We all want to be lighter, whether it’s a couple of lbs or a couple of stone, but some celebrities seem to take this to the extreme. Remember the gasps when Geri Haliwell returned to the stage at The Brits a few years back, after a period of being out of the limelight? Her tiny 7st frame was so toned there wasn’t a centimetre of excess flesh on her. Newspapers were full of it – the new Geri seemed to be a more interesting one than Geri ‘the curvy’ Spice Girl. But when interviewed later on, Geri admitted she had been suffering from an eating disorder. Her weight loss had been too much and she had been over-exercising to achieve that look.
Now, she has done exactly the same thing – a few lbs overweight after the birth of her daughter Bluebell Madonna, she has honed herself back to shape and was parading her new body in St Tropez recently looking like the cat that got the cream. But this time she said it was through healthy eating and moderate exercise – she hasn’t dieted for years, she was quoted as saying. Good for her, she looks fantastic, but hopefully her extreme dieting days are over because the yo-yo dieting pattern she adopted for years won’t have done her long-term health any good.
What is yo-yo dieting?
Weight cycling, to use its official name, is the repeated loss and regain of body weight. When weight cycling is the result of dieting, it is often called ‘yo-yo’ dieting.
According to Juliette Kellow, nutritionist at Weight Loss Resource website, if you have frequently crash dieted and restricted your calorie intake without exercising, it’s likely you will have less muscle, which means your metabolism will be slower. Therefore, you will need fewer calories to maintain your weight. In other words, you may lose the weight but you will pile it back on more easily.
A recent study conducted by Swedish and US scientists found that yo-yo dieting and a large waistline put women at far greater risk of developing kidney cancer than those women whose weight had remained stable.
And according to a spokesman from the National Obesity Forum: ‘Yo-yo dieting is never a healthy thing to do because the body never gets a chance to settle down. It knocks the metabolism to hell, which is incredibly bad for you in so many ways.’
Most women go on 15 serious diets in their lifetime but most of us end up a stone and a half heavier than when we started, basically because we put the weight back on plus a couple of extra pounds as well.4
Risky business
Some studies suggest that weight cycling may increase the risk of certain health problems, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and gallbladder disease.
Experts say that dramatic weight loss over a short period leads to a low energy intake resulting in mood swings, severely impeded concentration and sluggishness. It can also mean you are lacking in vitamins and minerals, essential for good health.
Another common side effect of yo-yo dieting is depression – it can really knock your self-esteem and self-confidence, particularly when you start putting weight back on even more quickly than you lost it.
Nothing new
But although it may seem like a new phenomenon, yo-yo dieting has been around for years. In the 1970s, the Last Chance Diet was based on a period of fasting. The diet meant you couldn’t eat anything but you were allowed a small drink several times a day, called Prolinn, a liquid protein that provided less than 400 calories a day. This consisted of ground-up and crushed animal horns and other slaughterhouse byproducts that were treated with artificial flavors, colours, and enzymes to break them down. It was slammed at the time for being bad for your kidneys, but 2 to 4 million people tried the diet anyway. And allegedly 58 died from heart attacks while they were on it. Not the best diet in the world then. And fasting will simply mean that once you start eating, you will put the weight on again.
Lose weight the healthy way
So maybe yo-yo dieting isn’t the way to go – all that hard work and will power just to put it all back on again within months and have to start again. The only way to lose weight effectively, according to experts across the world, is simple: Eat less of the bad stuff, more of the good stuff and do regular exercise. And don’t eat more calories than you are burning on a daily basis. That way you will keep it off and you won’t be depriving yourself. Easy and effective.
Gillian Says
‘Don’t do it. Yo-yo dieting is one of the worst things you can do for your body. During the dieting period, the body can go into starvation mode in which metabolism slows right down as a self preservation measure. This ultimately leads to cravings and over eating. With a slower metabolism, more weight is gained than was ever lost so the end result is weight gain and feelings of failure.’
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Kirstie Alley, former star of the television programme Cheers, was a svelte actress in her heyday, but over the years she piled on the lbs until she reached just over 200lb.
‘When I got fat, I was being stupid. It was a little bit like when I used to do drugs,’ says Alley, who managed to successfully kick her drug habit years ago. ‘Before I stopped doing drugs, I had to spiritually get a grip and go, “what do you want your life to be like?”’
She took up a weight-loss programme and lost 75lb, famously revealing her ‘new’ body on The Oprah Winfrey Show wearing just a bikini. But rumour has it she is already putting on the pounds – so easy to do once the incentive of revealing yourself on national television is gone.
