79. The Importance Of Consuming Enough Protein

But first I want to thank you for if you listened to last week's episode number 78 , I talked in the beginning about how it was completely out of my comfort zone to I had had just something on my heart , on my mind , that morning that I really felt like I needed to share , and I did and got the episode out in time .

Everything went well and I received so many messages from you letting me know , like thanking me for just listening to , I guess , my intuition on that and just really going with staying authentic and what I really felt like you all needed to hear , and so thank you for your feedback on that . I really appreciate it .

I had some really good conversations and a lot of you needed that message at that time . So it's just it's really good for me to know that . Of course , I also want to just touch on a little bit . I don't get into a lot of my life on this podcast . I'm not sure if I ever will .

I've been very good about sticking to the topic of each episode , but I listened to a lot of podcasts well , not a lot like four , but they will sometimes get into like their daily life and what they're , you know what's going on and all the things .

And I have , of course , talked about the fact that I am a wife and that I am a mom of two teenagers , and my daughter is a senior and my son is a freshman and I've talked about going on , you know , baseball tournament trips , weekend trips and volleyball tournaments and just kind of like the sports season and all of that , and I don't want to get into that

a lot right now , but I kind of wanted to talk about , I wanted I planned on having an episode dedicated to switching to the fall season , and I can definitely do that .

I just feel like there's other things that are of more importance right now , but I am in the midst of and I feel like my clients are in definitely in the depths of this fall season and , as a mom of teens , two high schoolers , varsity sports actually , my son's doing cross country right now he decided to do that very last minute and my daughter is in

volleyball right now and , like I said , she's a senior , and so this last weekend was so busy the it was homecoming week at the school and then that weekend they of course had a homecoming dance and then we painted her senior parking spot and we got her senior pictures taken .

And life is just some weeks smacking me right in the face with busyness , with reality , and so I just want to I don't know , like I said , how feel free to let me know in any way that you reach out to me , like you guys always do . You know whether or not you kind of like hearing these things of what's .

Of course I'm not gonna , you know , get into too much , but just little things . Like over the weekend we did have those activities and it was super fun and you know how I navigate those things or whatever .

But anyway , I mostly just wanted to say that I'm in this season of a mom of teenagers and it is busy and it is overwhelming , and I'm trying to take the time . It's becoming a little more natural to me to take the time to to feel gratitude and to not let life things and the busyness and the stressors completely take over my mood . They very quickly can .

I am a person who comes , who becomes very stressed , very overwhelmed , and when I'm overwhelmed , or actually when I feel anything , I cry . I'm just a crier . That's how my emotions come out and I'm dealing with that .

I'm finding out a lot about myself , but this is a really busy , crazy time for me and anyway , I just wanted you all to know that if this is a busy , crazy time for you as well and you are in the midst of some crazy unknown territory , I'm right there with you . But anyway , that's enough about that . I'm not really sure where I was going with that .

I just kind of , I guess , wanted to say that I had a really good weekend . Life is busy , crazy . I'm trying to be more positive , but not because I have to be more positive , but because life is good and it's okay to be busy and it's okay to take time .

I spent a lot of time at the beginning of , like you know well , all of that happened over the weekend . So Monday , tuesday , I was really behind on work and I tried not to let all of that overwhelm me like it would in the past , and I'm still catching up on all of the work things . But anyway , I digress , let's get to the topic at hand .

I just kind of like to be real with you as well and you know , let you know that I'm human and in all of the things . But for more like on those subjects , I guess you can always follow me at Instagram .

On Instagram , at Christy Castillo Fit , I do share a little bit about what's going on , you know , behind the scenes senior pictures , just kind of things like that . Anyway , we're going to be talking about protein today and I'm sure you are just dying to find out my hot take on protein .

But I think you will find that I do have a pretty spicy take on it and I'm excited because protein is so fucking important . First of all , let me just say that Let me just get spicy right off the bat .

Protein is so important and I know that a lot of you struggle with hitting your protein goal , and if you don't know what your protein goal is , let me just preface it by saying that I think a very common without like having a macro calculator and all of the details and all the stressful things that come with like hitting your exact macros and all the things I

think it's easy . I think it's better to take the easy route and kind of just go with round numbers and you know consistency is best anyways , but you should shoot for like your daily target should be one gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight . So let me try to say that again One gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight .

So if your goal body weight is 150 pounds , you should be consuming 150 grams of protein per day . Just keep it simple and start with that . Shoot with that . That's actually a really great number overall , but that number might be like um , how in the hell am I supposed to hit 150 grams of protein ?

Christy , that's insane and that's what happens to a lot of my clients or a lot of my ladies in the Facebook group that I have , where we're talking about protein , and protein is something that I'm always getting asked . Give me your tips on protein . How do I hit protein ? What food should I be eating to hit protein ? Give me some high protein recipes .

I need lunches with high protein . I need dinners with high protein , all of the things it's .

High protein is like something that I hear and get asked all of the time and it's something that I love to talk about because it's so important , but I don't think I talk about it a lot , if I've ever talked about it in the way I'm going to talk about it on this podcast episode Because I'm so passionate about it .

And when I hear people saying and I'm not saying this to ask you to not say it anymore , it's just I kind of figured out what happened in my head . Okay , so let me just , let me just start over . When I hear one of my clients say or anyone that will come to me as personal trainer and say , oh my God , how do you hit your protein goal ?

I'm just having the hardest time with that my first thought is okay , first of all , have you tried actually really , really tried to hit your protein goal ? And the way that you would have to do that is , first of all , know your protein goal .

Then you would have to track your foods on my fitness pal to see what you're currently consuming for protein , to know what you're actually eating right now and do you need , how much do you need to improve on ? How much more protein do you need to consume ?

Right , you don't know how much you're eating or even how much you need to improve on that , on If you don't know what you're currently doing , just like anything else in life . And then , once you've done that , have you Googled ? Have you gotten on Pinterest ? Have you found a list of foods that are high in protein ? By tracking your foods on my fitness pal ?

Have you noticed what foods you're currently eating that are high in protein ? Have you started to eat more of those foods ? Have you started to make some of the recipes you found on Pinterest ? Have you gone to the store and looked at the back of labels and found things that are high in protein ? Have you put in that effort to hit your protein goal ?

If yes , okay , let's talk . Let's really get down and dirty here , and how can we make this work with your lifestyle right ? If not , thank you .

If you've not actually tried to do that , then I get really frustrated , because I'm just the kind of person that's like , unless you have really really tried and I know this takes a while so you know that'll mean like , after you go to the grocery store and you buy the items , you're gonna have to come home and you're gonna meal prep and you're gonna meal plan

and you're gonna plan things out and you're gonna have to buy a lunch bag and take your own lunch and you're gonna have to right Like you're gonna have to do the shit . So I get it . I understand that it's a little tricky , but in my head I'm just like have you actually tried ? Because it's not that hard once you figure it out .

Now , that being said , I talk about you know the importance of hitting your protein goal a lot and consuming enough protein , and I often hear that it's so hard and I want to say that I get it .

There are a lot of reasons why it is hard and actually I have a lot of clients that say that they don't have really a problem hitting their protein goal , that they have more of a problem hitting carbs , which is crazy to me because I'm just like eat some Oreos , like what's the problem here ? But I get it Some . It's .

Carbs are scary at first and you know , maybe there's other things going on there , who knows ? But if you're hitting protein and you're not hitting carbs , we need to hit all of our macros for sure . So please figure that out and just consume more carbs , because all of the macros are important . But in this episode , I am going to be talking about protein .

So let me first say that I understand and I have sympathy , I actually have empathy for you in this situation , because it wasn't always easy for me to hit my protein goal . I had food lists , I would fill my little plastic containers . I would do whatever it took because it was a non-negotiable for me from day one in my fitness journey to hit that .

I didn't know why I was hitting my protein goal , but it was on my list of things to do for the day . I had to fill this many containers this many times with these foods from this list and I did it period and along the way I figured out why . So for me it's just always been a non-negotiable . So that's a tip .

But I understand that it does take time to get the food list to figure out what you like , to go to the store to meal prep , to meal plan , to buy it pre-packaged , to figure out what works for you .

So you should give yourself some grace and you should give yourself some time to learn protein right , and the amount of time will be different for everyone based on the time that you have or the time that you are willing to take and sacrifice to learn about protein and to go purchase those foods .

But I encourage you to make protein a priority , to make this a priority , and I'm going to tell you some reasons why that I want you to make this a priority and this is a reason why protein just gets so frustrating for me . And this is kind of what I had to work through . This is a little thing that I had to work through .

