No Starvation mode

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Awkward30
Awkward30 Posts: 1,927 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I apologize if someone has already linked to this article, but I haven't happened upon it on the forum, so here:

No such thing as starvation mode according to:
Neal Spruce is chairman of the board for the prestigious National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and founder dotFIT, LLC. Neal is a fitness specialist, author, licensed teacher, researcher, bodybuilding champion, personal fitness consultant and speaker. dotfit is the leading online fitness and weight loss program.


http://nealspruce.articlealley.com/nutrition-myths-starvation-mode--fast-metabolisms-947725.html

tl;dr when you cut calories, your body will lower your output by decreasing spontaneous movement, and as you get lighter, your metabolic needs decrease, but starvation mode is a myth.
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Replies

  • sassygamma
    sassygamma Posts: 84 Member
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    wow, good to know!!!!!!!!!
  • mallory3411
    mallory3411 Posts: 839 Member
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    Not sure I believe it all. There are a lot of people who write articles like his. Doesn't mean they are 100% true.
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
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    The calories lost by decrease in "spontaneous movement" can be pretty significant. And well being hungry sucks. This is enough for me to avoid numbers that throw up the "starvation mode" warning.
  • mallory3411
    mallory3411 Posts: 839 Member
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    Just to add... Maybe starvation mode doesn't fully exist however why would anyone be want to cause their metabolism to slow? Doesn't make sense to me. I can lose on 1,700 a day... I lose on 1,200 calories a day. Why would I want to eat less, not lose more and hurt my metabolism in the process by making it slower?
  • EatClenTrenHard
    EatClenTrenHard Posts: 339 Member
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    Starvation mode is real for me.

    When i eat too little i starve.

    And then i eat:

    1 Big mac combo with
    2 doublecheeseburgers
    2 junior chicken
    rolo icecream
    and diet pepsi

    with 3 dips of ketchup.
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
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    Just to add... Maybe starvation mode doesn't fully exist however why would anyone be want to cause their metabolism to slow? Doesn't make sense to me. I can lose on 1,700 a day... I lose on 1,200 calories a day. Why would I want to eat less, not lose more and hurt my metabolism in the process by making it slower?

    EXACTLY.
  • Lozze
    Lozze Posts: 1,917 Member
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    I didn't see anything about degrees in his list of acomplishments.

    The study that is often cited to disprove starvation mode is one from the 40s which showed there was a metabolic slowdown of 10%. I'd rather avoid that.

    If you want to eat as little as possible to lose weight that's your choice. I'm not doing that and I'm losing weight quite steadily. The women who eat between 1600-2000 and have similar experiences.
  • infamousmk
    infamousmk Posts: 6,033 Member
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    Whether it 'exists' or not, I still believe that if I'm not eating enough, I'm not taking proper care of my body, and I won't be able to do all of the awesome things I want to do. So, eat your food, people!



    I also believe in unicorns, FWIW.
  • Helloitsdan
    Helloitsdan Posts: 5,565 Member
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    starvation mode kicks in at 32+ hours of ZERO food intake.

    KTHXBYE!
  • KatieCuth
    KatieCuth Posts: 569 Member
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    Starvation mode is real for me.

    When i eat too little i starve.

    And then i eat:

    1 Big mac combo with
    2 doublecheeseburgers
    2 junior chicken
    rolo icecream
    and diet pepsi

    with 3 dips of ketchup.

    this (not to that extent)...
  • bigsargswife
    bigsargswife Posts: 74
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    Starvation mode is real for me.

    When i eat too little i starve.

    And then i eat:

    1 Big mac combo with
    2 doublecheeseburgers
    2 junior chicken
    rolo icecream
    and diet pepsi

    with 3 dips of ketchup.
    Bwahahahaha!
  • TiffanyV25
    TiffanyV25 Posts: 96 Member
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    Starvation mode is real for me.

    When i eat too little i starve.

    And then i eat:

    1 Big mac combo with
    2 doublecheeseburgers
    2 junior chicken
    rolo icecream
    and diet pepsi

    with 3 dips of ketchup.

    Hilarious, but so true! At least for me..
  • KareninCanada
    KareninCanada Posts: 795 Member
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    Unfortunately, according to the professionals I've taken advice from, that "spontaneous movement" could include some essential body functions as well. You'll slow down your fidgeting, sure, but your body also starts slowing down its inner processes. Digestion, for example, uses fully 10% of the calories you take in, and brain function alone needs more than double that. Is it wise to risk your health just for the sake of proving something is a myth?
  • Articeluvsmemphis
    Articeluvsmemphis Posts: 1,987 Member
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    There are articles to support anything.

    With this being said, science or not, if you're hungry, eat, make good choices, it's stupid to starve yourself when you are fortunate enough to have food to eat.
  • NoAdditives
    NoAdditives Posts: 4,251 Member
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    I know for a fact, because I've tried it, that if I consume fewer than 1500 calories for more than a few days I stop burning fat and start storing it instead.
  • zafferFL
    zafferFL Posts: 402
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    starvation mode kicks in at 32+ hours of ZERO food intake.

    KTHXBYE!

    QFT
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
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    http://body-improvements.com/resources/eat/#starvationmode
  • Sidesteal
    Sidesteal Posts: 5,510 Member
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    http://body-improvements.com/resources/eat/#starvationmode

    ^ Good read.
  • Elizabeth_C34
    Elizabeth_C34 Posts: 6,376 Member
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    The traditional notion of "starvation mode" is loosly understood by most on here as a time when the body begins to adapt to the very low calorie intake and weight loss stalls out. Most people come out of this by eating more which is thought to stimulate normal metabolic function allowing you to begin burning fat stores again (this is paraphrasing what I think most MFP members think "starvation mode" is just to be clear on what we mean while discussing this topic). As I will show below, this (taken at face value) is kinda a myth, but not really. It's much more complex.

    Scientifically, what is really going on is a process called adaptive thermogensis, which has been shown to adversely affect weight loss in unbiased scientific studies on both men and women with greater effects on women than men (see below). HOWEVER, this process is slow, but indications do point to it existing and having a very serious and deliterious effect on weight loss. Furthermore, large calorie deficits lead to much lower resting BMR due to loss of lean mass and muscle tissue than smaller ones (beyond the expected lower BMR of someone who is naturally your goal weight). The more you lose, the bigger the change in BMR is going to be, meaning, someone who loses 100+ lbs (say 250 lbs to 150 lbs) on a 2000 calorie deficit is going to have a MUCH lower BMR than someone who went from 180 lbs to 150 lbs on the same deficit because more muscle tissue is catabolized in the process because the extreme deficit is maintainted for much longer.

    You can look up more articles that have cited these papers or have been cited by these for more information.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11430776
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19660148
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20054213
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17260010

    These are all recent, but more studies are available showing the predicted changes in metabolic rates decline sharply in individuals undergoing adaptive thermogenesis which does lead to plateauing.

    P.S. I am not going to come back to this, but those of you reading this thread should avoid taking nutritional advice from fitness gurus who post articles without a single peer-reviewed scientific reference on pages laden with advertisements. Just FYI. PubMed is free to access, and you can often go to your public library to get the full articles for free also if you really want to dig into these papers. I'm not going to argue further than this post, because, quite frankly, I don't feel like it. Read if you want. Dismiss if you want. Just throwing it out there.
  • Awkward30
    Awkward30 Posts: 1,927 Member
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    I didn't see anything about degrees in his list of acomplishments.

    The study that is often cited to disprove starvation mode is one from the 40s which showed there was a metabolic slowdown of 10%. I'd rather avoid that.

    If you want to eat as little as possible to lose weight that's your choice. I'm not doing that and I'm losing weight quite steadily. The women who eat between 1600-2000 and have similar experiences.

    Those papers show that metabolism slows when you diet to a particular weight regardless of the deficit you run to get there. If you diet to 130 lbs, your metabolism will be lower than a person who "naturally" maintains 130, regardless of whether you cut 500 calories a day or 2000.

    I'm not advocating people run more of a deficit then makes them comfortable/happy, just saying that people shouldn't worry so much about doing long term harm. It's not the prevalent issue that this site makes it out to be.

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