The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

152. Effective Strategies for Transitioning Through the 3 Fitness Phases: Surplus, Maintenance and Deficit

• Kristy Castillo

Share episode

For today’s episode, I wanted to do something a little different. I received a question from a listener about how to properly transition through your fitness journey, so I’m diving into that here!



When it comes to your fitness journey, there’s never just one way (or a ‘right’ way) to do things - it needs to be super personalized to YOU and your goals. In regards to fitness, the 3 phases you'll typically go through are building, maintenance, and cutting. 



It’s important to know how your body is going to feel during each of these phases, and what your nutrition and workouts are going to look like. Most of all, this process is going to take TIME. If you’re not seeing progress right away (especially during a deficit or ‘cut’ phase), you’ve got to stick with it, and be patient with the process!



Fitness is fairly simple, but it’s NEVER going to look the exact same for every person. I don’t want you to get stuck on all of the ‘rules’ you’ve seen and heard along the way. There can be sooo much noise out there (especially online), and not all of it is going to be applicable to you!



Whether you’re looking to build muscle, lose fat, or maintain your current physique, I hope this episode encourages you AND gives you *real* insight into what coaching with me looks like!!


In this episode, we cover:

  • The many ‘rules’ surrounding fitness + why there isn’t just ONE way to do what’s best for you
  • A current listener’s question + experience with her fitness journey
  • What it feels like to go from maintenance to surplus
  • What to do when you’re ready to move into a deficit or ‘cut’ phase
  • What transitioning back to maintenance can look like + why you can still see body recomp changes here
  • Progressive overload + why you need to stop overcomplicating this
  • Why you shouldn’t compare your progress & journey to others


Links/Resources:

Send me a text with episode ideas or just to say hi!

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.

Speaker 2:

I am going to be talking to you today just with some real talk, some real chats about your fitness journey and kind of the three phases of your fitness journey and what they are and what they should look like and feel like and what all of that kind of means. So I got a message on Instagram from a lovely girl named Mariah and she asked a question. She said I'd love to hear more about how to properly transition from bulking to cutting to maintenance. Love the three phases of fitness episode. She said Just more about what to expect, what your body should feel like, what your body needs during those transitions and how to know if you're doing it effectively. So I love this. She also gave me some stats on herself and I asked if I could share. So thank you, mariah, but I wanted to talk about these three phases and then I also want to talk about how you don't have to do anything in your fitness journey, exactly like someone else is saying. So I let's just dive in, because this is a very tricky thing to kind of wrap our heads around, right?

Speaker 2:

I think we a lot of times hear people say that there is a certain way to lose weight. Right? Let's take like the calorie deficit, for example. You can't lose weight unless you're in a calorie deficit, which is absolutely true, but there are so many different ways to be in a calorie deficit. You can obviously take away calories. You could add in movement, which is burning more calories, so you can still consume more. There's different ways to go about that. So, just to say, if you want to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit.

Speaker 2:

Well, yes, but there's also so much more that goes into it, and I was talking to another client about this this week, about like fitness is simple, right, like I talk all the time about hitting your macros and hitting your steps and getting your workouts in and drinking your water, protein, right, very simple things and it is simple to do those things. The fitness aspect is very simple. But when we broaden it out, right, and we're like, so you want me to, you know, hit my steps and eat a certain amount of protein and drink my water, right, they're very simple. But if you literally step back from the equation, and especially as a woman, if you're on your period, if it's the week before your period, if you are ovulating, if, and then just in general, if you are sick, if you didn't sleep well, if you are tired, if you didn't eat enough food to give you enough energy. There is a lot that goes into those simple things and it makes them tricky to get your workout done. So I think there's a lot of rules around fitness and there's a lot of rules around this surplus maintenance, deficit cut phase that I'm going to kind of go through and I'm going to talk about how you're going to feel and all those things, but also know that there's not one perfect way to do it. That would take out the personal experience of the whole thing and we definitely do not want to do that. So I'm just gonna kind of dive into all of this because I wanna give you a real talk on the facts of these different phases and then I also wanna give you the reality of what that means. And sometimes we can't adhere to all of these things and that's fine, because we have our entire lives.

