Is yo-yo-ing worse than staying overweight?

x1v16

I dieted earlier this year and lost about 25 pounds in 6 weeks. It has been 5 months and I'm back up again and am only down 5 pounds from my start. Was the exercise and eating right good for my body even though I stopped or was going down 25, and up again 20 worse than had I not tried at all?

I was exercising about 300-400 calories a day and eatting 1800-2250 for those 5 weeks.

mowu

Without knowing your full situation and without being a trained physician/dietist I can only give you my personal view.

Losing weight and gaining it back thorugh adding a little extra exercise and eating right (I only know your total caloric intake - not how you coontrolled it) once does not make you a yo-yo dieter in my book, it makes you human. We try, we stumble, we try again - you know "if at first you don't succeed....". And I don't think you're worse of than you used to be.

That being said I (personal opinion) think that you may have pushed yourself too hard and that is why you fell off the wagon - 25 pounds in 6 weeks is about 4 pouds/week......I don't think you should aim to lose more than roughly 2 pounds/week. Given the numbers you present, that would allow you to eat about 2200-2700 calories /day, which would probably leave you more satisfied (and with moore energy to exercise).

To me dangerous yo-yo dieting would be extended periods fast-paced cycling in weight typically introduced by following strict restrictive diets to lose a set amount of pounds - giving up, gaining it all back in a few months and starting again on a strict restrictive diet.............many times over several years.

A lot of people tend to forget that the extra weigt didn't jump onto them over a few months........it snuck up and took residence over the course of 3-5-10-15 years.......it can take just as long to get rid of it, there are no quick fixes only a long haul and only one thing is guaranteed: You will stumble along the way, and then you have to decide whether you want to give up or learn from it how to awoid stumbling over the same stone again (but then there will be others you can stumble upon along the way).

fatsnacker

neither is good for you.