The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

188. Fitness Without the “Fluff”: How to Simplify and See Real Progress on Your Fitness Journey

• Kristy Castillo

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Let’s be honest: most of you are out here doing WAY too much of what doesn’t matter - especially when it comes to fitness. 


You’re consuming alllll the content, chasing new & shiny workouts, and trying to “fix” the weekend by starting over every freaking Monday. You’re obsessing over fat burners and the “perfect” macros, but honestly, where the hell is it REALLY getting you?! 


Here’s the deal - more isn’t better. Doing “more” will only lead you to burnout, paralysis, and like you’re never enough. Better means focusing on what *actually* moves the needle: progressive strength training, walking daily, hitting your protein, managing stress, and creating routines that fit YOUR actual life. 


I knooow this isn’t sexy or flashy, but this is what WORKS.


You don’t need more noise. You need clarity, simplicity, and you need to get laser-focused on doing the stuff that truly MATTERS on your fitness journey. Figuring this out can be a game-changer for you this summer, AND for the long-term!!


In this episode, we cover:

  • Why doing MORE isn’t always better + what to focus on instead
  • The common trap that keeps many of us “stuck” in overwhelm
  • What doesn’t actually move the needle on your fitness journey
  • Habits & routines that DO make a difference on your fitness journey
  • How to audit your OWN fitness routine so you can simplify & get results


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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.

Speaker 2:

Hey guys, what's up, welcome to today's episode. I want to talk kind of going off of Tuesday's episode and redefining your fitness and defining your fitness. I want to talk briefly in this episode about doing less of what doesn't matter so you can focus on what does matter. So hopefully you listened to Tuesday's episode. You defined what fitness means for you, or redefined, or you've at least got started doing that. And now you're kind of in this space of okay, now what? Right now I know what I want to look like and I know what I want to feel like and I know what fitness means to me. Now what? How do I kind of slow down? How do I stop the noise? How do I know what to do?

Speaker 2:

And I'm not going to tell you exactly what to do in this episode, but I do want to tell you that time is one thing that we can't get back right. Time is the only thing, essentially, that we can't get more of, we can't redo it. So I want you to focus on only focus on what matters, because there's a finite amount of time in each day and we have to focus on what matters. And if we're focusing on the little shit, the fluff and the little noise and the shiny objects and all the pressure that comes along with fitness, then we are not using our time wisely on what does matter I just mentioned and redirect your energy towards what actually moves the needle, because you just defined what fitness means for you and we want health and we want strength, and we want energy and we want sanity, right, and so you really are going to have to be very intentional with your time. If you see something that is someone else's version of fitness and it's not yours, don't watch it, don't dwell on it, don't listen to it, say thank you, not interested, and move on because you don't even want that to creep into your mind. Okay, so we're getting real right now about why doing more, consuming more, buying more, watching more, hearing more, sometimes listening to less fitness podcasts, sometimes watching less fitness content. It seems like I'm in my fitness era so all I should be consuming is fitness stuff and gaining education? No, because there's a lot of conflicting information out there. Sometimes it's best to just not be on social media, listen to a funny podcast like consume what you need and then move on, because more isn't always better in this fitness space. Oftentimes doing less is better. Less of what doesn't matter is so good. You want to be doing less of the shit and more of the things that actually actually matter, and I think it's just really important. That's also part of defining your fitness is figuring out what you're going to do and what you're not, and what you're going to put up with.

Speaker 2:

The problem is that we're over complicating it and now that you've set the tone and defined fitness for yourself, we often overcomplicate it, like I just said, with consuming, consuming, consuming whether that be consuming videos, consuming podcasts, consuming, you know, asking people what's your thoughts on this and consuming their input, or it can be consuming workout clothes, shoes, supplements. You think you need more equipment. You need more, more, more. You don't Okay, we need to just slow down. You think you need more equipment. You need more, more, more. You don't Okay, we need to just slow down. You also don't need to be perfect.

Speaker 2:

So this is the common trap is consuming, overcomplicating and chasing all the things that leads to burnout or paralysis, like I've talked about before. You have so much information that you're like I don't even know where to start with all of this. You have so much shit in your head that you think you need to do, you can't even start to move forward. That's not good. Or you feel like you need to be perfect and there's no way that you can. You feel like you have to hit 10k steps every day. You have to track your food every day. You have to get six workouts a week. You have to track every single macro every single day. Not just track your food every day, but hit every macro. You have to do your HIIT, you have to do your sprints, you have to be a little bit low carb. You have to have no stress Be not stressed you have to sleep perfectly. You have to be the perfect mom. You have to be the perfect dad. You have to be the perfect boss. You have to right Along with all these things in your fitness.

Speaker 2:

You have to do everything else perfectly. And you can't do all of those things and then we're burnt out or we feel like we failed, and so I used to feel like that. I used to think I have to hit these steps and I have to work out seven days a week and I have to burn X amount of calories per workout and I have to track every single thing and I have to measure every single food and I have to put it in the color-coordinated containers and I have to pick food off of this food list. I used to think that I had to be absolutely perfect or it wasn't good enough. That led me to some results. It also led me to thinking why I can't do this. I literally can't do this. I don't want to do this. This sucks, it's so much work. I don't want to do this. So I had to kind of figure out.

Speaker 2:

Next, let's talk about what doesn't matter. So I had to figure out out of those things that I'm doing, what doesn't matter. These are a few things that people obsess over that don't move the needle, that don't matter. Doing more cardio to burn more fat I got a lot of this information from. There's a group that I'm in on Facebook that I've talked about a few different times on social media. I don't know if I've mentioned it here on the podcast, but I am in there and I wish that I could comment on every single post, and I wish people would listen to me. There are thousands of people in there and there are hundreds of comments on every single post, and so I do comment, of course, but they get lost a lot of times, and I think I've said before, when you're getting hundreds of comments to answer a question that you asked, you're going to feel so confused and I hate that. And a lot of these things are.

