28 : These Are the 4 Reasons Your Calorie Deficit Feels Miserable (BUT There's A Better Way)!

If your calorie deficit feels miserable, there’s probably a reason. In this episode, I’m breaking down the 4 biggest mistakes that make fat loss harder than it needs to be and what to do instead.  

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I'm your host, Carly Kaikendahl, and this is the Daily Penny, the podcast about building sickening consistency through everyday habits. Being occasionally great does not get you very far, but being consistently good is what moves the needle forward. Every time you follow through for a workout, a meal in motherhood, in your finances, in your business, or in your life, you're putting another penny in the jar of the person you want to become. One penny doesn't feel like much, but those daily deposits compound over time. This show is about fitness, nutrition, motherhood, money, business, and the systems that actually hold your life together in seasons when motivation is gone. Whether you're building habits, rebuilding confidence, or just simply trying not to quit, you're in the right place. Let's add another penny in the jar. I'm getting so for real with you in today's episode because you don't need someone that's going to make you simply feel better about what you're currently doing because what you're currently doing might not be working. And you don't need someone to justify your lack of commitment, to justify the actions that you're currently doing, to justify your victim mentality. You don't need anyone to do that. You're probably already doing it for yourself. A lot of the marketing these days is catering towards you thinking, oh, this is the problem. No, you have full autonomy over your decisions, you have full autonomy over your life. But because of all of this misinformation, you feel like it's harder than it is. And here's the thing: it's not easy. If it were easy, you would not need to change because you would have already done that, right? So you don't need me to sugarcoat anything today. And so I'm taking full liberty to not sugarcoat anything because here's the thing: you cannot have it all. And you cannot do it all. If someone is selling you a really appealing approach to dieting, I can almost guarantee you that you're not going to get the results that you want. Because when we are dieting, we are intentionally feeding our body less calories than it needs to have each day to maintain that current weight. That's how you lose weight. You consume less than you burn, and then your body taps into fat stores to get the fuel that it needs to make up that difference because you're not giving it enough for that day intentionally. That's how fat loss works. That's how weight loss works. Now, obviously, that is a very simplified, like second grade example of it all. But isn't that kind of what we need? Honestly, myself included. So when someone pretends like you can still enjoy all the meals out multiple times per week, and you can enjoy several drinks every single weekend, and you can take girls' trips every few weeks, and you can take, well, first of all, who's taking a girls' trip every few weeks? But you can just take weekends off from tracking and still get the results that you want. None of that is true. Like that's great marketing because easy sells. If you're marketing an easy approach to things, that's going to sell. And what is easy is telling you that something within your body is the problem. And it's most likely not. Like in some cases, yes, it could be. Your body could be giving you signs and signals that there's something deeper going on. But most of the time, that is just someone trying to sell you a problem that they then have the solution to. And that solution has dollars attached to it. And here's the thing, I'm selling coaching as well. But what I'm selling is accountability to build habits. You know, I'm not selling you a macro account. I'm selling you the accountability to check in with you on a weekly basis to make sure that you are doing what you said you were going to do, to give you a roadmap to help you put blinders on, to help you look down and not around. Because when you look around, the marketing is really good. Because once again, easy sells. And while the marketing might be really good, it's unethical because a diet requires a higher level of adherence and attention to detail than these people are trying to sell to you. Now, the ultimate goal is to be able to maintain the results you achieved in a cut when you eventually transition into maintenance calories. And then the even bigger goal is to maintain those same results without tracking every single bite, look and taste of food for the rest of your life, right? So you hear these phrases like intuitive eating or mindful eating, and you just assume that's the phase that you automatically transition to after a cut. And that's not the case. Like the patterns that you created that caused you to be in the position of needing to lose the weight, those are deep-rooted patterns. They're not patterns that you're just gonna uproot and replace in a 12-week cut. And now think about this. So it takes eating 3,500 calories in a surplus to gain one pound of fat. But that 3,500 calorie surplus is most likely not taking place in one day. Like you're not gonna eat your maintenance calories and then 3,500 calories above that in one day. No, you might, but it's most likely taking place over time. So it might look like eating 875 calories in a surplus each week over the course of a month. Or to break that down even further, it may look like eating 125 calories in a surplus each day, because that equates to 3,500 calories over the course of a month if the month is a four-week month. And if over time you have gained multiple pounds that you are now