The Diet Cycle: What it is, Why It Is Harmful, and What to Do Instead
Have you ever been unhappy with your appearance and decided to go ‘on’ a diet? Perhaps at first, you feel really good about this decision. You cut out certain food groups and start to lose weight. Eventually, you miss the foods you are no longer ‘allowed’ to eat and decide to eat them. Once you’ve broken the seal, you choose to go ‘off’ the diet and eat what you want, maybe even more than you want. You are filled with guilt for ‘failing.’ Naturally, you gain back the weight you lost from restricting until you decide to try again and go ‘back on’ another diet.
By: Julia Klosk
Sound familiar? If so, you may have been trapped in the diet cycle.
What Is the Diet Cycle?
The diet cycle, sometimes referred to as ‘yo-yo dieting’ or ‘weight cycling,’ is the process of going ‘on’ and ‘off’ diets and consequently losing and regaining weight. Fatphobic messages from society or healthcare workers can often be loud and lead many to believe that a thinner body is better. Accepting these messages as accurate can lead individuals to cut out entire food groups or otherwise eat less food, i.e., dieting. Going ‘on’ and ‘off’ diets can have actual wear and tear on the body and real physiologic and psychological consequences.
Why Is The Diet Cycle Harmful?
Weight cycling has been associated with many negative health consequences. One study found that more significant weight changes were associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. In addition, yo-yo dieting has been associated with a higher incidence of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes.
Beyond physical health, the diet cycle often leaves individuals with mental health consequences such as anxiety and feeling like a failure. Even though the diet industry tries to convince you that you are a failure for not being able to adhere to a diet’s strict food rules, the truth is that this doesn’t have to do with lack of willpower or discipline. Our bodies are wired for survival, and we have a complex biological system that fights against food scarcity (e.g., diets) so we stay alive. Read more about the set point theory here.
What Can You Do Instead?
An excellent first step in escaping the dieting cycle is to reject the diet mentality. Rejecting the diet mentality is the first principle of Intuitive Eating, an anti-diet approach to making peace with food and your body. Rejecting diet culture may look like throwing away diet books, unfollowing influencers that encourage diets on social media, or choosing a dish at a restaurant you genuinely want to eat instead of the one you ‘should’ eat. Once you realize that diet culture has been profiting off your insecurities and encouraging you to try dieting to ‘fix’ something about yourself, it is easy to be angry and frustrated. Sometimes those emotions can be motivators to try something new. While this may sound easy, giving up on dieting and trying to change your body is complicated. You may have been on some sort of diet or planning to go on a diet for a very long time, and like anything hard, it will take some time, so be gentle with yourself.
If you are intrigued about giving up on dieting and exiting the stage right from the dieting cycle, you’ve come to the right place. Rejecting diet culture and making peace with food is no easy feat, but BALANCE can help.
At BALANCE eating disorder treatment center™, our compassionate, highly skilled team of clinicians is trained in diagnosing and treating the spectrum of eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, compulsive overeating, and other disordered eating and body image issues. In addition to our full-time Day Treatment Program and Weeknight Intensive Outpatient Program, we offer high-quality programming, nutrition counseling with a licensed dietitian, meal support, and various other groups and resources to help those seeking help for food concerns.
Our admissions team would be happy to answer any questions you may have about our programs and services. Book a free consultation call with our admissions team below, or read more about our philosophy here.
This post was written by BALANCE Dietetic Intern, Julia Klosk (she/her).
Julia Klosk is a Dietetic Intern at BALANCE eating disorder treatment center. She is currently in her second year of the integrated M.S.- RDN
program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Before that, she graduated with a B.S. in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University and worked in financial services for six years. Julia is interested in the intersection of psychology and nutrition and is passionate about helping others heal their relationship with food and in turn, enhance their overall well-being. In her spare time, Julia loves listening to podcasts while taking long walks, reading, cooking, baking, and spending time with her family.
References
Blair SN, Shaten J, Brownell K, Collins G, Lissner L. Body weight change, all-cause mortality, and cause-specific mortality in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial. Ann Intern Med. 1993 Oct 1;119(7 Pt 2):749-57. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-119-7_part_2-199310011-00024. PMID: 8363210.
French SA, Folsom AR, Jeffery RW, Zheng W, Mink PJ, Baxter JE. Weight variability and incident disease in older women: the Iowa Women's Health Study. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 1997 Mar;21(3):217-23. doi: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0800390. PMID: 9080261.
Tribole, E., & Resch, E. (2019, December 19). 10 principles of intuitive eating. Intuitive Eating. Retrieved December 21, 2022, from https://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/