An Honest Update on My Calorie Deficit Diet

I'm 4 weeks into my 10-week calorie deficit. The first 2 weeks were pretty perfect. The scale was dropping quickly. I was hitting my diet, getting my steps. Everything was going great. And then things fell apart. I traveled to Florida. I've had Christmas Eve and Christmas, and now my scale is back up. And you would think after being a fitness coach for over 9 years, That I'm somebody who would be perfect and on point all the time. Well, that's not the case. And in this video, I'm going to show you exactly what happened, exactly how much progress I lost, and how I intend to get back on track and regain the progress that I lost. But right before I show you what happened, I want to touch on something so that when this happens to you, you're going to know exactly how to handle it. And that's the thing. Most people go into their calorie deficit or their weight loss journey and they think they're going to be perfect. And let me assure you, the reason you're not losing weight is not because you ate a cookie or because you fell off one day. It's because you think you then ruined all of your progress and you let one bad meal turn into a bad day, a bad week, or even sometimes a bad month. It's the all-or-nothing perfectionist mentality. This is like if you were driving to work and you say, well, if I hit any traffic or if I hit a red light, I'm turning around and going back home. Inevitably, you would hit traffic or hit a red light. So you would turn around and go back home and you would lose your job and you'd have to find a new job over and over, AKA you have to restart your diet over and over. And you think we've been conditioned as dieters that if we can't be perfect with our diet, well, we might as well restart and might as well not try. at all. And that's the fastest way to stay exactly where you're at and make no progress along the way. And I want to take the last 7 days of my calorie deficit thus far. I went and I took a trip to Florida where I went out every single night and had dinner and I had dessert every single night, which I'm going to show you. It was incredible. And then as soon as I got back, there was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day where I was with my family. We were enjoying some different meals and some different foods. And so most people before even going on the trip would say, well, the rest of the month of December is basically a wash. I'm traveling. It's Christmas. It's the holidays. It's the weekend after. I might as well restart On January 1st. But then this year, January 1st falls on a Thursday. So most people would then say, well, I can't restart January 1st because the weekend's coming up. So you know what, I might as well restart January 5th on that Monday. And now they would have let a couple of days, maybe a week max, turn into a 3-week fuck it bender where they gain 10, 15 pounds along the way. Don't get me wrong, I gained some weight over these past 7 days, but I didn't throw away all of my progress. That is like if you are driving down the highway and you get a flat tire, you pull over, and instead of just swapping out the tire, getting back on the road, you slash all the other 3 tires because you're like, well, if there's one flat tire, screw it. I might as well say fuck it and slash the other 3. My 7 days off track represents 10% of my overall calorie deficit that I'm doing, my 10-week calorie deficit. If I get back on track right now, which I am, I'm going to show you exactly what I'm doing, I will still finish this calorie deficit with 90% consistency, which will get me incredible results and it will get you incredible results. I'm not going to throw away the other 63 days of the calorie deficit because 7 of them weren't on track. It doesn't make any sense. A plan that you follow with 80 to 90% consistency will yield you more results than a plan you follow with 100% consistency, but then fall off after 2 weeks, have 0% consistency for 2 weeks, and then get back on track and then fall off and get back on track and fall off. Because losing weight and being in a calorie deficit doesn't come down to perfection. It comes down to consistency. Now, now that you know it's normal to fall off track, let's talk about how bad I fell off track. And most people traveling, anything out of routine really, they think it's an excuse to F off, for lack of better terms, the entire day. And that's not how the most successful people who are in the best shape think about their fitness, their diet, their workouts. For example, when I was in Florida, I still ate very mindful during the day. I knew I probably wasn't going to hit my calories. In fact, if I pull up my calorie tracker, you can see that I did not track any of the days that I was in Florida because I wasn't going to. I knew I wasn't going to hit my calories and I was okay with that. You're seeing all right here. None of these days are tracked. I'm supposed to be on a calorie deficit, but I didn't track them. But I was still mindful. For example, I went to the grocery store. I'll show you a picture of the groceries that I got. I went to the grocery store and I still got my staples. I still got the food that I knew was going to keep me full, keep me satisfied, keep me on track during the day, especially. Where are my groceries? I can't find my groceries right now, but you'll have to believe me that I— oh, here they are. I went to the grocery store and I got my groceries for the day. So you can see I got some eggs, I got some