Starvation Mode - Adaptive Thermogenesis and Weight Loss

juliemouse83

Bump...for later.

Mr_Knight

Just means if you can do all 3 things - reasonable deficit, adequate protein intake, and resistance training, you have a great chance of maintaining muscle mass, and avoiding metabolism slow down beyond what weight loss and efficiency improvements would cause by themselves.

I track BF% as well as everything else. I know it's not an exact science, but since I'm only looking at intra-measurement deltas, it is useful as a early warning system. Currently my data is tracking as fat loss being just about equal to weight loss - ie, no lean mass loss - but as you say, it does take a conscious choice of heavy lifting, protein consumption, and not-too-big deficit.

tigerblue

There are problems (IMO) with your example. Losing that much weight, the person should recalculate during loss and not expect the cut used in the beginning to work for the entire course. But if they did, the deficit would decrease because of the weight loss potentially compounded by MR slowdown. And a decreased deficit would not continue to decrease the MR as much, correct? I still have only seen hypothetical people and not actual subjects from studies that "cross zero" and have a deficit cancelled out completely due to AT.

This example doesn't get in to how the weight was gained in past year, I'm betting to discouragement and binges during the time. Each binge not long enough to raise metabolism, merely add fat.
Also the estimate of how much being eaten may be off as we know since based on memory. But, if she had been eating more prior, then how did eating more post involvement cause an improvement? So probably valid enough.
Also, the potential RMR was based not on bodyfat%, but if RMR had been legitimately less because of less LBM, it would never have raised either after intervention.
I've found several of these case type studies, not true studies since they only get to start recording info when they see the person, but interesting none-the-less what you can discern from the effects after a treatment is followed. I think it proves several points.

---

A similar case study was published by Jampolis (2004).
A 51 year old patient complained of a 15 lb weight gain over the last year despite beginning a strenuous triathlon and marathon training program (2 hours per day, 5-6 days per week).
A 3 day diet analysis estimated a daily intake of only 1000-1200 Calories.
An indirect calorimetry revealed a resting metabolic rate of 950 Calories (28% below predicted for age, height, weight, and gender).
After medications and medical conditions such as hypothyroidism and diabetes where ruled out, the final diagnosis was over-training and undereating. The following treatment was recommended:

Increase daily dietary intake by approximately 100 Calories per week to a goal of 1500 calories
32% protein; 35% carbohydrates; 33% fat
Consume 5-6 small meals per day
Small amounts of protein with each meal or snack
Choose high fiber starches
Select mono- and poly- unsaturated fats
Restrict consumption of starch with evening meals unless focused around training
Take daily multi-vitamin and mineral supplement
Perform whole body isometric resistance training 2 times per week

After 6 weeks the patient's resting metabolism increased 35% to 1282 Calories per day (only 2% below predicted).
The patient also decreases percent fat from 37% to 34%, a loss of 5 lbs of body fat.

Jampolis MB (2004) Weight Gain - Marathon Runner / Triathlete. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 36(5) S148.

Okay this is actually encouraging. So much of this seems to indicate that there is little to be done, and even if you do it it might not work, and even if it works, the improvements may be miniscule. So why try?

But if there is evidence that training and eating a certain way can make a noticiable difference actually worth something? Well that is so much more motivational.

I will read up on the study.

Thanks heybales, and all the others who have presented their arguments.

pavrg

Thanks for that link, heybales, that was a good read.

What jumps out at me is the very low protein intake. 15% of 1200 calories is 45g of protein per day. Given that one of the groups was doing "strength training" 3x a week, that falls well below every protein guideline I've ever seen from a strength training specialist. So I'm thinking it's not a surprise body recomp differences didn't show up - insufficient building blocks for the group doing weight training.

At least, that's my initial read on it.

Not only that, but they only lifted 3x a week, so it's likely that they didn't hit their muscles at least 2x a week like they ought to have.

