191 – Hack Your mindset to transform your fitness goals [Podcast with Bela Castro]

“I want everybody to understand that you can consume life, you can bring more life into your life, which that’s why eating raw foods is so important.“

 

Resources mentioned:

B-FIT Website

Instagram

 

Bela is the founder and head trainer of B-FIT where she helps women to glow from the inside out.  As a former collegiate tennis athlete, Bela’s Brazilian heart pumps for actively transforming lives. 

Coming back from the breakthrough of her divorce, relocation and career change she found resilience and self love. Through the deep transformation she went through mentally and physically, she decided to devote her time to acquire the expertise to launch B-FIT.  Now she wants to continue this path and be a changing force in lives around the world.

 

Transcription:

Amy Medling:

On today’s PCOS diva podcast, we’re going to be exploring the three pillars of being a PCOS diva, which are think like a diva, eat like a diva, and move like a diva. This is the foundation of my book, Healing PCOS as well as my jumpstart program and seasonal mini courses. And I wanted to get a new perspective on these ideas of mindset and nourishing yourself with the nutrient rich food and exercising too to really help with your metabolic condition and insulin resistance. So I invited Bella Castro on to the PCOS diva podcast today. And she is the founder and head trainer of the fit and Bella’s Be Fit program was born with the aim to help women better understand it and their intentions as a way to break free of bad habits, and negative thought cycles. She teaches women of all backgrounds to become more focused, intentional and tough in the face of life’s traumas and setbacks. So welcome to the PCOS diva podcast, Bella,

 

Bela Castro:

Thank you so much for welcoming me to this experience to this journey where we’re going to dive deep into some amazing topics today.

 

Amy Medling:

So I think it all starts with mindset, it’s very hard to change the way you eat and move your body in a more positive ways without shifting towards a more positive mindset. Especially in in, you know, when you’re dealing with trauma or a chronic disease or illness, or condition like PCOS, so tell us how mindset can help and harm our wellness goals.

 

Bela Castro:

Of course, mindset is definitely one of the life changing courses of everything. So the first step that I would say is for us to feel, feel the emotions that are going through our bodies, then we got to learn from the experiences that we’re facing. And then we’ve got to make a decision, we’re going to act.

So with the first being feeling because a lot of times we we have to understand we also are emotional beings. And emotionals emotional means that we are energy, and energy flows through us at every given moment. So if we are able to capture what we’re feeling, we’re able to understand why we’re feeling that way. Then we can learn from the experience, why are we feeling that a specific way, right is a traumatic experience that we’re trying to overcome is that a limiting belief is a fear is an insecurity. And then from there we can learn how to overcome that situation. And lastly, we got to act, okay, how would the best version of me act knowing that this feelings and those emotions are going through me that they’re being caused by this traumatic or the insecurity or the fear? And how can I move past it with more love and gracious thoughts about myself more gratitude, more love more compassion towards myself, knowing that I can be better than the version of me that I was before. So that path of growth comes from understanding that every thought that crosses your mind has an impact on the way that in a similar level, it shapes who you are. So mindset is the beginning of everything.

 

Amy Medling:

So how do you coach your your clients when they are kind of stuck or have they fallen off the wagon and they know they have to get back on to making healthier choices with the food that they eat and the way they move their body but they’re just sort of feeling stuck? How do you how do you coach around that?

 

Bela Castro:

First understand that past the past is the trigger of everything is this seed that was planted at some point in your life that might be stuck there in your subconscious and is shaping your reality? So all you have to do is dive deep understand what is the subconscious behavior that is in autopilot right now that you have to shift that can come from direct or indirect relationships with your past, let’s say, your parents, your sweet, super bad, or your mom would call you names that did not resonate with the person that you wanted to become. Let’s say that right? So you have to shift that pattern. How do you do that by daily affirmations by changing the way you talk to yourself? So first, we recognize the past behaviors, they’re still triggering the way we react right now in the present, then the present, we focus on the relationship that we have with ourselves, are they coming from a place of fear? Or are they coming from a place of love, love is when we move with intentions of expansion and growth. And fear comes from retraction. And a lot of times it prevents us from moving past it. So we know that reality when we are stuck is because there’s fears related with that experience. And then moving past that, looking to the future and envisioning the person that we want to become, that comes from a place of excitement versus intimidation. So knowing that excitement can come from the future, having that clear vision of what we want, and still moving past that. The fears from the present and the traumas from the past. That’s pretty much how I navigate people through overcoming their patterns and becoming their best selves.

