Need words of wisdom.. how do I stop the yoyo diet cycle?

Jbarbo01

I have been struggling with yoyo dieting for close to a decade, and I am at the end of my rope with it. I dont want to give up, but I just cannot seem to break the cycle and be consistent with weight loss. Has anyone crested the mountain with yoyo dieting and been able to lose weight and be consistent with it? My friends are tired of hearing about it, but I really need some help. Any advice is appreciated.

LoraF83

I've tried a ton of different diets.....I did Slim Fast, I took pills, I restricted down to 800 calories a day (and started passing out, but hey, I thought that's what you had to do to be skinny).

Now I'm here, and I'm losing weight. I eat what I want, as long as it fits my calorie goals. I exercise like a bad-*kitten*! I'm getting healthy, fit, and yes....thinner. You have to change your attitude about food. It's not your friend or your enemy. It's just food. Sometimes its good and sometimes its great and that's it. Just follow the MFP guidelines, eat back your exercise calories and enjoy your success!

NoAdditives

Adopt habits you can live with for the rest of your life. Get some sort of exercise a few times a week and increase your overall activity level. Take the stairs, park farther away in a parking lot, etc. Gradually change your dietary habits. Switch one beverage a day to water, then switch out another, and another, until you're drinking mostly water throughout the day. Reduce the amount of sweets and junk food you eat, but still let yourself indulge. Make easy changes like whole grain bread instead of white bread. But most of all, be patient. Understand that it takes time to make these important changes and it will take time for the weight to come off. Don't expect huge results overnight.

hdroddy

You've probably heard this before, but the key is to change your lifestyle, not go on a diet. I know that isn't easy. For example, if you like smoked sausage switch to the turkey smoked sausage. It tastes great, believe it or not, and you're still eating something you like but in a healthier version.

If you like ice cream, switch to frozen yogurt. Or Edy's half the fat ice cream. Or weight watchers ice cream bars.

Like chips? Cut back on what you have, and switch to sweet potato chips or veggie straws.

Eat lots of vegetables and fruits. When you want a burger, have a turkey burger instead of beef. If you like hot dogs, have turkey brats instead, and use a low cal high fiber wrap instead of a bun. All delicious, believe it or not.

Stuff like that. Diets are NOT sustainable. By their very nature they are restrictive and punishing. The key is to figure out a way to switch things up in your diet so that you are exchanging bad choices for better ones that you can still enjoy.

hdroddy

And, of course, find some sort of exercise you enjoy and indulge in that at least a few times a week.

EEpling89

Upping my calories has seriously changed my life. Before that, I had lost the same 50 pounds three times, and I'm only 23. I currently NET 1600 cals each day. I eat whatever I want, as long as it fits within my calorie goals (and 9 times out of 10, it does). I've been losing about 1/2 pound a week, but its ALL fat and not lean muscle tissue, as is usually the case on a 1200 cal/day diet. I've lost inches off of every part of my body that the scale doesn't reflect and I'm not starving or deprived. I can confidently say that I can maintain this lifestyle for the rest of my life.

If you've never heard of fat2fitradio.com, go there and check them out. They have such great wisdom on achieving and MAINTAINING a healthy weight. They also have an awesome podcast, Fat 2 Fit Radio.

bcattoes

Find a diet you can live with forever that still fits within your maintenance calorie goals. Then eat that way at least 80% of the time.

Unless you have a medical or personal need to, don't focus on excluding this or that food that you love, or eating this or that food that you don't like.

And by "a diet" I mean the food you eat. It doesn't have to be a diet developed by someone else. We are all on a diet, whether we eat 1400 or 6400 calories per day.

choirgirl1130

i have worked for many, many years in the fitness industry and the one thing i have found with yoyo dieters is they have a strong emotional connection in their relationship to food. a question you may want to ask yourself and explore is, "why am i eating right now?" look back at times in your life when you weren't dieting, what was going on with you emotionally, circumstances in your life, etc.? what was your motivation to diet before?
i have been just as guilty for using food to deal with or rather avoid my emotions or situation in my life- "self-medicate". i am not saying this is you, i am sharing with you what i see with many people who struggle with their weight...myself included. it is important you identify triggers that my cause "emotional eating". i am notorious for this when i am bored or lonely. some people do it when they are upset or angry. awareness is the first step, then you need a plan...what are you going to do to replace the negative behavior- call a friend, read, go on a walk, pray, etc.
i truly believe diet is a word that needs to be removed and a healthy lifestyle needs to be something we adopt. we need to have goals, but not be so fixated on controlling everything we put in our mouth. life is to be enjoyed! when we get the attitude that being healthy not necessarily skinny is really what brings us joy and fulfillment, it removes alot of pressure off us to be perfect. life is a series of choices and we strive to make good ones in each step we take. if we miss it, fall off, we forgive and get right back up...KEEP MOVING FORWARD! DON'T LOOK BACK :0)
best wishes to you on your journey!
i will be praying for you!

