Binge Today, Diet Tomorrow. Don’t be a Yo-yo Dieter.

For 20 years, Ann Green has been a chronic yo-yo dieter—up 10 pounds, down 5, up, 5 down 10. Either she’s dieting to starvation by existing on raw vegetables and canned tuna or eating all the wrong things. For Ann, there is no in-between. Lately, though, she seems to have more “eating days” than “diet days,” and her weight just keeps going up. What’s happened to her willpower?

After so many years of dieting, Ann’s body is probably tired from all the bouncing up and down on the scale. Like all yo-yo dieters, she has probably set unrealistic goals, and when she keeps falling short of meeting them, she loses her desire to diet. For women like her, a sensible weight loss of only a pound a week is viewed as failure.

Like many yo-yo dieters, she eats out of frustration for failing promises to start all over again tomorrow.

It’s going to be difficult for Ann to reclaim her willpower, since it’s been years since she’s eaten sensibly. But she can do it if she changes her habits. First, she needs to set realistic weight-loss goals. She needs to realize that the only way she’ll achieve long-term success is through gradual steps; if she doesn’t lose weight right away, she shouldn’t consider herself a failure.

Second, she needs to believe that all foods are allowed; otherwise, the foods she deprives herself of on her “diet day’s are exactly the foods she’ll want on her “eating days.” Most important, she needs to get on a normal eating plan with three small meals a day, spaced fairly evenly, and enough snacks in between to keep her from bingeing later on. Once Ann quits playing yo-yo with her eating habits, her weight is bound to settle down, too.