The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

191. Body Dysmorphia: The Struggle No One Talks About + Why It Doesn’t Disappear at Your “Goal Weight”

• Kristy Castillo

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A struggle that comes up for pretty much everyone, but isn’t talked about NEARLY enough in this space? Body dysmorphia.


Yep, this one hits DEEP, and is so, so real. It shows up in quiet moments, fitting rooms, mirror reflections, and even when you’re crushing your fitness goals. 


I’ve felt it, my clients feel it, and I KNOW you do too. Most of us are walking around with some version of it, whether we say it out loud or not.


This episode was sparked by a conversation with my client Julie (who’s been KILLIN’ IT), and a reel that broke me wide open (the creator is linked below). I realized how often we think we’ll feel “better” when we reach our goal, but even then, we still pick ourselves apart. 


Even after we have incredible, life-changing results on our fitness journeys, we’re STILL our biggest critics. Body dysmorphia doesn’t *magically* go away, just because you fit into a smaller pair of jeans.


If you’ve ever reached a goal, only to find new insecurities waiting for you, this episode is for you. You’re not broken, and you’re definitely NOT alone!!


In this episode, we cover:

  • Why unf*cking your fitness goes way beyond macros & workouts
  • How social media feeds body image struggles 
  • Julie’s powerful transformation + why she’s still her own worst critic
  • Why always wanting to “do more” in fitness, parenting, or life isn’t a bad thing
  • Why body dysmorphia can actually get worse, the fitter you get
  • Practical ways to combat body dysmorphia on your journey
  • Understanding that reaching your “goal body” isn’t the finish line, because you’ve got to maintain it
  • Why compliments are rare (especially IRL) + why you don’t need them
  • The real flex of building self-confidence, self-love, and owning your imperfections


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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 Sexy. Let's go.

Speaker 2:

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to today's episode. We're going to be talking about body dysmorphia in all of the ways. We're going to be talking about it in so many different genres today. I'm really excited about this episode.

Speaker 2:

I feel like it is something I know. It is something that a lot of my clients struggle with. We all struggle with it. So why am I even saying just my clients struggle with? But recently it's been brought up in a couple different circumstances with my clients. It's a daily thing for me, depending on my cycle, depending on my mental state, depending on what clothes I'm wearing, but it's always there. It's always. How do I look, how do I feel? Is this outfit squeezing a little bit too hard here, so my skin and got a little fat roll here or whatever, making me feel a little insecure? So it's something I struggle with. It's something that every single person struggles with.

Speaker 2:

But recently I've had a couple conversations with clients, one in particular my client and friend, julie, who I asked for permission to use her name. So thank you, julie, love you. We had a conversation just a couple days ago that I want to jump into in a minute, and then, right after that, I saw a reel on Instagram that was talking about body dysmorphia as well, in fitness girlies and in this space, and it just in this space and it just it's something that I was actually leaving my friend Julie a message on my way here to the office to record and I just started crying like sending her a message, getting really in my feels about this topic, so I could tell that it was something that I needed to talk about. So let's dive in. I have no notes, I have nothing in front of me except for my face staring back at me as I record this. So this is all just coming straight from my heart and I'm excited to dive in because I feel like this is a topic when we are on fucking our fitness, there are certain things that we need to talk about other than macros and other than workouts and other than drinking your water and your steps right. There's so much more shit that comes up and shit that we have to deal with, because a lot of people think that when you hit your goal weight, or you look in the mirror and see muscles, or you build a certain amount of muscle mass or get to X goal, right when you get to that end place of that goal you set for yourself, you'll feel a certain way and you'll just love the way you look and you'll love the way you feel and everything will be magical. The thing is is that fitness is there is no end. There is no end goal, because once you hit one end goal or one goal, there's another one. So I want us to keep that in mind too, that in fitness and I've talked about this before, this is nothing new, but I think it's really relevant in this topic because, let's, I'm going to use the term like fitness girly, and I think that's what the reel that I saw. His Instagram handle is maddieqfitness, so M-A-T-T-Y-Q the letter Q dot fitness. I'll tag him in the show notes because it's a really, really good account, but I think he even says in the reel that I was referring to, I think he even says fitness girls. This is why it's in my mind.

