Is there REALLY a "starvation mode"???

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13

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  • fteale
    fteale Posts: 5,310 Member
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    As you lose weight your metabolism does slow, but you don't magically gain weight by eating too little. You just lose it less fast.
  • tammy510
    tammy510 Posts: 32
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    First, what is starvation mode? I found this direct answer on netwellness.org --

    A starvation diet does not mean the absence of food. It means cutting the total caloric intake to less than 50% of what the body requires. Using myself as an example, my current weight is 178 lbs. and my bmr is 1450. So, I would have to cut my calories to below 725 per day. However, if I were at my goal weight of 150 lbs., my bmr would be 1129, and so I would have to cut my calories to below 565 calories. This is not borne out by the infamous Minnesota Semistarvation Study (1950), 36 young, healthy, psychologically normal men while restricting their caloric intake for 6 months. Their calories were restricted in various phases, but the least amount of calories they were allowed was 50% of the "normal" maintenance calories. Notice, this was dubbed a "semi" starvation diet.

    Yes, their metabolic rates were significantly lowered -- to something like 40% below baseline. Yet at no point did the men stop losing fat until they hit 5% body fat at the end of the study.

    Please go to this link and read. Do some studying, There is no STARVATION MODE here in the USA! Go to third world countries then you will see what starvation mode really looks like!
    http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/ lyle.htm This is a link from a scientist, very good paper.
    Truth of it is, the less you weigh, the less your body needs in calories to fuel it!
  • Yooperm35
    Yooperm35 Posts: 787 Member
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    I think with more weight to lose, it's more of your metabolism slowing down and taking much longer to lose the weight rather than an actual starvation mode where your body starts storing it. When I was at my heaviest, with 40 lbs. to lose, I was not very aware of eating AND working out. I assumed that if I worked out more and ate less, I the weight would just fall off. After nearly 2 months of following, what I thought was, the perfect diet, I lost 5# at most. After much frustration of stepping on the scale week after week to see it not budge, I gave up. When I found MFP, I started reading the forums and came to realize about working out AND eating back calories - I tried and it and it worked!
  • auticus
    auticus Posts: 1,051 Member
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    In my experience, eating too few calories will result in slower weight loss, crappy mood, hunger and possibly binges.
    Why do that to yourself when you can lose at a steady pace and feel good about what you eat?

    This is what I don't understand, why some folks are so hell-bent on eating as little as possible. It's almost like it's some sort of badge of honor.

    Typically because they are lazy and don't want to work out and see not eating anything as mathematically the best way to lose the most weight without having to do anything.

    Akin to the "silver bullet".
  • dragonsheart84
    dragonsheart84 Posts: 75
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    um, when the anorexics start eating again, they gain a lot of weight back. that is what happens when your body has been in starvation mode.
  • mareowner
    mareowner Posts: 26
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    I'd like a definition on starvation mode. As we bikers and distance runners will attest, if we burn 500 calories exercising and do not feed our muscles they will be soar. Yes, in one day damage does occur. If we feed them with nutrients they will not. So did our muscles consume themselves in "starvation mode"? Then take it to the next step. We continue to exercise without feeding our muscles and now they are shrinking and becoming damaged. I guess that's how I interpret starvation mode. Ultimately we end up with less muscle and our caloric needs drop (less calories required to sustain fat vs muscle).
  • tinksmommy2006
    tinksmommy2006 Posts: 575
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    Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

    However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

    have you seen a HEALTHY anorexic?

