The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

208. Messy Macros: Why Imperfect Tracking Will STILL Bring You Results | Macros Series

• Kristy Castillo

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Tracking macros is not about perfection - it’s about consistency. I hear from sooo many women who feel like they can only track when life is calm, predictable, and “perfect.”


But..let’s be real. Life never ACTUALLY looks like that! 


There will always be dinners out, trips, holidays, etc. - you name it. That’s why tracking should fit into your REAL life (not the other way around).


Ultimately, you can’t mess up macro tracking…unless you quit. It’s a skill (just like anything else), and it takes time, patience, and a willingness to keep showing up!


No, tracking macros isn’t forever. But…the knowledge and awareness you gain IS, and is incredibly powerful. None of my clients’ successes come from being “perfect”, because perfection isn’t required!


I hope you choose to ditch that all-or-nothing mentality, stay consistent, and realize you CAN make macros work for your life, friend!


Episode recap:

  • Why “consistent as possible” tracking matters MORE than perfection
  • Understanding that real life ≠ perfect macros
  • Why macro fatigue is normal (and not a failure)
  • Common struggles that cause people to fall off with tracking
  • Why consistency > perfection always wins w/macros
  • Tips for handling eating out, social events & vacations
  • What to do when you’re feeling stuck or burned out with tracking
  • Simple & doable ways to get started this week


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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, episode four of the macro series. I'm super excited about today's episode because it gives me a chance to put this all into applicable scenarios real life, real struggles that I have gotten in questions from you guys, and they're all kind of the same which I should have known. Because, if I think about you know, I really sat to think about the struggles that my clients have when they first come to me and they first start tracking macros. Everybody has the same struggle, which is good because it means that I know exactly how to coach you through it. I know exactly how to talk about it on this podcast, and it also means I can honestly say to you everyone feels this way. This is something that you will be able to work through. You won't always feel like this. This is how you can combat this. This is why you should keep going Things like that, because at this point in time, I mean people have been working out long enough to know what works right. We've been tracking macros long enough to know what the struggles are going to be like, what's going to come up, what questions you're going to have, and so when my clients have those questions, it's almost like they're right on schedule. I'm like, yes, that is exactly where you should be in your macro tracking right now and so it's really nice.

Speaker 2:

I don't coach in a way where I throw all of the information out to my clients. You know, I don't say I'm giving it to you, of course, on these, in these episodes. But you know, when a client comes to me I'm not going to say, hey, you're going to experience this, this, this, this and this. Good luck, like you know, keep get started. I let them start with. You know, tracking just loosely and see. You know it allows you, like I said in the last episode, just track and see where you're at and try to hit these targets. And then, once you do that, you start to see well, now I'm high in fat.

Speaker 2:

If I hit my protein goal, I'm higher in fats, or consistently, the foods that I was eating are higher in fats and lower in carbs, or it's really hard for me to hit carbs. There's just so many things that happen. And then, once we fix that problem, then a new problem arises, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's just the way that we learn A lot of things that we learn in life. Someone before us has learned and they can walk you through it. They could write a book about it, right, they can say, oh yeah, I knew you were going to experience that. I did too, or everyone does. So none of the things that you experience, and I wish I would have known this when I first started tracking macros.

Speaker 2:

I've said before it took me about eight times to figure out how to track macros and that's because I didn't have someone to say these are real struggles. It's really hard to hit your protein at first. It's really hard to hit your protein and keep your fats down. It's really hard to go out to eat and think that you know you're going to. When you go out to eat, you're going to think some of these foods are good and some of them are bad. That's a natural thing, because that's what we've kind of been told, and so I think a lot of that. I could have saved myself a lot of time if someone would have told me all the things that we're going to talk about in this episode.

Speaker 2:

So so far in this series, we've talked about what macros are, what they do for your body and inside your body, and how to track them and how to set some loose targets. Now we're going to talk about what happens when life happens. Right, I send clients out and I say, hey, you're going to take the next two weeks, like I just, like I say on this podcast all the time take the next two weeks, track your macros. Of course, we're going to communicate in the meantime, but we're going to I'm going to really dive into those macros and see what's happening, and then I want you to come back with me too. We discuss it.

