The yo-yo is the bane of dieters everywhere. If you’ve tried to lose weight before, you know about it.
You start a diet, stay on it for a while … maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe longer.
When you first started the diet, you thought, “Wow, this is great. I can eat like this the rest of my life, no problem.”
And you do stick to it … for a while. You lose weight. You feel great. Everyone is complimenting you on how good you look, asking you how you did it.
Then you start to want the foods that you can’t have on your diet.
If you are sticking to a low-carb eating plan, you want cupcakes or cookies or just a huge bowl of pasta with a thick slice of garlic bread.
If you are eating low-fat, you want fried chicken or butter on your toast or simply a decent friggin’ salad dressing.
“I’ve been so good for so long,” you reason, “I can have it just this one time.”
And you do have it. And it’s good.
That’s fine, not disastrous , because after you enjoy your treat, you stay true to your diet. But then you figure, why not establish certain times when, in fact, it is perfectly fine for you to have those “forbidden” foods? Maybe, let’s say, the weekends.
And you do eat them. And they are good.
And now you are on that slippery slope. The “weekends” start earlier and earlier, and before long you are back to eating the way you used to eat, the way that made you fat. Sure enough, all the weight comes back … and then some.
Every few years, you repeat this series of events, and, as your weight goes down then up then down then up, there you have the yo-yo.
So the big question has always been, “How do we avoid the yo-yo?”
It’s really quite simple. Simple, but not easy.
Kinda like quitting smoking. All you have to do it quit, right? Simple. But not easy.
I think the answer is (1) quitting a problem food group (or two), and (2) reshaping your self-image.
Quitting a food group? Like stop eating carbs or proteins or fats or …?
No, not exactly. I mean try choosing a type of food that causes you problems, leads to weight gain, and quitting it. Just stop eating it.
For example, for me the food group is “anything designed to appeal to my sweet taste buds”, so, basically, sweets are out for me.
You may think that is harsh, but, wow, I was really out of shape, so harsh measures were necessary. I never made any great long-term strides toward good health by using easy methods. How ’bout you?
Similar to the way I felt about cigarettes when I quit smoking, when I quit eating sweets, I went through a period of really wanting them. During that time I couldn’t have them in the house or I might break down.
That was the hard part.
Once that phase passed, when I could actually be in the same room with a german chocolate cake with coconut-pecan frosting and not dive into it, I still had to exercise self-control, but not too much. I’d seen results and didn’t want to jeopardize them.
Nowadays, it’s really not a problem. I don’t want the sweets. Not at all. Wave a cupcake under my nose — no problem.
I imagine I’ll get to a point where I’ll be able to eat just a little of something, if I want to, but I don’t foresee wanting to. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Your problem food may not be sweets and it may not be so broad a category. Maybe it’s “fried foods”. Maybe it’s “soda”. Maybe it’s “fast food”.
Quitting a problem food is just one piece, though. The other piece of the answer to avoiding the yo-yo, I think, is to work through the weight in levels.
When I weighed 70 pounds more than I do now, I was fat, but had a hard time realizing it.
When I started my quest for fitness, I leveled out at a weight 30 pounds above where I am now. That weight was cool for a while. It was, after all, 40 pounds below my peak, but eventually I realized that weight was also too fat.
That’s when I started P90X, and when I got to my current weight, I felt so much thinner.
However, now that I have been at this weight for over a year, I am starting to feel fat here. You know why? It’s not anorexia, I promise — not only can I tell by looking in the mirror, but the numbers say that I do, indeed, have some fat left to lose.
Now, figure this: If I feel fat at this weight, do you think I’ll ever let myself get anywhere near that other weight. No way!
I have successfully reshaped my mental picture of myself, so, hopefully, that will work to prevent my returning to a previous, rotund body shape.
Just like anything worth doing, you have to commit to it. Despite what you may see on late-night tv, there are no magic pills or patches. There are no easy roads. You have to commit to succeed.