trying to lose, it most likely happened over the course of several months and years, not just 12 weeks. And you know that I'm right. So to think that the habits you practice in a cut are going to magically stick and become the new normal habits without you actually tracking that and being as meticulous after the cut is over, it's just not how it works. So you need to practice the same attention to detail, the same adherence at maintenance if you want both the results and the habits to stick. Now, I do believe though that you can get to a point where you are happily maintaining a large degree of your results without tracking every single bite looking taste of food for 365 days a year. But even as someone myself who has been tracking macros on and off for years, I cannot look at a plate and eyeball portion sizes and know where my protein is at for the day without using an actual food scale. And I cannot perfectly estimate my macros based on how I feel that day. And if I want to know where things are landing, I have to track my calories. I have to track my protein, and I have to use a food scale. But you don't have to hear that and immediately see a food scale as these shackles and chains. This is an approach that is my go-to for seasons where I'm not using a food tracking app daily, but I still want to be mindful of my protein and calories. So what I do is I plan out a perfect day in my fitness pal. And because I eat the same foods on a regular basis, I know the exact portions of those meals for what I generally eat. And so that means like on the days when I'm not opening my fitness pal, I can still be relatively close to what I would eat on a day when I am opening my fitness pal because I know that like for one meal, for example, I'm going to default to 200 grams of spaghetti squash, between five to six ounces of ground beef, around 150 grams of broccoli, and 125 grams of the marinara that I use every single time I have that meal. I can recite the portions of that meal because it's a favorite. I have it all the time. These portions are so automatic for me. And it takes me forever to get tired of meals. And so I have this over and over and over. So what this does is like meal repetition is going to prevent me from over-indexing my portion sizes, but I'm not having to actually log it in the app. Does that make sense? Like all I do is pull out my food scale and measure out those same portions. And so if I hit my macros the days prior, I can still hit my macros the next few days without ever opening my FitnessPal because I'm eating the same portions as when I did log it in my FitnessPal and I saw where my macros were at for the day. So today I'm going to go over four reasons that your calorie deficit feels pretty miserable. But then I'm going to give you solutions for how to do things differently. Okay. And so the example that I just gave you, it kind of leads me into number one for why your calorie deficit feels miserable. And that is that you are reinventing the wheel every day when it comes to your meals. Because here's the thing: you can have almost the same meal macro-wise, but it can feel totally different by just using a different sauce or maybe one different topping. Like I can prep ground beef, russet potatoes, and then sweet potatoes. And then I can have a few different meals just from those things and rotate in maybe one additional thing to make it feel like a totally different meal, or one additional sauce and make it feel like a totally different meal. So here's that in real time. This these are meals that I actually prepare for myself when I'm giving you this example. So meal one could be a hamburger bowl. So I would use those russet, or let's just start calling them regular potatoes. Some of y'all are like, what the heck is a russet potato? I don't even know if I'm saying that right. So I'm just gonna say regular potatoes. So I would use the regular potatoes, some of the ground beef that I prepped, and then whatever toppings that I would normally put on a hamburger, which are generally things or that you might have on hand, at least I do, like lettuce, some tomatoes, pickles, and then add ketchup and mustard, and maybe some cheese on the top if you have some extra calories to give. That's meal number one, a hamburger bowl. Meal number two could be the viral cottage cheese and beef bowls that I have all the time. So that's going to be a sweet potato base, ground beef, cottage cheese, maybe some avocado, some hot honey, and then I personally like adding pickled onions to the top. That is meal two. Once again, having those simple things that you prepped, like the potatoes and the ground beef, and just rotating it in a slightly different combination to make it feel like a totally different meal. Meal three could be those sweet potatoes for the base, ground beef, and then make some canned black beans to add on top with some salsa, so that can be more of a Mexican-inspired bowl. In this case, sometimes what I will do is I will use half the ground beef that I'm prepping. I will add taco seasoning to it, and so that is more of a Mexican-inspired meal, and then you can also use that as a taco bowl. So there's a, I didn't even put that in my episode notes, but there's meal number four. You could create a taco bowl if you create some of that ground beef with a taco seasoning. So I've already given you three to four meal suggestions, and you only prepped three items, and then you used a lot of common things that you might already have in your fridge, or for the black bean example, maybe those are some canned beans that you have in your pantry. So you're making it so much harder on yourself by not repeating meals because you're playing this game of Tetris every single day, but you are starting from scratch every time you play the game. Now, if you