The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

207. How to Start Tracking Macros Without Becoming Obsessed or Losing Your Mind | Macros Series

• Kristy Castillo

Share episode

I’m excited to keep our macros series rolling today, because it’s not enough to just “know” what macros are. The magic happens when you actually START tracking them! 


This isn’t about being “perfect”, or obsessing over every bite. It’s about awareness, creating habits, and finally understanding how your nutrition lines up with your goals. 


If you’ve ever felt like tracking was “too much,” overwhelming, or just plain confusing, this episode is going to make it feel sooo much more doable!


Real talk: if you’re not measuring, you’re just guessing. You can’t “guess” your way into a stronger, leaner, or healthier body. Tracking gives you the clarity to see what’s really going on, and from there, you can decide where to adjust. 


That’s where the freedom comes in, because you learn what works for you without cutting out foods, or living by certain “food rules”!


Remember - tracking macros is NOT about being perfect. It’s about building consistency, awareness, and creating the body (and confidence) you want!


Episode recap:

  • Why tracking macros really matters (and NOT obsessive)
  • Simple ways to start tracking + make it feel doable
  • How to set macro targets that match your goals
  • Tools & tips to make tracking easier and more effective
  • Common mistakes to avoid when tracking your food
  • Why macro tracking actually gives you MORE freedom with food
  • Action steps you can start implementing this week


Links/Resources:

Send me a text with episode ideas or just to say hi!

Support the show

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'm really excited to continue our conversation today about macros. The macro series is going really really well and I'm getting a lot of feedback and a lot of just questions, but positive things saying that this has really been helpful. So I'm really glad to continue and talk today about tracking macros and kind of how to track macros without losing your mind, some tips and tricks and how to calculate some macros, all the things.

Speaker 2:

So we've talked about what the fuck are macros and we've talked about why you need to learn what macros are and figure that out and not just wing it because they are really, really important and then now we get to put it into practice. And just because you know what macros are doesn't mean that's not the magic right. It's not like oh okay, well, now I understand macros and I know why I need proteins, fats and carbs, like I get it and it's not obsessive and you know why I need to do it. But that's not gonna help you change the look of your body or even your mindset, just knowing what they are. Likewise, tracking your macros just tracking them isn't going to. That's not magical either. That's not going to really result in any progress. Just writing down what you eat and putting it in an app, like just tracking your food and trying to hit your macros like that's not the magic part either. It's not the act of doing it. It's really paying attention to it and tweaking things and being consistent and all of that. So this is an important part that we need to put into play, because it doesn't matter if you understand proteins, fats and carbs, if you're still eating way too many calories or you're not hitting your protein goal, you're not hitting your carb goal. None of it matters unless we put it into play. We can have so much education, like a lot of us do, a lot of you do, I understand, but it's not work. I don't know how to do it. So that's where this comes in. So I'm really excited to talk about this. It's kind of the application of everything that we've been talking about. So that is what we're going to be diving in today. What is macro tracking Like? What is the freaking point? How to do it without being obsessive and without getting overwhelmed, and how to set up your macro so they actually meet your goals. So, also, before I get into this, I want to talk about next week. We are going to be talking about.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm going to answer questions, so any questions that are already in Spotify, in the comments you can comment, of course, say hello, or you can ask a question, which I get a lot of over there. So I'm going to answer those questions as best I can there on Spotify I'll type something back. It limits me on what I can, on how many words I can say. I don't know what I'm trying to say. It limits me, so it's hard to kind of get into it there. But I'm going to take all of those questions hopefully all of them and answer them in next week's episode.

Speaker 2:

And then I also want to talk about how to stay consistent with macros in real life, talking about plateaus and being bored and going out to restaurants and vacations like real life applications, because this isn't just oh, now I know how to do it and it sounds great. After you listen to this episode, you're going to feel like that. But how do we actually do that in real life situations, right, right. So I want to talk about that next week. So I wanted to say that only to say please leave me any questions that you have up until now, or any questions at all, I guess, about macros and I will answer them in next week's episode and then, if there are too many for one episode, along with the info that I want to give out next week, I will grab the ones that I think apply right now, currently where we're at, and then I will do a Q&A episode after, probably after the fourth. So we'll see how it goes. But that's I just wanted to say. Ask me all your questions, get it all out there. I want them all so I can explain them to you.

