"Starvation mode", exercise calories, dillema?

So according to you I should be well.....dead by now. Strange, my heart is still beating, I have a ton of energy, I'm still losing at a steady pace, My hair has not fallen out. I may have over estimated my exercise, but I know I have not under estimated my calorie intake because I weigh my food and look on several different places before I decide on which of MFP amounts I use so that I'm pretty damn accurate with that. But the exercise calories burned doesn't matter since I don't eat those back anyways. I've been eating low for 5 months. I know someone who ate low for 9 months and she's fine matter of fact I know several people who have eaten low for over a year and they are just fine, one of which has heart troubles to begin with and she's just fine actually she real good. I don't have a lot of muscle strength, but I didn't have that when I was 112 lbs heavier either and their is no change there. I don't have as many headaches, but I'm assuming thats because I don't eat as much processed foods and don't eat fast food or even eat out much so I'm not getting all that chemical stuff in my system. I don't want people to eat the way I do, I do this for me, You do what you do for you.

Your post does not convice me to eat higher calories, it does not convince me that Starvation Mode isn't a myth. Yes I know I'm stubborn but you've not shown me anything that I can't counter with things I believe.

It's all a matter of opinon, I have my own and you have yours..

Not sure I ever asked for a counter to the case. But if you feel you must. please post all your numbers, including your starting weight, your current weight, your height, age, activity level, any medical conditions you may have, Your body fat %, and your waist to hip ratio. Because just making a statement like you have is relatively useless. I don't know any of your stats, so not only can I not put any context to it, neither can anyone else.

And for the record, I'm glad you've found a way to lose the weight, that's fantastic, and you deserve credit for it, which I freely give. But again, without the whole story, it's hard to even carry on a conversation.

but you said it doesn't matter, this applies to everyone or did I read that wrong? And you didn't ask for a counter but I'm trying to understand how I'm supposed to have all these problems and I don't. You can take this private if you want. I'm just trying to understand your logic.

I did not actually say it applies to everyone, if you read carefully, I did state that the larger the amount you have to lose, the larger the deficit can be.

i LOVE this post...

I admit I stress over this almost daily. I worry I'm losing too much too fast, but then, I worry that I won't keep up with my average. Internal struggle for sure.

as someone with about 80 pounds left to lose (44 down so far), how much of a deficit is safe?

My TDEE is right around 2300-2400 I think (haven't checked it in the last week or 2).. I generally eat on average 1500 for 6 days, then a high/cheat day around 3000-4000 which puts me at around 1785 on average per day. This isn't a hard number, sometimes it's a little more, sometimes a little less.

I have been doing this for nearly 5 months. I was on a roll for the first 4, losing an average of 10-11 lbs per month or so. Then last month, I hit a plateau or a stall for a few weeks. I had gone on vacation and was in a camping situation where I had very little control over my diet, reading labels, or weighing things, so have no idea what I ate other than trying to do my best. I ended up plateauing for about 4 weeks.

Then, after reading I needed to do something different to break through it, I cut my average down to 1384 for 5 days, then ate 7000 over 2 days. As crazy as that sounds, it worked. within a few days I was down 3-4 lbs(I had played with one up and down during the stall).

I am back to my average of 1500 ish/day with a high day, but sometimes cycle that between 1 high day, or 2 maintenance days. Whatever hits me that given week.

Is doing this for 5 months going to cause me to face inevitable metabolic slow down? I really wish I didn't have to stress about it. If the deficit is ok, then I'll just keep going.

My BF % (shudder) is 42.3 as of last check (wednesday).. I work with a personal trainer 3 x a week, mostly doing weight machines. I didn't take my BF% when I started at the end of March, but 10 weeks ago it was 45.5 so I know it was initially even higher.

So my BF % is going down --- will update with a graph shortly.

Please give me any advice on if I should worry about my progress or doing any damage. I am worried about disappointing my trainer if things stop, and if they do, he's already told me he will change my diet which I am horribly afraid of. I like what I am doing now (freedom to eat what I want - though I choose mostly healthy foods). thank you!!





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I don't like giving a lot of specific advice in threads, just cuz people who it wasn't intended for end up reading it and thinking it's for everyone, but in your case, I think you're generally following an acceptable life path. I would gradually try to lower those 3000 to 4000 days to 2500 to 3000 days, which will make it easier for you to stay at a lower average without totally removing the concept of a higher calorie day. I think, generally speaking, with 80 lbs to lose you're probably fine with a 2 lb per week deficit (again this is a very vague assumption to be taken with a grain of salt) but remember, as your body fat goes down, your deficit must shrink as well, which will mean a smaller weight loss, some weeks you still may hit 2 lbs, others you may see no loss, this is the game we play. At the end for me, I had weeks where I lost 2, then weeks where I gained 3 then others where I lost nothing. That's just how our bodies are, if it was linear, it would be easy. But eventually science wins out (all other things being equal) and you'll lose what you need to.

As to the finer points of recognizing how many calories are "enough" for you. That's easy enough to estimate (with some impressision I admit, but it'll get you in the ballpark). Just find your approximate BMR (there's a ton of sites out there that do this, go to webMD and put metabolism calculator in, you'll find their tool for TDEE) and multiply by 25% and you'll get close to your TDEE.

I posted this thread on my news feed and someone pointed out that they didn't understand what the 25% thing was for. I kind of glazed passed it under the assumption that (BMR+BMR*.25) was approximately your TDEE (a little more then sedentary?) so yes 25% would be closer to anyones TDEE. But since I'm not positive and since everyone has different activity levels and because I'm half wondering why 25, could you clarify for me? Thanks

Your assumption is correct, 25 is a very generic average. Some people's BMR is closer to 80% of their TDEE, and others (more active folks, for instance a mail man) might have a 65% BMR. It's all about your activity level. Also some people genetically just have a higher body temperature, which can mean the difference between Thermogenesis being 5% of your TDEE and 8% of your TDEE.

There are a ton of websites out there that tell you how to calculate your activity level, which you multiply times your BMR to find your TDEE.

here's the first hit from a google search for activity level multiplier.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=109911821&page=1

that seems pretty much accurate to me. So google BMR calculator, get your BMR, then multiply by the number for you in the above website to get your TDEE (then add any out of band exercise to it for that specific day, FYI, MFP already does all this for you).

But remember, TDEE is TOTAL, so if you do extra exercise outside your activity level, you must add that exercise to your TDEE to get the real number.

As far as I can tell it's a bunch of nonsense that doesn't apply to dieters with excess body fat. Perhaps links to the dozens of research papers will clear this up once and for all?