Top 5 Mistakes To Avoid During Weight Loss (Updated 2023!)
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts outlines the five most common mistakes that sabotage weight‑loss efforts and offers evidence‑based corrections. He begins by warning against excessive high‑intensity interval training (HIIT), explaining how chronic stress raises cortisol, increases water retention, fuels cravings, and impairs recovery, ultimately derailing diet adherence. He then critiques the belief that cardio alone can create a calorie deficit, breaking down total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) into BMR, NEAT, TEF, and EAT, and showing that exercise‑related calories are a small fraction of total burn and often over‑estimated by trackers. Roberts advocates for low‑intensity steady‑state cardio and prioritizing strength training to raise BMR. The third mistake is relying on fleeting motivation instead of disciplined, consistent action; he argues that discipline creates measurable progress, which in turn fuels motivation. The fourth error involves inconsistent weekly calorie intake—especially weekend over‑eating—that negates a daily deficit; he proposes mindful calorie cycling to keep weekly totals in check. The fifth mistake is using the scale as the sole progress metric; Roberts recommends tracking body measurements, progress photos, and workout performance alongside weight. Finally, he adds a bonus point about focusing on action‑based goals (a daily “kill list”) rather than outcome‑only goals, emphasizing that consistent daily behaviors drive results. Throughout, he interweaves practical tips (protein’s thermic effect, importance of NEAT, using apps for tracking) and encourages viewers to adopt a disciplined, data‑informed approach for sustainable fat loss.
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Here are the top 5 biggest weight loss mistakes that you are making that you need to stop doing immediately because it's wasting your time and causing you to not see results. Let's dive right into it. The first biggest mistake you're making is too much HIIT cardio. If you don't know what HIIT cardio is, it's just high-intensity interval training or just any high-intensity cardio where your heart rate is kind of going through the roof. And let me explain why. When you are doing a lot of this high-intensity cardio, what this is doing is placing a lot of stress on your body. This does a couple of things. Number 1, it raises your cortisol level, which can in the short term increase your water weight retention. And then more importantly, number 2, when you are placing a lot of stress on your body, it's very hard to recover From that stress. If your body is not recovering from the stress you are putting on it, then what is going to happen is a few different things. Number one, you are going to have more cravings, more hunger, which is then going to lead to your dietary adherence dropping down. So because you have more cravings, because you have more hunger— oh, by the way, also throw in you're super tired, you're exhausted, you're dreading your workouts. Your adherence to your diet, sticking to your nutrition, your calories is going to go down the drain. If sticking to your calories goes down the drain because of those things, what do you think is going to happen to your weight loss? Going to go down the drain as well. For this reason, I generally recommend doing more of a low intensity steady state cardio approach when you are trying to lose weight. It doesn't mean you can't ever do high intensity cardio if you're trying to lose weight, but the majority of your cardio should be focused on low-intensity steady-state cardio. What does that mean? Very briefly, it just means if you're able to hold a conversation like you and I are right now— so whether that's on the bike, whether it's on the treadmill, whether it's on the elliptical, whether it's outside walking, whether it's swimming, whatever the case may be— if you can hold a normal conversation like this right here, you are doing low-intensity steady-state cardio. And that is going to be what is usually most optimal in order for you to see see the best weight loss progress. The reason people do a lot of the high intensity cardio though is because the second mistake that we're going to talk about right now is you are trying to use cardio as a way to burn calories to get into a calorie deficit. And again, when people think high intensity, they think they are burning more calories, which is going to help them lose more weight. 2 things here. Number one, remember what we just talked about in this mistake. If you do a lot of high intensity cardio and your cravings go up and your hunger goes up and you're under-recovered, you're actually going to be eating much more calories, which if you think you're going to burn a tad bit more calories between doing high intensity cardio and low intensity cardio, which by the way, you're not going to burn that much of a difference. And we'll talk about that here in a very quick second. But if you think you're going to burn a bit more, cool. You're not going to burn enough to make up for the fact that you are eating more calories because your body's under-recovered and you have more cravings and you're not sticking to your diet. So that part of it isn't going to work. The second part is going to be— I'm going to put a picture right here of kind of how your body actually burns calories in a given day. This is called your TDEE, which is your total daily energy expenditure. You can see at the bottom. 