The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

198. Are You *Actually* in a Calorie Deficit? Stop Guessing - Start Tracking

• Kristy Castillo

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I was recently asked the question “Should I refeed once a week if I’m in a calorie deficit?”


I love this question (I always love when you send me your questions btw!), but honestly…it depends.


Like most things in the health and fitness world, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” answer.


Before you start talking about refeed days, carb cycling, or any other advanced strategies, you’ve got to ask yourself an important question: “Am I even in a consistent deficit to begin with?”


The reality is, most people aren’t. Even if you’re “eating clean,” hitting your macros Monday through Friday, but you’re winging it on the weekends, you’re not *truly* in a calorie deficit! 


If you’re not tracking your intake honestly AND consistently, your coach (whether that’s me or someone else) can’t help you. Tools like refeed days won’t either.


If you’re feeling stuck or frustrated with your progress, you don’t need fancier nutrition hacks or more cardio. You need to get your foundation dialed in FIRST, and give yourself time in a true calorie deficit! 


In this episode, we cover:

  • Why you need to be sure you're in a true calorie deficit before trying tools like refeed days
  • What a calorie deficit actually means + why honest tracking matters
  • Common signs you’re not in a real deficit
  • How to get into a consistent calorie deficit the RIGHT way


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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. We are going to be talking about calorie deficit a little bit today, and I'm excited because this episode is leading into the next episode where we will talk more about a refeed day. So the idea behind this episode, this topic, came from a question that I received on the question box on my Instagram story a couple of days ago. I had a client ask, or I had someone ask should I refeed once a week if I'm in a calorie deficit? Basically, that was the question that was asked and it's such a good question and, like most things in fitness, most questions that I get asked, there is not a yes or no. There's not a definite answer. It absolutely depends on the person, it depends on your journey, it depends on your goals, it depends on your personality, it depends on if you've been in a calorie deficit for a while, it depends on if you've been in a calorie deficit for a while. It depends on so many things. So we're talking about and someone just coming and asking me that question. It's a wonderful question and I'm so glad that she asked, but the reason that I can't give a yes or no answer is because I don't know if you're actually in a calorie deficit. I don't know a lot, that's just a blanket question from someone that I have no idea what they've been doing. So for me to say yes, you should is really reckless from someone in my position. So there are a lot of things, precursors, that we need to kind of talk about. And so if this is you, if you're kind of looking at refeed days, if you're looking at carb cycling, if you're looking at you know it's kind of those types of things when you haven't looked at, am I even in a consistent calorie deficit yet? Have I been consistent? First, that's where we need to start.

Speaker 2:

So, with this question being at the center of the basis of this podcast, I want if you're not wondering yet, maybe you know you're like Christy, I don't care about a refeed day, I don't even know what that means. We're going to talk about it a little bit. But if you're also looking at like low fat, low carb, like anything in addition to anything, to make something more or less, you know, more complicated, less restrictive, first we have to ask ourself am I even in a calorie deficit to be able to refeed? Am I even at a real deficit or carb deficit to be able to carb cycle. So there are just a lot of things that need to go into this, because before we even talk about refeed like I am in this situation a lot of you need to, unfortunately, hear this truth because we need to talk about the Monday through Thursday diet and then the weekend free-for-all. We need to talk about how consistency creates real results, not perfection, not a refeed day. Just consistency is what you need. And we also need to talk a little bit about strategy and what strategic tools like refeed days and like carb cycling we need to talk about those things after we've set a solid foundation.

Speaker 2:

A lot of my one-on-one client work is building a foundation for quite a while like three to six months of a great foundation before we move into any of these tools. I'm going to call them the refeed day, carb cycling, things like that. Before we even think about adding in a tool or something additional, we need to really focus on that foundation, and sometimes the foundation is great. I don't really use refeed days. I don't use carb cycling, not strategically, not on purpose. I do have days where I eat more and I do have days where I go out with family, you know, do things like that, but it's not a strategic refeed day.

