Obsession with starvation mode...

Emancipated_Tai

Let me point out the fact that most of us are overweight not just from eating too much, but consuming foods with gross amounts of calories/fat/carbs etc. You could have eaten 2000 of unhealthy calories a day before and gained from too much fat. Now, we are deciding to lead a healther lifestyle and change our eating habbits. The change in food consumpiton can still be 2000 calories, but the totals on calories/fats/carbs are much lower. What does that mean? You need to eat more food than you did before! DUH :grumble:

Basically, it is hard to eat 2000 calories of healthy/clean foods vs eating 2000 of crap. This is why it is hard to meet that gross goal you speak of. I'm set at 1700 calories a day and I'm still figuring out what to do with 126 of them.

Louise12

If you are eating the calories mfp has reccomended for you then you are already eating at a deficit .So even if you were to eat some/all of your exercise cals back you would still be at a deficit .

debzeeU2

*read later*

Emancipated_Tai

I thought MFP was more of a guide/log to let you track exactly what you are putting into your body. I didnt know that everyone was a certified dietician or nutritionist for that matter.

^^^THIS^^^

vim_n_vigor

That makes perfect sense and I lose weight when I follow that rule. I gain weight when I eat my exercise calories.

Thank you!

Thank you. I was very confused about this because some people were saying to eat the exercise calories. I didn't understand this, because to me, it defeats the whole "purpose" of exercising in the first place. I may go over my BMR by 100 or 200 but if I do it's a peice of fruit or something light so that I can still have a little "treat" but save a lot of those calories I burned.

I am really confused how people who eat all of their exercise calories are actually losing weight. Makes no sense to me.

I was losing next to nothing on 1200 calories a day NET.
Now my NET is around 1470. Most days my GROSS intake is 2000-2300 calories. I am now losing. Not only am I losing, but my body shape is changing, in a good way. On 1200 calories, my body was getting even softer some how.

lizzzylou

This is rather entraining to read....I agree people don't actually understand what real "starvation mode" is. Uneducated people use it as a scare tactic to make them sound more educated. How it's being thrown around on MFP, I personally don't think it's being understood correctly.

It's like 'pink slim' give it a derogatory name and people go nuts.

lizzzylou

I thought MFP was more of a guide/log to let you track exactly what you are putting into your body. I didnt know that everyone was a certified dietician or nutritionist for that matter.

^^^THIS^^^

Yes ma'am!!! Thank you. Apparently on MFP everybody is an expert

illecl

I absolutely agree!!! I've thought of leaving MFP over the obsession with "starvation". I see a dietician regularly, and she laughs at the idea of eating back exercise calories. The one exception is if you're training hard and are terribly hungry a lot. Then you should eat a little more protein. I've provided my body with healthy food all day long. This nourishes it while it's there. It's a never-ending tail-chase to keep eating because you've burned some calories. The 'starvation mode" issue is for folks a whole lot closer to goal weight than I am. Way to go!

Texmom_2003

Does this mean that we cannot eat our exercise calories to match the calorie goal set for you by MFP? Can you please reply, If I do so will I not loose weight?

bcattoes

To summarise, BMR requirements are GROSS not NET.

I'm not sure that's even true if you are talking calories consumed. Your body can use fat to burn BMR calories the same as it can to burn activity calories.

I would bet there are plenty of thin people who have never heard of BMR that eat under it on a fairly regular basis without damaging their metabolism.

MelKut

Eat what you want.... BUT what BOGGLES my mind is when people try to find excuses to EAT LESS :indifferent:

When my weight loss stalled, I immediately thought about eating more :laugh:

---

ALSO, read this

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=all

yeah its not proven (nothing in science can be lol) but it should make you all THINK about how your BODY will react when you are finally at your goal weight and start eating more. I can personally say I have lost and gained the same 10-15 lbs for years by restricting calories (1200), then going back to what I thought my maintenance was (1700-1800). So I can't agree with what the OP posted because I DON"T BELIEVE IT.

ElHombre23

Ahhh the daily starvation mode topic...where would my day be without it...

ironanimal

Does this mean that we cannot eat our exercise calories to match the calorie goal set for you by MFP? Can you please reply, If I do so will I not loose weight?

Thats what the OP is implying, but it's not true. Your deficit is baked into your daily goal and mfp increases you calorie goal when you exercise to keep the deficit the same.

Coyla

Yes, you can eat your exercise calories back! Try it and see if you lose weight. If it doesn't work, try another tactic. If it does, keep with it and ignore all the naysayers.

