The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

165. Discovering Self-Love on Your Fitness Journey with Tiombe Huggins

• Kristy Castillo

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I’m excited to welcome Tiombe Huggins onto the podcast today!


Tiombe Huggins is a former public school educator, turned Pure Barre fitness instructor and creator of her own stationery brand. Living on the Butter Side is a Black-owned, NYC-based stationery brand inspiring femininity, self-care, and growth. 


In today’s episode, Tiombe and I chat all things self-love, entrepreneurship, and ultimately, how your passions fuel your fitness journey. Self-development starts with self-care; in order to discover what truly lights you up and brings you joy, it’s VITAL that you prioritize self-love and self-care in your everyday life!


Self-love and self-care don’t have to look luxurious or bougie either - it’s really about bringing simple, yet impactful practices into your daily routine. 


This was such a fun and uplifting conversation with Tiombe. I hope this episode inspires you to start living more intentionally + weave more self-love into your fitness, and life!



In today’s episode, we cover:

  • Tiombe’s journey from public school teacher, to Pure Barre instructor & creator of her own self-care stationery brand
  • How you can weave more self-love & self-care into your everyday life
  • Figuring out what types of workouts YOU love on your fitness journey
  • The key role that self-love plays on your fitness journey
  • The importance of finding joy & purpose beyond your ‘work’ + being intentional with your self-care practices 



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, Christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed with giving you simple action steps to take you from feeling stuck to feeling sexy. Let's go. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to today's episode.

Speaker 2:

I am super excited. Today I have a guest on the podcast to talk about all things self-love and entrepreneurship and women and our journeys, and we're just going to have some really good conversations today. So I am chatting today with Tionbe Huggins. And how are you, girl? Thanks for jumping on. I am doing great today. Thank you for having me. Of course, no, I'm super excited to chat. You seem just like totally real and down to earth, which is what we do here on Unfuck, your Fitness Podcast. First, I definitely want to dive in and chat about your journey. Tell me a little bit about you and what you're about. And yeah, I know you've gone from a kind of a nine to five into this fitness self-love world, so give me a little rundown.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So basically, well, right now I'm a pure bar teacher, so I teach bar classes in New York and I also write self-care articles for a woman of color magazine called Brown Style Magazine and I have my own self-care stationery brand. And this all kind of started about maybe two years ago when I was just working my nine to five. I was working in education, so I'm a former public school teacher and I was also a recruiter for teachers and I'm just going through the regular you know, regular everyday kind of routine and I had really wanted to get more into fitness and I was on like this whole fitness weight loss journey and that's when I discovered Pure Bar. So that was always in and out the gym but I wanted to be a little bit more consistent and find something more fun. So I ended up landing on Pure Bar and that's kind of when, like, everything just took a full 180 and changed, fell in love with Pure Bar, was there four or five times a week, just it was always my happy place. And yeah, it was always my happy place and whenever I would get up in the morning I like have to go to work, I would know at the end of the day like I will go to Pure Bar, like everything will be just perfect. Yes, it was always something I looked forward to and from that point it was kind of like I was digging more into self-care and really looking for these other things outside of my job to kind of fulfill me and to like bring some joy into my life. And that's when I really just kind of wanted to really go with that and just keep that momentum going.

Speaker 3:

So at the same time, like I said, I used to be a teacher so and I used to teach ELA and so reading and writing to students. I've always been a writer and a reader and I was like I want to kind of give all like my tips and how I was able to like take self-care seriously and how I was able to find different hobbies and kind of put it all into like this whole self-care stationary kind of brand. So that's when I came up with Living on the Butter Side, which is my self-care stationary brand. That launched last year of April, so April 2024. And then I had resigned from my nine to five job in March 2024. So it was like a kind of like a birthday gift to myself.

Speaker 3:

So they both happened really around the same time, I auditioned for Pure Bar back in 2023. I auditioned to be a teacher. I didn't get it, but I loved it so much I wasn't going to stop. So I auditioned again up in January 2024. And that's when I got the role, and it's kind of like a sign that this was the path that I wanted to go down, and I knew no matter how short or how long this was going to be. It was something I wanted to take the risk on and I felt like it was worth it. So that's when I left my nine to five, became a pure bar instructor, started my self-constitutionary brand, and that is where I've been since.

Speaker 2:

I think it's really awesome that I think, just like having a career too that you love and enjoy and like are fulfilled by, is really, really important. So I love that for you. I also want to talk a little bit later about like. I know you started the brand and I'm sure it's because you had a job that not that it wasn't fulfilling in certain ways, but felt like you needed something after right, like afterwards you wanted to go to the gym and like there were things and I know a lot of women are stuck in a job that they're not, you know, fulfilled in like loving every minute of. So I well, I guess let's just go ahead and talk about it.

Speaker 2:

I was going to wait until later but it's coming up. How do you think even like bringing self-love into? I know you, you know when you were a teacher, like you said, and you would go to peer bar classes and you love that. I think just kind of talking about the conversation of how to bring up self-love in other ways. You know your stationary and that walks you through that term of self-love and how to find that and self-care, but also just finding other things to explore outside of work and outside of our kids and marriages, all those types of things. So let's, what are your thoughts on that Kind of just weaving that into your life?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and you know and this it's kind of like a motto and it's a good question that I kind of live by is that my brand really represents that self-development has to start with self-care. And so in order to develop yourself and to learn different things about yourself and different hobbies and all these different acts of self-love and self-care, you got to have those moments to yourself. And, of course, finding those moments can be difficult when you have all these other factors of life that come into play. And, of course, finding those moments can be difficult when you have all these other factors of life that come into play. What I really say to that, and especially just for me, was that finding something that I knew would be impactful and something that I knew would improve how I felt and I feel like you really have to be in tune with, like, your own emotions and how you feel and really seek something that's going to impact and improve how you feel. And that's kind of how I saw fitness right and that's kind of how I got into it was that it was less of like I look like this and I want to look like this and I'm going to go do this. It was more of like you know what I love myself and I want to keep this going and I want to be here for as long as I can. What can I do to help that? What can I do to like create that longevity of my life? And that's kind of how fitness really came to me and really I was able to stick with it because of that approach.

Speaker 3:

So I really think, when it comes to all the other different factors and challenges, we may have, having conversations with yourself.

Speaker 3:

I'm like a shower girl.

Speaker 3:

I will stay in the shower and just like have a mini conversation with myself and you just get to like really iron out some things in your head that maybe you couldn't focus on during a day and like now it's night and you still got to like cook and do all these other things, but your shower time is like so precious and you can just really sit in that shower or bath, whatever suits you. And kind of just really sit in that shower or bath whatever suits you and kind of just iron out and go through your day and go through these things in your head and give yourself some time to really figure out, okay, like what do I want to do next? What's my next move? What is tomorrow going to look like? What really self-care and like self-love really lends itself to? I feel like sometimes we get caught up in like the luxury of it all, but it's really those tiny moments and those moments to yourself that you just really show yourself, that you're there and you want to show up for yourself every day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can totally relate to that shower situation.

Speaker 2:

Like shower time, bath time that's absolutely my time where I'm like decompressing things. That's still real. So I love that answer because it's so true. It is hard. I mean, I think A lot of my clients and you may have this, you know, as you're doing as well a lot of my clients come to me and just not having the time and really, really hard.

Speaker 2:

And I think you know, instead of maybe trying to find extra time, what I've done to is those little moments, whether I'm in the car listening to a podcast instead of music, or whether I just have it silent, I just have it silent, and I'm not even in the car very often. So it's very intentional that when I am like I have a 30 minute drive today, I'm going to just not have anything on and I'm going to listen to my thoughts, or I'm going to myself. I'm going to try to plan it out, you know, try to like yeah, just, you can, of course, get up earlier, you can stay up later, whatever. Sometimes I'm not willing to do those things. And then, in addition to that, you were talking about self-love.

Speaker 2:

You have to know yourself too, which I think is a missing piece of this, which is why your brand and the stationary aspect and like the questions that it walks through, because that's very intentional in finding out what you like and who you are and what you resonate with. You know you were saying like doing something impactful is meaningful for you, and sometimes we stumble upon those things we're like, oh my God, I love this career and this feels really good, but sometimes we don't know ourselves enough to know what would feel good, right? So I think that's important to you to kind of really settle in on that aspect. And then I love too how you were talking about bars. So like I know you love, like you were saying, pure bar, which I love, but did you not like other aspects of working out? And then you kind of settled on bar, because there are so many new ways to incorporate fitness and also finding something you love in the fitness realm is really important, exactly.