Speaker 2:

So Mariah says that she has been listening to the podcast and she has been doing all the things. For the last nine months she's gained seven pounds on the scale. So if you're listening and you're like I've been doing all the things and I'm putting on a little bit of weight, I'm putting on a little bit of muscle, I'm putting on a little bit of weight, I'm putting on a little bit of muscle, putting on a little bit of fat, and you're kind of going through these phases. This is going to be perfect because this is kind of a real life experience. So she said I've gained about seven pounds on the scale, but I know some of this is muscle and some of it is fat, as I can see both on my body but feel strong, which is freaking phenomenal, currently trying to go into a deficit and lost some body fat, to lose some body fat. And this is where she got the idea to ask me this question and kind of suggest this as a podcast episode. So she has essentially been in a little bit of a surplus If she's gained a little bit of weight on the scale, knowing some of that is fat and some of that is muscle, but that's great. So let's kind of talk about if you are just coming into your fitness journey and this is going to be kind of a brief, a brief but a little in-depth part of this, right, and I can dive into this even deeper in a different episode if you would like. Please let me know if this is helpful and if you want more and you want more depth, we can definitely dive into this.

Speaker 2:

Let's say you're brand new, which she probably was so you start tracking your food, you figure out exactly what you've been eating, right, for two weeks. You track your food, no judgment. You just track it to see where you're at and you're like, okay, this is where I've been eating for the last two weeks, this is my average, perfect. You stay there and you stay in maintenance. Let's say you kind of tweak your macros a little bit around, but you stay within that calorie range, because if you're not gaining weight and you're not losing weight, then you're maintaining. So that would be your maintenance calories. But let's say your maintenance calories are 1700 calories. You can change the proteins, fats and carbs within those calories so you can manipulate that. Right, that would be your maintenance For this client.

Speaker 2:

Like if you are now trying to put on a little muscle and it's build season, it's winter, right, I'm recording this. It'll be February. So this is kind of a time where you're eating at maintenance or a little bit more. It was the holidays. We're kind of hibernating right now in January, february, a little bit of March. So if you're eating a little bit more, but you're building muscle, you're lifting heavy, you're putting on a little bit of weight and I do too. I have as well currently, so that's great. So she's put on a little bit of muscle and a little bit of fat.

Speaker 2:

What that feels like going from maintenance into a surplus. It's kind of scary because you're just starting to track your food, you're seeing what this looks like. You have more energy, you feel really, really good, but you're putting on a little bit of weight on the scale and it feels weird. You know you can get it back off. You know your plan is to go into a deficit and get that weight down, cut some fat, leave the muscle. So you look amazing and toned and shredded and great. But it's kind of scary because you're like gaining weight isn't really something that anyone wants to do. And even if we are like, yeah, I want to gain weight, I know it's going to happen, it's scary when it happens. So you're going to feel a little fluffy, you're going to feel a little bigger, but you're also going to feel freaking strong. You're going to feel fueled, you're going to have energy, you should sleep well. You're going to feel freaking amazing. So this is where she's at Now. We're kind of in this place where we want to cut. So what that's going to look like.

Speaker 2:

First of all, you want to make sure you are eating enough to cut, because you're going to want to cut between 300. Now this is what the world says, right? You're going to want to cut between 300 and 500 calories to see to be able to be in a big enough deficit that your body is going to recognize it and you're going to lose fat. So you want to make sure, before you go into a deficit, that you are maintaining a good amount of surplus calories. You might, and if you're not, if you can't take away 300 to 500 calories and feel good and be in a good place, then we don't want to do that. Yet you might want to bump up a few more calories for about six weeks, which I know sucks, but trust me, it's worth it. Or you can go throughout the process and do it again next year and bump up a little bit more, right? So let's say we're just going to cut back. Let's say you're in a place right now to cut 300 calories.

