Harsh Truth About a Calorie Deficit (don't skip)

If you've ever been on a calorie deficit and thought, am I going to have to eat this way forever? Don't worry, I've thought that too. But I just finished my calorie deficit at 2,800 calories, and right now I'm eating 5,000 calories per day and maintaining my weight. So in this video, I'm going to give you the unpopular truth about a calorie deficit And show you how to do the same with your calories, so you can eat a ton more and not gain weight. Before I show you how your calories go up after the deficit, I need to be honest with you about what a calorie deficit actually is, because most people get this wrong, and getting it wrong is what makes the whole process harder than it needs to be. Most people think a calorie deficit means cutting out foods: no pizza, no burgers, no eating out, only eating chicken and broccoli. And that's not what. What a deficit is. A calorie deficit means one thing: you eat less calories than you burn. That's it. That's the whole definition. It doesn't mean you can't have pizza. Pizza might be higher in calories than other foods, but you can still work pizza into your calories. And so technically, while you can do this, here's the part I'm not going to sugarcoat: a calorie deficit is going to suck a little. Eating less calories than you burn is not as fun as eating whatever you want. You're going to be a little hungrier than usual. You're going to have say no sometimes. You're going to have days where you wish you could eat more, and that's real. That's just what it is. But here's where most people go wrong. They feel that uncomfortable feeling and they think something is broken, that the plan isn't right, they need a different diet, a different approach. There is no version of a calorie deficit that is not going to require you to restrict a little bit, because that's what a calorie deficit is. You quite literally have to restrict the amount of calories you are eating. Think of it like paying off a credit card. You've got a balance, you owe money, and the only way to pay it off is to spend less than what you are making. It doesn't mean you can't buy anything. You can still go out, you can still have nice things. You just can't spend more than what is coming in. And yeah, it's not as fun as being able to spend whatever you want. You have to think about your spending. You have to make choices and say no sometimes. Some months are gonna be tighter than others on your budget. But here's what everyone who's ever paid off a credit card knows. It sucks while you're doing it, and then it's over, and then you have more money than you did before and less stress. That's exactly what a calorie deficit is. You're paying off the balance. It's not permanent. It's not forever. It's just the bill. And then once it's paid, as long as you don't go back to racking up credit card debt, it's over. You're free. A calorie deficit works the same way. We coach clients all the time who in the beginning, they're like, this sucks, I'm hungry, I don't wanna eat this little. And what we tell them every time is the same. It's okay to bitch a little. You're not gonna always love it. Nobody likes paying bills. You're not supposed to like it. But the people who push through anyway and they accept and know it's just gonna be temporary, they're the ones who get to the other side of losing the weight and then being able to increase their calories and eat a ton more without gaining weight. But the ones who quit, they still have the balance and they have to keep restarting over. So here's the truth: a calorie deficit is restriction. Yes, it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be a little bit hard at times, but it's just temporary. You're not going to have to keep those low calories forever because after you're done, those calories can go up, and sometimes they can go way up. And that's what I'm going to you next. But before we get into that, if you need to know what your calorie deficit number is, I have a free calorie calculator in the description below of this video you can use. Here's what most people believe: your metabolism is fixed, like it's a number that never changes. You burn 2,000 calories a day and that's your number forever. So they think, if I lost weight eating 1,800 calories, I have to stay at 1,800 calories Or I'll gain it all back. That is wrong. Your metabolism and how many calories you burn every day is not one fixed number. It adapts. And here's the part nobody tells you, it adapts in both directions. So when you cut your calories and go into the calorie deficit, your metabolism is going to adapt and slow down. But when you get done the deficit and you increase your calories, your metabolism speeds up. back up, and not just to where it was before. For a lot of people, it's higher than where it was before. That's how I went from 2,800 calories to 5,000 calories. My metabolism didn't stay at 2,800, it climbed up. Think of your metabolism like a campfire. During a deficit, you're giving it less wood, smaller logs, less often. The fire doesn't go out, but it just gets smaller. It burns slower, and it keeps lower flame the entire time. That's your body in a calorie deficit. There's less fuel coming in, so your body has less calories that it burns. But once the deficit is over, you start giving your body more calories, more logs, more wood. What happens? The fire doesn't stay small. It grows. It burns hotter. It burns faster. The more wood you give it, the more the fire can handle. That's your metabolism after a calorie deficit. You give it more food and it doesn't just store it, it burns it. And here's why that fire gets bigger. There's 4 main reasons. Number 1, your thermic effect of food. Every time you eat, your body burns calories to digest that food. So more food coming in means more calories you have to burn. Number 2, something called your NEAT. This stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis, and that's just a very fancy term for how many calories your body burns outside of your dedicated exercise or workout. And when you have more calories coming in, your body subconsciously has more energy, and you'll start moving your hands more. You'll burn more energy just doing basic day-to-day tasks, meaning your metabolism increases. Number 3, your workouts get better with more food. So then you'll be able to push harder, lift heavier, do more reps. And all of this burns more calories in the workout, and it builds more muscle, which more muscle also increases your metabolism. And number 4, your body just runs better. You have better recovery, better sleep, better hormone function. Everything functions better with more calories. And so the takeaway here is your metabolism is going to increase, and that's why you'll be able to eat more calories without gaining weight, because your maintenance calories will increase. You're not going to stay at those low calories forever. Yes, the deficit is the worst part, but in the grand scheme of things, depending on how much weight