The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

212. Fall Reset: Making Meal Prep & Planning REAL (Not Pinterest-Perfect)

• Kristy Castillo

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Last week, we talked all about fall routines and the mental and physical reset that comes with this season. Now…it’s time to talk all things FOOD!


Let’s be honest - fall brings out alllll the apple-cinnamon and pumpkin-everything vibes, along with cozy soups, casseroles, and more.


But…it’s also the time when so many of us are ready to get back on track with our nutrition and meal prep!


Honestly though, food does NOT need to be “Pinterest-perfect”. You don’t *need* to spend hours on aesthetic meal prep videos or color-coded containers to see results. You NEED something that fits your real life, regardless of the season you’re in!


Some weeks you’ll totally nail your food prep, and other weeks you’ll wing it. At the end of the day, YOU’RE the only one responsible for fueling your body and reaching your goals!


If you’re ready to make your fall reset actually stick, grab my free Body Recomp Meal Prep Blueprint - it will help you build a realistic, stress-free plan to keep you fueled all season long!


Episode recap:

  • Why fall feels like the perfect time to refocus on food, prep & routines
  • The truth about “getting back on track” + why you don’t need to start over every Monday
  • Ditching the pressure of “perfect” meal prep
  • The simple 3-step approach to food this season
  • My favorite grocery system hacks
  • Quick and easy macro-friendly meal ideas for busy weeks
  • How to create a reusable base grocery list to simplify meal planning
  • The power of pre-tracking your food & building realistic systems that stick
  • Why consistency matters more than perfection with food and meal prep


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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Unfuck 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. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to today's episode.

SPEAKER_01:

We are going to be moving along with last week's episode and kind of veering from there. So we talked about fall and what that looks like, kind of what that means mentally, physically, new routines, slowing down, organization, cleaning out, all of that. And it's just like this time of year when everything starts to slow down and you feel it's almost like one day in fall. Finally, I feel like it's here. It's just, it's all of the sudden for me. I think and think and think it's happening. And then it's just one day it kind of I've I've done enough things or I've rested for the right amount of time that my body just is like, okay, summer's over. The to-do list is getting checked off. We're getting moving along for fall. You know, schedules are just kind of becoming more natural, becoming a routine. We're getting a rhythm. Like, it's not because I have to crave structure or routine or anything like that, but it's just like I want to feel grounded. I want to shift gears. And so that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode, but we're going to be talking about it specifically in regards to food because there's fall food, there's orchards and pumpkin rolls and donuts and apple cider. So there's the feeling of food, there's the soups and the casseroles and like all the food things that come along with fall. That's not exactly what I want to talk about, but that is part of it, right? Is the fall feeling and food comes along with that. So there's that part of fall that's surrounded by all the pumpkin and the apple and all those types of things. Then there's the part where a lot of people, and I'm getting this kind of this information from my clients. So a lot of people, a lot of my clients, and myself included in this, are ready to meal prep and meal plan and get back to a routine and get back on track. And it's that kind of mentality and focus and wording that I'm hearing a lot right now is like things were so chaotic in the summer with foods and routines and parties and no time for meal planning and meal prepping. And now my clients are ready and they want to, and they just have this feeling like I'm ready to meal prep and meal plan and get back on track. Like those, that's the wording that I'm hearing from everyone. And I feel it too, where I'm like, okay, I want to shift gears here. I want to enjoy some fall foods. Yes, but I think more so I want a routine. I want to know what to eat. I want to get back on track with my macros. I want to start working out with purpose again. Like, you know, you just have that mental shift that I talked about last week, where we just are ready for something different, to feel something different. And a lot of that is that routine and that rhythm. And food does play into that. You know, when you're talking about your fitness, food obviously cannot be ignored. And it's the thing that most people struggle with. It's it's the thing that people struggle with