As for the triathlete example, it's too extreme to apply to 99% of MFP and shouldn't be taken as evidence for the silly 1200 cal starvation mode myth flying around. His daily energy requirements were probably 3000-3500 calories and he was eating 1200, or 1/3 his daily energy requirements. If there were a linear relationship, it'd be like a sedentary person eating 400-600 cal/day and a person with a regular workout routine eating 500-800 cal/day.

Mr_Knight

Lifting 3x a week is plenty, if it's done right.

Whether or not it was done right remains, of course, an open question.

pavrg

Lifting 3x a week is plenty, if it's done right.

Whether or not it was done right remains, of course, an open question.

It's only plenty if you spend each of those 3 sessions doing 1.5-2 hour workouts to make sure you get everything at least 2x/week. It's much more likely that they hit everything once a week.

Their cardio plan was relatively weak, too.

joshdann

I've not seen any studies that support "hitting all muscles 2x per week" as being a necessity. I might be wrong, but that smells like bro science to me.

tuckerrj

Starvation mode. Really? As you get smaller you burn less calories. This horse is dead. For heaven's sake, put it to rest!!!

Mr_Knight

It's only plenty if you spend each of those 3 sessions doing 1.5-2 hour workouts to make sure you get everything at least 2x/week.

Completely disagree with that.

But each to their own!

SkimFlatWhite68

Thanks EvGen... I've read a lot on Adaptive Thermogenesis lately, and it's very interesting and most of it based on common sense, which isn't that common any more. Think that the re-feeds are a great idea, but agree with I think HeyBales when he said that the problem was often people don't do a re-feed, it's just a binge and then they put on fat. Also agree with whoever said that it is a good argument for SLOW weight loss! Slow and steady wins the race - did we learn nothing from the tortoise and hare fairy tale?

Our bodies are just so clever all by themselves.

Anyway, thanks everyone, I enjoyed the read!

55in13

It's only plenty if you spend each of those 3 sessions doing 1.5-2 hour workouts to make sure you get everything at least 2x/week.

Completely disagree with that.

But each to their own!

I strongly agree with the last statement. The reason I debate for high deficit weight loss as a reasonable option for some of us is because I think it is a reasonable option for some of, not all of us...

mamasmaltz3

Bumping to read and follow.

keflexxxx

Lifting 3x a week is plenty, if it's done right.

Whether or not it was done right remains, of course, an open question.

It's only plenty if you spend each of those 3 sessions doing 1.5-2 hour workouts to make sure you get everything at least 2x/week. It's much more likely that they hit everything once a week.

Their cardio plan was relatively weak, too.

i can get a whole-body workout in doing nothing but clean & press, but that requires me to be pretty damn good at the movement.

Will_Thrust_For_Candy

Great information in here! Thanks so much

Mr_Knight

I strongly agree with the last statement. The reason I debate for high deficit weight loss as a reasonable option for some of us is because I think it is a reasonable option for some of, not all of us...

I'd be interested in hearing more. How high a deficit can you go to and be effective, in your case? I'm in a sweet spot right now of about -800 calories/day, but I'm also not in a position of having to lose 100+ pounds any more.

joshdann

I strongly agree with the last statement. The reason I debate for high deficit weight loss as a reasonable option for some of us is because I think it is a reasonable option for some of, not all of us...

I'd be interested in hearing more. How high a deficit can you go to and be effective, in your case? I'm in a sweet spot right now of about -800 calories/day, but I'm also not in a position of having to lose 100+ pounds any more.

I won't speak for him, but personally I'm attempting to use the 31kcal per lb of body fat method. I have roughly 90 lbs of fat mass (maybe a bit less, hard to say for sure) so I'm creating as much as a 2500 kcal deficit per day. That's eating 2000 and trying to exercise enough to burn 4500 per day. It gives me some room for error but from everything I've read (that is a lot so far... still not done reading yet. may never be) it's a sound plan that not only gives me the nutrition I need but also spares as much LBM as possible.

