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.
SPEAKER_01Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to today's episode. I feel like I'm a bit, a bit of a hot mess today. I feel a little stuffy. I don't know why. If it's the allergies, if it's the air that's not been great lately, because I slept like shit last night. I'm not sure. I'm not at this age, 45, perimenopause. I don't know why anything's happening. I don't know if everything that happens, I could just blame on perimenopause. I don't know if I should try to find a solution. I don't know if there's a reason that I feel exhausted one second, but full of energy the next. One day I feel like I can lift a thousand pounds. The next day I feel like five pounds is heavy. One second I feel like sobbing, crying for no particular reason. And the next I feel like the most confident badass. I have no idea what is happening, but the show must go on. Here we are. I always say to show up whether you feel like it or not, whether you understand it or not, just be consistent, do the thing. And that's what we're gonna do today. But I digress, I guess. I just wanted to say, I don't know, I don't know what mood I'm in today. So let's just see where this takes us. But I'm super excited for today's episode. We are doing a QA today, and I'm keeping it all nutrition-based because the last five, four, five, six, I don't know. The last few episodes, we have been really talking about nutrition and what nutrition is in terms of calorie deficit. What is a calorie deficit? What is maintenance calories? What is a surplus? What is a build phase? What does that mean for your nutrition? How should you go from one phase to the other? And I have gotten so many messages. I almost hate talking about the messages that I get because I feel like I sound like a broken record. Part of the reason today that I felt like I was sad and crying and then happy was because I kept getting messages from women just saying how thankful they were for the last few episodes that I had put out. And that I'm I'm such an empath and such an emotional person at times that those messages can just really put me in like such a grateful mood mindset of just like, I'm so happy and it just makes me cry. But I feel like that was part of today's on my way here to the office as I was getting ready to record this episode. I'm of course thinking about it, and I'm just thinking how happy I am that this series has helped so many women. And so the last few episodes, we've been really, really talking about nutrition. And I feel like it has been really helpful. And I've been loving all of the comments and all of the messages and all of the questions that I have gotten to continue this conversation. And I don't want to say too much about this, but I've been getting really specific questions, and I'm considering doing a podcast episode or just kind of weaving them in where I take your specific questions that you send me. I usually get those on Instagram DMs, but or even it can be a client of mine asking a specific question to where, you know, you give me all of your information and I can really map that out for you in detail on a podcast episode or in Instagram Reels because I just feel like I'm getting so many messages like thank you so much for these episodes. I want help with my specific situation. And of course, of course, that's what I do for a job. So I can't answer in my DMs specifically to your question, like completely thoroughly, right? I am offering one-on-one calls right now. If you want one of those, send me a message. We can jump on a call for 60 to 90 minutes and really walk through your situation. I'm not offering one-on-one coaching right now, but that's what I walk through in those situations. And not to plug that, but I'm just saying if you have a specific situation, which we all do, that you're not fully understanding even after all of these episodes, I encourage you to hire someone or jump on a call with someone that you really trust because 60 to 90 minutes of talking through your exact conversation could save you months of trial and error on your own. So I just want to say that if you really feel like I want Christy or someone to answer this specific question for me and tell me exactly what I need to do and why, figure it out. Like spend a little bit of money, spend a little bit of time and dive into that. But for now, we're gonna dive into a couple of questions that I've gotten. Gotten quite a few. So I'm gonna, I kind of lumped these together per category, hoping that they really help. And of course, I'll save other ones for other episodes. I feel like next week's episode, as we talk about food noise, to kind of also continue on this topic, will be really helpful. And then we'll move into workouts and different things like that as we unfortunately round out summer and go into fall. Yuck, I love summer, so I want it to stay. But anyway, I feel like the next few months will really, really be helpful with these episodes in really guiding you through summer and maintenance, you know, and what you need to do and why and how to transition from the different phases, and then we'll move into workouts and things in the fall. And I feel like that's a really helpful time too. But I'm gonna get to as many of these questions as I can as I keep an eye on my time here to make sure that I'm also aware of your time and how important it is. But I really want to dive into these, you know. I'm gonna ramble and I'm gonna go as thoroughly into these questions as I need to. And I'll just record a part two if I have to, because I want to make sure that I'm answering all of these. Some of the questions that you guys asked will be answered in the previous episode. So if I don't get to your question, it's because I already answered it in one of the previous episodes. But I'm super excited to kind of round this out. As always, feel free to send me a message in Instagram DMs or on Spotify in the comments. I read them all. If they're mean, I delete them. It is what it is. But if they're nice, I'll read them, respond, at least heart it. And then if it's a question, I will absolutely answer it. If it's an episode suggestion, I will absolutely get to that. But I'm really thankful for every message that I get. So let's talk about the first question that I got, which is are maintenance calories an exact number or a range? Please go back and listen to the last few episodes. I feel like the last few episodes are definitely a few, like a series that you can go back and just listen to, listen to, listen to, especially as you gain confidence in this realm. I feel like just going back and listening to those episodes where as you go through different phases of your fitness, you will hear things that I say or things that someone else says on a podcast in a different way, right? If you are in a deficit, you'll be listening to more of that part of the episodes. If you're in a maintenance phase, you'll be listening more to more of that part, that information of an episode. So go back and listen to these because I feel like this could be answered in a couple of the previous episodes. But I did get this question a lot, and I do get this question a lot in DMs. Maintenance calorie is an exact number or a range. This is a huge misconception that I see with any calorie range. If you go into my fitness pal and it tells you, I want to be at a calorie deficit, this is the deficit that it gave me. I actually got that question this week. I put in maintenance and I want to maintain my weight. My fitness pal gave me this calories or this amount of calories. Is this right? And you give me your stats. I have no idea. And the truth is, my fitness pal doesn't have an exact clue either. And this kind of leads into the next question. But every calorie goal that you have is going to be a range. That's why I talk about the weekly average. That's why I talk about progress, not perfection. That's why we talk about the 80-20. There's no, there's literally no way unless you ate the exact same food and weighed it every single day in the same bowl. You know, like you'd have to have the exact same portion of every single thing every single day to consume the exact number of calories. So you cannot consume an exact same number of calories every single day. So it really doesn't matter if my fitness pal is or if anything is spitting out an exact number for you. You can't hit it either way. So my first thought when someone asked me that is it literally doesn't matter if it's an exact number or a range. The truth is, though, that it's a range because you're gonna be averaging, you're not perfect, the guesstimate isn't perfect, and it's it's just gonna be a range. You're gonna have bites and licks, and you're gonna have different things of food and portion sizes, and you're gonna be stuck at a ball game somewhere for longer than you thought. You're gonna be hungry, you're gonna think there's a concession stand where you can get a drink, but there's not. So you're gonna have to go to the gas station and get whatever they have, right? There's gonna always be situations where you can't be perfect, and that's fine. But maintenance calories are definitely a range. Definitely a range. So the next question that I want to go into feeds into this as well is how do I know my maintenance calories are actually correct? You don't. You don't know unless you take the time to put in the work to find that out. So again, if we're going into my fitness pal and we're saying this is my age, height, weight, this is my goal, blah, blah, blah. And my fitness pal says, this is your maintenance calories. This is your, you know, TDE, this is your BMR, this is your activity level. Whatever you've entered, based on what you've entered, this is your calorie range. We don't know if that's correct. We don't know if that's correct because we don't, I don't know your starting place. I don't know a lot of things that would matter for me to be able to answer that correctly. And neither does my fitness pal. My fitness pal is based on, you know, the information that you input. My fitness pal doesn't know if you're already overeating. And so your maintenance calories would be a little different if you're under-eating. It just has no idea. I always think of this analogy of, you know, it's like someone saying, like, okay, you're five, six, so you probably wear like an eight and a half shoe. Like, compared to your size, or maybe your height, right? You should probably be wearing on this, on average, an eight and a half shoe. Maybe, maybe though you're five, six and you're wearing a size seven. Maybe you're five, six and you're wearing a size ten. There's no cut and dry number. Just because you're a certain height doesn't mean that your shoe size is a certain number or your clothing is a certain number. Just because your age, height, weight, and activity level is this doesn't mean that that's your current maintenance. I could be, I could, if we have someone, let's give you my stats right now. I'm 45 years old, I'm 5'3 and a half, I'm 128 pounds, I think I was on the scale last time I weighed a couple days ago. And my activity level is pretty high. I could have someone the exact same height, weight, activity level as me, but if I have more muscle than that person and they've been in a calorie deficit under eating, they've been eating 1200 calories for two years, and I've been over here eating 2000 calories for two years. To maintain my body is going to be different than to maintain that person's body, right? If I'm maintaining my current body on 2000 calories and that other person is maintaining her body on 1200 calories, then you can't take an age, height, weight activity level, throw it into my fitness pal, and have the number that it spits out at you. You can't have it be correct. So the only way to know if your maintenance calories that anyone gives you is correct is to track your food for two weeks, average that out and see what happened on the scale. Weigh yourself every day. So you take the average of your weight and your muscle mass and your fat percentage. Overall weight's gonna matter the most. And then you take the average of your calories. And if over the last two weeks you've been eating 1600 calories was your average per day, right? And your weight started at 145 and then also ended at 145. Well, then in that two weeks, you maintained 145, 145 pounds on 1600 calories. That would be your maintenance calories. That's the only way to know. So my fitness pal is going to give you a number. Any fitness app is gonna give you a number. I could give you a number. We don't know. So that's why when everyone comes to me in Fit Club, I say you need to start tracking. The first thing we need to do is start tracking, getting used to the app. Track your food. I don't care what it is, don't judge it. Just track it because that's the only way to know. The only way to know if you're a size eight and a half shoe is to try the shoe on. If the shoe fits, that's what you are. If you track your food and your weight stays the same and you want to find your maintenance calories and you've maintained your weight on that amount of calories that you've tracked for two weeks, then that's how we know. So the only way to know is to collect data. So I look at average body weight, I look at hunger, I look at energy levels, I look at gym performance, I look at recovery, and then we adjust. And I also look at what they tracked, obviously. Like I said, we estimate, I give them an estimate of what I think they should be at for maintenance. I have them track and then we evaluate and then we adjust. That's the only way to do it, and that's how I would have you do it as well. Don't fully trust the app. The app will give you a good guess, but it doesn't know you. So I hope that kind of helps clear up the are maintenance calories an exact number or a range, definitely a range, and that's a good thing. And then how do I know if my maintenance calories are actually correct? By doing the work to be able to know if that shoe fits, right? You have to be able to, you have to just get the data and then you have to assess it and go from there. So, number three, question number three is how do I increase my calories after being in a deficit? We talked about this last week and I think the week before. So definitely go back and listen to those episodes because I will 100% dive into it more there than I will here. But I'm gonna cover it a little bit. We start with a slow increase. That's how I have all my clients do it, and that's how I would encourage you to do it as well. You can increase your calories after being in a deficit by just increasing your calories by whatever your deficit was. You can throw yourself into maintenance or, you know, whatever you're increasing to, but I don't suggest doing that. I suggest going very, very slow. Most of my ladies mentally and physically do better with a slow increase. So 50 calories per week is a very simple place to begin. Your protein stays high. You want to increase mostly carbs and fats because your protein should have stayed high in the deficit. So that should be fine. And then you increase mostly carbs and fats, and then watch your average body weight, energy, hunger, and gym performance. If things are going well after that week, increase again. Remember, maintenance isn't coming off of a diet. It's not going back to your quote unquote old body. It's part of the plan. It's increasing your calories back up so your metabolism can rev back up and you can eat more and be happy and have more energy, decrease those hunger signals, the food noise, right, that comes along with it. You should not be in a deficit for more than 12 weeks. And when you come out of it, you should come out of it very, very slowly. You should have entered that deficit slowly as well. But I love a 50 calorie per week increase. It feels very good mentally and it gives your body time to adjust. Next question: how long should I stay in maintenance? There's not one perfect answer. You can stay in maintenance as long as you want. I would say a minimum of 12 weeks. But I also touched on this, I feel like in last week's episode or maybe the week before. I like three to six months. I think that's really good. Eight months, 12 months. You can stay in a maintenance phase for years. You can stay there forever. It doesn't matter. It it the longer the better because your body's going to adjust. But I the word should is just, it's very relative on per person. Some people should stay in it for 12 weeks and then go back into a cut or go into a surplus. Some people should stay in maintenance phase for a couple of years to really work on their relationship with food and focus on other things. So I would say though that it depends on how long you've dieted previously, how lean you are, how you're feeling, how your workouts are going, and your goals. It depends on your goals. Maintenance isn't time wasted, it's definitely part of the plan. Maintenance is where you're going to recover better, you're going to get stronger, you're going to feel better, and you're going to continue to recomp. That's why I say the longer you are in maintenance, the better. It sets you up for so much more success going back into a cut deficit. And it also sets you up for a great foundation going into a surplus, going into a build. So longer you can stay in maintenance, the better. You need to be spending way more time in maintenance than you do a deficit. Tell you that for sure. Overall in your life, that would be the goal. Question number five: how do I loosen up tracking once I've hit my maintenance numbers? I love this question because eventually you don't want to rely on this food scale forever. I've been getting this question a lot over the summer. How do I track calories when I'm out at a party? How do I track calories when I'm at a restaurant? How do I track calories when I make a salad? And I don't know exactly how many pieces of lettuce are in it or how many chunks of turkey are in it, right? If you bought it at a gas station or the Walmart deli section, then you don't know exactly. You don't have a scale or something, and then you feel like, shit, I don't know how to log this. I want you to track because it teaches awareness, but once you've learned those skills, practice using it, right? If you've weighed your food long enough, I remember coming off of the Beach Body container system and thinking, I can eyeball this. I know what a cup of chicken, I know what a red container of chicken looks like. I know what a blue container of yogurt looks like, whatever it is. I know what a green container of lettuce looks like, you know, I because I'd shove lettuce in there and then I'd dump it on my plate. And then I'd shove my chicken in the red container and I'd dump it on my plate. So I could eyeball it. It's the same thing as tracking. So if you're putting, you know, just picking up lunch meat and putting it on your sandwich while you're while you have the sandwich on the food scale, you're gonna get a sense of, okay, this is how many slices of turkey breast equal 20 grams of protein. You're gonna get an idea of that. Also, you're just gonna be aware of this is what I need to be adding. I need to be eating this every day. I need to be eating around this much of this every day. Like it just creates a lot of awareness, and you're gonna do better than you think. But a couple things that you can do to loosen up the tracking is to just do things like that. Maybe make a meal that you that you track meticulously every single time. Make it without tracking it or without measuring it or you know, weighing it out. Eat it, see that nothing happens, nothing's gonna blow up, right? Your body's gonna be fine. And as you start to do that, you will gain more confidence and not having to track every single thing. Different ways to do this are to only track your weekdays and leave your weekends open. That doesn't mean to fuck around and find out on the weekends. That just means that you don't track the weekends. You stay on track, you eat exactly how you normally would, but you don't track it and you don't weigh everything. You just eat it because you know exactly what to eat because you've been tracking for so long. You can estimate your restaurant meals instead of trying to be so perfect, just estimate it. Or, you know, instead of weighing everything and researching the menu to an exact science, you can just type in whatever you're eating, manicati. You can type that into my fitness pal instead of typing in the exact restaurant, the exact portion size and the exact amount of bites that you had or something, just be a little more loose with it. Track protein only. That's a really good way to make sure you're still hitting your protein goal, but you're also being a little bit looser with fats and carbs. And then you can also just repeat meals that you already know well. Like I just said, if you have, like I already have my overnight oats every single day. I have my Greek yogurt every single day. I have my two packages of tuna with hummus and salsa every single day. I don't weigh out my tuna, I don't measure the tuna, I don't measure the hummus, I don't measure the salsa. I don't, I do measure the milk when I pour it into my overnight oats, but I don't track every single thing meticulously. I've created the meals inside of my fitness pal. I log them and I move on with my day. And if I eat something that looks like this is about six slices of turkey, even though they're all chopped up and it looks weird, yeah. I just put that in there. Or I just think, well, that's a sandwich. It's about 20 grams of protein. It is what it is. So tracking is a tool, it's not a lifestyle. Sentence. I don't want you to be tied to it forever, but those are ways that you can loosen up. I really think that tracking the weekdays only and then still staying on track during the weekends, but not logging every single thing, that'll help you loosen up a little bit. And then tracking the protein only, I think that will help you loosen up a little bit as well, just really, really slowly. But give yourself some grace. I mean, if you've been tracking long enough that you know your staple meals and you know what you're putting into my FitnessPal or, you know, whatever app you're logging in, you already know. Like, give yourself some grace, but also be confident in yourself. Be confident that like this is a tool, yes, but I can also make these decisions on my own. Just because I don't track it doesn't mean I didn't eat it. Just because I didn't weigh it doesn't mean that it's way off base. You're good. Like you're smart. You got this. Be confident in your choices. Question number six: where do I start if I have 50 plus pounds to lose? Don't think all about the pounds, is what I would say. Think about that being your goal. You have to break it down. Obviously, we want to break it down into like 10 pound increments so that you're hitting goals and feeling that momentum and feeling that motivation. But think about today, think about the basics. Everything is the same. If you're wanting to lose 50 pounds, if you're wanting to lose 20 pounds, if you're wanting to find your maintenance, you still have to worry about protein. You still have to strength train. You still have to walk eight to 10,000 steps, is what I love, right? You still have to track your food for two weeks and find your average. So start exactly where I'm saying it's not different. Different rules don't apply to different people in the beginning. Where do you start? You start where everybody else starts. Make a list of what you want to accomplish. I want to hit X amount of protein. I want to strength train X amount of days a week. I want to hit X amount of steps. Write those down and then figure out, okay, this week I'm going to focus on steps. Next week, I'm going to focus on workouts. Next week, I'm going to focus on protein or two weeks. For two weeks, I'm going to hit my steps. The next two weeks I'm going to work on strength training. There's no rush, but the list of things that you need to accomplish is the same. Where you start is exactly the same. So just make that list and go for it. You don't need to worry about anything being different. It's really not different. And I think a lot of the information out social media, what different coaches say, that's where it gets complicated, where you think, well, I need to do something else if my goal is only fat loss or if my goal is muscle gain. Yeah, you need to lift heavier if you want to gain muscle and eat a little bit more than if you want to just get consistent with workouts and lose fat. Yeah, like the amount is different, but the basics and what you do is exactly the same. It's exactly the same. Question number seven, I already kind of covered this. How long should I stay in a calorie deficit? Ask your body, am I recovering well? Am I making progress? Am I still even losing weight? Am I losing fat? Is the goal being accomplished here? Is my energy okay? Can I stay consistent with this or I'm starting to fall off? Maximum 12 weeks. Either way, 100%, whether it's a slow deficit, whether it's a very aggressive deficit. I don't want you there for more than 12 weeks. It's not good for your body. So the goal is not to be in the deficit for the longest amount of time possible. It's to be in a deficit for the shortest amount of time possible and still get the results that you want. But 12 weeks. Don't be in a deficit for more than 12 weeks. Question number eight. I'm in a surplus. How do I get comfortable eating more? This person who wants to eat more is something that I left out of the question on here. But this is mostly a mindset shift. And also, I guess it depends on why you want to be comfortable eating more. Some people are not comfortable eating more because they're actually full. When you go into a surplus, you're starting to get more full. I mean, I have clients sometimes that are like, I physically cannot eat anymore. I am so full. That's not true because if I gave you a bowl of ice cream, you'd figure out