 

Amy Medling:

Yeah, I I frame that idea of being your best self is that diva in you that PCOS diva, and really thinking about what that ideal kind of best version of you what she eats every day, what she wears, how she holds herself as she goes through her life. And I tried to kind of match my daily existence with that ideal version of me. That’s that. And that’s kind of what I’m hearing you saying as well as kind of having that picture and that vision of who you want to be. And hold that for yourself as you move forward.

 

Bela Castro:

Yes, 100%. And you have to incorporate that version of you at every single moment. You know, if you want to be a Millionaire, you gotta be a millionaire. If you want to be super healthy, I’m a healthy human being, you know, I make better choices that align with that. Do I want to take care of my beauty? Yeah, I’m a beautiful human being I’m gonna wear my makeup and dress the way that I want to dress because why not? Do it now versus delaying the gratification that I want? Right? So I think that comes from the same perspective that you have. The diva mentality is just embracing that version of you the higher version of you every single moment of your life.

 

Amy Medling:

So I think that food just makes to me it’s like 80% of the equation. In terms of healing PCOS you we have to start with that mind piece. But we can’t out exercise a bad diet. And food is so integral in healing PCOS so I’d love to hear about those of us that really have had a you know, not so healthy relationship with food. I know a lot of women with PCOS, myself included when I was really struggling, suffered with a lot of eating or disordered eating patterns, compulsive eating, you know, a lot of it is as a result of, you know, blood sugar imbalances, but when you have kind of an unhealthy relationship with food, how do you work to overcome that? And build a healthy relationship? Sorry, go ahead.

 

Bela Castro:

Yes, I mean, Amy, I mean, the same path that you like I had eating disorders before I was compulsive. In my eating habits. I was highly addicted to sugar. It comes from the place where you have to understand there’s two ways to navigate through your eating habits First, understand if it’s habits that you have accumulated throughout your life based on you know, your, your family, maybe maybe people around you, how are they eating? Or you’re just copying the way that you eat? They eat or you stablishing what’s good for you. And then second is okay, do I eat because I’m emotion To know, with my with myself, am I knowing how to deal with my emotions and channeled emotions to a higher version of me. And then third is acting from a place of love. So if you love yourself, you know that vibrant foods are going to give you more life and energy. So how can incorporate more fruits and vegetables and raw foods in your near daily basis, so you can have the level of energy that you’re seeking, rather than, you know, eating sugar or coffee or implementing fake energy into your days, right, so and then of the day, for me, the sugar cravings only happened when I started to understand that sugar really affects everything in your life, it causes a lot of imbalances in your brain in your body, understand how important it is to have a good gut health, you know, include include more fruits and vegetables, increase that gut flora, understand the importance of fiber. Probiotics, prebiotics, and things are super good for you. They’re going to increase your efficiency every single day, your brain is going to work better, you have more clarity, you have more energy, I mean, why not choose that, you know, and the instant gratification of the foods that sometimes you choose, and I understand because i You should be there i You should be the type of person that we whole entire Oreo box or, you know, cookies, I didn’t care. But from the moment that I changed, and I started seeing the benefits, it was a no brainer. I was like why would I not choose to take care of myself first, you know, why would I? Why would I not choose this path that I can have more clarity, achieve better, eating habits look better, feel better? Think better. I mean, there’s just so many reasons why not to stick with an amazing nutrition balance. And also understand that intuitive eating right, because you don’t want to eat just because people around or eating, you don’t want to drink alcohol just because everybody around you as a drinking. You can make your own choices, you can use your conscious brain and make choices that are aligned with the highest version of yourself.

 

Amy Medling:

Yeah, I think that a lot of women still are in that place of it. And I don’t think you really even realize that you’re doing it but punishing yourself with food. And that’s where that that self love piece is so critical. I guess we’re going backwards to the mindset. But what other ways do you help women foster that? That self love when it’s really difficult to do? So?

 

Bela Castro:

Yes, self love is the core of everything. So when you understand that your love, liking inner energy perspective, you can increase that level at any given moment. And how do you do that, by cultivating gratitude, by cultivating better thoughts about yourself. Again, going back to the past, understanding that there are some steel connections that you have made from places where people put us let’s say, a negative box of you’re not beautiful, or you’re not skinny, or whatever the negative thing that you associate yourself with, you can switch, you can transform, you can create the reality that you want for yourself. You can stop victimizing yourself and blaming the world for the things that are not your fault, or not related to you. Or if they directly impacted you, you have to forgive forgive yourself for allowing that. And forgive the other people who were making you feel a certain way. Because that’s the first step. Then you gotta accept the version of you that you letting go. The set that you’re not perfect that you will never be perfect. But in the end of the day, you’re going to do your best to grow and understand and expand your mind. And from that place and on you’re going to have the gracefulness to understand that every step you take you making an improvement is not going to do everything like making big changes or when once it can be overwhelming. So you have to stay take a step at a time. And how do I do that? Let’s say for example, I love chocolate. So when they buy a milk chocolate the next day I’ll buy a 70% cacao chocolate the next day, you know so then you can start changing a little bit, finding that alternatives to deal with those limiting beliefs that you have and slowly transition to this high version of yourself. So if you want to read a book, you can start reading a few pages of the book if you want to. You know start walking everyday, put a time of the day that you want to walk. If you want to create a morning routine, slowly start shifting to that version of you don’t have to be so hard on yourself, but yet have the ability to understand that you can do it, you got to believe.

 

Amy Medling:

So if you’ve gotten to this place where you’re ready to give yourself more love and appreciation, but you still don’t love vegetables, you talk talking a lot about, you know, adding more fruit and vegetables to your diet. I mean, fruit is an easy one. But for a lot of women, vegetables are tough. So how do you suggest you’re making it more enjoyable to eat your vegetables,

 

Bela Castro:

I’d say first change your mind about it. Because there’s so many vegetables, there’s 1000s of vegetables out there. And there’s 1000s of ways to play with them. There’s different ways of cooking them, different ways of seasoning them. So just like you go to a store and buy products, they’re industrialized, in packed, they have been modified. So you can modify the raw vegetables, the raw foods, and make them taste exactly how you want them to. So you got to be playful with that you got to be open minded, you got to be able to experience many different possibilities, you know, and in the beginning, it’s hard, because let’s say if you eat a raw broccoli, you might hate the taste, right. But if you go and try to adapt the broccoli, maybe roasted broccoli, maybe steamed broccoli, bought some seasoning, maybe, you know, truffle oil, I don’t know, maybe a little bit of cheese, or even like including some things that you like, that can complement their vegetable to taste better for your palate. And then slowly transitioning to something, you know, less heavy or less oily or something like that. But you don’t have to do all at once. When back to the point, you don’t need to make strong shifts, either you can make slow shifts into adapting that lifestyle.

 

Amy Medling:

Yeah, and I think the more you start eating vegetables, it’s funny, the more you crave them, even though you think that you never would, but the green beans actually start tasting really good.

 

Bela Castro:

Exactly. And it’s funny, they say that because I just had a client that told me that my my life shifted, because I started creating, you know, slower habits. And now it’s completely shifted where she said, I crave vegetables, I wake up, and I’m ready to eat my healthy breakfast, my healthy lunch, my healthy dinner, because she’s an engineer, and she needs to be a problem solver and guess where your energy comes from your brain. And if your brain is not functioning correctly, with foods, they’re not nourishing your brain, guess what, you’re not going to be able to find solutions as fast. So she’s not only adapting, because she’s actually now enjoying the vegetables, but anxious, she’s enjoying the feeling that the vegetable gives us gives her to create a better lifestyle, be more productive at work, get better results, maybe even get a promotion. Who knows like I mean, there’s so many things that comes with making better choices for your body. environmental changes, you know, like maybe surrounding yourself with people that uplift you that make you feel welcome that make you feel like yourself, encouraging yourself to be included in programs that will be more about wellness, right. So like everything that you do, make a choice that comes from your heart that also comes from a place where you know you’re going to be improving your life. That’s what I would say.

 

Amy Medling:

It’s really I encourage women to discover what their big Y is. And it has to be your big why that keeps you motivated, especially around the food that you choose. It has to be bigger than you know, I want to lose 10 pounds. And I’m sure that that client, you know that I want to lose 10 pounds wasn’t going to propel her. With a great enough momentum moving forward. She had to dig deeper than that.