the most. I guess that's true. Most people struggle with it and people struggle with it the most. I don't know if that's making sense. But and I mean that in terms when of when a client comes to me and they're like, yeah, I want to feel differently about food. I want to understand macros. I really have a, you know, the workouts are not a problem. If you tell me what workouts to do, I'll go to the gym. I'll get the equipment. I'll, I'll get your app, I'll push play. Like the workouts are not a huge deal. That's not so much of a concern. I'll show up for that. What I'm really needing help with is nutrition and macros and food and what do I eat and why do I track and all of that kind of stuff. So if you're very, very new to this, I want you to go back and listen to episode 205, which started the macro series, because that's where a lot of that, a lot of the organization, the tips, the exact strategies are talked about as far as food. But I want to talk about even more so how to make it about real life meal planning and food prep that works for you, whether you're home all day, whether you work 24 hour shifts, like one of my clients that I talked to this week, one of my newer clients, whether you work 12-hour shifts, like a lot of my nursing clients. So I really want to simplify in Christi Castillo fit fashion and unfuck your fitness fashion. You know, I really just want to simplify this because as you're moving into fall, you are going to have different routines. You're going to have different mindsets, you're going to have different goals. And all of that requires different strategy. You have to pivot, you have to change. And what a lot of people do, I see, is like, oh, I'm getting back on track. I'm getting back on. I actually was in Marshall's the other day in the dressing room. And what I was trying on, it was a pair of pants and they did not fit me. Story of my life. But I was in the dressing room, and of course, there were other women in there. And I heard a lady say, I really like these, but I think they'll fit better after I hit my diet hard. And she emphasized hard on Monday. I'm gonna hit my diet so hard on Monday. That's literally what she said. She said it twice. And I just thought, oh, shoot. I hate that. I hate that for her. Like I just, I remember what that feels like to try on something and just be like, oh, I think this will fit better when I hit my diet hard and I go all in, you know, that types of that type of wording. And I know a lot of you are are still there, and that's why my work will never be done. That's why this podcast was created. But I know people are still out there saying those things because I heard that lady in the dressing room say she's hitting her diet hard on Monday. And she, it's Friday now as I'm recording this. So she probably hit her diet hard on Monday, and she probably isn't hitting it so hard come Friday. But that's exactly why I want to help you with these real life meal planning, meal prepping mentality that will work for you. So I really just want to talk about it. Let's get down dirty, let's get in the trenches here and really just discuss this. So, this season, again, talking about this in the fall season, it's it's about a fresh start, yes, but it's not about starting over. Like we said, we're starting fresh with all the information that we already have. So hopefully you've listened to a lot of podcast episodes of mine and other podcasts about these topics, of course. But if you've listened to a lot of my episodes up until now, take all of that information and go listen to it again if you need to. But we're going to learn to apply it here and start fresh with this. So I am quite frankly sick of well, I got sick of this quite a while ago, but I'm still sick of the pressure to meal prep perfectly, the cute Tupperware and the amazing glass dishes that are proportioned out and they're so cute, and the lunch boxes and the Pinterest lunches and the little containers and the photo-worthy dinners and everything looks so aesthetic. I'm I'm just over it. So this is if you are also over it, or if you see things like that and you're like, how does someone have time to do that? I fucking don't know. I don't know how they have time to do that. I don't know if they have a maid that does it's a maid, what? A chef that does it for them. I don't know if it's just their job as an influencer to make that so they have time. I don't know if they just really enjoy it. I don't know, and I don't care, and I'm not judging them. All I know is that I am over it. Like the pressure used to get to me so badly. I fell into this trap so badly before Instagram was even like huge, and before that was a thing. Just with Beach Body, and when I was coaching, it was like, show your meal prep, show your kitchen, show what you're doing. And of I'm not gonna show my ugly bowls and my mismatched silverware. And, you know, like I'm not gonna do that when there's people out there showing beautiful things, beautiful food creations and beautiful