Yo Yo Dieting: How Dieting Makes You Fat

Watch a child play with a yo yo. Notice how the yo yo goes down, then up, then down and up again.

Just like your weight. No matter how low your weight goes when you diet, it always goes back up to your original weight once you stop. Maybe even more so than before.

How long can you deprive yourself of an entire food group?

How long can you keep to a starvation diet before binging?

Is it possible for you to live on just grapefruits (or some other food stated in a fad diet) for years on end?

Eventually, you will cave in and eat normally. Then the weight piles on, more quickly than you lost it.

Now you have even more weight to lose and this time, the fat is even more stubborn than before.

What is going on?

That is yo yo dieting.

You diet and lose weight as your body burns more calories than you consume. But your body thinks there is a famine going on and self preservation kicks in. It tries to hold on as much as possible to whatever fat stores so that you don’t starve to death. It screams for food. Your metabolism slows down.

Then you cave in and eat normally.

That’s when your body gratefully hoards as much as possible into your fat stores, so you gain weight.

The next time you diet to lose weight, your body is prepared for it and holds on tighter than ever to those fat stores. You find it harder than before to lose weight. Whatever you do manage to lose gets put back on even more quickly, once you are off that diet.

The vicious cycle continues.

The only way to break it is to stop crash dieting. Eat healthily and exercise. Build muscle.

Muscle burns more calories than fat and by toning your body, you boost your metabolic rate.

So stop crash dieting. Eat healthy food and exercise.  Here are 80 weight loss tips to help you get started.