Up and down

Yo-yo dieting means restricting food intake drastically and losing weight very quickly only to go back to eating as you did before, thus putting all the weight back on and then some.

A survey in 2014 found that 60% of yo-yo dieters will try up to 20 different diets in their lifetime... repeat offenders!

But this constant up and down has health consequences that go far beyond your waistline.  Extreme diets have been blamed for many health problems such as hormone imbalances, osteoporosis and even heart problems.

So, what does yo-yo dieting really do to your body?

To start with is the one we already know, you'll put it all back on again and then some more.

Studies have shown that the body strives to maintain its weight at what is called a set point.  The body will protect itself against weight loss during a period of restricted intake, which also explains why people often don't put weight on if they over eat for short periods of time.  However, when the body is being starved for a fairly long period of time, weight loss occurs but your body also gets used to functioning on less resources.  When this happens, your metabolism gets reset to that lower level, so when you start eating normally again you put the weight back on faster.

However, diets like the 5:2 diet, which involve intermittent fasting, do not reset the metabolism as the period of calorie restriction is too short.

When calorie intake is severely restricted, there comes a point when the body begins to digest its own muscle cells as well as remaining fat cells for energy.  Muscle mass is actually esencial for weight control as in order to maintain muscle the body burns more calories.  So, if your body is obliged to digest muscle this will actually slow metabolism even more and promotes rapid fat gain when you begin to eat normally again.

It's aging.

Depending on how much weight you lose, your body can be left with stretch marks, saggy and
droopy skin.  Also, the more this happens the worse the consequences as you age.  As we get older our skin loses elasticity.  Older women will be more prone to saggy skin.  Less drastic weight loss regimes where the weight comes off gradually, give the skin time to adjust.  Also restrictive diets can have an affect on the plumpness of skin especially if the diet has a low protein content.  This stops the production of collagen which gives the skin its firmness.

Yo-yo dieting can also affect the health of your hair.  At any one time, 90% of head hair is in a growth phase and just 10% is in the resting or shedding phase.  Restricting calories severely forces more hairs into the shedding phase as the follicles have fewer nutrients to sustain them.  Rapid weight gain also affects normal hormone levels and stresses hair follicles.

Severely restricted calorie intake means the body isn't getting as many key vitamins and minerals such as calcium to keep their teeth and gums healthy.  Yo-yo dieters are more prone to gum disease which can also lead to tooth loss.  Dieters who severely restrict their food intake produce less saliva.  The saliva produced in the chewing of food helps protect the teeth against acid attack.  And when they reintroduce lots of food into their diets they tend to choose a high carbohydrate diet which puts them at risk of tooth decay.

Heart Unhealthy.

In the latest study from the Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, data from 158,000 women over the age of 50 was analyzed.  Dr. Somail Rasla, lead author of the study, says that gaining weight as part of  yo-yo dieting increases heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels.  These alterations do not go back to normal when the weight is lost again.  With the up and down of repeated yo-yo dieting, these problems only get worse over time, damaging the heart in the process.

The study which was carried out over an 11 year period, showed that women of normal weight who admitted to yo-yo dieting more than four times, were three and a half times as likely to die from a heart attack than women whose weight was stable, even if they were obese.

Yo-yo dieting also increases inflammation markers in the blood which are associated to lots of diseases such as arthritis.

Fertility Treatment Problems

Calorie restriction followed by bingeing can disrupt the release of hormones from the pituitary gland which drives the menstrual cycle, stimulating the ovaries to release eggs.

When a woman loses weight quickly, this process shuts down because the body switches to starvation mode and diverts all its energy to vital processes and reproduction is not considered a vital process.

However, many women are told to lose weight in order to qualify for fertility treatment, and this can encourage crash dieting.  It has been found that women who lose weight as quickly as possible, sometimes reducing their calorie intake to 400 calories a day, in order to reach the required weight for treatment, have very poor outcomes when it comes to getting pregnant as the IVF is unlikely to work.

Losing weight sensibly through lifestyle changes is much healthier and the weight stays off.  It's up to you what you want for your body and your health.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com

Why do we so often regain weight we've lost?

There is a LOT of confusion and too much information (if that's even possible), about diets, dieting, losing weight, yo-yo effect, putting it back on and then some... etc, etc, etc..