Speaker 2:

I'm like what did you notice over the last two weeks? Where are we at? These are your averages, this is what needs to change. And then it never fails Like, well, I have a wedding this weekend, or I have a vacation coming up, or we have a party, or what am I supposed to do now? Because I was, you know, I had a good two weeks where I didn't go anywhere, didn't do anything fun. This is like it was kind of easy. And then life happens. And that's when we think, oh, I can't do this on a daily basis, I can't do this on the weekends, I can't do this long term, because it's that all or nothing mindset of. I have to do this when life is perfect, you know when all I can only track my macros. When I'm going to hit my macros Basically, I have a lot of clients who are like, well, I didn't track that because I don't know it was, quote, unquote, bad food, or I thought you would be mad at me, or I've had coaches in the past that said I couldn't have that, or whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

I didn't log the three drinks that I had. Well, why not? Well, I don't know. It's just like it's because you would have been happy to log a chicken breast and hit your protein goal, but you would have went over in carbs and fats if you would have logged the drinks. It's because you don't want to see it, you don't want to be honest with yourself. There are so many things that go into that. But you have to log it. You have to see the truth about what you're consuming and then the truth about where your energy is going to be able to get the body you want.

Speaker 2:

So this is all part of the process and I'm here to tell you that you do not have to be perfect tracking macros. I am so walking proof of that. So we're going to talk about how to just stay as consistent as possible. That's the whole freaking point is to stay as consistent as possible. I don't want to say to stay consistent, because I think a lot of people think consistent is perfect. Like I'm going for a walk consistently, I'm tracking my macros consistently, I'm doing all these things consistently.

Speaker 2:

You can fuck up your workout, you can not hit your steps. You can track things that maybe you didn't, that aren't going to help you get to your goals. You can mess up your water goal. You still have to track it, though you still have to say I did a half-ass workout or I didn't hit my steps today. I think I had to do that two days ago. So I mean it's as consistent as possible, because I think a lot of people take that consistency piece to mean almost perfection and we need to shift from that all-or-nothing thinking into something that actually works. So I like that consistent as possible. That's always the goal, always the goal, you guys?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I have eight things that I want to talk about and seven or eight well, I think eight that I want to talk about here. So kind of a lot per usual. And let's get started, let's dive in. Okay. So I want to talk about first of all, real life does not equal perfect macros. So basically, in this little section I want to talk about what I was just starting to talk about is it's not consistently perfect, it's consistent.

Speaker 2:

So when we're talking about tracking macros, the one thing that changed the game for me mentally and mentally is where you need to be changed as far as doing this macro tracking part right is when I don't know if I heard this or I thought I don't. I honestly don't know, but when it sunk into my brain, finally, that my body doesn't know what day it is, and I've said that on here before. Your body doesn't know what day it is. Your body doesn't know that it's a Monday and Monday starts at 12 am and it ends at 12 pm, and it's not like only the movement that you did in that 24-hour period and the calories that you consumed in that 24-hour period or the macros you consumed, like that's all that matters. Your body doesn't know. Your body is going to continue to burn calories and you're going to continue to consume calories consistently.

Speaker 2:

For, let's say, we're looking at a seven-day window when I realized that if I mess up my macros, it doesn't matter, because I can either try to fix it right or if I go way over in carbs. If I go 20 grams, that's not even way over. If I go 100 grams over in carbs one day, I could be 100 grams under in carbs the next day to compensate. That's kind of crazy. But or I could be over 100 grams in carbs one day and I could be under 50 the next day and another 50 the next day, so that I've kind of caught up. What I'm trying to say is, however you want to wrap your brain around that, please do.

Speaker 2:

I think it's crucial because once you realize there are really no mess up, you can't really fuck this up. The only way you fuck it up is to stop, because you're not going to burn the same amount of calories every single day, so you don't have to technically consume the same amount of calories every single day. The more you can track, the better you will know. But it's not like if you mess up on a Monday, you have to just start over the next Monday. And that's where we used to feel like I start over Monday, monday's good, tuesday's good, wednesday trash, so fuck it for the rest of the week.

Speaker 2:

I'll start over on Monday, when I realized that that was not doing me any any good at all. That was when I started to think, oh, I'm really shooting myself in the foot here. Like this is, this doesn't matter, my body has no idea what time it is, what day it is, what 24 hours. My body's going to take the food that I give it and burn it for fuel period, so I don't need to worry about being perfect. I think that really, really helped me.

Speaker 2:

That was the absolute game changer for me. That's when I never had to start over. That's when I just kept going and thought, oh well, that wasn't the best choice. But here we are right. It's not like I have to start over tomorrow morning because I had a bowl of ice cream that I wasn't planning on having. So, oh fuck it. I have to start over on Monday or this whole day is ruined, and now I'm just going to eat everything that I'm not supposed to have and start over tomorrow. It's like I can still use the ice cream as fuel. It doesn't matter. Like, just keep going.

Speaker 2:

So I finally wrapped my head around that and that helped me to be able to travel without stressing so much, go out to eat without stressing so much, make different foods at home that had different ingredients that I didn't know how to track as well, because I thought none of this is bad. None of this is holding me back. None of this is a fuck up. This is just life, and I need to figure out how to log it the best I can and keep going. So real life equals messy macros okay, like it's not going to be perfect and that's okay. So real life equals messy macros okay, like it's not going to be perfect and that's okay. So I want you to wrap your head around that first, and I hope the scenario that helped me.

