starvation mode

lmoreno6413

Oh no, I sense this post is about to get ugly like every single Starvation Mode post in the forums


Edited by NBEric on Tue 02/07/12 03:56 PM

HAHAHA!!!

pullipgirl

I don't eat back my exercise calories because I'm afraid that I underestimate the amount of calories I eat and if I eat back the exercise calories I will go over.

heybales

What was your point?
Who said anything about eating under 1200 calories??? The woman in this study clearly has a net of under 1200 calories.

Mine is that who ever originally posted this to back their "don't have a net under 1200 calories" should have realized that this study promotes just that. Yes, they upped her calories, and completely changed the way, and quality of food she ate. They also ADDED strength training, thus building muscle to boost metabolism.Let's not forget her "strenuous triathlon and marathon training program" The study didn't say she stopped. I'm sure her net was under her BMR

That article was originally included to show that you can lower metabolism, and conversely, you can recover and have it go up.
The point was you can eat or eat and exercise a net under your BMR and lower it.

This is not a scientific study either, so not coming from a lab Dr, who cares. It is a case, an incident, just showing specifically for one person what studies have already shown.

The thing to catch in there too - she had Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), not BMR, tests done. Here RMR went back up to around 1200 from 900. RMR is NOT your TDEE, other point to realize. RMR is much closer to your BMR than your TDEE, and has to do with how efficient your body is, basically fit. Merely being awake for fit person causes less rise, more rise for unfit.
Since RMR is based on your BMR though, that obviously went up too.
But indeed, it does mean her BMR is less than 1200 in her case.
Since no height was given, I'm guessing she was indeed short, and being older her BMR would be expected to be lower.
As older gal, I'm betting the triathlon training was not to place and win prize money, but to finish. And not an Ironman distance, but some Sprint or International distance.
So I wouldn't be too impressed with the triathlon training aspect except it was a great goal to reach for. And automatic cross-training.
Anyway, some level of exercise that probably amounted to about 300 cal avg a day. Probably a nice slow total hour.

So I wouldn't be surpised if she did indeed net right back to her BMR, probably around 1000.

MrsLVF

The human body can ONLY lose so much FAT in a day.
After said fat is exhausted the receptors kick in and start targeting Active Tissue.
This is an act to drop TDEE and slow the body down.
The Active Tissue is lean mass.
This includes skeletal muscle as well as the heart.
Most of the time the body will catabolize damaged tissue.
For people who are into working out this could be the muscle group you just hit hard in the gym but arent recovering with proper nutrition.
Congratulations!
You just failed at dieting!

This is completely off topic, but since you brought it up. How much fat can the body lose in one day before it targets active tissue?

Helloitsdan

The human body can ONLY lose so much FAT in a day.
After said fat is exhausted the receptors kick in and start targeting Active Tissue.
This is an act to drop TDEE and slow the body down.
The Active Tissue is lean mass.
This includes skeletal muscle as well as the heart.
Most of the time the body will catabolize damaged tissue.
For people who are into working out this could be the muscle group you just hit hard in the gym but arent recovering with proper nutrition.
Congratulations!
You just failed at dieting!

This is completely off topic, but since you brought it up. How much fat can the body lose in one day before it targets active tissue?

This is an interesting read on the subject of fat loss by Martin Berkham.

Enjoy!

Body fat and fat burning

The greater the body fat mass, the higher the abundance of fatty acids readily available for lipolysis - simply put, the fatter you are, the greater % fat used whenever some calorie deficit is created. Vice versa, of course, as leanness means less fat burning.

Fat burning here is simply the choice of substrates in fuel economy at any given moment - greater fat burning, just think of that as greater % fat used, etc. As you know, we burn a mix of fat, glucose, protein, and this can be roughly measured by R.Q.

Read for some talk about that (R.Q) http://www.leangains.com/2010/11/cheat-day-strategies-for-hedonist.html


Quantifying Fat Burning


So all this sounds simple, quite logical. There's even a formula, a paper with all kinds of long equations, in which we find that ~77 kcal/kg fat mass is a theoretical limit, the maximum of fat from fat stores that you can burn off in a day.

So if you're 80 kg and 15% body fat, you can mobilize 924 kcal per day from your fat stores, about -150 g fat loss per day, according to this formula.

Exceed the number, get a -1500 kcal deficit one day, some 345 kcal or -50 g mass would then come from other fuel sources, protein, etc.

It doesn't take much thinking to have all kinds of questions and doubts about such a formula - I have never used it - but I don't think you should see this as anything else than a Fancy Formula.

It is useful to demonstrate the simple - "the fatter you are/the more you burn" etc - that fact that we simple have to try harder to avoid muscle loss as we lean down. You need to take it real easy in the single-digits, like I've said before.


