The Yo-Yo Effect Causes Weight Gain!

According to recent research from Exeter and Bristol Universities, individuals who constantly diet and then break their diets experience a recurring cycle of short periods of hunger and their opposite, overeating. This leads the body to gradually store more fat. In other words, as you gain and lose weight, your weight value increases slowly due to the expansion of your fat cells.

Conversely, when dieting is avoided and “healthy eating” is practiced, the metabolism, relying on the health and beneficial nature of the nutrients it receives, reduces fat storage.

A study on birds showed that during the winter months, when food and seeds were scarce, the birds experienced weight gain. This is because the metabolism (in both humans and animals) responds to short periods of hunger (like dieting) by sensing a famine and attempting to protect itself by storing fat. Therefore, someone who constantly diets and then breaks their diets will have a larger fat reserve than someone who never diets. The reason for this is that in people who never diet, the metabolism, knowing that the intake of food is constant and continuous, does not store fat. However, in people who diet repeatedly and then stop, the metabolism stores fat because it cannot be sure that food intake will be consistent.

Over time, the continuous creation and breakdown of fat stores leads to an increase in the overall total body fat percentage. For example, if you previously had a stable weight of 60 kg and fluctuated between 60-65 kg, you may eventually notice that your stable weight is now 65 kg and you start fluctuating between 65-70 kg.

The only solution to prevent this YO-YO effect is to follow healthy eating programs that you can maintain throughout your life and to exercise regularly, instead of trying very strict diets, failing to stick with them, and constantly stopping and repeating them.