Is there REALLY a "starvation mode"???

cee134

Talk to you doctor. That is the only way to find out what you need and don't need and how many calories are healthy for your body type. 1200 calories is a danger zone. It may work for some people and be dangerous for others. Only your doctor can tell you that. The other theory is if you are eating too few calories, your body may not get what it needs. Which can cause damage to your body over time and increase health risks.

Bottom Line: talk to your doctor, find out what your body needs before planing on how many calories you should have a day.

rml_16

Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

A quick comment about this (I just skimmed the thread, so someone else might have made the same comment).

Anorexia is an eating disorder. It is NOT synonymous with really skinny. You CAN be anorexic and fat. Anorexia has more to do with your relationship with food than with your body size.

Oh good grief. It was a figure of speech to illustrate a point.

shelby623

According to leangains, http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

"lowered metabolic rate in response to fasting occurred after 60 hours (-8% in resting metabolic rate). Other studies show metabolic rate is not impacted until 72-96 hours have passed"



Also, I somewhat disagree with consulting with your doctor about calorie restriction. I am biased after going to get bloodwork done to see if my weight gain was caused by my thyroid...and my doctor said results are negative and to eat a diet high in fiber and low in fat to lose weight. No *kitten* Sherlock! I had no friggin idea that low fat and high fiber would help me lose weight. So that's what I've been doing wrong this whole time, it's so simple!

Anywho, a registered dietician would have more insight than your physician in regards to weight loss.

msiamjan

Forget to eat? Do you ever forget to breath? My brain NEVER forgets to eat . Where can I get some of that?

honu18

I can tell you, from experience, that you can slow down your metabolic rate extensively. I have stuck to the net 1200 limit for about 4 months now. Last week, I couldn't work out an was sick, so i put my calories on maintenance. Theoretically, I did lot eat3500 cals Over what my maintenance should have been, but I did put on a pound ish. I mean, weight fluctuates so it's not that big of deal, but I think when I move to full out maintenance, which I plan to do very soon, I'm expecting a minor weight gain as my body adjusts.

solpwr

From personal exp I can tell you that eating too little can cause you to gain weight. Granted I was eating all the wrong things, alot of fast food, but I was only eating once a day, maybe twice (not on purpose ~ I dont have an eating disorder ~ I would just be so busy that I'd forget to eat. Yes thats possible Or I'd get hungry, go in the kitchen, not see anything I wanted and just fix a glass of mt.dew to calm my stomach down til I figured out what I wanted. Which usually took hrs) I was at 202 at one point (found that out from a recent dr's visit.) Once I started eating GOOD calories, several times a day AND exercising I started dropping weight. I'm one of the few people I've seen on here that has trouble eating all my calories daily, again usually cause I'm too busy to think about food, but I'm working on that. Slowly and with a few set backs cause by a very hectic life.

But how many calories were you eating?

I can easily ingest more than 3,000 calories with a small amount of fast food eaten only once a day. It's impossible to gain weight by not eating enough calories. Where is the energy coming from to create the excess weight? You can convert calories to fat, but you can't convert nothing to fat.

Yes it is possible. The energy is coming from lean body tissue. Muscles. The body can preserve its stores by cannibalizing itself. Its called "Wasting" aka chronic malnutrition. Humans will lose fat and muscle.

But that still wont couse you to GAIN weight. you may stop losing weight, but you wont gain weight.

Yet a person may experience weight gain in that condition, which can be frustrating. That experience is what I was referring to. Because of normal weight fluctuation due to fluids, that could be the experience.

But you're right. I stand corrected. Being in famine mode severe enough to cause wasting will not CAUSE weight GAIN.

The point I was making is still salient.

Tegan74

From personal exp I can tell you that eating too little can cause you to gain weight. Granted I was eating all the wrong things, alot of fast food, but I was only eating once a day, maybe twice (not on purpose ~ I dont have an eating disorder ~ I would just be so busy that I'd forget to eat. Yes thats possible Or I'd get hungry, go in the kitchen, not see anything I wanted and just fix a glass of mt.dew to calm my stomach down til I figured out what I wanted. Which usually took hrs) I was at 202 at one point (found that out from a recent dr's visit.) Once I started eating GOOD calories, several times a day AND exercising I started dropping weight. I'm one of the few people I've seen on here that has trouble eating all my calories daily, again usually cause I'm too busy to think about food, but I'm working on that. Slowly and with a few set backs cause by a very hectic life.

But how many calories were you eating?

