In Response to Starvation is a Myth Thread

BrainyBurro

I read the article, and it WAS good. I can't believe someone wanted to start a completely new thread ABOUT AN ARTICLE THEY DIDN'T EVEN READ.:huh:

welcome to MFP. you must be new here.

QuietBloom

I read the article, and it WAS good. I can't believe someone wanted to start a completely new thread ABOUT AN ARTICLE THEY DIDN'T EVEN READ.:huh:

welcome to MFP. you must be new here.

Well yes, as a matter of fact I am. :ohwell:

thesophierose

Well said!

Hexahedra

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

Sarauk2sf

I think there is a big hormonal impact that impacts water weight - people think they are stalled but stress that dieting (and exercising) can cause on the body can have a big impact on fluid retention (as does exercise in itself). People often jump the gun on upping calories or think that upping them leads to more fat loss, when it is really fluid loss.

I also believe that individuals vary quite a bit (unfortunately the studies just show averages) as to the hormonal impact and their 'swinginess' re metabolism and water retention. <-- that btw is conjecture from what I have seen and not based on specific 'empirical evidence'.

Whenever I start a new exercise I always get really sore (as expected) and gain a couple of pounds. However, I saw the plateau about a couple of months after I started my exercise, way after all the soreness and water weight have subsided. My weight can fluctuate by as much as 5 lbs between morning and midnight, so I have taken that into account as well.

In any case I don't see why I have to stick with 1600 limit that hardly works if I can do 1900 and lose weight (albeit slowly).

I am not saying you should stick to 1,600. I would not want to either.

I was talking about more than glycogen/water retention in the muscle from exercise. You seem to have missed the point I was trying to make. Possibly I did not explain it well.

55in13

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in this thread:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss

which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

Sarauk2sf

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in the thread linked to earlier, which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

I am also not sure how the article skimmed over it - there was a section dedicated to discussing it:

Adaptive Thermogenesis

The true part is that being in a deficit DOES in fact cause your metabolic rate to slow down over time. This is known as adaptive thermogenesis, and it happens as a result of any prolonged deficit. The more excessive (in terms of size and duration) the deficit is, the more significant this drop will be.

The false part however is the idea that this “metabolic slowdown” is significant enough to actually STOP weight loss. It’s not. And it sure as hell isn’t significant enough to cause weight gain.

It’s mostly just enough to slow down progress a little over time. A much bigger factor slowing down weight loss progress over time is the fact that you’ve already lost a bunch of weight, so your body just isn’t burning as many calories as it initially was.

Meaning, your maintenance level has decreased because your body weight has decreased. So the calorie intake that caused lots of weight loss at 250lbs isn’t working as well (if at all) when you get down to 200lbs.

And it’s this successful decrease in overall body weight combined with that small (but real) amount of adaptive thermogenesis that causes people to eventually need to make adjustments at certain points so that weight loss continues happening (which, by the way, is a one sentence breakdown of what causes weight loss plateaus, why they’re common and normal, and what ultimately solves them).

It has nothing at all to do with “I’m eating too little and my weight loss stopped.” That’s nonsense, and literally every single study in existence supports this.

55in13

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in the thread linked to earlier, which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

I am also not sure how the article skimmed over it - there was a section dedicated to discussing it:

Adaptive Thermogenesis

The true part is that being in a deficit DOES in fact cause your metabolic rate to slow down over time. This is known as adaptive thermogenesis, and it happens as a result of any prolonged deficit. The more excessive (in terms of size and duration) the deficit is, the more significant this drop will be.

The false part however is the idea that this “metabolic slowdown” is significant enough to actually STOP weight loss. It’s not. And it sure as hell isn’t significant enough to cause weight gain.

It’s mostly just enough to slow down progress a little over time. A much bigger factor slowing down weight loss progress over time is the fact that you’ve already lost a bunch of weight, so your body just isn’t burning as many calories as it initially was.

Meaning, your maintenance level has decreased because your body weight has decreased. So the calorie intake that caused lots of weight loss at 250lbs isn’t working as well (if at all) when you get down to 200lbs.

