In this instructional video, Eric Roberts challenges the common belief that staying in a calorie deficit forever is necessary for weight loss. He outlines a three‑phase model—calorie deficit to lose weight, calorie surplus to build muscle, and calorie maintenance to keep the new weight. The core of the video is a detailed explanation of “reverse dieting,” the process of moving from a deficit back to maintenance. Eric describes two reverse‑dieting strategies: a gradual increase of 100–200 kcal per week and an immediate jump to the calculated maintenance level, arguing the latter is preferable because it avoids prolonged hormonal stress. He explains why a 2–5 lb weight spike after increasing calories is not fat gain, citing increased stomach contents and glycogen‑associated water. He also discusses metabolic adaptation—how higher intake raises energy expenditure through digestion, fidgeting, stronger workouts, and muscle growth—allowing many clients to eat 800–1,200 extra calories while staying at their target weight. Throughout, he promotes a free calorie‑calculator link, an 8‑week coaching challenge, and a separate video on losing 30 lb in three months.
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You won't gain weight eating more calories. I've coached thousands of clients through their fat loss transformations, and what most people get wrong is they think they need to eat fewer calories to lose weight and then stay at those low calories forever. That could not be farther from the truth, and let me explain why. You've heard to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. That part is correct, but the problem isn't the calorie deficit. It's how long people think a calorie deficit needs to last. In the grand scheme of your journey, a calorie deficit should be a very short period of time. Sure, it would depend if someone has 100 pounds to lose versus 15 pounds to lose. The person who has 100 pounds to lose might need to be in a calorie deficit longer. But think of it like going to school. Let's say you go to a 4-year college, you graduate, You get your degree, then you go get a job and you move on. Unless you're one of those sickos who just likes doing school for the rest of their life. I hated school, so that wasn't me. But once you graduate, you don't just keep showing up to the class learning the same things you've already learned. You move on to the next phase. And that's exactly what a calorie deficit is. You do it for a short period of time, you lose the weight, and then you move on. To the next phase. And what is that next phase? Well, it's what most gurus or coaches won't teach you, and it's why most people end up gaining their weight back. And right before I tell you what that phase is, if you're like, Eric, I don't even know what my correct calorie deficit should be, don't worry. I have a free calorie deficit calculator. If you click the link in the description below. And so a calorie deficit is one part of your journey. There's 3 parts: calorie deficit, lose weight; calorie surplus, intentionally gain weight and muscle; and then a calorie maintenance. This would be maintaining your weight. So the issue is, once people are done losing weight, they still think they need to be in the calorie deficit eating the calorie deficit calories. No, that part is over. You need to graduate to the next phase, and that next phase is maintenance— learning how to eat more calories to now maintain your weight. Think about it like if you were saving money to go on a trip. For 6 months, you might cut back on going out to eat, buying new clothes, cutting out random subscriptions. But then once you go on the trip and you get back, you're no longer saving for that trip, so you can be more flexible with your spending. You can spend a bit more on clothes, shoes, going out to eat. Calories work the same way. Once you're done a calorie deficit, you do something that we call a reverse diet. A regular diet is working your calories down to lose weight. A reverse diet is working your calories up to maintain your weight. So how exactly do you do a reverse diet? Well, there's 2 main ways. The second way is my preferred one, but let's start with the first. Each week you would increase your calories by 100 to 200 calories per day. So if your calorie deficit is 1,600 calories per day, and that was a 500 calorie deficit per day, 500 calories minus Your maintenance calories. Each week you would add 100 calories back to your diet. So it'd be 1,700 and then 1,800 and then 1,900. And this would work you back up to your maintenance calories. And most people do it like this because they are deathly afraid of gaining weight back on the scale, which I understand, but I'll talk about that a bit later in a second. And this may mitigate some of the weight gain up front, but you would still be in a calorie deficit for those weeks that you're working your calories back up. You would just be in a smaller calorie deficit, which, if you've already been in a calorie deficit for a long period of time and you've lost 20, 30, 50, 100 pounds, this could potentially end up messing with Your hormones, your cortisol, your muscle mass, your energy, your mood, your workouts, your recovery. So my preferred way of doing a reverse diet is the second way, which is just going right to your new maintenance calories. So we'll use the same example. If your calorie deficit was 1,600 per day and you were in a 500-calorie deficit, you would just add 500 calories to now start eating 2,100 calories per day. And you might ask, well, how do you know what your maintenance calories are? Well, when we coach our online coaching clients, we know everything about their