a way to eat it, right? So if you're feeling really full, but you're wanting to consume more and you just are like, I am so full, I can't eat anymore. Think about things that are higher calorie content with less food. So think about volume, meaning like you want to eat a lot of food for a smaller amount of calories. You almost want the opposite. You want to maybe drink a protein shake that has a really high calorie content. You want to eat foods that are higher in calories that will not fill you up. Unfortunately, these are usually more processed and not as quote unquote good for you. But if you're just wanting to pack on some muscle and, you know, go into a bulk, there's things like weight gainers and things like that. I used to have my son on a weight gainer shake because he didn't have time to eat a lot. He's in high school, which this girl is as well. So if you need to take a couple of shakes with you, if you need to take one shake that's a weight gainer that's just packed with calories and you just drink it and you're drinking all of your calories, do I want you like that forever? No. But if you have to do that for a little while, then it's okay. If you're not comfortable eating more because of, you know, society and as women, we're trying to be as small and we're told you don't eat as much and nothing tastes as good as skinny fuels. If it's more of like a programming thing, then I would say this is more of a mindset shift of muscle requires energy. Food is fuel. If you're trying to get strong, if you're trying to gain muscle, then you need food. Don't be scared of it. Like I've said in previous episodes, if you eat more and the scale goes up in a negative way and you start to gain fat quickly, you just stop eating that food. You just go back to what you were doing. You can always reverse it. So nothing is nothing is permanent, right? If you start to eat more and you're like, oh, I ate more too much too fast, we'll just cut back. It's not a big deal. But I think it just depends on how you get comfortable eating more, depends on why you're not comfortable eating more now. So if you want to message me and elaborate more on that, I'm happy to elaborate more on that as well. But I think it's either a mindset shift thing or just physically eating foods that are higher calorie and will not fill you up as much. Question number nine: should I carb cycle when in a deficit? For most women, no. Keep it simple, hit your calories, hit your protein, lift consistently. The carb cycling doesn't really matter a lot. So I wouldn't plan on carb cycling. There's not much benefit to that. And I know who wrote this in, and I know you definitely don't need to carb cycle, except that the lady who wrote this in is training for a half marathon, I believe it is. So if you're training for something where you do need more carbs to fuel your workouts or to fuel, but you said in a deficit. So I guess I should really stick with that. That's a different conversation. If you are training for something specific, I have been having this conversation with someone in the DMs too. If you're training for something that you want to be stronger in and faster in and compete in, you shouldn't be in a deficit, period. So if you're training for something, you need to be at maintenance or a surplus because your body needs fuel, just like we talked about in the previous question. Your body needs fuel, your body needs energy, and you have to fucking feed yourself to be able to compete. If you were to look at an athlete's food amount, it's massive. They're not trying to become smaller or lose weight or be in a deficit while they're trying to compete. So think about an athlete if you are in that situation. Carb cycling in a deficit, no, not necessary. I would keep it open though, you know, if if you're trying to cut and you're in your in you're in a deficit in the summer and you have a party coming up, like it was my son's birthday last week. We had cake and it was really freaking good cake. I'm trying to be in a deficit right now, but if there's cake in my house for a birthday party and it's good cake, I'm gonna eat it. So I'm not gonna be like that's essentially carb cycling. I'm just not calling it that. I'm not planning it, but I would just leave room for it more like that. Carb cycling in a deficit. No, you don't need to be doing that. And I could rant about that for a while, but that would take me out of the question being in a deficit part. So I don't want to do that. See where I'm at for time. Okay. Question number 10. How do I adjust my calories based on my workout that day? Strength andor strength training andor running. Generally, and in my opinion, almost never should you adjust based on daily movement. Your calorie goal should already account for your daily average or your daily activity average. One hard workout does not mean that you have to change your nutrition plan. If you're taking a rest day, it doesn't mean that you need to eat less or like not eat anything because you didn't move much that day. If you're not strength training or you're not running, it doesn't matter. I do not want any of my clients in particular to feel like they need to change their energy intake, meaning calorie intake