Everything You’ve Been Told About Losing Fat Is Wrong

If you’ve been doing all the right things and still not seeing results, this episode is going to explain why.

We’re busting the biggest nutrition and training myths - cardio for fat loss, greens powders and supplements, meal timing, cycle syncing, and the idea that getting smaller is the goal.

Including what a 2025 study from McMaster University actually found about cycle syncing and muscle building. 

This is episode one of a three part nutrition and training mini series.

Apply for 1:1 coaching: https://77z9uh9ts6v.typeform.com/to/p3IrXlMi

Follow on Instagram: @jessica_tiana_

Transcript

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Welcome back to the role model you never had. I'm Jess, Trauma Informed Strength and Identity Coach, former crisis counselor, and the woman who rebuilt her body and her life from the ground up. This podcast exists because I desperately needed it. And it didn't exist, so I built it. And now you have someone to come every week to feel empowered and reminded of who the fuck you are. Here's what I believe with everything I have. Your body is the foundation of your healing. Not the destination, not the goal, the foundation. The place where everything else starts. The first place you stop abandoning yourself and start becoming her. That is the movement we're building here. For women who have survived everything and are done just getting through it. Women who are ready to stop surviving and start becoming the role model they never had. For themselves first, and then for every woman watching who needs to see that it's possible. Every episode, we're going to talk about the real stuff, the stuff that's underneath the fat loss goals and the fitness routines and the I'm finds. The nervous system, the identity, and the relationships that shaped you. The woman that you are becoming. No fluff, no toxic positivity, just the conversations that actually change things. Now, I'm also a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach. So today we're going to be moving in a little bit of a different direction. We're going to be kicking off a three-part nutrition and training series because most women are working incredibly hard in the completely wrong direction. So this episode, we're going to start with some myth busting. I want to clear things up. Let's start with probably one of the biggest myths when it comes to losing fat and changing your body composition. That cardio is the best way to do it. So you've probably sat there and thought, okay, I'm going to start running three, four, five times a week, and that's going to help me lose body fat and get lean and toned. And yes, cardio is great for your heart health and wonderful if you enjoy the actual exercise of running, but it is not your best tool for body composition change. So I'm going to let you off the hook here if you hate running and think that that's what you need to be doing. I personally run a lot, but it's because I enjoy the mental clarity that comes with it, and I like challenging my body, pushing my body, understanding fueling strategies because it's very different than if you're doing different forms of exercise. So cardio is going to burn calories in the moment. But that's it. Once you stop, you stop burning. And I am oversimplifying this for you guys just so you have an understanding of what actually is going to work to move the needle for you. But a fuck ton of running is also going to change your appetite. You may have noticed that you have extreme hunger if you run a lot. It's higher intensity and your body is using a different energy source than other forms of exercise, like strength training. And we're going to get into this a little bit later. Your best friend here for changing your body composition is going to be strength training. It works differently because when you lift weights, you are creating micro tears in your muscle tissue. When you leave the gym, your body repairs those tears using energy, which means that your body is still burning calories long after you've left the gym. This is called epoch and it can last 24 to 48 hours after a training session, which is also why you're not supposed to hit the same muscle group two, three days in a row. You need to give yourself time to recover. Muscle tissue is also metabolically active, so that means that the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns at rest, aka when you're sitting on the couch watching your favorite reality TV show. Chronic cardio without adequate nutrition is also going to raise your cortisol body and it tells your body to hold on to fat. So cardio has its place, but if your goal is to get lean and toned and strong, strength training needs to be your foundation. Being lean and toned requires that you have something underneath the body fat to reveal. So if you don't have any muscle, it doesn't matter how much cardio you're doing, how many HIT workouts or whatever you're doing, you're not going to have that lean and toned look. So stop relying on cardio as your main tool for losing body fat. Myth number two, this one I hate so much, and I fell into this trap personally, but supplements and green powders are not going to change your body. No supplement. Notice the word supplement can fix a poor diet. If you're not eating enough whole foods, not getting enough protein, not sleeping properly, a greens powder is not going to save you. It is an expensive way to feel like you're doing something while the actual fundamentals remain unaddressed. You need to build the foundation first, always. And