HOW TRAUMA AND EMOTIONAL STRESS AFFECT YOUR BODY WEIGHT

"Owning, honouring and transforming emotions linked to your eating patterns is conducive to succeeding in your weight loss process"

When we think about weight loss, we often focus solely on diet and exercise, but there’s a deeper layer that often gets overlooked: our emotional health. Negative emotions, past traumas, and chronic stress can profoundly impact the way we approach our body. Because these emotions affect how we think and see our body, they actively influence how we eat and relate to food, affecting our physiology through hormone imbalances. This is because dealing with trauma and negative emotions generates a level of permanent physical and mental stress. Chronic stress is one of the main causes of overweight and weight loss resistance.

Due to Emotional Stress coming from traumas, we also can overeat out of wanting to numb our bodies and/or in search of comfort, pleasure, and self-protection. In a way, overeating, binging and comfort eating become mechanisms of checking out from the body.

Transforming these beliefs can be the one and very first step towards having more body presence, embodiment, body power and shredding the unwanted body weight.

DEEPER INTO WHAT HAPPENS UNDER STRESS: HORMONES:

-Cortisol: known as the “stress hormone,” is released by the body during stressful situations. While this is a natural and essential response, chronic stress causes cortisol levels to remain elevated for long periods which can lead to increased fat storage, particularly around the abdomen, and can also affect how the body metabolises glucose, making it harder to lose weight (weight resistance).

-Insulin, Is the hormone that allow the glucose form the food to enter the cell for the cell to transform in energy, Insulin  regulates blood sugar levels. Insulin is linked to cortisol levels, high cortisol levels can lead to insulin resistance, which makes it more difficult for the body to burn fat effectively.

-Leptin: Helps regulate hunger, can be disrupted when there is chronic stress, making weak the sensors of satiety after eating. This leads to overeating as the body struggles to understand when it has had enough.

Often when we are under constant emotional stress, we try to  find refuge in food as a coping mechanism, often seeking out high-sugar or high-fat foods that temporarily boost our mood.

For others, the opposite may occur—emotional stress may lead to under eating or even disordered eating patterns such as anorexia or bulimia.

Body Weight Loss can be a great opportunity to engage with our emotions and inner blocks towards re-establishing a healthy and loving relationship with the body. The losing weight process can be a transformation opportunity towards healing the emotional wounds and negative beliefs that lie beneath our relationship with food/eating/appetite and our bodies. Many people don’t realise that their struggles with weight are deeply connected to how they feel about themselves and their past experiences. The link body and mind is deeply important if we need to deal with eating and weight challenges.

When we embark on a healing journey from the inside out, we can unveil important information the body kept until we were ready for the real transformation, As part of this transformation, we can experience changes in our eating habits with no need of restrictive diets, will power and the like, instead, we align our body with its natural physiology.

As we work through emotional traumas and stress, we also begin to restore balance to the hormones that govern our weight. Cortisol levels decrease, insulin sensitivity improves, and leptin begins to function more effectively. This shift allows us to achieve a healthy weight in a way that is sustainable, loving, and empowering.

If you’ve struggled with emotional eating, chronic stress, or negative body image, it’s important to recognise that healing is possible. Very often healing our emotional wounds , we take on board actions re-address our physiology and hormones. Healing emotions can be the real route towards transforming the relationship with food and with the whole self.

CONCLUSION AND  SUGGESTION:

The relationship between stress and body weight is both significant and complex. By understanding this connection and implementing strategies to manage stress and emotions effectively, we can maintain a healthy weight and improve overall well being. The journey toward body confidence and a healthy weight is continuous and requires a blend of physical practices, emotional resilience, mindful habits and social interactions.

Check with yourself which levels of emotional stress you have in every day life, connect your eating habits, weight struggles with this stress.

If you think you are well equipped to deal with these emotional struggles, start being more conscious of your traumas, emotions, stress, and do your practices to heal and process them.

If you do not feel well equipped to do it on your own, find professional help alongside that facilitates this journey.