Tips to Avoid Weight Gain After Reversing a Diet

Why do people regain weight after a diet?

People regain weight back after dieting for various reasons, depending on individual circumstances, such as the type of diet, the length of time they dieted, and whether you developed and maintained sustainable habits once you stopped dieting.

Some reasons can include:

Overeating following diet restriction

Once the diet is over, a person may resume eating foods they were previously restricting, which can lead to weight gain.

If that behavior becomes a habit or compulsion, a person may continue to overeat, especially as a way to resolve excessive hunger or food cravings they’ve likely been experiencing during their diet.

Overeating is eating past the point of not feeling hungry, and can include eating to or past fullness.

Metabolic changes

During long periods of calorie restriction, your metabolism slows as your body adjusts to a reduced food intake.

After dieting, your daily calorie needs to maintain your weight may be lower than it was before the diet. If you resume your “normal” eating right away, you may be eating in a surplus. Even if a person is meticulously watching their food intake, they may still be eating over their calorie needs.

Adaptive thermogenesis (metabolic adaptation) is a protective process that alters the body’s metabolism to increase energy intake and decrease energy output in efforts to slow weight loss.

The body does this through a few mechanisms:

• Hormone changes: The body releases or suppresses various hormones, including ghrelin, insulin, leptin, and peptide YY, to increase hunger, which may cause you to eat more.
• Decrease in resting metabolic rate (RMR): Your body focuses its energy on vital organs to keep you alive. Less energy is dedicated to “non-essential” functions, such as hair and nail growth.
• Decrease in exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT): You may feel like you have less energy to exercise or see a notable decrease in exercise performance, meaning you’ll burn fewer calories during a workout.
• Decrease in non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): NEAT includes any energy used for daily tasks, such as walking, fidgeting, and general movement.
  • For example, you may subconsciously choose to park your car closer to your destination to reduce walking, perform fewer household chores, or avoid random movements like pacing while talking on the phone.
• Slowed digestion: During periods of calorie restriction, the body may slow down digestion to absorb as many nutrients and calories from food as possible. Plus, the thermic effect of food (TEF), or how much energy your body uses to digest food, decreases, since less food is being consumed.

Most weight regain after a diet may be the result of excessive calorie intake.

Reduction in fat-free mass

Research also suggests that restricting calories may promote weight regain by reducing the body’s fat-free mass, which can increase appetite.

You may feel hungrier as a result of losing body fat.

Following a diet that can’t be maintained long-term

Many diets do not teach healthy, sustainable lifestyle habits, such as:

• learning to read nutrition labels
• prepare nutritious meals
• intuitive eating or mindful eating, which involve paying attention to your body while eating and learning to recognize its hunger and fullness cues

While people may lose weight on a restrictive diet, once the diet is over, they may return to previous habits that led to the unwanted weight gain.

Overall, most temporary diets do not prepare individuals for life after the diet, which is one reason why experts don’t usually recommend them, except under certain circumstances.

Instead, most health professionals recommend adopting lifelong habits that may help you lose weight in a sustainable way, such as eating more whole, nutrient-dense foods, limiting processed foods, being physically active, and getting enough sleep.

Is it possible to avoid regaining weight after a diet?

Though difficult, it is possible to avoid regaining weight after a diet. Some steps to try include:

Increase your amount of regular physical activity

A 2022 review of research suggests that maintaining or increasing physical activity is a promising way to prevent weight regain and counteract metabolic adaptation. The authors suggest that physical activity can also improve protein and fat balance.

If you’re on a diet that restricts your calorie intake, increasing the amount of calories you burn through physical activity after the diet may help prevent weight gain as your metabolism adapts to consuming a less restrictive number of calories.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends adults between the ages of 18 and 65 should:

• get 30 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic (cardio) physical activity for at least 30 minutes 5 days per week, or vigorous intensity aerobic activity for 20 minutes 3 days per week
• perform strength training activities at least 2 days per week

Increase your calorie intake slowly

According to a 2021 study, metabolic adaptation caused by weight loss likely isn’t permanent, and your metabolism can gradually increase as your calorie intake increases.