Speaker 2:

You can either cut 100 calories this coming week, cut another 100 calories off the following week. Cut another 100 calories off the following week, right. So you're going to do it very gradually. Or you can just cut 300 calories off right off the top, switch around your macros and go on your way. What you're going to feel is hungry. Your body's going to be like, uh no, we are used to a certain amount of food and now we think we're starving, so you're going to feel hungry. You're gonna feel a little weaker. You're gonna feel like you don't love it, which is why I kind of prefer to cut the 100 a week. 100 another week right. Go slowly, because then your body is a little more naturally adaptive, rather than just ripping off 300 calories.

Speaker 2:

If we're talking about that number, what else I kind of want you to do is change up your workouts. So when you are lifting super heavy and you are in a surplus and you're like man, I can rep out this weight Like I've never lifted so heavy. I feel so freaking strong. It's because you're eating more. When you take away calories, which are energy, you're going to have less energy coming into your body via food. So what we're going to want to do is scale back a little bit on our workouts. So you're going to feel hungry. You're going to feel a little bit weak. You're going to be like, wow, I can't lift as heavy, maybe I can't do as many reps, and that's okay, because you are essentially eating less. You're bringing in less fuel, so you also want to change up along with your macros and your calories. If you're bringing yourself into a deficit, realize you're going to be more hungry. So you want to save some energy for things that matter, right. If you're bringing in a certain amount of energy and your body's used to that and you expend it all during a workout, then you don't have energy to live your life. You're going to be so tired in the evenings You're going to be freaking starving. So maybe cut back on your steps. If you need to cut back on your weights or reps a little bit, if you need to scale back a little bit on what that's going to feel like, right, it's going to take some time.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people think that you know I'm going to cut 300 calories and I'm going to see a huge amount of weight loss, and you know I'm going to see instant gratification, right, that doesn't happen a lot of times. So this is kind of. This is pretty important. So pay attention to this. A lot of people think that when they are coming in right and they're like, okay, I'm Chris, you're putting me in a 300 calorie deficit, amazing, we've already done their surplus. We've already done, like you know, their maintenance. We figured out their maintenance. We put them in a surplus for a little bit. They built. Now we're going to cut 300 calories.

Speaker 2:

Let's say, whether you do it slowly or quickly, your body a lot of the time is not going to give you results right away, and I know that's frustrating. People be like I literally cut 300 calories this entire week. I hit my macros perfectly, I did all the energy things I walked I, you know, I redid everything correctly and I didn't lose one freaking pound. How can I now be in a deficit? I cut 300 calories and my body gave me no results. I was asking myself this last year when I was in a. I had put myself in a deficit March-ish and it was, oh my God, probably four to six weeks of being in a 300 calorie deficit and I saw zero movement on the scale. My muscle mass didn't move, my fat percentage didn't move, nothing moved on my smart scale and I'm like this is physically impossible, right? No, obviously it's not. But I say that because even I get discouraged when I'm like I'm freaking hungry and I'm doing this correctly, I know I am right, like I know what I'm doing, I know I'm in a deficit, I know what I'm doing and my body is like no, we're not going to give you anything to be proud of. Great. So I kept going, kept going, kept going. That's what I want you to know is expect the scale to not move, expect no fat loss, expect nothing to happen. And if something happens in a few days you'd be pumped right.

Speaker 2:

But your body especially if you've been a yo-yo dieter you give your body calories. For a while You're like, fuck it, I'm not doing this diet. And you start eating more. And then you're like no, I need to diet. So you start eating less and you're like, fuck it, I'm going to eat, I'm not doing this diet, I'm going to eat more. And then you're like, no, I need to go on a diet. Your body thinks that that's what you're doing. So you've went from maintenance. You put it in a surplus, you ate more. Now you're going to take those calories away. Your body's like oh, we know what's going on here. You're going to take it away and you're going to give them back, right? So your body's like you're going to take away calories now we're going to store all these calories, right? You're not going to give us 300 calories now, like you're just going to take those away. Well, we're going to go ahead and store some calories back as fat, just in case that you decide to stick with this. We're going to just make sure.