Speaker 2:

Okay, but if you have ever felt like tracking was like too much, you feel like it's too time consuming, it's too overwhelming I become obsessive with macros. I can't do it. It's not for me. It's fine, but I tried it. I didn't see any progress. This is going to clear it all up and make ramble, but we all know I'm going to ramble. Yes, I'm going to rattle these off as quickly as I can, but also explaining and you know deep diving as well. But I do have a lot of information to cover. So, super excited, let's dive in, all right.

Speaker 2:

So tracking macros matters, because if you are not measuring, if you don't have the data, then you don't know what you're doing. You can't change what you don't track. If you don't measure it, it's like it never even happened. You can't guess your way into a different body. I feel like we've all kind of tried that right, like I tried to cut calories and I added more protein and I'm doing HIIT four times a week instead of two, and you know you're kind of, you're trying but nothing is working. This is kind of the same thing with macros, right, like I've tracked it here and I got my macro targets off of the internet and I think they're right, but I'm not sure. So it's just like trying to be sure and you have to.

Speaker 2:

If you've been tracking a certain macro target for a while and you're like I've been eating this amount of calories and these macros every single day for two months and I've seen no change in my body, well then we know you're in maintenance phase. But if you're like well, I've tracked most days, but then the weekends I go out and I don't really want to track that, well then shit, I don't know what to tell you really, because we just can't. It's like saying like, well, I made all this money at work and then I spend it all but I don't really know where I went. Well, no one does. No one knows where it went. Unless you know, unless you keep track of where it went, then you don't know.

Speaker 2:

It's like where am I spending too much money? Am I going out to eat too much? I mean maybe, but if you don't know where your money went, then I can't help you save it. If you're just going to go spend it random places and not pay attention, I can't help you save it. If you're not going to, if you're just going to like increase protein a little bit but not track it, I can't help you know if you're eating enough, because I don't know how much you're eating and neither do you. So it's really about being aware. It's. Yeah, we do need to have number. They don't need to be perfect. I'm nowhere in there that I say you need to not spend money on fun things or not. You know, not have any fun foods or hit every macro perfectly, but we need to know what you've been doing so that you can be aware of it.

Speaker 2:

Right, most of the women I work with are either under eating or over eating. They're not sure. They're not sure Rich If I'm like. If you had to guess, are you over eating, under eating, do you know? And they're like I'm not really sure because I don't track because that's obsessive and crazy. Why would I do that? But in reality it's just giving you information. So if you think of tracking as giving you information, that makes it become less obsessive because you're not really judging yourself. You're just getting that awareness of where the hell did my calories go. This is how many calories I'm supposed to have, and now we know that. We're all adults here. We know our body, my body, needs a certain amount of calories. It's probably different than the amount of calories that your body needs. We all need different calories. But if I'm not paying attention and tracking how many calories I'm having, then I don't know if I'm under eating or overeating and that's not going to help me reach my goals. I can try and try and try new things, but it would be easier rather than trying new program and hiring a new coach and all the shiny things. It would be easier and way less time consuming if you just tracked your food. Let's be real. That would be easier.

Speaker 2:

I don't know why we don't do it. But here we are. We're gonna start today, but you don't have to do it forever. Also, tracking macros matters in the beginning, because it's that awareness, it's that knowledge and you're like oh, I thought I was eating enough protein. Maybe I'm eating more protein now than I was last month or last year. Like Christy, I've really increased my protein, I'm doing really great with it and that's awesome. We want you to make progress toward the goal. But if I set your goal at 140 grams of protein and you've been consuming 110, maybe that was more than the 80 grams the day you were consuming last year. This year you're consuming 110. Well, we still have work to do, don't we? So just because you're doing better doesn't mean we can just stop there and say that and be done with it. We can't.