 

Bela Castro

100% Yes, always digging deep. And finding the core of your existence, eating vibration foods, encouraging yourself to dive deep into your soul. Find your essence. And again go back to the same point of going back to your past, finding your own truth. Because a lot of times we leave for the truths of other people and that gets us frustrated triggers us to feel a certain way. But the more we can find our own truth and our own, you know perspective of life because not everybody is the same. We’re not the same. We are unique. And we can build that authenticity from the standpoint of you become your own diva You become your version of the diva that you want to become. So I think that’s very important too.

 

Amy Medling:

So before we move on to the pillar of moving like a diva, you you mentioned, vibration and foods. So I’d love for you to kind of explain what that is all about.

 

Bela Castro:

Of course, it’s so important for us to understand this concept. Because if we think about raw foods, they come from nature. And nature is love, nature’s life. So if you think everything that you eat, there is not as atomically modified, it’s everything that is by braiding its life. Everything that comes from an industry that comes from a manufacturer that comes in a packed product, it means that it has been automatically modified multiple times. And it has lost its purpose. It’s lost its originality as a source, raw foods, a raw ingredient. So that’s why I encourage all my clients, even if they go and buy a lot of products, they’re not super healthy, they’re, you know, chemically modified, they can still choose products that have less ingredients, because if you choose their high vibration foods, you’re going to feel it inside of you. I’m telling you, it’s transformation. And I can tell because you also are living in that lifestyle. But the more we can encourage that right, less processed foods, the more we can create that sense of vibration inside of us because we’re going to be eating and consuming and nourishing our bodies with more life, which is more health, which is more energy, which is more vibration.

 

Amy Medling:

And it’s just a different way of looking at it. versus calories in calories out. It’s you’re adding more higher vibrational foods. I was trying to explain this to my daughter the other day, that when she’s in a low depressed mood, I always asked her well what have you been eating? Because she could usually identify it’s the low depressed food that she’s been eating at school, sharing, you know, junky Doritos and that kind of thing. And that just comes out with a low vibrational mood. So adding it to me, it’s one of the best ways besides like walking in nature to raise your vibration by just eating some having a good healthy salad.

 

Bela Castro:

Yes, 100%. And I’m talking this easy terms, because, you know, sometimes you can get very scientific and passionate about it. But I just want everybody to understand that you can consume life, you can bring more life into your life, which that’s why eating this raw foods is so important.

 

Amy Medling:

So let’s talk about exercise. Because, you know, that is something that you’re an expert at, you’re a collegiate tennis player. And you really help women with you know, getting fit, and beef is the name of your programs called be fit. So women with PCOS tend to be very insulin resistance. Exercise is so such an important piece. But you know, we found in a lot of us through trial and error that that single exertion cardio type exercise just doesn’t really worked for us. It taxes our adrenals I know when I was running all the time, I would actually gain weight, it really made no sense. So but you know, I’m a big believer in strength training, you know, making sure you’re flexible and, and doing yoga for that mind body connection. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on moving like a diva and how to, you know, help our metabolism through movement.

 

Bela Castro:

I love this topic so much. Because I think that there’s two different types of goals and ambition when it comes to moving your body, right so you can move for health or you can move for fitness so you can move for both. I encourage people moving for both. When it moves just for health, it means that you’re not necessarily driven by the way your body looks. You’re driven by the level of energy when I have the fitness side is when you’re like a bodybuilder or somebody that just want to look the physique about exercising. I like to combine both concepts. Why? Because you want to optimize your body. You want to optimize your systems internally. You want all your organs to function correctly. You on your hormonal balance should be amazing. You want your energy To be up, you want to have endurance, strength, flexibility and mobility all at the same time. So if you can incorporate that in your life, that’s how you get the best freakin results. And I’m telling you, because that’s what I’ve been implementing in my life for the past two years. And before, I will tell you for 15 years playing tennis, you do a lot of exercising. And we do, you know, we still do sprains, and weight training and all different kinds of modalities to make sure we’re prepared for long matches. But at the same time, after I graduated, I could not find a program that could implement all that at the same time. What I encourage is not just the exercising, either, is breathing, the importance of the breath, when you exercise for you to inhale and exhale, and to transfer the energy in and out of your body is extremely important for a good

workout. Not only that, but the form the intention behind when you go on down on a squat, are you focusing on just Oh, look how my butt looks? Or you’re thinking about? What are the muscles that I’m contracting in my body? How Low Can I go? How can I stretch this muscles? How can I improve the movement? How can I prevent my, my knee to be engaged, you know, so it’s coming from a holistic standpoint of the body, versus coming from a place where you’re just focused on oh, I need to get, you know, a six pack, right? Because if it comes from a place of oh, let me optimize my body, your results, we’re going to be significantly better. And you’re going to fall in love with the process of taking care of yourself to become the diva that you deserve.

