In a recent LinkedIn post, Shulin Lee shares a deeply personal account of their struggles with weight loss and restrictive eating, challenging commonly held beliefs about discipline and willpower. Lee details an eight-year battle with clean eating that culminated in uncontrollable midnight binges, leading to feelings of shame and frustration.
The core of Lee’s message is a revelation that their body was not being difficult, but rather was signaling a critical need that was being ignored. Lee writes:
“Turns out, I was eating 600 calories too little. (I ended up eating salads & chocolate cake 🙈 ) My body was in survival mode. Fighting me every step of the way.”
This personal anecdote serves as a springboard for Lee to introduce insights from a conversation with Holistic Nutritionist Riyana Rupani on Lee’s podcast, ‘The Real Reason’. Lee highlights that Rupani’s expertise provided a breakthrough in understanding the complex relationship between food, the body, and weight management.
Debunking ‘Eat Less, Move More’
Shulin Lee emphasizes that the pervasive advice to simply “eat less and move more” is often counterproductive and can be detrimental to long-term health and weight loss success. According to Lee, this approach fails to account for individual metabolic responses and the body’s intricate signaling systems.
Lee’s post suggests that restrictive calorie intake, as experienced personally, can trigger a survival mode in the body, leading to increased cravings and difficulty in maintaining a healthy weight. This perspective shifts the focus from external control (discipline, willpower) to internal listening and understanding the body’s biological needs.
“Why is our relationship with food so messed up!?”
This question, posed by Lee in their post, encapsulates the frustration many experience when conventional weight loss methods fail. Lee uses this to pivot to the expert advice offered by Riyana Rupani, suggesting that the “real reason” behind such struggles lies in deeper physiological and psychological factors.
The Role of Cortisol and Midnight Snacking
A key takeaway from the discussion featured in Lee’s post is the impact of cortisol, the stress hormone, on fat storage. As Lee relays from Rupani’s insights:
“How cortisol makes you store fat”
This point is crucial, as it suggests that stress and inadequate caloric intake can paradoxically contribute to weight gain, directly contradicting the simplistic “eat less” mantra. Lee further elaborates that Rupani’s conversation delves into why persistent midnight snacking, a symptom Lee personally experienced, is a common outcome of such physiological imbalances.
A Call to Listen to Your Body
Shulin Lee concludes their post with a powerful call to action, urging readers to pay attention to their body’s signals. The personal transformation Lee describes, where restrictive eating patterns were broken and the urge to snack diminished significantly after implementing Rupani’s advice, serves as a testament to this approach.
“Your body’s been talking. It’s time to listen. 🎧”
Lee positions this conversation with Riyana Rupani as a potential breakthrough for individuals feeling stuck in their weight loss journey, particularly those who believe they are following all the ‘right’ rules but seeing no results. The post directs readers to full episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, reinforcing Lee’s role as a facilitator of important conversations about health and well-being.
📝 About This Content
This article is based on insights shared by Shulin Lee on LinkedIn.
📅 Originally posted on November 19, 2025 | View original post on LinkedIn →