Nutritionist reveals how an extra layer of fat on your stomach can actually be good for you in body-positive post

An Instagram-famous nutritionist has revealed that an ‘extra layer of fat’ on your stomach could actually be good for your health.

Lyndi Cohen – a Sydney-based blogger known as the Nude Nutritionist – took to social media to speak candidly about her struggle to lose weight from her waistline despite persistent dieting.

In the refreshingly honest post, the 27-year-old revealed that she eventually realised that there’s nothing wrong with her body or metabolism and that perhaps she’s not supposed to lose weight from her stomach. Instead, she’s decided to embrace her natural body shape.

The blogger took to Instagram to write: “I have an extra layer of fat that sits on my muscles. Every time I try to lose it, my body resists. It’s a struggle. For years, I tried to lose that weight with diet after diet. Eventually, I have realised that there’s actually nothing wrong with my body or my metabolism, and that maybe – I’m just not meant to lose that ‘extra’ weight.”

She continued, “This ‘extra’ weight is what keeps my hormones balanced, my mood stable and energy high. This ‘extra’ weight means I can regulate my temperature easily and sit comfortably thanks to it’s cushiness. This so-called ‘extra’ layer is what keeps me warm at night so I can fall asleep easily. It keeps me going when I get hungry. It’s what will protect me if I ever get sick. So it seems this ‘extra’ weight is not a burden (like I thought), but a security blanket.”

In a bid to encourage her 57,300 followers to also embrace their natural body shape and not feel pressured to conform to society’s ideals, the blogger added: “Accepting my natural body shape and my healthy weight has been one of the healthiest things I’ve done for myself. I’ve realise that this is my natural healthy weight, and I’m not longer willing to fight against it just to fit into people’s idea of what a conventional healthy body looks like. This is what a healthy body looks like for me. And I love my layers.”

Cohen has struggled with body confidence issues in the past and a few months back opened up about her weight loss struggle. The blogger revealed that she lost 20kg over the course of four years after becoming obsessed with diet and exercise.

“I would eat as little as I could and exercise multiple hours in the day,’ she told Daily Mail Australia. “By the time I’d come home, my willpower was depleted and I would binge eat everything in the pantry. I’d feel guilty of what I ate but the cycle repeated itself everyday.”

The blogger hopes that by opening up about her body confidence battle, she can help to promote a more realistic image on social media.

“I feel as though when you think of ‘healthy’ influencers, you think of girls with the perfect bodies and they don’t have much fat – I don’t think that’s what health looks like,” she said. “Often girls are exposed to the images they see in healthy magazines – and it narrows the stereotypes of what healthy looks like.”

“I want people to know that health comes in all shapes and sizes and you don’t need to be a certain height or have a toned body to have the ‘healthy body’.”

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