Nutrition expert and fitness coach Nikita Bardia regularly posts health content on her Instagram. Recently she posted a hard-hitting video calling out the popular misconceptions and myths around bloating, weight loss, PCOS, and emotional well-being, which has got people talking. In the reel, Bardia explains the deeper psychological and physiological issues that often get hidden under fad diets and wellness trends. In the post, she addresses eight observations that go beyond calorie counting and superfoods; she talks about the ‘brutal truths’ of weight loss no one tells you about.
She started the caption of the video saying, “Brutal truths no one wants to hear — but I wish someone told me earlier.”
Check out her post here:
Brutal truths about weight loss and diet
Here’s a breakdown of the key takeaways:
1.“You’re not bloated. You’re overstimulated and under-rested. Bloating is often your nervous system crying for stillness, not diet charts.”
In the first point, she mentions that it’s wrong to blame bloating solely on food. According to her, many people misinterpret their discomfort as a dietary issue when in fact it’s their nervous system reacting to stress and overstimulation. “Bloating is often your nervous system crying for stillness, not diet charts,” she explains, urging people to look at their sleep, stress, and screen-time patterns before changing their meals.
2.”You don’t need a cheat meal. You need emotional regulation.”
Overeating comes from deep emotional roots. Bardia addresses the most-loved concept when you are on a ‘diet’. She cautions against the widely-promoted ‘treat yourself’ mindset. She argues that when you are frequently indulging in fast food or ‘cheat meals’ to treat yourself to a little self-care, it can cause inflammation and send confusing signals to the body. “That treat yourself mindset is keeping your body inflamed and confused,” she warns, mentioning that what’s needed is emotional resilience over impulsive food cravings.
3.”Late-night scrolling is the reason your belly fat isn’t budging.”
According to Bardia, there is a direct link between late-night screen time and fat retention. She explains that when you are engaging with phones and devices past bedtime, it elevates your cortisol levels, a stress hormone, at night which disrupts insulin levels by morning. “Cortisol at midnight can lead to insulin chaos in the morning. This further makes your body go into the fat storage mode,” she says.
4.”Your PCOS isn’t just hormonal. It’s a lifestyle crisis.”
Taking on one of the most misunderstood conditions among women, Bardia says Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is often a product of poor routines rather than just hormonal imbalance. “Irregular meals, coffee on an empty stomach, and poor sleep are driving it,” she points out. She also explained that managing PCOS effectively requires an overall change in your day-to-day habits, not just medication or supplements.
5.”Flax seeds and chia won’t fix your hormones if your meals are chaos.”
Bardia debunks the myth that trendy superfoods can make up for your erratic diet. While flax seeds and chia are often recommended for hormone health, she explained that they offer little benefit if one’s overall eating pattern has no consistency and logic. “Instagram superfoods mean nothing if your plate lacks routine and logic,” she adds.
6.”Eating clean all week and binging on weekends is not balance.”
Who doesn’t love cheat days? But addressing this popular belief, Bardia mentions that the body doesn’t reset each Monday. “That’s stress-dieting and your body remembers everything,” she asserts. According to her, when you are restricting yourself from eating unhealthy for a while and then you take a cheat day, it disrupts your cycle and creates more harm than good, leading to hormonal imbalances and a confused metabolism.
7.”You don’t hate exercise; you hate how you feel in your body.”
Bardia points out that for people who dislike working out, there are often deeper issues with self-image. “Once you heal your relationship with yourself, movement feels freeing, not punishing,” she says. She encourages her followers to shift focus from punishment to empowerment when it comes to fitness.
8.”If you need caffeine to survive your day, your system is screaming burnout.”
This one’s for coffee lovers! At the end of the reel, Bardia speaks about the hustle culture at work and how people are obsessed with coffee-infused productivity. She goes on to explain that when you are constantly relying on stimulants like caffeine for energy, it often means deeper exhaustion, and not just lack of efficiency. “That’s not productivity. That’s dysfunction disguised as hustle,” she warns, calling for a more sustainable approach to energy and work-life balance.