I can easily ingest more than 3,000 calories with a small amount of fast food eaten only once a day. It's impossible to gain weight by not eating enough calories. Where is the energy coming from to create the excess weight? You can convert calories to fat, but you can't convert nothing to fat.

Yes it is possible. The energy is coming from lean body tissue. Muscles. The body can preserve its stores by cannibalizing itself. Its called "Wasting" aka chronic malnutrition. Humans will lose fat and muscle.

But that still wont couse you to GAIN weight. you may stop losing weight, but you wont gain weight.

Yet a person may experience weight gain in that condition, which can be frustrating. That experience is what I was referring to. Because of normal weight fluctuation due to fluids, that could be the experience.

But you're right. I stand corrected. Being in famine mode severe enough to cause wasting will not CAUSE weight GAIN.

The point I was making is still salient.

Sorry ~ I had to go to an appt ~ Lets say I went to krystals, I'd eat 2 cheese krystals and maybe a 4th of a thing of chili cheese fries and a large coke. Almost everything I ate was high in fat ~ add in alot of soft drinks and yes it is possible to eat very little and gain weight. I also got zero exercise which didnt help. Your reaction was the same as mine tho ~ how the HELL did I eat so little and not lose weight. I even had that convo with my hubby, it bothered me that badly. He pointed out that WHAT I ate was bad for me, and that I got no exercise. Because I ate so few calories my body turned everything I put into it into fat, to store it up for 'later'

To the person who asked about forgetting to eat ~ uumm no you dont want that lol ~ trust me ~ there were days when I got sick, couldnt focus, couldnt carry on a conversation and had a headache all because I got so caught up in what I was doing that I didnt stop long enough to eat until 7 or 8pm. That was rare, but it happened more than once
I also notice a huge diff in my energy lvl's now that I'm putting effort into remembering to eat, as in I have more energy I still have to remind myself to eat 3 times a day (somewhere I saw you should eat 6 times a day ~ all I can say to that is WHAT A JOKE) oh and since I've started eating more regularly, I tend to get hungry more often ~ a unique feeling lmao but at least I listen now and go find a carrot or something.

At no point in time was I purposefully not eating ~ my thoughts dont run to 'if I dont eat I wont get fat' ~ my thoughts run to 'theres nothing here I want to eat, I dont want to go to the store then have to cook, and I dont want fast food right this min' That translates to I can be really lazy/caught up in the book I'm reading/caught up in the online game I'm playing LOL

grannygethealthy1111

That depends who you ask. This is an interesting article from Weight Watchers:

http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=35501&sc=801

meggawatt

Then you didn't correctly explain to them how this site works. You already have a deficit created through diet alone. So when you exercise, MFP adds those calories back to maintain your original deficit. If you don't eat those extra calories you are not fueling your body correctly for your actual activity levels, and as I said in my first response, you run the risk of creating too large of a deficit and hampering your efforts.
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Thank you for explaining this!! I'm very new to this, just downloaded the app on Monday actually! I thought I could only eat 1200 calories per day and still needed to do my 45 minutes of exercise per day...been a rough 4 days to say the least!

Espressocycle

When you up your calories, you will gain the five pounds of water weight you lost so easily when you started dieting. After that, it's more steady gain, maintain, or lose. I hope.

fteale

As you lose weight your metabolism does slow, but you don't magically gain weight by eating too little. You just lose it less fast.

tammy510

First, what is starvation mode? I found this direct answer on netwellness.org --

A starvation diet does not mean the absence of food. It means cutting the total caloric intake to less than 50% of what the body requires. Using myself as an example, my current weight is 178 lbs. and my bmr is 1450. So, I would have to cut my calories to below 725 per day. However, if I were at my goal weight of 150 lbs., my bmr would be 1129, and so I would have to cut my calories to below 565 calories. This is not borne out by the infamous Minnesota Semistarvation Study (1950), 36 young, healthy, psychologically normal men while restricting their caloric intake for 6 months. Their calories were restricted in various phases, but the least amount of calories they were allowed was 50% of the "normal" maintenance calories. Notice, this was dubbed a "semi" starvation diet.

Yes, their metabolic rates were significantly lowered -- to something like 40% below baseline. Yet at no point did the men stop losing fat until they hit 5% body fat at the end of the study.

Please go to this link and read. Do some studying, There is no STARVATION MODE here in the USA! Go to third world countries then you will see what starvation mode really looks like!
http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/ lyle.htm This is a link from a scientist, very good paper.
Truth of it is, the less you weigh, the less your body needs in calories to fuel it!

