"Starvation mode", exercise calories, dillema?

cashew1b

bumping to read later

JPKemp

BUMP..BUMP..

Getaway

I saw this on the BBC and thought I'd give the 2:5 a go:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19112549

No more than 600 calories Monday, Tuesday and eat normally the other days - and I mean lots of beer, wine and some bags of sweets, eating out and no calorie counting whatsoever. 4lbs off so far in 2 weeks with no pain or unpleasantness. The study is not primarily about weight loss, more of a happy side effect.

MED2012COLORADO

Really well explained. I lost 20 pounds in 20 months. Not impressive but I am in a better shape than ever.

Healthy weight loss is always impressive to me, no matter the amount or time taken. Don't sell yourself short. Slow and stead means victory with weight loss, fast usually means relapse (at a 90% clip actually) in this game.

Kudos to you!

Love this! I really needed to read this today. My spirits are lifted

mangozulu

Good post. Just some constructive criticism. Your formula for calculating TDEE is wrong. If you take your BMR and multiply by 25% you then have to add that figure to BMR to get TDEE. I find when explaining things like this to people that it's helpful to demonstrate the formula in a simple mathematical format. ie. BMR X .25 = x and then BMR + x = TDEE (approximately) You wouldn't believe the problems people have finding percentage sometimes!

I think that some of the reason that people get these issues confused is because when we write about them and try to explain them in accessible terms we leave out key points that we assume are givens. For instance, in the case of your well thought out explanation, answering the questions "Does eating 'X' amount of calories over our BMR keep our body out of 'starvation mode'? or "How far can I calorie restrict before I trigger starvation mode?" would have been very useful.

Thank you for sharing your rational:happy:

LaurnWhit

Bump!

SHBoss1673

Good post. Just some constructive criticism. Your formula for calculating TDEE is wrong. If you take your BMR and multiply by 25% you then have to add that figure to BMR to get TDEE. I find when explaining things like this to people that it's helpful to demonstrate the formula in a simple mathematical format. ie. BMR X .25 = x and then BMR + x = TDEE (approximately) You wouldn't believe the problems people have finding percentage sometimes!

I think that some of the reason that people get these issues confused is because when we write about them and try to explain them in accessible terms we leave out key points that we assume are givens. For instance, in the case of your well thought out explanation, answering the questions "Does eating 'X' amount of calories over our BMR keep our body out of 'starvation mode'? or "How far can I calorie restrict before I trigger starvation mode?" would have been very useful.

Thank you for sharing your rational:happy:

I've already addressed the incorrect formula in multiple replies, and have requested from the support staff to change the original post. Nothing more I can do about that as I can't edit the original post any more.

As to your second part, I agree, it would be great if I could answer those definitively. Unfortunately there's really no definitive answer to them (thus the giant post), if there was, this would all be very easy. How much over (or under in the case of large fat volumes) your BMR you can eat is not something that can be generically determined, and must be calculated per person based on their individual statistics. The second question you posited is closely related to the first, and essentially requires the same answer.
That's kind of the point of the whole post, there's no simple, one size fits all answer to these questions, so simply saying "eat XXX calories and you'll stay out of starvation mode" is not helpful to the group. You have put in the research on your own (or find someone you trust to do it for you) in order to figure out where you should be. Just blithely choosing the 2 lbs per week option that MFP has because you like the sound of losing 2 lbs per week won't necessarily work, it may, if your body can support that deficit, but it may not if it can't.

KFJOI4JWGOJM

Thanks for explaining this. Bump for later

MDLNH

Bump for later . . . . and for the occasional reminder

kg6blue

to keep track of you... thanks so much!

LilBritGettinFit

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

This website will calculate your BMR and TDEE for you based on height, weight, age, activity level etc.

I am currently eating at TDEE -15%

Great information, thank you.

AB

SisSGetsFIt

Thank you VERY much for explaining this. I was previously confused and the picture is much more clear. I appreciate it very much.

SHBoss1673

Thank you VERY much for explaining this. I was previously confused and the picture is much more clear. I appreciate it very much.

this makes it all worth it. Very glad I could be of some help.

JessieTangerine

bump to reread at an earlier hour

hannydee

Felt this was in need of a bump...

kaervaak

Needs a bump, more people need to read this

tlafrance

bump

Bearman45

bump

Trapwolf

Great post , and Thank you ,very informative

CallMeCupcakeDammit

I shared this with a girl who was consistently eating 300-800 calories. She deleted me. :ohwell:

starla5881

Bumping for future reference. Beautiful explanation of the whole process!

HypersonicFitNess

Here-here! I agree whole-heatedly and I keep telling my "friends" this very thing. Besides, I went through this at age 16 and I know what it does to your body. Thank the Lord for praying parents that were able to save me before I made it to stage three.

Am I over-weight now? No
Why am I here? Because my current wardrobe got a little tight....I'm nippin' it.
And I can always get more fit; pay more attention to what I'm eating and I like to help motivate others to meet their weight loss goals like I did...the healthy way.

cp37

bump for later!