 

Amy Medling:

So what do you recommend for for clients that are dealing with metabolic issues, like insulin resistance, type two diabetes, what do you think is kind of the right mix of exercise types?

 

Bela Castro:

Yes, so I’m gonna give an example of my routine, it’s only 32 minutes, and we focus on different body parts. We do upper body, lower body, core, full body. And then Then last day, we do a little bit of movement, where we encourage the feminine energy to be expanded, like dancing, or yoga, or any type of mobility exercise, to where we are not just getting stronger, and creating the endurance that our body needs. But we also expanding on those movements, on the type of motions that we can do with our bodies that a lot of times we get, we forget, right? So getting those ligaments to be more stretched, the joints to be moving in flexible, the muscles should be elongated, and being able to stretch and contract. So everything comes from a place where you understand that you can optimize your body, that when transformation starts taking place, because not only will the body gonna be optimized by your hormones, the hormones are the direct message of your body. So if you’re having problems with diabetes, with thyroid issues, anything related to that it has to do with your hormonal imbalances, and the inability of your glands in different parts of your body to process foods to process information. And we want to optimize that. So that’s why including everything a little bit can help you increase. But now I do see the perspective of yoga, doing hot yoga, doing different kinds of exercises, but also including a little bit of cardio he in there, of course, it’s very important. Strength is very important. Doing a little bit of everything, I’d say it’s probably the best, best answer, in my case, in my opinion.

 

Amy Medling:

So do you do you still play a lot of tennis? I know I like to try to encourage women to do things that they enjoy doing is when they were kids, I think, you know, whether it was riding your bike or playing a sport. You know, finding that joy and movement because still for a lot of us go into the gym. I mean, I love the way that I feel. But I can’t say actually love, you know, love going. But I go because I feel good afterwards. So, what did just tell us a little bit more about what how you feel is best to reconnect with kind of the joy of just moving your body. I think we do that.

 

Bela Castro:

Yes. You have to change the perspective from an obligation to a possibility to opportunity. Because when if you go to the gym as an obligation, it means that you’re not loving yourself deep enough to know that going to the gym is going to improve your life period is going to improve your life in any aspect that you can possibly think of physically, emotionally, mentally. So, if you go to the gym and know that there’s a possibility of you becoming a better version of yourself, that can come from a place of love, versus, oh, it’s an obligation, I don’t like it. Well, let’s find something that you like, there’s always something that you can like moving yourself to, if it’s a sport, if it’s just walking outside, if you’re just connecting with nature, listening to music, dancing, there’s so many different ways that you

can encourage yourself to just move, because let’s just be honest, we’re not meant to be sitting down the whole day. Somebody put that in our mind, but it has never been the case, we’re not even meant to be sitting. So if we can just walk, right, if we even can work standing, they can also already improve your life significantly. So just finding ways where we do our movements, you know, even if you have to stretch your body a little bit, and Lutz if different motions, it can improve you in significant ways.

 

Amy Medling:

So it really does from what I’ve heard today it really does boil down to your self love. And yes, that’s the essence of it all. So tell us more about your Be Fit program and how we can find out more about your work.

 

Bela Castro:

Yes, of course. So, my program is all about healing, connecting in glowing. So healing again healing your body, healing your mind and healing your spirit. So then you can connect with your mind your body and spirit and then you can start glowing from inside and out. The program now is three month commitment where we work on your nutrition, exercising your mindset, mindfulness practices, and this program can be found on my Instagram if you find me on the feed by Bela with one out and we can encourage you to become the best version of yourself. Let’s schedule a consultation. And let’s make things happen for you.

 

Amy Medling:

I will put that lin:k in our show notes. Bela, it was so nice to talk to you about eating thinking moving like a diva today. Thank you so much for your time.

 

Thank you everyone for listening. I look forward to being with you again very soon.