70% of your TDEE comes from something called your BMR. Your BMR just stands for your basal metabolic rate. So just think of this as like if you were to lay on the couch all day and do absolutely nothing, this is how many calories your body would burn throughout the course of a day. It takes up 70% of your total daily energy expenditure, your total calories burned. The next part of this equation is going to be your NEAT, which is your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This It just means like how many calories you burn throughout the day that isn't like during your workout. So for example, if you're doing what I'm doing right now and like moving my hands around, if you're walking to the car, if you're walking around work, if you're doing anything that's any sort of active that's not like, hey, I'm going to get my hour workout in, that makes up 15%, 10 to 15% of your total daily energy expenditure. The next part of this is going to be coming from your TEF, which is your thermic effect of food. This just means how many calories your body has to burn to digest the food that you are intaking because you can't just like eat food and then it does nothing. Your body has to digest it, which is an energy process which requires calories burned. Really quickly, if you want a little hack, protein actually has the highest thermic effect of food. So if you're somebody who's looking to lose body fat, eating high protein is actually going to help you burn more calories. And then last but not least, at the very top you see EAT, exercise activity thermogenesis. This is roughly how many calories your body burns on a given day during your exercise. And so when you're doing your, whatever it is, your cardio, your strength training, whatever it is, all those calories that you think you're burning a ton of calories, it really only makes up 5% of your overall calorie burn for the day. Now, a couple of things here. Number one, those trackers that people use to track how many calories their body burns during a workout can be wildly inaccurate. They have been shown to be literally up to 90+% inaccurate sometimes. And so if it says you're burning 600 calories on the treadmill or your smartwatch or whatever it is, it can literally be up to 90% inaccurate there. So I wouldn't necessarily depend on or even look at, to be honest with you, how many calories you're burning during your workout. I would much more look at, is your workout performance increasing? Are you doing more weight? Are you lifting more reps? Are you getting a better mile time? Are you having better form? Are you getting good range of— a better range of motion? Those things matter much more in terms of your workouts than how many calories your body burns. And because people put so much emphasis on trying to just cardio their way to to their weight loss journey, they're not putting that emphasis on their nutrition. So you would be much better off, generally speaking, taking that extra time you were doing your cardio and putting it towards meal prepping, putting it towards getting your nutrition in check. I know that's not very sexy. I know it's not what a lot of people want to do, but that is the God's honest truth because you are never going to be able to outrun, out-cardio, out-train A bad diet. For you to really dial in your weight loss, you are going to have to make sure your nutrition is the thing that gets in check because otherwise the math is just simply not going to add up. And the last part I'll say to this really quickly is you saw on this chart that 70% of your total daily energy expenditure comes from your BMR. One of the best ways to increase your BMR is to, like we kind of actually said earlier, Eat more protein, but also build more muscle. And that's why I think one of the most underrated things you can do for losing body fat and losing weight is actually going to be strength training and building more muscle, because that is actually going to help you increase your BMR, which is the biggest part of your total daily energy expenditure to begin with. This is why inside of my clubhouse, we structure our program based around our 3 or 4 times a week strength training program. And I would strongly encourage you to do that as well. The basis of your exercise program should really be based around strength training. And then in terms of cardio, you should be kind of filling in your cardio with walks throughout the day to get some steps. That is kind of what we call NEAT, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Maybe doing some light cardio throughout the week, 1, 2, 3 times a week of the steady state, whether it's treadmill, elliptical, bike, whatever it is. But the basis, the main premise of your exercise program should be resistance training, strength training, lifting weights. And then on top of that, your cardio can kind of fulfill after that because you're gonna wanna get your nutrition in check the most, which is gonna lead to the most weight loss. The 3rd biggest mistake most people make when they're trying to lose weight is going to be relying on motivation versus your discipline. And let me explain this to you. Most people think that when you talk about motivation, it's, oh, I get motivated and then I'm gonna take an action and then I'm gonna see a result. That is completely ass backwards because why would you be motivated if you have no results? How do you get results if you take no actions? You have nothing to be motivated about. What is the most motivating thing? Tell me, please. It's seeing progress. How do you get motivation if you see no progress? You don't. How do you see progress? Well, you have to take action. You have to do