Speaker 2:

So tracking is not obsessive. In fact, most of the time, the women who feel obsessed with it or think they're going to become obsessed with it myself included find freedom when they finally do start tracking, and because it takes the guesswork out, and especially if they start with the mindset of just having that education and having that knowledge and not judging themselves. So it doesn't have to be perfect. Let me say this loud and clear for the type A perfectionist, obsessive, like to be in control mamas like myself.

Speaker 2:

Macro tracking is not a pass fail test. You don't get a grade for it. You don't have to hit your numbers perfectly. You don't lose points if you're off by a few grams. You won't mess up your entire week if you go over fat one day. Your job is to get consistent at it, it's not to be perfect and that is why you're obsessive with it, because you're trying to be perfect. You're trying to hit it every single day, every macro, every calorie rate on the head, and you're not going to do that. Some days you're going to hit calories and your macros are going to be messy. Some days, your macros are going to be perfect and your calories are going to be a little off. Who cares? Who cares?

Speaker 2:

I've said before, your body doesn't know what day it is. It's true. Take your weekly average. Take your week after week after week progress and focus on that from day to day, morning to morning. If you're weighing yourself cool, take that as also information. But don't judge yourself on it, because most people quit tracking because they treat it like I'm failing at this.

Speaker 2:

I'm not good at this. This was a test my coach gave me. I can't do it. It's too time consuming. It's too hard, I'm not good at it, I suck, I can never hit these macro targets right, and you don't have to. We just have to have that awareness, especially in the beginning. So it needs to be not perfect, but it needs to be consistent. You don't have to hit your macros in the beginning In fact, I don't want you to do that but it does need to be done. You have to track everything. You have to track everything, and I don't care if that hits your macro goals or not. But without tracking everything, we just don't know what we're doing or how to improve. So let's talk about how to start tracking, because now that I've talked a little bit about the mentality of not being perfect, you're like well, what exactly do I do then? So, very simply, obviously you're going to download a tracking app.

Speaker 2:

I like MyFitnessPal, I like Macros First. I like MyNetDiary and I like the Lose it app. And I've heard good things about Chronometer, but I've never used that personally, so I can't speak on that for myself, but I do like the back end of it. I use it for clients and I do like it when they log and show me. I like how it's set up. So macros first MyFitnessPal, loseit Cronometer, mynetdiary.

Speaker 2:

Now you're going to download that tracking app, you're going to log in, you're going to get everything set up and then you are going to track. Yeah, I know MyFitnessPal will ask you know what's your age, height, weight, what's your weight loss goal, how long do you, or how quickly do you want to reach that goal? Blah, blah, blah. You can set that stuff. It's going to give you some macro targets. I don't really care about those. I don't really care. I don't want you to hit those Period. I don't want you to hit those, not right away. And then I want you to track what you normally eat. Do not try to hit those macro targets that the app gives you.

Speaker 2:

Track what you normally eat, because what you have normally eaten for however many months, years, whatever now has gotten you to where you are, and you need to know how you got to where you are. So, track for seven days. A lot of coaches are going to say track for three to five days. No, because you're going to do that on your perfect days. You're going to track some pretty days, some nice, easy days when you didn't mess up. I want your nasty days. I want your messy days. I want the days where you, like me today, have had rice cakes, a donut and some cookies. I want you to have those days, because that's real. That is reality. I want you to track for seven days and then I want you to get the averages of that seven days. And then I want you to track for another seven days and I want you to get the average of that 14 days.

Speaker 2:

Don't change anything, just track it. Look at your macro breakdowns. Look at how much protein you're getting. What's your fat and carb intake? What is going on? What are you actually eating? Right? Don't judge it, just be like oh well, this is what I've been currently doing.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people are like no wonder I'm gaining weight. This is why. Because I didn't know, right. You don't know unless you track it, unless you measure it. So this is a tool. If you forget to track something, keep going. You don't need to start over. It is what it is.

Speaker 2:

I want you to try to track every single thing, but I realize that's hard in the beginning because you're not used to it. So this is gonna allow you to check your averages. It's gonna allow you to input information. It's going to allow you to start a new habit which, yeah, you might fuck it up the first few days and be like oh my God, I forgot to log my breakfast. You can log it later, but if there's little things that you didn't have, you know you forgot, it's fine.