I'm like , why is it when I get asked about protein or when someone is giving me these excuses , why and I'm not saying that every one of my clients give me excuses they don't but there are some times that it's just an excuse . Usually I get reasons and they don't understand and we work through it in one-on-one coaching .

But if it's an excuse like , oh , I just don't want to , you know , purchase this kind of food , or I just don't want to take the time to meal prep , then it bothers me and I had to like kind of dig deep on . Like Christy , why are you getting so pissed that people don't hit their protein goal ?

And this is why , and as I was really like thinking through this , this literally popped in my head of the importance of protein and I don't think this is talked about enough by anyone , because we talk about hitting your macros and it helps your body and you can't get fit without , you know , hitting your macros and that's it . Like .

It's just this very basic overview of you should hit your macros , macros , macros , macros . You should hit your protein . But why Right ? So for me , it's a matter of health . Protein is so important for your body . Every cell in the human body contains protein . Protein helps to repair cells and it literally fuels your body . It's very important .

The basic structure of protein is an amino acid and you need a large amount of amino acids to stay healthy and you only get that from protein . Most of the protein or most of the amino acids your body can make , but a lot of it you have to consume . So it's very important that you consume enough protein , because your body needs those amino acids .

Protein is an important building block of your bones , muscles , cartilage , skin , hair and nails . So your entire body , your body , uses protein to build and repair tissue . Red blood cells contain a protein compound that carries oxygen through your body . This helps supply your entire body with the nutrients that it needs .

About half the dietary protein that you consume each day goes into making enzymes , which helps in digesting your food and making new cells , and body chemicals . These are all extremely important jobs that your body does that you need protein for . Protein is important for hormone regulation and protein helps recovery after an after exercise or after injury .

It reduces muscle loss , it helps build lean muscle , it helps maintaining a healthy weight and it helps you feel fuller longer and satiated , so you're not so stink and hungry all day long . Those are just a few of the basic things off the top of my head that I was like what is important to me ? Like when I think of why protein is non-negotiable .

Now , in the beginning it was just non-negotiable because that's what my workout plan said to do eat this much protein . When I really learned about why protein was important , it became even more of a non-negotiable Like . I want my body to function well .

I am concerned with overall health , which means I need to be concerned with all of the things that I just mentioned your digestion , cell renewal , cell repair , building tissue , hormone regulation , muscle reducing , muscle loss . I want to keep the muscle on my body that I work so damn hard to build .

I don't want to be hungry all day , so I need to have protein . I want my muscles to recover faster after my workouts . I need all the help I can get with my hormones and my digestion . So all of these things I want you to really hear in my voice that I'm so passionate about this .

Maybe you're like whoa Christy , you're so passionate about protein , but I am because it's the foundation of your health .

And when you come to me and say I really want overall health , I really want you know overall energy and I want to feel good and I want to look good and I want all these things , in my head I'm thinking then you need to hit your goddamn protein goal , but I'm not saying that out loud and I'm not saying why .

And maybe I need to say that more often and say , like these are all the things that protein helps you with . So please let me help you figure out how to hit your protein goal . Now let's talk about some of the reasons that people have come to me and said that it's hard for them to hit their protein goal . I'm gonna say reasons .

Sometimes I think of these as excuses , but also I think we just don't know what . We don't know right , and so a lot of times , this is how you're feeling when you're trying to hit your protein goal .

These are the things that you're feeling that comes up and for me I'm just like , oh my goodness , that cannot be an excuse , that cannot be why you don't hit your protein goal . That can be why you don't hit it right now , but that's a roadblock we need to work through so that you can hit it .

So most the three things that I really hear are that it's hard to hit your protein goal , that it's expensive to hit your protein goal and that it's very time consuming to hit your protein goal . So let's break those down . It's hard . I will hear that all the time . Oh my God , it's so hard to hit my protein goal . Let's be real , it's not that hard .

If you think about what you have to do to hit your protein goal , there's a lot harder things that you go through in life . In a day , there's a lot more things that you go through than picking up some Greek yogurt instead of Oreos or maybe prepping some chicken instead of watching a Netflix show at night .

Right , there's a lot harder decisions that you have to make in your day . So we need to stop telling ourselves that it's hard . We need to change the mindset , we need to change the verbiage and we need to reset . Right , I am someone who hits my protein goal . I'm going to hit my protein goal . I'm going to figure this out .

