Too little calories?

alex51026

I think I need to eat more calories, my net (food - excercise total) was 1,100 calories the last two days.... I think I have entered Starvation Mode....


Has anyone else experienced this?

NoAdditives

It takes time for this to happen and for most people it takes being under 700 calories to go into true starvation mode. After my son was born last April and I was trying to lose weight I went into starvation mode. Without realizing it, most days I was eating between 400 and 700 calories. I lost the baby weight plus 10 pounds quickly, within the first two months, but after that couldn't lose weight. And now I keep finding I need to eat more calories in order to lose more weight. If I get less than 1400 net calories I stop losing weight.

NCisME

eat...

alex51026

Thanks for the responses. The class instructor at my gym recommended on the days that I take her class I should be eating at least 2,000 calories. I'm increasing my breakfast and lunch some today, and going to institute some snacks, hopefully that will help.

kdiamond

You should generally eat more calories...especially on workout days...but just as a note 2 days of 1100 calories isn't going to slow down your metabolism. I never eat the same amount of calories every day...always more on workout days and less on non-workout days.

LotusF1ower

I think I need to eat more calories, my net (food - excercise total) was 1,100 calories the last two days.... I think I have entered Starvation Mode....


Has anyone else experienced this?

You would not enter starvation mode after just two days.

If you think you need to eat more, then do so.

alex51026

I have been on for 27 days, and 19 days of those I have only had a net intake of 1,200 calories or less. Its been more than two days, I didn't think much of it until this week when I didn't lose any weight, before that I was averaging about 3 pounds per week.

alantin

That happens as bodyweight fluctuates. You'll see a lot more of that when you get closer to your goal! :laugh:

3 pounds a week is a pretty high pace to average unless it represents a declining curve. 1 lbs a week is a healthy pace after the rapid loss in the beginning and you really should eat more if you steadily keep losing more than that. Of course, you need to slow the pace down as you get closer to your goal too. Reason being that there is only so much fat that you can lose in a given time and that amount gets smaller as the fat gets scarcer. The rest is taken from your muscle tissue..

The weight loss suddenly stopping after such a loss can also be your body fighting back if you are keeping a too large a deficit, which would mean that you really are entering the famine mode. Eat up, and you'll get out of it. Don't aim at a deficit, larger than 500 Kcal a day.

00trayn

You definitely can stop losing weight from eating too few calories. I've spent the past month eating around 1000-1200 total calories a day, that's not even net calories after exercise. And I have lost about a pound in an entire month. I'm 100% confident that it was starvation mode. I do pretty intense workouts 5-6 times a week and between that and eating so little, my body was holding on to every calorie that it got. It took me about a month to realize what was going on.

So my advice, even if you aren't netting 1200, make sure you're at least eating 1200. I have my calories set to 1270 right now (1 lb a week loss) and I'm eating back some exercise calories. It's worked for me in the past, I just got a bit greedy and thought I'd lose faster by eating less. It's the exact opposite. I've been eating quite a bit more the past week (Thanksgiving helped.. haha) and I've lost a pound!

** I'm also 12 pounds from a healthy weight according to BMI and it's already hard to lose weight in the first place.