Weight gain, body image and emotions

Quite a few clients that I speak have weight issues, and they tell me they have gone to every gym in town, tried out every diet but had only short lived success, if any success at all. The programs they are following are usually based on setting goals, perseverance and willpower. These are bound to fail, and all that results is at best only temporary weight loss, the well-known yo-yo effect. The body image will become very destructive and negative.

Words - Dr Marcel De Roos

What is missing here is the all-important role of our emotions. People overeat for reasons and these are usually emotional. We sometimes seem to forget the massive influence (this is of course highly simplified) that our amygdala and limbic system have on our behaviour. Besides striving to maintain a lifestyle of moderate exercise and a moderate healthy diet, the real crux lies at finding out the root causes of our overeating and dealing with them. As with any addiction it’s not what you use nor your behaviour itself, but the fact that you can’t seem to stop it. What makes you continue overeating and why can’t you stop? The reason is that the addictive behaviour has an important purpose: it keeps us away from the underlying emotional pain. We try to alleviate this original pain with our addiction and in this manner we escape from the unconscious truth which we don’t want to face. There are many behaviours that can be used to deal with the original pain: gambling, eating disorders, porn, extreme cleaning, OCD, extreme exercising, workaholic behaviour, etc.