In this instructional YouTube video, Eric Roberts tackles the common frustration of eating a low‑calorie diet (around 1,200 kcal) yet seeing no weight loss. He first debunks the myth of "starvation mode" by citing extreme historical examples—the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, Holocaust victims, and a 7‑day fast—to show that true calorie deficits always lead to weight loss. He then outlines four primary reasons people fail to lose weight despite thinking they are in a deficit: (1) weekend overeating that inflates the weekly average above maintenance, (2) snacking—especially nighttime or mindless bites—often caused by insufficient daytime protein, calories, and fiber, (3) inaccurate calorie tracking, where visual portion estimates lead to large errors; he advocates using a food scale and tracking in grams, and (4) insufficient duration and consistency, emphasizing the need for at least a month of 80‑90 % adherence and realistic expectations of 0.5‑2 lb per week loss. Roberts briefly addresses special cases (menopause, PCOS, hypothyroidism), acknowledging they can make the process harder but do not overturn the thermodynamic principle that a net energy deficit drives fat loss. He concludes with a call to action for viewers to use his free calorie‑counting guide and consider his coaching program.
Chapters
Eating 1,200 calories and not losing weight is one of the most frustrating things ever. But don't worry, because in this video I'm going to explain exactly what you need to do to fix it. By now you probably have heard you need to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. You've also probably heard that you might be eating too little calories and that's why you're not losing weight. Your body goes into something called starvation mode. Now when it comes to starvation mode, I'm going to give you some pretty extreme examples, but that's because Starving is actually an extreme thing. I want you to go ahead and Google, and I will put some pictures right here as well. There is something called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. In this experiment, I don't know who— I don't know who agreed to be in this experiment, but they took people and they actually starved them. Not like what you and I may be going through, where like, you know, our DoorDash is 20 minutes late. They actually starved people. So they were actually in starvation mode. And if you look up these people and look at the study, they all became skin and bones. They did not like hold on to fat when they were actually starving. They became skin and bones. That is because they were actually in a calorie deficit and they were losing body fat. Another, again, extreme example, but that's because starving is actually extreme. If you look at victims of the Holocaust, Those people, if you look up pictures of them, are they skinny? Are they skin and bones? Or are they holding on to stored body fat? Also, just think about this for a second. If you were actually— let's say you didn't eat for 7 days. God, I hope that does not happen, but let's just say you had no food for 7 days. Do you think you would gain weight or do you would lose weight? You would lose weight. Why? Because starvation mode, eating too little calories and not losing weight, Is not a real thing. And I know you're probably thinking, well, Eric, I swear I'm eating in a calorie deficit, but I'm not losing weight. They also did a study, and these are all like actual science things. They did a study of taking people who were tracking their calories. They thought they were eating 1,200 calories, and a lot of the people— I'll link the study down in the description below— were actually eating closer to 2,000 calories. And these are people who had tracked their calories before. They thought they were eating this and they were actually eating this. The point being is if you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. And if you're not in this calorie deficit, then you are not going to lose weight. Now the big question here is why? Why are you not in a calorie deficit? Why are you not losing weight? Why are you not eating the 1,200 calories? Or by the way, whatever calories you think you're eating and not losing fat, I'm gonna give you the 4 main reasons why. The first weekend is going to be the weekends. Yes, I know you're probably watching this right now and you're like, yeah, you got me. Remember, you have to be in a weekly overall calorie deficit in order to lose fat. If I grab my handy-dandy fat replica, this is 1 pound of fat. There are 3,500 calories in this 1 pound of fat. So that means by the end of the week, because you can't be in a 3,500 calorie deficit in 1 day, By the end of the week, you need to be in a 3,500 calorie deficit if you would like to lose 1 pound of body fat. That means you need to be 3,500 calories below your weekly maintenance calories in order for you to lose fat. If you are eating, you know, let's say you are eating, let's say you actually are eating 1,200 calories Monday through Thursday. If you are then eating 3,000 calories Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then your weekly calorie average is gonna be somewhere around 2,000 calories. That's why you're not losing weight. And quite frankly, it makes sense because when you go this low in calories, let's say 1,200, what happens is your hunger hormones, your hunger cues get very out of whack because you're trying to go in such an aggressive calorie deficit. You get massive amounts of cravings, you get much more hunger, you have way less energy, way less willpower, and it ends up making you overeat, binge eat on the weekend. So if this is happening to you, it's actually a quite like, it's a normal cycle. I know you don't want it to happen, but it's a quite normal cycle because if you over-restrict too much during the week, you are going to end up overeating on the weekends. Whereas opposed to if, let's say for example, instead of trying to eat 1,200 calories, Maybe you ate 1,500 or 1,600 calories all 7 days of the week. Now your weekly calorie average would be 1,500 or 1,600 as opposed to 2,000, and that would allow you to then be in a calorie deficit more consistently throughout the course of the week to be able to stick to the calories and see the progress you want to see. So the first place you got to look at is the weekend. The second reason you're not in a calorie deficit and not losing weight is Snacking. And this could be, you know, snacking at night. I know this is a big one for a lot of the clients that we work with when we help them lose body fat. A lot of people have an issue snacking and overeating at night. Why is this though? This is because you're not eating enough food during the day. It's the similar