The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

205. WTF Are Macros (and Why You Can’t Ignore Them) | Macros Series

• Kristy Castillo

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I’m PUMPED to be kicking off a brand-new series on the podcast, all about…MACROS!


If you’ve been putting in the work at the gym, but still aren’t seeing the results you want, chances are your nutrition isn’t actually supporting your goals.


That’s where really understanding macros comes in (and why I’m here to help unf*ck them for you)!


You may be wondering “WTF are macros, really?!”. Basically, macronutrients are what food is made of - protein, carbs, and fats. They’re not another fad diet like Keto or Weight Watchers, and they’re different from calories. 


Most people think they’re eating healthy, but don’t actually know what their breakdown looks like. This step is sooo important, and you can’t skip it if you want to see long-term results with your health!


This series is all about education that leads to actual implementation, so you can start seeing the body recomp results you’ve been chasing. Let’s keep it real, simple, and unf*ck macros together!


Episode recap:

  • Why you can’t get the body you truly want without first understanding macros
  • The 3 macronutrients + what “tracking macros” actually means
  • Calories vs. macros + why knowing the difference changes everything
  • Why the breakdown of your food matters more than you think
  • The “all the rules” cycle that keeps women stuck in health & fitness + how to break free from it
  • What to do if you’ve already hit your macros for the day, but you’re still hungry
  • How eating intentionally and learning your body’s needs leads to more control + ultimate food freedom


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, Christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed with giving you simple action steps to take you from feeling stuck to feeling sexy. Let's go.

Speaker 2:

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to today's episode. I am excited to jump into this macro series. We are going to unfuck your macros and I'm excited so originally I had the idea to create a four-part series introducing macros, talking about what they are, how to track, why to track, why it's not obsessive, just really digging into. I guess the goal overall is to educate, education that leads to understanding and implementation of macros and tracking and really just this world that I talk about with body recomp.

Speaker 2:

It has to start with understanding this macro piece, because you can work out until you're blue in the face, you can work out two hours, seven days a week at the gym and you can run, you can do cardio, you can do all kinds of things physically and if your nutrition isn't in a place to benefit you to make those changes, all of that is going to be not for nothing, because you will build some muscle and obviously exercise and training is healthy for you. So it's not for nothing. But your body will not change and a lot of people get really frustrated Like I'm working out and I'm doing quote, unquote all the things, christy, but something's not working, I'm broken or something's wrong and it's really the fact that you don't understand macros, and so that is the goal here is education that leads to understanding, that leads to implementation. So I don't know how many episodes I'm going to go ahead and record. I think four is a good goal for me, but also, we know I like to over deliver. I like to explain things really, really well and, of course, I'm going to do a Q&A, like I've been doing. I really like doing the Q&As that way you get to take in this information and you get to respond to me, whether it be in a DM or I've gotten emails in response to my weekly emails asking questions or if it's just a comment on Spotify, I read them all and I want to take it all in and make sure that I am educating you, because I know that you have questions, so specifically answering those questions to give you more education.

Speaker 2:

So let's kind of dive in here, because, as much as I want to talk about just everything's kind of going on in my world, with my son starting school next week, my daughter kind of in limbo as far as what the future holds and you know summer's coming to an end, fall is on its way and how I feel about that, I feel like I also just want to dive right into this episode, but just to kind of wrap that up, things are a little crazy around my house, around these parts, if you will, and I definitely feel like I'm in a season of transition. As far as it is a season of transition going from fall to sorry summer to fall, going from fall to winter, going from winter to spring, spring to summer it's all a transition and I feel like I'm right here in the depths. But I also feel like this is a really good place to pile on this macro information, especially piggybacking off of the last few episodes talking about body recomp and workouts and the mindset and the nutrition and the yearly phases. This all goes together. So a lot of information, a lot of education that I hope that I know is going to benefit you so, so well. So in this episode I want to talk about what the fuck are macros. I want to answer that question for you and why are you stuck without them? Why a person will be stuck without them? Quite frankly, to put it very, very blunt to you, you can't get the body you really really want without understanding macros. I don't believe there is a person with a really strong, really fit, really healthy body.

