Under eating

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Replies

  • Hovercat
    Hovercat Posts: 43 Member
    Those quotes didn't say how many calories constitutes starvation mode. If the goal was 1200cal for women, that would mean I've been in starvation mode for the past month and a half. Which is BS because instead I've lost 26 pounds and still going.

    Read this>> http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
  • yewbic
    yewbic Posts: 37
    Those quotes didn't say how many calories constitutes starvation mode. If the goal was 1200cal for women, that would mean I've been in starvation mode for the past month and a half. Which is BS because instead I've lost 26 pounds and still going.

    Read this>> http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

    no actually one of those articles did say something like less than 900-800 calories for women.. something like that... but you know everyone is different... so its hard to say..
  • suprzonic
    suprzonic Posts: 68 Member
    Hi! you'll still lose weight if you eat more:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/521728-upping-cals-what-to-expect-why-you-need-patience

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/823958-girls-who-eat-a-lot-and-still-lose-weight?hl=girls+who+eat

    http://www.zoeharcombe.com/the-knowledge/energy-in-does-not-equal-energy-out/
    http://www.zoeharcombe.com/the-knowledge/eating-less-will-not-make-us-weigh-less/

    Best of luck :)
  • yewbic
    yewbic Posts: 37
    Those quotes didn't say how many calories constitutes starvation mode. If the goal was 1200cal for women, that would mean I've been in starvation mode for the past month and a half. Which is BS because instead I've lost 26 pounds and still going.

    Read this>> http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

    it's interesting no doubt, but the amount of calories they were consuming is nowhere near as low as we're talking about here
    Semi-Starvation Period (24 weeks): During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject’s dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 calories per day. Their meals were composed of foods that were expected to typify the diets of people in Europe during the latter stages of the war: potatoes, rutabagas, turnips, bread and macaroni.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

    1560 calories daily is like exactly what im consuming daily for a 2 pound per week loss, and im assuming im bigger than those participants were, so those 1560 calories probably were less than 1000 calorie deficits for them...
  • suprzonic
    suprzonic Posts: 68 Member
    Those quotes didn't say how many calories constitutes starvation mode. If the goal was 1200cal for women, that would mean I've been in starvation mode for the past month and a half. Which is BS because instead I've lost 26 pounds and still going.

    Read this>> http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

    The link does site the Minnesota Starvation Experiment ("MSE")- but it only extracts the parts that suit his argument.

    See http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2009/12/the-minnesota-starvation-experiment/

    The experiment put 36 MEN in starvation mode at 1600 kcal. Post study results:

    "During the restricted rehabilitation period, the four different groups of men were given 400, 800, 1,200 or 1,600 additional calories per day. Within each group of eight men, some were also given additional vitamin and protein supplements. Ancel Keys concluded that the only thing that determined the speed at which the men recovered was the calorie intake. The body didn’t respond to vitamins or protein – it just wanted the energy (calorie) deficit to be reversed.
    It can be no surprise; therefore, that when given free access to food, in the final two months, the men overate and binged to correct the calorie deficit they had suffered. One man managed to eat 11,500 calories in one day and men still felt hungry consuming twice the number of calories that maintained their weight in the control period. They all gained all their weight back and approximately 10% more than they weighed before the experiment. Men who had previously shown no awareness of body size and image reported ‘feeling fat’.

    And a more graphic account of the results of the MSE from wikipedia:

    "Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression.[1]:161 There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally).[5] Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation.[1]:123-124 The participants reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, although the standardized tests administered showed no actual signs of diminished capacity. There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate. Some of the subjects exhibited edema in their extremities, presumably due to decreased levels of plasma proteins given that the body's ability to construct key proteins like albumin is based on available energy sources."
  • fitandskinnygal
    fitandskinnygal Posts: 487
    I've never been more than 20 lbs overweight and am not anorexic. If I'm not hungry I don't eat, I don't care how many calories I "need".
    Sometimes you're just not hungry. Maybe your body is not ready for food or has some issues it is dealing with and needs you to slow down on the eating for a day or two. If I eat when I am not hungry I feel sick. I wouldn't "make" one of my children eat anyway. Generally it makes them throw up or have a belly ache. I believe your body knows what it needs. Look at it on a calories per week basis and it will generally all balance out. :flowerforyou:
    (This does not apply to an anorexic disorder, of course.)