Speaker 2:

But once you've leveled off and this can take a while, like I just told you, it was four to six weeks for myself so you have to keep going. If you are in a deficit and you know that and you're tracking and you're doing all the right things and your body's not responding, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Something is changing, and if nothing's changing, that's okay, because what that means is your body is figuring out that it can trust you. Your body's like I'm going to store these calories just in case, because your track record's not so good here, girl. And if you stick with this and you continue to give us, let's say you were doing 1,700, so let's say you're down to 1,400 calories and you're in this deficit Once you stick with 1,400 calories.

Speaker 2:

Long enough that your body trusts you, and we have no idea how long that's going to take. That is dependent on how long you've fucked with your body, quite honestly, for the last 20 years or however long. Once your body trusts you again, it will start to shed fat. But you have to stick with it right. You have to just go with the process and let your body do its thing and realize it needs to trust you. That's what I say to myself all the time. For whatever reason, my body doesn't trust me right now and it's not shedding fat. But when it does trust me, it will, and then you'll start shedding fat. Pounds will come off, right, the fat will come off and it'll be great. That's what you can expect.

Speaker 2:

Going into a deficit, and that's the reality of the situation. A lot of people say you're going to do a deficit and you know you'll start losing, like they make it sound like you're just going to put yourself in a deficit and the way it's going to fall off. It's not. It's probably not going to happen. And even if it does start to fall off, the first two weeks you probably plateau, right. This is a reality of the situation, I know. This is why she asked this question to me, because she knew I would be real about it. That's the reality of the situation.

Speaker 2:

If that's your deficit, if 300 calories, right is in your deficit, if 1,700 calories is your maintenance and you took it down to 1,400, I wouldn't take it down lower than that, to be honest, for long anyway. But if you wanted to drop another 100 for a couple weeks, that's fine. You do not want to stay in a deficit for a long time. We're not living in a deficit. So stay there for a while six weeks, 12 weeks, depending on how much you're eating. If you're eating like 1200 calories, don't stay there long at all, because that's not good. That's not enough food. Let's say we're at 1400 and you're like I'm doing this depending on your body, your size, your weight these numbers are not universal at all. But let's say you're in a good place and in your cut, you can stay there for 12 weeks. After that, I don't care where you are.

Speaker 2:

If you're in a deficit, you need to reverse slowly back up. So add in that 100 calories one week, add in another 100 calories the following week, add in another 100 calories the following week till you're back up to somewhere around maintenance and stay there for another 12 weeks, because we don't want your body to live in a deficit, because then it's going to get used to that deficit. Your metabolism will slow down, your body will stop doing things that makes it, you know, burn energy because it's trying to salvage it. So make sure you are acting accordingly in that situation, right? So this would be the next phase. So we've gotten you into maintenance.

Speaker 2:

In the beginning you track your food, figure out your maintenance calories, you live there for a while, then you can go into your surplus this time of year. Then, when you're transitioning out, that's what the deficit will look like, which I just explained. After your deficit, you're going to increase those 300 calories. If you are in a deficit. Let's say you're in that 300 calorie deficit, whatever the number is, in one week you just are like I'm going to go back up to 300 calories, expect a little bit of weight gain, because your body is going to be like what am I supposed to do with this 300 calories? We were just feeding me 1400 calories for 12 weeks and now I'm getting 1700 again. What am I supposed to do with this? It will keep it and it will store it as fat for a minute just to figure out. Am I safe? Can I trust you? What am I supposed to do with this? Make sure your energy output matches not perfectly it doesn't have to be gram for gram or calorie for calorie but make sure that it's in maintenance mode to get yourself back up to that maintenance.

Speaker 2:

Going into maintenance is pretty easy. It's a good feeling because you're like oh my God, I can eat more. Thank God, I have more energy, I can sleep better. It's easier to be in maintenance, you feel better. But do expect a little bit of transition period. Just like anything else, there's going to be a transition period.

Speaker 2:

I don't feel like that's talked about a lot. I don't feel like coaches talk about that a lot. They're just like go into a death stick, go into a. You know, do your cut, do your build. Well, it's not the same for every person, depending on your past, depending on your yo-yo dieting, depending on that cycle, like it's going to be different for everyone. So you can definitely expect slow weight loss. Slow fat loss should be expected. That should be the norm and that's a good thing because you want your body to trust you. And the same thing when you reverse up to maintenance, you might see a couple pounds gained. That's fine.

