The Science of "Starvation Mode"

It seems to me that different things really work differently for everyone. I have seen people who have eaten much less calories and lost weight and seen others who that really didn't work for. For me, I do have to cut back on the junk and eat better, along with exercising even if it is just walking. I saw someone recently who I did not recognize because she was very overweight a little over a year ago and I had not seen her since. For this person, having to cut back to about 1200 calories was the only thing that worked for her and she has found that she has to keep that lifestyle of lower calories in order to keep her weight down. But to be honest, she looks great. I realize that doesn't work for others. I work in a medical clinic and had a woman come in yesterday who I could tell has obviously lost weight but looks very gaunt. I did not tell her that but I did mention that she is losing weight. She says she is on a "water fast" for 40 days. My jaw nearly hit the ground. I asked her how in the world she is surviving with no protein, etc. She says she has learned to ignore the hunger pains and they have diminished, but that she does have periods of weakness/dizziness. There is absolutely no way this woman can sustain this "water diet" and yes, her body is going to go wacko I think once she introduces food back into it, if she doesn't kill herself before eating food again. She did NOT look healthy. The other woman I met who lost by cutting her calorie intake way back DID look healthy and had built up muscle tone as she lost. I still put a lot of stock into my French trip I took where I rarely saw a heavy person. They joked about us Americans and how they see us "eat, eat, eat all the time". My host family sat down to two main meals a day where they took their time eating, both meals included wine, cheeses, meats, and even bread. But they never snacked. It was such a great learning experience.

My goal was not to debate citation format, but provide some well organized resources that contain citations to scientific studies for those that wanted to learn more.

Then it would have been more effective to just include links to the primary sources, even if you used Wikipedia as your starting point for research.

You know when I first heard of Wikipedia I thought that a crowd sourced encyclopedia would be an excellent reference, after all the people who knew about/cared about a topic would provide quality and near instant peer review. Time has revealed that the crowd is full of asshats.

Excellent post. Thank you.

I just want to add one tiny thing (aside from starvation mode):

I think obese/over weight people who enter diets that extremely low calorie diets, should also consider the substainability of the caloric intake. Many people that eat at extremely low caloric intake do end up undoing their weight-loss and sometimes even gain more back by binge eating. My advice eat at a manageable deficit for slow and steady weight-loss. In the slow process we teach ourselves portion size and calorie approximation which are valuable tools for long term success.

I really appreciate this post. I was ignorant to what starvation mode really meant and how it works and would sometimes use it as an excuse not to stick to MFP's recommendations as of lately. Knowing that, no, I'm not really starving just because I feel hungry, and no, I'm not going to "plateau due to starvation mode" is extremely empowering so thank you!!

Excellent response. Thank you for responding to the content of my post and not the citation format!

I actually agree with everything you said. Learning portion control and calorie approximation is absolutely essential to the sustainability of any diet over the long run. Yo-yo dieting is not helpful for anyone and people need to work with a plan that will lead to a lifestyle they can maintain once their weight goals are achieved.

Excellent post. Thank you.

I just want to add one tiny thing (aside from starvation mode):

I think obese/over weight people who enter diets that extremely low calorie diets, should also consider the substainability of the caloric intake. Many people that eat at extremely low caloric intake do end up undoing their weight-loss and sometimes even gain more back by binge eating. My advice eat at a manageable deficit for slow and steady weight-loss. In the slow process we teach ourselves portion size and calorie approximation which are valuable tools for long term success.

No problem, I just understood the message you were trying to convey.

Thanks for understanding mine. Honestly, when I re-read my posts, I can't believe how bad my grammer is. I am an educated individual but you'd never know it by my writing skills. One of my profs said it was because my brain thinks faster then I write or in this case type.