Speaker 2:

What I see are questions that people are focusing on that do not matter the amount of times that I want to say the question that you just asked is totally irrelevant. That doesn't matter. One of those things is doing more cardio to burn more fat. Not a thing. That's not a thing. It's not going to move the needle. Another thing is constantly switching programs instead of just sticking to the basics. I know it's kind of boring to just squat and press and do a hinge and do a thrust and do these different foundational movements. I know it's kind of boring, but if you are constantly switching programs instead of sticking to the basics, the needle is not going to move. You're not going to see progress. Another thing is obsessing over supplements instead of food quality. If you don't know how to track your macros, if you don't know how to hit your macros and if you don't know how to hit them mostly with whole foods, good foods, foods then supplements aren't going to matter. You don't want to take a fat burning supplement if you don't even have your food in line, when you could just be burning fat with what you're eating and what you're doing?

Speaker 2:

Athletic, focused comparisons. I always hear people talking about Instagram influences that look like. I want to look like this person. I want this woman's back. She's so sexy. I want this person's core. I want a thigh gap Absolutely ridiculous, no sense.

Speaker 2:

Such a waste of time. There's no sense in focusing on that, trying to undo the weekend with punishing workouts or like starving yourself. You can't undo the weekend. If you ate like shit over the weekend, you can't undo it. You can't take the calories out of your body. You can't undrink the alcohol. You did it. Just get back to your normal programming and try to do better next time. You can't punish your way out. You can't starve your way out. That shit drives me crazy. That doesn't matter. It's such a waste of time and it's time that you need to be focused on other things and then perfect macros down to the gram every single day, tracking every single food and trying to get perfectly tracked macros Not helpful, not helpful at all. So doing less of those things won't hurt your progress. Doing less of those things will help you to be able to chill out and it'll actually allow your body to respond better. Because the more you are stressed out about this stuff, the needle is not going to move in the right direction at all, and that alone is halting your progress. What does matter? So let's refocus and not think about those things. I just mentioned that whole list and let's refocus onto these things Progressive strength training, hitting protein consistently, walking, daily movement whether that be a workout, whether that be some sprinting, biking, chasing your kids, going for a walk daily and not every single one of those daily big couple right.

Speaker 2:

Move daily, walk daily. Managing your stress and recovering not no stress, just managing your stress. Learning some breathing techniques, chill the fuck out every once in a while and recovering. That is more important. Staying consistent over being perfect, being consistent for years is so much better than being perfect for three days. Duh and then. Building routines that fit your life, building habits that fit your life, defining fitness to fit your life that matters. Those things matter.

Speaker 2:

If you focused on just three of those things consistently, if you focused on progressive strength training, walking and daily movement and managing your stress and recovery, duh, perfect. It's about all I focus on, honestly right. Pick three or four of those things and focus on them consistently. Not every single day, not every single moment of every single day. This doesn't need to take over your day or your life. Just be consistent with what actually matters. That way, when someone throws you a supplement, or I'm gonna try this diet, or you should try this supplement, you can say, nah, I'm good, I don't need to hear about it. Actually I'm good, thank you. And it's so much easier than wasting energy or even like entertaining the idea of that, because you don't even need to. There's so much clarity in just being like I'm good, thank you. Glad that's working for you. I'm not interested, right, how to audit your own fitness routine.

Speaker 2:

Ask yourself what do I dread doing that's not actually helping? Ask yourself where am I spending time for little return? If I'm spending hours researching supplements and workouts and all these things, but then I'm not getting off my ass and doing anything, probably be better to spend that two hours going for an hour walk and doing an hour workout, right? It just kind of makes sense. What's draining me more than it's building me up? Whatever's draining you more than it's helping you get rid of it? And if I simplified this, what three things would I focus on If I simplified this health and fitness? If I simplified this health and fitness, if I simplified this mindset, what three things would I focus on? What does that look like for you? Water, protein, hitting, 12k steps, boom. Do that for four weeks and see what happens.

Speaker 2:

Simplifying doesn't mean that you're slacking. It means that you are being strategic. You are strategizing, you are putting your effort into things that actually matter. It's so important to pivot, it's so important to be intentional Doesn't mean you're slacking Just because you're picking three things out of the 100 things that you think you need to be doing. Do those three things well. Do them well and your body will thank you.

Speaker 2:

So I really want this to be short, sweet, a little. It's not real spicy, but a little spicy. You don't need to do more. You need to do what matters and you need to do it well. That's it. So pick a few things and do them really really well.

Speaker 2:

Okay, doing less of what doesn't matter actually gives you the capacity to stay consistent. So if you want to stay consistent with something and you want to do it well, you have to do less of the shit that doesn't matter, because if you're doing shit that doesn't matter all the time. You don't have time to be consistent with what does, and a lot of times that's what I see people doing is these little things that don't matter, and then they don't do the foundational movements, they're not hitting their steps, they're not doing these foundational, basic bodybuilding movements when they should be. As a beginner, if you are just going to classes and classes and classes and classes and guessing, that's such a waste of time way.

Speaker 2:

I get in there and try to reply, at least read and like every single one, because I really really appreciate it. But let me know if you like this episode, let me know how you're liking this little series of defining fitness, defining what matters, and then let's take some action. Okay, let's take these topics that I'm giving you and take all these little nuggets that I'm getting you, giving you, and let's get them into action, because it's summer and we don't have a lot of time, but the time we do have we can do a couple things very, very well and, oh my gosh, it would change the game for you. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll 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.