Yo-Yo Weight Warnings

amandaeve · September 2018

Back in the day I remember seeing a lot of warnings in magazine articles and whatnot warning us of the dangers of yo-yo dieting. They argued things like…fat cells never go away, so all those extra fat cells you had when you were fat stay in your body forever, trying to fill themselves up with fat again. And every time you gain weight you get more fat cells. This always caught my eye because so many people gain and lose. Pretty much everyone trying to lose weight isn’t doing it for the first time. Plus there’s bodybuilders, wrestlers, pregnant moms, etc. who gain/lose as a matter of course. I don’t see these warnings anymore and wonder why. Are they still around and I’m just missing them? Has the science been debunked? Is there some reason this isn't a focus anymore? Are fad diet scams winning?

Millicent3015 · September 2018

This kind of mostly pseudo scientific information comes and goes. There were probably one or two studies on fat cells in rats or something and the results got overblown in the media. Just wait ten minutes, there'll be something else along soon.

vanityy99 · September 2018

I’ve been thinking about this lately wondering if it’s actually true or not.

AnnPT77 · September 2018

I'd argue that some variations on the theme are unhealthy (without saying I think it's always a bad thing, because I don't know).

A pattern I've seen among women my age (I'm 62) is many decades of fairly wide yo-yoing, say 10-20 pounds or more, with the down-swings via short-ish very low calorie fad diets (often nutritionally weird and usually not enough protein - not even RDA; either no exercise, or pretty pure cardio), then regains without much exercise (and often still not adequate nutrition). Every round seems to deplete lean mass a tiny bit, while the regain is pretty much pure fat . . . little bits at a time, but cumulatively - when you do it for decades - the result is worse body composition, a reduced TDEE and reduced exercise capacity/capability, making it harder to lose weight each time, and generally making healthy life more challenging. (And those kinds of diets, in themselves, are systemic stressors.)

That kind of yo-yo is a Bad Thing, IMO.

I don't know whether cyclical losses/regains with adequate nutrition and sensible exercise are a problem.

Carry_That_Weight · September 2018

AFAIK it was accepted until recently that you can’t get rid of fat cells, just shrink them. There’s newer work now that shows that the number of fat cells you have can shrink, but it generally requires at least a few years of maintaining your weight loss. Can’t remember the specifics of the study right now though and I’m feeling too lazy to google it.

patrickaa5 · October 2018

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I'd argue that some variations on the theme are unhealthy (without saying I think it's always a bad thing, because I don't know).

A pattern I've seen among women my age (I'm 62) is many decades of fairly wide yo-yoing, say 10-20 pounds or more, with the down-swings via short-ish very low calorie fad diets (often nutritionally weird and usually not enough protein - not even RDA; either no exercise, or pretty pure cardio), then regains without much exercise (and often still not adequate nutrition). Every round seems to deplete lean mass a tiny bit, while the regain is pretty much pure fat . . . little bits at a time, but cumulatively - when you do it for decades - the result is worse body composition, a reduced TDEE and reduced exercise capacity/capability, making it harder to lose weight each time, and generally making healthy life more challenging. (And those kinds of diets, in themselves, are systemic stressors.)

That kind of yo-yo is a Bad Thing, IMO.

I don't know whether cyclical losses/regains with adequate nutrition and sensible exercise are a problem.

I've done my share of yo-yo dieting over the years. I'm 60 now, male, and have probably 60 lbs left to lose (lost 30 so far). I can for sure tell you that even though I've rarely gone over my "high weight" of around 290, the composition over time is much more fat. When I was 35 and 290lbs, I was much less fat than I was at 59 and 290 due to losing muscle over the years. I think yo-yo dieting had a lot to do with that (along with age).

jessicajo1983 · December 2018

I remember being in physiology class, and the professor talking about fat cells, how you create them and expand them, but you never lose them. It frightened me when she said once you've expanded the cells, you can lose weight, but you will always be fighting your biology to fill the cells back up, and the only way to rid yourself of that issue is surgical removal.
Wasn't very motivating, I know.

cmriverside · December 2018

jessicajo1983 wrote: »

I remember being in physiology class, and the professor talking about fat cells, how you create them and expand them, but you never lose them. It frightened me when she said once you've expanded the cells, you can lose weight, but you will always be fighting your biology to fill the cells back up, and the only way to rid yourself of that issue is surgical removal.
Wasn't very motivating, I know.

