Understanding and processing the story of your excess weight is the only way to heal it
Someone who is trying to lose weight is trying to shed what is making their life hard. My hope is that this article will help people do so in a more holistic way so that their efforts are more effective.
Excess weight isn’t just a cosmetic concern. Many people learn to love (or ignore) their bodies even if they carry excess weight. What goes unnoticed is that excess weight is often a symptom, not just the problem itself. Some of what looks like the consequence of excess weight is actually what caused it.
If any of the methods below are working for you or bring you joy, nothing I say here should talk you out of it. This article is for the people who’ve tried everything they wanted to try and they want something more. This is when we start to look at why, and what's underneath.
This is what many people try in order to lose weight:
Eat less, move more. But the body isn't that simple. We are complex integrators and processors of information, from multiple sources and levels. Meant to discard what we are done with, so that we can grow.
Medication. My biggest concern is what Esogetic Medicine reads in Ozempic Face. According to Esogetic Medicine, the face tells us about all the organs in need of support. Forcing the body to shed volume fast results in deep stasis for organs and connective tissue that are already congested or exhausted, and the underlying emotional stress continues to go unaddressed. Every parent knows that when a rambunctious child suddenly goes quiet, you look for them, because they're probably up to no good. But no one says this about silenced emotions.
Increased water intake. Some people reach for water to try to flush fat out through urine. Turns out, fat is not processed out by the kidneys, instead fat mostly leaves the body by being broken down and exhaled as carbon dioxide. Maybe this is another reason cardio exercise contributes to weight loss and quitting smoking contributes to weight gain. Forcing large amounts of fluid puts strain on the kidneys and bladder, and dampens the digestive fire responsible for transforming fluid in the body.
Supplements and fasting. When the first three approaches are unsuccessful, some people go further, and what "further" looks like depends on what they can afford — either way, the long term outcome is not great. Those with more may go all-in on organic, cutting out all the no-nos, and bulking up on supplements; those with less may narrow down to a few cheap items or fasting. Depriving the body doesn't strengthen digestion. Supplements are often lower quality than what they claim, many carrying too much yin — because once something has been processed from its alive state, it starts to collect yin as it loses chi. A congested, exhausted gut and liver cannot process that. Supplements often just add to what the person needs to detox out. An extended fast can also feel like an acute threat, triggering a stress response that makes the body cling to stored weight even more.
The refusal to count. In a culture that sees tracking numbers as discipline, not wanting to count calories can be seen as denial or a lack of willpower. In Esogetic Medicine, the same system responsible for physical digestion — transforming food, regulating fluid — is also responsible for mental digestion. When this system is strained, it shows up as obsessive worrying, which creates tension and a false sense of control — counterproductive because the more someone tries to control, the more they drain the very system that would help them process and let go. Recognizing that rigid counting will only tighten what is already stuck, is intuitive, but trusting the body is not enough, if the underlying issues are not being addressed.
In order to know what will work, we need to look at what excess weight really is
In Esogetic Medicine and RestoreChi, excess weight is seen as a protective adaptation. Esogetic Medicine refers to it as the psychological-lymphatic buffer (the same one that will cause a child to get sick when they are under too much stress at the start of school — see Integrating the Third Dimension of Illness: Using Back to School Sinus Congestion As An Example, and if you can't get past the Medium paywall, let me know and I will move this article to my website blog).
When emotional pressure, an old shock, or long-standing stress has never been consciously processed, the subconscious uses the lymphatic system and connective tissue to build a literal physical cushion around vital organs and the solar plexus, shielding the person from what still feels unsafe.
Strip the cushion away (with diet or medication) while the underlying stress is still active, and the subconscious experiences it as exposure, not victory. The moment the intervention stops, the body rebuilds the cushion. Often with a little extra, just in case.
A clue no one was trained to look for
After the birth of my third child — which included induction at 37.5 weeks, because I was too sick throughout the pregnancy to care for my older kids — a small brown spot appeared, two finger-widths below and to the left of my navel. When I brought this up to my doctor, she said it was nothing.
In Esogetics, the skin is read as a three-dimensional mirror of the body. That exact spot corresponds to a reflex point that is tied to the intestines (lower lymphatics) and the emotional pattern of pelvic shock and maternal stress. My body had placed a physical bookmark exactly where it was storing numerous reproductive traumas that I still needed to fully process in order to let go.
We often need to consider reproductive trauma as part of the reason for excess weight
When someone goes through a traumatic birth, induction, infection, a surgical intervention, unwanted sexual advances, injury, or childhood potty-training that involved shame, punishment, or being rushed before the body was ready, the pelvic floor often locks into survival-mode. To protect this hidden wound, the body builds a heavy cushion across the lower abdomen, hips, and solar plexus. For successful weight loss, we need to release the old cellular memories of the trauma while also clearing the lymphatic congestion that holding onto this unprocessed trauma created. This is the only way the body can finally receive the signal it’s been waiting for: You are safe now. You don’t need to carry this anymore.
Long before a birth intervention occurs, women may have undergone numerous hormonal fertility treatments in order to conceive. This difficulty shows that the endocrine system was already not functioning well. The subconscious registers the bombardment of synthetic hormones as an ongoing survival emergency, deepening the pre-existing problems that contribute to weight gain, even if there is a temporary sudden loss.
It doesn't have to come from trauma
Maybe we are more used to excess weight coming from years of ordinary physical demand, but I doubt that many would chalk it up to something like babywearing.
That said, carrying an extra 15 to 30+ pounds on the front of your body for months or years, shifts your center of gravity forward. Causing your quadriceps muscles brace in order to hold you upright. This pulls the pelvis into a forward tilt and compresses the lower back. As a result, the pelvic floor gets locked into a stretched, weakened position — which is why pelvic floor physio often doesn't "hold".