almc170

Find a diet you can live with forever that still fits within your maintenance calorie goals. Then eat that way at least 80% of the time.

Unless you have a medical or personal need to, don't focus on excluding this or that food that you love, or eating this or that food that you don't like.

And by "a diet" I mean the food you eat. It doesn't have to be a diet developed by someone else. We are all on a diet, whether we eat 1400 or 6400 calories per day.

Great advice!

HauteP1nk

Do not do fad dieting.

Eating right is for life.

thepetiterunner

Adopt habits you can live with for the rest of your life. Get some sort of exercise a few times a week and increase your overall activity level. Take the stairs, park farther away in a parking lot, etc. Gradually change your dietary habits. Switch one beverage a day to water, then switch out another, and another, until you're drinking mostly water throughout the day. Reduce the amount of sweets and junk food you eat, but still let yourself indulge. Make easy changes like whole grain bread instead of white bread. But most of all, be patient. Understand that it takes time to make these important changes and it will take time for the weight to come off. Don't expect huge results overnight.

^^ This.

Don't think of it as a Diet. It's a Life Change. You are making sustainable changes for the rest of your life. Remind yourself of why you want this. It HAS to be more than just looking good on the beach in a bikini. Summer will come and go and in winter the pounds will pack on again. Figure out what will REALLY motivate you and stay on track.

Best of luck.

sammi402

Stop dieting, that will break the cycle. If you plan to lose the weight and keep it off you have to make permenant changes to what you eat and how you think/feel about food. Food is not the enemy. Food is a wonderful, tasty source of fuel for our bodies. When I tried "dieting" it never worked (and usually didn't last longer than a day or two). When I started paying attention to how much I was eating, and then started eating less of the food I liked, then I started losing weight.


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Captain_Tightpants

The key to your problem is right there in your post. "Consistent" weight loss does not exist. It's practically impossible. Ask any of the successful mfp'ers how they lost and the answer will pretty much always be "ups and downs".

Successful weight loss requires a change in attitude to one where you can have an unskillfully chosen meal, a day 'off', or even a week or two 'off' without guilting yourself about it and without turning the slip up into a give up. Most of the really big losses on here even have built in spike days.

My advice is first to get the word 'diet' out of your vocabulary forever. Diets are rooted in abstinence and you are fighting a losing battle with your own biology and psychology. Second, make small, patient, sustainable lifestyle changes - learning to enjoy moving more, learning to enjoy eating more moderately, and more natural, non-processed foods. Without the habit changes, yo yo is all you'll ever do.

I was a yo yo er for my entire life until recently. A good line to remember is this: if you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got. Time for a change in mindset... you can do this!

daniellek10

I've tried a ton of different diets.....I did Slim Fast, I took pills, I restricted down to 800 calories a day (and started passing out, but hey, I thought that's what you had to do to be skinny).

Now I'm here, and I'm losing weight. I eat what I want, as long as it fits my calorie goals. I exercise like a bad-*kitten*! I'm getting healthy, fit, and yes....thinner. You have to change your attitude about food. It's not your friend or your enemy. It's just food. Sometimes its good and sometimes its great and that's it. Just follow the MFP guidelines, eat back your exercise calories and enjoy your success!

love this!! this is exactly what I have been waiting to hear!! and exactly how my diets have been.. but I am just ready to DO IT already!!!

OnWisconsin84

Upping my calories has seriously changed my life. Before that, I had lost the same 50 pounds three times, and I'm only 23. I currently NET 1600 cals each day. I eat whatever I want, as long as it fits within my calorie goals (and 9 times out of 10, it does). I've been losing about 1/2 pound a week, but its ALL fat and not lean muscle tissue, as is usually the case on a 1200 cal/day diet. I've lost inches off of every part of my body that the scale doesn't reflect and I'm not starving or deprived. I can confidently say that I can maintain this lifestyle for the rest of my life.

