5 things about weight loss I found to be untrue

These myths only slow down the process instead of improving your health and well-being

Just like millions of other people I used to struggle with weight and health issues. Several years ago, just before I finally got myself together to lose the excessive weight, all I knew about healthy living was what I was told by my parents, friends, co-workers and what I’ve absorbed from the media.

And nothing from what I was told was enjoyable to me, ever worked for me or had long-term benefits. Nothing.

As far as I can reach back in my memory, staying fit and healthy was portrayed as something difficult, even unreachable to me. People around me constantly repeated that I needed to accept my body because, according to them, I was ‘big-boned’. Every time I mentioned I want to lose weight and start to exercise, I was laughed at or even ridiculed by some, always hearing the same thing:

You won’t last very long.

Some even said:

What’s the point? You’ll gain the weight back again. Everyone does eventually.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to those comments because, if I blindly believed in their useless advice the things would either have never changed for me or they would have gotten worse.

Thanks to my dedication, determination, and willingness to re-learn everything I was told to believe as truth, I have not only managed to lose weight (17kg in total), improve my health and overall well-being, but I’ve learned how to successfully maintain my body weight.

And trust me, it wasn’t an easy journey! I’ve experienced many struggles and doubts, however, throughout the process, I have gained valuable knowledge about keeping my health and well-being in check as well as making it a priority. Yes, a priority! Something we are told very little or nothing throughout our academic years, and instead, learning mostly useless subjects leading us to little or no personal development.

But putting aside my brutal opinion about our current educational system and how little value and practical knowledge it provides, I’m here to share with you the things and beliefs I’ve been told about health, diets, well-being and exercise that are completely untrue, misleading and as a result causing damage and distress to all the people who want to lose weight. I have a mission to stop this bias and help people live more balanced, healthy and happier lives by sharing my personal experience.

Okay, let’s begin.

1. You’ve got to stick to a rigid diet

One of the most frustrating things I’ve heard before as well as throughout my weight loss journey was a perception that I must stick to a certain diet so I could lose weight. This meant eating only particular foods and avoiding others and also forgetting about chocolate and pastries I love so much. Almost everywhere I looked when researching the topic of weight loss I’ve noticed the word diet is overused and misused. Every time I came across this word in an article, headline or YouTube video, I felt anxious, unmotivated, even distressed.

Just before I’ve decided to switch to plant-based lifestyle more than 2 years ago, I’d been constantly worried about the calories I was eating throughout the day and whether I was providing my body with enough protein, or whether I wasn’t eating too many carbs or fats. I had even been stopping myself from eating certain things or limiting them in my diet, just because I thought they have too many calories and are too fattening. Avocado, for example, was one of the foods on my ‘No-no-list’, although ever since I tried it for the first time, I loved it and knew straight away I wanted it to be one of my staple foods, providing my body with healthy monosaturated fats (as well as other important nutrients) required by my precious female body.

It’s only after I became vegan I started to look at food differently. I no longer counted calories and wasted my time and energy on whether I should eat something or not. I unconsciously dived into intuitive eating. I eliminated the word diet from my vocabulary. It was only after I let go of the control and started to follow my instinct and pick foods that spoke to me, my body weight started to drop naturally and steadily.

I realised that balance is key.

Intuitive eating is all about listening to your heart and intuition, and ever since I stepped on this beautiful journey of listening to my body’s needs, I started to enjoy the foods I eat. Maintaining my body weight became easy and enjoyable.

This combined with the 80% rule, which I write more about in the following point, I began creating healthy habits and cultivate a balanced and harmonious lifestyle. This resulted in losing even more excessive weight without any effort at all. I currently continue this healthy approach and maintain the perfect body weight of 56–57 kilograms while being 1,68cm tall.

2. You can’t eat after 6pm

How many times in your life you felt hungry, then looked at the clock only to discover it was after 6pm and consciously made a decision not to eat anything, just because ‘you are on a diet’, only to binge eat at 9 or 10pm because you simply couldn’t stand the hunger anymore? I’ve been there, too.

For many years I believed that if I avoid eating after 6pm, I will lose weight. Guess what? I never lost a single kilogram but strengthened my limiting belief about the difficulty of the weight loss process and as a result my negative thoughts about not being good enough and not being able to stick to weight loss resolutions, causing even more frustration.

