If you are embarking on a fat loss journey and you are starting off already with high levels of chronic psychological or life stress, your cortisol levels are already elevated to begin with and that, regardless of the diet or exercise approach that you take will only add more STRESS.
In my experience as coach most people starting off with the above tend to include very aggressive diet approaches in terms of the degree of calorie restriction (which may or may not be coupled with a very rigid approach to dieting) along with excessive amounts and/or intensities of exercise, often done with no build up or progression (i.e. they will reduce calories to very low levels immediately while starting a exercise program they cannot sustain long term).
This will hugely compound their overall stress levels, elevating cortisol enormously and creating a chronic stress situation on both an energetic and psychological level.
This is the perfect STORM for problems AND the perfect recipe to FAILURE!
Do not neglect the stressors in your life.
We must remember STRESS is stress, wether is your partner moaning at you, the kids screaming, the car in front being a knob, the training session you just completed, the 4 coffees you already had, the lack of sleep, going to bed late, getting up to early, etc, etc.......
Managing stress and not adding stress is one of the KEY pillars of long term health and success with your goals.
Coach HB
The above information is taken from the The Woman's Book by Lyle Mcdonald with Eric Elms