based on their energy output. We are feeding our bodies consistently, no matter what. We're not earning our calories by running, we're not earning our calories or our food by strength training, we're not earning our food by working hard or steps. What we are doing is thinking of it as we are bringing in a certain amount of energy every single day to then expend the energy that our body needs for that day. Now, if you are strength training and running on certain days and you are feeling like you're hungrier on certain days, you can take your calorie average that you have for yourself and plan on eating more. Sometimes my clients are hungrier the day after a hard workout, too. So it's hard for me to say when you would want to spend those calories, right? If you're like, I need about 200 calories more on a lift day or a post-lift day because of my body's just more hungry. I would rather you base it on hunger than your training because then it's like a did I earn this? Do I deserve this? What did I burn? What did I bring in as far as calories? I don't like that. So you shouldn't adjust your daily calorie amount intake based on your daily energy. That's just not how it should work, unless you are an athlete, like we just talked about, and you need more calories or carbs right before a race or you know, something like that. But for the average woman, the average human, even, you don't need to adjust your calories. You should be consuming enough calories to maintain your body. Because if you're putting on muscle, you need to maintain that muscle even on a rest day. And I've talked about this in rest day episodes. I never change my calorie intake. I've been consuming the same amount of calories for months now, and my energy changes. Yesterday I didn't, I did hit my steps actually by the grace of God, the end of the day. And because it was a very crazy day, I was sitting on my ass a lot driving, not really planned, but it happened. I didn't get my workout in, but I consume the same amount of calories that I will today when I purposely hit my steps, probably go for a run and lift. So that's not how it works. And that also helps with food noise. It helps just keep this so simple when you're just consuming the same amount every single day, and then your movement happens. And it doesn't matter what you ate that day. It doesn't matter. That's just how it should be. Okay. Question 11. How do I know if I'm actually building muscle instead of gaining fat? So obviously, this is where a smart scale comes into play. If you are just seeing the number on the scale go up on a basic scale, you won't know if it's muscle or if it's fat for sure. Other than, of course, you're wanting to, if you're wanting to build muscle, I assume if you're asking this question, you're probably wanting to build muscle more than putting on fat. Most of us don't want to put on fat. You're gonna put on a little bit of fat and a build in a surplus, but you definitely want to use the smart scale and you also want to ask yourself these questions. Am I getting stronger? Can I lift heavier? Am I doing more reps? Is my technique improving? If those things are improving, those are good signs. And then I want you to look at progress pictures, measurements, how your clothes fit and your recovery. Don't let the scale be the only measure, but I want you to definitely see that. If your fat percentage is going up faster than your muscle mass is going up, then I want you to look at maybe not even the calories. You might not need to reduce calories. You might need to increase protein and fats, maybe take away some carbs, maybe add some carbs, take away fats. You might just need to redo your macros a little bit within those calories. I would try that first. And then you're gonna want to know, you know, is everything else in line? Some other things that could be happening is are you lifting enough? Do you have access to enough weights? Are your workouts programmed in a way? If you're working out from home, so you don't have access to a full gym. Are your workouts programmed in a way where you're still progressively overloading? You can work on tempo. Is your time under tension there? So there's definitely, you know, things that come into play as far as those types of things, making sure that you're gaining muscle instead of gaining fat, make sure you're increasing your weights and your reps and your tempo. Like I said, you can add a set. So I guess too, what I want to say is if you're asking this question, how do I know if I'm actually building muscle instead of gaining fat? That tells me you're in a surplus of calories. Because if you're worried about gaining fat, then you have to be in a surplus because if you're in maintenance phase, you're not going to gain fat. So that tells me again that you're in a surplus. If you are in a calorie surplus, that doesn't automatically equal muscle gain. You have to work for the muscle gain. So make sure if you're putting it yourself into a calorie surplus that you do it very slowly, 50 calories at a time. And this is why. So you can maintain or I guess keep an eye on your muscle mass and your fat percentage and see what you're increasing. And then you can also make changes. So if you increase