silverware. Like I just felt like I needed, I couldn't do it because mine didn't look beautiful and fancy and perfect. Or I I just didn't have time and I didn't want to. And it I just thought that's something that's not moving the needle forward. And for me, that's kind of all I care about is things that are gonna move the needle forward. So I just I quickly realized that yeah, I mean, I went out and bought all the pretty things and thought I'm gonna do this. And I never freaking did because I just don't care if my food looks pretty. Would I love it to look pretty? Absolutely. Am I proud of something that I make and it looks great? Absolutely. But I don't really care that much. And if you do care, I love that for you, but I'm just not your girl when it comes to that because it takes so much time and just like macros. I remember when we first started tracking macros or even the food containers, I think it was with Beach Body. Like we had, I had a certain amount of those containers that I was supposed to eat every single day. And when it got to the end of the day, a lot of times we would, I would finish my workout at like 10, 11 p.m. Cause I had little kids and that was the only time I could do it. I'd come upstairs and I'd look at what I needed for the day and I'd grab some salsa and I would grab, well, a container full of salsa because I'd already pre-prepped everything and a tortilla and some tuna fish. And I would just like scoop it out or put it all on a tortilla and just eat it because that was like, that's what I needed to fit into my macros. My goal was this. What I needed to meet that goal was this. And that was what I was gonna do. Like I didn't care what it looked like. And it was right then that I realized this is moving the needle forward for me. This is making me feel good. I mean, this stuff, it looks disgusting. And is that what I want to be eating after a workout at 11 o'clock at night? No. Did I do it anyway because that was what I needed to do to hit my goal? And I will do whatever it takes to hit my goal. Hell yeah, I did. Hell yeah, I did. And meanwhile, everyone's saying, Oh, you're so lucky that you have all this time and you're so motivated. No. Nope. So, anyway, before I get fired up about that, that's what I was doing. I was wanting to fall into this pressure of all the cute things and all the fun things. And that pressure is still there. Every time I go to Marshall's, I'm in the checkout lane and I see those cute lunchboxes. I want one so badly because they come with cute Tupperware. And I could fill that up and I could take it to the office, the office that I only go to once or twice a week. And while I'm there, I don't really have time to do a lot of eating. I mean, I'm recording and I'm like doing calls. So I don't have a lot of time to be eating this fancy food. Like, I need to just make a sandwich or take a wrap or take a shake or take a protein bar or three or bring my overnight oats. Like, I need to just make it so simple. And so do you. But I would. I would get on Pinterest or one of my 21-day fix cookbooks, so fancy, and I would make a huge list of meals that I could make. And then I would have to turn those meals into a list of foods that I needed to buy. And then I would either go to the store and buy those foods or I would order them, of course, like everyone else. And then I, you know, shopped, whatever. I got the food. I came home, I put it all away, besides what I needed to chop and cut and cook and rinse and divide it all and put into the fridge. And I had it all done, right? Just shit everywhere, meal prepped, put it all together. I'd had my sweet potatoes and my rice, and I had my chicken and my salmon and I had my fruits and I had it in baggies and little Tupperware. And that's great.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And I would do all of that and I'd put it in the fridge and I'd get the dishes done and my mess would be made. And it felt good. I mean, it felt, I felt accomplished. Like, okay, I was supposed to meal prep and meal plan. I did. And then I wanted Oreos. Like, I just like that's not gonna take away your craving for just processed food and things that you're used to. And just like, okay, cool, I have all this food, but I don't want any of this now. I always just I wanted Oreos, right? But in all serious, like, in all seriousness, we're all different. We're all just trying to survive, right? But we're all different. We all have different goals, we all have different budgets, we all have different stores we shop at, we all have different age kids or maybe no kids. You know, it's it's just so different. So for me to compare myself to other beach body coaches at that time who were doing certain things and that was their only job. For me to, you know, have a husband and little kids and a job and then try to meal prep and meal plan and make it look pretty. It was just not working. And that's when I realized this isn't working. I started to learn how about macros and then I just