Starvation Mode?

Why in the world? EEEP! Take care of yourself!

This is a question I've had for quite a while and I still don't have a satisfactory answer. But one thing I do know is that there's a difference between loosing weight and loosing body fat, and its easy to get such high calorie deficits that significant portions of your weight loss don't come from fat loss (ie: you loose muscle mass as well).

[edit: you're probably a fair bit below the optimum calorie intake. I suspect you're be depriving your body of nutrition for no good reason (ie: not increasing the rate of fat reduction), unless you're achieving that deficit through a really punishing exercise regime, which carries its own problems. Low nutrition isn't just pie in the sky, future health problems, how do you feel, stuff, it impacts the way you look as well, as in, your hair can thin out, you age prematurely, that sort of thing... eating well is important and sacraficing that for super-deficits is a real cost for probably very limited real gain. Hope this helps]


Unfortunately I can't tell you a really good answer. The best I found last time I looked (I didn't search academic literature, just the web) was this:
http://www.mindandmuscle.net/articles/lyle_mcdonald/maximum_fatloss?page=0,0

Its still a bit unsatisfactory, but it might help. Here's the intro and conclusion in case you can't be bothered pasting the link into your browser

"A long-standing question in my mind has been, “What is the optimal (or maximal) deficit for a fat loss diet?” Yes, I know I’m not the first to address the issue but I’ve always wondered if we couldn’t figure out exactly what an optimal deficit might be on a diet, rather than relying on annoying trial and error.
...
Conclusion:
In this article, I’ve been able to give dieters a starting point for the maximum sustainable deficit which can come from calorie restriction. To summarize: simply determine how many pounds of fat you’re carrying. Then multiply that value by 31 calories. That’s how much you can potentially decrease your daily food intake. If you want to try to increase fat loss, any further increase in the deficit should either come from increased activity or compounds that either increase the mobilization or burning of fatty acids for fuel. As well, as you get leaner/lighter, you will need to periodically recalculate your daily calories to take into account your diminishing fat mass and decreased maintenance requirements due to both decreased bodymass and the adaptive component of metabolic rate. An argument can also be made for saving increases in activity for later in the diet when your diet deficit has to be lower.

Please keep in mind, however, all of these theoretical calculations sort of pale to real world results. If you’re losing strength in the weight room like crazy, your deficit is too big regardless of what the math works out too, increase them until you stop hemorrhaging strength (and probably muscle). And even if you have to trial and error it a bit, the above should at least give you a starting point."

I just wonder if there is really a starvation mode. Or if it just an excuse. I still feel this way, but since I have cut way back on my calories about one week ago. Three of the days have been the same weight & one day I gained 1/2 Lb. So I will keep this up through friday, to see what happens.

it's not an excuse, it's real.

Here's the thing the body doesn't work on absolutes, nor is there a "line" you cross to enter starvation". In reality the body is constantly monitoring how much energy you are using, how much energy you have available for use, and how much you need to function correctly. the minute you create a deficit, your body starts to compensate by looking for additional forms of energy, much of this is fat, but the body also recognizes lean tissue (for it's protein) as a source of energy as well. When the body needs more energy than you are taking in, it starts to suck energy from storage (fat) but the problem is that converting body fat to energy takes a long time (relatively speaking) and the body can only pull what's available (think of a block of ice, you can't melt the ice in the middle until the ice on top melts) so it'll grab protein for conversion as well.

So, the bigger the deficit, the more energy you are pulling from alternate sources, add to this that the body will "recognize" that you are at a deficit and trigger the starvation response, while the deficit is small and enough energy is recaptured from fat and lean tissue, this process is at a minimum, but as the time and deficit increase, so does the body's "panic" at not having enough available energy, so it starts to slow down non-vital metabolic systems I.E. it will start to slowly shut down certain organ function, certain non-vital metabolic processes, hair and skin growth...etc.) Please not that it won't STOP doing this stuff, it'll just try to slow them down to try and match calorie intake with calorie use. This is the "starvation mode". One other thing that becomes more promenant is that when you are in starvation mode your body will put a higher priority to storing fat and a higher priority to buring protein, because muscle is metabolically active, the body will see reducing muscle mass as a good thing and storing more fat as a good thing. So you see, it's a vicious cycle. This is why people who eat drastically reduced diets can still see a plateau and sometimes even small weight gains even though the calculations they do on maintenance calories are telling them that they are at a large deficit.