Fat:Muscle Loss


So body fat by itself spares lean tissue and this is something that has been studied in great detail. In studies on starvation, lean mean lose muscle fast, in contrast to obese men that are not so severely affected, losing mostly fat.

Some figures for reference, from memory, fat loss:lean mass during weight loss in lean men 30-40% lean mass, some 10-20% in obese. This is just Average Joe & Jane, no training, standard diet, meaning a diet quite low in protein compared to what most sensible folks eat.

Ok, so there's seems to be some kind of priority system here in regards to fuel selection, and sure enough it is just that, and it provided a great survival advantage during our evolution.

It's really quite brilliant - like a calculator, thinking way ahead. Very deterministic, unless you do something to affect the process - meaning do some weight training, eat high-protein diet, etc. If you don't, you will lose weight in a very predictable pattern - clearly mapped out in key stuides like the Minnesota Starvation Study.

And the study of metabolism and metabolic fuel economy, in men and women, of varying body fatness, allowed some quantification of fat loss relative to amino acid oxidation (muscle loss) during fasting, prolonged fasting and starvation, i.e. a time period spanning


Evolution and Starvation


So let's see about those losses now. The average human can sustain the loss of one third of his muscle mass, before starvation death occurs.

One third is some critical point, after which the tissues around the heart and other life-supporting tissues start to get catabolized. (And now, since one third is what goes for Average Joe, with his average muscle mass, a large muscle mass, all factors being equal, will be catabolized faster relatively speaking - meaning % muscle loss to fat % loss in starvation. Or % muscle to % fat in a calorie deficit.)

Similarly, a complete depletion of peripheral body fat stores causes death for similar reasons, as fat stores in critical organs, like the brain, the next ones to go after that point.

(Intriguing phenomenon, for the morbid type, is the so called "king penguin syndrome", a peculiar state at the verge of death, that induces a rapid increase in metabolic rate, causing death faster than predicted. It's not quite clear what this is. Doctors at Auschwitz saw this ever so often, and I recall vaguely their tales, 'as if the person is already dead, and wills his body into death by force of will', something along those lines. Anyway, quite random, but that's how it is around here.)

Ok, so to maximize our survival time during starvation, increasing the likelihood of us finding food, and surviing, our physiology is hardwired to select fuels strategically - more fat if you got it, more muscle protein if you got muscle to spare, etc.

This selection of substrates, very precise, has one purpose - maximize survival. You die when:

1. One third of muscle mass is lost.

2. When (almost) all fat is lost.

What good would it be to burn only fat, and die quickly a ripped corpse? No, obviously not so good.

So our metabolism make the right choices, our physiology drags it out, and once we're chewing on those last fat stores - let's say Average Joe, no training, just dropping weight all down to 5% body fat, you've reached a point where muscle mass loss dominate over fat loss. That might not sound like best choices to you, but our DNA hasnät changed much.

So you see, that's why Average Joe & Jane always lose muscle on a diet. It's yet another evolutinary mechanism, quite useless today, some will argue.

Cursed by natural bodybuilders who find their bench dropping 30-40 lbs on that last 4-week stint leading up to the stage - not so strange, when they have only the capacity to mobilize some 400 calories of fat, and their coach tells them to do 2 hours of cardio every morning on a 1600-kcal low-carb diet*. It's just unreasonable, there is no such capacity, and no sense to do it unless you want to lose muscle mass.

My1985Freckles

Very informative post, Helloitsdan

carolann_22

I don't think it's "starvation mode" but there is something that CAN cause weight loss to stall and slow, and it's not just people overestimating burns and underestimating calories (although of course it can be that, too)

Let me tell you how my yoyo dieting has gone for the last five years - Start reducing calories- lose weight.
Get excited, start an exercise program- lose weight
Get even more excited, decided to exercise more and eat even less, stall and keep losing/gaining the same three pounds - for months.
So, exercise EVEN MORE (2 + hours a day) and cut my calories even further (1000 cals/day) - gain.
Get discouraged, have a binge day - gain 6-7 pounds, give up in frustration.

This time when I hit that point of gaining and losing the same three pounds, I decided to change my calories (from 1290 a day to 2200 a day) and keep up the exercise. And the scale is consistenly moving down again. And I have SO much more energy.

cmm7303

But is it possible that your calories burned measurement is off? Or the number of calories you are consuming is not correct?

I know that I personally am not sure of the calories I am burning because often I just use whatever calories are in the database here. But those calories could be for a 400 lb person which I am not. I also don't know that if I select a food in the database here and add it to my food diary that the number of calories that I am consuming is correct. It could be wrong. Unless I weigh/measure everything I eat and calculate the caloric content myself, and unless I have some device that is going to accurately tell me exactly the number of calories i am burning, then it just might be that my math is off.

