Happy New Year! How to break the Yo Yo Diet Cycle for good

Siobhan Julian with some simple and practical steps to tackle the festive weight gain

If like many people, you’re getting set to tackle the festive weight gain (once again), you might want to take some time to consider if your approach to dieting is genuinely likely to lead to success. As experienced dieters will attest, the basics of weight loss are not complicated. It’s a simple equation of consuming fewer calories than you expend. Eat less, exercise more … what could be easier?

Well with obesity levels continuing to rise at an alarming rate, it’s evident that applying this equation to our behaviour is anything but straightforward. If you’re serious about a New Year’s Resolution and a New Approach to Food, your behaviour has got to change and the best way to achieve a change in behaviour is to change your attitude. Only by addressing the fundamental thinking behind your weight gain will you escape the cycle of yo-yo dieting.

We’re all agreed that quick fixes don’t work and that’s especially true of dieting because failure to think carefully about the root causes of the problem invariably leads to failure to lose weight and keep it off successfully. It’s easy to get caught up in the euphoria of early weight loss and feel motivated – for a time. But it’s even easier for that motivation to wane and for complacency to kick in if we haven’t effected a fundamental change in the way we think about food and behave with food. The secret for the people who maintain a healthy weight is that they have reviewed their behaviour and shifted their mindset – for good.

The stages of change

As a clinical Dietitian, I use what’s called the stages of change cycle to help determine how successful a client will be their approach to a healthy weight.

The stages of change are :

  • Precontemplation (when they don’t consider there is a problem)
  • Contemplation (thinking about the problem but doing nothing yet)
  • Preparation (gathering information on how to change)
  • Action (doing something positive)
  • Maintenance (maintaining the change)
  • Relapse (reverting to old ways)

I encourage all patients and clients that I see to consider what stage of the cycle they are at. This evaluation helps to identify an honest approach and helps yield long term positive outcomes. Identifying the stage you are at is critical. If a person is at stage 1 and is overweight but doesn’t believe they have a problem, they will lack the motivation to make a change. Similarly, a person may be caught between stage 3 and 4, always intending to ‘start tomorrow’. This is a very common mindset.

Serial dieters on the other hand live for Monday morning or the 1st of the month or New Year’s Day, in order to kickstart a healthy regime. But somehow, they swing between stages 4 and 6, failing to master the basics of stage 5. They are the sprinters of the dieting world but lack the stamina of the long distance runner, making them especially vulnerable to the fast and faddy diets that promise dramatic weight loss over a short period.

It may sound obvious but often an honest appraisal of the stage you are at is what’s needed as a trigger to move someone on to the next stage.

Practical and simple steps...

The good news is that there are many practical and simple steps involved in behavioural change and these are much easier to follow once you have identified the stage you are at. Obesity has serious physical consequences but its causes may be psychological or emotional. Give some serious thought to your own circumstances if you want to make these important changes:

  • Keep a food and activity diary as this can help to identify patterns in eating and activity that may be unhealthy, many of which you may be completely unaware of. For more on a food diary, see my earlier column: The Food Pyramid Approach to Weight Management.
  • Develop an awareness of triggers that may cause overeating in your life. Sometimes, it’s a practical trigger like eating everytime you have a cup of tea; other times, it’s an emotional trigger like eating following an argument or during periods of heightened stress at work. In either instance, you’ll find that food is not the answer – having a cup of tea doesn’t make you hungry and eating when upset or stressed does not remove the cause of the problem.
  • Identify some social support to help keep you motivated. Instead of meeting a friend or neighbour for a bun and a coffee, arrange to go for a walk with them instead.
  • Make a list of the excuses you regularly use to explain your weight gain. Write them down – sometimes it helps to see them in black and white to be brutally honest with yourself and to see them for what they are – excuses that are preventing you from reaching a healthy weight and a positive attitude to your body.
  • Set realistic goals and remember that you did not gain the weight overnight and it will not go overnight. A healthy loss is 0.5-1 kg per week. If you set unrealistic goals, you are setting yourself up for failure, deliberately sabotaging your own efforts.
  • A healthy eating plan is crucial. You may need to seek professional help from a dietitian as opposed to fad dieting with the latest so-called trendy diet. A dietitian will help you set goals that are specific, realistic, measurable and achievable. Alternatively, following the principles of the Food Pyramid plan – a remarkably undervalued but very effective tool for helping to achieve safe, healthy weight loss.