Don't believe in "Starvation Mode"?
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Last comment on this subject...We can discuss this topic without end concerning "starvation mode" and whether or not you should eat the calories you expend during exercise. My final example is the tv show the Biggest Loser. These contestants are usually obese. They work out almost 8 hours a day and still remain on a diet. They don't eat back the calories they expend and thus produce a huge deficit which results in huge weekly weight loss totals.
Because of the amount of weight they have lose. I'm sure they are still eating plenty and eating healthy.
The more you lose the harder it gets to continue losing.0 -
There are a lot of topics in the health and fitness field that seem 'controversial'. I use that term loosely though as there is always going to be a study or experience that proves something to be right or wrong. It's all in how researchers present the information.
I don't think you can call it starvation mode though when someone hits a plateau. People can hit plateaus on a 1400 calorie diet or a 700 calorie diet. It's about keeping your body guessing. I don't believe it is healthy to consume under 1200 calories per day, mentally or physically. I also feel the same about doing excess amounts of cardio... as this will slow your metabolism. Not because of the 'starvation mode', but because you begin to sacrifice precious muscle which will reduce your metabolic rate. Same goes with hitting a plateau after you have lost weight. You must adjust your calories according to weight loss. Your body needs less to survive.
Some may consider 'starvation mode' to be a slang word or jargon... you know like 'muscle confusion'. It is really just a decrease in your metabolism from have a reduction in calories or high expenditure of calories over an extended period of time. This can easily be prevented by cycling your macronutrients, increasing intensity and decreasing time, cycling calories so you take in more on more intense workout days, lifting harder, etc.
Another huge mistake people make is eating way under protein and way over on carbohydrates. It's much easier for the body to turn carbohydrates into fat than it is to turn protein into fat. It is more likely that people eating way under their calories (as in under 1200) to lose weight are taking in poor carbohydrate sources in excess rather than eating a lot of protein to meet their 'calorie goal'. Again, this is going to reduce metabolic rate.
Great post. You explain a lot of things in a few short paragraphs. Bump just for this.0 -
So what about sick people, or people on those medical 500 calorie optifast diets, or people who had weight loss surgery? Why isn't this starvation mode impact those people?
It can impact them. but you have to look really closely at the science here.
First you have to remember, Doctors aren't worried about muscle mass for someone who is morbidly obese and risking immanent death, they're worried about the death part, so sacrificing muscle mass to create a huge deficit for short (2 to 4 week) periods is perfectly reasonable assuming they monitor nutrient levels and make sure the patient's vital systems are functional.
Second, Nobody's saying that you won't still lose weight in starvation mode, the body can only reduce it's metabolic rate so much before it reaches a baseline required to remain conscious and active. Please note, this is not the same as a HEALTHY metabolic rate, things are compromised in this scenario, such as kidney function, gallbladder function, skin, hair, and nail health, energy levels, and maybe most importantly, immune system function. Essentially, the bigger the deficit, the more secondary (but still important) systems that are effected. The perfect, if extreme, example of this is anorexia. The patient still loses weight, but their teeth eventually rot, they gain a yellow gaunt look to their skin, their hair falls out, their gallbladder eventually stops working, they have minimal energy, their nails look yellow and really bad. And they are constantly fighting off infections that a healthy body would simply shrug off with ease.
Third, and this is IMPORTANT to grasp, so please re-read this as many times as you need to until you completely understand what I'm saying here.
The more fat you have available, the bigger your deficit can be without entering a state of long term underfeeding. So someone who's had WLS can have a large deficit because simply their body can keep generating energy from the fat stores in their body, why do you think they lose the weight so fast? You lose fat like an ice cube melts, from the outside in, the bigger the area available to pull energy from, the bigger the deficit can be. Until the body recognizes a deficit it can't compensate for by using fat stores, it won't begin making hormonal (and metabolic) changes to compensate. This means if you're obese, you can have a larger deficit than if you are at a healthy body fat %. the other thing to remember is that for people who have had WLS, 2 things happen, 1 their stomach volume gradually increases to allow for a more healthy amount of food, and they are monitored for nutrient levels during the recovery process to make sure that they are receiving the right amount of micronutrients for their body.
