There is a special group of people in the world who probably believe they were born under an unlucky star. A group that believes their body is somehow defective, doomed to excess weight, a ring around the waist, or fat on the thighs or arms. A group that has tried training with a personal trainer, that has been on countless diets, that has reduced calorie intake to the point of exhaustion. Only to discover that even if they have initial success, life always brings them back to the starting point, where they are overweight and frustrated, asking themselves: why is it so hard to lose weight? 

Today I will reveal to you that you are not broken, but that you have simply been looking for solutions in the wrong place.

My Own Story With Weight, Food, and Health

Let me briefly introduce myself: I am Špela Vehar, a weight-loss mentor who works through reprogramming subconscious patterns that lead people to overeating and that “lock” the body into suboptimal metabolism and digestion, preventing healthy and effortless weight loss.

To begin, let me tell you that in my youth I was in a similar situation to the one you may be in today. I was addicted to cookies and could easily eat an entire box, many pairs of pants of appropriate length would not go over my thighs, and at the same time I lived with a host of health issues, from constipation and heartburn to allergies, asthma, and skin problems.

At around the age of 21, life pushed me onto a path of exploring natural solutions to my problems, and I began doing something similar to what you may still be doing today:

• I changed my training routine

• I started eating whole, nutritious meals

• I monitored my caloric intake

• I “balanced” my plate according to recommendations

• Wherever I went, I carried my own food with me, less fatty and “balanced”

When Discipline Works… Until It Doesn’t

And you know what? It worked. At first I lost weight, improved my digestion, and even resolved some health symptoms.

But later, problems began to appear. It became difficult for me to constantly eat from plastic containers. I felt restricted. At the same time, some new symptoms emerged (for example, a chronic cough and ulcers on my tongue that I could not explain through food or lifestyle). To top it off, I got injured, and my training could no longer be the same.

I gained weight.

The Question That Changed Everything

You will probably say that this was because I no longer ate so healthily and because I stopped training. But now I will pose a provocative question that I asked myself after years of alternating between military discipline and letting go:

Why do some people eat food out without difficulty, without restricting calories, without a special training regime, and effortlessly remain slim, while other people scrutinize every grain of rice they eat, yet their bodies are not effortlessly slim and healthy?

Another question also arose for me: Why is it so easy for some people to eat healthily, while others struggle with it and crave chocolate, chips, and hamburgers?

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Why Is It So Hard To Lose Weight? The Real Cause: Chronic Stress

I am happy to tell you, dear reader, that I have discovered the secret of why it is so hard to lose weight:

People are looking for the culprit in the wrong place!

You do not have excess weight because you eat unhealthily. Nor do you have it because you are not physically active for an hour every day. You have excess weight because you are UNCONSCIOUSLY living in chronic stress!

What Stress Actually Is (And Why It Matters)

You might say, but all people have roughly equally stressful lives, yet not everyone is overweight. Let me first explain what stress is, so that you can understand the differences between people.

Stress is a state of the body in which our nervous system perceives events and circumstances as threatening, but for internal reasons we do not resolve this threatening state. Instead, we “absorb” and internalize it, which means the body does not return from a state of threat to a state of calm.

Health and Slimness Are Natural States

Why is this extremely important when we talk about health and effortless slimness?

Effortless health and slimness are NATURAL states of every human being. When a person is overweight (even from childhood) and unwell, instead of asking what is wrong with this person, we should ask:

What happened to this person that caused the body to respond in such a way that it developed illness or excess weight?

Childhood, Trauma, and the Body’s Survival Strategy

In my 15 years of research and work with people, I have discovered that overweight or ill individuals had more difficult childhoods than people who are effortlessly slim and healthy without trying. At home they faced emotional or physical abuse; often one of the parents was an alcoholic or had a personality disorder such as narcissism. In short, people with excess weight or health challenges were often intimidated, rejected, sometimes even despised, unseen, and unheard by those closest to them.

Trauma Is Also What Never Happened

When people think of trauma, they often think of sexual abuse and beatings. But trauma does not arise only from what happened to a child; it also arises from the chronic absence of what SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.

A chronic lack of loving attention, being seen and heard, or conditioning love on exemplary behavior or obedience creates deeply frightened children who, in order to maintain attachment to their parents, begin to behave as the parents demand:
They stop expressing their anger and dissatisfaction, hide their vulnerability, and try to be strong.

These habits then carry over into adulthood.

And these are exactly the individuals who often become ill or gain weight.

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Self-Abandonment, Stress, and “Fight or Flight”

Why is that?

When we do not behave authentically out of fear of loss or punishment, our body is acutely aware of this. When we swallow our words or say yes to an invitation out of politeness, we put the body under stress. Everything in us wants to go left, but we force ourselves to go right.

When we oppose ourselves in this way, the body shifts from a state of calm into a crisis state called “fight or flight.”

Why the Body Cannot Heal or Digest in Survival Mode

This crisis state is physiologically completely different from calmness. In this state, our muscles and brain are activated (the sympathetic nervous system), and at the same time we are flooded with stress hormones. In this state, organs such as the lungs, liver, and digestive system do not function optimally, because most of their processes run smoothly only in a state of calm!

What does this mean in simple terms? Under stress, cell regeneration, metabolism, and digestion are slowed down and minimized!

This means that the “factory” has stopped because it is waiting for the crisis conditions to pass.

The problem is that in ill or overweight people who carry records of fear and crisis in their nervous networks, this crisis almost never passes. On top of that, they often escape into addictions such as overeating precisely to avoid confronting their true feelings while in this crisis.

For this reason, the same fatty food that is joyfully eaten by one person is easily digested and does not harm them, while for a person who eats in a crisis state, everything “sticks” to the body.

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So What Is the Real Path to Healthy Weight Loss?

So what is the solution for effortless and healthy slimness?

The solution first lies in recognizing the circumstances that shaped the ways we function and respond. Through observing our symptoms and behaviors, we need to reconsider our childhood and look at it with the impartial eye of an external observer.
Only when we have reliable information about the truth of our upbringing can we begin to change our behavior, because we finally understand its causes.

A Final Reminder

Some of you may not believe me and may need to read another article or book on this topic, as this may be the first time you have encountered these ideas. I warmly recommend the entire collection of books by Dr. Gabor Maté, which support the claims in this article with the findings of scientific research.

So, if you ask yourself: why is it so hard to lose weight?! Remember that if you have health and weight issues, it is not because of what you are doing, but fundamentally because you do not see what happened to you.

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