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Jillian Michaels delivering no-nonsense, basic AF health advice? You can pretty much count on it.
Asked to share the biggest diet mistake that she sees people make, the Keeping It Real With Jillian Michaels podcast host didn't hesitate. "You overeat," she told E! News' Francesca Amiker in an exclusive interview. "The research on how many people underestimate their calorie intake is robust and it's extensive. It could be up to 1,000 calories a day."
And the health and wellness expert can hardly count how many times a person has "come to me and said, 'I don't get it. You said eat less and it doesn't work.'"
Without fail, continued the 50-year-old, the 1,400 calories the person thought they were eating was closer to 2,300 and those extra daily calories add up.
"It does come down to the simple math," she explained. "So, helping people understand that to lose a pound, they need to burn roughly, roughly 3,500 calories more than they are consuming in a day. And if you consume 100 calories more than you're burning in a day, you'll gain roughly 10 pounds in a year."
Which means, simply cutting out a once-a-day Starbucks habit "will prevent you from gaining 10 pounds in a year," noted Michaels. "But people don't realize when they're no longer gaining, or when they're holding their ground. They're just looking for massive numbers on the scale, and they don't understand the math."
Photo by: Aaron Poole/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
So allow her to provide a calculator and a reality check.
"Bringing them back down to a lower calorie intake will stop them from gaining, and will probably put them in a very slow path towards weight loss, like a pound every 10 days," she said of her straightforward eat less strategy. "But if you add exercise into the mix now, you're increasing the calories out, and that's going to amplify how much weight they lose, so you'll end up losing two pounds a week, instead of one pound every 10 days."
And if you're looking for suggestions, The Fitness App founder may just have one. (Hint: It's her top-rated diet and exercise app that she dubs "a one-stop shop.")
"It's total customization at literally the swipe of your finger," explained Michaels, who mixes up her own fitness routine with high-intensity interval training workouts in her living room, weight lifiting, yoga, spin classes and a minimum of 7,000 steps a day. "You can work out at home. You can work out in the gym. You can work out for as long as you want. You can let me know your fitness goal, the level of your athleticism from beginner to advanced. You have access to my entire DVD library."
And now devotees can basically take the weights off her rack thanks to Balance by Jillian Michaels, her new line of dumbbells, foam rollers, mats and resistance bands sold exclusively at Walmart.
Designed to edge out the competition, each offering not only comes with a three-month trial to her app, but "every piece of equipment has a program wrapped around it," said Michaels, mom to Lukensia, 14, and Phoenix, 12. "So you don't even need to think about it when you buy something, there's the corresponding program in The Fitness App, so it's setting you up to succeed."
Which is truly all Michaels wants for those that seek out her wellness advice and the reason why she stacked her app with everything needed to conquer any health dream.
"The goal with The Fitness App is to personalize every aspect of your wellness regimen," explained Michaels, who's married to fashion designer DeShanna Marie Minuto. A few quick taps can lead to a custom meal plan that lets users ban particular ingredients or subscribe to a certain style of eating.
"You could pick keto, you could pick vegan, you could set your goal to weight loss, muscle gain, weight maintenance," Michaels noted. "There's community, there's tracking, there's meditation made simple, there's sleep support. It generates shopping lists for you at the grocery store."
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And once you're there, you better believe she's got some tips on how to fill your cart.
"Nobody needs to find the diet that's right for them," Michaels insisted. "What they need to do is literally choose food that's whole and eat less of it."
Beyond that, she continued, "If you want to be vegan, be vegan. You want to have a steak for dinner. Have a steak for dinner. You want to have a vegetable stir fry. Have it. You want to have the pizza? Well, you get two pieces and a side salad and water, not a half of a pie with the soda and garlic rolls."
No matter how you slice it, making common sense food choices, doing your best not to drink your calories and adding a bit of activity into your day is key.
"It's whole foods, protein, fat and carbs in every single meal, and ideally, good quality food whenever possible," insisted Michaels. "That's the rule."
But if you're looking for more of Michaels' edicts, she's happy to share, detailing her no-nonsense health advice to E! News.