And it’s this successful decrease in overall body weight combined with that small (but real) amount of adaptive thermogenesis that causes people to eventually need to make adjustments at certain points so that weight loss continues happening (which, by the way, is a one sentence breakdown of what causes weight loss plateaus, why they’re common and normal, and what ultimately solves them).

It has nothing at all to do with “I’m eating too little and my weight loss stopped.” That’s nonsense, and literally every single study in existence supports this.

I added a link to the thread I mean. I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread, but since you are quoting a different one, I added the link to:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss
for clarity.

Hexahedra

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in the thread linked to earlier, which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

I read your post. You said my example doesn't apply because of this 15%, but my example is just an arbitrary number to illustrate a point.

Let's use your 15% then. If maintenance is 2000 then at 15% AT reduction it would be at 1700. If I eat at 1700 according to my calculation I would have no deficit, and therefore a plateau.

Can the number be lower than 1700? Absolutely, I have read here of people who have taken actual RMR tests and got numbers as low as around 900. The OP's own number is about 1600. These are results of an actual physical test, not some theoretical number. I will take a personal RMR test result over BMR/TDEE calculation any day.

What I put out there is that people need to experiment. As Einstein said it: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you stall and it seems too low, up it by 100 for two weeks and see what happens, and if it's seems too high (close to or at TDEE) then lower it by 100 for two weeks and evaluate. Of course if you have $60 to burn and a facility that offers RMR test, that would be the quicker way. You just gotta take the test again every time you hit a plateau.

Hexahedra

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in the thread linked to earlier, which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

I am also not sure how the article skimmed over it - there was a section dedicated to discussing it:

Adaptive Thermogenesis

The true part is that being in a deficit DOES in fact cause your metabolic rate to slow down over time. This is known as adaptive thermogenesis, and it happens as a result of any prolonged deficit. The more excessive (in terms of size and duration) the deficit is, the more significant this drop will be.

The false part however is the idea that this “metabolic slowdown” is significant enough to actually STOP weight loss. It’s not. And it sure as hell isn’t significant enough to cause weight gain.

It’s mostly just enough to slow down progress a little over time. A much bigger factor slowing down weight loss progress over time is the fact that you’ve already lost a bunch of weight, so your body just isn’t burning as many calories as it initially was.

Meaning, your maintenance level has decreased because your body weight has decreased. So the calorie intake that caused lots of weight loss at 250lbs isn’t working as well (if at all) when you get down to 200lbs.

And it’s this successful decrease in overall body weight combined with that small (but real) amount of adaptive thermogenesis that causes people to eventually need to make adjustments at certain points so that weight loss continues happening (which, by the way, is a one sentence breakdown of what causes weight loss plateaus, why they’re common and normal, and what ultimately solves them).

It has nothing at all to do with “I’m eating too little and my weight loss stopped.” That’s nonsense, and literally every single study in existence supports this.

By "glossed over" I mean minimize. He has a little section about AT. I said little compared to the length of his rant, I mean article.

If I'm eating at 1200 for sure AT is not gonna cope, it would simply slow down my weight loss because it makes my deficit smaller, so he is right as long as I have a large enough deficit. AT only stops your weight loss if your calorie intake happens to match the lowered EE. If you hit a plateau and cut deeper, I'm quite sure eventually your body will start losing again.

bound4beauty

I thought the article excellent.

It was an excellent article and it's a shame you didn't take the time to finish it or explore some of the other excellent articles on his site.

55in13

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in the thread linked to earlier, which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

I read your post. You said my example doesn't apply because of this 15%, but my example is just an arbitrary number to illustrate a point.

Let's use your 15% then. If maintenance is 2000 then at 15% AT reduction it would be at 1700. If I eat at 1700 according to my calculation I would have no deficit, and therefore a plateau.

Can the number be lower than 1700? Absolutely, I have read here of people who have taken actual RMR tests and got numbers as low as around 900. The OP's own number is about 1600. These are results of an actual physical test, not some theoretical number. I will take a personal RMR test result over BMR/TDEE calculation any day.

What I put out there is that people need to experiment. As Einstein said it: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you stall and it seems too low, up it by 100 for two weeks and see what happens, and if it's seems too high (close to or at TDEE) then lower it by 100 for two weeks and evaluate. Of course if you have $60 to burn and a facility that offers RMR test, that would be the quicker way. You just gotta take the test again every time you hit a plateau.