Someone at home creating a giant deficit won't have that luxury, and can thus be subject to multiple syndromes and deficiencies that are associated with malnutrition. And it's not like these things jump right out at you immediately, someone with anemia doesn't know they have it from one day to the next, it's a gradual onset, most people won't even recognize the symptoms of malnutrition until they become so severe that they cause physical changes. That doesn't mean the problem hasn't been occurring for a while, and causing harm.
I, and most people on here are trying to council healthy weight loss, maybe someone can have a bigger deficit than this site recommends, maybe they can't, but we take the approach of "it doesn't hurt to keep a slightly smaller deficit, so why risk that extra quarter or half lb loss if you don't have to? In the grand scheme, what are you gaining? A few extra months at a lower weight? Is that really worth losing your gallbladder over, or suffering a major internal infection, or losing your hair?"
Love the way you explain things, too. I like it when the right information gets put out there. I don't care how many people get irritated at the number of times this subject comes up. There are always new people joining and they need to see this stuff from the get go.0 -
I know that the whole starvation mode thing is widely believed. I just don't see the evidence in real life. I have two extremely thin sisters, both of whom eat very very little. Likewise the only way I have ever seriously lost weight was when I was eating 900 cals a day and rowing competitively, 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, plus weight training.
And how does the starvation mode thing explain anorexics? I have known enough anorexics to know that eating very little and exercising a lot does not result in people getting bigger!0 -
Last comment on this subject...We can discuss this topic without end concerning "starvation mode" and whether or not you should eat the calories you expend during exercise. My final example is the tv show the Biggest Loser. These contestants are usually obese. They work out almost 8 hours a day and still remain on a diet. They don't eat back the calories they expend and thus produce a huge deficit which results in huge weekly weight loss totals.
The Biggest Loser isn't an example of healthy sustainable weight loss. It's a game show with a large cash prize. Those folks are focused on dropping as much weight as fast as possible, long term side effects be damned. They are medically monitored everyday because what they are doing is extremely radical and can have it's own health consequences. Many of them have gained the weight back after the show was done. It is not the shining example of how to be healthy.
For your average person who is trying to get in shape and stay that way, a more moderate approach is going to result in sustainable weight loss, and long term maintenance. Fueling your work outs results in a shift in body composition from fat to muscle, and eventually long term loss.0 -
I understand that under-eating causes malnutrition, of course it does, but my real life observations have never born out the starvation mode gaining weight thing. It doesn't.
I think the reason some people's weight loss plateaus is that they reach their natural weight. I have seen a lot of people on here with unrealistically low weight goals. Of course they are going to struggle to lose any more weight once they are already at a weight that is healthy for their height and muscle bulk.0 -
I concur with what Silver said, and to add to that, also look back to my post a few back, read the part that I put IMPORTANT at the top of, then re-read it.
When you are clinically considered morbidly obese, the chance of immediate health risks outweighs the long term risks, add to that the massive amounts of energy available to these people by fat alone, and that they are probably having blood drawn weekly to check for nutrient deficiencies and other problems, you just can't compare them to the average person, event the average obese person at home trying this on their own. Firstly, they shouldnt' be trying to drop 100 to 200 lbs in 3 months like TBL, second, they don't have people teaching them how to deal with nutrition once they reach a goal, and third, these people are in a controlled environment where they don't have to deal with the stresses of every day life. Combine all these things with their size, and you have an abnormally high possibility for weight loss fast.
this is just not how it works in real life. It's a show.0 -
I understand that under-eating causes malnutrition, of course it does, but my real life observations have never born out the starvation mode gaining weight thing. It doesn't.
I think the reason some people's weight loss plateaus is that they reach their natural weight. I have seen a lot of people on here with unrealistically low weight goals. Of course they are going to struggle to lose any more weight once they are already at a weight that is healthy for their height and muscle bulk.
