Like so many people, I started the year with a fairly predictable goal: lose a bit of weight, feel more comfortable in my clothes, and have a little more energy. I didn’t plan on transforming my life. I certainly didn’t expect my hair fall to reduce. So, what did I actually do that made my hair fall reduce so noticeably? Was it the diet, the workouts, or a miracle product I stumbled upon?

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How hard water ruined my hair

Ever since I shifted to Delhi, my long and thick hair has become frizzy and weak. And the hair fall has been heartbreaking. The city’s hard water makes it nearly impossible for your hair to absorb moisture properly, leaving it dull, lifeless, and prone to snapping off at the slightest touch. I watched my hair go from shiny to shitty in what felt like the blink of an eye. I tried everything. Different shampoos, scalp serums, silk pillowcases, you name it. Some things made my hair feel nicer temporarily, but nothing actually stopped the shedding. Eventually, I gave up trying to fix it and just didn’t think about it anymore.

The diet that was running on empty

For over a year, my diet was basically whatever was available and required the least effort. That meant mostly carbs with fibre. Quick sabzi roti, easy dal chawal, repeat. It was simple, cheap, and didn’t taste bad at all. But nutritionally? An absolute disaster, as it turns out.

When I finally decided I needed to eat clean and lose some weight, I took a proper look at what I was actually eating and realised it had virtually zero protein. Now, I eat meat, but living alone means going out to buy chicken, which feels like a whole event, and ordering online gets expensive very quickly. I’m also allergic to eggs, which wiped out the most convenient protein source. That left me with soybean, which alone just wasn’t cutting it.

So, I made one change. I kept eating everything I normally would, but I made sure every single meal had some protein in it. No complicated meal plans, no expensive superfoods, just more protein and slightly fewer carbs.

The unexpected hair win

A few weeks in, I started noticing the usual wins: my jeans fit better, the bloating settled down, and those sudden manic cravings became much less frequent. But then something else happened that I hadn’t seen coming at all.

One morning while washing my hair, I realised there was just less coming out. I didn’t think much of it initially because hair fall does fluctuate, doesn’t it? Stress, seasons, hormones, it all plays a role. But the pattern kept going. My hairbrush wasn’t filling up the same way. That’s when I went down a rabbit hole reading about diet and hair health, and it all started making sense. Hair is made primarily of keratin, which is a structural protein. When your body isn’t getting enough protein, it quietly pushes aside anything it considers non-essential, and hair growth falls firmly into that category.

So while the city’s hard water definitely started the damage, my protein-deficient diet was making everything much worse. If you’re also making the mistake I was, you know now why your hair is falling out so much!

I set out to lose a bit of weight. What I ended up with was a noticeably happier hairbrush.

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