^^^ Wholeheartedly agree with this. I lost 110+ pounds with WW, but had never found a happy medium with maintaining. I was always bingeing & then restricting to 1200 calories, which never worked. My weight fluctuated wildly & I yo-yo'd for a good 2.5 years. For about the last 80 days I've been eating more, netting at least 1200 (usually way more) and I've felt very satisfied (zero binges!!). I eat what I want, as long as it fits into my calorie goal for the day. I've turned my focus from cardio to more weight training in an effort to improve my 'skinny fat' body I was left with after yo-yo'ing (& rarely working out...cardio at best). This is the first time in my life that I've been able to stick with a 'diet' and exercise plan simultaneously for this length of time. It's second nature to me now, so I feel like I've finally figured out my key to successful maintenance.

OnWisconsin84

Oops. Double post.

lmelangley

Stop "dieting" and start making small changes to your diet you can live with for the rest of your life. Some things I've done:
1. use smaller plates. I can always go back for seconds if I'm hungry
2. don't put cheese on hamburgers/ sandwiches if you do now. Or, melt the cheese and don't use mayo or other high calorie condiment
3. Learn portion sizes and only put one serving of each non-vegetable on your plate to begin with. You can always go back for seconds if you're truly hungry. And, I say non-vegetable because vegetables are high volumn/low fat so they fill you up with wonderful nutrients but don't make you put on weight. Just don't put a lot of junk on them.
4. Your mantra should NOT be "I can't have". It should be "I choose to not have" because you really can have everything and anything you want. Just own it up front and stay within your calories for the day.
5. Look at your life realistically and acknowledge there will be certain days you'll probably go over in calories: birthdays, holidays, family get togethers, etc. Instead of focusing on a single bad day, try looking at calories for a full 7 days around that time and try to make your average calories meet your calorie goal. So, if you go over by 600 calories on one day, try to be under by 100 calories for 6 days around that date.
6. Don't under eat. It'll make you cranky and less successful. And, you need to learn what under eating is for you because we're all different. For me, if I eat less than about 1300 a day, I go into extended plateaus which are frustrating. But, I had to learn the hard way.

Good luck! The bottom line is, you can do this. Start small and incorporate changes as you can.

ljwskinny

i agree with choir girl....

most of us know what we need to be doing - to be taking in less than we burn, and that even the 'diet' processed foods are garbage and we need to eat fresh, wonderful foods that are good for our bodies. we need to love ourselves enough to give ourselves things that are good and clean and nutrify our bodies, not things that come from packets.

i put on weight following a miscarriage, then i put on weight during a successful pregnancy, and now, following a horrific birth with a lot of damage, and i struggling to lose the weight. i can remove all foods from the house yet still find things to eat. i will eat anything.

back in february i thought i had finally got to that point where i was ready to address the weight problem. a month or so later i had lost about 10 pounds, but again fell off the wagon. a month later i feel like i have hit rock bottom again, but this time, the repressed emotions of anger and self loathing about what i went through, and the effects im still suffering, are near the surface, and i am finally able to actually really see what i am doing with food. i am trying to fill an emotional hole with peanut butter on toast: and despite what anyone says about wholewheat bread being better YES you can easily get fat eating whole earth peanut butter (which has no sugar or crap in it) on wholemeal bread. you can get fat if you eat too much of anything.

its not 'making a lifestyle change', its changing your emotional relationship with food. crying when you feel sad, instead of eating, and then when the bad emotion is out, making positive changes to your life. im not saying lifestyle is not important, i have always led an active lifestyle, but when you are 'in balance' and healthy, you KNOW what your body needs, and you need to have the self respect to eat what you need, and eat good quality fresh foods.

ljwskinny

Stop "dieting" and start making small changes to your diet you can live with for the rest of your life. Some things I've done:
1. use smaller plates. I can always go back for seconds if I'm hungry
2. don't put cheese on hamburgers/ sandwiches if you do now. Or, melt the cheese and don't use mayo or other high calorie condiment
3. Learn portion sizes and only put one serving of each non-vegetable on your plate to begin with. You can always go back for seconds if you're truly hungry. And, I say non-vegetable because vegetables are high volumn/low fat so they fill you up with wonderful nutrients but don't make you put on weight. Just don't put a lot of junk on them.
4. Your mantra should NOT be "I can't have". It should be "I choose to not have" because you really can have everything and anything you want. Just own it up front and stay within your calories for the day.
5. Look at your life realistically and acknowledge there will be certain days you'll probably go over in calories: birthdays, holidays, family get togethers, etc. Instead of focusing on a single bad day, try looking at calories for a full 7 days around that time and try to make your average calories meet your calorie goal. So, if you go over by 600 calories on one day, try to be under by 100 calories for 6 days around that date.
6. Don't under eat. It'll make you cranky and less successful. And, you need to learn what under eating is for you because we're all different. For me, if I eat less than about 1300 a day, I go into extended plateaus which are frustrating. But, I had to learn the hard way.

