Starvation Mode is a Myth: The Science

wow..and i thought the website was for support and motivation and general friendly discussion????

This thread gave me a migraine and by page 4 I wasn't anymore enlightened than when I started the thread....

But now I too have Naughty By Nature "OPP" stuck in my head

This thread gave me a migraine and by page 4 I wasn't anymore enlightened than when I started the thread....

But now I too have Naughty By Nature "OPP" stuck in my head

Well, at least something good came out of it all!

Seriously, when I saw all the people applauding the original post I thought, "maybe this isn't the site for me." Glad to see there are more people with some sense around. What really annoys me is people refusing to eat more calories, saying they have never eaten many calories, and then complaining that they have been overweight their entire lives, and they are still not losing weight. Really? And when we say, "eat more good, healthy calories," they throw absolute fits. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. If you haven't ever tried it our way, I really don't want to hear the whining.

You know what, real MFP'ers (the ones who eat their exercise calories)

Let them starve, let them weight cycle, let them burn muscle, let them release endogenous catecholamines and risk heart attacks. We should not care if they are silly enough to glean dietary meaning from 3 studies in tiny numbers of healthy weight male subjects eating absolutely nothing which are obviously done to help dieticians adjust TPN or NG feed doses in ICU.

And engage it if it is fun for you but otherwise, please just ignore them we are unfortunately bumping their silly posts

Not everyone is on MFP to lose weight. For instance, I'm not. I"m watching Calories, because I really don't want to eat more than roughly 1000 Calories a day. That is, for me a caloric restriction of about 50%. I do this, because actual medical research points to the fact that

a. severe caloric restriction has a number of health benefits as long as there is sufficient nutrition
b. severe reduction of carbohydrates (and fasting) has a beneficial effect on certain types of brain cancer.

I'm in a trial to test both these assumptions.

http://www.asnneuro.org/an/002/e038/an002e038.htm
http://www.lef.org/protocols/cancer/brain_tumor_03.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20009300
https://www2.bc.edu/~seyfridt/braincancer.html
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/291/10/1226.abstract

As a last thing, it's almost inevitable that we're comparing apples and pears. Yes, I severely limit my caloric intake. And yes, I strive for optimal nutrition within those 1000 Calories daily. The proponents of the "starvation mode happens at 1199 Calories" view base their comments on caloric restriction on situations where either calories have been restricted down to starving level (which means that it simply isn't possible to get sufficient nutrition) or situations where nutrition is bad to begin with, for instance if people continue eating the majority of their calories as carbohydrate.

YYAAAA glad to read this, because I bought into it, but yet thinking about it, it didn't make sense. It is unhealthy, but if you are not eating, you are still burning calories therefore you would lose weight...

Thank you.

What people seem to be forgetting is that starvation is classed not only as a severe restriction of vitamins and nutrients but also ENERGY INTAKE. Funnily enough the principal determinant of this are those pesky calorie thingamawahtsits. You know, calorie, medically defined as "A unit of energy-producing potential supplied by food and released upon oxidation by the body, equal to the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C at one atmosphere pressure."

It's astonishing that no one has yet mentioned Ancel Key's Minnesota Starvation Experiment. In the 6 month semi starvation portion of the experiment the men were provided with 1,800 calories per day with food which reflected that availbale in work torn conditions in Europe: farina, bread, potatoes, jelly, jam, milk etc. No McDonalds or jexcessive unk food in their diet. However, they were expected to maintain constant physcial activity during the day including mild forms of "exercise" such as walking and household duties which equated to an energy expenditure (you know, based on those pesky calorie thingies) equivalent to 3000 or so calories per day. If you don't know what happened to these men during that time then perhaps you should find out for yourselves.

After the semi staravtion portion of the diet the men were put on a 3 month rehabilitation diet. Ancel Key's remarked following the study "Enough food must be supplied to allow tissues destroyed during starvation to be rebuilt ... our experiments have shown that in an adult man no appreciable rehabilitation can take place on a diet of 2000 calories [actually 2000 kcal (8368 kJ)] a day. The proper level is more like 4000 [4000 kcal (16,736 kJ)] daily for some months. The character of the rehabilitation diet is important also, but unless calories are abundant, then extra proteins, vitamins and minerals are of little value ." You might want to read that last sentence carefully....

I wish people would stop trying to muddy the waters simply because they want to lend support to the concept of intermittent fasting. I actually think a well constructed IF diet has many benefits including fat loss (I am thinking mostly leangains here.) However, to then use IF concepts in isolation to provide frankly distorted advice to the general public along the lines of a starvation response does not exist is patently irresponsible.

