will I go into starvation mode??

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SCSURaynmann
SCSURaynmann Posts: 21 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm curious about my restricted calorie diet i've set up on this site. I have about 1600 allowed calories and don't eat back my exercise calories. I am rarely extremely hungry due to my snacks and water intake, but i'm worried that if I don't eat back my exercise calories i'll put my body into starvation mode. I was going to try and eat more last night and have a second Pork chop that would have added like 270 calories to my daily, but I couldn't eat another bite after the first one and the broccoli I paired it with. I'm expecting my stomach to shrink, but i've been used to eating so much for so long that I'm unsure what to do when I feel full after a pork chop and 2 cups of broccoli. I've dropped 11 pounds in ~2 weeks and I'm sure some of that was water weight due to the sodium intake prior to getting my Vitamix and making my dietary changes by signing up here on MFP only last week. Tracking my food was an eye opener!!

Replies

  • JSkorna
    JSkorna Posts: 22
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    Almost a pound a day is too fast.

    Eat back some of your exercise calories.

    If possible, eat smaller meals, but 5-6 times per day.

    On an average day, how many exercise calories are we looking at?
  • Kai81109
    Kai81109 Posts: 52 Member
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    what your doing is fine snack every 2 hrs on something small so your body doesnt go into starvation mode... you should eat around 6 small meals a day ... for most people losing more than 2 lbs a week isnt good but if your working out and sticking to your diet then dont worry about it. your body will do what comes naturally
  • JessHealthKick
    JessHealthKick Posts: 800 Member
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    you're a grown man, you need to be eating! you should check the thread 'in place of a road map' (just search for it). It gives lots of good information about how much you should be eating, exercising and so on.

    It's really important to make sure you're having enough food. You don't want to drop weight too fast because that will likely really eat into your muscle as well. Also try to keep protein intake high to maintain as much of this muscle as you can whilst losing fat. You might think 'yay 5lb loss!' but if you realise that 4lb was muscle and 1lb was fat, it isn't so exciting after all (gaining 4lb of muscle isn't easy). Try to incorporate strength training into your routine as much as possible to further assist in maintaining muscle mass.

    Remember, consistency and patience are the key. Net 1600 at least, don't go for more than 2-3lb weight loss a week and listen to your body. If you are having true hunger very regularly, increase by 200 cals for a couple of weeks and see what happens. This site isn't about a diet - it's about a lifestyle change.

    Good luck :)
  • carolyn0613
    carolyn0613 Posts: 162 Member
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    Hi there

    there is a lot of information on here about both eating to MFP's formula and TDEE -x%

    With the MFP scheme, you enter your statistics plus the amount of weight you want to lose per week and MFP gives you a calorie budget which includes the deficit. You can then also do exercise over and above what you have set on MFP. For example MFP reckons you need 2000 cals a day to maintain your weight. You want to lose 1lb a week. MFP will give you a calorie budget of 1500. You go to the gym and work off 250 by fast walking on the treadmill for 30 mins. You enter that exercise in MFP and those 250 cals appear in your allowance. This works very well for a lot of people.

    The other school of thought is that you calculate how much energy that you use each day and cut that by 10-30%. Here is a website with such a calculator:
    http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/
    I haven't seen your stats but your ticker says 145lbs to go so you are quite heavy. This means that you can take off the full 30%. Once you get nearer your goals you will need to cut that down a bit, meaning your weight loss will be slower.

    You should choose one of these methods and stick to it if it works for you

    Now given your goal of losing 145lb, I would say that at the weight you are, you will be given a lot more calories than 1600 on either of these methods. This does not solve your problem of feeling full! I will probably get slated for suggesting this but I think you should ask yourself if the diet/eating plan you have started feel like something you can do for a long time. At least 2 years. If it is then great but you need to be honest about all the reasons you put on weight to begin with and do a fair old bit of soul searching. That's a really hard thing to do. If you come to the conclusion that this way of eating is not sustainable, then you need to look at eating more and at the weight you are you need not be so restrictive. The deficit to lose weight is not great and at allowances over 2000 cals is quite easily achievable. Once you are within 30lbs of your goal weight it gets much harder! You must monitor every morsel of food - you cannot let your self guess what you have eaten - please weigh everything for a good few months until you can guess correctly. Eat nice food. Enjoy it. Do some exercise - those endorphins are AMAZING! Good luck mate.
  • grim_traveller
    grim_traveller Posts: 627 Member
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    You will NOT go into starvation made. Almost everything you read here about starvation mode is crap. I'm 6'3", and averaged 1,040 calories a day for eight months, under a doctor's and nutritionist's supervision. You have a lot of weight to lose, and it will be a very, very long time before you "starve." 1600 calories a day is not too restrictive.

    Anyone who has a large calorie deficit will lose some lean body mass along with fat. The very obese will lose a higher percentage of fat than those who are leaner. If you want to retain as much muscle as possible while losing fat, think about doing a heavy lifting program.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    "Starvation mode" is very miss-understood and an overused term. That's not to say that metabolic stall doesn't happen, but that's not really starvation mode. Most people who have issues are severely under-eating...like they have a BMR of 1350 calories, but they're only netting 600 calories per day...stuff like that.

