Starvation mode: real or myth?

zainabanwer

What actually is starvation mode?
When does it occure? Is it real or just a myth?

Annahbananas

I believe if you starve yourself you're not getting nutrients u need (if you do it long term)
But I do not buy that starving will stall weightloss. There are articles that support it and there are those articles that say it's a myth.

Whenever I stall it has nothing to do with me eating too little. It has everything to do with me having too much sodium

In any case, grab the popcorn. This thread will become interesting soon lol

kimny72

As it's usually used - myth. If you carry an aggressive deficit for a long period of time causing you to lose a large amount of weight, your metabolism may slow a bit. But you will still lose weight, just slower. For the average dieter, it's a myth. Eating too little for a couple of weeks will not cause your body to "hold onto fat" or anything like that.

dragon_girl26

kimny72 wrote: »

As it's usually used - myth. If you carry an aggressive deficit for a long period of time causing you to lose a large amount of weight, your metabolism may slow a bit. But you will still lose weight, just slower. For the average dieter, it's a myth. Eating too little for a couple of weeks will not cause your body to "hold onto fat" or anything like that.

^^^
This.

It should be pointed out, because people get these confused, that there IS such a thing as true starvation, where a person is actually eating so little that they're starving to death.
That isn't the same thing as the "starvation mode" that's tossed at dieters as a reason for why they aren't losing weight, claiming their body is holding onto fat, or that they're actually gaining weight because they're eating too little. That particular version of starvation mode is pretty much a myth.

cwang125

kimny72 wrote: »

As it's usually used - myth. If you carry an aggressive deficit for a long period of time causing you to lose a large amount of weight, your metabolism may slow a bit. But you will still lose weight, just slower. For the average dieter, it's a myth. Eating too little for a couple of weeks will not cause your body to "hold onto fat" or anything like that.

Not exactly. Adaptive thermogenesis aka starvation mode is a natural physiological response by the body in a response to reduced calorie intake by reducing calorie expenditure in order to maintain energy balance.
Whether or not this response is so powerful that it overwhelms your caloric deficit is debatable. There are hormones that regulate your body's functions. The most important hormones are leptin, thyroid hormone and norepinephrine, all of which can go down with calorie restriction.

For those who cut weight but don't incorporate strength training and lose a significant amounts of muscle, that will also reduce BMR. Muscle is metabolically active so if you lose muscle mass you're also lowering your BMR.

But essentially this is saying If you are x weight and you lose 10% body weight, your energy expenditure will also decrease by 15-25% in terms of maintenance. So, as your maintenance decreases and both sides of the energy equation decreases. As you become lighter, your daily energy requirements also decrease. And the body through adaptation to some degree also becomes more efficient so dropping to maintenance levels may occur faster than anticipated.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/
https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-11-7

CrabNebula

Just use logic for a second: if starvation mode is a thing, how are there people that die of starvation?

Also if you were a starvation mode snowflake, I think scientists and venture capitalists would want to study you. Somehow you are magically running on energy you never put into your body. Imagine a car that needed no fuel to run! That would be worth billions!

goldthistime

In the past, when I didn't know better and was too aggressive in my weightloss efforts, I became lethargic, and my CO diminished considerably. So if I were to cut my calories by an additional 500 calories for instance, I might only get "the benefit" on the scales of a portion of that because my CO has dropped at the same time. From what I've read, people rest more, fidget less, and even become more efficient at extracting calories/nutrients from the food they eat. If you were to call this defensive action "starvation mode" then I don't think it's a myth.

ziggy2006

The idea of a starvation mode is based on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment carried out by Ancel Keys in 1944. There is a lot of information available regarding this experiment online - it makes for some very interesting reading.

While severely restricting your calories does lead to a drop in the expected rate of weight loss, the drop is never enough to negate the weight loss, certainly never enough to cause weight gain. Your common sense is a good enough guide to lead you to conclude that it would not be possible to cut calories to a level at which you would cease losing weight, much less gain weight - just consider anorexics, people who go on hunger strikes, and other victims of starvation.

dmiivanov

I once talked about it on here, and got yelled at by a whole bunch of myfitnesspall-ers, who know the law of physics responsible for their weightloss: it's always "energy in" vs "energy out" ! and that after starvation your resting metabolism is down by a few percent or so.

I thought about it for a bit, and now I realize that there is more to it: I think starvation and low calories can greatly impact your energy out, by reducing the amount of moving you do in your typical daily activities. And if the cut on "energy in" ( calories) is smaller than the reduction of the "energy out" that's caused by being malnourished, then you're gonna even gain weight..

Christine_72

If someone was actually in starvation mode then they would know about it.
They'd be on deaths door and would literally be starving to death.
I have a picture of one such person saved in my files, but it is too brutal to share here.

Christine_72

posted too soon..

When you hear a 300+ pound person say " I'm not losing weight, I'm in starvation mode". Personally, i think the answer to this is an obvious NO.

bennettinfinity

dmiivanov wrote: »

I once talked about it on here, and got yelled at by a whole bunch of myfitnesspall-ers, who know the law of physics responsible for their weightloss: it's always "energy in" vs "energy out" ! and that after starvation your resting metabolism is down by a few percent or so.

I thought about it for a bit, and now I realize that there is more to it: I think starvation and low calories can greatly impact your energy out, by reducing the amount of moving you do in your typical daily activities. And if the cut on "energy in" ( calories) is smaller than the reduction of the "energy out" that's caused by being malnourished, then you're gonna even gain weight..

But what you're describing here is a condition where CI > CO... I think what people object to in these 'starvation mode' threads is where people are advised to 'eat more'... clearly in a CI > CO situation, that advice would be counter-productive from a strictly weight-loss perspective.

koslowkj

Not a thing. Not as far as causing a stall in your weight loss. I really like this blog post that debunks "starvation mode" as it is generally thought of. Really informative, if a bit snarky at times.

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

True starvation mode does exist, but it happens when you literally have no fat or muscle left to lose.

lexylondon

Read a study it only kicks in at very low calories (like 300 a day).. and even then the effect isn't so great that you won't lose weight! I mean at 300 calories your gonna lose a lot of weight!!

rennickm1986

Short Answer: MFP just did a good blog on this to answer your quesrion.