Starvation mode (again probably...)

jamie31

I also lost alot of weight before starting MFP and i have too noticed that I have become a lil more obsessed with what I eat ( calorie wise). Before MFP i didnt really track my calories i just ate good food. Once i joined MFP ( because I had stopped losing for a month) i noticed that I was eating WAY under my calorie goal ( which includes exercise calories). I have been trying to steadily increase my calories and have been doing a pretty good job of it. I honestly think the answer to your problem is that you need to exercise about 30 minutes a day. Exercise is really the key, honest! Also the exercise will make you feel hungrier so you will have an easier time eating more. Plus start snacking on fruits and veggies and eat more meat ( chicken, turkey and tuna). If you are really having trouble getting enough protein there is a good protein bar out there called " Pure Protein" each bar has 20 grams of protein and only 180 calories.

LittleSpy

starvation mode doesnt exist.
ur metabolism goes down =(
but "starvation mode" isnt real.
eat less, lose more.

Um, what exactly do you think starvation mode is?! It's your body decreasing your metabolism to stay alive when incoming energy (food) is low. :laugh:

Sorry, and to answer the OP. Everyone is different. I've been fighting my way out of this mythical (haha) starvation mode for nearly 3 months now! I've gone from eating 1200 cals a day to an average of about 1600-1700 a day and I've still lost weight. After 4 months at 1200 calories (which was about 500 NET calories after exercise most days), my body refused to drop another pound for nearly a month. As I started eating more, it started letting go of more, but I've had to continually increase the amount I'm eating over the last 3 months. And, since I wasn't losing weight at 1200 calories a day and I AM losing weight averaging about 1700 calories a day (around 1200 NET calories after exercise), that right there is proof to me that my body had slowed my metabolism WAY down to cope with how little I was feeding it.

In short, no, I don't recommend eating so little. Nothing good is going to come of it. It will also do you some good to take a break from studying & go for a 30 minute jog or bike ride or walk each day. Relieves stress and gets your muscles working (which increases your metabolism). We can't always trust our bodies to tell us what it needs. When I weighed 270 pounds, I often got up at 7am and didn't eat anything until 10pm. I wasn't hungry. This eating habit kept me a lot heavier than I would've been if I had eaten regularly throughout the day (not necessarily because of the time I ate, but all of the circumstances the situation entailed was probably at least 75% of the reason I had gotten so big). Weighing 270 pounds is obviously not what my body needs, but that was the "natural" pattern it fell into.

kdiamond

Good lord people. Please stop scaring this girl into thinking she's got an eating disorder. :huh:

Bottom line is - listen to your body. If you feel hungry, eat. If you don't, don't force yourself. Make sure you get a balance of fruits, veggies, healthy proteins and fats.

If you have a day or two a week of 500 calories (especially days you don't do anything but sit around) you WILL not go into starvation mode. Everyone loves to throw around that term.

Someone who eats 500 calories every day will eventually stop burning and their metabolism will shut down. Then the body will stop losing weight and you will get sick. But this would take a certain amount of time...it isn't going to happen in a day or two.

My best advice would be to keep doing what you're doing, it is obviously working and you're losing weight. Good for you! Calorie cycling is awesome too - keep changing up the calories and keep your body guessing. Your body will eventually adjust to a steady amount of calories so it is good to keep it changing depending on your activity level, age, etc..

Barneystinson

Good lord people. Please stop scaring this girl into thinking she's got an eating disorder. :huh:

Bottom line is - listen to your body. If you feel hungry, eat. If you don't, don't force yourself. Make sure you get a balance of fruits, veggies, healthy proteins and fats.

If you have a day or two a week of 500 calories (especially days you don't do anything but sit around) you WILL not go into starvation mode. Everyone loves to throw around that term.

Someone who eats 500 calories every day will eventually stop burning and their metabolism will shut down. Then the body will stop losing weight and you will get sick. But this would take a certain amount of time...it isn't going to happen in a day or two.

My best advice would be to keep doing what you're doing, it is obviously working and you're losing weight. Good for you! Calorie cycling is awesome too - keep changing up the calories and keep your body guessing. Your body will eventually adjust to a steady amount of calories so it is good to keep it changing depending on your activity level, age, etc..

I couldn't have said this better myself! :drinker:

LittleSpy

Good lord people. Please stop scaring this girl into thinking she's got an eating disorder. :huh:

Bottom line is - listen to your body. If you feel hungry, eat. If you don't, don't force yourself. Make sure you get a balance of fruits, veggies, healthy proteins and fats.

