Outdated Wellness Trends Holding You Back from Your Best Self

If you spend any time at the gym (or on TikTok), you know protein is everywhere. It’s packed into powders, bars, shakes, and meticulously planned meals — held up as the holy grail ingredient. To be fair, science supports a lot of the enthusiasm. Protein is vital in repairing and growing muscle tissue, increasing metabolism, maintaining bone and joint health, and stabilizing blood sugar.

“Protein is still important, especially for active ingredients,” Kat Benson exclusively tells Women. For the average person, she recommends between 1.2 and 1.75 grams per kilogram of body weight, with some athletes benefiting from as much as 2g. But in our pursuit of optimization, are we tracking protein so obsessively that we’ve forgotten everything else?

“Fiber is a major gap in most people’s diets,” Benson points out. Unlike some trending ingredients, its benefits are well-established. “It supports digestion, blood sugar regulation, and even lowers colon cancer risk.” Yet in the shadow of protein’s reign, fiber-rich foods often get sidelined.

Diet culture has long painted carbs as the enemy, but the reality is you may not be getting enough, after all, with the NHS recommending wholemeal breads, potatoes with skins, lentils, beans, vegetables, and fresh or dried fruit. In the race for results, it’s easy to forget that no single ingredient can do it all. Don’t ditch the protein altogether, but as Benson puts it, “the trend for 2025 isn’t about pushing extremes, it’s about bringing balance back into focus.”

The wellness world has always had a weakness for extremes, and an extreme fondness for shortcuts. In much the same way that the protein fixation has crowded out fiber, the carnivore diet has appeared as another common overcorrection. This urges its supporters to cut out entire food groups, including vegetables, in favor of animal protein in all its forms. Initial relief is common, but the diet’s long-term sustainability and safety remain in question.

“Eliminating entire food groups might provide short-term relief for some,” says Kat Benson, “but if people feel better after cutting out fiber-dense carbs, it’s often a sign their gut needs support — not that plants are the problem.”

To move forward more wisely, she recommends working with a dietitian who focuses on gut health; someone who will help uncover a path that’s more sustainable and less restrictive.

Just like cutting carbs, skipping foods altogether won’t solve what’s really going on. Thankfully, according to Kat Benson, “we’ve moved past the Master Cleanse era,” and the days of cayenne and maple syrup may be behind us — at least in name. But cleanse culture hasn’t disappeared entirely. As ‘summer body’ trends rear their ugly heads again, so, too, do detox diets, now dressed up in fresher packaging and wellness-speak.

Self-styled wellness influencers have gone so far as to suggest that flavored water can function as an appetite suppressant or meal replacement. But we’re not falling for WaterTok’s diet culture in disguise. As Benson assures us, “Your liver and kidneys do the detoxing. What does help is regular nutrient-dense meals, hydration, adequate sleep, and managing stress — not skipping solid food.”

Finally, Benson points to one of the more persistent red flags in the modern wellness industry: cookie-cutter plans that ignore the realities of people’s everyday lives. “Any wellness plan that doesn’t take into account real-life circumstances, like time, income, access to care, or even neighborhood safety, is already out of step,” she tells Women.

Wellness is affected by what you have access to and what your days actually look like. That’s unavoidable. “Health isn’t just about food and workouts,” Benson adds. “It’s shaped by the world we live in. A plan that overlooks what isn’t sustainable for most people.”

You’re more likely to feel better when you build from the things you can actually keep doing — the small actions you can stick with. In championing consistency over perfection, progress tends to feel steadier and far more rewarding.