would do is walking in water. I would start walking six to 8000 steps a day and I would drink half my body weight in ounces of water per day. And no, that doesn't include the water that I mix my shake in. And no, that doesn't include the water that I mix my creatine in and my EAs. And that is just water, just water. I weigh 132 right now, just crazy. I gained a little bit and that's fine. So I will drink half of that in ounces. That's really not that bad, okay.

Speaker 2:

And then walking six to 8,000 steps per day. I know some of you are like I only walk three or four or 5,000. I don't care and do whatever you want with this, but this is exactly what I would do and I know what I'm talking about. So this is good shit. But walking and water, these are literally the most simple things you can do.

Speaker 2:

Walking and drinking water and I get some pushback on these. That's crazy and I understand there are. There are situations, there are exceptions, don't get me wrong, and when I have a client saying, no, it's actually impossible for me right now and I'm like, no, that's fine, it's really hard for me. Usually my goal is 10 to 12k steps per day, but I live in Michigan. It's a frozen tundra, I've been sick, so I've been slacking on that because I've been sick. If I'm walking on my treadmill right now, I cannot breathe. It's crazy. So there are times where you can't get that many and if through the day, if you're busy and you have baseball games and basketball games and softball games and you have a sedentary job, it makes it really, really hard.

Speaker 2:

On the weekends, walk as much as you freaking can when you can make up for that, but literally physically, for most people, physically, walking and water are the most simple things. So I don't want to hear excuses I don't like water or I can't go for a walk, let's figure it out. Okay, so I can get on average 1000 steps in 10 minutes, so it doesn't take you long to add 3000 steps. If you're like I'm only getting like three 4000 steps a day, christine, I literally don't have time to do anything else. It's 30 minutes. I'm sure you have 30 minutes where you are on the couch scrolling.

Speaker 2:

Buy a walking pad for $100, $200 and get up and walk on that thing. Not even 30 minutes at a time. Maybe do 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes before bed. You got that okay. My client, natalie, just messaged me I was actually on my walking pad at lunch and she's like, hey, doing 15 minutes on my lunch on my walking pad. So proud of her, so proud of you, natalie, if you're listening, I know you are, but it's stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

Right, get up on your lunch and take your salad and your little Tupperware that you took with you and walk around the hallways at work. Get up and do circles around your desk. I get up and I walk circles around my island so many times per day in my kitchen. Figure it out. These are the simplest things. If you can't figure out how to squeeze in walking and water into your day, how are you gonna track macros? How are you gonna meal plan and meal prep? How are you going to get a workout in If you can't do walking in water? I don't, I just sometimes I'm like I throw my hands up like I don't know girl, I don't know. So I know you're scrolling for 30 minutes a day. Check your screen time for the week. Average it out per day. I'm sure you've got 30 minutes. Get up, walk circles around your house Outside, get a walking pad, go for a walk outside, walk inside, I don't care. Like, figure it out. Okay, that's simple, that will.

Speaker 2:

Walking in water will help with so many things which I don't want to get into the specifics. But trust me, increasing your water and your steps, game changer, okay, and number four, that's it. There's only three. Number four is that's all I would do. I would do that for a month and then tracking. I would adjust after two weeks. Two weeks of tracking.

Speaker 2:

I would go in and either decrease calories if I needed to lose fat or I would increase steps if I didn't want to decrease my calories, because calories in calories out right. If I'm wanting a balance, I can either decrease my calories that I'm putting in my body or I can increase the calories that I'm burning. So I would either up my steps or I would decrease my calories, or I would increase my calories If I'm feeling really hungry. I don't like how I'm looking. I don't like how I'm feeling. Nothing's happening, nothing's changing that. I would increase my calories and reverse up to maintenance. That's it. That is it. That is all I would do through February and then in March I would make sure to tweak my workout program to make sure that it's working right, and it probably is.

Speaker 2:

If I have a good trainer, a good personal trainer, a good coach that wrote the program for me, it's probably fine. I would hire someone to do that for me. So I didn't have to do it myself, because it's going to take some time in the beginning to learn how to track food shop, figure out staple foods right. All of that's going to take a little time. So the less you have to do for yourself, I definitely recommend having someone else figure that out If you want to join my Fit Club program. I've plugged that twice now I realized. But it's $35 a month. I set your macro targets for you and you get a workout program and it's freaking awesome. So it's not hard and it's not super expensive. Okay, but that's all I would do. That's it.

Speaker 2:

So I just wanted you to know that that's freaking simple, because the goal is to set a foundation. So if you do that, let's say it's January, we've got February. That's a good foundation. If you've done that for 8 to 12 weeks in there, let's say we add March and you're doing all of this for age 12 weeks, you're going to notice a huge difference in how you look and how you feel, just with these couple of things. And then you can tweak along the way. But you're not going to have to tweak much.

