How to eat more without gaining fat I How To Eat More And Not Gain Weight
In this video Eric Roberts addresses the common fear of gaining weight when increasing calories after prolonged very‑low‑calorie dieting. He explains that short‑term weight gain on the scale is often due to extra food mass, carbohydrate‑induced water retention (≈3‑4 g water per gram carb), and not necessarily added body fat. He stresses the importance of a long‑term perspective, encouraging viewers to prioritize health over immediate comfort and to track progress with bi‑weekly body measurements and monthly photos. Roberts outlines two main pathways: (1) continuing to lose body fat while reverse‑dieting up to a sustainable deficit, and (2) transitioning to maintenance calories. For reverse dieting he recommends weekly calorie increments of 100‑200 kcal, using simple formulas (goal weight × 12 kcal for a deficit, goal weight × 14 kcal for maintenance) to estimate target intake. He advises a faster ramp‑up when moving to maintenance to protect metabolism and mental health, and reminds viewers that maintenance weight naturally fluctuates within a few pounds. Finally, he warns of the physiological harms of staying in extreme deficits (metabolic slowdown, hormonal disruptions, hair loss, low libido, etc.) and urges viewers to educate themselves, do what’s right, and not fear calories.
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YouTube, what is going on? Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to the video. Welcome back to the channel. In this video, we're going to be talking about what to do if you know you need to increase your calories, you know you need to eat more food, whether it's because you're eating entirely too low calories right now. Like I have, you know, people message me on Instagram, for example. I'll put a, a example here above. Um, I have people messaging me on Instagram saying they're eating 800 calories, 1,000 calories, 1,200 calories, and they know they should be eating more, but they're afraid to increase their calories because they think they're going to gain weight. Or maybe if, you know, you know you want to start getting to maintenance and maybe not lose as much body fat anymore and start to, you know, move away from, from a calorie deficit, but again, you might be afraid to increase calories and gain weight. This video is going to encompass everything you need to know about that, those specific scenarios right there. And so Number one, if you know me, you know that on this channel I like to give you the raw truth of things. So here's the deal. The truth is when you increase calories, you will probably gain weight. It depends on a few things, but you will probably gain weight. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. And it also does not mean you automatically gained body fat. So I'm gonna take you through a few scenarios. First one that comes to mind is if you are eating, you know, 800 calories, 1,000 calories, and you know you want to increase your calories, you're probably gonna gain some weight. And it's not because you are gaining body fat. Like, for example, if you gain— if you increase your calories from 800 to 1,500, you're not gaining body fat. What's happening is you're just having more food in your stomach and And, you're probably gonna be eating some more carbohydrates, 'cause when you increase calories, you're probably gonna increase carbohydrates, which is fine. It's totally normal. But, more food in your stomach means when you step on the scale, there's more food inside your stomach, which means the scale is gonna weigh a heavier number. Doesn't mean you gained body fat, just means that you step on the scale and it's a heavier— it's a higher number. Number 2, carbs. When you eat more carbs, for every 1 gram of carb you eat, you're gonna store 3 to 4 grams of water weight. So when you do this, again, step on the scale, the scale might be up a bit because you have more water weight to you. But neither one of these things means you're gaining body fat. So that's number 1. Number 2, if you're going from, let's say you wanna, you know, go from a modest calorie deficit to where maybe you have lost body fat, you're getting close to your goal body weight. Uh, and you know, we'll talk about that here more a bit later in the video, but you know, you wanna go to maintenance, right? You, you wanna say, hey, I'm done eating this and I want to possibly increase calories. Again, you may gain some body fat from that, which, you know, I'm sorry, you may gain some weight. Oh boy. You may gain some weight for that. You will not gain body fat. That's what I meant to say. You will not gain body fat from that because, you know, if you go from 1,500 calories to 2,000, for example, and 2,000 calories is your maintenance, once again, you're just going to increase the food that's in your stomach and you're going to increase your carbohydrate intake. And those 2 things combined are going to probably lead to a higher number on the scale. But that does not mean you're gaining body fat. This is why it's critically important to make sure you're taking measurements every 2 weeks and you're taking progress pictures. Because I can pretty much assure you, if you're taking measurements every 2 weeks and you're taking progress pictures every 4 weeks, you'll see the scale might go up a bit, but your measurements stay pretty much the same and your