“Why Women Try 5 Diets a Year — And Why This Cycle Has to Stop”

By: Marcy Schoenborn

On average, women try 4–5 different diets every single year. Some studies even show much higher numbers depending on the age group and the type of diet tracked. And honestly? It’s not because women lack discipline. It’s because the system is built to keep them cycling. And that cycle is wrecking metabolic health, mental health, hormones, and long-term weight stability.

Let’s break it down.

1. The Diet Cycle Is Not a Willpower Issue — It’s a Biology Issue

Every time you jump on a restrictive diet, your body reads it as a famine. That triggers a cascade:

• Metabolic rate drops (adaptive thermogenesis)

• Hunger hormones rise (ghrelin increases)

• Satiety hormones fall (leptin decreases)

• Stress hormones spike (cortisol elevated)

This is literally your biology doing its job: keeping you alive.

The problem?
Most diets fight biology instead of working with it.

So when women hop onto diet #3, #4, #5 of the year, their body becomes more efficient at storing fat and less efficient at burning it. This is why so many women feel like “my metabolism is broken.” It’s not broken — it’s protecting you.

2. The More Diets You Try, the More Weight You Tend to Gain Long-Term

This part always stings, but it’s true:

Frequent dieting predicts long-term weight gain.

Studies show that repeated dieting (yo-yo dieting or weight cycling):

• Increases body fat percentage

• Lowers lean muscle mass

• Increases risk of insulin resistance

• Impacts thyroid function

• Increases chronic inflammation

So the very thing people are doing to lose weight actually makes maintaining a healthy weight harder over time.

This is why I always tell clients:
You don’t need another diet. You need a strategy your biology can actually sustain.

3. Diets Don’t Address the Real Issues: Habits, Stress, Metabolism, and Environment

When women try 5 diets a year, what they’re actually trying to do is solve:

• Emotional eating

• Stress dysregulation

• Hormonal imbalance

• Sleep disruption

• Gut dysfunction

• Blood sugar instability

• All-or-nothing thinking

• Lack of real education around food

Diets don’t fix these.
They just distract you from them.

And when the diet “fails,” women internalize it as their failure instead of recognizing the deeper issue:

The method was incapable of producing lasting results.

4. Every Diet Promises Fast Results… But Fast Results Come at a Metabolic Cost

Rapid weight loss is usually:

• Water

• Glycogen

• Lean muscle

Not fat.

And losing muscle is one of the most damaging things a woman can do to her long-term health. It’s tied to:

• Reduced metabolic rate

• Increased insulin resistance

• Weaker bones

• Higher risk of falls and fractures later in life

• Faster biological aging

This is why diets “work” for 30 days, and then everything rebounds. The foundation wasn’t built.

5. Women Are Not Failing Diets — Diets Are Failing Women

Women are busy. Women are stressed. Women are biologically different. Women’s hormones change monthly, yearly, and decade-by-decade. Something men’s-diet-research never accounted for.

Most mainstream diets were created using studies on male participants because they don’t have monthly hormone variability. That means the programs women try aren’t even built for women.

No wonder they struggle.

6. So What Actually Works?

If the average woman is trying 5 diets a year, she’s wasting time, money, energy, and metabolic health.

What works instead is:

✔ Regulation of blood sugar

This stabilizes hunger, mood, hormones, and energy.

✔ Consistent eating patterns

Not starvation → binge → guilt → restart.

✔ Muscle-preserving nutrition

Protein balanced with plants, fiber, and micronutrients.

✔ Resistance training + walking

This combo changes metabolism for good.

✔ Nervous system regulation

Cortisol management alone can change weight outcomes.

✔ Education over restriction

When women understand food, they stop fearing it.

✔ Long-term systems, not short-term diets

Because your biology prefers consistency over chaos.

7. The Message Women Need to Hear

Women don’t need to:

• Get smaller

• Shrink more

• Try harder

• Do another detox

• Follow another challenge

They need a metabolic, hormonal, and lifestyle system that supports them year-round — not a temporary fix that breaks their biology.

Because doing 5 diets a year doesn’t reflect a lack of commitment.
It reflects a lack of support, education, biological strategy, and realistic structure.

This cycle can — and absolutely should — stop.

CITATIONS

Here are sources you can reference publicly:

• Montani J-P et al. “Weight cycling during growth and beyond.” Obesity Reviews (2015).

• Dulloo AG, Jacquet J. “Adaptive thermogenesis and weight cycling.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2012).

• Pietiläinen KH et al. “Repeated dieting and weight gain.” International Journal of Obesity (2012).

• Mann T et al. “Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments.” American Psychologist (2007).

• MacLean PS et al. “Biological control of body weight.” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2011).

• Kriwy P. “Who actually responds to diets?” Appetite (2016).

• Tomiyama AJ. “Stress and dieting.” Psychological Bulletin (2019).

• Fothergill E et al. “Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after The Biggest Loser.” Obesity (2016).