Yo-yo dieting - is there any hope?
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*sigh*
I tried to let this go, but I just can't.
CICO is simple. Always. For everyone. The difference between calories absorbed and calories burned over time determines weight change. Period. That's it.
The complexity and difficulty comes from...
(1)
How one chooses to manage CI... IF, keto, calorie counting, skipping snacks, eliminating bread, portion control, raspberry ketones, intuitive eating, whole foods, etc etc etc etc etc etc...
(2)
All the factors that can impact CO, and the difficulty estimating CO because of those things (weight, body composition, metabolism, activity level, exercise, genetics, etc etc)
and...
(3)
Health conditions that can impact both CI and CO (food allergies, diabetes, cancer, etc)
Those things can make it difficult to manage your CI and know your CO, but they don't change what CICO is.
People need to stop using CICO and calorie counting interchangeably. They are not the same thing.
To complicate the bigger conversation even more, CICO has nothing to do with nutrition/health... They are separate issues, and separate sides of that bigger conversation.
Yes, agreed, that is the point I was trying to make. The fundamental concept of it is incredibly simple, but actually applying it through calorie counting can feel complicated.
3 -
I used to yo yo a lot but it was also an eating disorder. My weight didn't radically change but I kept gaining/losing the same 7 or 8 pounds quite quickly, and near the end it was starting to creep higher each time.
What I would perhaps suggest:
1. Log but aim to eat maintenance calories for at least few weeks, so you get used to what actual maintenance ranges look like, since as you say you have always been either under eating or over eating. Log reasonably accurately, but if weighing every gram stresses you out, weigh the high calorie things (e.g. peanut butter) and be a little looser with things like salad leaves or an apple.
This was a bit of a revelation for me, since whenever I logged I was trying to eat like 1500 calories. Once I started actually tracking maintenance, since I'm tall and active I was surprised and how much I needed to eat to maintain. Small wonder I found 1500-1600 calories hard to stick to consistently--it was like a 700 calorie deficit a day. Too aggressive considering I didn't have much fat to lose. It also stopped me being afraid of seeing numbers over 2000 in a day which would often make me go 'well whatever, I already ruined today, let's bust out the biscuits.' We've heard diet culture throw 1200 and 2000 as numbers at us so long, it's hard to shake when you realise some of us need more food than we think.
2. If you have an off day, try not to let that derail you. Just get back to your usual routine. Do not compensate by massively restricting the next day. Try to look at this as data collection and leave your judgement of yourself at the door.
3. Maybe read some stuff on intuitive eating or IIFYM and see if there are some observations in there that help you with the black/white thinking. I personally did therapy and it's been really helpful to understand why I was distracting myself with food instead of dealing with certain emotions.
4. When you feel comfortable logging maintenance ranges, set to losing .5 pounds per week, not a pound. Get a little stricter with your logging because you don't have massive amounts of wriggle room with 250 calories as a deficit.
5. Be patient. Stop thinking in days or weeks but months. Far better than crash dieting for a few weeks and ultimately ending up where you started 6 months later anyway.
6. Try and make it fun--an excuse to try new activities, an excuse to try new recipes that look delicious. I like to do active things with friends now, like hike around a lake, or try a ballet class. I'm in maintenance but still very active because I like to be rather than I feel like I *have* to be.5 -
I first used this app 6 years ago when I was 18. Since then, pretty much once a year I’ve gone through a spurt of calorie counting and weight loss, usually losing between 10-20lbs. However, no matter how hard I try, it reaches a point where I stop and become ravenous and end up eating a surplus and gaining pretty much all of it back and I eventually gain back to my starting weight and the cycle repeats.
I’m currently in a phase where I’m overeating consistently, after tracking and losing about 10lbs over the course of about 4 months.
I feel like since I was 18 eating has been difficult for me. Always swinging between being very controlled and committed, to the other end where I just have the urge to way overeat. And when I’m losing weight, I always feel convinced that it’s sustainable and it’ll be the last time. And when I overeat, it’s never happy overeating, I always feel guilty about it and try to will myself to get back on track but it’s hard. If there’s food around at home, I will overeat it.
I’ve gotten really into cycling, which I really love. I cycle to work each day, and go on longer trips at weekends. And I’ve kept that up, despite the diet side of things going off the rails.
But I know that a lot of people experience this yo-yo dieting. But I honestly just feel really hopeless that this is never going to change. I don’t want to battle with my eating my whole life like my parents have. But this has been my life for the last 6 years. There hasn’t been a time where I wasn’t trying to control my eating/weight - and I’m either being successful at it, or feeling bad that I can’t. Even as a little kid, I always had a propensity to overeat. That is my default.
Idk I’m just posting to hear whether other people think this is something that can actually change. I don’t want to battle my eating for the rest of my life. But I also refuse to let myself gain a significant amount of weight. Advice and others’ perspectives would be much appreciated.
@mfp2019jg after 40 years of yo-yoing weight my health was a mess. My arthritis (Ankylosis Spondylitis) pain made walking harder and harder. On a hunch in October 2014 cold turkey I stopped eating any food containing added sweeteners and or any form of any grains and added coconut oil to replace some of carb calories lost.
Today I still eat low carb high fat because it works to give me better health and good pain management. For over 4 years now I have maintained 50 pound weight loss.
While the LCHF Way Of Eating works well for many it may not in your case since no 2 people are the same.
Best of success in finding the WOE that gives you the best health.
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Cahgetsfit wrote: »tends to happen if you deficit is too large to begin with. have you tried a slow and steady approach? Like a small deficit and when you get to a lower weight (be it your goal or close to it) you actually reverse out of the diet instead of just stop and go back to overeating?
Also, diet breaks. very useful.