My husband and I do the same workout, for the same amount of time. He's 6'3", I'm 5'3". He's 220, I' in the 190s. For the same logged exercise, it tells him he's burned about 1/3 -1/4 more calories than I have, so MFP adjusts. Is it possible the exercise numbers are off? Yes. On the food? Probably not.

funkycamper

I don't think it's "starvation mode" but there is something that CAN cause weight loss to stall and slow, and it's not just people overestimating burns and underestimating calories (although of course it can be that, too)

Let me tell you how my yoyo dieting has gone for the last five years - Start reducing calories- lose weight.
Get excited, start an exercise program- lose weight
Get even more excited, decided to exercise more and eat even less, stall and keep losing/gaining the same three pounds - for months.
So, exercise EVEN MORE (2 + hours a day) and cut my calories even further (1000 cals/day) - gain.
Get discouraged, have a binge day - gain 6-7 pounds, give up in frustration.

This time when I hit that point of gaining and losing the same three pounds, I decided to change my calories (from 1290 a day to 2200 a day) and keep up the exercise. And the scale is consistenly moving down again. And I have SO much more energy.

Wonderful post! This is a perfect example of what this discussion is all about, imho. Glad you found the answer.

I zig-zag and, thus, my weekly calories are up there even if they don't always show up in each daily total because I prefer banking calories for splurges. I'm slowly working on raising my weekly calorie target. Anyway, I can now pig-out and not have a gain. In fact, I really splurged last Sunday at a Super Bowl party and actually dropped a pound when I weighed on Tuesday.

Isn't it nice to not have those big gains from splurges?

jereibold

OK, I my weightloss is at a stand still, THis is what I eat everyday. Almost the same everyday
Breakfast: Pkg maple brown sugar oatmeal or English Muffin with 1 scrambled egg
Snack: 1/2c cottage cheese
Lunch: Healthy Choice meal
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Healthy Choice meal
Snack: Apple, Fiber one Brownie, Cottage cheese or yogurt, I choose 1.
Should I add a WHEY PROTEIN SHAKE OR WHAT?

Fit_Canuck

OK, I my weightloss is at a stand still, THis is what I eat everyday. Almost the same everyday
Breakfast: Pkg maple brown sugar oatmeal or English Muffin with 1 scrambled egg
Snack: 1/2c cottage cheese
Lunch: Healthy Choice meal
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Healthy Choice meal
Snack: Apple, Fiber one Brownie, Cottage cheese or yogurt, I choose 1.
Should I add a WHEY PROTEIN SHAKE OR WHAT?

Rough count your at about 1200 calories in...you need more...those Healthy Choice Meals are delicious but don't have very high calories..about 300 if memory serves...for your lunch and dinner you should have that HC Meal if you want plus some extra protein, how about a handful of almonds after, or some peanut butter/crackers etc..

Helloitsdan

OK, I my weightloss is at a stand still, THis is what I eat everyday. Almost the same everyday
Breakfast: Pkg maple brown sugar oatmeal or English Muffin with 1 scrambled egg
Snack: 1/2c cottage cheese
Lunch: Healthy Choice meal
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Healthy Choice meal
Snack: Apple, Fiber one Brownie, Cottage cheese or yogurt, I choose 1.
Should I add a WHEY PROTEIN SHAKE OR WHAT?

Go eat some real food! Eat up to 1600 calories and burn the fat.
GO!
=D

gaylecw

That's a great question? I would love to know what others have to say too!

heybales

That's a great question? I would love to know what others have to say too!

Which question is great?

I hope you don't mean the original question, because there are 4 pages of what others have to say!

jereibold

Thanks, I thought I was doing good, guess I need to eat more, but keep it healthy! I'm really wanting some baklava, I can make it with almonds... LMAO. Just kidding! :laugh:

Kymmu

I once saw a starvation mode running though a forest.
It left large human like footprints.
I didn't get time to take a photo of it.

Fit_Canuck

I once saw a starvation mode running though a forest.
It left large human like footprints.
I didn't get time to take a photo of it.

So I take you think starvation doesn't exist? Or you agree with it...can't quite tell.

Kymmu

I sat on it's lap once and told it what I'd like for Christmas.

pinkminy

ha ha well said ....I am on 700 cal per day under Dr supervision , he says I should not be eating MFP s recommended 1200 and should only be doing a small amount of exercise like a 30 min walk 3 Times a week. .If I ate 1200 a day I would gain back all the fat Ive lost and more. Its about nutrition and quality not quantity, then when weight loss is reached you can have a once a week sin day, you can expect to go up and down by about 3 kg , this is when your on a maintain schedule

lilojoke

I like what Kymmu said LOL

Nobody in North America is starving sorry. Even if you train for an hour a day and eat 1500 calories you will do just fine! I know this because I did it for over a year and still do it most of the time.

http://fitnessblackbook.com/main/starvation-mode-why-you-probably-never-need-to-worry-about-it/

http://www.burnthefat.com/slow-metabolism-problems.html