Question about Starvation Mode

xo_jewel_xo
xo_jewel_xo Posts: 696 Member
edited October 4 in Food and Nutrition
Post removed by OP.

Replies

  • jellybaby84
    jellybaby84 Posts: 583 Member
    Other people will have better advice than me because I'm both a sceptic and a non expert but, personally, I doubt a 400lb man eating his recommended calories could go into starvation mode, no.
  • MissMaryMac33
    MissMaryMac33 Posts: 1,433 Member
    It depends how FEW calories he is trying to survive on and for how long.

    The shakiness could be something else -- like hypoglycemia (I get that after I eat too many bad carbs in one meal)

    What is his age? Height?
    Current Weight? Goal WEight? Activity level?
    How many calories is he currently eating?
    What KIND of food is he eating?

    Protein will make you feel full longer...
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
    *Not a doctor or expert

    Based on what I have read, starvation mode is much different for people at different body fat percentages. Your description of a 400 lb man - he could seriously cut back calories and not reach starvation mode over a longer period of time than someone who is say a 100 lb female. What I have read doesn't seem to clearly be able to state when it will take effect for a very large person, but days/weeks seems to be the generally accepted timeline.
  • Jewel0124
    Jewel0124 Posts: 119 Member
    I don't think he can go into starvation mode, but he may need to examine his diet a little closer. I know that I get shaky when I don't eat for a long period of time and/or my meals are out of balance for example consuming too much sugar early in the day. He also could be consuming too few calories.
  • lorig_2000
    lorig_2000 Posts: 106 Member
    I think it is different for everyone depending on age, weight and activity levels.

    Check this out: http://www.weightwatchers.ca/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=32361&sc=802
    It has some good info

    Try a little more protein to stop the shakes!

    Good luck!
  • bizco
    bizco Posts: 1,949 Member
    Use the forum's "search" feature and you will find a ton of information on starvation mode.

    In the meantime, a 400lb. man has lots of extra fat stores and will not go into starvation mode for a very long time.
  • Susay2942
    Susay2942 Posts: 211 Member
    Try increasing your protien intake and water... the shakiness should pass. Maybe a protien drink for your snack times... ensure has a good taste and works for me. If the shakes don't pass, I would recomend talking to the Dr. It could be a sign of something other than calorie intake.
  • liftingbro
    liftingbro Posts: 2,029 Member
    I apologize if this has been asked before. Is starvation mode different for different people? What I mean to say is, as an example, will a 400lb man go into starvation mode when he starts losing weight if he is constantly feeling hungry? He is eating his recommended calories, but still feels hungry to the point of shakiness during the day.

    Any helpful advice is much appreciated.

    Starvation mode is largely a myth. Yes, if you eat extremely low calories for a long period of time your metabolism will slow a bit, but you will still lose weight. Starvation mode will not stop you from losing weight and it's far too often used as an excuse when people are not losing weight.

    Unless you are eating 500 caloires or less per day for more than 6 weeks you are in no danger of going into starvation mode.

    People also confuse losing weight (thus requiring fewer calories) with starvation mode.
  • carrie_eggo
    carrie_eggo Posts: 1,396 Member
    Sounds like a blood sugar thing.....he should see a doctor.
  • countrydarling1
    countrydarling1 Posts: 386 Member
    Other people will have better advice than me because I'm both a sceptic and a non expert but, personally, I doubt a 400lb man eating his recommended calories could go into starvation mode, no.


    Sometimes its like a drug addict having with drawels. The mans body is accustom to having so much bad foods, that the body is reacting to it! I would suggest seeing your dr & eating 6 small meals a day, it will feel like your eating constantly. The healthier the food. the bigger the portion you can have healthy, the fuller you are. he just has to find that balance it may take a while, you will have your good days & bad! just keep pushing forward.
  • TVstfne
    TVstfne Posts: 19
    How long have you been eating within your calories. I can't really speak to starvation mode, but I will say that it took me a week or more to get used to eating right. I always felt like I was starving, hunger pangs, etc. But after a week or so, I think my stomach and my body got used to eating a "normal" amount of food and I'm to the point now where when I earn more calories from exercise, I feel like I can't eat it all.

    It also makes a difference WHEN you are eating. If you have most of your calories at one or two meals, then you might feel shaky at other times of the day because your blood sugar levels are going up and down drastically. Make sure you are spacing out your meals and snacks appropriately, and that you are eating 4-5 times a day. That might help with the shaky feeling.
  • Tujitsu56
    Tujitsu56 Posts: 392 Member
    I agree much with what is said here. The metabolism just slows when you aren't getting your required nutrients. I mean, it has been said that you will start to tear down muscle if you aren't getting the right amount of calories, which is bad and can imaginably be slower than tearing down fat.

