If you’re eating a healthy diet and exercising, and your body is holding onto fat, here’s the most common reason why: it doesn’t feel safe.
A body that doesn’t feel safe’s number one job is to survive, and when the body is trying to survive, its main focus is to conserve energy, essentially slowing metabolic ate and entering fat-storing mode. Put simply, when the body detects threats, it holds onto fat!
Here’s the kicker: most of the threats (stress) that your body is experiencing right now are completely unconscious to you, meaning they’re buried in the subconscious mind and you don’t even know they’re there. These are stored memories and traumas. You’ve heard of the book “The Body Keeps the Score,” and it absolutely does, again, below your conscious awareness.
The human body was designed to spend about 5 to 10% of the day in fight or flight, and the rest in repair. But because of our modern-day lives, unresolved trauma, and a world full of dysregulated nervous systems, we’re doing the opposite. Weight loss won’t happen when this is the case, and sadly, it’s the case for most!
When the body doesn’t feel safe, we also burn through our stress hormones, taxing our adrenal glands; the glands responsible for producing stress hormones. As the adrenal glands become fatigued, this eventually leads to burn out, which makes weight loss extremely difficult! Most humans on this planet are somewhere between stage two and stage four adrenal fatigue at all times, again making weight loss very difficult, no matter how healthy the diet or how much you exercise.
So, until you address the dysregulated nervous system, unresolved trauma, and a body that is stuck in a constant state of threat physiology, and adrenals that can no longer keep up with the demands of stress, weight loss just won’t happen!
If you think you’ve tried everything to lose weight, you haven’t! In fact, like most, you haven’t addressed the most important aspect: a body that doesn’t feel safe.
As long as you have unresolved trauma, repressed emotions, taxed adrenals, dysfunctional breathing patterns (AKA a body stuck in fight or flight), your body will be perceiving danger and releasing stress hormones—and as long as this is the case, weight-loss will NOT be the priority!
Many of you feel like you’ve TRIED EVERYTHING to lose weight, yet 99% of the women I worked with over the last decade are stuck in survival.
The good news? You can start shifting your body out of survival mode and into a place where it feels safe enough to let go of excess fat. The path forward isn’t about working harder or eating less—it’s about supporting your body on a deeper, more sustainable level.
The first step is creating a sense of safety within. This might look like incorporating relaxation techniques, addressing trauma, or processing repressed emotions. You can also start with small, grounding practices each day, like deep breathing exercises, mindfulness, or simply slowing down to help signal to your body that it’s okay to relax. Remember, this isn’t about instant results. It’s about gradually teaching your body that it’s safe, so it no longer needs to be in constant survival mode.
With patience and a willingness to explore what’s beneath the surface, you can achieve a truly healthy body that doesn’t feel the need to hold onto fat. Your journey to feeling good in your skin starts with helping your body feel good on the inside first. When you’re ready to take that step, know that real, lasting change is possible—and that a body in balance can finally release what no longer serves it.
