The Starvation (mode) Myth

gigigirl003

Thanks for you comment. So I am 42 and I have set a 1200 calorie a day diet and I am exercising. I have lost about 6 lbs and no more off the scales. It is usually pretty easy for me if I really watch what I eat and the exercise adds even more. Could it be that I am not eating enough to actually lose more lbs. rather than inches. I guess that I am not understanding this whole conversation. Could you please explain to me? Thanks

ckmama

just remember the source, weight watchers makes money by banking on people staying overweight.

meerkat70

I ate under 1200 calories and lost weight. Not only did I lose weight, I lost body fat and gained lean mass. So it can be done in a healthy manner.

There's no such a thing as losing weight & gaining lean body mass at the same time. How could you gain body mass if the scale is pointing downwards? It only means you're losing fat but definitely don't gain any lean body mass.

and you would be wrong. I had my stats done professionally, before and after.

Were the stats in percentages?

My question would also be 'what kind of professional'? Professionals aren't all created equal....

In relation to the OP.... One of the main reasons I'm on MFP rather than WW is that, when I was using weightwatchers, I hit a massive, lonnnnnng plateau, which I'm pretty sure in the end boiled down to the system's difficulty taking into account people who exercise significantly. And I wasn't alone in this. I've spoken to lots of people since who had a similar experience. If you're working out an hour plus every day the system is set to ultimately underfeed you.

Of course, as IS suggests here, the notion of starvation mode as a reason for gain is thrown around far too frequently. However, the impact of eating far too little on metabolism, and particularly on capacity to retain lean mass, has been convincingly and repeatedly demonstrated in scientific literature.

meerkat70

Thanks for you comment. So I am 42 and I have set a 1200 calorie a day diet and I am exercising. I have lost about 6 lbs and no more off the scales. It is usually pretty easy for me if I really watch what I eat and the exercise adds even more. Could it be that I am not eating enough to actually lose more lbs. rather than inches. I guess that I am not understanding this whole conversation. Could you please explain to me? Thanks

You probably are undereating. How much exercise are you doing, and what kind of exercise? And how much do you have to lose? If you're burning a significant amount, 1200 is likely to be insufficient for your needs.

Nopedotjpeg

Eh. I think we this is a great example of confirmation bias. I can go online and just as easily find an article about how starvation mode is in fact a real thing.

Article? Yes. Article from a peer-reviewed journal? Doubtful. And while I don't advocate a VLCD, the facts are the facts. You're not going to cling to fat because of it. However, you may be micronutrient malnourished (multivitamins really don't provide as much as you'd think). Also, you will have a lot less energy to do any type of exercise which then makes you lose the health benefits of said activity.

Quasita

I hate it when people write about this topic because there IS such a thing of starvation mode. The terms used here and by weight watchers seemed to be defined different than the real and dangerous metabolic impacts that come with true starvation mode. What is it? It's the thyroid hormone state of an anorexic, basically.

I was diagnosed as medically starving when I was about 24 years old. I ate at best 2 meals a day that were often less than 900 calories total. I couldn't eat more than that without getting sick, so I just didn't.

I began a training semester with one of my classes, and tried to follow it to a T. The trainer put me on a light workout schedule with a 1600 calorie diet. I worked out at the gym a lot more than he said, and tried to eat 1600 calories. Instead of feeling healthier, I actually got very sick as well as putting on 15 pounds in less than a month.

Medical testing showed that I was not diabetic or having any actual thyroid disease. What was occurring because of my years of "abusing" my body and not feeding it right was that my thyroid literally stopped producing hormones within 30-45 minutes of my eating. My hormone levels were practically non-existent when I was fasting, but raised to normal levels when I had a shot of glucose, but 30 minutes later they were very low again. The conclusion: My body did not burn any calories unless I was eating, and at that point, I would have to constantly eat in order to lose any weight. I had to be on hormone therapy as well as acid reduction medication in order to restart continued function of my thyroid as well as fix my getting sick from eating (it was because my body freaked and made way too much acid)

Granted, this developed over several years, so I do think it's true that calorie restriction under the 1200 calorie net is not going to cause this as long as you adjust to your body's needs. However, to call an actual medical condition a "myth" just because a study of dieters shows that it's not a permanent issue is dangerous. There may be people out there that are struggling for the same reason I was, who will read this constant flow of stuff about the condition, and then not go to the doctor when they really should.