Yooperm35

I think with more weight to lose, it's more of your metabolism slowing down and taking much longer to lose the weight rather than an actual starvation mode where your body starts storing it. When I was at my heaviest, with 40 lbs. to lose, I was not very aware of eating AND working out. I assumed that if I worked out more and ate less, I the weight would just fall off. After nearly 2 months of following, what I thought was, the perfect diet, I lost 5# at most. After much frustration of stepping on the scale week after week to see it not budge, I gave up. When I found MFP, I started reading the forums and came to realize about working out AND eating back calories - I tried and it and it worked!

auticus

In my experience, eating too few calories will result in slower weight loss, crappy mood, hunger and possibly binges.
Why do that to yourself when you can lose at a steady pace and feel good about what you eat?

This is what I don't understand, why some folks are so hell-bent on eating as little as possible. It's almost like it's some sort of badge of honor.

Typically because they are lazy and don't want to work out and see not eating anything as mathematically the best way to lose the most weight without having to do anything.

Akin to the "silver bullet".

dragonsheart84

um, when the anorexics start eating again, they gain a lot of weight back. that is what happens when your body has been in starvation mode.

mareowner

I'd like a definition on starvation mode. As we bikers and distance runners will attest, if we burn 500 calories exercising and do not feed our muscles they will be soar. Yes, in one day damage does occur. If we feed them with nutrients they will not. So did our muscles consume themselves in "starvation mode"? Then take it to the next step. We continue to exercise without feeding our muscles and now they are shrinking and becoming damaged. I guess that's how I interpret starvation mode. Ultimately we end up with less muscle and our caloric needs drop (less calories required to sustain fat vs muscle).

tinksmommy2006

Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

have you seen a HEALTHY anorexic?

Thank you

vim_n_vigor

Try an experiment - eat very low calories for a few days and then try to do an intense, or even basic workout. I guarantee you will be able to feel what you are doing to your body if you eat too little. (Don't really try it, but I can promise you, it isn't a good feeling) You need fuel for your body, for breathing, thinking, living, exercise!

AliR105

i think there is such a thing to an extent. i dont really eat much when im up at university casue i dont have time and so i loose weight but after a bit it will slow down. when i go home and i start to eat normal amounts (or a bit over like at christmas) i put it on really quickly again and i think that its because i dont eat too much my metabolism slowed down. to speed it up tho u could try eating spicy food or drinking green tea as they both speed up your metabolism. u can also trick it into thinking ur eating more than u are with the 2, 4, 6, 8 diet but i would recomend that as its rather dangerous. due to the low calorie intake. i think its best just to not eat too little xxxxx

billsica

Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

have you seen a HEALTHY anorexic?

Weight loss would continue (at some sort of rate). But we really want healthy fat loss, not muscle loss

MaximalLife

I've heard of this mysterious "starvation mode" and so I've tried not to eat too few calories, but obviously I'm doing that a bit too well because I'm on MFP to lose weight! :-)

Is there really such a thing? Mathematically it seems that the less calories you have in your body the more weight you'll lose. What's the difference between exercising your calories away and simply not eating sometimes? (Aside from gaining muscle)

Ideas? Thanks!

Yes, and it happens to those restricting calories too much.
People will fail with this approach.

Starvation diets don't work.
That's reality.

Anyway, buck up and do what's recommended here on MFP, and all will be well.
Or do the crash diet thing, and join the rest of yo yo dieting, unhealthy America.

The one thing you can say after today is that YOU WERE NOT WARNED!

I know.
It happened to me.

TinaS70

bump

amyofftherecord

I find it better to think of it as "hyper-efficiency mode". Basically if you're only giving your body, say, 800 kcals per day, it's going to start to realize that's all it's going to get, and learn to run on as little as possible (it'll pull the extra energy it needs from fat stores, but also muscle mass and other tissues you don't want to part with). If you suddenly give it 1200 kcals, even though that's still a fairly small amount, it'll assume it's a one-time blip, keep running hyper-efficiently, and store the difference as fat.

Your metabolism is incredibly resilient, and if you start to eat the 1200 kcals (or, ideally, more) regularly, your body will realize it has more food to work with, and won't pull as much from your muscles and other tissues when scrounging for energy. Eventually it'll even out and your metabolism will "speed back up", or, looking at it from this view "be less efficient".

In this case, less efficient is actually a good thing (up until a point, of course)!

Having formerly starved myself I can tell you, yes, eating very little will result in weight loss, but also a slew of health complications and rapid weight gain as soon as you go back to a healthy amount. Better to eat a diet that might not cause you to lose weight as quickly, but is maintainable in the long-run so you don't have to worry about that rapid regain a few days or weeks down the road, essentially undoing all the effects of the starvation. I lost a crap-tonne of weight, but regained so much of it that now, having to redo the loss in a healthy way, the entire process would actually have gone much faster if I had just eaten healthfully from the get-go!

FearAnLoathing

In my experience, eating too few calories will result in slower weight loss, crappy mood, hunger and possibly binges.
Why do that to yourself when you can lose at a steady pace and feel good about what you eat?

Yeah but would if someone does not have the slower weight loss,their mood is great,they dont binge or feel like they are starving

gingerb85

Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

I have a friend who was severely anorexic during high school and college and was hospitalized for it for quite a while. She slowed her metabolism down so much that after having children, no matter what she did, she couldn't lose the weight. Normally, I should say. She still struggles with the old feelings - wanting to be in control and knows she could just stop eating and eventually would lose the weight. Thank goodness she doesn't do that. She eats a healthy diet and exercises moderately as her body can tolerate (she has fibromyalgia). But she is still overweight and has a hard time losing. She would be your fat "anorexic."

Cindym82

From personal exp I can tell you that eating too little can cause you to gain weight. Granted I was eating all the wrong things, alot of fast food, but I was only eating once a day, maybe twice (not on purpose ~ I dont have an eating disorder ~ I would just be so busy that I'd forget to eat. Yes thats possible Or I'd get hungry, go in the kitchen, not see anything I wanted and just fix a glass of mt.dew to calm my stomach down til I figured out what I wanted. Which usually took hrs) I was at 202 at one point (found that out from a recent dr's visit.) Once I started eating GOOD calories, several times a day AND exercising I started dropping weight. I'm one of the few people I've seen on here that has trouble eating all my calories daily, again usually cause I'm too busy to think about food, but I'm working on that. Slowly and with a few set backs cause by a very hectic life.

I have a big problem with eating enough calories, I don't eat if I'm not hungry and the two snacks a day thing just annoys me. I dont understand how 5 or 6 small meals a day helps. I get the point that yes your body will burn more because you're feeding it every 3-4hrs but sometimes i just don't feel like eating anything

FearAnLoathing

I do believe in starvation mode,but heres what gets me in all these threads. You will see people saying OMG OMG you will stop losing weight,even gain it and when you switch to matanince you will pile the pounds on. Then you see some of these same people saying "you didnt get fat eating 1200 calories and day" which is stupid when you see them in the starvation mode threads telling people they will gain weight from starvation mode

spazzticaunt

I have had personal experiance with this odd rumor and from experiance I will say that oddly enough that theory seems to be true. I have been known to gain the most weight when I have only eaten once or twice a day vs three times a day and a few snacks in between each meal.

I have also found that if I eat a bigger breakfast and smaller lunch and supper that also helps. I asked my doctor why she wanted me to do it that way and her response was that because your busiest during the day and you start to slow down as the day progresses specially after supper when you tend to sit and watch tv and chill for the night you don't burn much calories at that point.

I hope I made since if not I am sorry it's been a long night.

amyofftherecord

Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

Speaking as a (recovering) "fat anorexic" (though, to be completely accurate, a formal diagnosis of anorexia requires a BMI that is considered underweight, so the very term is an oxymoron. But you can have dangerous, anorexic-like mentality and behaviours at any weight), yes, I lost weight. I went on 6 water fasts ranging from 28-40 days, taking in zero calories for weeks on end. I lost a lot of weight. That's the problem, though, it was just "weight". A good bit was fat, but I also lost so much muscle that I could barely lift myself onto the first step of a Greyhound bus; my legs were too weak to lift my remaining mass. And I lost heart tissue and had chest pains daily. I could have had a heart attack at 28. Losing "weight" can be done easily through a variety of healthy and unhealthy methods. But if we're too obsessed with "weight" and too indifferent to body composition, we end up killing ourselves over a dress size.

Missnurse89

I would HIGHLY suggest you read this article, and all the other ones on his blog, he is a genius and is excellent with words. His posts really make you go hmmmm. I have just started going "Paleo" Jan 2nd and have never felt better, plus this is the first time weight is coming off. Its pretty simple, you dont eat grain, processed, or fried foods, legumes (beans), and you do eat LOTS of veggies and grass fed meat, some fruit and nuts, & only eat when you are hungry. if your not hungry - dont eat! What a concept, huh?

http://www.gnolls.org/2181/the-breakfast-myth-part-2-the-art-and-science-of-not-eating-breakfast/