As a Nutritional Therapist specialising in binge eating and emotional eating, I’ve had countless conversations with women that have a deep-rooted fear: the fear of weight gain.

This fear is understandable given the constant sea of diet culture we are surrounded by. After all, for many people, the pursuit of weight loss has been a lifelong struggle since they were a child, when they first felt that their perfectly healthy and beautiful body was, in some way, wrong and something that needed to be fixed in order to be accepted.

Some research suggests that children under the age of 6 years old experience body dissatisfaction.

BANKSY You Don’t Have to Look Like This

This fear of weight gain and the pressure to look a certain way is perpetuated by the constant exposure to the ‘thin ideal’ and ‘beauty ideal’, which is the extremely narrow idea of what beauty is. Often this body type and appearance is only attainable by a very small percentage of the population, or, in some instances through photoshop, editing and face tune – it is not achievable at all, yet it is widespread across media.

Teen Vogue feature on Kim Kardashians makeup routine.

The feminine beauty ideal is a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives and from a young age to increase their perceived physical attractiveness. This can involve anything from body shape, weight to facial proportions.

Chelsea Mcknight on Medium: How Media Influences Body Imaging and Eating Disorders in Females?

This feeling that our body is not good enough is often followed by cycles of strict dieting followed by inevitable weight regain—a phenomenon known as weight cycling, or more commonly, yo-yo dieting.

The cycle is exhausting, both physically and emotionally. Each new diet promises hope, yet the eventual return of lost weight (often with a few extra pounds) leads to feelings of failure, guilt, and frustration. Dieting can trigger binge eating, emotional eating and increased body preoccupation. Despite the toll it takes, the fear of gaining weight keeps many people trapped in this cycle, unable to imagine a different, healthier way to manage their weight and overall well-being.

In this blog post, I want to talk about why stopping yo-yo dieting and stabilising your weight is not only an option that you might not have ever considered, but it is also a far healthier and more sustainable approach.

We will dive into the physical, emotional, and psychological benefits of leaving weight cycling behind and embracing a balanced, consistent approach to your nutrition and self-care.

The Yo-Yo Dieting Trap: Why It’s So Hard to Break Free

Before we discuss the benefits of stopping yo-yo dieting, it’s essential to understand why this cycle is so challenging to break. Yo-yo dieting is often fueled by societal pressures, unrealistic body standards, and a diet culture that tells us thinness = health and worthiness.

Many people start dieting with the best intentions, hoping to improve their health or feel more confident in their bodies. However, the restrictive nature of diets makes them unsustainable in the long term.

In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years, and by five years more than 80% of lost weight was regained.

Dieting has implications that makes it harder to maintain weight loss. This means that losing weight can seem simple and relatively easy (eat less calories) but the body has protective mechanisms that are activated when the body fat drops below your natural ‘set point weight’.

The body starts to conserve energy by slowing down your metabolism and increasing hunger signals. Eventually, the physical and psychological stress of deprivation can become heightened and too much, leading to constant hunger, cravings, overeating or binge eating.

This overeating, combined with a slowed metabolism, often results in rapid weight gain, which can be harmful to our metabolic health and, after all of the hard work put in to stick to the diet, it can be very distressing to feel out-of-control. In response, many people go back on a diet, starting the cycle all over again.

This cycle of dieting, weight loss, weight regain, and dieting again is what defines yo-yo dieting. This pattern can be incredibly hard to break because each diet heightens the pre-occupation with our body and weight, that internal fear of weight gain can turn into panic mode and unless you break the cycle, the chances are you will return to diet again, with each diet it might seem harder to lose weight than before, meaning that more extreme measures are needed.

The Hidden Costs of Yo-Yo Dieting

While the goal of dieting might be weight loss and to improve your health, the long-term effects of yo-yo dieting can have a negative impact on your health and well-being. Here are some of the hidden costs of this pattern:

1. Metabolic Changes: Your body becomes more efficient at conserving energy, making it harder to lose weight in the future and easier to gain it back.
2. Nutrient Deficiencies and Cravings: Restrictive diets often eliminate entire food groups, leading to nutrient deficiencies that can impact your energy levels, menstrual cycle, immune function, and overall health.
3. Mental and Emotional Strain: Yo-yo dieting takes a significant toll on your mental and emotional well-being. The constant cycle of hope and disappointment can lead to feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, and even depression. The stress of dieting can also exacerbate emotional eating, creating a vicious cycle that’s hard to escape.
4. Relationship with Food and Body: Perhaps one of the most damaging effects of yo-yo dieting is the harm relationship with food that it can create. Food becomes the enemy, something to be controlled or feared, rather than a source of nourishment and pleasure.

Clients often come to me when they have hit diet rock bottom. When you start to experience all of the downsides and realize that the cons outweigh the pros for you.

What if you could let go of the dieting mindset, stabilize your weight, and focus on building a healthy, sustainable relationship with food?

