? about body in starvation mode

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axman19
axman19 Posts: 79 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hello,

Curious as I see alot of people on here talking about too little calories. I am 6'0" 250lbs and have been eating around 700 daily. The 700 is made up of Multigrain cheerios w/1%milk breakfast, Carrot sticks mid morning snack, Sliced Turkey breast sandwich for lunch on 45cal multigrain(x2), yogurt afternoon snack and another sanwich same as lunch or a full chicken breast for dinner. I drink around 150 ounces of water as well a day. Am in in starvation mode even though I feel really good? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Replies

  • sarahliftsUP
    sarahliftsUP Posts: 752 Member
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    Forget starvation mode.

    You aren't feeding your body the nutrients it needs.. you need a certain amount of carbs, protein, and fat. You also require a certain amount of micronutrients, like iron, calcium, zinc, etc. There is no way you are getting that based on 700 calories a day. You definitely need to eat more. You don't plan on eating 700 calories a day for the rest of your life do you? No. It's not feasible. You will scar your metabolism completely..
  • Crooks0204
    Crooks0204 Posts: 189
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    I hope someone with more knowledge posts on here to give you some advice but I know for SURE for a man you are not eating near enough food to fuel your body!!!!!
  • costewar
    costewar Posts: 16 Member
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    As part of my undergraduate course work, we had a class specifically for diet selection and prescription, which also went into detail about the consequences of fad diets, eating disorders, and disordered eating. For adults, the suggested minimum calorie requirements for adult women was 1000 calories/day, and adult men was 1200 calories/day.

    Even though you may feel fine, and you may see results fairly quickly...I can tell you it's ineffective in the long-term results, and in most cases who follow under consumption do gain their weight back, plus more. Also, under consumption means the breakdown of protein (muscles), which weakens the body.

    This is just the tip of the iceberg on giving out info on low-calorie dieting. If you have any more questions, feel free to add me as a friend or message me anytime!
  • CraigIW
    CraigIW Posts: 176
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    Forget starvation mode because you have plenty of fat to burn before you'll get anywhere near it. If you don't feel too hungry then don't worry. As other posters say, make sure you get your nutrients, probably best by taking a good multi-vitamin.
  • srp2011
    srp2011 Posts: 1,829 Member
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    To emphasize what the previous poster said and drive home the point, what you are doing is flat-out unhealthy and dangerous. Aside from effects on your metabolism, because your body is not getting the nurition it needs, it will start breaking down muscle and other systems will slow down and stop working effectively. Essentially, eating this little is anorexia, and you can easily check out the side effects of that on your health - at 6'0", you need to be eating a lot more than 700 calories a day, with a lot more variety than what you are currently getting - fresh fruits and vegetables, more protein, etc.. Your mind can play tricks on you and make you think you feel fine. You need to be smarter than that and do what is known to be healthy. You should shoot for a weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week, which MFP can and does set for you - that's healthy - anything else risks your health long term.
  • rosemadderv
    rosemadderv Posts: 25
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    You might want to look again at what the site is recommending as your daily calorie target. If you are really concerned about not losing weight fast enough, remember that what is quickly lost is generally quickly gained back as well.

    They pretty clearly state that the lowest anyone should try for is around 1200 cal per day. That's what I'm eating per day as a 5'3" woman at about 140lb's and I'm losing weight just fine. Look at the recommendation, commit to eating all of those calories (and trying to hit the targets for carbs, protein fiber etc) and see how you are doing in a week.

    What you are doing right now is not healthy or sustainable. That is pretty much the bottom line.

    Good luck!
  • axman19
    axman19 Posts: 79 Member
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    Thanks for all the post guys/gals as I am new to this site. I am going to try to add in more. I am curious to as what you guys are saying is eat more(a couple sandwiches for lunch/dinner) or eat different things with different nutrients.
  • carloP90X
    carloP90X Posts: 109
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    Up your daily caloric intake to 2,000 calories. 50% of those calories should be from protein, 30% from carbs and 20% from fat. That translates to 1,000 calories from protein, 600 calories from carbs and 400 calories from fat. You are currently feeling good because you are riding on inspiration. Once that ends, you will most likely go on an eating-fest.
  • Meg28
    Meg28 Posts: 59
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    Actually I would recheck your calories...what you wrote seems much more than 700 which probably explains it. The bread alone on the sandwiches are probably at least 400 calories...
  • axman19
    axman19 Posts: 79 Member
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    Actually I would recheck your calories...what you wrote seems much more than 700 which probably explains it. The bread alone on the sandwiches are probably at least 400 calories...