    Personally, I'd recommend eating at least some of your exercise calories...particularly if you're doing anything rigorous. I lost about 1 Lb per week eating back about 70% of my exercise calories most of the time...on average my gross calories were around 2150 and I was netting 1,850. I'm now on a very slow cut...about 0.5 Lbs per week due to I have very little now to lose and I'm in a healthy BF% range...going much faster for me would result in losing a substantial amount of muscle that I've worked very hard for.

    That said, individuals with a substantial amount of weight to lose can go with bigger deficits for longer without the ill effects for longer. The leaner you are, the smaller the deficit needs to be to avoid burning up a lot of LBM and stalling the metabolism. If you have a lot of fat stores for your body to use up, you should be fine.
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
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    There is no such thing as starvation mode, and at your weight, you can eat at a much larger calorie deficit than most people trying to lose weight, and be perfectly fine, you body has plenty of places to find energy as of right now. I probably would eat a little more just to make it easier on yourself though. It's weird the cravings do come back hardcore after a while, and it is easier not to binge if you are eating more in the first place, just keep making healthier choices, and teaching yourself how to still eat the stuff you love without going overboard. It's summer, and I always try to find away to fit in BBQ's and ice cream!
  • nwg74
    nwg74 Posts: 360 Member
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    11 pounds is pretty normal for the first couple of weeks for bigger people. I started at 373 pounds and dropped 10 pounds in my first 2 weeks. Bigger people can have a bigger deficit at the start than smaller people. I averaged 4 pounds a week quite a lot over my first year eating 1500 calories.
  • Brad805
    Brad805 Posts: 289 Member
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    Starvation mode, nope, not going to happen. You may find it increasingly difficult to maintain this plan, but I suggest you listen to your body. The biggest problem with VLCD is maintaining them for a long duration of time. Your motivation level is very high right now, but you have probably more than a year of this to get rid of the weight you desire. I agree with others that the 11lb loss is reasonable. You probably lost 8lb in the first week (water weight) and the other 3lb was last week. If you are like myself, I bet you were consuming 5,000cal+/d prior to this, so your body is bound to respond favorably. Losses in the range of 0.5 - 1% of your body mass will be possible for quite some time.

    To optimize how much lean mass you maintain I hope you are keeping your protein levels high. That will help.

    Good luck and keep at it daily.
  • SCSURaynmann
    SCSURaynmann Posts: 21 Member
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    Thank you all for the replies. I shifted my numbers around so I have 120g of protein per day which is high. Should that prevent my body from taking away the lean muscle that's currently hidden inside? I've been netting about 1200 calories with the exercise i'm doing and today I tried to eat every bit of my exercise calories back, and I barely reached my 1600 for the day. I drink a very good protein smoothie with plenty of fiber in it for breakfast ~300 calories with 23g of protein. I usually snack on some unsalted nuts between breakfast and lunch ~170 calories. I'm drinking like 8-10 glasses of water per day. I am usually having a salad with ranch dressing along with some meat of some sort or a slice of pizza for lunch. For dinner i am eating an 8oz pork chop with about 2 cups of steamed broccoli which I absolutely love. These last 2 meals account for about 800 calories total. My Starting weight was 330lbs and I am at 319 now. I'm not really doing a plan per say as i'm just being made way more aware of what I put in my mouth and how it makes me feel afterward. I don't see why I couldn't make this my lifestyle, it will just take a while for the garbage to clear out of the cupboards since i'm not eating much of the bad stuff anymore.
  • carolyn0613
    carolyn0613 Posts: 162 Member
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    Just to answer your question about protein. What you eat does not influence your body composition - if you eat fat you will not get more fat and if you eat protein you will not get more muscley. The exercise does that bit. But eating protein helps maintain your muscles. Eating fat is vital for taking on your fat-soluble vitamins. Both fat and protein are needed in the body and can be used for energy also. Which leaves us with carbs - which are used for energy only. So if you take in enough protein and fat, carbs are a bit redundant. Just make sure you eat your daily five different fruits and veggies for fibre and vitamins
  • kennie2
    kennie2 Posts: 1,171 Member
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    what your doing is fine snack every 2 hrs on something small so your body doesnt go into starvation mode... you should eat around 6 small meals a day ... for most people losing more than 2 lbs a week isnt good but if your working out and sticking to your diet then dont worry about it. your body will do what comes naturally

    wat. i go into starvation if i dont eat for 2 hours? ahahahaha
  • __Di__
    __Di__ Posts: 1,630 Member
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    what your doing is fine snack every 2 hrs on something small so your body doesnt go into starvation mode... you should eat around 6 small meals a day ... for most people losing more than 2 lbs a week isnt good but if your working out and sticking to your diet then dont worry about it. your body will do what comes naturally

    I can promise, wholeheartedly, hand on heart, that somebody will not enter "starvation mode" if they do not eat every two hours, it is also not necessary to eat 6 small meals per day (unless that is the person's preference) to curb any "stavation mode".

    The quicker some of the myths on MFP are quashed the better, they are doing far more harm than good!
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    The following evidence is anecdotal:

    When I eat 1000-1200, I get cold and only feel warm while moving. Even in the summer, I am cold when everyone else wants to crank up the AC.

    I also have lower energy, so I don't actually want to move as much. I might still get through my workouts, but I don't wander as much, I don't do any of the little extras, I sleep longer and take naps more often.

    With 25% more calories, I am warmer, more energetic and lose weight at the same rate.

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