The Starvation Mode Myth...again.
Options
Replies
-
-1
-
Things I hate more than 'starvation mode':
1. "Maybe your body is clinging on to fat"
2. "Help! I've gained 3lbs even though I've been eating 1200 calories. I did go for a run three times this week though, maybe I've built muscle?"
3 lbs is nothing to panic. How long have you been running ? 3 lbs of muscles from running not seems a possibilty. When you start endurance exercises, your muscles start to store more glycogen which sugar+water. So one or two lbs of variation is quite common in the intial week or two.
Clinging on to fat often happens due to imbalance in the diet. See if you take enough of proteins & fats (yes) in your diet. More carbs often lead to the fat-clinging syndrome.0 -
.....?0 -
sridharj23 wrote: »Things I hate more than 'starvation mode':
1. "Maybe your body is clinging on to fat"
2. "Help! I've gained 3lbs even though I've been eating 1200 calories. I did go for a run three times this week though, maybe I've built muscle?"
3 lbs is nothing to panic. How long have you been running ? 3 lbs of muscles from running not seems a possibilty. When you start endurance exercises, your muscles start to store more glycogen which sugar+water. So one or two lbs of variation is quite common in the intial week or two.
Clinging on to fat often happens due to imbalance in the diet. See if you take enough of proteins & fats (yes) in your diet. More carbs often lead to the fat-clinging syndrome.
Lol no. I'm saying I hate *hearing* people say that more than when they talk about starvation mode. Your body doesn't 'cling' to fat, and it takes a heck of a lot of work (and time) to build muscle.1 -
I always used to think that "starvation mode" was mostly hype. However, a bit more than a month ago, I cut my daily calorie intake from 1,930 to 1,680 in order to accellerate weight loss. Within 1 week, I started gaining weight. Within 4 weeks, I had gained about 5 lbs.
I had been tracking food diligently for months at a loss and made no changes to food tracking. I continued to use a food scale and a Fitbit, and strived for accuracy before, during, and after this weight gain at lower calories. During this time, I was hungrier (as expected, since I was eating less than I had been up to that point).
Then I read that if my daily calorie intake was less than RMR, I would gain weight. Using an online calculator, I got a result of 1,747 for RMR. So I decided to raise my calories to 1,930 again. Within 1 week, I lost all of the weight that I had gained in the prior 4 weeks plus nearly 1 lb. additional.
Often, I see plateaus and then large losses just like everybody else, but this was the first time I had ever seen a GAIN and then a large loss. Nobody has been able to explain this to me (aside from claiming that I must have started eating lots without recording it for those 4 weeks... even if true would not explain the large loss at the end) from a scientific standpoint. So I personally no longer believe that "starvation mode" is BS. Instead, my plan in the future is to eat above RMR and below TDEE. As I get closer to my goal weight, that gap will become smaller and smaller, and I will have to rely on exercise more to have a gap at all and to achieve weight loss.1 -
sridharj23 wrote: »Things I hate more than 'starvation mode':
1. "Maybe your body is clinging on to fat"
2. "Help! I've gained 3lbs even though I've been eating 1200 calories. I did go for a run three times this week though, maybe I've built muscle?"
3 lbs is nothing to panic. How long have you been running ? 3 lbs of muscles from running not seems a possibilty. When you start endurance exercises, your muscles start to store more glycogen which sugar+water. So one or two lbs of variation is quite common in the intial week or two.
Clinging on to fat often happens due to imbalance in the diet. See if you take enough of proteins & fats (yes) in your diet. More carbs often lead to the fat-clinging syndrome.
Lol no. I'm saying I hate *hearing* people say that more than when they talk about starvation mode. Your body doesn't 'cling' to fat, and it takes a heck of a lot of work (and time) to build muscle.
:-) But I know this clinging to fat. My wife was working out for over 12 weeks without any loss in weight and we were heavily blaming her hypothyrodism for this. Recently we realized (being vegetarians) that we were going too low on protein and simply by adding more protein she lost 8 lbs in 4 weeks and I lost 4 without even any workouts (:-))0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »I always used to think that "starvation mode" was mostly hype. However, a bit more than a month ago, I cut my daily calorie intake from 1,930 to 1,680 in order to accellerate weight loss. Within 1 week, I started gaining weight. Within 4 weeks, I had gained about 5 lbs.
Really, in order to GAIN weight, you need to be taking in more calories than you were expending. You cannot consume LESS and gain weight, just like you drink more alcohol and get less drunk. It really is that simple.
@sridharj23, I'm willing to bet that the lack of protein in your wife's diet before led to her consuming more calories due to not being as full as she would have been if she had been consuming more protein. Thus, more protein = less food overall. It takes 3500 less calories to lose 1lb. It's that simple.
0 -
Good bump. But we have learned tons more about human physiology since the 1950's. I will post on the "starvation" myth later on today, but first I have an assignment for you. The gold standard of physiology is Guyton's Textbook of Medical Physiology. It is updated every few years with the latest in research findings that HAVE BEEN GENERALLY ACCEPTED BY THE WORLD'S SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY.
In other words, not a lot of stuff you see on Oz's show.
And it is surprisingly readable- though a science background helps.
Google it and you can download a FREE copy of this AMAZING textbook in PDF format. It is outdated by an edition, but that is not a big deal.
