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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It may come back some, but it will then go away and a healthier you will arise. :flowerforyou:

It is of my understanding through uni that starvation mode kicks in after around 90 days of severe undereating, and only takes 7 or so days to jump back to normal.... a few weeks of low calories is BAD for you, but it should not show any extreme effects either

This.

I ate under 500 calories a day, burning off over 400 through exercise, for about four months. It was only the last month that I started to really notice a drop in weight loss (lot's of other nasty side affects though, I'm definitely not advocating!). Frustrated, I joined a PT centre and my trainer put me on a two week plan to go up from eating 500 a day to 1500 a day. I didn't gain anything and within a month I was losing about 1kg a week again.

It makes me really frustrated when people say you'll go in to 'starvation mode' if you skip one meal. In my (un-trained) opinion, it's worse to force yourself to eat when you're not hungry.

Well I think it does exsist. For years I was eating under 1000 cals a day and my weight kept going up to around 200 pounds.Well i was actually on prozac. and I stopped that and severly resticted(yes I do have an eating disorder) to around 200-300 a day and lost over a 100 pounds. Now I am trying to gain it back. The really weird thing is when I eat the 3000 cals they want me to I dont gain the weight(hypermetabolic state they say) but if I only take in 1200 -1500 I actually gain. They tell me that my body thinks I am going to starve it again so it holds on to everything. Makes no sense when you think to lose weight eat less and vice versa but our bodies are very complex machines that we dont even really know everything about. And every body is different. So rather than debate if it is really true this is my experiance. It also depends on your metabolism too. If you have been a yo yo dieter your whole life it usually is harder to lose weight anyhow...just my 2 cents lol