How To Set Up Your Diet To Lose Weight | How To Go Into A Calorie Deficit

YouTube, what's going on? Hope you are doing well. Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to the video. In this video, you and I are going to be covering everything that I— me, Eric Roberts, your best bud— that I am going to be doing in order to lose body fat. I am going to go into something called a mini cut, which very quickly I will discuss what a mini cut is and why I'm doing it and so on and so forth. So I'm going to tell you everything I am doing during my mini cut, which is really just kind of like a fat loss phase. I'm going to go over my diet, cardio, and workouts, every single thing I am changing, every single thing I am going to do. There's 10 main things that I am changing with my workouts, with my nutrition, with my daily cardio movement, all that kind of stuff, which we're going to talk about everything here right now in this video. All right. First and foremost, I said I was doing a mini cut. And all a mini cut means is you're going into a calorie deficit, right? The reason that I call it a mini cut is because I'm doing it for a very brief period of time. I'm not doing it for an extended period of time. I'll probably do it for anywhere between 4 to 6 weeks, maybe 8 weeks max, but somewhere between 4 to 6 weeks. Now, because it's a shorter duration, I am going to go a little bit more aggressive with my current mini cut. And when I say aggressive, I mean like aggressive in terms of pushing for a little bit more fat loss, because since it's a short period of time, I want to be able, be able to push it to kind of get the most fat loss out of it during this period of time. 4 to 6 weeks is really not that long of a time to be doing a mini cut. And so if I was to go more moderate, I really wouldn't lose that much body fat. If you're somebody who has 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds to lose I don't recommend you doing a mini cut. I would say you can go through periods of times where you do mini cuts, but just know that like it would just be the way you kind of set your calorie deficit up. And so like for example, some people do really well with like for 4 weeks they push really hard and they're very consistent and they do everything they're supposed to do. And then maybe for a week or 2 you eat more at like your maintenance calories instead. Push really hard for like 4 to 5 weeks and then maybe you eat at maintenance calories for a week instead. If that's how you want to set up your journey, that's totally fine. Um, there's nothing inherently wrong with that at all whatsoever, but that would be a kind of like a decision you personally would have to make. I am doing a mini cut because I don't necessarily need or want to lose like 20, 30, 40 pounds. I'm looking in this mini cut, you know, anywhere between honestly 5 5 to 12, 13, 14, 15, somewhere around that range. Not past 15. I'm not going to lose more than 15 pounds. I would probably say somewhere around that like 8 to 10 pound mark is probably what I'll be shooting for. But to be quite frank with you, I'm not really too worried about the number on the scale. That'll just kind of happen through like osmosis of me cutting my calories and so on and so forth. But I'm more focused on just, you know, how I look in the mirror. I'm going to be tracking measurements. I'm going to be tracking all these things that I'll talk about a little bit later here in this video. I'm going a little bit more aggressive. And when I say aggressive, I mean like I'm creating a little bit bigger of a calorie deficit. So really quickly right here, for example, when you are doing a calorie deficit, the bigger calorie deficit you create, the more fat loss you are going to see. So for example, if you have your maintenance calories, these are where your calories are around, Uh, let's just say 2,500 calories. Everybody's maintenance calories are different, so that's not your maintenance calories. It might be, I don't know, but just know that not everybody's maintenance calories are the same. Your maintenance calories are what you need in order to maintain your current level of body fat. Now let's just say your maintenance calories are roughly 2,500. Let's say you going into like a pretty moderate, pretty sustainable calorie deficit is going to be somewhere around that, like 300 to 500-ish mark. Let's just say 500 calories less than your maintenance calories. So you're eating 2,000 calories per day. If you ate 500 calories less than your maintenance calories, you would lose roughly about a pound per week on average, which would be, by the way, tremendous progress. And that would be incredible, sustainable, healthy fat loss progress. Right now, let's say I'm doing a mini cut, so I'm going to be a little bit more aggressive in my mini cut. Let's say I'm going to shoot for about 750 to maybe 1,000 calorie deficit to lose roughly about 1.5 to maybe 2 pounds per week on average, give or take here and there. Again, not too worried about the scale, but let's just say for the sake of this part of the video, when I say going more aggressive, that's what I mean. You're creating a bigger calorie deficit to push for a little bit more fat loss. Now please stick with me here. You might hear that and say, oh, I, I want to do that too. Here's the thing. When you go more aggressive, it's very hard to sustain. And this is why I said