In this concise instructional video, Eric Roberts answers the most common question he receives: how many calories one should eat to lose weight. He outlines a three‑part framework. First, he introduces a simple calorie target equation: multiply a reasonable goal body weight (not the ultimate desired weight if the gap is large) by a factor of 10‑12, with the lower end for higher body fat individuals and the higher end for leaner individuals. He stresses picking an intermediate, attainable goal weight and readjusting as progress is made. Second, he provides a protein guideline: multiply current body weight in pounds by 0.7‑1 g of protein per pound, adjusting the multiplier downward for higher‑fat individuals. He emphasizes that tracking both calories and protein is the most critical factor for weight loss success. Third, he offers “food for thought,” highlighting two common pitfalls: (a) people underestimate their current calorie intake, and (b) people track calories inaccurately. He links to an article on common calorie‑counting mistakes. Finally, he stresses the importance of consistency—maintaining 80‑90% adherence (≈25‑26 days per month) over 6‑8 weeks, allowing occasional slip‑ups but returning to the plan promptly. He concludes with a motivational call to action, encouraging comments, subscriptions, and outreach for further help.
Chapters
Alrighty guys, what is going on? In this very short video, I'm going to cover the number one question I get more than anything else, and that is how many calories you should be eating to lose weight. Okay, so I'm going to cover how many calories you should be eating, I'm going to cover your protein you should be eating, and at the very end, I'm going to cover some food for thought. Please do not, do not skip that. That is probably the most important part of this video. So without further ado, these 3 things gonna get covered right now. Let's go. All right, so how many calories should you be eating to lose weight? This is the equation I want you to do. Very simple equation. Take your goal body weight and multiply it between 10 and 12. So goal body weight— I want to cover goal body weight very first and foremost. If you are currently weighing 230 pounds and your goal body weight is 130, I would not recommend you using 130. Let me explain what I mean. If you're— if you weigh 230 right now, I would set your goal body weight more something like 190 or 180, something that's not so far away, because the amount of calories you're going to get from this equation if you put in your, your goal body weight as 130 is very little. It's going to be very hard to sustainably stick to. So what I would do is your goal body weight, it does not have to be your end-all, your final body weight you want to weigh. Pick a body weight that is within, within reason, within range, and use that from there. I will say this, I put a range between 10 and 12. If you have a higher body fat percentage and you have more weight to lose, normally you will be able to go more towards the, the goal body weight times 10 side. That is because you're using a reasonable body weight. So if you weigh 230 and you have, you know, you're 35% body fat, you can probably use, let's say, 190. 190 times 10 is 1,900 calories. That is probably a great place for you to start with your calorie deficit, and that's how many calories you will eat to lose weight. And then once you get to 190 from eating that, you can readjust your goal body weight. Cool, I want to weigh 170 now. Cool, you do 170 times 10, and then you just trickle down from there. If you start out at a, at a lower body weight and you have less body fat to lose, I would tend to lean more towards the times 12 side because again, if you weigh, let's say you weigh 160 right now and you want to be 140, You eating 1,400, 1,300 calories is going to be a little bit low for you. So I would take that number and multiply it by 12 so you can still— you're not basically starving yourself. You're allowing yourself to have some flexibility with your diet. You're allowing yourself to still enjoy yourself. You're not eating so little calories where it's going to cause you to be inconsistent. That is going to be your simple equation. Why and how does this equation work? And that's one question I get as well, is how does this work? Where are you getting this information from? Why does it work? This calculation is almost a sum of a few things. I can give you these long drawn-out equations for your BMR, which is your basal metabolic rate, which is just how many calories your body burns at rest without doing— if you laid in bed all day long, that's how many calories your body would burn with no exercise, with no getting up to go to the bathroom, with no nothing, right? You can take your BMR and you can times it by an activity level factor. So, and that's different for everybody. If you have a desk job or if you have a— if you're a waiter, you may Yeah. There's a bunch of different factors that go into this, but this equation right here is basically taking all that and summing it up into one simple equation. This works incredibly well. It works for every single one of my clients I've ever coached. And again, if you do it, you are going to see results. So that's the equation. That's why. Make sure your goal bodyweight is reasonable. Don't— again, if you weigh 250, don't put your goal bodyweight as 120. I would pick somewhere in between and give yourself