Have you tried practically every diet plan known to humankind? Have you lost weight, only to regain it, lose it again and then gain back even more?
If you answered yes to these questions, you’re not alone – in fact, you are in the majority of people who try to lose weight.
But if you’ve finally reached the point where you believe “enough is enough,” you’re a yo-yo dieter who is ready to cut the string and lose weight permanently without depriving or berating yourself.
“There is a way out,” says therapist Judith Matz, L.C.S.W., director of the Chicago Center for Overcoming Overeating and coauthor of The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in Eating, Acceptance and Self-Care.
The first step is to let go of the fantasy that somehow, somewhere, a miracle diet will surface and solve your weight problems. There is no quick fix and any weight-loss plan that forces you to make adjustments you can’t live with long term is destined to fail.
Research shows that most people do not approach weight loss the right way and as a result, 95 percent to 98 percent of dieters ultimately regain the lost pounds, and many gain even more.
“Can you imagine a doctor prescribing a medication that offered a 2 percent chance of curing you?” Matz says. “And when your illness persisted, would you blame yourself? Yo-yo dieters blame themselves for their failures, but it’s not your fault.”
The Nurses’ Health Study II, co-conducted by Harvard Medical School, followed nearly 2,500 women for four years and found that severe yo-yo dieters – women who had lost and regained more than 20 pounds three times during the study – gained an average of 10.3 pounds more than noncyclers (non-yo-yo dieters).
Mild cyclers – women who lost 10 or more pounds at least three times – gained an average of 6.7 pounds more than noncyclers dieters.
A two-year German study of 11,000 women also demonstrated this paradox: Women who diet are actually more likely to eventually gain weight than women who don’t try to shed pounds.
I’m going to leave you with that bombshell, but don’t forget to come back tomorrow. This is not the end of the story. [source: Looking Good]