    ^^ good advice

    Some days I'm just not as hungry especially if I'm not very active that day. Don't stress! I believe in listening to your brain AND your body. Also, if you're eating calorie dense foods or drinking a lot of water it will make you feel fuller :)
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
    Did you read the link? To tell someone they will enter into 'starvation mode' if they eat less than 1200 (a woman) or less than 1500 (a man) is just plain wrong. What they may be in danger of is malnutrition. But they are not in danger of entering some mythical zone where their body will start 'holding onto to every calorie it can'. :flowerforyou:

    If someone has hit a plateau, it is NOT because they are not eating enough. Even people who are actually starving, still lose weight.

    yeah i read it... here are some i just searched for you, theyre all articles from universities:
    Very low calorie diets often fail because not enough calories are being consumed to fuel physical activity, and this underfeeding can diminish metabolic processes. These intense energy restrictive diets are not only tough to maintain, but actually trigger the body to suppress its RMR by as much as 20% (Hill. 2004). Biological processes adapt as if the body were in a state of famine (which was a valid threat to our ancestors), so it increases metabolic efficiency by burning less calories to do the same work than an equally matched effort would burn in an adequately-fueled individual (Benardot and Thompson, 1999).

    http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/metabolismcontroversy.html
    our body is so efficient that if we decrease our food intake for a week or two without increasing our physical activity, our metabolic rate slows to compensate for our calorie deficient. In times of famine, this attribute is helpful but when weight loss is the goal, it can be stifling. Humans are much more efficient at storing fat than burning fat. For this reason, it is imperative to stop weight gain before it occurs. The body was built to protect against famine rather than fighting weight gain.

    http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=227
    Significantly reducing calories lowers the body’s metabolism. Your body treats any reduction in food intake as an impending starvation situation and slows your metabolism to conserve calories. The more drastically you cut calories, the more your metabolic rate drops.

    http://wellness.ucr.edu/Metabolism%202011.pdf
    Problems with Restrictive Dieting
    When you restrict calories too much in an effort to lose weight very quickly, the following may happen and can be detrimental to your weight, health, academic success, and social life:
    ● Your metabolism slows down in order to adapt to the lower caloric intake (so it can function with less fuel). And, it actually begins to be more efficient at holding on to the calories you eat and storing them as fat (since it’s not sure you will feed it later). This is why people who diet, usually gain back their weight (and more!) once they start eating normally again.

    http://www.snac.ucla.edu/documents/HO.Dodietswork2010.pdf
    Don't starve yourself. A very low-calorie diet slows metabolism and doesn't burn much fat. Instead, it burns the lean muscle mass that helps boost metabolism.

    http://cancer.dartmouth.edu/pf/health_encyclopedia/abn2424


    these are just a few from the first few pages of a google search on "low calorie slow metabolism site:edu" -- specifically filtering only for .edu sites.

    Thanks for the links. Unfortunately those are all OP ED articles perpetuating the same myths that are not supported by any peer reviewed published scientific studies. One that especially jumped out at me as erroneous was this "You see, our body is so efficient that if we decrease our food intake for a week or two without increasing our physical activity, our metabolic rate slows to compensate for our calorie deficient." This is misleading and just wrong. Severe caloric restriction leads to a decrease in NEAT (non-exercise activity), lean body mass as well as fat loss. This does not mean your metabolism is slowing down. It means you are moving around less, you have less muscle to burn calories while your body is burning muscle and fat for fuel. If kept up long enough for the body's fat reserves to become nearly exhausted, starvation mode enters the picture. But certainly not at only 2 weeks in. And not at 1200 calories per day for women and 1500 calories a day for men.
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
    I've never been more than 20 lbs overweight and am not anorexic. If I'm not hungry I don't eat, I don't care how many calories I "need".
    Sometimes you're just not hungry. Maybe your body is not ready for food or has some issues it is dealing with and needs you to slow down on the eating for a day or two. If I eat when I am not hungry I feel sick. I wouldn't "make" one of my children eat anyway. Generally it makes them throw up or have a belly ache. I believe your body knows what it needs. Look at it on a calories per week basis and it will generally all balance out. :flowerforyou:
    (This does not apply to an anorexic disorder, of course.)