once you have that foundation, you won't actually need those supplements. And I know you probably saw on social media at some point your favorite influencer who's looking super lean and toned, drinking her greens powders every single day. That's a marketing tactic and a band-aid solution for a much deeper problem. Stop relying on your supplements. Myth number three: meal timing is extremely important. Let me be clear about what actually matters with timing and what does not. Spacing your meals throughout the day does matter when it comes to digestion. Eating every three to four hours gives your digestive system time to process food properly and helps maintain steady energy levels. That part is real. That part will help with bloating. What is not real is the anabolic window myth. The idea that you have to eat a certain amount of protein within 30 to 60 minutes of finishing your workout or you're going to lose muscle. This has been widely debunked. Your muscles are not going to break down because you waited an hour to eat. What matters is your total protein intake across the entire day, not whether you had a shake the moment you put the weights down. Aim for one gram of protein per pound of body weight spread across your meals throughout the day. That is what moves the needle, not the clock. If you don't know what that looks like, 30 to 40 grams of protein per meal, you can break that up into smaller meals. Where meal timing does matter is if you are an endurance athlete. Having meals timed properly, having nutrients absorbed into your body at the right time, like your carbs, that's when it matters because you're fueling for performance. The average person, which is most of you who I am speaking to on this podcast, you just need to aim for three meals a day with 30 grams of protein per meal. Start there so your body has time to digest, and you can refine afterwards once you're in the habit of having proper structured meals. Myth number four, this one is specifically for my women. This has become a dominant topic on social media, and it pisses me off. The idea is that you should time your workouts to specific phases in your menstrual cycle to optimize muscle building and performance. So here's what the research actually says. Number one, there is not a lot of research when it comes to cycle sinking workouts and women's health in general. A lot of the information that you see, things have just started to shift in the last few years, but a lot of the information that you see about training and nutrition is very specific to men. It's like that in the medical field as well. Most research is done on men. So there is not enough evidence to back up this claim. People have just been taking this on social media, using it as a marketing tactic to try and separate themselves. So don't get confused. There was a study done in 2025 by a McMaster University kinesiologist, and they published in the Journal of Physiology directly testing cycle sinking your workouts. What they did was they monitored healthy women across their menstrual cycles and measured muscle protein synthesis during both the follicular phase, when estrogen peaks, the luteol phase, and when progesterone peaks. They found zero difference. No effect of menstrual cycle phase on the production of muscle proteins whatsoever. The lead researcher stated directly that women who want to lift weights should feel free to do so in any phase of their cycle. There is no physiological difference in response to the exercise. The researchers also noted that only 12% of women actually have the textbook 28-day cycle that most cycle syncing advice is based on. So for the majority of women, the whole framework does not even apply. So cycle syncing is not where you need to start. What you need to do is train consistently, train in a way that feels sustainable for your body, and tailor your intensity to how you feel on a given day. You need to become more in tune with how your body is feeling and fueling your body properly and building the foundations, not worrying about cycle syncing your fucking workouts. Like I can't even tell you how much this pisses me off. Because there are days where I will be on my period and I will have a PR. I will have my best run. I will lift the most weight. So stop listening to the advice that you're seeing on social media. You need to learn how to listen to your own body. Moving on. Myth number five: getting smaller is the goal. No. Skinny is trending right now, but the goal isn't to get smaller. The goal needs to be to get stronger. Because when you shift your focus to strength, you stop seeing your body as something to shrink and start seeing it as something to build. That is a completely different relationship with yourself. And it is one that actually lasts. Now, this episode was a little bit shorter, but there are going to be two more parts to this nutrition series. And I want you to know before we end this episode that you have not been failing. You've just been following advice that was never designed to work for your body or your goal. So the next episode, we're building the foundation that actually does. And if you're ready to stop guessing and start training and eating in a way that actually works for your body and your goals, that's exactly what we build together in coaching. The link to apply for 101 coaching is in the show notes. Or you can DM me her on Instagram and I'll send it to you directly. And remember, every note to what drains you is a powerful yes to yourself. Your body is the foundation of your healing. I'll see you next episode.