Yo-yo dieting - is there any hope?

maureenseel1984

The nice thing is that CICO "can be applied" in many many many ways that do not include actual calorie counting. However, on a calorie counting website that is driven by a calorie counting app and a calorie counting database... most of the advice you're going to get is related to calorie counting methodologies.

Agreed-but I think that is the point a lot of us on this thread are making. Sometimes to make progress and try to get away from the "YoYo" mentality, a break from calorie counting can be necessary.

jjpptt2

maureenseel1984 wrote: »

The nice thing is that CICO "can be applied" in many many many ways that do not include actual calorie counting. However, on a calorie counting website that is driven by a calorie counting app and a calorie counting database... most of the advice you're going to get is related to calorie counting methodologies.

Agreed-but I think that is the point a lot of us on this thread are making. Sometimes to make progress and try to get away from the "YoYo" mentality, a break from calorie counting can be necessary.

I agree with that.

As I said in my original post - what to do about yo-yoing entirely depends on why you yo-yo.

• Perhaps your calorie goal is too low... simply tweak your numbers a bit.
• Perhaps you're too restrictive about what foods you can/can't eat... try loosing up a bit.
• Perhaps you've lost focus/drive... remind yourself of your goals and why they are important.
• Perhaps you're using food emotionally... some personal reflection and/or therapy might be needed.
• Perhaps you just have other priorities, which is fine... admit it and allow yourself that.

lgfrie

Lots of comments about CICO and calorie deficits, but they are not the issue in YoYo dieting. I have personal experience with this so I'm gonna describe things as I've experienced it.

It's pretty easy to eat a daily calorie deficit, even an aggressive one, when a diet is new and you're feeling motivated. For me, the first 15-20 pounds is a cakewalk. I think "Good God this is so easy, why didn't I just do this ten years ago?" or "I could do this every day for the rest of my life. In 9.2 months, I'll be at my target weight, then I'll bump up the calories to maintenance, and it'll be so great because I'm already cool with the amount of food I'm getting, so the extra 500 calories will be like a major feast everyday!"

Then something happens. It can be complex - a death in the family, travel which makes diet or exercise adherence difficult, etc. Or simple - you just feel like you deserve a treat or a day off, or there's some food you love that doesn't fit into the Plan and you're tired of denying yourself that one thing you love, or you're just tired of the daily grind, even though it's producing results. So there's that day, that one day, when you're really off the plan, and not by a few hundred calories. More like thousands. So many excess calories you don't even want to think about them, and you engaging in a little avoidance by not logging them. At this point your spreadsheets or MFP logging or whatever system you use ceases to be continuous and clean; now some chaos, and empty space where data's supposed to be, has inserted itself into your finely-tuned system for losing weight. It feels like the end, or at least the end of Phase I, although, objectively speaking, all you've done is blow a day.

The next day is the fork in the road. You know you should get back on the scale and log the next meal but you don't. Why? Eh, who knows. We're humans, not robots. Many possible reasons. You just don't want to see the damage from the previous day on the scale. Dieting suddenly feels tedious - more tedious than you realized or felt when you were feeling motivated. You want one more day to live it up, relax, get a break. You want one more pizza, or one more night out with friends and booze, or one more chocolate cake, because after that you'll get back on plan, and what's one more day. Then the next day comes -- let's say it's a Thursday -- and you're like, why not start fresh on Monday, who starts a diet right before the weekend, anyway? Or, it's the 26th of the month and you think, why not regroup for a serious push on the 1st? Actually, there are a million ways to put off dieting by a few days to a week, and suddenly they all seem very reasonable. After all, you lost 20 pounds, so why shouldn't you take a week off? You've already proven to yourself that you can do it, so why not get back to it with a fresh head in a few days? Everyone on the Interwebs says it's better to get a "reset" every once in a while, and you think "Yeah, I could really use a reset, that makes perfect sense. The most successful dieters and nutritionists support that strategy."

Then you blow the Monday restart, or the first of the month, or whatever that clean restart day was supposed to be, so you set it out a little further. Next Monday. Next month. Next whenever. Because you're enjoying the liberty of eating whatever you want, and you're still down 20 pounds, or maybe it's 19 now, but you don't really know because you are avoiding your friend the scale, which is now your enemy.

A year later, you are starting all over, probably from approximately the weight where it all started, or maybe a few pounds more.

This has nothing to do with calorie deficits or maintenance calories or anything like that. It has to do with that fork on the road day. The day after you had a blow out. Not the day of the blowout - that was fine, and always happens from time to time while dieting. It was that decision to avoid the scale the next day when your diet died.

Well, this time around I'm at 46 lbs lost and still going strong. It could all crash and burn tomorrow, but I think I've learned something. It just can't be "I am either dieting hard or I am not dieting at all." That approach doesn't leave room for the human experience of having an excessively indulgent day once in a while. There has to be something in between working your *kitten* off to lose weight and not dieting at all. The diet has to be tolerant and include permission to seriously miss the numbers once in a while without you feeling like its over or you've failed. Bad days need to be rolled into the diet and the march needs to go on.

And so, I propose this to avoid YoYo'ing: learn to shrug off a bad day and when the fork in the road comes up the next morning, get back on the scale, and start logging calories immediately. Always get on the scale and log every calorie the day after a really bad day. Why? Because logging and getting on the scale are active-diet behaviors, not failed-diet behaviors, and what's really needed after a really bad day is to feel like you are still on your diet.

maureenseel1984

lgfrie wrote: »

Lots of comments about CICO and calorie deficits, but they are not the issue in YoYo dieting. I have personal experience with this so I'm gonna describe things as I've experienced it.

It's pretty easy to eat a daily calorie deficit, even an aggressive one, when a diet is new and you're feeling motivated. For me, the first 15-20 pounds is a cakewalk. I think "Good God this is so easy, why didn't I just do this ten years ago?" or "I could do this every day for the rest of my life. In 9.2 months, I'll be at my target weight, then I'll bump up the calories to maintenance, and it'll be so great because I'm already cool with the amount of food I'm getting, so the extra 500 calories will be like a major feast everyday!"

Then something happens. It can be complex - a death in the family, travel which makes diet or exercise adherence difficult, etc. Or simple - you just feel like you deserve a treat or a day off, or there's some food you love that doesn't fit into the Plan and you're tired of denying yourself that one thing you love, or you're just tired of the daily grind, even though it's producing results. So there's that day, that one day, when you're really off the plan, and not by a few hundred calories. More like thousands. So many excess calories you don't even want to think about them, and you engaging in a little avoidance by not logging them. At this point your spreadsheets or MFP logging or whatever system you use ceases to be continuous and clean; now some chaos, and empty space where data's supposed to be, has inserted itself into your finely-tuned system for losing weight. It feels like the end, or at least the end of Phase I, although, objectively speaking, all you've done is blow a day.

The next day is the fork in the road. You know you should get back on the scale and log the next meal but you don't. Why? Eh, who knows. We're humans, not robots. Many possible reasons. You just don't want to see the damage from the previous day on the scale. Dieting suddenly feels tedious - more tedious than you realized or felt when you were feeling motivated. You want one more day to live it up, relax, get a break. You want one more pizza, or one more night out with friends and booze, or one more chocolate cake, because after that you'll get back on plan, and what's one more day. Then the next day comes -- let's say it's a Thursday -- and you're like, why not start fresh on Monday, who starts a diet right before the weekend, anyway? Or, it's the 26th of the month and you think, why not regroup for a serious push on the 1st? Actually, there are a million ways to put off dieting by a few days to a week, and suddenly they all seem very reasonable. After all, you lost 20 pounds, so why shouldn't you take a week off? You've already proven to yourself that you can do it, so why not get back to it with a fresh head in a few days? Everyone on the Interwebs says it's better to get a "reset" every once in a while, and you think "Yeah, I could really use a reset, that makes perfect sense. The most successful dieters and nutritionists support that strategy."

Then you blow the Monday restart, or the first of the month, or whatever that clean restart day was supposed to be, so you set it out a little further. Next Monday. Next month. Next whenever. Because you're enjoying the liberty of eating whatever you want, and you're still down 20 pounds, or maybe it's 19 now, but you don't really know because you are avoiding your friend the scale, which is now your enemy.

A year later, you are starting all over, probably from approximately the weight where it all started, or maybe a few pounds more.

This has nothing to do with calorie deficits or maintenance calories or anything like that. It has to do with that fork on the road day. The day after you had a blow out. Not the day of the blowout - that was fine, and always happens from time to time while dieting. It was that decision to avoid the scale the next day when your diet died.

Well, this time around I'm at 46 lbs lost and still going strong. It could all crash and burn tomorrow, but I think I've learned something. It just can't be "I am either dieting hard or I am not dieting at all." That approach doesn't leave room for the human experience of having an excessively indulgent day once in a while. There has to be something in between working your *kitten* off to lose weight and not dieting at all. The diet has to be tolerant and include permission to seriously miss the numbers once in a while without you feeling like its over or you've failed. Bad days need to be rolled into the diet and the march needs to go on.

And so, I propose this to avoid YoYo'ing: learn to shrug off a bad day and when the fork in the road comes up the next morning, get back on the scale, and start logging calories immediately. Always get on the scale and log every calorie the day after a really bad day. Why? Because logging and getting on the scale are active-diet behaviors, not failed-diet behaviors, and what's really needed after a really bad day is to feel like you are still on your diet.

^^^ This.