ERF1,002: Fitness Q&A: Stress Eating, Fasting, Menopause & More

What's going on, guys? In this episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast, you are going to hear a TikTok Live that I did where a bunch of people just spat off a bunch of questions and I answered all of them to the best of my ability. So this will be more of like a rapid-fire Q&A covering a wide span of topics from perimenopause and menopause to training to sets per muscle group per week to losing body fat to staying consistent to a bunch of different things fitness related. So hope you enjoy and And let's dive in. What's going on, TikTok? Hope everybody's having a great weekend thus far. Happy Saturday, guys. If you have any questions, we're doing a little doing a little Q&A. I'm playing Drake's album in the background because I've been listening to it since it came out. So yeah, if you have any questions, please drop them below. All things fitness related. You can ask questions about nutrition, ask questions about workouts, ask questions about Ask questions about building muscle, losing fat, staying consistent, if you should get back with your ex or not. The answer is no. Yeah, ask your questions below and we're going to rock and roll. Can you do body recomp, a deficit of 300, 100 grams of protein? Your grams of protein per day will be dependent on your current body weight and your current muscle mass. So, I don't know if 100 grams of protein per day is enough for you. A calorie deficit of 300 per day, you will You will lose fat, it will just be quite slow. So typically, 300 is the bare minimum. I like around a 500-calorie deficit per day to lose fat. And you'll still be able to build muscle with a 500-calorie deficit per day, especially if you have 30, 40, 50+ pounds of body fat that you want to lose. Because remember, body fat is stored energy. So if you're burning that stored energy, you're either burning it and losing it, or you're burning it to put towards building muscle. So that's what I would say. Should I measure frozen food before or after cooked? It really doesn't matter. Just make sure you are consistent with it from when it's frozen to when it is cooked. It will lose water, but as long as you either weigh it before and you're consistent with that, or if you weigh it after and you're consistent with that, that's the most important part. What country am I from? I'm from the United States of. I'm five one female, one eighty. I want to be one forty so bad. Couple things: I would try to detach yourself from I want to be one forty so bad, and the reason I say that is because trust me, you think you want to weigh one forty. You don't. You don't give a shit what you weigh. You want to look better. You want to be healthier. You want to be more confident. You want to fit into a bathing suit and like how you look. But that number could. be 147, it could be 152, it could be 140, but try not to get married to a number on the scale. That's number one. Number 2, it sounds like you want to lose some body fat, which is okay, but to lose body fat, you gotta be in a consistent calorie deficit. Just the bottom line. And if you need to know what your deficit is, you can click the link somewhere to get that. I can't say it out loud because TikTok doesn't like it, but you can click the link. I have a free one. You can use it. How to manage stress eating, stress eating, emotional eating, boredom eating. The way that we approach this with our online coaching clients is a few different ways. Number one, you have to try to put time and space between you and the food. Most stress eating or emotional eating is very impulsive. So you feel the stress, you feel the emotion, the sadness, the frustration, and you're impulse is to eat because eating will take away that emotion as quickly as possible. You don't want to do that though, because that is the stress eating. So what you want to do is give time and space between you and food. So something like setting a 10 to 20 minute timer before you go and eat. And this is not to say you can't eat. If 20 minutes goes by and you still want to stress eat, okay. Whatever. But you gotta put time and space between you and the food. 'Cause oftentimes when you give the time and space, you will logically work through some of the emotions and it won't feel so overwhelming that you have to go and eat to take it away. And that would be the second part, which is you're eating to try to numb the emotion. But if you just accept this is how you feel, whether it's stress, whether it's sadness, whether it's frustration, whether you're tired. When you just accept the emotion, you can then choose to do what you want with it. So if you're tired, take your ass to bed, go take a nap. If you are stressed, do something to de-stress yourself, go take a walk, go get a workout in. But oftentimes, if hunger is not the problem, food is not the solution. So you need to be able to give yourself time and space to work through that. That was really beneficial. And That's that's really what we do with our online coaching clients, and so I really hope that helped you. In a calorie deficit, should I lift heavy weight low reps or lightweight high reps? You should always be lifting heavy for whatever rep range you are doing. So with our clients, sometimes we will program five reps, and sometimes we will program fifteen reps. But even if they're doing fifteen reps, they are still going heavy for that fifteen reps. It might not be the same weight they would do for five reps, and that's okay because they're. Still going heavy for that specific rep range, so you should be going heavy no matter what. What