If you struggle with your weight, you may be curious about how ACEs impact your weight-regulating hormones.
See, unaddressed and unresolved ACEs cause toxic stress in the body. Stress heightens cortisol levels and lowers leptin sensitivity, which increases hunger, tells your body to store fat, and causes you to put on weight. Toxic stress is the kind of stress that comes from ACEs and is prolonged over time, which means your body is wired to run this cycle for a long time.
When it comes to weight gain, it’s easy to say, “Just move more and eat less!” The billion-dollar “health” industry is based on this premise. But, unfortunately, this oversimplified approach overlooks an important link: The one between ACEs, toxic stress, and weight gain.
The ACE Study states that more than six million obese and morbidly obese people are likely to have suffered physical, sexual, or verbal abuse during their childhoods. In addition, millions more can point to other types of childhood trauma or traumatic experience as a starting point for their weight gain.
Toxic stress creates a vicious cycle that the body reinforces with time, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and behavior.
It goes something like this:
- Unresolved ACEs lead to seeking an external way to cope, like emotional eating or overeating.
- Toxic stress from ACEs negatively impacts the body’s hormone function, inhibiting the body’s ability to metabolize this food properly.
- The resulting weight gain is hard to lose because the toxic stress prevents your weight-regulating hormones from doing their job.
- Toxic stress is prolonged, making unhealthy eating behavior a long-term challenge. The body can’t keep up, and fat is stored.
- The foods that are effective in temporarily numbing toxic stress are usually unhealthy, which doesn’t help!
And the cycle continues.
It’s all too common for people struggling with their weight to become frustrated with weight loss programs that never seem to work. However, it’s just that most programs on the market simply take a fragmented and incomplete approach to weight loss. See, the answer isn’t just diet or just exercise. It isn’t even just balancing imbalanced hormones.
It’s addressing the whole cycle and how it started in the first place.
Until the underlying trauma is addressed and treated, no weight loss program will ever work, and your weight-regulating hormones will never return to balance.
You could be doing everything else right, but until you unlock that door and come face-to-face with the actual, underlying cause of your weight gain, it’ll always be an uphill battle.
Finally, there’s a whole-body, whole-mind weight loss solution that integrates clinically proven ACE treatment solutions and is endorsed by some of the biggest minds and hearts in the industry.
Dr. Felitti, the Co-Principal Investigator of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, and I teamed up with Relish Life to offer a comprehensive weight loss program that integrates the science of ACEs with other proven weight loss methodologies. It’s an ideal solution for those looking to lose weight with a high ACE score. The Relish Life program offers a root-cause approach to weight loss that combines the best of psychology, behavioral health, holistic wellness, fitness, nutrition, medication, technology, and more to help people lose weight and keep it off.
Dr. Felitti (left), Dr. Ray (right)
Dr. Felitti is an advisor for Relish Life, and I’m the Chief Behavioral Officer. Dr. Al Ray, who worked intimately with the ACE Study for over two decades at Kaiser Permanente, is Relish Life’s, Chief Medical Officer.
The link between toxic stress and the health of our physical body is clear, so we’ve decided that it’s time to close the gap.
Using a personalized and comprehensive approach, Relish Life solves the root neurological and physiological issues that cause weight gain so the body can work in harmony towards your weight loss goals.
The medication we incorporate into our program brings the body’s hormones into balance and addresses the damage done to the hypothalamic axis that leads to impulsivity and addiction. And no, these medications are not “cheater” amphetamine-based ones; they’re ones that help physically re-wire the brain with the support of psychological, ACE-based treatment. They're also FDA-approved and not a stimulant.
The program includes:
- Personal Physician: Monitoring your health and progress with regular calls, check-ins, and unlimited text/email support
- Personalized Medication Plan: FDA-approved, stimulant-free, scientifically proven, and delivered right to your doorstep
- Designated Health Coach: An initial strategy session and ongoing support and accountability via live check-ins, and text/email
- Expert Psychological Support: Weekly small support group counseling sessions with experts to uncover your ACEs and heal your relationship with food
- Daily Inspiration, Meditations, Tips, and Tools: Elisa, a friendly chatbot and pocket cheerleader, helps keep you motivated and on track every step of the way
- Members-Only Educational Portal: A library of mindfulness, hypnotherapy, fitness, and nutrition programs (with live guidance) for lasting change
- Private Community: Gain access to our private Facebook group to connect with others and leverage the power of community on your path to health and happiness
- A Mobile App: For even more access to the treatment team and resources (coming soon!)
If you have a high ACE score and struggle with your weight, your weight-regulating hormones are likely not working at their best. Solving that is just part of the equation.
Relish Life can help. Click here and be sure to use code “PACES25” for a special discount at checkout.
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