In this instructional YouTube video, fitness coach Eric Roberts explains five common habits that people think are healthy but actually sabotage fat loss. He begins by noting that many clients who struggle to lose weight are actually doing the right things—eating clean, exercising, and avoiding junk—yet still fail because of hidden mistakes. The five habits are: (1) eating only “clean” foods, which creates a restrictive mindset that leads to binge‑eating; his fix is the 300‑calorie daily treat rule, allowing a small, controlled amount of favorite foods each day. (2) over‑exercising on top of a calorie deficit, which triggers intense hunger and cravings; the solution is moderate training—3‑4 weight‑lifting sessions, 7‑10k steps daily, and occasional low‑intensity zone‑2 cardio—letting the deficit come mainly from food. (3) saving calories for the evening, which leaves the body depleted and willpower low at night; he advises front‑loading meals with a solid breakfast (≈400 kcal), lunch (≈500 kcal) and an afternoon snack (200‑300 kcal) to avoid nighttime overeating. (4) eyeballing portion sizes, which leads to massive under‑estimation of intake; the remedy is using a food scale for a week to learn true portion sizes. (5) quitting too early when weight loss appears slow; he uses a plane‑runway analogy and recommends committing to a plan for at least 30 days, trusting that the “runway” phase precedes visible results. Throughout, he references a free calorie‑deficit calculator in the description and promotes his online coaching program for personalized plans and accountability. The video ends with a teaser for a follow‑up video that details how long it takes to lose stubborn belly fat.
Chapters
There are 5 things you are doing every day that you think are healthy, but they're actually the reason you're not losing fat. I've coached over 25,000 clients, and I can tell you the ones who couldn't lose weight thought they were doing everything right. They weren't eating junk or fast food. They were working out, eating high protein, but they were making 5 critical mistakes that were keeping them stuck. So in this video, I'm going to give you all 5 so you can make sure you avoid these mistakes and make the most fat loss progress Habit number 1, only eating clean. Most people decide to lose weight, so they cut out all of the bad food. No pizza, no ice cream, no burgers. And Monday you're locked in. Tuesday's still pretty good. Wednesday you start thinking about pizza. Thursday you can smell it. And Friday someone at work orders it and you don't have one slice, you have 4 and the breadsticks. And a white chocolate chip cookie, which are the best kind of cookies, by the way. And then you think, I already blew it, so you eat everything in sight the rest of the weekend and then restart on Monday. That's not a diet. That's just a yo-yo dieting cycle, and only eating clean is what caused it. Think of it like an unopened can of soda. When your diet has some fun food in it, the can is just sitting there. There's no pressure. You can open it whenever and nothing happens. But when you cut out everything you enjoy, you start shaking the can. And every day you say no to pizza, you shake it. Every time you skip dessert because you're not allowed to have it, you shake it. And the pressure inside of the can builds every day. And then one night, when you finally crack— after a stressful day, at a birthday party, on the weekend— you open the can, and it doesn't just open and fizz a bit, it fucking explodes everywhere. And that's you way overeating. And here's what makes it worse. Not only did you just overeat because you were only eating clean, but you also know you're gonna go back to not being allowed to have the foods that you're currently eating. And so you might as well eat all of it in that moment because you start fresh on Monday. So instead of continuing to do that, which will never cause you to lose fat, here's a fix I've given to some of my online coaching clients and that has very much helped them lose fat in a sustainable way. It's called the 300-calorie rule, and every day you're going to allot 300 daily calories to treats or foods that you enjoy. And this can be anything. It could be potato chips, it could be cookies, it could be ice cream, it could be pizza. Because if you give yourself 300 calories per day of your favorite foods, you'll never get to the point where you feel the need to way overeat because you haven't been restricted yourself from it. You never shake up the can. And you can also know you can have these foods whenever you want, so you don't need to eat all of it right now. You'll lose more fat because you'll overeat less and stick to your calorie deficit better. And by the way, if you need to know how many calories you should be eating for your calorie deficit, there's a free calorie deficit calculator linked in the description below of this video. So habit 1 is you're eating too clean And it's causing you to overeat. Habit two is the exercise version of the same mistake. Habit two: over exercising. You start a diet, you cut your calories. Now you have less energy coming in, and that's the whole point. That's the calorie deficit. But then you think if a calorie deficit is good, a bigger calorie deficit is better, and I'll lose weight quicker. So. You add more exercise. Cardio in the morning, lifting at night, running, StairMaster. And for a week or two it works because the scale might start to move down quicker and you're feeling great. Then something shifts. You're starving. You're not just hungry. It's all day. You can't stop thinking about food. Your cravings get very loud, especially for sugar and junk food. And you're trying to white-knuckle your way through your diet. You think you just need to have more discipline or willpower. But it's not a discipline or willpower problem. It's your body responding to overexercise. Think of your body like a bank account. Your calories are your balance. When you start a diet, you make a small withdrawal. You spend a little more than you put in. That's the deficit. The bank is fine with that. It covers the difference from your savings account. That's your body fat. But when you start overexercising on top of that deficit, you're making massive withdrawals from the bank account. And the bank starts to panic. The account is draining too fast. So what does the bank do? It sends warnings. Hunger. Cravings. Fatigue. And those warnings get louder and louder until you walk into the fridge at midnight and make a deposit. A big deposit. That's the overeating. That's your body forcing you to balance the account. So here's the fix. Less exercise than you think. 3 to 4 days of lifting weights. More than enough for you to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. Walking 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day. You do not need to go far above 10,000 steps and maybe adding in 1 to 3 days a week of easy, low-intensity zone 2 cardio. Your calorie deficit should mostly come from your food, not running yourself into the ground trying to burn as many calories as possible in your workouts. The people who lose the most fat are not the ones that exercise the most. They're the ones who exercise the right amount and can actually stick to their diet because their body isn't screaming at them to eat. More exercise does not mean more fat loss. It usually means more hunger, and more hunger means you will eventually break. So now you know about only eating clean and overexercising, but habit 3, this one is gonna mess with your head because you're doing it on purpose because you think it's a good thing, but it's backfiring. Habit 3, saving your calories for the nighttime. Here's what's happening. You eat 300 calories by lunch, maybe 500 calories by 3 PM. Your body has been running on nothing all day. And by 6 PM, you're not just hungry, you're empty. Your energy is gone, your patience is gone, and your willpower is gone. And now, at the exact moment when you have the least control, you're trying to give yourself all of the calories. That's like handing a starving person who just got done running 10 marathons in a row a lunch buffet and saying, just have one plate. It doesn't work! You sit down to eat dinner and you just can't stop. You eat the meal, then seconds, then snacks, then more snacks. You didn't plan to overeat, but you set yourself up for it 12 hours ago when you're not eating during the day. Think of your willpower like your phone battery. You wake up at 100%, fully charged, In the morning, you're sharp, you make good decisions. Saying no to junk food is relatively easy, and you feel in control. By noon, you're at 60%. You're still fine, you're still making good choices. But by 5 PM, you're at 20%. You're tired, you had a long day at work, you're dealing with your kids. And by 8 PM, you're at like 5% on low battery mode. Everything is harder, and yet that's the moment you expect yourself to have the most discipline and willpower with your food. It doesn't It doesn't make any sense. So here's the fix. Front load your food. Eat a real breakfast, not just coffee, not 2 eggs, real food, 400 calories minimum. Then eat a real lunch, not a protein shake, 500 calories. Make sure it has protein and fiber. And then have an afternoon snack, 200 to 300 calories. This way, by the time the nighttime rolls around, Number one, you won't feel the need to save your calories for the nighttime because you're not that hungry anymore. And because you're not that hungry, you will have more discipline and willpower to stick to your calorie deficit. And speaking of your calorie deficit, habit number 4 is where you're lying to yourself, but you don't even know it. Habit number 4, eyeballing your portion sizes. There was a research study that was done that asked people to track their food and calorie intake. These These people said they were