the workouts. You have to hit your calories, stick to your nutrition, do the walks, do the steps, cardio, whatever it is. You got to take action first. So the only way that you are going to create the motivation is actually by following your discipline and taking the actions even and especially when you don't want to. And this is a really important part. I don't want you to think there's something wrong with you if you're not able to or if you don't want to— not able to— if you don't want to get your workout, if you don't want to stick to your calories or count your calories or whatever it is. There's nothing wrong with you. We all have that. But that is not a valid excuse or a valid reason to not do the things that you are supposed to do. Because the only thing that separates people who see progress versus people who don't see progress is the people who see progress learn how to do the shit that they are supposed to do, even and especially when they don't want to. Because what happens then? So that's your discipline. You're relying on discipline now. You're not relying on motivation because motivation is a feeling. Just like being happy is a feeling, being sad is a feeling, being anxious and stressed is a feeling. Do those feelings last? No, they go up and down. Sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad, sometimes you're stressed, sometimes you're calm. They're feelings. They come and they go, right? Motivation is a feeling. It comes and goes. That's why you cannot rely on it. You have to be able to rely on your discipline. But here's the really cool part. When you start to invest into your discipline and do those things and show up no matter what and still hit your workouts even when you're tired, get to the gym, do all all those things, you will then see progress from that because you're taking the action. What happens when you see progress? You get motivated to keep taking the actions, to keep seeing more progress. And so please just don't rely on, oh, I'm motivated today, I'll work out, or I'll eat healthy, or I'm not motivated today. You have to be able to rely, depend, and put all of your chips into the discipline basket, which From there, funny enough, you're actually gonna get motivation in return because you're gonna take the action, see progress, and be motivated to keep going. The 4th mistake that you're making when it comes to your weight loss is either your weekends or you're just having a few days throughout the week where you're not as consistent as you need to be. And let me do this math for you very quickly. I know you have probably heard before, which if you haven't, there's a lot of information on my channel about this, If you have not heard before, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. The most important thing is that you are in a weekly calorie deficit. Let me explain myself. Let's say, for example, you are supposed to eat 1,700 calories per day, which by the way, since you're watching this video, if you head to the description, I actually put my totally free, no strings attached, no nothing. I put my free calorie calculator in the description of this video so you can go check it out. That And let you know how many calories you're supposed to eat. But let's say you're supposed to eat 1,700 calories per day in order to lose body fat. Perfect. That would roughly come out to 11,900 calories per week, which is what you would need to eat in order to be in a calorie deficit. Let's say you do 1,700 calories 4 days out of the week, but then you do 2,500 calories 3 days out of the week. Your overall weekly calories would be 14,300 as opposed to 11,900. And this is important because you're going to end up not being in a calorie deficit for the entire week, even though in your head you're working so hard, you're sticking to your calories, you're eating 1,700 calories. You are, but you're not doing it consistently enough in order to see progress. Those couple of days, Where you're going over calories and maybe not tracking and maybe eating more food. Those couple of days are having your overall weekly calories bump up, which means it is taking you out of the calorie deficit. Almost think about it like if you were like underwater, like if you have a pool underneath the water deficit, over the water, not deficit. Maybe I should have done that around because like you don't want to, you don't want to drown, but you get what I'm saying. Overall, when those couple of days throughout the week pop up, you're bringing yourself above water and you're no longer in the calorie deficit range. And now I'm going to give you an even hint to this. You can do some calorie cycling if that might fit your current lifestyle. And this way, instead of having, let's say, 1,700 calories per day, what you potentially could do is let's say you're working out 4 days a week. And then let's say on your 4 workout days you go a little bit higher calories and your 3 non-workout days you go actually a little bit lower calories. So let's say on your higher calorie days you're eating 1,950 calories and on your lower calorie days you are eating 1,500 calories, right? You could potentially do the calorie cycling approach to have it where your overall weekly calories are actually still Somewhere around that 11,900 mark. So if you eat a tad bit more on some days, a tad bit less on some days, your overall weekly calories would actually still be in check. But here's the part that most people fuck up when they hear this. Those higher calorie days aren't just a free-for-all. You still have to make sure you're tracking. You still have to make sure you're