Speaker 2:

But a simple way to log everything is, if you don't have time to put it in the app, right there which that's one reason that I like MyFitnessPal you can take pictures of your food, you can scan the UPC code. You can do it really, really simple. You can actually voice, talk into it and say I'm having a pumpkin donut, this brand, whatever, and it just puts it right in there for you. But if you don't have the time to even like kind of open your app and do that, please just take a picture of it or keep the wrapper and take a picture of that. But you have to take a picture of it so then later you can go back and put it all in the app. So taking a picture of things is really helpful because we're like oh, I'll remember. No, we won't. I'm 44 years old, I'm not remembering anything, so take a picture.

Speaker 2:

But I do like the MyFitnessPal app, for that's how you're going to start. A lot of people are like I have to. It's so complicated, it's not Download the app and track your food in there for seven to 14 days. By 14 days, you're going to remember to track your food. You're going to know how to work the app. You're going to have looked around a little bit. You're going to kind of you got your feet wet, you're ready to go. Okay, that is also good. We want to know how to use the app.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, on day one, I don't want you to try to be learning a new app, learning the username, password, all the buttons where's the things? Where's the tracking thing? What are my target? You know you don't know what you're doing. So just slow down, track your food and then, after 14 days, look at your breakdown. What are you doing? What's been going on, what got you to where you are? And then we are going to set some macro targets.

Speaker 2:

So now that you know what you have been doing you have your calories, you have your macro breakdowns you can start improving one meal at a time. You could probably actually, after seven days, you're like okay, this is what I'm currently doing. You can start to clean it up a little bit. Then, if you're like God, I do really well until dinner and then I'm starving, so I eat too much at dinner. Or I really want sweets after dinner and I'm not full enough, so I just eat like crazy. If you're starving at dinner, you need to eat more earlier in the day. If you're really wanting sweets after dinner and you're like, no, we're not going to do that, we're not eating after 8 pm. I'm intermittent fasting or I'm not having this. Whatever, yeah, you are, you're going to have it. Because what you're going to do is say, no, I'm not going to have any Oreos tonight.

Speaker 2:

And then 1030 comes around. You're like I am eating a whole freaking row of Oreos because I've. I just can't take it anymore. Right, so just plan them into your day, just put them in there, trust me, thank me later. Put some Oreos in your day, you're welcome. But do it late at night because it gives you something to look forward to. You're going to eat anyways. That's how I was. I was always thinking I'm not going to have snacks, whatever. I'm going to tell myself, no, I'm going to brush my teeth and go to bed, no, and then I would have the food anyways. So just plan on it being there so you can improve little things like that.

Speaker 2:

But after that, I want you to set some macro targets. Now this is tricky because everybody's like how the hell do I set some macro targets? Again, this does not need to be absolutely perfect, but in order to start setting macro targets, we need to know what your goal is. So, are you trying to lose fat? Are you trying to maintain your weight? Are you trying to build muscle? Your macros should reflect that. There's a ton of stuff online and there's stuff in, even in my own podcast, and I can dive into this. Let me know in the comments on Spotify if you're like yes, dive into setting these macro targets. If it's not enough here, it probably will be, especially to begin with. But you have to know your goal, because I've talked about this before. So, yeah, you're probably like no, christy, we've heard you, we've heard your thoughts on this, I'm good.

Speaker 2:

But right, like, if you take your 14-day average and over that 14-day time span you've not lost one single pound the weight, the scale is not moving. That means you're in maintenance. You are maintaining that weight for 14 days. That would be maintenance for 14 days. So the calories you've consumed over those 14 days, that's your maintenance. Now, if you're trying to lose fat, you would be in a deficit. If you're trying to gain or build muscle, you want to be in a surplus. If you're good at maintenance and you're like I'm really happy with this weight, you just want to change some muscle mass fat percentage, stay in maintenance.

