The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

203. The Mental Game Behind Body Recomp (That Nobody Talks About)

• Kristy Castillo

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If you caught last week’s episode about structuring your year nutritionally for body recomp, this one’s your MINDSET wake-up call!


This journey isn’t *just* about eating less, doing more cardio, and shrinking yourself into oblivion. That cycle of always dieting, cutting out foods, and feeling like you can’t do anything fun? It SUCKS, and is basically a one-way ticket to burnout!


Here’s the truth: each nutritional phase (build, maintenance, deficit) comes with its own mental shifts and expectations. Your workouts, strategy, and habits should change along with them!


If you don’t understand the WHY behind your phase, nothing you do is going to stick. 


Ultimately, your body thrives on consistency and homeostasis - not constant chaos. I don’t want you constantly chasing the next quick fix or “shiny diet”. 


No more falling into the “f*ck it” mentality when things get tough, friend. I want you to be crystal clear on YOUR goals and have a solid plan to follow, so you’re able to set yourself up for lasting results!


Episode recap:

  • Why you can’t live in “diet” or “f*ck it” mode forever + what to do instead
  • Realizing that each phase comes with different mental AND physical wins
  • What to focus on, expect, and how to thrive in a build phase
  • Why the maintenance phase is more powerful than you think
  • How to get results without burning yourself out in a deficit/cut
  • Why your nutrition AND mindset have to align if you want lasting success
  • The upcoming Fit Club “reset” you don’t want to miss
  • Why timing your health & fitness goals to your season of life changes everything


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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 feel like my voice is a little raspy and I'm not exactly sure why. I feel like it's been fine all day. I just recorded a podcast with Erin for a SoulFit podcast and I felt like it was fine. I just ate some overnight oats, so maybe I'm having a reaction. I don't know, I just ate some overnight oats, so maybe I'm having a reaction. I don't know, time will tell, but I just feel like I'm sounding a little bit rusty and my throat feels weird.

Speaker 2:

So sorry, bear with me, but today we are going to be going off of last week's episode, where I talked to you guys about how to structure your year nutritionally for body recomp, and today I want to follow up and talk to you guys about I don't want to say how to structure your mindset and your workouts, but how your mindset and your workouts should shift maybe is what I'll call it in each one of these phases. So I loved doing last week's episode and it was so thorough and very necessary for me to talk about each nutritional phase the cut surplus maintenance phase or the deficit maintenance surplus. Maybe I should say it in that order. In that way, I loved talking about those phases and how to do that and kind of go in, you know, 50 calorie calorie, 100 calorie ranges to increase or decrease, and I like the specifics of that. And then I liked having the windows within the specifics to be able to tweak it for your needs and your life and when things come up, and just the flexibility within those phases. But just like with anything else in this journey, it's not as simple as just cut your calories or increase your calories or keep your calories the same and fluctuate macros a little bit. It's never that easy. So I want to talk to you in this episode and I have a ton of notes here so that I can kind of keep on track. I want to talk to you in this episode and I have a ton of notes here so that I can kind of keep on track. I want to talk to you about how your mindset, your workouts, of course, and also just like your expectations, your feelings, what you're going to be going through, what you're going to be experiencing all of that needs to evolve as you are going through these nutritional changes and phases.

Speaker 2:

Because I think, when I think about this in terms of how this is different from what we've done our whole lives, right, this yo-yo dieting cycle, or always eating less, always cutting carbs, always cutting processed food. It's like always shrinking, always being smaller less food, more cardio. As we get stuck in that cycle and we've all been stuck in that cycle, and if you're not now amazing, if you are, totally get it there's no shift. It's like you're always dieting, you're always cutting out food, you're always saying no to carbs and thinking they're bad, you're always cutting out processed foods, like you're always dieting. And that involves a certain mindset right and it's.