Speaker 2:

Your body's just like what are we doing with this? Think about it logically. Okay, I was just giving my body 1400 calories and then overnight, I decided to. About it logically Okay, I was just giving my body 1,400 calories and then overnight, I decided to give it 1,700, just like on the weekend. If you stick to your macros all week and then on the weekend, you're like I ate 500 more calories. That night I went out for pizza and drinks and I ate over my calories. Well, yeah, then you can expect that your weight will go up a little bit because you have water weight.

Speaker 2:

Your body's like what is this? I wasn't expecting that. Right, think about it. Instead of just being pissed like oh my God, I'm so fat now I gained fat overnight and I can't go out to eat anymore because this is making me fat. It's not. Just think about it. You gave your body more calories than it really knows what to do with, so it's holding on to it, but it'll get rid of it, right? So that's what you can expect in these phases, and I think that that was such a good question. I'm so glad she asked that because it's really important to be able to know what's happening, right, I'm so glad, like I love these questions and please ask. I'm not saying if you I try to answer every DM but a lot of them get lost, I will answer and I probably won't answer timely manner, but send them anyway. I'm not saying I will absolutely answer them in a podcast, but I will absolutely try to because I think this was really really good. She asked me a great question and she gave me her reference, which I should probably talk about quickly, which I should probably talk about quickly.

Speaker 2:

She's 27,. Currently weighs 138 pounds. She was eating about 2000 calories a day, which you go, girl, that's amazing and would like to scale back to 16 to 1700 calories a day. I feel like that's amazing. Most people are probably a little bit closer to where I estimated just in for your first reverse diet. You know, build phase and deficit, but this is great. So for her numbers, yeah, this is perfect. So she's already reverse dieted up a little bit, like I said. So now she's at this, 138 pounds. She's eating 2000 calories, which is amazing. Okay, please know that you can eat 2000 calories and weigh 145. Like, that's amazing. A lot of us are starving ourselves, trying to lose weight, and you really need to kind of eat more and fuel your body, which I've gotten into a million times in this podcast. But she'd like to scale back to 1600 to 1700 calories a day. So she's wanting to go into a 300 to 400 calorie cut, which is perfect and that goes exactly with what I said. She can either do that 100 calories per week at a time or she can dive right in and cut right back off the bat.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people, though, think like I was saying. A lot of people think I don't want to go slow, I don't want to cut 100 calories a week and then 100 calories the next week, and so on. I want to cut it all. Because they think if I cut back quicker, I'll see quicker weight loss, quicker fat loss, and that's not the case. So do whatever feels best for you.

Speaker 2:

For me, I always cut back slowly. I never, ever, would cut 300 to 400 calories overnight. I physically would cringe doing that. I would be so freaking hungry and confused. So I do everything slow. I hope you know that, like I would be so freaking hungry and confused, so I do everything slow. I hope you know that, if you're new here, I do everything slow. I do everything maintainable. I want to maintain. So for a week or two I'm going to cut 100 calories and then for another week or two I'm going to cut another 100. I want my body to feel safe. I want my body to trust me. I want my body to trust me. I want my metabolism to react, you know, in according to what I'm doing. So keep that in mind.

Speaker 2:

Just because you cut the calories faster doesn't necessarily mean you will see results faster. So I think that's very important. So if you're, when you're going into a cut, if you're following this, these phases of mine, when you're going into your cut this spring, keep that in mind. That it's not the weight loss isn't gonna be any slower, right, but how you feel is gonna be different. So if you cut them 100 calories a week at a time or if you cut them all 400, 300 calories at one time, the results are gonna be the same in 12 weeks. It's just how are you gonna feel, and that, to me, is the most important. How am I going to feel? How's my relationship with food? So that's my thoughts on how you're going to feel. Those are the phases, right.