Speaker 2:

But a lot of us look at certain people, right, even so, if you're looking at your favorite fitness girl, your favorite fitness influencer, even for men, if you're looking at a certain man, a guy, right, and you think that is the ideal body, he is athletic, he's strong, he, whatever, whatever men think, right, you think if you look like him, you won't struggle with how you feel about yourself. You probably look at him and or and in women. We look at her as she never struggles with her body, she's perfect. We love her body, she's beautiful, she's funny, she's right All these things that we make up in our head and we don't think logically about the fact that that person also struggles so hard. And I think being honest about it is great, because so often in social media, I think social media kind of started out as being like real people, real videos. Now it's very curated and it's very educational, but it's like short educational, it's not really helpful and it's also, you know, if it's a fitness influencer, it's only fitness, it's only workouts, it's only workout clothes, it's only supplements. They're not showing how they feel when they look in the mirror a lot of them. So I think we just it gets pulled back the layers, don't? Maybe we pull back on sharing the realness of things and maybe those layers just aren't pulled back enough. Maybe we need to pull back the layers even more and kind of share this.

Speaker 2:

But let me kind of start with where this kind of happened over the weekend. So my friend and client, julie. I think it had been two years. I hope I'm getting this right. I should have pulled up the information, but it's been about two years, like between the pictures that Julie had sent me. She sent me new, updated pictures of herself in a bikini and a bathing suit and it was the same bikini bathing suit that she had on. I'm pretty sure it was like two years ago. Ish, I think it was more than two years ago. So I'm trying to say, like maybe spring two years ago. But she sent me updated pictures and I went back into my app and found pictures of her from when we started working together two years ago.

Speaker 2:

She came to me wanting honestly, like everyone wants, to lose weight and look better. Right, you think you just wanna lose weight and you wanna look better. What she really wanted was body recomp. So, yeah, she wanted to probably weigh a little bit less, a little bit lighter on the scale, but what she wanted was to look different, to feel different, to be strong, all of these things, right. So what we had to do was body recomb.

Speaker 2:

So we went ahead and, like we had her at maintenance for a long time, put her through a little bit of a build phase this last fall and winter and now we're kind of peeling back the layers and she's in a little bit of like a maintenance fat loss phase and it's been a slow process because she goes on a lot of vacations and we also had to. You know, she wants to enjoy the holidays, drinks, things like that, like she's a normal human being. So it's not just like she was absolutely perfect in all of this Perfect to like someone else's standards. I think she did perfect because she literally did fantastic and she lived life and she didn't really have to give up much and she's learned a shit ton. Fantastic and she lived life and she didn't really have to give up much and she's learned a shit ton. But we had to get her body to trust her. We had to go through all these steps that I talk about in other episodes. Right, we had to get her body to trust her. We had to bring her up to maintenance calories. Then we had to put her through a build, put her through a cut, and I taught her everything along the way.

Speaker 2:

She's been a one-on-one client basically this whole time and she sent me pictures and she said in her messages to me you know I sat back and was like you look freaking incredible. Like I'm just going on and on and on and really really mean it. Like I was shocked at how different she looked when I pulled up her past photos and I said, girl, you look amazing. You know, are you kidding? Like I sent her a photo and she said she replied literally with thank you, with a little kiss face emoji. I still look at myself and think yuck. And I said I do that to myself too. I think we always will. You know, you look amazing, always improving, but you're doing it. I said you look like a different person. And she said I do feel like a different person, but still critical. And then we went on and on and on A couple other things she said. She said I want to thank you for your kind words. She said I still feel like I have a lot of work to do, but I'm getting there.

Speaker 2:

I truly had no idea this journey would take as long as it has, but as I learned from your podcast and you and now my personal experience, I believe you now that it does take so much longer than one would ever want it to take. Consistency is most important, but totally worth it. Couldn't have gotten here without you, all the sweet things and I love that so much. And as I was reading that this morning I started crying because, like, of course, like, I'm so honored to be a part of her journey. But it made me sad and I told her this on my way here. It made me sad reading that she still is so critical and she still feels like she has work to do, which is fine. The work to do, that part's fine. We always will have work to do.

