Has anyone ever been through "Starvation Mode?" Tell your st

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  • drvvork
    drvvork Posts: 1,162
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    Starvation mode does exist...
  • graysmom2005
    graysmom2005 Posts: 1,882 Member
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    this did happen to me. After a year and a half of having huge deficits from lots of working out and trying to be "good" I couldn't lose a pound. I even gained a few. I didn't get it. So frustrating. Then MFP showed me that I wasn't eating enough. Once I ate more, I started to lose inches.
  • taylorwantstobehealthy
    taylorwantstobehealthy Posts: 23
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    wow thanks so much for sharing everyone! this has given me a huge reality check, im deffinately going to be eating more now! but now im nervous i will gain weight :S ive been eating 800-1200 for a while up until recently where i'm forcing myself to eat 1200+, oh no :( but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end :)
  • Kat5343
    Kat5343 Posts: 451 Member
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    I have my ups and downs. Sometimes I eat significantly under my calorie goal and then a few days later I eat over. So far this has served me well. I am consistently losing weight so I do not plan on changing anything until I have a stall.
  • russelljclarke
    russelljclarke Posts: 836 Member
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    I'm going to put this forum thread in my blog. Usually you get a lot of uninformed nay-sayers responding to questions like this, but these responses are real-life, and as such are extremely valuable.
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
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    when you say heavily restricting, do you mean less than 1200 calories?

    i think it depends on the total deficit you're running daily, like 1500+ deficits for people who are not obese is pretty severe deficit
  • russelljclarke
    russelljclarke Posts: 836 Member
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    wow thanks so much for sharing everyone! this has given me a huge reality check, im deffinately going to be eating more now! but now im nervous i will gain weight :S ive been eating 800-1200 for a while up until recently where i'm forcing myself to eat 1200+, oh no :( but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end :)
    Please don't be nervous - I've done that for you ;)
  • 8rules
    8rules Posts: 169
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    Starvation mode is a garbage can term for "something is not working in your diet strategy"

    You can eat 800 calories a day, but if it is 80% sugar and 20% fat, triglycerides will be flying into your fat cells, but leave very very slowly, and your fat cells will cling to them, while your muscles break down to provide energy and your hunger pains sore. You WILL lose weight, just not fat.

    When your active tissues start to break down for energy, you are LITERALLY VERY hungry. This is actual and true starvation, regardless of whether or not fat loss is present. If you are not absolutely hungry like crazy, you are likely not in starvation mode.
  • Mairgheal
    Mairgheal Posts: 385 Member
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    Here's a thread of someone who has experienced it: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/174065-starvation-mode-is-real-and-ugly
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
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    Starvation mode is a garbage can term for "something is not working in your diet strategy"

    You can eat 800 calories a day, but if it is 80% sugar and 20% fat, triglycerides will be flying into your fat cells, but leave very very slowly, and your fat cells will cling to them, while your muscles break down to provide energy and your hunger pains sore. You WILL lose weight, just not fat.

    When your active tissues start to break down for energy, you are LITERALLY VERY hungry. This is actual and true starvation, regardless of whether or not fat loss is present. If you are not absolutely hungry like crazy, you are likely not in starvation mode.

    usually the reason a minimum of 1200 cals daily is suggested is that it is very hard to hit your macros at less calories, unless you are very petite
  • russelljclarke
    russelljclarke Posts: 836 Member
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    Starvation mode is a garbage can term for "something is not working in your diet strategy"

    You can eat 800 calories a day, but if it is 80% sugar and 20% fat, triglycerides will be flying into your fat cells, but leave very very slowly, and your fat cells will cling to them, while your muscles break down to provide energy and your hunger pains sore. You WILL lose weight, just not fat.

    When your active tissues start to break down for energy, you are LITERALLY VERY hungry. This is actual and true starvation, regardless of whether or not fat loss is present. If you are not absolutely hungry like crazy, you are likely not in starvation mode.
    So how do you explain away anorexics who swear blind they're not hungry? It's a mind as much as body thing...
  • Angelabec
    Angelabec Posts: 505 Member
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    Here's a link to an article I found interesting. For the record, I'm not saying other people are wrong, I'm just sharing info that is available so that you have a fuller spectrum.

    http://fattyfightsback.blogspot.com/2009/03/mtyhbusters-starvation-mode.html
  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
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    Here's a post by one of the mods:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/230930-starvation-mode-how-it-works
  • dlyeates
    dlyeates Posts: 875 Member
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    I think I'm going through this now. I've been at the same weight for a week and I usually lose 1-2 lbs or more a week. But I've been eating lighter during the day and then I exercise late afternoon and with the exercise calories have 700-1000 calories left to eat. I just can't do that in the evening. So I'm working on upping my daytime calories to see what happens.
  • elizamc
    elizamc Posts: 285 Member
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    this such a helpful thread, thanks for posting and to responders!
  • claire_xox
    claire_xox Posts: 282 Member
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    That's not my experience, after only 10 days I plateaued, and just a few days to normalise.