    Thank you
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
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    Try an experiment - eat very low calories for a few days and then try to do an intense, or even basic workout. I guarantee you will be able to feel what you are doing to your body if you eat too little. (Don't really try it, but I can promise you, it isn't a good feeling) You need fuel for your body, for breathing, thinking, living, exercise!
  • AliR105
    AliR105 Posts: 30 Member
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    i think there is such a thing to an extent. i dont really eat much when im up at university casue i dont have time and so i loose weight but after a bit it will slow down. when i go home and i start to eat normal amounts (or a bit over like at christmas) i put it on really quickly again and i think that its because i dont eat too much my metabolism slowed down. to speed it up tho u could try eating spicy food or drinking green tea as they both speed up your metabolism. u can also trick it into thinking ur eating more than u are with the 2, 4, 6, 8 diet but i would recomend that as its rather dangerous. due to the low calorie intake. i think its best just to not eat too little :) xxxxx
  • billsica
    billsica Posts: 4,741 Member
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    Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

    However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

    have you seen a HEALTHY anorexic?

    Weight loss would continue (at some sort of rate). But we really want healthy fat loss, not muscle loss
  • MaximalLife
    MaximalLife Posts: 2,447 Member
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    I've heard of this mysterious "starvation mode" and so I've tried not to eat too few calories, but obviously I'm doing that a bit too well because I'm on MFP to lose weight! :-)

    Is there really such a thing? Mathematically it seems that the less calories you have in your body the more weight you'll lose. What's the difference between exercising your calories away and simply not eating sometimes? (Aside from gaining muscle)

    Ideas? Thanks!
    Yes, and it happens to those restricting calories too much.
    People will fail with this approach.

    Starvation diets don't work.
    That's reality.

    Anyway, buck up and do what's recommended here on MFP, and all will be well.
    Or do the crash diet thing, and join the rest of yo yo dieting, unhealthy America.

    The one thing you can say after today is that YOU WERE NOT WARNED!

    I know.
    It happened to me.
  • TinaS70
    TinaS70 Posts: 52 Member
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    bump
  • amyofftherecord
    amyofftherecord Posts: 64 Member
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    I find it better to think of it as "hyper-efficiency mode". Basically if you're only giving your body, say, 800 kcals per day, it's going to start to realize that's all it's going to get, and learn to run on as little as possible (it'll pull the extra energy it needs from fat stores, but also muscle mass and other tissues you don't want to part with). If you suddenly give it 1200 kcals, even though that's still a fairly small amount, it'll assume it's a one-time blip, keep running hyper-efficiently, and store the difference as fat.

    Your metabolism is incredibly resilient, and if you start to eat the 1200 kcals (or, ideally, more) regularly, your body will realize it has more food to work with, and won't pull as much from your muscles and other tissues when scrounging for energy. Eventually it'll even out and your metabolism will "speed back up", or, looking at it from this view "be less efficient".

    In this case, less efficient is actually a good thing (up until a point, of course)!

    Having formerly starved myself I can tell you, yes, eating very little will result in weight loss, but also a slew of health complications and rapid weight gain as soon as you go back to a healthy amount. Better to eat a diet that might not cause you to lose weight as quickly, but is maintainable in the long-run so you don't have to worry about that rapid regain a few days or weeks down the road, essentially undoing all the effects of the starvation. I lost a crap-tonne of weight, but regained so much of it that now, having to redo the loss in a healthy way, the entire process would actually have gone much faster if I had just eaten healthfully from the get-go!
  • FearAnLoathing
    FearAnLoathing Posts: 4,852 Member
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    In my experience, eating too few calories will result in slower weight loss, crappy mood, hunger and possibly binges.
    Why do that to yourself when you can lose at a steady pace and feel good about what you eat?

    Yeah but would if someone does not have the slower weight loss,their mood is great,they dont binge or feel like they are starving
  • gingerb85
    gingerb85 Posts: 357 Member
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    Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

    However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.


