Dunking Culture: The Dark Side of Maintenance Nobody Talks About
posted on: February 12, 2026. posted in: Weight loss, Dieting
A comment to our fan page...
"Everyone no matter how you lose the weight maintaining will be effort. I lost a stone doing the special k diet and put it back on. I lost a stone doing slimming world and put it back on. Guess what, I also lost a stone doing calorie counting and exercise… which is probably your chosen way of losing weight… I’ve also put that back on! Perhaps instead of slating people, you can help show us how we don’t 'diet' and still lose weight…"
I get it.
It's hard.
But it needn't be.
__________
Dunking Culture
I'd like you to imagine a beach ball in a pool. Bobbing along. Buoyant. Staying very much on the surface. You grab the ball. You dunk it under the surface, using your effort and energy to hold the ball at the bottom of the pool for as long as you can.
You successfully dunk the ball to the bottom for a while. But a discomfort comes on. A feeling. An intuition that you can't hold it there anymore, and you need to return to the surface.
So you return to the surface.
The ball is back where it started.
Bobbing along. Buoyant. At rest at a higher level.
You take a deep breath. You try again. But this time you bring more effort. Pushing harder, trying harder, giving it everything you've got to force it down as low as you can. And of course it works for a little while, until that discomfort returns. That feeling, that intuition, that you can no longer sustain it.
Before you know it, you and the beach ball are back at the surface again. You didn't want that. You wanted it lower, dunked to the bottom, and you wanted it to stay there. So you enter a cycle. Dunking it down, trying to hold it, not being able to hold it, and it rising back up again.
Down, and up.
Down, and up again.
An almost endless cycle of effort and trying.
__________
Dunking Clubs
You look around and notice other people in the pool, each with their own beach ball. They too are engaged in this same endless cycle. Many of them are claiming success.
"I've maintained my beach ball at the bottom, look?!"
How did they do it? You think to yourself. You look, and sure enough, they provide the evidence. Their beach ball is at the bottom of the swimming pool, and it appears like they're maintaining it there. A smile on their face. Looking proud. Maybe even a little smug.
So now you're doubting yourself. Feeling like a failure. Feeling flawed in some way, because they can hold and maintain their beach ball lower in the pool, but you're so exhausted from all your efforts you struggle to even dunk it a few inches below the surface.
What are they doing that you're not? What do they know that you don't? What's their secret?
"I just stick to the plan" claims one. "It's really simple, if you just stick to the plan of holding the beach ball at the bottom of the pool it will stay there. You're obviously not sticking to the plan!"
More shame. More self-doubt. How do they seemingly stick to the plan so easily, when you can't even stick to it for a few minutes?
That shame and self-doubt is only amplified when you see many of them appearing on the cover of magazines. Big, broad smiles as they're pictured holding their beach balls down at the bottom of the pool with the title Dunker Of The Year and Miss Dunky.
You want to be Miss Dunky. You deserve to be Miss Dunky. You try so hard, put so much effort in, and it should be you on the cover of that magazine, but you can't understand what you're doing wrong that means she can maintain her beach ball at the bottom, but you can't even get it below the surface.
__________
The Dunking Story
We all tell stories. Stories are incredibly powerful. Stories are incredibly compelling.
And right now, as you and your beach ball bob along on the surface, full of shame that you're unable to hold that ball down, the story you and the rest of those engaged in this dunking culture are telling is...
"Miss Dunky knows more than you. She has more willpower than you. She sticks to the plan better than you, and she is more worthy than you. You are the failure. You are the flawed. She is the in control good girl, and you are the out of control bad girl, of the beach ball world."
__________
My Story & The Truth
My name is Liam, and for over 20 years I've worked with, studied and heard the stories of 1000s of dunkers, and many Miss Dunkies and Dunkers Of The Year.
The story I tell is very different. A story informed by evidence, and truth, and developed from what I see going on behind the scenes, revealing the dark reality of this dunking culture.
I sit with one Miss Dunky and she explains how she's struggling to hold it down. She tells me about the pressure to keep holding it down. The pressure to keep looking like a success. The pressure from her dunking club, to keep up the illusion that she's finding it easy and sustainable.
Tears. Sadness. Immense stress.
Dread and panic at the thought of regaining, losing her hero status, and being cast out as a weak willed failure.
And then the confession that she's been cheating the system.
When she stops eating and deliberately starves herself. When she vomits after meals. When she engages in prolonged exercise, far more than is healthy or recommended. Somehow the beach ball seems to stay lower, for longer.
The not eating, the vomiting, the excessive exercise. Nobody knows about it. Nobody sees it. And yet, behind the scenes, in secret, it rules and dominates her whole life. Her whole existence revolves around starving, purging and exercising.
She smiles through that pain to the public world, to keep up the illusion. A picture of her eating a healthy meal, without people knowing it's her first meal in days. A picture of her out for lunch, without people knowing she purged in the restaurant bathroom. A picture of her doing a workout, without people knowing it's her 3rd hour of exercise today.
Her beach ball is at the bottom of the pool.
But the psychological and physiological cost is huge.
Eventually, after 5 years of giving it her all, and committing herself to restricting, purging and punishing herself with exercise every time the beach ball rises up a bit... she lets go. The beach ball returns to the surface. And she has no choice other than to hide from the world.
Someone who was once the face of her dunking club is now not seen, not heard from, and much to the relief of her beach ball club, forgotten. There's a new Miss Dunky in town. And the timer on her beach ball returning to the surface is ticking.
__________
A Bully, Or A Whistleblower?
Having seen and heard this story so many times. Having learned the science and psychology of how these seemingly successful beach ball dunkers "maintain" their results (via disordered eating and eating disorders) I need to share the truth.
