Topics: How to Stop Yo-Yo Dieting, Intuitive Eating, Body Confidence

How to Stop Y0-Yo Dieting and find true body confidence…

If you’ve ever felt like your body is working against you, like you “can’t be trusted” with food, or like you’ve failed dieting too many times—this episode will show you another way.

Here’s the gentle truth I wish someone had told me years ago…

Your body is NOT the enemy. What you’re doing to it is.

If you’ve been chasing control, counting everything, or swinging between “on track” and totally off—this is your soft place to land.

TIMESTAMPS

[00:02:10] Why All Diets Eventually Backfire
[00:05:45] My Story: How I Got Stuck in the Yo-Yo Dieting Cycle
[00:09:30] The Link Between Trauma, Control, and Your Nervous System
[00:14:00] How to Rewire Body Shame with One Thought Shift
[00:22:40] The Nervous System Fix Diet Culture Won’t Talk About

Listen in and discover:

• Let Go of the Numbers: Why food tracking keeps you stuck—and how to gently return to self-trust
• Rewrite Your Inner Voice: The body image reframe that helps you stop punishing your body like it’s a machine
• Heal What’s Unspoken: The connection between trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and why intuitive eating hasn’t felt safe (yet).

I also share how I finally stopped yo-yo dieting after seven years—and what actually brought me peace with food and my body.

From obsessively counting macros to finally feeling at home in my skin, this episode reveals how nervous system healing—not another diet—is what changes everything.

🎧 You don’t need more willpower. You just need one brave step toward safety in your body.

LISTEN TO NEXT
What is Intuitive Eating Really (ep 159)
Nervous System Healing (ep 278)

RESOURCES

7 Steps to Feel Good Nakd book
Podcast Mentorship

CONNECT
Instagram: @itschardet

Full Transcript on How to Stop Yo-Yo Dieting with Chardét Ryel

Chardet Ryel (00:06.146)
Get ready to feel good naked. I’m your host, Chardét, and if you’re here right now, it means that you are ready to strip away all the crap, all the rules holding you back from feeling good in your body, in your mind, and in your life. Let’s get into it.

Chardet Ryel (00:24.02)
If you’ve struggled with dieting, with foods, with body acceptance, this is the episode to listen to. Because we’re gonna go into the psychological side of why it is so hard to feel better in our bodies and to feel more at peace with food. We’re also gonna go into how dieting actually creates and amplifies, exacerbates the problem or the issues that you’re trying to stop. Why controlling food actually

backfires, whether that’s in a week, a month, or years later, it always does. How body image and self-talk fuel this loop, this shame loop, binge cycle, yo-yo dieting, everything that you’re feeling, and I’ve been there too. I did that for years. And something else that doesn’t get talked about enough, which is how trauma and the nervous system dysregulation that come from dieting keep you stuck. This one is especially important, and most people won’t talk about it because they haven’t really investigated

this side of how we relate to food in our bodies. So it will help you. Honestly, this is how I stopped dieting after being stuck in it for, I think it was seven years. I did everything from macros to calories. I looked at menus meticulously before going out. I was the person that always body checked, know, taking my fingers, squeezing my belly, looking in mirrors all the time, not to see if, is, you know, your hair okay, but is your body acceptable?

And so I’m sharing this with so much sympathy because making this shift and understanding why you are stuck in this loop was the difference I needed. And it’s the one that has helped me help so many people over the years, whether directly training them or let them listening to this show. Now we’ll go over three big things here to help you. Before we start, I want to share a really amazing story and I hope this person is listening. So someone I love very dearly.

has been listening to my episodes, my videos for a little while. And she had said to me, you know, I finally followed what you said. I finally stopped trying to control all the food, trying to pursue the diet, trying to restrict and follow all of these fads and detoxes and everything else. And now it almost feels easy to eat. It feels easy. And this is someone who was really struggling with weight, struggling with how they felt in their body.

Chardet Ryel (02:47.597)
struggling with all of this stuff and that shift made the difference. So if you two are listening to this episode for the very first time on this show, or maybe you’ve been listening for a while, my hope is that this is the one that makes you think. And if you go away from this episode and you still are struggling a little bit, I want you to listen to it again. Sometimes it’s the second time that sticks. So let’s talk about the first of three ideas here to help you.

