Still battling weight problems with yo-yo diets? Here are 5 reasons why you should really put an end to all those miserable cycles of weight loss and regain. What Are Yo-Yo Diets?
Yo-yo dieting (or weight cycling) is the repeated pattern of losing body weight then gaining it back through episodes of diets. Each cycle, the weight loss or gain can be anywhere ranging from 2kg to 20kg or more.
Any diet that includes bouts of starvation, missing meals, cutting out certain food groups entirely, or very low calories produces the yo-yo effect (losing weight and putting it back on).
Reason #1: Yo-yo weight loss induces muscle loss.
Very low-calorie fad diets or crash diets cause hunger to set in, triggering the body to break down lean muscle to access the nutrients the body needs.
In other words, the amount of weight you have lost does not all come from body fat loss. In fact, the drop in weight is mainly due to water and muscle loss.
Reason #2: Yo-yo diets wreck your metabolism.
While the initial drastic weight loss may seem like the diet is working, yo-yo dieters will soon experience a 'plateau', meaning the rapid weight loss that was initially achieved begins to slow down or stop.
This plateau is the result of the adaptation of your body: With less calories coming in and less muscle mass in the body, the body reacts by going into starvation mode and starts to conserve energy. Less energy is burnt and the metabolic rate slows down, making it much more difficult to maintain your new figure.
Those struggling to maintain the diet will inevitably find their weight piling back on, sometimes more than what they started out with.
Reason #3: Yo-yo diets make you put on more weight in the long run.
Yo-yo dieters tend to regain all the weight lost, and then some. The mechanisms behind this involve complex physiological and psychological factors: changes in fatty acid synthesis, increased fat storage, and reduction in energy efficiency all contribute to the yo-yo effect.
Simply put, the resulting effect is exactly the opposite of what the dieter intended to achieve.
When normal eating habits resume, and the body has reduced capacity to burn the excess calories, weight is rapidly regained. What's worse, your new body profile will have a higher proportion of fat, even in cases where the weight has remained the same.
Reason #4: If you regain the lost weight, it'll be even harder to lose it.
A person who repeatedly loses weight only to put it back on can have a cumulative gain in body fat percentage - each time you diet, your body's metabolism slows down in order to store fat.
Hence with each dieting episode, the body's metabolism becomes less efficient, and the severe calorie restriction further causes loss of muscle tone, which again means a slower metabolism.
Together with less muscle mass and a retarded metabolic rate, each successive attempt to shed off those extra kilos becomes more difficult, if not impossible.
Reason #5: Repetitive weight loss and regain has unhealthy side effects.
Yo-yo dieters often feel lethargic, have a weak immune system and a higher percentage of body fat, and tend to be in poor health. Due to multiple unsuccessful crash diets, they may also experience frustration, loss of concentration, depression and irritability.
In fact, each time you lose weight and regain it, fat in your body actually redistributes. It migrates from the thighs and butt to the belly (where studies have found a link between tummy fat and diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and high cholesterol).
To make matters worse, some studies also suggest that those who chronically lose and regain weight have increased risk for certain health problems, including heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and gallbladder disease.