Losing weight successfully is more about how YOU can handle your diet and exercise program than how quickly Johnny Big Pants lost 80 pounds. If the diet is too restrictive, and you know you won't be able to stick to it, then you won't be able to sustain it. It's that simple.

csheltra26

So...I am overweight. have been for years. I did lose 80 pounds at one time, gained back 50 of it. here is the deal. a couple of years ago I felt HUNGRY constantly. STARVING. No one believed me. I went to a doctor who asked if I thought about eating before I ate to make sure I was really hungry. I was so PO'd. I was eating probably 1500-1600 calories a day, maybe less and burning at least 2500 calories a day. I couldn't LOSE A POUND! the scale wouldn't budge but if I did eat a cupcake or ice cream I packed on 5 pounds in a few days. It was ridiculous!!
Alas, I thought I'd try eating more. And miraculously I am not starving anymore, I haven't gained weight and have actually lost 2 inches!! That is after eating maintenance for 4 weeks, and only exercising 1 week of those 4. So I'm at a slight decrease to see how it goes for the next 4 weeks.
Moral of the story - you need to fuel your body. You need to eat to build muscle. I'm with the eat more group - if you can eat more and lose weight - why wouldn't you want to do that????

huntindawg1962

So...I am overweight. have been for years. I did lose 80 pounds at one time, gained back 50 of it. here is the deal. a couple of years ago I felt HUNGRY constantly. STARVING. No one believed me. I went to a doctor who asked if I thought about eating before I ate to make sure I was really hungry. I was so PO'd. I was eating probably 1500-1600 calories a day, maybe less and burning at least 2500 calories a day. I couldn't LOSE A POUND! the scale wouldn't budge but if I did eat a cupcake or ice cream I packed on 5 pounds in a few days. It was ridiculous!!
Alas, I thought I'd try eating more. And miraculously I am not starving anymore, I haven't gained weight and have actually lost 2 inches!! That is after eating maintenance for 4 weeks, and only exercising 1 week of those 4. So I'm at a slight decrease to see how it goes for the next 4 weeks.
Moral of the story - you need to fuel your body. You need to eat to build muscle. I'm with the eat more group - if you can eat more and lose weight - why wouldn't you want to do that????

If you were still in a calorie deficit there is NO WAY you packed on 5 lbs of fat - more likely water retention from sugars or something else. And if you stopped working out for a period of three weeks - you may have started losing lean tissue accounting for the movement again on the scale.

christenwypy

I do not see how eating back exercise calories can possibly make you gain weight (if you already have a deficit).

Myself as an example. I need about 1700 to maintain the weight I am. So MFP gave me a 1200 calorie diet so it would create a 500 calorie deficit to lose 1 lb per week. So then I work out and burn like another 500 maybe. Now if I don't eat that back I have a 1000 calorie deficit, right? If I eat it back I should be fine still maintaining my 500 calorie deficit.

It depends on the person and where they are coming from. If you are overweight and have been eating 3 or 4 thousand calories in big macs per day, for years, you sure are not going to gain weight if you eat back 500 exercise calories in clean food when you already have a deficit even without exercise.

Maybe a thin person whose body is now used to such a low amount of calories would gain a half or a whole pound if they increase their calories by 500 per day, at least in the beginning. But if it is clean, healthy food and they are working out it would probably be muscle anyway, right? And then once the metabolism speeds up I would think they'd fall right back into where they need to be

I really think it is all about healthy common sense choices and listening to your body cues.

SHBoss1673

I have to post because my entire diet revolves around me being on starvation mode. It's what is making my diet WORK.

Pre-diet, I'd eat about 1500 calories a day. But it was ONE meal a day. I was so busy with my kids that I wasn't eating. Then at the end of the day my husband would bring home dinner and that greaseball would be enough to fulfil my calories, but my body was still STARVING.

Right now I'm actually only eating maybe 1000 calories a day. ***BUT*** I am eating it through 5-7 meals a day to let my body know that I'm NOT starving, I have food available I'm just keeping the meals small. And it's worked! Over the past 45 days I've lost 21 pounds!

so the state you are in is something called LTU (Long-term underfeeding) or the starvation response.
It's an ominous term, but it's easily correctable. See here for a laymen description of it that does a pretty good job.
http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/calories/burning_calories/starvation.htm

Although they completely gloss over metabolic homeostasis, which can lower metabolic rate without the degradation of muscle mass, but that's besides the point. the main point is accurate.

what they don't tell you is why it's such a devious situation to be in. The body will adjust to lower feeding and since hormones tell you when you are hungry and/or full, long term underfeeding will cause changes in how your body releases these hormones, so not only are you underfeeding, your body is telling you "everything is fine" which leads people to believe they aren't actually in "starvation mode". This is the reason why I cringe when people say "listen to your body", while that's fine for a healthy person who is eating close to or at their maintenance, it might be a bad idea for someone who is constantly far below their normal TDEE (note the term normal, not current).

shan_0517

Read later.. must get to work! Besides, I need some popcorn for this!

cruzanna

I totally agree. For the past two months, I was trying to follow all the advice I had read on these forums about eating more for success. That does NOT work for me. I am short,, 5'2', and nearing 48 years old. I work out 5 days a week and stalled or gained following that plan. Now I am going back to exactly what you said. I am going to eat about 1300 cals per day, period. I hope and am confident that will work for me. Thanks for posting this!!!

sleepytexan

I've read that some people eat as few calories as possible because it provides a feeling of control that they don't get elsewhere.