realized I don't, it doesn't, it's not gonna look pretty because I don't know how to organize my macros yet. I'm eating this tortilla tuna frigging salsa concoction every night. Like, and am I loving it? No. Am I hating it? No. Am I looking great? Yeah. So I don't care, right? I'll just, I'll just keep doing it. So if that stuff is working for you, if you're doing something right now and it's literally working for you, meaning you have the body you want, you feel good, you're hitting your macros, whatever, and that's working for you. And you love to make fancy foods and pretty foods and meal prep and meal plan, because I know a lot of people do like that. They really sh thrive off of that structure. I just don't. I don't like it. I don't love it. If I absolutely had to do it to hit my goals, I would. But what I quickly realized was that I don't have to. And so we'll get into that in a little later when I kind of give examples. But we are all different. We all just need the tools for life. So if you are doing that and you love to get on Pinterest and you love to meal prep and plan and the lists and the chopping and the cutting and the organization, if you love that and you have the time set aside and you want to do that, please do. Please do. If that's working for you, go for it. When it's not, though, because I think we all need these tools, because whether you're in a very kind of simple time of life that's working for you, I just I believe that there will be a time where that doesn't work, where you don't have time for that, where that's not where you're like, I'm just so sick of this. I want to spend my Sundays doing anything besides meal prepping. Or I'm so sick of these foods. Like, I just I don't want to do this anymore, right? Whether it be a different change of life happens, whether you get busier, whether your kids get older, and and maybe you meal prep on Thursday evenings and now your kids have sports that day. You know, you're gonna have to pivot. So, and sometimes life will just kick you in the face and shit happens, and you don't have time to do that anymore, or it's not a priority. I believe that everyone needs to hear what I'm gonna say in this episode because of those reasons. On top of that, reality that everyone's just gonna need these tools eventually, and you should know them just in case. Our schedules are all different. Like I said, I have a client I talked to this week who is paramedic. I think she said she works three 24-hour days. I have so many nurses that I work with that are on 12-hour shifts. I work from home. I'm an entrepreneur and I work from home. So I create my own literal job and my schedule and I work from home, sometimes from the office, but it's on my terms. There, I have clients who work for a company, but they work home. They're home base. So they have hours, but they're home and flexible. What, or you're just maybe a stay-at-home mom where you don't have a job job that pays you, but your job is staying home and taking care of your home and your children. And it should pay you because that's the hardest thing ever. But we're all different. So for me to say, here's a plan that will work across the board for everyone is dumb. It's not gonna work. So with there's no one size fits all system. And that's why I really want to talk to you about the reality of my life and what I do and what I have figured out. So, what I figured out is that you don't need perfect meal prep. You need a system that fits your life so you can stay consistent. And anyone who thinks you have to have a meal pre meal prep or meal plan to succeed isn't, they're not right. So if you, if someone's making fun of the fact that you don't plan or you don't prep, or you don't know exactly what you're gonna eat on some given day after you've taken the time to learn your body, I don't care. People probably think that I'm kind of crazy for not meal prepping and meal planning. I would probably be more lean, more jacked if I did structure everything down to a T, but that's not fun for me, nor is it realistic, nor is it sustainable. So I don't care. It doesn't matter. If I cared, I would do it. I don't care, so I don't want to do it. But I'm also not gonna sit around and say, God, I just want to be more lean and jacked when I'm not willing to do the things. What I'm willing to do right now is getting me the results that I have right now, and I'm totally fine with both. So the first thing that you need to do is simplify your mindset around food. A lot of that mindset of I need the pretty Tupperware, I need the pretty lunchbox, I need to get on Pinterest, I need, I need ID, I need I need, right? I need a new recipe, I need all these different things. That's not helpful. That is too much. So it's not about the restriction and it's not even about the creativity. It's about fueling your energy, your routines, and your workouts. At the end of the day, food is fuel. That also really helped me too. When I thought food doesn't need to be pretty. Yeah, sometimes it's fine to decorate with food and enjoy food and make it pretty. And some people love that. So go for it. But if you don't, take that out. If you're like someone like me who's like, I don't care if my food is pretty and I would rather save the 30 minutes that I would try to make my food pretty and have that 30 minutes to do literally anything else. Go for a walk, eat my food, do some laundry, I work out. I don't know. For me, it's just anything. I would rather do anything besides try to make food pretty. It's not fun for me. If it's fun for you, do it. But when I was like, Christy, it's not even about that. It doesn't need to be pretty. You're gonna put it on a plate or a bowl. You're gonna mix it all together, anyways, and put it in your mouth and it's gonna go to your stomach and it's gonna get all jumbled up. Who cares what it looks like? It doesn't matter. Okay. So food is fuel. And once I just thought of that, I thought it doesn't matter if I want to eat this at 10 o'clock at night, the tuna, salsa, tortilla, concoction. By the way, those were all things that were just on my food list from Beach Body at the time. So that's what I ate. But it just taught me a lot about that sort of thing. But it's it was fuel. I thought, well, I just had a hard workout. I'm tired, I'm a brand new mom. I need this food. So it's going down the hatch, right? So that's what we need to do first is to simplify our mindset around food. Next, I want you to ask what's realistic for you right now, not what's perfect or what looks good or what do I want. What is realistic for you right now? And then we need to look at a three-step approach, which is plan, prep, and pivot. You always have to be able to do those three things. You're gonna plan, you're gonna roughly know what you'll eat and when you'll eat it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. You're gonna have an idea. Then you're gonna prep it if you need to, if you need to cut your veggies, if you need to cook your protein, if you need to bulk grab and go snacks, whatever it is, have it out and ready in the fridge. So prep it, whether that's a huge meal prep that takes three hours on a weekend, or rather that's just prepping all of your yogurts stacked up nicely in the fridge, like mine. Prep it so it's there and it's ready to go. Okay. And then pivot. When things happen and your plan just it's not gonna be executed as you planned on it being executed, then have easy foods on hand and be able to pivot. No, it's not the end of the world. But the more that you plan and the more that you prep, most of the time you'll be able to stick with that. So those are really easy ways to simplify your mindset around food. Next, we're gonna have an easy grocery system. And this is where it gets kind of fun because this is where I'm gonna kind of tell you things that I eat. And it doesn't have to be off of a food list. It doesn't have to be things that you hate, it doesn't have to be things that you make all the time. I'm always going to obviously say, I hope this goes without saying that whole foods are always going to be better than processed foods for you inside your body, your results are gonna be better. But sometimes it's okay to not fill your life with them. Okay, it's okay to veer off plan a little bit from those things. But I hope that goes without saying, and I hope you know me already better than that. But I eat a really good balance of both, I'll be honest. There are times when I have eaten all whole foods, and there have been times in my life when I've eaten pretty much all processed foods. Not great because the one is not sustainable, whole foods, and for me, for me, it's not. And the other is because I would have to prep and all the things, and I just I'm I'm sometimes not in a stage of life to do that. And the other eating processed foods all day, every day, well, that's not great for obvious reasons. So I think what really helped me was developing an easy grocery system, an easy grocery mindset was learning to shop by category, not by recipe. I would shop for a recipe, I would get out my recipes and I would make the food list, and then I would get home and put everything away. And then I would be like, well, what recipe was I making? And what foods did I need? And when was I finding the time to do that? And who did I think I was going to be this Thursday when I thought I was gonna make this veggie soup that has 24 vegetables in it that are now all bad because I waited too long to eat them, right? So I learned to no longer shop or eat by a recipe, to be honest. I learned to grocery shop by category. So proteins, chicken, ground turkey, lean beef, eggs, tuna, salmon, Greek yogurt, things like that. That in my brain is protein. If I'm like, oh, I need some protein, that's those are my go-tos. Carbs, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, quinoa, wraps, so tortillas, oatmeal, fruit, those are my favorites. And then fats, olive oil, avocado, nuts, nut butter, and hummus. Those are my favorites, kind of my go-tos. And then we have our add-ons. So we have our proteins, fats, and carbs. We have those out the way. And then we have add-ons, the realistic things, right? So frozen fruit and veggies to make things a little simpler, sauces, seasonings, protein bars, protein shakes, yogurt drinks, the oikos, they're like 20 grams. The they're the drinkable yogurt, yogurt drinks, I'm calling them. I don't know. That's what they're called. Protein waffles, uh, like the Kodiak brand. You can also buy, um, I know Clean Simple Eats has some protein mix. A lot of different brands have uh protein pancake mix. You can buy that and make them ahead of time, like make a big batch on Sunday and eat them all week. I sometimes don't even want to take the time to make them. So I will just buy them as is, but I really like the waffles and the pancakes that are sold that have a little bit of protein in them. Rice cakes, we know I love those. Yasso bars, outshine popsicles, things like that. Those are just a few of my go-tos. That's honestly pretty much all of my go-to's. I have some chicken chunks. I think they're called bear, the bear brand. And that's about it, honestly. Like my kind of my go-tos. Like I said, if I'm kind of need to hurry, like if I'm planning and I'm prepping and then I need to pivot, I'm grabbing a bar, I'm grabbing a yogurt, I'm grabbing a quick waffle, I'm grabbing a waffle, popping it in the toaster, grabbing it with a napkin, walking out the door. I'm having a rice cake, I'm grabbing a popsicle if I'm feeling snacky. So just things to be aware of while you're, while you have your basics of proteins, fats, and carbs, but then you have your add-ons. So it's you're not just grabbing shetty cereal or, you know, candy bars or little Debbie's, like have other things around. I want to talk about some quick options that make hitting macros a little bit easier. So grabbing a protein shake with some fruit is great. My current pre-workout is half of a protein shake and two rice cakes. It's carbs, it's protein, it's easy. Rotisserie chicken and rice cups, those are big in my house. Yogurt bowls, I will talk about that in a minute. Tuna packets and wraps are good to have on hand, or chicken packets and wraps. Egg bakes or breakfast sandwiches, those are really easy to make, not too time consuming. You could probably buy them already made, but if they don't take too long, I recommend doing it at home just because you control the portion sizes and the quality of what you're buying. My concoctions, these are so simple, you're gonna laugh at me, but I've talked about this in an episode before. My two packets of tuna, hummus, and salsa, I pop that in the microwave. I stir it all up, and then I dip with tortilla chips. So freaking good. High in protein. We've got some fat with our hummus, we've got some carbs with our tortilla chips. It's good, it's yummy. I love that concoction. I actually haven't had it in a while, but I need to go back to it. That's the thing about me. If I like something, I'm just eating the same thing every single day with different flavors until I get sick of it, and then I'll switch it up. Another concoction that I love is oats overnight, which is the brand Oats Overnight. I make those, or you can make overnight oats from scratch using obviously oats and chia seeds and protein powder and whatever else you want to put in there. There's a ton of recipes on the internet, but I'm not a recipe girl. So I'll just add whatever I think sounds good. I like a sweet rice cake like the chocolate or the apple with chocolate hummus, a dessert spread and cherry pie filling. I love that. I love a savory rice cake. I just found the jalapeno cheddar. Um, but I put that on my stories and it was got a lot of oohs and ahs and yums because yum, right? I've been wanting chips and dip and just like something snacky lately while I'm sitting watching baseball games. So the jalapeno cheddar, they're mini rice cakes, and then I've been dipping um hummus out with those, and so freaking good. But savory rice cakes with tuna salad, chicken salad, avocado, put some everything but bagel seasoning on top. So freaking good. You can throw an egg on there. Oh my God, it's so good. Greek yogurt with whipped cream and chocolate chips or whipped cream and blueberries, strawberries, or all the above. Just weigh it out, macro it out. That's a really good snack. And then lean beef, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado ranch sauce. I love the avocado ranch sauce. And that's just a good, like little taco salad. You can also, for chips, throw a couple Doritos in there or tortilla chips or use the Quest protein chips. And you have yourself a little walking taco if you want to make it with the Quest protein chips. But those are some concoctions that I love. Again, so easy to change up, right? Greek yogurt with whipped cream and chocolate chips. I'm not having plain Greek yogurt. I'm not that kind of girl. So I'm gonna have strawberry or blueberry or black