Speaker 2:

We have a build phase, which is a surplus. We have your maintenance phase, which you can do a lot of body composition change within your maintenance, and we have your deficit cut phase. In your maintenance phase, like I said, you can do a lot of body composition change because you can tweak your macros to you know more fats, less carbs, more carbs, less fats. You can increase your protein for a while. You can do a lot. You also have quite a bit of energy in a maintenance phase, which allows you to tweak your workouts, so you can be in progressive overload, which let's talk about that. Speaking of, let me finish my thought, though. You can be in progressive overload for a while. You can do some cardio for a while. You can be very flexible if your goal is to maintain. You can do that in a lot of different ways. I do want to touch on progressive overload, though, because that kind of goes in hand with a build, more of a build phase, which is what we are doing right now. Progressive overload literally means and it's a very I have two episodes about this previously, so go back and search for those if you're interested Progressive overload is one of those topics that I hate talking about because there are so many rules associated with it.

Speaker 2:

You know, you hear a lot of coaches, personal trainers, say you have to progressive overload to be able to change your body. You have to be lifting heavier every single week or increasing your reps every single week with every single workout, blah, blah, blah. You have to do the same workouts every single. You know, if you're not increasing your weights, you're not getting stronger, you're not growing muscle and your body won't change. There is some truth to that and progressive overload is important.

Speaker 2:

I was talking to a client earlier this week maybe even yesterday, I think actually Deanna shout out to you and she was like I feel like she said something to the terms of like, I feel like you, we would naturally progressive overload, wouldn't we Like? Basically like progressive overload is when you're lifting weights and you feel like, okay, this weight is feeling really light, I'm getting stronger, you're naturally going to pick up heavier weights, so we like naturally progressive overload. So, yes, it's a thing and like you can do it very strategically and there are plans laid out where you can do it very, very strategically and you should. You know if you have an exact muscle gain goal or an exact physique goal. There are ways to say you know, lift 10 pounds this week and 15 pounds the next week, and 17 pounds the next week and 20 pounds the next week and 25 pounds the next week, and then have a deload week, like that's not even a great example, but basically what I'm saying. You know, you get the idea Just increase, increase, increase and then deload and then increase, increase, increase. What I want to tell you about that is yes, that's true.

Speaker 2:

You do naturally, over time, have to be changing things and lifting heavier, which only makes sense, right? If you think of CrossFit or even F45 or any kind of class, even beach body workouts or at home workouts or something. If you're literally doing the same workout. If I'm just curling five-pound dumbbells for biceps which is probably what I started out with years ago if I was still curling five-pound dumbbells for bicep curls, my biceps would not grow because they're not being worked. It's like what the hell am I doing? I'm just sitting here repping these out, right? If you're doing the same workout, same exercise, same movement and you're not challenging yourself, then you're not going to get stronger, you're not going to grow muscle, just like if you only run one mile every single day. You'll get better at that mile, but you won't be able to run further, right, like you would, but you never do it. You can lift heavier, but if you don't lift heavier then you're not going to grow. Your endurance isn't going to get better.

Speaker 2:

If you're only running one mile, like, oh, I could run it so fast, now, okay, we'll run a mile and a half, run two miles or run faster. You have to challenge yourself. So it's so obvious. But we overcomplicate it. So I want to make that very clear For one. We overcomplicate progressive overload. Just lift heavier when you can Do more. If you get to the end of your set and you're like I could still do more, this is really easy. Do more, pick up a heavier weight. It's not rocket science, okay. Secondly, you do not have to always progressively overload. In fact, you should only do that when you're in a maintenance or surplus. You should never try to do that when you're in a maintenance or surplus. You should never try to do that when you're in a deficit.

Speaker 2:

I built a lot of my muscle, not progressively overloading. I didn't know what progressive overload was like the actual definition and someone explaining it to me until about three years ago, and I've been on this fitness journey for 16 years because I started right after I had my son and he's 16. So I built a lot of my muscle by yes, I was increasing my weight and lifting heavier when I could, but I did that on my own. I didn't know what I was doing, so you don't have to. And I didn't progress every week. Right, it was just like, oh, I feel like I can lift heavier this week. Don't overthink it. Progressive overload yes, you should lift more weight when you can. You should do more reps when you can. When you're stronger, lift more, do more, go further, right, push yourself, basically.