Speaker 3:

It's so important to actually find something you like in a fitness world and just because I feel like you know, a lot of the times, like the gym is just always pushed and it makes sense, you know, like it does. But a lot of people may not fit into that gym bubble and I feel like a lot of us. We was going to the gym At the time my partner had a gym in his apartment building so I would go there like all the time. Then I eventually got like an own gym membership on, like outside of the apartment building and everything, and it was just something about it that just wasn't clicking for me, like I was going there and like I used to lift. So I will always like go to the section where the weights are and there's always lift weights and I really liked it. I really did like the action of it itself, but it was more of the environment of the gym that just didn't do it for me.

Speaker 3:

And then one thing about what I appreciate not just about Pure Bar but about group fitness classes in general is that it's like this sense of like camaraderie and the sense of like unity because like everyone's doing the same thing, like when you go to the gym. Like you got this person with their headphones in the corner and this person, like everyone's in their own world, they're not worried about anything else, they're like no one's doing the same thing, like they're all on their own page. You know, but it's like when you take a group fitness class, everyone's doing the same exact, everyone's going through the same thing at the same time and it was just something just really refreshing of being like you're tired, like it's the end of the day, you are sweating, and then, like you go and look across the room and it's a woman you've never met. But you guys, like make eye contact and you just get it Exactly yeah, and make eye contact and you just get it exactly yeah, and like it just works, you just connect and it just felt so much like home and felt so comfortable. Um, in that setting and that's and you know, of course I love the technique too.

Speaker 3:

Coming from person that used to weight lift to go into pure bar, at first I was like I don't know if this is gonna work like such. You know, because there's such tiny movements, you're not really focused on trying to like set, you know, new PRs, like it's a different way of thinking. So when I did make that change, I really fell in love with the technique and how small it was, because it really makes you focus on what you're doing Really, how I fell in love with, like, pure Bar is really because of the community and you know, of course, the technique. I was able to lose, you know, over 30 pounds with including Pure Bar into my lifestyle, so it just really it impacted me physically, emotionally, mentally, and that's when I was like I need to be able to give the same gift to other women and that's when I started to want to become a teacher.

Speaker 2:

It's so true that finding something that you love personally. Fitness is not like a one size fits all thing like, of course. But I think a lot of times and I even talk a lot about macros and weightlifting and I love, you know, resistance training and which is so like I love all of that. Mostly it's just moving and finding something you can be consistent with, something you feel good with.

Speaker 2:

I have clients all the time that come to me to start my weight programs and they're like, well, I go to the gym Now when I do these workout classes, can I still do them? And I'm like, yeah, do both, because a lot of people thrive on those friendships and that community and that feeling and you know, having something to do after work, having a place to go and like feel that with other people. So I think that's, that's huge. So I think that's really important. As far as teaching, like, how often do you teach and what that's? What's that like? Do you have, like a really close relationship with your clients or is it like less one on one or what's that like?

Speaker 3:

Yes, so I teach all around New York City, also in Westchester County. When it comes to my clients, me and my clients are like super close. I just love getting to know them. I feel like that's like the most like special part is that like, yes, I'm teaching a fitness class, but I'm also like building relationships and I'm also like impacting these women in like ways that my teacher would impact me. We all come in with just different experiences and different lives, but we all have one thing in common which is like this fitness technique and it's just like. It just kind of unites all of us. You know what I mean. It's kind of like. It's kind of like when you think of like football and sports, like everybody has different lives, but then they come together, like on the Super Bowl, and like that's all that matters, like you know, yeah, I think that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

I think fitness is something where you, either, like, are super, you know kind of passionate about it. When you have that like empath, you know little piece of you and you care about people and you're kind of doing it for the right reasons, it's really easy to like get to know everybody. And then, yeah, I like an instructor, like obviously it worked for you, you loved the atmosphere and you were like no, I need to help other people do that.

Speaker 3:

I definitely understand Like cause I wonder that too when I go to other fitness classes. So it's it's like it's so understandable to like wonder that and that's why I feel like a lot of things like I just feel like in life everything sets you up for what's next, because like a lot of just my care and compassion just comes from me being a school teacher before. Like you know, like I cared about my students then and now it just translates here to just a different environment. But it's the same feeling and the same amount of compassion and concern that I had for my students when I was teaching them how to read and write. It's the same thing I have for my clients that are adult women at various ages.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, very true, I love that. I love that correlation. I want to touch on definitely the self-love piece and get into a little bit more of your stationery brand because I think that's awesome. When I was looking it over, I think it's such a good tool for myself. I know like all my ladies are listening and just to kind of before I let you kind of take the reins on your obviously, like you know, coming from a place of self-love rather than self-hate, and just fitness and life and fitness particularly.