Again guys, we aren't saying you'll GAIN weight, we're saying the weight loss is usually unhealthy in starvation mode, and the expected weight loss will be higher than the actual weight loss. In some very rare situations you may actually gain weight in starvation mode, usually from a combination of incorrectly calculating your maintenance calories and/or your activity level combined with either binging or incorrectly estimating the calories you eat and burn, we are saying that you don't lose fat like you should, and you lose more muscle than you should, and you risk other health related issues from it. This is all about healthy weight loss vs. unhealthy and stunted weight loss. NOT weight gain.0 -
Ok, that makes sense. That's fine. I am just a bit bored of hearing that if you eat too little you will gain weight, because you just don't. I completely agree starvation isn't healthy.0
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I know that the whole starvation mode thing is widely believed. I just don't see the evidence in real life. I have two extremely thin sisters, both of whom eat very very little. Likewise the only way I have ever seriously lost weight was when I was eating 900 cals a day and rowing competitively, 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, plus weight training.
And how does the starvation mode thing explain anorexics? I have known enough anorexics to know that eating very little and exercising a lot does not result in people getting bigger!
I am fairly sure you have read NOTHING on this post because there were several pieces that explained these things in depth.
1) Your two extremely thin sisters are not an example of anything except that thin/smaller people don't need very much in the way of calories to maintain their weight. I'm not really sure what point you are making by bringing them up.
2) At 900 cals a day with that much working out, you may have lost weight, but did you keep it off? No because this is an unrealistic level of food/activity. You gained it back and since have had problems losing because your metabolism has slowed- requiring you to eat less food to lose.
3) Boss made a point of explaining how this applied to anorexia.
Just to explain a little and quickly- They are eating BELOW even the "starvation mode" level. Starvation mode isn't the same thing as starvation. Starvation mode is when you get to a certain level of body fat that your body is not comfortable just using your fat stores to supplement your calorie deficit. As a result it slows down your metabolism in an effort to store more fat with less calories. Anorexics eat even below this and even as their metabolic rates slow, their bodies are not getting enough to fuel basic organ function, let alone put anything else away.
4) Let me say this one more time- the way people get bigger in starvation mode is an error in their thinking. They eat very little, and pat themselves on the back for their restraint. Then the first time they go out or splurge, or don't workout enough, they gain very quickly because their bodies are eager to store anything they can. It doesn't mean people are going to forever gain eating like this, just that one step over the calories your body needs to fuction can equal weight gain. Even if you do this and continue to lose, you are not doing your body any favors.
I strongly suggest you go back to the original post and actually read some of the science behind this. It's not something a group of people just made up one day- its a conclusion that's been reached after years of tests and experiments.0 -
The theory of starvation mode as it is presented in forums such as these IS a myth. It breaks the laws of thermodynamics; there's no way around that.
You are mistaken. Here's why I think so. I am no medical doctor, but I know a few things about basic physics.
Here are the laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics Conservation of energy must apply to weight loss. That is true.
You put energy into your body by eating caloric food. The Calorie is a unit of energy, so it is directly a measure of how much energy you put into your body.
Your body has multiple ways to use energy that it receives:
- store it as chemical potential energy for later use == gain weight as fat
- use it to convert proteins into body parts == gain muscle mass (and more generally maintain your body cells)
- exercise (intentional or otherwise) == mechanically move your body to spend the energy, transferring the energy to other systems.
So, to violate the 1st law of thermodynamics, you would have to take in less calories that you use, and still gain weight (that is, put calories into fat storage). On the surface, that appears to be what people are talking about. It is not. The problem comes when you try to understand and predict how many calories your body burns.
Starvation mode is mechanically this: your body reacts to your diet by changing the efficiency at which it burns calories. Where MFP or any other site would tell you that your body burns an average of (lets say) 1800 calories per day. When you go into starvation mode, it could drop to 900 calories per day. (I am no biologist, these are just numbers out of the air.) So, this person goes on a 1100 net calorie diet, they start to lose weight. 1100 calories in - 1800 calories burned = -700 calories/day or 78g of fat burned from the body stores to make up the deficit. Then they hit "starvation mode" and their body quietly shuts down to burn only 900 calories per day (no this is not an instant process, just showing the difference here). The next day they consume 1100 calories, and the body burns 900 of them. The other 200 calories go into the fat stores, gaining back 22g fat per day.