    If you are shaking, I'd say eat or see a doctor. Maybe you should eat many smaller portions throughout the day. Something to keep consitstently giving your body fuel.
    I apologize if this has been asked before. Is starvation mode different for different people? What I mean to say is, as an example, will a 400lb man go into starvation mode when he starts losing weight if he is constantly feeling hungry? He is eating his recommended calories, but still feels hungry to the point of shakiness during the day.

    Any helpful advice is much appreciated.

    Starvation mode is largely a myth. Yes, if you eat extremely low calories for a long period of time your metabolism will slow a bit, but you will still lose weight. Starvation mode will not stop you from losing weight and it's far too often used as an excuse when people are not losing weight.

    Unless you are eating 500 caloires or less per day for more than 6 weeks you are in no danger of going into starvation mode.

    People also confuse losing weight (thus requiring fewer calories) with starvation mode.
  • ATT949
    ATT949 Posts: 1,245 Member
    I apologize if this has been asked before. Is starvation mode different for different people?
    Starvation mode is a medical condition. People may react differently the same way that people react differently when they get other illnesses but the general symptoms are the same.
    What I mean to say is, as an example, will a 400lb man go into starvation mode when he starts losing weight if he is constantly feeling hungry? He is eating his recommended calories, but still feels hungry to the point of shakiness during the day.
    That depends — starvation mode is very difficult to achieve. Please read this link and you'll see that it takes an awful lot of work to experience starvation:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation_mode
  • bigislandgrrl
    bigislandgrrl Posts: 196 Member

    I lost weight using a diet of 800 to 1000 cals/day. In seven months, I lost 95 pounds and am considered extremely fit and healthy. My calorie level, while deemed "dangerous" by one poster, is not an unusual way to lose weight safely and quickly — I modeled it after the diet offered by Lindora, a 40 year old company based here in Southern California that has helped hundreds of thousands of people lose weight using a calorie restricted diet.


    ATT~ 800 - 1000 cals a day? Now how did you handle the excersize calorie aspect? Were you eating some or all of those back or sticking to those calories AND burning high amounts working out?
  • ATT949
    ATT949 Posts: 1,245 Member
    Sorry, I edited my response when I realized that I hadn't answered the OP's question…

    I should have stated "net calories/day".

    I used a diet of 800 to 1000 net cals/day between December 2010 and July 2011. There were some days when I consumed more than that — IIRC, I went over that level about 1 day out of 7 and, IIRC, I was, almost without exception, a few calories or a few dozen calories over.

    My diary is open to the public so please have a look to see what I ate.

    I have no belief in the need for "eating back calories". I would eat what I ate and exercise what I exercised but I paid no attention to the amount of exercise when it came to sitting down to eat.

    One reason was that I wanted to lose weight quickly so any exercise that I did helped me lose weight more quickly.

    Another reason was that I believed that the calorie levels on the machines in the gym were highly inaccurate. I don't have have any proof of the latter statement but I've seen enough folks provide what appears to be credible anecdotal information on that topic so I dutifully logged that calorie burn even though I had little faith in it being anything more than "highly inaccurate". My hunch is that if I logged a 450 calorie session on the elliptical, it could have been as low as maybe 350 calories. But I didn't care — my goal was to have a calorie deficit that was so large that 100 or 200 calories either way made zero difference.

    My girlfriend, Debbie, runs Lindora's largest clinic and, when I mentioned "eating back your calories", I got a blank stare because she had no idea what that meant. Lindora doesn't do anything "magic". They put people on a low calorie diet, monitor their progress, teach people about nutrition, and help them change their eating habits. The results — generally speaking, if you follow their program, you'll lose 10% of your body weight in 10 weeks.

    I did the same thing, except instead of paying Lindora, I did it myself (but, since I'm self-employed, at a cost far higher than just writing the check!). And it worked really well - http://cbeinfo.net/weight.htm


    I've looked over my diary since I went into maintenance and, wow, I really didn't eat much! It was worth it though and I'm not feeling any "rebound" effects at all. In fact, it's been a challenge to get it through my head that I need to eat "all of my food" to be healthy (I've made a conscious effort to gain weight over the last week, for example)
  • MissMaryMac33
    MissMaryMac33 Posts: 1,433 Member
    Sorry, I edited my response when I realized that I hadn't answered the OP's question…

    I should have stated "net calories/day".

    I used a diet of 800 to 1000 net cals/day between December 2010 and July 2011. There were some days when I consumed more than that — IIRC, I went over that level about 1 day out of 7 and, IIRC, I was, almost without exception, a few calories or a few dozen calories over.

    My diary is open to the public so please have a look to see what I ate.

    I have no belief in the need for "eating back calories". I would eat what I ate and exercise what I exercised but I paid no attention to the amount of exercise when it came to sitting down to eat.