concept to like if you're trying to over-restrict earlier in the week, you're gonna binge later in the week. If you're somebody who consistently overeats at night, it's usually because you're not eating enough food during the day. During the day. Not enough protein, not enough calories, and not enough fiber. Those are the 3 things I would look at to eat more of during the day because when you're overeating at night and you're causing yourself to go over your calories for that day, most people think, they're like, oh, I don't eat all day. I'm good. I'm good. Or they think this thing where they're like, oh well, I'm hungry at night so I'm gonna save all my calories for the nighttime. What happens then? You end up overeating. You end up binge eating. Snacking on things after dinner, you just can't get full. It's because you haven't eaten enough food during the day. Or this could be just like mindless snacking or taking bites and snacks throughout the day, like those two or three chips that you ate, or those four or five little dino nuggets you ate off your kid's plate, or the tasting of the things when you're cooking dinner. All that stuff is calories, and it might only be thirty calories here. 60 calories there, 40 calories there. But if you do that 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 times throughout the day, that adds up to 200, 300, 500, 600 calories. And so snacking is one of those big reasons. Not that you can't snack in between meals, but it's gotta be accounted for. You have to be mindful of it and you have to work it into your overall calorie count for the day. And the third one, one of the most, if not the most common, You're not tracking your calories correctly. Just downloading MyFitnessPal, looking at your food and being like, oh, that looks like 4 ounces. You're guessing. You're guessing. You're guessing what it looks like, which means you're guessing the calories, which means you're guessing the results. That's why you're getting guessing results. You're not getting the results that you want to get. You cannot guesstimate how many calories you are eating. Let me take that back. You can, but if you're not seeing the progress, you can't. So, enter food scale. Food scale has entered chat. You need to get a food scale and weigh your food in grams. Let me say that again. In grams. Not cups, not tablespoons, not ounces. And you're like, Eric, why? I have a video on this channel, on this YouTube channel. I have a video of how to count your calories. Also, if you head to the description of this video down below, there will be a free guide that I have on how to count calories correctly. And I cannot overemphasize how important this is. Track your food in grams. You don't want to track it in cups, tablespoons, ounces, because that is a unit of measurement of volume. When you are tracking food, you're tracking the unit of measurement of a weight, which is grams. So, please track your food in grams. And again, if you need a free guide on how to count your calories, 'cause now I know your next question. I know it because I've done this long enough. You're gonna be like, Eric, do I track raw or cooked? Raw meat or cooked meat? Do I track pasta before I do it or after? I'm not gonna get into all those questions right now. This is a different video. If you want to learn how to count calories correctly, I guarantee you 90% of you or more are doing it wrong. There will be a free guide in the description. Go check that out. But you have to make sure you are tracking your calories correctly. And number 4, maybe let's say you're one of these, like, you're an absolute special unicorn. You're doing all this perfectly. You're staying on track on the weekends. You're not snacking at all. You're using a food scale, weighing your food out, and you're like, Eric, I'm still not losing weight. If that is actually you, it's probably just not been a long enough period of time for you to see the progress you're looking to see. And I mean, like, you need to be doing all of this— eating in a calorie deficit, being consistent. You need to be at least 80 to 90% consistent. That means if there are 31 days in a month, you need to be hitting your calorie number at least 28 of those days. So if your calorie number is 1,700 calories, you need to be eating that number and not going over that at least 28 days. So if it hasn't been 31 days, which is what I would recommend to you, it needs to be at least a month. So if it's been a week, it's just not been a long enough period of time for you to see the progress you're looking to see. And that brings a whole different conversation of like, what is good progress? Generally speaking, you will lose anywhere from 0.5 to 2 pounds per week in a healthy, sustainable fat loss If you're doing that at all, and again, on average, one week you might lose three pounds. The next week you might lose a half a pound. In two weeks, you still lost three and a half pounds, which would be well within this range right here. So if you're making that kind of progress, you're doing great. But make sure you give it at least a month's time. I know you don't want to hear that, but that's the true answer. And for some of you out there, you're probably going to ask me specific things like, "Well, Eric, what about ladies?" That are in perimenopause, going through menopause, postmenopause. What do you know about that, Eric? You're just a 28-year-old jackass who has a stupid beard on the internet. Well, I don't know. I've coached a couple of ladies who have been through menopause, and here's some of the progress that they've seen. But you might be like, well, Eric, what about people with PCOS? Again, I don't know. I've coached a couple of people who have PCOS and who are still seeing great progress. Well, Eric, what about hypothyroidism? I don't know. I've coached a couple of people who have had hypothyroidism and still seen great progress. I'm not debating the fact that these things might make it harder because they do make it more challenging and more difficult. But again, and I need you to understand this because it is very important, you need to understand you can do this. You need to understand these things are not going to hold you back or keep you down. As long as you are actually in a calorie deficit, you are going to lose the body fat you are looking to lose. We are humans. We run off something called thermodynamics. This is energy in, energy out. As long as you have that, you are going to see the progress that you want to see. I promise. I hope this video helped. And if you want some extra help with your journey losing fat, click the link in the description of this video down below, or just head to erfclubhouse.com to check out my online coaching program.
