Does anyone else feel this way...

I don't know and am really curious to see if anyone has a good explanation. Because I am stumped about the starvation mode thing also, as i am usually very satisfied at bedtime and still have 500-600 calories to eat. I just refuse to stuff the food in as I have spent my entire life doing just that.:mad: :sick:

I am allowed 2400 calories a day and rarely exceed 1900. With light exercise I gain a few more calories, it just doesnt seem right. :ohwell:

I watched a marathon about the Brookhaven Obesity Clinic yesterday and it said that those people were on 1500 calorie a day diets and those who follow the diet are losing weight and no mention was made of starvation mode. :huh:

Sign me confused.
:huh:

I was worried about this too. I have significantly increased my daily cardio over the last couple of weeks, and as a result I have has pretty big deficits in my daily caloric intake as well. I agree that often at those times I am stuffed and really can't eat another bite.

My concern, and perhaps this applies to you, was that I will hit some kind of barrier or "starvation mode" where all of my efforts will have been in vain. In short, I am afraid that instead of losing fat, I will be tricking my body into keeping the body fat or, worse, actually put on weight.

However, this fear might be a little blown out of proportion. See this VERY well researched link: http://www.calorie-count.com/forums/post/28742.html

I highly encourage reading all of it, but the take away info is that:
- "starvation mode" is only reached if you have consumes less that 50% of your daily allotment. So, since my goal calorie intake is 1510, i only get concerned if my "calories remaining" on the myfitnesspal home page is above 705 at the end of the day.
- If you do hit starvation mode, this does NOT mean that you will stop losing weight or gain weight. It means that you may not be losing weight as efficiently. You will reduce your metabolic rate, but this reduction isn't going to make enough of a difference to actually force you to stop losing weight. (Unless, that is, you have a 5% body fat ratio or less.) So you might not have caused yourself to stop losing weight, but the last 10-15 minutes you spent at the gym suddenly became pretty meaningless.
- Although you might not stop losing weight, you might invite a host of other health problems if you aren't getting enough nutrients.

This is where I start having questions. Does this last point mean that if we hit the deficit because we increased our daily exercise (while still eating healthily), we should be OK, even though we lose weight less efficiently? In other words, is hitting the deficit because of exercise better than hitting it because you reduced your caloric intake?

ok...

this is what i learned in college and i majored in this stuff. you should NEVER eat less than 1200 calories a day. your metabolism will slow down and eventually anything you eat will be stored in fat.

this website told me to eat only 1490 calories a day. that is not enough for me! i wasnt losing weight at all. i talked to a trainer and because of my weight and height and my workout schedule, i should be consuming 2000-2200 calories a day. i use this website now just to calculate my foods.. i dont follow the diet plan anymore. it wont work for me.

when i stated this, about a month ago, i had no problem keeping things straight. In the last week, i find im having a hard time getting even the 1200 cals.
It is not because i am eating less...but rather eating more "wholesome".
I have started making everything from scratch, so i can keep track of carb, fat and sodium...three things that wreck havoc with my health. i have stopped using "cheater" methods with cooking, and do everything from the ground up so to speak. Spaghetti sauce, for instance, begins with pureed tomatoes. Real ones, not from a can.
All my recipies now seem to equate to less calories, so i can actually eat large amounts. I am only eating until i feel full however.
I am eating incredibly healthy for the first time in my life, and not feeling like i am hungry. But at the end of the day, i sit somewhere around 1000 cals...it concerns me a little that i may go into this "starvation" mode, except that i am eating lots. It isn't making much sence to me, lol...but for now it is working. I am still loosing weight, at a reasonable pace. My health is getting better, i feel incredible. So how can that be a bad thing?

http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/estimated-calorie-requirement

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/metabolism/WT00006


The first link is to WebMD, the second to MayoClinic.

They don't really mention "starvation mode" on their websites- and bottom line is- we are all different.

This is why I love this site. This thread really made me think and read a lot. My take on all of the reading in the sites listed is don't go below your BMR. That is the problem. What is it? We have guidlines based on age etc. It changes with your body fat ratio and activity level. I think the only way to figure it out is to experiment on your self. If you are losing fat and are not starving all the time your diet is working so be patient. If you are full all the time and are gaining weight eat less. You do have to monitor your calories so that you will know what is too little. I did hit this starvation mode for a while and was hungry as a bear all day. Once I increased calories a little to the point I was able to go three hours between meals I started losing again. I now have a pretty good guess as to how many calores that is for me. I am using a tape measure and fat calipers now too make sure I am losing fat. One thing I can do is go way low on calories for one day then eat normally again for a few days with a positive net result of fat loss. All of this thinking is making me hungry.

Good luck and have patience everyone.:drinker:

This is all helpful to me but I just wanted to stress that my problem, and I believe the original posters also, was that I am full at the end of the day and always have hundreds of calories left to eat. So I was afraid that I would hit the so called starvation mode because I wasn't eating enough. But from what I have read, thanks to you all, I no longer fear that and am confident that I am on the right path for my body. :glasses:

This is a great site and the people are great. :happy:

You have to have a certain amount of calories for your body to function, you know, to keep breathing, brain working, blood pumping. Most people burn between 800-1000 calories a day just being alive. So the idea is, if you eat 1500 calories per day and you burn 800 while exercising, you will need 300 additional calories to keep your body going and to prevent your body from protecting your vital organs in an extreme manner. This is why anorexics and bulemics have such horrible health problems related to their extreme eatting habits, they are slowly shutting their system off.

Keep in mind that those people at the Brookhaven clinic are severely obese and a lot of them can not even walk so when they start to move they are not burning a lot of calories just doing arm raises or light exercise and that is why the calorie intake has to be so low. When they start to walk and do more and more exercise they also get more calories.