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Some people have little problem losing weight – it’s keeping it off that’s the problem. They spend months shifting the pounds to eventually reach their weight goals, only to pile it all back on once the dieting and exercise regime ends.
This is known as weight cycling (or the yo-yo effect). Many of us know the frustrations of being a yo-yoer – it can feel like you’ve put in a load work for nothing. Yo-yoing can happen due to a variety of reasons. Some people may naturally be more susceptible to it due to their metabolism, whilst others may be falling victim to weight loss mistakes. If you’re eager to end the cycle, here are a few measures to consider.
Avoid crash diets
Crash diets are designed to make us lose weight fast and often involve cutting calories down to a ridiculously small number, eating miniscule portions or living off a bland food like soup or nuts. Most of these diets aren’t healthy as they’re pretty much a form of starvation. Whilst these diets limit the amount of fat we take into our bodies, they also limit the flow of other important nutrients. This can lead to weakening of organs, a lower immune system and a lack of energy. Meanwhile, whilst they can be successful at helping you lose weight in the short run, they also make us more prone to weight cycling afterwards.
Why do crash diets cause weight cycling? There is both a mental and physical cause. Firstly, as soon as the crash diet is over, we crave all the foods we weren’t allowed. Many of spend the next few month binging on unhealthy foods as a result – we’ve slimmed so we feel like we can afford to. But as a result, we then begin to gain weight again from going back to our old habits. However, crash dieting also physically makes it easier to gain weight afterwards. When we finally end the diet and start eating normally again, the body starts storing more food as fat than it did previously as a way of preserving energy for another potential period of starvation. In other diets, crash diets make the body more efficient at building fat. More gradual diets can prevent this from happening.
Start taking up permanent lifestyle changes
For weight loss to be effective, certain permanent lifestyle changes need to be made. You can’t reach your target weight and go back to your old habits, because this will just cause you to go back to your original weight. This is something that many of us find hard to do as it means cutting back on something forever. For these sacrifices to be possible, they can’t be too extreme, otherwise they’d be demotivating. At the same time, they need to be big enough to make a difference.
One way of making effective sacrifices is to cut them down to an occasional treat. If you have pizza three times a week, try cutting down to once a month. This way you’re not having to give up the treat entirely and are still getting your kick. Another option could be to replace bad habits with a healthier substitute. This could include vaping instead of smoking. This site https://www.swansonvitamins.com meanwhile offers some healthy alternatives to typical junk foods that could be worth trying. By filling the gap with a similar habit, the sacrifice feels less like a loss.
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Keep monitoring your weight
Many people don’t notice at first that they’re piling the pounds back on. Consistently monitoring your weight, even after you’ve reached your goal, could help you to react faster to any signs of weight gain. Making stepping on the scales part of your morning routine. If you notice yourself starting to put on pounds, you can take action early – it’s relatively easy to shed a few pounds. What you don’t want to do is wait until you’ve put on two stone and then have to repeat the struggle of slimming back down.
Consider other factors in your life
Other factors can also affect your metabolism and increase the likeliness of yo-yoing. These alternative factors could be worth considering if you don’t think your diet or exercise regime aren’t to blame.
Stress for example can often cause weight gain. When stressed, our body goes into survival mode – a symptom of this is to store more energy as fat. Taking up a new stressful commitment after losing weight could be a reason for piling on the pounds.
Not getting a good amount of sleep can also affect our weight. Your metabolism also slows to conserve energy, which can lead to more food being stored as fat. If you’ve been getting less sleep since losing weight, this could be to blame for yo-yoing.
Take drastic action
There are more drastic permanent solutions such as weight loss surgery. The likes of a gastric sleeve physically reduce the size of the stomach making it harder to overeat and return to your previous weight. Sites such as http://www.baybariatrics.com detail the procedure. Weight loss surgery still requires you to shed a few pounds naturally first – most clinics won’t agree to surgery if you haven’t already tried to lose weight naturally. There are rare cases of people overeating despite having surgery and gaining weight, but this takes some doing.
Be positive about sacrifices
Having the right mindset is also important if you want to avoid the yo-yo effect. Certain sacrifices need to be permanent in order for you to keep the weight off and you need to view these sacrifices as positive things if you want to avoid slipping back into your old ways. Rather than getting sad about what you’re missing, you need to start focusing on what you’re gaining – start focusing on the impact that exercise and a healthy diet is having on your quality of life, rather than viewing it as a chore. After all, if it becomes a chore, you’re more likely to not want to do it.
