I don't know if you're familiar with any of the science behind that, but basically fast weight loss (and pretty much ANY weight-loss diet, no matter the type, will result in weight loss the body considers fast) makes the body think you're in a famine. Since it perceives starvation, it ratchets down your metabolism, making it more and more difficult to lose weight the longer you go on. Add in the fact that it'll store any calorie it can for later (thus packing on fat rather than muscle), and you wind up in a real pickle...especially when you get sick and tired of keeping up the diet because it sucks (and they all do!) and go back to eating normally. Check out the study they did on Biggest Loser contestants...seriously eye-opening!

My approach was to change one tiny thing at a time. Like slowly switching from soda, to diet soda, to flavored seltzers. Or adding a few more low-cal veggies to my plate/bowl at a time, getting used to larger veggie servings and smaller carb servings over time (since excess energy in the form of carbs is the easiest for the body to store as fat, due to the action of insulin and the development of insulin resistance).

Another thing that's helped is slowly learning more of the science behind WHY our bodies behave the way they do (like the fat storage mechanisms above), and slowly convincing myself that I wasn't actually the exception to those rules. 😆 Some good news: Did you know that for all-cause mortality (that is, death by any/every cause), people termed "overweight" and "obese" actually have a better survival rate than those considered normal or underweight? It's facts like that that make you realize there's a whole 'nother story that isn't being told about what's actually healthy.

Anyhoo, I'll climb down off my soapbox. But if you're curious about some of the science behind weight vs. health, I have learned a LOT from Ragen Chastain's Weight and Healthcare newsletter/substack. She actually reads the science and breaks it down to make it easier for those of us without science degrees to understand! 💜