    ^^ good advice

    Some days I'm just not as hungry especially if I'm not very active that day. Don't stress! I believe in listening to your brain AND your body. Also, if you're eating calorie dense foods or drinking a lot of water it will make you feel fuller :)

    The only problem with that way of thinking, is the maladaptive hunger cues that long term VLCD can cause. As hormone levels drop due to severe calorie restriction, hunger cues can no longer be trusted. Recovering anorexics must eat despite 'not being hungry' because their body's are truly in starvation mode.
  • yewbic
    yewbic Posts: 37
    Thanks for the links. Unfortunately those are all OP ED articles perpetuating the same myths that are not supported by any peer reviewed published scientific studies. One that especially jumped out at me as erroneous was this "You see, our body is so efficient that if we decrease our food intake for a week or two without increasing our physical activity, our metabolic rate slows to compensate for our calorie deficient." This is misleading and just wrong. Severe caloric restriction leads to a decrease in NEAT (non-exercise activity), lean body mass as well as fat loss. This does not mean your metabolism is slowing down. It means you are moving around less, you have less muscle to burn calories while your body is burning muscle and fat for fuel. If kept up long enough for the body's fat reserves to become nearly exhausted, starvation mode enters the picture. But certainly not at only 2 weeks in. And not at 1200 calories per day for women and 1500 calories a day for men.

    noone is saying 1200 for women and 1500 for men... In any case, this is taken directly from your link:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss

    from his 4th and 5th posts


    in regard to the "Maintenance of a 10% or greater reduction in body weight in lean or obese individuals":
    2) What are these neuroendocrine changes? At the simplest level they correspond to increased adrenal activity and decreased thyroid and gonadal activity. This gets complex quickly and involves how hormones help regulate and balance things like activity, mood, hunger and body temperature and interact with the autonomous nervous system (the part of nervous system that works without our concious will). So what does increased adrenal activity really mean? Well, it results in an increase in appetite, reduced metabolic activity, and an increase in cortisol levels, which in turn result in loss of LBM and "increase the partitioning of stored calories to fat." (3) A variety of pathways such as those that regulate things from sexual drive to cognition to bone reconstruction are also modulated down.

    if even maintaining a 10% or greater reduction in body weight can cause a reduction in metabolic activity, I imagine a drastic caloric deficit well below one's maintenance will further supress their metabolic activity.


    in regard to these ideas in practice
    3) Take diet breaks and go to maintenance with the most calories that do not result in a weight gain when needed to reduce or recover the effect of adaptation. These diet breaks can be extensive (And this creates a logical framework for me for the Eat More to Loss process – if eating more “resets” the metabolism, then a loss will occur at what was maintenance)

    this was almost exactly my advice to the original poster, in regard to "re-setting" her metabolism by eating up to maintenance for 3 days, then start cutting again. the post where you said "no, noway"
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
    Thanks for the links. Unfortunately those are all OP ED articles perpetuating the same myths that are not supported by any peer reviewed published scientific studies. One that especially jumped out at me as erroneous was this "You see, our body is so efficient that if we decrease our food intake for a week or two without increasing our physical activity, our metabolic rate slows to compensate for our calorie deficient." This is misleading and just wrong. Severe caloric restriction leads to a decrease in NEAT (non-exercise activity), lean body mass as well as fat loss. This does not mean your metabolism is slowing down. It means you are moving around less, you have less muscle to burn calories while your body is burning muscle and fat for fuel. If kept up long enough for the body's fat reserves to become nearly exhausted, starvation mode enters the picture. But certainly not at only 2 weeks in. And not at 1200 calories per day for women and 1500 calories a day for men.