Of course, I agree with you. The problem lies in the misunderstanding of MFP's prompt, which tells us that we are in danger of going into "starvation mode" if we don't eat 1200 kCal per day. The prompt is poorly worded, and often misunderstood.

MFP bases this on less than 1200 calories per day over a 5 week period

the section on the Krebs cycle makes me shiver if I think about it to long. 8 steps, pyruvate, CoE A, Adenosine triphosphate, adenosine monophosphate, free Nitrogen molecules... valence electrons. Ugh, I thought college was over for me.

Have fun. :drinker:

Oooh gawd that made me shudder, I never wanna go back there!!

The 'complement cascade' just about finished me off aswell.

oh just wait till you get to the gallbladder, the liver, bile salts, and the importance of it in dietary fat oxidation, you're gonna love it!

the section on the Krebs cycle makes me shiver if I think about it to long. 8 steps, pyruvate, CoE A, Adenosine triphosphate, adenosine monophosphate, free Nitrogen molecules... valence electrons. Ugh, I thought college was over for me.

Have fun. :drinker:

Oooh gawd that made me shudder, I never wanna go back there!!

The 'complement cascade' just about finished me off aswell.

oh just wait till you get to the gallbladder, the liver, bile salts, and the importance of it in dietary fat oxidation, you're gonna love it!

Nah I finished all that stuff years ago! I've been a medical scientist for years now.

maybe we should better define "low calorie diet"? I know we're debating abotu the whole 1200 mark and all... are we talking about 600 calories a day or 950-1000?

and this is assuming a person is set at 1200 calories by MFP - not 2,500 or 1850 or ... whatever. Cuz really, I don't think anyone that's posted is interested in a 600 calorie intake. It would seem to be that the debate is rating over a 200 calorie margin of error.

200 calories. That is 3 cookies & a cup of coffee; that is a 1/3 an avacado (or something like that); a handful of chips or crackers; a tablespoon of pasta, a yogurt & apple.... in short, it's missing 1 snack.

Just to add another perspective. I think some are assuming people are referring to a major cut in dietary needs and I don't think that's the case. We're not talking extremes such as some of the studies are citing. We're talking about day to day people with *some* activity and who generally make decent food choices through the day. It seems to me people are thinking that those who miss that one snack are going to dry up and wither away.

The other thing I'd like to ask is where does the concern come from? Is it because you want to be right or is it genuine concern for the wellbeing of others? Some responses look to be genuine concern - which is really kind. Many are offering responses that give the appearance of more the need to be right...which is fine too, but doesn't do much as far as getting people on the other side of the fence on board with your idea.

Maybe more questions should be asked rather than demands for a change of mind/heart? I did see some posts that indicated some people obviously have a scientific background - but really, the jargon isn't helpful. Put things in laymen's terms and we have to admit, science is NOT the end all be all. I mean.. Pluto. Really? Need I say more? It's a generalization and we must be careful of that as well. We need to all learn a little flexibility in our thinking and the way we approach debate.

I firmly agree that the 1200 calorie thing has nothing to do with the OP's point. Starvation mode is intimately tied to a person's TDEE (maintenance calories) and can usually be defined by the long term (>3 days) reduction of calories to a point that is below the threshold where that particular person can replenish glycogen stores in the liver and muscle.

In layman's terms, starvation mode is a relative condition to the person you are describing, thus everyone is different. A host of genetic, environmental, and internal factors decide when a body will cross the threshold.

Starvation mode begins when the body can not reach energy metabolism homeostasis (I.E. energy needed is exactly equal to energy provided). This means carbohydrates consumed, plus the result of lipolysis plus the result of gluconeogenesis (protein break down for energy), plus the existing glycogen stores can no longer reach an equallibrium with what the body demands for energy.

So, this all said, someone who is obese, has a lot more lipids (fat) in their body to use to make up the large deficits. when someone who is NOT so big tries to do the same thing, the gap between TDEE and the starvation mode threshold is far smaller, which is why you can't lose as much weight if you only have 20% body fat as you can if you have 35% body fat, and why more of that weight will be lean tissue (protein from muscle tissue and other non-fat substrates)

the discussion in the medical community isn't whether any of what I just wrote is true, the discussion is more along the lines of what the long term effects of starvation mode are to the body, and what hormones are triggered in response to it, and what this does to body composition after those hormone changes go into affect. THAT is where the medical community has debates.

For instance, there's a strong push to find out the role of Growth Hormone and Testosterone in a fasting environment, along with the "fat" hormones like cortisol (which is called the fat hormone because it's produced by adipocites, or fat cells in higher amounts as a response to times of high stress), and other hormones which are catalysts for energy absorption into cells like insulin. While we have a basic idea of how these hormones interact, because of the amount of chemicals in the body, their VERY complex interactions, and the changes that occur during different times (high stress, underfeeding, obesity, anorexia...etc) we don't know exactly what role these hormones play yet. But we are coming closer every day.


