As if you needed another reason to avoid dieting, new research shows that the “cycling” on and off of diets can stress the brain’s system and cause anxiety, overeating, and withdrawal. If you’ve ever been on a diet where you restrict your food intake and avoid specific foods, but allow “cheat days” to release the restrictions, that process can be very dangerous.
Animal studies show that when diet restrictions are lifted, they ate less and their anxiety was lower than when they were required to eat diet food. In addition, the act of cycle dieting raises a stress-related hormone corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) to five times the amount of non-dieters. This hormone is related to stress, anxiety, and fear. The high levels of CRF give the feeling of being “stressed” when sweet foods were avoided. The researchers indicated these mechanisms correspond to the ‘dark side’ of addiction to drugs of abuse or ethanol, supporting the idea that the brain shows addiction-like adaptations to intermittent eating of palatable food.
“Our research suggests that this eating pattern leads to a vicious circle,” explained Pietro Cottone, Ph.D., who is co-first author of the paper with Valentina Sabino, Ph.D.; both are former postdoctoral fellows at Scripps Research who are now assistant professors and co-directors of the Laboratory of Addictive Disorders at Boston University School of Medicine. “The more you cycle this way, the more likely it is you cycle again. Having a ‘free day’ in your diet schedule is a risky habit.”
Essentially, this study helps explain how a pattern of yo-yo dieting can be established and why it is ineffective for weight loss. Bottom line: don’t diet ever. But if you’re food preferences consist of lots of junky stuff, you might want to explore why that is and add foods that are healthy. They’ll start to replace the less healthy stuff. You won’t feel deprived. You’ll find a healthier weight. Talk about a win-win.
Read a comprehensive blog post on the study at Science Blog.
Filed under: diet, new research, nutrition, obesity, overweight
i agree, those peak and valley cycle are dangerous.
I never believed in limiting the amount of food you eat, but rather selecting the right kind of food.
Hmm, not buying it.
I believe whole heartedly in not weight-cycling. I stayed very steady at a BMI of 29 for almost 20 years until pre-diabetes hit and I had to re-evaluate my beliefs. During most of that period I practiced just-be-sensible, intuitive eating but since so much of my eating was an attempt to feel better (regulate my blood sugar), I never lost weight.
I used clean eating with a cheat day once a week to drop my BMI to 26. Once I deliberately reduced sweets and refined carbohydrates, I was able to eat to satisfaction and still lose some weight. I never go hungry, but most days of the week I refrain from the pastry and sugar I would really like to be eating. I don’t eat “diet food” but I don’t eat whatever I want, when I feel like it. For a small percentage of the population, this may be the key to slenderness, but for an insulin-resistant person whose body does not respond well to processed carbs, “Go ahead and indulge, you’ll eat less in the long run” is not helpful advice.
I looked at the post where the science is discussed in more detail. Unless I read it wrong, it looks like one group never got sweet chow at all. It wasn’t a question of having access to both types (a normal food environment, where you choose between, say, fish and pastry)– the rats only had access to the equivalent of fish. So they didn’t weight cycle. If I were a rat locked in with regular chow, no doubt I would do very well from a weight control perspective. I don’t find it terribly useful to compare a totalitarian food regime with a cycled food regime, and note that the totalitarian one works better for anxiety and health. I’m sure it does, but the thing is, most of us don’t live in lab cages with researchers regulating our food. Seems to me it would be more useful to compare rats with access to both types of food (a non-diet approach), versus rats where access is limited to the equivalent of one day a week. The way I read this study, it is more persuasive on the point of simply never eating sweet food at all, than in avoidance of dieting.
[...] another reason to quit dieting: According to Balanced Health and Nutrition it leads to overeating, stress, and anxiety. Instead of denying yourself, practice replacing those junk foods with healthier [...]
[...] another reason to quit dieting: According to Balanced Health and Nutrition it leads to overeating, stress, and anxiety. Instead of denying yourself, practice replacing those junk foods with healthier [...]