earlier, I'm only doing this for like 4 to 6 weeks. I'm not doing this for a very long period of time at all. Number one, I'm not trying to lose a ton of weight, but also number two, it's just, it's, it's a short, brief period of time. So for short, brief periods of times, yeah, maybe you do go a little bit more aggressive with your calorie deficit. But again, if you're somebody who has 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds to lose, it's very hard to keep up a very big calorie deficit, which is why I do not recommend for most people to do a calorie deficit approach like this. If you're somebody who has 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 pounds to lose, and if you're somebody who you maybe aren't as advanced in this journey as I am, I mean, I literally do this for a living, so my food habits are already really good. I eat pretty much the same thing every single day. Fitness and nutrition is like my entire— it is literally my entire life. Like I'm in a very different situation than probably a lot of you who are going to be watching this video. And again, you might not be, you might be in a similar situation than me, but just know all this stuff I'm talking about right here, while yes, it is going to be helpful for my mini cut and I am going a little bit more aggressive, all of these things I'm going to mention here are still going to be really beneficial for you even if you're not doing a mini cut. And even if you aren't going as aggressive as I am on my calorie deficit, I just want to be able to take you through the process with me and hopefully have you learn some things you can input into your own specific journey that can help you out. So that's what a mini cut is. That's why I'm doing it. Now let's get into actually what I am doing piece by piece by piece. All right, number one, and again, these are all things that I am changing from when I was not actively trying to lose body fat to now when I am actively trying Number one, first and foremost, is going to be my steps per day. So before I did this mini cut I'm on right now, I was eating more around my maintenance calories and my steps in particular were not that high. I was probably averaging somewhere around 3,000 to 4,000 steps per day because I don't have a very active job. Yes, I work out 4 days a week, which we'll talk about here in a second, but I sit in front of my computer all day and make these videos. And so I don't have a very active job. So for me, if I want to get a lot of steps, it is going to have to be very intentional getting outside and moving around, getting more steps, right? Taking more walks, all of that stuff. So I am transitioning from getting about roughly 3,000 to 4,000 steps per day on average to now roughly about 5,000 to 8,000 steps per day on average. And that might not seem like a massive increase. Number one, it is going to be a massive increase for me. Number 2, here's what you also have to understand. I am just trying to move my body more. You know, you might be somebody who you're like, oh, I've heard 10,000 steps per day or 12,000 steps per day and this, that, and the other. And cool, like, that would be awesome. I just know me and I know my job and I know my life and I know who I am. I don't want to set myself up for failure, so I'm not going to tell myself I'm going to get 10,000 steps per day. If I do get 10,000, that's amazing, I'm super pumped. But more than likely, I am not going to get 10,000 steps per day. And that's okay. You don't have to get 10,000 steps per day in order to lose body fat. A realistic range for me is going to be 5,000 to 8,000 steps per day. So I want to set myself up to be consistent. I want to set myself up to feel like I am winning. I want to set myself up to actually see progress and succeed. And a 5,000 to 8,000 step range for me is going to be a realistic step range for me. So I hope again, this helps you like set your step range. If you're getting 2,000 steps per day right now, maybe try to get 4,000 steps per day. If you're getting 6,000, maybe you can push to get more of that 8,000 range, but you don't have to get any single number. It's just more doing more than what you are already doing right now is going to help you lose more body fat because it's going to help you expend more energy and help you create this calorie deficit in the long run. So please don't feel bad if you're like, oh my God, like 10,000 steps per day is hard as shit. It is hard as shit. And you know, again, I could get that every single day, but I just don't want to do that, to be quite frank with you. I would rather create my calorie deficit through food a bit more, which I'm going to talk about obviously in the rest of this video right here. So roughly 5,000 to 8,000 steps per day. Please, again, if you aren't getting 10,000, do not beat yourself up over it. It is okay. And oh, by the way, just a quick spoiler for you, that is all the extra cardio I am going to do. I am not going to go on the treadmill at the gym. I am not going to go on the stair stepper or do the bike or do the elliptical. I'm just going to get 5,000 to 8,000 steps per day every single day, and that is going to be my cardio for the day. And again, I'm gonna have to intentionally go outside, take walks, do things of that nature, because if not, I would just sit here And get 2,000 steps a day. But if you're somebody who like you get 8,000 steps a day because