The Benefits of Breaking Free from Dieting and Healing your Relationship with your Body.

Choosing to stop the cycle of yo-yo dieting may feel daunting, especially if you have always craved a smaller body. However, the benefits of a more balanced, consistent approach to your weight and health are so freeing and benefit to your health. Here’s why stabilising your weight can be more beneficial than continuing to yo-yo diet:

1. Improved Metabolic Health: When you stop dieting and allow your body to reach its natural weight, your metabolism can begin to normalize. Instead of constantly shifting between extremes, your body can function more efficiently, leading to better energy levels, hormone balance, and overall metabolic health.
2. Reduced Risk of Chronic Diseases: By avoiding the weight cycling associated with yo-yo dieting, you can reduce your risk of developing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension.
3. Improved Mental Health: Stabilising your weight often goes hand-in-hand with a more relaxed and balanced approach to food and body image. Without the constant stress of dieting and the fear of weight gain, you may find that your mental health improves. Healing your relationship with food and your body can reduce anxiety, better self-esteem, and create a more positive outlook on life when you let go of the dieting mindset.
4. Improved Relationship with Food: When you’re not constantly dieting, you can begin to rebuild a healthier relationship with food. Instead of seeing food as something to be controlled or feared, you can learn to enjoy it as a source of nourishment, energy, and pleasure. This shift in perspective can lead to more intuitive eating habits, where you eat in response to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, rather than external rules or restrictions.
5. Consistent Energy Levels: Yo-yo dieting can wreak havoc on your energy levels, leading to fatigue, irritability, and mood swings. By stabilising your weight and focusing on a balanced diet that includes a variety of nutrients, you can achieve more consistent energy levels throughout the day. This can improve your productivity, mood, and overall quality of life.
6. Long-Term Weight Maintenance: While stabilising your weight may involve some initial fluctuation as your body adjusts, it ultimately leads to better long-term weight maintenance.
7. Increased Body Confidence: When you stop yo-yo dieting, you may find that your body confidence improves. Instead of constantly striving for an unrealistic ideal, you can learn to appreciate your body for what it is—strong, capable, and worthy of love and respect. This shift in mindset can have a profound impact on your self-esteem and overall sense of well-being.

How to Transition Away from Yo-Yo Dieting

If you’re ready to break free from the cycle of yo-yo dieting and stabilize your weight, here are some steps you can take to make the transition:

1. Shifting Your Mindset: I just want to mention that given our society and culture, at the start of this journey it might be too scary to decide that you will never diet again, or never want to be smaller. It is common for clients to start with me and still deep down want to lose weight. To start my 1:1 programme I ask that you stop pursuing weight lose for the duration of the programme, but it might be too much to think that you can never diet again or never want to lose weight. Shifting your mindset is important, opening up to new ways of thinking is key. We are constantly bombarded with weight loss ad’s and the ‘thin ideal’, in order to change our mindset, we need to actively seek out new ways of thinking such as reading books, listening to podcasts and following inclusive social media accounts. The focus is moving away from weight loss and over to nourishing your body, listening to its cues, and prioritizing your overall health and happiness.
2. Intuitive Eating: Intuitive eating is an approach that encourages you to listen to your body’s hunger, fullness signals, rather than following external diet rules. It involves 10 principles that include dealing with your emotions, ditching food rules, rediscovering satisfaction, gentle nutrition guidelines, intuitive movement and more! It is a self-care eating framework. This means eating when you’re hungry, stopping when you’re full, not turning to food to cope with emotions, and allowing yourself to enjoy a wide variety of foods without guilt or restriction.
3. Addressing Fear around Foods & Focus on Balance: If you have dieted for years you might have built up a lot of food rules, judgements, and beliefs about food that cause internal ‘food noise’, this food noise contributes to stress and guilt around food. I work on this with my clients within the first 3 sessions as it can take a while to untangle these in your mind. Instead of following restrictive diets that eliminate entire food groups, and fear mongering around foods. Turning the focus on creating a balanced diet that includes a variety of nutrients.
4. Prioritise Self-Care: Taking care of your mental and emotional health is just as important as caring for your physical health. Practice self-care by engaging in activities that bring you joy, reduce stress, and support your overall well-being. This could include regular exercise, mindfulness practices, journaling, or spending time with loved ones.
5. Seek Support: Moving away from yo-yo dieting is SO worth it but it can be challenging at the start, especially if you’ve been stuck in the cycle for a long time. My programme Becoming Weightless is designed for those of you that are stuck in this cycle and have well and truly reached diet bottom, I also work with people that experience binge eating, emotional eating, and chronic overeating. You can read about it here.

I would love to hear from you, you can email me with any questions you have. If you are interested in joining my 1:1 programme you can book in for a free 30-minute consultation here

Thanks!

Chat soon,

Leanne Xx