starvation mode or what?

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amy_marlene
amy_marlene Posts: 178 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
i'm so confused about all this stories about starvation mode and eating to little amount of calories and stuff so i want to share a story.
it happened 4 years ago. a friend of mine ( 16 years old at that time ) 5'6 tall,114 lbs. she wanted to be skinny ( but she was skinny already) and she start starving herself. she was eating apples,yogurts and cereals only and swam 2 hours almost every day. it all happened during the summer break. she have lost 31 lbs during 2 and a half months. she weghted 83 lbs ! fortunately she got better and she gain 26 lbs during 1 year and she is perfectly maintaining it for the last 3 years.
i don't understand. she was eating around 400 calories daily but she was losing weight constantly.
could you please give me some explanation.i'm so confused about it.

Replies

  • ahatcher0905
    ahatcher0905 Posts: 20
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    I would also like to know about this too. I think the 1200 calorie limit is for ppl wanting to lose it slowely and safe. But I don't want to do that, I want to lose it fast damn it lol.
  • SSAHM
    SSAHM Posts: 172 Member
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    to start off with i think your body goes into starvation mode and starts holding onto everything it can- Holds onto the fat it has already and stores as much as it can. but it cant maintain doing that if it wants to go through its normal processes so after a while it will start having to use everything and thats when people majorly loose weight, muscle mass to begin with and then fat afterwards its not healthy but obviously. Thats my understanding of it.

    Btw check out helloitsdan's profile and go to the link on there i was actually eating 1200cal or less and not loosing hardly anything but the trick is too eat more~scary i know. But if you go to the site it calulates alll you details finds out your fat % (which was scary for me) and then figure out properly how much YOU personally should be eating in order to lose weight.
    Me im supposed to be havving a staggering 2200 to lose weight i only figured it out today but if you look through the forums there are heaps of people thanking him for showing them and say their losing weight like never before. So im willing to give it a crack. Onlytime will tell.
  • amy_marlene
    amy_marlene Posts: 178 Member
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    can anybody explain this PLEASE :((
  • amy_marlene
    amy_marlene Posts: 178 Member
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    to start off with i think your body goes into starvation mode and starts holding onto everything it can- Holds onto the fat it has already and stores as much as it can. but it cant maintain doing that if it wants to go through its normal processes so after a while it will start having to use everything and thats when people majorly loose weight, muscle mass to begin with and then fat afterwards its not healthy but obviously. Thats my understanding of it.

    Btw check out helloitsdan's profile and go to the link on there i was actually eating 1200cal or less and not loosing hardly anything but the trick is too eat more~scary i know. But if you go to the site it calulates alll you details finds out your fat % (which was scary for me) and then figure out properly how much YOU personally should be eating in order to lose weight.
    Me im supposed to be havving a staggering 2200 to lose weight i only figured it out today but if you look through the forums there are heaps of people thanking him for showing them and say their losing weight like never before. So im willing to give it a crack. Onlytime will tell.
    thank you :)
  • darthbambi
    darthbambi Posts: 32
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    The thing with extremely low calories is that the weight loss that comes from it is not a sustainable thing at all. Once you go back to eating a fairly normal amount of calories, you gain all of the weight back and then some.
    Starvation response itself is mainly about the body breaking down glycogen and protein from your muscles (do a Wikipedia search for starvation response, the article is actually quite informative).
  • devilsangel2
    devilsangel2 Posts: 123 Member
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    You can lose weight this way but my understanding is that you will slow your metabolism to a point where as soon as you start eating normally again you will stack the weight back on + some, because your body is scared that you will try to starve it again.
  • CaseRat
    CaseRat Posts: 377 Member
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    Like you said, she was already skinny. She wouldn't have had much fat on her. By starving herself that much for that long, she would've been losing all her muscle mass. It's an instinctual thing our body does; muscle is useless in times of starvation but fat will help us; so it burns up all the muscle. You DON'T want that.
    Say if you weigh 150lb's and did what she did. You lose 30lbs and end up at 120lbs. Youll still be carrying almost the same amount of fat you had to begin with, because the majority of your losses will be muscle.

    Edit: and as the above posters say, too, you're just slowing down your metabolism by doing it, and as soon as you start eating normally again you'll pack on even more fat that what you had originally. So now you'll be carrying even more fat.
  • applekoko19
    applekoko19 Posts: 85 Member
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    MFP has told me every night for the past 4 months that I will put myself into starvation mode. I usually eat 900 calories almost all protein... I am a protein fiend and so far I have lost 53lbs. I eat whenever I am hungry, I never starve myself. I have recently started jogging/running and so on days when I jog after the exercise I eat high fibre complex carbs. My diet is not perfect and I know I could eat better but 4 months ago I was eating at least 3000cals a day I felt disgusting and tired and unhappy and now I feel AMAZING and I am sorry MFP but I am not in starvation mode.

    Best wishes to everyone and I think everyone just needs to play around with their diet until they find what works for them. :) No one has all the answers!
  • SSAHM
    SSAHM Posts: 172 Member
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    to anyone that does read this please make sure you are losing weight sensibly and not eating too few calories. It is so hard to watch someone you love and care about starve to death.
    My dearest pop (R.I.P i love you soo much) passed away only a couple of weeks ago. He pretty much starved to death. He did have alot of other health problems like parkinsons and alzheimers and had been in care/hospital for a while. He had already lost alot of weight but even in his frail condition it still took 2 very hard months of us having to watch him fade away. (he didnt have a choice in the matter it was just his medical conditons piled into one)
    So please do it the safe way!!!
  • kathleennnnn
    kathleennnnn Posts: 62
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    You are slowing down your metabolism but you will still lose more weight if you reduce your calories.

    Your expected loss vs. your actual loss will just change.

    Im not saying its recommended but increasing your calories in order to increase your metabolism may not always be the answer to a weightloss plateau.

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