What is Yo-Yo Diet?
Imagine your belly peeking at your cravings, only to make you realize that it will start doing more than just peeking if you don’t lose a few pounds. Now after having achieved the target, imagine giving in to the temptations and gaining weight again. Many repetitive rounds of a vicious cycle of losing and gaining weight comprise yo-yo dieting or weight cycling. The number on the weighing machine goes up and then comes down, in a manner that the device ceases to feel overwhelmed after a while, but the body bears the brunt of this sea-saw. Yo-Yo diet results from modern diets and trends that are more likely to go viral than welcome the waves of actual benefit into your body. It can conveniently turn your body into a victim of the fads of the 21st century that lure you into a hazardous trap.
The Negative Impact of Yo-Yo Dieting
Apart from leaving people with clothes of varying sizes, often asking the forbidden questions, here is what yo-yo dieting can do to one’s body:
Weight gain-Weight loss-Gain-Loss..GAIN!
Yo-Yo dieting can ultimately lead to weight gain, leading to multiple disorders related to constant weight gain like obesity, fatty liver, etc. As one follows a diet that entails restrictions and starves their body, the level of leptin decreases. It indicates the depletion of fat stores and increases the appetite. After you discontinue the diet, your body is not what it used to be before you began doing it. It demands more food and burns fewer calories.
An Open Invitation to Heart Diseases and Diabetes
As Yo-Yo dieting is linked to a higher BMI (Body Mass Index), it leads to the same disorders that manifest as outcomes. Hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes are two common lifestyle disorders that have the roots of their origins in obesity in many cases. Untreated hypertension and diabetes further lead to cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis. Yo-Yo dieting is associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease, gallstones, etc. And none of this sounds like a picnic your body would look forward to.
An Overwhelmed Gut= Gut Dysfunction
The human gut is home to various microbes that collaborate to form a protective shield against gastrointestinal diseases. Yo-Yo dieting impacts this shield, leading to disorders like Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
The Frustration of a Baffled Body
When you put your body through so much and seat it on a sea-saw of weight changes, it inevitably leads to frustration and stress. The trigger could be a craving one can’t resist or a reality check one has been escaping. But, the ultimate truth is that an unhealthy body can’t harbor a peaceful mind for very long.
Finding the Path Between Fat and Starved- FITNESS
Sometimes taking the road less can turn out to be the forbidden path, with you reading the signboard saying ‘caution’ very late in the journey. Such is the case with yo-yo dieting. However, there are better ways of obtaining that dream waist size:
- Aiming at body fat reduction and the maintenance of muscle mass.
- Dietary modification after consulting with a qualified nutritionist.
- Regular exercise (the time devoted to exercising to be increased gradually).
- Replacement of foods containing empty calories with high-fiber food items.
Even if you don’t treat your body as a temple and don’t believe in worshiping it with extra care, you must never expose it to the adversities it does not deserve to go through. The food choices you make today will determine what your body looks like and how you feel tomorrow. So of all the choices you can make, don’t pick yo-yo dieting!