Speaker 2:

I definitely have come from a lot of different angles myself. Like I didn't like the way that I looked and so of course I got into fitness. I think that's kind of why everybody. But but then it kind of that's not why you're going to keep going. You're not going to go into the gym because you hate it there and it sucks and you don't like yourself. I mean, let's be real, that's not gonna, it's not gonna work.

Speaker 2:

But then also on the you know the note taking and kind of the self-discovery piece, as I was going through therapy and kind of writing things out, those questions and those prompts, it's hard to know where to start when you're like, okay, what do I like and what kind of person am I? Right Like digging deeper into that, hard to know where to start, and so I think it's just really, really important to touch on that piece too of why you created this and what is so important about kind of just not dragging that out of people. But almost it's like I almost some days I would wake up and be like, okay, I need a journal. My therapist told me I need a journal, but what the hell am I going to talk about? I used to have a question or a prompt. So, yeah, let's just kind of chat a little bit about that self love and, honestly, people leave self love out of their fitness journey and this, I mean, this isn't fuck your fitness podcast.

Speaker 3:

It definitely is. It's a big part of it, because the journey is just it's going to go up and it's going to go down and it's going to go to the left and to the right. So the self-love part is definitely crucial and it really plays just a big role in just your whole fitness journey and then overall just your whole lifestyle, your whole fitness journey and then overall just your whole lifestyle. I feel like, especially when it comes to my brand and I know you mentioned like journaling and trying to figure out what to journal and like different prompts, and I know when I started my especially my self-care journal, I wanted to have those prompts already like kind of set up for whoever's going to be reading it and to make the prompts fun.

Speaker 3:

You know, I feel like a lot of people have this like daunting kind of thought when they think of journaling, like oh my God, how much do I have to write? How much should I write? What am I supposed to write? And I feel like I just wanted to like simplify that. So when it comes to my journal, like even some of the pages are literally like a crossword puzzle. I don't even want you to like think that hard at some point. So you know what I mean. Like, just like, do this crossword puzzle, just put your mind on something else and then these words and these crossword puzzles are actually meaningful words that you can actually put to use. You know. So I have activities like that vision boards.

Speaker 3:

I think it's so important to like have people because not everybody's a writer to have people have a creative or visual thing to do that they can actually like cut and touch. That's like texture, like I feel like that is also important. So I try to keep all of that inside of that journal and like really just giving those prompts that are going to make you think of what you like. One of my like most popular prompts inside of my journal is kind of like what do you like to watch on TV? Because I feel like we like overlook that and the things you like to watch on TV are things you're interested in. Like why don't you like go and try and like maybe do that and just see how you like it? Like you just never know.

Speaker 3:

You know what I mean. Like there's a reason why you like watching this so much. So just stuff like that is where I try to really like kind of get people to move towards. Like just look at your everyday life and then what about it? Would you want to like increase? What about that TV show you loved about that? You, just what is the way you can include that into your life?

Speaker 3:

Especially, I have one activity where it comes to like just finding your hobbies and finding your interests, and it's kind of like tell me, okay, the things that you feel confident in, the things that you're good at and the things that you kind of want to learn, the things that you think maybe no, but it's like maybe you could do it, like let's find where that intersects at and then like go for it. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and that's really what my self-care journal is about. It's really about helping women find joy and purpose like outside of their job. And there are so many different things that you can do, because we all have to work, of course, but there are so many different things that you can do outside of that to kind of bring some joy to your life, some fulfillment to your life that you may feel like you're lacking from your traditional nine to five.

Speaker 3:

And another thing when it comes is that people got short attention spans right, and so you know, I try to make sure my journal you can finish in like less than a month, like I'm just hitting home and I'm hitting those key points and then you're on your way. The rest of the journal is full with just planning pages, so that you are just remembering that you should be thinking about self-care and that you should be planning into your day some of the things you want to do to show yourself some love. So that's really what I feel like that self-love and that self-care aspect comes into is just paying attention to yourself and like learning these little kind of things that you may not notice usually. And it kind of goes back to like what you said in the beginning of this conversation, which is like going into your car and like not playing the music on, like just being intentional is like so important, because sometimes we do these mundane things and we don't really think about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm pretty big on intentionality and I think that that's so because it's hard again to go back to like kind of in the beginning, where we talked about time, and it's like we don't have time. I don't, you know, I go to work and then I have my kids, and then I, you know, you have I have to get groceries, whatever you like, all the things that my clients say. And I was stuck in that rut too, of like I don't have time for myself, I don't have time for myself. I, you know, I'm a mom, I'm this and I'm this and I'm this and I just I don't have time for myself and what it? I was intentionally not having time for myself. You know, by saying that intentionally make some time for yourself. You know, like it's change how you speak, change how you think, like yeah, I could have some time for myself.

