I guess you all know the yo yo effect, that is the situation in which, after following a diet, even in the maintenance phase you begin to gain weight, and in the end you even risk finding yourself with more kilos of accumulation than we had. before starting to lose weight. Something that happens most of the time, but is there a scientific explanation for the phenomenon? In reality there is more than one: the main one is that, if we have lost weight quickly, our hormonal structure has changed drastically , making it difficult for us to stick to maintenance. Ghrelin, the hunger hormone, rises, stress hormones rise, leptin decreases, the hormone that allows us to satiate ourselves with food.
But a new study provides another explanation for the yo-yo effect, and while the study is not a human sample, but a sample of mice, the results are interesting.

A group of mice, subjected to a diet similar to the Western one (therefore high-calorie, with fatty but also sugary foods, industrial products, etc.), once “put in line” with a low-calorie low-fat diet , underwent changes to level of dopamine receptors , a neurotransmitter known as the pleasure and gratification hormone. Dopamine drops dramatically with a restrictive diet like the standard low-calorie diet, and by the end of the diet, the mice craved much more so-called “junk food,” which is high-palatability, calorie-dense, high-fat, or sugary foods.
According to the researchers, dopamine drops due to diet-induced stress.The response of the mice to the diet was the same as that of alcoholics or addicts when they are abstinent: they sought more gratification through food.  Therefore it is very likely that the more drastic the diet , the more difficult it will be for us to maintain the weight we have just lost and hardly gained. So what to do? Keep the extra pounds? Give up all food restrictions? If you have already been a victim of the yo yo effect, the best thing to do is to play the common sense card and avoid: – diets that just aren’t for us  – diets far from our eating habits and our tastes – diets too drastic, leaving us too hungry in the evening and relying too much on self-control.