you have to lose— if you have 30 pounds to lose, let's say you have to be in a deficit for for 3 to 9 months. If you do it right and you lose the weight, the deficit is 6 months, and then the rest of your life you can be at maintenance and eat more food. That is what our clients do when we get done a fat loss phase. Most of them are able to increase by 600 to 1,200 calories and still maintain their weight. And by the way, if you're interested and having my team help you with your fat loss journey, you can click the link in the description below of this video to learn more about our online coaching program. But now the next question you're going to ask me is, how much calories can I go up? How exactly should I move them up? And how do you know that you're not gaining fat? Because the scale is about to mess with your head. Here's the mistake most people make when you get done a calorie deficit and you start adding back in calories like I'm about to show you. how. You step on the scale the next morning and it's up 2 pounds and you panic. You think you're gaining all of your fat back. You think you've added too much. You want to go right back to your calorie deficit. You just killed the fire. You took the wood off when it was starting to burn more. The 2 pounds wasn't fat. It couldn't be. You only increased your calories by 200 per day. So, What was it? You have more food in your stomach. You have more carbs, which are going to store more water weight in your muscles. Because when you eat more food, there is literally more food in your stomach, which makes your human being weigh more. And there's more carbs in your muscles, which store water weight, which makes your human being weigh more. That's not fat. That's a full tank of gas. And a full tank of gas is going to weigh more than an empty tank of gas, but it doesn't mean you got a bigger car. That is your body after a deficit. You add calories back in, food goes in, water goes in, and the scale might move 2, 3, 5, 7 pounds even, but your body didn't get bigger or didn't gain any fat. You're just storing more stuff inside of it, which is normal. But what is normal and how much weight will you go up? Well, right before I tell you that, I want to talk to you about how you're going to increase your calories, and then I'll give you how much weight you should expect to go up. So there's 2 main ways of increasing your calories after a calorie deficit. The first one you may have heard before, which is called reverse diet. So let's say you end your deficit at 1,800 calories. The next week you might go to 1,900. The next week go to 2,000. The next week go to 2,100, 2,200, and you work your way back up slowly Until you find your new maintenance calorie. Option number 2 is just jumping straight back to your maintenance calories. So if you finish your deficit at 1,800, let's say you use my calorie calculator, you figure out what your maintenance calories are, and you jump straight back to 2,500 calories within a week. Either one of these options can work. I will say the people who go right back to 2,500 They may notice a bigger spike on the scale at once because they're adding in the more food and the more calories at once. But after the scale slightly spikes up, it will stay the same as long as you're in maintenance. Whereas with reverse dieting, you might gain the same amount of weight just over the course of 8 weeks versus 1. Personally, I like going right back to my maintenance calories because if I'm done a calorie deficit, I want to eat more food. But there's no right or wrong. Now, the question you're gonna ask me is, well, how do I know if I'm in maintenance? Well, you're not looking for one number on the scale. You're looking for a range. You will never weigh the same number every single day for the rest of your life. That is an unrealistic expectation, and if you think that, you will drive yourself insane. So, like I mentioned, when people start to increase their calories, a normal range for your weight to go up is somewhere around 5 to 10 pounds. This depends on the person. It depends on how much carbs you add back in. It depends on how many calories you add back in. So this is a general range that we have seen with the clients that we work with. So if your goal weight was 150, your actual maintenance range might be somewhere between 150 to 160. And again, you might be thinking, well, Eric, if I weigh 157, that's not maintaining my weight. No, it actually is, because your body fat level stays the same. You're just adding in the extra weight from your human being that you're not going to get around anyway with the carbs and the food. So when you're increasing your calories, as long as you're staying around your maintenance range, that's how you'll know you are in maintenance Calories. So right now, for myself, when I ended my calorie deficit, I was around 245 to 250. When I got done and started increasing my calories, I went to 3,500 and then 4,000 and then 4,500 and then 5,000. And this entire time I've been in my maintenance range. I'm only weighing about 254 pounds right now. So technically, I still have room to increase because I'm not steadily gaining weight week over week on the scale. When you start to gain weight week over week on the scale and it goes outside of your maintenance range, that is when you know you are no longer in maintenance calories. You're in a calorie surplus and you're gaining weight. But if you're not steadily gaining it week over week, you are not in a calorie surplus you are in maintenance. And the way I like to do it for myself and how we do it for our online coaching clients is I would like to eat as much calories as humanly possible and not gain weight. Why? I like eating food, so why not eat as many calories as I can and not gain weight? So here's your solution: decide whether you want to slowly reverse diet or go right back to maintenance. Number 2, expect the scale to go up 5 to 10 pounds. Number 3, stop looking for a specific number. Stay within the range and keep working your calories back up until you hit the top end of that range. I'll say most of the clients that we have worked with online can increase their calories between 600 and 1,200 per day and still maintain their maintenance range. And this is where life gets fun because now you can have more flexibility. You can't just eat whatever you want, but you can increase your calories a bit, have some extra slices of pizza, have some extra servings of this or that or whatever you want, and still maintain your weight. And if you want personalized one-on-one help to walk you through your calorie deficit and walk you through increasing your calories after your deficit, that's exactly what we do with our clients in our online coaching program. You can click the link in the description below of this video to learn more and apply for coaching. And if you're in a deficit right now and you want to make that process as painless and easy as possible, you can watch this video here next for my 10 best tips on a calorie deficit.