The Aching Feeling of Never Enough

"If you worry you don't have enough, you may have a scarcity mindset. This can lead to worry and anxiety about running out of money, food, or other resources. Through an internal family systems lens, this means you have parts who feel anxious about the future. Other, protective parts will try and help by being hypervigilant and worrying about every penny."

"Why does this happen? One reason is that our ancestors evolved in conditions where hardship and famine were facts of life. Droughts, diseases, a seasonal lack of prey or plants to forage, competition with neighbouring tribes, and natural disasters like wildfires or floods-life was tough for our hunter-gatherer forebears. And one way to maximise their chances of survival was to eat as much as possible when times were good, storing up a maximum body fat for the hungry months ahead."

"When you lose weight-especially in a sudden, dramatic, Ozempic-style manner-your brain panics because it thinks you're barely surviving a famine. Your stressed-out, threat-focused brain urges you to overeat and pile the pounds back on to help you survive the next famine, convinced it's just around the corner. Of course, in many poorer countries, people still face famine-a heartbreaking fact when other nations are so wealthy."

"But for those of us living in industrialised countries like the US or UK, even if times are hard, we're almost certainly not starving. Unfortunately, the more primitive parts of our brains are unaware of this fact"

Worry about not having enough can reflect a scarcity mindset. This mindset can produce anxiety about running out of money, food, or other resources. An internal family systems lens frames this as anxious parts focused on the future, alongside protective parts that respond with hypervigilance and constant worry about every penny. Weight loss efforts can lead to yo-yo dieting, including cases where weight returns after drug-assisted loss. When weight is lost suddenly, the brain can interpret it as famine conditions. A threat-focused brain then urges overeating and weight regain to prepare for an expected next famine, even when people in industrialized countries are unlikely to be starving.

Read at Psychology Today