Starvation Mode

breeshabebe

What's the arguments for/ against this? Does your body freak out if you eat too low of calories? If you eat at a deficit are you guaranteed to lose weight?

jkowula

I'm going with guaranteed.. but I am no expert.

GothicaAdore

From what I have heard, you will lose weight but when you move to eating to maintain you will put weight back on. I am also interested in this as I would like to move up from 1300 calories I eat now to a higher amount as I reach closer to my goal without gaining.

Rays_Wife

Try typing in "starvation mode" into the search feature on here. Hundreds of results pop up as this has been asked over and over. The search feature is great For example here's a good one I picked off the second results page:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/761810-the-starvation-mode-myth-again

TheVimFuego

If you burn more than you consume then the energy has to come from somewhere, fat or lean tissue.

The trick being to maximise the fat loss, obviously, which I try to do by eating lean protein and some resistance work.

There is thread around here about adaptive thermogenesis which is a very good read about how your body adjusts to big deficits.

My take is that the risks of 'Starvation Mode' are overblown unless you are really hitting a deficit hard for a long time.

I prefer to zig zag my calories and make sure I put a spike in weekly if I've been particularly low during the week, which I tend to be as I am a lazy office drone who wouldn't know a 'work out' if one was presented on a silver platter complete with dancing girls.

Mr_Knight

What's the arguments for/ against this?

What is "this"?

To answer your question, you need to specify which of the many definitions of "starvation mode" you are referring to.

If you eat at a deficit are you guaranteed to lose weight?

Yes.

ndj1979

if you use the handy dandy search feature you will get a million hits on this one..

But here is the cliff notes version …If you eat nothing for a period greater than 72 hours than yes, you will go into starvation mode. Typically, it will take longer than this but at, or after, 72 hours of eating nothing is pretty much accepted as going into starvation mode..

chronic underrating like eating 1000 cals a day/700/whatever will not put you into starvation mode, but you may suffer metabolic damage...

ndj1979

If you eat at a deficit are you guaranteed to lose weight?

is there any other way to lose weight?

breeshabebe

K thanks. Search.. Got it.