    The bread is 45 per slice which equates to 180 per day in calories from bread.
  • Crooks0204
    Crooks0204 Posts: 189
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    check out the recipe section and see what sounds good to you. also you definately need to add some color (fruits and veges) to your diet. good luck with your goals!!!
  • axman19
    axman19 Posts: 79 Member
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    Wow, the responses on this site amaze me. Moving it up to top of my favorites as i type. I am good at taking direction so all the comments are very welcomed. I work 70 hours a week so not alot of time for other things, so eating has to be my main focus on weight loss.
  • axman19
    axman19 Posts: 79 Member
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    For instance, if I am at 700 calories right now, but need an extra dose of calories. Should I be running over to subway or what?
  • SoUnaware
    SoUnaware Posts: 85 Member
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    Forget starvation mode because you have plenty of fat to burn before you'll get anywhere near it. If you don't feel too hungry then don't worry. As other posters say, make sure you get your nutrients, probably best by taking a good multi-vitamin.

    THIS IS WRONG.
    I don't have a lot of time to explain this because I need to get going, but, I don't know how long you've been eating 700 calories, but with your height and weight the amount of calories you are eating puts you in a "starvation diet". Starvation diets cause the body to go into starvation mode over a period of time.
    You know how people who never get food survive? Starvation mode. Their body starts to shut down and eat at the fats and muscles, using them as nutrients because they are not getting enough through food. You should be eating a MINIMUM of 900-1000 calories to keep yourself out of a starvation diet. If you upped your calories to 1000 for a few days, you might start to feel light headed and hungry, because your metabolism will start to kick back in.
    Saying that you have enough fat is also completely inapropriate, because the muscles fuel the body better, so it'll eat away at the muscles first. In the end, you'll lose weight, and fast. But once you get to a normal weight through starving your body, you'll have an abnormally high body fat percentage because your body ate away at a lot of your muscle mass.
  • registers
    registers Posts: 782 Member
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    Ask yourself this, can you keep your diet up for the rest of your life? If you can't, find something that will help you lose weight that you can maintain the rest of your life.
  • axman19
    axman19 Posts: 79 Member
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    Ask yourself this, can you keep your diet up for the rest of your life? If you can't, find something that will help you lose weight that you can maintain the rest of your life.

    Great question. I think this diet would be hard to keep up for the rest of my life, nor would i want this to be my diet the rest of my life.
  • costewar
    costewar Posts: 16 Member
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    Up your daily caloric intake to 2,000 calories. 50% of those calories should be from protein, 30% from carbs and 20% from fat. That translates to 1,000 calories from protein, 600 calories from carbs and 400 calories from fat. You are currently feeling good because you are riding on inspiration. Once that ends, you will most likely go on an eating-fest.

    I don't intend to offend you, but carbohydrates are the most important energy source for the body which should make up 45-65% of your total calories for the day. Next is fat 20-35%, and protein is anywhere from 10-35% of total calories.

    Depending on your age, gender, activity level, and type of activity you concentrate in (i.e. weight lifting vs cross country running) will play a role on the carb/fat/protein composition of your diet.
  • jane130
    jane130 Posts: 28 Member
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    When your body goes into "starvation mode" it is trying to prevent itself from dying. It will hold onto the fat for as long as possible, using up every possible other fuel store first. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, meaning it needs a lot of fuel (think calories) to sustain itself from day to day. Fat is relatively inert, its simply a storage vessel and not much else. So when times get tough, the fat stays and the muscle goes.

    The best way to get rid of fat is to eat the appropriate amount (not too much and not too little) of food/nutrients to build and maintain muscle.
  • taso42_DELETED
    taso42_DELETED Posts: 3,394 Member
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    Ask yourself this, can you keep your diet up for the rest of your life? If you can't, find something that will help you lose weight that you can maintain the rest of your life.

    Great question. I think this diet would be hard to keep up for the rest of my life, nor would i want this to be my diet the rest of my life.

    Bingo. Use that litmus test for any changes you make to your diet. Whatever your doing should be sustainable forever. Some people have short term success doing crash diets or other weird things. The vast majority of these people are the serial dieters who lose weight, gain it back, lose weight, gain it back, ad naseum. To really succeed, you need to learn how to eat RIGHT and just do it, starting today and sticking with it till you die. Once you get used to it, there's really no going back.

    Aim for something like 1800-2000 calories per day. The numbers that MFP gives you, in my experience have been too low, especially for men. I bet it will tell you to eat something like 1500 per day. Don't go below that level. I don't honestly see how you could, without feeling starving all the time.

    For best results in terms of energy and feeling of well being, eat as many clean unprocessed foods as possible. I don't know how long you've been on 700/day (and man, I hope you've somehow been counting wrong). If it's been a while, your metabolism will have probably slowed down a bit; when you up the calories back to normal, you may see some weight gain. Don't get alarmed at this. Stick to it and things will settle out and you will begin regular healthy weight loss again.

    Last night, my DINNER ALONE was 741 calories.
  • axman19
    axman19 Posts: 79 Member
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    Please dont rip on me, but yes in the past i have done every may or june a 20-30lb drop in weight that month and then gained it back throughout the year and did it all over again the next spring. This is why I am here, I think I can maintain it and keep going lower to get at my perfect weight. And yes, I am ashamed after lookin at all the responses I have gotten but I have done 700 calories a day for close to a month at a time.

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