Speaker 2:

I hope that also helps you, because, yeah, I know for sure that was something that when I could just say your body doesn't know. Your body doesn't know If you ate until midnight last night, who cares? You know it is what it is Like. Your body is just. Your body doesn't know If you ate until midnight last night, who cares? It is what it is. Your body is just yeah, it's keeping score, it's keeping track Calories in, calories out. Of course, that's how it's functioning, but it doesn't know what time it is, it doesn't know what day it is. Count the bowl of ice cream the next day if you want to, it doesn't matter, it's all going to average out in a couple days anyways. So I thought that really really was helpful. The second thing I want to talk about is and these are again this is just putting things into real life scenarios, so you don't need to keep track of part one, part two, part three. These are just little chunks that I want to talk about to help you understand the realistic parts of macro. So macro fatigue is real and I just want to normalize that.

Speaker 2:

Tracking is a new skill and it can feel like a lot. It can feel complicated, it can feel tricky, it can feel like you're failing, just like any other thing that you have tried to do that you're not an expert at. You're not broken if you get tired of tracking. You're not broken if you do it wrong. You're not stupid if you can't do it right or don't understand it for the first month. Like there will be days and there will be weeks when you're more relaxed or you forgot something if you don't track it ahead of time, or you're like, oh, I'll remember to log that later. You won't, so write it down, but it's okay if you get frustrated with it. It's okay if you know a few days out of the 14 days I'm having you track or whatever. Like it's okay to fuck it up is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker 2:

Like it's fine, you're not doing this forever. It's not a long term. Every single day of your life You're not going to be 95 years old in nursing home tracking your food, right? You're not going to be every single day doing this. It's a season. I want you to look at it and, you know, in the ways that we talked about in the last episodes, I want you to have that mindset around it. But again, it's just something that you're doing to build awareness and learn how to fuel your body.

Speaker 2:

So when there are days that you don't want to do it, when there are days that you're like I don't know if that's the right food, I don't know if I should log this raw or cooked. I don't know if I should. I don't know how to log this dinner. I don't know what I'm doing. This is so frustrating. So hear me in your mind saying log the closest item, that you can close the app and move on, because logging something wrong is way better than not logging it at all every single time. Okay, so it's going to be messy and you're not going to want to do it and you're going to mess up sometimes, and that's okay.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't have to be perfect. It will never be perfect, actually. So just don't even try. Just don't even try right out the gate to be perfect. Just try to be consistent as you can, as consistent as you can. That will set you up for way better results. I guess It'll allow you to track your fuck-ups, which will allow you to be more consistent. I guess is what it comes down to, and I don't know a very. I guess It'll allow you to track your fuck-ups, which will allow you to be more consistent. I guess is what it comes down to, and I don't know a very.

Speaker 2:

I don't know a nice way to say that, but it's like you know, I don't remember how many I don't know French fries I had. I don't know if it was a cup of French fries. I don't know if it was two cups of French fries. Well, log one and a half, like I don't know. It doesn't matter, it's not perfect. I don't know if I had two pieces of pizza out and three breadsticks, or three pieces of pizza and two breadsticks. I don't then log four to five pieces of pizza. It doesn't matter, like, just log something as close as you can and move on. Don't get so caught up in the details that you quit, because that's a lot of times what happens, and I'm here to fix that, I'm here to change that. And for my clients, I say the same thing. They can all vouch for this. I just say track what you can and move on, and we're we do great, my clients and I do great with that strategy, so it works.

Speaker 2:

The next thing I want to talk about is common struggles that make people fall off, and these are the ones that I got a lot of in the DMs in the comment section on Spotify. I want you to ask me more questions there too, anytime, of course, and I try to answer all of them either there. It only gives me so many characters to respond, so I have to give like a shortened version, but I can always screenshot it and put it on my Instagram stories, so turn on notifications for those so you can always see those, just in case you ask a question or someone else asked a question that might pertain to you. These are the questions that I get a lot, so before we talk about traveling, eating out some of those types of things I want to talk about.

Speaker 2:

This first situation is I hit my calories, but my fats are too high. This happens almost every single time with a new client, so I'll have, you know, be like oh, I'm finally hitting my calories, I'm finally hitting my protein, but my fats are too high. So I finally hit my calories, but I went over my calories because my fats are so high. You know, finally got my protein goal, but now I'm over in calories. Or I hit my calories like I hit my calorie goal but my fats are so high I ran out of proteins and carbs. That's a scenario as well.

