Eating 1200 Calories And Not Losing Weight?
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts explains why many people who think they are in a calorie deficit still fail to lose weight. He begins by defining a true calorie deficit as simply consuming fewer calories than the body burns, emphasizing that if weight isn’t dropping, the person is actually at maintenance or surplus. He introduces the “21‑day rule,” stating that a weight‑loss plateau cannot be declared before 21 days have passed, and urges viewers to give their bodies time before troubleshooting. Roberts then outlines the five most common calorie‑counting errors that keep people from being in a deficit: (1) not using a food scale, (2) neglecting bites and snacks, (3) overlooking cooking oils and sprays, (4) ignoring liquid calories, and (5) treating weekends differently from weekdays. For each error he provides concrete examples (e.g., a tablespoon of olive oil = 120 kcal, unweighed peanut butter portions) and explains how these hidden calories add up. He follows with a practical solution for consistency: use a calendar to mark days that hit the target (red X) versus days that miss (black circle), aiming for at least 90 % adherence over a month. Finally, Roberts stresses the need for honest, objective self‑assessment, warning against denial and encouraging viewers to track everything, be transparent with themselves, and adjust based on the identified mistakes. The video ends with a friendly call‑to‑action for feedback and support.
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Real men wear pink. All right, let's do this. What is going on, guys? Welcome back to the channel and/or welcome to the channel. Hope you're doing super amazing. In this video, we're going to be talking about what to do if you were in a calorie deficit but not losing weight. So I'm going to cover first and foremost the 21 rule, and we'll get into that as we get there. I'm going to cover why there's a dartboard on this board right here. I hope you can see that's a dartboard. Never was the best in arts and crafts. And then I'm gonna tell you why there's a calendar here as well. Again, it's not tic-tac-toe, although it looks like it as a second glance. Either way, I'm gonna cover all those things. But first, let me start with this: if you are not losing weight, you are not in a calorie deficit. Because a calorie deficit simply means you are intaking less calories than what your body is burning. If you are doing that That is the only way you will lose weight. Saying you are in a calorie deficit and not losing weight— a calorie deficit isn't a diet. It's not like saying, oh, I'm doing keto but I can't lose weight, I'm doing fasting but I'm not losing weight. That's not what this is. A calorie deficit is simply just an energy expenditure equation. If you are intaking less energy, aka calories, if you're intaking less energy than what your body is burning, you will lose mass. That is what a calorie deficit is. So if you're not doing that, You are not in a calorie deficit. So I want to make that very clear first and foremost, because again, if you're not losing weight over a period of time consistently, you're not in a calorie deficit. You're either at a calorie maintenance or surplus, which means you would maintain your weight and/or gain weight. So with that being said, first, why are you not in a calorie deficit? I'm going to cover these 3 things right here that are by far the most common things that come up with people who are in a calorie deficit but not losing weight. Let's go over them. First and foremost is the 21 rule, and this basically just says if it hasn't been at least 21 days, you have zero room to talk about how you're not losing weight yet. Because if it hasn't been at least 21 days, you're not in a plateau, nothing is wrong, you're not doing anything wrong, nothing bad is happening. It's just a part of the journey. I wrote, in my humble opinion, one of the best articles I've written on my website, ericrobertsfitness.com. I wrote one of the best articles that I believe I've ever written on what to do when you hit a weight loss plateau. And one of the biggest things I say in there is if it hasn't been at least 21 days, you're not in a weight loss plateau. It's just a part of the journey. Sometimes you're, you're not going to lose weight every single day of your life. You're not going to lose weight every single week of your life. Sometimes your weight is going to stall out. That is normal. It doesn't mean you're in a plateau. It just means that it is normal. I highly encourage you to go read that article. I'm going to link the the article here in the description below. Highly encourage you to go read that article. If it maybe has been over 21 days for you, I would then go read that article. Or either way, I would go read that article to get some more information on why your weight may plateau for 1, 2, 3 weeks, and that's normal. Okay, so that is the first thing. If it has been 21 days, no room to talk. Moving on. I wrote a dartboard here, or I tried to draw a dartboard here. Why did I do that? One of the most common things that I see with people when they go on their diet and they start tracking their food and looking at their nutritional changes is they're not being as accurate with their calorie counting, or just in gen— if you're not counting calories, or just in general realizing how much food they're eating. If there's 2 things people do, it is vastly underestimate how many calories they eat and vastly overestimate how consistent they are being. We're gonna talk about both right here. First and foremost, let's talk about the accuracy of your calorie counting, or if you're not calorie counting, Just what can happen to make you not be in a calorie deficit even if you're being perfect, even if you think you're being perfect, eating healthy foods, not eating junk