Yo-Yo Dieting – How to Break the Vicious Cycle. By Shane Pearson

May 8, 2012 | In Health, News

Lets face it, most diets don’t work! In fact, stastistics show that up to 95% of diets either don’t work or only show short term benefit. If you or someone you know has ever tried to lose weight and managed to shed a few pounds only to find yourself right back where you started (if not even bigger!) - you are not alone. Demoralising? Yes. But before you reach for the biscuits IHS may have the answer!

Lose a few pounds, gain a few pounds, lose a few pounds, gain a few pounds. The yo-yo dieting cycle repeats itself over and over with millions of people across the globe stuck in this endless hamster wheel whilst the fat cats (excuse the pun) of the slimming industry make billions of euros from you every year. There seems to be an endless supply of new diets coming off the production line, promising faster and easier ways to lose weight. We’ve had the Atkin’s, the no-fat, the low-fat, the low-carb, the no-carb…the list goes on but when do we stop, even just for a moment and ask the question ‘Why don’t any of these diets work long term?’

One thing is certain - to accomplish anything in life we need motivation – not a diet pill or low fat snack bar! From an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) perspective there are only two forms of motivation. They are:
1. Towards Motivation (moving towards pleasure or what we want)
2. Away From Motivation (moving away from pain or what we don’t want)

Think about weight loss for a second. There are two reasons a person may want to lose weight. One reason is to move away from what they don’t want (being overweight, unhealthy etc.) and the pain or discomfort associated with that. The other reason is the pleasure associated with what they do want (e.g. becoming slimmer and healthier).

Yoyo Dieting is a Classic Example of Away From Motivation.

Lets delve a little deeper into the psychology of Away From motivation and some of the problems it brings with it. Firstly, if you are ‘Away From motivated’ to lose weight you have no motivation until you are actually experiencing some of the pain of being, in your opinion, overweight. It is only when you can’t quite fit into your jeans or the weighing scales have tipped dizzying new heights that you become motivated to take action. Unfortunately, this may already be too late.

However, at this stage you are motivated and you take action. You start a diet, join the gym, deny yourself that extra biscuit. Guess what? You lose weight! Hurray. So where’s the problem? Well - where is the motivation now? That’s right, it has either decreased or completely gone. So you quit the diet (you hated it anyway), stop going to the gym (boring after a while anyway) and you know you’ve earned that extra biscuit! What happens next? Time passes, days go by, until suddenly you can’t fit into those jeans again! Aargh! Motivation kicks in and it’s time to take action so off we go again - yo-yoing up and down, up and down.

In reality we all have a certain percentage of Towards and Away From motivation but we might need a little help in shifting our attitudes and mindset further towards a positive Toward outlook. A good NLP practitioner knows the pitfalls of Away From motivation and can assist a client wanting to lose weight in making this mindset shift towards what they do want to achieve. They can help their client feel all the positive associations associated with having things the way they want them and being who they want to be as opposed to not being who they don’t want to be.

When all of your motivation is towards what you really want it is constantly propelling you to reach your goals. You are more focused and experience more joy and satisfaction as you reach those goals and it is less stressful on the body too. The extra pounds fall off easily and effortlessly as a by-product of you stepping into the new healthier, happier you. You feel great and get long term results.

So if you believe NLP would be a useful tool for help you, or others, break out of the grips of the multi-billion euro yo-yo dieting industry and learn how to use the power of your mind to get what you want instead then help is at hand! The Institute of Health Sciences are introducing a fully certified Practitioner Certificate in NLP for Healthcare Professionals this autumn. Click this link for more details.





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