Why Diets Tend to Lead to Weight Gain in the Long-Term

[Estimated listening time: 7 minutes.]

[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 12 seconds.]

Burnout is a topic that has come up quite a bit as of late. It’s real and it is having a huge impact on mental health, which then impacts physical health. One of the common coping mechanisms associated with burnout is “emotional eating”.

When I spoke with Dr. Jill Rubin Silverman awhile back, she discussed how it was one of the two most common trends she saw during COVID (the other was IBS - irritable bowel syndrome - more on that in another post).

In our discussion, which you can listen to by clicking on the above video, Dr. Jill discussed how “emotional eating” could then lead to “yo-yo dieting”. This then leads to a negative reinforcement cycle, which can lead to significant health problems, particularly for perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.

In general, dieting tends to lead to long-term weight gain. This is why Go Long wants to work with you to find sustainable solutions to address problems around health and wellness. If something sounds too good to be true, it generally is.

Why does dieting tend to have the opposite effect than intended over the long-term?

1. Your Body Adjusts: When you lose weight and then gain it back repeatedly, your body learns to use energy more efficiently. This means it gets better at holding onto calories and storing more fat to protect itself in the event of future calorie restrictions. This will then make it more difficult to lose weight and easier to pack on the pounds when you eat normally again.

2. Losing Muscle: Crash diets often lead to losing muscle along with fat. Since muscle burns more calories than fat, having less muscle means your body burns fewer calories overall, making it easier to regain weight. Weight fluctuations have been associated with an increased risk of heart disease. Rapid weight loss followed by weight regain can lead to fluctuations in blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and blood sugar levels, which are risk factors for cardiovascular problems.

3. Messing with Hormones: Yo-yo dieting can mess with your hormones, like leptin and ghrelin, which control hunger and metabolism. This can make you feel hungrier and have more cravings, making it tough to keep weight off, while also increasing the possibility of mood swings happening. Additionally the stress you’re putting your body under will increase cortisol, which will impact your sleep and cause more overall fatigue.

How a negative reinforcement cycle can perpetuate itself through yo-yo dieting. Illustration: Go Long

Let’s get into some specifics around how yo-yo dieting can lead into a cycle of constant burnout:

1. Constant Restriction: Yo-yo dieting often involves restrictive eating patterns or extreme diets that can be mentally and physically exhausting to maintain over time. Constantly restricting food intake can lead to feelings of deprivation, frustration, and fatigue, contributing to burnout. This is exacerbated when you consider participating in social activities.

2. Unrealistic Expectations: Yo-yo dieters may have unrealistic expectations about weight loss and how quickly they can achieve their goals. When progress is slower than anticipated or weight loss plateaus, it can be demotivating and lead to feelings of failure and burnout.

3. Lack of Sustainability: Yo-yo dieting is often unsustainable in the long term, as it relies on short-term fixes or extreme measures that are not conducive to lasting lifestyle changes. When individuals realize that their dieting efforts are not producing sustainable results, they may become disillusioned and lose motivation, leading to burnout.

Breaking Out of the Cycle

Unfortunately I have lots of firsthand experience with burnout from different aspects of my life. The paths to getting to burnout may differ but the feelings end up being the same.

One of the tricky things about burnout is that when you’re in it, it isn’t always obvious to you. It may be crystal clear to everyone close to you, but when you’re in the eye of the storm, it can be hard to discern. Forget about pulling yourself out of it.

Overwhelm is a common feeling associated with burnout. So the key is figuring out how you can safely reduce that burden for yourself without putting everything on hold. Because, let’s face it, life doesn’t work like that.

Work still beckons. You still need to help your kids with the college applications. Your parents have health issues that you need to stay on top of. And so on.

In working with clients, the goal is to help them find simpler ways to handle everything so they can make time to focus on themselves.

So when working with you, Go Long creates an approach that aligns to your life and the challenges you need to work around so that you can invest in yourself.

When you invest in yourself, the opportunity to create a more sustainable health plan for you increases exponentially.

• You’re not feeling hangry on a constant basis.

• You’re not feeling exhausted all of the time.

• You’re not neglecting the activities that bring YOU joy because we know there’s still a person inside of you that deserves to laugh and enjoy life.

Sick of feeling as though you’re under siege all of the time? Schedule a call.