Speaker 2:

But it's not something that has to be so specific or so overthought so many times. We are overthinking and we're watching people on social media and we're comparing. Like this person says, they're progressively overloading every week and I'm not going to gain muscle unless I progressively overload and that's all they do for their workouts. Good for them. First of all, they could be lying who knows if they even do that and, second of all, good for them. They're not me. I don't care what they're doing for their workouts. Maybe my goal right now is mobility or flexibility, or maybe I don't want to gain muscle right now. It doesn't have to be your goal to always gain muscle and to always do these specific things. So it's okay to not progressively overload. It's okay to eat in a maintenance. It's okay to only hit your protein and not track the right. It's okay to go quote, unquote off track, I guess, and not be so specific with your fitness journey For so many years.

Speaker 2:

I just want to be authentic about this. For so many years I did a program, but I didn't do it progressively overloading, and sometimes I would look at the workout and be like, yeah, I'm just gonna kind of do my own thing right, like I don't feel like doing lower today, I'm going to do upper and I'll swap it. Like don't have to do everything by the book, you don't have to do what other people are doing. And keep in mind that social media is one of those things that is very touchy. It can be very fake, it can be very misleading and you are not that person on social media. I'm going to kind of talk about this in Friday's episode so excited about Friday episodes because I can get a little spicy on them. But yeah, you don't want to be modeling your life necessarily after someone on social media, especially someone that doesn't show the real deal, the behind the scenes that isn't real, like talking like this. Those people have bad days. Those people didn't know about progressive overload for years before they started it. You can't always progressively overload.

Speaker 2:

The first progressive overload program I did, I did increase every single week for four weeks. The first week I would lift on the lighter side and then I would increase the next week, increase the next week and the fourth week would be max and then I would start a new cycle and it would be like a lighter. The next week would be lighter. I was always progressively overloading, not stretching enough. My mobility sucked, my flexibility started to tank because my only goal was to lift heavier, because that's what my coach told me to do, and I injured my back because I was lifting so freaking heavy and trying to push every single week. Even if I couldn't, I was still trying to lift heavier, so I wasn't listening to my body.

Speaker 2:

And then, on top of that, like we have our cycle, ladies, so some you know if you hire a coach and they're like progressive overload is the only way and it's the week before your period where you have like the least amount of energy in your entire life and they're like nope, this is, you know, progressive week, like you have to max out. Well, that's not going to happen, like that's not how, that's not longevity, that's not how you want to do this long term. So keep in mind that there are quote unquote rules. There are ways to do things. There are things that you know, like I said, deficit, build, cut phase, all those. You know, the maintenance, like. There are the three phases I should say them correctly surplus and maintenance and deficit. So we're not all confused, but they have different names. There are those three phases and you should cycle through those in your life, in your year, okay, but you don't have to do it for a certain amount of time. You don't have to do it at a certain you don't have to start on a certain day. Please take what everyone is saying and relate it to your own life and your own goals. So I hope that was really, really helpful.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, maria, for writing to me and letting me use your exact words and letting me know your stats so that I could put them out here for people to hear, and I hope this helped. Obviously you, mariah, and I hope it helped a lot of you as well. So I can definitely do more of these episodes. I really like them. Just having you guys write to me and telling me exact scenarios, I know it's really helpful for you. It's like exact coaching for her right and it really relates into a lot of what you guys are going through and it's kind of like coaching with me.

Speaker 2:

This is exactly what I would have told one of my clients that came to me wanting to know these things. This is what we're going to do and this is what you can expect, and, of course, then I would walk along with them. So when it happens, I explain it. But this was great. So I really appreciate that. But I hope that this is helpful. I want you to definitely follow the rules, definitely learn, soak things up, but don't get so stuck on the rules that you compare yourself or that you feel like you're not doing a good job, because at the end of the day, the only rule is whatever works for you. So I hope that was helpful. I will talk to you in the next episode.

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.