Speaker 2:

That can, you know, run, whether you're talking about a distance runner, that person needs to be fueled in a certain way to look a certain way, to have their muscles grow a certain way, to be able to run for a long, you know, period of time. That person has to fuel themselves differently than a CrossFitter or a world champion. You know the heaviest lifter. A CrossFitter or a world champion, you know the heaviest lifter, world's strongest man, has to feel himself a different way than the endurance runner, and both of those have to feel themselves differently than I do, right? So we each have an individual makeup and we each have an individual life and we each have individual goals and never, ever, has someone achieved their goal, body, their goal for, let's say, like, it's a physical activity, right? Like if they want to run a race in a certain amount of time, or they want to lift a, do a high rock challenge in a certain amount of time or complete it. If there's a physical activity that you want to do and you have a goal for it, that doesn't happen on accident and a physical goal doesn't happen on accident either.

Speaker 2:

That's why you can be eating quote unquote healthy. You can be eating clean, you can be eating well, you can be tracking your calories, you can be in a calorie deficit, you can be all these things. You can be intermittent fasting, doing keto, insert anything you've tried. You can be doing those things and it still won't work for you long term, if even short term, and so you will feel stuck. Maybe not always feel stuck, but eventually, even if you're kicking ass and you're doing really great with intermittent fasting or keto or whatever it is Weight Watchers I could go on and on right Beachbody, whatever it is, weight Watchers, I could go on and on right Beachbody you will eventually get to the place where you feel stuck, and that's partly because it's a plan that has an end goal, like it has an end date of like.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you can intermittent fast, but you honestly can't kind of do that forever. You need to understand. You can't do that forever without understanding. You could do Beachbody programs forever, but you still need to understand they do have a start. Without understanding, you could do Beachbody programs forever, but you still need to understand they do have a start, they do have an end, they do have a purpose and things need to serve your goal. There needs to be a purpose and there needs to be tools in place that you can use to fulfill that purpose, to hit that goal time that you're wanting to achieve in that race, or hit that goal body or lift, lift heavier or whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

So if you feel like you are stuck which I know a lot of you do we're going to talk about that in a little bit too this will really, really help you. So if you feel like you've tried everything when it comes to food, if you've tried, like I said, eating clean, cutting carbs, intermittent fasting, skipping meals, tracking calories even and you're not seeing the changes that you want tracking calories even and you're not seeing the changes that you want, you're not broken. All of those things are not terrible. It's just that you're not understanding and this education and understanding has to be here. It just has to. You can't do it without and that's a lot of what I teach in my one-on-one coaching is just understanding how it applies to that particular person that I'm coaching. And then, inside of Fit Club, like your macros, your workouts, the way the reps you do, all the things right how you start this yearly phase where you're at in that phase, where you're at physically, where you're at seasonally. It all is relative, and so we need to understand that and how that works with our bodies, instead of just saying, oh, I'm just going to start eating low carb, not knowing why, what. How are you going to do that? What are you going to do when you're faced with carbs? What are you going to do when you're really hungry? What are you going to do when you don't want to do that anymore? So, thinking ahead, but really understanding.

Speaker 2:

So the first thing we're going to talk about is what the hell are macros? Again, let's start with the basics. So macros short for macronutrients are simply what food is made of. This is not a diet. This is not something magical. This is not like I'm doing intermittent fasting or I am intermittent fasting. You are tracking macros and you are tracking your calories. You are aware of it, but it's not a thing. I guess it's not like Weight Watchers, it's not keto, it's not a beach body. Macros are literally macronutrients that make up the food. That is calories. It's just the breakdown of calories. So there are three main macros which you probably know.

