Trying to stop yo yo deiting

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Hello I was once 21 stone but after a lot of hard work I'm finally getting to my target of 15 stone but my weight keeps Yo yo ING can anyone advise to why this keeps happening and have any ideas of how to stop it

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  • acemodder
    acemodder Posts: 5 Member
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    not easy to answer without more context.
    Diet, exercise, gym etc?
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,682 Member
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    Are you talking about daily fluctuations in your weight from water retention, waste retention, etc. or long term?

    The usual reason for yoyo weight changes is that once you have lost weight, you go back to the way you were eating before you started to diet. That doesn't work. You have to look at maintenance as a continuation of your weight loss way of eating, not a 'return to normal'. It is very easy to let the calorie intake creep up, so occasional high calorie treats become daily treats or more.

    If you go into the maintenance section of this forum, you'll see a lot of threads asking how people manage to maintain their weight loss. I have maintained a 50 lb. weight loss for about 10 years. I don't measure and weigh everything I eat, but I log it so I am honest with myself about my intake. I also weigh myself regularly. This lets me know if I am starting to eat too much before it gets out of hand. Like most, I try to keep my weight within a 5 lb. range and when I get close to the upper number, I cut back a bit on my intake. I don't wait until I've gained 20 or 30 lbs. It's easier to lose 5 than 30. I also am consistently physically active. That allows me to eat more, and it keeps me healthy. In a way, you can never completely let go of dieting when you've lost a lot of weight.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,976 Member
    edited January 5
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    There's quite a few reasons people can't control their eating like stress, proper planning, overcoming negative emotional states, poor sleep, convenience for example. As far as food is concerned one theory is it's mostly hormonal and people continue to eat the foods that are designed to circumvent those hormones which also happen to be made mostly of a food mass that is then formulated into different shapes, sizes and macronutrient combinations that are then specifically designed to be overconsumed. Examples might be cornflakes, twinkies, white bread, candy bars, artificial cheese crackers, pringles, energy and soft drinks, shakes, most desserts etc. These types of food represent over 70% of the calories consumed for the average American and there's seems to be a correlation to being overweight and obese where about 70% of Americans are overweight and obese. I think if it was easy to forgo these foods and replace them with whole foods that number would come down and it appears from statistics that people that eat mostly a whole food diet tend to weight less and are more easily able to maintain their weight regardless of the other stressors in life.

    A lot of people find themselves hungry when dieting quite a bit of the time. Some people can moderate these foods without a problem, personally I'm not one of them and I consume a low carb diet/ketogenic diet which is mostly a whole food diet and one with mostly animal protein and eat until satiated and now I have to be mindful that I get enough to eat. I need around 3000+ calories to maintain my lifestyle and there are days where I'm not eating enough and lose a few lbs simply because I'm not hungry and I gauge that mostly by how my cloths fit, which is a quick reminder that I need to eat more and energy during this time doesn't actually go down and certainly feels like it goes up, strange but true and I don't count calories and have maintained this for a dozen years. Everyone is different, but that's what works for me.

  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,748 Member
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    Yoyo is when you go from 15 stone to 20 stone and then start again.

    When you go from 15 stone to 15 stone 1lb or 15 stone 2lbs or 14 stone 13lbs or 14 stone 13lbs it is a weight fluctuation.

    You can and probably SHOULD use a weight trend app to establish your weight level. You can check out apps similar to happy scale on iPhone, libra on android, weightgrapher or trendweight on web (Fitbit account doesn't require having a device). Last time I looked at that line up was several years back. I'm sure others exist or you can setup a xx day weighted average in a spreadsheet (suggest 10 days or so)

    This gives you an indication of your general weight level and direction and smooths out meaningless fluctuations.

    Once you have the smoothed average on hand and understand your normal variations then I would try to stay within a 2 lb or so window of the weighted average. For myself I know that if my weighted average is up 2.5lbs I really have had a weight gain I need to clamp down on. In fact, in my specific case, anything with a 2 indicates an ongoing issue--not a one off that both can and should be ignored.