I'm gonna do whatever it takes right . It's not hard . It's uncomfortable but it's not hard . It takes work that I'm not used to . It's different than what I'm used to , but it's not hard and it will become your new normal . It can Like you look around and you see people all the time hitting their protein goal .

So it's not like it's impossible and , yeah , it was hard for them in the beginning and honestly , it's hard now . It's something that I have to plan on every single day . It's a conscious choice of I have to get my staple foods in every single day . If I don't , that's on me , but it's not negotiable for me , so I'll do it , but it's a conscious effort .

I will , at night , think about all the things that I ate and I'm like ugh , didn't have my Greek yogurt yet , can't have my Oreos . Gotta have my Greek yogurt . Or I didn't have my shake yet Non-negotiable 40 grams of protein . I'm getting that sucker in , right .

So when I'm at a restaurant , like ugh , I really want I don't know whatever on the menu that's full of not protein and I'm like ugh , I could have that and then have a double protein shake . Or I can just eat the salmon with a side of pasta instead of the whole plate being pasta and make more conscious , better choices .

So the next one , meaning being that it's expensive . I'm not gonna argue that . I'm not gonna say it's not expensive because literally everything is expensive right now . So I think maybe what that means is well , first of all , you have to buy probably more food at the grocery store .

If you're not used to purchasing protein items , then , yes , you have to purchase what you're used to and some protein options . You could choose to not buy some of the things that you're used to buying and instead buy some protein options . I think a lot of it is processed food . That makes it a little more expensive .

For myself , I choose to have processed foods to hit my protein goal with . I will have Kodiak waffles . I will have Kodiak cups . I will have trying to think what else I eat . Kodiak oatmeal I love Kodiak . Sponsor me I will have those things . I do have protein bars . I do have protein powders .

I make sure they are the best quality that I can find that I can digest , that's available , because I think that's really important . If it's something you're gonna have often , then I will make sure that it's really good quality . And , yes , that does cost more . I will buy the protein pasta . I will buy the tortillas that are lower carb , higher protein .

I will go through the things at the store and look at the backs of packages and purchase the thing that is , yes , processed , that has protein . That fits into my goal right now . My life , like I said , is busy and I'm not gonna say that I don't have time to prep and this kind of goes into the time consuming excuse as well .

I do have time , but I choose to not spend my time meal prepping . I choose to spend more of my money buying the things that are already prepped we purchase , like a rotisserie chicken . It does have more oils , that's it's not as clean , but I will figure out ways to maneuver my macros so that that will fit .

We'll even sometimes buy the rotisserie chicken where they already shredded off the bone , put it in the package , and I buy that because I choose to not spend my time right . Time and money are two things that are very valuable and I'm just not willing to sacrifice my time right now . That's more important to me . So , yes , everything is expensive For me .

I will figure it out . I will cut other things out of my budget , like I will clip coupons . We did that forever for years . That is so annoying . You know there's coupons online , there's whatever , like just figure it out .

But if it is too expensive , then your other option is to , you know , do everything yourself and meal prep yourself and totally been there as well .

You used to take hours well , maybe two hours I sound like it's so dramatic Maybe two hours out of a Sunday , and you know we would prep ground beef or ground turkey and chicken , and then we would prep our sweet potatoes and broccoli , and then we would prep some pasta and rice and we would have all that and then we would just add everything together and mix

and match . But I just I don't wanna do that right now . I'm not in a season of life where I wanna spend my time doing that . But it is cheaper to buy , obviously , a huge bag of chicken , make it yourself , rather than buy it already shredded , cooked , shredded and in the package . So you kinda have to pick your hard here , right ?

And then it becomes time consuming . So people are like , well then , it's too much time , I don't have time to meal prep on the weekends . Okay , well , something has to give . So either it's too hard , it's too expensive and it's too time consuming and then you're not feeding your body enough protein . So then your body can't repair , right ?

Your gut is messed up , your hormones are messed up . You can't have both . So this is where you have to choose . What am I going to do ? There's no sexy way , there's no kind way for me to smooth this over and say , well , just do this . This is the hard truth of the situation . Your body needs protein .

It's gonna take money , it's gonna take time , it's gonna be a little bit different for a while , it's not gonna be your normal , but it is what it is . You have to get your protein in . I want to be very clear . I'm never gonna back down on this .

