Do you find your weight and eating habits fluctuating a lot month by month? If you do, then you could be what's known as a yo-yo dieter!
Nobody tries to be a yo-yo dieter, and we all know that realistically the healthiest way to live is to stick to a balanced, calorie controlled diet. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t fall into bad habits that are associated with yo-yo dieting! The most important thing is to recognise these unhealthy habits in order to freeze them in their tracks before they have some nasty, longer term consequences.
The term ‘yo-yo dieting’ (also known as weight cycling) was coined by the public health scholar Kelly D. Brownell who used it to define a cycle of weight gain and loss that resembled the up and down motion of a yo-yo. Weight cycling is caused by attempting diets that claim to be ‘quick fixes’ but are nearly impossible to stick to for any length of time, so when the dieter inevitably breaks this diet, they quickly regain the weight that they lost and the cycle continues when they begin their next diet.
Media pressures to look our best, and celebrities doing endorsements for diet companies is a huge reason for the rise in yo-yo dieting over the years. Many of these celebrities have had numerous surgeries and work with personal trainers and nutritionists in order to look the way that they do, but by marketing a ‘detox tea’ or vitamin gummy as their holy grail for how they stay lean, they are selling a dream to gullible fans. At the end of the day, the only way to ACTUALLY lose weight is by remaining in a calorie deficit through a combination of exercise and the food you eat, but not everybody wants to hear that!
Let’s have a look at some of the telltale signs that you might be falling into the habits of a yo-yo dieter, and some alternative tips that we have to help push you out of the cycle!
Sign 1: You think that speed is the most important thing
If you’re the type of dieter who wants to see drastic results fast, then you could be more prone to yo-yo dieting. Often it’s diets like juice cleanses, detox teas and extremely low calorie diets that can show these kinds of results in the short term, and these often aren't the most pleasant to stick to!
Although you often will see results from these types of fad diets, they are often short lived, with many studies showing that people often end up gaining back more weight than they lost after finishing the diet! This is because the results aren’t sustainable in the long run, so once you return to a normal diet, or go through a period of indulging yourself after you’ve finished, your body will rapidly undo the work that you did, often leaving the dieter with feelings of frustration (understandably!).
Results will be healthier and likely longer lasting if you try to stick to an average weight loss of a pound (0.4kg) a week by making small tweaks to your diet that you think you will be able to stick to in the long term.
Sign 2: You're often either binging or restricting
The weight cycling process is often synonymous with a cycle of binging and restricting. This means eating large amounts of food/more calorific or what some may call ‘naughty foods’ (no foods are outright bad!) followed by heavily restricting your food intake/starving yourself. This can occur as a part of the guilt that cycling can cause within the dieter. When you eventually fall off the wagon of your 700 calorie a day salad and juice diet, your body will naturally crave highly caloric foods as a survival technique. After submitting to these cravings, the dieter will often feel guilt and then frustration due to losing all of the progress that they made on their quick fix diet.
Instead, we recommend indulging in your favourite foods in moderation, and never fully cutting anything out, as this can just lead to you craving the food even more! You could also try expanding your diet and introducing new fruits and vegetables that you wouldn't usually think of eating, and pairing them with your favourite sauces and condiments to add some tasty familiarity to your healthy diet.
Sign 3: You're always excited about trying fad diets
Are you somebody who gets excited when you hear about a new diet ‘hack’ or are always looking for a new detox tea or supplement that promises to have you shedding the pounds in no time? Getting excited about these diets that appear to sell ‘looking your best on a plate’ can be really dangerous, as they can often lead to cycles of heavy restriction followed by binging (as mentioned above!).
Instead, if you want to lose weight we recommend making small, manageable changes to your lifestyle that will see slower, but more long lasting results! Some of these can include, swapping half your bowl of spaghetti for courgetti, adding more vegetables than noodles to your stir fry, trying to get in your 5 a day and finding a physical activity to do a couple of times a week that you really enjoy!
Sign 4: Your weight fluctuates… A lot
Yo-yo dieting is also known as weight cycling for a reason. As mentioned before, the term was coined to describe the increases and decreases in weight that resembles the motion of a yoyo. By frequently losing and gaining weight in a shorter period of time, you could actually be doing a lot of damage to your body!
Some studies have shown that yo-yo dieters are more prone to developing Type-2 diabetes, and many showing that yo-yo dieters were more prone to gaining more weight over time, which has been linked to serious health problems like heart disease and fatty liver.
Sign 5: You’re obsessed with food
Fixating on food can manifest itself in many different ways, and not all are bad! If you rigidly count calories, are always thinking about your next meal or feel hyper aware of the ingredients within your food, these could be signs that you have an unhealthy relationship with food and could be prone to yo-yo dieting. A great step towards fixing your relationship with food is to acknowledge that your body deserves food, and that different foods shouldn’t be classed as being ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Of course fruits and vegetables have a higher nutritional value than a donut, but donuts taste great so shouldn’t be considered a ‘bad’ food!
Everything should be enjoyed in moderation, as this prevents you getting into cycles of restriction and the inevitable binging that follows!
Sign 6: You think that one comfort meal will ruin your progress, so you give up entirely
‘Cheat meals’ and ‘Cheat days’ are a common habit of serial dieters. Yo-yo dieters however can often stick to a mindset of dieting being ‘all or nothing’. So whilst some people can happily have and enjoy a more calorific and less nutritional meal (think takeaway) and be able to enjoy something light for the next, Yo-yo dieters are not able to. Once they indulge in a less healthy craving, they believe that they have fallen off the wagon, and that since they've broken their diet that they may as well continue to binge. Because quick fix diets are notoriously difficult to stick to for a long length of time, ‘failing’ the diet is inevitable, meaning that yo-yo dieters are doomed to be stuck in this feeling of failure on a cyclical basis.
In order to combat this, if you find yourself having a similar mindset: remember that just like having one green juice won't make you lose weight, having one high calorie meal won’t make you gain weight! It’s all about listening to our bodies and what they crave, and fueling ourselves with all of the nutrients that we need.
Sign 7: You care more about losing fat than building muscle/fitness
When we lose weight, we aren’t just losing fat but muscle mass as well. Muscle is essential for a well functioning body, and also allows us to burn more calories the more muscle we have! Therefore when all that you focus on is your diet when trying to lose weight (calories in instead of calories out) you will be losing helpful muscle that could otherwise be used to help you burn calories! In addition to this, it is much easier to regain fat than muscle, meaning that over time as you continue to lose and gain weight, you will lose more and more muscle and gain more and more fat.
Therefore we recommend incorporating strength training into your workout routines, as by keeping your muscle percentage high you will not only feel better, but also look more toned and keep your fat percentage at healthier levels.
If these signs are a little *too* relatable, that’s okay! Our relationship with food and our bodies is ever changing, with pressures from the media and peers shaping it enormously! We just hope that you can take a few tips on board to help break you out of this damaging cycle and get you back on the road to loving yourself!
We truly believe that the best way to lose weight (or maintain a healthy weight) is through sticking to a balanced diet and exercising regularly. Doing cardio and strength training can be really fun, as well as beneficial for you in the long run (not just for weight loss!). The most important thing is to remember that you are capable of breaking out of self destructive habits, and that by treating your body the best way that you can, it will treat you in the best way that it can!