Starvation Mode

If you are in a calorie deficit (eating less than your body needs to run) you will lose weight.
Short of amputation or dehydration, it's the only way to lose weight.

Your body MUST have energy (calories) to run. If it runs out, you die.
It prefers glucose (blood sugar),
then it prefers glycogen (stored carbs, mostly in muscle & liver),
then it prefers fat,
and as a distant 4th choice it burns muscle.

We're all burning all of them to some degree all the time, but that's mostly the order of preference.
When you have enough protein in your diet, but are at a calorie deficit, you burn fat.
Without enough protein, or in a severe deficit, you burn muscle.

The reason that's a last-ditch hail Mary is because you're risking death (burning your heart or diaphragm
to the point where they can't work, and you die) in the hope of finding food.

If the body magically held onto calories when you don't eat enough, there would be no famine victims,
no anorexics.

The grain of truth in 'starvation mode' myth is that as you eat less, your body lowers your metabolism to
burn less. And if you're doing long-term starvation (e.g. VLCD) it goes lower, for longer, and is hard to
recover to normal.

My understanding is that your body slows down its metabolism if it thinks there is not enough food to nourish it.

ktbak wrote: »

My understanding is that your body slows down its metabolism if it thinks there is not enough food to nourish it.

You may want to read the thread that was linked in this post:

MKEgal wrote: »

Read this. Now. Several times.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

Thanks MKEgal. I always wondered about the "muscle weighing more than fat" and "starvation mode" types of thinking. Great blog post.

Here is an example of starvation mode:

Nope... and I'll even argue that the "as long as you get enough protein" argument is fairly controversial... or at least the definition of what's "enough" certainly is. The US has the highest recommended daily allowance of protein of all developed countries and people in lots of other developed countries aren't lacking for muscle. We don't need nearly as much protein in our diets as some people would have us believe. *ducks*

Bottom line: Weigh and measure and eat at a deficit. You'll lose fat. Simple as that.

DemoraFairy wrote: »

rsclause wrote: »

I think the science will very about as much as all of us very.

I tend to try not to correct grammar/spelling here since people seem to dislike it, but I spent too long trying to understand that sentence to not point out that very and vary are two different words!

Not to mention that it is against MFP's TOS.

atypicalsmith wrote: »

DemoraFairy wrote: »

rsclause wrote: »

I think the science will very about as much as all of us very.

I tend to try not to correct grammar/spelling here since people seem to dislike it, but I spent too long trying to understand that sentence to not point out that very and vary are two different words!

Not to mention that it is against MFP's TOS.

It says you can't attack, mock or insult someone for their written English, always thought that was more things like saying, "lol what do you know, you can't even spell lose," or "you're a complete idiot for thinking that eating too much sugar will make you gain weight, and the fact that you can't use apostrophes only proves that you're a massive idiot," rather than saying, "btw, plurals don't need apostrophes," or something like that.

SavannahStClair wrote: »

I see someone say "starvation mode," the idea that your body is desperately trying to hold on to weight due to its impression that you are starving. Is this a real thing?

The way most people describe it - no.

However, there are a number of problems with setting calories too low which markedly slows fat loss, sometimes to a crawl, so that it is masked on the scale due to a number of factors to include water retention, food which has not passed through the GI tract giving the impression that weight loss has stopped as a result of "starving."

When you plug your stats and activity into a calculator it determines your maintenance calories (TDEE / calories out) as of the moment in time you are inputting the data. You are then advised to eat a figure (calories in / diet) lower than TDEE to create a calorie deficit which causes weight loss. However this assumes your TDEE / calories out remains at least constant in the period you are dieting.

However low calories often have a detrimental affect on calories out - and this can manifest in a large fall in general or planned activity either consciously or unconsciously as well as some other factors (to include secret / unacknowledged eating in the face of mental deprivation). This means a lower TDEE in reality than was first inputted meaning a much smaller calorie deficit meaning weight loss slows to a crawl and shouts of "starvation mode yo!"

Weight loss isn't about the lowest amount of calories possible. It is about a personal weight loss "sweet spot" which could in fact be better achieved by eating more.