The 3 Brain Regions That Keep You Overweight (And The 15-Minute Daily Practice That Rewires Them For Good)
You’ve done everything right.
Counted the calories and logged every meal. Hit the gym when you didn’t feel like it. White-knuckled through cravings at 9pm while your family ate ice cream in the next room.
And still, your brain pulls you back. The scale creeps up. You find yourself standing in front of the refrigerator at midnight, not even hungry, just... there. Again.
Here’s what nobody told you: the problem was never your willpower. Never your discipline. Never your character.
The problem is three specific parts of your brain running an outdated program about who you are.
And until you update that program, every diet you try is fighting a war it cannot win.
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Your brain’s “identity headquarters”
There’s a network in your brain that lights up when you’re not focused on anything in particular. When you’re daydreaming. Replaying conversations. Thinking about yourself and your life.
Scientists call it the Default Mode Network. I call it your brain’s storytelling center.
This is where your brain writes the story of you.
It’s running all the time, usually without you noticing. Narrating who you are, what you’re capable of, what’s “realistic” for someone like you. It pulls from decades of memories, experiences, and emotions to construct something that feels like a fixed identity.
And here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
This region doesn’t just store your memories. It decides which version of you feels real.
If you’ve been overweight for years, this part of your brain has written that into your identity. “Heavy” isn’t just something you carry. It’s something your brain has filed under permanent. Like your eye color. Like your name.
So every time you start a diet, you’re not just changing your eating. You’re challenging your brain’s fundamental story about who you are. And your brain does not appreciate that. It has spent years constructing this narrative. It believes it’s protecting you by keeping you consistent.
You aren’t failing at diets.
Your brain is succeeding at keeping you aligned with the identity it has stored.
The emotion alarm that hijacks your best intentions
The second region is your brain’s threat detector. The part that screams “DANGER” and floods your body with feelings before you even have time to think.
It’s fast. It’s powerful. And it does not care about your meal plan.
For many people, food became safety somewhere along the way. Maybe it was comfort during a chaotic childhood. Maybe it was the one thing that was yours during a marriage where nothing else felt like yours. Maybe it was the reward after a brutal day, the exhale after holding it together for everyone else.
Your brain learned that equation early: food equals safe. Restriction equals threat.
So when you try to change your eating patterns, this region pulls the fire alarm. The cravings that hit at 10pm aren’t weakness. They’re your brain’s security system doing exactly what it was trained to do.
I had a client describe it perfectly. She said it felt like her body was convinced she was in danger, even though she knew logically she was just trying to eat a smaller dinner. Her hands would shake slightly. Her chest would tighten. Her brain would whisper that something bad was about to happen if she didn’t eat.
Her nervous system had learned that food was the only reliable source of safety. And decades later, it was still doing its job. Still running that same protection protocol, even though the original danger was long gone.
The “body budget” manager that keeps resetting your weight
The third region is your brain’s internal regulator. It monitors your body’s state (hunger, fullness, energy, stress) and works to maintain what it considers “normal.”
This goes deeper than metabolism. Your brain is running a prediction model about what your body should be.
When you lose weight, this region notices something is “off.” It doesn’t know you’re trying to change. It just knows the numbers don’t match its predictions. So it adjusts. Hunger signals get louder, cravings sharpen, and your body conserves energy for movement. All of it pulling you back to the set point your brain believes is correct.
Think of it like the cruise control in your car. You can tap the brakes and slow down temporarily, but the moment you lift your foot, the system accelerates right back to the speed it was set to. That’s what’s happening when you lose 15 pounds and then “somehow” gain it all back. Your brain’s internal set point kicked in. Not sabotage. Regulation.
The question is: how do you change the setting?
The 15-minute daily practice that rewires all three
You can’t out-willpower your brain. Gritting your teeth harder won’t reprogram neural pathways that have been building for decades.
But you can update your brain’s operating system. And it takes less time than you think.
This practice targets all three regions. Fifteen minutes, broken into three five-minute blocks. Do it daily, preferably in the morning before your brain gets caught up in the chaos of the day.
Minutes 1-5: Story interruption
This targets your identity headquarters.
Sit somewhere quiet. Close your eyes. And just notice the automatic thoughts that arise about yourself and your body.
Don’t fight them. Don’t argue with them. Just notice.
“There’s that thought that I’ll always be heavy.”
“There’s that story about how I have no self-control.”
“There’s that voice saying this won’t work either.”
Then ask yourself one question: “Is this who I’m becoming, or who I used to be?”
You’re creating distance between you and the narrative. You’re reminding your brain that these are stories, not facts. And stories can be rewritten.
Minutes 6-10: Safety signal
This targets your emotion alarm.
Put your hand on your heart. Breathe slowly, making your exhale longer than your inhale. Four counts in, six counts out.
Now speak directly to the part of you that learned food was safety. You might feel silly at first. Do it anyway.
“I see you. You were protecting me. You did what you had to do. We’re safe now.”
This sends a direct signal to your nervous system that the threat has passed. You’re thanking your fear response for its service and letting it know it can stand down.
Some of my clients feel emotion rise up during this part. Old grief. Old anger. Let it move through. That’s the stored tension releasing.
Minutes 11-15: Future self visit
This targets your body budget manager.
Close your eyes and picture yourself one year from now. Not a fantasy version. The real you, one year into this new way of being.
You’re at peace with food. You eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied, and it doesn’t feel like a battle. You live in a body that feels like home.
Make it specific. What are you wearing? How do you move through a room? What does your morning feel like? What’s on your face when you look in the mirror?
Your brain has trouble distinguishing between vivid imagination and actual memory. When you visualize with enough detail and emotional intensity, you’re writing new data into the system. You’re showing your brain a different version of “normal” to aim for.
What shifts underneath
Most people spend years trying to change their behavior while their brain holds a completely different picture of who they are. That gap between intention and identity is where every diet goes to die.
This practice closes the gap from the identity side.
When you notice your own stories without believing them, something loosens. When you send safety signals to your nervous system, the grip on food starts to relax. When you visit your future self with enough detail, your brain starts to treat that version of you as familiar.
And familiarity is everything.
Here’s the piece that changes the game: your brain doesn’t fight for what’s “best.” It fights for what it recognizes. Make the new identity recognizable enough, and your brain starts pulling you toward it instead of clawing you back to the old one.
The setting that runs everything
Here’s what I want you to sit with.
Every diet you’ve tried was an attempt to force a different temperature while the thermostat stayed locked. You opened windows. You cranked the AC. And every time you got tired of fighting the system, the room drifted right back to where it was set.
This practice goes after the setting itself. And once that shifts, the behaviors follow without the white-knuckle grip.
The weight follows the identity. Always has. Every lasting transformation you’ve ever witnessed in someone else happened this way, whether they could name it or not.
Try this for seven days.
Not because I said so. Not because you’re supposed to trust the process. But because you deserve to know what it feels like when your brain stops working against you. When the voice quiets down. When food becomes just... food.
Those three regions in your brain can learn something new.
They’re waiting for you to teach them.
Keep Winning!
Rick - The Weight Loss Mindset
P.S. I’m getting closer to sharing the thing I’ve been working on for you. I feel you will be pleasantly surprised. More about that soon!