Another non-believer of "starvation mode"?

So what would she say for someone like me who is running about 4 miles + doing strength training most days who is still not losing a whole lot? I'm 5'6 and even when I had my calories at 1200 I wasn't losing.... Should I still cut back??!!??

Ok that being said I just recently upped my calories so I am not going under 1200 calories but seriously...

Just wondering.

After 31 months and losing 295 lbs. and all the trial and error that I have went through and I am speaking from my own experience of course there is such a think as creating such a huge deficit between your diet and exercise that your body responds by slowing down your metabolism and start retaining nutrition that you are feeding it because with the deficit you are giving it , it has no idea when the next meal is going to come hence the term starvation mode effect get thrown around. I don't necessarily like the term in its general form but the effects are real.. believe me..... I have lived and learned the hard way. just my 2 cents........

It is a term that is thrown around too often and used way too loosely. Most peer reviewed, scientific studies of starvation mode don't support most people's ideas of it.

I dont beleive in it eirther as people that dont eat much get real skinny look at people that have eating disorders if starvation mode was true no one would get very thin.

I do feel though our bodys get used to the amount of exercise we do so we have to up it change it and then gradually lower the calories to adjust,I do know though when I did a oplan in the uk rosemary conerly I was 240lbs and they set me at 1200 calories and 3 aerobic classes a week I lost 0 thats as it was too low and my body held onto the fat,thats the thing it do holds it a while then eventually if you keep eating very little and exercsing you will lose the weight depending on how much you weight to start,this is why I find this hard to find the right amount of calories to eat to lose in the begining then adjusting them!

From personal experience the whole 'starvation mode' thing is a load of bull. I know that if I eat one salad a day, or a bowl of cereal a day and nothing else I will be a nice 120lbs. At 5'8" that's pretty slim. My body has never gone into 'starvation mode'. I also have a friend who is a recovering anorexic, there's no way she would have managed to get down to 5 stone if her body went into starvation mode. Especially not with the amount of cheese and hot chocolate she ate, by rights she should have put on weight!

The less you weigh, the less calories you need to fuel your body. So if you are thin, lowering your calorie intake below 1200 won't necessarily put your body into starvation mode and stop your metabolism. Plateaus are natural, and will happen, but starvation mode is actually a myth.

Starvation mode happens when you don't eat ANYTHING at all...that's your body's way of coping with NO food. Eating less than you should on a daily basis won't cause your body to shut down.

The less you weigh, the less calories you need to fuel your body. So if you are thin, lowering your calorie intake below 1200 won't necessarily put your body into starvation mode and stop your metabolism. Plateaus are natural, and will happen, but starvation mode is actually a myth.

Starvation mode happens when you don't eat ANYTHING at all...that's your body's way of coping with NO food. Eating less than you should on a daily basis won't cause your body to shut down.

^^^ That's not eating at all, which is starvation! Lowering calories doesn't make you go into starvation mode. I know if I eat 1200 kcals and exercise I pile on weight. My calories are restricted to 600 a day for me to maintain, less for me to lose. As for eating back exercise calories, I would be HUGE!!!!!

Everyone's different and need different amounts of energy, one persons healthy diet might be a massively bad one for someone else. I have friends on here that eat fast food every day and still lose weight, again if I did that I would be massive. Horses for courses...

After 31 months and losing 295 lbs. and all the trial and error that I have went through and I am speaking from my own experience of course there is such a think as creating such a huge deficit between your diet and exercise that your body responds by slowing down your metabolism and start retaining nutrition that you are feeding it because with the deficit you are giving it , it has no idea when the next meal is going to come hence the term starvation mode effect get thrown around. I don't necessarily like the term in its general form but the effects are real.. believe me..... I have lived and learned the hard way. just my 2 cents........

First well done on your weight loss! AMAZING!

I've heard a lot about starvation mode, it seems to make sense, as the body is very good at survival. I have kept my calories at 1200 and have eaten at least part of my exercise calories back. I'm only a few weeks in so I am listening to a lot of advice on here!
I have to say looking at your weight loss, you obviously have this down, and any advice you give will definitely be top of my list!!!
xx

"Starvation mode" - that is the body's response to real lack of food, fat burning is turned way down to conserve the best energy source it has. Muscle will be broken down to provide amino acids for conversion into glucose for energy, with the little bit of fat that is used. Glucose stores are maintained at minimum levels to provide food for brain and heart.
Bad state to be in, and way over used on this site for simply under eating.

That being said, she is also being naive over basic human functions. Now maybe her context was in the place of contestants with measured BMR so they knew exactly where the diet and exercise had to be for maximum weight loss.
But her comment hardly applies to sites like MFP where that is all misunderstood or unknown by way too many folks.

If your real BMR (let's not say estimated or calculated, let's say real test was done) was 1400.
If you really ate at 1200 suggested, because your maintenance calories was 2200, and you select 2lb/week.

What is your real BMR, metabolism, going to do? BMR is the basic energy required to maintain the body at rest. That energy cannot come from itself ultimately, it must come outside.

So body can easily lower BMR to the new level you are feeding it. No wonder most sites say metabolism will take a hit of 15-30% depending on how restrictive. 200 calorie burn lost out of 1400 is 15%.

