Starvation Mode
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Read this. Now. Several times.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
Thank you for this, I really enjoyed reading it.
I have to say that when people have in conversation used the terms "starvation mode" and "muscle weighs more than fat" it's never really made sense to me, but I'm not sciencey enough to be able to explain why I've always suspected they were myths. This has answered that for me...thanks!
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SavannahStClair wrote: »Read this. Now. Several times.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
Thank you for this, it was both interesting and entertaining.The problem is usually twofold:
1 - they're not logging their food accurately (weigh, measure)
2 - their burn isn't as high as they think
Both of which contribute to
3 - don't eat back exercise calories
I agree about not eating back exercise calories. It can be difficult, however, especially after working up a sweat, you feel like you deserve a little something extra! (Right!?) However, I may have to go "premium" so I can avoid having the exercise calories added to my total, OR only log my exercise at the end of the day, so as to not fool myself into thinking I have more calories left than I actually do.
If you log accurately and follow MFP's method of setting your calorie goal, you should be eating back at least part of your exercise calories, though. Not because too big of a deficit will put you in 'starvation mode' but due to the issues associated with too big of a deficit such as those that were already pointed out in this thread.-1 -
SavannahStClair wrote: »Read this. Now. Several times.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
Thank you for this, it was both interesting and entertaining.The problem is usually twofold:
1 - they're not logging their food accurately (weigh, measure)
2 - their burn isn't as high as they think
Both of which contribute to
3 - don't eat back exercise calories
I agree about not eating back exercise calories. It can be difficult, however, especially after working up a sweat, you feel like you deserve a little something extra! (Right!?) However, I may have to go "premium" so I can avoid having the exercise calories added to my total, OR only log my exercise at the end of the day, so as to not fool myself into thinking I have more calories left than I actually do.
If you don't eat back your exercise calories you then set yourself up for too large of a deficit ... especially if you have an aggressive loss goal. That does not result in "starvation mode" but makes meeting minimum nutritional levels difficult. Rather than lose fat, you risk losing lean body mass ... depending which nutrients you fail to meet it can be difficult for your body to process and absorb some vitamins and minerals leading to hair loss.
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brianpperkins wrote: »SavannahStClair wrote: »Read this. Now. Several times.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
Thank you for this, it was both interesting and entertaining.The problem is usually twofold:
1 - they're not logging their food accurately (weigh, measure)
2 - their burn isn't as high as they think
Both of which contribute to
3 - don't eat back exercise calories
I agree about not eating back exercise calories. It can be difficult, however, especially after working up a sweat, you feel like you deserve a little something extra! (Right!?) However, I may have to go "premium" so I can avoid having the exercise calories added to my total, OR only log my exercise at the end of the day, so as to not fool myself into thinking I have more calories left than I actually do.
If you don't eat back your exercise calories you then set yourself up for too large of a deficit ... especially if you have an aggressive loss goal. That does not result in "starvation mode" but makes meeting minimum nutritional levels difficult. Rather than lose fat, you risk losing lean body mass ... depending which nutrients you fail to meet it can be difficult for your body to process and absorb some vitamins and minerals leading to hair loss.
I believe this is entirely subjective depending on the person, what kind of deficit they're eating, and how much they're burning. There are some days when I can work out a good sweat and stick to my deficit without any issue - and then there are days when I know I need the 100-200 calories I burned back or I'm going to feel an energy crash.
(Usually I eat more if I've been really, really good at maintaining a workout schedule that week.)0 -
Hormones play a big part in weight loss too, sometimes hormone inbalances can cause problems, ie thyroid hormones could be slightly off and slow weight loss down. Many people refuse to accept the scientific theories around leptin and ghrelin and lack of sleep, here is a link to one of these studies
isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic197607.files/Due_Wk_11_Nov_28/SPIEGEL_2004.pdf
As you can see, this is over 10 years old, so yes while we generally have to eat less than we burn, sometimes our body works against us.
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kitticus15 wrote: »Hormones play a big part in weight loss too, sometimes hormone inbalances can cause problems, ie thyroid hormones could be slightly off and slow weight loss down. Many people refuse to accept the scientific theories around leptin and ghrelin and lack of sleep, here is a link to one of these studies
isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic197607.files/Due_Wk_11_Nov_28/SPIEGEL_2004.pdf
As you can see, this is over 10 years old, so yes while we generally have to eat less than we burn, sometimes our body works against us.
Medical issues may alter caloric absorption (CI) or how the body burns calories (CO) ... but it is still CICO.0 -
It's called Ketosis and has to do with what type of sugars your body consumes first. Basically, if you're not eating enough, your body will look out for your brain first, making sure it has enough glucose to function properly.0
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It's called Ketosis and has to do with what type of sugars your body consumes first. Basically, if you're not eating enough, your body will look out for your brain first, making sure it has enough glucose to function properly.
Does this mean that I get to eat more calories to avoid Ketosis and Starvation Mode?0 -
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.
Very informative.
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Hello, all! There is a LOT of information in this thread, and I have been trying to read through it all - but I'm at work, and I would LOVE to have a quick and dirty answer to this: if my MFP calorie goal is 1,200, and I exercise and burn, say, 300 calories, should I also eat those 300 calories on top of my 1,200? My first instinct was yes, and I'm not losing weight, so I think maybe I was wrong. Should I still stay with 1,200, and is that enough fuel for me to exercise regularly? (I'm not exactly a tri-athlete, LOL, and still a gym-newbie!) Thanks so much to anyone who has a quick answer to this!0
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PatriceDAngelo wrote: »Hello, all! There is a LOT of information in this thread, and I have been trying to read through it all - but I'm at work, and I would LOVE to have a quick and dirty answer to this: if my MFP calorie goal is 1,200, and I exercise and burn, say, 300 calories, should I also eat those 300 calories on top of my 1,200? My first instinct was yes, and I'm not losing weight, so I think maybe I was wrong. Should I still stay with 1,200, and is that enough fuel for me to exercise regularly? (I'm not exactly a tri-athlete, LOL, and still a gym-newbie!) Thanks so much to anyone who has a quick answer to this!
Depends on how accurate you measure your food and exercise calories. How long have you not been losing at a net of 1200? (A general forum rule of thumb is to only eat back half your exercise calories.)
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PatriceDAngelo wrote: »Hello, all! There is a LOT of information in this thread, and I have been trying to read through it all - but I'm at work, and I would LOVE to have a quick and dirty answer to this: if my MFP calorie goal is 1,200, and I exercise and burn, say, 300 calories, should I also eat those 300 calories on top of my 1,200? My first instinct was yes, and I'm not losing weight, so I think maybe I was wrong. Should I still stay with 1,200, and is that enough fuel for me to exercise regularly? (I'm not exactly a tri-athlete, LOL, and still a gym-newbie!) Thanks so much to anyone who has a quick answer to this!
Yes, you should ... but doing so requires accurate logging of your intake and calculation of your burn. A common error is underestimating intake and overestimating burn .. a combination that makes erasing a deficit simple.0 -
Thank you! I have been allowing MFP to calculate my exercise calories, not using the machine settings at the gym. Perhaps that could be "off" a bit. I'm PRETTY good with calculating food calories, I think - when something clocks in from MFP and it doesn't seem right to me, I'll look it up elsewhere and correct it if need be. I also tend to overestimate, to be safe. But I HAVE been "eating back" my exercise calories, every day, so I was wondering if I was going wrong there. I do have a "cheat day", but only one day, so I'm going to pull that back a bit as well. Time will tell! Lost 35 pounds successfully and trying to ditch another 30.
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PatriceDAngelo wrote: »Thank you! I have been allowing MFP to calculate my exercise calories, not using the machine settings at the gym. Perhaps that could be "off" a bit. I'm PRETTY good with calculating food calories, I think - when something clocks in from MFP and it doesn't seem right to me, I'll look it up elsewhere and correct it if need be. I also tend to overestimate, to be safe. But I HAVE been "eating back" my exercise calories, every day, so I was wondering if I was going wrong there. I do have a "cheat day", but only one day, so I'm going to pull that back a bit as well. Time will tell! Lost 35 pounds successfully and trying to ditch another 30.
Actually, MFP is notoriously worse than some exercise machines when it comes to estimating burns. You can still use the log to figure out calorie burn - just count it for 1/2 of what MFP tells you. (At least, that's the standard advice.)0 -
MFP tends to over-estimate calories burned by exercise. When I log (which hasn't been often lately!), I wait until I have finished for the day to enter calories burned. And I underestimate them. I'll say "60 minutes walking at 3 mph" when I know I've walked further in 75 minutes. A lot of people change their exercise to 1 calorie to keep it from counting against their calories eaten. Whatever works for you!0
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Read this. Now. Several times.
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
This article!!! #crushedit
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brianpperkins wrote: »"Starvation mode" as you described is a myth and disproved by science.
+1
There is NO SUCH THING as starvation mode as described by OP.0 -
brianpperkins wrote: »"Starvation mode" as you described is a myth and disproved by science.
^This0 -
I will be succinct. I do Intermitant fasting (Google it very good articles) (I even train fasted) and go 16 hrs without eating and with slight caloric defici and exercise - I lost (fat)and put in appox 10 lbs of muscle. The starvation mode from my own anecdotal evidence seems to be highly exaggerated but everyone is different. I know people who eat 6 times a day and do fine.0
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RBracken34 wrote: »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.
When I started out at MFP I was supposed to eat a minimum of 87 grs of protein. Many people here thought it was not enough.
Last summer I had a complete check-up in one of the best hospitals in Barcelona/Spain and they asked me if I lived in the US when they saw my protein " requirement ". I was put on 40 grs ( I am just under five feet tall ) and informed that the average size/height/weight woman should eat around 45 grs a day with only high performance athletes eating more.
I still aim for 40 grs ( sometimes go a bit over ) and have so far lost 65 pounds and have no hunger pangs or cravings. I have since then investigated the protein issue and can only agree with you, no one has requirements as high as the US.
Maybe protein is such a big deal in the US, because it is readily available and cheap.......
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