you're a stay-at-home mom and you're running around all day or you work construction or you, you know, or you're a nurse or whatever the case may be and you already get 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 steps per day, it's fucking amazing. And yes, that counts. I always get people ask me, Eric, does that count? Yes, it fucking counts. That counts towards your daily cardio, daily activity for that day. So just know if you're getting that already, you're fucking killing it, man. And I'm like, Jealous of you. Number 2, and this is going to be a big one for me and it's probably going to be a big one for you, but I am cutting out extra snacking throughout the day. And let me tell you what I mean by this. I'm not a big like snacker in terms of like, I pretty much eat meals, which we're going to talk about my meals here later in a second, but I eat meals. My biggest thing is either before my actual meal, like as the meal is like getting heated up in the microwave or whatever it is, as I'm cooking, either before that's done or right after that's over, I like to have something. Like, it'll be rice cakes, it'll be Rice Krispie treats, it'll be fruit, it'll be literally anything. But I know I do that 3, 4, 5 times, 6 times a day, and those extra calories add up, add up, add up. Even though, like, for example, when I have Rice Krispie treats, they're only 90 calories. Only. Only. But if you have them 5 times a day, like I sometimes have, um, then they're going to add up in calories, right? And again, so for me, cutting out all of that extra before meals and after meals snacking and just having the meals that I'm supposed to have or having the actual snacks that I am supposed to have, that's going to be all I'm doing. I'm not going to allow myself to have these little extra things, right? And this is very big because again, even if you think it's, it's only 50 calories or only 80 calories or whatever it is, like, It adds up very quick, especially if you're doing it multiple times a day, multiple times a week. And again, the whole goal here is to create a calorie deficit. And so for me, a very easy way to do that is just cutting out the extraneous snacking and just toughing it out and sticking to the meals and the snack that I'm laying out for myself that I should have every single day. To piggyback right on top of that, I'm going to make sure I really stick to my meal timing each and every single day. And you're going to ask me, Eric, what are you eating for your meals? And so on and so forth. I've already done— And I have an entire video on exactly what I'm eating for my calorie deficit. I will link it up there in the left-hand corner. Please do not comment below and ask me, Eric, what are you having for your meals? Go watch that video. I literally show you every single thing that I am going to be eating for my meals and my snacks and every single thing. Okay? So please watch that. But the reason I am like changing my meal timing is when I'm more in like a maintenance mode where I'm not really trying to actively lose body fat, I will kind of let myself be a little bit more flexible with my meal timing. And you know, I'm somebody who's very routine to begin with, but when I'm in a maintenance, it's more like, all right, like if I miss a meal here and there, it's not that big of a deal because I have more calories to play with. When I'm on a calorie deficit and I'm actively trying to lose body fat, I do not let myself skip meals because I know if I skip a meal in a calorie deficit and I go too long without eating, I am going to be fucking starving. And number one, I don't want to be fucking starving. I know I'm going to be a little bit hungry while being in a calorie deficit because that's normal. Being a little bit hungry in a calorie deficit is normal. So that is going to happen. But if I get fucking starving, I don't want that to happen. And number two, if I let myself, like let's say for example, I skip my like 3 to 4 PM snack. If I were to skip my 3 to 4 PM snack, and then just like go until about 7 PM, I'm going to be so hungry. And it's just so much easier for me at that moment in time to say, fuck it, I'm hungry, I'm starving, I haven't eaten in a while. You know what? Let me have this extra snack, you know, while my meal is getting ready. Let me do this. Let me do that. Fuck it. I don't even feel like cooking. Let me go out to eat, which we're going to talk about going out to eat, for example, in a second. It's so much easier for me to do those things when I've let myself get too long without eating. So I am going to be dialing in my meal timing and making sure I am not missing meals because I know it'll be bad if I do. And again, if you want to see all of my meals and all of that good stuff, go check out that video. But essentially I'm going to be eating at roughly around 4:30, around 7:30, around 10, around 1, around 4, and around 7 PM. Those are going to be my meal times. I'm going to make sure I stick to those pretty consistently. Give or take 30 to 60 minutes here and there, but sticking around those times, which by the way, this also helps you kind of like hone in your hunger cues, right? Because again, especially on a calorie deficit, you're going to be a little bit hungry. You want to try to mitigate that hunger and control that hunger as much as you can, which when you stick to specific meal times throughout your day, your