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The Metabolic Risks of Yo-Yo Diets
June 14, 2009
Are you a yo-yo dieter? Do you love the results you get right away but get bummed out when the weight comes back after almost no time? If your diet is characterized by periods of near starvation diets, missed meals, or very low calories you should know that you’ll be vulnerable to the yo-yo diet effect.
You see, while good results may appear to be achieved quickly at first, your body detects that less calories are coming in, consequently adapts and decides that energy must be conserved. What happens then? Your metabolism starts slowing down, leading to a ‘plateau’ and the weight loss initially achieved starts to slow or stop completely. At this point, people often hit a wall and as they struggle to maintain the diet, the weight begins to come back on. Some people with the lowered metabolism end up with more weight than what they started at!
So one of the problems with fad dieting is that the body’s metabolism becomes less efficient with each dieting period and the severe calorie restriction causes loss of muscle tone, meaning a slower metabolism. To avoid the mental and emotional blow of going through all that dieting, it is better to take a more sustainable for the long term. Aim for modest weight loss and if lowering calories do it slowly such as a few hundred calories a day not in the thousands. Your diet should be a healthy eating plan and you should look to change your lifestyle including activity levels and what, when, why you eat. Break the weight loss plateau so you can give your metabolism a boost. Increase physical activity and if you are missing meals or eating too few calories you need to take a serious look at your diet and aim to eat more often (every 3 hours). Make sure those snacks are healthy and include protein and complex carbohydrates. And of course, something you already have heard and should know: never skip breakfast! This can end up slowing your metabolic rate for the day and the longer term as well.
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