Mummyadams

bump

Laoch_Cailin

Bump. Need to have more time to sit and read this. Thanks

xxsuzexx

Bump

jaz2099

I've read all 10 pages, and I just wanted to clarify the conditions under which all this applies, because I've read several of the alternate day fasting and restricted calorie studies on ncbi and many of them state that "starvation mode" isn't something you have to worry about for a long time.

Assuming you remain in a deficit for an extended period in order to lose weight/burn fat (which are two completely different things which I feel were not distinguished in the OP) you're saying that this will have adverse effects on.. what, exactly? Increased muscle canablization, which is bad weight loss?

And my biggest question is is all of this based on a sedentary individual? Because again, several articles I've read have shown results in **fat burning** (not weight loss) while remaining healthy over prolonged periods of time when combined with strength/weight/resistence exercise through calorie deficit. Metabolic rate didn't decrease, insulin reception wasn't hampered, and muscle growth continued.

It seems to me that there would be some benefit to emphasizing not **weight** loss, but rather **fat** loss. Weight loss means nothing if you're doing it wrong, and this seems slightly tailored to a mentality that doesn't require exercise in order to maintain muscle while burning said fat and promoting increased metabolic rate, and instead goes for a "if you don't starve yourself TOO much, you don't have to do anything else" vibe, but then again I'm new here and have no idea what I'm talking about. It just makes me wonder because, yeah, you're losing weight/fat/whatever, but you're not really getting healthier or more fit. You'll still get winded from going up the stairs.

Anywho, lookin for some clarity. Thanks.

70davis

Bump

fuselighter

Bump to read this afternoon.

SHBoss1673

I've read all 10 pages, and I just wanted to clarify the conditions under which all this applies, because I've read several of the alternate day fasting and restricted calorie studies on ncbi and many of them state that "starvation mode" isn't something you have to worry about for a long time.

Assuming you remain in a deficit for an extended period in order to lose weight/burn fat (which are two completely different things which I feel were not distinguished in the OP) you're saying that this will have adverse effects on.. what, exactly? Increased muscle canablization, which is bad weight loss?

And my biggest question is is all of this based on a sedentary individual? Because again, several articles I've read have shown results in **fat burning** (not weight loss) while remaining healthy over prolonged periods of time when combined with strength/weight/resistence exercise through calorie deficit. Metabolic rate didn't decrease, insulin reception wasn't hampered, and muscle growth continued.

It seems to me that there would be some benefit to emphasizing not **weight** loss, but rather **fat** loss. Weight loss means nothing if you're doing it wrong, and this seems slightly tailored to a mentality that doesn't require exercise in order to maintain muscle while burning said fat and promoting increased metabolic rate, and instead goes for a "if you don't starve yourself TOO much, you don't have to do anything else" vibe, but then again I'm new here and have no idea what I'm talking about. It just makes me wonder because, yeah, you're losing weight/fat/whatever, but you're not really getting healthier or more fit. You'll still get winded from going up the stairs.

Anywho, lookin for some clarity. Thanks.

I agree with your overall statement regarding fat loss over weight loss (in fact, if you look at my profile, my statement below my name says it all). and while I may not have come out and said fat loss is the goal, not weight loss, I thought it was well implied. Regardless, that is the case, and the purpose of the post. I'm looking to help educate people on how to lose weight in the form of excess fat, to do so most efficiently is to keep your deficit small enough where your body doesn't feel the need to give fat storage a higher priority than muscle persistence or growth. this post was not meant to compare and contrast the difference between fat loss with exercise vs fat loss without, that's another topic.

Your first statement is a bit arbitrary, it depends on what is meant by a long time. I guess if 2 weeks is a long time then correct. but if they mean 6 months, while it's true that eating at a large deficit (big enough to enter starvation mode) can still allow you to survive for a long time, the effects begin far sooner than that.

Your second statement corresponds directly to my 3 phases where I outline the effects over the 3 periods of time, yes, increased muscle cannibalization is part of it, but also occurring are a host of other things, such as increased fat storage, decrease immune system function, decreased energy levels, possible complications with liver and kidney function...etc.

as to your biggest question, the answer is it has nothing to do with your activity level, other than to say activity level is part of the calculation for TDEE (active metabolic rate). Starvation mode is basically creating a deficit between how many calories your body needs to keep metabolic homeostasis which means calories burned = calories delivered (calories delivered being both food intake and any stored energy), when the body can no longer provide enough calories to meet metabolic homeostasis, it will begin modifying the TDEE in order to make them again match.

I guess maybe you're just mistaking the term starvation mode for calorie deficit, they are two different things (as is starvation mode and starvation), starvation mode is just a generic term for the inability of your body to deliver enough calories to meet metabolic homeostasis, it's people's concepts surrounding starvation mode that are usually in error. Sometimes it's people's prodigious use of the term to describe just about everything wrong with someone's weight loss strategy.

I don't know. I hope I answered your questions.