Have you ever lost 20 pounds just to gain it back and maybe even more?
How about 30 pounds, maybe 50 pounds?
This is yoyo dieting and unfortunately it's a common occurrence among people that are
looking to lose weight.
It's happened to quite a few people.
It's happened to me before in the past.
So in today's video, I want to talk about overcoming yoyo dieting.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dustin Williams.
And for the best health, nutrition and fitness advice, make sure to subscribe to my channel.
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single week.
After 13 years of working full time in the fitness industry, I've had the opportunity
to work with quite a few people that have come to me that have either struggled to lose
weight or have really struggled because when they lose weight, they tend to gain it back
and they cannot maintain it.
So today I want to discuss my six main reasons that people yo yo diet.
So let's just dive right into it.
All right.
Reason, number one, whenever people diet, they choose a diet.
When they start a diet that isn't sustainable for them.
Period.
I get almost in the video on this one.
Pretty much anything else that I talk about is almost going to be a sub category of reason.
Number one, it is sustainability for the individual.
You have to be able to pick something that you can not just do for a month or for 12
weeks or 16 weeks or how long it takes you to reach your goal.
You have to be able to focus on a lifestyle that you can maintain from here on out or
some variation of that lifestyle.
If you're picking something that's not sustainable for the long term, you're not going to be
able to maintain it and you're more than likely going to start over eating and start to gain
the weight back that you did lose.
And this is not a cycle that you want to be a part of.
You want to be able to lose the weight, do the work, create a lifestyle, maintain it,
and keep it off.
So the number one reason, the most important thing that you need to be able to focus on
is, is what you're doing right now, or whatever you're planning on doing in the future.
Is that sustainable for you and for your lifestyle?
Reason number two, as I mentioned, this one is going to be kind of a sub category of reason
number one, but diets are typically too restrictive.
The term diet implies that you're going to have to restrict multiple different things.
Now, in some cases, the restriction works for people, but what you have to understand
is, is the thing that you're restricting, is that something that you can maintain?
So we talked about some of the more popular things that people are focusing on right now,
like Keto, they essentially restrict and cut out all carbohydrates.
Or if you look at being vegan, they cut out and restrict all meat.
If you look at being carnivores, they focus all on meat.
They're cutting out fruits and vegetables.
All of these things are super, super restrictive, and whenever you restrict things that much,
it can be a lot hard to maintain.
It doesn't mean that it's impossible.
There are some people that choose these lifestyles and they're able to maintain it.
The question is, if it's really restrictive in that aspect, is it something that you can
maintain and is sustainable for you and your future plans?
And most of the time, whenever people sit down me, the one thing that I hear them talk
about is I'm going to stop eating X, whatever that is, insert this food here.
Maybe it's processed sugar, maybe it's any sugar at all.
Maybe it's carbohydrates.
You know there are multiple different things that people talk about that they're going
to start stop eating, and if you are able to do this and maintain it and it works for
you, great.
But most of the time, whenever people are being so restrictive on their diets, they
cannot maintain that long term.
You have to be able to build a lifestyle and a diet plan that's going to have some flexibility
that's going to allow for some room for error because these are things that are going to
happen.
I don't know if I've ever met anybody in my life that the day they decided to start changing
their eating or having better eating habits that they've never messed up and that they
haven't ever had any mistakes or any errors based on what their plans were.
It just doesn't happen.
We're human.
We mess up all the time and we have to be able to build in flexibility into our diet
to be able to create a longterm, sustainable lifestyle
out of it.
Recent number three that I see is it's not uncommon for me to start analyzing one of
my clients who nutritional plans and I start talking to them about what they're eating
and they're eating foods that they just don't really enjoy.
If you are forcing yourself to eat things that you don't enjoy, you're more than likely
not going to be able to maintain that.
How are you going to be able to eat something all the time for the rest of your life if
you don't really enjoy eating it?
We have to be able to put diets and food together that we actually enjoy to be able to create
a lifestyle out of it.
I was, I'll give you an example.
I was involved in the natural bodybuilding world for about four or five years.
I was a regional head judge for the natural bodybuilding Federation and I got to talk
to a lot of bodybuilders, bikini girls, figure competitors.
I trained some as well, and if I had a dollar for every time I heard one of them talk about
the plain dry chicken and broccoli that they were eating.
Well, it sounds terrible.
All right.
It worked toward them for the ones that were doing it.
You've got onstage, they look good, great for them, but if you told me that I had to
eat chicken and broccoli plain for the rest of my life in order to be lean and and look
the way that I want to look, I would never make it.
I couldn't do it.
I can't even eat that one time and actually enjoy it.
Not if it's just plain like that.
We have to be able to build out something that we can enjoy.
We have to be able to look forward to the food that we eat on a regular basis.
If you're forcing yourself to eat these foods or drink these shakes that you don't like,
you're not going to be able to maintain it.
So we have to make sure that whatever nutritional plan meal plan that you're following, that
it's something that you're going to look forward to, something that you are going to actually
enjoy and want to eat.
Reason number four is that your motivation, the thing that motivates you is your progress
and only your progress.
Now, don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to be motivated by progress.
It's not seeing progress.
However you're monitoring if it's on a scale, it's the clothes that you're fitting into.
If it's measurements, body fat percentage, um, the way that you feel, the way that you,
whatever measurements that you're using.
If you're, if that gives you motivation, that's great, but it can't be your only form of motivation
because then what happens whenever you have an off week or two and you don't eat the
things that you're supposed to eat and you fall off plan a little bit.
Maybe you don't lose weight that week or whenever you skipped some workouts one week or something
happens and you're not able to maintain, you're not able to see progress within those few
times.
What happens when you plateau?
You're doing everything that you think that you're supposed to do and you hit a plateau.
This is extremely common whenever people are dieting, plateaus occur.
When you hit the plateau, there's no progress and if progress and the only thing that motivates
you, motivation tends to go away.
We have to be able to focus on the things that matter.
This is where you have to dig in and understand why do I really want to change my nutritional
lifestyle?
What's my reason behind it?
And whenever you sit down and you start to think about this, when I talk to my clients
and really dive in with them, I start to understand a lot more reasons.
Sure.
They want to feel better about themselves, they want to be healthier and those are all
great goals, but I have some people that say, I just want to have a little bit more energy
throughout the day.
Whenever I eat really bad, I feel super lethargic and I get really tired halfway through the
day, especially at my desk.
I have some people say that they want more energy to be able to play with their kids.
They try to play with the kids and they get out of breath real easy and they just feel
like they can't keep up with them.
I've had multiple different reasons as to why people are trying to create a nutritional
lifestyle for them and you have to look into those reasons and have a good understanding
of what's going to motivate you and what's going to drive you besides just the progress
so that you've got something to lean on whenever you're not making progress, which leads me
directly into number five and that is that you can't always rely on motivation.
Motivation will not always be there.
There are going to be days that you are not motivated.
You may not be motivated to eat what you're supposed to eat.
You may not be motivated to get up and go workout or go to the gym or do whatever is
part of your routine and your lifestyle.
There are going to be days that you're not motivated.
We have to be able to focus on more than just being motivated as I said, because it's not
always going to be there.
If you look at certain examples, I'm sure that anybody that's watching this video that
works a full time job, that there are plenty of times that you are not motivated to get
up and go to work for the day.
I'm not going to lie.
I was not super motivated to make this video today.
There are days that I just don't feel like doing it.
We're all like that.
We're human right there days that we just don't want to do anything but we do it anyway.
I guarantee you the days that you get up and you don't want to go to work, you still go
to work because it's discipline because it's routine because we look at it as it's just
part of something that we have to do and whenever we start to look at our nutritional lifestyle
in the same manner and we start to build discipline around it.
Then it becomes a little bit easier to maintain it and understand its importance on the days
that we're not motivated.
And there's lots of days that I'm super motivated and I'm looking forward to creating my video
and I get it done and I really enjoy it.
And there's days that I'm motivated to work out and I can't wait to go to the gym and
get my workout in.
And then there's other days that I'm not.