food, not eating at night. These are some things that can come up that will make you not be in a calorie deficit that 90% of people miss and especially 100% of people miss when they think they're being perfect but not losing weight. All right, so we're back. These are the 5 things that are by far the most common when it comes to, again, whether you're tracking calories or not. These are the 5 things that come up 99% of the time that make you not be able to lose weight because you're not actually being as accurate as you may think you are. You're missing the mark a bit. First one is going to be not using a food scale and not weighing your food out. This is important for a few different reasons, but if you don't truly know how much 100 grams of chicken looks like or 100 grams of cooked rice looks like, you are not going to be able to guesstimate your portions correctly. This is one great tool of actually counting calories correctly and actually you know, weighing your food out on a food scale for 30, 60, 90 days at a time, whatever it is, you will learn what 100 grams of cooked chicken looks like. You will learn how many calories is in that chicken. You will learn how many calories is in 100 grams of cooked rice. You'll learn these things because you'll acquire the skill of doing that over the short period of time where you do do this correctly, looking at your food and saying, oh, that's about 4 ounces. Or, or again, or for example, let's say you're using tablespoons or cups. I'm going to put a picture here of a tablespoon of peanut butter that's not weighed and a tablespoon of peanut butter that is weighed. They're 2 different things because, again, going back to what I said earlier, weighing your food on a food scale is going to give you the most accurate determination of how many calories you are actually eating and it will accurately depict your portion size for you. So many people go wrong with portion sizes and it adds an extra 2, 5, 8, 900 calories per day. They don't even think about like, oh, I had a tablespoon of peanut butter, and not realizing a tablespoon not weighed versus a tablespoon weighed is 2 different things. So you have to weigh your food out on a food scale. Same with a cup, same with an ounce. Weigh it in grams. That is going to be the most accurate way for you to be able to count your calories correctly. And right there off the bat, if you start doing that— if you're not doing that right now— that will give you a ton of insight and probably lead you down a path that could can get you some answers. Okay, so that's the first thing. The next thing is going to be not tracking your bites and snacks throughout the day or throughout the night. These snacks that you take off your kid's plate or you randomly take while you're, while you're cooking dinner or you randomly take while you're out with your friends, all of those bites and snacks, they're still calories and they still add up throughout the day. Whether it's 70 calories here, 80 calories there, 100 calories there, 4 almonds, 5 almonds can be 60, 70, 80 calories right there. These bites and snacks throughout the day add up. And if you're doing it 1, 2, 3, 4 times throughout the day, easily, easily you can eat 300 to 800 calories just from bites and snacks throughout the day. And that can add up to you saying, oh, I didn't track those. I think I'm hitting 1,500 calories and I'm not losing weight. Yeah, but you didn't track all the bites and snacks you had throughout the day, which is leading you to eat 500 more calories than you think you may, Which is why you're at a calorie maintenance and not a calorie deficit. Okay? So bites and snacks throughout the day, they add up. Everything you intake is calories. I don't care if it's one bite here and there. I don't care if it's a few things here and there. It all adds up. Okay? So start tracking those, start being more aware of those, and that will probably again lead you down a path where you can find out what's going on. Third is gonna be cooking oils. For 1 tablespoon of olive oil, it's 120 calories. That adds up. If you're using that 1, 2, 3 times a day, you can see how that easily adds up throughout the day. Most people don't even think about the cooking oils that use. And also the spray pays as well. Spray pays. Pam sprays as well. Those have calories in them as well, and they add up as well. So if you're just spraying something for 15 seconds straight, there's calories in that spray, right? So cooking oils is another big thing you need to keep in mind when looking at if you're in a calorie deficit but not losing weight. Fourth is gonna be liquid calories. If you are drinking a capa froca mota choca mota fota cafe latte every single day, that probably has 400, 500, 600, 700 calories in it easily, easily. And that's every single day. That is going to be one of the main reasons I see, especially people who travel a lot or enjoy their Starbucks or this and that. Those calories count and those calories add up throughout the day and they can take away from you of the actual food you consume. So if you have 600 calories from a cafe frappe mocha latte in the morning, That's gonna take away food for you later in the day. So if you're starving later in the day, but you've already had 1,300 calories from one latte and one meal, well, yeah, you're gonna be hungry. It's gonna be hard to stick to your deficit. You're going to overeat then. So make sure you're being aware of the liquid calories you are consuming. And the last one, probably one of the most common, the weekends. Remember, there's 7 days in a week. There's not 5 days in a week. There's 7 days in a week, and you have to be in a weekly deficit for yourself to lose weight. Not 5 days, 7 days. The weekends count. You have to make sure— I know they might be harder. I know you may be traveling. I know you may be doing different things. You have a different