Mr_Knight

I look forward to hearing how well it works!

insyweensy

Ok, I haven't made it through all 10 pages of this thread, but I really appreciate all the research and citations. Is anyone else freaked out about the idea that when you diet, you slow your metabolism down *forever*?!?! Please tell me there is research out there that shows you can rev your metabolism back up. I'm 5'1", 119#, and staying under 1400 cals (total) per day. I don't think I can go lower without being super psychologically unhappy, and any time I raise my calories my weight skyrockets. Please tell me I'm not doomed for life!

joshdann

many studies have shown that exercise and a high-protein diet can minimize the effects of AT, and the effects you *do* experience can be (slowly) reversed through more exercise and a slow reintroduction of calories into your diet once you're at your goal weight. Exercise is key to the whole equation... if you're wiling to integrate that into your lifestyle then you aren't forever domed

pavrg

I've not seen any studies that support "hitting all muscles 2x per week" as being a necessity. I might be wrong, but that smells like bro science to me.

Just simply look up weight lifting routines. There is some quibbling over minor details, but by and large you will find recommendations as follows:

Beginner routine (untrained to 3-6 months): 3 or 4-day whole body split of compound lifts at low reps (4-6). This hits most body parts via compound lifts 2x a week and gives some body parts a 1x a week hit to ease the lifter into strength training and build a strength base. This routine will not build appreciable muscle mass, nor is it advertised to do so. It's designed to teach your existing muscles to lift heavy weight to their potential.

Intermediate (3-6 mo to 2 to 3 years, most people never actually get out of this category): A 3 day split repeated twice throughout the week. If the lifter wants to attain more hypertrophy at the expense of some raw power, increase the sets to 8-10 reps.

Advanced (pro body builder or steroid user): A 5-day split with much higher volume per muscle group and sets of 10-12 reps. More focused on raw size than fitness. Or if you're an athlete you cater your routines to that skillset at the expense of others -- only so much time in the day and so much your body can handle.

From personal experience, I can tell you that strength training muscles one day a week, which I had to for a while thanks to other life commitments, leads to really slow, if any, strength gains and constant delayed onset muscle soreness because they never got used to consistently doing work. Since switching back to working out 2x/week for each muscle (which is what I started with years back, but had to take a break from due to other things in life), I don't get sore at all and will probably break most of my previous personal records from the mid 2000s shortly despite being 15 lbs lighter than I was then.

I don't even know where the exercise 3x/week thing comes from. I think some doctor recommended that years ago and it just stuck, despite the fact that I have never been able to honestly call myself fit or even feel fit when having to work out only 3 days a week. It's not possible, and I start to lose performance after about a month of that. This is exacerbated when people read articles in fitness magazines about overtraining, which applies to advanced athletes, and they convince themselves they'll run health risks if they workout everyday for 30-60 minutes. I remember playing sports in HS and we practiced 6 days a week for 2-3 hours. I'm not 17 anymore, but people up to 40-45 can easily work up to handling 1 hour a day of high intensity physical activity 5-7x/week.

I would challenge you to produce someone who can perform appreciably better by just working out 3x/week once they get passed the ~3-6 month honeymoon period where their body gets used to actually doing something again.

joshdann

The only person I'd point to is myself, but I'm still in that honeymoon period you mentioned. For what it's worth, there are plenty of lifting routines out there (stronglifts, for example. plus all the other 5x5 variants) that use an A-B-A, B-A-B workout cycle every two weeks. That's 3x per week. Some muscle groups get hit twice per week, some get hit once. The next week it switches. Squats are the only thing you do with every workout, and I think that's because they target a larger group of muscles than the rest and as such are one of the overall most effective lifts you can do.

So, I can't use my own experience by your standards, at least not yet, but the sheer prevalence of 3x per week routines leads me to believe that there is some validity behind the method, even long-term.

edited to add: this might be better to discuss in another thread, as we're drifting off topic.