From the hearts of people with eating disorders everywhere, just because MFP or Weight Watchers or whatever uses these terms doesn't mean that the information is accurate, or that something doesn't exist at all. Research it completely before posting this stuff.

cmriverside

If you actually read everything in the first few posts, it is all about semantics and BMI.

So you say potayto and I might say potahto. Mmmmm. Potato. Now I'm hungry.

jill___

THANK YOU! I posted something similar a few months ago -- I'm so tired of this 1200 calorie nonsense!!

meerkat70

Quasita thanks for sharing that story. brave, and very useful.

Firesign

Thank you. Very Interesting read

andrejjorje

You made my day with article. As I mentioned before this kind of posts should be made a sticky but we don't have moderators do we?.

Sublog

Not sure this link has been posted in this thread. I didn't read it all the way:

http://muscleevo.com/lyle-mcdonald-interview-one/

Those of you who don't know who Lyle McDonald is, he is one of the most brilliant guys in the field of nutrition and sports science.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/

Q. Some claim that that your body will go into ‘starvation mode’ if you eat too few calories, preventing you from losing weight and that trying to lose weight by eating fewer calories doesn’t work. What do you think?

A. Well there is no doubt that the body slows metabolic rate when you reduce calories or lose weight/fat. There are at least two mechanisms for this.

One is simply the loss in body mass. A smaller body burns fewer calories at rest and during activity. There’s not much you can do about that except maybe wear a weighted vest to offset the weight loss, this would help you burn more calories during activity.

However, there’s an additional effect sometimes referred to as the adaptive component of metabolic rate. Roughly, that means that your metabolic rate has dropped more than predicted by the change in weight.

So if the change in body mass predicts a drop in metabolic rate of 100 calories and the measured drop is 150 calories, the extra 50 is the adaptive component. The mechanisms behind the drop are complex involving changes in leptin, thyroid, insulin and nervous system output (this system is discussed to some degree in all of my books except my first one).

In general, it’s true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits (and this is true whether the effect is from eating less or exercising more); as well, people vary in how hard or fast their bodies shut down. Women’s bodies tend to shut down harder and faster.

But here’s the thing: in no study I’ve ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit. That is, say that cutting your calories by 50% per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit.

In one of the all-time classic studies (the Minnesota semi-starvation study), men were put on 50% of their maintenance calories for 6 months. It measured the largest reduction in metabolic rate I’ve ever seen, 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.

Other studies, where people are put on strictly controlled diets have never, to my knowledge, failed to acknowledge weight or fat loss.

This goes back to the under-reporting intake issue mentioned above. I suspect that the people who say, “I’m eating 800 calories per day and not losing weight; it must be a starvation response” are actually eating far more than that and misreporting or underestimating it. Because no controlled study that I’m aware of has ever found such an occurrence.

So I think the starvation response (a drop in metabolic rate) is certainly real but somewhat overblown. At the same time, I have often seen things like re-feeds or even taking a week off a diet do some interesting things when people are stalled. One big problem is that, quite often, weekly weight or fat loss is simply obscured by the error margin in our measurements.

lemanda

This article from Chalene Johnson of Chalean Extreme and Turbofire really helped me understand why its important to eat. (Just reminded me again too!)

https://www.turbokick.com/wblog/?p=136

p0stdramatic

Your body's metabolism will slow down when not getting enough food. The biggest factor to remember is that when that happens your body will start burning lean muscle mass. This isn't what you are trying to accomplish when losing weight. There are a ton of ways to lose fat. However, to do it properly with proper diet and exercise, you need to be eating the proper amount of calories and keeping macros (carbs, fats and proteins) in proper balance. This article isn't helping anyone.