Speaker 2:

It's a shitty mindset. It sucks, it gets old, you can't keep it up, it's not sustainable. And so that mindset falls to the side. And then you go to the other mindset of like well, fuck it, I it, I can't do this, I can't be in a deficit, I'm hungry, I can't lose weight, I can't, I can't, I can't. And so then you go to like, well, fuck it, I, I, I can eat more, I. I hate it. You know, I hate the way I look, I hate the way I feel, I hate that I suck at this, I hate that, I can't do it. So I'm just going to do this other stuff instead and just have that bucket mentality. So that's kind of the mentality that you fluctuate back and forth with, and then you get sick of that mentality and you're like, oh my gosh, I feel like crap. I have to do something, so I'm just going to cut out everything and go into a diet. So you're either dieting or you're in this bucket phase, the diet slash bucket phase. We want to be in a different phase and so we want to do this yearly, like the nutritional side that I talked about in last week's episode. And then what's going to change with that?

Speaker 2:

So, along with either cutting calories for a deficit, maintaining calories for maintenance phase or increasing calories for a surplus phase, there are going to be things that should change mentally. You should come to expect, you should train a certain way. You don't have to, you don't have to, you don't have to do exactly as I'm saying. There are guidelines, these are guidelines. There are exceptions, depending on how you're feeling, things like that.

Speaker 2:

But I do want to give you just, I guess, an idea of what to expect and maybe how it's going to feel, because I think a lot of times we're like, oh, I'm in a cut and I can't lift as heavy. Well, yeah, because you're not bringing in as much energy as you were at maintenance or a surplus. So of course you can't. But just to have someone say that I think is helpful rather than having to struggle through and figure it out on your own. You can figure it out on your own. I did. I didn't really have anyone to walk me through this, so I did figure it out on my own, but I want to be able to talk you through it.

Speaker 2:

So, along with the nutritional phases that we talked about last week, we're now going to get into the mindset, expectations and training phases as well that you can expect and that you should maneuver through as you are working on calories, because calories will drive your fat loss but, like workouts, do not change your fat loss. Workouts will not cause you to lose fat. There are not certain workouts that you can do for fat loss or anything like that. Workouts cause you to gain muscle and that's the goal of the workouts that I'm teaching. Of course, if you're doing a running workout, the goal is to get better at running, but you're not going to really lose a ton of fat from running right, and you're not going to lose a ton of fat from lifting possibly not actually so. Workouts are going to build your body and change your body. That's the goal of your workouts. Your nutrition should be where the fat loss comes from.

Speaker 2:

So we have the fat loss part in place right, and then the other part is so important. If you're not managing your expectations, if you're not managing your mindset, you'll fail, because that's just not how we've been taught and that's not how we've been set up for this. So this is why I wanna talk about it here and have you be able to manage your expectations ahead of time, so that you don't feel like you're failing in between. So a quick reminder last week's episode, like I talked about, it, was kind of the build, maintain, cut phases or surplus maintenance, deficit phases of nutrition. I want you to know.

Speaker 2:

The goal of this episode is for me to be able to tell you and for you to know exactly how to adjust your thinking, your workouts, your strategy and your habits in each of those phases. Of course, I'm going to give you a little tidbits along the way and you know I wanted to start off by telling you the why, because if you don't know why, I'm telling you this honestly, none of it matters. But think of it this way you cannot train the same in a surplus and in a cut and expect the same results. You cannot think the same in a surplus that you can in a deficit and expect the same results. You're wanting different results. That's the whole point.

Speaker 2:

If you're in a surplus, you are trying to build muscle. If you are in a cut deficit, you are trying to lose fat. The goal is different. Therefore, the work, the mindset, the expectations should be different in each one of those phases. And I just can't stress enough how important it is to manage those expectations and that mindset, because if you're thinking I'm going to build muscle in this cut phase, you're going to be disappointed, right? So, just managing what's possible and the expectations that you should have.

Speaker 2:

So, number one, we're going to talk about the first phase being the build phase. So we're going to start here. A build phase, again, is a slight surplus in calories. So while you're focusing on building, while you're in a surplus phase, I want your mindset shifts to be this Focus on strength and focus on PRs, because you're wanting to be strong, you're wanting to lift heavier, you're wanting to get stronger. Therefore, you're going to have to set some personal records, right? You're not going to be focusing on the scale. It may or may not move and you really don't care.