Speaker 2:

I think what I was shying away from, like what does I do? What do I do with that time for myself? Whether I had gone so far away from myself, I didn't know what I even enjoyed. I didn't want to spend time with myself, I didn't know what to do. You know, it's just like there was probably something else there when I really think about, like why are we saying I don't have time for myself? Well, because I was busy making myself be busy doing things to kind of keep away from that's what I found anyway. It's like when I'm like, yeah, now I love to be by myself. But then it's like when I would say things like I don't have time for you know, self-care, and I'm like, no, yeah, you do and you actually love to be by yourself. But you know it gets misconstrued out there. I think in the world of even this kind of thing, even journaling seems like a huge like I, if someone were came to me a few years ago and say, like you should journal, I will they people did say that to me like it would be a really good thing for you to do and I'm like I don't write, I don't have time. Like it just seems like an overwhelming concept of where do I start? Kind of like exactly what you were saying.

Speaker 2:

And like on this podcast I usually unfuck fitness. You are like unfucking this self love. You're making it so easy. We're like, sit down and think about a crossword puzzle. Sit down and think about a word that describes you. You know, like, just think about something so simple and once you get started, your mind starts flowing. But we just needed something cute and fresh and fun that's like that makes it simple and enjoyable, kind of like Pure Bar was for you.

Speaker 2:

Once you found it, it was like, oh, I love this style of working out, and this is kind of the same thing. Like as I'm looking through it, I'm like, oh, this is exactly what I need. Like this is exactly what would help me get out of the funk of like you know who am I. So I really loved that part. When I was looking through everything that you designed and your journal and all that stuff, like I really just felt like it vibed with me. The vibes with me is going to vibe with my girls. But no, I just thought it was so amazing. And, yeah, I love that you touched on self-love being such a big part of your fitness, because you know self-love is a huge part of who we are.

Speaker 2:

Fitness should such a big part of your fitness, because you know self-love is a huge part of who we are. Fitness should be a huge part of who we are. Whether a group class, whether it's the gym, whether it's pilates, I don't care like, just find something that you like to do and move your body, because obviously all of that intertwined helps you to love yourself and know yourself and really get back to who you are. So living on the Butter Side is a self-care stationary brand that believes self-development starts with self-care, which means to figure out what you value, what your hobbies are, what interests you. You must dedicate some time to yourself, but that can be difficult because most of our time is occupied by our occupation.

Speaker 2:

So Living on the Butter Side brand invites women to take a step back and be intentional with their time. Intentional, we love that. Discover who they are through acts of self-care within their day. Ultimately, living on the butter side of life I loved that, like I read your and I was like that's the mission statement, like from heaven. So that was so good because, again, it's intentional. It's like short, sweet, to the point. It's designed for women, busy women, who are pulled in so many different directions. And this is why is because we are not intentional with taking the time to really get to know and love ourselves. So I can't, just I just can't trust how like important this topic is and how excited I was to have you on here.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I just, you know, the overall mission is just just to have a little bit, just a little bit of joy. A little bit of joy just takes, takes you so much further, and then you know when everything is going on in the world just move so fast. Just those moments of a little slower pace, those moments of a little bit of happiness, those moments of just just looking at yourself in the mirror and just being proud that you are standing and you are here, is just beautiful and I just want people to really tune into that and recognize that and just have, you know, have some gratitude and keep pushing, because you know we still got to keep going and we're still going to have our challenges but we're still going to have our moments of victory. So yeah, Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I love that. Thank you so much. You're the sweetest. Thank you so much. Yes, of course. Well, I will put everything in the show notes. Can you see? You can check out all of these amazing journals and all the cards and just all the collection. Now you have a new collection Now. It's so cute. So thank you for jumping on. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

Of course, and we'll see you guys in the next episode. 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.