This.

sammys1girly

Your body's metabolism will slow down when not getting enough food. The biggest factor to remember is that when that happens your body will start burning lean muscle mass. This isn't what you are trying to accomplish when losing weight. There are a ton of ways to lose fat. However, to do it properly with proper diet and exercise, you need to be eating the proper amount of calories and keeping macros (carbs, fats and proteins) in proper balance. This article isn't helping anyone.

this

BeautyAndStrength50

Bacially you need to eat every 2-3 hrs a day if its a snack or a meal to stay out of starvation mode.. You should NEVER feel your tummy growl of act like you are hungry thats signs of starvation. I eat 5-6 meals a day and it works out perfectly for me.. Starvation Mode is a very important thing to keep under control or you will never be able to get or keep the weight off..

hungrymarathongirl

Great post and very interesting responses! It is giving me lots to think about.

SergeantSunshine_reused

Bacially you need to eat every 2-3 hrs a day if its a snack or a meal to stay out of starvation mode.. You should NEVER feel your tummy growl of act like you are hungry thats signs of starvation. I eat 5-6 meals a day and it works out perfectly for me.. Starvation Mode is a very important thing to keep under control or you will never be able to get or keep the weight off..

LOL do you wake up ever 2-3 hours in the night to stop yourself from starving too?

To the OP: Just because you can, does not make it healthy or the best way to do it is how I feel :]

p0stdramatic

Bacially you need to eat every 2-3 hrs a day if its a snack or a meal to stay out of starvation mode.. You should NEVER feel your tummy growl of act like you are hungry thats signs of starvation. I eat 5-6 meals a day and it works out perfectly for me.. Starvation Mode is a very important thing to keep under control or you will never be able to get or keep the weight off..

False. It doesn't matter when you eat your calories, only that you eat them. You will not slow your metabolism down in one day.

CarolynB38

I ate under 1200 calories and lost weight. Not only did I lose weight, I lost body fat and gained lean mass. So it can be done in a healthy manner.

There's no such a thing as losing weight & gaining lean body mass at the same time. How could you gain body mass if the scale is pointing downwards? It only means you're losing fat but definitely don't gain any lean body mass.

and you would be wrong. I had my stats done professionally, before and after.

Were the stats in percentages?

My question would also be 'what kind of professional'? Professionals aren't all created equal....

In relation to the OP.... One of the main reasons I'm on MFP rather than WW is that, when I was using weightwatchers, I hit a massive, lonnnnnng plateau, which I'm pretty sure in the end boiled down to the system's difficulty taking into account people who exercise significantly. And I wasn't alone in this. I've spoken to lots of people since who had a similar experience. If you're working out an hour plus every day the system is set to ultimately underfeed you.

Of course, as IS suggests here, the notion of starvation mode as a reason for gain is thrown around far too frequently. However, the impact of eating far too little on metabolism, and particularly on capacity to retain lean mass, has been convincingly and repeatedly demonstrated in scientific literature.

I found the same with WW several years ago when I was regularly running 5 and 10k races and working out at the gym 3 times a week. I had a very good WW leader though and she recognised the problem straight away .In those days you were only allowed to eat back 12 of you exercise "points" a day and I was burning 30 - 40 each day. Very sensibly she suggested I eat back around 75% of my exercise points and see what happened. After a couple of weeks the weight was falling off me a couple of pounds a week and I had so much more energy. My running times improved too.

I think "starvation mode" is very misunderstood and bandied around a lot by people who don't understand it as well as being used by people who do. I have read so many conflicting studies, written by different people with different motivations/agendas. At the end of the day what works for one person doesn't work for another and you have to find what works best for you. My metabolism definitely slows if I don't eat enough, possibly because I can't do as much exercise, but whether that is starvation mode or not, I don't know. I supposed it depends on our definition. If we define "starvation mode" as the process that occurs during prolonged starvation in order to protect our major organs, then it is probably not a result of starvation mode in my case. If we define it as a slow-down in metabolism due to a significant cut in caloric intake (but not to the point of "starvation") then probably, yes.

Basically, do what works for you and don't worry about what the latest "idea" is. If it is working for you (and it's not unhealthy) keep doing it. If it's not working then you need to change what you are doing - simples! But bear in mind that not all "rules" apply to all people. If you're very heavy, or are nearly at goal, or exercise like a mad thing then you may have to adapt.

ozycat

bump

MisterDubs303

I agree that you can lose a lot of weight on a very low calorie diet. However most of the weight loss comes from muscle & water, not fat. The biggest problem with a very low calorie diet isn't about losing weight, it is all about slowing down your metabolism because in this way your body cannibalizes your muscles while holding on to fat. The result: skinny-fat or people who are thin but saggy & I don't think anyone in his right mind would like to end up that way. Moreover since less muscles equals slow metabolism so you're burning fewer calories & once you revert back to eating normal, you'll gain weight even faster than how you lose it.

