Stop Restricting, Start Regulating: A Nurse's Guide to Sustainable Wellness
Every January, the message is the same: New year, new you. Restrict more. Push harder. Track everything. Force your body into compliance.
And if you're a nurse, add another layer: Do all of that while working 12-hour shifts, managing life-or-death situations, absorbing everyone else's stress, and running on fumes.
No wonder it doesn't work.
Here's what the wellness industry won't tell you: Your body isn't the problem. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it's designed to do.
The Real Issue Isn't Willpower
When you're working in a chronically activated state - sympathetic nervous system firing, cortisol elevated, HPA axis dysregulated - your body interprets restriction as another threat. Not as self-care. As danger.
So it holds on tighter. To weight. To inflammation. To the very things you're trying to release.
This isn't a motivation problem. It's a nervous system problem.
And you can't discipline your way out of a physiological stress response.
What "Regulated Over Ripped" Actually Means
It means addressing the ROOT cause instead of fighting symptoms.
It means understanding that your body gained weight because it was trying to PROTECT you, not because you failed.
It means recognizing that the 4 am wake-up call, the patient who coded, the staffing shortages, the emotional labor of holding space for families in crisis - all of that lands in your nervous system as THREAT. And your body responds accordingly.
Regulated over ripped means:
- Building capacity before adding intensity
- Prioritizing parasympathetic activation over caloric restriction
- Trusting your body is on your side, not working against you
- Choosing sustainable transformation over short-term compliance
It's not anti-fitness. It's not anti-nutrition. It's pro-nervous system FIRST, because without that foundation, nothing else sticks.
Why This Matters for Nurses Specifically
Healthcare workers operate in a unique intersection of chronic stress:
- Shift work that disrupts circadian rhythms
- Vicarious trauma and moral injury
- Physical demands combined with emotional labor
- Life-or-death decision-making with zero margin for error
- Inadequate staffing and systemic pressures
Then we're told to "just exercise more and eat better" as if our bodies exist in a vacuum.
They don't. And the traditional wellness approach wasn't built for the reality of bedside nursing.
The Work We're Actually Doing Here
This isn't about perfection. It's about recognition.
Recognizing when you're operating from threat versus safety.
Recognizing when your body needs restoration, not restriction.
Recognizing that the default pattern - restrict, push, force, fail, shame, repeat - doesn't go away just because you know better.
The work is learning to CATCH the default. And choose differently.
Not once. But over and over. With support. With community. With people who understand that even the experts still struggle with the same patterns.
What's Next
On January 15th, I'm teaching a 90-minute workshop called "Regulated Over Ripped" where we'll break down:
- The neuroscience of why your body holds onto weight when you're dysregulated
- How to assess your actual capacity (not what you think you should be able to handle)
- The AIR Method for emergency regulation when you're activated
- The CARE Framework for sustainable nervous system transformation
- How to layer in strength and nutrition from a place of regulation, not restriction
This is the foundation for the community I'm building - a space where healthcare workers can support each other in choosing regulation over restriction, even when every cell in our bodies wants to default back to the familiar pattern.
Because we were never meant to do this alone.
Want the raw, unfiltered version of this work?
I send a weekly letter called "Coming Up for AIR" where I share what I'm actually learning, struggling with, and practicing in real time - not the polished version, the messy middle. Where I go a little deeper into patient stories (always HIPAA compliant, but not always for everyone) and the BS we face as nurses.
You're not broken. Your nervous system is just doing its job. Let's teach it something different.
- Diane