Speaker 2:

The goal is muscle growth. We are going to accept slight scale increases. So the goal and the focus is not the scale, but you will see, as far as expectations, you will see a slight scale increase and that's a sign of fueling your growth, because if you're gaining muscle, you're going to see that scale go up. So that is an expectation that you should have. I remember the first time I was in a building phase and the scale was going up and I was pissed because nobody likes the scale going up. At first, right, we think like, yeah, I want to gain muscle, I want to be bigger, I want to be stronger, I want to fill out my jeans, I want big glutes. Well, with bigger glutes, comes muscle gain, comes size, comes some weight. Probably we don't think about that all the way through, and so that's why I wanted to do it in this episode is to talk about these expectations. So expect to gain a little bit of weight on the scale and a little bit of weight on your body in the form of mostly muscle.

Speaker 2:

And then another mindset shift I want you to think about in a build phase is patience. Muscle growth is so slow, you guys, it takes a very long time. It's pretty invisible at first. Honestly, a lot of times I'll get messages from clients saying I feel stronger. I lifted more weight than I did. I shoulder pressed this week and I did five pounds heavier, but it's not showing. My body isn't changing, but I feel stronger. I am stronger Totally normal. Okay, a lot of physical change is going to be invisible at first. So you have to focus on those habits and focus on those PRs and focus on building strength.

Speaker 2:

For your workout adjustments, I want you to think about progressive overload. I want you to think about adding weights and adding reps and adding sets consistently, as often as you can. I wanted to say every single week, every single workout, but that's not really necessary and it's actually not really possible to increase. Well, it might be possible to add weights or reps or sets, okay. So if you're, you're focusing on progressive overload. So you want to be stronger, you're in a build phase and let's say it's the week before your period, ladies, and you are struggling because you're like.

Speaker 2:

I just saw a post today from a girl, actually, who's really, really strong. She has a really strong online presence too, so a lot of followers and she was just like I'm lifting the same. It was her with like this, this look on her face, like what the fuck? And it was her, um, she was saying like lifting the same weights as last week, but they feel 10 pounds heavier, based on my cycle, whatever, something like that. So that's why I'm saying like it's, it's not possible for you to add weight every single week, it's just not. But you can. If you can't lift heavier than last week, let's say you can lift the same weight as last week and you can add on another rep or two, or you could even maybe.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes I have to go down in weight a lot recently actually, and it's been really driving me crazy, but I've just not been feeling very strong. And so I figure out what weight I can do and what feels really good and what I'm able to lift, and then I either just add reps or I will do four or five sets if I feel like I'm just really winded and exhausted and it's been 90 degrees and my blood pressure still sometimes is crazy, my heart rate is still sometimes crazy, like I just feel really winded and out of breath and weak, but progressive overload. I want you to think of it this way like you're always working on, especially in this build phase, the workouts. The workout adjustment that I want you to make that's different than a cut or a maintenance phase is I want you to always be thinking can I add more weight today, can I add more reps today? Can I add more sets today? And the answer is yes to at least one of those. So always be doing progressive overload. Don't think the progressive overload is always adding weight every single week. It's not Weight, reps or sets. You can be overloading those, okay.

Speaker 2:

Another workout adjustment is higher training volume. So more sets, more reps, more accessory work, more, more, more, more, more. You want to be lifting more, you want to be doing more, Not necessarily burning more fat, not necessarily getting more steps, not necessarily getting more steps, not necessarily running things like that. But if you're, you know, doing a chest press and you're like, okay, I did three sets, can I do another one? Because you want to be resting properly, yes, to build that muscle, for that muscle to be able to rest and grow, but during your workouts, if you're like I didn't feel like as hard as it should for muscle growth then and you'll start to know as you go along your muscle building phase.

Speaker 2:

When you're in that muscle building phase, you're like I don't feel like I'm building as much muscle as I thought or like as fast as I thought. Add another set, add another rep, okay. Add another movement. You can add a chest fly and do your chest press so you can start adding a little bit more because, think more weight, more reps, more, more, more, okay. Also, think more recovery days, more deload weeks. Because the training is intense. You are really trying to always be adding, always progressive overload, so you also want to be recovering, drinking your water, making sure your sleep is and this is another thing we're talking about making sure that your sleep and your stress is managed, like things like that. So, more recovery time, more deload weeks and more training volume as far as your workouts go.