Full starvation is when the body starts to consume protein stores (that is, vital parts of the body) to provide energy. That's obviously a lot more dangerous.
Ultimately the problem is with understanding how many calories your body is going to use. It is known and well documented in this thread that there is a Starvation Mode threshold that causes the body to change its energy usage. That's hard to predict and it invalidates the estimates provided by MFP. Thus: avoid starvation mode, and their estimates should be reasonably accurate, and you should continue to lose weight. If you hit starvation mode, the estimates are out the window, so you need to recalculate how many calories you need to continue to lose weight. If you lower your calorie intake further you risk reaching true starvation and causing damage to your body. They recommend (and rightly so) that you keep your body out of the starvation mode reaction so you can keep your energy usage up at the predicted levels and thus maintain the calorie deficit in a healthy way.0 -
One more thing - it isn't necessary for most people to eat so few calories (less than 1000) in order to get or remain fit. But if you do go that route and your body becomes accustomed to it (ie: your metabolism slows down to compensate for the lower calorie intake), then you're stuck eating so little as a routine. That, or gain weight when you start eating normally again. I know of many very fit, beautifully healthy women who eat from 1900-2500 calories a day and they weigh less than 110 pounds. I see people here eating 200-300 net a day! :noway: Why deprive yourself? It's so unnecessary.0
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The theory of starvation mode as it is presented in forums such as these IS a myth. It breaks the laws of thermodynamics; there's no way around that.
You are mistaken. Here's why I think so. I am no medical doctor, but I know a few things about basic physics.
Here are the laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics Conservation of energy must apply to weight loss. That is true.
You put energy into your body by eating caloric food. The Calorie is a unit of energy, so it is directly a measure of how much energy you put into your body.
Your body has multiple ways to use energy that it receives:
- store it as chemical potential energy for later use == gain weight as fat
- use it to convert proteins into body parts == gain muscle mass (and more generally maintain your body cells)
- exercise (intentional or otherwise) == mechanically move your body to spend the energy, transferring the energy to other systems.
So, to violate the 1st law of thermodynamics, you would have to take in less calories that you use, and still gain weight (that is, put calories into fat storage). On the surface, that appears to be what people are talking about. It is not. The problem comes when you try to understand and predict how many calories your body burns.
Starvation mode is mechanically this: your body reacts to your diet by changing the efficiency at which it burns calories. Where MFP or any other site would tell you that your body burns an average of (lets say) 1800 calories per day. When you go into starvation mode, it could drop to 900 calories per day. (I am no biologist, these are just numbers out of the air.) So, this person goes on a 1100 net calorie diet, they start to lose weight. 1100 calories in - 1800 calories burned = -700 calories/day or 78g of fat burned from the body stores to make up the deficit. Then they hit "starvation mode" and their body quietly shuts down to burn only 900 calories per day (no this is not an instant process, just showing the difference here). The next day they consume 1100 calories, and the body burns 900 of them. The other 200 calories go into the fat stores, gaining back 22g fat per day.
Full starvation is when the body starts to consume protein stores (that is, vital parts of the body) to provide energy. That's obviously a lot more dangerous.
Ultimately the problem is with understanding how many calories your body is going to use. It is known and well documented in this thread that there is a Starvation Mode threshold that causes the body to change its energy usage. That's hard to predict and it invalidates the estimates provided by MFP. Thus: avoid starvation mode, and their estimates should be reasonably accurate, and you should continue to lose weight. If you hit starvation mode, the estimates are out the window, so you need to recalculate how many calories you need to continue to lose weight. If you lower your calorie intake further you risk reaching true starvation and causing damage to your body. They recommend (and rightly so) that you keep your body out of the starvation mode reaction so you can keep your energy usage up at the predicted levels and thus maintain the calorie deficit in a healthy way.