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Eat Less
Yep, it's that easy. Well, not easy, Jillian Michaels allowed, but definitely simple: "Just stop eating so much."
And while she joked that "of course I want people to eat organic f--king blueberries and, like, Moringa greens, grown by Tibetan monks in the third phase of the crescent moon," eating less of anything will do the trick.
"If it's too much to ask people to switch that pizza to a chicken salad, here's what we're going to do," Michaels said. "Instead of half the pie, you're going to do one slice of pizza and you're going do a side salad. Or two slices of pizza and a side salad with the dressing on the side. And we're going to opt out of the Coke. Or the two glasses of wine. Done. And all of this will work. I promise."
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Pay Attention to What You Eat
This part might feel rough for a stretch, Michaels acknowledged, but it's essential to track your calories—both the ones you burn and the ones you consume.
While she knows that calorie-counting can get a bad rap, "If I don't tell you how to do it, you won't be able to actually effectuate change. And then you don't believe what I'm saying because you don't realize how much you're eating and you get discouraged and become vulnerable to more fads and trends."
She recommends taking the time to learn how many calories are in the foods you regularly eat and aim to create a 500-calorie-a-day deficit that will translate to losing roughly a pound each week. "It'll be tedious for about two weeks while you learn how many calories are in the foods that you consume regularly," Michaels said, but "once you know, you'll know forever."
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Consider a Wearable
When it comes to tracking how many calories you're burning, well, there's a shortcut for that. Michaels is a big fan of smartwatches (her go-to is the collection from iTOUCH Wearables) "because they give you accurate information," she explained. "And with this accurate information, you can make informed choices, that yield powerful results."
In other words, you can have the best of intentions, but if you don't have the cold, hard facts (i.e. I've burned this many calores, thus I should aim to eat this many to see results), you could be setting yourself up for failure.
"People are like, Why does everybody give up?" Michales noted. "Because they're killing themselves. They're making sacrifices. They're working hard. And when they don’t see the fruits of that labor, they're like, f--k this." The key to avoid that roadblock is "getting results from the work you put in," she continued. "And that's why all of these wearables play such an important role."
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Avoid the All-Day Graze
Yes, it's possible to feel satisfied without turning your day into a snacking free-for-all, swears Michaels.
She recommends aiming for three to four meals a day: Breakfast, a snack three to four hours later, a late lunch "because it's going to make you eat less for dinner" and then your evening meal. It's there that she recommends trimming portion sizes. But you can also create a 500-calorie deficit by, say, skipping your favorite mocha latte.
"Don't worry about macros," she said of tracking nutrients like carbs, protein and fat. "The truth of the matter is you really don't need to think about it."
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Get Things Moving
While the trainer offers seemingly endless exercise possibilities on The Fitness App, she recognizes that not everyone likes to get their sweat on.
"If you're like, 'Well, I just f--king hate it,' give me a step goal," she said of efforting to get in 10,000 steps per day.
She checks off that box with the help of a treadmill she purchased on Amazon. "I put my computer on it and I walk 1.8 miles an hour and work. It's a game-changer."
Ideally, she continued, you'd work your way up to, say, a 20-minute workout in your living room (joked Michaels, "I'm the queen of at-home fitness, right?") but if that feels daunting, "Talk on the phone standing up and pacing," she recommended. "Do two minutes of jumping jacks every hour on the hour. Just getting you to move is going to make a massive difference."
Photo by: Aaron Poole/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Try to Eat Food in Its Most Whole Form
Michaels joked that too deep of a TikTok dive might have you thinking that everything is off-limits, but as a rule, no food is truly off the table.
She would advise cutting back on sugars, though, the kind you might find in, say, a Twinkie, not fruits like bananas and berries.
Bottom line: "Added sugar sucks, white flour sucks. Use your common sense and eat foods as whole as possible," she said. "Start there. Don't overeat. Eat on the schedule I mentioned. Try to stop eating when you're full. Try to move your body in the way I talked about. And you can forget the rest."
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