hunger hormones are going to learn you eat at those times. So you will get hungry at those times. Which is a good thing because you're getting hungry at those times, which means you're going to eat at those times anyway. So it goes hand in hand. But if you're like eating at all different times of the day and you're like, you know, eating at 2:00 PM one day and then 11:00 AM the next day and not till 8:00 PM the next, it's like if you're eating all over the place, you're going to be hungry all over the place because your body doesn't know what the fuck is going on. So if you can really dial in your meal timing, you can make sure that you can kind of like stay on top of that and not be so Goddamn hungry. Okay. The next thing I am doing is having one big-ass salad per day and just in general working in more vegetables. And yes, I'm having literally this— it's from Trader Joe's. I'm having this pre-made salad kit every single day while I am in this mini cut. It's going to be my lunch every single day. I'm going to take this, I'm going to pour it into a big bowl. I'm going to add some sort of protein, could be chicken, could be, uh, Turkey, could be ground beef, could be steak, could be salmon, could be tilapia, could literally be any source of protein. But I'm going to take this and add protein every single day. This is a phenomenal way to get a lot of food volume for not a lot of calories because we are trying to create a calorie deficit, keep our calories low. So this salad kit every single day is a great way to get— eat a lot of food. There's a lot of food volume, a lot of lettuce, a lot of stuff like that in this salad kit without getting a lot of calories. And in general, I'm going to be adding in more vegetables to things like my dinner. So pretty much every single night at dinner, I'm going to be having some sautéed spinach and peppers because I love sautéed spinach and peppers. And just throughout the day, I'll try to work in more things like carrots as well, which is more fiber, which we'll actually talk about here in a second as well. But again, I'm switching from when I'm in maintenance, I try to get vegetables, but I'm not nearly as diligent and I'm not eating one big ass salad per day when I'm in maintenance calories. When I'm like in maintenance or in a calorie surplus, that meal— so I talked about that salad is going to replace one of the meals I was eating, right? So before that, if I'm in maintenance, I'm having probably 2 cups of white rice and probably about 8 to 10 ounces of some sort of protein. Again, fish, meat, steak, ground beef, turkey, chicken, whatever it is. I'm having some source of protein with like roughly 2 cups of white rice. And then again, like usually like a Rice Krispie treat on the side or something. So I am taking that meal, which is probably about 800 to 1,000 calories depending on, you know, the type of meat and so on and so forth. I'm taking that meal that was roughly about 800-ish calories, let's call it, to now I'm swapping it for that salad, which it ends up being roughly about, I believe depending on what meat I use, roughly about 350 to 500 calories. So already right there I am like Slashing my calories that I'm intaking for the day in half because I'm already taking away half of that meal. Again, just simply switching one of your meals for a big-ass salad. Get whatever salad you like, throw some protein in there. Don't like— and I also like people ask me, oh Eric, what about the dressing? I'm going to use the dressing that's in the fucking salad. I'm just going to use half of the dressing, right? I just use half of the dressing. I don't use the entire thing. It's very simple. Like just don't use portion size. If you're decreasing the portion size, you're decreasing the overall calories, right? So that's one very easy way to work in. And again, that meal probably leaves me the most full out of all my meals in the day, and that's my lowest calorie meal that I'm going to have probably throughout the entire day. But because it's so much food volume, it keeps me so full for very, very few calories. So adding in more veggies is a big thing for me when I go into a calorie deficit. The next thing is gonna be there are no liquid calories. I am not gonna be drinking any liquid calories. I am not talking about protein shakes. I'll have about 3 protein shakes per day, 1 scoop in the morning before my workout, 1 scoop after my workout, and 1 scoop later on in the day. Again, if you wanna see exactly what I eat, please go check out that video, but not talking about protein shakes. I'll have no liquid calories and personally I don't drink coffee. I don't drink alcohol. I know I'm like a fucking unicorn, right? I don't drink coffee. I don't drink alcohol. My biggest things are usually I like having chocolate milk. It's my favorite thing in the world, but I'm no longer going to have chocolate milk because it's just empty calories. It's calories that are really not going to fill me up. It's not going to keep me full. It's not going to keep me satisfied. It's just extra calories, right? I would usually have anywhere from 200 to 400 calories per per day of chocolate milk, but I'm not going to do that while I'm in a calorie deficit because I'm trying to cut calories. And again, an easy way for you to cut your calories is by cutting out your liquid calories. Some people have these fucking coffees that are like fucking 1,000 calories. I