Anyone who is interested in this thread, or interested in weight loss or getting fit, should have this reference on their computer.
steve. Thanks for the reference. Sounds quite interesting. Will read it.0 -
0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »I always used to think that "starvation mode" was mostly hype. However, a bit more than a month ago, I cut my daily calorie intake from 1,930 to 1,680 in order to accellerate weight loss. Within 1 week, I started gaining weight. Within 4 weeks, I had gained about 5 lbs.
Really, in order to GAIN weight, you need to be taking in more calories than you were expending. You cannot consume LESS and gain weight, just like you drink more alcohol and get less drunk. It really is that simple.
I've always thought that and understood it to be the case. So tell me... wtf happened in my circumstance?0 -
Not to mention most of the "starvation mode" (lack of a better term) wont even start until your BF gets below 10 percent according to what ive read and understand.0
-
midwesterner85 wrote: »midwesterner85 wrote: »I always used to think that "starvation mode" was mostly hype. However, a bit more than a month ago, I cut my daily calorie intake from 1,930 to 1,680 in order to accellerate weight loss. Within 1 week, I started gaining weight. Within 4 weeks, I had gained about 5 lbs.
Really, in order to GAIN weight, you need to be taking in more calories than you were expending. You cannot consume LESS and gain weight, just like you drink more alcohol and get less drunk. It really is that simple.
I've always thought that and understood it to be the case. So tell me... wtf happened in my circumstance?
No idea. I'm by no means an expert. But there are lots of variables that could have affected weight. You say you felt hungrier - is it possible that you (even subconsciously) cut down on cardio due to lack of energy? 1680 is not a lot of calories - I eat more than that! Last week I cut my calories and I was so tired from the change that I skipped all my dance classes for the first three days, went home and slept.
Did you change the actual foods you were eating? I know people say it doesn't matter what you eat, only how much, but for me more processed foods (sodium) shows a gain or a stall on the scale.
If I'm strength training hard, especially if I just upped the weight a notch, I'll completely stall on the scale.
Lots of things can play a part, but not starvation mode. Like someone just said, for metabolic issues to occur, we're talking way more than a few weeks and far fewer calories than 1600.
0 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »midwesterner85 wrote: »I always used to think that "starvation mode" was mostly hype. However, a bit more than a month ago, I cut my daily calorie intake from 1,930 to 1,680 in order to accellerate weight loss. Within 1 week, I started gaining weight. Within 4 weeks, I had gained about 5 lbs.
Really, in order to GAIN weight, you need to be taking in more calories than you were expending. You cannot consume LESS and gain weight, just like you drink more alcohol and get less drunk. It really is that simple.
I've always thought that and understood it to be the case. So tell me... wtf happened in my circumstance?
No idea. I'm by no means an expert. But there are lots of variables that could have affected weight. You say you felt hungrier - is it possible that you (even subconsciously) cut down on cardio due to lack of energy? 1680 is not a lot of calories - I eat more than that! Last week I cut my calories and I was so tired from the change that I skipped all my dance classes for the first three days, went home and slept.
Did you change the actual foods you were eating? I know people say it doesn't matter what you eat, only how much, but for me more processed foods (sodium) shows a gain or a stall on the scale.
If I'm strength training hard, especially if I just upped the weight a notch, I'll completely stall on the scale.
Lots of things can play a part, but not starvation mode. Like someone just said, for metabolic issues to occur, we're talking way more than a few weeks and far fewer calories than 1600.
I wasn't really exercising before-hand beyond normal daily activities, and didn't afterwards. The Fitbit didn't indicate a major decrease in normal daily walking.
I did not change the actual foods, just ate less than normal.
Seriously, though, it would be nice to have an explanation. The problem with any explanation that people try to come up with is that it is based on another [assumed] change that occured. I didn't change activity levels, I didn't change the actual foods, I didn't change sleep habits, I didn't change macros or even micronutrients... I didn't change anything except the amount of food (calories). Making that one change caused me to gain weight, and then making the change back caused a quick loss of the recent gain. By the way, that confirmed what I had read (that eating less than RMR could cause weight gain).0 -
Maybe your scale broke!0
-
Maybe your scale broke!
Same scale, relatively new in fact, showing downward trends for 2 months, then an upward trend for a month, and now a downard trend again. So even if it was broken when I bought it, there are patterns... so it is not as though it was just giving random results.0 -
i mean, not having monitored you for the entire time, I really can't say. There are just too many things that are the real culprit of weight gain, not eating less.0
-
It could be a decrease in leptin at that level of food intake (starvation mode, depending upon what terminology you care to use). Everyone here at MFP wants to believe it is as simple as calories in vs. calories out. The human body is much more complex than that, and it is important to acknowledge this important fact.0
-
Here is my idea about it, yes, based on anecdotal clinical work. I found that working with women who were eating approximately 800-1200 kcals per day, they often were stalled in weight loss. If we bumped them to above 1200 kcals per day weight loss would restart. What we thought was going on is that below about 1200, metabolism slows (aka body getting more efficient) thus slowing weight loss. Once down below about 800 kcals, the deficit is too great for even the slowed metabolism to compensate for, so with very low calorie diets you will still see weight loss progress. Our rule of thumb was 1200 minimum for females and 1800 minimum for males.
Like I said, this is anecdotal and there isn't any empiricism to it, but if you are stalled and below those thresholds, trying to raise your calories might help.2 -
Yeah. What is it with you and that book?0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 389 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 918 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions