Starvation mode?

Options
13»

Replies

  • yellow_pepper
    yellow_pepper Posts: 708 Member
    Options
    Nope... I think it's closer to religion than logic. More comforting - hey, it justifies eating more! - than rational. This will be my last post on the matter.
  • SuzieQT
    SuzieQT Posts: 188 Member
    Options
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing
    Just thought this post might be worth mentioning here....
  • yellow_pepper
    yellow_pepper Posts: 708 Member
    Options
    2 points from the article:

    1) She's only going to start losing weight when she is no longer 100% sedentary AND she eats like a normal person instead of this bizarre 6 day fast, 1 day binge pattern she's in.

    2) When she starts eating normally (and the doctor recommends around 1200-1500 calories/day), she gains 5 pounds before she starts losing again. And yes, that was her body's way of resetting her metabolism, a good thing for her, but notice: she GAINED weight when she started eating more. It's only when she starts exercising and changing her metabolism that she'll start to lose weight.

    The article never tells us whether she actually gets under 185 lbs after she starts eating healthily. My guess is that she will - but only when she also starts burning more calories, too.

    Again, I was never arguing that when you're at 1200 calories/day and not seeing the scale budge, less food is the answer. I said that patience AND ACTIVITY were the answer. This woman ate very badly - but if she were not so sedentary, she would have lost weight - albeit unhealthily - at 700 calories, too. The problem is that at 700 calories/day, she can hardly get up and move around. 1200 enables her to be active so she can start losing weight.

    Eat more --> Exercise a lot more --> Lose weight. For a sedentary person, any exercise is exercising a lot more. This has been my point all along.
  • ChubbyBunny
    ChubbyBunny Posts: 3,523 Member
    Options
    This is an interesting topic....especially to read as a person recovering from an eating disorder.
    I am keeping my opinion mostly to myself, but it's interesting.

    My own facts....
    I am a recovering bulimic
    I have weighed the same for a decade (185)
    I ate under 1000 calories most days
    I worked out 1-2 hours a day

    ONLY when I stopped working out and increased my calories to 1500 (about my BMR) did I lose any weight. Now, I don't suggest not working out... makes one soft (which I do not enjoy) but it's what I had to do to lose weight.

    I have learned a lot from MFP and the people are wonderful resources. EVERYONE is different and their bodies will react to this change differently. Not all of us are here because of the same reasons. As a whole, it is unwise to generalize what will and won't work for everyone because as mentioned before in this thread....others will read it and some are still at the point in their lives where they are willing to take drastic measures for weight loss.


    :flowerforyou:
  • chrissyh
    chrissyh Posts: 8,235 Member
    Options
    Everyone - thank you for the input. :flowerforyou:
  • songbyrdsweet
    songbyrdsweet Posts: 5,691 Member
    Options
    Songbyrd, something I have been wondering about this topic also. I know that if in starvation for long enough, the body will have to "eat" something, but before it turns to organs, wouldnt it take fat first because it knows that stored fat is less necessary than an organ?

    Absolutely. But it takes a very long time with extreme deprivation for that to occur. It would occur in late-stage anorexia, not in a person on a diet with a deficit that's a little too big. Muscle actually has fewer calories than fat (protein-4g, fat-9g), so fat is better to break down in terms of longevity and energy return. By the time a person's organ tissue is being broken down, they're very close to death.

Categories