How to Stop Yo-Yo Dieting and Keep the Weight Off

Nikkiey: A diet that only works as long as you're on it is not actually a successful diet, because a successful diet, or a successful approach to nutrition, should be something that you can stick to for life. And that's why I love macronutrients.

Yo, yo, yo, you guys, what's going on? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident.

I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 233. Today we're going to tackle something that I feel like a lot of people need to hear. First and foremost, let me ask you guys something. How many times have you looked back at an old diet or an old plan that you once followed and said, "Oh, that worked great for me"? But if it worked so well, why did you stop it?

Just let that sit for a second. Sit with that for a minute. If you've looked back at an old diet or an old plan and said, "Yeah, this used to work for me. What I followed five, six, seven years ago worked for me." But if it really worked so well, why did you stop?

So today we're going to break down why diets that worked in the past actually didn't work at all, and why focusing on sustainability, being more realistic and putting in consistency matters more than what's out there with quick fixes. Like I like to say, pop your body into a microwave and out in 30 seconds you want a toned body. And we'll cover just how to stop the cycle of yo-yo dieting for good.

So with that being said, let's dive into this episode. I hope that you all enjoy it. If it resonates with you, the only thing that I ask of you is to share this with somebody you've maybe been in conversation with lately who is looking to lose X amount of weight in X amount of time, and they're jumping into this program they did five years ago because it worked for them. Or they're diving back into keto because it worked for them seven years ago, or it worked for them last year, and X, Y and Z.

If you know somebody who's done a diet, it worked for them, they stopped, they did the yo-yo, they gained the weight back, and now they're in the place of, "Oh, I'm feeling uncomfortable. I'm not happy in my skin. I want to get results," and now they're diving into the same thing they said once worked, but clearly it didn't, because they would have continued to do it, then share this episode with them. Because I really want everyone to understand that sustainability matters.

If you want results and you want to keep results for the long term and play the long game, you have to be more realistic with yourself and actually follow a plan that works for you and is made for you.

So first of all, today's Valentine's Day, the day that this is airing. So I'm going to give you guys some tough love in this episode today. The first thing I want to be real with you about is that so many people have been through this cycle, and you're not alone either. I want you to know that. When I first started my journey, I was on the yo-yo diet, trying every different program for a year to two years. I jumped into something in the new year of 2015 when I first started, and I was all over the place for the first four months. So you're not alone.

Maybe you've been through this cycle where you start a diet, you follow it strictly and you lose weight. I'm going to use keto as an example, because a lot of people dive into keto. They follow it pretty strictly. They lose the weight. But then at some point, either life happens, or they recognize that they want carbs and they want to enjoy carbs, or they realize they just can't sustain it anymore, and they stop. And eventually at that point, they regain the weight and maybe even more.

Maybe you've done multiple diets in the past, either intermittent fasting, or if I'm speaking to anyone from the 80s, you've done all of those old programs that were a PDF or a counting system or a point system or something. And it may have worked then. You lost some weight, but you realized it's not sustainable. Then you stop, you gain the weight back, and you gain even more back. And later, when you're feeling stuck again, you think, "Oh, I need to get back to that diet. It worked so well last time."

I can say that because that was me too. Back in 2014, I was trying to follow a program for four to six weeks. At the end of the four weeks, I saw results because I was following it pretty strictly. But at that time, there was pizza involved in my everyday life, because my ex-fiancé owned a pizza shop. So we would always eat pizza on the weekends, and I wouldn't be able to stick to said diet because of my inconsistency on the weekends.

Then months go by, and I'm sure you've been here too, and you're like, "I'm not happy anymore. I'm not feeling like myself. I want better results." You're feeling stuck. Maybe you're doing the workouts, but you're not following nutrition consistently. And so you think, "I need to get back to that diet, because it worked so well last time."

But if it was truly successful, why did it stop working the moment you stopped following it? Think about that. If it was truly so successful, why did it stop working the moment you stopped following it?