chicken, I got some ground beef, I got some fruit. There's a couple energy drinks in there. But I used that during the day knowing I was probably going to overindulge and overeat at night. So I didn't just say, well, Dan, I'm going to overeat tonight. I'm just going to have French toast for breakfast because French toast is the best breakfast there is. I'm just going to drink a bunch of alcohol, have no protein, eat whatever I want during the day. No, I did the exact opposite. I was on track for breakfast and lunch, and then dinner, I enjoyed myself and I enjoyed gelato the size of my head every single night, which I will also show you right now as well. If you are anywhere near Miami, there's a place called Anita's Gelato. You have to go try it. This is, uh, this is the gelato that I had every single night. This is the size of my freaking head. And here's a side note for you. This gelato is only— well, it's all over the world, but nowhere near me. There's only a couple of few spots. There's one in like, um, Sydney, Australia. There's one in New York City. There's one in LA. There's one in Miami. There's a few ones throughout the world. That's not here where I live currently. So I wanted to enjoy it while I was there because I knew I wouldn't be able to get it When I was back home. And that's another side tip for you. If you're out traveling somewhere, you're on vacation somewhere, if there are foods you're not going to be able to get back home, indulge in them a little bit. But I'm not just going to go eat Doritos or Oreos just because I'm in Miami and I'm on vacation because I could get those anywhere. So that being said, didn't throw away the entire day just because I knew for dinner and dessert I was going to enjoy myself a bit. And while I was there, that's what I did with my diet. And I was also still very mindful and still very active. Granted, easier to be very active when it's sunny and 80 degrees in December, which to me is still crazy. But every day I either got a strength training workout in, I got a run on the beach, or I had a swim in the ocean. One of those 3 things every single day while I was there. And I still also hit my 8,000-step goal while I was there. So again, not just throwing away the entire day and not just abandoning everything I knew I should be doing just because my dinner was going to be a little bit off and I was going to have dessert and I couldn't track my calories perfectly. So after Florida, I got back on the day before Christmas Eve. And when I got back, my scale was up a pound. And now you might be like, Eric, what the hell? Your scale was only up a pound. I just saw that gelato. It was the size of your freaking head. Yeah, but like I said, I was still active. I still got workouts in. I got swims. I got runs. I was mindful during the day. Even when I was overeating a little bit, remember, there's a difference between Overeating by 200, 300, even 500, 600 calories versus having an entire fuck it day, a 6,000 calorie day, which easily can happen. So my scale was only up a pound, which is, I think, not that bad for enjoying myself for 5 days. But then I got back and I had Christmas Eve and Christmas. So on Christmas Eve, I went out to eat with my parents. And once again, I knew I was going out to eat. So earlier in the day, I got my workout in, I got my steps in, and I ate a little bit lighter. I prioritized protein, fruits, veggies to make sure that going out to eat, I could enjoy myself. And I'll show you a picture of what I had when we went out to eat. It was a very, very, very good dinner, by the way. Look at the size of this baked potato. This shit's crazy. Look at how big this baked potato— have you ever seen a baked potato that big? There's no way. There's no way you have. But it was awesome. It was a steak dinner. It was really, really nice. And again, I wanted to enjoy myself there. I didn't track my calories that day because again, I knew I could have, but I just decided not to because it's Christmas Eve and I wanted to enjoy myself. So that was Christmas Eve. And then yesterday, Christmas Day, I woke up. I knew my parents were going to be coming over to my house and we were going to have some food. We were going to cook some food, probably have some cookies and desserts. So what did I do? Got up in the morning, got my walk in, made sure to get some of my steps in. I ate a lighter breakfast, still prioritizing protein and fruits and veggies, knowing later in the day I was probably going to overindulge a tad bit. And I was okay with that. And then during the day, while my parents were here for Christmas, we wouldn't have some food. We had some really good lunch. We had a really good dinner. But after After, excuse me, both of those lunches and dinners, took their ass outside to go get some steps. And yesterday I actually got— I'll show you in my Clubhouse. You see my shirt? I'll show you in my Clubhouse app. I got 10,000 steps yesterday, actually a little bit over 10,000 steps yesterday. So again, I didn't just say, well, I'm going to overindulge and so I'll just lay on the couch all day. No. I knew I wanted to start to get back into routine with my calorie deficit. And that's exactly what I did. So even though I didn't track my calories and I didn't stay on track yesterday with my calories, I woke up today and I was up a couple of more pounds. So before I left for Florida, I was 244.7. This morning I was 247.2. So I'm up about 3 pounds on the scale. Which again, all in all, with enjoying a