5 Nutrition Myths That Are Keeping You Sick, Inflamed, and Stuck

Courtney Somma, NBC-HWC

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You hit your protein goal. 

You stayed inside your calories. 

You ate in moderation. 

And yet you are still exhausted, still inflamed, still fighting a body that will not cooperate.

If that is you, it's about damn time that someone told you that it's not you, it's the advice.

For years, women have been handed a set of nutrition rules that sound reasonable on the surface and quietly work against real healing. 

Here are the five I see doing the most damage.

#5) The Fat Craze / We need to eat substantial amounts of fat / Fat doesn't make you fat

Healthy fats get marketed constantly. 

Avocado toast, a spoonful of nut butter, a splash of olive oil on everything. 

To be clear, whole food fats like avocados, nuts, and seeds, eaten in appropriate amounts, are not the enemy.

The problem is the blanket idea that dietary fat is automatically healthy simply because it is labeled "clean," so it gets poured on liberally.  That idea does not serve a woman trying to calm chronic inflammation.

Dr. Brooke Goldner reversed her own lupus using a plant based, low fat, nutrient dense approach, and her clinical work shows how excess fat, even from plant sources, can thicken the blood and feed inflammation, slowing healing rather than supporting it. 

Dr. Joel Fuhrman's research adds to this, showing that fat calories in the standard diet run far above what the body actually needs, and that gap is a major driver of the chronic disease so many women are trying to outrun.

What this means for you:  fat does not need to be feared, but it does need to be right sized.  Whole food fats in limited amounts, not liberal drizzles treated as a free pass, support healing instead of stalling it.

#4: We should be in a caloric deficit / All that matters is calories in vs calories out

This is the myth almost every woman has tried, because in the short term, eating less genuinely can produce weight loss.  I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But here is what rarely gets talked about.  Research on metabolic adaptation and weight cycling shows that chronic caloric restriction causes the body to actively defend its previous weight. 

Resting metabolic rate drops beyond what the lost weight alone would explain, hunger hormones climb, fullness hormones fall, and the weight typically returns, often with a little extra. 

This is yo-yo dieting, and it is a physiology problem, not a willpower problem.

For women dealing with chronic pain, migraines, or fatigue, there is a deeper issue. 

Chronic restriction does not just slow metabolism, it starves the body of the vitamins, minerals, and glucose it needs to function, let alone heal. 

Stack that restriction on top of high protein low carb eating, or on top of ultra-processed "diet" foods that are technically low calorie but nutritionally empty, and you get a body that is starving for nutrients while the scale says everything is going right. 

A starving body cannot heal... It can only survive.

What this means for you:  sustainable healing is not built on eating less and less.  It is built on eating enough real, nutrient dense food that your body can actually use to repair itself.

#3: The "If It Fits Your Macros" Scam

IIFYM told an entire generation of women that a sugar-alcohol-loaded protein bar and a plate of steamed vegetables are nutritionally interchangeable, as long as the numbers on the label match. 

It feels empowering and flexible, which is exactly why it is so popular.  But your body is not a spreadsheet.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman built his career around a simple equation, health equals nutrients divided by calories.  Two foods can carry identical calories and macros and still be worlds apart in what they do inside your body. 

One starves your cells of the micronutrients they need to reduce inflammation, repair your gut lining, and calm your nervous system. 

The other floods you with them.

What this means for you:  if you have been chasing macros for years and you are still exhausted, still inflamed, still fighting your weight, it is not because you miscounted. 

It is because macros were never the whole picture. 

Health is not a math problem.

Our focus must be on nutrient density, not macros.

#2: Protein is King and Carbs are the Devil

This is one of the myths that gets me the most pushback, and the one I am the most unapologetic about.

Dr. Garth Davis is a bariatric surgeon who spent years treating obesity with the conventional high protein low carb method..

That is until he ballooned up himself and faced a health crisis of his own.

At that time he did a deep dive to examine the truth behind high protein diets. 

His conclusion, laid out in the book Proteinaholic, is that true protein deficiency is essentially unheard of in this country, while diets high in animal protein are consistently linked to higher rates of hypertension, inflammatory bowel issues, kidney strain, and chronic inflammation, the exact conditions so many of my clients come to me trying to heal. 

T. Colin Campbell's China Study, one of the largest nutritional studies ever conducted, reached a similar conclusion.  Excess animal protein does not build the vibrant health it has been sold as. 

It taxes the very systems you are trying to heal.

Here is where it compounds.  High protein eating almost always means low carb eating, which means fruit gets cut, sometimes entirely. 

Cyrus Khambatta and Robby Barbaro of Mastering Diabetes have spent years, and their own lived experience managing type 1 diabetes, proving that fear misplaced. 

Whole fruit comes bundled with fiber, water, and phytonutrients that slow sugar absorption and actually help reverse insulin resistance rather than cause it. 

This is also a cornerstone of Medical Medium protocols, and I say that proudly.  Anthony William's approach to fruit as medicine has guided countless people, myself included, back to real energy.  I do not need him to hold an MD for it to work, in the research and in real bodies.

What this means for you:  you do not need a protein shake after every workout, chicken on every plate, and fruit cut off your plate to be strong, energized, and lean.  You need enough protein and enough real carbohydrate, from whole plant foods, without the inflammatory baggage and without the fear.

#1: Moderation

And here it is, the myth I hear the most, and the one I push back on the hardest, simply because it is so damn pervasive in our culture today. 

"Everything in moderation."

You've hear it countless times before... Heck, you may even say it yourself!

At first glance, it sounds like wise advice. 

It sounds balanced. 

It is also one of the emptiest phrases in modern nutrition.

Dr. John McDougall spent decades pointing out that moderation only works if the baseline diet is already healthy. 

If your baseline is a standard diet loaded with oil, dairy, and processed food, then "everything in moderation" simply means a moderate amount of the exact things driving your inflammation, your migraines, and your fatigue. 

There is no moderate amount of a food your body treats as a low grade toxin every single day.

Moderation is not a health philosophy. 

It is a permission slip. 

You do not need to eat processed food and inflammatory oils in smaller amounts. 

You need to build a foundation of real, whole, plant based food and let that crowd out the rest.

You Were Given a Broken Map

None of this is about willpower. 

It is about the information you were handed, and you followed it faithfully. 

Moderation, high protein low carb, IIFYM, chronic caloric restriction, and fat fear all keep you managing symptoms instead of healing the root cause. 

Every one of them is food noise, and food noise is exactly what keeps you cycling through the same pain, fatigue, and frustration year after year.

If you're ready to trade food noise and spinning your wheels for a plan this is FINALLY going to help you reduce your inflammation and pain, increase your energy, and enable you to take back you health and your life, I'd love to connect with you directly.

You can book your free Vitality Roadmap Session at vitalityholistichw.com/book and we can chat about what's been holding you back , what you'd like to accomplish, and if and how I can help you get there :-)

Before you go!

This September, I am also opening my revamped Surviving to Thriving workshop and we're running the Vitality Reset 7-Day Challenge, a guided path to put these five myths behind you for good. 

Spots are limited so be sure to subscribe to the email list to be the first to know when these bad boys launch!

With love and vitality,

Court

**Not medical advice. Please see my full legal disclaimer here: https://www.vitalityholistichw.com/legaldisclaimer