cherry or pumpkin right now, I'm having, or vanilla. Like mix up the flavors, mix up the fruit that goes in it. It doesn't have to be the same thing every single day, the exact same flavor or plain, right? You can have different kinds of rice cakes, different flavors of overnight oats. Mix it up. Like it can be the same thing, but it can taste completely different depending on what you do with it. So I love those concoctions and I think they're so simple. And I just say that so you know how simple it can be to be able to do this. So I want to talk to you quickly about just a couple of grocery list hacks. So it gets a little out of control to make a grocery list, especially when you're eating from a certain recipe, and then you've got to change things every week. So a couple ways to make this super simple because this fall, fresh start, what I want you to do this week is to kind of take these tips and run with it. So, and like put it into action. So use the same base list every week. I'm always buying rice cakes, I'm always buying Greek yogurt, I'm always buying lean beef, I'm always buying some chicken, I'm always buying my yogurt drinks, the protein shakes, the yasso bars, some fruit and veggies. I'm always buying hummus. Like there are certain things that just they're always in my Walmart shopping cart. So have a base list that you use every single week. That is so much time saving. It's so much mental space saving. I can't tell you enough how nice that is. To just know exactly what you need. Of course, then my family needs things too, right? I'm always buying donuts or chocolate donuts for my son. I'm always buying nutty bars for my daughter. I have they have to have a certain kind of lactose free milk. I get a different kind. So, you know, we all have like a base, I feel like, for our families, but don't forget your own base foods too. You matter too. Change up the flavors. Like I said, you can have the same base items, but change up the flavors that you get that week or the spices or the sauces. This is another one too that I love. Keep an ongoing note in your phone or in your grocery app. So I mean, it seems like duh, but for a long time I was opening my Walmart app. That's where I order my groceries from. I need to switch to Meyer, but I'm not ready yet. But I was just kind of opening my app and scanning everything around the house. And then I thought I'm I'm scanning the same thing every week. So I just saved a, I saved a grocery list in my Walmart app or just favored things. But I I have a separate notes page with just ongoing notes of things that I'll think of or things that I need so that I don't have to open the apps, scan the food when it's out. If something is out, I'll just, hey, Siri, add trash bags to my grocery list, whatever. So just keeping a list going so that way you're not having to think about everything. But if you have a base list in your phone, you can have a base list, you can have a list of proteins, you can have a list of carbs, put all that in your notes app. It's genius. Okay. And then another thing I love to do too is to keep a photo album on your phone with food ideas and grocery items. This helps in the moment. So if I I'll just sometimes take a picture of things that I need to get, or I will take a screenshot of something that someone, I actually did that with the recent chicken chunks that I've been buying. Someone shared regular and then a buffalo. I think they were just Tyson Buffalo chicken chunks. But I kind of I trusted this person. So I took a screenshot of it and then I put it in a saved album of just, I think it's just called food. So clever. But you can just take a picture of something and then add those pictures to this album that's just food. So if you're like, oh my gosh, I need to get a little more creative or what brand did I want to get or anything, you can keep recipes, all kinds of stuff in that album so that way you don't have to scroll all the way through your millions of pictures. If you're like me, thousands of pictures. So I think having that photo album on your phone is really nice. And then if you're in the store, that helps too to be able to just see it. So just a couple of grocery licks list hacks. And then pre-tracking is so nice. So that's just one more thing you can do to be able to simplify things is to pre-track in my fitness pal. And I, these are just things that I'm just rambling these things off. I'm gonna go back through them. Tracking ahead of time is a way to kind of get that off your list, get it off your mind, and be able to know what you're going to eat. So every single day I know I'm having probably a uh shake, uh, either the yogurt shake or a regular protein shake. I know I'm having a protein bar, I know I'm having eggs, I know I'm having salmon, like whatever I, you know, I know that I'm having that day, I'm just gonna plug it in. Usually I do that on Sundays, honestly, and just plan for my whole week and then I'll just fill in the gaps as needed. But that is a really