Why Yo-Yo dieting makes you gain weight not loose it
Some women and men spend £100's of pounds on the new diet book or fad, only to find that in the long run they gain more weight than they loose.
Why is this?
Repeatedly dieting can cause your body to go into starvation mode. New research by Exeter and Bristol universities suggests that the brain interprets the lack of food as a short famine and therefore the body stores fat to prepare for the next famine.
This explains why when the diet stops and the person returns to 'normal' eating they end up over eating and gaining the weight back and very often more. Could it be that humans are evolving into a pattern of overeating and dieting and does this contribute to the staggering problem with obesity. The urge to over eat becomes greater as the diet progresses and after the diet finishes the urge continues, therefore causing increased weight gain.
The healthiest way to loose weight and keep the weight off is to gradually reduce your calorie intake and increase you physical exercise.
It is key not to allow your body to go into a starvation mode and store fat and to follow an exercise program that will promote optimization fat loss. The exercise should be short bursts of high or maximal intensity exercise for short periods, to prevent cortisol being released a FAT storing hormone. Cortisol is a hormone produced when your body is under extreme stress, such as starvation or extreme prolonged exercise, to help the body survive.
Eating a healthy well balanced diet, with a daily regular calorie intake will ensure you loose weight gradually and your body does try to store fat.
I tend to promote the healthy eating plate, alongside reducing white starchy carbohydrates and replacing these with complex carbohydrates with low GI to ensure the energy from the carbohydrate is released slowly. We take most of our energy from carbohydrates so we need to ensure that 50% of our diet is made up with this food group. Cut out alcohol or reduce it significantly, reduce sugar and cut processed food out completely. Eat as clean as you can, which means cooking from scratch with whole foods.
Stay very well hydrated as very often hunger is mistakenly confused with thirst and actually instead of eating you should be pouring yourself a large glass of tap water.
If you follow these simple rules you can't go wrong. If you you have intolerance's or allergies to factor in, of course this is more of a challenge but not impossible to follow the basic principles.
