Is *Starvaton Mode* real?

Dollymix51

I'm new here & I noticed that diet plans always warn against starvation mode & say if you go below your allotted calories that you won't lose weight. But, I went through a very stressful time a few months ago with my Father passing away & issues at work. I probably didn't consume more than 500 calories a day if that because I just had no appetite & I lost 10 pounds in just a couple of weeks. So I don't get the whole starvation mode thing. It doesn't seem true to me.

DJ2120

*Bump* I'm curious about this too!

lissaann22479

Many weight loss coaches use the term “starvation mode” to describe your body’s natural response to protect itself when you don’t eat enough for extended periods. When you regularly eat too little food to provide your body with the necessary nutrients, it perceives itself to be in danger from starvation. Since your body is wonderfully designed to protect you, it will slow down your metabolism to conserve energy so it can keep vital organs such as the brain and the heart going for as long as possible in the face of the perceived threat. While it will burn fat for fuel, it will also start burning lean muscle mass for fuel, which will slow down your metabolism even further. People on starvation diets invariably find that they regain all the weight they’ve lost (and then some) very quickly as soon as they start eating again.

While a starvation diet may help you lose weight quite fast in the short term, you will pay a heavy price because you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of weight problems. Your metabolism gets progressively slower with each day you remain on a starvation diet. This resultant slower metabolism needs less fuel, so you consistently have to eat less and less to lose weight! As your metabolism slows down even further and your lean muscle mass dwindles you will also find that you become more and more tired. This in turn means you will get less exercise, which leaves you with less lean muscle, and an even slower metabolism. It really is a vicious cycle. The importance of protecting your lean muscle mass to boost your metabolism can not be stressed enough.

The question arises: when does your body go into starvation mode? As with anything that involves the human body, there is no one single answer that will be true for everyone. The levels at which starvation mode kicks in vary from person to person. What we can do though, is understand how it gets triggered so we can avoid getting our bodies in that state. Your decision of how much to eat should be based on your individual Total Daily Energy Requirements, which takes into account a variety of factors including height, weight, age, gender and activity levels. If you want to lose weight safely, without setting off the alarm bells in your body; aim to eat approximately 300 – 500 calories less than your total daily requirements. This will provide your body with enough fuel to keep it going comfortably, but will still create a sufficient caloric deficit to ensure that you lose weight. To protect your metabolism even further, make sure your diet contains enough protein and that you maintain / increase your activity levels.

Note. You will find that many experts advise you not to eat less than 1 200 calories per day to prevent starvation mode. This is just a general rule of thumb to provide advice in the absence of enough information.

DJ2120

Many weight loss coaches use the term “starvation mode” to describe your body’s natural response to protect itself when you don’t eat enough for extended periods. When you regularly eat too little food to provide your body with the necessary nutrients, it perceives itself to be in danger from starvation. Since your body is wonderfully designed to protect you, it will slow down your metabolism to conserve energy so it can keep vital organs such as the brain and the heart going for as long as possible in the face of the perceived threat. While it will burn fat for fuel, it will also start burning lean muscle mass for fuel, which will slow down your metabolism even further. People on starvation diets invariably find that they regain all the weight they’ve lost (and then some) very quickly as soon as they start eating again.

While a starvation diet may help you lose weight quite fast in the short term, you will pay a heavy price because you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of weight problems. Your metabolism gets progressively slower with each day you remain on a starvation diet. This resultant slower metabolism needs less fuel, so you consistently have to eat less and less to lose weight! As your metabolism slows down even further and your lean muscle mass dwindles you will also find that you become more and more tired. This in turn means you will get less exercise, which leaves you with less lean muscle, and an even slower metabolism. It really is a vicious cycle. The importance of protecting your lean muscle mass to boost your metabolism can not be stressed enough.

The question arises: when does your body go into starvation mode? As with anything that involves the human body, there is no one single answer that will be true for everyone. The levels at which starvation mode kicks in vary from person to person. What we can do though, is understand how it gets triggered so we can avoid getting our bodies in that state. Your decision of how much to eat should be based on your individual Total Daily Energy Requirements, which takes into account a variety of factors including height, weight, age, gender and activity levels. If you want to lose weight safely, without setting off the alarm bells in your body; aim to eat approximately 300 – 500 calories less than your total daily requirements. This will provide your body with enough fuel to keep it going comfortably, but will still create a sufficient caloric deficit to ensure that you lose weight. To protect your metabolism even further, make sure your diet contains enough protein and that you maintain / increase your activity levels.