progress pictures look pretty much the same, if not better, by the way, because your body's probably under less stress, so on and so forth. So those things would still Be able to improve. And then you can see, oh, okay, wait a minute. It's not all about just the number on the scale. It's about all these things combined. So that's number one. Just know that going in, because I don't want to sit here and lie to you and tell you you're not going to gain any weight. You're still going to lose body fat. I mean, you're still going to lose weight. That's not the case. It's not the case. You can still lose body fat. Again, measurements, progress pictures, but the scale might go up a bit in the short term, and that's okay. So just know that going into it because I don't want you freaking out and quitting when the scale does go up, okay? So that's number 1. Number 2, remembering if you're watching this video you probably want to get towards a more healthy style of living. You want to get towards a more healthy calorie number, whether it's for losing body fat and/or for maintenance. So you have to remember the long term and you have to remember why you're doing this. In a situation like this, you can't do what's the most comfortable. You have to do what is right. And for you right now, what the most comfortable thing probably is, is to just keep eating very low calories, keep eating 800 calories a day, not increase your calories 'cause that scares you. It scares you to do that because you think you're gonna gain body weight, body fat, which we just talked about. But remembering what's right, thinking about 6 days from now versus 6 months from now. 6 days from now, you might weigh more on the scale. You might be freaking out. You might be very uncomfortable. You might, you know, be second-guessing yourself. But in 6 months after you've increased calories, you've gotten to a healthy point. You've either continued to lose body fat or you've reached maintenance and you were— you're where you want to be 6 months from now, as opposed to still being in this very low calories and possibly having this cycle of like restricting calories very low and then binging and then restricting very low and then binging. As opposed to still doing that 6 months from now, you just do what's right, not what's easiest or what's most comfortable. But if you do what's right right now, in 6 months you'll be where you wanna be in your head because you wouldn't be watching this video if you didn't wanna be there. You know you wanna be there at a healthier, you know, eating healthier calorie amounts, not eating so few calories. You know you wanna get there. So think about 6 months from now as opposed to 6 days from now. 6 days from now is nothing, right? And, you know, again, the scale might be up and so on and so forth, but 6 months from now you'll be where you want to be, at a much healthier place. And again, whether that is losing body fat or getting to your maintenance and sustaining it. So that's number 2. Remember what is right, not what is the most comfortable. Now, kind of the how-tos. So again, there's basically 2 scenarios here which I think if you're watching this video you probably want to do. Either lose body fat and/or go to maintenance and maintain your current weight. Or get close to maintaining your current weight. I'm gonna cover each one of those scenarios 'cause they're a bit different. They're relatively similar but a bit different. So let's say first and foremost you wanna lose body fat. You still wanna lose body fat. You still have body fat to lose, but you're eating, you know, 800, 1,000 calories, 1,200 calories per day. What I would do is I would simply reverse diet your way back up. And I can put here a video above of in-depth reverse dieting. I did a whole video on reverse dieting, so feel free to check that out, but I'll briefly cover it here. You're basically just going to increase your calories week by week, slowly but surely. So let's just say you're eating 1,000 calories right now. Week 1, you go to 1,000 calories. Week 2, you go to 1,100 calories. Week 2— week 3, you go to 1,200 calories. Week 4, you go to 1,300 calories. And just week by week, you slowly increase your calories to where they're supposed to be for a healthy, sustainable calorie deficit. And also, by the way, I have a whole video on how to find your calorie deficit. I can put that video here above. Normally a healthy range would be about your goal body weight in pounds times 12. So let's just say, let's, let's, let's use that example. Let's say your goal body weight in pounds is 150 pounds times 12, 1,800 calories. Let's just say that you go from eating 1,000 calories to 1,800 calories, right? Week 1, 1,000 calories. Week 2, 1,100 calories. Week 3, 1,200 calories. Week 4, you know, 1,400 calories. Go by 200 increase. And slowly work your way up to that calorie deficit mark, right? So you're going from 1,000 to 1,800. You just slowly but surely work your way up there. And then from there you're gonna get to— and by the way, again, this entire time, by the way, 1,000 calories, 1,200 calories, 1,400 calories, that's still a calorie deficit. So you're still going to be losing body fat even though, once again, in the short term, short term, the scale might go up because you're increasing carbs, increasing food in your stomach. You're actually still losing body fat because whether it's— I just told