easy way to make sure you're hitting your goals and just getting it out of sight, out of mind. So before I recap, let's just get real for a minute, real and raw per usual. Food prep isn't glamorous every week. If you're gonna do this lifelong, which when I realize like this is a lifelong thing and I have to find systems, I have to create systems actually that are gonna work for me lifelong, you know, thinking of food as fuel and thinking of this as being like, oh, I can do this for 30 days, right? When you, when you join a 30-day program or 30-day challenge, you're like, oh, I just need a meal prep for 30 days. Well, you don't, because if you want to maintain the results that you get from that 30-day challenge, you're gonna have to continue to do what you were doing. And that's when it became, you know, for me, like, this is about consistency, this is about sustainability, and this is about creating habits and systems that I can keep up. Because in reality, I'm the only person that's responsible for myself and my results. So that's just, you know, what it had to be. But some weeks you're gonna nail it and it's gonna be great. And some weeks you're gonna wing it. But winging it looks a little more consistent. I see this with my clients all the time. They're like, man, I am just really off this week. It's been a crazy week, so busy, so stressful, whatever. But it's a lot better than it would have been last year or three years ago when I did this, because I know now that I have simple options to grab, I can still get my workouts in. Like it's just it's becoming more consistent so seamlessly. And progress happens through that consistency. So I just want to encourage you here to remember that give yourself some grace and to be consistent. And it doesn't have to be glamorous. It doesn't have to be cutesy. It in fact, it shouldn't. I don't know when meal prep became cute. Like, whose idea was that? Not mine, that's for sure. Right? The the goal isn't to be the most aesthetic meal prepper. It's the goal is to eat enough to feel strong and to feel your life. And I would like to do that with the least amount of dishes as possible, to be honest. So I, you know, I'm good with grabbing something out of the fridge. I don't, I'm good with not like putting my yogurt into a bowl and making it all pretty all the time. Like, I'll just put my ripped cream and my chocolate chips right in the bowl of yogurt so I can throw it away. Like, I'm just thinking very practical here. Okay. If you're practical like me, I'm your girl, we can do this together. So you don't need to change your whole life to feel and control. You just need to simplify the parts that matter. And that's exactly what I wanted this podcast to be about. So embrace this fresh start going into fall. And this week, I want you to focus on one, your mindset around food, two, those easy grocery systems that I talked about. Three, pre-tracking, making it all simple, giving yourself some grace, but still tracking that, of course. And then just some other things that I want you to think about is using that base list every week. Open up your notes app and create a food list, a grocery list. Maybe have those categories. That would be great to do this week. Create an album, a photo album on your phone that is called food, or if you have something cooler, name it something cooler. And get those albums and those lists going so that you can get really organized. Take the time to do that this week. I wanted this episode to be something that would be, I guess, be something that you can take action with. So that's kind of the whole idea here is for you to be able to take action with these items. So that's what I would really, really like you to focus on this week: your mindset, your grocery list and tracking, of course, and then just opening those notes and getting your phone a little more organized than it probably is to be able to keep track of these things. One last thing that I am going to encourage you to do is I created a body recomp meal prep blueprint. It's a freebie. You can click the link in the show notes for that. It'll be down with all of the other links. But it's really great because it outlines a lot of what I just talked about as far as making meal prep simple. It talks about these foods and it has some grocery list ideas and basically just sums up everything that I just talked about and puts it in a tangible guide for you. So go to the show notes and click the link to download that body recomp meal prep blueprint, and we'll send you that via email and you can download and get started on that. So I hope this was really helpful. We're gonna continue this little trend of talking about fall and the fresh start, but not only just telling you to think of this as a fresh start, but actually giving you tips and strategies on how to do that.

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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. So much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time.