The Starvation Myth
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What I find interesting is that there is a lot of discussion about "starvation mode" and "eating back your exercise" on MFP but you don't see it in other forums. Actually I've never seen "eating back your exercise" on other forums (or I can't remember seeing it).
This! Before coming to MFP I never once heard anything anywhere about eating back your exercise calories. If that is "THE" way to go, why had I never heard about it before? My doctors and trainers had never mentioned it, not even once. You would think that if this was the secret to weight loss, everyone would know. Or maybe I live under a rock, which is possible. :bigsmile:
I had never heard of it either, unless you were involved in serious endurance sports or very heavy lifting.
It's only MFP where I've ever seen such a big deal made of it.
Once you start paying attention to what you're eating and move away from processed junk towards more quality food, you often find that you can't eat that much anyway.
Hahaha! Speak for yourself! LOL I can knock out 3500 calories of high quality unprocessed, home prepared, organically grown food easily!! :laugh:
You're also a man and rather larger than me, so what's your point?
I thought the point was pretty obvious but if your a little slow on the uptake I'd be happy to explain it. You used the collective " you" to state that eating less processed and higher quality food, "you" (collective) can't eat that much anyway. That statement would contain the logic fault of generalizing from the specific instance. You didn't say "I", you said "you". What applies to you doesn't apply to all.
There! Clearer?? Glad I could help.
edited for spelling
Thank you for clarifying this to someone who is so obviously lacking in intelligence as according to your humble opinion. I hope you feel better now after that little episode of patronising and belittling which you obviously thought necessary to make your point.
Could you also clarify where all these unprocessed 3500+ cals are you say you're consuming so regularly?
According to your last 6 days entries you consumed 2294 (no exercise), 2275 (no exercise), 2335 (no exercise), 2225 (no exercise) 2324 - 401 exercise = 1923 net, and 2074 (no exercise).
And I'm also not entirely sure whether protein powder classifies as unprocessed, homecooked and organic?0 -
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[ img ] url of pic [ /img ] without spaces in [ ]0 -
This made me LOL/grabs popcorn
this should be interesting
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That's the pic I was trying to post!! Too sleepy to figure it out...thanks for sharing this!!0
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Bump for updates to the bun fight.0
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I'm new to this site and the whole 'Stravation Mode' thing did get me a little worried, so I did some research (wiki is not good for this as anyone with access to the internet can post there), spoke to some friends of mine whom have just finished a degree on Nutrition and sport and all in all I came to a conclusion.
Starvation mode isnt a myth, but you're highly unlikely to be at risk of falling into it if you do not eat more than a 500 cal deficit. Your body falls into the starvation mode as protection against actual starvation.
You can calculate how many cals your boy needs with a simple calculation of lbs x 11.
So for me thats 121x11=1331 cals needed to maintain my weight as it is if I am mostly sedentary.
MFP has me on 1200 cals (Which for someone small can be difficult to consume) daily to get down to 115. Thats only a deficit of 131 cals, no risk of stravation mode.
However if your body NEEDS more than 1700 cals to maintain your current weight, suddenly dropping to 1200 cals daily is putting yourself at risk, not only of putting your body into starvation mode, but also doing some serious damage long term. Sure you'll see results in the very short term, but is your overall health worth it?
And the whole eating back cals, well even an idiot knows that if you work out hard and burn off loads of cals you can indulge a little extra.0 -
Another one at 1200 calories that doesn't eat their exercise calories back here
Worked for me to lose 70lbs and that was 5+ years ago.
I want to get a little lighter, but I usually maintain at 1450 though with a BMI of 19.
I don't eat breakfast, do daily intermittent fasting and I'm full of energy!
Meh - each to their own I say.
Live and let live, you can't educate people who don't want to listen.
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I want to write this in caps!! People over estimate how many calories they burn during the work out. Simple 40 mins cardio is not burning 700 calories i take credit for 200 in 9 for example a zumba class) there is a warm up cool down so right there you are at 45 mins not an hour. There are alot of hard core people who burn alot of calories and may need to eat them back in order to have the energy to train hard. But thise of us who go do a circut and and hour class are not burning in excess of 300 calories.0
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What I find interesting is that there is a lot of discussion about "starvation mode" and "eating back your exercise" on MFP but you don't see it in other forums. Actually I've never seen "eating back your exercise" on other forums (or I can't remember seeing it).
This! Before coming to MFP I never once heard anything anywhere about eating back your exercise calories. If that is "THE" way to go, why had I never heard about it before? My doctors and trainers had never mentioned it, not even once. You would think that if this was the secret to weight loss, everyone would know. Or maybe I live under a rock, which is possible. :bigsmile:
I had never heard of it either, unless you were involved in serious endurance sports or very heavy lifting.
It's only MFP where I've ever seen such a big deal made of it.
Once you start paying attention to what you're eating and move away from processed junk towards more quality food, you often find that you can't eat that much anyway.
Hahaha! Speak for yourself! LOL I can knock out 3500 calories of high quality unprocessed, home prepared, organically grown food easily!! :laugh:
You're also a man and rather larger than me, so what's your point?
I thought the point was pretty obvious but if your a little slow on the uptake I'd be happy to explain it. You used the collective " you" to state that eating less processed and higher quality food, "you" (collective) can't eat that much anyway. That statement would contain the logic fault of generalizing from the specific instance. You didn't say "I", you said "you". What applies to you doesn't apply to all.
There! Clearer?? Glad I could help.
edited for spelling
Thank you for clarifying this to someone who is so obviously lacking in intelligence as according to your humble opinion. I hope you feel better now after that little episode of patronising and belittling which you obviously thought necessary to make your point.
Could you also clarify where all these unprocessed 3500+ cals are you say you're consuming so regularly?
According to your last 6 days entries you consumed 2294 (no exercise), 2275 (no exercise), 2335 (no exercise), 2225 (no exercise) 2324 - 401 exercise = 1923 net, and 2074 (no exercise).
And I'm also not entirely sure whether protein powder classifies as unprocessed, homecooked and organic?
Didn't say I do. Said I could. Different. But hey, good diary reading. I'm glad you find my diary so facinating! And hey, no prob on the clarification. Glad to be able to help! Have a great day!0 -
I want to write this in caps!! People over estimate how many calories they burn during the work out. Simple 40 mins cardio is not burning 700 calories i take credit for 200 in 9 for example a zumba class) there is a warm up cool down so right there you are at 45 mins not an hour. There are alot of hard core people who burn alot of calories and may need to eat them back in order to have the energy to train hard. But thise of us who go do a circut and and hour class are not burning in excess of 300 calories.
This is the biggest issue in "eating back calories". There are many instances where MFP (and other sites) overestimate calories. The elliptical is the biggest villain that I know of. You'll see someone freewheeling on that thing and it says that they burned 600 calories. It's probably closer to 2/3rds of that. Small miscalculations on your portion sizes along with this and it is easy to get nowhere fast.0 -
I want to write this in caps!! People over estimate how many calories they burn during the work out. Simple 40 mins cardio is not burning 700 calories i take credit for 200 in 9 for example a zumba class) there is a warm up cool down so right there you are at 45 mins not an hour. There are alot of hard core people who burn alot of calories and may need to eat them back in order to have the energy to train hard. But thise of us who go do a circut and and hour class are not burning in excess of 300 calories.
This is the biggest issue in "eating back calories". There are many instances where MFP (and other sites) overestimate calories. The elliptical is the biggest villain that I know of. You'll see someone freewheeling on that thing and it says that they burned 600 calories. It's probably closer to 2/3rds of that. Small miscalculations on your portion sizes along with this and it is easy to get nowhere fast.
Abso-freakin-lutely.0 -
What I find interesting is that there is a lot of discussion about "starvation mode" and "eating back your exercise" on MFP but you don't see it in other forums. Actually I've never seen "eating back your exercise" on other forums (or I can't remember seeing it).
The whole eating exercise calories back thing is because unlike every other site I have seen, MFP does not include your planned exercise in the calories it calculates for your weight loss. If you calculate out things pretty much anywhere else for a 1 pound per week weight loss, you will find the calories there are higher than MFP, but pretty close once you add your exercise calories. It is not realizing that which generates the whole controversy.0 -
What I find interesting is that there is a lot of discussion about "starvation mode" and "eating back your exercise" on MFP but you don't see it in other forums. Actually I've never seen "eating back your exercise" on other forums (or I can't remember seeing it).
This! Before coming to MFP I never once heard anything anywhere about eating back your exercise calories. If that is "THE" way to go, why had I never heard about it before? My doctors and trainers had never mentioned it, not even once. You would think that if this was the secret to weight loss, everyone would know. Or maybe I live under a rock, which is possible. :bigsmile:
I'm with you guys, eating back your exercise calories makes no sense at all to me.
For an example, let's say MFP set you up at 1200 calories/day to lose 2lbs per week. MFP is estimating your TDEE @ 2200 calories per day and you have a 1000 calorie deficit/day.
Because you are already set up at a deficit, if you eat what MFP gives you and don't work out, you will lose the 2 lbs per week. Now if you workout your deficit has just gotten larger, let's say you burn 500 calories at the gym, your TDEE for the day is now 2700 calories. If you only eat the 1200 calories, you are at a deficit of 1500 calories. From experience I can't lose weight with more than 1000 calorie deficit.
I hope that helps, other websites will tell you to eat more because they count the workouts in your total, if you miss a day of workout with MFP, you don't have to worry!0 -
Eat too little and your body will hang onto whatever fat it can, it will try to burn more muscle then fat, as fat stores are preserved for longer periods of famine, eat a little more (it doesn't even have to be as much as what would have previously been maintenance calories, as the famine will have slowed your heartrate, and blood pressure and temperature to protect the body from the ongoing famine, ie starvation mode) and the body will try to add to the fat stores for the next famine that comes along. So to me if following VLCD you will likely easily become skinny fat, and don't end up with a desirable body shape and get crap metabolism. Starvation mode will happen as the body uses its build in mechanisms for surviving famines, and the best way to overcome them is to trick the body into thinking there is no famine, (ie eat more) and preserve muscle by doing strength training.