Good post, in the Minnesota Semi-Starvation Study, subjects dropped their metabolism by 30-40%
This is very significant, since metabolism is our best tool for burning body-fat.
No one can tell me it isn't real since I've been through it.0 -
I don't usually comment on stuffs but leptin is only significant in mouse not in human. Just FYI. the hormone is presented in our body but changing altering the hormone itself does nothing for human weight lost or weight gain.0
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I don't usually comment on stuffs but leptin is only significant in mouse not in human. Just FYI. the hormone is presented in our body but changing altering the hormone itself does nothing for human weight lost or weight gain.
That's not true, many obese people are leptin resistant just like diabetics are insulin resistant. So in some it means nothing, but the hormone definitely helps to regulate hunger and food satisfaction.0 -
You are right, I haven't read the entire 7 page thread....because I have children and don't have time for that kind of thing.
I put on weight after I stopped rowing. I stopped rowing because I left university and had to actually have a life, not spend all day doing sport.
Nothing to do with starvation mode.0 -
You are right, I haven't read the entire 7 page thread....because I have children and don't have time for that kind of thing.
I put on weight after I stopped rowing. I stopped rowing because I left university and had to actually have a life, not spend all day doing sport.
Nothing to do with starvation mode.
Sure for you it wasn't but for others it is.
How else do you explain it when someone eats 1,200 calories a day, has a BMR of 1,400 and burns 500 calories 5 days a week working out and they don't lose weight for a month or even gain weight?
I've seen the above happen several times, most non-believers say they are lying about their food intake and that might be true in some cases but I know in some it wasn't in all of them.
I know that it has happened to me. I logged everything and I was honest about it.0 -
I don't usually comment on stuffs but leptin is only significant in mouse not in human. Just FYI. the hormone is presented in our body but changing altering the hormone itself does nothing for human weight lost or weight gain.
http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n1/full/0803070a.htmlThese findings suggest that leptin has an instrumental role in restoring energy balance in humans through the expression of appetite.0 -
You are right, I haven't read the entire 7 page thread....because I have children and don't have time for that kind of thing.
I put on weight after I stopped rowing. I stopped rowing because I left university and had to actually have a life, not spend all day doing sport.
Nothing to do with starvation mode.
You don't have to read the whole thing, but the original poster (among many others) put together well thought out explinations on what "starvation mode" or "nutrition deprivation" is, how it works and why it affects so many people, particularly on this website. Your post tried to wave that off with limited empirical evidence which had been addressed several times.0 -
Weight is a very fickle thing. You could weigh yourself 10 times during the day and get a different reading each time. I admit I have a tendency to sometimes go over my calorie goal.I don't actually think this has done me any harm at all,I still managed to lose 4 lb last week. But sometimes I am too far under and get told by MFP that my body will go into starvation mode. While I agree that starvation mode is real,i do not think that your body will start to store fat if you don't eat the required calories for one day. If you have had 3 meals,i think your body will be fine.0
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To be clear:
What 75% (my estimate) of MFP users would define "Starvation Mode" as...
THAT, I do not believe in.
Testimonials, anecdotal evidence, all of it means NOTHING in my opinion. Show me scientific evidence of a starving person that gains weight as a direct result of their starvation.
The 'gaining weight' part of Starvation Mode: You don't consume many calories for days in a row. Your body will start to crave the nutrients it isn't getting. So your metabolism comes to a screeching halt. Your body stops burning fat and starts to hang onto it. You give in to the cravings and eat the wrongs kinds of carbs and sugars (the bad ones). Your body stores that as fat because your metabolism has slowed so much.