Speaker 2:

Fats are very calorie dense. Remember, they are nine calories per gram, whereas carbs and protein are four calories per gram. So they sneak in quickly through oils, cheese dressings and fattier protein sources like salmon or whole eggs. So these are very healthy foods, they're fine, but they are calorie dense because they are higher in fat. So try swapping in leaner proteins like chicken breast, egg whites I save myself a lot of fats by just eating the egg whites or Greek yogurt. And make sure that you measure your oils and your dressings. You don't need to cut fats, you just need to plan for it.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times when I can go through my clients' food logs and say you know, this is you're eating a lot of things that are very high in fat. If you're going to do that, let's say you're someone who doesn't digest carbs very well. Me, I'm that person. Depending on the day and how my stomach is reacting, due to some autoimmune issues that I had, some gut issues that I had slash have on occasion, I do better with fats healthy fats than I do with carbs. So you know definitely pre-tracking because again, let me go back to the story so a lot of times I'll be checking in with food logs and they're eating so many foods that are high in fats it doesn't leave room for carbs and it doesn't leave room for enough protein to hit your protein goal. So try to swap out some of those If you're eating. If you go back and look at your food logs which is the whole point of tracking, right you go back and look and you're like man, I'm eating like seven items every single day that are high in fats. You know, maybe cut it down to three or four, which is still great, and then you're probably hitting that fat goal instead of going over it, and you can fill in the gaps with other leaner proteins or higher carb foods, things like that. So making some swaps notice what you're eating that's high in protein and high in carbs. Take out some of the fattier foods and add in some of the other foods.

Speaker 2:

You can open your tracking app. I open my Fitness Pal all the time and just scan foods in there and then I play with it. When I'm just sitting down watching TV or I want to scroll my phone, I'm like, oh, let me get out my fitness pal and see if I can make some new combinations here to hit my goals differently, especially if I'm cutting or building. I do have to add or cut foods and it's good to do that ahead of time. Winging it never works, you know that. So you definitely have to plan for it. You definitely have to take a look at your foods and say what am I doing that's causing me, what am I eating that's causing me to go over so quickly, that of eating that's causing me to go over so quickly. That will help you to know. You need to either cut the portion size of that in half or you need to cut the amount of times you're eating it in half and again, it's not bad. It's not a bad thing to have fats, it's very, very good.

Speaker 2:

Another thing that you can do I was going to say if you're more like me is when you do your macro ratios, it's giving you a certain percentage for each. Like I mentioned in the last episode, you don't have to stick with those. A lot of times for my clients that are like I am just consistently 10 grams over in my fats every single day, but I'm not hitting my protein. I will just go into the app or you can go into my Fitness Pal increase your fats by 10 grams and then you'll want to decrease your carbs by about 25 grams to make it not really gram for gram but to even out and keep your calories around the same. So a lot of times my client's fat goal is higher than what MyFitnessPal or maybe another coach would say that yours should be.

Speaker 2:

But the goal here is adherence and if your calories are in the right place and your protein is in the right place, your carbs and fats can fluctuate. And that's exactly what I mean by that is that scenario. If you're like man, I'm really happy with these foods. This makes me feel full, it makes me feel happy, it makes me feel satisfied. This is a way of eating that I can eat forever, but it's 10 grams higher in fats than what you gave me, christy. Nope, no freaking problem, I'm just going to increase your fats and say, cool, go ahead and eat just like that, and then usually you'll be a little lower in carbs anyways. So I'll take some of those carbs away to get your calories where I want, maybe even decrease protein by five grams or something you know, because, let's say, you eat like that for a full year. After that, you know, things are going to change. Your food preferences will change, your goals will change, your body's going to change. So, let's say, a year down the road, you're like oh, I'm actually good with this. Now I think I can cut some of these fats out. Things will always change.

Speaker 2:

So that is a scenario that I hear a lot. The next scenario that I hear a lot is I can't hit my carbs. I remember the first time someone told me I can't hit my carbs I was like what? That was definitely not a problem. I heard very often, so it kind of made me laugh. I'm like go eat some Oreos. What do you mean you can't hit your carbs? That was so crazy to me. That was so crazy to me, but I get it for so many different reasons.

Speaker 2:

Right, we've been taught that carbs are bad, or we think carbs are bad or whatever it is we're just, we don't want them. You're higher in fats, like the last scenario, so this could be right. So it could be that same scenario that I just talked about, where you're just not hitting your carbs because you prefer fatty foods, and that's okay if you'd love your avocados and your hummus and girl same. So I can't hit my carb goal, or I'm full and I go over my calories. This is usually about food volume and timing. So it could be the previous scenario where we just prefer fats. It's usually about what you're eating and the timing that you're eating it. So carbs like oats and potatoes are very filling. Try lower volume carbs like rice cakes, cereal, white rice, and then time it around your workouts and also make sure your fats aren't crowding out your carbs without you realizing it, which is kind of what we just talked about. So if you're someone who's like I cannot hit my carb goal, like I am scared of carbs, totally, totally, get that.

