Starvation Mode- My take.

I get asked this question a lot: "Why am I stuck and not losing weight? I was losing like crazy and it stopped!" I suspect the answer is you have entered Starvation mode. I am going to try and explain it but first a disclaimer:

This is kind of an essay. Its long, it has math, and it is based on information that I have read in books and on the internet. It is my understanding of Starvation mode based on my experiences and my attempts to research how to break out of it. Also I am not a doctor, physical trainer, nutritionist, blah blah blah. So follow my advice at your own risk

Also for the know-it-all types who think they know more- You win. You know more than me and you are smarter. Since you win this no longer needs to be a contest about you being right and I am wrong. I am not going to go back and redo my research and cite a bunch of books and documents for you- Go do that yourself. In fact I highly recommend it.

Don't take my word for it, seriously go research this stuff, read, and educate yourself about your body. If a Doctor or a PT person tells you to do something I highly recommend you go research what they say to do as well. Why blindly follow what anyone tells you to do? You know YOUR body better than anyone else.

You can certainly use my understanding of starvation mode as a baseline to start researching for yourself. This really works for me and I have been successful many times. This time I plan on staying successful.

I eat for 1.75-2 pound a week loss. I was averaging 3.5 a week and have been slowly eating more calories until now I am at maintenance for the weight I want to be which is still losing an average 1-2 a week. You can’t keep up that kind of loss. Some weeks are busier than others hence the greater loss sometimes. I try to eat more on those weeks.

If you trust my math and don't want to research it for yourself (Buyer beware!!! I’m not a professional) then:

Scroll down to the IMPORTANT PART

Here goes:

First off we do not burn Fat at a steady rate. The more our diet changes the more we burn muscle instead of fat. The more you starve yourself the more your body relies on muscle as a food source than fat. THIS IS BAD. Muscle burns fat. More muscle= more fat burned off of you. The opposite is also true, less muscle= MORE FAT STAYS ON YOU.

You have to starve yourself harder and harder to continue losing weight as you lose muscle. In fact you start to lose massive volumes of precious fat burning muscle! STOP THAT!

If you work your butt off in the gym on the treadmill, biking running, etc and you are eating 1200 calories a day and you WERE losing weight but now you aren’t, you are probably in the mythical starvation mode.

Here is the math lesson.

1 pound of fat= 3500 calories. 1 pound of muscle = 3500 calories.

Normally my body size burns 2850 calories a day without working out or being active- that’s my BMR Basic metabolism Rate. If I eat an average over a month’s time that equals 2850 calories every day and don’t get much more or less active, my body fat and muscle mass will stay the same.

Let’s look at a few scenarios for weight loss efforts:

1 pound a week:

If I eat 500 calories less a day and keep the same activity level daily, at the end of a week I should have burned 3500 calories (7days x 500 less calories a day=3500 cals) = 1 pound of fat right? Wrong. Its about 90% fat, and 10% muscle. It’s still a pound a week overall.

Let’s say over the next ten weeks I eat 500 calories less everyday and loose 1 pound a week. Only 90% of that is fat. So .9 pounds of my weight loss is fat, .1pounds is muscle.

At the end of ten weeks I will have lost 10 pounds; 9 pounds are fat, 1 pound is muscle. I have to readjust my goals after ten pounds because that one pound of muscle loss means I am burning less fat overall.

2 pounds a week:

If I eat 1000 calories less a day and keep the same activity level daily, at the end of a week I should have burned 7000 calories (7 days x 1000 less calories a day= 7000) = 2 pounds of fat? No. Now I am at 80% Fat, 20 % muscle. Its 2 pounds overall.

Let’s say over the next ten weeks I eat 1000 calories less everyday and I lose 2 pounds a week. 80% is fat, 20% is muscle. So .8 pounds of my weight loss is fat, .2 is muscle.

After ten weeks I have burned 20 pounds; 16 of which are fat, 4 are muscle.

I have lost 4 times as much fat burning ability as I did in the example above, which means I start burning less and less fat 4 times as quickly as above. I have to adjust my goals every 2.5 weeks instead of every ten.

4 pounds a week:

If I eat 2000 calories less a day and keep the same activity level daily, at the end of a week I should have burned 14,000 calories (7days x 2000 less calories a day=14,000) = 4 pounds of Fat? No. Now I am at around 50% fat and 50% muscle.
You see the trend here. The more I starve myself the more my percentage of muscle loss goes up and it accelerates. I lose less fat.

Let’s say over the next ten weeks I eat 2000 calories less everyday and I lose 4 pounds a week. 50% is fat, 50% is muscle. So .5 pounds of my weight loss is fat, .5 is muscle.

After ten weeks I have burned 40 pounds; 20 of which are fat, 20 are muscle.

So in Ten weeks I burned:

After 10 weeks of 1 pound loss a week I have lost 1 pound of fat burning muscle and 9 pounds of fat.
After 10 weeks of 2 pounds a week loss I have lost 4 pounds of fat burning muscle and 16 pounds of fat.
After 10 weeks of 4 pound a week loss I have lost 20 pounds of fat burning muscle and 20 pounds of fat.

You might say at this point: “But I still lost more Fat than I lost the other two ways!” Yep that’s true. During the first ten weeks.

But let’s compare loosing 40 pounds using the above percentages and math:

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART:

After 40 pounds lost from 1 pound a week; I have lost 4 pounds of fat burning muscle and 36 pounds of fat.
After 40 pounds lost from 2 pounds a week; I have lost 8 pounds of fat burning muscle and 32 pounds of fat.
After 40 pounds lost from 4 pounds a week; I have lost about 20 pounds of fat burning muscle and 20 pounds of fat.

Do you see the difference? I have lost 16 more pounds of fat at the 1 pound a week rate than the 4 pound a week rate. Plus I have a lot more muscle left over to keep burning fat. I don’t plateau as quickly in fact probably won’t at all as long as I adjust my caloric intake for every ten pounds that I lose which will slow down my muscle loss.

Some signs that you are going into starvation mode and loosing the weight too quickly: You are grumpy. Hungry. Get headaches. You are irritable. You can’t concentrate. You feel overwhelmed by cravings that might trigger you to binge eat. You fantasize about the demise of your co workers.

OK you might do that anyways.

But if you find yourself suffering from things like this and normally you wouldn’t, and you have slowed down or stopped losing weight, stopped loosing inches, and find yourself running out of steam during your workouts, you are not eating enough to lose the fat!

Target eating for the 1-2 pound a week or less ratio over the week. This reduces muscle loss and keeps precious muscle to burn the fat. Muscle is good. Muscle is good because it eats fat. Lean muscle, power muscle, they all eat fat. Cardio creates lean muscle, weight lifting makes power muscle and both are good for your weight loss.

There have been lots and lots of research stating this happens and stating it does not. My experience has been it does. You can easily find regarding this subject by googling it.

Try googling "Peer reviewed study on weight loss rates”

You will find lots of information on this. Not everyone will agree with what I am saying but it works for me and I would bet it would work for you. Be sure to use the tool here at MFP to figure out how much you should eat too loose between 1-2 pounds and mark yourself for how active you really are. If you work out every day, you are Active.

Anyways that’s my stance on it. I'm sure there are some who will vehemently disagree. Go for it.