by 50 calories one week and the scale goes up, well, is it muscle or is it fat? If it's fat, is your protein in a high enough place? If not, then increase your protein. So you can definitely look at those types of things. And then if you increased your protein to where it's kind of maxed out based on your weight, then you can look at the structure of your workouts. Add more sets, add some sprints to get your fast twitch muscle fibers moving. Make sure you're not doing a ton of long state cardio because running miles and miles is going to give your body a different sign than lifting heavy. We don't want, you know, contradicting things happening in the gym and with your cardio. So there's different ways that you can go about this. But how to know if you're actually building muscle, make sure you're getting stronger, make sure your lifts are getting better, make sure you're feeling your muscles growing. Make sure on physically in photos, you can see your muscles popping a little bit more. And then look at the scale. But that's really the only way that you can make sure. That's why smart skills are so, so important. So again, muscle is built if you're eating enough too. You have to be eating enough, you have to be eating enough protein. You have to be recovering well. If you are always lifting and always running and always moving, your body's not having time to recover. Those rest days where you're, again, not changing your calories and you're eating just as much, it helps your muscles recover. Your muscles only grow at rest when they recover. If they're always broken down and they never have enough fuel or time to grow, that's not going to be helping either. So make sure everything is in line with your build or with your surplus, and you should be gaining muscle more than fat. If not, again, hire someone, jump on a call, figure it out. Because the more time you waste messing around and guessing, well, I think this is, you know, how it's supposed to be. And maybe it's not. You could waste months, you could waste years when it's it's a simple hour phone call or a three-month programming, fit club, you know, community where you're asking questions and getting answers instead of even just waiting a week for another podcast episode to come out. I want you to do that too, but I really want you to get the help that you need personally. I think that's really, really important. So one last thing that I want to talk about here before I end this episode is one thing that these questions had in common. Very few of these were actually about calories, which I really appreciated and I really think is awesome. And I wanted you to take a moment to like congratulate yourself for that. These questions weren't so much about calories. I think you're really figuring that part out based on the series and the past episodes and just, you know, the podcast itself and who you're becoming. These were more about confidence. How do I know if I should do this? If I want to eat more, but how do I do that? Right. You wanted reassurance that you're doing it right. And I love that. So that's exactly what we're going to kind of continue talking about in next week's episode when we talk about food noise and also just again pulling this all together, because there are some really big benefits beyond the scale, beyond muscle, beyond physical things, where I guess, you know, that all of this kind of comes together, I should say. Now that you are learning more about calories, you're learning about the phases, you're learning about how to go from phase to phase and why. And these questions being most about how do I know if I'm doing this right or if I should do this, right? How long should I be in this phase? Not how much should I eat? These questions are getting more broad. They're becoming more long-term health focused. And I love that for us. I love that for you. Makes me so proud. It makes me so happy. And so I just wanted to take a minute to pat you on the back and tell you you're doing a great job and you're really taking this information and making it count. So thank you so much for all the questions. Again, if I didn't get to your question here, it's probably in the last few episodes. So go back and listen to those episodes as many times as you need to. If you don't hear it, ask again somewhere. I'm happy to put it in the next episode or QA episode. But I think this was really helpful and this should definitely give a general idea for most of you because we all have these questions at one point or another. So I think this was a really good nutrition QA wrap-up for what we've been talking about. And I'm super excited to talk about food noise next week. This is something that I've been hearing for a long time. But food noise is just, it's one of those terms that I've been hearing a lot lately. So we're gonna break it down and we're gonna talk about it. So thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Please go leave me a rating and a review. It actually means the world to me. And I love you so much for it. And I'll talk to you next week.
SPEAKER_00Thanks 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. And I would love it so much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time.