Speaker 2:

Now, other lifestyle notes, like I was just talking about when you were in a build phase more carbs, more carbs, more carbs, more carbs and more energy. More energy allows you to lift heavier, lift more overload, right. Take advantage of this in your training. I'm telling clients this right now if you have a day where it's the weekend and you had too much pizza. Then the next day, do a leg day and lift super heavy. Those are the things you want to take advantage of in a build phase. This is perfect.

Speaker 2:

And then also, like I just said, sleep, stress management are crucial for muscle growth. You have to rest, you have to do some deep breathing, you have to sleep, you have to calm down and manage your stress. Otherwise, your body is going to always be stressed and it's going to be focused on fixing that, helping that, keeping you alive, keeping you sane and healthy, rather than building muscle, and we want it to focus on building muscle. So those are the things that I want you to keep in mind for a build phase Okay, skill will go up a little bit, maybe. That's okay. You will get stronger, but it will take time to see it. It goes really, really slow, always progressive overload, carbs, sleep and stress management. So, during a build phase, those are the things that I really want you to focus on and expect to see.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people are like I'm in a build phase and I'm gaining five pounds. If you're gaining weight quicker than you would like, then cut back on your calories. It's not your training. Your training is not causing you to gain weight, it's your calories. Yeah, okay, your muscles might be inflamed and you might be growing muscle, but you're not growing it that fast. You're not growing a pound a week, right? So, if you're gaining too much weight and you're not happy with that, in a build phase, cut your calories back, but still focus on progressive overload and all the other things that I're going to talk about, which is maintenance phase, which is literally maintaining your body as far as weight, and you can still make changes in between. So let's start with the mindset shifts. This is not doing nothing. Maintenance phase is not just oh, I met my goal and now I'm just going to maintain it and wing it. It's a strategic hold In the yearly phases that I talked about last week's episode, or the last episode, which please go listen if you haven't already. It's strategic. So we are cutting to get ready for a maintenance phase. We are in maintenance phase to get ready for either another cut phase or to get ready for a surplus, a build phase. We are building to get ready for maintenance, to get ready for a cut phase so that we can cut that fat and expose that muscle. All these phases are on purpose.

Speaker 2:

Maintaining your body takes work. People often think I've kind of looked the same physically for the last I don't know 10 years. I've maintained my weight. I've pretty much maintained my muscle mass. I grow a little bit. Life happens, I lose some. It is what it is. I'm fine with the way I look, I feel good, I look good, love it. But I'm not just sitting around, I'm working very hard to maintain my body and I think people don't realize how fucking hard it is to look the same year round. It's really hard. It takes discipline and it's okay. It's hard to not look good too. It's hard to gain weight. The other option is hard as well, but it's not just doing nothing. It's not like oh, you always look great, you wouldn't know how it is to diet. Well, yeah, I would know If I always am looking great. I'm working really hard to do that. So all that to say, I digress All that to say maintaining your body takes work. So this is strategic. So you do need these shifts. Mindset shift one this is not doing nothing. We are working, even in a maintenance phase, okay.

Speaker 2:

Number two, for the second mindset shift I want you to make is like celebrate stability. A lot of times we think like it's boring, I'm not doing anything, I'm not cutting, I'm not tracking as much, I'm having a little fun, I'm you know, my energy is good, I'm in a pretty good mood, like I'm just. I'm just kind of bored, I'm just doing these habits. That's good. Celebrate that I'm stable, I'm consistent, I'm happy, I'm not having to try really hard. That's perfect. This doesn't always have to be about the grind. This can be about having fun and consistency. So, celebrate stability, celebrate consistency. Celebrate getting able to chill out a little bit, you know, and not have to cut or build.

Speaker 2:

Imagine just being able to enjoy your body. What a concept. And then get comfortable with your look and resist the urge to keep tweaking it. Get comfortable with your look, get comfortable with that number on a scale, get comfortable with the calories that you're eating, because this is maintenance, baby, and it's so important. Your metabolism, your hormones, your body are really, really happy here and this phase is so fucking important. So get comfortable with it. And if you're like, oh, I feel like I need to cut soon, I feel like I've been here too long, you haven't Shut up and settle in, okay, get comfy, all right. So the workout adjustments that I want you to make in maintenance phase are solidifying your technique and maybe even some depth and some form, right. And also I don't want to say, like the gains that you just made from the build phase, as you're cutting calories a little bit from. Let's say you're in a build phase, right, you're going to be cutting calories a little bit to go into maintenance because you've been building surplus. Now you're reversing down into a maintenance phase.