"Fighting your biology."

I call shenanigans.

The fat cells may still be there, but they don't cry out to be refilled. I lost over 70 pounds eleven years ago. I was apple shaped when I was over weight. I now have normal body measurements and I don't struggle to maintain my weight. I eat the appropriate number of calories to stay where I want, and that number of calories is actually a few hundred calories above what the calculators recommend for me to eat at my age (in my sixties) and size, 5'7" 140. Retired. I maintain on 2000-2200 net calories.

Katelin7141 · December 2018

As a nurse and personal trainer, I've been curious about Yo-Yo dieting and the effects on the body as well. I wrote a blog post about it in October. I learned that we can't get rid of fat cells once we gain them. They only change in size as we gain and lose weight. What I found interesting is the effect of Yo-Yo dieting on our gut bacteria.

(edited by MFP Staff)

urloved33 · December 2018

yo yo dieting can lead to a fatal heart attack.

Zodikosis · December 2018

Yo-yo dieting is still bad for you, but what you said about fat cells is still true. There are actually a lot of issues with yo-yo dieting, but I'll (very broadly) describe one of the key issues with it below.

In simple terms, dieting puts a form of stress on the body. When dieting responsibly (moderate decrease in caloric intake, max 1 lb/week), the mild sustained stress you place on your body during the dieting period is worth the long term benefit of getting to a healthy weight. Ideally, even if you do diet responsibly, you don't want to do this a lot of times, because the less of this type of stress you have to put your body through, the better. I'm not sure if anyone's ever analyzed if the benefits of having a healthy body weight outweigh the cons of stressing the body through repeated responsible dieting, but I would be interested to know more if they had.

However, the reason yo-yo dieting has been called out as dangerous in particular is because lots of people out there, especially people who are susceptible to yo-yo dieting, don't diet responsibly. They want results -2 days ago, so they effectively crash diet, or get very close to it, which a) puts a lot more stress on the body than a modest diet would and b) doesn't often translate well to weight maintenance strategy, so they'll probably go back to old habits and regain and put their body through another cycle of higher-than-necessary stress again.

Our bodies are adaptive enough to be able to respond to modest daily stresses without too much issue (didn't get quite enough sleep last night, exercised a bit too hard, ate a bit too little), but dramatic changes (couch potato getting up and trying to run a marathon, staying up for four days straight, starving yourself for a month) are not their forte, and when done repeatedly, they do take their toll.

jesspen91 · December 2018

I would say that yo-yo dieting is also psychological damaging because the more times it fails the more likely you are to throw it all in when you stall because you feel that weight gain is inevitable.

LivingtheLeanDream · December 2018

I did a thread on this topic a while ago after seeing this link from WebMD >>

https://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-diet-yo-yo-diet-effect?ecd=wnl_spr_032818&ctr=wnl-spr-032818_nsl-ld-stry_1&mb=aB7YNUX7TcTSH6I2GWN8sOHnVev1imbCjEezIWElcyU=

The jury might be out but its still interesting to read ^

Orphia · December 2018

"One amazing fact is that fat cells generally do not generate after puberty -- as your body stores more fat, the number of fat cells remains the same. Each fat cell simply gets bigger! (There are two exceptions: the body might produce more fat cells if an adult gains a significant amount of weight or has liposuction performed.)"

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/fat-cell.htm

So for many people, it's not that big a worry. They don't grow more fat cells when they gain more fat.

Orphia · December 2018

I'll add that yo-yo dieting is a problem not because of the number of fat cells.

It's most often because of crash dieting and deprivation while losing weight rather than sustainably eating a wide variety of food that includes treats in moderation and learning habits that last a lifetime of maintaining a goal weight range.