Again, 15% was the worst case and conservative weight loss guideline is TDEE - 20%, largely because TDEE is so inaccurate. So AT would cause the loss to be slow. There is no documented case of the onset of AT outpacing reduction. It does not explain plateaus. The most common cause is innacuracy.

Sarauk2sf

I actually read the entire article, I forced myself to do it despite the liberal amount of cuss words. He made a good case, but he completely glossed over the effect of AT. If AT slows down your metabolism down to, say, 1600 cals a day, then eating 1600 will result in a stall. Not just slowdown in weight loss, it's a plateau.

I am far from being the only person around here who started losing by upping my calorie intake a little. My method of counting calories hasn't changed, so if I was inaccurate I'm still just as inaccurate today. According to him then I'm just a liar, or that basically I'm just hallucinating all this time. Great.

You just ignored my earlier post about your numbers and keep throwing them out there. In numerous studies (summarized in the thread linked to earlier, which has links and much good info), AT is pegged at 15% maximum, usually less and it is gradual while in deficit. It has never erased a deficit in study. NEVER. It has never been shown to cause a smaller deficit at a lower calorie consumption. NEVER. You base a lot of argument on AT but then make up unsubstantiated numbers that don't come from the AT studies.

I am also not sure how the article skimmed over it - there was a section dedicated to discussing it:

Adaptive Thermogenesis

The true part is that being in a deficit DOES in fact cause your metabolic rate to slow down over time. This is known as adaptive thermogenesis, and it happens as a result of any prolonged deficit. The more excessive (in terms of size and duration) the deficit is, the more significant this drop will be.

The false part however is the idea that this “metabolic slowdown” is significant enough to actually STOP weight loss. It’s not. And it sure as hell isn’t significant enough to cause weight gain.

It’s mostly just enough to slow down progress a little over time. A much bigger factor slowing down weight loss progress over time is the fact that you’ve already lost a bunch of weight, so your body just isn’t burning as many calories as it initially was.

Meaning, your maintenance level has decreased because your body weight has decreased. So the calorie intake that caused lots of weight loss at 250lbs isn’t working as well (if at all) when you get down to 200lbs.

And it’s this successful decrease in overall body weight combined with that small (but real) amount of adaptive thermogenesis that causes people to eventually need to make adjustments at certain points so that weight loss continues happening (which, by the way, is a one sentence breakdown of what causes weight loss plateaus, why they’re common and normal, and what ultimately solves them).

It has nothing at all to do with “I’m eating too little and my weight loss stopped.” That’s nonsense, and literally every single study in existence supports this.

By "glossed over" I mean minimize. He has a little section about AT. I said little compared to the length of his rant, I mean article.

If I'm eating at 1200 for sure AT is not gonna cope, it would simply slow down my weight loss because it makes my deficit smaller, so he is right as long as I have a large enough deficit. AT only stops your weight loss if your calorie intake happens to match the lowered EE. If you hit a plateau and cut deeper, I'm quite sure eventually your body will start losing again.

He mentioned it throughout the article - I just quoted one piece. The article was about it in a way.

MrsFowler1069

Hexahedra said, 'I don't like the term 'starvation mode', I prefer metabolic slowdown. When people eat too much below their caloric requirement the body adapts by reducing its caloric consumption. '

I've also heard it called "hybernation" mode. A state of inactivity and metabolic depression.

Yes, or adaptive thermogenesis. This is an interesting article showing some seemingly slight, but distinct, differences.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2012/12/starvation-mode-revisited.php

Sarauk2sf

Hexahedra said, 'I don't like the term 'starvation mode', I prefer metabolic slowdown. When people eat too much below their caloric requirement the body adapts by reducing its caloric consumption. '

I've also heard it called "hybernation" mode. A state of inactivity and metabolic depression.

Yes, or adaptive thermogenesis. This is an interesting article showing some seemingly slight, but distinct, differences.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2012/12/starvation-mode-revisited.php

Thanks for posting. Funnily, I was looking for something else from him today, saw a link to that article but got distracted and did not go back.

He mentions something (and cites sources) I alluded to earlier but was more of an anecdotal comment from me - re while the average slowdown is not that much, individual outliers can vary quite a bit.

MrsFowler1069

Hexahedra said, 'I don't like the term 'starvation mode', I prefer metabolic slowdown. When people eat too much below their caloric requirement the body adapts by reducing its caloric consumption. '

I've also heard it called "hybernation" mode. A state of inactivity and metabolic depression.

Yes, or adaptive thermogenesis. This is an interesting article showing some seemingly slight, but distinct, differences.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2012/12/starvation-mode-revisited.php

Thanks for posting. Funnily, I was looking for something else from him today, saw a link to that article but got distracted and did not go back.

He mentions something (and cites sources) I alluded to earlier but was more of an anecdotal comment from me - re while the average slowdown is not that much, individual outliers can vary quite a bit.

Oh, good. I always appreciate references, but when I post them, I'm never sure if people care to look (like the way I skim over almost every video link on my Facebook feed lol). Still makes me feel better, though.

And yes, good point.

55in13

Hexahedra said, 'I don't like the term 'starvation mode', I prefer metabolic slowdown. When people eat too much below their caloric requirement the body adapts by reducing its caloric consumption. '

I've also heard it called "hybernation" mode. A state of inactivity and metabolic depression.

Yes, or adaptive thermogenesis. This is an interesting article showing some seemingly slight, but distinct, differences.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2012/12/starvation-mode-revisited.php

Thanks for posting. Funnily, I was looking for something else from him today, saw a link to that article but got distracted and did not go back.

He mentions something (and cites sources) I alluded to earlier but was more of an anecdotal comment from me - re while the average slowdown is not that much, individual outliers can vary quite a bit.

That's true but those are really rare cases. It isn't just an average that is below 15%, it is the vast majority of cases coming in below 15%. I have seen other studies that say 4% to 10%, also with some outliers. The trouble is that people use the evidence of these rare cases to extrapolate that it is the most likely cause of all slowdowns and stalls. But again, in none of the studies has it ever been found to cause a stall. You don't cut calories 10% and trigger a 15% MR change; the kinds of results in the studies are people eating at a significant deficit to trigger a MR reduction much smaller than that deficit. It just makes the loss slower. This is even true of the outliers who had more significant drops in their metabolism. There has been no documented case of anyone ever reducing calories without it resulting in an increased deficit. If it triggers a change in MR, it is gradual and the rate of increased deficit to decreased consumption falls below 1:1 for additional reductions.

Sarauk2sf

Hexahedra said, 'I don't like the term 'starvation mode', I prefer metabolic slowdown. When people eat too much below their caloric requirement the body adapts by reducing its caloric consumption. '

I've also heard it called "hybernation" mode. A state of inactivity and metabolic depression.

Yes, or adaptive thermogenesis. This is an interesting article showing some seemingly slight, but distinct, differences.

http://www.burnthefatblog.com/archives/2012/12/starvation-mode-revisited.php

Thanks for posting. Funnily, I was looking for something else from him today, saw a link to that article but got distracted and did not go back.

He mentions something (and cites sources) I alluded to earlier but was more of an anecdotal comment from me - re while the average slowdown is not that much, individual outliers can vary quite a bit.

That's true but those are really rare cases. It isn't just an average that is below 15%, it is the vast majority of cases coming in below 15%. I have seen other studies that say 4% to 10%, also with some outliers. The trouble is that people use the evidence of these rare cases to extrapolate that it is the most likely cause of all slowdowns and stalls. But again, in none of the studies has it ever been found to cause a stall. You don't cut calories 10% and trigger a 15% MR change; the kinds of results in the studies are people eating at a significant deficit to trigger a MR reduction much smaller than that deficit. It just makes the loss slower. This is even true of the outliers who had more significant drops in their metabolism. There has been no documented case of anyone ever reducing calories without it resulting in an increased deficit. If it triggers a change in MR, it is gradual and the rate of increased deficit to decreased consumption falls below 1:1 for additional reductions.

Agreed. I was not agreeing with the stall theory, or even that 'most' people have a swingy metabolism - just some.