How often have you triumphantly lost weight, only to accumulation the weight again? Many individuals fight this battle for nearly all of their lives.

What Causes Yo-yo Dieting?

It may seem that cutting drastically on your food intake will bring quick results. Sooner or later, however, your body prepares itself for fewer calories coming in. The body adjusts and chooses to conserve energy and lowers the way the body burns food for energy. The weight loss that was earlier attained starts to slow down or stop.

Many dieters at this point would wrestle to sustain their diet. What happens next? The weight slowly creeps back up.

To make matters worse, the decreased metabolic rate induces the body to survive on diminished calories. Rapid weight loss diets also make the body burn food more efficiently with each dieting episode. This stringent calorie restriction causes a decrease in muscle tone. Familiar signs are sagging buns and flabby upper arms.

Suggestions to Break Yo-Yo Dieting

As opposed to a quick weight loss, aim for a long term tolerable approach. Plan for a moderate weight loss of 1-2 pounds a week. If you plan to decrease calorie intake, do it gradually. I recommend a decrease of 200-500 calories a day depending on how much you have to lose.

Imagine your diet as a healthy living design instead of a temporary weight loss program.

Increase your level of physical activity. Take the stairs not the elevator, park far from the entrance or pick up on activities you enjoy such as hiking, biking or dancing.

Do not skip breakfast and eat small meals throughout the day. You are less likely to overeat if you take small meals.

Emotional Eating and Overeating

Okay, maybe your problem isn’t yo-yo dieting. It’s possible that your eating has become a habit such as eating junk food when you sit down in front of the TV.

Perhaps you are an emotional eater. Do you skip meals when stressed and overeat when bored?

Overcoming emotional or habitual eating

It is time to examine what is causing you to use food to solve your emotional eating habits. Find an alternate to eating. Try taking a walk to clear your head. Invite your friends to a game of miniature golf on your birthday. Have healthy snacks at your place of work. You can grab these instead of the junk in the vending machine.

Try to manage hunger by eating several small meals a day. Remember that if you go hungry, you will make poor choices or you will tend to overeat.

Do not eat to 100% fullness! Yes, you can train your body to be satisfied at 60 percent capacity. It is okay to leave food on your plate. You are not helping poverty ridden countries by cleaning your plate.

If you know that you cannot stop at just one potato chip, get rid of it. As a matter of fact, just get rid of all the junk food that are detrimental to your goal.

Corny or not, do things to remind you to stick to your goal. Place a sign on your refrigerator that reads: Long term goals versus short term pleasure. Perhaps you can put a sign in your wallet that you see whenever you open it that reads: Food is not the boss in my life. I am stronger than the temptation of any food.

Finally, if you overeat, do not fall off the wagon. Get back on track right away. Not tomorrow — today. Because tomorrow will never come.

Rochester Gyms, Fitness Programs in Rochester and Rochester Weight Loss Programs dedicate their themselves to keeping you fit, healthy and trim.

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