But being able to build a routine and habit, create discipline for ourselves is the thing
that's going to drive us in the end.
It's fine to rely on motivation sometimes, but understand that the motivation will not
always be there and that you have to be able to focus on some deep reasonings and maybe
be able to create an lifestyle, um, and put discipline into place.
And reason number six is ignoring your cravings.
Now, ignoring cravings in the short term, that's okay.
You know, there's going to be times that you're going to feel like, Oh, I just want to eat
this.
And this is where you know the reason before reason.
Number five kicks in, discipline kicks in.
Maybe you have some motivation.
Motivation kicks in.
Ignoring the cravings and a temporary, it can be okay, but what if that craving stays
around?
If you constantly want chocolate every day, every day you want chocolate, you ignore it.
The next day you want chocolate, you ignore it.
Typically we find when we have these cravings over and over again, we pay no attention to
them.
What happens is we end up completely overindulging.
Or if you find that you're really hungry every single day that you're on your diet plan and
you ignore it, a lot of times what happens is we get a few weeks in or a month, who knows?
It might just be the next day.
Everybody's a little different.
We ended up caving in and we completely overindulged.
We eat way too much food because we've been ignoring our hunger.
These are things that we need to pay attention to our body.
It's pretty smart and it lets us know things not just because there's something wrong with
us and that we don't have any, um, discipline.
Sometimes our body is actually trying to tell us things that we might need a little bit
more of.
And I'll use myself as an example, and I've had this exact same situation with multiple
clients over the years.
I find that whenever clients tend to try to eat a better meal plan, that they try to focus
on a better nutritional lifestyle and they start eating more whole foods.
One of the first things it tends to get lower drastically is salt intake.
And because, you know, salt has a negative connotation and people tend to try to avoid
it sometimes, which they shouldn't anyway.
Um, and they start eating more whole foods that don't have as much sodium built into
it, they start finding they're constantly having cravings for something salty and they
think, Oh, well, you know, it's just because I like to eat chips and that's just what I
want.
And I really enjoy going to a Mexican restaurant having chips and salsa.
And sometimes they'll find that they're constantly craving these salty foods simply because they're
not getting enough salt in their diet.
This has been an example for me in the past where, uh, the breakfast that I used to eat
a long time ago had basically no added sodium in it.
And by the time lunch would come around, I was constantly wanting to go through a drive
through and pick up fast food because that's loaded with sodium.
And once I started to analyze things a little bit more and realized that I was never getting
that in because I paid attention to my cravings, it made it a lot easier for me to maintain.
I didn't need more calories that point.
I just needed a little bit more sodium.
And whenever I changed my diet around, added sodium into it, I was a lot better whenever
lunchtime came around and much less desire to go out to eat.
These are the things that we need to pay attention to, whatever that craving may be.
I use salt as an example, but you don't want to just constantly ignore these cravings when
you're having them.
Sometimes whenever we're talking about, uh, something like chocolate, if you allow those
cravings to happen on occasion you've given and you eat a little bit of chocolate, sometimes
that may be enough to get over the craving instead of ignoring it and then completely
overindulging.
So definitely make sure that you're paying attention to those.
Don't ignore them and try to learn from them as you go.
If you learn from and incorporate these six steps that I've just discussed, it can definitely
make a drastic impact on eliminating yoyo dieting, but there are definitely more steps
that it comes to depending upon each individual and what you need to be able to focus on.
And whenever we're trying to create a longterm nutritional lifestyle, there are multiple
things that we may need to get in line in order for this to happen.
This is why I put together a completely free guide for you guys, is my yoyo dieting cure.
Uh, all you need to do is click the link below in the description and it'll take you directly
to my website.
You can download this PDF guide completely for free, and it really is something to pay
attention to, to help help you on this journey and creating an overall nutritional lifestyle
so that you can completely overcome yoyo dieting permanently.
So make sure to check that out.
Let me know if you have any questions on it.
And of course, as always, if you liked this video, I would really appreciate it if you
would smash the like button, subscribe to the channel and uh, otherwise I will see you
guys in the next video.