MFP Article Supporting Starvation Mode

Ddsb11

Why does MFP publish these articles on their main page? Isn’t it counter intuitive? No wonder we can’t shed these myths when even MFP is supporting misinformation. I shouldn’t be surprised but I am 😣. This false belief caused me anguish for a decade. It would be nice to prevent it from happening to someone else in the future.

Deviette

The problem with the top one is that what it's actually said is true (at least in that small section). When you eat too little your metabolism does slow down. That is why people lose hair, get brittle nails, and are much more lethargic. People who starve to death will have had a much lower calorie output on their last days than if they had eaten on those days.

However, what it implies is very different. And yes, does fuel the BS that starvation mode is a thing. Which it isn't.

Also if those 5 things aren't:
- You keep finding yourself bingeing at the end of the day/week because you're so hungry
- You're so fatigued that your activity has dramatically dropped
- You can't stick to your calorie target and keep going over, and if you're over then you might as well keep eating
- Just the above 3 again but worded different
- Just the above 3 again but worded a little more different
Then that article is a load of crap.

The thing with the MFP blog is that it's a load of rubbish. Occasionally I click on things to be horrified at what trendy thing it's going to recommend next. Or the same "this is a super food" and "drinking water is good for you" articles that get rehashed once every 6 months or so.

Mithridites

They should just not bother putting out a blog and hire more tech support with the money they save. If they must, feature popular posts from the forum. It's full of golden nuggets of wisdom.

heybales

Yes, they could have upheld the facts of Adaptive Thermogenesis and potential effects (what used to be called starvation mode but stopped because of the associated myths) and in probably 1 sentence shred the myths.
And then carry on why that state for the body is not to be desired for actual real reasons - not myths.

briscogun

Funny because if a post was made like that in the forums wouldn't it be removed for supporting unhealthy eating below safe calorie levels potentially?

janejellyroll

briscogun wrote: »

Funny because if a post was made like that in the forums wouldn't it be removed for supporting unhealthy eating below safe calorie levels potentially?

It's arguing against cutting too many calories, so I wouldn't think so.

MT1134

What's the myth? I don't understand.

heybales

MT1134 wrote: »

What's the myth? I don't understand.

There are myths associated with the mis-named effect.

You'll store everything as fat, your body will hold on to everything as fat outside normal metabolic processes.
You can't lose weight.
You'll gain fat.

While it's true one may have the effect of burning less than they potentially could, it doesn't really change anything except calculated numbers are bad estimates and if eating is based off them you may not see or see reduced weight loss.

But even numbers that are slightly off won't usually cause those effects.

It is a stressful situation for the body to be in - you can easily gain stress-induced water weight - likely leading to confusion by many people on the effects.

heybales

Want to add to prior comment as to why it may seem the effects are connected.

You can easily see what does happen with the given effect of burning less than you potentially could.

You likely got to that point by doing an extreme diet.

For many that causes binging, perhaps a day, perhaps a couple. Every so often.
Well, great time to pile on the calories when the body is running slower than it could - that easily can cause fat gain, since maintenance is lower, deficit was less than expected, and may be easier to eat in surplus.

That is still an effect though of using numbers that are now incorrect - though I'd wager at binge time numbers are not exactly at the forefront and may not even be logged - hence the unknown problem.

So that's not an issue of the AT mode, but rather the diet that got you there.

The stressful time for body in that mode, water-weight added by cortisol has been seen to be slowly up to 20 lbs.
Even if someone had a real 1000 cal deficit in place for 2 lb fat loss weekly, how many weeks of slow water weight add on could show slower to no loss on the scale of total weight? 10 wks is kinda long and easily make someone think they aren't losing weight.
The bad part of this situation is they are probably losing max muscle too, I think I recall upwards of 25% of what is lost could be muscle in bad diet setups.
That won't make it easier next time around.

And that's not AT mode, that's just burning less in general because you have less muscle, and again estimated numbers are wrong for you.

Also exercise is probably not as intense as it was or could be in this state - so probably burning less than expected.
So if correctly eating more when doing more with exercise - using bad numbers this will have bad effect.