Speaker 2:

So before you're asking if you need a refeed day, ask yourself am I even in a real deficit? The only reason you would need a refeed day technically is if you're in a real deficit. And if you're just feeling stuck or you're feeling frustrated or you're not seeing results, the issue might be your plan and your tracking. It might be your lack of consistency, not that you actually need a refeed day. You might actually need to get grass in a deficit first and then worry about a refeed day, because a lot of times we're going to say, yeah, I'm in a deficit, I'm calculating my calories and I tracked my macros, but maybe you didn't track a couple bites, maybe you didn't track a snack that you thought your coach would get mad about, maybe you didn't track something because it was embarrassing for yourself. Even so, we need to be very, very meticulous about that.

Speaker 2:

So what a calorie deficit actually means? It means you're in a calorie deficit. Okay. It means you are consistently consuming fewer calories than your body burns. This requires honest tracking. I've had so many clients come to me and say I'm not really good at tracking honestly because I had coaches in the past that would yell at me, or I feel like it's embarrassing to track certain foods that I ate. Well, if you're not tracking things that you're eating, your coach me. If I'm your coach, I can't help you because you're hiding things from me and I'm looking at your tracking saying, oh, you're in a deficit, this is going great, you're not seeing results. This is really confusing. And you're over there eating things that you're not telling me about. That's I have, then false information to work with and that's not really fair to me or you.

Speaker 2:

So it's not just low days. A calorie deficit doesn't just mean low days. You're eating less or you're eating quote unquote healthy, right, it's your weekly average that drives fat loss. It's not just a couple days a week where you're hardly eating and then on the weekend you're totally blowing it, going way over your calories. So an example of this can be if you have an 1800 calorie daily goal times seven days a week, that's 12,600 calories weekly. Okay, one weekend can totally wipe out five days of progress. If you for five days, if you stick to this 1,800 calories and then if you go freaking crazy, drinking, eating, all the things right, maybe moving less on the weekends, two days can really really totally wipe out your progress from the beginning of the week.

Speaker 2:

So this is all about consistency. This is all about honest tracking and awareness. So I really really think that to be in a calorie deficit, you have to track and I wish that wasn't true. But we are consistently wrong when we guess at what we ate in a day and we have to track it, otherwise you don't know if you're in a consistent calorie deficit. And then if you implement a refeed day, then you're just over calories and then you're in a surplus and that's not good. And then you're going to think nothing works for me, I suck, I'm a failure, right, and you're going to be stuck in this cycle.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk about a few common signs that you are not in a deficit. If you eat clean quote, unquote clean but you don't track consistently, like I said, we have no idea if you're in a deficit, the only way you're going to lose weight is in a deficit. The only way you're going to lose weight is in a deficit. The only way you're going to lose fat, essentially without changing much, is in a deficit. So if you're not tracking and you're just saying, oh, I eat quote unquote healthy, or I eat quote unquote clean but you're not tracking consistently, you're probably not in a deficit. If you hit your macros during the week and then you wing it on the weekends, you're probably not in a calorie deficit.

Speaker 2:

If you rely on cardio to earn your food, you're probably not in a calorie deficit because you're going to eat a cupcake and then you're going to go, maybe walk on the treadmill or run for an hour. It's not calorie for calorie. It's not. It doesn't work like that, right. It's not just like you consumed 300 calories and so you got on the scale and you burned 300 calories. That's not how it works. So if you are doing cardio to earn your food, you are likely not in a calorie deficit.

Speaker 2:

And if you feel like you're always dieting but you're not progressing, you're not in a calorie deficit. I can't even say you're likely not. You're not. If you're always dieting and you're not seeing any progress, you're not in a calorie deficit, and that's okay. Sometimes you need to be reverse, dieting first. Sometimes you need to live at maintenance first, so that's okay.