Speaker 2:

But you have to know what your goal is to be able to set your calories. So how you do that is to estimate your calorie needs based on do you want to lose fat? Are you good where you are? Then you already know your calories. If you're in maintenance, do you want to build? Add two to 300, right, so you can use an online TDEE, which is your total daily energy expenditure calculator, to get your estimated maintenance calories. This gives you a starting point. This is not a prison sentence. You are not married to this for any amount of time. This is a starting place. But get that TDEE. It's going to be based on your stats and then from there you'll have your estimated maintenance calories so that you know if they align with the maintenance calories you just calculated over the 14 weeks.

Speaker 2:

From there, you want to set your protein target. So you now have your total daily energy expenditure and you want to divide that out. Now that's your calories. You want to divide that out based on your goal, whether you added calories or subtracted. You want to now break that down into your macros. You're going to set your protein target first. This is the most important macro in body recomp for now, in the beginning, because most people are under eating this.

Speaker 2:

So a good range to aim for is one gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight. So if your goal body weight is 150 pounds, you should aim for 150 grams of protein. Now, if you have tracked for 14 days and you divided out that and you have your daily average and you're consuming 60 grams of protein per day on average, I do not want you to start from 60 grams of protein tomorrow, having 150 grams of protein if that's where your goal should be. If that's your goal body weight is 150 grams, I don't want you consuming from 60 that you did yesterday to 150 grams today. Your digestive system will be no good. We don't want to do that. So we want you to go gradually. Okay, I want you to set these targets, but then I want you to work gradually toward them. So, again, set your protein goal for one gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight. Set that goal, but that doesn't have to be what you hit tomorrow. It's not an emergency, okay, and then I want you to divide the rest of your calories between carbs and fats. A good starting point for most of the women that I coach and this is pretty general is 35% protein, 35% carbs and 30% fat.

Speaker 2:

If I'm calculating your macros in the app, especially with a one-on-one client, or if we hop on a call to discuss macros or something like that inside of the app, if you are inside of my app, you can book a call with me, an hour-long call where we talk about all these things, and I can calculate all of this for you. If you don't want to work one-on-one with me, or if I'm not taking on any new one-on-one clients which right now I'm actually not taking on one-on-one clients but if you're in the app, you can book an hour call with me and we can set your macros and I'll really explain it, and that's an amazing feature. I've loved having conversations lately with ladies and it's just so helpful for me to say, yes, do the workouts in the app or do these workouts that you're doing? These are your macros. Once you hit this, try for this. Once you hit this, try for this to kind of walk them through it. It's just so helpful, walk them through it, it's just so helpful.

Speaker 2:

But that's a good starting point. 35% protein, 35% carbs and 30% fat. That's a good starting place. You can adjust from there based on how you feel. If you're like I'm always under carbs and I'm always over in fat but I hit my calories, that's fine. Just change them to where you can have more fats and take some carbs away, that's fine, especially in the beginning. You don't have to figure all of it out by yourself.

Speaker 2:

If you have questions, I'm here and I do set up macro targets inside of the app for everybody. But it's it doesn't have to be perfect. Even inside the app I'm like these are your starting macros based on your progress. In the next few weeks, months. We'll we'll tweak as needed. But even in the app I've never met you. I don't know other than the information you give me in the app. I don't know you. So it's my best guess for your starting place. I know that feels better coming from someone else rather than you just being like well, chatgpt told me I mean chat's great. I do love ChatGPT, but it's easier to have a conversation with someone and kind of explain where you've been, what you've been doing, so that I can get a little more accurate and explain it to you. But anyway, not necessary. Just a thought If you're like I still don't think I would trust myself to do this and you need some guidance. I'm here, so let's talk about tracking tools and tips. There are some things that will make tracking a little bit easier.

Speaker 2:

Using a food skill to get familiar with portion sizes is great. Just tell yourself it's not obsessive and it's not that time consuming, because it really isn't. It's really not that time consuming. You're pouring the bowl of cereal anyway. So just put the bowl on the scale, zero it out and then pour the cereal in the bowl. You're doing that anyway. Just set the bowl on a scale instead of the counter. Put the cereal in the bowl you see how many grams it is. Get a serving size in there or whatever. Get two serving sizes, if that's what's in your macros, and zero it out again. Pour some milk till you get to the grams and then eat your cereal. It's literally. It's not that hard, okay. It takes like 30 seconds more than maybe it would have before. You just have to push the button like twice, so it's really not that hard. A lot of people act like tracking their macros is so hard and measuring it's not. We just say that because we're making excuses, so let's stop it. All right.

