In this solo walk‑and‑talk episode, Eric Roberts explains how to build muscle while losing fat, a process he calls “recomposition.” He begins by sharing why he created the 15‑episode Walk & Talk series—promoting walking and using self‑imposed challenges to increase consistency. He encourages viewers to set their own fitness challenges (e.g., daily calorie tracking, water intake, step goals) as a powerful habit‑building hack. Roberts also announces a new 5‑week challenge on his fitness podcast, featuring client interviews to provide relatable success stories. The core content covers two primary scenarios where simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain are feasible: (1) individuals who are new to a structured strength‑training program (as opposed to random YouTube or HIIT workouts) and (2) individuals returning after a 6‑12‑month break from structured training. In these cases, the novel stimulus allows the body to adapt and gain muscle while in a modest calorie deficit. He outlines practical nutrition strategies: - For “skinny‑fat” individuals, stay near maintenance calories and consume protein equal to current body weight (lb) in grams. - For those with higher body fat, adopt a slight calorie deficit (≈ 200‑250 kcal below maintenance) and consume protein based on goal body weight (lb) in grams. He stresses that protein is the only macronutrient that preserves lean mass during a deficit. Roberts advises that if you are not in one of the two scenarios, you must choose either a dedicated cutting phase or a bulking phase, recommending target body‑fat percentages (≈ 18‑20 % for women, 12‑14 % for men) before switching to a surplus for muscle definition. He wraps up with a recap of the key points and directs viewers to additional videos on calorie calculators, program design, and rep/set schemes. Overall, the episode blends motivational coaching, concrete nutritional formulas, and program design guidance to help viewers achieve body recomposition.
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What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another Walk and Talk with E. It's the second to last Walk and Talk, I believe. So excited for that. Um, so actually, very first and foremost, the whole reason I did this Walk and Talk series of 15 episodes here was a few reasons. Number one, like I said earlier, I wanted to promote more walking. Number two, I wanted to challenge myself to put out more content. Actually, it's funny because Today, super crazy busy day. I would not have done this walk and talk today if it were not for the challenge I put out to myself to have 3 walk and talks a week for 5 weeks straight. This is the 5th week, and if I didn't have a challenge, I can assure you I would not be out walking right now and doing this. But because I challenged myself to do this walk and talk, that made me want to push and do it that much more. And you can translate this into your own fitness because I do this so many times with a lot of my clients where I'll give them just random challenges like, you know, So it's funny, think about yourself. Like, when somebody gives you a challenge, like, there's a different aura to it, right? You're like, you're more dedicated, you're more focused on it. And so you can utilize this in your own journey. I don't care what the challenge is. If you put a challenge to yourself, have it— like, sometimes I'll give my clients a challenge, you know, hey, I challenge you to, I don't know, hit your calories for 7 days straight. I challenge you to drink 5 glasses of water a day. I challenge you to do this. I challenge you to get 6,000 steps today. Whatever the case may be, you can do it for a day, for a week, for a month, for 90 days. Either way, a challenge. If I didn't have this challenge right now, I would not be doing this. So you can use that in your own fitness journey. And honestly, I think it's one of the biggest hacks. If I could give you a hack, give challenges to yourself. It's one of the things I do with my clients all the time. And if you're a client watching, you probably know I do this to you and shit works. That's why I do it. That's number one. Um, and actually, second part of this, I'm actually going to be doing another 5-week challenge except on my podcast. So if you have not subscribed to the podcast, I'll link it here in the description below, Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast. But what I'm doing is I'm gonna have— so right now I do 3 podcasts a week, but I want to start doing 3 podcasts a week plus 2 podcasts per week with some of my clients because I think my clients are the most badass— I guess I'm biased, but like, I think they're the most badass people ever. And they really can— you can relate to them. It's one thing to hear me talk about these things, but when you hear somebody else who's gone through the exact same thing that either you are going through or you, you want to go through, it helps. And so if you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, definitely subscribe to the podcast because I will be putting out content there pretty hard over the next 5 weeks. So definitely looking forward to seeing you on there. Now, finally diving into the topic of this video. Topic of this video is gonna be how to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. And those things are typically contradictory because normally, not normally, always to lose fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit. Always, not always, but to optimally build muscle, you need to be in a calorie surplus, right? Calorie deficit, eat less calories than your body burns. Calorie surplus, eat more calories than your body burns. So you're probably wondering, Eric, how the hell can I do both at the same time? I'm gonna explain to you. There's 2 main scenarios where you can do this. And again, let's say your goals are to, you know, grow your glutes but also lose belly fat. Or if you're a guy, build bigger arms but lose your beer belly. Those 2 things are where you'd want to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, right? How can you do that? Is it possible? It is possible. I'll give you three things. Number one, there's two main scenarios where you can do it simultaneously at the same time. First scenario is going to be there's a really loud bird. First scenario is going to be if you are brand new to following a structured strength training program, and when I say a structured strength training program, I don't mean. YouTube videos. I don't mean HIIT workouts. I don't mean Orange Theory. I mean actually following a real intelligently designed, properly designed strength training program. And I make that an emphasis because I've gotten so many people who, they do YouTube workouts or they do HIIT cardio. And listen, any exercise is better than no exercise, so I'm not putting that down, but there's a big difference in following A program and doing other workouts like that. Following a program is, is an intelligently, properly designed program that's going to get you the results you want, because that's what you need to burn to build muscle. Remember, you have to follow a real program because you can't just build muscle. Yeah, going into a calorie surplus is going to optimize muscle building, but unlike a calorie deficit to lose body fat, all you need to lose body fat is to be in a calorie deficit. To build muscle, if building muscle was as easy as just being in a calorie surplus, I'd be the most jacked human being ever because I can eat