Speaker 2:

I talked about in an episode not that long ago about how protein is not the only macro you need to focus on. It's not the most important macro. Even. We need all three, and that's kind of where this idea for this series came from. I got a lot of messages after that episode saying tell me more about macros, tell me more about why I need all three, tell me more about what they do, tell me more. So here we are, the three main macros.

Speaker 2:

Macronutrients are protein, carbs and fat. A lot of people throw fiber in there too, and that's okay, but for right now anyway, we're going to be talking about protein, carbs and fat. That's it. It's not scary, it's not a diet, it's just data. You are just paying attention to what you are putting in your body and that, my friends, is really confusing to a lot of people and really overcomplicated and something that a lot of people just don't want to do, which is crazy to me. But you have to. You have to know this if you want to be healthy, really, really healthy, long term. So every time you eat, you're eating some combination of these three macros. They're not rules to follow. This is just building blocks to understand what your body needs and that it's just food. That way we don't fear food so much, because we understand. This is either a protein, a carb or a fat. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just a food, so we can kind of stop labeling.

Speaker 2:

When you hear people talk about tracking macros, all it means is that they're looking at the balance of proteins and the fats and the carbs that they're consuming in a day and they're using that balance, they're using that tracking information to help guide them towards a goal. So that's what tracking macros means. It's not. The tracking itself isn't magical. You know, people think I hear this a lot like well, I just I didn't track my food over the weekend because I knew I was going to go over, so I just didn't track it. Well, you still ate it, so you have to track it. Tracking it is the awareness. It's like tracking your money. If you spent money over the weekend, you're like oh, I just didn't track that on my budgeting because I spent too much money. Well, it's still gone. The money is still gone, so not tracking it isn't helpful. And therefore, tracking it isn't helpful if you're going to lie or you're not going to do it to the best of your ability and pay attention to it and use that data. If you're not going to use the data. If you're just going to throw your food into MyFitnessPal and shut the app and think, well, why didn't I lose weight? I'm tracking macros. Well, tracking is just a tool, it's not. It's like that's like buying a walking pad and then being like, well, I didn't hit my steps today. Well, you got to get on the walking pad and you have to turn it on. Like you can't just sit on the couch and be like, well, I bought a walking pad. I mean, come on. Like that's, that's not how it works. So when you hear people say I'm tracking macros, what they are doing is they know that they need a certain amount of each protein, carbon fat, and they are tracking that Because, obviously, looking at the back of food, you can see what's in there. But to remember what you've spent as far as macros each day, what you've consumed I say spent because I kind of use the money tactic there If you're spending money, you kind of maybe forget that you went to the drive-thru, or you forget that you went to the gas station and bought a pop or whatever. We forget that we I don't know donated money. You forget and so you have to track it. And that's exactly what macro tracking is for. The purpose can be for weight loss, it can be for fat loss, it can be for muscle gain, it can be for energy. It can be for weight loss, it can be for fat loss, it can be for muscle gain, it can be for energy, it can be for performance or it can just be to feel better and understand. So when you hear people say I'm tracking macros, what that means is they're looking at the balance of proteins, fats and carbs in all the foods they're eating. When you scan the UPC I scan the UPC of a food into my fitness pal it opens it up right there and it says 20 grams of protein, 13 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat, total calories. And I know, okay, that's where I'm at. So the next thing I eat I log it and then I can look at what I have left over and that way I know what I have to spend what I have left over and what I've already spent as far as my macro allowance for the day.

Speaker 2:

So now let's talk about calories versus macros. What's the difference? Because a lot of people confuse this. Calories are the total amount of energy in food. If you think about calories as energy, as our body needs food. It is energy. The macros are where those calories come from.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of people say there's, I don't know. Let me see I have an lollipop next to me. It has 40 calories in it. Well, that can either be from protein, or it can be from carbs, or it can be from fats, and this in particular, it has only carbs. So I am't track my Olipop for the day. That's 40 calories that is essentially going unaccounted for, and if you do that many times during the day, then your tracking is not accurate and you won't have a clear view. I'll say like every single day I'm drinking three Olipops. I'm literally not. But let's just say that adds up right, if every single day I'm not tracking three Olipops over the span of a week, that's a lot of calories that I've gone over, that are unaccounted for. So all those little things add up, all the little bites, all the little things.