are your thoughts? Oh crap! Sorry, I lost my space. What's up, guys? Welcome in. If you are, if you're here new, just drop your questions below. I'm trying to get to as many questions as I possibly can. What are your thoughts on if someone is sick and starting to see progress? My fucking advice would be the same advice you would give your best friend. Can you imagine if your best friend came to you and they were like, oh my God, I just got sick and I'm worried about ruining all my progress. What would you tell, would you really tell them like, oh yeah, you are going to ruin all your progress. You better make sure you still go to the fucking gym. No, you would tell them, calm the fuck down, get better, rest up, and you'll be fine. Tell yourself the same thing. Steps per day. Steps per day are very important. Yes, you should be getting Depends on where you're at right now. What we do with our clients that we coach, we just get where they're currently at. So if somebody's currently averaging 5,000 steps per day, we just try to increase by 2,000. So we would try to get 7,000 steps per day. If somebody's at 7,000, we would try to increase to 9,000. So somewhere around the 10,000 step per day mark is beneficial. Doesn't need to be exactly 10,000 steps. And there is a point of diminishing returns as well. Like, you don't need to continuously go above 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 steps per day. Hello from Greece. Hello. I've always wanted to visit Greece. What's my ideal weight? I don't really believe in an ideal weight. Your ideal weight is where you feel comfortable, where you are strong, where you are healthy, where you can have great workouts, where you can feel confident in clothes. There is no ideal weight. That will be different for every single person. Any advice for not seeing physical changes? I've lost 20 pounds, but I'm not seeing a difference A couple of pieces of advice would be, what do your workouts look like? Because just losing weight is not going to give you the look that you want to get. This is why in the previous couple of questions that I've already answered, I've talked about you shouldn't get married to a number on the scale. To look the way you want to look, you have to build muscle. Now, to build muscle, you have to have a proper strength training program. So the first thing would be like, what do your workouts look like? Because that's where you'll really change your physique. Number 2, I don't know how much weight that you potentially to lose. Like if, let's say you have 100 pounds to lose, losing 20 pounds might not look that different in the beginning, but when you lose 30, when you lose 50, when you lose 60, that's when it might start to show a bit more. So just keep going. Your videos are helpful. Thank you. Does hormones affect weight loss? Hormones impact calories in, calories out. So for example, let's say somebody is hypothyroidism. If they are not properly medicated, and sometimes even if they are properly medicated, their thyroid is slower than the average person's thyroid. So their calorie burn would be slightly lower than the average person's calorie burn. That would mean their maintenance calories are slightly lower than the average person's maintenance calories, which would make it harder, quote unquote, to lose weight because they would have to eat less calories than the other person would have to eat. But typically what I have found coaching over 20 5,000 clients at this point. Even that, you're only eating like, say, 100 to 200 less calories because of that difference. So hormones play a role in calories in, calories out. Or for example, let's say you're a woman who's on her period. As an example, you— your hormones might be out of whack that week, and you might have more hunger, you might have more cravings, you might be less energetic, more fatigue. And all of those things would make it harder to eat in a calorie deficit Do your workouts, get your steps. So it impacts it, but not in the way most people think. We're like, oh, your hormones. And so you can't lose weight. That could not be farther from the truth. So it impacts the calories in, calories out. Without protein, will my progress be slow or what happens? Well, without protein, you just won't be able to build muscle. So if one of your goals is to build muscle, you will not be able to do that. Why do people say intermittent fasting is bad for you? The next question, what do you think of intermittent fasting? Oh my God, man. I don't know who continues to like push this intermittent fasting stuff, but intermittent fasting, all that does is if it helps you control your calorie intake for the day, that's it. It is just a tool to control your calories. It's not good. It's not bad. It's not special. It's not magic. It is just a tool to control calories. Now, for some people, it works great because some people, they— it helps them restrict their calories for the day. Some people, they do it and they actually end up way overeating because they didn't eat all day. They're starving. And they get into this mindset of almost like fantasizing about this big meal that they're going to have. And even though they only eat Twice a day, both of those times is a shit ton of calories. So they don't gain, they don't lose weight, or they end up gaining weight. So there is nothing special about intermittent fasting. It is just a tool. And there's gonna be some people in the comments, uh, intermittent fasting is really good for your health because of the autophagy. Um, actually, if you look in the research, autophagy comes from being in a calorie deficit. So if you're in the calorie deficit, you will get all of the same benefits as if you did intermittent fasting. And again, there's going to be some keyboard warriors and they're going to be like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Go look at the research. It's all there. So whatever helps you get into a calorie deficit. You've helped me a lot. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. There's a lot of questions, you guys. And so hopefully, you know, I'm trying to get to as many as I possibly can, but if I don't get to your question, number one, I apologize. And number two, It's not because I'm like ignoring you or anything like that. I just there's a lot of questions, and I'm trying to get to as many as I possibly can. Okay, is it too late to lose fat for summer? Charles, I mean, fuck man! Like where you been at the whole fucking year? We've been here for five months. Where the what the fuck have you been doing, Charles? Like obviously fucking off, man. I mean, listen, you know, is it too late? No, the best time to plant a tree. was 20 years ago, the second best time to plant a tree is right now. So if you start right now, you will lose some fat before summer, but like, okay, so what if you can't reach your goal before summer? You're just going to like eat like a fucking pig. You're just going to eat like an asshole for the rest of the time. Like, even if not, you'll be where you want to be by fall or by the new year or by next summer. So whether you get to your goal this summer or not, What about all the other summers that are to come? What about just your day-to-day daily life? Whether you reach that goal by summer, if you get your nutrition in check and you start working out more and you drink more water and drink less alcohol, if you do all of these things right now, immediately, you will have more energy. You will be less bloated. You will get better sleep. All of the, all areas of your life are going to improve. You know, it's funny. I sent an email on this this morning for those of you who read my daily emails and I just recently yesterday, I got my car back. So I own a Lamborghini. And so it was in the shop for a month and I finally got it back. But I was thinking about this because the other car that I have, I've had this car for like 12 years. It's just, it's old and it's just, it's not a Lamborghini. So I was driving that for the past month. And then when I got my car back, my Lamborghini, immediately when I got in and I started driving, I was like, holy shit. This is such a different driving experience. Like the acceleration of the car, not only how fast it is, but like how it grips the road, how smooth it drives. Like I'll be going, I don't want to, I'll be going at a certain speed. I'm not going to, I'm not going to incriminate myself here. I'll be going at a certain speed and I'm like, wow, this feels like I'm going 40 miles per hour. Like the total experience is just 2 worlds of a difference. Not to mention, as the kids say, the aura that you get when you're driving around a Lamborghini, right? So it's different. And I thought about this. It's like, that's what it's like to get in shape. That's what it's like to go from being overweight, not making sure your nutrition is in check, not working out, not sleeping a lot, drinking a lot of alcohol. When you change from Now I'm eating high protein. Now I'm drinking more water. Now I'm lifting weights. Now I'm losing weight. I'm fitting into clothes better. I have more confidence. Your entire life experience changes for the better. So whether you get to your goal weight by summer or not, that is so not the fucking point. The whole point is to have a better life experience every single day. So there you go. Okay, guys, if you Are asking questions. Please do not ask the same fucking question every single time. I, number one, I will not answer that. And then number two, it's just annoying for people. So yeah, do not ask the same question every single time. Is 8 sets for small muscle groups good twice a week to failure? Yeah, that would be more than enough sets per muscle group per week for something like your biceps, your triceps, your side delts, your rear delts. If you take these sets close to failure. And that's a lot of people will do too much in their workouts. And it comes from a good place. It comes from a place of you want to see progress, you want to work hard, but you just, you, you're doing too much. Like you think you have to do more than you actually have to do. I see people who will do 4 exercises with 4 sets each for biceps. And I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Like you need maybe 1 to 2 bicep exercises. Twice a week with 2 to 3 sets to failure to actually see muscle growth and change in your biceps as the example. So that's why following a proper strength training program is really important. Okay. Can you— so 2 questions. One asked about menopause weight gain. The second question asked about can you help with perimenopause stomach? So a couple of things here. Number one, When it— when we talk about menopause, I'll just say, number one, it's harder. Like, it's more difficult. So, we can just get that on the table now. Number two, that doesn't mean it's impossible. And we have coached, at this point, literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of clients who are either in perimenopause, menopause, or who are going through it. So, there's a couple of things I will say that might help you. Number one, if you are drinking alcohol, I would strongly encourage you to cut back. It is going to affect your hormones. It's going to to affect your cortisol. It's