Speaker 2:

So celebrate that strength and try to keep a lot of that Like, don't lift lighter, don't try to just oh, I have a lot of muscle now so I can just kind of ease off of it. Don't do that. Still lift as heavy as you can. Maintain the volume. Kind of ease off of it. Don't do that. Still lift as heavy as you can. Maintain the volume. This is the next thing. Moderate volume, maintain the volume and, like intensity, keep that intensity up. Okay, it needs to stay up, otherwise you can lose muscle real quickly.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, it takes a lot of hard work and consistency to gain muscle. It takes no time at all to lose it. If you're not using it, you will lose it. So work hard, but also work on that the form and the technique and the depth. Maybe try to get a little bit deeper in your squat, maybe do a little bit less reps, things like that. You don't always have to be overloading but always like time under tension. This is the time to kind of throw in some of those fun things Also trying new skills Work on your pistol squat, work on your dragon pistol squat, like I've been doing forever. I need to do that more. Actually, work on some movements that are just fun, that you want to try without pressure, and try to not do it for physique changes. Just see what you like.

Speaker 2:

This last summer I started sprinting and running and I forgot how much I really like to run and how fun it is to push myself outside of my comfort zone. I didn't do it to lose weight. I didn't do it to look any different. I just did it because I fucking wanted to and I would do it on the days when I wanted to and I wouldn't on the days that I didn't, and it was so freeing to be able to just do that. So chill, like so much freedom in the maintenance phase. So those are the workout adjustments and the mindset shifts that freedom, comfortable. I love all of this. I could live in maintenance phase, and I probably should, and I have for a couple of years, like I talked about a couple episodes ago.

Speaker 2:

Other lifestyle things to take into consideration are enjoy more food flexibility. For goodness sake, keep your portions balanced and don't eat the entire pack of Oreos but have two Oreos a day. Who cares? Have some snacks. Move more, change things up a little bit, right. This is a really good time for social events, travel, a lower mental load, like if you're busy, if things are kind of stressful, if you don't want to have to grind and think about all of the things. This is such a good time for that to just enjoy your life, enjoy the flexibility, enjoy some foods, because it's not the end of the world and you have control, right.

Speaker 2:

If you're weighing yourself pretty often, which I recommend that you do, you're not going to gain 5, 10 pounds without knowing You're going to see that scale creep up and be like okay, well, maybe five Oreos a day is too many, maybe we'll go down to three Oreos a day, right, you'll know if you're being too flexible, you'll know and you can cut back, which is really nice, because it's a lot of times when we're like I'm not getting on the scale because I'm scared of it. I'm scared what the number is going to be. Guess what the number is there. Whether you see it at the skill or not, it's still there. And then when you do get on the skill, you're like, oh, should I gain 20 pounds? And I, it was almost like overnight, like I didn't even know. Well, that's because you didn't face it right. So just hopefully you should be working on your relationship with the skill and you should be getting on it enough to know that like, okay, I'm being a little too flexible with my choices, I'm being a little too flexible with my foods and I need to cut back sooner rather than later, I guess.

Speaker 2:

All right, let's talk about this last phase, which is the cut phase. A mild deficit, I don't like to say a huge deficit, as I talked about in last week's episode. I'm talking about 200 to 300 calorie deficit. I don't like a 500 calorie deficit or surplus because I think it's too much, too much, too soon for a lot of people, myself included. I've never really gone into a 500 calorie deficit or surplus. I think it's too much, it's just not necessary. I'd rather go slow and steady.

Speaker 2:

So for the cut phase, mindset shifts. Are it sucks. First mindset shift into a cut phase is it is the worst? No, that's kind of dramatic, but you'll be hungry. You know it's not super fun. The results are fun. You see the scale go down. You sometimes do see some muscle lost, which is why I say lift freaking heavy and really try to PR as much as you can and overload as much as you can, because again, once you start to eat less, you'll be able to lift less because you won't have as much energy and then you will lose some muscle and it's okay.