Speaker 2:

So if you look at a food label that says 200 calories, these calories are coming from either proteins, carbs or fats. Each macro has a calorie value. Protein is four calories per gram, carbs are four calories per gram and fat is nine calories per gram. So think of it like this. Calories is the total, macros are the breakdown. You have $100, right, you can either have $100 bill, you can have a couple 20s, like fives, tens. How is that $100 made up? It's the same type of thing. So it's like going to the grocery store. You spent $200, but is that coming from food? Did you buy alcohol? Did you buy skincare?

Speaker 2:

Here's why it matters, because you could be eating the same amount of calories every day and getting drastically different results depending on the macros, depending on where those calories are coming from. And this is where most people are overeating or undereating and they're still not making progress. So let's dig into that a little bit, because you can be eating 1,600 calories a day, 2, 2000 calories a day. If you're eating all carbs and fats, you're going to kind of feel like shit. If you try to balance that out with some protein, you're going to feel better. So what you're eating, the makeup of your calories does matter. It does matter Overall. You know you hear a calorie deficit, that's what matters for fat loss. So, overall, you hear a calorie deficit, that's what matters for fat loss. Yes and no. But the makeup is how it's going to affect your body, how you're going to look how you're going to feel. Body recomp, building muscle.

Speaker 2:

Be real, most people don't know what they're even eating. Most people don't know that there's 40 calories in an lollipop, maybe, right, most people don't know what the food they're eating is consisting of. Yesterday I had a rally burger and, let me tell you, it messed up my stomach, but I had one Actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was yesterday. No-transcript, you're guessing. You're maybe going to look it up, you're going to scan it, which is fine, that would be great. But a lot of people just aren't going to track it and they're just gonna be like, oh, I don't even know how many funnel cake fries I had. I have no idea. So also, a lot of people are just skipping breakfast, having an iced coffee, eating a protein bar for lunch and then starving, essentially just picking at food all day and then eating 1200 calories in the evening because they're starving. So you're not paying attention throughout the day. That causes a lot of overeating. Or they're eating healthy.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people eat healthy. I have that said to me a lot. I'm eating super healthy. I eat really clean. I think I eat really healthy. That's just mostly the term that I get. I eat really, really healthy and I lift weights three days a week, but I'm not seeing the results that I want.

Speaker 2:

You're eating healthy, but you're not eating enough of what your body actually needs. And if you logged into MyFitnessPal, if you knew where your goals were for macros and you logged what you actually ate even if it's healthy, it's probably not what your body needs. It could be enough, it could be too much calories, but it's not the right breakdown of the macros. Otherwise you would look like how you wanted to. So the thing is is that you're not really doing anything wrong. I mean, you are in comparison to your goals, but you weren't really taught to look at food as fuel. You weren't really taught to count macros. You weren't really taught what the heck is a calorie? What do I need? What does that mean? It's just that we weren't taught this. We were taught to burn calories and restrict and earn our food, and so this is why you might feel stuck, tired, bloated, cranky, like you want to give up, like nothing's working. Because you're trying to eat healthy, you're trying to eat clean, you're doing this diet, you're stretching, you're weightlifting, you're walking, you're running, you're hitting your steps, you're tracking your calories, maybe even, but your body doesn't have what it needs to really even function properly, let alone thrive, let alone build muscle, let alone burn fat, respond how you want it to. So, not really your fault, because we've been in this diet cycle and here's what I want to see. And this is really, or here's what I want to talk about, and this is what I see, and this is why I wanted to do this series, just to kind of open with this episode talking about why the hell I wanted to talk about this in the first place.

