Why yo-yo dieting might actually be good for you...
Intuitive
Eating
Like
many other people, lockdown has resulted in less daily activity - and I am not
talking about exercise, but simply those little steps that you don't notice
about where you walk from your car to the office or walk around the office.
That coupled with the fact that being at home is like being on an all-inclusive
holiday meal deal....where food is always within arm’s reach...has added up to
extra luggage on the hips.
This
is always tough because for some strange reason, humans find it much easier to
put on weight than lose it - an evolutionary throwback that must have saved our
lives at some point.
The
"going on a diet" thing is something that most people will try to
force themselves to do at certain points in their life - some motivation is
usually needed, and things like a holiday, wedding, or even summer can be a
driver. There can be some negative comments around "dieting" and the
accepted fact for many years was that you will just put it all back on, or that
yo-yo dieting was 🙄 and a waste of time.
I have
recently been looking at what's known as "intuitive eating" - where acceptance of weight fluctuation is
natural and also how, going back to the evolutionary issue, that this is quite
a normal, sustainable, and healthy way for humans to be. This does of course
include times of calorie restriction - whether that was from a previous natural
starvation due to lack of food, to a more conscious control of either calorie
intake or intermittent fasting. I shall certainly be trying this in 2021 as
although weight gain can be seen as a nuisance, for many it holds with its high
health risk.
It
was therefore brilliant to find this new piece of research by Willis, et.al
(2020) which examined the impact on health of people to went on cyclical diets –
i.e., they lost weight, put it back on and went on a diet again. The study took
data collected in 2004 – 2006 from adults taking part in a national diet scheme
in America. Over 160,000 people did this. The 7 yr follow up looked at how many
deaths occurred due to cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality. And this
was the amazing conclusion:
“discovered that more frequent intentional weight loss
attempts over a 20-year period in mid-life was associated with a reduced risk
of death, even among those who ultimately gained weight. The benefits were more
evident among those who lost moderate amounts of weight frequently as opposed
to those who underwent a few very large weight losses”.
So, please
please please don’t give yourself a hard time if you are trying to lose weight,
and then you put it back on – this is how the human works. Keep going. Keep trying. Keep improving your health.
“Our results
suggest that frequent intentional weight loss attempts are not harmful and may
provide long-term benefit.”
The best advice I can give you is this –
research shows that in order to lose weight you first need to increase your
daily activity to ONE hour a day (double the current recommendation for health)
– which can be split up into sections, but one section needs to be sustained
for a minimum of 20 minutes. And secondly, to reduce calories it is most
significant if you can reduce your fat intake in your daily diet and increase
your plant-based foods. ( I will be
covering this in more detail in the Café for those of you who have signed up x)
So, great result that lifts your heart and
gives you confidence, rather than a stick to beat yourself with for “failing”
at a diet again. Aim for about a 5lbs, 9kg loss for greatest benefit, and as
always, check with your GP if you have any concerns especially if you have
other medical issues that need to be considered.
Hope
that cheers your day up caveman
X
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01716-5
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