Chirpy Big Brother presenter Davina McCall, has gone up and down weight wise over the years. When she married her outdoor pursuits teacher husband, Matthew Robertson, she weighed 10st and was a healthy size 12. But after the birth of her second daughter Tilly, she lost the 2st she’d put on through vigorous exercise, easily getting back to the 10st she weighed before. Not content with that, however, she persevered and got down to 9st 7lb. She lost at least another half a stone before she fell pregnant with her third child. Now she thankfully seems to be back to her normal weight, for the time being at least.
So who else has succumbed to the yo-yo? Janet Jackson, now aged 41, shifted 4st recently through a rigorous diet and fitness regime, but has already started piling on the pounds again in recent weeks – a victim of taking her eye off the ball. And our very own Ann Diamond, former presenter on TVAM, was subject to ridicule and condemnation when she appeared on the television programme Celebrity Fit Club – a competition between two celebrity teams to see who could lose the most weight. It came out that she’d had a gastric band fitted months before and was accused of cheating. She was also offered a six-figure sum for a book deal outlining her fight with obesity. But even with the band and a strict diet and exercise regime imposed on her during the programme she only lost 1lb.
We all want to be lighter, whether it’s a couple of lbs or a couple of stone, but some celebrities seem to take this to the extreme. Remember the gasps when Geri Haliwell returned to the stage at The Brits a few years back, after a period of being out of the limelight? Her tiny 7st frame was so toned there wasn’t a centimetre of excess flesh on her. Newspapers were full of it – the new Geri seemed to be a more interesting one than Geri ‘the curvy’ Spice Girl. But when interviewed later on, Geri admitted she had been suffering from an eating disorder. Her weight loss had been too much and she had been over-exercising to achieve that look.
Now, she has done exactly the same thing – a few lbs overweight after the birth of her daughter Bluebell Madonna, she has honed herself back to shape and was parading her new body in St Tropez recently looking like the cat that got the cream. But this time she said it was through healthy eating and moderate exercise – she hasn’t dieted for years, she was quoted as saying. Good for her, she looks fantastic, but hopefully her extreme dieting days are over because the yo-yo dieting pattern she adopted for years won’t have done her long-term health any good.
Risky business
Some studies suggest that weight cycling may increase the risk of certain health problems, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and gallbladder disease.
Experts say that dramatic weight loss over a short period leads to a low energy intake resulting in mood swings, severely impeded concentration and sluggishness. It can also mean you are lacking in vitamins and minerals, essential for good health.
Another common side effect of yo-yo dieting is depression – it can really knock your self-esteem and self-confidence, particularly when you start putting weight back on even more quickly than you lost it.
Nothing new
But although it may seem like a new phenomenon, yo-yo dieting has been around for years. In the 1970s, the Last Chance Diet was based on a period
of fasting. The diet meant you couldn’t eat anything but you were allowed a small drink several times a day, called Prolinn, a liquid protein that provided less than 400 calories a day. This consisted of ground-up and crushed animal horns and other slaughterhouse byproducts that were treated with artificial flavors, colours, and enzymes to break them down. It was slammed at the time for being bad for your kidneys, but 2 to 4 million people tried the diet anyway. And allegedly 58 died from heart attacks while they were on it. Not the best diet in the world then. And fasting will simply mean that once you start eating, you will put the weight on again.
Lose weight the healthy way
So maybe yo-yo dieting isn’t the way to go – all that hard work and will power just to put it all back on again within months and have to start again. The only way to lose weight effectively, according to experts across the world, is simple: Eat less of the bad stuff, more of the good stuff and do regular exercise. And don’t eat more calories than you are burning on a daily basis. That way you will keep it off and you won’t be depriving yourself. Easy and effective.
7 top tips
Find a way of losing weight that you can actually fit into your lifestyle and budget, and that you will be able to stick to long-term. This needs to be made up of small steps rather than extreme but temporary measures.
If your weight starts to creep up, have a back-up plan to get you back on track before it becomes too late.
Don’t have a blow-out every weekend – it’s important to keep your diet consistent for 7 days a week.
Weigh yourself at the same time and on the same day every week, but don’t get obsessed with the scales.
Eat breakfast regularly. Permanent weight-losers follow this advice religiously because it helps them to control their hunger and prevents them from binge-eating later in the day.
Do exercise every day, even if it’s just walking for 10 minutes, at least you are moving and burning calories.
Eat a low-calorie, low-fat diet. But don’t cut anything out – make healthy choices from a wide variety of foods and treat yourself to the bad stuff every now and again. Everything in moderation is more likely to work, as you won’t be depriving yourself and setting yourself up for temptation and bingeing.
Photos Getty images/Shutterstock