Speaker 2:

But these are just honest signs. Okay, if you're overeating one to two times a week, you're not in a calorie deficit. So if you are overeating Friday and Saturday, you're not in a calorie deficit, because you just can't. You can't track everything when you're overeating, if you're out and about, and it's okay to do those things, but you can't say you're in a calorie deficit and then you can't say I need to carb cycle, I need a refeed day if we don't know that you're in a calorie deficit. And this is just awareness. This is just an episode to bring awareness to the fact that we have to be real about it and we have to know that we are in a calorie deficit.

Speaker 2:

Before next episode, we talk about a refeed day and tools like that to implement and whether or not you want to implement those tools. That can be totally up to you If you want to get into a real calorie deficit and you want to really, really track your food, to know that you're in a real calorie deficit and then to use a refeed day and use that to your advantage. In the next episode I'll talk about all the benefits and all the disadvantages of a refeed day and then you can decide for yourself. So to get yourself into a calorie deficit, which is where a lot of you want to be honestly. So this is great information because a lot of you want to lose some weight, lose some fat, and so a calorie deficit is the perfect way. The only way to do that, like I mentioned, there is the reverse diet factor. There are factors in it.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying that every single one of you is set up to be in a calorie deficit right now. I have previous episodes talking about maintenance calories and how important it is to get your body at a safe space. Right, if you are already, if you're like Christy I'm already tracking my food, literally tracking every single morsel I put into my mouth so meticulously, and I'm at 1200 calories per day. You do not need to go into a calorie deficit Absolutely not. You're not ready. What are you going to do? Cut 200, 300, 500 calories off of that? You can't do that and be healthy, and even if you did lose a little bit of weight instantly, you would plateau because your body needs more fuel. So I'm not saying that everyone needs to start a calorie deficit or to be in a calorie deficit. That's not what I'm saying. But if you are ready, these are the things that I want you to do.

Speaker 2:

So what to track? First, you need a daily calorie target. That's great. You have to have a target, and that's what I set for my clients is 1765 calories. I think I just set for a client, right before I jumped on, to record Her daily calorie target was 1765 per day. But what we want to do, even more than that, is to track your weekly average. So you would take that 1,765 calories and you would times it by seven, multiply it by seven. Seven days a week, that's your weekly average. And then, once you know that, start tracking. So, once you know that, literally what you're going to do next is start tracking everything that you eat. Everything you put into your mouth and digest needs to go into this tracker. Okay, lose it.

Speaker 2:

App is a great app. Chronometer is a great app. I use MyFitnessPal. I've used it for years and years and years. My Net Diary, I think, is another one that is good that some of my clients use, but for seven days. And then I'm going to make you push that to 14 days, but for seven days, because that's a smaller number. Tell yourself I'm going to track every single thing I put into my mouth. That is the only way you're now going to have this calorie target for each day. You're going to try to stick with that. Most importantly, after that seven days you're going to add up all your calories and you're going to see if it's the same as that weekly average that we calculated. Okay, once you do that, you do it again, and you do it again, and you do it again.

Speaker 2:

We want to know the two to four week average that tells the real story. So if someone is wanting to lose one pound a week or I think that's actually a great average, so we'll say four pounds a month is what you kind of want for average weight loss, if that's your goal, then you can use this one to four week trajectory that you essentially have from calculating your weekly calories and then, or your weekly average and then adding up all of your calories to be in a deficit, whatever that number is. And then if you add up your calories that you actually consumed and it is way over, then you're not in a calorie deficit, even if it's clean food, even if it's healthy, you're not in a calorie deficit if those numbers don't match. And the only way to know that is to track, unfortunately. I say that unfortunately because just a lot of you don't want to honestly, and I get it, I didn't want to either for a long time, but there's no way of getting around it. If this is what you want to do, you have to know the facts, and that's just true.