started with some meals repeated from the day before and use the exact same portions that are already in my fitness pal, you could just copy that over into the next day of your food log. And this means that when you go to eat that meal, you're not keying anything into MyFitnessPal. You are simply opening the app, pulling out your food scale, and weighing out the portions that are already listed in there from the day before. So that is reason number one that your calorie deficit is miserable, and that is you are reinventing the wheel every day with your meals. Reason number two that your calorie deficit feels miserable is that you see the constraints of a deficit as the new required normal behavior forever. But a deficit is not meant to be forever. So stop seeing every decision as the new normal. You must be more strict with your decisions in a cut if you do want worthwhile results. That is simply the truth. Once again, if someone is promising you all of this fun and all of this flexibility within your deficit, you should also be very flexible with your expectations of the results you're going to get from that deficit. Because I promise you this in order to get results, in order to lose weight, in order to look toned, you will be saying no a lot more than you will be saying yes. So, yes, you hear me say this, and it sounds all doom and gloom, kind of, but also let me ask you this. Are you expecting this to be easy? Think about it. You are intentionally depriving your body of calories. That is not fun. Not many people are gonna see that as fun. Now the results are fun, but the process to get there isn't that fun. In a deficit, you are eating less calories than you would at maintenance. This is obvious. We know this, but I just feel like I need to repeat myself there. We are eating less on purpose. And when we eat maintenance calories, we are eating more on purpose. But what happens is that when someone goes into a deficit and they lose weight, they assume that these are the new calories required to keep those same results. And that's not the case. If those calories were your new normal, you wouldn't be losing weight because you would be eating maintenance calories if that was the new normal. But in a deficit, because you are losing weight, then that should be very obvious that your body needs more calories to not lose weight. So keep in mind that deficit calories are not forever calories. After your deficit is over, for whatever reason you decide, whether that be because you got the results that you wanted or you're just kind of over the deficit, like whatever you decide is your reason, after that, you can start increasing your calories. And this is where reverse dieting comes into play, which could be its own episode. I'm not going to go into reverse dieting today, but just keep in mind that deficit calories are not your forever calories. And if you see them as forever calories, then the cut will be mentally a very hard thing for you. One thing I like to remind my clients of is you chose this. You have free will. And just like the free will that got you into the position where you gained this weight, now your free will is you making the decision to lose it. You have full autonomy over your decisions. You are in control. You are choosing this, and you are not a victim of the cut. So stop pretending like a victim because you chose this. So, reason number three that your deficit feels miserable is you try to fit your current habits within your deficit calories. So, can you still go out for drinks every weekend? Sure. But you should expect to feel very hungry earlier on in the day because you're trying to save up calories for the drinks that you plan to still have later if you want to stick to your deficit calories. You should also expect to wake up the next day with a less than stellar sleep score, and you should also expect the scale to be up from additional water retention from the alcohol that you had. Because alcohol is a toxin that your body has to process, and through that process, it creates inflammation throughout your body. You're going to experience an increase in water weight. And if you're drinking, you're normally eating more carbs than usual as well. And your body stores those carbs as glycogen. And for every one gram of glycogen, your body stores around three to four grams of water. So alcohol, it wrecks your sleep quality. It can, you know, raise your cortisol because of bad sleep. And elevated cortisol also causes, once again, water retention. Fitting your weekend drinks out with friends as the new normal within a deficit, is it possible? Sure. But most people go into a deficit already expecting unrealistic results and trying to fit that same habit into the already unrealistic expectations that you set for yourself is really just setting you up for disappointment. But you have to be realistic about this. And then same thing with going out to dinner. Can you go out to dinner three to four nights per week? Sure, you can. But every single one of those meals is nothing but a best guess for what your macros are. Now, they do make very helpful tools now. Like I always suggest uploading a picture of your meal into AI and asking it to approximate the macros by giving it very specific examples of what you're eating. Like for me, the other night I went out for Mexican with my family. I got some shrimp tacos. There were three jumbo pieces of shrimp on each taco. So I literally told Chat GPT, I'm having three small shrimp tacos on small flour tortillas, three jumbo shrimp in each taco, also some lettuce, also some mozzarella cheese, some pico on top. So I put all of that into Chat GPT, uploaded a photo to give it even more context, and said, Can you approximate the macros for this meal? And ChatGPT is obviously way smarter than we are, so it's also