crazy fact about a calorie deficit 🤯

16 Aug 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:33

In this short YouTube monologue, Eric Roberts introduces the thermic effect of food (TEF) – the calories the body expends to digest what you eat. He claims that whole, unprocessed foods require roughly twice as many calories to digest as processed foods, using a 100‑calorie sweet potato versus 100‑calorie Rice Krispies comparison. From this, he argues that two people eating the same total calories can have different net calorie balances: the person eating mostly whole foods will burn more calories during digestion, creating a larger calorie deficit and thus greater fat loss. Roberts frames this as a practical, no‑BS tip for fat‑loss: prioritize clean, whole foods not because they’re inherently “good” but because they boost TEF. He ends with a call to follow him for more straightforward fat‑loss advice.

Chapters

All right, I'm about to teach you something about calories that is going to blow your mind, so listen up. There is something called your thermic effect of food. This is how many calories your body burns to digest the food you eat. There is a way you can double the amount of calories your body has to burn to digest the food. You want to know what it is? I'm going to tell you. This would be 100 calories of processed Not bad, it's just already processed. This would be 100 calories of whole, non-processed foods. When you eat foods that are not processed, your body burns double the amount of calories to digest that food. So if you eat 100 calories of sweet potatoes versus 100 calories of Rice Krispies, while the calorie intake may be the same, The calories burned to digest that food would be different, which means 2 people could eat the same amount of daily calories, but if one person is eating 90% whole foods and the other person is eating 90% processed foods, the person who is eating whole foods is going to burn more fat and have a bigger calorie deficit. And that's why you should be trying to eat clean and healthy foods, not because foods are good and bad, but whole foods will help you drop more body fat for the same amount of calories. And if you like learning simple, no BS fat loss information, give me a follow.