Speaker 2:

There are a lot of people that say you don't have to track to lose weight, and you don't, because if you're starving yourself or if you know you're eating less than before and you've cut out certain foods like I get it you will be in a calorie deficit compared to what you were before. But if that's not sustainable and you don't understand calories, you don't understand why you cut those things out and you don't understand what's happening to your body because you cut those things out, then it won't matter. So the reason that I'm saying tracking is like a non-negotiable you have to figure out how to track your food and you have to figure out how to have a healthy relationship with. That, honestly, is because it's a responsible thing to do is to have a healthy relationship with food and with your body and with the knowledge of food in your body. And then two, with this knowledge, comes like just so much confidence. And then you know, because what's the beautiful thing here about what I just set up? You know your daily calorie target, you know your weekly average, you know whether you hit it or not, so you can say, god, I thought it was in a calorie deficit, but I'm not, so that's why I'm not losing weight.

Speaker 2:

You don't have to keep spinning your wheels. You have it on paper and if you're like, okay, well, I'm not gaining weight but I'm not losing weight, so this must be my maintenance calories, if you've tracked for four weeks and you've not lost one single pound, yes, maybe you've gained muscle. Yes, maybe you've lost some fat. Maybe the smart scale is moving those numbers inside of the smart scale, but your overall weight body weight hasn't changed, then you're at maintenance and maybe that's where you want to stay. Maybe you're like man, I'm really hungry and I'm just maintaining. Well, that lets you know that you need to be in a reverse, not necessarily a calorie deficit.

Speaker 2:

Or what we're going to talk about in the next episode is, maybe, if you're maintaining, like I just said, that scenario that I just talked about if you're just maintaining your weight, but you can add in a refeed day every week, that might be something that could keep you on track. If you're like, okay, I can do this, I can cut back a little bit, I can clean things up a little bit. I can plan ahead. I can find different foods, different combinations, different balance right Of foods to hit my macros, make it more volume instead of more processed things like that. Like, you can do a lot of work within your calorie range to make your foods more voluminous so that you have more volume, you're more full and on top of that, yes, maybe you want to implement a refeed day, but you have to have this knowledge first of where the hell am I in my journey here? Am I in a deficit? Am I at maintenance? Where am I right? And so your homework for this week.

Speaker 2:

If you are someone who's asking yourself do I need carb cycle lean? Do I need tools? Do I need to implement something else? A lot of these coaches out here, a lot of these bodybuilders out here you see on social media, are talking about my refeed day. Come along with me for a day in the life of my refeed day, right? What the hell is that? Why are they doing that and do I need that? I understand where you get the question of do I need this right? But I really want to walk it through here and unfuck this for you Do you really need this or not.

Speaker 2:

So my homework for you is this week if, because, again, we're going to be talking about it in a couple days again, but I want you to start today figure out your daily calorie target, multiply that by seven to get your weekly average and then start tracking on. Whatever app you want to track on, it does not matter to me one that you like, one that works for you, one that makes it easy and simple and consistent for you, and just start tracking. And then you one that makes it easy and simple and consistent for you and just start tracking, and then you'll have that information in a couple weeks to be able to look back on this and, you know, really decide if this is something that you want. But once you are in a consistent deficit and I mean a really, really consistent deficit, not just like, well, I think I've been consistent, no, really consistent Then you can look at the tools, like a refeed day to support performance, to support your hormones, to help with your adherence to your nutrition plan, and that is what we're going to be breaking down in next week's episode. So I'm really, really excited to talk about that.

Speaker 2:

But this had to be. I didn't feel comfortable just talking about the benefits and you know kind of the shortcoming of a refeed day, without really setting the scene and telling you straight up. You have to know if you're in a deficit or not before you add these tools in, because there's just no, there's just no getting around it, no getting around it. And sometimes we just need someone like me. I'll be the one to tell you that this is exactly what you need to do, and I know it sounds like a pain in the ass to track your food, but let me just tell you it's fucking not. It really doesn't take that long. So I hope this was helpful. Find an app. If you need help, shoot me a message, let me know your questions, but we're going to dive into this a little bit more in the next episode and we'll talk about all things Refeed Day and then you can decide for yourself if it's something that you would like and that would benefit you. So thanks for listening. 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. So much if you came to connect with me over on instagram at christy fit. I will see you next time. Bye.