What Is Your Emotional and Physical Load?
A Gentle, Whole-Body Approach to Weight Release
Introduction
Many people approach weight challenges by focusing solely on food or discipline. Yet the body is more complex — and more intelligent — than that. As advanced as science has become in the last century, we are still far from knowing everything about the body.
One thing I do know is that it is far more than calories in versus calories out. A calorie is a measure of heat that was first used to quantify thermal energy in water for the purposes of heat, steam engines, thermodynamics, and physics. It was only later, in the late 1800s, that calories began to be used to measure the energy content of food.
Weight release is rarely just one thing. It is influenced by emotions, stress, environment, physiology, and nervous system regulation, all working together. When these systems feel overwhelmed or unsafe, the body may hold on to weight — not out of failure, but out of protection.
A gentler, more sustainable approach begins with understanding what the body may be carrying — emotionally and physically — and how we can support the body in feeling safer.
The Body Holds Weight for a Reason.
The Body Responds to Safety, Not Force
The nervous system plays a central role in how the body regulates weight, inflammation, digestion, and energy use.
When the nervous system perceives chronic stress, the body prioritizes survival. This often means elevated cortisol, the primary stress hormone. Cortisol is essential in short bursts — it helps wake us up in the morning. When it remains elevated over time, research shows it can affect metabolism, blood sugar regulation, inflammation, and fat storage.
In contrast, when the body experiences safety, connection, and calm, it releases oxytocin — a hormone associated with bonding, relaxation, and nervous system regulation. Oxytocin helps counterbalance cortisol and supports the body’s ability to restore equilibrium.
This is why curiosity and compassion often work better than control or force.
This is where gentle nervous system tools, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), are supportive. EFT combines focused awareness with tapping on specific acupressure points, which research shows to help calm the stress response and reduce emotional reactivity. Rather than forcing change, EFT works by helping the nervous system receive signals of safety, some of the time talking about what you are fearful of. This change from fear to calm takes place in the amygdala aka fear center of the brain. It is one of the powerful tools available to release whatever preverbal burr that is under your own personal saddle. Find your EFT/Journaling Prompts Here.
Emotional Load, Stress, and the Nervous System
Emotional Load, Unhelpful Beliefs, and the Stress Response
Even though science has not yet proved that emotions such as frustration, anger, grief, or overwhelm are “stored” in organs in a literal sense, that may be on the scientific horizon. However, unprocessed emotional stress can keep the nervous system in a heightened state, influencing hormone signaling, inflammation, and metabolic pathways — including those involving liver function.
Over time, chronic emotional stress can affect how the body functions — not because emotions are “wrong,” but because the body is responding exactly as it was designed to respond under pressure.
The question becomes:
What might my body be trying to process right now?
Am I giving my mind, body, and emotions what they need — now?
In addition to emotions themselves, unhelpful beliefs — such as “my body is broken,” “nothing works for me,” or “I have no control” — can quietly reinforce stress responses. When these beliefs are activated, the nervous system often reacts as if a threat is present.
EFT is frequently used to help individuals gently identify and soften these stress-based beliefs. By acknowledging what is present while simultaneously engaging the body through tapping, EFT may help reduce anxiety and interrupt habitual stress patterns. This can create more internal space for regulation, choice, and self-compassion.
Over time, chronic emotional stress can affect how the body functions — not because emotions are “wrong,” but because the body is responding exactly as it was designed to respond under pressure.
The question becomes:
What might my body be trying to process right now?
Am I giving my mind, body, and emotions what they need — now? Am I parenting myself well, in regards to meeting my needs? Journaling helps to find your answers.
The Liver, Toxins, and Metabolic Stress
The Liver’s Role in Physical Load
The liver is a vital organ responsible for:
•Detoxifying environmental and metabolic byproducts
•Processing hormones
•Regulating fat and glucose metabolism
•Supporting inflammation balance
According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), approximately one in four adults in the United States has non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) — often without obvious symptoms.
👉 https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/liver-disease/nafld-nash/definition-facts
NAFLD is one of the most common liver conditions worldwide, affecting up to 20–30% of adults, according to peer-reviewed epidemiological studies.