Note. You will find that many experts advise you not to eat less than 1 200 calories per day to prevent starvation mode. This is just a general rule of thumb to provide advice in the absence of enough information.

This was so very informative! Great, great post!

uclown2002

I'm new here & I noticed that diet plans always warn against starvation mode & say if you go below your allotted calories that you won't lose weight. But, I went through a very stressful time a few months ago with my Father passing away & issues at work. I probably didn't consume more than 500 calories a day if that because I just had no appetite & I lost 10 pounds in just a couple of weeks. So I don't get the whole starvation mode thing. It doesn't seem true to me.

Nearly impossible to go into 'starvation mode' for typical men and women.

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

wlkumpf

I don't know, but I do know I stuck with lower calories and had a hard time losing weight. I went up to about 1500 (I entered I wanted to lose 1/2 pound a week and lost MORE than on a straight up 1200. I look at is as trial and error, finding what works for you

DJ2120

I don't know, but I do know I stuck with lower calories and had a hard time losing weight. I went up to about 1500 (I entered I wanted to lose 1/2 pound a week and lost MORE than on a straight up 1200. I look at is as trial and error, finding what works for you

I agree, lots of trial & error.

iWaffle

So I don't get the whole starvation mode thing. It doesn't seem true to me.

It's pretty much impossible to enter this realm if you're overweight. Starvation implies that your body has no food. If you have excess body fat then how could your body have no source of energy? It's not healthy to lose weight too quickly so find a good calorie range where you're losing a pound a week and stick with that.

heybales

You can eat a terrible diet of 2000 calories, but your body can be starving for good nutrition.

You can eat great nutritious things and feel full and barely reach 1200 calories, and your body can be starving for energy for your level of activity.

Far too many on here probably did the former, far too many are currently doing the latter.

Neither is really starving in the normal sense.

But when you eat too little for your level of activity, you can set yourself up for some potential problems if you are not real careful.

If you eat to little, and not enough protein, you will lose Lean Body Mass (everything not fat including muscle) above and beyond what you have to. This will cause a slow down to your metabolism above and beyond what needed to occur if eating better.

The other potential depending on amount of cardio you do at full blast every day, you end up not eating enough to replenish the mainly carbs that you burned off. After several days of this, you have little if any stored carbs where it's needed, and muscle will be broken down to convert to carbs for that energy.

Bad news either way. Hence the 1200 calorie safety level that is always recommended to NOT go below for those leading a sedentary life.

Of course, that is the minimum code standard you might say of the diet world for purpose of safety, not what is best for performance, longevity, or aesthetics.

DJ2120

You can eat a terrible diet of 2000 calories, but your body can be starving for good nutrition.

You can eat great nutritious things and feel full and barely reach 1200 calories, and your body can be starving for energy for your level of activity.

Far too many on here probably did the former, far too many are currently doing the latter.

Neither is really starving in the normal sense.

But when you eat too little for your level of activity, you can set yourself up for some potential problems if you are not real careful.

If you eat to little, and not enough protein, you will lose Lean Body Mass (everything not fat including muscle) above and beyond what you have to. This will cause a slow down to your metabolism above and beyond what needed to occur if eating better.

The other potential depending on amount of cardio you do at full blast every day, you end up not eating enough to replenish the mainly carbs that you burned off. After several days of this, you have little if any stored carbs where it's needed, and muscle will be broken down to convert to carbs for that energy.

Bad news either way. Hence the 1200 calorie safety level that is always recommended for those leading a sedentary life.

Of course, that is the minimum code standard you might say of the diet world for purpose of safety, not what is best for performance, longevity, or aesthetics.

I do 45 mins of cadrio 6 days a week. And some strength training on my problems areas. Would you say that's too much cardio?

janlee_001

http://www.livestrong.com/article/458832-signs-symptoms-of-starvation-mode/

heybales

I do 45 mins of cadrio 6 days a week. And some strength training on my problems areas. Would you say that's too much cardio?

Not if you are feeding it correctly. That's a decent amount. Not as good for weight loss as weight lifting, but still not bad.

Pretend 1200 calories daily eaten - 55% carbs is macro you reach.
660 calories of carbs eaten daily.

