Yo Yo dieting is bad for your health and does nothing for your state of mind or weight loss.
Usually caused by fad diets such as the cabbage soup diet or lemon detox, yo yo dieting is caused by losing weight too fast only to put it on again immediately afterwards.
Dangers of fat diets
Fad diets put strain on the body and interfere with your physical make up by throwing your metabolism into starvation mode. This can cause muscle tissue to be burnt for energy instead of your fat reserves and actually slows your metabolism to conserve energy. This is a perfectly normal reaction to extreme hunger or starvation but not appropriate for trying to slim.
After the fad diet is over and you return to a normal diet, you will store even more fat as your body safeguards against future food shortages. We may think that we are in control of our bodies but in truth, our hormones and metabolism play a big role in whether or not we successfully lose weight.
Physiological effects of yo yo dieting
Mentally, yo yo dieting can have a very detrimental effect on your life. You suffer during the course of the diet as you struggle with hunger pangs, light-headedness, sleep disturbances and mood swings.
Once the diet is over you put on even more weight. Repeating the process will make losing weight increasingly harder and constant failure will damage your confidence.
When this happens, it is easy to become fixated on your weight and your appearance and depression will only make it worse.
Do fad diets ever work?
Fad diets can look convincing and it seems to offer a method of super fast weight loss. Many of us will happily put up with a week’s unpleasantness in order to lose weight. However, these diets will never work in the long term for the majority of cases.
You might look good in a photo the day the diet finished but a month later you will probably be back to where you started.
Sensible dieting for sensible weight loss
Fad dieting is not a solution to your weight problem. Yo Yo dieting never works despite the claims of a diet’s exponents and any weight loss will be short lived.
The only way to lose weight is to set a realistic target and work towards it, one day at a time. Following a sensible diet, increasing your exercise levels and if necessary taking a slimming supplement that will help and support your efforts is a realistic way to lose weight.
Losing weight sensibly will help you achieve the body you have always dreamed of but you cannot expect results overnight.
