Episode 43: Why Emotional Eating Won't Budge No Matter What You Try | Trauma, the Nervous System and the Wellness Merry-Go-Round

I want to talk about something that I don't think gets said nearly enough.

Not about what you're eating or your nervous system, although we'll get there.

Not about willpower or discipline or studying it on Monday.

What I want to talk to you about is why you keep going back.

Because if you're a woman who's been on a diet and the wellness merry-go-round for years, maybe decades, and you have tried everything, and you keep finding yourself back at the beginning, starting again, I want you to understand something.

This is not an accident.

That is by design.

So let me start with a story.

When I was deep in my own cycle around food, I went through a period where I was trying very hard to stay in a calorie deficit.

Just what every diet and eating plan tells you to do.

Eat less, move more, create a deficit, lose weight.

And what happened to my body when I did that was not what I expected.

It didn't matter how small the deficit was.

It didn't matter if I was being quote-unquote sensible about it.

The moment my body registered that it wasn't getting enough, my whole system would flood with cortisol.

I would feel it physically.

My back muscles would seize up.

My neck and shoulders would become so tense that all of this caused physical pain, not just discomfort, but like a full body bracing, a physical holding that wouldn't release until I ate again.

And I remember thinking, what is wrong with me? Why is this so hard? Why does something that seems so simple for other people feel like this for me? The answer I now understand is that I grew up with a lot of relational trauma and a body that has lived through relational trauma doesn't experience a calorie deficit in the way that a regulated, supported and well-resourced body does.

For my nervous system, restriction wasn't just uncomfortable, it was a threat signal and my body responded accordingly.