The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

202. How to Structure Year Round Nutrition Phases for Body Recomp

• Kristy Castillo

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If you’ve ever wondered how I manage to feel good, look good, AND still enjoy my life year-round, today’s episode is for you!


It’s not “magic”, or luck, or any big secret honestly. It’s intentional nutrition phases that I’m very strategic with, and have been dialing in for YEARS.


And nooo - this doesn’t mean I’m living in “diet mode” or obsessing about my food 24/7. This allows me flexibility and food freedom, because I have a plan with “wiggle room”.


Before you do any of this though, you HAVE to know where you’re starting - real, honest data is key here. From there, it’s all about knowing when to live in a deficit, when to settle into maintenance, and when to push for a surplus.


For me, every phase has a purpose, and NONE of them are about wrecking my body (or my sanity).


If you want body recomposition, sustainable results, AND food freedom, stop “winging it”, and start phasing it. After all - nobody builds a body they love by accident!


Episode recap:

  • Important podcast update regarding weekly episodes
  • How I use strategic nutrition phases year-round to look AND feel my best
  • Where to start if you want to phase your own nutrition
  • Breakdown of the 3 main phases I cycle through + why each one has its place
  • How I break my year into 4 intentional seasons for body recomposition & food freedom
  • Simple guidelines for making your phases sustainable (without living in diet mode)


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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'm super excited to dive into this topic. Today I'm going to be talking to you about how I structure my year nutritionally to stay fit all year round, to look the way that I want to feel, the way that I want to be able to enjoy the holidays, to just feel good in my body, to take advantage of the weather, to take advantage of how I feel, things like that. So I want to kind of dive into all of that in today's episode and I'm excited. I did get a request from someone in Instagram DMs asking me to dive into this topic and really talk about how that happens. I do get a lot of feedback about when I talk about this. There is an episode that I do dive into kind of how I structure my year, but it's not like detailed my year, but it's not like detailed. So I do get a lot of feedback from that episode, particularly where I'm talking about just different phases and how I eat more in the winter and I eat a little less in the spring and then I kind of maintain in the summer and people are like I've never thought of it like that. I never thought to structure my whole year. I never thought to work with the seasons and with my body right and I don't know that I structured my whole year. I never thought to work with the seasons and with my body right and I don't know that I structured my whole year like that on purpose. At first I think I just gradually fell into it and was like, well, it's the holidays and I want to start to enjoy myself more and take advantage of the fact that I have more trust in my body and food freedom and I want to eat more right now and I'm okay with that. I want to enjoy the holidays and I don't want to restrict food so much, but within that then I can lift heavier you know things like that to just take advantage of all of that. So I definitely didn't on purpose think of I should structure my year like this. This is genius. So if you haven't thought of that either, that's not how it came about for me. It came about very, very gradually. But I do get a lot of feedback on that episode because, yeah, it's something that I don't think people really think about and it's very eye-opening that like, oh, I can really work with my body this way and build a body I love on purpose and still enjoy my summer, enjoy the holidays, right? So very, very great suggestion that someone gave me to really dive into like, what does that look like? How many calories, things like that. So I'm definitely excited.

Speaker 2:

I have a shit ton of notes in front of me. I'll be honest, it was really hard to know. You know, do I want to share? This is what I do for my body. This is what my year looks like. You know, this is what it looks like on paper, but then, of course, within that, I can get sick, I can go on vacations that I didn't plan.

Speaker 2:

Like things come up always, but this is kind of like, yeah, if I were to lay it all out, this is what it looks like. Or do I want to give suggestions on what I think you should do? It's so hard because I'm not you and you are not anybody else and your starting place could be totally different. So I just came up with so many like notes, honestly, of directions that I could go in this episode. So we'll see exactly where it takes us. I want to be authentic about it.

Speaker 2:

I decided that I do want to give good guidelines. I do want to talk about my own journey. I think that's really important that I talk about what I do so you actually know, so that I'm not just saying like, this is the science, this is what you should do. I want you to know what I do and what happens when real life kicks in and how I navigate that. But there's not like a one-size-fits-all plan, but my plan is really good. You guys, I'm just going to say it's really good and there's a lot of room for error, there's a lot of room for adjustments, and so I think that's really important. So I'm excited to dive in.

Speaker 2:

Before I do that, I want to announce that there will no longer be Friday episodes, at least for a little while, and I can get into that a little bit more maybe as I navigate through business life things. But we just hit 1 million downloads on the podcast recently and that was amazing and I'm feeling like I want to explore being a guest on other shows. I want to explore different things in my business and I have the SoulFit podcast with Erin that I want to grow and I love working with her and that podcast is so fun. So if you haven't listened to the SoulFit podcast, the link will be in the show notes, but it's S-O-L-F-I-T. Go find it because it's just fun friend-to-friend banter. But of course we talk about very important things too. But of course we talk about very important things too.