One is the paradox of control and numbers in dieting. This is basically why all of the diets out there disconnect you from your body and why letting go of control is actually the real path to balance. And that’s true of anything in life. Letting go of control actually gives you better results. Now, whether those results are exactly what you wanted or not is another thing, but just as in life, you can imagine a path

and you can get another one which in some ways is more meaningful and fulfilling to you. Personal story here to start because I know some of you are new and some of you have been here for a while. Before I was in the health and wellness industry, it’s now been just over 12 years, I was struggling with my body a lot. I don’t think I had one moment from the time of hitting puberty that I actually felt okay for many years. The solution that I came upon very young was I remember

so vividly. was 17, I had put on quite a bit of weight because I had hip puberty late and I just didn’t know how to manage it. And so I had this weight and I had a friend, I remember we were in her room and she was saying, I’m taking caffeine pills. I’ve dropped X amount of weight. And I thought, this is the answer. And so at 17, the first thing I did that put me in the diet industry was I took caffeine pills.

And I was also drinking a lot of caffeine at this time because I started undernourishing my body. So I needed the energy. So imagine how out of whack my nervous system was. And I continued to act that way for a little bit. And when it wasn’t caffeine pills, it was the paleo diet. When it wasn’t the paleo diet, it was something else where I only ate meat or I only ate blah, blah. There was always something for about.

Chardet Ryel (05:06.731)
seven years because just like you might feel, I felt like if I can control the food, I can control my success. And if I control just enough, I will finally be good enough. I will finally feel good in my body. And the more I swung between perfect eating and total chaos, because that is what happens.

Where we get stuck is this though, because if you’ve been struggling for many years, you’re not alone. And it’s not just because you don’t have motivation or willpower or drive or because something’s wrong with you. I promise you that is not what it is. What has happened is a lot of the diets out there, dieting world in general, even society, magazine articles, train us to ignore our biological signals, our hunger, our fullness cues. We learn that we cannot trust ourselves.

And usually this happens on the back of something that totally upset our hormones. So maybe you went through puberty or through menopause or maybe someone, you know, passed away or something traumatic happened to you, a breakup. And then that was the moment or a divorce in your family that you suddenly lost your sense of connection with your body. And instead of trusting that you would get through that phase with how you were dealing with food for comfort or whatever it is, you found dieting.

And this is always the case. It’s never someone who is in a completely happy state of mind that goes on a diet. Think about that. It is always someone who has been through some sort of trauma or something that upsets their hormones and therefore dysregulates them. And instead of waiting for that to pass and healing, trusting that it will, we go in, we’re taught we can control it. And that becomes our default. The dieting industry

has exploded and done so well at your cost, even though the results don’t stick. Why? Because it’s the false promise of precision. You are taught that if you can micromanage enough your body and your food intake and your exercise, if you can control your biological system with math, then you can get the results you want.

Chardet Ryel (07:19.511)
And the reality is that a biological system is so much more complex than any math you’re going to give it and it’s complicated even further by any of the emotional issues, nervous system dysregulation you are bringing into that equation. So while an equation of this amount of macros and this amount of exercise gives this result can work in a vacuum,

It doesn’t account for when you go through a divorce. It doesn’t account for if you lose a child, God forbid. It doesn’t account for when you lose a job. It doesn’t account for all the trauma you’ve had in your body for years. And instead of thinking about that, we say, well, it worked for my friend who we don’t know the background story of. Well, it worked for me for a little bit and then I got lazy because diet culture rewards your control. It makes normal eating feel unsafe.

And by normal eating, I mean eating when you’re hungry, stopping when you’re full, trusting your body with what you need. And if you really want to think about it, something that is a really scary analogy to this is how we are also taught with money is the same thing. You are often taught that you cannot trust it, it doesn’t grow on trees, all this same thing. And so…

how you manage it, how it would feel comfortable understanding it’s an energy exchange, not this like one commodity you have to have. You feel unsafe and you don’t trust yourself and it encourages habits that make everything harder. And this is why just personal side, I feel like this could be a whole nother topic, which I might explore if this resonates, please tell me, send me a message, let me know if this resonates. I feel like so many of us who have struggled with food in our bodies also struggle with money and it’s not a coincidence. But that’s a second side point.

Let me know if you do want to hear more about that. I always want these lessons to resonate with you. Never feel like you can’t reach out directly. You know, on Instagram, I’m there, it’s Chardét. Send me a message. Something you probably already realize about why this is not working. Because if you’re listening to this episode, you are actually further along than a lot of people because you know something’s not working and you understand whether you admit it or not, it’s not just you. You are taught that your willpower and your control can give you everything you want.

