Studies show that up to eighty per cent of people who lose weight on a diet also gain it back: the persistent yo-yo effect. Why is it that keeping your weight stable is so difficult? For years, it was thought to have only psychological and social causes. You fall back into your old eating habits, you have no discipline and voilà: the kilos fly back on.

Edwin Mariman is a professor at Maastricht University and conducted research on the yo-yo effect. "It has long been known that your body goes into a kind of savings mode while losing weight. In the beginning, losing weight is very easy and fast, but over time it seems to get harder and harder - despite following the exact same diet. Mariman and his colleagues discovered that your fat cells can experience stress, and that this increases the likelihood of weight gain after losing weight.

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