Yes, lots of people go on a severe, calorie restrictive diet and lose a load of weight, reach their goal, stop the diet and put it all back on again.  How many times have you heard this?

Well there is a "kind of explanation", that gives a lot of insight into why this happens but doesn't actually give a solution to the problem.  Take the Biggest Loser as an example.  Reality show from USA, and probably exported to several other countries along with Keeping Up With The Kardashians (America, you could have kept that one to yourselves).  I, personally, have never seen a single episode of The Biggest Loser (or Keeping Up With The Kardashians for that matter), I'm not a reality show type of person.  The Biggest Loser is a good example of failed weight loss and has been used by Dr. Kevin Hall for his study of failed weight loss over a 6 year period.

All 14 contestants from season 8 of the show, were monitored by Dr. Kevin Hall, a metabolism expert at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

In the six years since season 8 of the show aired, almost all of the contestants including the winner, Danny Cahill who managed to lose an incredible 108,4kg on the show, have put the weight they lost back on, and in some cases even more than they had started out with.

What Dr. Hall found is that the human body will fight to get back every gram of weight lost in restrictive diets, even over the course of long periods of time, as much as years.  He says this is due to long-lasting changes to how the body processes calories.

Each and every one of us has a "resting metabolic rate" which shows how many calories we burn while at rest.  Prior to participating in the show, the contestants had normal metabolic rates for their size - albeit dangerously overweight.  What he discovered was that after the 13 weeks of intense exercise the participants were subjected to during the program, their metabolisms had SLOWED dramatically.  This means that even though they were all considerably thinner, they were burning hundreds of calories LESS than someone of that size would be expected to burn.

The doctors who were looking after the participants had anticipated that this would happen, however what they hadn't expected was that their metabolisms would still be slower six years later, and were getting progressively slower with time.

This slowed metabolism makes it a lot easier to put the weight back on.  After the show, the contestants also had near zero levels of Leptin - the satiety hormone which signals the brain that we are full and can stop eating.

So, the combination of a slow metabolism and low leptin levels basically amounts to hunger cravings that are extremely difficult to resist.

Also, The New York Times reported (although I would prefer a scientific quote on this), that the human body appears to have an "ideal weight" pre-programmed in - one it is easy to maintain - and will fight to restore that weight, even when the person diets like crazy.

This is in part true.  I do not believe that the body has an "ideal weight" pre-programed into it and that some people's pre-programed weight is to be obese.

What I DO believe is that the human body was made to resist famine.  Our ancestors lived in tough times where food was scarce.  If our hunter-gatherer ancestors were "lucky" enough to kill some form of protein they would have to eat all of it as quickly as possible as there was no way of storing it.  Also the human body 10,000 years ago didn't have an abundance of food available, so it held on to everything it could get "just in case" it had to go without for a while.

This is like animals fattening themselves for winter when food is more difficult to find.

However, our human bodies have not evolved in 10,000 years, they are still programmed for famine when we live in times of abundance - at least in the Western World.  But our bodies still hold on to everything "just in case" we have to go without.

Therefore, people who overtime become overweight or obese and then go on a massive crash diet with high calorie restriction and intense exercise programs, throw their bodies into a crisis of believing the famine is here and they need to hold on to everything they can get and if possible those bodies will do everything in their power to return to the pre-diet weight to avoid the famine.

This could be the reason why the contestants' metabolisms were still affected 6 years later and they were gradually piling the weight back on.  It is a very frustrating scenario for anyone who has made the huge effort to lose vast amounts of weight.

This is why I am all for the marathon and not the sprint.  Losing weight gradually, over a longer
period of time which gives the body AND THE BRAIN time to change too.  Please understand that any weight loss program also involves a change in mental attitude.  It should also be a lifestyle change and not just a temporary change.

If you try and make too many drastic changes too quickly your body will probably think it is being attacked and go into panic mode.  This will stop effective weight loss and will also produce stress and inflammation in the body - neither of which you will want to happen.

So, take it slow, love yourself and start by treating yourself well, eating healthy nutritious foods and taking regular exercise that you can gradually build up and turn into a habit.  Your body will love you right back and will respond in kind.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com