FitterTerri

Thanks for the great info. Bumping to reread and soak up all of the details. I love the term MA way more than SM. It makes so much more sense.

EvgeniZyntx

I've not seen any studies that support "hitting all muscles 2x per week" as being a necessity. I might be wrong, but that smells like bro science to me.

Just simply look up weight lifting routines. There is some quibbling over minor details, but by and large you will find recommendations as follows:

Beginner routine (untrained to 3-6 months): 3 or 4-day whole body split of compound lifts at low reps (4-6). This hits most body parts via compound lifts 2x a week and gives some body parts a 1x a week hit to ease the lifter into strength training and build a strength base. This routine will not build appreciable muscle mass, nor is it advertised to do so. It's designed to teach your existing muscles to lift heavy weight to their potential.

Intermediate (3-6 mo to 2 to 3 years, most people never actually get out of this category): A 3 day split repeated twice throughout the week. If the lifter wants to attain more hypertrophy at the expense of some raw power, increase the sets to 8-10 reps.

Advanced (pro body builder or steroid user): A 5-day split with much higher volume per muscle group and sets of 10-12 reps. More focused on raw size than fitness. Or if you're an athlete you cater your routines to that skillset at the expense of others -- only so much time in the day and so much your body can handle.

From personal experience, I can tell you that strength training muscles one day a week, which I had to for a while thanks to other life commitments, leads to really slow, if any, strength gains and constant delayed onset muscle soreness because they never got used to consistently doing work. Since switching back to working out 2x/week for each muscle (which is what I started with years back, but had to take a break from due to other things in life), I don't get sore at all and will probably break most of my previous personal records from the mid 2000s shortly despite being 15 lbs lighter than I was then.

I don't even know where the exercise 3x/week thing comes from. I think some doctor recommended that years ago and it just stuck, despite the fact that I have never been able to honestly call myself fit or even feel fit when having to work out only 3 days a week. It's not possible, and I start to lose performance after about a month of that. This is exacerbated when people read articles in fitness magazines about overtraining, which applies to advanced athletes, and they convince themselves they'll run health risks if they workout everyday for 30-60 minutes. I remember playing sports in HS and we practiced 6 days a week for 2-3 hours. I'm not 17 anymore, but people up to 40-45 can easily work up to handling 1 hour a day of high intensity physical activity 5-7x/week.

I would challenge you to produce someone who can perform appreciably better by just working out 3x/week once they get passed the ~3-6 month honeymoon period where their body gets used to actually doing something again.

Thank you for this.

JeninBelgium

bump

DapperKay

Too much to read, but disheartened by some of what I read.

Can someone summarize if there has been any discussion for workaround to Adaptive Thermogenesis? My thinking is that surely if you maintain a reasonable calorie intake and continue strengths training then your muscles will continue to grow and thus extra calories will go towards growing and maintaining muscle rather than fat gains? Surely the way out is just to keep getting leaner, fitter and more toned to create such a large gap between fit you and unfit old you that you will never really go back, at worst you will just gain a few which you can burn off again with more hard work?!

insyweensy

Ah, so there is still hope. Is there less hope if I already exercise 6x per week? I'm doing mostly cardio right (30-120 min per day) now because every time I add in weight training I end up gaining both weight and inches.

MityMax96

Ah, so there is still hope. Is there less hope if I already exercise 6x per week? I'm doing mostly cardio right (30-120 min per day) now because every time I add in weight training I end up gaining both weight and inches.

Take a break from the cardio and do weights for a bit.....

Seriously you are a female, so you are not going to look like Arnold when you workout....
I know I sure don't and I have been in the gym pushing iron for almost 20 yrs now, religiously.

55in13

I strongly agree with the last statement. The reason I debate for high deficit weight loss as a reasonable option for some of us is because I think it is a reasonable option for some of, not all of us...