eating around 1,200 calories per day and not losing weight, which is crazy, right? Because that's next to no calories. And the thing is, they weren't lying. They genuinely thought they were eating 1,200 calories. Then the researchers actually measured and weighed out the food they were eating and found out they were eating over 2,400 calories. Double that. Double the amount that people thought they were eating. And that's because humans are dogshit at eyeballing portion sizes. Think of it like counting cash without actually looking at the bills. If someone hands you a stack of money and you're counting the cash but not actually looking down to see what bill it is, that could be a $100 bill or a $1 bill, but you have no clue because you're not looking at it. That's what eyeballing food does. You look at a plate and you guess. In between an extra tablespoon of olive oil you didn't track, an extra tablespoon of peanut butter, or an extra handful of almonds you didn't track, a bigger scoop of rice than you thought— those 3 things alone could add up to 400 extra calories per day that you don't even realize. So here's the fix: buy a food scale. It costs $10. For 1 week, weigh everything you eat. Everything. The rice, the peanut butter, the handful of chips here and there, the oil you cook in, your snacks, everything. You don't have to do it forever, but do it for 1 week. Because what happens is you will learn what a real portion size looks like, and you'll see the scoop of rice that you thought was 1 cup was actually 2, or the serving of cereal that you're eating you thought was 1 serving was actually 3. I've done that from experience. And through this one habit change alone, you will start to see faster fat loss progress than you ever have before. And speaking of faster progress, habit number 5 is probably the most dangerous one on the list. Habit 5: quitting because progress isn't fast enough. Here's what happens. You start a plan, you're locked in for the first week, and the scale barely moves. And then the second week, the scale barely moves again, and you've been doing all the right things. So now you start to it's not working, you Google a new diet, a new workout routine. You try keto, you try fasting, or probably the worst one, you say, why am I putting in all this effort and I'm not losing weight on the scale? I might as well just quit. I want you to think of fat loss like a plane on a runway. When a plane takes off, it doesn't just shoot into the sky. It rolls slowly for a good amount of time. You're in your seat looking out the window like, have we touched off the ground Yet. And when you're there, it's loud. The engine is working. You can feel the vibration of the plane. And then it picks up a little bit of speed. It's still on the ground, but it's going faster. And then at the very end of the runway, it lifts off. And once it's in the air, it climbs fast. That's fat loss. The first few weeks are the runway. The engines are on. The plan is working. Stuff is happening. Even if you can't see it yet. And right now you're looking out the window when the plane is slowly rolling and you're jumping out the exit door. If you just stay in your seat, the plane will lift off. Take one of our clients, Granston, as the example. He's lost over 40 pounds in the last 6 months of coaching with us. But in the first couple of weeks, his scale didn't go down that much and he thought something was going wrong, but he just stuck with it. And now 40 pounds down. In 6 months, even though he didn't lose a lot of weight in the first couple of weeks. He would have never gotten to 40 pounds down and 6 months of consistency if he would have quit earlier. So you need to give your plan at least 30 days— not a week, not 2 weeks, 30 days minimum. If you're truly in a calorie deficit and you are lifting weights, it's working, I promise. You just can't see it yet. You don't have a plan problem, you have a patience problem, and you need to stick with it long enough for the plane to take off the runway. And this is what separates people who lose the weight for good from the people who have to keep starting over. And if you're sitting here realizing you've been doing 2, 3, all 5 of these habits, that's normal. Almost every client we've ever worked with was doing at least a couple of these. And the difference between them and you is they stopped guessing. They got a plan built around their life and someone to check in every week and hold them accountable so they stay on track. That's what we do in our online coaching program. The link is in the description of this video below if you'd like to learn more on how we can help you. And if you're thinking, okay, I got it, I need to be more patient, but really, Eric, give it to me straight, how long is it going to take for me to lose especially this stubborn belly fat? Well, don't worry, I made a video outlining exactly how long it will take. You can watch it right here next.
