What Losing 30kg Taught Me About Nutrition, Health, and Everything I Got Wrong

My name is Diaa.

At the time of writing this I am 28 years old and living in London.

My academic background is not in nutrition. I actually studied Aviation at university. After graduating I tried a few different career paths while trying to figure out what direction suited me. I spent some time in teacher training through the Teach First programme. I also explored other areas including a data analytics bootcamp and a few other professional directions. Like many people in their twenties I was searching and trying things out.

But one journey ended up shaping my life far more than any career path.

My relationship with food, health, and my body.

The moment everything changed

When I was 23 years old my weight had slowly crept up to almost 100kg.

I felt constantly tired. Lethargic. Heavy. I hated how I looked in photos and mirrors.

But the most painful part was psychological. I remember constantly seeing lean, athletic bodies and thinking that was something reserved for other people. I believed that maybe my body was just not built that way.

In February 2021 I had just quit my Teach First teacher training role. During that period I stepped on the scale and saw the number staring back at me.

Nearly 100kg.

I remember feeling genuinely horrified.

The thought that immediately crossed my mind was simple.

If I am like this at 23, what will I look like at 30. Or 40. Or 50.

That moment forced a decision.

I told myself that if I was going to lose weight, I was going to do it properly. No half hearted attempt. No pretending to try.

I went all in.

Losing the weight

At the beginning I took a fairly aggressive approach. I dramatically reduced how much I was eating and created a strong calorie deficit.

Something interesting happened.

Instead of feeling worse I actually felt better.

My energy increased. My mind felt clearer. My body felt lighter.

Over time I lost more than 30kg.

And the surprising part is that I did not go to the gym.

I did not follow some complex workout routine.

What I changed was simple.

What I ate. When I ate. And how much I ate.

Intermittent fasting became a big part of that shift because it simplified my eating patterns and broke the cycle of constant snacking.

More importantly, I have kept the weight off since then.

When things became more complicated

By around June 2021 my weight loss slowed down and eventually plateaued.

That is when a deeper question started forming in my mind.

What way of eating can I actually sustain for the rest of my life?

That question sent me down a long period of experimentation.

I tried many approaches.

I experimented with keto.

I tried strict calorie counting.

At one point I removed bread, rice and pasta completely because I believed they were the problem.

I overconsumed so called healthy fats like nuts thinking that they must be good for me.

Despite trying to eat extremely clean I sometimes felt tired and lethargic.

It was confusing.

I remember thinking how can I be trying so hard to eat well and still feel like this.

Eventually I realised that I had created new problems.

I was not eating enough starchy carbohydrates and I was not hydrating properly.

One small change made a big difference for me.

Consuming a small amount of salt before drinking water helped my body hydrate properly.

It sounds simple but the difference in how I felt was noticeable.

Over time my understanding of food became far less complicated.

My plate today is simple.

Half vegetables and fruit.

One quarter starchy carbohydrates.

One quarter protein.

Balanced and sustainable.

Things I had misunderstood

There were other lessons I learned along the way.

For a long time I did not realise that constantly drinking water during meals was disturbing my digestion.

I also carried strong self limiting beliefs about my body.

For years I believed that I simply could not build muscle or train properly in the gym.

The chronic pain journey

Another chapter of my life that shaped me was dealing with chronic pain and mobility issues.

This sent me down a long search for solutions.

I tried physiotherapy. Chiropractic treatment. Osteopathy. Red light therapy. MAT. InterX. And several other therapies that many people have never heard of.

I spent years searching for the perfect treatment or the perfect workout routine that would fix my body.

Nothing seemed to work.

Eventually I reached a point where I genuinely believed that maybe my body was simply unfixable.

Then something unexpected happened.

I started training with a coach in Wembley called Asim.

I have only been training with him for about three months but something has shifted in my mindset.

For the first time I can actually feel my strength increasing. The weights I lift are steadily improving. My body feels more capable.

For the first time in years I believe that I can actually build muscle and get stronger.

That was something that once felt completely unthinkable to me.

It has even made me think about whether becoming a personal trainer one day might be possible.

Why I am writing this

I’m not about pretending that I have everything figured out.

It is about sharing the lessons I have learned through trial and error.

Through confusion.

Through experimentation.

Through mistakes.

There is so much noise in the nutrition world. Conflicting advice. Diet tribes. Extreme positions.

My goal here is simple.

To share what I have learned.

To question common myths perpetuated in society, when it comes to taking care of one’s mind, body and health.

To explore what actually works in real life. No dogma. No super complicated practices. Just what works.

And to help people who feel the same confusion I once felt.

Because I know what it feels like to think that your body is stuck the way it is.

And I also know what it feels like when you realise your body was never the problem. The information you were given was.

This is where I want to document that journey.

To share what I’ve learned so that people who feel stuck the way I once did can find their way out faster than I did, and avoid spending years and thousands of pounds trying to figure this all out alone