Speaker 2:

If you can't hit your carb goal because you're so full and you're eating things like oatmeal, you're eating things like French fries, potatoes, just really like heavy, heavy foods. Try cutting them out. For I love rice cakes. I think they're so good. They're not extremely filling, but I love the chocolate ones. I put some chocolate hummus on it. You already know Cereal is great for just a quick, you know, a quick grab of carb to kind of get that in there.

Speaker 2:

Because usually if someone's like I can't hit my carbs or I'm full, you have room for a couple rice cakes, right, and I don't know what are they like? 12 carbs maybe. So two rice cakes, you're at 25 grams of carbs. I mean that's a good dent, right. Or have some cereal, or have some rice pudding, have some, you know, like. There's so many things that you can do to just make these foods a little better, a little sweeter, things like that. You can even have a sweet potato with some brown sugar on top and make it. I love sweet carbs, so I'm more of that kind of a person. But another way to do that is to time it around your workout. So if you're having rice cakes, you're having a little bowl of cereal. You're having some dry cereal I like the Catalina Crunch cereal, a little protein, but having it a little bit before and then you're going to use that as fuel for your workout. So you're going to be hungry again after your workout to be able to hit those carbs.

Speaker 2:

So if you hit your carb goal too early in the day, it's probably because you're eating calorie-dense carbs earlier in the morning your English muffins for breakfast, your tortillas. If you're having a breakfast wrap, look for low-carb ones, things like that. It's not that carbs are bad, it's just we have to figure out how to work them into our day, and that meal timing piece is really, really important. If you're on the other side of things, where you're like I have so many carbs to hit and I just am scared of them, things like that, find foods that you like and that you're okay with hitting your carb goal, and start to eat a little earlier in the morning. Have two rice cakes with whatever you're having for breakfast. Sneak it in earlier. That way at night you're not always struggling to meet that carb goal. You've hit it earlier in the day.

Speaker 2:

And then last thing is just, I don't know how to track when I eat out. That's such a common thing and I talked about this a little bit already. But you don't have to be exact. You just have to be honest Log the drinks, log the tortilla chips, log the bread bowl that you ate. Log anything that you've eaten but know that it's not going to be exact. It can't be. You don't know the ingredients that they use. But logging something similar is better than logging nothing. So look up similar meals in your app, focus on protein and portion sizes, sizes, and make your best guess. Protein and overall calories will be what you really want to have in there. So focusing on that if there is any protein in it, or always overestimate rather than underestimate on calories, I'd be happier with you overestimating rather than thinking you ate less and then you're like oh, I'm still hungry tonight I'm going to eat more. You probably underestimated at dinner, so make sure to overestimate too.

Speaker 2:

But one meal out is not going to ruin your progress. One meal out a week, none of that's going to. I don't want to say like one meal won't ruin your progress, like I don't mean one meal for the rest of your life. I mean just look at it that way, like, okay, I went, went out to eat. I don't know exactly what I ate. Let me just log it and move on. It's that meal is not going to ruin your progress. It is what it is. Build muscle with that extra carbs, go for an extra walk, use that energy. You're going to be fine. On the contrary, letting it turn into a three-day spiral or a fuck it I'll start over on Monday mentality that will 100% ruin your progress.

Speaker 2:

The fourth thing I want to talk about is consistency over perfection. I would rather see you track imperfectly all week long than to track perfectly for two days and then quit Point blank. Serious, that is absolutely true. I would rather you track every single meal a little bit off, a little bit incorrectly all week, because that's as consistent as you can. But tracking perfectly and then being like, oh my gosh, now what am I supposed to log? I had sushi. I don't know how to log this. I don't know how much rice is in this. First of all, just log sushi. It'll be in there from some restaurant in the database. These macro tracking apps have a big enough database now that I don't. That's not even an excuse anymore.

Speaker 2:

But tracking is a skill. So you don't get better by quitting. You get better by doing it and seeing that, oh, I haven't logged perfectly in two weeks, but I still lost two pounds. Cool, this is exactly what Christy said. I can do this right. Don't quit every time life isn't perfectly structured, because it's never going to be. 80-20 tracking is more powerful than 100 and zero, like it just is. You're not a robot, you're a human. You're trying to build this consistency and that's how it's done. So don't stress about the small things.

Speaker 2:

Now let's talk about how to handle travel, eating out or social events. I've talked about this in previous episodes, but I want to dive in because it's really simple. I don't want you to overthink this. So, travel, eating out, social events, all the same, anything that you're not making yourself to know the exact ingredients. This applies to Keeping in mind that this meal that you're talking about, that you're struggling with oh my gosh, I'm traveling, or I'm eating out, or traveling for a whole week, even right, I would rather have you tracking consistently for that week than to just say, fuck it, I don't care. So remember that perfection is not required right here, and that will help you.

