It is incredibly important in this process to not allow food to be your main source of pleasure due to it involving sacrifices to your long-term health and weight loss success, but that does not mean that food should not be pleasurable or enjoyable. It just needs to be in a more balanced way that will not compromise your goals.  

If food is a primary source of comfort or excitement, find alternative non-food activities you enjoy, such as listening to music, walking, or hobbies. This helps retrain your brain to not seek foods in times of a heightened emotional state, but it also helps support your weight loss goal because you’re choosing positive acts that boost your mental health and meet emotional needs without relying on food’s dopamine hits.

In my weight loss journey I began a ‘motion for my emotions’ practice. Whenever I felt myself spiralling, or emotionally off-balance I would go for a walk with my headphones on, or if I was home alone with my daughters walk around my house. 

This always helped me to emotionally reset and made me feel better, and after research I discovered that it was because the combination of walking and music benefits the brain by increasing blood flow and releasing mood-boosting neurotransmitters, while the combination enhances these effects through rhythmic entrainment, distraction, and increased motivation, which can improve cognitive function, mood, and memory. I always and I mean ALWAYS felt better after, and soon began to love walking, and it became a practice that I loved. I would sometimes take a book and stop for a coffee, and this became a practice I looked forward to. And without realising it, walking soon became an intervention tool for me because I would choose to walk to regulate my emotions, whereas in the past I would have binged. Only unlike the detrimental consequences of binging, walking had huge benefits to my body and mind, which helped my weight loss results. 

In diversifying your sources of pleasure you will not only retrain your brain’s conditioned coping mechanism sources but it also builds emotional resilience and ensures a more consistent state of contentment by protecting against life’s inevitable challenges in any single area.