diet, their nutrition, their workouts, their sleep, their steps. So we know exactly where their maintenance calories would be. But if you need to know what your maintenance calories are, again, the free calorie calculator I have, you can use it to lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight. So you can use that if you'd like. And with this strategy of just increasing your calories all the way right away, you might notice a 2 to 5 pound weight spike on the scale. And that freaks some people out even hearing that, but just stick with me for a second because that weight spike is not fat gain. Just like it is impossible to lose fat unless you're in a calorie deficit, It is impossible to gain fat unless you're in a calorie surplus for an extended period of time. You can't gain fat if you're eating your maintenance calories. The reason the scale would spike up 2 to 5 pounds is because, number one, there's more food in your stomach than there was before, which makes your human being weigh more on the scale. And number two, you'll increase your carbs, which is stored in your muscles, which does store some extra water weight. This isn't a bad thing because it actually makes you look more defined and more lean. And the proof of this, I'm gonna put a picture here of myself. This is when I ended a calorie deficit. I went on vacation. I ate a lot of food, but I think I look pretty jacked in this picture. And that's because the extra carbs I was eating filled up my muscles more, which made me look more defined. And now you may have noticed that I said we work the calories back up to where your maintenance calories currently are. There's something important that I need you to understand, and I'm going to explain to you. And once you understand it, it unlocks food freedom forever. Most people think, okay, I'm eating 1,600 calories. That is a 500-calorie deficit, so I'll add 500 calories and that's my maintenance calorie. Well, in the moment that would be correct, yes, but you actually burn more calories the more calories you eat. Think of it like one of those wood chippers. If on one end you put like a bunch of sticks, a bunch of branches, into the wood chipper, it would go through, but it would put out just like a little pile of chippings. Versus if you put this huge tree stump through the wood chipper, on the other side, it would come out with this huge, thick pile of chippings. Because the more you put in, the more you get out. That's what happens to your body as well. When you are increasing your calories, your metabolism adapts and burns more calories through digesting food. It takes calories to digest the food you eat. It burns more calories through pushing harder in your workouts because now you have more energy, so your body's going to push hard in workouts. It burns more calories through subconsciously tapping your foot, fidgeting during the day, having more energy, walking more. It burns more calories through building more muscle. When you have more calories, you can build more muscle. All of this means that you increased your calories by 500 per day, but your body starts burning more calories, so your maintenance calories increases. We've had clients who have increased their calories by 500 per day and still were losing weight because their metabolism adapted burned way more calories and that we're actually still in a calorie deficit. So we had to keep increasing their calories. Trust me when I say you can eat way more than you think and still maintain your weight. How much more? Well, everybody's metabolism is different, but if I had to give you an average of what we see when we work with clients on increasing their calories to maintain their weight. Usually it's somewhere between 800 to 1,200 extra calories per day. Yes, per day. And they're able to maintain their weight within those 2 to 5 pounds that I talked about earlier, because you're never going to weigh just one number on the scale, no matter how many calories you eat. And so let me ask you this, do you think it would be easier or harder to maintain your weight loss if you could eat an extra 1,000 calories per day? Easier, right? This is where most coaches go wrong. Most people only focus on the calorie deficit. Once you're done, that's great, you're on your way, see ya. They don't focus on this reverse diet and teaching their clients how to increase their calories to then be able to maintain their weight loss long-term. And I won't just put this on coaches, I'm going to put this on you as well. You as a client have to understand it's not just about a calorie deficit. There's also a period of time you have to go through learning maintenance, increasing your calories, and being comfortable enough to actually maintain your weight so you don't end up gaining it back. But once you do that, It is going to unlock that food freedom, and you'll never have to worry about being on a diet ever again. And if that sounds like something that could help you and you want in your life, we've done this for thousands of clients, and we would love to see if we could help you not only lose the weight but maintain it forever. I have an initial 8-week challenge that you can apply for to get started. So click the link in the description of this video below, apply, and see if you qualify to work with myself and our team. And if you're thinking, okay, Eric, I got it, but I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not at the stage yet where I'm done losing weight, I still have 30 pounds to lose. Well, no worries, because what I did was create a video on how to lose 30 pounds in the next 3 months. You can click this video here and watch that coming up next.