Speaker 2:

Pre-logging your meals the night before is another way to be really accurate. If you log your food, you can log a perfect day and then the next day all you have to do is eat it. So simple Save your favorite meals in your app. If you're eating the same things pretty consistently, go ahead and save that in your app. Meals, especially, you know I'm having. I'm trying to think. Lately I've been having salmon and sweet potato, which that's really easy to log. I literally log salmon and then I click sweet potato and then I put some honey on it. But if I want to do something like that, or a recipe, if I wanted to just put salmon dinner and all I have to do is click a button instead of clicking yes, one salmon and yes, one sweet potato around this many grams, you know I can just log it with a one click instead of three. I don't know it doesn't bother me, but some people. It's easier to just save your favorite meals in there when you eat out, make your best guess. It's still better than ignoring it completely.

Speaker 2:

If you're like well, I went out to eat but I didn't know exactly how to log my whatever food, Usually it's on the menu. You can type in said restaurant and then the food. Or if it's I don't know if it's a chicken soup and you're making it at home, log Panera's chicken soup. You can Panera's chicken salad. If you're making a chicken salad at home, like it's just your best guess, okay, but you do have to log the bread. You do have to log the tortilla chips that you get at the restaurant. You do have to log your drinks. Like we gotta log everything, okay, no, you don't have to weigh it. Don't bring your food scale to the restaurant unless you want to, but I've never done that, but it does need to be your best guess.

Speaker 2:

And then you can just move on and then always track the little things, like I said oils, sauces, the butter, the bites. If you're like I'm just going to have a chip and you're like having another one and you're having six to 10 chips later, that's like hundreds of calories, so you have to log it. Okay, be careful with those bites, be careful with the one chips. That's me. That's why I'm saying that the oils, the sauces, things like that. I don't personally get stupid with sprays. People are like an olive oil spray does add up. I mean, yeah, it would if you went real crazy with it, but I'm personally not going to log my spray. That is a little crazy even for me. But always track the little things because just like that, right, if you're like I'm just having a chip, I'm just having one of the kids' chips, and then you're six chips later and then you do that seven days a week, that's a couple hundred calories daily. Six chips six to 10 chips is probably a serving size. That's probably 150 calories of the chips. I'm eating Doritos tortillas, but you know what I'm saying. Like it adds up. So then you're 150 calories times seven days a week. Well, then you're over, then you're in a surplus. Not logging, that can be why you're gaining weight and not noticing. So it adds up.

Speaker 2:

Common mistakes to avoid. Here are the things that trip most people up Trying to be perfect instead of consistent. Again, just use it as knowledge Quitting after one bad day. Please don't do that. If you do go out and you're like I logged that all wrong, who cares? Keep going. Something is better than nothing.

Speaker 2:

Only tracking calories and not looking at the macro balance. A lot of people are like I'm tracking my calories and nothing's changing with my body body. Yeah, we have to look at the macro balance, which now you guys know because we've been talking about it, and then not adjusting targets when the goals or the workouts change. If you've completely, if you go from like running a marathon, like marathon training, to now no more running and now you're lifting weights and you keep your calories the same, yeah, that's different training, it's different moving, it's different calorie burn, it's different muscle gain, it's different composition for your body. You do have to adjust the targets, not all the time and not very often, but when your goals change or your workouts change, your calories need to change too. Otherwise you'll just maintain what you already have and a lot of people, that's not what we want.

