Why Eating Healthy Feels So Hard: Navigating the Roots of Comfort Foods

Comfort food isn’t just a psychological craving. It’s a physiological response. Heavily processed foods — think breaded, oily, cheesy, sugary, fatty meals — often serve as what somatic practitioner Luis Mojica calls "depressants." They literally help slow the body down.

If your body is tired and adrenalized from chronic stress, overwork, or lack of sleep, you might reach for something heavy to bring you down — not because you’re lazy or undisciplined, but because your nervous system is begging for rest. These heavy foods take a lot of energy to digest, diverting resources away from adrenaline production and letting your body finally relax.

On the flip side, you may crave stimulants like coffee, chocolate, or even skipping meals. These tactics stimulate the adrenal glands to release more adrenaline, helping you push through exhaustion and keep going, even when your body is saying, “Please stop.”

This creates what Luis Mojica calls see-saw regulation — where you pendulum between stimulation and depression to cope with your day.

Trauma is, at its core, a physiological adrenal response. Whether we’re stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, the common denominator is a chronically adrenalized state. Our nervous systems stay alert, hyper-vigilant, and wired — long after the threat is gone.

When you eat to stimulate or depress this system, you're unconsciously regulating that trauma. You're trying to survive your own biology. It's intelligent. It's adaptive. But over time, it's also exhausting.

So what happens when you remove those comfort foods and start eating nourishing, whole, balancing foods like vegetables, beans, and quality proteins?

You lose the "soundproofing." You lose the sensory buffer that stimulants and depressants provide. Suddenly, you’re feeling your emotions more clearly. You’re noticing discomfort in your body. You’re confronting the very sensations you’ve been trying to bypass for years — maybe even decades.

This is why you need support when eating healthy.

Because when you eat balancing foods, your body isn’t numbed or jacked up. It’s present. And that means whatever has been waiting to be felt will start to surface. Old anxiety. Buried exhaustion. Unprocessed grief. Loneliness. It all starts to bubble up.

And that’s not a bad thing.

It’s healing — but only if you can stay with it.

When we understand that food habits have served a purpose — even when they’re not optimal — we can meet ourselves with more compassion and curiosity.

Instead of asking, “Why do I keep failing at eating healthy?” ask:

• What does my body get from this food?
• Is it helping me calm down? Sleep? Power through?
• What am I trying to avoid feeling?
• What part of me is asking for safety, and how can I support that part in a new way?

This isn’t about labeling food as good or bad. This is about seeing the intelligence behind your choices. It’s about learning how to meet your nervous system’s needs in more sustainable, healing ways.

Whole foods like beans, vegetables, and clean proteins are balancing foods. They don’t hijack your system. They invite you to meet yourself. They help you build the capacity to stay present with what’s really happening inside you — emotionally and physically.

But that capacity needs to be developed slowly, gently, with support. If you’re used to using food to cope with trauma, stress, or overstimulation, eating whole foods will stir up all the things you’ve been trying not to feel.

That’s not failure. That’s transformation.

So, next time you feel like giving up on your healthy eating plan, pause and ask:

• What’s coming up for me emotionally?
• What am I feeling in my body?
• What is this food (or food craving) trying to help me survive?

And then meet yourself with care, not criticism.

You don’t need more discipline. You need more understanding. And with that understanding, comes true nourishment — mind, body, and soul.

This approach to understanding the biology of comfort foods is deeply inspired by the teachings of Luis Mojica.

If you want to learn how to use nutrition to heal your nervous system and reconnect with your body, I highly recommend Luis Mojica’s self-led course:

👉 Holistic Life Navigation: Self-Led Course