Losing those last few pounds requires a different mindset, different strategies, and a lot more honesty with yourself. Last summer, I went into a calorie deficit for 11 weeks and lost 8 pounds – and I’ve kept 6-7 of those pounds off ever since.

Here’s what surprised me most: being in a deficit actually brought out some of my best habits.I was hungrier, so I found creative ways to bulk up my meals with more greens, vegetables, and fruit. This naturally increased my fiber intake. I also drank more water because anytime I was hungry but it wasn’t time to eat, I’d chug water.

I always eat high protein, but even on weekends during my deficit, I never fell short of my protein goal because it simply helped me not feel as hungry. I even got more sleep because going to bed sooner makes you think about food less. The later you stay up, the more likely you are to feel like you’re white-knuckling things.

Today, I’m sharing the 11 specific lessons I learned during those 11 weeks. These aren’t just tips – they’re the hard-earned truths that made the difference between spinning my wheels and actually seeing results.

Lesson 1: Expect Hunger and Own Your Decision

Let’s start with the most important mindset shift: you need to expect to feel hungry, and you need to own that decision.

Remember that you are in control. You chose this. Hunger is a clear sign that you’re headed in the right direction with fat loss. You’re intentionally feeding your body less than it needs to maintain your current weight, which means you will absolutely be hungry at some point.

Ditch the victim mentality and remind yourself over and over that a deficit is meant to be short-lived and it’s 100% your decision.

Here’s something really important that nobody talks about: your family did not sign up for this calorie deficit. You will be irritable at some point, but try not to take that out on them. And don’t force them to eat the foods you’re eating in a deficit. Keep their environment as normal as possible.

Lesson 2: Use Meal Timing to Your Advantage

Compartmentalizing my day really helped me in my cut. I made myself wait until 11 AM to eat lunch, 4 PM to eat dinner, and I always gave myself a nighttime snack to look forward to.

This isn’t required, but it does give me something to always look forward to and prevents me from eating my calories too early in the day where I’d be white-knuckling my way through the rest of it.

The key here is to pay attention to when you are most hungry and work with that versus against it. This prevents you from feeling like you’re fighting yourself every single day.

I personally work out early in the morning, so I frontload a lot of my calories around that. Maybe for you, hunger strikes at 3 PM. If that’s the case, plan for a later lunch, early dinner, or 3 PM snack. Work with it versus trying to fight against it every day.

Lesson 3: Find Your Low-Calorie “Desserts” and Fidget Snacks

I found some absolute game-changers here that made my deficit feel so much more sustainable.

Low-Calorie Desserts

Vanilla yogurt with blueberries, honey, and some type of nut for a little crunch became my go-to. I like almonds and walnuts. Keep in mind, this is not much at all – I think I used maybe 5-10 grams of nuts because they can really take up a lot of calories very quickly.

I also made this “ice cream” bowl (and I put quotes around ice cream because it’s definitely not real ice cream). It’s yogurt mixed with Cool Whip and then you add some type of berry on top. My four-year-old seriously thinks it is ice cream.

I also love Ninja Creami recipes, even though I never remember to make them in advance to give them enough time to freeze.

Fidget Snacks

Identify your fidget snacks. This gives you the act of snacking without actually consuming many calories. Some examples are:

• Popcorn
• Pickles
• Diet soda
• Pirate’s Booty snack
• Energy drinks

These became my saving grace on days when I just needed something to munch on / keep my hands busy.

Lesson 4: Calories Are King, Protein is Queen

I tend to lean towards lower fat, higher carbs when I’m in a deficit, but at the end of the day, all that matters is that you’re hitting protein and calories.

If you prefer a higher fat, lower carb diet, that’s totally fine. If you prefer higher carb, lower fat, that’s also totally fine. We just want to make sure that fats do not get too low so that you can sustain regulated hormones.

Start with Protein at Your First Big Meal

The distance between dinner and breakfast is the largest gap of time that you won’t be consuming calories. You’re hungry, so set the tone for the day by jumping ahead on your protein target. This will also help you fend off those sugary snacking feelings later in the day.

Lesson 5: Repeat Meals Until You’re Sick of Them

This is one of the most underrated strategies for staying in a deficit: if you hit your macros one day, copy, paste, and repeat the next day.

There’s a feature in MyFitnessPal in the top left corner under the diary tab where you can press the edit button and then you can select all and you can copy it to another day within the app.

Plan out a “perfect” day in My Fitness Pal, then repeat it over and over until you get sick of those foods. Why reinvent the wheel every day?

Pre-log your entire day of eating and actually eat that food when the time comes. Don’t tune me out here. So many people know this is the path to success yet still don’t actually do this.

Lesson 6: Be in a Real Deficit, Not a Mystical One

This is where most people fail. A bite, lick, or taste of food equals calories. Use a food scale to track nearly everything. Don’t live in a deficit mindset while unknowingly sitting at maintenance calories.

The calories do not lie even if you do. If you’re not tracking the alcohol, the Starbucks orders, or the bites off your kids’ plate, then you’re not being honest with yourself.

What About Eating Out?

You can’t eat out and pretend like those calories don’t matter. You can’t go over to your parents’ house for Sunday afternoon lunch and pretend like those meals are only 200 calories.

Logging on the road is never going to be perfect, but you can’t pretend like those calories don’t count. Logging something over nothing is always going to be your best bet.

When I was on a cut and visiting my parents, I packed my own Greek yogurt, protein shakes, and protein bars. They’re not responsible for me staying on track during my cut, and I cannot ask them to buy groceries for me in order to stay hitting my protein and calories.

So I ate their meals and tracked it to the best of my ability, and then I brought my own snacks to ensure that I was close to my protein goal.

