The dangers of yo-yo dieting; why it’s a risk to both your body & mind.

We all know how easy it is to fall into a cycle of stop-start diets and fluctuating weight, which can leave us feeling disheartened, frustrated and guilty. We have a tendency to blame ourselves, and to beat ourselves up over a lack of ‘willpower’.

We tell ourselves, ‘next time, I’ll try harder’.

Often, we direct this anger and blame towards our bodies – we see them as ‘failing’ us for not achieving the results we hoped for, and we hold our bodies up against others in judgement - a sure fire way to trigger feelings of resentment, sadness and loss.  

But what we focus on, we create more of, and this process of self-recrimination and body-blame only serve to further break down the relationship we have with our bodies. And the more the relationship between our minds and our bodies breaks down, the more we disassociate, the more our overall health can suffer.

So how can we fix it?

Well, we will start with looking at the body science behind yo-you dieting – what actually happens to us when we go through this restrict-binge cycle (and no, it’s not you – and it’s not a lack of willpower).

The restrict-binge cycle is caused by both biological (body) and psychological (mind) triggers that impact how we feel and how we behave. Our bodies are actually hardwired for survival, and thank goodness or we wouldn’t be here. But what this means is, we are biologically determined to react to restriction in our diets by releasing hormones to slow our metabolism, and to crave high-calorie foods. When we aren’t eating enough to keep our bodies full and satisfied (when we restrict), our brains release ghrelin, which triggers our hypothalamus, resulting in increased hunger and more intense cravings.

Quite literally, our bodies are trying to keep us alive by creating ways to seek out, and hold on to, calories.

Not great news when you aim is to lose weight, right?

Well, I’m afraid it gets worse.

After we enter this starvation mode, where our body is desperately trying to hold on to calories in order to keep us alive (our brains are instinctive remember), when we then – almost inevitably – binge on food, the calories we take in end up causing more weight gain than if those calories are consumed under ‘normal’ (non-diet) circumstances. Our metabolism at this stage has slowed down to preserve energy.

And yes, this means that the restrict-binge cycle of yo-yo dieting might very well mean worse weight-gain consequences than if you hadn’t dieted at all.

And that is just the impact on our physical health.

Yo-yo dieting can also have huge impacts on our mental health, and can negatively influence how we see ourselves. Numerous studies show that yo-yo and extreme dieting are often adopted by women as a coping strategy for anxiety, or as a form of distraction from other lifestyle stressors. The irony being, of course, that disordered eating is also a cause of stress and anxiety, and thus a cycle is formed whereby one triggers the other – and all of a sudden we find ourselves stuck in a pattern that we don’t know how to step out of.

Indeed, one of the most well-documented triggers for binge eating is to numb emotional pain – and we are more likely to struggle with our emotional regulation when we are feeling uncomfortable and suffering from cravings, which we do when we restrict our diets.

You can see how one is naturally feeding into the other.

I hope this blog post has opened your eyes to how yo-yo dieting might be impacting your mind-body health. I know it can be scary to take this information in – but creating awareness is always the first step in understanding how to change our behaviours.