When a bear is chasing you or the car in front of you stops suddenly, your stress hormones go into full force – setting off a body reaction that helps you to react faster. All this is good.

Unfortunately, many of us put ourselves through this “fight or fight” reaction all day long. Not so good. Excessive stress hormones can cause havoc and disease onto our bodies.

A recent study measured cortisol, one of the hormones released during stress, and found that dieters restricting calories had more circulating cortisol. Read more. What to do? More research is needed, but these things might help:

  • Don’t overly restrict your eating. A few small changes (and thus a slow weight loss) seems to help keep off the weight
  • Make changes that are “no big deal”. Write down everything you eat and drink, then analyze what changes would be the easiest to make. You don’t need to change everything to lose weight!
  • Include more exercise and don’t just cut calories alone

Dr. Jo is the author of Dr. Jo’s No Big Deal Diet book. As a PhD nutritionist and registered dietitian, she frequently speaks at conferences all over North America. More information can be found at www.drjo.com.