Speaker 2:

Why tracking is not restrictive? It's freeing A lot of people. Well, here's what usually is interesting for people, because a lot of my clients are like me, that type A controlling obsessive, like, yeah, this is kind of I want to be perfect at it. I think I need to be perfect in order to see results. It's actually less restrictive because you know what you're doing. You don't have to be clean all the time. You don't have like clean eating. You don't have to cut food groups, you don't have to cut carbs, right, you don't have to cut anything like that. You can have the cookie, you can have some wine, you can have tacos, you can have pizza my favorite and you can still hit your goals. And you also don't need to be perfect every single day, and you also are just doing it in the beginning anyway, for awareness, so it doesn't have to be perfect. This is helping your relationship with food, because you'll notice that you're still gonna see results, even if you're just trying to hit your macro goals, because you're getting closer than you were when you weren't trying. So even just getting better at it, just improving and just improving 1% every single day, like in Atomic Habits that we just read in my big club book club just little tiny changes day after day after day, just like those little chips added up to be more calories every single day for a week. So will these habits, you get closer and closer and easier and easier, and you understand it more day after day. So just keep doing it.

Speaker 2:

A lot of times, me included, my clients think it's too restrictive. I can't do it. I've tried it before. It takes too much time. You know I'm not going to be good at it. It didn't work for me before.

Speaker 2:

When you learn to do it the right way, with the right mindset, it really becomes so freeing. And that's why it's because you have to change your mindset. It's not the act. It's not putting the food in the app and scanning the UPC on your energy drink and putting it in the app. That's not the act that causes you to become fitter, just like it's not the act that causes you to become obsessed with it. Your relationship with doing that is what causes it to become restrictive. Your relationship with your body, your relationship with dieting and whether you see success or not. That is what causes you to have that obsessive mindset.

Speaker 2:

So it's not the macro tracking.

Speaker 2:

Macro tracking is neutral. It's just a thing. It's an app, it's a tool. How you view it and how you do it and how you think of it as just education and knowledge and not I'm terrible at this right and let it define you or your journey. That's the difference. So think of it as knowledge and education and clarity and control, instead of losing all control to the app, because that's the last thing that I want you to do. What I want you to do this week is to start tracking the calories that you're currently eating. Then I want you to calculate your protein goal based on your. So get your TDEE and start setting your protein goal so that you can start working toward that. And then I want you to start paying attention to, because once you've downloaded an app which you may already have and you start tracking without judgment, and you to start paying attention to because once you've downloaded an app which you may already have and you start tracking without judgment and you're just tracking just to see where we're at, okay, once you're doing that and you try to add more protein and you're logging more protein, so you're seeing the increase of that on the app, so you know you're doing better with that.

Speaker 2:

And then find that meal. If it's like I'm starving at dinner or I'm always having a snack after dinner or whatever it is, I'm not tracking it because the snack is bad and I told myself I wouldn't eat it. And now I fucked up and I have to start over. No, go ahead and schedule that snack in your day and eat more during the day so you're not starving for dinner. Start making those little changes, because they'll be really really big in the end. That would be a really really good thing to do this week. And then, as you're doing those things, message me any questions that you have. Like I said, I'm going to answer questions next week. I already have, I think, three or four I thought that were really really good kind of personal scenarios that some of you might also be wondering.

Speaker 2:

For example, having carbs left over in your day but not having calories left over or not being hungry. There was another question about fats having, I think it was, eggs in the morning and then like salmon in the evening. Both of those have fat content and they're both healthy fats. So you know you're going over in fats, but they're healthy, but then you're going over your calories. So do we need to kind of cut back on that? So just things like that. Fats, I mean they're nine calories per gram versus four, like protein and carbs, so they are easier to go over in.

Speaker 2:

But you know, what do I do? That was a question like I do, then do I need to find alternate fat sources, like? What do I need to do? So I think those will be really good questions for me to answer next week and then we'll also talk about just it'll be continuing on from the non-perfection angle of macros, but a little bit more of you know how how to really make it work in lifelong situations, because I think a lot of you have probably tried to track macros in a perfect scenario, right when you have a coach that you've hired for 12 weeks and it's a 12-week program and you have a food list and you're tracking. But once you're done with that coach or once you're done with that food list, how do you keep doing it forever? And I've done it forever.