Chardet Ryel (09:33.15)
But this actually creates a pendulum effect, right? Because the more we restrict, and I’m sure you have felt this way, this is Yo-Yo dieting, the more we rebel. I often used to call it the, in the Seven Steps to Feel Good Naked book, I called this the inner teenager. And here is the biggest link, the one that is not talked about. And I really believe partly it’s because people in the wellness industry are not aware of this, and partly it’s because they don’t have the experience to talk about it.

And this is the nervous system dysregulation that happens. Because when you control your behavior, when you control your eating, when you control how much exercise you do and you’re doing all these equations to try to get the body that you most want, you are putting yourself in fight or flight response. And that leads to rebound eating. You are putting yourself in survival mode. And I don’t just mean biologically, like physically, I mean also emotionally you are doing that.

And that’s why you find yourself having the late night snacks, why you find yourself unable to stop eating food even when you know you’re full. All of this starts to come from that dysregulation, which is unfortunately really amplified from dieting. A little check in with you here before we keep going. This is a hard question. I’m only asking it because I think sometimes we’re always facing the truth helps us. How often when you make food choices,

Are they based on numbers or rules versus how your body feels? For example, the time of day that you eat, the amount that you eat, what you eat. If you think about your day, even just today or yesterday, if it’s really early, how often is that controlled by external stuff? And I invite you to, after this episode, take a really big step to move past that. Whether you do a little voice note to yourself or you write it down, if…

I trusted my body more, what would shift in the way I eat and move this week? If I trusted my body more, what would I do differently? That is the question to really start to shift you away from dieting and into more body acceptance and enjoying food again. I asked myself this question years ago when I was struggling with body dysmorphia. So I

Chardet Ryel (11:57.832)
got very, very thin, but I didn’t see it in the mirror. It was never thin enough. I was struggling with an obsessive compulsion around food. You know, I really looked at all the rules, weighed all the stuff. I realized how much it controlled my life. When I asked that question and said, wow, this is more than just breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This is my life that is being controlled by dieting. Because you will find so much more body acceptance and food freedom.

when you stop treating your body like a math problem to solve and you start treating it like a living wise entity. Let’s move into the second part of three in this episode, which is body image, self-talk and the loop of shame, how all of this is connected. So if you experience body dysmorphia, which is basically you never think that your body is good enough, cannot, it doesn’t matter what the skill says, it doesn’t matter what people tell you.

you just don’t feel like it’s there. And the negative self-talk you have, they keep you trapped in this dieting cycle, whether you’re actually following a diet or not. So we wanna talk about how do you shift that story, just like the amazing person I love, who I said in the beginning, shifted this story. And I’m sure it continues to be work, but you know, it’s continuing to show up every day and do that. Because the way you talk about your body to yourself affects the way you treat it.

For me, I always thought in the beginning when I was in this dieting, hating my body phase, counting every calorie, counting every macro, I thought of my body as a machine. It’s what a lot of us are taught. We’re told that in dieting language in the gyms, your body is a machine. Fuel it well and it can perform exactly the way you want. But bodies are not machines. And where we run into trouble is saying things like,

my body’s not working today. It’s not getting the results I want. Just like it’s a broken toaster or something. Maybe I can rejigger the wiring or change this, then it will work. It’s not like that. Sure, there’s certain rules of nature that can help. You know, if you’re having more nutrients, if you’re moving your body more, you, all these things, going out into sunlight, sleeping well,

Chardet Ryel (14:08.872)
course, they can help you flourish and help you to do things, but essentially you are not a machine. So if you’re talking to yourself as if you are thinking that, okay, I’m going to control every single step of what I have. And just like a machine, I have this instruction manual. And this is how we essentially run into the big problem. You have a negative thought, maybe something doesn’t fit. So imagine this scenario. I think most of you have probably gone through this. This is the cycle, the damaging cycle. You wake up, you try something on.

that used to fit, it doesn’t now. Negative thought arrives. I can’t believe I let myself gain this extra weight. How could I let myself do it? That’s the shame. Where was my discipline? Well, let’s start some dieting. We’re gonna fix this problem. That comes in. I fail because it’s not about willpower and discipline. Again, negative thought. Why can’t I do this right? So you see how it’s the cycle that’s triggered again and again and again. We feel like we can escape this loop.

by just changing the math, but it doesn’t work because it’s all interconnected, of course. So what we need to do, if you think about it, is not restrict the food. We need to rewire this cycle. We need to change this thought pattern, interrupt that thought, and or change the way that we are reacting to that trigger. So if I try something on and it doesn’t fit, rather than say, I need to lose weight and say, okay.

