In this instructional video, the presenter explains why some people can eat junk food without gaining fat by examining the four components of daily calorie expenditure: Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) (~70%), Non‑Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) (~15%), Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) (~10%), and Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT) (~5%). He argues that increasing NEAT, BMR, and TEF can allow higher calorie intake while staying in a deficit. Practical tactics include incrementally raising daily step counts (adding 2,000 steps every 2‑3 weeks toward 8,000‑12,000 steps), using weighted vests during walks, and prioritizing resistance training to build muscle, which raises BMR. He highlights protein’s high thermic effect—up to 30% of protein calories are burned during digestion—making protein a key dietary lever. Beyond metabolic tweaks, he introduces two behavioral rules to prevent binge cycles: a daily 300‑calorie “junk allowance” within the deficit, and a 24‑hour rule that forces a return to the plan within a day after any overeating episode. The video ends with a call‑to‑action for an 8‑week personalized fat‑loss coaching program and links to a free calorie‑deficit calculator.
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Why can some people eat junk food and never get fat? This is because some people burn more calories each day just by moving without realizing, like fidgeting, pacing around, or even tapping their feet. That's called non-exercise activity thermogenesis. And when you add in genetics and lifestyle, their so-called fast metabolism helps them stay lean no matter what's on their plate.
But the problem is, this is only half right. There's a huge component that video is missing that allows people to eat a lot of junk food and never get fat. But before I tell you what that is, let me explain what that non-exercise activity thermogenesis is, why it's not just people's genetics, and how you can use it to speed up your fat loss even if you eat junk food. Your body burns calories in 4 main ways. 70% comes from something called your BMR. This is how many calories your body burns at rest. 15% comes from that NEAT, the non-exercise activity thermogenesis. 10% comes from something called your TEF, your thermic effect of food, how many calories your body burns digesting the food you eat. And then 5% comes from your EAT, your exercise activity thermogenesis. And this is how many calories you burn per day from a dedicated workout, like a run or a strength training session. Yes, only 5%. All of this would create your maintenance calories, how many calories your body burns at rest. And then from there, you would create your calorie deficit, calories so you can lose fat. And if you need to know a very simple way of how many calories you should be eating to lose fat, I have a free calorie deficit calculator if you click the link in the description of this video below. So if your NEAT is 15% of your daily calorie burn, what can you do each day beyond just having good genetics to increase this? The most The most simple way that everybody can do no matter what is hit a daily step goal. And now you may have heard before, you should walk 10,000 steps per day to lose fat. Sure, 10,000 steps might be a great goal, but you don't need to hit that to lose fat because it creates this mentality of if I don't walk 10,000 steps per day, I'm not going to do enough to lose fat. And that just couldn't be farther from the truth. Because doing anything more than what you're currently doing is going to get you more progress than what you are currently getting. It's like if you invested $1,000 into a savings account that gave you a 3% return on your investment. If you put $2,000 in, you're going to get a bigger return than if you put $1,000. You don't need to have $1 million in the savings account. If you did, that's great. But anything more is gonna get you better returns. So what we do For our online coaching clients who sign up with us is we get their daily step average for the week. So if let's say somebody is currently walking 5,000 steps per day because they sit at a desk for work, they commute to and from work, what our goal would be is to take the average and then add 2,000 steps per day. So we would get that person from 5,000 per day to 7,000 per day. Once they're doing that consistently for 2 to 3 weeks, then we would try to add another 2,000 per day to get to 9,000 per day, and over time work their step average up to be within 8,000 to 12,000 steps per day. Doing this will drastically increase your NEAT and how many calories you burn, and the best part is this doesn't have to be a dedicated workout. Walk. This could be parking farther away at the store. This could be pacing around when you're on a phone call. This could be cleaning your house or just walking around the gym in between sets in your weightlifting workout. All steps count, and it doesn't have to be at a certain speed or pace. You just need to get more steps. But a pro tip, if you are going to do a dedicated walk, throw on a weighted vest. This will help you burn more calories. for the same amount of work you were about to do. You don't need much— 10 to 25 pounds max. And now, increasing your NEAT, like the video said, is great, but what about the other parts of your metabolism? Your BMR, which takes up 70% of your daily calorie burn, or your TEF, which takes up 10% of your daily calorie burn— can you also increase those to get a higher metabolism? Yes, you can, and let me explain how. For your There's one mistake everybody makes when it comes to losing fat. People think cardio, cardio, cardio is the best way to lose weight. And yes, cardio will burn calories in the moment, but after you're done, it stops. It's like a light switch. When you turn it on, the light is on and bright, and when you turn it off, it's off. Versus lifting weights and building muscle, it may not burn as many calories in the moment, But muscle tissue requires more calories burned to maintain it on your body. That's why it's called a metabolically active tissue. So it raises your calorie burn all day by you doing nothing. So as opposed to a light switch, it's almost like a light dimmer. Sometimes you turn the dimmer up, but then you can also turn the dimmer