Speaker 2:

So I want to cut back a little bit on my episodes for a couple different reasons which I can continue to get into, but one of them being because I wouldn't be able to. I have only a certain amount of time right that I'm kind of allow myself to talk on Tuesdays and then I allow myself to talk on Fridays. Fridays were short, sweet and spicy and I love them. But I want to cut back on them for now so that I can really dive into things like this topic and not have any restrictions as far as time or what I feel like I can say or anything. I don't want to have restrictions and I want to have more time to venture out and more time to work on Fit Club and more time to work on things that I'm just getting into, so super excited about that. It may be forever. There may never be another Friday episode. I may bring them back. You know, every single Friday I might bring them back, just on occasion.

Speaker 2:

This is my show and I sometimes forget I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. Thank you to my friend, erin, for reminding me of that. But for now this will be the only episode this week and Tuesdays will be the only episodes going further for a little while. So I wanted to announce that and I will get into that more and just kind of keep you guys posted on that journey. But yeah, that's why so super excited. I was super sad actually to get rid of those episodes, but I'm also super excited to just be able to talk to you on these Tuesday episodes and really dive deep and not have any like timeframes, time restrictions or just like mental restrictions on how long I should talk, because how much of your time am I taking up every week? Do you guys like longer episodes? Do you like the shorter? From what I'm hearing from people, you guys like the longer episodes. So I'm excited to keep bringing those to you on these Tuesdays.

Speaker 2:

So I do have a lot of notes that I will be referencing in this episode. Like I said, I did take a lot of notes, I did go back and I actually I'm recording this episode on a Monday and the week before it'll actually come out, but I wanted to record it, even a couple of days ago, and I sat down to record it and I just thought this is not what I wanna say. This doesn't feel right. I need to kind of dive into this and plan this out a little bit further. So welcome to my brain. Here we are, but let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

So as I talk about these phases that I go through for my own body and what that looks like for the year, and of course I'm going to dive into each kind of phase and why and what and how and all the things, and kind of dive into you know more of that and what that means for someone who is in body recomposition. I know you guys kind of listening up to this episode. Body recomp is something that a lot of you are coming to me saying like, yes, I want the number on the scale to be smaller, but more importantly, I want to have a better relationship with food and I want to gain muscle and I wanna love the way that I look, not just love the number on the scale. And so this topic really ties into someone who wants body recomposition, who craves that structure too and wants a strategic but also sustainable approach, because I feel like a lot of times we dive into a diet program and we think we want the extreme and we think we want to follow these direct rules, but then it becomes too restrictive and it's not sustainable. So this is a really this like hits it all.

Speaker 2:

I feel like if you are someone like me which a lot of you are you wouldn't be listening if you didn't like me and if you weren't somewhat like me in the sense that you wanna look good, you wanna feel good, you wanna enjoy the sense that you wanna look good, you wanna feel good, you wanna enjoy the holidays, you wanna enjoy your vacations, you wanna feel good in your body, you wanna lift heavy. You know you want all these things, but you also want strategy. You don't just wanna wing it, you wanna have guidelines, but then you wanna be able to live your life within those guidelines, and this is exactly who this is for. So let's talk about the phases. Let's talk about first kind of this episode, I guess.

Speaker 2:

And as far as winging it, winging it does get exhausting because you're like I'm just going to try this and see if it works. Well, then it doesn't, and then you don't know exactly what you even tried. Did you try a calorie deficit? Did you try muscle building? Like what were you actually doing? So if you like to have a plan which a lot of again if you're like me, you like to have a plan but you like to have that wiggle room, this is definitely for you. This is also your permission slip to stop guessing and be not obsessed with but have a plan. Like I feel like sometimes that's looked down upon as far as just from other people like, oh, you're too obsessive, or you're too worried about your maxing out at the gym or your rest days or your sprinting or all the things right. Like it's okay for you to want to look good. It's okay if you want to look good. It's okay if you want to eat well, it's okay if you want structure.

Speaker 2:

I used to feel a little crazy for wanting my body to look good all year round. I always felt like I was the crazy person. People would say like oh, I don't know, I'm sure you're tracking that food or, of course, you're going to get the salad because you're a personal trainer, because your body, because you're obsessed, whatever reason. People kind of tried to make me feel like I was the crazy person for wanting to look good and wanting to feel good. And, yeah, you know, they felt like. They made me feel like I was crazy for wanting whatever I wanted, which is in itself, crazy. If I want something for myself, that's none of anyone's fucking business, but I had a plan and I had structure. That I felt crazy for that. Other people that made me feel crazy. What people were saying In reality, it was just that those people didn't have control, they didn't have any structure, they didn't have a plan, and so they were kind of winging it, making me feel bad that I wasn't winging it and it wasn't their fault. That was how I was taking it on.

Speaker 2:

But now I don't feel like that anymore and if you are someone who feels like that, I don't want you to feel like that anymore, because the reason that I do look good all year round and the reason that I do feel good all year round is not magic. It is very on purpose, it is phases, it's strategic, it's cycles, it's planning, it's not obsession. But yes, I do have goals for myself and I do have standards for myself and I like to work out, I like to move my body, I like to feel good, I like to look good and that shouldn't really affect anyone else, like it is on purpose. So if you do want to look good and feel good and be healthy, you are going to have to do it on purpose. It doesn't happen by accident, unfortunately. So number one when we talk about this is you have to do it on purpose. It doesn't happen by accident, unfortunately. So number one when we talk about this is you have to know where you are, so you can't set GPS without knowing your location. Is kind of the analogy here.