Part of your day was going to use some of that anyway. But we'll leave that out and see how exercise effects it.

If always working out as hard as you can, easily 80% carbs burned of total calories burned. Say burning 800 calories an hour.
So 600 for 45 min workout burned, means 480 carbs burned just from exercise.

That leaves your body 180 calories of carb use for all other daily activities. Considering daily activity uses about 20% carbs, you are easily not replenishing your carbs burned everyday.

Are you making it to your rest day without going to far down in the tank? It's that 6th day that could be a bummer.
You might weigh yourself morning after last workout day (worst time because of fluctuations), and then eat your goal but slightly higher in carbs on the rest day. Weight the morning after rest day now (best time).

500 calories of stored carbs with required water weighs 1 lb. If you eat sodium at normal levels on rest day, and weight goes up 1 or 2 lbs, that was carbs being replaced. If no weight gain, pretty good indication of topping them off, or not going as hard each day as my example used.

That much exercise, your body will still see better improvement eating more.

Prahasaurus

Yes, it's real. However, it's almost impossible to go into starvation mode. Your body fat percentage should be incredibly low. Also, when you do, you don't gain weight. You just lose weight at a slower rate.

Of course, if you begin to eat again, your changed metabolism will cause you to retain more fat that you would have previously.

Moral of the story: a slow, steady, weight loss is usually preferable to a massively reduced calorie diet.

--P

LorinaLynn

What a lot of people call "Starvation Mode" I call, "Yeah, you'll still lose weight, but it'll come off a lot slower than you'd think it would, and a large amount of the weight you lose will be from muscle, so when you do reach your goal weight, you're not going to look nearly as lean and sexy as you wanted to, so you'll think you need to cut even MORE calories to lose even MORE weight, but the truth of the matter is that if you'd just been a little more patient and ate RIGHT while losing weight, you'd reach your goal body long before some magical number on the scale that's supposed to make you feel good."

My phrase doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

It's not going to happen from one or two days of underfeeding. Not even a few weeks. But over time, prolonged extreme calorie restrictions WILL hurt your body and your progress.

Excerpt from one of my threads:

Or to illustrate it further… these are the size 8 jeans I was so happy to fit into when I lost weight 5 years ago and got to 130 pounds. Eating under 1000 calories a day. And on top of them are the size 5 (in juniors… in misses, I’m a 2 or 4) jeans I’m wearing now. Eating twice as much.



And this is me those five years ago at 130 pounds, and me this Spring at 133 pounds.



Then, I still had double chins, back fat rolls, muffin top, ginormous thighs. I lost weight, but too much of it was muscle, so I was a big pile of Marshmallow Fluff.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/709987-how-wrong-i-was-600-days-of-mfp-lotsa-pics

DJ2120

I do 45 mins of cadrio 6 days a week. And some strength training on my problems areas. Would you say that's too much cardio?

Not if you are feeding it correctly. That's a decent amount. Not as good for weight loss as weight lifting, but still not bad.

Pretend 1200 calories daily eaten - 55% carbs is macro you reach.
660 calories of carbs eaten daily.

Part of your day was going to use some of that anyway. But we'll leave that out and see how exercise effects it.

If always working out as hard as you can, easily 80% carbs burned of total calories burned. Say burning 800 calories an hour.
So 600 for 45 min workout burned, means 480 carbs burned just from exercise.

That leaves your body 180 calories of carb use for all other daily activities. Considering daily activity uses about 20% carbs, you are easily not replenishing your carbs burned everyday.

Are you making it to your rest day without going to far down in the tank? It's that 6th day that could be a bummer.
You might weigh yourself morning after last workout day (worst time because of fluctuations), and then eat your goal but slightly higher in carbs on the rest day. Weight the morning after rest day now (best time).

500 calories of stored carbs with required water weighs 1 lb. If you eat sodium at normal levels on rest day, and weight goes up 1 or 2 lbs, that was carbs being replaced. If no weight gain, pretty good indication of topping them off, or not going as hard each day as my example used.

That much exercise, your body will still see better improvement eating more.

I'm going to send you a PM, I hope you don't mind

geekyjock76

Nearly impossible to go into 'starvation mode' for typical men and women.

