For the comfort eaters.

If you're a comfort eater there's a bigger reason why discipline and motivation won't help you lose weight.

As a comfort eater you'll know you turn to food when you're stressed, angry, overwhelmed or any other emotion that feels like it's too much. Sometime's you'll be very aware that you're eating to feel better, and other times it will be mindless with your body turning to food to feel safe.

When you start trying to lose weigh initially the motivation and discipline (dopamine & adrenaline) is strong, and you can stay focused enough to make the scale shift.

But as soon as you took away the tool your body has been using for years to feel safe (food), your nervous system starts to freak out. Not only because it's hungry but it also because it has no way of being reassured that you are safe.

When that short lived motivation and discipline has warn off those warning signals are no longer being silenced and your brain sends messages all through your body that it's scared and that you need to find safety- FOOD. Not only that, but all the anxiety and stress that's coursing through your body now is slowing down your digestion and drying out your intestines causing constipation and more frustration further reiterating to your body that it needs to eat to feel safe again.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!?!

If you haven't replaced comfort eating with a different safety tool like breath work, physical touch or vagus nerve stimulation, it will go back to what it knows: FOOD. Except this time those messages won't be able to be silenced by willpower and all that work and weight you lost will pile right back on.

The importance of safety for the body will override any goals, will power or plans you have. Next time you try a calorie deficit make sure you take care of your body and your safety signals!