Speaker 2:

I'm just going to say because these habits if you are working out, following a great program, if you've entered your food into MyFitnessPal and you've got that habit going for you and you're making really good tweaks along the way, that's all you're going to need to do. If you've got your water at half of your body weight per ounces, that's where it needs to be at a minimum. If you're walking and you're hitting 6,000 to 8,000 steps, you can always increase that to 9K steps, 10k, 11k, 12k. Right, when spring and summer get here and we want to be outside, those steps will increase and that's great, but that's it. That's all you have to do, and then you can add on to it as you go. So something I'm going to be doing is I don't know if I'm going to be doing it on the podcast or not, but on Instagram, where I share content, things like that I'm going to be kind of talking about exactly how I would approach this right. So this is my first couple months. You've got my January and February, possibly even my March. January and February, possibly even by March, because if everything's working, we're not going to change much. So that's my first quarter of the year.

Speaker 2:

Then I would probably start to add some supplements and really nail in my personal goals. Do I want to build more muscle? I'd start with creatine. Do I want to get more greens? I'd add in a greens powder. Do I want to protect my joints? I'd add in glucosamine. What are some things that I would really want to work on? I keep my foundation, those things that I already mentioned. Those are never going to change. Those are happening regardless. That shit. That's not optional, but you can add on supplements, you can add on things that will personalize this for you and make this a lifestyle, but that's it.

Speaker 2:

I would not do quick fixes. I would not do anything that says like a sugar detox or a quick challenge. I would not start anything that I didn't want to do long term. I would not do any of that stuff. I wouldn't do any quick fixes and I highly recommend you don't either. I guess I'll touch on this really, really quickly before I end this episode, but there are a lot of quick fixes right now because it's this time of year right when everyone's kind of reaching for something and we're sometimes a little desperate to get that weight off, and so things are going to be catching your eye like these sugar detoxes and quick challenges and these GLP-1 medications and all of these really, really quick things and what I can say about those. If you're going to do those things, do it with someone who is licensed and who will walk along with you.

Speaker 2:

Be very, very careful with programs and products. If a program says you have to drink a shake every day or you have to take this product every day to be able to lose weight, to slim down. There's a lot of purple drinks and green drinks. Right now. There's the Primal Queen, which my client, stephanie, told me about. There's a lot of things right now that are like you have to take this certain supplement to do this program and to be inside of this group or whatever. Be careful, because those are money suckers and usually they don't promise or they don't provide what they promise. Anything that says you're going to lose 20 pounds in two months, anything that says this is going to lose 20 pounds in two months, anything that says this is gonna happen really quickly for you, it's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2:

Like I was talking about GLP-1 medications, I don't wanna talk about those a lot, at least not on this episode, but I want to make sure that you, if you are going to be doing some of these GLP-1s, I wanna make sure that you're doing it by someone who specializes in that process. And they're being provided right now by a lot of people who do not specialize in that process and they're probably not licensed and they're not approved and all of the things which I'm sure that you know about. But rapid weight loss can cause bone density loss and GLP-1s are definitely effective in providing rapid weight loss, and so you're going to lose muscle. You're going to lose some bone density if you do lose weight very, very quickly. So to minimize your bone loss, you want to exercise, you want to lift heavy, you want to do some high impact exercises to kind of counteract that. But after, just like anything any one of these detoxes, any one of these quick fixes I should say, if you're going to do it, do it with someone who cares about you, who doesn't just want your money, who will walk along with you, who will teach you. And then, whenever you're done with a quick fix, I have had clients I have some now, actually that are on GLP-1s and that are doing detoxes and different supplements and things like that in my programs and I'm helping them navigate life with that. If they're on a GLP-1, I'm having them lift weights and I'm talking to them about what we're going to do.

Speaker 2:

After you get off, what are you going to feel like? What are you going to look like? Are you going to be okay increasing your calories? Are you going to be okay going to maintenance? We're going to do that really slowly and kind of getting them prepped for that process.

Speaker 2:

But it's a mental challenge for sure. And so a lot of people are not ready to accept what comes along with a quick fix, because it's hard. You're quitting a lot of things that you're used to and you're not doing a lot of things that you love, right? You're not eating Oreos and I love those, so it's hard. It's not any easier than laying the foundation. Honestly, it's probably harder, but make sure that you have someone to walk along with you and make sure that you're ready for afterwards what happens right when you are done doing a sugar detox and you have sugar probably going to gain that weight back. If you're doing a carb detox, you're not having carbs for 30 days, you're going to have carbs again. You're going to gain the weight back. Studies show that after people get off of a GLP-1 medication, they often gain the weight back because their habits haven't changed right. So just keep that in mind that having a coach even if you want to do those things and you can't be talked out of it having someone to walk along with you is really, really helpful.

Speaker 2:

This is why I will always encourage the long-term mindset. But it is what it is. But I personally would not do that, and that was what this episode is all about. So that's how I would approach a fitness school starting in 2025. That's how I encourage you to start a fitness school slow, steady, set that foundation and do all those things and, honestly, you'll be fine by summer and you won't have to restart next year, which, in my opinion, is the absolute best part. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. 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.