Good luck! The bottom line is, you can do this. Start small and incorporate changes as you can.

totally, this is perfect advice.

Jbarbo01

i agree with choir girl....

most of us know what we need to be doing - to be taking in less than we burn, and that even the 'diet' processed foods are garbage and we need to eat fresh, wonderful foods that are good for our bodies. we need to love ourselves enough to give ourselves things that are good and clean and nutrify our bodies, not things that come from packets.

i put on weight following a miscarriage, then i put on weight during a successful pregnancy, and now, following a horrific birth with a lot of damage, and i struggling to lose the weight. i can remove all foods from the house yet still find things to eat. i will eat anything.

back in february i thought i had finally got to that point where i was ready to address the weight problem. a month or so later i had lost about 10 pounds, but again fell off the wagon. a month later i feel like i have hit rock bottom again, but this time, the repressed emotions of anger and self loathing about what i went through, and the effects im still suffering, are near the surface, and i am finally able to actually really see what i am doing with food. i am trying to fill an emotional hole with peanut butter on toast: and despite what anyone says about wholewheat bread being better YES you can easily get fat eating whole earth peanut butter (which has no sugar or crap in it) on wholemeal bread. you can get fat if you eat too much of anything.

its not 'making a lifestyle change', its changing your emotional relationship with food. crying when you feel sad, instead of eating, and then when the bad emotion is out, making positive changes to your life. im not saying lifestyle is not important, i have always led an active lifestyle, but when you are 'in balance' and healthy, you KNOW what your body needs, and you need to have the self respect to eat what you need, and eat good quality fresh foods.

Though everyone's comments have been so helpful, this one definitely hit the nail on the head for me. I eat all the right foods, I eat brown rice, whole wheat bread, organic fruits and veggies, peanut butter with no sugar, etc. Its just that Ill allow myself to eat HUGE portions of it and say its okay because its good foods when I guess I am still trying to fill a void. You can certainly maintain or gain weight eating only whole foods. Its hard to tolerate negative emotions all day every day, you have to live in the real world. You cant be that person crying in the bathroom at work so it is challenging always expressing them or letting yourself feel them for me. This is very good advice though, Ill have to be more aware when Im internalizing emotions rather than expressing them and how thats effecting my eating habits.

vivideloquence

I really enjoyed Gennen Roth's books. She adresses the emotion and psychology behind why we eat or why we obsess over diets.

Xena03

This is my take, and there's lots of back story I won't get into, but it really has less to do with whether you call it a diet or a lifestyle change, less than how many carbs vs. protien and certainly less than if you have a stressful day. The issue lies in how you perseve yourself. Did you know there are actually people in the world who eat when they are stressed or lonely and DON'T have a weight issue?!

My impression from what you've written is that you obess about your weight, diet and exercise as much as I do. My husband's cousin told me that a woman whom I had only briefly encountered twice asked her what was my obession about my weight. I didn't have any idea I had even said anything in front of her!

The backwards truth is that the more you obess about it the more you will fail. Stop stewing about how much you feel you are failing. If your friends are tired of hearing you talk about it ask them to catch you before you drone on and tell them to make you give yourself 5 sincere compliments (they can give a couple hints to get you started, I'm sure). Write down what you're grateful for every day. If you pray. Pray! If you don't. Start! Even if you don't believe in a God just the act of kneeling and voicing your sincere desires will give you focus for the day. Remember how great you are and spend the majority of your time thinking about how to help others. I think you'll find your obsession loosening it's death grip and then making changes because your deserve to treat yourself better will come much more easily!! That's my journey, anyway. I lost a lot of weight once and I truly feel it's because I listened to the scriptures on my ipod as I ran. I didn't need to binge because I felt it centered me and reminded me that someone far more powerful than myself loves me unconditionally so I can't be all that bad, right?