    That said, my goal at maintenance was always to play for time and "smooth the curve".

    The highest predictor for being able to continue to maintain a weight loss is time at maintenance. And your odds of continuing to maintain improve appreciably by every month and year you manage to avoid a persistent upward curve!

    The classic yoyo pattern is a distinct U sometimes almost a V. We want an \~~~ instead!

    How tall are you by the way? Would a continuing slow loss goal be appropriate? I personally found that having a goal of continuing to lose at a very slow rate (a 150 (not even 250) Cal effective deficit was what allowed me to slide to maintenance over the course of more than a year and helped me avoid an immediate uncontrolled upward curve on starting to maintain.
  • zebasschick
    zebasschick Posts: 920 Member
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    most people i know who diet hit a certain goal weight, then they start to eat the way they always used to and put the weight back on. if you eat what you used to eat, you'll weigh what you used to weight.

    the thing is to create new eating habits that are sustainable. it may mean you have to change amounts, foods or recipes, eating frequency, and may have to learn to budget calories if you want to splurge. i found it helped to change from full fat ice cream, yogurt and milk to the light or non-fat versions and to find snacks i really like that are lower in calories than the snacks that put the weight on me. btw, one of those snacks involved a triple chocolate ice cream with m&ms on top and chocolate syrup. instead, now it's a chocolate protein bar or low calorie brownies or hershey's zero sugar mini bars.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,449 Member
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    I share the question about what you mean by "yo-yo".

    Is it the day to day weight change up and down of maybe 3-5 pounds (possibly more, but just cycling through the range yet not continuing to drift steadily upward over weeks and months)? That's normal. Maintenance is a range, not one specific number. If that, accepting the situation is the right answer.

    Or do you mean a steady up-creep of weight somewhat slowly, until it gets extreme so you have to diet again, repeatedly? That's more likely to be caused by not having quite dialed in the right set of routine eating and activity patterns that you can keep up long term (ideally forever) almost on autopilot to stay at a healthy weight. If that, figuring out new more sustainable habits is likely the right answer . . . not that I'm saying that's necessarily easy. (It's a process. I'm in year 7+ of maintaining a healthy weight, after about 30 previous years being overweight/obese.)

    Personally, I also accept that as a person with a tendency to gain, I'm likely to drift up in weight seasonally (because more/less active), and maybe super-slowly other than seasonally. As long as I'm staying in the healthy weight range, and the same clothes size, for myself I consider that all part of maintenance. I've done gradual creep-down of weight on purpose by running a tiny deficit most of the time, until I was back at a happier weight again . . . but I'm still talking not many pounds, because I commit to change when clothes start getting a little snug. (It helps that I hate to clothes-shop. ;) )

    Best wishes!
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,455 Member
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    For normal variation, I can easily see a 4lbs difference from one day to another. The reason? Eating more salt in combination of mild constipation, or airline travel. some people experience the same in various parts of their menstrual cycle, starting a new workout, sleeping poorly, storing more water in their legs during a workweek at a desk, and thousands of other reasons. None of them have anything to do with fat gain. All with temporary fluctuation of water or poop weight. And yeah, this can totally mask weightloss. It's just what it is. That's why it's a good idea to wait at least one full menstrual cycle to re-evaluate whether you're losing weight or not, if you don't have a lot to lose even more than that. Understanding these fluctuations is one of the keys of not giving up.
  • Lildarlinz
    Lildarlinz Posts: 276 Member
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    Hi Phil!
    Well done on the weight loss thus far :) that’s amazing

    Not sure what you mean about yo-yo ing though

    Are you weighing yourself everyday?
    I did this and if I’m honest it messed with my mind.

    If you eat something salty…like gammon or eat a bag of salt n vinegar crisps…salt can add excess water weight hence why the scales look like you have put 3lb on in one day….

    If this happened on Monday…try weighing yourself later on in the week :)

    Just keep sticking to the calories you are given :) but it’s amazing how much you have already lost! Xx