Speaker 2:

I teach macros very practically. I teach them very personally. When you know, a client comes to me and I don't teach them in a way, that's obviously the facts. I'm going to teach in a blanket way. I can't change science. I can't change what a macro is, but how many a person consumes, how they consume it, the time of day they consume it. If I have nurses that are working 12 hours and they really can't grab food throughout the day, I'm going to coach that person differently or teach them differently than I am. A person like me who's working from home or working in an office right now where I have access to food because I packed it and brought it with me, but it's just, it's different. So this is the cycle that I see. It's like all these rules and you're stuck because it doesn't apply. You don't understand it. For one Like, why are there so many rules? For example, here's what I see all the time If someone starts a new program, cuts carbs, sticks to it for a couple days, has to meal plan, has to meal prep, but then goes to work right, they're working a 4-12 shift at the hospital and my nurses and or even like school teachers right, don't get a break every so often, and it's that plan feels like you're failing.

Speaker 2:

Because it's like well, when do I meal prep? This person says I have to meal prep every Monday and every Thursday. Well, that doesn't work for me because I have to go grocery shopping either those days or the day before, and that doesn't work with my schedule. Or I'm taking this food and I don't have a refrigerator to keep it in, or I have this food with me, but I don't really get to eat for literally eight hours at a time. So how can I keep myself full and get all this food that I need in a day when I don't have time? I don't get the breaks. I'm working hard. I don't have that flexibility. That person given this kind of program is going to feel like a failure, feel like they can't do it, it's not going to work for them Based on their lifestyle and schedule. They're failing and it's just not going to work. That's another reason why the diet cycle hasn't worked, but that's also why it's not.

Speaker 2:

Your fault is because you haven't been taught what macros are, why it really doesn't matter what time you eat them. It just matters if you get them in a day. Your body doesn't know that it's been 24 hours or seven days a week, it doesn't know what time it is, it doesn't know what day it is. You're giving your body calories, energy, and your body is spending those calories and that energy just whenever it can, so it doesn't matter. You don't have to be perfect like that. It's also this you know you gain a little weight and then you lose it, and then you gain it and then you lose it. That's so easy. That's an easy trap that I have a lot of clients fall into that are like I just it goes up and it goes down, and my weight goes up and it goes down, and I can't find consistency. That's where a lot of the I talked about before. I think it even lasted this episode.

Speaker 2:

The seven day a week average If you're taking an average of your calories in and an average of your calories out, that's going to be so much better than looking at. Yes, I want you to get on the scale every day. I would love for you to have the mindset where, okay, I got on the scale today and it's up a little bit Tomorrow. It's probably going to be back down. Two days ago it was, you know, like it is going to fluctuate and that's not a sign of my worth, it's just. It's just reflecting my body and that's fine, and then my choices and my movement or my sleep or anything. It's reflecting so many things stress, whatever. I would love for you to be able to get on the scale every single day.

Speaker 2:

But look at, maybe every Wednesday you compare Wednesday to Wednesday, and then that Wednesday to the next Wednesday and the next Wednesday to the next Wednesday, and then you go four weeks out, because for women, our 30-day cycle is crazy, and so maybe doing the second Wednesday of the month compared to the second Wednesday of the following month would be a very accurate representation, or should be, of how you were feeling the month before, instead of doing the up and down and up and down and then being like, oh my God, I quit. It's just every day I get on the scale, I'm up, and then I'm down, and I'm up and I'm down. This isn't working for me. That's not true, because it's just never has been taught in this way.

Speaker 2:

And that's what I want to talk about in this series, and these are the questions I want to get from you guys, so that I can teach you why. I don't just want to give you a list of foods and say these foods are carbs, these foods are fats, these foods are proteins. Here you go, you're on your own, figure it out from there. No, I want to teach you why and what they are, and why you need them, and why some of this stuff doesn't matter. I want you to really be able to focus on what does matter. So, this understanding of macros that we're gonna be talking about in this series, it gives you options, it gives you flexibility, it gives you confidence, it's going to give you control and, ultimately, I want you to feel so good coming out of this series when I'm finished with it, when I've done the Q&A and I feel like, yes, we're getting it, we've unfucked the macros.