Speaker 2:

If I called someone and said, hey, how do I get to Florida? Just hey, hey, best friend, how do I get to Florida? Their first question would be from where? I mean, generally, someone's going to know I live in Michigan, probably. So if I'm calling a really good friend and saying, hey, how do I get to Florida, they maybe can give me a general direction. Well, it's south from Eucharist for one. But let's say, right, like you want directions to anywhere, how do I get to this store? How do I get to this landmark? How do I get wherever?

Speaker 2:

The first thing you need to know, and the first thing the person you're asking needs to know, is where the hell are you starting from? Where are you right now to be able to guide you in the right direction, right? So they need to know where you're starting from. You need to know where you're starting from. Currently it is July. No, we're in August. Actually, it's the beginning of August, so we're kind of in the middle-ish of 2025, which this year has flown by. But in order to look kind of like it's hard now because, essentially, I'm going to give you guidelines from now until next year at this point in time, so we're not starting from January to December. Currently we're in August. So our starting point is August for purposes of me recording this episode, and then also your starting point physically where is it? Where are you? Where are you going? What is your goal for the year?

Speaker 2:

You can enter these phases that I'm going to talk about and what I do. You can enter them now. I want you to start it now and start where you're from. But you need to know your starting point in order to next, we're going to be talking about the surplus and the deficit and the maintenance phases and what those are. You need to know exactly where you are first. So, right before we can talk about what phase you need to enter and maybe this will be slightly different from what I'm doing. We have to talk about where you are.

Speaker 2:

So start tracking your food honestly for five to seven days minimum. I love 14 days for tracking because it just gives you a really good example, and 14 days, two weeks it gives you a lot of time to be able to figure out foods and because, if I'm just like, track your food for five days, well, maybe these five days you would eat very, very clean, very, very healthy, whereas the last two months maybe you've eaten like shit. Right, don't clean it up for purposes of figuring out where your starting point is. Eat exactly like you have been and start tracking. But I like anywhere from five to seven to 14 days. So pick your poison there, okay. And no, don't track like oh, I think that was a tablespoon or I skipped my weekend drinks, but that's okay.

Speaker 2:

I'm talking about logging every single thing you put into your mouth. I don't care if it's a cup of kale and you feel like it's not really a whole lot of calories in there, I don't care, track it. I want you to get in the habit of tracking everything, because if you're not tracking everything, you're not being honest with yourself. And if you're not being honest with yourself, you're just guessing and you can't be strategic. You can't build a plan on guesses. You have to know the truth. So it's not judgment. Don't judge yourself, don't think that it has to be perfect or you're doing something wrong. We just literally need to know your starting place. So there's no guessing. I need you to track that shit. Okay, whatever you are eating, whatever you are drinking, if you think it's quote, unquote, bad or processed or whatever who I do not care Track that shit, put it in the app, because that is your honest starting place.

Speaker 2:

If you just track your food for the next 5 to 12, 12, that's random 5 to 14 days but you're not putting everything in or you're not eating how you have been, we need to get an exact representation. And if we do that for 14 days and we see that you've tracked your food for 14 days, honestly, every single thing that you've eaten, you've put into your mouth, you track it for 14 days, you know. You add up those 14 days. You have this grand total. Then you divide it by 14 days and you see an average. That is your average calories. If your average is 1,700 calories per day that you've been eating for these 14 days. That is your starting place and then you can look back, track your weight too for those 14, I'm just going to say 14 days. We're doing it long-term here, okay.

Speaker 2:

So if you track your calories and you have your 1,700 calories and then you've also been tracking your weight, if you've maintained your body weight not every single day, within those 14 days your body weight will fluctuate. It'll go up, it'll go down, it'll go up, it'll go up, it'll go up, it'll go down, it's going to move all over the place. But from day one to day 14, if your body weight is the same, then that is your maintenance. You have maintained that body weight from that first day you tracked to the 14th day you tracked. That is maintenance. That would mean the 1,700 calories per day on average that you've consumed has caused you to maintain your body. If you've lost weight in those 14 days, then you have been in a deficit, and if you have gained weight in those 14 days, you have been in a surplus. So let's dive into those a little bit. Three main phases, like I just mentioned, what they are and when to use them. These are important because I want you to be able to fill in the blanks here as I talk about next I'll get into my structure how I structure my year but I want you to be able to have a what, where, when, why, kind of thing of what these main phases are.

Speaker 2:

So the deficit fat loss mode we're going to think about a deficit as fat loss mode. We're going to think about a deficit as fat loss mode. It's not necessarily well, it will lead to weight loss, but fat loss and weight loss are completely different things. So the deficit fat loss mode target I want you to be 200 to 300 calories below your maintenance. That's a deficit. Why not more? Why not 500 calories? Like a lot of people say, because more is not always better.