I'd be interested in hearing more. How high a deficit can you go to and be effective, in your case? I'm in a sweet spot right now of about -800 calories/day, but I'm also not in a position of having to lose 100+ pounds any more.

I won't speak for him, but personally I'm attempting to use the 31kcal per lb of body fat method. I have roughly 90 lbs of fat mass (maybe a bit less, hard to say for sure) so I'm creating as much as a 2500 kcal deficit per day. That's eating 2000 and trying to exercise enough to burn 4500 per day. It gives me some room for error but from everything I've read (that is a lot so far... still not done reading yet. may never be) it's a sound plan that not only gives me the nutrition I need but also spares as much LBM as possible.

You did a pretty good job of speaking for me; I used the same calculation during the initial part of my loss. I had 55 total to lose and lost the first 40 in roughly 20 weeks, but I had a lower TDEE and deficit.

I have complicated things as far as describing what I do to others by simplifying them for myself. I logged food often early in my loss and then used the common building blocks (particular breakfasts and lunches) to construct days in the 1200 range, but I cannot say with certainty that I averaged 1200. I think my TDEE was around 2500 initially. My primary exercise is running roughly every other day and it has increased from 2 miles to 7 miles for an average run since the beginning of the year, so my exercise burn pretty much tripled.

I got within a couple of pounds of goal about 12 weeks ago and have been at or below about 6 weeks. I have logged a few days during this period and it does seem like my actual TDEE is lower than what the calculators come up with, so it may be that I have some AT effects but my data is not clean enough to say for sure. I am at a healthy weight and I have to currently eat a little less than most calculators say to stay at that weight; I do not consider this suffering from the effects at all.

55in13

Too much to read, but disheartened by some of what I read.

Can someone summarize if there has been any discussion for workaround to Adaptive Thermogenesis? My thinking is that surely if you maintain a reasonable calorie intake and continue strengths training then your muscles will continue to grow and thus extra calories will go towards growing and maintaining muscle rather than fat gains? Surely the way out is just to keep getting leaner, fitter and more toned to create such a large gap between fit you and unfit old you that you will never really go back, at worst you will just gain a few which you can burn off again with more hard work?!

Yes, there is a lot of discussion on avoiding AT by going slow or ignoring it and pressing on because it only slows loss a little, does not cause stalls, and then hoping it will resolve itself over time (in the studies,it usually does). Both ways have their adherents and stories of success and failure. You just have to figure out which way you believe in enough to stick to it and commit.

DapperKay

Too much to read, but disheartened by some of what I read.

Can someone summarize if there has been any discussion for workaround to Adaptive Thermogenesis? My thinking is that surely if you maintain a reasonable calorie intake and continue strengths training then your muscles will continue to grow and thus extra calories will go towards growing and maintaining muscle rather than fat gains? Surely the way out is just to keep getting leaner, fitter and more toned to create such a large gap between fit you and unfit old you that you will never really go back, at worst you will just gain a few which you can burn off again with more hard work?!

Yes, there is a lot of discussion on avoiding AT by going slow or ignoring it and pressing on because it only slows loss a little, does not cause stalls, and then hoping it will resolve itself over time (in the studies,it usually does). Both ways have their adherents and stories of success and failure. You just have to figure out which way you believe in enough to stick to it and commit.

Thank you.

It seems to me it is also about how strong willed and patient you can be. Because to go slow means you have to have a chill personality that doesn't panic if you go up the scales a little but can bring it back down over time.

For those of us that get too anxious when something like that happens though, I would say the latter works for us, almost at an intuitive level. You continue to eat less and press yourself, you continue to work harder in the gym and the results continue to pour in (not just weight loss, but BF% and leanness etc), so you keep creating new goals and moving forward.

Eventually, and hopefully this is where more and more clinical trials are needed, hopefully someone can prove if AT can resolve itself over time. If it doesn't, I still don't think it is a big deal, so long as you continue to be lean and fit to the best of your efforts, after all we are dealing with muscles...