What is Yo-Yo Dieting?

It is not unusual to experience fluctuations in your weight. It may be that you put on a couple of pounds over winter because you're less inclined to exercise or that you gain some weight when you go to college for the first time. If you don't deal with this weight gain, you could find yourself putting on more and more weight, so that when you finally decide to tackle your weight, you have quite a few pounds to lose. When this is the case, it is tempting to take the simplest and fastest route open to you, which generally means going on a diet.

There are numerous fad diets to choose from and although they advocate slightly different eating plans, they all revolve around the need for you to reduce your calorie intake. Whether it be the cabbage soup diet or the Dukan diet, you have to work on restricting your calorie intake. It can be tough to change your eating habits so drastically at first, but when you start losing a lot of weight quickly you feel proud of yourself and motivated to continue. Of course, you don't have any energy to exercise, as the focus is very much on calorie restriction.

Consequently, it won't only be fat your body loses, but also muscle. Although you may be motivated to follow a particular diet plan in the beginning, you eventually tire of eating the same limited selection of food. Plus, life can get in the way of your weight loss, as you want to be able to go out eating and drinking with friends, without worrying about your diet. Eventually, some of your old eating habits creep back in until you end up with pretty much the same diet you had before you decided to go on a diet.

Your diet may become even worse, as you watch the weight pile back on and begin to feel depressed about your inability to control your weight. Unfortunately, instead of trying to change your bad habits gradually you look for another diet to help you lose weight, even though diets have failed you in the past. However, it is hard to change the habits of a life time, especially when you know that your weight loss is going to be slower than if you followed a fad diet. You may find another diet that enables you to lose weight, but, again, you find yourself falling back into old habits and gaining weight back.

Yo-yo dieting is therefore when your weight yo-yos up and down because of your reliance on diets for weight loss and the difficulties associated with keeping the weight off. Fad diets are generally designed to be followed for a short amount of time because they are so low in calories and fail to provide you with vital nutrients. They may help you to lose weight quickly, but they do not get you into a routine of healthy eating and regular exercise so that you quickly return to the old way of doing things, which makes maintaining your ideal weight impossible.