    One reason was that I wanted to lose weight quickly so any exercise that I did helped me lose weight more quickly.

    Another reason was that I believed that the calorie levels on the machines in the gym were highly inaccurate. I don't have have any proof of the latter statement but I've seen enough folks provide what appears to be credible anecdotal information on that topic so I dutifully logged that calorie burn even though I had little faith in it being anything more than "highly inaccurate". My hunch is that if I logged a 450 calorie session on the elliptical, it could have been as low as maybe 350 calories. But I didn't care — my goal was to have a calorie deficit that was so large that 100 or 200 calories either way made zero difference.

    My girlfriend, Debbie, runs Lindora's largest clinic and, when I mentioned "eating back your calories", I got a blank stare because she had no idea what that meant. Lindora doesn't do anything "magic". They put people on a low calorie diet, monitor their progress, teach people about nutrition, and help them change their eating habits. The results — generally speaking, if you follow their program, you'll lose 10% of your body weight in 10 weeks.

    I did the same thing, except instead of paying Lindora, I did it myself (but, since I'm self-employed, at a cost far higher than just writing the check!). And it worked really well - http://cbeinfo.net/weight.htm


    I've looked over my diary since I went into maintenance and, wow, I really didn't eat much! It was worth it though and I'm not feeling any "rebound" effects at all. In fact, it's been a challenge to get it through my head that I need to eat "all of my food" to be healthy (I've made a conscious effort to gain weight over the last week, for example)

    You got lucky. And I hope no one else thinks starving themselves and going for huge deficits is the way to go.
  • ATT949
    ATT949 Posts: 1,245 Member
    You got lucky. And I hope no one else thinks starving themselves and going for huge deficits is the way to go.

    I did not "get lucky".

    I decided that I wanted to lose weight, reviewed the options, decided what plan of action to follow, and I executed it.

    By all accounts and by all measures, it worked very well.

    I did not "starve". In fact, in seven months, I got hungry 5 times. My physical exams, blood tests, VO2 uptake test, and EKG's reveal that I am in excellent condition. The idea that I was "starving" is nonsense.

    One of the reasons I chose a low calorie diet is that they have a proven track record. My basis for that is that Lindora uses a diet of 800 to 1000 calories per day, and they have had hundreds of thousands of people lose weight in their 40+ year history. A four decade long track record of success with hundreds of thousands of people is anything but luck.

    You might not like the approach that I took. You might think it's unwise. That's are your perogatives and I think it's great that there are so many ways of accomplishing our weight loss goals. But the results that I've achieved are the outcome of a executing a well-designed plan and have nothing to do with "luck".
  • 3dogsrunning
    3dogsrunning Posts: 27,167 Member

    My girlfriend, Debbie, runs Lindora's largest clinic and, when I mentioned "eating back your calories", I got a blank stare because she had no idea what that meant. Lindora doesn't do anything "magic". They put people on a low calorie diet, monitor their progress, teach people about nutrition, and help them change their eating habits. The results — generally speaking, if you follow their program, you'll lose 10% of your body weight in 10 weeks.


    That is because MPF is set up differently than most nutritionists and doctors would do it. They would figure out your base rate, then factor in how active you are, including physical activity. They don't suggest you "eat back" your exercise calories because they have already accounted for you burning them. MFP does not. It factors your basic rate, plus your basic daily activity, but not exercise. So any exercise you do is over and above the deficit MFP has already created.
    Just because it is not how they do it, does not make one way right or wrong. They both, in essence, are trying to achieve the same thing, they just use different formulas to get there.
  • ATT949
    ATT949 Posts: 1,245 Member
    That is because MPF is set up differently than most nutritionists and doctors would do it. They would figure out your base rate, then factor in how active you are, including physical activity. They don't suggest you "eat back" your exercise calories because they have already accounted for you burning them. MFP does not. It factors your basic rate, plus your basic daily activity, but not exercise. So any exercise you do is over and above the deficit MFP has already created.
    Just because it is not how they do it, does not make one way right or wrong. They both, in essence, are trying to achieve the same thing, they just use different formulas to get there.
    I agree that there are many ways to lose weight and I'm a proponent of "using the method that gets it done".

    Unless you've spoken with someone at Lindora or been through their program, perhaps it might be better if you would caveat your response to my posting. Something along the lines of "I don't know how Lindora does it but…" That way there would be zero confusion other folks about how much you know about how Lindora works.

    What really threw me for a loop was an in clinic display that showed weight loss vs frequency of checking in at a clinic.

    http://www.cbeinfo.net/images/weightlossvsvisitfrequency.jpg

    Which, segues into the value of weighing every day but we'll leave that for another message thread! :-)
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