This is how we as a species have managed to survive periods of plenty and famines. It is also why some of us store fat so easily, and most people that don't store fat so easily were selected against during natural selection, they simply died during periods of famine as they didn't have enough stores of body fat to get through the famine, and their genes were not passed along for the next generation.
This is also one of the theories put forward for why pacific islanders put weight on so easily.They most likely originate from a tribe in Taiwan, made long sea journeys in canoes, went for months (probably) with little food, so when they arrived and settled the various islands of the Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand etc) only those with genes that made it easy for them to preserve their fat stores and add easily to their fat stores survived those long journeys, and passed their genesalong to the next generation. They have in a population a high number of individuals who lay fat down much easier then a population who didn't originate from the survivors of those long sea journeys.0 -
I think (and shoot me if you must) that too many people get too caught up in what everyone else is doing & thinking that they know best. How come WW current research is right when for years they’ve said differently - I went to WW many years ago having never struggled with my weight until I became ill and needed to lose a few lbs. I did what I thought was right and cut down my eating and upped my exercise. I was advised by WW leader to eat more, she said I wasn’t eating enough to support my bodies metabolism (I was averaging 13 WW points a day so I was hardly starving myself) and given I was working out quite hard 2-3 times a week I needed to eat more. I was scared to death when eating a salad meant I didn’t lose/gained weight but suddenly I could have carbs & protein with that salad and the weight came off. It took a while but it worked I was more energised I could enjoy my workout and I could eat without guilt.
Mainly due to health reasons my weight yo-yos and yet I still go to the low calorie plan when I want to lose weight, this time rather than doing points or syns I thought its calories in v calories out lets see where I’m going wrong. With an increased awareness around how many calories is in food and how many calories I’m burning (based on my HRM readings) I had got my weekly net average up to around 900/day. Talking to a few cyclist friends, real hard core exercisers I was SHOCKED at what they eat, they said ‘you need to fuel your body to work out effectively’ Ok I don’t need 3000 cals per day but having reviewed my past few weeks diaries and they advised me to try to get my net average calories above my BMR.
I’m only days in but already I feel better, I have more energy and ok I might not lose weight/ I might even put a few lbs on but I am doing this for health more than weight loss although I am hopeful that I will start to lose as well.
Its not a simple case as one size fits all, we are all different we all have different needs we all burn calories differently and we all like different things. So rather than criticise each other for what they’re doing can we not offer help guidance if its asked for and be more supportive when people are struggling to change their lifetime habits – we didn’t wake up one morning the way we are and we need to make small daily steps to a better lifestyle.
(nicely explained ingies)0 -
Oh, how I laughed. You actually posted that in a thread titled "The Starvation Myth".Eat too little and your body will hang onto whatever fat it can0 -
I want to write this in caps!! People over estimate how many calories they burn during the work out. Simple 40 mins cardio is not burning 700 calories i take credit for 200 in 9 for example a zumba class) there is a warm up cool down so right there you are at 45 mins not an hour. There are alot of hard core people who burn alot of calories and may need to eat them back in order to have the energy to train hard. But thise of us who go do a circut and and hour class are not burning in excess of 300 calories.
This is the biggest issue in "eating back calories". There are many instances where MFP (and other sites) overestimate calories. The elliptical is the biggest villain that I know of. You'll see someone freewheeling on that thing and it says that they burned 600 calories. It's probably closer to 2/3rds of that. Small miscalculations on your portion sizes along with this and it is easy to get nowhere fast.
Abso-freakin-lutely.
Spot on.0 -
I want to write this in caps!! People over estimate how many calories they burn during the work out. Simple 40 mins cardio is not burning 700 calories i take credit for 200 in 9 for example a zumba class) there is a warm up cool down so right there you are at 45 mins not an hour. There are alot of hard core people who burn alot of calories and may need to eat them back in order to have the energy to train hard. But thise of us who go do a circut and and hour class are not burning in excess of 300 calories.
This is the biggest issue in "eating back calories". There are many instances where MFP (and other sites) overestimate calories. The elliptical is the biggest villain that I know of. You'll see someone freewheeling on that thing and it says that they burned 600 calories. It's probably closer to 2/3rds of that. Small miscalculations on your portion sizes along with this and it is easy to get nowhere fast.
Abso-freakin-lutely.
Spot on.
Right-o! I concur! Cherrie-o!
Everybody should read this. If you are exercising and cutting caloriesevery week, there is no reason an average person who is in the obese "BMI" chart and only loose .5 pounds a week. This is why, people!! Why bust your a** at the gym just to have another meal? Especially when the equipment lies! Such sweet gypsy lies. My apartment gym's elliptical (a nice expensive one, too) says I burn up to 800-900 calories in an hour. PUHLEASE. Kidding me? Probably more like 400. So if I ate 900 calories back, and ate 1250 calories that day (my BMR) I would definitely gain.0
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