By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
I’ve been there before…
As a former fat kid and disgruntled owner of a naturally slower metabolism, I have made
it my life’s mission to help other people like me achieve metabolic breakthroughs to
dramatically improve body composition, performance, and overall health.
I have always struggled with my weight, and it affected me a lot as a kid.
But I remember the day everything changed for me -- It was after a breakup I had gone
through, and I decided it was time to do something about my appearance.
I started by taking my “before” picture.
What I saw absolutely horrified me.
At the time, I was wearing an XXL shirt and a size 42 pants, and I looked miserable.
After seeing this picture, I knew I had to make some changes because I just couldn’t live
like that anymore -- it was too painful and too depressing…
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
What follows is a culmination of years of research, as well as trial and error, to produce
SUSTAINABLE weight loss.
I’ve already gone through many of the different fad diets out there in my trial and error
stages. I’ve tried the Atkins diet, carb cycling, low carb (not keto, just lower in general),
the Mediterranean diet, etc. Several of them DID work for me... in the short term.
I couldn’t maintain any of them. But why? Because they all focused on ELIMINATION.
There were so many things I couldn’t eat, and in order to maintain this new “lifestyle,” I
was supposed to never eat those foods again.
Well, that didn’t work out.
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to become a Certified Strength & Conditioning
Specialist. In addition to owning and operating NW Arkansas’s premier group and
personal training facility--Precision Fitness--I’ve been recognized as a best-selling fitness
co-author.
I’ve also been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates as well as Newsweek,
Men’s Health, USA Today, Yahoo! Finance, and CNBC.com.
I don’t say all this to brag, I just want you to know that I’ve been a fixture in the health and
fitness industry for a loooong time.
In addition to my fitness training, I’ve done in-depth research into nutrition, as well as
functional neurology...the type of things “regular” trainers really don’t get into...although
I believe they should.
Anyway...
This is the exact system I used for my personal metabolic breakthrough, and I still follow
these guidelines today!
Alright, baby, time to throw out all the diet books and finally create a nutritional lifestyle!
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #1
Track your calories
“Ugh, I have to do work?!” Yes. I said this would be sustainable, not effortless. You do
have to put in some work and effort.
Now, let me go ahead and answer this question upfront... you CAN lose weight without
tracking calories. It isn’t an absolute necessity, but we are focused on the long-term here.
In order to do this, you need to be able to eat foods that are “off plan” as needed. To do this
and still be moving toward your goals, we need to track.
Tracking calories doesn’t take a ton of your time. This is a common misconception. With
practice, you honestly shouldn’t spend more than 5-10 minutes a day TOPS to track
calories. It may take a little more time at first, but so does anything when you’re learning
a new habit. There is a learning curve with anything we do in life. Once you’ve practiced
this consistently, it will become much more effortless.
I highly recommend that you use an app. Attempting to write down all of your calories and
manually look up everything you eat will be extremely time-consuming.
As far as choosing an app, any app will work for you. But the one that I recommend is
called Cronometer.
I’ve actually done a video on this topic! If you want some assistance on how to accurately
track your calorie intake using Cronometer, here is a video to walk you through it all step
by step: https://youtu.be/yDHkfHUry0o
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #2
Get enough protein
Lack of protein is pretty common. And when I say lack, I don’t necessarily mean a clinical
deficiency. I mean, not eating enough for optimal performance and fat loss goals.
I see this especially prevalent in the females that I’ve worked with over the years.
Getting enough protein is paramount for many different reasons, but there are two main
ones I’ll mention in this guide.
1. Protein is satiating. Essentially, you’ll discover that you won’t need as much food
if you get more protein. It helps to curb your appetite better than any other of the 3
macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats).
2. Protein has a higher thermic effect than carbs or fats. The thermic effect of food is
the energy required for digestion, absorption, and disposal of the food you’ve eaten.
Protein is the highest. As an example - carbohydrates: 5 to 15% of the energy
consumed, where protein: 20 to 35%. So, by having a higher amount of protein in
your diet, you will boost your total daily energy expenditure.
As far as calculating your minimum protein requirements, examine.com has a fantastic tool
for this based on scientific evidence, that is also completely free!
Check out the protein calculator here: https://examine.com/nutrition/protein-intakecalculator/
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #3
Stop obsessing over carbs and
fat
The war and battle between “eat fewer carbs” or “eat less fat.’’ It’s exhausting, truthfully.
If you look at the research, people lost the same amount of weight both on higher carb and
on lower-carb diets, as long as calories were matched. This showed true in the long-term
and short-term studies.
So, eat both! You can significantly benefit from both. I typically recommend my clients
eat the right combination of carbs and fats in their diet daily. Usually, for the long term, I
would recommend carbs make up a higher percentage of your total calorie intake than fats,
but that’s not something you should worry about right now.
The conclusion here is to first stick to your calorie range; second, get your minimum protein
requirements; third, fill in the leftover calories with carbs and fats.
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #4
Allow yourself that chocolate
bar OR bag of potato chips…
Say what!? Yup, you can read it again. That IS what I wrote.
None of us are perfect with our nutrition. Let me reiterate... NONE of us are perfect. We
have to be realistic.
Sure, it would be great if we could always eat whole foods that aren’t processed, without
added chemicals, blah blah blah. But this isn’t real life.
The truth is that we try to eat more wholesome and nutritious foods as often as we can, but
we leave room for foods that we may not consider as perfect for us.
Here is the rule on this… Just track it! Whatever you’re eating, make sure to add it to your
daily calorie total. As long as you’re staying in your calorie requirements and hitting your
protein minimums, then you will still be moving toward any fat loss goals you may have!