CSARdiver · December 2018

Orphia wrote: »

I'll add that yo-yo dieting is a problem not because of the number of fat cells.

It's most often because of crash dieting and deprivation while losing weight rather than sustainably eating a wide variety of food that includes treats in moderation and learning habits that last a lifetime of maintaining a goal weight range.

Correct.

Biological systems react well to change, but need time to adapt. Why measured, moderate changes to diet and behavior work better in the long term. Drastic changes are unsustainable over time. The more drastic the change the greater the risk of failure.

sijomial · December 2018

Carry_That_Weight wrote: »

AFAIK it was accepted until recently that you can’t get rid of fat cells, just shrink them. There’s newer work now that shows that the number of fat cells you have can shrink, but it generally requires at least a few years of maintaining your weight loss. Can’t remember the specifics of the study right now though and I’m feeling too lazy to google it.

I vaguely remember a post from the very wise @EvgeniZyntx describing the conditions where the numbers of fat cells do actually reduce but can't recall the details.

OP - any evidence people routinely add more cells every time they gain and why do you think those cells "are trying to fill themselves up again"? Seems a bit of a contradiction that those cells are waiting to store fat but you instead add more fat cells rather than refill the existing ones.

mph323 · December 2018

Aside from stress on the body, my understanding of why yo-yo dieting is unhealthy is that if you're not doing anything to preserve or build muscle, you'll lose muscle along with fat when you're dieting, and will gain mostly fat back, so that at the end of each cycle your bodyfat percent is higher even if you only regain to the same weight.

amandaeve · December 2018

@sijomial that's why I am asking of the mfp community. I haven't seen any articles in years. I don't think I've ever seen research. Why was that said then? Are "they" still saying that now? I see several opinions that's it's unhealthy, but I don't see any research. @Orphia 's article describes what a fat cell is and does, but doesn't say anything about long-term impacts to losing and gaining weight.

@LivingtheLeanDream I tried to find your thread on the WebMD article. I couldn't. WebMD seems like a less and less credible source the more I look at it. It lost me at this sentence: "Your fat cells make a hormone called leptin. It tells your brain when you have enough fat stored up." If it was that simple, then we would be saying people are overweight due to a hormone imbalance, right? And do they really have data that shows people who have yo-yo'd are more likely to have heart problems than people who are overweight without yo-yoing? I'd like to see it. How much more likely?

MadisonMolly2017 · December 2018

@amandaeve
See this from Wikipedia

Because of the concerns I also read & heard a long time ago about yo-yo-dieting, I did not try to lose weight for a long, long time. They said that yo-yo dieting would effect my heart health.

According to the article below, this was debunked in 1994.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/380893

Effects on health Edit

This kind of diet is associated with extreme food deprivation as a substitute for good diet[when defined as?] and exercise techniques. As a result, the dieter may experience loss of both muscle and body fat during the initial weight-loss phase (weight-bearing exercise is required to maintain muscle). After completing the diet, the dieter is likely to experience the body's starvation response, leading to rapid weight gain of only fat. This is a cycle that changes the body's fat-to-muscle ratio, one of the more important factors in health. A report by the American Psychological Association reviewed thirty-one diet studies and found that after two years of dieting up to a third of dieters weighed more than they did before they began the diet.[3] One study in rats showed those made to yo-yo diet were more efficient at gaining weight.[4] However the research compiled by Atkinson et al. (1994)[5] showed that there are “no adverse effects of weight cycling on body composition, resting metabolic rate, body fat distribution, or future successful weight loss”, and that there is not enough evidence to show risk factors for cardiovascular disease being directly dependent on cyclical dieting patterns. A more recent review concluded "...evidence for an adverse effect of weight cycling appears sparse, if it exists at all".[6]

Since there is "no single definition of weight cycling [that] can be endorsed", it is almost impossible for research to draw specific conclusions about the actual effects of cyclical dieting, until it becomes more definitely defined.[5]

Yo-Yo Weight Warnings

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