    I guess everyone is different, for my 100 days on mfp i've consumed an average of 700 calories a day and have lost every week! (there's been a few binge days but not many)

    I learnt the 90 day thing in terms of metabolism and kinda assumed it has to do with the dreaded starvation mode based on my personal experience.
  • debydeb57
    debydeb57 Posts: 53
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    i think im in starvation mode... as i was only eating one meal a day usually dinner ..and i was famished by the time i served it ... not drinking enough water etc....

    hopefully with this program i can monitor myself and get out of it ...
  • 8rules
    8rules Posts: 169
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    Starvation mode is a garbage can term for "something is not working in your diet strategy"

    You can eat 800 calories a day, but if it is 80% sugar and 20% fat, triglycerides will be flying into your fat cells, but leave very very slowly, and your fat cells will cling to them, while your muscles break down to provide energy and your hunger pains sore. You WILL lose weight, just not fat.

    When your active tissues start to break down for energy, you are LITERALLY VERY hungry. This is actual and true starvation, regardless of whether or not fat loss is present. If you are not absolutely hungry like crazy, you are likely not in starvation mode.
    So how do you explain away anorexics who swear blind they're not hungry? It's a mind as much as body thing...

    Disease interferes with normal body processes.

    I am speaking of normal body processes, which you are free to investigate yourself. This is all common medical knowledge these days. I do not think their is any disagreement on this by any biologist or doctor anywhere.

    Anorexics have a condition which interferes with normal body processes, and indeed are often hungry, and you can hear their belly rumble, even though their brain my deny the feeling of hunger. They experience protein breakdown, obviously, you can often see them wasting away.

    The also typically do not consume any food, or very little, and certainly not in the 80 percent sugar, 20 percent fat example I provided for illustration.

    Are you saying severe anorexics are not starving simply because their disease masks the hunger? The rest of the body usually reacts as it should (sheds fat, eats muscle when that is gone).

    In short, I am talking apples, and you are talking oranges.
  • russelljclarke
    russelljclarke Posts: 836 Member
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    Disease interferes with normal body processes.

    I am speaking of normal body processes, which you are free to investigate yourself. This is all common medical knowledge these days. I do not think their is any disagreement on this by any biologist or doctor anywhere.

    Anorexics have a condition which interferes with normal body processes, and indeed are often hungry, and you can hear their belly rumble, even though their brain my deny the feeling of hunger. They experience protein breakdown, obviously, you can often see them wasting away.

    The also typically do not consume any food, or very little, and certainly not in the 80 percent sugar, 20 percent fat example I provided for illustration.

    Are you saying severe anorexics are not starving simply because their disease masks the hunger? The rest of the body usually reacts as it should (sheds fat, eats muscle when that is gone).

    In short, I am talking apples, and you are talking oranges.
    My wife is a biologist, and my mother-in-law a psychologist who had to deal with anorexics. I do have real knowledge to back up what I'm saying, believe me. Anorexics are in psychological denial, which is how they can ignore 'rumbles' and their bodies wasting away, that was my point.

    Apples? Oranges? Whatever - so long as contrary advice doesn't make people ill, I don't really care.
  • wendybird2
    wendybird2 Posts: 46 Member
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    I've only been through a *real* Starvation Mode once, and it was not by choice -- military winter survival training. Although this was 7 years ago, I'm convinced it messed me up real good. Now any time my body senses that I'm restricting too many calories, it freaks out on me - I get ravenous and lethargic.

    I don't know how much weight I lost in just that week of training, but it was one of the coldest sessions they'd had in a while with 2 feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures at night. We ate almost nothing, and we did a series of obstacle courses, a 40k night march, and other such physical activites. I'm a big runner, I almost never go more than one day without running, but when I got back from that training I spent the week lying in bed eating chocolate (I had NEVER done that before!) The only way I could motivate myself to go for a run was to make it a "run" to the store to buy more chocolate. I've never been so miserable.

    I had never had an issue with my weight until after that training. within two months I had put on almost 20 lbs (not even counting the weight I lost during training). My satiety signals stopped working, so I still have a hard time telling when I'm actually full. My body had been through hell, and it d@mn well never wants to go through that again. So it gives me cravings all the time (what my mother once called "hand to mouth disease") and I still can't keep chocolate in the house. Don't EVER choose to starve yourself, thinking you can lose weight and keep it off. You will regret it and it will make you miserable.

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