Can’t Lose Weight? You May Need To Lose The Stress

Lose Weight by Losing Stress It’s Not Just Spiritual — Image: Mikhail Nilov/Pexels.com

You’ve double-checked every nutrition label, counted every macro, and yet the scale refuses to budge. If losing weight feels impossible despite your best efforts, growing evidence suggests the real problem might be in your nervous system, not hiding in your snack drawer.

On Almost Adulting, Violet Benson sits down with TikTok creator HotHighPriestess (real name: Sarah Perl) to discuss the role of manifestation in weight loss. But before you roll your eyes at anything that sounds too woo-woo and dismiss the discussion, there’s science that actually backs them up.

Stress hormones can sabotage your plan to lose weight

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“I was so stressed out every single day that my cortisol levels were really high,” Benson explains. “And what happens when your cortisol levels are really high? You end up packing on the pounds.”

Stanford Medicine research confirms this, finding that nighttime spikes of cortisol push dormant fat cells into growth mode, especially when sleep is short‐changed or stress runs around the clock.

Orlando Health adds that the same hormone “stimulates your fat and carbohydrate metabolism” and kicks cravings for salty, sugary comfort straight into overdrive. When you’re chronically stressed, you body stays on high red alert, storing energy for an emergency that never ends.

Letting go is the first step

Perl traces her weight loss plateau to emotional white-knuckling. “I felt extreme control issues [and] my body was not able to let go of the weight either,” she says. The shift came when she stopped forcing the process. “It wasn’t until I let go and I trusted the universe to show me the path of least resistance to my dream body,” she explains. Perl’s approach famously involved leisurely walks through Italian piazzas, gelato in hand. And Benson notes that taking her requisite number of steps went a long way, “I think it was the fact that her cortisol levels were low.”

Moderate movement, paired with genuine enjoyment, allowed her body to relax, cortisol levels to dip, and stubborn pounds to slip away. The lesson? Gym marathons may raise stress hormones more than they help with weight loss.

Your mindset matters more than you think

Perl insists the hurdle is often mental, not metabolic. “People think [that] in order to lose weight, ‘I have to suffer. It’s gonna be hard.’ That is not true,” she insists. “You will not rise to your desires. You will fall to the limitations of your subconscious mind.”

What more, ruminating on failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. “If you’re constantly thinking, ‘Will I ever lose this weight?,’ [you’ll end up] gaining weight because what you focus on is what continues to expand in your life,” Perl says. Instead, she encourages a quick audit. Why are you always hungry? Whether the answer is boredom, low-level anxiety, or a lousy situationship, identifying the emotional “deficiency” lifts the compulsion to soothe with food.

Practical ways to reduce stress and support weight loss

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Science and holistic approaches agree on several key strategies:

Prioritize sleep. Stanford’s research found that getting a full eight hours keeps cortisol levels in its daytime lane, giving the body permission to burn fat.
Move for joy, not punishment. Perl swears by walking 10,000 steps every day, calling it her “favorite thing to do.” Gentle, consistent activity lowers cortisol and keeps insulin sensitive, essential chemistry for anyone determined to lose weight.
Eat with abundance, stop with satisfaction. Benson found that when she stopped trying to control every bite and simply ate until satisfied, the weight came off naturally. Approaching meals from a mindset of plenty calms the scarcity alarm that drives late-night pantry raids.
Practice conscious release. Whether through meditation, yoga, or simply exhaling before bites, Perl advises turning down the mental volume to really “get the weight to melt off.”

Calories still count, and muscles still matter, but hormones play a huge role in weight loss success. Chronic cortisol—fueled by sleepless nights, anxious relationships, and an “all-or-nothing” diet mentality—tells the body to cling to every bite. Flip the script—sleep like it’s your job, walk because it feels good, eat until satisfied, and treat stress relief as non-negotiable. The mission to lose weight may finally feel less like an uphill challenge and more like a long, confidence-building exhale.