Speaker 2:

The goal is fat loss without wrecking your energy or wrecking your muscle or wrecking your hormones. We don't want to just be here at 1,700 calories and then take a nosedive to 1,200 calories and your body's like I'm sorry, what the fuck? I'm hungry Now. I have to conserve energy. I'm losing muscle now. What is going on? We want fat loss, not muscle loss, not energy loss, not just weight loss. We want fat loss.

Speaker 2:

So that's why I like the 200 to 300 calorie deficit or surplus, honestly. And also it's easy. It's easy to take two weeks and get into a 200 calorie deficit and that's where a lot of my clients are really, really happy. How long to be in a deficit? Six to 12 weeks max. When to do it? Sometimes you can do it after the holidays, you can do it leading up to summer and you can do it when you've been in maintenance or surplus long enough to support fat loss without burnout.

Speaker 2:

So if you've been in maintenance or you've been in a surplus long enough to build muscle, to have a good relationship with food, to have your hormones set up, to have your metabolism kind of revved up and happy and you're feeling really, really good, then you can go and do a deficit. But you don't wanna do that when you're not ready and I talked about that in a couple episodes back Red flags to not enter a deficit. If you've already been under eating, if you're burned out or stressed, if you haven't built a foundation yet, if you haven't built muscle and habits consistency, like I just talked about, you don't want to enter a deficit. So if it's the time of year when I normally would start my deficit March and this year current year I was sick January through March, very, very, very, very, very sick and I'm going through, you know blood pressure issues and all the things. I'm not putting myself in a deficit when my body's been stressed out and sick since January. So you have to know your body and when you can do these things. But technically, when I talk about going into a deficit, I'm talking about taking 200 to 300 calories off of my maintenance.

Speaker 2:

Next, the phase we want to talk about is maintenance. This is your golden zone, this is your happy place, this is where I'm thriving and I can't say enough good things about maintenance. But your target is your true calorie needs, where your body weight and your biofeedback hold steady. So your maintenance phase is where, yes, your weight is holding steady, you can gain muscle and you can lose fat at the same time and your weight can stay the same. But if you are maintaining your body, if you are maintaining your body weight, if you are maintaining sleep, stress, all those types of things, energy, your biofeedback, those metrics which I'm gonna start tracking even better with my one-on-one clients I'm really excited about that and probably going into Fit Club I always give everything first to my one-on-one clients and see how they do in feedback and then go into Fit Club. But tracking your biofeedback is really, really important. So this is where you want to live most of the year and the important times of the year when you want to look good, yes, you want to feel good, yes, you want to be in a place where you're like, yes, I want to maintain this physique, this mentality, these calories. This is where I'm happiest. That's where you want to maintain. Maybe that's not where I am the happiest. Right, this is per person.

Speaker 2:

The benefits of maintenance are muscle recovery and growth, stable energy and mood, hormone health, lifestyle flexibility. It's great for after a deficit or reversing into a deficit. If you're in a surplus, you want to hit maintenance before you hit a deficit, and vice versa. If you've been in a deficit, you want to hit maintenance before you hit a surplus, just to kind of keep your body grounded Again. It's where your body is really really happy.

Speaker 2:

Maintenance is also great for the holidays. It's great for travel, heavy seasons, summer things. You know, if you're going on a lot of vacations, you want to be in maintenance. You don't want to be in a surplus. You don't want to be gaining fat and feeling fluffy and bigger and not fitting in your clothes. You want to maintain right or busy, stressful life chapters. Those things happen and we need to plan for those too. That's a thing that I did not do early on in my journey. I did not plan for anything to go wrong. I just thought this is exactly how I'll do this, and it never worked. And then I always felt like I was starting over. So let's plan for travel, let's plan for holidays, let's plan for sickness, not plan for it to happen. We don't always know when we're going to travel or be sick, or when holiday parties are going to be, but we can plan the phase that will, you know, kind of allow us to enjoy that a little bit more.

Speaker 2:

But the non-accidental surplus is to gain muscle. That's the whole point is to gain muscle and then you can go into a deficit and lose the fat, but you keep the muscle that you've worked so hard to build. So the surplus is muscle gain mode. Remember a deficit was fat loss mode and then you have a planned surplus, I guess, where you gain muscle. So this is where you are 200 to 300 calories above maintenance. This allows for muscle growth. You cannot build muscle unless you are feeding your body enough to build muscle. The goal is to build lean muscle without getting fluffy.

Speaker 2:

If you were to be consuming 500 calories over your maintenance and be in a huge surplus caloric wise, you are going to gain more fat, that's okay. You are going to also gain muscle faster because you will be eating more. You can lift heavier, you can make the gains, so that's okay. But that's not what I do. So I like to be in a 200 to 300 calorie surplus, which means above my maintenance calories. 200 to 300 calories above my maintenance calories. You'll probably see the weight on the scale creep up a little bit, but that's okay because it's intentional, and it's slow because it will be mostly muscle, along with a little fat, of course. But that will come off, like I said, in a cut phase or a deficit phase. So this is best done after spending some time in maintenance. It's best done when your training is dialed in. Otherwise you'll just be gaining weight.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people are like oh, I'm in build phase, I'm in a surplus, I'm building muscle, but they're really just eating more and not intentionally progressive overloading or lifting super heavy in the gym or even training at all like in a plan. This has to be intentional. In order to gain muscle in a surplus, you have to be intentional but that may be a topic for another day as far as the workouts that go along with that. You don't want to go into a surplus if you're not sleeping well and if you're really stressed out, because then your body is going to be holding onto those calories for fat protection and not putting it towards muscle building. So the scenario has to be kind of perfectly set up, which this year for me again, typically I'm in a muscle building season December, january, february.