    I have a friend who was severely anorexic during high school and college and was hospitalized for it for quite a while. She slowed her metabolism down so much that after having children, no matter what she did, she couldn't lose the weight. Normally, I should say. She still struggles with the old feelings - wanting to be in control and knows she could just stop eating and eventually would lose the weight. Thank goodness she doesn't do that. She eats a healthy diet and exercises moderately as her body can tolerate (she has fibromyalgia). But she is still overweight and has a hard time losing. She would be your fat "anorexic."
  • Cindym82
    Cindym82 Posts: 1,245 Member
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    From personal exp I can tell you that eating too little can cause you to gain weight. Granted I was eating all the wrong things, alot of fast food, but I was only eating once a day, maybe twice (not on purpose ~ I dont have an eating disorder ~ I would just be so busy that I'd forget to eat. Yes thats possible :p Or I'd get hungry, go in the kitchen, not see anything I wanted and just fix a glass of mt.dew to calm my stomach down til I figured out what I wanted. Which usually took hrs) I was at 202 at one point (found that out from a recent dr's visit.) Once I started eating GOOD calories, several times a day AND exercising I started dropping weight. I'm one of the few people I've seen on here that has trouble eating all my calories daily, again usually cause I'm too busy to think about food, but I'm working on that. Slowly :p and with a few set backs cause by a very hectic life.

    I have a big problem with eating enough calories, I don't eat if I'm not hungry and the two snacks a day thing just annoys me. I dont understand how 5 or 6 small meals a day helps. I get the point that yes your body will burn more because you're feeding it every 3-4hrs but sometimes i just don't feel like eating anything :(
  • FearAnLoathing
    FearAnLoathing Posts: 4,852 Member
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    I do believe in starvation mode,but heres what gets me in all these threads. You will see people saying OMG OMG you will stop losing weight,even gain it and when you switch to matanince you will pile the pounds on. Then you see some of these same people saying "you didnt get fat eating 1200 calories and day" which is stupid when you see them in the starvation mode threads telling people they will gain weight from starvation mode
  • spazzticaunt
    spazzticaunt Posts: 17
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    I have had personal experiance with this odd rumor and from experiance I will say that oddly enough that theory seems to be true. I have been known to gain the most weight when I have only eaten once or twice a day vs three times a day and a few snacks in between each meal.

    I have also found that if I eat a bigger breakfast and smaller lunch and supper that also helps. I asked my doctor why she wanted me to do it that way and her response was that because your busiest during the day and you start to slow down as the day progresses specially after supper when you tend to sit and watch tv and chill for the night you don't burn much calories at that point.

    I hope I made since if not I am sorry it's been a long night.
  • amyofftherecord
    amyofftherecord Posts: 64 Member
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    Your metabolism WILL slow down if you're not eating enough.

    However, until I see some fat anorexics running around, no one will convince me that weight loss will stop or reverse by eating too little.

    Speaking as a (recovering) "fat anorexic" (though, to be completely accurate, a formal diagnosis of anorexia requires a BMI that is considered underweight, so the very term is an oxymoron. But you can have dangerous, anorexic-like mentality and behaviours at any weight), yes, I lost weight. I went on 6 water fasts ranging from 28-40 days, taking in zero calories for weeks on end. I lost a lot of weight. That's the problem, though, it was just "weight". A good bit was fat, but I also lost so much muscle that I could barely lift myself onto the first step of a Greyhound bus; my legs were too weak to lift my remaining mass. And I lost heart tissue and had chest pains daily. I could have had a heart attack at 28. Losing "weight" can be done easily through a variety of healthy and unhealthy methods. But if we're too obsessed with "weight" and too indifferent to body composition, we end up killing ourselves over a dress size.
  • Missnurse89
    Missnurse89 Posts: 6
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    I would HIGHLY suggest you read this article, and all the other ones on his blog, he is a genius and is excellent with words. His posts really make you go hmmmm. I have just started going "Paleo" Jan 2nd and have never felt better, plus this is the first time weight is coming off. Its pretty simple, you dont eat grain, processed, or fried foods, legumes (beans), and you do eat LOTS of veggies and grass fed meat, some fruit and nuts, & only eat when you are hungry. if your not hungry - dont eat! What a concept, huh?

    http://www.gnolls.org/2181/the-breakfast-myth-part-2-the-art-and-science-of-not-eating-breakfast/

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