Speaker 2:

We'll always look at our bodies or our lives and say I want to make more money, I want a different job, I want to do better at this, I want to be a better mom, I want to be a better person. Or, physically, I want to build more muscle, I want to lose more fat, I want bigger shoulder. You know there's always improvements to make and that's fine. Always improving, always being better, always changing, is fine, coming from a place of love. But I've had other clients in the past. I have a client, noelle, and I wish I knew how, exactly how many pounds she's lost. She's actually no longer a client of mine, noelle, love you, hi. But she was a one-on-one client for a while. We worked together and I know she's lost tons of weight. I don't want to put a number a hundred pounds, I don't know exactly but I mean a lot.

Speaker 2:

She is a completely different person, physically completely different. You wouldn't even know it was the same human being if you saw before like years ago photos and then a photo of her now. You wouldn't even know she's the same human being. If you saw before like years ago photos and then a photo of her now, you wouldn't even know she's the same person. She's doing high rocks events, she's doing CrossFit, she's running, she's doing like yoga, like every single day she's putting in the work, and she looks like a different person. But I remember her telling me one time when we worked together I still look in the mirror sometimes and see that bigger person, you know, and still see that fat version of me. And then I have other clients. I could go on and on and on and explain this.

Speaker 2:

But just because you get to a goal weight or just because you get to where you think you wanted to look right, like if I would have taken Julie two years ago and said, okay, this is what you're going to look like in a while, and showed her a picture of herself. She would have been like oh my God Like. And showed her a picture of herself. Now she would have said, oh my God like. That's amazing, yes, that's what I want to look like. But now that she's there, she wants more, she wants better.

Speaker 2:

We are never satisfied with our bodies. We are never. We're never completely happy. We're never completely in love with ourselves and I don't know that we ever will be. I don't want to really want to speak on that. I know the more confident you are, the more work you do, the more self-love you have, the more journaling, the more learning, the more healing, the more you will look at yourself and love what you see and not care what anybody else thinks. But it's still going to be an issue, right?

Speaker 2:

So, coming off of going back that conversation, I had that conversation kind of with Julie on Saturday where we talked back and forth just a tiny bit and then I wasn't able to get back to her until today, which is it's now Tuesday, so it's been a couple of days since that conversation. So I had that conversation with her on a Saturday. On Sunday, I saw this video from this MaddieQfitness person, this guy, on Instagram and I shared it on my Instagram stories because I thought it was so good, because he was also talking about how body dysmorphia becomes worse as you become more fit, because now there's more pressure. It's like you know you can do it, so why am I not doing it? You know what's possible, so you want even more to be possible. He was talking about how you know.

Speaker 2:

Ask any fitness girly if you are completely satisfied with their bodies, and they would say no, because there's more work to be done. It's not that we don't love ourselves, it's not that we don't see the progress, it's just that there's always more work to be done. Or, like I said, you're always comparing your journey to someone else's. You're always comparing your glutes to someone else's, your boobs to someone else's, your eyebrows to someone else's, your hair to someone else's, your quads, your biceps right, we're always comparing ourselves to other people for one and then two.

Speaker 2:

Like I was saying earlier, if you put on a certain pair of shorts and they're a little tight around the waist, so they make, you know, a little pudge at the top. Or if you put on for me it's sometimes a tank top to where my shoulders just look massive and like this little pudge underneath my armpits will kind of like stick out. Right now, the tank top I have on is flowy and it looks great. But sometimes I put on one that, you know, just makes things kind of pudge out in places where I think, well, that makes me look fat. It literally doesn't. But that's what it makes me think right.

Speaker 2:

There are certain days where I put on certain workout shorts and I go to do a workout and I think, yeah, these don't look great, they make me feel like roly-poly, whatever. But if I just put on a different pair of shorts that actually fit better or something maybe a little free-flowing, if I'm on my period and I have on super tight clothes, of course I'm going to feel disgusting. It doesn't mean that I am disgusting If I feel like I have a little fat pudge. It doesn't mean that I do have fat pudge. Or even if I did, that doesn't make that a bad thing. It doesn't make me too big that my shorts don't fit. Maybe it makes my shorts too small.

Speaker 2:

But those little things can make us feel like we are not making progress, like we are too big, we're too fat, or maybe vice versa. Maybe we're trying to gain muscle and we're just feeling so small and so puny and like it's never going to happen. It's just really frustrating because I hear this so much. And me from the outside, let's say I'm looking at a client, right, and seriously, when I was talking to Julie this morning and sending her a message, I was saying like it makes me so sad. Like I was looking at these pictures of her, thinking, holy shit, like I'm sure she is freaking pumped right now, like if I'm looking at these pictures, thinking God, if this was me and I had made that much progress, and I'm looking at myself like this was me and this is me now, holy shit, I look amazing, I put in so much work.

