metabolic starvation mode
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J9Lynn93
Posts: 12 Member
I belonged to another site last time I dieted. Every time someone would question why they weren't losing weight they were told they weren't eating enough and that they were in starvation mode. In this mode you will gain weight instead of losing it. It didn't make sense to me, but I have been eating in the calorie range they discussed. It wasn't a low carb forum. I would really like your thoughts on starvation mode. It is so important I am successful in losing weight this time. I have wasted too many years hating my size, being unhealthy and feeling tired.
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Starvation mode is a myth.
Read this. http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/another-look-at-metabolic-damage.html0 -
^^that...0
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They are correct. Starvation mode as you described is simply not a thing. That explanation is a misunderstanding of what actually happens to a literally starving body. And even then, it still doesn't work the way those people are trying to use it. I wonder if all the high carb, low fat diets made them believe unreasonable things. Lol
It is important to not eat too few calories consistently, like every day for weeks and months, because it may cause you to lose lean body mass that you want to keep. You certainly don't want to sacrifice your healthy muscle because you're in a giant hurry to get a lower number on a scale.
Weight will always fluctuate a bit from one day/week to the next, or possibly even sit still for stretches of time that makes us crazy. It's the long term that really matters and making healthy choices for ourselves without applying unrealistic expectations that could sabotage our long term success.
If you have calculated an accurate, reasonable calorie deficit goal and record your consumed and possibly burned calories accurately, you will lose weight. It may not be at the rate you might like to see, but maybe it will.0 -
I've heard over and over its a myth too. But I also have seen ppl (including ppl I know in "real life") cut cals so much they plateaued. Then they added calories, usually in the form of fat but one guy added a banana a day - that's all he changed - and the pounds started coming off again.
So. When I stall, I try fat fast and it that doesn't work I do make a conscious effort to eat more food or more often. My friend who I'm talking about with the bananas was at 60# lost and now is over 100#! He was a big motivator for me to do low carb.0 -
Starvation mode is real and will lead to death over time.
@jessicatroberts what you are talking I have experienced. It however is not 'real' starvation mode in my thinking. The body just slows down to survive long term on the lower amount of food is how I look at it. Once it figures out there is more food than it first thought (added banana, etc) it seems to then let go of some of its stored fat to fill in the missing daily calories. The science behind our bodies is amazing I am learning.0 -
Yes. That's how I understand it as well.0
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Para sympathetic nervous system regulates metabolism. Spiking calories for a short period, relaxes the body when high deficit for long time. This is why stressing out over everything is counterproductive to fat loss.0
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Foamroller wrote: »Para sympathetic nervous system regulates metabolism. Spiking calories for a short period, relaxes the body when high deficit for long time. This is why stressing out over everything is counterproductive to fat loss.
Huh, interesting! Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.0 -
Total conjecture on my part, but, I don't believe in "starvation mode" in preventing weightloss. My mom has this, slighly tasteless, polish saying, "there weren't any fat people is Aushwitz." True that. In concetration camps, people ate very little and lost weight. Anytime you limit calories you will lose weight.0
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JessicaLCHF wrote: »I've heard over and over its a myth too. But I also have seen ppl (including ppl I know in "real life") cut cals so much they plateaued. Then they added calories, usually in the form of fat but one guy added a banana a day - that's all he changed - and the pounds started coming off again.
So. When I stall, I try fat fast and it that doesn't work I do make a conscious effort to eat more food or more often. My friend who I'm talking about with the bananas was at 60# lost and now is over 100#! He was a big motivator for me to do low carb.
When someone stalls, maybe its just water weight. Maybe if measurements were taken it would indicate fat loss. IDK, just brainstorming.0 -
Starvation mode is most definitely not a myth in it's entirety. BUT it's a complete myth that you will gain weight because 'starvation mode'. That's not how the body works, you gain from excess calories(or water retention, or hormones, but those are shorter term). You can stop losing if you cut cals too severely for too long, but that stop in loss(not a stall in my opinion) can't physically last forever, you will eventually start losing weight again and eventually waste away.
Let's take what happened to me as an example:
I was very very sick for around 2 years. I am still recovering.
Everything I took in, and everything I vomited up, was measured, logged, by doctors and then using a very specific medical grade scale and cups and a formula at home when I was able to be released from the hospital. I NETTED 100-500 calories per day (that which had to be measured because it came back up subtracted from what I took in) for 15 months, straight. I lost and lost and lost, till I was about 105 pounds(from 140ish). Then it stopped. By all rights I should have died, because there is no logical way that my body could have maintained that weight on those calories or even functioned, ie internal organs. But my organs never shut down( I was able to keep water down long enough to stay sort of hydrated). The medical explanation for this? Starvation mode, my body kept itself alive by becoming very very efficient. But I did not gain weight on those calories. I would have started losing again if the vomiting had not started to abate slightly and I was able to keep more food down.
Starvation mode definitely exists, but you don't gain weight during it, and it's nothing like is depicted in most dieting sites/forums. It's from extreme low calorie levels, over long long periods. It's highly individual.
Rant over.0 -
LittleMamaVas wrote: »Total conjecture on my part, but, I don't believe in "starvation mode" in preventing weightloss. My mom has this, slighly tasteless, polish saying, "there weren't any fat people is Aushwitz." True that. In concetration camps, people ate very little and lost weight. Anytime you limit calories you will lose weight.
That's because their energy expenditure was so high and their caloric intake so low that it overpowered any efforts their bodies tried to preserve mass of any sort. The body can and does go to some pretty extreme lengths to keep functioning, but an environment like that will eventually overtake it. Keep in mind that the concentration camps were in operation for nearly 12 years, from the time the first was erected in 1933 until the liberation in 1944-45. Most of the prisoners were in these conditions for years.
You can see this with just about anyone who is literally starving (either intentionally or not) in the form of things like hair falling out, lowered body temperature, reduced cold tolerance (feeling cold at higher temperatures), and (in women) amenorrhea (stopped periods). These are symptoms of various bodily functions being down-regulated in an effort to conserve energy in the hopes of long-term survival. (This paper talks about these physical symptoms present in the Auschwitz prisoners as part of the introduction.)
The "idea" as far as the body is concerned, is that this starvation is only temporary, and we'll eventually find food, but we have to make it that far, first. The longer it takes to get to "feast," the less likely the body will survive, since the body can't make something from nothing, and though it tries to conserve as much as possible, it's still using internal resources and those are finite. When the "famine" lasts for years on end, the body will inevitably use all its stores, regardless of how hard it tries not to.
The actual starvation/famine response is far more limited than what the health/fitness/diet boards claim, but the physiological effect is real.
Additionally, things get even more confused, because there are medical conditions that can lower your (effective) metabolic rate enough that you gain weight on what the calculations say are a deficit for your stats. This is flawed for a couple of reasons. First, because the calculations don't take any actual measurements of your metabolic rate and are just a formula based on height, weight, age, etc. As a result, that number could be something completely different from what your body actually burns (and probably is). Second, the medical conditions may or may not actually lower your metabolic rate, but due to hormone dysregulation, the body may disproportionately store food and resist liberating the stored fat, causing the body to simultaneously think it's starving, even while other parts are saying there's still food to be stored.
The myth largely stems from the fact that "calories in/calories out" is grossly oversimplified. I wish I could find the image I saw a while back. It was something along the lines of "calories in -> all sorts of bodily magic, nothing to see here (the entirety of the background listed the different metabolic processes that contributed to metabolic rate) -> calories out" and beautifully illustrated the fact that "calories out" is a hell of a lot more complicated than the armchair scientists want to admit.0 -
Does the body slow down when it thinks you are not eating enough and tries to hold on to every calorie (energy) it can? I think yes.0
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The body will try its best to preserve life even with limited energy sources in most all cases without a doubt.0
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Some thoughts and personal experiences on starvation mode...
Starvation mode is real and it's hell on your body. This I know. I'm literally and purposely starving myself right now under a doctor's care. I'm a bariatric patient with 200lbs total to lose.
I've lost 85lbs since my surgery in January and in March, my body started freaking out. March-June, I lost 70% of my hair. I had gorgeous thick hair and now I have bald spots. It may or may not come back. I've lost more than 2/3 of my liver weight, all of it excess fat. My fingernails stopped growing. Now that they're growing back, there is a noticeable dent in the nail bed during "the starving time." In April, I stopped losing, even with an extreme calorie deficit, proof that CICO isn't the end all be all of losing. My skin is absolute crap. It's dull, dry, and cracked, where it never was before. One doesn't have skin like that in Florida, because the heat and humidity are a constant facial! Hair, skin, and nails, are some of the first things to go during starvation mode. Your body halts support of the unnecessary stuff and those are right at the top of the list.
However, you will not gain weight in starvation mode. The body just doesn't work like that. You'll hold water, because your kidneys might not be functioning properly. Again, experience. Once it became obvious I was in starvation mode, I had to up my carbs and calories and give my body a chance to accept that it wasn't going to die. Once it did accept that, I started losing again and everything started growing back. April and May were my "upped" months, but nothing started happening with hair, nails, skin until mid-July, 6 weeks after I upped.
So, my carbs and calories are again down at a dangerous level, because I have another 93lbs to lose. I will probably go into starvation mode again. I will lose more hair. My skin will get worse. My nails will stop growing. I don't have a fatty liver anymore, so there are fewer reserves, which means I have to be more vigilant this time and recognize the symptoms sooner, else I could do a lot of damage to my organs or die. Starvation mode doesn't just happen because you're dieting; it's a conscious choice to put yourself in danger for very long periods of time.
Starvation mode as described by the overwhelming majority of people isn't starvation mode at all. It's a plateau or it's relaxing vigilance on calories or it's the body readjusting how many carbs it can tolerate, but it's not starvation mode. Unless you're going bald, your cheek skin is cracking and bleeding, your gums are receding, your kidneys are struggling, and you're lying on the floor shaking from weakness, you aren't in starvation mode. You're hungry, your body is trying to decide if it's happy or not, you're unhappy, but you're not starving.
Yes, my diary is public. It has to be so my doctor and insurance company can monitor me for compliance. And I say this every time... No one should eat how I'm eating right now, unless directed and supervised by a doctor specializing in weight loss.0 -
I gained weight steadily on one meal a day of about 1000 cals - for well over a decade. I didn't eat because I wasn't hungry, and then ate one big meal. My minimum intake was supposed to be 1500 cals a day, but at the time, I just couldn't bring myself to eat that much, because the thought of eating made me gag. I know for sure that I increased my weight by at least 50 pounds on a calorie intake that should have seen me losing steadily. Starvation mode is what my doctors called it, but all I know is that my metabolism was absolutely broken and no one could help me fix it.
Thank God for Dr. Atkin's push for low carb. I think it saved my life in more ways than one. If I hadn't run across it all those years ago, I know my diabetes would have taken something from me by now.
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Wow. I really feel for you ladies having so little calories and not losing. My case is not so dramatic but with pretty severe hypothyroid it seems I have to take extraordinary measures just to see a little progress. I'm trying to jump start my metabolism so I can exercise more. Right now it is exhausting to do very little physical exertion. My big thing today is getting to the market for the weekly groceries, hauling it up the stairs and putting it all away before I crash.0
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That starvation stuff sounds serious. I am slowly losing weight eating about 2600 calories daily on high fat and carbs <50 grams daily. Hair, nails, skin is improving and lose inches even if the scales are not going down. Cutting out food containing natural/added sugar and/or grains seems to be healing my body systems over the past year. I get my first blood work in the morning. I dropped 20 pounds on CICO and another 32 pounds staying in nutritional ketosis for almost a year.0
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I ran across this site..this guy is pretty harsh on the whiney 1200 calorie High Carb girls who binge and dont report it..but for some science I like what he has to say. You may not agree..but I love a challenge to my brain!
the 3500 calories Pound is NOT what we think…a very good read!! (hint- to lose a pound of FAT we have to lose 3850 calories since we are also losing water, LBM, other tissue, etc..so interesting!
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com
"But to lose an actual pound of fat in this situation actually requires a 10% larger deficit than the 3,500 calorie rule since 10% of the energy came from the breakdown of protein. So to lose that single pound of fat in this case will require a total deficit of 3850 calories, at 90% fat loss, will be required to lose one pound of fat.
Essentially, the rule seems to fail to hold due to the misunderstanding of the original 3,500 calorie rule. It only applies to fat and unless 100% fat is being lost, it won’t hold. In the early stages of a diet when water and glycogen is being lost, total weight lost will be higher than predicted. After that, unless 100% fat is being lost, the rate will at least be different than predicted "
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/3500-calorie-rule.html/#more-10795
Why Do Obese People not Lose More Weight When Treated with Low-Calorie Diets?
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/why-do-obese-people-not-lose-more-weight-when-treated-with-low-calorie-diets-research-review.html/0