Speaker 2:

So I want you to prioritize protein and portion sizes. Always think about when you're building your plate. You want to think about a protein source. You want to think about a carb source, a fat source, and add fiber if you can, and then eat the protein first, because when you're traveling or you're out to eat, you have more options to grab snacks after the meal, and so always fill yourself up as much as you can with protein and then think about the portion sizes. So the carb source make it a little smaller on your plate. Fat source make it a little smaller. Eat everything and then give yourselves 30 minutes for that food to digest before you go back for seconds because you could just be needing that food to settle first.

Speaker 2:

Okay, look up meals ahead of time when possible. When you're eating out or if you're going to a wedding, you're like, hey, do we know what we're eating here? Maybe it says on the, maybe you had to fill out which dinner you wanted at the wedding. You'll kind of be able to, you know, figure that out and then estimate and log a similar entry. Don't skip it entirely. So this is exactly what I've already been talking about in this episode. This applies here. You're not off track, you're just living your life and it's okay to do that, but a good way to still think okay, I did as best as I could is to prioritize that protein. Make the other portion sizes smaller, give yourself a while for your food to digest before going up for seconds or for dessert, and then estimate and log what you can.

Speaker 2:

So now let's talk about what to do when you're stuck or you're just feeling like burnt out I don't want to do this anymore, or you're not seeing progress. Ask yourself am I actually giving all that I can, even when you're burned out and you're like I just really don't want to do this anymore? Is quitting going to help? Is just not tracking your macros because you don't feel like it? Is that going to get you anywhere? Or is that going to cause you to backslide and you're going to have to start over? Think, going to have to start over. Think about your goals, keep your goals in mind and think about is this helping me be the best version of myself? Does it really take that long to track? No, is it going to help you to stay motivated if you see that you're tracking and you're doing the damn thing, even if you don't want to? Yes, so let's keep doing it right. But if you're feeling stuck and you're not seeing progress. Ask yourself these things Am I actually tracking consistently or am I just tracking during the week?

Speaker 2:

Am I just tracking the good days, because they all matter? Your body's keeping track. You have to keep track too on the app, or you just won't know. Having half of the information that you need is not helpful. Am I hitting protein most days? Am I eating enough to support my goal? Am I underestimating oils, bites and snacks?

Speaker 2:

A lot of people don't even log their bites. If they're having, like, oh, I'm just gonna have a couple chips, they won't log it at all. Or I'm gonna have just. You know, my kid's done eating their cereal and I'm gonna just finish up the last three bites before I throw it away or whatever. Clean the bowl out. Those things add up. So I myself would rather not eat those things than to try to log three chips and three bites of cereal at the end of the day. I mean, is it a huge deal if you just do it literally once a week? You know no, but is it a huge deal if you have five or six chips every single day unlogged? Yeah, that's a couple hundred calories at the end of the week.

Speaker 2:

And then you're like God. Why am I not hitting my goals? Why do I feel stuck? I'm not seeing any progress, I'm plateaued and I'm doing all the things. Are you? Are you doing all the things? Because sometimes it's not the plan, it's not macro tracking, it's not macros.

Speaker 2:

That was me. This isn't working. I'm not doing this right. This isn't macros. For me, they don't work. It wasn't that macros didn't work. It was that I wasn't executing on what I was supposed to be doing, and that is fixable. So just be honest with yourself. This is all about awareness, honesty and knowledge. Because if you're not honest with yourself and you're like I am not logging the rice cakes that I had, or I'm not logging X, y and Z every single day, but I am eating it, well then just be honest, because those calories are adding up.

Speaker 2:

And do you even need the five tortilla chips while you're cooking dinner? Probably not. Maybe let's have a different snack ready and let's log that into our day ahead of time. Let's have a bowl of grapes sitting out on the counter that's portioned and maybe weighed right. Maybe part of your meal prep on the weekend is to and I'm just going to use the grapes just because I already said it instead of grabbing a bag of tortilla chips.

Speaker 2:

I literally grabbed a bag of tortilla chips last week and did this. That's why it's on my mind. It was sitting there and I was going to eat the chips with my dinner. I was making a taco salad and I ended up eating so many chips before my taco stuff was ready that I couldn't even put chips in my bowl anymore, because I had already had the chip part of it. So I was like, why did I do that? I didn't even. I could have just waited, but I was actually really, really hungry.