If you have a day or two a week of 500 calories (especially days you don't do anything but sit around) you WILL not go into starvation mode. Everyone loves to throw around that term.

Someone who eats 500 calories every day will eventually stop burning and their metabolism will shut down. Then the body will stop losing weight and you will get sick. But this would take a certain amount of time...it isn't going to happen in a day or two.

My best advice would be to keep doing what you're doing, it is obviously working and you're losing weight. Good for you! Calorie cycling is awesome too - keep changing up the calories and keep your body guessing. Your body will eventually adjust to a steady amount of calories so it is good to keep it changing depending on your activity level, age, etc..

I couldn't have said this better myself! :drinker:

I could've. "Listen to your body" is pure bs when it comes to food intake. My intention isn't to offend kdiamond here, but seriously.

kdiamond

If I'm feeling hungry, I don't check how many calories I have left in the day. I eat something. That's about as basic as it gets.

Telling her she is obsessive and on the brink of an eating disorder is about the worst advice anyone can give her.

She obviously has weight to lose --- she isn't 90 pounds asking how to lose weight --- she was asking why should she eat if she isn't hungry? And she shouldn't. The body will eventually tell her she's hungry again and she will eat.

We (general public) get too obsessive and emotional over every minute detail and I'll tell ya, it isn't healthy. I believe that is why most "diets" eventually fail - we get sick and tired of obsessing and throw in the towel.

melville88

I really appreciate everyone's advice and concerns: a lot of you that are suggesting I eat more fruits and veg and protein, if you look at my food diary you will see that this is the majority of what I eat and I said in an earlier post that I had to adjust my protein percentage already because I kept going over it. You also might see that I am eating quite big portions, (50 grams is a lot of baby leaf salad, great big plate full piled up high) Kdiamond, I've found calorie cycling helps too actually, I lost my largest amount of weight after Christmas and after I'd been to Egypt for 2 weeks. I didn't count cals during this time, just enjoyed myself. Whenever I go out for a meal as well, I choose carefully but I don't choose anything I won't enjoy. I do enjoy food and eating but I don't want to boredom eat just for the sake of it. Littlespy, you're right about the exercise, I'm gonna start exercising more (but after the 29/4 because omg so much work to do before then!!!)- I love swimming so I'll hopefully go a lot more.

It's so nice that everybody has given their time in helping me with this question; I'll keep everyone's advice in my mind over the next few weeks and try to adjust a little. I just want to make it clear that I didn't ask this question because I've been plateaued for a while, in fact there's only been one week where I lost half a pound (compared to about 2-4 other weeks), but I just asked because I wanted to know more about the issue and causes/effects etc. Thank you all so much, and don't worry Kdiamond, I'm not scared and thinking I have an eating disorder, I love food way too much! xxx

PJilly

I think everyone has good intentions here. Obsessing over counting isn't healthy for some, but listening to our bodies doesn't work for everybody either. Eating when I feel like it is what gets me into trouble. I can't trust my body to give me good info, so tracking is vital for me. For someone else who might obsess, tracking and counting could lead to unhealthy behavior. I don't know if the OP has those tendencies, but I do believe 100 percent that she needs to rely on science right now more than trusting what her own body is telling her if she's eating only 500 calories on a daily basis.

milesje

Yes, a day or two at 500 cal will not be too bad for you, but every day at this rate will. You need to increase you intake of good healthy foods. After looking at your diary the easiest way to do this would be to add a snack between both breakfast - lunch and between lunch - dinner. These should not be big cal snacks, something like a cup of fresh fruits or vigies, a cup of yogert, and handful of nuts. This will allow you in increase your cal intake and will help your motabolizum to increase which will lead to more weight loss of fat instead of your body eating at your muscels. Adding in a 20-30 min of exercise would also help; even if it is just doing a brisk walk across campus or around a track.

Barneystinson

Good lord people. Please stop scaring this girl into thinking she's got an eating disorder. :huh:

Bottom line is - listen to your body. If you feel hungry, eat. If you don't, don't force yourself. Make sure you get a balance of fruits, veggies, healthy proteins and fats.

If you have a day or two a week of 500 calories (especially days you don't do anything but sit around) you WILL not go into starvation mode. Everyone loves to throw around that term.

Someone who eats 500 calories every day will eventually stop burning and their metabolism will shut down. Then the body will stop losing weight and you will get sick. But this would take a certain amount of time...it isn't going to happen in a day or two.