Speaker 2:

I really want you to feel all of those things Like you have options, like you can be flexible, like you can fit it into your life. That will leave you feeling in control and that will leave you feeling confident. And that is my goal for all my clients that I ever work with is just to have that confidence in themselves, in food, in their workouts, in their routine. And you really can't get to where you want to go physically, mentally, emotionally, all the things you know without having that confidence. You have to be confident in a plan. If you want to run a six-minute mile for a half marathon, you have to be confident in the plan that you're doing. If you want to gain muscle and lose fat, you have to be confident in the plan that you have. You have to be confident in the food that you're eating and the workouts that you're doing. And unless you are, all the things that you're doing are just going to lead you to frustration. All the things that you're doing are just going to lead you to frustration.

Speaker 2:

So the last thing that I really want to talk about is intentional eating. So when you understand what macros are. Calories is overall fuel, energy. You break that down into these macronutrients and that's it. I hope that that helps you to understand. Like I said, all food is not good and bad. It is just carbs, it is just fats and it is just protein. It really allows you to understand that piece, and that piece alone is really, really helpful, because I had a client not that long ago asked me if I have something to the effect of if I've already eaten all of my calories for the day. All my macros are full and I'm done eating. I think I'm done eating.

Speaker 2:

I've tracked everything and I hit my macros or hit my calories, and I'm still hungry, like really, really hungry, and I've teached my one-on-ones hunger cues. Make sure you are actually hungry, you're not bored, you're not just frustrated, you're not trying to eat, your feelings like your stomach is growling and you are actually hungry. If that's the case, I do want you to eat more food because your body, as you start to eat more food and you gain more muscle and you start to do this body recount process, you will be hungrier than you are when you start, because your body will start to use these macros and love it and you'll be hungrier, which is the goal is to eat as much as possible and still look and feel amazing and lose weight and be at your ideal weight, whatever your goal is. And so I said yes, if you are actually hungry, I want you to eat more, even if you have already met your calorie goal for the day, because maybe even the next day you might not even be hungry enough to eat all your calories, because our hunger's fluctuating all the time. And she said well, I should probably eat protein then, because I'm sure you don't want me to eat carbs or fats if I'm going to go over my calories. And I said well, protein and carbs both have four calories per gram. Fat has nine calories per gram, so fat, calorie wise, adds up twice as fast because there's a little more than twice as many calories per gram. But I said I honestly don't care what you fill those calories with.

Speaker 2:

If you're hungry, a good balance of protein, carbs and fats is going to fill you up the best and make you feel good, whereas if you just grab some Oreos, yeah, you're going to feel like God damn, those were good. And you're also going to feel like I also want more and more and more. So having a balance is what you want always with every meal. But I think people always think I want to have protein. If I'm going to go over or if I'm going to eat more of something, I want it to be protein. Well, in reality, carbs are just as many calories per gram that protein is.

Speaker 2:

And I remember saying that to my client. She was like, oh, I've actually said that to a couple of people lately, but this one I specifically remember and she was like oh my God, I never thought of it like that, like I'm over here thinking carbs are so bad and I definitely don't want to have ice cream, I definitely don't want to have pretzels, I want to have chicken. And yeah, they digest differently. But at the end of the day, when you're learning this, it's really important to remember carbs are fine, fats are fine, protein is fine too. But don't demonize carbs and fats, because calorie-wise, protein and carbs are the same and fats are good too. You're going to get fuller faster if you're eating fats, so there's nothing wrong with that either. But that was something that I thought was interesting and I think will help a lot of you too. So, as you are learning this and you have the education and the understanding, you will start to eat more intentionally. You will start to track food with whatever app you use. You will start to order different foods at restaurants. You'll start to plan. You'll start to say I think I'm going to have this chicken salad instead of the fettuccine alfredo, because I can have the chicken salad and I can have some of the bread that's on the plate at the restaurant, or I can have a snack when I get home, right, whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

