Starvation mode and the Biggest Loser participants

I hate that show... They encourage crazy kcal deficits and ridiculously excess exercise; no wonder the poor people have negative experiences post show both physically (and mentally I suspect)

This study has become a weird obsession of mine. So, do i think AT is real, yes very real. There were some flaws with this study. The former contestants were given prior warning of the study times. They were not weight stable. Losing an average of .5 lbs a week or more. Basically some went on a crash diet. They were exercising a lot which will also drop RMR. I have been luck enough to talk to some professionals about the study. Most have told me to Look at Leibel's metabolic ward studies. All the people were weight stable to withen 15grams. The subjects had everything controlled. It showed a drop of 10-15% of RMR. Most of the calorie burn differences were NEAT and muscle adaptation. What is not talked about is, there were many degrees of weight regain. Some have managed to keep off a lot of weight. How did they do It? Tracked their diets and high physical activity. 30mins of vigorous or 80 mins of moderate activity a day. The study did not differentiate from scheduled exercise and movement in general life. Kevin Hall, the NIH researcher who did the study, made a calorie calculator. For me, it's pretty damn accurate so far. That is what he used to predict calorie burn for the study. They were almost spot on. I know that a burn 300 to 400 calories less a day than someone always my size. Just as many of the contestants now do. Just my 2 cents.

psychod787 wrote: »

CarvedTones wrote: »

I have done crazy crash dieting for 3 months at a time a couple of times. I think I have suffered some AT, but only in the 150-200 calorie range. I should be able to maintain at ~1900 with no exercise but I will slowly gain if I eat that much each day. I could eat more each day and still have a stable weight if I hadn't done the crash dieting. But it isn't starvation mode because that's not really a thing. When you suffer some AT, it can either be an excuse to get fat or a reason to eat less. Unfortunately it seems to be relative to what your total diet normally was and/or the deficit you restricted yourself to for a long time so the biggest loser competitors had more significant AT, like as high as 600 calories a day. They would have to get used to eating significantly less to maintain a lower weight. It was just too much of an adjustment for most of them.

I do not believe it had anything to do with your history of crash dieting. It's just normal AT, Reduction of neat and muscles adapting to run on less energy. If you look at the Minnesota starvation experiment, all the men RMR recovered when they regained their bf and lean mass. I know it is an old study, but these days you would never be able to recreate it. Damn human rights things.... jk

You may be right. I have never lost a lot of weight without the crash. This time I joined mfp and started doing it more sensibly after a crash start. At this point, I am certain that all the calculators estimate too much and I don't think I burn as much as the exercise estimates (even supposedly good ones). I think I am just going to have to average a lower intake than expected to keep it off. The big pain is creating a deficit to offset overage when maintenance is low.

AnvilHead wrote: »

https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/another-look-at-metabolic-damage.html/

There is some good info in there, but he does some serious damage to his credibility with this sort of stuff:

So combine your typical headcase female dieter (who is already mentally stressing themselves out), add a massive caloric restriction, add tons of cardio. And cortisol goes through the roof. And this is worse in some personality types. You can always tell them on Internet forums, they type in all caps with lots of !!!

CarvedTones wrote: »

AnvilHead wrote: »

https://bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/another-look-at-metabolic-damage.html/

There is some good info in there, but he does some serious damage to his credibility with this sort of stuff:

So combine your typical headcase female dieter (who is already mentally stressing themselves out), add a massive caloric restriction, add tons of cardio. And cortisol goes through the roof. And this is worse in some personality types. You can always tell them on Internet forums, they type in all caps with lots of !!!

Lyle McDonald isn't the most politically correct person. He doesn't give a rat's *kitten*.

Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) isn't static. It's a dynamic rate that responds to all manner of stimulus - quantity of food source, substance, temperature, hormone variance, etc. Even so all the variables amount to a relatively small impact on BMR.

Your metabolism is primarily driven by mass - have more need more, have less need less. Metabolic adaptation is a phenomenon working in the same manner of a fire - provide more fuel you get a hotter burn, but less sustainability. When you eat a large meal your body needs to process the incoming food quickly to get the biochemical pathways in motion. Interesting as people eating unusually large meals will actually raise their body temperature. There are several YouTube videos that illustrate this very well - search any 10k calories challenge and watch the before/after BMR results.

This phenomenon trends toward "normal" BMR as time goes on - typically in a matter of weeks.