1. Fiber. Nobody is eating enough of it and it shows.
There is an absolute mountain of evidence tying fiber intake to lower risk of dying from, well, most things. And yet roughly 90% of Americans can't even meet their basic vegetable intake for the day. So I'll say this with zero hesitation: eat your fiber. 25 to 35g a day will cover most people's needs.
2. Calories in vs. calories out.
People love to come for calorie balance like it's some kind of personal insult, usually while defending "eating clean" as if it is an actual a scientific term. It's not. You cannot store energy you never ate (I promise you starvation made isn't real), and you will not lose fat without a deficit, full stop. There is no food pure enough to override physics, I don't care how many adjectives are on the packaging.
And yes, I already know what's coming: "but a calorie isn't a calorie!" Of course 200 calories of steak and 200 calories of sour patch kids do completely different things to your hunger, your blood sugar, and where your body sends that energy. Nobody said otherwise. But that fact got kidnapped by people who wanted an excuse to say calories don't count. They do. Both things can be true at the same time.
3. Detox is a marketing word, not a biological one.
Your liver and kidneys detox you constantly. That is, quite literally, their whole job description. So that $14 green detox juice, the teatox, the three day "cleanse" sitting in your cart right now, none of it is flushing anything out of you. You're just paying premium prices for diarrhea and calling it wellness.
4. No amount of alcohol is healthy.
This one's always going to ruffle a few feathers, so brace yourself.
I gave up alcohol over four years ago, and I say that as someone who drank for most of my adult life before then, pregnancies aside. I didn't quit because I read a scary statistic. I quit because it stopped making me feel good, plain and simple.
So if you're over here insisting you're "doing everything right," frustrated that nothing's moving, and you also drink regularly with zero interest in cutting back, I need you to sit with that for a second. That's not a metabolism problem. That's an expectations problem.
5. Canola oil is not out here trying to kill you.
There is no credible evidence that seed oils are some silent poison. Funny enough, the people screaming loudest about it usually have a tub of beef tallow they'd love to sell you.
6. Carbs are the best fuel for anything high intensity. End of discussion.
For those of you currently on the keto bandwagon, sure, you can technically survive without dietary carbs. I tried it myself for over a year, and spoiler, it didn't leave me in a good place physically. You can also technically survive on four hours of sleep a night or only one lung. Just because you can, doesn't mean it's optimal or you should.
The research has been consistent on this for years, carbohydrates are the body's preferred energy source, especially when you're asking it to perform.
As always, nutrition needs will vary based on the individual: your age, what stage of life you're in, and what's realistic for you. But the actual foundation of good nutrition is simple. So when something starts sounding complicated, that's usually your sign that someone's trying to sell you something.