Speaker 2:

I don't track every single day. I haven't even I really haven't tracked my food in three weeks and I was telling a client this morning that my withing skill sent me a text message saying you haven't gotten on the skill in three weeks. Maybe you should pop on today, basically, and I thought, well, that's interesting. I got on and my weight was exactly. I think it had gone up maybe 0.3, 0.8. I don't remember. The number was kind of bouncing around. It was weird, but yeah, I basically have maintained my weight for the whole summer, but especially these last three weeks. I haven't tracked one single thing and so I don't track all the time anymore, but it's because I put in the time in the beginning.

Speaker 2:

But I want to talk about what that looks like and what that feels like. If you have any questions for me about that, go ahead and nothing's off limits. Like I said, I'll answer the ones that pertain to where we're at right now in next week's episode, and then the other ones I will save for more of a general Q&A about my own macros or personal questions or just scenarios that you've come up with, because I definitely want to make sure to round out the macro series. I want to make sure we cover it all if possible. I just I don't really want to leave any stone unturned. I know I want you to do this for a while. You know, get to tracking this week and doing it with a different mindset and if there's anything that comes up with mindset like I'm really struggling, not being obsessed with this, this is how I feel and I really don't want to feel like that. What tips do you have, like I'm down to talk about you know any of it as much as I need to, to make sure that we are really covering all angles of macros, because they're just scary unless you really understand how to dive into them and how to make it work. So I think next week's episode will really kind of round out how to make it last. But I do wanna know your perspective too, and I do want to know what you wanna know from me as well, because I have been where you are. I can almost guarantee you I've been where you are because I started not knowing a single thing about macros.

Speaker 2:

Being told I need to track my macros, being told I needed to eat around 1900 calories, scared to death to eat that much and thought I'm not going to do that. So I started Beachbody and then I went to the food list and then I went to the little containers and then I went to 21 Day Fix on the app and then I coached and then I went from there to you know different programming. I've done the bodybuildingcom workouts. I've done all the Beachbody workouts. I've done random workouts. I used to be a runner. I've kind of done it all and I have successfully now gotten I have a healthy relationship with food. I don't track all the time, I don't get on the scale all the time, but I do it enough to maintain. I'm really good at maintaining where I'm at and I'm really good at maintaining where I'm at and I'm really good at knowing too. Even this week I've had two really good workouts hey, lifted heavy, I've eaten enough, so they've been really really good and that feels good.

Speaker 2:

I know when I'm kind of in a funk. I know when it's time to say, hey, we've got to track again and we've got to start lifting heavy again. And actually during yesterday's workout I was like I don't want to do this. There was two more movements left. I think I had to do lateral raises and cable kickbacks. Neither one of those are that hard. It's not like setting up for chest press or hip thrust or something, or they're not split squats, for God's sake. But I just was like I don't want to do this. And a couple of weeks ago I would have just went in the house and been like, yeah, it's fine this. And a couple of weeks ago I would have just went in the house and been like, yeah, it's fine, like we're just, it is what it is. You know, everything's just like blah. And then yesterday I was like no, you have got to build some muscle, like let's get serious. And so I did.

Speaker 2:

I'm kind of in that mode of really getting back back to the grind, but I know what that's like too, to just want to maintain for a while and to just want to kind of half-ass it and half-assing it and not being okay. So seriously, ask me anything about what it's like for my own journey and how long it took me to get there and when you'll get there, and, yeah, what that feels like. I'm totally down for answering questions, because I also know some of you are going to think I'm going to have to do this forever. I'm never going to get the hang of this. Macro tracking is never going to be something that I completely understand, and so if you have any questions for me about that too, like when did it finally click and what did that actually look like, trust me, I've already gone through a lot of this in the podcast with you guys, because that's what I wanted to talk about was my own relationship with all of this.

Speaker 2:

But if you have specific questions that would help you in your journey, I would love to know. So, that being said, I will talk to you in the comments. Also, please rate and review the show and leave me your reviews on Apple Podcasts I love reading those and leave a rating on Spotify and Apple. And leave me a comment in Spotify. And come say hello on Instagram at ChristyCastilloFit or at UnfuckYourFitnessPodcast. I love talking to you guys and I will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

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