Thanks @Cahgetsfit maybe this could be an issue. I think I probably try to aim to lose too much too quickly. Usually aim for 1lb a week loss. I think I feel anxious about aiming for less in case there are days where I go over, or in case my fitbit overestimates my calories burned from exercise, and then it’ll be easy to wipe out the deficit. But maybe I just need to give it a go. Because at the moment I’m stuck in this cycle of strict restriction and overeating. Any tips for maintaining a smaller deficit?
I personally like to use the TDEE method and log all exercise as 1 calorie. This takes away the whole guesswork from the how many exercise calories you can eat back etc etc. It's one flat blanket number to aim for each day.
I also, depending how i'm doing, will take one day at maintenance calories per week just to feel like a human again. Then it's easier to get back on less calories when you know that there is more coming at the end of the week.
3 -
*sigh*
I tried to let this go, but I just can't.
CICO is simple. Always. For everyone. The difference between calories absorbed and calories burned over time determines weight change. Period. That's it.
The complexity and difficulty comes from...
(1)
How one chooses to manage CI... IF, keto, calorie counting, skipping snacks, eliminating bread, portion control, raspberry ketones, intuitive eating, whole foods, etc etc etc etc etc etc...
(2)
All the factors that can impact CO, and the difficulty estimating CO because of those things (weight, body composition, metabolism, activity level, exercise, genetics, etc etc)
and...
(3)
Health conditions that can impact both CI and CO (food allergies, diabetes, cancer, etc)
Those things can make it difficult to manage your CI and know your CO, but they don't change what CICO is.
People need to stop using CICO and calorie counting interchangeably. They are not the same thing.
To complicate the bigger conversation even more, CICO has nothing to do with nutrition/health... They are separate issues, and separate sides of that bigger conversation.
Yes, agreed, that is the point I was trying to make. The fundamental concept of it is incredibly simple, but actually applying it through calorie counting can feel complicated.
But here's the rub. How complicated it gets is entirely up to YOU. You and you alone get to decide how hard you want to make things for yourself.
Set an appropriate calorie deficit = easier
Set a maximum extreme calorie deficit = harder
Eat foods you enjoy = easier
Force yourself to eat foods you don't really like = harder
Pick an activity that you enjoy doing as exercise = easier
Thrash yourself with a punishing exercise regime that you hate = harder
Accept you're human and will get it wrong sometimes = easier
Try to be perfectly perfect 100% of the time = IMPOSSIBLE
In short it takes effort but you decide if that effort is manageable and sustainable or miserable and punishing. I recommend manageable and sustainable.13 -
@Danp, IMO, you've been contributing some wonderful, clearly-written, pithy, useful things on threads recently. The ones on this thread are excellent. Thanks - good show!:
<snip some really good content that you can still read earlier in the thread>
Apologies, OP, for the digression.
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OP, this forum is a super useful resource. Not necessarily for the advice, but to see the sorts of psychological struggles thousands of people on here have posted about. I'd suggest spending many hours just crawling through the back posts and reading the accounts of people with similar problems. Sometimes they have epiphanies that can be applied to your own situation.
I think it'd be helpful to look into "self-identity" and how to reprogram that into someone who's fit and looks at food as fuel rather than something to overindulge with. There's a guy, Allen Carr, who's written a lot about this sort of thing.
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One thing all of us yo-yo dieters have to learn is to not let one slip up be a slippery slope that can turn into days, weeks, months, or even years of “starting over tomorrow’s “. It isn’t easy.5
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feisty_bucket wrote: »OP, this forum is a super useful resource. Not necessarily for the advice, but to see the sorts of psychological struggles thousands of people on here have posted about. I'd suggest spending many hours just crawling through the back posts and reading the accounts of people with similar problems. Sometimes they have epiphanies that can be applied to your own situation.
I think it'd be helpful to look into "self-identity" and how to reprogram that into someone who's fit and looks at food as fuel rather than something to overindulge with. There's a guy, Allen Carr, who's written a lot about this sort of thing.
Yes. I think what some people are ignoring here is the "yo-yo" part of your struggle.
CICO...the equation of calories in vs calories out...yes. Simple.
Sticking to something for sustained and permanent loss...and also losing for the right reasons and in a healthy way...the mental aspect of it...this is where applying CICO by calorie counting (note-I do not have the two confused) is really problematic if you don't have a healthy mindset or when people try to lose weight too quickly...or lose then "fail" (note-the quotes are important) and eat things not on the diet then have the mentality of "oh I failed-I'm going to eat what I want"...this is where I think everything becomes frustrating and complicated.3 -
maureenseel1984 wrote: »feisty_bucket wrote: »OP, this forum is a super useful resource. Not necessarily for the advice, but to see the sorts of psychological struggles thousands of people on here have posted about. I'd suggest spending many hours just crawling through the back posts and reading the accounts of people with similar problems. Sometimes they have epiphanies that can be applied to your own situation.
I think it'd be helpful to look into "self-identity" and how to reprogram that into someone who's fit and looks at food as fuel rather than something to overindulge with. There's a guy, Allen Carr, who's written a lot about this sort of thing.
Yes. I think what some people are ignoring here is the "yo-yo" part of your struggle.
CICO...the equation of calories in vs calories out...yes. Simple.
Sticking to something for sustained and permanent loss...and also losing for the right reasons and in a healthy way...the mental aspect of it...this is where applying CICO by calorie counting (note-I do not have the two confused) is really problematic if you don't have a healthy mindset or when people try to lose weight too quickly...or lose then "fail" (note-the quotes are important) and eat things not on the diet then have the mentality of "oh I failed-I'm going to eat what I want"...this is where I think everything becomes frustrating and complicated.
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.2 -
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.1 -
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.
1 -
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.5 -
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.0
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