How do you know if your body is in "Starvation Mode"

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  • tonybandero
    tonybandero Posts: 4
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    Our bodies are mean machines, designed over billions of years...

    If there is no food about, nature has taught us that the last thing you should be doing is running around looking for it, because you won't survive

    In scarcity, your body has evolved to switch into 'economy mode': to slow-down your metabolism and (I suspect) makes your mind think more linearly - your body is now in a mode where you just plan to find food with minimal effort.

    The result is this: you will have little physical energy but your mind is fairly clear & focused, perhaps a even bit fast or mildly depressed. Other signs are that you might get light-headed and possibly your breath & body will smell sweet/odd.

    Exercise will now really hurt your muscles, because deeper resources (e.g. pure fat, possibly some wastage) is being used to move you about.

    If I sense this happening, I eat a bit more low-GI carbs e.g. Porridge + banana in the morning is good; I always make sure I have enough protein in my diet too. The place to cut calories is obviously fat & high-GI sugars.
  • soysos
    soysos Posts: 187 Member
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    don't think that 1200 is some magical number that is one size fits all. very few people can function on less than that, but most need more. personally I teeter on the edge of anemia most of the time, less than 2000 I can barely stand.

    there are several different levels of starvation, some can be beneficial under the right circumstances. the body does not want to loose or gain weight, it wants to take in just enough energy to keep everything running smooth. if it falls short for a few days a lot of things start to happen, the first is a rather complex series of chemical defenses within the body. the senses become more acute, the muscles more efficient, and you get a little more aggressive and irritable. essentially you become a better hunter.

    if the deficit is severe enough, or if this happens over a prolonged period of time the body starts using what food it takes in more efficiently. the metabolism slows down so it can absorb more nutrients from the food, less worked muscles are absorbed, and whatever energy is not used is stored as fat asap.

    things start getting really bad when the body gets little to no energy. it shuts down all unnecessary function, you start feeling tired, star sleeping more and more, maybe 20 hours a day. the body starts absorbing its fat stores, and unnecessary muscle, eventually moving on to vital muscle, like say kidneys. people in this state have even been known to eat there tong, lips, and fingers. eventually there is nothing left to consume but major organs and brain matter, death not being far behind. I wouldn't worry about this state of starvation unless your trapped in a cave for about a month it ain't gonna happen.

    so how to tell when your in starvation mode? well first your gonna get irritable, then your gonna get tired. if it gets to the point that you almost always feel tired, eat more.
  • lodro
    lodro Posts: 982 Member
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    If there is no food about, nature has taught us that the last thing you should be doing is running around looking for it, because you won't survive

    In scarcity, your body has evolved to switch into 'economy mode': to slow-down your metabolism and (I suspect) makes your mind think more linearly - your body is now in a mode where you just plan to find food with minimal effort.

    This is not entirely true either. What you describe starts happening after a more prolonged period of deprivation. The natural response seems to be that if you go up to 4 or 5 days without food, adrenalin levels will rise, alertness and drive will increase, exactly to have you find food. During that relatively short period, that is what will ensure survival.

    Scarcity is something else, that's a prolonged period of food deprivation.
  • ChefJenn
    ChefJenn Posts: 350 Member
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    bump



    these are all good points.
    I know I have been put on a strict calorie and food intake(800 cals a day,60g protien) by my surgeon and at no point has he said I will go into starvation mode.
    I went throu 6 months of prepping for surgery seeing every Dr under the sun to clear me, talking to a nutritionist every month before and after surgery (gastric bypass)
    I lost 140 pounds in less than a year.
    So I find it hard to think I was in starvation mode or that right now since Im going back and using that diet plan that I am putting myself at risk of starvation mode. I have enough fat on my body to last a while and I exercise daily, I have no issues with being tired or anything like that. I see starving yourself as when u refuse to give the Body NOTHING for a long period of time.
    We are not in a concentration camp!! WE can feed our bodies and I have always ate something small every 4 hours, so my body knows it is getting fed.
  • FearAnLoathing
    FearAnLoathing Posts: 4,852 Member
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    I would like to get a wee bit off topic here,and say I really enjoyed this thread.This is such a heated topic around here.It was nice to see a disscusion on it were people were not acting like buttheads lol
  • JennLifts
    JennLifts Posts: 1,913 Member
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    I honestly find it to be a fine line. I put my body through some extreme times not knowing my burn vs my intake. I would end up eating 1200 and burning 1300. Had no clue. However, I was losing weight. (no I wasn't wanting to lose weight via killing my body). I think once you get to eating even below what would throw your body into the infamous "starvation mode", your body has absolutely no choice than to lose something. Yep, you're losing muscle, and the scale will drop, but in your right mind, you don't want to put your body through that. You drop bf%, and for girls... we're talking messing with having kids among plenty of other things. Scary stuff.

