Starvation mode: real, fake or a matter of opinion

carashirley

I've heard so many things about this I don't know what to believe. What do you guys think...

Here's my stats for the past 21 days

Average Daily Caloris Burn: 2969

Average Daily Calories Consumed: 1284

Average Daily Calorie Deficit: 1685

Should I (if it is even real) be concerned with putting myself into starvation mode? I've been at this for 55 (approx) days & have lost 27 lbs so far. I started at 290 & am down to 263. Part of me feels like that number should be higher & another part of me feels like that number is enough! I'm in the gym 6 days a week, 30-45 min at a time. Running C25K 3 days & doing bootcamp (strength training) the other 3.

If these were your numbers would you keep things like they are or would you step up the intensity to get a higher daily deficit?

whierd

Starvation mode largely doesn't exist.

So no, you're not in starvation mode.

igotabulletproofheart

BS. There was a study done to prove that it exists for those people who are at a dangerously low bf%. Other than that, you just have to be wary of adaptive thermogenesis which all dieters experience.

_Zardoz_

This won't end well

_Zardoz_

Starvation mode triggers autonomic responses which holds onto fat in the region of Shatner' s Bassoon.

maillemaker

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

Starvation mode is largely a myth, unless you get down to single-digit, life-threatening body fat.

That said, you can experience plateaus when dieting. I have dieted many times, and always see the same kind of thing - the first 10 pounds comes off pretty easy, and then things slow down four a few weeks and I feel exhausted. I think this is the body's reaction to a calorie deficit. But eating more calories for these kinds of plateaus is not going to help you lose weight.

They say exercise can mitigate it but I never exercised and dieted at the same time until the last month so I can't say for sure.

Here is what my preliminary-diet "plateau" looks like:



The bottom line is, until and unless you are at a dangerously-low body fat percentage, if you eat a calorie deficit you will lose weight. You must.

stefjc

And Shatner's Bassoon is wholly responsible for the glabjous refraction of the humours.

neanderthin

If you have lots of body fat, then no, starvation mode isn't going to happen. There will be some hormonal down regulation of metabolism, but nothing that would ever come close to the deficits that most people put themselves in. Generally when people complain their in starvation mode most of the fix is in the math.

FourIsCompany

Everyone has an opinion on this. Mine is that it (whether you call it starvation mode or not - and I don't) DOES exist. I'm not saying that everyone experiences it, but I do believe that people's bodies are different enough that some people do experience it.

Food is fuel. If you fuel your car, it goes. If you restrict the fuel past the point at which it consumes fuel, and expect it to go further and faster, you're going to be disappointed.

I know... our bodies aren't cars. It's an analogy. But our bodies need a certain amount of calories just to lie in a coma without dying (BMR). Our bodies need more if you're going to live a normal life. If you don't fuel it enough to do strenuous exercise, eventually, it's going to refuse to let go of its stores. Call it starvation mode or whatever you want. But finding the sweet spot at which you can eat a small deficit and either exercise or not, is the freaking holy grail.

In my opinion, of course.

I_mustacheU4pancakes

Eh,metabolic adaption does happen though.
So depends. Will your body somehow magically defy
Laws of thermodynamics and store fat while in a deficit? No.
Will your body adapt and slow down energy use and become more efficient
To adapt to the low amount of calories coming in?
Yea.

jackielou867

From what I have researched, if you keep doing what you are doing your body metabolism will alter to help accommodate what you are asking. When you come of this crazy regime you will put weight on more quickly. Trust me I did it for 20 years, not quite so severely. Always losing weight from the wrong places, and putting back in the wrong places.
From what I have researched, alter your regime, throw your body a curve ball, eat more one day a week, exercise less one day, then your body won't get in a routine. Also severe weight loss almost certainly means you are losing muscle density as well as fat, really not good. I know you are exercising hard, but your body needs energy from somewhere and it will burn muscle to get it. This happened to me. But only a littlle as I was working sensibly on my weight loss. Currently on a 6 week body build plan where I am told to eat at least full maintanence calories, eat 6 times a day, protein in every meal, and rest days to give muscles chance to repair.I want to be slim, but healthy toned slim, not skinny slim. And I am prepared to take a little time getting there :-)

poedunk65

As real as muscle memory, lol.

I_mustacheU4pancakes

As real as muscle memory, lol.

Bro, muscle memory goes hand in hand with skinny memory. That's why if you
Lose weight and then gain it back, you can get skinny again within a week.
Everybody knows this.

neandermagnon

Nothing in science is just a matter of opinion. If there are different opinions, it's because scientists don't yet know the whole picture, or one side is mistaken. In other words, there's stuff we know to be true, and stuff we don't know yet. Among non-scientsts, there's a whole world of pseudoscience and misinformation out there, and if you don't have a background in science, it can be extremely confusing which is real science and which is pseudoscience and which is a mangled and misunderstood version of real science. IMO starvation mode is mostly the latter.