Speaker 2:

But if you're just mindlessly snacking during dinner and you do that all the time what are you snacking on? Can you just log it, maybe just measure it out sometime and put it in a baggie and say these are the chips that I'm going to eat while I'm cooking dinner, but put it in your macros and plan for it. Or, if you want something healthier, have some grapes. That'll fill you up a little bit differently, but maybe that's part of your meal prep and you're just like you know you put the bowl on the food scale and then you zero it out and then you put some grapes and you know exactly how many are in there, how many they weigh or how much it weighs. You put them in a baggie and that's what you snack on while you make dinner. Just plan ahead. It's not bad, it's not that you failed, it's not that you suck, it's not that you don't have self-control, it's just that you're not planning for it.

Speaker 2:

Or if you're really, really hungry at dinnertime and you're like every day when I'm making dinner I am savagely hungry, well, eat something on the way home. Like, eat more during the day so you're not starving at night. We have to just think a little more clear. That's what I'm here for. But it's like I say that to my clients. I'm like well, if you're hungry, eat more during the day, have a bigger lunch, have a snack on your way home. You get to have food. You don't have to earn it. You don't just starve yourself. My body gets mad sometimes, like come on, I'm freaking starving, give me some food. Okay. So number seven.

Speaker 2:

The seventh thing I want to talk about is macros aren't forever, but the awareness is. So you're not going to be tracking to win any awards, right? You're not tracking to prove to anyone. You're not tracking to earn a gold star. You're not tracking to. You know, get a little sticker. At the end of the day, you're tracking because you want to learn what your body needs. You're tracking because it's honestly, it's I feel like it's the right thing to do, like it's how we learn what our body needs, it's how we function and I feel like it's just really, really important. So I sound like it's the right thing to do. But, seriously, I feel like it's just learning our body and it should be taught more freely, because once you can eyeball it and you've been logging enough, you'll know and eventually you won't need the app all the time anyway, but you will have the confidence and you will have the habits to fuel yourself without it.

Speaker 2:

I don't log my food very often. I will start pretty soon as I'm increasing and going into my 50 calorie surplus, week after week after week, whatever that looks like. I'll be sharing that on social media. By the way, I've just started to do Wednesday updates where I kind of share what's going on, whether it just be like well, I had a shit week and here's what it looked like, or I'm increasing my food this week here's what it looked like. So I'll be tweaking that along the way, but every Wednesday I'm doing a post on Instagram about that.

Speaker 2:

But I just want you to remember that. You know, even if someone is looking at your macros like me as your coach if I'm looking at your macros, I'm not judging you and I'm not. I've never once said to a client like, well, you are really bad at this, you are doing terrible. I average it out and I'm like here's where we're at, we just need to increase protein, that's it, and here's how you can do it. It's not anything like that, it's just learning, it's just awareness. So when you keep that mindset rather than good or bad or perfect or not at all that is really, really helpful. So I want you to think of it like that too.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of people think oh, I'm going to have to go to these Weight Watcher meetings forever, I'm going to have to use these Beachbody containers forever, or I'm going to have to track macros forever, and you won't have to do it forever. So I just want you to know that, approaching it with the mindset of being aware of what you're putting in your body, being aware of how that makes you feel, being aware of everything Once you start tracking macros, and you do it with the mindset that I'm teaching you in this episode, you will learn so much about yourself, I promise, and it will be one of the best things you ever do for yourself and your body and your relationship with food, if you approach it with this mindset, rather than being perfect and the good or bad mindset that one can get you into some trouble, and I know that because I was there, so I just. The seventh thing that I wanted to touch on was just that macros are not forever, and I want you to remember that, but I want you to think, too, that the awareness and the things that you learn are forever. So, while macros, you just have to do it for as long as it takes you to get the hang of it. That is just a short period of time, but the awareness that comes with it is forever, and that is really, really worth it. Something else that I just thought of is what I want to say in the realm of making macro tracking easier.

Speaker 2:

One of the reasons that I started eating like staple foods and started eating similar, if not the same thing, day after day after day, is because when I started to look at food as fuel, I didn't. I took the fun out of food. Sometimes, of course, I still have fun with food, but on the daily I didn't. I no longer needed a new recipe. Or I had that yesterday so I can't have that today, or I don't like leftovers. It was just like food is fueling my body. It doesn't matter what it looks like on the plate, it doesn't matter if I've had it five days in a row, shut up and eat it, because it's fueling your body and it's easy to log in the app. When you get so creative with your meals, that's where it's hard to log.

Speaker 2:

And I know some of you love food and you're foodies and you love to bake and you love to cook. I don't, so it's easier for me to not do those things. But it was also for me like I need to eat these things to feel good, to heal my gut, to look the way I want to perform how I want in the gym and look how I want physically, point blank, and to be healthy. And if I eat the same things over and over and over, it's so much easier for me to track. So it made tracking my food so much easier. So take that for what you will.