The 'losing weight' part of Starvation Mode: You fight through those cravings and continue to consume too few calories. You continue to lose weight but you are not losing fat at this point. You don't have enough of for your body to think it's okay to burn off. So it turns to lean muscle mass for fuel and that starts to decrease. This decrease causes your metabolism to slow down even more. So your body starts to figure out what functions it needs to stop to help conserve energy (a calorie is a unit of energy - our fuel). So it starts shutting down systems and organs (this can include your brain functions). It becomes a 'starvation diet'. You can read about those effects by searching "The Minnesota Starvation Diet Experiement:".
And I'm no expert but I have been there and I have been researching this for 5 months now. I might not have explained as well as other people and I'm not good with words. And I gained 20 pounds in less than a year by "not eating".
(This scientific name for Starvation Mode is "Thermogenesis". It is real). It just gets put into a very, very strict definition here because most people are black/white when it comes to dieting.0 -
I don't usually comment on stuffs but leptin is only significant in mouse not in human. Just FYI. the hormone is presented in our body but changing altering the hormone itself does nothing for human weight lost or weight gain.
That's not true, many obese people are leptin resistant just like diabetics are insulin resistant. So in some it means nothing, but the hormone definitely helps to regulate hunger and food satisfaction.
Diabetics are not "insulin resistant".
Type 1 Diabetes is a condition when no insulin is secreted, it is an auto-immune disease. Type 2 Diabetes is indeed an impairment of insulin receptors. I suppose that is what you mean by your remark.0 -
To be clear:
What 75% (my estimate) of MFP users would define "Starvation Mode" as...
THAT, I do not believe in.
Testimonials, anecdotal evidence, all of it means NOTHING in my opinion. Show me scientific evidence of a starving person that gains weight as a direct result of their starvation.
The 'gaining weight' part of Starvation Mode: You don't consume many calories for days in a row. Your body will start to crave the nutrients it isn't getting. So your metabolism comes to a screeching halt. Your body stops burning fat and starts to hang onto it. You give in to the cravings and eat the wrongs kinds of carbs and sugars (the bad ones). Your body stores that as fat because your metabolism has slowed so much.
The 'losing weight' part of Starvation Mode: You fight through those cravings and continue to consume too few calories. You continue to lose weight but you are not losing fat at this point. You don't have enough of for your body to think it's okay to burn off. So it turns to lean muscle mass for fuel and that starts to decrease. This decrease causes your metabolism to slow down even more. So your body starts to figure out what functions it needs to stop to help conserve energy (a calorie is a unit of energy - our fuel). So it starts shutting down systems and organs (this can include your brain functions). It becomes a 'starvation diet'. You can read about those effects by searching "The Minnesota Starvation Diet Experiement:".
Indeed. And the point is constantly being made that the situation that the Experiment refers to is not one that may people on MFP will ever encounter.0 -
bump0
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Weight is a very fickle thing. You could weigh yourself 10 times during the day and get a different reading each time. I admit I have a tendency to sometimes go over my calorie goal.I don't actually think this has done me any harm at all,I still managed to lose 4 lb last week. But sometimes I am too far under and get told by MFP that my body will go into starvation mode. While I agree that starvation mode is real,i do not think that your body will start to store fat if you don't eat the required calories for one day. If you have had 3 meals,i think your body will be fine.
The issue here isn't one day over or under. It isn't even about a week over or under. It's about prolonged habits that alter the body's chemistry and energy demands. In addition, it's not that long term under eating makes the body store more fat. It slows down the rate that the body burns the fat it already has. That tissue is very high energy, and if a body goes into survival mode it is going to want to hang on to that as long as possible. Again, it's not that it's making more, it's just not burning the fat it has.
Along those lines, from what I have observed (anecdotal, no science reference), is that folks prone to long term under eating are also prone to binge cycles. That kind of behavior seems to be what lead to weight gain on low calorie diets. The body is desperate for energy, but instead of burning those extra binge calories, it packs them away for use later.0 -
I was eating about 500-700 calories a day from nov 22 til mid jan. and lost 14 lbs. I was working out six days a week (cardio) and was going strong. After mid jan i was still working out six days a week and still eating between 5 and 7 hundred calories a day and didn't lost anything i got frustrated, started eating more and started gaining weight back.. until three weeks ago when i started the spike diet. it's been slow, i've lost 3 lbs in three weeks, but i work out 5 days a week now, incoorporate bodypump (strength training class) and body step (cardio class) and i'm getting back on track.0
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Adding to bookmarks!0
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Last comment on this subject...We can discuss this topic without end concerning "starvation mode" and whether or not you should eat the calories you expend during exercise. My final example is the tv show the Biggest Loser. These contestants are usually obese. They work out almost 8 hours a day and still remain on a diet. They don't eat back the calories they expend and thus produce a huge deficit which results in huge weekly weight loss totals.
