HELP
CLIENTS
BREAK
THE YO-YO
DIETING
CYCLE
For clients to achieve long term
fat loss you must help them
understand the psychological
issues involved.
WORDS: KATE SWANN & KRISTINA MAMROT
s a fitness professional you encounter them every day –
the clients whose desperation to lose weight and achieve
the perfect figure sees them embarking on the latest fad
diets: no carbs, no sugar, no protein, and even the no food diet.
Yes, the weight comes off. But it doesn’t take long for the
individual to regain all their previous weight – and more. At which
point they get on board with the latest miracle diet. Ad infinitum…
This is the world of the yo-yo dieter. So how can personal trainers
help to break this cycle?
The simple answer usually provided to the weight conscious client
is to eat less and exercise more. It’s all about energy consumption
versus output, right? Of course, this is over-simplifying the problem.
Often the basic problem of eating too much is only a symptom of
what is really going on in a person’s mind.
As psychologists specialising in working with overweight and
obese clients, we know yo-yo dieting is often an outward sign of a
bigger internal issue. For some people, eating is closely connected
with emotions, such as sadness or depression. Yo-yo dieters seem
to believe that quickly losing weight will change the way in which
they are perceived, both by themselves and by others. However,
as fast as they lose the weight they regain it, leading to increased
feelings of depression and anxiety about their inability to keep
the kilos off. It doesn’t just serve no benefit, therefore – it actually
exacerbates the problem.
A
Emotional eating
For a personal trainer to be able to help their client, it is very important
to have an understanding of the psychological issues involved. It is
essential for someone trapped in the yo-yo diet cycle to understand
NETWORK WINTER 2014 | 61