gonna affect your digestion. It's going to affect like the calories from alcohol don't get used as anything. Whereas if you're eating protein, that gets used to build muscle and for every single cell function in your body. If you're eating carbohydrates like rice, potatoes, rice cakes, Rice Krispies, those carbs will get stored as muscle glycogen, or they will get used for energy. Dietary fat like avocado, peanut butter, regular butter, that will get you— wow, thanks, Victor. I'll use that in my Lamborghini, Victor. That will get used for hormonal health. But the calories in alcohol don't do anything, which is why if you heard the term like beer belly, it just kind of sits there. So if you are drinking alcohol, I would cut it back. That would be number one. Number 2, I would overly prioritize your recovery and not Over exercising. One thing I have found with a lot of clients that we have worked with online, especially women who are in this perimenopause menopause stage, it's a mindfuck because you're not seeing the progress that you want. You're gaining weight, and so your first thought process is I need to work harder. I need to do more cardio, higher intensity cardio, more spin classes, more more running, more workouts. And that's usually not the answer because all of that increases the stress on your body. So your cortisol is higher, which will make you not recover. So what we focus on with our clients who are going through this is 3 to 4 times a week, you'll lift weights every single day, you'll get your daily steps. And those are really the 2 main modalities of exercise that we focus on in order to lose body fat, And build lean muscle. So that's number 2. And then number 3 is building lean muscle. If you are overly focused on cardio, HIIT classes, spin classes, I would dial those back. If you love them, I wouldn't tell you to cut it out, but I would dial those back to 1, maybe 2 times per week, and then make the rest of your workouts per week lifting weights and getting your daily steps. So And just last thing would be, you have to be more dialed in. I just— that's just the God's honest truth. Like, you're not going to see progress just winging it. You're not going to see progress just eating healthy. It's just not going to be good enough. You have to make sure you're weighing your food. You have to make sure you're in a calorie deficit, and you have to make sure you're consistent even on the weekends. That's just the bottom line. All right. Uh, next question. Um, all right, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Perfect. Um, where, um, I lost my question. Hold on. Um, what to do when you lose motivation after being in a calorie deficit for 2 months? You do the same shit you did when you had motivation. If you're only going to stay on track when you have motivation, you'll never change. So that's just the God's honest truth. So if that's you and you have just succumbed to like, I'm only gonna do this when I'm motivated, then just also be okay with not changing. Because the God's honest truth, out of every 10 days that you have, 1 or 2, you'll be motivated. 2 to 4, you'll probably be like, fuck this. I don't wanna do this at all. And the other like 4 to 5 days is gonna be like indifferent. Like you're not gonna hate it, but you definitely don't wanna do it. And that's just the truth. So. Yeah. If 10 to 20% of the time you're gonna be motivated and you're only gonna do the things you need to do when you're motivated, you'll just never see progress. And hopefully framing it like that can get through your head. It doesn't matter whether you're motivated or not. You do know that you can go work out even when you're not motivated. Like, that's a real thing. You can do that. You do know you can still open your phone, go to your calorie counting app, enter the food you ate, Even if you're not motivated, that's a real thing. You can do that. So that's number one. Number 2, think of motivation like adding gasoline to the fire. You already, you have the fire, it's already going. Motivation would just make the fire bigger. It would make it easier to grow the fire, but you still, the fire is still there. So whether you have the extra gas or not, It might be a smaller fire, AKA you might only go do a 20-minute workout instead of a 60-minute workout. You might only meal prep for one extra meal as opposed to meal prepping for 3 days worth. You might only go get a 10-minute walk versus going to hit 10,000 steps all at once, but you still have the fire going. And so that's how you should think about it. And Understand you need to take action even when you're not motivated. Okay, next question. What's up, guys? Happy Saturday. Happy Saturday. I hope you're having a great day thus far. Is it funny? Is it realistic to be a hybrid runner and lifter? I love running, but I also want to be ripped. So funny enough, this is me right now because I have never been a runner my entire life. I hate cardio. I still hate cardio, but I started training and doing HYROX races. So I have recently had to increase my cardio and especially my running. And I will tell you, it's definitely possible. Now you will have to pick one that you want to focus on and improve. So the way I think of this concept is is really 80/20. Like 80% of your training should go to the thing you want to improve the most. So if that's building muscle, 80% of your volume, 80% of your training should go to that. But you can still have 20% to be able to run and enjoy it and do your thing. So let's say this would look like you might work out 3 to 4 times per week, and you're pushing yourself in the workouts, you're