Speaker 2:

The goal is to maintain the muscle. But I want you to know that you might lose some and if you do lose some muscle, it's a pretty, it's a telltale sign that you cut calories too quickly. That's why I like it so so, so gradual. So expect slower progress in the gym. We're not going to be working on progressive overload. We're not going to be setting PRs. You're not going to be out there grunting it up, right, you're going to be like I am kind of tired, I'm kind of hungry, but the goal is to maintain the muscle. So whether you need to do more reps, whether you need to do more sets, the basis of that is the same. You want to be working your muscles as hard as you can with the energy that you have.

Speaker 2:

I need you to shift your focus from PRs every single week, every single workout, to muscle retention. That is such a good thing to think about because a lot of times we get in that progressive overload mindset of like I'm not going to build muscle unless I'm progressively overloading. I just said that above. Like we need to be progressively overloading to build muscle, that is true. But you don't have to be progressively overloading to build muscle. That is true. But you don't have to be progressively overloading to maintain your muscle. You want to retain the muscle. I mean, you worked freaking hard for it. You want to keep it. So your focus, your shift should be okay.

Speaker 2:

I'm not gaining muscle. I don't need to push so hard and, you know, be setting maxing out things like that but I do need to be working my muscle as hard as I can. If I'm not working my muscle as hard as it can work and that depends on the day Some days you're like the other day I had to lift, I was curling 12 pound dumbbells for my bicep curls. The week before I was doing like 17.5. And I'm like this is as hard as I can go right now. It sucks because I feel like a little weenie, but this is as hard as I can go right now. So I'm just going to rep it out. I'm going to do as many reps as I can instead of doing like six reps with 17.5.

Speaker 2:

I picked up the 12s, swallowed my pride and did it right, because the goal is to maintain the muscle, to retain the muscle and to keep my body recomp. So that is a good way to look at it. I feel like in a cut phase like I can maintain this but I'm not going to build it. But it is a mindset shift because if you go into a cut thinking I'm going to build more muscle in this cut, you're not and it's going to suck and remind yourself that your energy may dip, but it's temporary. You're going to have days where you just feel so freaking tired and so freaking hungry and you can't lift as much or run as fast or as far, and that's okay, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2:

The goal is to cut, not to lift as heavy as possible, not to run as fast as we can. Workout adjustments are to keep lifting heavy, don't drop the weight too much. But if you have to drop the weight, like I just said, rep it out, do slightly, reduce the volume if recovery suffers. So if you're feeling like I'm just super sore, I suffer. So if you're feeling like I'm just super sore, I'm not. I'm always tired, I'm always hungry, I'm always struggling in the gym. Cut out a workout and just. You need to recover more, you need to get more sleep, you need to get more rest. Those things are very, very important in a cut phase and so cut back on workouts because, again, you want to maintain your muscle.

Speaker 2:

But the goal of a cut phase, a deficit phase, is fat loss. So doing an extra workout isn't going to help you burn fat. You want to retain the muscle and eat less so that you are burning fat or cutting fat, burning fat, and that needs to be the mindset shift. It's hard to go sometimes from building muscle to losing fat, but you have to have that mindset shift, otherwise you're going to be like, oh my God, my muscle mass is dropping on the scale. It's okay. Your goal isn't to build muscle right now. That's not the goal.

Speaker 2:

So keep that in mind and then avoid adding excessive cardio. It's a tool, it's not a punishment. You don't need to earn your food back. You don't need to go for a run every single day. You don't need to kill it and go sprint. Just avoid adding excessive cardio, because if you've already dropped calories, you're already in a deficit and then if you add cardio, you're in even more of a deficit and your body. That's throwing your body into a deficit too quickly, whereas you might lose muscle and we don't want that. So just go slow.