The same chronic bracing compresses the deep pelvic lymphatic vessels, slowing fluid drainage from the lower abdomen. The nervous system reads the ongoing instability as vulnerability and, again builds the same protective layer, adding to that the risk of varicose veins.
Being quad-dominant can also lead to premature muscle pain when someone engages in exercise. Muscles are tied to the Spleen/Stomach in Esogetics and TCM — which is why deep stretching can feel digestive, a clue worth paying attention to. Esogetics has treatments we can try — not only for tight quads, but for the tendency to pee when you jump or run and the tendency to overeat. I share these examples because there is nothing that anyone needs to feel ashamed of. Everything is connected, makes sense, and treatment can be holistic.
Identifying what's relevant to your weight gain story
Kirlian photography helps us see which of the stories in our heads are actually backed up by our current physiology — where is the lymph stagnant, where are old stresses being held, what organs are suffering, and where communication is breaking down. This is what turns “excess weight” from a flat diagnosis into the specific story of why this particular body built this particular shield.
Unburdening, not force
Real, lasting change doesn’t come from starving the body or forcing it into submission. It comes from seeing what the body needs us to know, and providing what it needs, so that it can feel safe enough to let go, and help us restore health and an easier life.
Still to be determined is how much it takes for the body to let go and trust for good — we likely need a series of reminders and adjustments until we get there, if we get there, because life is a journey of healing what happened to us, so we can step into who we become, when we are able to process and let go of what doesn’t serve us.
Esogetic Medicine has a standard treatment for obesity, and then we add to this, based on what your body needs, what aspects of your story feel relevant, and how you respond to treatment. It's a 10-session process at minimum. But you learn a lot about yourself and your life, you let go, and you continue as long as you see value in the progress we are able to make.
The Esogetic reason to treat obesity
Esogetic Medicine treats health as a matter of information flowing freely through the body — being able to sense what is in and around us to know what is right and wrong for us and take action accordingly, by working through all of our conflicts. This subtle layer of communication runs through the connective tissue that surrounds every cell. When stress, shock, or metabolic overload goes unprocessed, some of it gets deposited into that tissue and, over time, that buildup doesn't just add weight — it starts blocking communication, like static interferes with a signal.
Excess weight held in place long enough stops being flexible, making it harder for the body to detox, for the immune system to function, and for the person to make progress in life. Clearing excess weight, in this framework, was never really about how someone looks. It’s about reopening the lines of communication — so that the body can register what it does and does not need, so that the person can process and let go of what has been holding them back.
Before I close, here is a diagram and some additional thoughts:
Stress causes the endocrine system to go haywire. Symptoms show up as an invitation, and the only way to make things better is to engage with the problem underneath. Most people never see that first step. They only see the last two: live with the symptoms, or numb them. Given that choice, most people numb, because the fear is that continuing to feel is what will make them degenerate. What they don’t see is that numbing bypasses the middle, the only door that could have led them back to health and an easier life.
The middle doesn’t look like health. It looks like overreacting. Taking the time to actually feel what’s true and find the right path for yourself is treated as a luxury that almost no one is allowed — mostly out of fear.
Synthetic hormones are increasingly used for contraception, fertility treatment, perimenopause symptoms, and reducing acne — one of the ways the body signals which organ is looking for help. Each offers real control over something a person urgently wants managed. But there’s a price, the same one paid by numbing: it skips a person straight to the end without ever letting them pass through the middle.
You can’t cheat this and win. We are here to grow by engaging with life, the middle. People will keep looking for ways around doing the work, but engaging with discomfort (the middle) waits for anyone who wants to make progress. Esogetic Medicine can help — by showing you exactly where you are and what’s next, so you can move through the middle door without getting stuck.
Where do you think your excess weight comes from, so you can start to figure out how to let it go? Shall we take a look together?
Health isn’t the absence of symptoms, stress, or conflict. It’s being able to meet them as they arise — without going haywire, without overreaching, and without numbing to try to make it disappear. I know stress feels too high for some people, and Esogetics can help to slow it down, so you can perceive things more clearly.
When we don’t let the middle happen, disease skips straight to the end. Bringing someone back to it — however uncomfortable that may be — is what gives the whole person a chance to understand, process, and let go, so they can grow. Anything that moves is healthy; anything that stays stuck is sick. Having symptoms, feelings, and conflict isn’t a failure of healing. Working through them is the only path to health and an easier life.
Allow me to summarize and clarify: Most people never see option one and they mistake option two for something worse than it is. This is how everyone ends up in option three. To be clear, chronic anything turns degenerative — even staying stuck at door one, carrying stress you don't know how to process, will eventually land you in trouble too. And no one is suggesting that you tough it through option two alone. That's what Esogetic Medicine is for — guiding you from wherever you are, into door number two (being able to react, signal, and communicate again), and then all the way through option two, so you can actually process and learn from what you went through, instead of getting stuck at option two. Knowing how we go to to where we are helps us know what is needed to get out. Option two is a door, not a sentence: even someone who has already slipped into option three can be pulled back into option two, and option two opens the moment you know how to work through it.
Whatever specific problem brought you to healing (or to learning about it on this page), the model underneath is always the same: numb it, suffer it, or finally go through it.
This article started off being about excess weight and, by working through it, we arrive at a model that fits everything else.
It doesn’t matter what gets you to the point of wanting to improve your life and health — everything is always connected in one coherent story: yours!
If any of this is of interest to you:
→ Email me at alahnnaa18@yourlifeplan.ca or book a free 15-minute consultation.
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