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The statistics tell a scary story. Some estimates are that more than 80% of those who have lost weight have regained all of that lost weight within 2 years. Some have regained even more than what they lost.
We know that this extra weight is a health risk and this means emotionally and physically. Emotionally it is frustrating because you may feel like you have failed or you let yourself down.
Physically recent studies have correlated this lose weight-gain weight cycle-lose again cycle also called yo-yo weight loss to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and depression.
This yo-yo weight loss also called weight cycling is defined as a weight loss of more than 10 pounds and then you rebound and gain 10 or more pounds. You then repeat this cycle over and over again.
Those that tend to fall into this weight cycling conundrum are those who follow very strict or calorie restrictive diets. Many need to see quick results so they go to the extreme and follow the most restrictive methods possible day and and day out without a break.
This is to satisfy our instant gratification complex we tend to have. There are studies that support this and when you stop that severe restriction and start adding calories then the weight comes right back on.
We already know that weight loss can be challenging and there are many factors that contribute to you successfully losing weight or not losing any weight.
Your body doesn't like to shed that extra fat. It is a safety mechanism. Your body views that extra fat as extra calories if it is to ever need it. It is part of the starvation mode. Your body will always try to store extra calories in case you were ever starving to death. Your body would then have a reserve to pull from.
Gary Foster, Ph. D., and director of the Center of Obesity Research and Education at Temple University explains that one reason it is so difficult to keep weight off is because of something called "metabolic overcompensation".
He explains it like this.
"If you decrease your body mass by 10 percent, you would expect you metabolic rate to decrease by 10 percent, but it actually slows down more than that, by about 11 to 15 percent."
This goes back to the starvation mode effect and your body fearing that you are starving yourself to death. It doesn't know if you are just wanting to losing weight or if you are starving. So it goes into protection mode.
Weight cycling may also change your physiology and affect your hormones by increasing the hormone gherlin, which is a hunger hormone. It also may decrease the hormone leptin which tells you that you are full. When this hormone is low you feel hungry more often and then essentially eat more as a result.
You tend to also lose muscle when you are on the losing weight part of the cycle, which then slows down your metabolism even more. The result is even more fat on the rebound. This also makes it harder to lose weight later because your metabolism is now running slower and burning less calories.
So What Do You Do?
The first thing you do is focus on lifestyle and permanent changes. Look at your current food intake and see where you can make obvious improvements. Focus on those improvements and cut out the obvious "wrongs" in your eating habits.
The second thing you should do is incorporate a strength training interval program that allows you to build muscle as well as speed up your metabolism through the burning of calories.
These two things should be your focus as you establish your core foundation. Once you have mastered these then you can hone in with more specialty techniques.