Calories & Weight Loss - not working

Starvation mode doesn’t exist. If it did, nobody would die of food deprivation! Get yourself a new nutritionist; someone who knows something about nutrition, for preference.

What is far more likely is that you are not eating at a deficit. Either you’re overestimating your calorie burn - what activities are you doing? - or you’re underestimating how much you’re eating. Are you weighing all solids? No ‘tablespoons’ of peanut butter? Remembering to count dressings and cooking oils? Including fruits and vegetables (they have calories too!). Are you using good database entries? No other people’s ‘homemade’ entries, no using cooked entries for dry rice etc?

These are all common errors that a lot of people make, even when they claim they’re not

Starvation mode really isn't a thing. Trainers are not scientists.

While the body does adapt to reduced calories and lower metabolism eventually, it doesn't happen in two months, and it's not enough to prevent you from losing weight.

When someone is unable to lose weight on a tiny number of calories over an extended period of time, overwhelmingly the reason is that they are taking in more calories than they claim. You haven't explained how you are calculating your calories. It is shockingly easy to double the number of calories you are taking in by failing to report high density condiments, overestimating portion sizes, and just forgetting stuff. Dawn French, a British actress, agreed to be on a show where her consumption was, unknown to her, tracked by radioactive isotopes in her food. They found her food diary was only logging one third of the calories she was eating. Multiple studies have found that obese people estimate portion sizes worse than normal weight people. If you aren't losing weight, the first thing to do is to check your logging. Weigh every single bite. If this fails to find the issue, then take the next steps.

akorbiel wrote: »

That’s odd that starvation mode isn’t a thing. Yet I’ve heard it from a number of trainers and nutritionists. Your body gets to a point were it’s difficult to lose weight.

Just because a lot of people say a thing, that doesn't make it true. Trainers and nutritionists are not trained dietitians.

Also, as someone who spent two and a half years at often high deficits in order to lose 230 lb - no, the body really doesn't have a magical way to stop needing to spend calories. 'Starvation mode' is a comforting myth that exists to make people feel better when they don't want to find out where they're making mistakes.

jasonpoihegatama wrote: »

I would go with the nutritionist/personal trainer. As you may have read in the MFP newsletter about starvation mode this give the basic overview of Starvation mode good read. But do want your nutritionist is saying.

Any numpty with a bit of spare internet time can call themselves a certified "nutritionist" and personal trainers quite often don't have any nutrition training (I won't say all because some do) and will just come out with a load of broscience beliefs about how weight loss works.

I'd suggest both you and OP take a read of this to better understand the myth of starvation mode as it exists in the diet industry - https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/

jasonpoihegatama wrote: »

I would go with the nutritionist/personal trainer. As you may have read in the MFP newsletter about starvation mode this give the basic overview of Starvation mode good read. But do want your nutritionist is saying.

No. If you want to see what "starvation mode" looks like, google the Minnesota Starvation Project. THAT is starvation mode. Also, there are ZERO - yes, ZERO -published entries with the term "starvation mode" in pubmed or jissn, so that should be what detectives refer to as "a clue" as to the legitimate meaning of the phrase.

Yes, if your calories are extremely restricted, your metabolism may slow down to conserve energy for the bodily functions that are 100% necessary, but it doesn't completely stop. If you're in as big as a caloric deficit as you say, for as long as you say, you would be losing weight. End of story. Weigh/measure/log ALL foods and caloric beverages. Don't guesstimate or eyeball anything. Put it on the scale, pour it into a measuring cup. Don't round down "ehhhh this is 43g but that's a weird number so I'll use 40g instead." If you are consistently in a deficit, you WILL lose.

Here's my addition to the conversation. I'm 6'1" and weigh 185 pounds (normal BMI). My NEAT on MFP is almost 2200 calories. I usually burn 600 calories a day in exercise. I can tell from experience that if I eat 1800 calories and don't eat back those 600 exercise calories then weight falls off of me - too fast.
I strongly suspect you either don't burn as many calories as you think you do or you are eating more than your body needs.

Sorry in advance for the long post, but I'm addressing everything stated in this thread so far....

I am 5'8" and 175 pounds (down from 185 in about a month). I actually had to ADD to my intake to start seeing results.... see below. I have to intake 1200 kcals per day plus almost 100% of the calories I burn in exercise which is between 300 and 600 per day... so my daily is between 1500-1800 per day for intake. My daily burn rate is around 2200 because I'm active. Another issue was exercise. Depending on what you are doing for exercise (if you are only doing cardio and no HIIT or strength training), that could also be an issue. Your body will get used to an exercise after a while and it will not be as effective. You have to change it up and focus on exercises that also cause "afterburn" or causes you to burn more calories even at rest than you normally would.

If you look up "Metabolic Rate" and also search for Metabolic Rate in contestants of The Biggest Loser, this is perhaps the best study of what the Metabolic Rate does in a person who eats at an extreme deficit for too long. It is not "starvation mode" but rather the body trying to adjust for the lack of nutrition to keep your major organs functioning. In these contestants, it was found that the Metabolic Rate slowed to a point that was almost a dead stop... this caused typical nutritional eating habits (not the unhealthy stuff) to start packing weight back on to their bodies. It can take MONTHS for the metabolism to get back to a healthy burning level after this.

Now, for those of you who believe that eating less will automatically cause you to lose weight because the body "has no choice", that is ALSO a fallacy. My Dad has MS, arthritis, and other major issues preventing any type of exercise and he is close to 300 pounds due to his medications. He tried to lose weight by doing what he had been taught as a marathon runner back when he was in his 30s.... eat less, lose weight. He did that for MONTHS and the scale didn't move. Keep in mind, he can't exercise; only control his nutrition. When we went to a licensed dietitian, he was told he wasn't eating enough to maintain his bodily functions... so anything he was eating was going directly to "storage" because his Metabolic Rate had slowed to almost a stop. An additional 300 calories was added to his diet to get his metabolism working properly again... and within 2 months he started dropping weight. He lost 50 pounds in 3 months by eating MORE calories. Your body can and will work against you if you don't give it what it needs. At that point, he weighed less and he was able to lower his intake slowly to allow his metabolism to accommodate the change and it worked.

There are some people out there who believe hardcore that it is one way or the other, but everyone has all different body and metabolism types. What works for some, will not work for others. Going extreme (jumping directly into an extreme diet and exercise program) from an unhealthy lifestyle can shock the body. This is what happened to my Dad. He did too much reduction too fast.

Absolutely check the calorie logs and make sure absolutely everything is logged without fail. Cooking oil adds 120 calories to your diet per tablespoon depending on the oil. Butter and other condiments that are typically used on foods for cooking without thought also need to be logged. Salad dressings are TERRIBLE... and often are miscalculated as lower than they really are. If the issue is not with the logging, then definitely look at the possibility that your own metabolism is working against you... since you are so active, some additional adjustments may be required. As in, you may need to ADD to your intake to start seeing results.

For those of you who use the reasoning that "if starvation mode existed nobody would starve to death" - that is also untrue. The issue is that the body, past a certain starvation point, has no choice but to use food that is eaten as a source of fuel rather than "storage". So someone eating an apple every 3 days just to keep the body from starving to death, will STILL starve to death. The body reaches a breaking point where it MUST use any food that is eaten as it's only source of fuel after it has already eaten through the fatty tissue and muscle in the body. This is why people starve to death. But up to that point, the body can and will make appropriate adjustments to retain nutrients from food that it doesn't use to fuel the body. The body takes what it needs and stores the rest.