Starvation mode, does it end?

It won't end unless your body is getting enough calories to think you aren't starving it....your diary isn't public so I don't know how many calories you are netting but it should be at least 1200 ... and probably more than that for a little while so your body will realize you aren't going to starve. ... there are lots of good threads on this topic ... you have to eat to lose weight

bump, I would also like to know this answer.

Once starvation mode kicks in (and it usually takes awhile -- not a day or two of eating too low of calories...) it won't stop until you begin eating enough again. I've read a lot about it and they say that putting yourself into starvation mode for an extended time and then adding back in calories screws up your metabolism for awhile.

You might want to read Marla's story on MFP: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/174065-starvation-mode-is-real-and-ugly

It pretty much goes into detail about what happens to your body and how it can mess up your metabolism incredibly.

So if If I only eat 100 calories a day, starvation mode kicks in and I gain weight. Interesting.

Are you people high? You honestly think starvation mode doesn't stop until you start eating more calories? Really? Tell that to all the emaciated starving children in Africa. By your logic they should all be fat and plump because they are in a magical state of never ending fat retention.

Not so. Adaptive thermogenesis (commonly called "starvation mode") is a bodily process that attempts to retain fat stores during periods when food is scarce. Since muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat, your body will consume muscle mass when large calorie deficits are entered in order to maintain as much fat reserve as possible. Using muscles, however, will convince your body that those muscles are required for food attainment (hunting and gather days holdover), and will attempt to preserve these muscles as well. Once the muscles that are not commonly used are depleted, your body will then start to pull from fat stores and required muscles if the deficit persists. This is why those "emaciated starving children" have no muscle mass. We're not saying they have huge fat reserves, we're saying they burned their muscles first. To answer an earlier question, yes, you still can starve to death while this is going on. Adaptive thermogenesis only reduces the amount of calories you need; it doesn't reduce them to zero. Your metabolism slows, you get sluggish, non-essential processes get stopped, etc. Eventually, your body runs out of places to pull extra calories from and you start to die. Starvation mode is real, but you don't enter it from undereating for a day or two. It takes extended periods of consistent under eating to enter. When you start getting calories again, you body comes out of thermogenesis and tries to replace fat stores as quickly as possible. People on starvation diets often rebound once they start eating again and put on more fat than they lost without necessarily replacing the lost muscle. This can result in being "skinny-fat". There are several good threads on this subject already. Hope that helps.

bump

Yes 11 days and it is an "absolute myth". Sheesh. Betting you're no scientist.

Just entered the twilight zone.

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_content_width/hash/1d/c8/1dc865f5baac7864fa0b0fb127903e08.jpeg

BUMP

Well I believe "starvation mode" is a myth, along with a lot of other unproven negative thoughts towards starvation diets. They are all unproven thoughts and theories that hold no merit. With so much bunk food science theories floating around the only way to know what is fact or fiction is to test it on your own body. I have lost 11 pounds in the last 11 days eating 400-600 calories a day. So far I have noticed a slimmer waist, thinned out face, and decreased belly fat. My muscles appear the same as they did before I started the diet. So through my own personal testing I have concluded that the body eating muscle and storing fat in this so called "starvation mode" is an absolute myth.

Someone who regularly eats will not experience starvation mode. But if you think you are maintaining your muscle mass at 400-600 calories you are highly mistaking. I can almost bet that 50% of your weight loss will be from lean body mass and additionally, at some point, your resting metabolic rate will adapt. And when people on this board mention starvation mode, that talk about metabolic adaptation which occurs with large deficits and muscle loss.

Heck, even with small deficits a person will lose lean body mass.. it's just the natural process when you are in a catabolic state. Eating large amounts of protein and resistance training will mitigate it. So good luck when you don't provide your body with any fuel.

Since muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat, your body will consume muscle mass when large calorie deficits are entered in order to maintain as much fat reserve as possible.

I just found this out today and I have to say I think its a rotten biological trick from nature. I want my body to burn the fat way before it even considers burning my little muscles that I have worked so hard to build up.

Ok this is a bit tongue in cheek, I'm no where near the scenario where this is likely to happen..... but it still sucks

When I was 20 years old, I got E. coli food poisoning that damaged my stomach. I couldn't eat anything without being in excruciating pain and then eventually throwing it all up. My doctor put me on a baby food diet for 3 months. I couldn't eat anything solid and even milk shakes would make me sick. I lost about 40lbs and all of it was due to basically starving myself because I literally couldn't eat. After I started forcing myself to eat again - which always resulted in me being in terrible pain, throwing up and passing out - I managed to stop the weight loss. I know for a fact that starvation mode does work as a way to lose weight, but you end up paying a huge price for it in malnutrition. My system was messed up for years.

But I have another question. Say you eat your 1200 calories a day, but you exercise 300 calories - more or less - off. Does that mean you have to eat another 300 calories to get back to that 1200 number? Cuz the app bit**es at you that you are eating too few calories and are going to end up in starvation mode. Anybody got an answe for that?

I feel like I went to an astronomy site and found a bunch of posts about how astrology is scientific.

"Aquarius, does it end?"