Speaker 2:

I'm just thinking she is so proud of herself, like she has got to be over the moon excited with how she looks right now and how she feels and what she's learned and what she's gone through, and like she's putting in some really, really hard work and she knows how to do this now. And it's kind of like second nature and it's. I could go on and on about her progress and her journey and maybe I'll have her on the podcast, julie, to talk to you guys about it because it's just so good. And when I, of course you know, she responded with yeah, it's just so good. And when I, of course you know she responded with yeah, she's proud and, you know, loves it and it's great. But she's still so critical From the outside, like as her friend, as her coach.

Speaker 2:

It makes me so sad to see women not see the progress and still feel like, oh, I'm not good enough, or this isn't enough, or this is taking a lot longer than I thought, which, okay, it's just from the outside in. It's kind of sad to like see that happening, whereas I think you know ourselves when we look at it, it's completely different. In that way, when I'm looking at myself in the mirror saying, okay, you've got a little fat pudge here, you've got a little fat pudge here, like, oh, this outfit looks like shit. Girl, get your shit together. That's quote unquote. Fine, right To do to myself, to kind of pick myself apart, seems totally normal, which is what everyone else is doing, and it seems totally normal From the outside. It literally made me cry, sending her a message, because I'm like you are so beautiful, you've made so much progress, you're killing it, you're learning so much. I'm so fucking proud of you. You are literally a different woman standing in front of me in this photo than you were in the other photo and then to hear her say, like I'm just so critical of myself and, yes, I'm an empath, but it made me cry, thinking like we are never completely happy, we're never completely satisfied. But then, when I take myself out of that, I'm thinking, yeah, we're, we are never completely happy and we are never completely satisfied, which is why I wanted to bring this to the forefront and talk about it in just a really real way. This man, maddie Q on Instagram, saying this as well and kind of it, just came to me at the perfect time where you know, no, we're never going to feel completely satisfied, but I want us to remember that it is part of the journey. There are ways that we can combat this.

Speaker 2:

I think one knowing this, knowing that there are certain clothing that will make me not feel great, get rid of those clothes. If there are clothes that I have that every time I put it on, I think I look like shit in this. I feel like shit in this, even if I don't, even if someone else is going to say like I love that dress on you. You look amazing. You look great right, or that shirt's fitting so perfect. On the outside, someone can see you and think that outfit looks amazing.

Speaker 2:

If you don't feel good in it, get rid of it. Get rid of clothes. Get rid of things like that that make you feel like you doubt your progress or just like you don't feel great in it. Get rid of it. That's not helpful to just keep putting it on and thinking you're going to feel different about it when you put it on. I have shirts like that. I'm like last time I put this on I hated it too, and then I hung it back up and then I got it back out and tried it on today. I freaking hate it. I don't like how I look in this. So get rid of it. That's one thing.

Speaker 2:

Like, even like subliminally, if you're not and I mean think you're going to have to think about it, right. So if you're following some people and you don't really think about it, but maybe consuming their content makes you feel a certain way be very intentional about like, if you are following someone and if you are consuming their content, how do you feel afterwards? A lot of times we don't think about this on social media. We just consume, consume, consume and scroll and think we're just seeing and maybe learning. But you are comparing and if you're not aware of it, it doesn't mean that it's not happening.

Speaker 2:

So be super aware of what you are looking at and think about it as like if there is someone online that you really really, really look up to, you think their body is amazing. I get sent pictures all the time like I love this girl, I love this person, I love their body, I love their legs Fantastic. But like, really take a second to think is that healthy? Are you really looking at that person? And is that a healthy way to think? Because you can love the way that they look? Or you can love the way that they look and then try to do their workouts and then try to eat like them and then try to be like them, and then that's not good. So think, and then try to eat like them and then try to be like them, and then that's not good.

Speaker 2:

So think, even if you feel really really good after consuming their content, think about it. Is it like, am I also comparing myself to them? And then also think if there's someone you're consuming their content and you feel like shit afterwards get rid of them. Okay, like that, we just can't compare anymore. The next thing, I think, is just to know that it's going to happen.

Speaker 2:

So, even getting rid of clothes and even unfollowing certain people or content on social media, even if you do that, you're still going to have this body dysmorphia issue. It will always be there. We will always be judging ourselves. We will always be wondering if we've made progress, which is why progress photos are so important. Measuring your inches is so important. Having a smart scale and measuring your body fat and your muscle mass and your visceral fat, your bone density like having numbers and metrics to track that are non-scale victories. Get your steps in.

Speaker 2:

Like having habits to track and other things to focus on to keep your mind away from the physicality, but also knowing, like just really, really knowing, that you are always going to struggle and that sucks to say, sucks to say it's not something that can be fixed or that's going to go away. You will always struggle with body dysmorphia and the person you look up to will always struggle with body dysmorphia. The person that you look at and think they are absolutely perfect and killing it in their body is like wow, they look in the mirror on certain days and think, damn, I look good. They look in the mirror on certain days and think I hate my body. It will never go away. That kind of goes along with the fact that there's no end goal, because you will never get to a point where you are completely happy, completely obsessed and you can just stop. That's the thing.

Speaker 2:

Is that for me? Yeah, right now, like I love my body, there are certain days when I'm like legs are too big or arms are too small, Like I do that constantly, constantly. But overall, I look at myself in the mirror and I think I'm really proud of my body. I love my body. I worked really hard for this. I'm proud of where I am, you know, health-wise. I'm proud of the steps I've taken to, you know, with my blood pressure and my heart rate and things that I'm struggling with right now physically. I'm really proud of the way that I show up and that I have tried to learn and grow through that and I think I've done a really, really good job with it. I'm proud of myself. I love who I am. I love my body. I know I look great. I know that I feel great. I know that I worked really goddamn hard for it.

Speaker 2:

So if someone were to say something about my body in a negative way, it would affect me, sure, but not depending on the day. If I'm in a really bad mental state, really tired, whatever, yeah, sure it could rip me to shreds. So be nice. But also, deep down, I know what I know. I know I'm good to go, I know that I'm okay, I'm healthy, I love my body, but I can't just stop. I also know that where I am right now, I have to maintain it. I still have to get my steps and I still have to lift. I still have to do some sprints. I still have to eat healthy. Right, you don't? I didn't get here to this body and say, okay, perfect, I'm healthy, cut out some foods that I shouldn't be having. Cut back on certain things that I shouldn't be, having added in things that were great for my heart, health and better for me. Good, cool, done. I have to continue to do those things every single day. I have to continue to do the things that got me here every single day. There is no end game. So, yeah, even if I love my body right now, it doesn't mean that I always look in the mirror and say no-transcript.

Speaker 2:

So it's important to be able to adjust and check yourself when looking in the mirror or when having those days where you're like have I even made any progress? I feel so weak, I feel so gross. I hate my body right now. I have plenty of those days. Then I step back and say what are you talking about? You have to take a step back. Whether you kind of look at it as okay, you see yourself in the mirror and you think, okay, pretend the person that you're looking at in the mirror is your best friend. How would you speak to her? Pretend the person in the mirror is my daughter. If I'm looking at myself, picking myself apart, I can picture my daughter Kiana in the mirror and say would I be saying she looks gross, definitely not right? Would I be saying these things about her in these clothes? No, because I would take a step back and look at myself as a different person. When we're in our own heads, it's really hard to do that, but you have to be able to take a step back.

Speaker 2:

I have a lot of clients who start out with me and even months into a journey will say I'm not doing a good job. I still don't like the way I look. I look in the mirror and I hate my body. I'm comparing myself to everybody. I don't know how to get out of this cycle. I need to lose weight, I need to be smaller, I need to lose weight faster.

Speaker 2:

It's always trying to like speed up the process. And here's the thing even if you speed up the process, let's say you go into a severe calorie deficit and you get to where I don't even know where you would love yourself because unfortunately you won't feel any better about yourself if you get to kind of a goal weight right. But let's say, okay, let's say we put you in a severe calorie deficit and you cut 30 pounds so quickly and you think that that's going to make you happy. If you're like, yes, if I could just lose 30 pounds as fast as possible, I would be so happy and I would love myself and I would feel confident and I wouldn't have any of these feelings. That's not true. We tell ourselves that, but that's not true.

Speaker 2:

Even if we did that and you got to that goal weight, you would still look in the mirror and say, oh, I still hate my arms, I still hate my legs, I'm hungry, I still don't love myself because it's not a physical thing, it's a mental thing, it's a I'm not there yet. I don't look like so-and-so yet this, I'm not done yet I'm not doing good enough, I'm not perfect. This is taking longer than I thought. It's all of that shit that gets in our heads and then that becomes the dysmorphia of I'm not doing enough, I don't look good enough, I don't look like this person, this person that I follow on social media that I think is such a good role model for me. You know, such a perfect, perfect display of fitness and health and all the things like I you know you have. We all have this account of like one person that we follow. I even have an account of this amazing girl bodybuilder. Her physique is amazing and I don't compare myself to her. But if I started to, I would have to unfollow her. If I started saying, well, I look really good, but I don't have as much muscle as her or I don't look like her. That's not a healthy person for me to have in my life. You have to have people around you that are going to lift you up, that are going to be positive role models for you to be like and to be around Honestly.

Speaker 2:

This podcast, the it Girl membership that I have, even Fit Club all of the above. This is a safe space and this is what I wanted my Instagram to be and this podcast to be, and unfuck this for you. I want it to be real and it's very hard to find spaces like this, and this is another reason why I wanted to create these spaces is because, unfortunately and I've kind of heard this before actually I think in the comments on that Instagram reel I was talking about, someone had commented like well, if people would comment more or compliment more people on their bodies, there wouldn't be so much body dysmorphia. Like if people would basically give more compliments and basically to me or whatever, like I would feel better about my body. And a lot of people were saying, eh, you need to kind of rely on yourself. People aren't going to compliment you all the time. Like they're just not. And really it's so sweet to give compliments and get compliments.

Speaker 2:

I love to give compliments on people's nails and hair and just all the things, and I genuinely mean them from the bottom of my heart. And if I think something about someone physically, emotionally, whatever, like they're so sweet, they have a great smile, whatever. I try to say it, because I don't feel like there's enough good in the world. We need to just say shit, that we think about people. A lot of people are struggling and a kind word goes a really long way.

Speaker 2:

But also, you have to be able to compliment yourself. You have to be able to look in the mirror and say you are a badass, you are doing a good job, you are doing the best you can, you've made so much progress. I freaking love you Right. Like I'm working out for you, like you have to be able to give yourself enough compliments. And there's some responses to that saying like girl, no-transcript. Anyway, we do give compliments online, but in person, physically, I have very few women coming up to me saying you look great, I can tell you work out, you look super strong. We don't do that.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, if I feel intimidated by someone, I will rarely go up to them and say I mean, I totally would Like, I think that's a great thing to do and I totally would be like, damn, your glutes are great. I'm always telling my husband like look at that girl's legs and if I was close enough to her I'd probably say damn your legs, but very few people are going to say especially in your circle right, and this sucks. It sucks to say I hate saying it, but it's true. If you have a really close group of friends and you kind of stop drinking and you stop going out with them all the time and you heal your relationship with food, and you're like on cloud nine and you're looking freaking ripped and your clothes are fitting great and you start wearing tighter clothes and you start feeling confident those friends are not going to say, damn girl, you are looking good, maybe once, but years and years later they're not going to compliment you and say things and that just sucks.

Speaker 2:

And let me take it one step further. I hardly ever get compliments in person and I'm not saying that I even want them or need them, but I'm just saying this is a reality of the situation. People are not going to hype you up in your real life and that's really shitty. Great friends, of course, but I don't have like a huge circle of just people being like hey, make sure you hit the gym today, looking good. I can tell you're looking stronger. I see what you're talking about online and I see you doing it and you're looking really great, good job.

Speaker 2:

I don't have that. In fact, I have people saying to me wow, you're eating that much. I have people saying to me wow, you're eating that much, you can eat that much, you lift that much. You shouldn't be eating that much. You're eating cookies. You're eating cake. I'm surprised you drink wine. I'm surprised you drink alcohol Probably going to work that off tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

I get more sarcastic compliments. They're not even compliments. I get more sarcastic comments than I do compliments on my body or my lifestyle. So you're going to have to grow some thick skin so that when people say that to you, you can say, yeah, I eat a shit ton of food and yeah, I will use this food to fuel my workout tomorrow. And yeah, I'm confident and yeah, I look really goddamn good. And it kind of sucks that you have to be like that. But the more that you are like that, the more that you can stand up for yourself and say, yeah, I'm not going to dinner with you guys tonight. I actually have to get up and hit the gym early tomorrow. The more you do those things, the more self-confidence you have, the more self-love you have.

Speaker 2:

Yes, body dysmorphia that's kind of a different topic, but it's a little easier to look at yourself and say I am so freaking proud of you when you get up in the morning and you keep promises to yourself and you eat well and you look well and you love the way that you look and you feel. If you keep breaking promises to yourself and you keep making other people happy in your journey and you keep quitting and you keep saying you're going to get up early and work out and then you don't, if you keep lying to yourself and you keep not doing the shit that you say you're going to do, you're going to look in the mirror and hate the way that you look, because you hate the way that you lie to yourself. It has nothing to do with the way that you look. How you look, the number on the scale doesn't define you. It doesn't define your worth.

Speaker 2:

I know plenty of people that are probably overweight love the way that they look and feel because they're confident. They're like this is how I want to look. I'm doing all the things I said I was going to do for myself. I love myself right here, right. A lot of times when we get skinnier, when we get smaller, we don't love ourselves as much because maybe we're not the same person, maybe that's not true to what we want to be doing. Maybe we're working and working and working and trying to be someone we're not. That's not gonna help the body dysmorphia. You're gonna say now I'm in this really small body but I don't even know her, I have no fun, I have no friends, I have no food. I don't like this. You might love your body, you might love the number on the scale, but if you don't love yourself and if you don't love the journey that you took to get to where you are, the body dysmorphia is going to be bad, it's going to be evil and it's going to rip you apart.

Speaker 2:

So all of that to say to kind of wrap this up, this is a really important topic and I will probably do more episodes about it and maybe narrow it down to, if you guys will. Let me say this if you guys, I love the comment feature on Spotify. I always want to mix that up with Shopify, with Spotify. So leave me a comment on Spotify or on Fuck your Fitness podcast on Instagram, or Chris Castillo fit on Instagram, like you can find me anywhere. But let me know if this resonates and let me know specifically what you struggle with, because I'm happy to. If I get enough people struggling with something, I'm happy to get on here and narrow this down.

Speaker 2:

But I hope that this helped in being so broad, because there are different ways that we struggle with body dysmorphia and just that feeling of how I got to my goal weight and still struggling. And that's a really confusing place to be of like I'm doing this, I'm doing all the things I said I would, I actually look great, but I want to look better. And then you feel like, oh, I could be doing better, I could be making more progress, instead of just really counting your blessings, counting your wins, counting your habits that you're doing right and focusing on those good things. So this is just something that I want to bring to the forefront, because I've been doing this for 15, 16 years. I've been working on my body, my health and fitness. It's never going to stop. This fitness journey for me is never going to stop.

Speaker 2:

This looking in the mirror and I don't hate the way that I look and I do love the way that I look but there are certain days, right, that I look in the mirror and think, okay, do you even lift, bro? What's going on here? What is happening? Yeah, there are certain days and day and day and day where I kind of like eat the wrong foods and foods that I said I wasn't going to do, eat anymore whatever, and I kind of go, I kind of stray away from my plan and I'm thinking do you even have self-control? You know, like there are negative things that I struggled, knowing that you're the person you look up to and think, man, they probably just got it all together or they show that they have themselves all together on social media. Yeah, they don't.

Speaker 2:

So I think, just bringing that to the forefront and knowing it's normal to struggle you always, always will but I wish that you could see yourself through a lens of love and pride, like I see you, because that would just change the game. So, let's have some more self-love, let's realize we are going to always struggle with these things and notice that it's happening and take ourselves back and look at ourselves through a different angle. And, yeah, let's hype each other up, because this is something that is very, very important. And if we're going to unfuck your fitness, if you're going to not start over every Monday and if you're going to not start doing detoxes and all these things. This is what's going to have to happen, is you're going to have to realize this is an ongoing struggle. Nothing's going to make it go away. Not lifting more, not eating better, like it's really just that confidence piece.

Speaker 2:

So I digress. Love you so much. Thank you for listening. Like I said, leave me a comment on Spotify, please, please, please, go rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts and share. It really really helps the show and it really really helps other people. We all need this information. Okay, I will talk to you in the next episode. Bye.

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 ChristyCastilloFit. I will see you next time. Bye.