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

I hope you notice that study used lean subjects (14%) as opposed to average or overweight persons who were recruited in every other semi-starvation study. Although very few studies exists which duplicate semi-starvation deficits to the ridiculous degree as that of the Minnesota Experiment, and others like it, there are quite a few with deficits at 50% below TDEE - and nearly every one of them with normal or above average body weight subjects shows a decline in RMR and LBM. There are others as well with reports of hormonal drops and elevations of leptin and cortisol.

DJ2120

What a lot of people call "Starvation Mode" I call, "Yeah, you'll still lose weight, but it'll come off a lot slower than you'd think it would, and a large amount of the weight you lose will be from muscle, so when you do reach your goal weight, you're not going to look nearly as lean and sexy as you wanted to, so you'll think you need to cut even MORE calories to lose even MORE weight, but the truth of the matter is that if you'd just been a little more patient and ate RIGHT while losing weight, you'd reach your goal body long before some magical number on the scale that's supposed to make you feel good."

My phrase doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

It's not going to happen from one or two days of underfeeding. Not even a few weeks. But over time, prolonged extreme calorie restrictions WILL hurt your body and your progress.

Excerpt from one of my threads:

Or to illustrate it further… these are the size 8 jeans I was so happy to fit into when I lost weight 5 years ago and got to 130 pounds. Eating under 1000 calories a day. And on top of them are the size 5 (in juniors… in misses, I’m a 2 or 4) jeans I’m wearing now. Eating twice as much.



And this is me those five years ago at 130 pounds, and me this Spring at 133 pounds.



Then, I still had double chins, back fat rolls, muffin top, ginormous thighs. I lost weight, but too much of it was muscle, so I was a big pile of Marshmallow Fluff.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/709987-how-wrong-i-was-600-days-of-mfp-lotsa-pics

First off you look amazing! Second this is such a good example of losing weight the healthy way & how weight is only a # & it's how you look & how your clothes fit that tell you everything. I went through something similar where I lost a lot of weight in a short period of time from being depressed & not eating. My butt especially paid the consequences & became a sad soft marshmallow. I'm trying to learn now what works for my body to get to a toned & healthy me that doesn't starve, just makes better food choices.

Holycook1

THANK YOU for putting that in layman's terms that we can understand. That helps me tremendously. I've been on 1,200 a day for a while now, sometimes I'm over a little, sometimes I'm under and I can't lose a thing.

uclown2002

4. Myth: Fasting tricks the body into "starvation mode".


Truth

Efficient adaptation to famine was important for survival during rough times in our evolution. Lowering metabolic rate during starvation allowed us to live longer, increasing the possibility that we might come across something to eat. Starvation literally means starvation. It doesn't mean skipping a meal not eating for 24 hours. Or not eating for three days even. The belief that meal skipping or short-term fasting causes "starvation mode" is so completely ridiculous and absurd that it makes me want to jump out the window.

Looking at the numerous studies I've read, the earliest evidence for lowered metabolic rate in response to fasting occurred after 60 hours (-8% in resting metabolic rate). Other studies show metabolic rate is not impacted until 72-96 hours have passed (George Cahill has contributed a lot on this topic).

Seemingly paradoxical, metabolic rate is actually increased in short-term fasting. For some concrete numbers, studies have shown an increase of 3.6% - 10% after 36-48 hours (Mansell PI, et al, and Zauner C, et al). This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline/noradrenaline) sharpens the mind and makes us want to move around. Desirable traits that encouraged us to seek for food, or for the hunter to kill his prey, increasing survival. At some point, after several days of no eating, this benefit would confer no benefit to survival and probably would have done more harm than good; instead, an adaptation that favored conservation of energy turned out to be advantageous. Thus metabolic rate is increased in short-term fasting (up to 60 hours).

Again, I have choosen extreme examples to show how absurd the myth of "starvation mode" is - especially when you consider that the exact opposite is true in the context of how the term is thrown around.

Origin

I guess some genius read that fasting or starvation causes metabolic rate to drop and took that to mean that meal skipping, or not eating for a day or two, would cause starvation mode.

Source:- http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

jdennisj

I just read another post dealing with this topic. It is entitled "Starvation Mode" by SHBoss1673. That post makes a great deal of sense regarding the starvation process. I suggest that you read it to better understand the steps that take place regarding starvation. Don't be fooled to think it doesn't exist.

wait_loss

May I suggest reading the article on Leangains that has already been mentioned along with the articles at the top of this group on Newbies please read this and MFP links that you will want to read again and again.