Speaker 2:

Other things to note are to prioritize protein and micronutrients. So this is where you really want to get your reds and greens powders. Go in like this is a time to prioritize those micros because they're very important and it's a good time to focus on that. What you're not focusing on building and other things like that. And then also keep an eye on stress, recovery, sleep. Those little things matter so much in a deficit, because if you're not recovering, if you're really stressed, your body's not going to react in a way that you want it to and you're not going to get the results that you're looking for. So each phase has a purpose, and that's the whole point is changing your mindset, changing those expectations and changing your workouts, because those are the three. Those are the three things, plus nutrition, that we need to manage inside of these phases, and I get so many questions. So I really hope that these two episodes are very helpful the last episode and this episode because it all comes together.

Speaker 2:

I can't just give you a nutrition guideline for the year and not tell you how you're going to feel and what you should expect and what you should change for workouts and walking right or other movement I shouldn't say just walking, other movement. As far as the running, the cardio, things like that, there are little tweaks that you should make. You shouldn't always be progressive overloading. You shouldn't always be maxing out on steps. You don't always have to be doing all progressive overload and moving as much as you can. There are different stages where you don't want to do that. If you're not bringing in as many calories for energy, you're not going to be able to output as much energy and lift as heavy. So I think knowing that is really really helpful, because I remember doing beach body workouts or just always wanting to like, maintain and thought that I had to work so hard to maintain. And you don't If you can get all of this lined up to where your body is just this well-oiled machine and it knows exactly what's coming.

Speaker 2:

Because your body loves consistency, your body loves homeostasis. Your body wants to know what are you giving me and what are we doing for energy, what time are we waking up, what time are we going to sleep, what's going on? Because I need to know these things, because I'm trying to keep you alive. So let your body know what it's doing, stick with it, and then your body will work so much more with you than against you, okay, so I want you to. Hopefully this comes at a good time as you are kind of maneuvering into the build phase.

Speaker 2:

We are doing that in fit club and I'm doing that in my own life. I'm actually kind of in the process of getting mentally ready. We're focusing more on sleep and stress. We're going to be doing a two week reset, which will be starting the week that this episode comes out and then the following week. So the last two weeks of August we're going to be doing the reset actually inside of Fit Club, where we're going to be doing different workouts, just kind of cutting back a little bit, chilling out a little bit, getting ready for go, easing our way into a reverse and do a maintenance or a surplus, depending on where you're at. But we're going to focus on breathing techniques, we're going to focus on de-stressing, we're going to focus on bedtimes, we're going to focus on cleaning shit up and just really clearing our space and getting ready. So that's what we're doing. So you do that too.

Speaker 2:

I want you to think about where you're at in your current phase. What can I clean up? What can I get ready? What do I need to be changing up? What do I need to be focusing on to get ready? Am I thinking, am I training? Am I living in a way that matches my goals right now, or am I in total disalignment? I feel like the end of summer, things get a little unaligned. So we're going to refocus.

Speaker 2:

And then I would love your thoughts on doing a macro series. I think I'm going to start in a couple weeks and I don't know how many weeks I was thinking a four-week series, a four-episode series about macros and just really diving in, because I know you guys struggle with that a lot and you have. There's a lot of information out there and I get asked a lot of questions, like we love, or I get told a lot. I love your macro episodes. I need more information, more about macros, more about macros. I feel like I can't talk about that enough. So I'm thinking about doing a four-week series just about macros nutrition what the heck are macros really diving into it? So I would love to know your thoughts on that. Please leave comment if you are listening on Spotify, and let me know what you think about that. Let me know what what you think about this episode, the last episode, and then what you think about a macro series. And I may ask for some specific questions, maybe on a Google form from like Instagram stories, for you guys to fill out any and all questions that you have about macros, so I can make sure to answer them all in this series. But I'm pretty excited. I've never done a series on the podcast before and now you know each episode will build off of the other, so it'll be like a course, it'll be like a little mastermind right here for you guys. So I'm really excited about that. But I hope this was really, really helpful.

Speaker 2:

Again, this is the way that I live my life. This is the way that I structure my nutrition and workouts and mindset and expectations, and the reason that I wanted to talk to you guys about this, like somebody had asked, like I said last week in my DMs like can you tell me exactly how many calories to cut? Can you tell me exactly when? Can you tell me exactly how to do the calorie piece of your year, how I structure my year? And I can and I can tell you exactly that and I did and I also gave you different ways to do that for yourself. I can't just tell you the macros and say this is what you should do and change your calories. You have to change your workouts, you have to change your movement, you have to, most importantly, change your expectations and your mindset.