So if you're struggling with your energy or with your weight fluctuating or your hormones or your metabolism , a quick way to unless you have , of course , some sort of actual imbalance that you need medication for or something but a very quick way to level everything out is to add in protein when my clients add in protein , which will typically result in a more

balanced meal , right ? So if you're used to just having lasagna for dinner , which is obviously more carbs than protein , but with that you start to have some protein on the side , whatever that looks like . However , you make your meals more balanced , which then means more protein , right ?

My clients become more associated , they don't have so many cravings after and they're just like , wow , my body is actually changing and all I did was increase my protein , because it's something that your body needs . Your body needs all of the macros . Your body needs carbs for different reasons than I mentioned that .

Your body needs protein , of course , but your body needs carbs . So your body is designed for optimal health . If you move it correctly in the way that it's designed to be moved , and if you feed it correctly , if you give it the right macronutrients , if you give it the right micronutrients , your body will function properly . You will be able to maintain weight .

So a big part of why I am able to maintain my body weight , my body structure , is because I do all of this so seamlessly . I have hit my protein goal extremely consistently not every day , of course . For the last I mean , honestly , 15 years .

I've been really doing this for 15 years , and we started with Beachbody then and I was , you know , using the containers , but I started hitting my protein goal then , of course , we would kind of . We started with that and then we went off the rails for a while and then we'd go back , but consistently I've been hitting protein more often than not .

Okay , let's just say the last 10 years to not sound dramatic , even though 10 sounds like really long too . But I can't beat around the bush about it . Like I am consistent and the reason that I'm able to maintain my body I don't really ever have to diet for a vacation . I don't have to diet for a photo shoot that I have .

I don't have to diet for any reason . I look the same , I weigh the same , I can gain more muscle , lose muscle , whatever I want , but I hit protein every day and I work out more days a week than I don't . And that's it , like your body , that's . The secret is that your body just needs these nutrients and you have to give it to your body .

And I know there's these excuses and I again want to reiterate that it's okay to have the learning curve , it's okay to give yourself some grace , it's okay to mess it up in the beginning , it's okay to take the time to figure out how that works for you and I've said this before that it has .

It took me about eight times of doing macros to figure out how it works for me , because I started doing it in the beginning . If it fits your macros , like eating all the junk and just like , well , it fits , so it's fine . And then I went to like , well , that's not going to work . My gut hated eating just shit all day .

And then we went to eating whole foods , only just clean whole foods , and that was great , you know , for a while . But I , I personally , that's not a goal of mine , and so now I eat very balanced . I do eat some processed food , I do eat some whole food . I hit my protein goal and that can always change . So another thing that I that I will end on .

As far as hitting your protein is you will have to plan ahead . You will have to prep some foods ahead of time if that is something that you want to do and you have to make it a non-negotiable , and you have to have those foods on hand constantly . Don't let yourself run out of protein powder .

Protein bars , kodiak stuff , chicken , string cheese , lunch meat , like all . Whatever you choose to hit your protein with . Make sure you get enough , I don't care . You have to double up on protein for your groceries for the week . Do it because if I run out of my protein staples , I would be lost .

And then another thing I want to say is just to start hitting your protein . A lot of times my ladies will have a goal of like well , I don't want to use processed foods to hit my protein and I'm totally for .

However you want to live , what I will tell them is eat more of what you're already eating that has a lot of protein in it and or , for now , supplement with some processed foods or protein powders and bars and collagen and then naturally so you start hitting that goal and then naturally , you will want to make better choices and find better options or cleaner

ingredient options of what you're already purchasing . But I encourage you to start hitting your protein goal with whatever foods you can hit it with , and then clean it up a little bit later as you go . Don't worry about just hitting it with exactly perfect things .

Just hit the number of protein , because the sooner you can do that , the better for your body , and then worry about cleaning it up and making your diet fit more into your lifestyle and more into the dietary needs that you have and the goals that you have for yourself . So I hope you enjoyed this episode on protein .

I know I got a little feisty , but I'm just really passionate about it because it's not just a number that's like oh , here's your macros and here's your protein goal , and I make like hit your protein and stay within , like right around , your calorie range , like those are the two most important things .

That's not because that's just thing I pulled out of thin air . That's because protein is so important and you can see a huge change in your body and your energy and your hormone levels and so many other things just by increasing your protein . So that's why I'm so passionate about it . I hope this helped .

If you need any help , you have any questions or you just want to be like okay , never thought about protein in that way . Thanks for that kick in the pants , shoot me a message on Instagram at Christy Castillo fit . I love hearing from you and I will talk to you next week .