Speaker 2:

Now I want to talk about a little bit of what you can do this week. So I want you to keep tracking, even if it's not perfect. Maybe the last episode I talked about tracking and just you know the last episodes, I should say, and how I want you to do it and not really judge that. But really do that this time and don't judge it, okay. So if you've been tracking but you're like I haven't been logging everything because I really don't want to see the numbers that it draws up, do it anyways.

Speaker 2:

Practice tracking on a weekend track, when it's messy track, when it's ugly track, when you mess it up and see how that feels and notice that your results are the same because you already ate the food. So your body is going to reflect that anyway. So you might as well put it in the app. Okay, you're either going to lose it or you're going to gain a little bit, or you're going to lose a little bit. If you don't track it, your body is going to have the same result. Does that make sense? A lot of people are like, well, I'm not going to track it because then I'll go over. Okay, well, your body tracked it anyway. So you put it in the app because otherwise it looks like you hit your macros. To you or to me, it looks like you hit your macros and I'm like well then, why are you gaining a pound every week? Well, I'm not tracking these cookies. I'm not tracking the ice cream. I'm not tracking the tortilla chips. I'm not tracking the nightly glass of wine that I have. Well, your body's tracking it and you're not. So let's be more consistent, even if it sucks. Let's be more consistent even if it sucks, you can't fix it if you don't know it's broken.

Speaker 2:

Go out to eat, make a macro balance plate I think that would be really good for you to do this week and then hit protein in two or three of your meals and snacks. Try to sneak more protein in. A lot of people have snacks that just don't have any protein in it at all. Or maybe for breakfast, I actually just had my rice cakes and my chocolate hummus and I started to feel kind of lightheaded. I need more food is what my body is telling me and I'm like well, that's because there was no protein there, christy. So I still have to do that. So I just I still have to do that, you know.

Speaker 2:

So I just want you to be more aware of hitting that protein and then try some of these things that I talked about on purpose, so that you'll know what it feels like when you're, you know, thrown into a situation where you know friends wanna go out and you're like, oh, I don't know, I'm kinda nervous. I told my coach I'd do really good this week and now I'm gonna mess up. You'll know what that feels like ahead of time. And it's not really a mess up as long as you track it and it's there and you can own up to it. I love when a client will say I really messed up. I went out to eat and I ate 200 calories and carbs over whatever. But I logged it and I'm looking right at it and I feel like shit, I'm bloated and I'm like it's okay, it's fine, no big deal. In a few days your body is going to average that out and it's not even going to be a thing okay.

Speaker 2:

So those are the eight things that I wanted to talk about. Again, you don't need to write them down or anything like that, it's just. These are the mindset tips and the ways that I would prefer that you look at tracking macros Inside my Fit Club. I do help you to learn and track along the way I you to learn and track along the way. I set macro targets for you.

Speaker 2:

I provide the workouts in there that are in relation to those macros and I answer questions in there. There's group chats in there, so not only myself, but there's a recipe group, there's a workout Q&A. We just started a book club. There's a fit club fam group chat where there's ladies talking about what they're eating and how it's going and tips and tricks. So it's a great place to be and my ladies are absolutely crushing it.

Speaker 2:

I need to post two of my ladies on social media soon and just talk about how amazing they're doing. They posted a little update in the app and I'm so proud of them and none of this came from being perfect. Absolutely none of them are perfect, because I don't even allow perfect people in my group okay, because it would make me feel bad. No, I'm kidding, but seriously, none of them are perfect, and that's what we love. That's what I love about them is they're willing to mess up and keep going and the results come. So I love my Fit Club fan.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, I hope that you have enjoyed this macro series. I enjoyed giving to you all of the information that I think is necessary for you to really really start on your macro tracking journey. And if you do these things for a couple months and you mess up and you keep going and you eat at different times and you try to eat earlier in the day and maybe you stop fasting and you stop being so obsessive about certain foods and you start adding things in that your body needs. And if you're getting hungrier which my Fit Club ladies are right now because we are building muscle and we're lifting heavier, and they're getting hungrier, they know it's their metabolism revving up and they need the food and so they're looking at that with a very optimistic attitude and it's so amazing. So if you stick with what I have taught you and you do it messy and you show up messy and you continue messy, you will see the most amazing results. And it's the best feeling when you find out you don't have to be perfect and you can still see results, like there's nothing more freeing than realizing we don't have to be perfect.

Speaker 2:

Can I get an amen? And this is no different. So, yeah, I'm happy to be wrapping up this macro series. I can't wait for your input and your messages that I always get in the Spotify comments or on social media. So thank you, as always, for reaching out and, as always, ask questions as well. Like I said, I'm happy to answer them right there in Spotify, in the comments or in the DMs, and answer them as best as I can.

Speaker 1:

So I will talk to you guys next week. 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 Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time. Bye.