trip, enjoying Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner, Christmas Day, I really don't think it's that bad. And also those 3 pounds that I gained over the course of 7 days of being off track, it's not 3 pounds of fat because it takes you 3,500 calories above your maintenance calories to gain even 1 pound of fat. That would mean if I go to my calorie goals for the day, right now my calorie goal is somewhere between 2,600 and 2,800. I'll talk about that a little bit later in the video when I speak about how I'm going to turn this around and get back some of my progress that I lost. But if I was eating, you know, 2,600 to 2,800 calories per day, that would mean I would have to eat like 7,000 calories in a day. to actually gain a pound of fat, which number one, I didn't do. And number two, I actually wouldn't even gain a pound of fat because it's not what you do in a day. It's what you do over the course of a week. So if you overeat one day, if your other days of the week, you're in a calorie deficit, you're at the very least just going to end up at maintenance calories, meaning you wouldn't lose fat that week, or you You could still be in a calorie deficit if you are hitting your calorie deficit the other 6 days of the week. Personally, I don't think I lost any weight these last— I don't think I lost any fat these last 7 days. And I'm okay with that because I know I have 7 weeks left of this calorie deficit. I know I'm going to be dialed in for the next 7 weeks. I have no other trips coming up or events, or I don't do anything for New Year's Eve, New Year's. I don't drink alcohol, so I just go to sleep at 9 PM. And so I'm going to stay on track and I'm going to make the most of these next 7 weeks. And that's what I want to encourage you to do because even if your scale is up a bit, it's just water weight. And if you get back on track ASAP, like today, it's the day after Christmas as I'm recording this. I'm not waiting until Monday. I'm not waiting until January 1st. I'm not waiting until Monday, January 5th. Today. What would I wait for? This is a week and a half that I can use to my advantage to make progress. I can lose 1 to 2 pounds of fat this week on top of the water weight that I'll lose, which I fully expect to do. We'll talk about that in a second as well. But it's about getting right back on track right now. Stop waiting. And that leads me into what I'm going to do To now get back on track. And the mistake that a lot of people make when they go off track with their— they've been off track for a week, they overate, they know they overate, they haven't been getting their steps, their scale's up a bit. The mistake is trying to overcorrect your fitness now because you think you ruined everything, you think you lost some progress, and so you course correct way too much. That's like If you make a— if you're driving a car and you make a turn, instead of like just kind of slightly turning, it's like taking the wheel and fucking cutting it a full 90 degrees. What's gonna happen if you do that? The car is gonna, you know, you're gonna turn super quick, you're gonna flip over, you're gonna have to go buy a new car, learn how to drive again because you suck at driving. But point being, you don't need to do all of that. You just need to make a slight And that's exactly what I'm going to do with my calorie deficit. And there's 3 main components that I'm going to be changing to get back on track and re-kickstart my progress. So the first one is, I mentioned earlier that my calorie deficit range is 2,600 to 2,800. If you've been following the previous calorie deficit update videos, which if you're not, You can go back on my channel and check some of those out. But you'll know I've been usually eating towards the top end range of that calorie deficit. So I'm more so going towards like the 2,800 calorie mark versus the 2,600 calorie mark. Why am I doing that? I like to eat food. Shocker. I would rather eat more calories and still lose weight than have to eat less calories because I like eating food. It is enjoyable for me. But knowing that I kind of just had a week where I took off and I only have 7 weeks left of the calorie deficit, I want to be able to push it a little bit more. So I'll make the adjustment of trying to more so eat towards the 2,600 to maybe 2,700 range. Now you might be thinking, Eric, that's not a lot of calories, but it actually is because if I was normally eating 2,800, now I'm going to go to 2,600. That's 200 per day over the course of 7 days. That's 1,400 calories per week less that I would be eating. That will contribute to more fat loss along the way. So it does add up over the course of weeks. And this is why even just 100 or a 200 calorie difference can make a big change. And it's also why you don't need to go from 2,800 calories to 2,000 calories. Like, the people who do this are wild to me. You think you need to overcorrect because you were off track and you slash your calories by an extra 500 or 1,000. Dude, it's only going to lead to you getting burnt out, not being able to stick with it. So you'll quit again. You'll have to restart. The same process will keep going over. So it's a slight slight adjustment. And really, it's not even an adjustment because it's just more so towards the bottom end of my range. So that's number one. Number 2, what I'm going to change is really trying to limit going out to eat. It's very hard to know exactly how many calories you're eating when you go out to eat. And I don't go out to eat a lot, but in this past