I had a client recently hit a pretty big milestone, going under 200 pounds. She has a one in front now so exciting. And she was like my husband wanted to go out for ice cream and I knew that if I did go out for ice cream it would have been fine, and she's made that choice before that. The scale wouldn't have gone down. She knew I was, so she's like I'm so close. So she had a Yasso bar, which is just a Greek yogurt ice cream bar so freaking good, by the way instead, and so it was lower calorie and she ended up hitting her goal weight the next day because she made that choice. She intentionally decided I want to have this Yasso bar instead of this full out ice ice cream because I wanna hit my goal weight tomorrow. And she's been tracking and doing this long enough about six months, I think, maybe actually longer, a little bit longer. So she's been doing it long enough to know she's intentional, she's intuitive, she knows what her body is gonna do, how it's gonna react to these foods, and that is because of the education I've given her, the understanding that she's grasped and now she's able to eat intentionally.

Speaker 2:

And when you can eat intentionally, you know that you don't have to track forever. Tracking is not obsessive, it's a tool, it's awareness. So if we're kind of a control freak kind of a person, it takes that out because it gives us the control. It's not a food list, it's not you can and can't have, it's not good and bad foods, it's here's what you need in a day, and then you have full control to eat a little bit more or eat a little bit less, and that is freedom. And so it's intentional eating, it's not obsessive eating.

Speaker 2:

I want to make sure that I make that distinction here in this episode, because as we go through and talk about macros and we talk about tracking, a lot of that stuff comes off in a way that I think people think, oh, this is too obsessive, I'm type A and I'm going to want to hit these macros perfectly. And if I don't hit every day perfectly, I'm going to feel like I'm a failure and I'm going to want to quit, and sure that happens. That's happened to me a few times, depending on how I was taught, the times that I was taught. Before I really understood macros, I was taught it by a few different people in a way that I have to hit a certain amount of macros every single day and it has to be clean, clean, clean food and I have to work out in a certain way, otherwise I'll never reach my goals, and that is not true. Then I was also taught macros as in the way of you have to track everything but you can eat whatever you want. It doesn't have to be clean, it doesn't have to be 100% healthy. You can. You know that I-I-F-Y-M if it fits your macros, literally anything's possible and there's a good balance between the two of those.

Speaker 2:

But I thought if I'm going to fill my macros with anything, I'm going to be kind of crazy with it. I'm a little reckless. I love Cadbury eggs, I love mini eggs, like I love Oreos. I'll just down two, three protein shakes a day and eat my carbs and call it good. Well, that is going to give me again what you fill your calories with. That three protein shakes a day and Oreos and Cadbury eggs is not as healthy and easy for my body to digest as if I was eating healthy, balanced meals. And so when I realized there is a balance of eating healthy, balanced meals and then also enjoying my life and going out to eat and choosing the best option that's on the menu, if that's what I have access to, there is a way to do both, and once I figured that out, I was very intentional with okay, what do I want this to look like for myself? How do I want to feel? Yeah, I mean, ideally.

Speaker 2:

I've gone through the process of only eating clean foods, only eating whole foods, and then I decided I don't really want my kids to see me doing this. We would go out for fro-yo and I wouldn't have any, or I would act like it was the worst thing in the world if I had it, and I thought this is not how I want my kids this isn't. Honestly, I'm not enjoying this. This is actually terrible. That's probably when I was stealing pizza crusts out of the trash can and stealing donuts out of my son's donut bags because I wasn't allowing myself to have it in public or in front of other people, but then, behind closed doors, I'm probably overeating and stealing all this food secretively, right? So that wasn't great. So I wasn't happy with it first and foremost, and then secondly, I didn't want to be out with my family, not enjoying ice cream with them. I didn't want my kids to think ice cream was bad. I wanted them to have a balanced, realistic view and mindset around food, and so I had to get real with what I want.