I post to my fan page...
"A reminder that every Dunker Of The Year has regained. Not one has kept it down beyond 5 years. Not one."
The beach ball dunking community is outraged. I'm challenged. I'm attacked. I'm called a bully. Because my story is the uncomfortable truth about this dunking culture, and something that challenges their hopes and dreams that beach ball maintenance via dunking is possible, bursting the illusion.
"But I know someone who maintained their beach ball dunking for more than 5 years!"
That's highly unlikely.
What's much more likely is you know someone who comes into public when their beach ball is forced to the bottom of the pool, and who hides away from the world when it's not. In secret they're beach ball cycling. Periods of getting it down to the bottom, by starving, vomiting and excessive exercise. And periods of the ball flying back up again, when they hide away again.
They aren't sticking to the beach ball plan.
They don't have any special knowledge, or more willpower than you.
You simply chose to stop trying when holding the beach ball at the bottom of the pool got too tough, and understandably too. Sadly for them, they developed disordered dunking, and that's not their fault. The blame lies with the dunking culture, and the pressure and the shame piled on by their dunking club. A club that profits from the endless cycle of dunking and regaining.
"But look, here's her before and after photo! A picture of her with her beach ball at the top of the pool, then a picture of her holding her beach ball at the bottom of the pool, 5 years later! She's maintained!"
Where are the photos in between?
Where is the photo when she went on that holiday and gained 2 metres, then spent the next few months starving, vomiting and over exercising to force her beach ball back down again? Where is the photo of her losing control over Christmas, regaining a metre, and then having to spend the whole of January and February replacing her meals with milkshakes to force her beach ball back down again?
You only see the beginning and the end.
The highlight reel. The illusion.
I see pain, the suffering and the misery going on behind closed doors, in between.
"You're a liar! You're a bully! You're just in this to steal people's money."
Actually, I'm in this to help all the Dunkers Of The Year, all the Miss Dunkies, and all those caught up in this unhealthy and disordered dunking culture learn the truth. That nobody keeps their beach ball down in the absence of disordered eating or an eating disorder. What people are claiming is "maintenance" is disordered eating and eating disorders playing out in secret.
And if you keep telling the story that "dunking works" it'll be your sons and daughters becoming the next generation of dunkers, at risk of developing disordered eating and eating disorders too.
__________
Real Weight Maintenance
The question many of you will be asking...
If dunking culture is a lie. If the "maintenance" and "success" of Dunkers Of The Year and Miss Dunkies is an illusion, born from well timed photos that hide the huge pain and regains in between. What does real weight maintenance look like?
And the answer...
A beach ball that sinks to the bottom of the pool, and stays at the bottom of the pool, without effort.
No pushing, no forcing, no trying. No starving, no vomiting, no over exercising. Just a ball that goes down, and stays down, and that doesn't fly back up to the surface every time you stop trying.
• GLP-1 medications produce weight maintenance (whilst you are taking them) because they decrease the amount of air in the beach ball, making it easier for someone to dunk their ball and hold it at the bottom of the pool. What was once a beach ball fit to burst with appetite, cravings and food noise, is now a deflated ball, that feels 10x easier to hold down.
• Healing and deeper work produces weight maintenance, because it addresses why your beach ball was so over inflated in the first place. Many people's beach balls swell up with trauma, stress and an emotional appetite that makes their beach ball impossible to hold down. Healing opens the valve, releases the pressure, and allows the beach ball to sink.
Have you ever seen or known of one of those people who has lost the weight, kept it off, and they just don't seem to have to try? Not one of those dieters, those beach ball dunkers, who have to apply every last ounce of their being to holding their ball down. I mean one of those people who does it without dieting, without effort, as though their beach ball just sinks naturally.
That's what real weight maintenance looks like.
And it's a deflated beach ball.
__________
My Lightbulb Moment
As personal trainer and nutrition coach, I was fully immersed in dunking culture, for many years. Helping my clients, and yes, many Dunkers Of The Year do what was needed to force their beach balls down.
Excessive exercise.
Extremely restrictive diet plans.
Effort, willpower, grit.
And it worked for a while, until it didn't. It worked for a while until my clients inevitably let go, and then opened the door to me. Bigger. Fatter. Heavier. Their beach ball back on the surface. Worried I'd tell them off. But I never told them off, that's not my thing.
What I did, instead, was study. And what I learned from years of deep diving into the mechanics of weight is that it's a psychosocial issue, not a diet or exercise issue.
Dieting and exercising is pushing the ball down.
Psychosocial factors are the air inside.
In one session I'd be working with a client who no matter how hard they dieted, no matter how hard they exercised, they couldn't hold that ball down for long before they'd regain it all. These clients were full of air. Full of pain. Full of stress. Full of shame. There wasn't a diet or exercise plan in the world that could counteract the emotional hot air balloon their beach ball had become.
In the next session I'd be working with a client who had turned a corner. Something was different. Something was working. And it all just seemed effortless. They didn't have to hold their beach ball down. It just sunk. Something had released. And if you can imagine a big, round, swollen beach ball that had just had the valve opened, allowing their ball to intuitively sink to the bottom, you'll understand what healing and emotional release looks like.
__________
So no, calorie counting and exercise aren't my chosen way of losing weight, that's more dunking culture.
Medication.
Healing.
Letting the air out of the beach ball 💨
They're what I recommend for losing weight.
Liam x
Rebelfit
p.s. If you're tired of the endless dunking cycle (the shame, the yo-yoing, the secret struggle) stop pushing the beach ball down and start letting the air out. Email me today at liam@rebelfit.co.uk and get some expert support in breaking the cycle.