You asked where the concern comes from. Well I admit, I'm no longer trying to lose weight, and could have stopped using MFP years ago. But I'm intimately tied to weight issues by family, I was formerly obese, I'm now a personal trainer, and I genuinely like helping others and receive a certain amount of personal joy from it. My science background allows me to read technical journals and research and be able to (hopefully) translate it into useful information.

You say the technical jargon isn't helpful. but I disagree. Besides the small percentage of people that can actually read and correctly interpret the studies (they're difficult sometimes), there are a lot of people here that need to know that we who cite these resources are actually doing real investigation into the issues, and even if you can't read them all, the fact that we cite them and show how we arrived at a conclusion is important to the process.

As to the concept that science isn't the end all. I disagree, citing Pluto as an example isn't really very relevant as that wasn't a "mistake" it was a reclassification based on additional information. Any mistakes that we make in science are because we are imperfect, not because the science itself is wrong, our existence in the physical world has laws, our bodies follow those laws, just because we don't understand them all yet, and get them wrong sometimes, doesn't make the laws wrong, it makes us flawed as beings.

I have a lot more I would love to say, but I've already written to much. There's reams and reams of data out there if you want it. And there's opinions aplenty on this topic, believe what you want for what ever reasons you want, that won't change the truth, I just hope those out there in MFP land that are unsure do some analytics on the posts they read and don't choose things based on "how much they like the poster" or how much weight the poster has lost, because there's a lot more to this site than a popularity contest.

What people seem to be forgetting is that starvation is classed not only as a severe restriction of vitamins and nutrients but also ENERGY INTAKE. Funnily enough the principal determinant of this are those pesky calorie thingamawahtsits. You know, calorie, medically defined as "A unit of energy-producing potential supplied by food and released upon oxidation by the body, equal to the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C at one atmosphere pressure."

quite.

it really isn't just about the nutrients - ie. the vitamins and minerals - we take into our bodies, but about the calories (fuel/energy) we are required to consume to make the cells function.

The heart won't pump on Vitamin C alone......

I am surprised this thread has gone on this long.

EVERYONE'S BODY IS DIFFERENT! what may work for one person with the exact same height weight and build may not work for someone else with the same qualities! Therefore nothing is 100% when it comes to dealing with a persons health. if this was the case i think by now we would have a magic pill to cure many diseases... but we dont.

JUST DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU!!

What people seem to be forgetting is that starvation is classed not only as a severe restriction of vitamins and nutrients but also ENERGY INTAKE. Funnily enough the principal determinant of this are those pesky calorie thingamawahtsits. You know, calorie, medically defined as "A unit of energy-producing potential supplied by food and released upon oxidation by the body, equal to the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C at one atmosphere pressure."

It's astonishing that no one has yet mentioned Ancel Key's Minnesota Starvation Experiment. In the 6 month semi starvation portion of the experiment the men were provided with 1,800 calories per day with food which reflected that availbale in work torn conditions in Europe: farina, bread, potatoes, jelly, jam, milk etc. No McDonalds or jexcessive unk food in their diet. However, they were expected to maintain constant physcial activity during the day including mild forms of "exercise" such as walking and household duties which equated to an energy expenditure (you know, based on those pesky calorie thingies) equivalent to 3000 or so calories per day. If you don't know what happened to these men during that time then perhaps you should find out for yourselves.

After the semi staravtion portion of the diet the men were put on a 3 month rehabilitation diet. Ancel Key's remarked following the study "Enough food must be supplied to allow tissues destroyed during starvation to be rebuilt ... our experiments have shown that in an adult man no appreciable rehabilitation can take place on a diet of 2000 calories [actually 2000 kcal (8368 kJ)] a day. The proper level is more like 4000 [4000 kcal (16,736 kJ)] daily for some months. The character of the rehabilitation diet is important also, but unless calories are abundant, then extra proteins, vitamins and minerals are of little value ." You might want to read that last sentence carefully....

I wish people would stop trying to muddy the waters simply because they want to lend support to the concept of intermittent fasting. I actually think a well constructed IF diet has many benefits including fat loss (I am thinking mostly leangains here.) However, to then use IF concepts in isolation to provide frankly distorted advice to the general public along the lines of a starvation response does not exist is patently irresponsible.

*Like*

excuse me ive lost over 40 pounds this time last year I was over 230 now im 187.My ticker only shows what ive lost since ive joined this site.Oh but I forgott since you lost some weight that makes you an expert on everything