My best advice would be to keep doing what you're doing, it is obviously working and you're losing weight. Good for you! Calorie cycling is awesome too - keep changing up the calories and keep your body guessing. Your body will eventually adjust to a steady amount of calories so it is good to keep it changing depending on your activity level, age, etc..

I couldn't have said this better myself! :drinker:

I could've. "Listen to your body" is pure bs when it comes to food intake. My intention isn't to offend kdiamond here, but seriously.

I'd disagree that it's "pure BS" when my body says "enough is enough, push away the plate." We have natural receptors for hunger and different receptors for cravings (outside of true hunger) - problem is many can't tell the two apart very well.

AlyssaC2010

I know that it affects a lot of things, but your right actually, maybe I should see a doctor because I had what he thought might have been acid reflux back in january... and thinking about it, thats when i started eating much less food etc... so maybe it's something to do with that.

When my mom was in the hospital she had to be put on a blood thinner (2 clots in her lungs) and that really affected her with acid reflux -wise. She actually couldn't eat as much, wasn't hungry as much, etc. She got a prescription for Kapadex (acid reflux medicine) and she was able to eat normally again...she's very active as it is but she didn't put on too much weight after taking the medicine. If you still have the acid reflux maybe see a gastro doctor? Or ask for a prescription strength medicine? I hope you get rid of that because it's not fun to have...especially all the time!

beloggins1

Listen the brain is not stupid. If you starve it it will take steps to survive, much like it does during hypothermia. Try and eat at least 1000 to1200 calories a day and plan on losing 2 lbs a week. Don't panic if you are full and don't eat that much occasionally, but do not set a goal of 500 calories a day. Use the MBR calculator to estimate the calories your body requires to function at full rest. Take that daily count and multiply by seven days for a weekly total, then subtract 3500 calories for each pound you want to loss per weak (7000 for 2 pounds) and that's your goal. Do try and have different calorie intakes per day so your mind doesn't get in a set cycle keep your mind guessing. Then excersise with some for of resistance training like light weights. Stay away from processed foods and sugars of all kinds. Snack slowly on raw almonds one at a time to kill hunger and eat nut butters instead of processed peanut butter. Remember we didn't put this weight on over night and therefore it must come off slowly by burning fat, not muscle. A pound of fat take 3 times the area as a pound of muscle. Try and get out of the immediate results mode and add each victory to another. Hope this helps. Stay focused it will work!

laughing_fire

You know, after seeing all these threads about starvation mode it just makes me think one thing:

JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE UNDER YOUR CALORIES BY A LOT ONE DAY IS NOT GOING TO TRIGGER STARVATION MODE!

I'm serious. It's not an instantaneous thing, at least I don't think so. I mean, I can see it happening if you make a habit of continuously under eating your calories. Just like it takes a while for your body to become dehydrated, or to experience a drop in iron or anything, these things take time and it doesn't happen as quickly as you might think. I think this is just common sense.

I think they put the warning there because they're obligated to because maybe yes, it might be dangerous to not consume that many calories consistently. But think about it, this is a website offering a service and imagine if someone died of starvation because they weren't aware that they were potentially starving themselves? Then this site would be sued. So they have to put in a warning in the script when they see the math doesn't add up. It's a game of CYA (Cover Your *kitten*).

If you are seriously that concerned, talk to a nutritionist!

PJilly

You know, after seeing all these threads about starvation mode it just makes me think one thing:

JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE UNDER YOUR CALORIES BY A LOT ONE DAY IS NOT GOING TO TRIGGER STARVATION MODE!

I'm serious. It's not an instantaneous thing, at least I don't think so. I mean, I can see it happening if you make a habit of continuously under eating your calories. Just like it takes a while for your body to become dehydrated, or to experience a drop in iron or anything, these things take time and it doesn't happen as quickly as you might think. I think this is just common sense.

I think they put the warning there because they're obligated to because maybe yes, it might be dangerous to not consume that many calories consistently. But think about it, this is a website offering a service and imagine if someone died of starvation because they weren't aware that they were potentially starving themselves? Then this site would be sued. So they have to put in a warning in the script when they see the math doesn't add up. It's a game of CYA (Cover Your *kitten*).

If you are seriously that concerned, talk to a nutritionist!

I think you might be confused about what it means when people talk about starvation mode. Generally, they're talking about the body's metabolism slowing down when it doesn't take in adequate calories for energy, not that someone is literally starving to death.