Speaker 2:

I really wanted to understand macros. I really wanted to understand how can I make this work for me? Everything can't be bad, everything can't be good. You know there has to be a give and take here, and I want to understand it for myself. Yes, I went through all of those obsessive traits and those obsessive timelines, and that's actually normal.

Speaker 2:

When you start tracking, you will think I need to be perfect and you don't. You will think this is obsessive and I have to track every single thing. Okay, you don't, you should, but if you mess up, it's okay. Or if you're out to eat and you're like I don't know what's in this salad, I don't know how to track this. Or if you made something at home and you don't know how to track it, best guess, just track something. Track something If you're eating chili and you don't know what's in it, track lasagna. That's not a much easier, that's not a good option, that's not a good example, but you know what I mean. Like track pizza, I don't care. Like put something in there so that you tracked something.

Speaker 2:

But the more you do this and the more balanced you get with your meals no-transcript and they're like oh shit, all these years I've not been eating pizza or rice or Oreos or whatever. It is thinking it's going to make me fat and it's not. And I'm not even getting any skinny or not eating those things. So you know we get stuck and that's why this macro piece will help you to feel unstuck. So that's just a very I mean it's a brief and it's also not a brief. I mean we talked about what macros are, just as far as carbs, fats, proteins, and those make up the calories in your food. So hopefully that changed your mindset a little bit. Just as far as what they are. Hopefully the carbs, protein, calorie to gram ratio helped you a little bit too, and that's what I want this to be is not like any other you know macro series that you've heard.

Speaker 2:

I want this to really be a good breakdown and a really good, authentic, real talk of what the hell are macros and how the hell do I track them. And how do I do this without being perfect? Remember that seven-day average, 14-day average, 30-day average. A lot of people think, god, this was the worst month ever. We had two vacations and weekends out. And when they look back and track, they're like, oh, I actually lost two pounds and I actually did pretty well with my tracking. I wasn't as bad as I thought. So tracking really, really helps you to see what you did well as well as where we messed up.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but if you're not tracking, you don't have any of those wins and we automatically go to the negatives of oh, but if you're not tracking, you don't have any of those wins and we automatically go to the negatives of. Oh, there were so many days that I didn't hit my macros. Well, there were some that you did, and let's take those into account too, because all of that matters, all of those little wins matter so much. So we are going to continue the education and the understanding so that you feel empowered and that you can take action. We're going to be diving into protein and carbs and fats and what they are and what they do and why they're important, because I know there's a push there's always a push of protein, and protein is really, really important and we'll dive into that. But so are carbs and fats, and I'm going to talk about just what they are and take the fear away from carbs and let you know why you need them, and then we will build on the basis of what macros are and really turn this into why does that matter and how can this affect us.

Speaker 2:

And then, like I said, keep asking me questions after every episode, during every episode, however you want to do it, when a question pops into your head. I would prefer if you went to Spotify and left a comment with a question under each episode so I can keep it in one place. But if you're listening on Apple and you don't have a Spotify membership, that's totally fine. Just send me a message, preferably also at ChristyCastillo Fit. I will probably make a folder on that account, not the podcast page on Instagram, so that I can keep the messages all in one place and if you do message me a question, I probably will not send back an answer. I will say great question, I will answer this on the podcast because I won't be able to answer it on the podcast and send that many messages at once.

Speaker 2:

But I really do appreciate your feedback and I really do love your questions because it really helps me to know the way you word questions and when you ask me questions, it helps me to get inside your head and I'm like oh, this is how this person is thinking about macros, or this is how this person has been taught. This is their mindset. How can I word it to get you out of it? So it kind of makes me think of you as my one-on-one client. I think, okay, if you asked me that question, this is literally how I would answer it. So give me as much background, give me as much information as you can, as you're asking these, but it's really, really helpful. So I'm super excited to dive into this and I hope you are just as excited to learn about it. I think it's going to be really, really helpful. So I can't wait to continue this discussion in the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to today's show. Go ahead and leave a rating and a review and, of course, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. So much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo fit. I will see you next time. Bye.