When that finally happens, the weight loss progress either slows to a crawl or stops, just depending on how far below the BMR the deficit went. In example above, BMR is now at 1200, calculation of maintenance calories would now be a tad below 2000. Now only a 800 calories deficit. No more 2 lbs/week. Solution given by that nutritionist - eat less. I think we can do the math and see what happens here.

Now what happens if this person works out 2 times a day for a real measured 500 calories, whatever that takes time-wise?

How many calories are left to feed the organism the energy for basic human life?
200 calories.

This may not be starvation mode at this point, but I'm sorry, what is the body going to do if this is kept up in a consistent basis?

I've not seen the studies as to how low BMR can go and just be considered low, rather than unhealthy or messed up. But that is pretty bad.
That is hair falling out, organs having problems, teeth problems, skin, ect. Several blogs of people that did that.

Shoot, several posts from ones currently doing it. MFP stops the daily calorie goal at 1200, no matter what the maintenance calories are at and the math would normally cause, for safety reasons.
And then that is defeated by folks not understanding the whole concept and not eating back their exercise calories.
Besides, that calorie goal could already be 400 below their estimated BMR, because they just don't have enough maintenance calories.

Starvation mode? - if you have an eating disorder you maintain for too long.
Can you follow some suggestions and get there? Possibly, especially if you have a self image problem and force yourself there.

After 31 months and losing 295 lbs. and all the trial and error that I have went through and I am speaking from my own experience of course there is such a think as creating such a huge deficit between your diet and exercise that your body responds by slowing down your metabolism and start retaining nutrition that you are feeding it because with the deficit you are giving it , it has no idea when the next meal is going to come hence the term starvation mode effect get thrown around. I don't necessarily like the term in its general form but the effects are real.. believe me..... I have lived and learned the hard way. just my 2 cents........

First well done on your weight loss! AMAZING!

I've heard a lot about starvation mode, it seems to make sense, as the body is very good at survival. I have kept my calories at 1200 and have eaten at least part of my exercise calories back. I'm only a few weeks in so I am listening to a lot of advice on here!
I have to say looking at your weight loss, you obviously have this down, and any advice you give will definitely be top of my list!!!
xx

Thank You, I too would have to say that reading an article or a website isn't quite the same as living through it and I am not saying what has worked for me is the end all be all but I do know that I have been through about every scenario possible over the last 32 months. After I was able to walk again and support my own weight my exercise kept increasing but my mentality to eat more didn't. I thought the bigger the deficit of calories the more weight I could lose. So I got to the point where I was consuming under my BMR and burning well over 1000 calories a day and I now know because of this my body started cannibalize muscle as well as my remaining fat stores and it cost me alot of time and wasted energy cause I hit plateau's like crazy and really screwed up my metabolism. It took me awhile to wrap my head around the fact I either had to exercise less or eat more... Once I figured this out though it was lights on for my body, My current BMR is 2450 and I split train now most days and now consume 3200-3400 calories a day (I eat back 85% of my exercise calories) and am losing 1 to 2 lbs. a week weightloss. So I am firmly in the camp of believing in what starvation can do to your body if you don't follow a proper caloric deficit.......

EdD,

Just read your profile. Amazing results - "half the man I was"!
Very impressive.

Did you find starvation mode was a problem when you were starting out and much higher BF %? I.e. where you eating much more when you were much bigger (say 2400-3000 cals NET per day) as supposed to or did you just drop straight down to 1500 cals NET?

I understand you must do alot of exercise to be still eating 3400 cals per day now but what is your NETs?

Cheers

I hate the term "starvation mode". It is the most overused, overabused word on this site. However, I do believe that if your deficit is larger than your body can handle, you risk losing muscle mass along with fat. This in turns decreases your metabolic rate and makes it harder to lose weight and easier to gain it back.

The more fat reserves you have, the larger the deficit you can have.

It's science, guys. You metabolism does slow. It becomes so very hard for your body to break down food when it's not used to breaking down certain amounts. Look at recovery from eating disorders - they're put on meal plans that are only around 1200 calories, if at that, yet they still experience weight gain. Why? Because their bodies weren't used to it.

I think everyone needs to remember that "starvation" refers to less than 600 calories a day, I believe. 1200 is the recommended weightloss calorie intake (for women), just because you're going lower than that, doesn't mean you're starving. Also, people need to remember that other things will boost your metabolism, thus speeding up a metabolism that may have been slowing down from decreasing intake. Things like exercise, muscle mass, green tea and caffeine etc. all help boost the metabolism.

Whilst in the depths of my ED that was what I used to 'maintain' a 'normal' metabolism. I lived off tea and black coffee, and exercised ridiculously; convinced that this was speeding my metabolism up, balancing the fact that body was starving and basically destroying itself. Of course, these tactics didn't help when recovery was forced upon me. 15kg went on very, very easily. Had I perhaps maintained the 1200 calories and done everything by the book; my weight probably wouldn't have gone back on in such a fashion. Because I wouldn't have mucked my metabolism up so much.

Also, when you are starving (in terms of the medical definition; i.e. 600 odd calories), your weight loss will slow. You will have to step up your calorific outtake in order to maintain steady loss. This goes for people who are in the 'healthy' BMI section. Those who are in the overweight or obese categories experience faster weightloss. I think of it as perhaps their bodies thanking them, as most of us have that one weight that we stay at or sink to. Once you meet that anchoring weight, then things become harder. Perhaps that's your metabolism going "stop, we're good here", and hindering you from losing more weight.