Only after reading the contrary opinion that not eating after 6pm isn’t healthy, I realised I’ve been trying to foolishly trick my body and instead of losing excess weight, I’ve not only been slowing the process but mostly depriving myself of the calories and nutrients my body needed and craved.

Your body, your organs and your brain require food to function properly. If you go to bed feeling hungry, you won’t be able to fall asleep, have a good quality sleep and you’ll wake up exhausted and lacking energy.

So, if you, for example, aim to fall asleep around 10 pm-11pm, eating your last meal around 8pm won’t do you any harm and certainly won’t cause you to put on weight. Eating 2 hours before bedtime is okay. However, you need to ensure that your meal is light but substantial enough to fill you up, so you aren’t hungry just before feeling asleep.

For optimal results, drink a glass of water before having a meal (it’s actually recommended before any meal you have during the day), so that you don’t overeat.

Also, start mindful eating — it’s a game-changer! Take every single bite slowly and mindfully. Enjoy your food. Cherish it. Be grateful for it. Stop when you’re about 80% full. Why? Because it takes about 15–20 minutes for fullness signals to reach your brain. Once I started implementing the 80% rule, my weight started dropping consistently. Trust me. It truly works.

3. You should reduce the amount of carbs you consume

One of the biggest lies I’ve ever heard during my entire life was that eating carbs is bad for you and for your body weight. Wrong. Carbs are the body’s main source of energy and are essential for your brain to function properly, therefore, you shouldn’t underestimate their importance and the role they play in your health and well-being.

One of the worst things you could do to yourself is to eliminate carbs from your diet completely. By doing this, you are increasing your risk of nutrient deficiencies and reducing your energy levels. They are a staple in a healthy and balanced diet.

So, stop believing in trendy diets promoted by the media. Unless you have a specific health condition and were advised differently by your doctor/dietician, you are not going to gain weight because you eat carbs. You just have to ensure that you provide your body with good quality carbs like whole grains, legumes, vegetables, potatoes, quinoa, barley. Bread and pasta are okay too, however, they shouldn’t be the main source of your carbs consumption. By eating a variety of different carbs sources, you are not only keeping your diet vibrant but also providing your body with a variety of different nutrients. You just have to remember to balance out the carbs that you eat with other macros: protein and healthy fats.

4. You’ve got to eat lots/more protein

Protein intake is an extremely sensitive subject that tends to cause a lot of disagreement and anger amongst people. So, let me be as honest and as direct as possible: the things you are being told about protein and what you read or hear in the media is a load of crap. You don’t need that much protein in your diet unless you lead a super active lifestyle and are exercising for a living. An average person who doesn’t move their body fairly regularly doesn’t need that much protein. Why would they need it for? Protein builds and repairs muscles so if your daily exercise is minimal, eating too much protein can actually cause you to gain weight.

A healthy protein intake per day is 0.36gram per pound (0.8g per kg) of body weight. This is only 56 grams per day for the average sedentary man and 46 grams per day for the average sedentary woman.

You can easily cover this daily requirement. Here are some food examples and how much protein they contain:

100 gram of green lentils — approx. 24gram of protein

100 grams of red kidney — 24 gram of protein

100 grams of peanut butter — 25 gram of protein

100 gram of flaxseeds — approx. 23 gram of protein

100 grams of walnuts — 15 gram of protein

100 gram of almonds — 25 gram protein

There are also other foods that you probably eat daily that contain protein, too, i.e. rice, pasta, quinoa, even vegetables!

As you can see, it’s fairly easy to provide your body with enough protein when you are keeping your diet fairly clean and healthy.

So, stop buying into all of this high protein advertising and blindly believing in what they are telling you. These people: companies and their advertisers as well the media don’t care about your health and well-being. They only care about your money. So, think twice before you buy another pot of pseudo-healthy protein yoghurt or other types of processed food. This isn’t only slowing your weight-loss progress but also feeding you with chemicals, not nutrients that your body craves!

Also, don’t let anybody fool you that a vegan diet isn’t optimal, healthy or sustainable, just because they say the protein in plant-based food is absorbed more slowly. Yes, it takes some time for your body to get used to a plant-based diet because it’s rich in fibre (great for your digestion) but it’s all worth the hassle because long term you will not only improve your health dramatically but also have much more energy and appetite for life.

