12:52 AM
Anonymous
Michelle Underwood knows only too well the agony of failed diets. The 36-year-old mother-of-three from Woking, Surrey, has seen her weight yo-yo from 11st to 19st repeatedly over the past decade, as a succession of diets initially worked, then failed spectacularly — leaving her heavier and more desperate than ever.
Michelle blames herself for her serial dieting failures, saying she lacks willpower and has an appetite for the wrong food.
Last week saw a high-profile example of this common problem, when broadcaster Jenni Murray revealed in the Mail how she has piled back on the 5st she lost last year on the controversial Dukan diet.
She had dropped from 19st to 14st, with the intention of losing another two. But all the hard work came undone in a matter of five weeks on an extended holiday, she said, followed by a diet-free Christmas.
Murray has now joined WeightWatchers and believes she has finally found a diet that works for her.
One must admire her optimism and wish her luck. But scientific evidence increasingly points to a far deeper problem that confronts dieters: cutting out calories changes your metabolism and brain, so your body hoards fat and your mind magnifies food cravings into an obsession.
Slimmers have often feared this was somehow true, but now science confirms this cruel fact of nature. New research shows dieting raises levels of hormones that stimulate appetite — and lowers levels of hormones that suppress it.
Meanwhile, brain scans reveal that weight loss makes it harder for us to exercise self-control and resist tempting food. Worse still, the more people diet, the stronger these effects can become, leaving some almost doomed to being overweight as a result of their attempts to become slim.
And as research lays bare the dangers of yo-yoing weight, some experts argue it would be better not to diet at all.
Michelle’s story epitomises these problems. Until she was 25 she weighed around 10st, a normal weight for someone 5ft 8in tall. She stayed slim even after the birth of her two sons — now in their teens — but when she and her partner, Paul, 37, moved in together in 2001, the weight piled on.
‘I have increasingly developed an appetite for the wrong foods,’ she says.
‘I go all day without eating, then Paul comes home late from his job as an NHS estates officer and we get a takeaway. That’s despite having gone to the supermarket to buy food to cook.’
Within a year she weighed 15st, going from a size 12 to a size 18. After the birth of her daughter in September 2003, she weighed 16st. And so began a depressing cycle of diets, weight loss then gain.
Over the next nine years she tried a variety of diets, including homespun regimens and hypnotherapy.
She lost up to 6st a time, only to regain it within less than a year. ‘Holidays are my downfall,’ she says. ‘Especially package holidays where all the food is included.’
At one point, in 2008, with the help of WeightWatchers and Lighter Life, she lost 6st in less than five months. She was thrilled. ‘When I’m eating healthily, I feel better and sleep better. I also feel more confident,’ she says.
But Michelle’s diet foundered again in 2009 while on holiday. ‘I got fed up feeling weak and light-headed. It affected me psychologically; I felt obsessed with food.’
Michelle now weighs 19st — the heaviest she’s been — and is desperate to lose the weight once and for all. ‘When I’m overweight, I don’t want to go anywhere or meet new people. I won’t even take my daughter swimming, even though she wants to go, and the leisure centre is right by our house.
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