I’m not gonna wear this today. And I understand that’s super simple and it doesn’t always work that way. You can still have the thought of like, can’t believe this doesn’t fit. But not allowing yourself to go down the emotional funnel is really the key. It’s stopping at the top. You know, the more we do this, the more it affects our behavior. So think about one thing, one thought you’ve had this week, one body thought. What was it? Could even be right now. It made you feel shame or it made you feel self-criticism. What was it?

How did that then impact your behavior?

Chardet Ryel (16:11.272)
Now something to help you with this, something to really think about is think of the most common negative body image thought you have because again, yo-yo dieting is so intertwined with our body image. Think about what is one common thought you have, part of your body you don’t like. For me, it used to be the cellulite on my inner thighs. So what would it be for you?

And you’re gonna rephrase that as a neutral statement because you probably say this thing to yourself multiple times a week. For example, mine was, I can’t stand this cellulite on my inner thighs. It’s so unattractive. I want to get rid of it. I’ve actually also had it for over 20 years now, so you can see how helpful that was. And my rethinking was this, okay, this is the, these are the scars I have from when I…

started exercising more after I had gained that initial weight when I was young. And they’re a reminder for when I started to move my body. And that is just all that it is. It’s just part of my journey. It’s just part of my journey is one of the most empowering things you can say about your body. And if it’s something that you truly believe you can shift, I would encourage you still to say it’s part of your journey and to release yourself.

from the need to fix it while still pursuing healthy behaviors because this is the secret before we go on to the last idea here. This is the secret, all wellness, all fitness, diet industry doesn’t want you to know and it is so simple, it’s this. The moment you start doing healthy behaviors, exercising, eating nutrient rich food that you’re not counting, the moment you start doing that just because you wanna take care of your body and not because you want it to get smaller.

is the moment that you will start to feel so much better in your body. That is the moment that things change for you. And that is the start of a journey where you begin to become the size that your body most thrives at, which is going to look different from every single person. From 12 years in the wellness industry, working with hundreds of women of very different sizes and backgrounds, studying behavioral psychology science, is that the one thing that does work?

Chardet Ryel (18:25.552)
is doing the behaviors of wellness without the restrictions and the rules and the numbers completely shifts the way you feel in your body and the way it works. And the biggest reason why is because you allow your nervous system to be safe. And so the hormones start to balance. Things start to work the way they’re properly meant to work. Everything changes. This is one last thought before we move on.

I had a fertility doctor on the show once and I asked her, what is the biggest thing women can do if they are struggling to conceive and they really want to? And she said, they need to calm their nervous system because that is how the body goes back into balance. Remember this one thought here, body acceptance, feeling good in your body is not a passive thing. It’s not something that just happens because of what you do.

It is something that comes when you shift your relationship to food and to your body and it is an act of rebellion against the world that profits from your shame. It is going to require courage. It is going to require going against what everyone in the industry is saying to you and everyone who wants to make you feel bad about your body. And yes, you have to show up each day and continue to believe in yourself that you can do it.

The last concept we’re gonna go through here is the one that is the least talked about and that is the idea that trauma, the nervous system and real healing are all connected to body acceptance and how you treat food and yo-yo dieting because essentially unprocessed trauma, not willpower, is what keeps us stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle. And when you create safety in your body, this shifts, not counting macros.

not counting calories. I have seen this as someone who has been in the wellness industry since I was 17. I am 39 now and I officially entered at the age of 27. So I have seen this again and again and it’s the lesson that most of the wellness industry does not want you to know because when you understand how to heal your nervous system, you learn how to stop dieting.

Chardet Ryel (20:38.96)
I often tell the story of how I first started the journey of body acceptance and moving away from dieting. And that was when it started initially, the seed was planted when I went to Brazil and I first saw bodies that looked like mine. Something I had never heard. I’d always been told that my thighs were too big, I was too short, my breasts weren’t big enough, all this stuff I was hurt, you know, I hurt again and again in the way I grew up. Now that shift took time. And when I really look back,

on it about why that was successful. It was because I actually moved my nervous system from a place of fight or flight where it had been for years since I was 17 and took those caffeine pills to a place of safety. So it was the nervous system that made the difference. What you find is when you bring your nervous system into calm, when your body feels like it’s taken care of, it isn’t going to fight you as much.