mindful. It's not just a, I'm going to fucking eat everything. On the flip side of that, this is not going to work if you're somebody who's like, cool, I'll eat 1,200 calories 5 days out of the week and then 3,500 calories and just absolutely binge 2 days out of the week. That is not going to work. You think it might? It's not. How is it working out right now for you? Probably not working out very well, right? So you can't go in either extreme here, but if you do slightly more, slightly less a few days out of the week, That can be okay. It just has to be mindful. It has to be moderate and it has to be accounted for so that you can still be in your plan and be in your calorie deficit. Number 5, the last mistake, and actually we're going to have one bonus one after number 5. So if you want to stick around for the bonus one, you can. But the last mistake that you are making is you are only tracking your progress and having a win or lose, a pass or fail. By the number on the scale. Listen, is the number on the scale one form of data that you can look at to potentially track if you're heading in the right direction? For sure it is. But there are 3 main other forms— 4 really main other forms of data that I want you to be tracking. And I think this is so important that I literally made an app for my Clubhouse, which is like my training program inside of the app, I had to make sure I put in a way to track people's body weight, a way to track your measurements, a way to track your progress pictures, and a way to track your workouts. Those are the 4 main things that you should be tracking in your fat loss, in your weight loss journey. You should not just be going by the scale. I can't tell you how many times I've seen some of my clients where Maybe their scale wasn't moving a ton, but they saw their measurements and they were down an inch and a half off of their waist, or they saw their progress pictures side by side and they were able to say, holy shit, I can clearly tell my stomach has massively come in closer to my body, or there's less back fat, or in their workouts, for example, maybe they have a week where the scale spiked up because the scale is going to spike up every now and then. Maybe they had a day where the scale spiked up, but they didn't quit because in their workout that day they were able to get 20 more pounds on their deadlift and they felt fucking amazing and they're hitting PRs, they're increasing their weight. It keeps that positive momentum going and it takes away just the singular focus on the scale. The scale is one part, but there are many other parts in this journey you should be tracking because there are different ways to measure your fat loss progress. And like I said, inside of our Clubhouse app, I actually have all of this where you can track it. Or I actually have a video on YouTube here as well covering where you should take your body measurements and so on and so forth. So you can always check out my channel for that as well. The last bonus mistake that I can help you with is you want to make sure you're not just being outcome goal focused. You want to make sure you are being action goal Focused. And what does this mean? The outcome goal. I want to lose 20 pounds. I want to lose 20 pounds in 3 months. I want to fit into this dress. I want to get X amount of, you know, inches off of my stomach. Whatever the outcome is. So many people just focus on the outcome. But what are the daily actions that you need to take in order to achieve that outcome. Because think about it, what is the only way that you are going to lose 25 pounds? The only way you're going to lose 25 pounds is if you hit your calories, is if you stick to your workout program, is if you get your walks in. Those are the daily actions that you should be focusing on every single day, because without those action-based goals, you'll never get to your outcome-based goals. You'll just make the outcome-based goal. You'll, you know, rely on motivation like we talked about. You rely on motivation for a couple of days. Maybe you'll eat healthy for a couple days. Friday will roll around, you'll say fuck it, and you'll restart on Monday. And this will just keep happening over and over. Stop being so outcome-focused. I need you to start being much more action-goal-focused. What are the actions that you need to get done every single day in order to get to where you want to be. I actually call this my kill list, and I've done an entire podcast on this as well. If you're somebody who's into podcasts, you can check out my podcast, Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast. I'll put the link here in the description of this video as well. You can feel free to check it out. But every single day, check off your, your quote-unquote kill list. I don't call it a to-do list because that's not what this is. This is a— you're putting down 3 to 5 things every single day That are intentionally action-focused to get you closer to the outcome goal. Remember, outcomes follow actions. Say it with me, outcomes follow actions. If the actions are there, the outcomes have no choice but to come along for the ride. And that was the 5 main weight loss mistakes. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please feel free to subscribe, give the video a thumbs up, and feel free to let me know in the comment section below which one of these was you. Which one of these mistakes were you making? Maybe you were making all of them, I don't know. Which one were you making? What was helpful to you? And I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for watching, and we will chat soon.