don't understand how these people do this. Like, I'm not a coffee guy, so I guess I don't know, but I would seriously take a look at your, your liquid calories. Or like, for example, if I'm like out and about, which is not very often, but I'll have like, I don't know, a big smoothie or something, but it's like No, I'm not doing that. Or juices or whatever. Like sometimes I do like having some juice. I'm not gonna have that, right? Because all of those calories are just kinda empty calories in terms of they don't really do anything for me. So when I'm in a calorie deficit, I gotta make every fucking calorie count, my friend. And I am not going to waste those calories on, you know, things that aren't going to fill me up or things that aren't going to help, you know, promote fullness or promote recovery or, you know, keep me full or promote workout performance like good quality carbohydrates and So, cutting out all of my liquid calories is gonna be a big thing. Alright, number 6, I'm gonna start adding in more fiber. And, some of these things like vegetables, fiber, like, yeah, I'm a fitness coach and sometimes my nutrition isn't quote unquote the— it's not bad, it's just like these like things, like vegetables and fiber, I should be on top of no matter what, but I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I slack a little bit. I'm just being honest with you. I'm not perfect. But, when I go into a calorie deficit, I gotta tighten things up, otherwise I won't I won't be able to stick to my calorie deficit. So when I am going into my deficit, I'm going to be adding in more fiber. This is because number one, more fiber keeps you fuller for a longer period of time. So as opposed to having things like Rice Krispie treats where like, yeah, they taste great, but they're not going to keep you full for a very long period of time. I'll, you know, throw in things like raspberries, I'll throw in things like carrots, I'll throw in things like more oatmeal, I'll throw in things like more chia seeds. For example, right? Like more sweet potatoes. These things that are going to give me a little bit more fiber is going to help keep me full. But also, number 2, more fiber throughout the day does give you a little bit more of sustained energy as well, which when you talk about going into a calorie deficit, because your calories are getting cut lower, sometimes your energy can be affected. So this is why keeping your fiber higher is going to be able to help you keep your energy more sustained throughout the day. How much fiber should you be having? I would say roughly for every 1,000 calories that you're eating, you should be trying to get like 10 to 15 grams of fiber. So let's just say a good range of fiber per day is probably somewhere around that, like 15 to 35 grams per day, probably somewhere in that range. If you can get somewhere between 15 to 35 grams of fiber a day, you'll be having a great day, my friend. And by the way, really quickly, some people are probably going to ask me, Eric, what about your water intake? I'm not fucking freaking out about my water intake, dude. Me personally, I already drink a lot of water just because like I enjoy water. So it's not really a big deal for me. I have water with my protein shake in the morning. I have water in my pre-workout. I have water in my workout. I have water in my post-workout. I have water in my creatine. Like I'm good on water because I already drink enough water. And again, if you want some sort of like guideline, every single time you eat something, drink water. Or if you want to do a generic like 5 glasses per day or 2 liters per day, somewhere around that right there, like those are really good guidelines. But I'm not fucking freaking out about just like— I'm not drinking a gallon of water per day, just to let you know that right now. I'm not, I'm not doing it. All right, number 7, going out to eat. I am historically, if you have followed my previous mini cuts, which some of you might have, but if you have, um, followed my mini cuts, I haven't— when I've ever done a mini cut, I have not gone out to eat ever, like during the 4 weeks, 6 weeks. I don't go out to eat much to begin with. I'm somebody who like, I will maybe go out to eat 1 to 2 times a week. I don't go out to eat more than 2 times. I don't— I couldn't tell you the last time I went out to eat more than 2 times a week other than if I'm on like vacation or something. That's the only time I'll go out to eat more than that. But if I'm in my just daily routine, I'm not eating out more than 2 times a week. So in this specific calorie deficit, I might allow myself to go out to eat once a week, but it'll probably be very sparingly. Let's just say I do this little mini cut for 6 weeks, I might go out to eat twice, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I might go out to eat twice. Other than that, I'm not going to go out to eat very much. Again, I'm not telling you that you can't go out to eat. I want you to be able to go out to eat, live a real life, do those kind of things. I'm just somebody who I don't do that much to begin with anyway, so it's not that big of a deal for me. I'm not telling you you can't. And if I do go out to eat, like I might allow myself to go out to eat once a week. If I do, number one, I'm going to massively decrease the portion size. And so for example, I'll give you a, um, when I go to Chipotle, my normal