👉 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21875310/
While emotions may or may not be stored in the liver, chronic stress and metabolic imbalance does influence liver function. In turn, impaired liver function can contribute to fatigue, inflammation, and mood changes through what researchers describe as the gut–liver–brain axis, a bidirectional communication system connecting metabolism, immune signaling, and neurological regulation.
👉 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40568349/
This highlights how emotional load and physical load often overlap, even when they originate in different systems.
Maybe especially when they originate in different systems, because holding weight usually has more than one root cause. When we realize that it may be easier to let our selves off the proverbial hook. After all calories in calories out has been shoved down our throats for decades, and that is far from the whole story.
This is where emotional regulation practices, including EFT, play a supportive role. By helping calm stress responses and reduce ongoing nervous system activation, EFT helps support physiological balance — not by treating disease, but by reducing one layer of chronic stress load at a time that the body is managing.
Remember what Dr. Candace Pert, a renowned neuroscientist, stated;
“Your body is your subconscious mind and you can change biology through energy psychology and energy medicine.
Ninety-seven percent of all illness is rooted in emotional and psychological issues.”
That being said it seems that the difference between the emotional and psychological issues may sometimes be difficult to differentiate scientifically. So somewhere around the other 3 percent would be environmental toxins. Which has grown significantly over the last 100 years as well as psychological stress. These issues are so inner woven in a way that they feed each other. The environmental toxins causes both physical and psychological stress which feeds more psychological stress, and then the added cultural changes of instantaneous messaging, AI, agricultural issues, eating what is put in front of us instead of what an individual needs. All the new kinds of stress may become extremely taxing of both emotional and psychological parts of us.
Some medications — including certain over-the-counter drugs — are metabolized through the liver and may cause mood changes or irritability/anger. So if you feel angry for apparently no reason. It may be a build up of toxins and something to speak with your physician about.
Personally liver detox and support are vital to my health and healing journey.
Supporting healthy liver function is an important part of overall wellness.
⸻
Toxic Load, Stress, and Emotional Regulation
“Toxic load” doesn’t only refer to environmental exposures. It can also include:
•Chronic stress hormones
•Inflammatory byproducts
•Metabolic strain
•Lack of rest or recovery
These factors can amplify emotional reactivity, irritability, and fatigue — creating a feedback loop between stress and physiology.
Scientific research on the gut–liver axis shows how metabolic and inflammatory strain can influence both physical and emotional regulation.
👉 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK384738/
Practices that support emotional regulation — such as EFT — may help interrupt this loop by calming the nervous system and reducing the intensity of stress signals. This creates an internal environment where healing and regulation are .
Supporting the body means addressing both sides of the equation:
•Reducing unnecessary physical and environmental strain
•Supporting emotional regulation and nervous system safety
Why Safety Matters More Than Willpower
A Gentle Place to Begin
Rather than asking the body to “let go” through force, a more effective question may be:
What does my body need to feel safe right now?
For some, this may look like rest or nourishment.
For others, it may be a few moments of journaling and then EFT tapping on what is standing out— gently acknowledging stress, emotions, or beliefs while offering the nervous system a signal of safety.
Or simply:
What emotional or physical load might my body be working to process?
Even small moments of awareness and regulation can help shift the nervous system out of survival mode and into restoration.
A Gentle, Whole-Body Approach to Weight Release
Why This Approach Supports Sustainable Weight Release
When the body feels safer:
•Cortisol almost always decreases
•Oxytocin almost always increases
•Inflammation is invited to reduce and often responds
•Metabolic signaling almost always improves
•Weight release becomes easier — without shame or force but with love and kindness
Tools like EFT support this process by helping calm anxiety, reduce stress, and releasing unhelpful beliefs — creating conditions where the body no longer needs to protect as fiercely.
This is not about quick fixes. It’s about working with the body rather than against it. Even more than that, it is about respecting and honoring the creation that is You.
Listening Instead of Forcing Change
Final Reflection
If your body has been holding on, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It may mean your body has been protecting you.
Listening is not weakness.
Curiosity is not complacency.
Safety is foundational to change.
Believe in you, I do.
Much love and many blessings,
Lesley VanDeventer-Witt
⸻