Yo-yo dieting

[talkhealth]

There are a huge amount of fad diets around these days making it hard to commit to and stick with one in the long term so we'd like to know your thoughts on the following...

"I keep yo-yo dieting and keep getting fatter, why can’t I lose weight?"

[Gary Turner]

Calorie restrictive diets may work in the short term, yet when you look at the long term results people end up heavier than before – any results are transient at best. (For further information look to the World Health Organisation studies into the effectiveness of calorie restrictive diets, and the classic Minnesota Starvation experiment.)

As background, calorie restrictive diets work on one element of the theory of energy balance – that if you eat less and exercise more you will lose weight. Unfortunately this is a poor application of machine science (incorrectly applying machine science to the human body, forgetting that a human body is not a closed system and not in thermal equilibrium) and totally forgetting the metabolic reactions that happen.

If you eat less and exercise more – go into a calorie deficit – your metabolism will slow to conserve energy whilst at the same time your mind will drive your behaviour towards an increase in energy ingestion – food cravings, hunger and such like. Calorie restrictive diets put you in a battle of will power that you will eventually lose.

There is also the ‘bounce back’ effect that is often experienced, again down to a host of psychological and physiological reasons, where your body will look to store more energy than before – you’ll be getting fatter.

In conclusion, if you diet, the odds are on that long term you will end up heavier. Diet’s don’t work long term and lead to weight gain. What does work is setting the right environment up in your body to burn fat rather than store it – yet that is another post.

In the mean time please stay away from any fad diets, diet products and such like - the weight loss product industry is set up for you to fail, they rely on repeat business. And there is no one-size-fits all - everyone is different. If you look to eat natural whole foods, properly prepared, only when you are hungry, and carry out natural movements and exercise then you won't go far wrong in losing your weight - and keeping it off.

[ericdeeson]

"If you look to eat natural whole foods, properly prepared, only when you are hungry, and carry out natural movements and exercise then you won't go far wrong in losing your weight - and keeping it off."

That's the end of a very helpful email, Gary - thanks for it! I agree that the formula of eating less and taking more exercise seems to be at the core of many - most? all? - diets and weight reduction regimes such as WeightWatchers and their counterparts [in UK].

But that formula DOES work - with the addition of motivation, structure, support from nearest and dearest and so on.

In my case (not that anecdotes mean much) I had the motivation and some of the support to use that formula twenty years ago to come down from 17stone5 to 13'5 in 9 months ... and then I crept back up to 17'8 in 13 years (with a lot of yo-yoing). That last was in autumn 2010 and I re-turned to eating less and doing more exercise, coming yo-yoingly down to 15'3 last September - barely over two stone in three years, cos of insufficient motivation, support etc.

My GP put me on to LightenUp and I chose WeightWatchers after checking out the other schemes. Now my 12 weeks on the scheme is up and I have lost two more stone, coming down below the magic BMI of 25 and within striking distance of becoming a "Gold" WeightWatcher and getting back to my pre-wedding weight. WW's insistence on tracking intake and exercise and attending meetings has provided me with motivation, a structure and support - it's been a very time consuming period, but the system is fairly transparent though still based on exercising more and eating less (and more sensibly).

I believe I can stay below BMI 25 for the rest of my life now after that experience.

Even so, "If you look to eat natural whole foods, properly prepared, only when you are hungry, and carry out natural movements and exercise then you won't go far wrong in losing your weight - and keeping it off."

Can you provide a link to a diet that matches that description and/or explain the underlined terms?

Thanks again for the thought-provoking post, Gary!

And thanks, NHS, for the LightenUp programme and the determination to carry out meaningful research - Eric (admittedly now over 70, so "the rest of my life" isn't too forbidding....)

Even so,

[Gary Turner]

Ah, actually the ‘eat less and exercise more’ doesn’t work long term at all

In fact, look to the systemic reviews such as those by the World Health Organisation and they quite nicely show that over a long term any weight loss is transient – at best. I think the review by Noakes came up with you are likely to end a diet process stabilising around 1kg heavier than you were before, after going through a lot of psychological effort in the process! Scary! Even on a recent BBC programme the former CFO of Weight Watchers explained their entire business model was based on people failing when they weren’t on their programme! I’ll have a think and see if I can remember which programme and see if I can find a link for you. I think it was “the men who made us fat” or something like that.
There is only ONE diet that suits everyone, as everyone is an individual.

That is:

Eat when hungry. Only when hungry.
Stop eating when no longer hungry – not when ‘full’.
Listen to your body – if you do, it will tell you what you need to be eating.
Never eat for emotional needs.
ONLY drink when thirsty.

That’s it in a nutshell – allow your body to tell you exactly what it needs when it needs it. In respect to my OP, just eat real food, properly prepared, simple!

Hope you are really well!

[ericdeeson]

Thanks for the speedy response, Gary!

I'm sure we'd all appreciate links to that/those research report(s) and the TV programme if you can find them....

Indeed, maybe the TalkHealth people have such references they could share???

All the best - Eric

[Gary Turner]

Here we go for starters - the programme was a four part series called "the men who made us thin".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03863jg I think it was Episode 1 that contained the Weight Watchers former director.

Hope you find this interesting! Remember it is a journalistic piece though, so has a certain 'view' attached - yet, some very clear points are made.

[ericdeeson]

The programme was a four part series called "the men who made us thin".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03863jg I think it was Episode 1 that contained the Weight Watchers former director.

This is great, folks, and Gary is to be congratulated! It was a four-part BBC2 series last August (when many people well off enough to spend money on dieting plans, books, aims and schemes would have been away) and takes a fairly unsympathetic look at the "weight management industry"....

Thanks, Gary - Eric

[Gary Turner]

Hi Helen!

If you listen to your body it won’t go into negative energy balance, because if you eat less the energy you require will be coming from the adipose tissue (fat). The difference here is that the body is telling you what it needs as it allows itself to ‘rebalance’ and hopefully gain a lower ‘set point’ of weight.

In this way, by working with your body rather than forcing it, you won’t receive the bounce back.

Hope this helps!


Thanks Eric! Hope you find it enlightening! Worth reiterating again that there is a journalistic viewpoint taken, (which actually puts it in favour of my beliefs!) which will guide your thoughts one way whereas the evidence put forward in the programme doesn't actually always provide those conclusions.