starvation mode: myth or fact?

2»

Replies

  • SoUnaware
    SoUnaware Posts: 85 Member
    God, there are some seriously dumb individuals out there. How about we do a little research, perhaps phone our doctors or the local hospital nutritionist and ask them before telling someone that starvation mode is a lie?

    You've already gotten the facts, anyway. People who undergoe severe starvation only survive because of starvation mode.

    A "starvation diet" is a diet where the person in question eats less than 50 percent of their needed calories for the day. You calculate your needed calories by calculating your base metabolic rate (you can do this online at many places). People on a diet usually shave off 500ish calories from that in order to lose weight, and if you cut that number in half and eat less than it, you're starving yourself. And eventually, your body will go into starvation mode.
  • registers
    registers Posts: 782 Member
    This is one of those things that... are true, but they're not true based on accurate information. Here is how it works, you need so many calories a day to be at a certain body weight, if you cut down on those calories you will reduce body weight, that's a given.

    Lets say you need 2000 calories to be at your current weight. If you go down to 1000 calories, you'll loose a lot of weight, but from where? Muscle and fat, it will get to the point where most of your weight loss will come from muscle mass. What burns calories? Muscle mass. So you're eating 1500 calories with less muscle mass when you started, meaning you're burning less calories than when you started. If you increase your caloric intake you blow up like a balloon, because you don't have the muscle mass to burn off the calories.
  • ImperfektAngel
    ImperfektAngel Posts: 811 Member
    When the body is in survival mode, does it always go for the fat first to feed itself?
  • schlubba
    schlubba Posts: 26
    When the body is in survival mode, does it always go for the fat first to feed itself?

    No it goes after muscle first, and stores most of the food you do eat as fat, once your muscles have been emaciated it will then go after the fat.
  • marciebrian
    marciebrian Posts: 853 Member
    God, there are some seriously dumb individuals out there. How about we do a little research, perhaps phone our doctors or the local hospital nutritionist and ask them before telling someone that starvation mode is a lie?

    You've already gotten the facts, anyway. People who undergoe severe starvation only survive because of starvation mode.

    A "starvation diet" is a diet where the person in question eats less than 50 percent of their needed calories for the day. You calculate your needed calories by calculating your base metabolic rate (you can do this online at many places). People on a diet usually shave off 500ish calories from that in order to lose weight, and if you cut that number in half and eat less than it, you're starving yourself. And eventually, your body will go into starvation mode.

    nice going, now she deactivated. not sure you could have been ruder. hope you have a good day
  • Rebel_Ray
    Rebel_Ray Posts: 3
    Keep your metabolism efficient by eating enough! :smile:
  • ibtiamat
    ibtiamat Posts: 26 Member
    It is true you will lose weight, but your body is not only having to eat the fat to get energy but also a lot of muscle mass. Also if you start eating normally again, your body will then go into "surplus mode" which is dangerous, you can gain a lot of fat this way because your body doesn't know when it will get it's next meal, fearing that you will go back into "starvation mode".

    I had a friend that did this, she starved herself at a young age (9 to 12) and when she started eating regularly again she gained A LOT of weight in fat and now she is morbidly obese. She was over 250lb at age 15 and now she is 243 at age 18.
  • metacognition
    metacognition Posts: 626 Member
    The risk is less likely to be starvation mode, it's more likely to be your body dropping muscle mass, or the extreme dieting leading to a spike in hunger hormone, resulting in binge eating.
  • ibtiamat
    ibtiamat Posts: 26 Member
    I forgot, I can give you some advice.

    This strategy is normally used for people who suffer from Hypoglycemia.
    Eat a small HEALTHY snack every 2 hours, or a very small meal every 2 hours.

    Hypoglycemia runs in my family, my mother tried this and she lost 5 pounds in one week!

    Doing this method allows your body to constantly be digesting food and in turn increases your metabolism.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member

    nice going, now she deactivated. not sure you could have been ruder. hope you have a good day

    Considering someone dredged up this thread from over 2 years ago the OP quite likely left a long time ago.
  • melindasuefritz
    melindasuefritz Posts: 3,509 Member
    Fact
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    When the body is in survival mode, does it always go for the fat first to feed itself?
    Fat is the preference for energy storage - we can carry 100,000 calories of fat but nowhere near that amount of anything else. Every night while asleep you use fat from storage to tide you over tot he next morning.

    At http://www.cussp.org/sites/default/files/Hall Slides.pdf you can see the science of what happens if you don't eat at all - fasting - where fat oxidation settles down at about 1000 calories a day of energy supply. An overweight woman would have a few months worth on board at that rate.
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,154 Member
    When the body is in survival mode, does it always go for the fat first to feed itself?
    Fat is the preference for energy storage - we can carry 100,000 calories of fat but nowhere near that amount of anything else. Every night while asleep you use fat from storage to tide you over tot he next morning.