going to say, take into account cooking oils. And I'm like, thank you so much. You're thinking ahead. So that is a solid approach, or maybe I should say better approach than you just trying to estimate things on your own. But at the end of the day, it can only get so close. Nothing will ever compare to you pulling out a food scale and knowing that one gram is always one gram and one ounce is always one ounce. I promise you, I promise you this, that your favorite fitness influencer or your favorite macro coach who looks toned is probably not eating out all the time. She is making home cooked meals, or she's assembling home cooked meals. And just know that the toned person that you want to emulate most likely has a very different looking week than yours currently looks like if you are someone who's looking to lose weight. And I cannot stress to you how beneficial it is for you to even just track your calories. Like forget even worrying about any macro, forget about protein. If you just commit to tracking your calories, it will be the biggest shock of a lifetime when you realize how many empty calories you are consuming on a daily basis. Because you're probably using way more creamer in your coffee than you realize. You're probably eating a lot more snacky things than you realize between lunch and dinner, you're probably using more butter, more sour cream, ranch dressing, olive oil, cheese, you're using a lot more of those condiments than you realize. Your nighttime sweet treat is probably a lot more calories than you realize. When you force yourself to track the grazing that you do on whatever your kids don't finish for lunch that day, if you force yourself to track that, you will realize, wow, how many times has this food almost entered my mouth before I remembered that I am now tracking every bite like and taste of food. When you add up all of those calories throughout the day, you would be absolutely shocked. Like if you were to put those things on a food scale, and you would realize that those massive, massive calorie sucks are coming throughout your day without you even realizing it. And it is so eye-opening. So, no, you probably won't be able to fit your exact same habits into a calorie deficit. And if you do, you will most likely be very hungry because a lot of the things that you're consuming are probably empty calories. And empty calories are not keeping you full. Like they are taking up a lot of your calorie amount throughout the day, but it's not giving you anything satiating like protein and fiber and healthy dietary fats. It's nothing that is keeping you satiated for any length of time. So once you track your calories, notice once again that I'm just saying calories. You will realize how many calories and how little protein you are consuming. So it will, it will feel very hard to fit those same habits into that new calorie goal. And this is where macro-friendly swaps come into play. So things that can taste similar or make you feel like you were eating the same thing and the same volume of food, but with significantly less calories attached. So that was number three. You are trying to fit your current habits within your new calorie deficit numbers. And last one, number four, is you don't plan any diet breaks in advance. Now, a diet break is when you intentionally increase your calories close to or at maintenance calories for a period of time. Length of diet breaks can vary. They can be anywhere from one day where you have more calories to a weekend where you have more calories, maybe an entire week, maybe two or three weeks where you raise your calories and then go back into a deficit. So for both of my calorie deficits, before the deficit even began, I knew the exact dates when I would be getting a break and eating maintenance calories. And mine just so happened to coincide with some pre-planned vacations that we had. But now that I see how well that worked for me and my body and my adherence, like how well those planned breaks also work for my clients, it's something that I'm constantly asking them. I'm like, when is a good time for us to take a break? Sometimes we will go into that and they'll be like, you know what? I actually don't need this break. And I'm like, great, let's keep going. But sometimes they're like, okay, whew, I'm glad we're here because I kind of want to, you know, have a little break to eat more, to take a little bit of pressure off myself, to have a little bit of more flexibility in my diet. So then we take the break. But having it there is really good mostly for mentality than anything else. Like, for example, the summer months are upon us. And so I've already sent messages to all of my 101 clients asking them when they plan to go on vacation. And so we then take those dates and we plan in advance for them to either not track and practice mindful eating or to track and eat maintenance calories. And I always encourage them to take vacation off from tracking if they want to. But some of them say, no, I want the extra calories, but I also want the assurance that I am eating maintenance and not eating above. So they actually choose to track, but I never expect clients to track on vacations. And for me, the two deficits that I have done have fallen around the same months. Like I've done deficits between the months of May through July for both of my cuts. So my first cut in 2023, I started it at the beginning of May and I cut for four consecutive weeks. And then I took a diet break the week of Memorial Day because Eric and I went on vacation. And after that vacation, I returned to the cut for another four weeks. And then we took another trip the week of July 4th, where I took another week off from tracking entirely. And then my cut in 2025, it was similar. I cut for four weeks, and then I took a week off. I cut for