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MyFitnessPal Community

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

taylorwantstobehealthy

i always here about it, has anybody every had it? did you gain everything back?
i need some advice and just evidence that if i do eat too low what can happen.
your experiences will help me stay healthy

thanks!

Replies

russelljclarke

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

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

Here's a post by one of the mods:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/230930-starvation-mode-how-it-works

dlyeates

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

this such a helpful thread, thanks for posting and to responders!

claire_xox

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

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

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

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

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.

MaggieWatson

yes it does exist and it sucks!

Around 1 1/2 years ago i got really obsessed with my weightloss.
i noticed i could lose faster the less i ate. so i ate less and less. i ended up having around 600 calories a day. but unfortunately my body got used to it and almost stopped losing weight even though i ate so little.

and when i had a bad day (like 900 calories) i immediately gained weight!!
i was so frustrated, seeing people eating around 1500 cals a day and dont gain!
(unfortunately i didnt know anything about "starvation mode" and i was not aware of what i did to my metabolism)

after some time i figured out i had to eat less than 600cals to lose more.
so i had the great idea to lose more weight by fasting! :grumble:
i fasted for 10days (only water and some fruit juice) , cause i heard you can lose up to 15lbs by doing this.
NOT for me!! my ****ed up body, that has been in starvation mode long ago, only lost 5lbs!
i got frustrated and the first week after my fast i ate a lot. (around 1000-1500 cals a day)
and i gained back 7 pounds!! in only one week.

so... yes, starvation mode does exist! and you should take it serious.

i struggled with it for around a year before i finally could make my metabolism work normally again.

tip for a faster weightloss:
you can have one starve-day a week. that day you can eat less than 1000cals.
but the other 6days of the week you should eat your recommended amount of calories. so that your body has no chance to fall into starvation mode

good luck! :flowerforyou:

drvvork

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:

juliesummers

bump.

KittyMul

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.

littlemili

I have been netting sub 1000 (often between 500-700) for months and losing between 1-4lb per week, every week. All my salt and mineral blood levels are perfect.

cowlover22

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