you 1,800 calories, if that was your example, whatever that calculator gives you is a deficit, right? So all this time you're actually increasing calories, you're actually still in a calorie deficit. So you'll actually still lose body fat during this time. And that's how you would kind of get to where you want to be. So that's the first way. And then again, that's first, if you still want to lose body fat, you would go to your calorie deficit number. Number 2, if you wanna go to maintenance, again, I have a whole video here on maintenance calories, please feel free to check it out, but you would essentially do the same thing and you would just go to maintenance instead. So let's just say, for example, if you're eating, you know, 1,200 calories a day and your maintenance is, just call it 2,200 calories a day, I would do the same exact thing. Honestly, I would probably just speed the process up a bit more. Because you have more calories to play with, right? Again, if you're eating very few calories, let's just say you're going from 1,200 to 2,100. If you're going 1,200, 1,300, 1,400, 1,500, that's going to take you 3 months to get to maintenance. You don't want to do that, right? Not only from a mental standpoint, but a physiological standpoint. If you're eating that few calories for that long, you're going to hurt your metabolism, so on and so forth. So personally, what I would do is, I would just increase by 200 calories each week. So go from, you know, let's just call it 1,200, 1,400, 1,800— I'm sorry, 1,600, terrible math— 1,800, and then just call it 2,000, right? And then you get there. So in 4 weeks you pretty much get there as opposed to 3 months, right? So in a situation like that, I would just increase by about 150 to 200 calories per week. Again, knowing that possibly when you increase calories you might gain scale weight because of water and carbs and just more food in your stomach. It's not body fat because if you've worked out your maintenance calories, which is Once again, around your body weight in pounds times 14, somewhere around there, you're not going to gain body fat because you're not in a calorie deficit. And one final thing I want to say on that is when you do go to maintenance calories, your body weight might increase a few pounds and it might stay there. Because remember, maintenance is not one single number, nor is it one single body weight. You're never going to weigh one body weight your entire life. Like, you're not just going to weigh Bug, you saw that? You're not just gonna weigh 154 or 150 your entire life. It's gonna be, you know, 3 pounds either way. So you'd fluctuate from, let's just call it 147 to 153. That's your maintenance range. So remember that as well. Like, if you're freaking out, like, if you possibly increased, you know, increase calories and gain some weight and you're staying around there, it's not because you gained body fat. It's just you're in maintenance. So the, the number on the scale is gonna fluctuate, and that's totally normal. So That's what I would do for your maintenance. Now again, if you're coming from more of like not such an aggressive deficit and not so few in calories, I might say, hey, if you were eating 1,600 calories and you wanna go to 2,100, cool, you might increase by 100 calories there. But if you're going from a very, very, very low number, I would probably go by 200 each week and just kinda work your way up to your maintenance calories, which again is gonna be good for your physical health, it's gonna be good for your metabolism, it's gonna be good for your mental health as well, not restricting calories so much. That's what I would say there, guys. Make sure you do those 2 things for either one of those goals. So hope this video helped. And again, I just wanna leave you with, it's all gonna be good. I have, you know, a lot of people messaging me, whether it's on email or Instagram or TikTok, and it's very scared, like genuinely scared to increase calories. Remember, calories are not a bad thing. Like we shouldn't be afraid of calories. Like calories, The old adage is, you know, food is fuel. Like, yes and no. Like, no to the point of like food is more than fuel, but yes, food is fuel because it's literally calories, which is energy for our body. So it's not a bad thing. Like, food— like, you shouldn't be afraid. I wouldn't say you shouldn't be afraid. You should educate yourself on why increasing calories is such an important thing. And once again, you know, it's better for your metabolism because if you eat so few calories for such a long period of time, your metabolism is going to decrease. Your hair's gonna fall out, your period's gonna stop, you know, you're gonna have very low sex drive, very low energy, very low workouts, all those things, very high cravings. It's just not gonna be a good time, right? So, you know, once again, going back to what we said earlier, focusing on doing what is right, not what is the easiest or the most comfortable, 'cause it's probably just more comfortable just to stay where you are, not increase calories, and not do the right thing, do what is right. So do what's right, not what's most comfortable. All right, hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, please feel free to leave it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. Thanks, Eric. Somewhere down there, I don't know. Hope you enjoyed it, and we'll talk soon, right?
