The Yo-Yo effect

The Yo-Yo effect an eye opener for fad dieters

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I t’s like a boon to lose weight in a short span of time with a whole new categories of diets these days. To name a few, GM diet, Paleo diet, cleansing diet, the Military diet and the list is never ending.

The fads
Behind it’s miraculous results and promises, fad diets are not nutritionally adequate and scientifically proven. These diets deprive you of the essential nutrients to barely make your body work and perform daily activities.

Intermittent fasting, starving, and popping multivitamin pills is the easiest yet a risky path to a slim body.

One of the most common side effect of fad diets is "Weight Gain". Yes, your diet could be doing just the opposite of what you want it to, and it can seriously hurt your health.
I am sure you have experienced a quick and a doubled weight gain once you stop following a fixed food intake. Why so? Because it was not started gradually in the first place. It was initiated with sudden restricted low calorie meals which when interrupted shows drastic weight gain. Even if you eat half a piece extra of bread/roti, it reacts immediately and disappoints you.

The real deal
In the process of losing weight through a fad diet, major micro nutrients are are drained out of the body which creates deficiencies. For instance , as per the scientific researches, Vitamin D deficiency is directly related to increased obesity. So basically you’re preparing your body to gain more fat with fad diets rather than shedding them quickly.

A study presented at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting offered evidence that yo-yo dieting can dramatically increase the risk of heart disease, particularly among women. While other researches claims that weight cycling (yo-yo dieting) may increase the risk of developing type II diabetes and excess adiposity than remaining weight stable at an obese Body Mass Index (BMI) of >30 kg/msq.

False claims of fad diets :

  • Fad diets can cause dehydration, when you’re jumping with joy as you’ve lost 5 kgs in the first 2 weeks of your diet, you’ve got rid of the water weight and not the fat. In the running of losing water from your body, you’re extremely dehydrated without even realising it. It makes you feel fatigue and tired all day. On the contrary, losing upto 3 kgs in a month with a good hydration regime will give you a long lasting healthy impact with less of nibbling on unnecessary snacks.

  • Talking about metabolism, it rises with timed fuelling of the body with good quality food which falls down with fad diets and collapses eventually. With starvation and inadequate meal plans, the metabolism comes down inducing difficulty in fat loss and weight stagnation.

  • As I always focus on the muscle mass of the body, fad diets happily and easily breaks them down and drains it out of your body keeping the fat tissues intact. So at the end of the day, you’re losing out on the good stuff of your body and retaining the unwanted FAT.

Bottomline
In order to avoid these consequences, make eating healthy food your lifestyle, see it as a modification for the betterment of your body and your mind. This will aid in long lasting results and will keep you away from weight cycling wherein you keep on sprinting from higher weight to lower and likewise.

About the author

Prachi Shah, a young entreprenuer, is a qualified Clinical Dietitian & Consulting Nutritionist. She practices and preaches holistic approach towards health, breaking the myths & fads of the people across the country. She believes in balanced diets which are an amalgamation of Indian roots and modern science. Moreover, she is a Diabetes & Cardiac nutrition specialist with a vast expertise in weight management. Contact No. : +91 7874758953 Email : [email protected]