Caloric Deficit

rdonovan80

If starvation mode doesn't exist, how come people will frequently say to a person who may be eating too few calories "you aren't eating enough, up your calories". Isn't it a simple math equation, burn 3500 calories, lose a pound? And what is a high caloric deficit? Thanks!

BurnWithBarn2015

rdonovan80 wrote: »

If starvation mode doesn't exist, how come people will frequently say to a person who may be eating too few calories "you aren't eating enough, up your calories". Isn't it a simple math equation, burn 3500 calories, lose a pound? And what is a high caloric deficit? Thanks!

because some of those people dont know how science work

others mean maybe you dont eat enough ( to get sufficient nutrition)

diannethegeek

In short, they say it because they heard it from someone else or because they don't understand how weight loss works.

I used to be one of those people. If you go back to my early posts from years ago, I was all over that "eat more when you plateau" stuff. Because it worked for MEEEEE!!!1! Or at least I thought it did.

What I didn't realize until later was that 1. I was tracking my intake very badly at the time (no food scale, a lot more eyeballing as some diet fatigue was setting in). 2. I was phoning in my daily workouts and cutting them short because my low intake made me tired. And 3. I was far more likely to cheat or treat at the time, which wasn't helping my weekly deficit.

Upping my calories a bit gave me the energy I needed to track my intake better, stick to the plan, and actually do my workouts. In that way, it did help me a bit. But it wasn't starvation mode. I was just seeing my diet through the wrong lens at the time (the "but I'm doing everything riiiiigggghhhhtttt" lens). It's something I wish the current starvation mode/eat more proponents would differentiate between.

rankinsect

Because if you eat too few calories, you can end up with a lot of negative side effects. For starters, a greater percentage of the weight lost will be muscle, not fat, and it's harder to rebuild the muscle than to lose the fat slower. At higher deficits for a prolonged time, you can have additional problems such as loss of menstruation, loss of hair, etc.

And it's simply a lot harder to sustain a diet that is too aggressive.

diannethegeek

Also, to answer your question about what a high calorie deficit is. A calorie deficit is the amount of calories below what you need for maintenance that you're eating. For instance, I need about 2200 calories to maintain my weight. If I eat 1700 calories, then I'm at a 500 calorie deficit.

A reasonable and healthy rate of loss is 1-2 pounds per week, or a 500-1000 calorie deficit daily. A high calorie deficit is when you're eating too far below maintenance and trying to lose too much. How much is too little will vary depending on a person's stats and goals.

diannethegeek

I also want to toss these two links out there for further reading if you're interested:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1

http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/