With summer on our doorstep, many of us are looking to get our bodies bikini-ready for the beach.

Diets.

Exercise.

They’re the typical recipes for weight loss and cellulite reduction, but what if de-stressing your life is the missing ingredient to shed the kilos?

It’s hard to believe that stress can lead to weight gain, but it’s true.

When we’re constantly stressed our adrenal glands produce more cortisol and adrenalin – your stress hormones.

This is what our body is designed to do in a stressful situation, such as when a big scary lion threatens you on the street!

This is called the ‘fight or flight’ mode.

The thing is, our bodies are not meant to be in that mode 24/7.

Once the lion is taken back to the circus, we are supposed to move into what I call ‘resting and digesting’ mode.

This allows the body to recover and strengthen.

Because most of us decide to keep chasing the lion, these stress hormones trigger the body into burning calories from carbs and lean muscle instead of the fat we’re storing.

So if you’re running around stressed all the time – always go go go – then you’re creating an overproduction of cortisol and adrenalin, which takes you out of the fat burning zone.

Weight loss becomes almost impossible!

And how many people eat on the run?

When you do this, your body is so busy keeping you run run running, it hasn’t got any energy left to put into digesting your food.

Thus, what you put in your body is stored as fat, and because the adrenal glands never goes into rest mode, your body doesn’t get a chance to burn the fat – leaving it nicely deposited on your arse (or other problem areas)!

The simple remedy:

Stop.

Slow down.

Rid yourself of stress.

Sit down to eat your meals without outside distraction and spend time just ‘BEing’.

Yoga, meditation or chilling with a cup of tea are all ways to give your body the down-time it needs to rebalance your hormones so your most important vehicle can burn the right type of fuel.