Speaker 2:

I was so sick I wasn't able to work out right. No, I shouldn't say work out right, work out, yeah, work out in the way that I needed to to build muscle. I was so sick, I wasn't sleeping, my body was super, super stressed, so I didn't hit a muscle building phase when I like to. This year I'm kind of hitting one now, actually, which this year has been so backwards for me, but it is what it is, Life happens. So this year has been the exception to the rule for me and it was kind of hard for me to navigate through. But I did and I'm fine. I actually have a photo that I took yesterday when I was working out. I feel really proud of my body. But then I came across a year ago today on Facebook I think it was and I was a lot smaller last year.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to do a side-by-side of what I usually look like in the summer and what I look like this summer, because life happened and I'm happy with that and it's fine, and that's what happens also when you gain more muscle on your body over and over and over, year after year after year, you do get bigger and it's weird, but it's good. Also explained why my shorts didn't fit a couple weeks ago. So now I know All right. So how I structure my year into phases, nutritionally, I might get into workouts a little bit just as far as like movement, but I'm going to try not to, because I want this to be just the nutritional part. Okay, so I have four three-month phases.

Speaker 2:

So I have fall, where I am a slow reverse to build. I have winter, where I'm surplus for muscle building. I have my spring, which is a cut for definition, and then I have summer, which is maintenance for enjoyment and stability. That's how I chose to label them, title them, and now I'm going to move into it. So I know, obviously, for me fall is September through November. I'm in Michigan.

Speaker 2:

If you are in another part of the world where this is not applicable, I want you to take your quote, unquote, fall and your months and change it. Okay, but this is what I'm using just to kind of explain, so you guys can take the number of months that I have and kind of put your own months in there. So this is exactly how I do this caloric wise, and this is what I want to lay out for you. So my fall September through November, september, october, november three months. I have four three month phases okay, fall, september through November. Slow reverse to build again. So in September I'm I begin adding calories slowly, which means in August I need to start thinking okay, I begin adding calories slowly, which means in August I need to start thinking okay, next month I'm going to start adding calories. In August I need to get ready, because I can't just start September and be like, oh shit, I'm supposed to start adding calories. I need to be prepared. So in August I'm thinking about my next phase.

Speaker 2:

Okay, but in September I begin adding calories slowly. This means increasing my daily intake by roughly 50 to 100 calories per week, super slow. I usually have my one-on-one clients and I have said here on the podcast before add 100 calories for a week, see how you feel, stay there, or add another 100 calories before you go. So I'm going to do that, so I'm going to do that, so I'm going to do that the next week if you feel good and hungry and you feel like you're not gaining weight. Right, the scale is staying the same and you're happy with that. That's what you want to do. For me, the last few years I have been doing it so slow, so 100 is just easy. You're like okay, I'm currently in a cut and I'm or I guess currently I'm in like maintenance. But so I'm going to add 50 calories the first week of September and I'm going to add another 50 calories the second week of September. I'll add another 50 calories the third week of September and I'll add another 50 calories the last week of September. That's so slow that the scale will not change at all. I'll hardly notice any energy, anything like that. But that's okay, because that brings me then into October. So I continue the slow increase.

Speaker 2:

Also, when you're doing everything so slowly, it allows your metabolism to adapt. And that is what's really, really important. Because if your metabolism has, let's say, slowed down in a cut and then you go straight from a cut to 500 calories increase, your metabolism has slowed down to meet the cut calories and the energy and now you've given it 500 calories more than that. It doesn't know what to do with it. So it allows your metabolism to adapt slowly. It allows the scale to move slowly, if at all, and that is the goal. And then in October I continue the slow increase. By the end of the month I might be at or slightly above my maintenance calories. So I will continue that slow increase and some of the weeks maybe I'll add 50. I'll add another 50 the next week, maybe I'll stay there for a week or two and then maybe I'll add another 50 and then another 50 and stay there for a week or two. Right, it just depends on how I feel. But in October I'm going to continue that slow increase so that you might be at or, yeah, I'm going to be at maintenance probably, maybe a little bit higher, but not in a surplus. Yet.

Speaker 2:

November this is where I've reversed up to a surplus. And November I'm really starting to feel like, okay, I'm, I'm back in a surplus, right? Because, mind you, currently I'm at maintenance. I've not lost weight in months, so I'm, I'm at maintenance. So I only need to add 200 to 300 calories to be in a surplus. So once I get to that 300 mark, I'm good, like that's where I'm staying for the rest of winter. So, or yeah, fall and winter.