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #5
You most likely WON’T lose fat
every week
Let’s look back at step 4. I said that no one is perfect. This is because we aren’t. We expect
too much from ourselves, and then too often, when we make one small mistake, we get
frustrated and quit completely.
We need to accept that we will make mistakes. We will eat too many calories on occasion.
There will be weeks that you don’t lose weight. There will be weeks that you gain weight.
THIS. IS. NORMAL. You are far from alone. I’ve seen this a ton of times with clients
since 2007.
The clients of mine that saw long-term success were the ones that accepted this and didn’t
quit when things didn’t go exactly to plan.
Regardless of what roads we go with our nutrition, consistency is the biggest key to longterm success. It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay to fall off the wagon. Just make sure to accept
it, learn from it, and get back on the wagon :)
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #6
Get enough sleep
This one gets overlooked a lot when discussing fat loss. But it shouldn’t, because of how
important it is.
A lack of sleep increases hunger. More hunger is the last thing we want when we’re trying
to put ourselves into a caloric deficit to lose weight.
The added hunger has the potential to drive you to eat more food and, most likely, eat over
your calorie range.
And this isn’t including the lack of energy, which will make the intentional exercise harder
to accomplish as well.
Here are a few more reasons to make sure you get enough sleep:
There is a persistent relationship between less sleep time and increased fat mass in research
studies.
During the intentional caloric restriction (fat loss diets), it appears that a reduction of sleep
by 3 hours (8.5 to 5.5) forces more weight loss to come from our lean mass rather than fat
mass.
Less sleep is associated with insulin resistance and an increased risk of diabetes in survey
research.
To sum it up, really shoot for 7 - 8 hours of sleep per night.
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #7
Eat slower
Yup, it makes a difference. It might sound a little silly, but the research around this topic
is real!
It gives your brain and body more time to talk to each other. You’ll find that you will most
likely eat fewer calories in that meal and potentially aid in digestion as well!
Here is a quote on this from a research paper done in 2011 on appetite: “Comparing 35
with 10 chews per mouthful, we showed that higher chewing counts reduced food intake
despite increasing chewing speed, and despite doubling meal duration for achieving a
subjective reference point for feeling ‘comfortably full’.”
The thing that really helps me personally with this is, I actually put down my utensil in
between each bite of food that I take. It helps me to ensure I don’t just shovel in the food
I’m eating without having the opportunity to finish chewing my food.
I can tell you from personal experience that it has had a significant impact on feeling more
content after a meal and being less likely to go back and try to eat a second helping.
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #8
Plan in advance
“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”
I can’t stress the importance of doing a little planning.
How often in life do things have the best results when we just fly by the seat of our pants?
I mean, I suppose sometimes it works out well, but mostly, we do a lot better if we plan
ahead.
This is equally true when we are talking about nutrition.
Some people live the exact same life and follow the same schedule Monday through Friday.
If you have this life, your planning is pretty easy.
But some people have different schedules daily. One day you may travel, and the next you
can eat lunch from home. Knowing this the evening before and having a general plan of
how you want to handle your nutrition for the next day can be extremely beneficial.
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #9
Listen to your cravings
We crave foods sometimes. This is normal.
The thing is that we might be craving a particular food for a specific reason. It’s possible
that food contains a vitamin or mineral that we may be needing.
Something as simple as when we crave salty foods or sugary foods. You may actually be
needing more salt. Or you might be running low on glucose, and you’re craving sugary
food.
Don’t ignore these cravings. Sometimes, if we ignore them, they tend to get stronger, and
then instead of eating a piece of chocolate that’s 100 calories and helps our cravings, we
end up eating a king-size candy bar that has 400 calories that we didn’t really need.
Listening to these cravings can potentially help overcome them. I’ll use myself as an
example. Several years ago, when I would try to “clean up” my nutrition, I would ONLY
crave salty foods and then end up getting a mid-afternoon headache like clockwork!
I analyzed my eating, and I found that my breakfast (being mostly whole foods that I didn’t
want to add salt to) hardly contained any sodium at all. Once I changed up my breakfast a
little and added more sodium to it, I found that my constant everyday cravings for salt were
extremely reduced.
If I hadn’t listened and paid attention, I could have easily kept on struggling with this issue.
Our bodies are pretty darn smart. We just have to listen to them because they don’t always
communicate as effectively as we might like.
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
Cure Yo-Yo Dieting Step #10
ALWAYS come back to calorie
range and protein
In the grand scheme of things, these are the two things that are ultimately the most
important. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to follow these rules.
People spend so much time focusing on the small aspects that make very little, if any
difference, in our diets. Things like: how many times per day should I eat, I will avoid
eating any carbs at night, I’m going to skip breakfast to burn more fat, I’m going to cut out
all processed foods, etc.
Some of the things I mentioned are good for us and might help! But we always have to
come back to the bigger picture. It’s great if you want to cut out processed foods. But if
you eat too many calories, then you still don’t lose weight.
So, how about instead of saying “I’m going to cut out all processed foods,” say “I’m going
to limit them as much as I can, but focus mostly on staying in my calorie ranges to achieve
fat loss.”
This is a much more realistic goal (since I don’t know anyone that has cut out all processed
foods forever) and is still getting you to your overall short-term and long-term goals.
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By: Dustin Williams
THE YO-YO DIETING
CURE
@dustinkwilliams
What’s Next?
GET STARTED!
You know what steps you need to start in order to break your cycle of Yo-Yo Dieting. But
do you need some guidance in putting these steps into action?
If so, you can use the link below to book a call with me to assist you in personalizing this
process even further!
BOOK A CALL
Follow Me On Social Media:
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