FYI it takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get out of starvation, In that time, even while eating at a higher calorie amount (to "right the ship") you will probably gain some weight. This is ok and it is a necessary evil. Don't worry, new fat (like new ice if you remember my previous analogy) can be quickly burned by the body.

Hope this helps. It's a very simplistic explaination, it goes much deeper than this, but it's the basics of starvation mode.

FYI, 1200 calories is not something you specifically should be following. 1200 calories is the consensus average minimum calories needed for nutritional balance (not caloric balance, just nutrition) for an adult WOMAN.

For men it's 1800, and even then, that's a gross generalization, your balance could be very far away from that.

-Banks

That's a bad idea, your metabolism with deteriorate and you will lose muscle, not fat.

It is very, very real. Starvation mode is terrible and results in the exact opposite of everything you're trying for by starving yourself in the first place. You need to eat more, a lot more, to get out of the mode and start losing weight effectively again. But, now because your body has gone into starvation mode your metabolism has dropped to far lower-than-average maintenance. You're going to need to exercise and eat small meals often throughout the day in order to get your metabolism back to a healthy and normal burning capacity. Good luck! And please, people....don't starve yourselves. I was always overweight, significantly overweight, because I would starve myself and then inevitably binge after an hour, a day, two weeks. I started eating more than I averaged before every day and worked out slowly, building up; 30 pounds melted off in a month and a half.

I don't believe in starvation mode, I can eat 200~1000 calories for months and lose weight then get off that diet and not gain anything as long as I eat well (1200) and exercise

Yeah that's lovely ... good luck with that.:sick:

*double post*

Why the desire to go into starvation mode? Are you perhaps using that term based on some reading you've done? I wonder it you are thinking of something like ketosis - the goal of the initial phase of the Atkins diet. Even that is controversial.

Set your deficit in the settings on MFP and go from there. You are about my size - I 5' 10" and started MFP at 282. I'm down to 251 in 3 months eating at least 1800 calories per day - sometimes more. I'm also fairly active - at least relative to what I was doing before MFP.

It takes a long time to lose the weight we've taken a lifetime to put on. Going into starvation mode to accomplish this faster is dangerous for your health and, generally, a recipe for failure in the long-term.

As for the pro-ana looking pic, that's just wrong...

I find it hard to belive that I can be in starvation mode so fast. If I still don't lose any weight tomorrow, I will go back to my 1,500 - 2,000 calories per day.

I don't know that it's particularly starvation mode, but personally, if I hit 4 or so days of being under by 500 or 600 (goal of 1500 a day) I lose ALL energy. Sometimes I don't mean to miss my cals but it just happens. Last week I was under at least 4 days in a row by about 600 and Sat and Sun I literally was too tired to even get off the couch.. I sat on my butt all weekend because the thought of moving around wore me out... and usually I am rather active - walk the dogs, work on the yard, clean... for me it kicks in quick! Like I said, don't know that this is starvation mode in the sense of long term effects when going back to eating, but definitely on the way to screwing with my metab if I stuck to it!

I don't believe in starvation mode, I can eat 200~1000 calories for months and lose weight then get off that diet and not gain anything as long as I eat well (1200) and exercise

Except that a grown woman isn't meant to exist on only 1200 calories for a life time. Even someone very small in stature (like 5 feet tall and 90 lbs) needs about 1400 calories/day at maintenance, and that's if she is sedentary -- she needs more if she exercises. Of course, this is assuming that the woman has a healthy metabolism and hasn't cannibalized much of her own muscle mass on a starvation diet. I, for one, don't want to lose weight only to be stuck eating just 1200 for the rest of my life or risk gaining back the weight.