Geez people stop focusing your success on the scale. The scale doesn't know the difference between fat weight & lean body mass & it doesn't even know how you look in the mirror. Another thing you may become thin but ended up sickly. Don't be stupid enough to sacrifice your health just for the sake of a certain number on the scale.

^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^

Notice, the WW article uses the term "weight-loss" and NEVER mentions FAT LOSS.
Hmm, does WW have anything to gain or lose regarding that distinction. They picked a study that would support their bank account, and omitted studies that wouldn't. Go figure.

Sublog

Muscle tissue only has a resting expenditure of about 6 calories per lb. Losing muscle mass doesn't really kill your metabolism either. However, large deficits will lead to muscle loss and an ugly body.

Divagettinfitin2011

Saving for later;)

Dave198lbs

Bacially you need to eat every 2-3 hrs a day if its a snack or a meal to stay out of starvation mode.. You should NEVER feel your tummy growl of act like you are hungry thats signs of starvation. I eat 5-6 meals a day and it works out perfectly for me.. Starvation Mode is a very important thing to keep under control or you will never be able to get or keep the weight off..

LOL

Kerryket

Do you know where I can get one? ~

Kerryket

Do you know where I can get one? ~

OOps, this was supposed to go with the tapeworm, Is there a delete button???
Oh well!

kwest_4_fitness

Not sure this link has been posted in this thread. I didn't read it all the way:

http://muscleevo.com/lyle-mcdonald-interview-one/

Those of you who don't know who Lyle McDonald is, he is one of the most brilliant guys in the field of nutrition and sports science.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/

Q. Some claim that that your body will go into ‘starvation mode’ if you eat too few calories, preventing you from losing weight and that trying to lose weight by eating fewer calories doesn’t work. What do you think?

A. Well there is no doubt that the body slows metabolic rate when you reduce calories or lose weight/fat. There are at least two mechanisms for this.

One is simply the loss in body mass. A smaller body burns fewer calories at rest and during activity. There’s not much you can do about that except maybe wear a weighted vest to offset the weight loss, this would help you burn more calories during activity.

However, there’s an additional effect sometimes referred to as the adaptive component of metabolic rate. Roughly, that means that your metabolic rate has dropped more than predicted by the change in weight.

So if the change in body mass predicts a drop in metabolic rate of 100 calories and the measured drop is 150 calories, the extra 50 is the adaptive component. The mechanisms behind the drop are complex involving changes in leptin, thyroid, insulin and nervous system output (this system is discussed to some degree in all of my books except my first one).

In general, it’s true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits (and this is true whether the effect is from eating less or exercising more); as well, people vary in how hard or fast their bodies shut down. Women’s bodies tend to shut down harder and faster.

But here’s the thing: in no study I’ve ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit. That is, say that cutting your calories by 50% per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit.

In one of the all-time classic studies (the Minnesota semi-starvation study), men were put on 50% of their maintenance calories for 6 months. It measured the largest reduction in metabolic rate I’ve ever seen, 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.

Other studies, where people are put on strictly controlled diets have never, to my knowledge, failed to acknowledge weight or fat loss.

This goes back to the under-reporting intake issue mentioned above. I suspect that the people who say, “I’m eating 800 calories per day and not losing weight; it must be a starvation response” are actually eating far more than that and misreporting or underestimating it. Because no controlled study that I’m aware of has ever found such an occurrence.

So I think the starvation response (a drop in metabolic rate) is certainly real but somewhat overblown. At the same time, I have often seen things like re-feeds or even taking a week off a diet do some interesting things when people are stalled. One big problem is that, quite often, weekly weight or fat loss is simply obscured by the error margin in our measurements.

Thanks for that. Very interesting read!

Taj_11x3

Dave198lbs

Do you know where I can get one? ~

OOps, this was supposed to go with the tapeworm, Is there a delete button???
Oh well!

I thought you wanted to know where to get an LOL. LOL...just read a few threads!