And you might feel now, I mean, how many of you have felt like my body is against me? It’s working against me. When in reality, we are actually the ones who started that internal war. This is why dieting and counting are not the answer to feeling good in your body, but the nervous system safety is. It comes down to one of the biggest concepts here, which is your window of tolerance. So when you’re in your window of tolerance, it means that you can make

the food choices that you feel are most right according to the diet or whatever. And I saw this again and again with PT clients I used to have where, okay, when we’re in the window of tolerance, everything is fine, I can make these lifestyle shifts and habit changes even though they’re new for me. Then what happens is you go from mostly balance to hyper or hypo-arousal, meaning you’re stressed.

You have shame, you have trauma, something didn’t go the way you wanted, you lost the job, you lost the relationship, you didn’t get enough sleep. When that happens, your window of tolerance closes and you default to old patterns. You default to binging, restricting, obsessing. It is about creating safety in your body first. Because if you have safety in your body, when these traumas come,

Chardet Ryel (22:50.164)
you understand, okay, even though I might be eating more right now or exercising less, I trust I will come back later. It’s now been almost 15 years, I think, since my last diet. I don’t count calories. I don’t count macros. I eat chocolate. Don’t exercise every day. Sometimes it’s three times a week. It’s not because I’m blessed with some special metabolism. You know, in my family, people have different levels. It’s because I have

Created safety in my body and you can do the same now Here’s one simple practice you can do if you feel and this is gonna sound so woo-woo But I will explain the science behind it so I’m convinced you’re here if you feel like Triggered something happens with your boss your relationship or maybe you’re just having some negative self-thoughts You’re not feeling motivated if you feel an immediate impulse to go for food Do not shame yourself for it, but do something first

It’s a grounding exercise. You take two minutes. You can put it on your phone. So feet on the ground or wherever you are. If you’re walking, just think about your feet touching the floor. Close your eyes if you can or otherwise focus ahead and just think about the items that are in the room or area around you, what you remember. Focusing on each one, continue to take some breaths. Continue to breathe.

Now you’re gonna softly open your eyes and I want you to notice something. This is a practice which has basically helped you to create safety in your body by just taking a moment. It’s not to say, especially in the beginning, that you’re not gonna go and grab the cakes though. You might, that’s okay. That pause between the emotional trigger and your reaction to get the food or start the diet, that pause.

is going to allow you to start to create different pathways in your mind where the answer is not always food, but maybe sometimes is, and that’s okay. Why intuitive eating often doesn’t work for people is they don’t actually create the feeling of safety first, the nervous system regulation. So what that means is like some trauma happens, you lose your job, the relationship, et cetera. And then you have this moment where, I’m not safe.

Chardet Ryel (25:08.604)
and you default to learn habits of, I’m not gonna eat, whatever that stress response is. So then it’s very hard for you to say, but I need to listen to my body cues. I really hope that this makes a difference for you. If you share this with a friend or family member or someone you love, that it helps them see that their body is not the enemy, your body is not the problem.

It’s the way we think about it and the unsafe environment that we are unintentionally creating and making worse by trying to do all this restriction. Stop chasing numbers. Build trust. Shift your conversation internally so that you can end that shame loop and begin to really heal your nervous system. And what that means is creating a sense of safety, finding ways when you’re stressed or you’re triggered to relax.

that are also more diverse than just food. There’s also some amazing episodes on nervous system healing. If you search that in Google with feel good naked, naked without the E, you will also find it. Thank you so much for listening. Remember those two episodes I recommended, intuitive eating search, feel good naked are going to feel good naked site, naked without the E and the nervous system healing. And I will see you in the next one.

Follow Feel Good Naked in your favorite listening app. And if you’ve enjoyed the lessons that you have found here, check out my book, Seven Steps to Feel Good Naked, Health and Body Confidence Without Dieting. I guide you through how to create gentle nutrition.

movement that works for you, self-care you can do even when you’re busy. This is how you make a roadmap to help without all the struggle. You can find a link to the book in the show notes or you can go to feelgoodnaked.com, Naked Without the E.