How genuine is "starvation mode"?

It worked for you which is good. How much do you eat now to maintain?
But if you can eat more and lose steadily probably the better way. I think a lot of the time we are too in a hurry to lose weight fast. I am guilty of this a lot too.

I usually go into starvation mode whenever I am depressed and not happy it lasts for a few days to a week

The starvation mode that people get worried about on here is a misunderstanding of how things really work with the body... But from the sounds of it, you starved yourself, but didn't necessarily trigger a metabolic crisis. I would guess that your progress was quick.

The way I base my opinion is on personal experience and the dietary guidelines for starvation rehabilitation. Clinical starvation is considered chronic caloric intake of under 1200 calories. It is generally accepted that a person cannot fulfill nutrient needs at that level without heavy supplementation. The lowest caloric recommendation for even the most obese person that has weight loss surgery is set to 1100 a day, but requires a serious supplement regimen.

From a different approach, the intentional eating of less than 1200 calories on a daily basis is anorexia. Eating more than this, but intentionally exercising excessively or eating super high fiber is a form of bulimia. People don't like it when I say this because they don't appreciate the psychiatric diagnosis implied, but this is a literal interpretation of caloric intake.

Yes, there are people that are outside these norms, but they are not as common as some people here on MFP want to believe.

Anyway, if a person "crash diets" for a couple months in this way, but does have days where they eat more than 1200 calories (which I assume most people do), starvation metabolism is very hard to establish. However, if you were to continue this habit for an extended period of time, adaptive thermogenisis would limit your metabolic needs to the limit you have established... Which would create a super-gain in the future if you were to eat a high level of calories. If you stay in this long enough... we're talking a couple years... you can do almost permanent damage to your pituitary and thyroid responses, and need hormonal intervention.

I am speaking from the perspective of someone who gained almost all her weight from having anorexia, then moving to binge/compulsive eating disorder. I ate about 900 calories a day for 4 years, but had huge binges that ultimately stuck to every inch of me. It took several years more to get the numbers to start going down instead of up.

Starvation mode is not a myth but perhaps it should be called something else......it's basically just your body becoming more efficient at basic metabolic functions after prolonged restriction of calories in order to preserve itself. The body does not understand that you are dieting for health, it is planning for the future and is trying to ensure survival. It happens to me every time I have ever dieted very strict....this time around my resting HR went into the mid 40's!!, my BP went down to about 110/65 and my body temperature went down to 96.5.....so yeah, it's definitely real!!
That being said, it's not something to freak about.....I simply changed up my diet by slowly increasing calories and mixing in a couple of cheat meals over the course of a week...I also stopped almost all cardio and went heavy on the weight training and voila, the switch has been turned back on and the weight is falling off again. The moral of the story is that it's important to switch it up diet and exercise wise to keep your body guessing.....if not, it will adjust to your routine and make it more difficult to reach your goals.

Hi guys!

I just never really understood the whole "oh, if you eat less than the magical number of 1200 cals per day, your body will fight back, and cling to fat to preserve itself!"
I lost a good 20 pounds (doesn't sound like much, but I was not overweight when I started losing weight, so it;s a relative victory by eating 700-1200 a day, usually under 1200.

I shed inches at a steady rate, as I was actually more focused on inches than weight, since weight can fluctuate from day to day due to water intake/retention and other functions. It's been 2 years and the most I've gained back is 2-3 pounds over holidays and my inches have stayed the same.

I don't know if I'm a different case or something, but wouldn't that suggest the whole "starvation mode" thing is sort of a myth people sue to scare others about undereating? Any discussion on this?

Eating a VLCD without medical supervision is dangerous and as you mentioned you did not have that much to lose so completely unnecessary!

Some questions for you...

Did you do this because you lack patience?

Do you think you have a healthy relationship to food?

Are you aware of what lean body mass (LBM) is and how a significant amount of the weight you dropped was most probably LBM?

Are you aware of the impact on your health beyond rate of weight/fat loss eating like this can have on your body?

Do you suffer from an Eating Disorder (ED) or Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)?

Are you aware of the more serious side effects of a unsupervised VLCD...

More serious potential consequences include heart arrhythmia, stroke and brain hemorrhage, dizziness, fatigue, confusion, coma and death. I think you get the idea!

http://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/related-illnesses/other-related-conditions/body-dysmorphic-disorder-bdd

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/find-help-support

ETA: The parts I have highlighted are indicative of an ED and I suggest you seek professional help. You may think you are fine but the information you have provided says otherwise.

I think it's very real in some cases.I have never really had much of an appetite even though I have been overweight most of my life. I've been trying to lose weight by exercising for the last couple of years and haven't lost anything no matter what I do,and actually gained weight when I started eating salads in hopes it would help me start losing.I recently started using MFP and had to start making myself eat to even get to the 1200 calories. I've never tried to starve myself, I simply wasn't hungry or would forget to eat when I did feel hungry,and averaged eating once a day .I make everything from scratch, eat healthy food and rarely go out to eat. The same week I started forcing myself to eat 3 times a day,and get at least 1200 calories in,I lost 5# . When I get hungry now,I feel like I haven't eaten in a week and have to find food,so I assume my metabolism is awake now and starting to work .

1200 calories is an average. I say you should never assume you're average so never go under 1350. But there are hundreds of stories on here about people who just weren't losing weight and then they upped their calories and started dropping weight easily.

I am 5'9", 134

For someone your height and weight the numbers you stated are not going to meet your nutritional or calorie needs to function normally/healthily.

If you are not seeing any negative impact on your health than I would hazard a guess that you are both underestimating your calorie intake and overestimating how much you are burning through exercise...this is very common when people are talking about having VLCD with little weight loss or no negative impact on their health. The validity of their diet is always questionable.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/872212-you-re-probably-eating-more-than-you-think

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

Now if you have been eating as little as you have stated for a long period of time then it is possible you have suffered from some metabolic damage and the rate at which your metabolism functions may be slower.

There are many factors to consider concerning how many calories the body needs to function...

BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): The number of calories you burn at complete rest.
EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): Caloric requirements of training, or training expenditure.
NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis): Caloric requirements of activity that is not planned exercise. Vacuuming, driving, brushing your teeth, for example.
TEF/DIT (Thermic Effect of Feeding or Diet Induced Thermogenesis): Caloric expense of eating/digestion.
TDEE: (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) = Sum of the above. BMR+EAT+NEAT+TEF

I reiterate the very fact you mentioned you dropped 20lbs when you were not overweight with such a low calorie intake is indicative of an unhealthy relationship with food...

As a rule of thumb, the following weekly targets would give a balance between minimizing these negative side effects and seeing a reasonable weekly weight loss:
More than 75 lbs: 2 lbs/week
40-75 lbs: 1.5 lbs/week
10-40 lbs: 1 lb/week
Less than 10 lbs: 0.5 lb/week

Obviously, the deficit that is right for you will depend on your personal circumstances and how well you deal with the deficit. For example, for someone who is morbidly obese, the health benefits of getting the weight off quickly will often outweigh the possible negative impact and, as such, a higher than 2 lb a week deficit may well be appropriate.

No I do not believe 1200 is a magic number but I am versed enough in nutrition and dietary habits to see when somebody is not eating enough or at the very least the indicators...such as the ones I highlighted earlier in your OP.

I am not accusing you of being anorexic but I do believe you are taking an unnecessary/unhealthy approach to weight loss that will inevitable lead to dire consequences unless you adjust your behavior.

Some helpful links...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants