My Body did kick into Starvation mode

Yup!! The closer I got to goal, the more calories I had to consume. I always ate every exercise calorie but as my fitness level improved, my body fat lowered, my body needed more 'base calories' to get by. If I remember correctly, I went from 1200 to 1360 to 1450 to 1630 and am now at maintenance at 1810. These numbers are my net goal so I often eat close to 2200-2300 on exercise days. Love It.

Yes!! I know exactly what you mean.. When I joined, I was SHOCKED at how much I could eat and still lose.. I thought I had to eat next to nothing to get where I need to be but that's quite the opposite!! Im so glad you found us here :flowerforyou:

I was wondering about that..Im glad that you put your story on here because that was my frame of mind....Everyone kept saying eat them but like I said I was in that exact frame of mind...Thank you for sharing and you rock girl!!

Man today I decided to start doing this and I have to say I'm scared as hell! The thought of gaining again terrifies me but I'm going to give this eating exercise calories back a try because my weight hasn't been moving much and fluctuating. Thanks for the reassurance!

Several weeks back I upped my consumption of exercise calories from about 2/3rds to 100% as step one of my transition to maintenance, expecting to see some leveling off of my rate of weight loss. There hasn't been one. The only difference is that I feel better. I can't say I'm less hungry because I wasn't hungry before, but I do have more energy. And I'm only about 7lbs away from my most optimistic weight goal (what I weighed when I graduated from high school) and there's still no sign of a plateau. In retrospect it seems that eating back 2/3rds of my exercise calories was enough to keep me out of starvation mode, but it wasn't optimal.

yes yes. Same thing happened to me. I had gained a "mystery" 10 lbs. in Apr. 2010 (same time I added an extra 3 hours/week workout without eating more), and couldn't lose it for a year. In May 2011 I added another 35 mile ride/week and guess what--added 5 more pounds. I was beside myself . . . until I discovered MFP and realized the same thing. I was not eating enough. Boom. 13 of those 15 pounds are now gone

EAT UP!!

Please help me understand this. The more you lost, the more you needed to eat? I've been losing weight for a little over a yr now and have lost 75 lbs, so I'm down to 129 now. The last 2 months I've hit a plateau, not really losing, not really gaining... I eat around 1300 calories a day. In your opinion, is that too few? I joined this website and I like that it gives me extra calories to eat when I put in my exercise, but must admit I haven't really used them because I feel like I will gain weight that way. Your advice would be appreciated.

read the first post of this thread link:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/196502-for-the-people-who-work-out-like-crazy-and-are-not-losing?hl=for+people+who+work+out+like+crazy

It's what put the light bulb on for me!

blessings.

To ensure that you don't plateau and you don't run the risk of getting into starvation mode, you should eat at NO MORE than a 1000 calorie deficit below your maintenance. This will allow you to lose a safe 2lbs per week without gainng that weight back later.

Some claim that that your body will go into 'starvation mode' if you eat too few calories, preventing you from losing weight and that trying to lose weight by eating fewer calories doesn't work. There is no doubt that the body slows metabolic rate when you reduce calories or lose weight/fat.

There are at least two mechanisms for this:

One is simply the loss in body mass. A smaller body burns fewer calories at rest and during activity. There's not much you can do about that except maybe wear a weighted vest to offset the weight loss, this would help you burn more calories during activity. However, there's an additional effect sometimes referred to as the adaptive component of metabolic rate. Roughly, that means that your metabolic rate has dropped more than predicted by the change in weight.

So if the change in body mass predicts a drop in metabolic rate of 100 calories and the measured drop is 150 calories, the extra 50 is the adaptive component. The mechanisms behind the drop are complex involving changes in leptin, thyroid, insulin and nervous system output (this system is discussed to some degree in all of my books except my first one).

In general, it's true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits (and this is true whether the effect is from eating less or exercising more); as well, people vary in how hard or fast their bodies shut down. Women's bodies tend to shut down harder and faster.

But here's the thing: in no study I've ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit. That is, say that cutting your calories by 50% per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit.

In one of the all-time classic studies (the Minnesota semi-starvation study), men were put on 50% of their maintenance calories for 6 months. It measured the largest reduction in metabolic rate I've ever seen, something like 40% below baseline. Yet at no point did the men stop losing fat until they hit 5% body fat at the end of the study.

Other studies, where people are put on strictly controlled diets have never, to my knowledge, failed to acknowledge weight or fat loss.

This goes back to the under-reporting intake issue mentioned above. I suspect that the people who say, "I'm eating 800 calories per day and not losing weight; it must be a starvation response" are actually eating far more than that and misreporting or underestimating it. Because no controlled study that I'm aware of has ever found such an occurrence.

So I think the starvation response (a drop in metabolic rate) is certainly real but somewhat overblown. At the same time, I have often seen things like re-feeds or even taking a week off a diet do some interesting things when people are stalled. One big problem is that, quite often, weekly weight or fat loss is simply obscured by the error margin in our measurements.

Losing between 0.5 and 1 pound of fat per week won't show up on the scale or calipers unless someone is very lean, and changes in water weight, etc. can easily obscure that. Women are far more sensitive to this. Their weight can swing drastically across a month's span depending on their menstrual cycle.

Thing is this, at the end of the day, to lose weight or fat, you have to create a caloric deficit, there's no magical way to make it happen without affecting energy balance. You either have to reduce food intake, increase activity, or a combination of both.

Well one can call it "storing" or not....I know for a fact, that I was taking in less than I was expending and NOT Losing weight. I don't think of it in terms of really "storing" I think joejccva71 was right and said it more clearly....your metabolism slows down saving what it can to perform those functions.

All I know is for 6 months I hit a plateau and when I kick started my metabolism by eating back some of the calories I burned I started to lose weight again.

I suppose eventually if you stop eating and you live in a caloric deficit you will lose weight. Eating 800 calories/day will allow you to lose weight, but then two things happen, First when you start to eat again, like a normal person, even a dieting normal person, you will gain weight. Secondly, just what are you using to fuel your body? At some point the cells will break down to fuel the basic activities of living.

Regardless of what is preached or not, I know from personal experience, that eating back my exercise calories, up to a point is working for me

You are right right right! and it's a beautiful thing!

Well one can call it "storing" or not....I know for a fact, that I was taking in less than I was expending and NOT Losing weight. I don't think of it in terms of really "storing" I think joejccva71 was right and said it more clearly....your metabolism slows down saving what it can to perform those functions.

All I know is for 6 months I hit a plateau and when I kick started my metabolism by eating back some of the calories I burned I started to lose weight again.

I suppose eventually if you stop eating and you live in a caloric deficit you will lose weight. Eating 800 calories/day will allow you to lose weight, but then two things happen, First when you start to eat again, like a normal person, even a dieting normal person, you will gain weight. Secondly, just what are you using to fuel your body? At some point the cells will break down to fuel the basic activities of living.

Regardless of what is preached or not, I know from personal experience, that eating back my exercise calories, up to a point is working for me

Bodies that are severely underfed tend to burn much more muscle than they should. Both because of the insufficient caloric intake and because severe underfeeding almost guarantees poor nutrition.

That's a really bad cycle, as your percentage of bodyfat may rise while you lean body mass drops.