recovering properly, you're building muscle. And then you might run 1 to 2, maybe 3 times per week, but you might run like after an upper body day. You might not go run 15 miles on the same day you do legs, or you might run shorter distances as opposed to running half marathons, right? So Whatever your priority goal is, that's what you should be doing. And then 20% of that can go to the other part. And I would just say, just be okay with, or I'm sorry, be cognizant of you need to be able to recover. So how do you recover? You recover with more calories. You recover with more protein. You recover with more sleep. You recover with more hydration. So you're going to have to keep an eye on those sort of things. Okay. Next question, you guys. By the way, if you are asking questions in the chat, please do not just spam the chat with the same question. That is a guaranteed way for me to not answer your question. Wait, I thought you were AI. Are you a real person? Okay. Yeah, I'm a real person. I loved Iceman so far. I've been listening to Drake all day, all day yesterday and all day today. Okay. Okay. Okay. Next question. Is it possible to meet your goals with, with just counting protein and macros and be conscious of fat and carbs? Okay. Okay. So just counting protein, just counting protein. So not counting fats and carbs. Okay. Got it. Yes. And this is typically what we do with our online coaching clients when they sign up for coaching with us, is we don't overly focus on macros unless somebody really wants to. We just focus on total calories and total protein because there's enough research to show as long as you hit your calorie goal and as long as you hit your protein goal, your carbs and fats can be variable and you will still see the same amount of fat loss progress. Now, when it comes to carbs and fats, some people prefer more carbs, especially like myself. I typically prefer a higher carbohydrate diet versus a higher fat diet. And that's because I work out with weights 4 times, maybe sometimes 5 times a week. I do some high-intensity cardio for my HIITs. And so your lifestyle usually is dependent on what you would prefer, more carbs or fats. And just sometimes people's genetics and, and what they like versus don't like tend to be carbs or fats. So yeah, hit your protein goal, hit your calorie goal, and as long as you do that, you will still make the fat loss progress that you want to see. The only caveat I would say is if you go too high in dietary fat and you don't have enough carbohydrates, you may find that your workouts will lack and you won't feel like you're recovering from them because carbohydrates are the main source of fuel and energy for any sort of high-intensity workout and/or weightlifting workout. So just something to keep an eye on there as well. Can you include fasting with your program? So I guess you're talking about my, like our program that we have. Yeah. Again, I answered fasting earlier, but fasting is just a way, it's a tool to control your calorie intake. That's it. So if somebody wants to fast and we know it works for them and they've had some success with it and we don't think it's a hindrance to them, Sure. Like, you know, you can fast, like totally fine. But again, it's, it's just a tool to control your calorie intake. Now we might say, hey, you want to go work out after a 20-hour fast? Like, that's not the most smart thing in the world. So we would set up the plan to allow you to fit it within what your preferences are, but also do what is necessary to see the progress that you want to see and get to the goal that you want to get to. Okay. Yeah. All right guys, couple more questions and then I do have to pop off. Why am I losing a pound a week? Why do, why is, why is you losing a pound a week a bad thing? If you lost a pound a week every single week for 52 weeks, you would lose 52 pounds in a year. I think that's pretty fucking good. Not to mention losing 1 pound per week, you probably still have good energy. You probably still get to enjoy some of your treats and favorite foods here and there. It's probably very sustainable. You probably don't have terrible energy, terrible sex drive, terrible workouts. Like losing a pound a week is actually right where the majority of people would love to live for a healthy, sustainable weight loss progress. So I don't know why you're venting. You should be proud of yourself and you should be realizing that you're seeing great progress. Social media has completely fucked your guys's perception of what good progress looks like. So yeah, it's really good. Hi, I love your motivational emails and all the tips and recipes. Thank you, Margo. I appreciate you reading the emails. If you guys don't read the emails, I really appreciate if you do. I write those every single morning and I hope they Cool. All right, guys, I do have to pop off. So thank you so much for hopping on the live today. If you are interested at all in learning more about how we coach our clients online, you can click the link in my bio. Typically, our clients lose 10 to 20 pounds in the first 8 weeks of coaching. We have some pretty good data to back that up. So that's the average. If that sounds at all interesting to you, you can again click the link in my bio for that. Or if you're just like, hey, I need some more free help, I do have a calorie calculator in in my bio as well. So if you'd like to check that out, you can use that. It's the same one that we use with our online coaching clients. And so there's nothing held back from you there. So again, link is in the bio. Thank you guys so much and hope you have a great rest of your weekend.