    At http://www.cussp.org/sites/default/files/Hall Slides.pdf you can see the science of what happens if you don't eat at all - fasting - where fat oxidation settles down at about 1000 calories a day of energy supply. An overweight woman would have a few months worth on board at that rate.

    Fasting is not the same as starvation mode. When people use intermittent fasting, it is the intermittent part that is the key. Your body will not enter starvation mode in a matter of days, so fasting is not going to do metabolic damage. Maintaining excessive deficits over a long term (weeks or months) will cause a change. Your statement that we carry more fat than anything else is categorically incorrect. We carry far more muscle (assuming you are at a healthy weight). When you carry a very large deficit over a long period of time, your body begins to burn a higher percentage of muscle than fat in order to preserve the energy reserves. Muscle tissue is a less efficient, but more abundant energy source - it has a lot of calories, but is harder to break down. Muscle also requires more calories to maintain than fat does. Thus, when your body encounters a significant, long term food shortage, it burns muscle to ensure the maximum amount of stored energy for the longest period of time. Only once muscle mass is severely reduced will the ratio shift back towards fat again. This is a large part of the reason that anorexics have so little muscle definition. Their bodies canabilized their muscle tissue first, and when they kept starving themselves because they still saw body fat, it then broke down the fat reserves. Starvation mode is not a myth, but is severely misunderstood. Intermittent fasting does not disprove starvation mode.
  • SkimFlatWhite68
    SkimFlatWhite68 Posts: 1,254 Member
    I'd also like to add a special message to anyone over 50 who might read this post. The older we get the more bone and muscle mass we lose; therefore, it is essential you eat no less than what your body requires to function and strength train using a moderate amount of weight.

    Nice one. Nothing to do with the thread but I'll add - eat adequate amounts of Protein, Vitamin C, D, Calcium and Magnesium to help ward off the ill effects of Menopause and Osteoporosis. Also helped by strength training, as mentioned above.
  • SurfyFriend
    SurfyFriend Posts: 362 Member
    Isn't "mode" a technology term? We are not robots so we don't have "modes".
    If we don't eat enough food we starve, yes.
  • grimendale
    grimendale Posts: 2,154 Member
    Isn't "mode" a technology term? We are not robots so we don't have "modes".
    If we don't eat enough food we starve, yes.

    mode [ mōd ] 1.manner or form: a way, manner, or form, e.g. a way of doing something, or the form in which something exists
    2.style or fashion: a style or fashion, e.g. in art or in dress
    3.machine setting: a setting or function on a machine such as a computer

    That's one definition. However, the first definition more accurately applies in this case. Starvation mode is the way, manner or form of storing and burning calories used by your body under large, long term deficits.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Fasting is not the same as starvation mode. When people use intermittent fasting, it is the intermittent part that is the key. Your body will not enter starvation mode in a matter of days, so fasting is not going to do metabolic damage. Maintaining excessive deficits over a long term (weeks or months) will cause a change. Your statement that we carry more fat than anything else is categorically incorrect.

    I meant as calories. 160 lb woman, 40% fat, 64 lb fat = 224,000 calories. Way more than any other reserve.
    We carry far more muscle (assuming you are at a healthy weight).
    I'm not sure people looking to lose weight are at a healthy weight, but setting that aside we're mainly water and the amount of muscle is very likely to be less than the amount of fat in overweight or obese people http://www.jawon.com/reng/res/body-composition.html
    Starvation mode is not a myth, but is severely misunderstood. Intermittent fasting does not disprove starvation mode.
    You did have an epic comprehension fail. I did not mention intermittent fasting at all, I referred to analysis of total fasting ( surely counts as "starvation" ) which shows fat as the primary energy source. That evidence clearly shows that muscle is not the "go to fuel" but it is catabolised to provide amino acids to fuel gluconeogenesis in the absence of dietary protein.

    So an overweight dieter eating adequate protein will use and hence lose largely fat, as demonstrated in countless VLCD clinical studies.

    Here's the fuel supply during fasting ie no food - maximum deficit :-

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/18312762/fastingfuel.png

    fastingfuel.png
  • marciebrian
    marciebrian Posts: 853 Member

    nice going, now she deactivated. not sure you could have been ruder. hope you have a good day

    Considering someone dredged up this thread from over 2 years ago the OP quite likely left a long time ago.

    You're probably right but still no excuse for calling people stupid.