order is 2 burritos with the chips and I have all of that for me. It's usually about 2,500 calories. If I go out to eat, I'm going to have 1 burrito and that's it. I won't be getting another burrito. I won't be getting chips. I'll usually just stick to the 1 burrito. So Like, again, massively decreasing portion size. I'm taking a 2,500-calorie meal and I'm going to slash that to around, you know, whatever ends up being 800 calories or whatever it is. So I will just either, number one, massively decrease the portion size or like, you know, when I go out to eat, I'll have, you know, I'll have the appetizer, I'll have the entree, and I might have a dessert as well. If I'm going out, I'm usually either just going to stick to a very lean appetizer or no appetizer at all and then probably no dessert as well. I'm just telling you what I'm doing. I'm not saying you have to do that. I'm telling you what I'm gonna do. And then again, if I do go out to eat, when I order something, it's just gonna be like the same food I would eat at home. So if I'm gonna have— again, a lot of my meals are like some source of protein, some source of rice usually, or sweet potatoes, and then like some sort of vegetable. So if I go out to eat, I can get like a steak with sweet potato and a side of broccoli, for example. Like, that would be like one of my meals if I'm going out for lunch. I can get a big-ass salad when I go out to eat at lunch and ask for the dressing on the side, only put half the dressing on, like all that kind of stuff, right? Pick a protein source. And so it's going to be like more or less if I go out to eat, the same thing if I'm eating at home, which again, I encourage you to do the same thing. Remember, like 4 ounces of chicken at home is the same calories as 4 ounces of chicken at a restaurant. Or if you're having a cup of rice at home, a cup of rice at home is the same thing as a cup of rice at a restaurant. So if you are going out to eat, That's fine. Just like order the same shit you would normally eat if you were at home. It's gonna taste great either way because you ain't fucking cooking it. So like, let's be honest here. But one time going out to eat max, maybe even not any. All right, talking about my workouts. My workouts are actually not going to change at all whatsoever. I used to work out 5 times a week, but right now I'm working out 4 times a week and I'm gonna keep that as I go into my My calorie deficit. So I'm working out 4 times a week. Um, like I said, I already told you my cardio, just getting steps per day. I'm doing a 4-day lower, upper, lower, upper split. I normally train on Monday, Tuesday, take off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. All of these workouts are going to be geared towards still trying to lift as heavy as I can, still getting strong because you can still get stronger while you're in a calorie deficit. So I'm still trying to lift heavy, still trying to get stronger, still trying to build muscle. I'm not like, Changing up my workouts to where I'm like, oh, I'm going to do less reps. I'm going to do less weight for higher reps and tone the muscle. Absolutely fucking not. I'm following the same training program I was following when I was in maintenance. So none of that, literally none of that is changing at all whatsoever. And people will ask me like, you know, will you get weaker in a calorie deficit? For the most part, you should not. No. If you're keeping your protein high, if you're getting enough calories in, Even if like I'm somebody who I'm going to go a little bit more aggressive in my calorie deficit, but I'm still going to be able to maintain my workout performance because I'm not going too low in my calorie deficit. I'm going to keep my protein intake high. I'm going to get my sleep. I'm going to make sure I recover, um, you know, take proper rest days, all of that good stuff. So I don't anticipate me losing much strength at all whatsoever as I go into this calorie deficit. Maybe towards the last week or so, maybe, but that just depends on how lean I get. Because really, when you go into a calorie deficit, the only time you should lose strength is maybe when you are like getting very, very, very lean. If you're not getting very lean, you don't really need much to— like, you should, as long as you're following a proper training program, then there should be nothing to worry about in terms of you losing your strength. You should not be losing a ton of strength while going into a calorie deficit. Number 9, we're going to talk about the cuts of meat I am eating. And so I talked earlier about like I'm going to incorporate some like protein sources into my big ass salad, all of that kind of stuff. When I'm going into a calorie deficit, I'm very mindful of getting lower fat protein sources. So like for example, I have this, um, this specific cut of steak that is fucking awesome, but when I go into a calorie deficit, it's the fat content is a little bit higher. So that bumps up the calories. And again, I could eat the same amount of actual food for like 200 less calories. calories. If I got a leaner cut of steak or if I did chicken instead or ground turkey or very lean ground beef, like, so when I go into a calorie deficit, an easy way, and you can obviously do this as well, an easy way to cut your calories and get into a deficit is by just changing the cuts of meat you're eating. Choose leaner sources of