Speaker 2:

So now that it's November, I'm reversed into my surplus. I'm 300 calories above my maintenance and this is the official start of my build phase. So, yes, through September, october and November, I've started that slow reverse. So I am reversing. I am in a little bit of a surplus. So I am putting on muscle, I am feeling stronger, I am noticing all of those benefits. But I'm just into November, which is nice because November starts the holiday season for me. So I'm starting Thanksgiving, I'm wanting more food, I'm wanting some snacks, so it's perfect to be in a surplus when that's happening.

Speaker 2:

Then starts the winter. So December through February, I'm in a surplus and this now continues my surplus for building muscle. So, december through February, I'm staying in a surplus and I want you to stay in a surplus because we have the holidays, we have the winter months, so whenever your winter months are, this is when I want you to plug in your winter. This is your prime time for muscle growth. Unless you're sick, like I was this year, this is your prime time for muscle growth. You'll be training hard. You'll be fueling that effort, okay, so also, along with being in a surplus 300 calories over your maintenance. That means if you're not intentional with your movement, with your lifting of the weights, you will gain fat because you will then just be in a surplus. You'll be eating more.

Speaker 2:

And if you're just sitting on your ass because here in Michigan it's cold as hell in the winter, so I'm not going for walks, I'm not doing my sprint intervals I'll do walks on my walking pad, but I'm not outside just moving all the time. I'm not outside watering my flowers and working in the yard and going out and doing things just outside. I'm not getting as many steps in just through the day, so they have to be very planned. So I, yes, I will be on my walking pad so that I can maintain this level that I want to be in the surplus. My movement will match my calorie goal. But when my goal is muscle building, I have to be eating more and I have to be working out more. This is prime time for muscle growth.

Speaker 2:

Okay, if you're in a surplus, you want muscle growth. So that's my winter months, it's my surplus for building muscle. I'm training really hard, my movement is still on point, I still have goals, I still have things I have to do every single day. I still have habits that I have to do every single day to be able to maintain that body, so that in the spring, march through May, I'm cutting for definition. I have now put on muscle and a little bit of fat yes, because I was in a surplus. Now I'm in my cut for definition. So what this is going to look like in March? So in February I'm going to start thinking okay, in March I'm going to start my backwards. My reverse, not my reverse start my deficit. I'm going to start taking away calories is what I'm trying to say. So in February I'm starting to think okay, march is coming, cut season is coming. What is that going to look like? I'm mentally preparing myself for March.

Speaker 2:

When March hits March, april, may, march is my transition into a deficit. So I will start reducing my daily intake by 100. Yes, 100. That seemed like a lot. I increase 50 to 100. I cut usually 100. And then I will cut that 100. By that first week I'll cut 100 calories per day. See how I'm feeling.

Speaker 2:

It is an adjustment. It is I'm hungry and I'm used to eating a certain amount of food and now I'm not eating that much. I'm eating a lot still because I'm pretty high in calories, but I'm not eating that much in terms of not what I was eating the week before, right. So I still haven't moved my movement that much. I'm not walking that much more, I'm not sprinting, I'm not running Like my movement is kind of the same. I'm just reducing my daily intake by 100 calories per day for that first week and then I'm probably going to stay there for the second week of March. The third week of March I'll probably take away another 100 calories. So at this point I would be 200 calories less than what I was eating in my surplus.

Speaker 2:

That's in March, in April or May. That's the first week, or I should say the first month of your cut phase. I want you to be reducing by 100 calories and then at whatever rate you feel like is necessary for your body. Yeah, some people are going to be like I want to hurry through this and I just want to cut 100 calories this week and then I'm going to cut 100 calories next week and I'm going to cut 100 calories the next week. That's okay If you feel like that's what works for you.

Speaker 2:

For me, slow and so freaking steady wins the race every time. So I'm going to go slow, okay. Then April and May, I'm going to maintain this pretty gentle deficit. Honestly, it's not a huge deficit. I haven't just said what I I haven't done what I just said like cut, cut, cut. I'm cutting very slowly and seeing how I feel. Am I going to lose fat quickly? No, and is the scale going to change much? No, but I'm happy. My energy is fine, my sleep is okay. It's keeping me not stressed. So I, like the slow and steady, wins the race approach.

Speaker 2:

So April, May, maintaining this general deficit to shed the fat that I gained over the build phase and I'm revealing that muscle underneath. So when you think about, yeah, okay, I'm starting to get a little hungry and I kind of wish I wasn't in this little deficit now, right, you're going to feel like you want to see things happen a little bit faster and you're going to kind of miss the food. But when you think about mentally, the point here is to shed the fat that I've gained over that muscle building phase. That's the point. Yeah, you are going to be a little hungry, right, but what you're doing is bringing yourself back down not only to a maintenance phase, you're bringing yourself down even further into a cut phase. So, yeah, you do want to be.

