Healthy Dieting – The Ups And Downs Of The Yo-Yo Diet

We all need to pursue a healthy lifestyle and of course a healthy lifestyle includes a healthy diet. That may be stating the obvious but people adjust their diet for many different reasons and those reasons do not always relate to health.

We all know that diets can be unhealthy. Indeed, taken to the extreme they can be downright dangerous. Even if you engage in what you may regards as a healthy diet the danger still remains that you can be off a diet and on a diet. This syndrome is known as “yo-yo dieting”.

Following one unsuccessful diet after another leads to, at the very least, a loss of self-esteem and a feeling of failure. These negative emotions can develop into a depressive emotional state. This is partly due to the change in eating habits but moreover it is to do with the continued experience of failure due not achieving eight loss goals.

The Cycle of “Lose it Gain It”

Fad diets are of no use whatsoever. Weight lost is very soon regained and the never-ending circle of the dieter’s treadmill begins all over. Most people who go on a specific diet fail to realise that the most important thing is not a diet change but a lifestyle change. They need to change their whole outlook to life in general and to food in particular. A life style change is the only way to pursue a healthy dieting regime. This is the sole way of eliminating fad, yo-yo dieting from your life once and for all. A healthy lifestyle-eating plan will eliminate the fad diet and set you at liberty to follow the healthy diet.

People seem to jump in and out of diets at a whim and the concept of healthy dieting is ignored totally. Even people who are not overweight go on diets for some unknown reason. When one person loses a little weight on a diet everyone around that person wants to try the same diet. They will stick with this diet for a couple days or a week and then go back to normal eating and behaviours until the next diet comes around. Some people start a new diet every Monday only to be off the diet by Tuesday or Wednesday. The problem with this crazy way of eating is that there are some very real dangers of dieting and the different fad diets that become popular.

Frequent Weight Changes Due to Unhealthy Diet

A constant and dramatic change in body weight can, over a period of time effect the health of the bodies regular functions, the major body organs, such as the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys, are susceptible to these constant alterations to the metabolism. Constant and dramatic changes in body make up can adversely affect the function of the organs. Indeed, it is probably better to remain a little overweight but remain constant than to be forever losing and then gaining body fat. This is not a healthy diet.

The Danger of Malnutrition While Dieting

Obviously the body does not want to find itself malnourished. Yet this is exactly what most dieters are doing to themselves while they are dieting in an unhealthy manner. They seek inadvertently to cut out the very foods that the body needs to function effectively. To totally eliminate all fats from the diet is not sensible. In the same vein we need carbohydrates; the very thing that some diets seek to eradicate completely. Following a diet like this is not healthy dieting at all.

The Healthy Diet and Eating Disorders

Anorexia and bulimia are the Bain of modern society and the scourge dieters in the west. These two, avoidable and life threatening conditions are modern phenomena and are due to our unhealthy fascination with looks and the attraction of the cult of celebrity.

This psychological disorder will not be helped in any way by dieting but requires counselling and psychological intervention. Without help people with these dangerous dieting disorders can face serious health issues including death.

Dieting can be dangerous and needs to be taken seriously. Fad diets should be avoided and people with serious weight issues should seek medical help. Successful weight loss will only occur with serious commitment and life style changes.

By: Peter Wellington

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