Gradually increasing your calorie intake in a slow and thoughtful manner may support your body in restoring its metabolic rate, manage your hunger levels better, and potentially reduce weight regain.

This may mean retaining some of the diet’s principles and slowly reducing them over time, or adopting a less restrictive long-term health eating plan.

Keep in mind that you may gain some water weight or muscle mass during this period. Weight regain may not be solely fat regain.

Try a long term, nutritious eating plan rather than a temporary diet

Following restrictive diets, which usually involve eating a very low number of calories, is hard long term, especially because your body engages mechanisms to prevent drastic weight loss when it notices that you’re in a large calorie deficit.

It’s also difficult to ignore feelings of deprivation and hunger. As a result, sticking to a low calorie diet, especially if it restricts many foods or entire food groups, is hard to maintain long term.

Medical Perspective

The most important thing to consider when trying to reduce the impact of weight gain after stopping a temporary diet is choosing the temporary diet. If the temporary diet is completely different than the diet you plan to return to, it will be difficult to maintain the weight loss. Consider planning a permanent lifestyle change to transition to after the temporary diet. For instance, if you are cutting out dairy and sweets for a period of time, consider after this time trying to decrease significantly the amount of dairy and sweets in your diet. The other important thing to consider is that you will likely need to increase the amount of exercise you are getting to maintain your weight loss.

— Angela M. Bell, MD FACP

Learn more ways to adopt a balanced, sustainable eating pattern.

_{Quotes represent the opinions of our medical experts. All content is strictly informational and should not be considered medical advice.}

The unsustainable nature of these diets can lead to “yo-yo dieting,” where a person cycles between losing and regaining weight.

If you can avoid dieting in the first place, you’re setting yourself up for more success over time. Instead, it’s ideal to focus on adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors that you can successfully and happily do long term, such as:

• limiting sweetened beverages and drinking mostly water or other low calorie drinks (e.g., tea, coffee)
• eating more vegetables and fruit
• eating more fiber, protein, and healthy fats
• limiting eating out and following healthy practices when you do eat out, such as choosing nutritious options and limiting portion sizes
• limiting ultra-processed foods, such as prepared foods made with refined sugar and refined flour

Long-term eating plans to consider include:

• the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes eating whole foods, lean protein, and various vegetables, fruits, and legumes, and limits sugar and ultra-processed foods
• the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, which focuses on eating fruits, vegetables, and lean protein and limits salt, sugar, and fat intake
• the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet, which combines aspects of the Mediterranean and DASH diets

Manage portion sizes

If you notice that you’re regaining weight, you may want to check your portion sizes to ensure you’re eating the amount you intend to.

To manage your portions of the different items that may be on your plate, can try the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) MyPlate Method, which involves:

• making sure half of your plate contains vegetables and fruits
• dividing the remainder of your plate between whole grains and lean protein, and varying your sources of both
• consuming only a small amount of dairy and dairy alternatives

The MyPlate Method also recommends eating a wide variety of each of these types, which helps increase the different nutrients you consume.

Take steps to support your overall health

Other factors outside of what you eat can make weight regain more likely. These include sleep deprivation, which can affect your metabolism and lead to increased energy intake, and stress, which can reduce increase food cravings and distrupt the gut microbiome, making weight gain more likely.

Mental health conditions like depression can also increase weight gain. This may be due to increased stress, changes to sleep time, physical activity, and dietary patterns.

To support your overall health, try:

• getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep, the recommended amount per night for most adults
• managing stress and practicing positive coping mechanisms, such as meditation, yoga, therapy, or journaling
• seeking treatment for any mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety

Find a support system

Having a support system, whether a healthcare professional, coach, friend, family member, or online community, to help encourage your lifestyle changes can make them easier to stick with longterm.

You can also find support through joining an exercise class or weight loss program.

The bottom line

Many people gain weight after stopping a restrictive diet. This can result from many factors, including changes to your metabolism and overeating after your body became used to reduced calorie intake.

To reduce weight regain after a diet, you can try a long-term sustainable eating plan, increase your physical activity to account for your increased calorie intake, or stop your diet more slowly to help your metabolism adjust.

Healthcare professionals recommend avoiding temporary diets and instead adopting a lifestyle that is sustainable and enjoyable for you.