    Its based on so many variables, and some might have seen weight loss slow due to malnutrition, but there's no like bright blinking sign that says "eating too little caused you to plateau!"

    :)
  • BrianJLamb
    BrianJLamb Posts: 239 Member
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    Somebody posted something in here about starvation mode a while back. REAL starvation mode is serious and it isnt something that people in here seem to be outlining, as far as I can tell. There was a post about someone who was seriously obese and she had restricted herself to a really low caloric intake. She was eating less than 700 calories a day and GAINING weight. Her metabolism had shut down and she would just gain weight. Regardless of what she ate, she would gain weight. That is starvation mode. Your body stops expending energy and keeps storing it. This will only happen after a really long time of having really low calories and no exercise or activity. When your body starts snacking on your muscles, which is a bad thing, but it is also eating your fat away, you are not in starvation mode, but you do need to up your calories and eat more frequently.

    I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, and people can hate on it or whatever, but if you are looking for a high rate of fat loss, I don't see how you can expect to have no rate of muscle loss. It kindof goes with the territory. If you are moderate and healthy and are comfortable with a gradual and expected decline of a pound a week, then good for you. That is the right mentality and it will build into a healthy lifestyle, but to do it out of fear of this ever lurking, dangerous monster looming in the shadows, the Starvation Mode monster doesn't come out that often.
  • Still_Sossy
    Still_Sossy Posts: 868 Member
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    Generally, for a lot of people - you DON'T know. It's NOT something that happens in hours or days - it takes weeks or months of sustained underfeeding to occur. But typically some of the issues you CAN have is fatigue, tiredness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, hair loss, hormonal issues, lack of menstrual cycle, consistent plateau/weight gain, changes in hair/nails, depression, bingeing, loss of muscle tone.... Those are just some. But, as you can see, the list is a lot of things that could be caused by other things. So it can be difficult to know - you don't just wake up with a sign on your forehead.

    If you have your goals/deficit at an appropriate level, you meet/come close to daily goals, and are eating healthy foods, it's unlikely you would experience it.

    Here are some threads that describe what some people have experienced.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/175241-a-personal-view-on-exercise-cals-and-underfeeding

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/174065-starvation-mode-is-real-and-ugly

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/3047-700-calories-a-day-and-not-losing

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/158203-why-aren-t-i-losing-anything?page=1%23posts-2138274
    (Need to read through this whole thread to get to the good info)


    These just confused me even more, they were great to read, but now I wonder if 1200 cals is too little. Aughhhhh.
    And I do not want to be skinny fat, I want long lean toned beautiful muscles, so that right there is scary.
    Thank you for taking the time to post these, it really was awesome.

    Well... That was so not the goal. :laugh:

    Honestly, you can really let MFP do all the work for you. The numbers MFP uses are general guidelines, but they are pretty acceptable for most people. You may need to do slight tweaking occasionally, but it's really best when starting out (unless you are under the care of a professional who has advised a specific diet) to input your info correctly, and let MFP generate the numbers, and follow them.

    Based on the info I can see about you (15 lbs to go, at 5'11") I would guess that 1200 IS too low for you. Your BMR is going to be relatively high (compared to someone who is 5'2"). My best advice would be to check out this thread that has some great guidelines on how to figure out a good starting point for your goals/deficit.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

    Hopefully this one won't make the confusion any worse! :laugh:

    You are an awesome person, thank you!!!!
  • Woodman725
    Woodman725 Posts: 288 Member
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    I'm so glad to hear some good explanations that stress that this doesn't happen overnight. Thank you for pointing out that it does take some time for this to happen. In previous posts, some people seem to just throw around the warning to people that "you didn't eat enough this week, be careful your not in starvation mode!!". It should be something that we are aware of, but lets just realize that it doesn't happen in a day or probably even a week, unless of course your WAY under 1200cal/day.
  • TheWatchStander
    TheWatchStander Posts: 120
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    That's the joy of a social method of information gathering, you get a bunch of opinions for numerous people (many of which nuke it to death and ignore key points of someone Else's opinions so that they can then claim they are wrong).

    To everyone that says 1200 is incorrect... its a guideline. If you can't extrapolate how you may be different and adjust or ff you want to know what number actually pertains to you, go see a specialist because no one on here should be trusted with your overall health and well being.

    Our bodies are miraculous things. The body can detect patterns and adjust to maximize survivability based on those patterns. But since the body has set ways it responds to certain things (like caloric deficits) you can manipulate it to achieve the goals you want. The key is understanding how the body works.

    I think there is a large difference between the fear of the common diets "starvation mode" and the severe obesity "starvation mode". I suppose I just assumed we were all talking about the common diet "starvation mode" and provided the most relevant information I had on that topic while trying to skip the irrelevant tangents.

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