Regarding "starvation mode" - it really depends how you define it. If you define starvation mode the way it gets defined on the internet, e.g. if you eat too little your metabolism stops and you won't lose weight.... if this were true then why on earth did animals evolve to eat anything at all, they could survive instead by halting their metabolisms and just living off of nothing. Shame that breaks the laws of physics and thus hasn't evolved and never will evolve. So no, if that's how you define starvation mode, it's a total myth.

HOWEVER.... if the question is "does the human body try to adapt to an inadequate diet by using less energy (i.e. burning fewer calories) to prolong survival" - the answer is yes. But it won't prolong survival indefinately, if you don't eat enough you will continue to lose weight until you die of starvation. What the human body can do is adapt to lower levels of calorie intake up to a point, by burning muscle mass instead of fat and by decreasing the amount of energy used in non-essential functions (the latter is called adaptive thermogenesis), which enabled our ancestors to survive longer in food shortages... but not indefinitely.

Additionally, there's a whole bunch of behavioural responses to too few calories, like obsessing about food and binge eating. Our evolutionary ancestors didn't know what a calorie was or how many they needed to eat, or what level of food intake constituted a food shortage.... so behavioural responses to insufficient calories, like extreme hunger, increase in food seeking behaviour and obsessing about food, led them to spend more time seeking food, and the binge eating response meant that when they found it they ate as much as they could of it... these are survival responses that generally kick in a lot earlier than adaptive thermogenesis. And for modern people on diets, these responses really mess things up and make it hard for you, because we evolved to try to eat as much as possible during a food shortage, not to just sit around letting our fat reserves waste away. Adaptive thermogenesis is real, your body metabolising lean body mass in preference to fat is also real, and these will happen if you eat too little for a prolonged time. However what screws up most people's diets are the behavioural responses to eating too little like obsessing about food and binge eating. So ignore that at your peril.....

oferb1

This is real!

Have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

it is a study that was done 60 years ago in minnesota (when research was done without funding by food/diet companies) - it was a very simple experiment - take a group of men, limit them to 1500 calories a day for a period of months, and see what happens...

the results were stunning... Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression - but more to the point, when the study ended, they all gained back the weight fast, and most of them exceeded their starting weight.

You can also see a small segment on this study in "The men who made us thin" BBC series http://youtu.be/I-_LoAm_etU (minute 8 is where they describe this study and their findings).

I can also personally attest, that every time I did such a severe diet, I found my self bouncing back really fast...

samammay

27 lbs in 55 days - thats over 3 lbs a week.

Sounds like a "if it aint broke, dont fix it" situation to me. Keep going with what is working until it isnt working yet. Once you get to or close to a weight you happy with, you can worry about maintenance.

benlogan87

The way I understand it would be once u you have bugger all fat left to burn, then "starvation" mode will kick in. Your metabolism will definitely slow down on your way to starvation mode, but I think most people don't get that lean that it becomes an issue, I would assume most people get into a healthy body composition then start maintaining. Before you start maintaining, it would probably be wise to get your metabolism tested so you don't put it all back on again, in case it has dropped. Unless you start obsessing with shredding all body fat, then it probably becomes a psych issue.

* Disclaimer - I am by no means a professional, just the way I think.

stefjc

How will testing your metabolism stop you putting weight back on?

HollyRed13

It's only true if you have so little body fat left that you're about to die. Your body wants survival, but I'm assuming that you're not quite at the stage of starvation just yet. Starvation mode is exactly that, when your body is starved.

The reason you might not be losing weight is that you're either
- Overestimating how much you burn during exercise, or
- After weight loss the deficit is no longer a deficit.

Either way you need to be either eating less or exercising more (without eating back the calories) in order to lose weight.

maillemaker

This is real!

Have a look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

it is a study that was done 60 years ago in minnesota (when research was done without funding by food/diet companies) - it was a very simple experiment - take a group of men, limit them to 1500 calories a day for a period of months, and see what happens...

GAH!!!!!!!

Those people were down to single digit body fat percentages!

Most of the people around here being told to "Eat! You are in starvation mode!" are fat!

Basically, if you are over 20% body fat, you can't be in starvation mode and any calorie deficit will result in weight loss!

Now, this is only talking about weight loss. If you eat an unhealthy diet without enough nutrients for your body to function you may have other health problems besides weight loss.

But the whole "starvation mode" thing around here is when people hit a plateau they get told to eat more and for 99% of people that is not going to make you lose weight. If you are fat, a calorie deficit makes you lose weight.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

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

Read this, it's got links to a lot of research on the topic.