Speaker 2:

If I had reversed myself up, you know, in my surplus in the winter months, I'm in a surplus of 200 to 300 calories. I'm now going to bring myself down 200 or 300 calories into maintenance and then I'm going to keep going into a deficit. So this is where I want you to take into. I have these phases and I'm going to continue through them, but then I also have little things called focus phases, kind of within those, and so, yes, my winter is a surplus for building and then my spring is a cut for definition. So I'm at a surplus. I want to take away calories right, then to go into a maintenance for a couple weeks and then continue into a cut. So, march, I'm starting that deficit. April and May, I'm continuing to have that deficit appear until I'm all the way into a deficit April and May. So you can do that, however quickly or however slowly, like me, that you wanna do that.

Speaker 2:

And then my summer my maintenance for enjoying and stability. My birthday is May 28th, so Memorial weekend here and that really like kind of like marks summer for me. So I only want to cut marks through May, but I do it so slowly that sometimes I'm not cut by then. Usually by my birthday I'm like, oh, I still have a couple pounds to get off here. I'm still feeling fluffy, so sometimes my own. I like to say, like I said, I break it down into four three-month phases. So June through August is my maintenance phase, but sometimes I'm still cutting into June because I'm not where I want to be. But technically, my summer June through August, maintenance for enjoyment phase and my stability phase getting my metabolism stable, getting my body stable, stress, sleep, calories, all the things For June through August is I'm eating at maintenance. So if I'm starting out June and I'm still in a deficit, that's okay, because it's going to average out there in these next three months. I'm going to be at maintenance.

Speaker 2:

Right, this is your chance to enjoy flexibility. It's summer. So whatever those summer months are for you, you want to enjoy that flexibility, you want to maintain your physique. You want to look good. You want to feel good. You want to be able to work out. You want to maintain your physique. You want to look good. You want to feel good. You want to be able to work out. You want to run. You want to walk more outside. It's nice outside. You want to be outside. You're in a bathing suit, you have, your body is out and about right. I'm in a tank top right now. My shoulders are out, like I want them to look good. That's fine, you'll still be. So. Your training and your calories during maintenance can be a little laxed, and that is so nice. It is so nice.

Speaker 2:

But, like I said, I break it down seasonally.

Speaker 2:

I have those four three-month phases. I train them, I put it on the calendar. I know how to do it. This is how I structure my fit club as well inside of my app. Typically as a general overview, this is what it looks like. Okay, I'm going gonna go through them again. Fall is my slow reverse to build. Winter is my surplus for building muscle. Spring is my cut for definition and then summer is my maintenance for enjoyment and stability. That's what it looks like overall. So those are my main phases. Within those main phases, though, like I said, we have focus phases. So these can be things like if you have a vacation coming up and you want to drop a couple pounds.

Speaker 2:

If you've gotten a little out of control. This is me, as I was kind of tweaking these notes over the weekend. I had a great dinner last night, actually, with my daughter. We went to a barbecue restaurant. We had ribs and we had brisket and I had three corn muffins and cornbread and I ate, you know, whatever I wanted. Basically, I'm sure that I I don't know that I was in a calorie surplus, but I know I was. I didn't hit my macro. I know there was no protein in the in that cornbread the three of them that I had before I even started my my food.

Speaker 2:

But anyways, if you've gotten a little out of control, if you went on a vacation, like, let's say, you have a vacation coming up so you take like this little, this focus phase, you're like, okay, for four weeks I'm gonna put myself into a cut so that I look and feel really good on vacation. But while I'm on vacation I may be in a surplus because I don't care what I'm eating on vacation, I'm eating. Maybe you're eating whatever you want. I generally tend to be pretty cautious on trips and I have my clients be cautious on trips too for the most part. But if you just want to enjoy the hell of your vacation, go for it. And then maybe when you get back you're like, oh, I need another little focus phase here, another two to four week cut right, you can have these little focus phases within your main phases, but you can, like, reel yourself back as needed. There's nothing wrong with that. So when I say that you don't have to stick to these to the T, you don't have to stick to them to the T. I was sick, like I said, january through March and I look fine, nothing happened.

Speaker 2:

But the more that you take these phases and, like I said, kind of gradually, 200 to 300 calories, you know easing yourself into a maintenance surplus and then cutting those calories back out and taking yourself into a cut as you get out your calendar and you kind of think about okay, what do these months look like for me? When do I need to start thinking? For me? It's August. I need to start thinking. Okay, literally right now, I'm starting to think. This month, this is the last month you're doing what you have been doing.

Speaker 2:

In September we're going to start to increase, and as I start to increase, 50 calories or 100 calories, whatever it is per week, I want you to think what is that going to feel like? What is that going to look like? What am I going to add to my food? What am I eating right now and what can I add to that? That's 50 calories that will help me to allow my macros. What are my calories going to be? What are my macros going to be? What foods can I have that's going to allow me to hit that? And then what the next week? What am I going to add the next week? What am I going to add? It takes planning, it takes intentionality. Nobody builds a body they love by accident. And if you ever have good for you, I hope that you can maintain that on accident, because good luck with that. Okay, but it takes intentionality.

Speaker 2:

So, and then, for you know, september through you're reversing into, you know, a bit of a surplus here. Do that slowly, but then you get into your winter months. And then what does your training look like? You have to know for yourself what this looks like and what this feels like and what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do and what that feels like. So definitely take my phases and put them into your own life and figure out what this means for you. But this is literally how I do it.