schedule. I understand. But there are ways you can still hit your calories, still stay within your limits, and still see progress. I'm not saying you have to be so strict and rigid, which by the way, that may be one reason. If you're so strict and rigid Monday through Friday and then Saturday, Sunday— Friday night, Saturday, Sunday rolls around, you're like, Oh my God, I've been, I've been good all week. I've been perfect all week. I can have a cheat day here and there. But that just leads to you having the cycle of restricting during the week and then binging during the weekends. You're not going to lose weight then, and you're not in a calorie deficit because there's 7 days in a week. You have to be in a weekly deficit for you to lose weight. Okay? So start looking at your weekends a bit closer. Moving on. By the way, if you want more in-depth on those 5 things you just heard about, I wrote an incredibly beneficial article, incredibly helpful article here below on the 5 most common calorie counting mistakes. I'm gonna link that article here in the description below. Back to the video. I said the 2 things that most people struggle with is they are underestimating how many calories they're eating and overestimating how consistent they are being. I have solutions for both. We just covered the first one. The next one we're gonna talk about is how to make sure you are actually being consistent enough to see progress. I wanna challenge you to this, and I have most of my online coaching clients do this all the time. I want you to get a calendar. I want you to, for the days that you hit your calories, give yourself a red X. For the days you do not hit your calories, give yourself a black circle. At the end of the month, add those 2 up. If you're finding that, oh, I had 15 days where I hit my calories, but I had 15 days where I didn't hit my calories, you don't have any other problem then. You're just not being consistent enough. If you, if you do this and you find that out of 30, out of 31 days in a month, You are not hitting your calories 7, 8, 9, 10 times a month. You're not being consistent enough, and you're not going to lose. You're not going to lose weight. You're not going to see progress, and there's no other reason. You could be doing all these things right, but there's no other reason than the fact, the simple fact that you are not being consistent enough. If you do this right here, and you are not at the very least 80% consistent, but I want to say more like 90%. If you're not at least 90% consistent. With what you are doing, nothing is wrong. You just have to be more consistent. And if you're not, you're not gonna see progress. One of the biggest things I see is people think that, well, I've been doing good this entire time, but they forget about Tuesday when they went out to lunch with their friend and they didn't count calories that day. They forget about Thursday when they had a dinner they couldn't track, so they didn't track it, just said, okay, I'll get back on track Friday. They forgot about Saturday night when they went out to eat and they overate— they overdrank and overate. But didn't put it in their in their in their MyFitnessPal. They didn't put it in their calorie calculator. All those things add up, and you have to be. This is one of by far the hardest things. Just kind of wrapping up. This is by far one of the hardest things people struggle with is most of the time when you're not seeing results, you want to dig your heels in the ground and say, "Nope, I'm doing everything right. You're wrong. All this is wrong. I'm in a calorie deficit, but I'm not losing weight. This doesn't work." Da da da. One of the hardest things is to look at yourself and be very honest and very objective with what is going on. It is not easy to say, oh, you're right, I'm not tracking my bites and snacks. Oh, you're right, I'm only being 60% consistent throughout the month because I'm going off track on the weekends. Oh, you're right, this and that. If you're not honest with yourself and you're not objectively looking at what's going on, you are not going to see progress. And you're probably coming to this video because you're not seeing progress. I want you to see progress, but if you cannot be honest and objective with what is going on, if you just want to dig your heels in the ground and say, no, I'm doing everything right, you're wrong, you are not going to see progress. And that hurts me because I want you— I want to help you and I want you to see progress. But the more you can realize that you need to be honest with yourself and objective, you will see progress. And again, Everything I just gave you here are by far— it may not be your fault. You know, you may not know that cooking oils had calories. You might even realize that, you know, whether it is liquid calories, like you might not know these things, but now you do. So now you need to look at what's going on. You need to assess what's going on. Be honest with yourself. And if you've had something during this time where you're like, oh yeah, I might be doing that, that's the thing I would dive into the hardest and look at the hardest. And I kind of guarantee if you start looking at that more consistently, And you start looking at that more in depth, you'll probably see some results from there, and you'll probably come back and say, "Hey Eric, like thank you." Da da da. And that's what I love. That's what I want. I want you to see results. I want you to see progress. Okay? So thank you for watching the video. I appreciate it. If you like my pink shirt, let me know below. I would appreciate your feedback. Got all the colors. What's your favorite color? Other than that, guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for watching. I appreciate you. If I can help in any way, shape, or form, let me know. Other than that, we will talk soon. Thank you so much.
