Q. I experience the yo-yo effect every time I go on a diet. How can I stop the weight from coming back?
The key is not simply eating less, but recovering your metabolic capacity. You must increase your body's energy efficiency to stabilize and maintain your basal metabolic rate.
📝 Detailed Answer
When you aggressively restrict your diet and then return to normal eating habits, your weight can surge back frighteningly fast. Many people try extreme fasting, only to experience dizziness and lethargy that disrupts daily life. Ultimately, the body perceives starvation as an 'emergency state' and attempts to store more energy to survive.
In Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM), this condition is often viewed as Spleen Deficiency (Bi-heo, 脾虛). When the function of the Spleen—specifically the ability to digest and absorb nutrients—is weakened, the body cannot utilize energy efficiently. This leads to the accumulation of phlegm-fluid (Dam-eum, 痰飮), a metabolic waste product, making the body more prone to weight gain.
💡 Key Goal for Preventing Yo-Yo Effect
Rather than forced fasting, the goal is to normalize collapsed metabolic functions to create a body that 'burns energy naturally.'
- Metabolic Decline: Excessive fasting → Sharp drop in basal metabolic rate → A constitution that gains weight even with low caloric intake
- Functional Weakness: Persistent Spleen Deficiency (脾虛) → Imbalanced nutrient absorption and occurrence of edema
- Vicious Cycle: Fasting again → Muscle loss → Further decline in metabolism → More severe yo-yo effect
Therefore, instead of blindly losing weight, the approach should be to supplement the body's vital energy (Qi) while clearing away unnecessary phlegm accumulation (Dam-jeok, 痰積). This is the only way to maintain weight loss in the long term. Since metabolic states vary by individual, the first step is to assess your current functional level.
Expert Verified
Dr. Yeonseung Choe
Chief Director