another four weeks, I took a week off, and then I think I cut for a final one to two weeks before I ended the cut for good. And having these planned breaks, like I said, it's more for you mentally than anything. Like you're probably not physically going to need a diet break four weeks in. That's just not a long enough time for your body to really break down in any way. But mentally, you might have had a little bit of a breakdown just because it's like, wow, telling myself no is a hard thing to do. And so when you go up to maintenance calories, you still have to tell yourself no, but you don't have to tell yourself no as much as you do in a deficit. So it's better for you mentally than really anything. The further you get into a cut, a planned diet break is good for you physically because your body is starting to experience the wear and tear of a cut. And what it's gonna do is having a planned break is gonna give you this white checkered flag off in the distance versus seeing this long road where you cannot see the end in sight. Like I remember I went on a road trip with my family forever and ever ago, and we drove 5,000 miles like round trip on this road trip. And we would be in some states out west where it would be hundreds of miles before you would see another gas station. And so you could look ahead and you it would be a long, flat road, and you would not see the end of that road. That is what some people see their calorie deficit as. They see it as this long road where they literally cannot see the end. And so mentally it's a very, very hard thing for them to do. Whereas if they saw in the distance a white checkered flag, they would be like, okay, I'm going to lock in until I get to that white checkered flag, and then I'm gonna have a little bit of a reprieve. It's almost like I'm my water station is up ahead at that white checkered flag. I'm gonna take a little break, I'm gonna get a little breather, and then we're gonna start back on again. So having that planned can be so good for you mentally because it gives you more of a sprint versus a marathon mentality. And it can actually increase your adherence because you mentally, you don't see the deficit as this forever long drawn out thing. It's kind of like these short bursts of work chipping away and then pulling back, chipping away and then pulling back. And can also be motivation to have more meals at home because it is a shorter sprint. Because when you think about your planned breaks, that might include more meals out since you have more calories to work with. And especially if you're taking a diet break around a trip or vacation, then you will definitely be eating more meals out. So knowing that more meals out are in your future can make you want to be more precise and adhere very closely to your macros to maximize the time and effort in that cut. So that was number four for why your deficit feels miserable, and that's because you don't plan any diet breaks in advance. So we're gonna run through all four of those reasons one more time. Number one was you are reinventing the wheel every day on your meals. Number two, you see the constraints of a deficit as the new required normal forever. Number three, you try to fit your current habits within your deficit calories. And number four, you don't plan any diet breaks in advance. The beautiful thing about changing your habits and therefore changing your life is that it's no longer a knowledge gap because we are stuffed with information, but we are starving for the application of any of that information that we are consuming. Stop subscribing to a million gurus because that is what is making this process so much harder for you. Like if you really think a calorie deficit is not the answer, then prove me wrong. Go off and try it for three months, be in a calorie deficit for three months and prove me wrong if you really think that is not the answer. I want you to commit to tracking your calories and your protein for an extended period of time. And that means the good, the bad, the ugly, and your weekends too, which probably fall under the good, the bad, the ugly. It's gonna be very eye-opening. I promise. But it will also give you such valuable data that you can then use to actually make a change. Like, don't ignore the data. Don't ignore the data. Don't ignore your morning weigh-ins, even if you had alcohol and endless chips and salsa the night before. Do not ignore weighing in the next morning because it's forcing you to face the mirror. It's forcing you to face the scale. And that is going to be so beneficial to you because remember, data trumps your feelings. And you are so capable of this. Like you have every tool you need to become completely unrecognizable in six months. And I just want to prove this to you. I got a DM several weeks ago from someone who lost 14 pounds since the beginning of the year, all because she applied the tips I've discussed in these podcast episodes, and she incorporated regular strength training as an app member within my app training plan. That is it. And I say that is it, like that is a very blanketed statement. She just sent me the DM and she's like, look what I've been able to do since January. I'm like, that's amazing. And some of you might hear, 14 pounds, I have a lot more to lose than that. Great, get started today because this can be you too. If you need help in any of these areas, I'm going to link to my coaching services in the show notes because once again, it's not a lack of information. Like we are stuffed with information. It's a lack of application, and we are starving for the application. And a coach is someone who can be that layer of accountability so that you are no longer starving for the application piece of things. So that's all for today. Until next time, we keep adding another penny in the jar.