all day long. It's not that easy. You have to have the strength training program. So if you are brand new to either just number one, working out in general, but more so number two, brand new to a structured strength training program, you are going to be able to lose fat and build muscle at the same time because you're new. It's new. It's a new stimulus to your body. It's, it's a stress that your body's going to have to adapt to because it's new. So your body's going to adapt to it no matter what. I would say this lasts for about the first 6 to 12 months. So in the first 6 to 12 months of you being newer to following a strength training program, that is when you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time. So let's say your goals are to grow your glutes but lose your stomach. You could go into a slight calorie deficit. Let's just say, for example, a slight calorie deficit. Number 1, if you need to know how many calories to eat to lose weight, you can go ahead to this video right here. Number 2, let's say your maintenance calories are 2,000. A slight deficit would be 1,800, 1,750, somewhere around there. Because you have to remember, once you start strength training and building muscle and eating more protein, which we'll talk about here in a second, Once you start doing those 2 things, your metabolism is going to increase. And the more lean muscle mass you have, the more protein you eat, the more, the more muscle you build, you're going to increase your metabolism. That's why you don't want to go so low into a calorie deficit, because you won't be able to build muscle then. It'll be too big of a deficit to build lean muscle mass. So take a moderate deficit, eat right around maintenance calories and/or slightly below. I would say if you are more of the Skinny fat, I would say eating right around maintenance calories, which if you don't know how to find your maintenance calories, I have a whole video here on YouTube. Cicada almost killed me. Number 2, if you have more body fat to lose, I would say go into a slight deficit. And again, I put a calorie calculator in this video if you wanna go check it out. So that's that. Now, the second scenario is going to be if you are If you have taken an extended period of time off from strength training, so for example, I get a lot of people come to me who, let's say they're 40 years old and they used to play high school sports, college sports, worked out some after college, then life happened, they got married, had kids, so on and so forth, right? That individual, they followed a strength training program for a long period of time, but they've taken a long break from it as well. How long of a break? I'd say if you have not been following a strength training program for longer than same time period, six to twelve months, six to twelve months. If you have not been following a strength training program, you will be able to then start back and lose fat and build muscle at the same time. Because again, it's new to you. It's new to your body. Your body is going to have to adapt and respond and change to it. Because it's new. So that is the second scenario. If you're not either one of those two scenarios, and remembering again that brand new to strength training means that incorporates if you've been doing like HIIT cardio or YouTube workouts, because I get a lot of people sometimes like, oh, I've been working out forever. I'm like, sweet, like what is— what have you done? Ah, well, Beachbody here, P90X, Orangetheory. I'm like, okay, so you haven't actually— you've been working out, But you haven't actually been following a program. So if that's you, you can fall in that category of losing fat and building muscle same time because you're new. But if you're not either one of those 2 things, at that point you would have to pick. You would have to pick, am I going to lose fat right now or am I going to build muscle right now? My 2 cents would be, if you're a female and you want to lose fat and build muscle, I would get down to around 18 to 20% body fat first, and then look into going into a calorie surplus phase, a muscle definition phase. If you're a male, I would look to get down to about 12 to 14% body fat, and then look to build muscle. Um, actually, I just had one of my clients go through this recently. Actually, I got her progress pictures today. She looks amazing. I'll put them up here. Um, she lost weight for a good amount of time period, as you can see, and then now she's going into a calorie surplus phase, a muscle definition phase. But she's doing that after she got down to a pretty low body fat percentage already. And so, um, that's what I would do. You can't— if you're not one of those 2 scenarios, you won't be able to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. You can do it at the same time, but it would like be For example, you would take 3 months and go into a calorie deficit and lose body fat, and then you would take 4 to 6 months, go into a calorie surplus and go into a muscle definition phase, go into a muscle gaining phase. And then at the same time, after 9 months, you would have lost fat and built muscle. That's the most, in my opinion, the most optimal way to go about doing that. So guys, that is basically it. Um, One last thing I'll say, you wanna eat high protein because protein is the only macronutrient that helps build and retain lean muscle mass. So again, I'll give you the 2 scenarios. If you are more of the skinny fat, I would say eat right around your current body weight in pounds in protein. So let's say, for example, you are a 150-pound skinny fat male. who wants to lose fat and build muscle. That individual, eat right around your body weight in protein, and you're going to, along with everything I just said, and you're going to lose fat and build muscle. Let's say you're more, you know, let's say you have 50, 60, 70 pounds to lose. At that point, I would say protein-wise, take your goal body weight. So let's say, for example, if you weigh 220 and you wanna weigh 150, I would take your goal body weight and then multiply that by 1, right around 1. And then from there, that will give you a good equation on how much protein to eat per day. So that's what I'd say. And again, last thing, make sure you have a structured strength training program. I'm going to link a video here that I did on how to create your own workout program. So feel free to go check that out. I also have a video here on YouTube talking about, you know, how many reps to do, how many sets to do, how should you structure it? What exercises, so on and so forth. So if you want to go check out that video as well, it's here on my YouTube channel as well. So guys, that was the walk and talk today. Hope you enjoyed it. Again, just a quick recap. Number one, you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time if you are new to following a real strength training program, or if you have taken an extended period of time off from following a strength training program. If you are more skinny fat, I would say eat right around your your maintenance calories and eat around your current body weight in protein. If you have more body fat to lose, I would go into a slight calorie deficit. Eat around your goal body weight in pounds in protein. All right? Hope that helped, guys. And again, you can do both. Just make sure you clearly lay out kind of which one you have. So other than that, guys, hope you enjoyed the video. All right, second to last walk and talk, and we'll talk soon, okay? All right.