down and the light is still technically And if over the course of 6, 12, 18 months you build 10, 15, 20 pounds of muscle, that will add up to a much higher daily calorie burn, AKA a higher metabolism. So instead of just focusing on cardio, make sure you put in 3 to 4 days a week of lifting heavy weights so you can build more muscle. And now you've increased your BMR, which is huge, but there's one final component of your metabolism That can increase it in a big way, and that is your TEF, your thermic effect of food. And you may look at this and say, well, Eric, it only takes up 10% of your daily calorie burn. How much of a difference can this actually make? Let me show you. For every 100 calories of dietary fat that you eat, your body would burn 0 to 3 calories digesting that food. For every 100 calories of carbs you eat, your body would burn 3 to 6 calories digesting that food. But for every 100 calories of protein that you eat, how many calories do you think your body burns digesting that food? And you can even put it down in the comments below right now before I give you the answer. Do you think it's 10, which would be double The amount that carbs would burn? Do you think it's 20? What if I told you for every 100 calories of protein you eat, your body can burn up to 30 of those calories? So when you eat 100 grams of protein, it, it's really like you're only eating 70 because protein has a higher thermic effect of food. It requires more calories from your body to break down and digest and use. Plus, piggybacking off of the previous point, what happens when you eat more protein and You're lifting weights, you build more muscle. So now we're having these components come together with walking more, lifting weights and building muscle, eating more protein, to where you're putting your metabolism in high-burning mode, leading you to be able to eat more calories, whether it's healthy food or not, and not gain fat because you'll now be using those calories. And I'll be honest, The science part—it's all true. But even with the science, there's still one thing missing of how people can eat a bunch of junk food and not gain fat. And it has nothing to do with your metabolism, calories in, calories out. And let me explain a scenario to you, and you tell me if this sounds familiar. Monday, you start your diet strong. You're eating clean and healthy, no junk food. And then you get to Wednesday. You're still on track, but you can tell it's getting a little bit. More difficult. You're starting to get a little bit hungry. You're having some cravings, but you push through because you want to lose fat. And then by the time Friday, Saturday rolls around, you almost feel tight. You feel restricted. You have cravings. Your food noise— all you're thinking about is food all day long. And then what happens? The same thing that happens if you were to take a can of soda and shake it up all week, then finally open it. It would explode just like you explode with food. You go out for drinks with friends, you go to a birthday party, you go out to eat for dinner, and you way overeat on junk food. And because the goal was to eat clean and healthy to lose fat, you now feel like you ruined all of your progress. So what do you do at this point? You say, well, fuck it. I've already ruined progress. I'm already off track. It's Saturday. I might as well keep enjoying this. I might as well keep overeating and then just get back on track starting Monday. So the weekend, you just full send it. Monday morning, the scale's up 6 pounds and you're like, fuck. And then you restart with eating clean until the next weekend rolls around and you just keep doing this over and over. Does any of that sound familiar? I think it does because this is the number one thing That we help our online coaching clients with. But how do we help them? It's actually very simple. We follow 2 rules. First, we get them to stop only eating clean, and we actually intentionally work in eating junk food. There's something we call the 300-calorie rule. Every day within your calorie deficit, you will eat 300 calories— of whatever food you want. This could be 2 slices of pizza. This could be some chocolate at night. This could be your favorite chips with lunch. I don't care, because what this does is prevents you from ever shaking up the can of soda and then having it explode. When you just work these foods in within moderation in your calorie deficit, you don't have cravings for them, and you will still lose fat because you're in a calorie deficit. And second, when you do overeat, not if, when, because nobody is perfect, you need to not do what you've been doing and what most people do, which is say eff it and restart on Monday. That's like getting a flat tire and then slashing your other 3 and then wondering why when Monday morning rolls around, you can't get to work. Instead, follow the 24-hour rule. When you overeat, you need to be back on track within in 24 hours max. There is no excuses, no weekend-long binges, no letting it drag out over the course of your business trip when you're traveling. Back on track within 24 hours, because this way you never stay off track long enough to even affect your progress. Because you don't ruin progress from one day of overeating, just like you don't make progress from one day of eating perfect, although you wish you did. Your progress is determined by what you do most of the time, not some of the time. That's why if you just get back on track ASAP, most of the time you're going to be on track and consistent, which will speed up your fat loss progress no matter what foods you eat. And if this is making sense to you and you want someone to not only build you a personalized plan to increase your metabolism, eat the foods that you enjoy and still lose fat, and actually have somebody checking in with you one-on-one all week to hold you accountable and pull you back on track within 24 hours, click the link in the description of this video below to learn more about my 8-week fat loss challenge. We will take out all of the guesswork and make sure this time you actually stay consistent. And if you're somebody who has 30+ pounds of fat that you want to lose, I made a video covering exactly what you need to do to lose that as quickly and efficiently as possible. Click this video here to watch that coming up next.