    noone is saying 1200 for women and 1500 for men... In any case, this is taken directly from your link:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss

    from his 4th and 5th posts


    in regard to the "Maintenance of a 10% or greater reduction in body weight in lean or obese individuals":
    2) What are these neuroendocrine changes? At the simplest level they correspond to increased adrenal activity and decreased thyroid and gonadal activity. This gets complex quickly and involves how hormones help regulate and balance things like activity, mood, hunger and body temperature and interact with the autonomous nervous system (the part of nervous system that works without our concious will). So what does increased adrenal activity really mean? Well, it results in an increase in appetite, reduced metabolic activity, and an increase in cortisol levels, which in turn result in loss of LBM and "increase the partitioning of stored calories to fat." (3) A variety of pathways such as those that regulate things from sexual drive to cognition to bone reconstruction are also modulated down.

    if even maintaining a 10% or greater reduction in body weight can cause a reduction in metabolic activity, I imagine a drastic caloric deficit well below one's maintenance will further supress their metabolic activity.


    in regard to these ideas in practice
    3) Take diet breaks and go to maintenance with the most calories that do not result in a weight gain when needed to reduce or recover the effect of adaptation. These diet breaks can be extensive (And this creates a logical framework for me for the Eat More to Loss process – if eating more “resets” the metabolism, then a loss will occur at what was maintenance)

    this was almost exactly my advice to the original poster, in regard to "re-setting" her metabolism by eating up to maintenance for 3 days, then start cutting again. the post where you said "no, noway"

    duahindi is the one who claimed the 1200 and 1500 calorie limits for entering into starvation mode in this thread.

    I replied NO, noway to your assertion that you have entered into starvation mode 3 times.

    Adaptive thermogenesis is what he is discussing in the 4th and 5th posts, not starvation mode. The simple truth is, that when people lose weight, their metabolism does not behave in the same way as someone who was always slim. It has nothing to do with 'starvation mode'. It means that even when people become slim, their metabolism are still lower than what one would expect for up to 6 to 8 months. Bumping back up to maintenance a time or two to give yourself a break from dieting, does not mitigate this phenomenon.
  • sarah3436
    sarah3436 Posts: 26 Member
    To me it sounds like your metabolism has slowed. I would try increasing her calories for a week or so. This happened to me and I increased my calories to my maintenance (1750) for two weeks. Then I dropped back down to 1200 and am losing again. Remember your body cannot always be in constant weight loss mode. Sometimes your body needs to adjust its set point in the hypothalamus to a lower set point. It can take up to a month before you see results again. Take your time and be patient it will happen.
  • fitandskinnygal
    fitandskinnygal Posts: 487
    I've never been more than 20 lbs overweight and am not anorexic. If I'm not hungry I don't eat, I don't care how many calories I "need".
    Sometimes you're just not hungry. Maybe your body is not ready for food or has some issues it is dealing with and needs you to slow down on the eating for a day or two. If I eat when I am not hungry I feel sick. I wouldn't "make" one of my children eat anyway. Generally it makes them throw up or have a belly ache. I believe your body knows what it needs. Look at it on a calories per week basis and it will generally all balance out. :flowerforyou:
    (This does not apply to an anorexic disorder, of course.)


    ^^ good advice

    Some days I'm just not as hungry especially if I'm not very active that day. Don't stress! I believe in listening to your brain AND your body. Also, if you're eating calorie dense foods or drinking a lot of water it will make you feel fuller :)

    The only problem with that way of thinking, is the maladaptive hunger cues that long term VLCD can cause. As hormone levels drop due to severe calorie restriction, hunger cues can no longer be trusted. Recovering anorexics must eat despite 'not being hungry' because their body's are truly in starvation mode.


    I agree with you there, but I was talking about someone who ISN'T anorexic may eat a little less on any given day. This girl didn't say she was anorexic.

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