I’m living proof that this is true.

I’ve never been so healthy, lean and energetic in my life before. I’ve tried many diets before but nothing was as effective and enjoyable to me. As I mentioned before, I maintain my body weight at 56–57kg, my digestion is smooth and I have lots of energy every day. I’m living a balanced, joyful and empowered life and wish that to everyone who struggles with health issues and hopes for improvement. Go plant-based. It’s truly miraculous!

5. You need to do more cardio

A few years ago when I started my weight loss journey for the very first time, I bought into the idea that I have to do more cardio and I need to do it as often and as hard as possible. The very first time I began a regular exercise routine, it was summertime, I was off uni and I had a lot of free time that I decided to dedicate to my weight loss goal. I was so motivated and desperate to improve the appearance that I committed to intense HIIT workouts only. I’ve tried going to the gym and Zumba classes before, but I wasn’t happy that the results weren’t showing as quickly as I’d imagined.

I wanted to lose weight FAST.

So, I did 6-7 45-minute workouts per week. And I did get the results fast, however, they came with an extremely high price:

I was constantly tired and exhausted.

I got sick more often.

I had troubles falling asleep. There was a couple of months where I almost didn’t sleep at all.

I couldn’t concentrate.

I started having pain in my right knee.

Also, my boobs looked like deflated balloons from too much jumping, although I always wore a good-quality sports bra during my exercise routine.

After achieving my ultimate weight goal, I started easing on my rigid workout routine and continued regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle.

Luckily for me, the negative symptoms disappeared, and I’ve learned my lesson not to be so hard on myself ever again.

Most recently, during the lockdown, I began a daily yoga practice. I’ve put some weight during the past months just before the pandemic was announced, and I wasn’t feeling very happy in my own skin. I wasn’t overweight (I was 61–62kg at the time), however, I wanted to tone up a bit and get leaner to feel better and more energetic overall.

During the first month of my furlough, I returned to cardio and HIIT workouts (not as intense, though). However, a few weeks into this routine I realised it became a chore to me and brought me the opposite feelings to joy and excitement. That time I decided to try and do things differently.

The last thing I wanted was to experience tiredness, exhaustion, knee pain and insomnia again so I committed to daily yoga practice, instead.

I’ve tried and practised yoga before and knew the incredible benefits it brings including improving balance and flexibility as well as helping with relieving stress and anxiety. However, I always treated it as a light exercise, that wouldn’t bring me any weight-loss results. And, oh my goodness, I couldn’t be more wrong!

Cardio and HIIT workouts were exhausting me so I ditched them for a 20–30min daily yoga practice combined with nature walks (and healthy and nutritious meals).

A few weeks in and I began to lose weight and my body started changing, becoming strong, lean, and toned. For the first time in my life, I’ve not put much effort into weight loss, and got amazing results!

I realised that consistent daily movement that lights me up combined with healthy foods, plenty of water as well as rest including meditation and/or breathwork can do miracles and bring the results much quicker.

My advice to you would be to pick an activity that makes you happy and excited and combine it with walks, good food, regular meditation, and rest when needed.

You will see that losing weight isn’t that hard at all and it can even become more enjoyable to you.

Give yourself time and space and treat it as your daily self-care routine, rather than an act of desperation and desire for an immediate change.

Losing weight steadily and healthily is an act of self-love. Remember that you are not in competition with anybody. It’s a journey, and it’s not a short one.

The best results always come when you commit to being consistent, when you let go of expectations and just enjoy the process.

Every successful endeavour starts with finding the way of loving yourself, committing to yourself, your goals and precious needs. Enjoy the journey and be patient. The results will come if you give yourself time, space, love and compassion. You got this!

Hi, I’m Malgorzata but friends call me Gosia. I share my insights on self-love, well-being, personal growth & spirituality hoping to inspire others to live empowered and fulfilling lives on their terms. For more about me & about what I do, check my website. I hope you enjoyed reading my piece. If you would like to support me as a writer, consider joining Medium. You can also subscribe to my Medium posts and get notified by email every time I publish one. Much Love, Gosia