HOW TO BREAK THE YO-YO DIET CYCLE

Research suggests your fat cells have a memory, hence any weight you lose always seems to find its way back to your body. So why is it so hard to make your fat cells forget?

- by MARIANNE GUENOT

As the Sun returns to our skies, you might be pulling out your summer clothes, the ones you bought after last year's diet. But these clothes might now feel a little snug. Your weight has crept back up and may even be higher than before.

If this sounds familiar, don't feel bad. The data suggests the odds of keeping lost weight off are against you. Studies of thousands of people over decades show that in 80–95 per cent of cases, a person will regain any weight they've lost over a number of years.

It's tempting to blame the weight's return on overindulgence, but as we delve deeper into our genetics, we're learning that our body chemistry—the choreography of hormones that influence our moods and behaviour—is constantly trying to get us to eat more.

“This is how the body works - its goal is to bring you back [to your original weight],” says Dr Fatima Cody Stanford a clinician and researcher from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School who treats and studies obesity. “It’s not that you, the person, did something wrong,” she says.

For some, this leads to another problem: 'yo-yo dieting' — or weight cycling, as scientists prefer to call it. This is a vicious cycle of weight loss and gain that ultimately leaves people worse off than when they started.

For those trying to fit into their favourite summer outfit, yo-yo dieting can be vexing. But for the 16 per cent of the world whose obesity puts them at higher risk of developing a disease, not being able to keep the weight off can be a matter of life and death.

So how do we rewrite this story? Can we get our body on board with our weight-loss goals?

HOW TO WIN AT LOSING... TEMPORARILY

The Biggest Loser was a hit TV show of the mid-2000s. Broadcast on the NBC network in the US, it rewarded participants who lost the most weight while following drastic diets and intense regimes of physical exercise.