week, I ate out every night when I was in Florida. I ate out with my parents. We had some different foods that I don't normally eat here on Christmas Day. So it was hard to know how many calories I was consuming. Not impossible. I could have guesstimated to the best of my ability, but I like being in control of my nutrition and I like knowing how many calories I'm consuming because for me, that makes it easier to stick to my calorie deficit. It might not be as fun, But it does make it easier to stick to my calorie deficit, which is my goal. I want to— I'm like a closet lazy person. I want to make the easiest route possible, especially with my nutrition. So just getting back to eating my normal meals, having my normal foods, going through my normal routine and day of eating. Like today, I'm right back on track with my normal foods, my normal eating schedule, my pre-workout, my post-workout, my protein shakes, all of that. And it makes it easy for me. So one time per week is really what I'm going to try to stick to. If I have to go out twice, I will. And I'll— that's the top end of the limit, but I'm going to try to stick to one time per week because that will also make me know that I'm sticking to the newer, lower calories that I'm trying to stick to. So that's number 2. And number 3, not much will change with my exercise. Because I'm already working out 4 days a week, been doing that. I'm doing my 1 day a week of HYROX training. Actually, I just signed up for a HYROX race in April, so that should be fun. So I do 1 day a week of that, and I've been getting my 8,000 steps. So I'm going to keep doing all of that. I might add in 1 to 2 days a week of either lower intensity zone 2 cardio, and this would be Like walking on an incline on the treadmill or the bike or the rower or walking with a weighted vest, something along those lines to kind of just get my heart rate up slightly and throw in some extra cardio. But that would be, or I would do a run. But both of those 2 things would be less about fat loss because like I said, what I was doing before I left for Florida was working. I was seeing the scale go down. It was continuously trending down. So the reason I would add in some extra exercise would be more for my cardiovascular health and the fact that I need to be training for this upcoming HYROX race. But those would be the only 1 or 2 changes I would make to my exercise regimen because I feel pretty good about where my exercise is and my steps that I'm getting per day and how it fits into my routine, my schedule. And again, I don't need to add in 5, 6, 7 days a week of extra cardio because number one, it's not realistic for me. And number two, what I was doing was working. And that's the lesson I want to give to you as well. What do you do after you overeat or you fall off? You just get back to doing what was working. You don't need to do anything extra or over-restrictive or cut out all of your carbs or Do some stupid detox diarrhea tea program, whatever. Just get back to what you were doing, but get back to it now. Don't wait another couple of days. Don't wait until January 1st, January 5th, because the more you wait, it actually goes back to the first point that we made in the beginning of the video. That is more time you are enabling The all-or-nothing mentality. And for a lot of you watching this, that's why you didn't reach your weight loss or your body goals in 2025. It's because you kept enabling the all-or-nothing mentality. I'll start after the holidays. I'll start after the vacation. It's summertime. The kids are off school. I'm off of school. I'll just wait until I'm back in routine. Number one way to kill any weight loss or calorie deficit journey that you're on. Like I said, with those couple of tweaks, I fully intend to drop the water weight that I have right now. And honestly, I think I'll hit a new low on the scale this upcoming week just by getting back to doing what I was doing. And I will be sure to update you next week when I come back for my calorie deficit update. So if you're not already subscribed to the channel and have notifications turned on, I would strongly recommend doing that because you can see the updates every single week. And I hope this will show you that number one, I'm the guy, I'm the guy who coaches people. I've helped over 25,000 people lose weight and I still have periods where I'm not perfect. But then when you have those periods, it's okay. You're human. You just get right back to it and you will see progress. Like you're going to watch me every single week on these updates. I'm going to make more progress. My scale is going to go down. I'm going to lose more fat. It's because right now I'm getting back on track and recommitting to my calorie deficit. And if you want some help committing to your fat loss journey and you need some accountability, you want a proper plan, click the link in the show notes of this podcast— video, sorry. I also do podcasts, but click the link in the description of the video below to learn more. About our online coaching program. We help people every single day with their workouts, nutrition, keeping you on track, checking in, holding you accountable. If you actually want to reach your goals in 2026, getting on a proper program with some accountability is the best way to do that. And if you like the way I approach things, you can click the link in the description below. Other than that, after you do that, you can check out this video here to learn my 9 years of no BS, honest fat loss advice.