Speaker 2:

So I want to just give you an end with some general guidelines for this. Okay, your mild cut is 200 to 300 calories under maintenance and I want you in a cut for 8 to 12 weeks. Next, your build phase is 200 to 300 calories over maintenance. I want you there for 8 to 16 weeks, depending on your training. Again, if you're going on vacation in January, maybe you want to dial back a little bit. I remember the first year I did a build phase. We went to Puerto Rico in March and I was like shit, I don't want to be in the middle or like just at the end of a surplus phase where I feel big, bulky and fluffy in Puerto Rico where I'm going to be in a bathing suit and it's going to be hot. So I had to dial back a little bit and cut my build phase short, and that's okay. And then when I got back, I went into maintenance to kind of regroup and see where I'm at.

Speaker 2:

Maintenance is where you should be most of the year. This is where you are literally maintaining your body, okay, physically Reverse transitions, slowly, whatever that looks like for you. Whenever you implement a reverse transition 50 to 100 calories per week to enter or to exit a phase Go slow and then your training stays consistent. Progressive overload, always. Recovery, always deloads, always what you're doing, how often you're doing it. Things like that can change based on your goals. If your goal is to grow a big old booty, then you're going to be doing a little old booty. Then you're going to be doing a little more progressive overload and you're going to be doing it in the glute section. But if you want to work on biceps and having a really strong, toned upper body, then you're going to be needing to build that. You're going to be needing to focus on upper body and less glutes. So your training, it's always going to stay consistent, always, always, always going to stay consistent.

Speaker 2:

And then also just remember that these aren't rules. This isn't a live or die by strategy. This isn't something that you have to do just because I do it. This works great for me. It is great framework. Like I said, what I do works. It is, it works. I'm a physical representation of what I do works. I can't deny that and this is what I do, and I do it slow. I do the 50 to 100 calorie change up per week to enter to exit either phase. I stick within that 200 to 300 calorie range because it's easier than 500 and I don't gain or lose weight as quickly. I feel like my body is very happy when I do things slowly, and I think yours will be too. So this is framework.

Speaker 2:

Okay, If you're in a surplus in February and you're crushing your muscle gains and you feel really freaking good and you're like, no, I actually want to ride this out. I don't care if I look a little fluffy this summer, I feel so good, ride that wave, stay there, okay. This means you are in control. This is you being in control. Maintenance does not mean you're stuck. If the scale isn't moving, that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It doesn't mean you're stuck. It means your body is happy and you can do so much work within that and just be happy there. Be happy there. You're supposed to be there. You're not always supposed to be cutting and bulking. You are supposed to live in maintenance. That's where your body is very, very happy.

Speaker 2:

This is strategic, it is deliberate and every phase is setting you up for something else. So every phase right Surplus sets you up for a more successful fat loss phase. You can't lose fat and look stronger if you haven't built the muscle. Maintenance prevents rebounding and it keeps results, because if you're always doing surplus and you're always doing a deficit, then you're always like what the fuck? Your body is always bouncing back and forth. Maintenance supports the next phase, which is also a deficit, which helps you reveal that muscle that you've built. So every single phase has a purpose and it's the way that I've broken it up. It's hard because people always think too like a surplus maintenance deficit. Well, that's three phases and I need to do them throughout the year. So I need to kind of break it up a little bit differently than I have, and that's not true. So I like the four phases for three month intervals and I think that that's really, really perfect.

Speaker 2:

So I feel like I have rambled so long on this topic, but I wanted to be very thorough. I wanted to say what I do. I wanted to give you the framework and then, of course, allow you to be able to put your spin on it. So I would love to hear your feedback on this topic, on what I have said. What do you want me to dive more into? What do you want me to dive more into? What do you not understand? What would be more helpful? I really want to dive into a macro. I think I'm going to do kind of a little series, maybe a maybe a four week series of macros where I'm kind of really really talking about that, so you can gather it, because this framework is like okay, I have a 200 to 300 calorie surplus or deficit. What does that mean? Still, what are macros and what are calories and what does all of that mean? So I'd like to dive into that a little bit further.

Speaker 2:

But give me your thoughts on this episode.

Speaker 2:

I hope that it was very, very helpful and, yeah, I hope it really really helps you to be able to digest it well, to make it practical, to know that it'll work for you, to know that you can fuck it up for a couple of weeks and it's still gonna be fine, and that you can absolutely change your body within these guidelines, within these phases. So I can't wait to hear from you. Leave me a message on. The best place to leave me a message just like about like, what you wanna hear, is either Instagram, dm or on Spotify. You can leave a comment right on this episode. So that's really helpful because, instead of saying your episode from three weeks ago was really, really great, you can write right in the comments on this very episode and say this episode was great. Can you break down this, this and this? And then I can do that for you. So thank you for being here. I hope this was helpful. I can't wait to read your comments. Wherever you put them, I'll find them and I will talk to you next week.

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 episode. Much If you came to connect with me over on Instagram at ChristyCastilloFit. I will see you next time. Bye.