Here's the truth. A diet that only works as long as you're on it is not actually a successful diet. That's going to sound counterintuitive, because so many people think they have to follow a plan to get said results. And you do, for a period of time. I don't want to hopscotch back and forth here, but I look at macros not as a diet. I look at it as a skill set that's going to serve you for the rest of your life. I say that all of the time.

Maybe you have to follow a plan for a little bit, because you've never followed a plan consistently. But at some point, I hope you understand the how behind the plan you're following and the why behind the plan you're following. This is what we teach and preach at WarriorBabe. We don't just want to give you a plan to follow. In fact, we don't give you nutritional plans to follow for the entire time you're with us. At some point, you just have a protein, fat and carb goal to hit, and then you make your plan in a way that's sustainable and realistic for you day to day.

Because that's what a successful diet is. I'm putting air quotes around "diet," because if you can follow something successfully, it's not really a diet. It's just something you've become accustomed to, with the why and the how behind it.

A successful approach to nutrition should be something you can stick to for life. Not something that leaves you feeling deprived, burnt out, irritated or irritable or hangry, or whatever said keto or whatever program out there does. Not something that leaves you slashing your calories too much, or exhausted because you're not getting enough fuel, and then waiting for the moment you can go back to normal, right?

So think about whether you've been on that roller coaster before, and let the words sink in. Why did it stop working the moment you stopped following it? If it was truly successful, why did it stop working the moment you stopped following it? A diet that only works as long as you're on it is not actually a successful diet, because a successful diet or successful approach to nutrition should be something that you can stick to for life. And that's why I love macronutrients.

Because yes, maybe you're going to have a plan to follow, because you've never followed a nutritional plan or had the guidance of one. You don't know what to eat or how, or when to eat it. So that's what a good plan is, and that's what the majority of the plans out there are. Maybe that's where you start a diet, you follow it strictly and then you lose weight. But at some point you're like, "Oh, I'm bored of this," or "I can't do this anymore. It's not realistic anymore." Or you plateau, because you've been following the same thing for the last six or seven weeks and haven't changed anything. Get what I'm saying?

With macros, yes, maybe at the beginning you have a plan to follow, but then you've got to understand the why and the how behind it. Because if you can understand the why and the how behind it, you are gaining knowledge, and it's becoming a new formation in your brain of what you're following and why you're following it. When you have the why and you understand it more, you're more likely to follow through with it and make it a lifestyle shift rather than just another diet you're following.

Most of these quote-unquote successful diets fail for one simple reason. They're not designed to be sustainable. Keto is not designed to be sustainable. Intermittent fasting is not designed to be sustainable. Let me just ask you about keto. If you are following keto right now, do you plan to never eat carbs again in your life? If you are following a carnivore diet, do you plan to only eat meat for the rest of your life? I want you to think about the big picture here, because that's where you can get a little more realistic. Sure, those things can work in the moment. Yes, if you follow it strictly, you will lose weight, X, Y and Z. But is it sustainable? The majority of them are not designed that way.

Here's what usually happens with those diets. They create extreme calorie deficits. Maybe it's intermittent fasting. There are ways to do it right and ways to do it wrong, and I've recorded a podcast on this too. The majority of the time, I feel like people just want to eat one meal a day. That has been studied and tested on men. But for women, it's way different because of the hormonal profile that we have, and the way we need fuel to function on so many different levels compared to men.

These diets create extreme calorie deficits. Maybe you only eat one meal a day because you've seen it work for your husband, or you've seen it work out there for other women, and maybe it has. But again, it's not designed to be sustainable. You want to tell me you can eat only one meal a day for the rest of your life? That's how I'd like you to think about it. The way they create calorie deficits is that you eat way too little. Yes, you lose weight fast, but eventually your metabolism will adapt and you will hit a plateau.

At that point, it goes back to the cycle of, "This isn't working. I'm going to give up," or "I'm burnt out," or "I've hit a plateau, I've been in a plateau for five weeks now and I don't know what to do." And so the cycle starts again.

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Another thing that usually happens with these diets that are not designed to be sustainable is that they have overly restrictive rules. On keto, you cut out carbs, or you cut out sugar, or you cut out entire food groups, and it feels doable at first. Those of you who cut out carbs may notice a weight drop in the first week, and it may be significant. Let me remind you that every gram of carbs you eat holds on to a certain amount of water weight. When you're not having carbs, you're going to drop that water weight. And what do you think is going to show on the scale? A decrease in the number.

But eventually your cravings are going to go through the roof, and eventually you are going to binge. This is where the cycle starts again. Yes, keto will work. If you follow it strictly, you will lose weight. But at some point you just cannot sustain it anymore, and you stop.

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And then eventually you gain all of that weight back. Another thing that usually happens with these diets is that there's no long-term strategy. As I said a couple of minutes ago, there's no education on how to transition back into real life. So when you stop, you're back at square one.

That's why I love what we teach, and I'm not saying it out of bias. It's just that I see what's going on in the industry and I see this cycle. I've talked to so many women who have been stuck in this cycle, and now I see them on the other side of it because of what they've gained from being inside of WarriorBabe. They gain the understanding. They gain the education. They understand that they're going to go through different phases of protocol, or even better, you could look at it as different seasons of life.

Some of you are going to want to go into fat loss. But then how do you transition out of fat loss and not gain all of the weight back? That's where education comes into play. That's where the why and the how come in: this is what you do, this is the protocol, and you transition slowly. I've talked about it so many times on this podcast, giving you tactical takeaways on how to transition out of fat loss and into maintenance, and not lose all of your progress by eating more.

You shouldn't have to put in all of that work following a diet, and then when you stop, you're back at square one because you gain everything back. You should be able to understand how to sustainably hold that success and then continue to build on it to reach your next goal.

And let me remind you, if this all sounds familiar, the problem isn't you. It's the diet itself. If you've ever found yourself thinking, "I need to do that diet again because it worked before" — and I've heard so many women say, "I did keto a year ago and I'm just going to do keto again now" — just ask yourself: did it really work, or did it just temporarily force weight loss in a way that wasn't actually sustainable? Really think about that.

I want to challenge you on the perspectives you may hold about what weight loss is supposed to look like, what fat loss is supposed to look like, what achieving a goal is supposed to look like. Because this narrative is still going on in the fitness space: follow this plan for four to six weeks, or cut your calories for four to six weeks, or cut out carbs entirely for X amount of time. You don't need to do that.

So what actually works? If all of these diets aren't the answer, what is? What actually works for long-term fat loss is having the right protocol in place, and that's going to help you achieve the body composition you want. So I want to give you four things to focus on.

Number one, focus on sustainability over speed. If you can't see yourself eating this way a year from now, or, like I said a couple of minutes ago, if you can't see yourself eating like this for the rest of your life when you pull it out to a 30,000-foot view, it's not the right approach. Your nutrition protocol should be something you can stick to for the long haul without constantly feeling like you're on or off a diet. So focus on sustainability over speed.

The second thing is I want you to stop demonizing food. What I mean by that is if your diet requires you to cut out all of your favorite foods, if your diet requires you to cut out carbs, if your diet requires you to not have ice cream, if your diet requires you to give up burgers, pizza, wings, if your diet requires you to cut out your favorite foods, it's going to fail. Not you. The diet is going to fail. Because balance is key. You should be able to enjoy carbs. You should be able to enjoy chocolate. You should be able to enjoy pizza. You should be able to enjoy a burger, or whatever else you love, while still hitting your goals.

The third one's pretty obvious. Instead of just focusing on the scale, instead of just doing tons and tons of cardio, instead of focusing on boot camps or F45 or whatever, focus on building muscle and fueling your body the right way. Maybe you're still dabbling, and you're thinking, "I'm afraid of strength training, I don't know what to do," or "I'm just going to keep doing cardio. I'm going to keep doing these classes." If you're in that arena, I want to challenge you next week to go and do two to three days of strength training. Just go do it. Take any limiting belief you have, or any narrative going on in your mind that's stopping you, and just choose to say yes for yourself that you're going to do the strength training.

It doesn't matter that you don't know what you're doing. It's hard. Maybe you feel like you're going to give up. I don't know. Whatever narrative is going on inside your head, go in and do strength training and eat your protein, because it's going to boost your metabolism. Muscle and protein are going to boost your metabolism, and that's going to help you maintain the fat loss for the long term.

And this one I feel is probably one of the most important: learn how to eat for life. The goal isn't to follow a meal plan forever. It's to understand how to fuel your body in a way that feels good, in a way that supports your goals, and in a way that doesn't require you to start over every few months. Let that sink in. Learn how to eat for life.

I think that's what we do really freaking well at WarriorBabe. First of all, we're going to break down the narratives you have around the concepts of dieting. I've joked around with WarriorBabes about this in the past, and we have an entire education module on it. Basically, when you first start WarriorBabe, I want you to think of it as me holding up the Men in Black zapper. Yeah, Men in Black. The laser zap thing he holds up when he's talking to all these people about the life they've been living or the things they saw, X, Y and Z.

So think about it like this. I'm holding it up and looking at you, and you're telling me about all these old diets you've tried. You're telling me how they've worked. You're telling me what worked 10 years ago and how you achieved said goal. But now you're here and you haven't maintained it, right? Yet you're telling me how it all worked. In order for me to give you the keys to what I've seen help over 17,000 women, I need to zap that mind of yours, that brain, the words you're saying about what worked 10 years ago, and focus on the present moment and moving forward with the new things you're going to acquire, the skills you're going to learn and the education you're going to understand.

So I'm zapping you. Men in Black laser, right now. Zap. Bam. Now you're going to move forward and understand how to eat for life, how to fuel your body in a way that feels good, that supports your goals, that gets you the results you want and doesn't require you to start over every single month. How good does that sound? Right?

So that's what I want you to do moving forward, leaving this podcast today. I want you to choose sustainability and choose what's sustainable. If a diet only quote-unquote worked while you were on it, it didn't actually work. What actually works is a lifestyle you can maintain, something that allows you to enjoy life, feel good in your body, still hit your goals and achieve the results you want without feeling like you're constantly dieting.

So instead of looking back at old diets and thinking, "I should try that again," or "That used to work for me," start asking yourself, "What can I do differently this time to make my results last?" Because that's where true sustainability and true understanding take place. When you're no longer seeking the new diet, the new diet, the new diet, you've arrived at achieving results that may have taken longer than four to six weeks.

You can go to warriorbabe.com and hit success, or warriorbabe.com/success, or maybe it's success stories, or just go to the main page. I've been meeting with a bunch of WarriorBabes over the last couple of weeks and recording live interviews with them about their successes in the program, what they've learned, what they've achieved, where they were before and where they are now, post-WarriorBabe. It's been crazy, all the different buckets I've talked to. One's mindset, one's menopause, one's injuries, one's a breakup. It's so many different arenas that I know if you go to the page and listen, maybe one of those stories will resonate with you.

And if this podcast resonated with you, I just ask that you share it with someone who needs to hear it. All right, until next time.

If you're ready to stop the cycle of unsustainable dieting, and you want to start learning how to fuel your body for life, and you want to understand the how and the why and the education that comes into play when you're working to find something sustainable, a nutrition protocol you can follow that doesn't require you to give up your favorite foods or feel like you're depriving yourself, check out WarriorBabe. We have 70 coaches who are incredibly certified. So many certifications, way more than me. They coach way better than me, and they're there to help you learn, understand and create this transformation, not just physically but mentally as well.

So check out warriorbabe.com. In the meantime, guys, stay strong, stay smart, and remember that sustainability is the real key to success. That's all I've got for you. Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you have an amazing Valentine's Day weekend. Allow yourself to have the chocolate, like I'm saying here in this podcast. Allow yourself to have it, but make sure the majority of everything else you're eating in a day is still healthy and still in alignment with your macros. All right, I appreciate you guys. Love you guys. I'll see you in the next episode.

Real quick: if this episode resonated with you or gave you the push you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it, and help me keep spreading the word. Your feedback not only helps the show grow, but it might just be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so, so much for your support.