a reasonable goal bodyweight. And then readjust as you get there. So that is going to be the equation. That is what you should do. Moving on to protein. Protein. What you should do for protein is take your current body weight in pounds. So convert it to pounds if you have to. Take your current body weight in pounds and multiply it between 0.7 to 1. So what that would look like is if you took your current body weight, you multiplied it anywhere between 0.7 and 1. For just very quick math, I did 150 Times 1 would be 150 grams of protein per day. Now again, if you have a higher body fat percentage and you have more weight to lose, if you weigh 250, I don't really need you eating 250 grams of protein. I mean, it's probably not necessary. So you can go more towards maybe say the 0.8 range. Okay. So you would take 250 times 0.8. Off the top of my head, I don't know what that is, but I'm sure you have a calculator at home. You'll be able to do that math. So, um, that's how many grams of protein you should be eating. For every single one of my online coaching clients, we track protein and we track calories. Those are the two, those are the two most important things. If you hit your calories and you hit your protein, you will see results. There's no way around it. You will lose weight. That's just the bottom line. It's worked for every single one of my clients and it will work for you as well. Okay? So that is how many grams of protein you should be eating. Now let's go down to food for thought. Alrighty. Food for thought. So I'm glad you watched thus far. Food for thought, I want to throw 2 things at you. First and foremost, I get— sometimes I get people respond to me and say, oh my God, that sounds like so many calories. You know, again, if your goal body weight is 190, you're eating 1,900 calories. Some people come back to me and say, oh my God, there's so many calories, I'm not going to lose weight from that. What I'm going to tell you is you will lose weight from that. Do it. It works very well. The second kind of The 1A and 1B from that is those people who say that, and this may be you and that's okay, those people who say that normally, A, have never tracked calories before, so they don't actually know how many calories they're eating right now. Because I can assure you, if you— let's take that example. If you are weighing 230 pounds right now and you think 1,900 calories is a lot, right now you are eating a lot more than 1,900 calories. I can assure you of that. And again, if you've never tracked calories before, you won't know this. I'm going to link an article here in the, uh, in the, in the description below. This is a very, very good article I wrote on the most common calorie counting mistakes. I'm going to get that here in a second, but this article really depicts how throughout the day you can be eating 1,200 calories without even thinking twice. Like you, you, you can— these calories add up so quickly. You won't even realize it, again, unless you're tracking. So the first thing is you're probably eating way more calories than you think. But second, if you have been tracking, you may be tracking inaccurately. And those are the 2 biggest things. People don't know how many calories they're eating, or you're just not tracking calories accurately. Both of those 2 things, I strongly, strongly, strongly suggest you to head to the description below Click that article, read that article. It is going to help you tremendously. Please go and do that. If you are thinking, oh my God, that sounds like a lot of calories, please go read that article. I promise you it will help. And then the last thing for this quick video, do this. It works, but it works if you're consistent. And what do I mean by that? You need to be 80 to 90% consistent for the next 6 to 8 weeks on this, on this equation with eating this many calories. And what does consistent mean? If there are 31 days in a month, for example, if you are not hitting your calories at the very least 25 to 26 days, you're not being consistent enough and you will not see results. That's just the bottom line. I don't care, I don't care how many calories you eat. If you're not being consistent, you will not lose weight. And what does consistent look like? I just said at the very least 25, 26 days. But also consistent means just because you go over your calories one day, because you will, because we're all human and it's okay, it's not the end of the world. What matters is when you go over your calories, get back on track the next day. Get back on track the next day and don't let one bad night or one bad meal turn into one bad weekend, turn into one week. That's how you be not consistent. What you need to, what you need to realize is nobody ever got fat from eating one bad meal or one bad day of eating. Nobody. In the same way you don't get super skinny from eating good one day, you don't gain a bunch of fat from eating bad one day. Do this for at least 6 to 8 weeks with at least 80% consistency, and you will see all the results you're looking for. I promise you. I'm, I'm giving this free information to you because I want to help you. I have no reason to lie to you. So let me know if this helped. Again, do this consistently. You will see results. If it helped, Drop me a comment below. Feel free to subscribe to the channel. Reach out to me if you have questions. I would love to help you. Okay, thank you so much, guys. We'll talk soon.