meat. When you're in the grocery store looking at what you're going to buy, how much fat is in the meat that you are eating? And if you're not Eating meat, I apologize for that. Everybody has their own thing, but I apologize because I think meat is amazing. But when you're getting your meat sources or protein sources in general, look at the macros on the back. How much fat is there? How much protein is there? How many calories is it? Again, like recently I went to the store and got 96/4 ground beef as opposed to getting like 85/15 or even like 90/10 ground beef because you know, for the same amount of food you can save 50 to 200 calories sometimes. And if you do that, 2, 3, 4 times a day, you can save 600 calories per day by just changing the cuts of meat you're eating. You know, changing from chicken thigh to chicken breast or going from 99/1 ground turkey, you know, or I'm sorry, going from 90/10 ground turkey to 99/1 or 97/3 ground turkey, right? So looking at the cuts of meat you're eating is a massive way to help you cut your overall calories as well. And then last but not least, I'm going to be tracking my progress. And so I'm going to put some videos up here. I'm going to be tracking my progress in our new Clubhouse app. So this is the app that I created that is for all of my Clubhouse members. So if you are inside of the Clubhouse, you will be able to gain access to this app. But I'm going to be tracking everything inside of there. I'm going to be weighing myself every single day. You can see, you know, the fluctuations. You can see on the chart on the scale and so on and so forth. So I'm going to track my weight weight every single day. I also have a video here on YouTube why I track my weight every single day, so I'll put that in here. I'm going to take my measurements every 2 weeks. I'm going to take my progress pictures every 2 weeks, and I'm going to track my workouts inside of the Clubhouse app as well. So I'm going to track my reps, I'm going to track my sets, I'm going to track how much weight I used. Because again, I talked earlier about like you should not be getting weaker in a calorie deficit as long as you've set your program up correctly. So, you know, I'm going to be showing people how I'm going to be able to keep my strength levels and still gain strength as I go into a calorie deficit. So I'm going to be tracking all of that stuff inside of the Clubhouse app. And I'm going to be tracking all of that because again, it's important to know, are you actually trending things in the right direction? Are you actually making progress? Because most people just, they just track their body weight and all they track is their body weight once a week. They don't track measurements. They don't track progress pictures, don't track their workouts. So you're giving yourself 4 data points in a month to see progress. That's not very good. That's not many data points. But if you're taking body weight every single day, measurements every 2 weeks, progress pictures 4 weeks, tracking your workouts, doing all these things, right, you now have given yourself fucking 50 data points in the month to actually learn, are you actually seeing progress? Where are the trends? Are things going in the right direction? As opposed to just like looking on the scale Scale every now and then and getting discouraged because it went up because you know your weight can go up for so many fucking reasons. But I would encourage you to track all of these things like I do inside of our app. Track all of the things. Make sure you have these things at your disposal to look at because what's more motivating than seeing progress? Nothing. And if you're actually tracking all of these things, you'll be able to look at different areas to see you're making progress. Maybe one week your weight didn't go down, but your Your waist measurement just went down 1 inch, or maybe your waist measurement didn't go down, but you just hit a PR in your squats. Or maybe, you know, things aren't changing, but your progress pictures look massively different side by side, even though you thought you didn't make that much progress. And so I really encourage you to track all of these things because if not, you have no clue if you're heading in the right direction or not. You're just like blindfolding your way through, which is not going to get you very far. And guys, that's it. That's literally the 10 main things I am changing going into a calorie deficit. I hope this video helped you. If it did, please feel free to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. Also, if you are interested in joining the Clubhouse and getting access to the app and all the great things, I can link all of that here below in the description of this show. It's just erfclubhouse.com. As I'm recording this video, not sure the app is out quite yet because it's just about done. So it'll— I don't know when you're watching this, but in January 2023 it'll be out. So whether you're watching this in December or whether you're watching This, I don't know, in December of 2025, it could already be out. Who fucking knows? Because YouTube videos stay up forever. But if you want to check out the Clubhouse where I give you exact workouts to do, exact calories to hit, I give you the, the guidelines, the support, every single thing, you can check that out if you want to. Other than that, thank you for watching and we will chat soon. Okay.