People like to do what they do and they don't want to change because change is difficult. There is always some sort of psychological "win" that people get from whatever it is they're doing, no matter how bizarre or nonsensical it may seem to others.

I'm sure you've heard some very popular reasoning for why people stay fat and/or yo-yo diet and/or make excuses for why nothing ever works for them: they WANT to stay fat. They might shout and stomp their feet that they don't want to be fat, but their actions show us that they do, in fact, prefer to be fat, over taking the necessary steps to lose weight. Sometimes psychologists suggest that people stay fat because they are somehow afraid not to be fat; it has become part of their identity.

Regardless, It is purely conjecture to say why any particular person becomes combative over their desire to eat a certain amount of calories.

I think we can see this entire thing is going nowhere, so I suggest that those of us who do enjoy the benefits of eating between BMR and TDEE, exercising, and maintaining a healthy weight and body fat% just stop trying to convince those who are uninterested in hearing about how we came to be successful. They don't want to know. They want to do what they're doing.

It's ok. More for us!

Come on now, let's go have some pizza and beer. We can have a moment of silence for them before we begin.

GinaKurtz

Thank you for this! I quite frequently eat around my 1200 (I will admit some days I'm 100 cals or so under) and I exercise around 300 - 600 calories 6 days per week so some days I end up at around 600 NET. The amount of tsk tsk I get from friends on here and comments about not eating drives me insane!!!

Thank you for being a voice of reason.

I second this post!

pfarley68

Personally I think starving your body is not wise and will have long term effects on your health. I eat all my calories including my exercise calories and I am losing weight so I will continue with this until I don't. Since I have to eat better long term, it seems to be a good plan for me. We are have to figure out what works for us and at the same time, keep our bodies nourished.

JoyousJustine67

I personally don't buy into the Starvation mode thing, just my thought right or wrong it is my right to decide what works for me

slkehl

Good luck with your super slow metabolism and lean muscle loss! :flowerforyou:

This. If you want to eat a very low calorie diet for the rest of your life, go for it. I love food so eating below 1200 would not be a lifestyle change for me...it would simply be a temporary diet, after which I would gain the weight back due to my suppressed metabolism. I also find calorie counting is a lot more stringent on those and quite a headache. If you naturally eat that little I suppose its not that hard, but I can't imagine doing it!

LinzCurlyQ

I do not understand how people cannot find ways to consume their calories. I love my calories and I love that I have lost 7lbs this month and still got to eat dessert several times and not be hungry because I ate. I make better choices than I used to, but I sure eat all the calories I can . I do keep between 1500-1900 though, but you better believe I eat my exercise (cardio) calories. I also love that I don't have to spend 234073209482039423 hours on the cardio machines. I love that strength training has shown me the way.

slkehl

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10067655

not very promising about physician nutritional knowledge. If a student gets a 63 on a test, that's a D, I don't want my advice coming from someone who only knows 63 % on the topic.

Dietitians are required to pass a 4 year accredited college in dietary science or some related field. The are also required to keep their certification by taking continuing education in most states. Doctors receive minimal nutritional training in their premed years, but nothing after that. Some doctors do take more classes, but many don't.

I'm premed and a Nutrition Science major. My premed classes have given me almost no nutrition education, other than how the body processes and stores macro nutrients. Conversely, I have learned an immense amount in my nutrition classes. Many premed students decide to take an upper division nutrition class and have to drop out because the material is too complex for them without the lower division nutrition classes. In medical school, there are only a few weeks of nutrition education.

tracypk

All I know is that it's easy to say this is how to do it but when it comes to putting it into action it's a whole other battle. Good luck to all in your journey to wellness. I enjoy learning by reading what others have researched (or not).

Lucianna_D

This past week I just up'd my calories from 1200 to 1700 and for last three months I was at the same weight.. Today I'm very proud to say that I have lost 8lbs this past two weeks...

ironanimal

This past week I just up'd my calories from 1200 to 1700 and for last three months I was at the same weight.. Today I'm very proud to say that I have lost 8lbs this past two weeks...

Witchcraft!