Speaker 2:

Because if you were always just thinking I'm going to cut, I'm going to reverse, I'm going to be in maintenance, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what to expect and you just kind of are winging it If I don't tell you the truth of what that's going to feel, like you are going to be hungry in a cut, your stomach is going to growl and you're going to have to say no for a couple weeks, but then you'll know after that I'm going into maintenance, where I'm not never hungry and it's also your choice, you've decided. I didn't tell you you had to cut. I didn't tell you that you should cut during the holidays. I didn't tell you that you should cut while you're on a vacation. You know like I'm telling you to cut at a good time of your life, at a good time of the year.

Speaker 2:

I'm planning it out for you just how I do and just how it works for me, but I didn't have anyone to tell me this is how you're going to feel, this is what you're going to go through, and so I just wanted to honestly put it out there for you so that you know what it's going to feel like and you know what to expect. And you know if you're going to start living in a way where your health is important and, yeah, how you look is so important, because if you look good, you do feel good and you do perform better and you are healthier and no, if you look good, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're healthy. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're mentally healthy or physically healthy just because you like, look good. That's not what I'm saying, but you do know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2:

If you look good as in, strong, healthy, you know like, you're like a good looking, solid, healthy person, then chances are you've done the work for a couple of years to be like I know how to feed myself, I know how to move, I know that I can expect myself to not lift as heavy certain times of the month or certain times of the year, or you know, I know what it takes and it's okay. I know that I'm going to fuck this up. I know that I'm going to be hungry. I know that this is good for me. I know that I need protein right, you're going to know these things, and along with that confidence comes this, this energy to manage your expectations as well. So you're going to have expectations, but then you'll say, like, maybe I am expecting too much out of myself, maybe this is not a good time to be pushing myself this far and you can manage that for yourself.

Speaker 2:

So I think that is super, super important too, and I just think getting out of the dieting and then the fuck it mindset, it's so important, but it's really hard because we have been taught somehow to always be smaller and to always be shrinking and to always be dieting Like we. You always see diets on TV and you always see someone doing something that you think you need to do. You always think you need to be skinnier or you need different eyebrows, or you need bigger lips or you need better cheekbones right All the things. And we're always trying to do and achieve and perform and look better and look smaller or maybe look more muscular. We're always trying to do something and I think there's so much. There's so much freedom and confidence that comes with saying this is my goal. I'm going to do this, whether anyone else likes it or not, and maybe I won't like the outcome, maybe it'll be harder than I expected, but I'm gonna stick with it for this amount of time and I feel good about that decision. And another thing that's great is you have people that listen to this podcast that can support you. You can jump into my Krista Castillo Fit on Fuck your Fitness Facebook group for support. You can jump into Fit Club for support. There are so many different avenues that I have where we can connect with each other and we can really lean on each other, because it does get hard out there with family and friends and other things that you see on social media and coworkers and all the things you know.

Speaker 2:

Kind of I hear a lot of talks still, even just out to eat and stuff People are. You know, ladies are always saying, well, I'm just going to have the salad or I'm on a diet, so I can't have this, and it's everywhere. So I think having this guide of this is what you're going to feel like and this is what you should expect. That way, it's kind of like when we're doing this reset these next few weeks inside of Fit Club, this is what's going to happen. You know we're going to be talking about managing expectations a little bit.

Speaker 2:

We're going to be talking about what are your goals now for September, october, november? What do you want for yourself? Write that down, figure it out and then say, okay, it's September, I'm on my way right, I'm starting the process and this is what it's going to look like. We're going to get those expectations out and ready. We're going to get that mindset ready and we're going to be able to support each other. So I think that piece is so important, rather than just buying a program, eating off of a food list and totally winging it Like I just I'm over that, and I know you are too, if you're listening to this podcast. So I hope this was super helpful, as usual. I would love to hear from you in a comment on Spotify and you can please rate on Spotify and you can leave a review and rate on Apple and I'll 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 episodes. So much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at ChristyCastilloFit. I will see you next time. Bye.