I would recommend reading through this whole thread. Banks (Boss) already addressed this (particularly the part about medical supervision.)
1. Exactly correct - almost all contestants are morbidly obese. They can afford a higher deficit than most people.
2. If you have looked at any of the info coming out of the show (other than the show's own propaganda), there are several testimonials and examples of why is not necessarily desirable (and can be dangerous) to try to apply the same strategies they use on the show to normal people trying to lose weight at home. Many of the people regain weight. And their health during the show (and after) is adversely affected. They are dehydrated, lose muscle, injured, and experience serious psychological issues. Just because they lose weight quickly does NOT mean they are healthy. They lose weight, yes - but in a very UNhealthy manner. Can it be done? Yes. Are there very serious risks involved? Yes. Should it be done? VERY rarely. Only if there already major health issues that require losing weight quickly. In some circumstances the benefits of rapid weight loss can outweigh the risks. But that's a VERY small percentage of obese individuals.0 -
Hello,
any advice is greatly appreciated...
Can anyone out there help me to understand this whole "eating enough" business? I know I am only on the beginning steps of my journey, and a lot older than I was the last time I kicked it into high gear, but I have to say I am getting frustrated! Although I am still consuming 1200-1500 calories a day, I have cut out nearly that amount from my prior "diet". I was incredibly unhealthy; consuming nearly a case of sodas a day! I know...scary right?!?! I don't know how I got so out of control...just my only vice, I guess; and I totally believe that soda drinks are addictive, but my increasing weight, and a wake up call from both my MD and my dentist inspired me to quit cold turkey! So, perhaps it was wishful thinking, but I just assumed that cutting out a whole daily vaue of calories, and probably a week's worth of sugar a day that I would see results rather quickly. Now, I knew that things would level off, but I guess I had hoped for a pretty big drop in the beginning. So here's my question, and I know few of you are registered to make any medical diagnoses, or give advice on that level, but was hoping some of you may have learned ( trough experience, or education) why I may be experiencing this phenomenon. Is my body essentially in starvation/storage mode since I have reduced caloric intake so dratically, or am I just not yet consuming few enough calories for my body to burn as least what I eat and more? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer....0 -
Hello,
any advice is greatly appreciated...
Can anyone out there help me to understand this whole "eating enough" business? I know I am only on the beginning steps of my journey, and a lot older than I was the last time I kicked it into high gear, but I have to say I am getting frustrated! Although I am still consuming 1200-1500 calories a day, I have cut out nearly that amount from my prior "diet". I was incredibly unhealthy; consuming nearly a case of sodas a day! I know...scary right?!?! I don't know how I got so out of control...just my only vice, I guess; and I totally believe that soda drinks are addictive, but my increasing weight, and a wake up call from both my MD and my dentist inspired me to quit cold turkey! So, perhaps it was wishful thinking, but I just assumed that cutting out a whole daily vaue of calories, and probably a week's worth of sugar a day that I would see results rather quickly. Now, I knew that things would level off, but I guess I had hoped for a pretty big drop in the beginning. So here's my question, and I know few of you are registered to make any medical diagnoses, or give advice on that level, but was hoping some of you may have learned ( trough experience, or education) why I may be experiencing this phenomenon. Is my body essentially in starvation/storage mode since I have reduced caloric intake so dratically, or am I just not yet consuming few enough calories for my body to burn as least what I eat and more? Thanks in advance for any help you can offer....
How long have you been at this?0
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