"Starvation mode", exercise calories, dillema?

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.