Lesson 7: Make Peace With Food Choices and Move On Fast

Decide what calories are and are not worth it to you. Some days, the cookie in the break room at work will be worth it and some days it will not. You get to decide.

Own that decision and then move on quickly. You are annoying yourself and everyone else around you by talking about that dang cookie regret for four hours.

Lesson 8: Think in Averages, Not Daily Perfection

Know that if across your seven-day average you’re hitting your goals, then you are hitting your goals. Calories and protein matter most – you want to try and hit those seven days per week if you can.

Don’t let one day throw you off though. Three days of perfection and four days of being loosey-goosey with your macros will leave you spinning your wheels.

The key is averages across the week, not perfection every single day.

Lesson 9: The Scale Will Lie to You (And That’s Okay)

The quickest way to send yourself into a downward spiral is to expect the scale to go down every day. You can hit your macros perfectly and the scale could go up the next day.

I want to encourage you to continue weighing yourself, because the more that you see the scale go up even though you’re doing the right thing, the less attached you will become to it. Because what happens is it might go up one or two days and then it will go back down again.

The 10,000 Foot View

What we’re looking at is a 5,000 and then a 10,000 foot view of what is happening over the course of time, not what is happening each day. If you zoom out to that 10,000 foot view and that line is going down from left to right, then you’re headed in the right direction.

Understanding What Your Body Is Actually Doing

Here’s something important to understand: for your body to actually eat away at fat, you have to stay in a deficit for quite a while.

Because whenever you go to a deficit, your body doesn’t just immediately start eating away at your body fat. At first, it resorts to glycogen for fuel. So you’re intentionally eating less, which means your body does not have enough calories to sustain itself. So then it resorts to glycogen stores which, for a very elementary explanation, is your water weight.

So you might see a dip on the scale or immediately feel a little bit more lean when you go into a calorie deficit. But that’s just your water weight at first. You have to stay in the calorie deficit long enough for your body to eventually tap into fat stores.

Stay in your deficit for several weeks for your body to start losing body fat.

Lesson 10: Your Strength Won’t Tank

Your strength may not decline during your deficit. We’re conditioned to believe that if we’re not at maintenance or in a calorie surplus that strength and performance gains immediately take a hit.

That’s not always the case. I actually never noticed any significant decline in strength or stamina during my runs and I was in a cut for 11 weeks. Do not automatically assume that you need to scale anything back until your body tells you that you need to do so.

Lesson 11: Hunger Isn’t Always What You Think

Earlier I mentioned that hunger is a true sign that you’re in a calorie deficit, which is true. However, hunger cannot be the only thing that you’re basing success off of.

You can be hungry because you’re consuming calorie-dense but not nutrient-dense foods, which means you’re never actually getting full.

Nutrient Dense vs. Calorie Dense

Nutrient-dense foods mean the food that you eat came from an animal or the ground – you get the point. If a lot of what you’re eating has a long shelf life, you’re probably not going to feel super full every single day, yet you could be consuming a lot of calories.

The difference between eating nutrient-dense foods versus empty calories is massive. You could eat the same number of calories but feel completely different levels of fullness depending on your food choices.

Bringing It All Together

Let’s recap those 11 deficit lessons:

1. Expect hunger and own your decision – you’re in control, not a victim
2. Use meal timing to your advantage – work with your hunger, not against it
3. Find your low-calorie desserts and fidget snacks – satisfy cravings without derailing progress
4. Calories are king, protein is queen – the rest is just noise
5. Repeat meals until you’re sick of them – stop reinventing the wheel every day
6. Be in a real deficit, not a mystical one – track honestly or don’t track at all
7. Make peace with food choices and move on fast – no dwelling on the cookie
8. Think in averages, not daily perfection – your weekly trend tells the truth
9. The scale will lie to you daily – zoom out to see the real progress
10. Your strength won’t tank – don’t assume you need to scale back
11. Hunger doesn’t always mean what you think – nutrient density matters

You’re Already Becoming That Person

Now let me talk to you as if you’ve already become the person who followed all 11 of these tips and is now totally unrecognizable from your former self.

She didn’t make excuses or wait for the perfect moment. She paid the price of temporary discomfort but now has a lifelong transformation.

If you asked her if it was worth it, she would say 100x yes and that she’d do it all over again if she knew THIS is how good it would feel.

She follows the Sunday Setup. She pre-logs her food. She drinks her water, hits her protein, and goes to bed around the same time on a regular basis because she’s experienced the physical and psychological benefits of doing all of those things.

She’s not controlled by the scale – she’s empowered by the data. When it goes up, she shrugs it off because she’s seen it do that time and time again to the point where it doesn’t phase her. When the scale goes down, she celebrates quietly and keeps moving forward.

She plays the long game, and she’s WINNING.

During her deficit, she plans ahead of meals out or gatherings where she isn’t in control of her food choices because she’s committed to her goals. She isn’t forcing her goals on anyone else. They don’t even have to know she’s in a deficit because sometimes unwanted opinions can make her second-guess everything.

This is her goal and no one else’s.

She makes decisions about that cookie in the break room with confidence, and then she moves on quickly without guilt or shame. She owns her decisions and has 100% autonomy over what is and isn’t worth it.

She’s building a body that feels strong and a mind that’s resilient.

She’s living out the purpose that God placed on her life and she’s able to do that confidently because her health has created a positive ripple into every facet of her life.

She is you.

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Want to dive deeper into fat loss? Check out Episode 8 where I walk you through your 5-step roadmap to lose 10-15 pounds by summer, and Episode 7 for the Sunday Setup that will set you up for success every single week.