Dieting Makes You Fat

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f you're trying to lose weight by dieting, you might be doing more harm than good, according to new research. Studies now show that dieting raises levels of the hormones that stimulate appetites, and lowers levels of hormones that suppress appetite. What a cruel trick, right?

Research also outlines the dangers of yo-yo dieting, and some researchers say it's pretty much better to not diet at all rather than yo-yo.

Ditch the salad and have a slice of pizza for lunch. Your body wants you to.

Stories from various dieters were collected and scientific evidence now points to the disheartening idea that 25% of people in the U.K. who tried to lose weight ultimately end up gaining all of it back if not more, simply because diets simply don't work unless they are permanent lifestyle changes.

Researchers, including Joseph Proietto, a professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne, conducted a study of 50 obese men and women, and coached them through eight weeks of an extreme 500-to-550-calories-per-day diet. Now, we think that alone is suspect, because that's pretty much eating nothing. But at the end of the diet, the participants had lost an average of 30 pounds, and then the researchers spent a year counseling the dieters to stick to their healthy eating habits.

Okay, let's pause real quick. This study has red lights flashing all over it—you're not supposed to eat 500 calories a day. Big giant duh that the researchers then recorded the dieters regaining an average of 11 pounds over the next year.

But what's more interesting and perhaps the real point of the study, is that the participants reported feeling far hungrier and more preoccupied with food than before they had gone on the extreme diet. The researchers found the participants' hormones were all out of whack, working overtime and making their bodies act a though they were starving. The levels of the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin were about 20 percent higher than before the study. The hormone peptide YY, which suppresses appetite, were "unusually low."

What's especially crummy is that this hormonal effect can begin to take place in as little as eight weeks but can last for years.

In other words, your body doesn't want to diet any more than you do.

So feel free to take this as a pass on the ol' carrot-sticks-and-salad thing you've had going on, and have a slice of pizza for lunch. Your body wants you to.