The Starvation Myth

Weightwatchers don't want you to lose weight, they want you to keep paying =]

Starvation mode is no myth. If you eat too little, your body goes in to starvation mode to save itself. Your body will start using muscle for energy as you are not eating enough to keep it going.
1200 calories is a basic minimum in many experts opinions. As far as eating back calories, if you eat under 1200 exercise or not it tells you here you are not eating enough. If you eat that as a min, and like me tonight still have MANY calories you earned in exercise, it does not say you did not eat enough. These are calories , again in my opinion, that helps your weight loss.
I used to severly restrict calories to lose weight. Problem is when you go and eat normally, healthy but normally, it immediately converts it to fat to store and use in the future in case it is needed in starvation times.
Look it up. Starvation mode is real and unhealthy

I, personally, believe that starvation mode is utter bull-pucky, unless you've been eating less than 500 calories for several months consistently. People who freak out about their metabolism slowing down drive me nuts...it's like soaking your house in water to prevent fire. Sure, no fire, but now you have mold, lovely.

The entire "starvation mode" myth is moldy as f***

Wow bad analogy. So those extra calories I eat are just getting me all moldy up inside and not giving me energy?

It's real, you can't completely stop losing weight but you will slow. It takes a lot less time than several months. Metabolism is controlled by hormones and if you don't get the right nutrition you'll throw everything off, feel like crap and not lose weight as fast.

You people are confusing the hell out of me........mfp needs a panel of nutritionists to jump in here and unscramble my brains.
I guess the only real way to loose is trial and error. If one don't work do the other.

I can't speak for the starvation mode thing but in my opinion the reason there is so much talk (or questions) about eating back exercise calories back is because I feel like MPF makes it a big deal. It says "oh hey you earned these calories back!!" Personally, I think people use it as an excuse to eat way more than they need to.

Agree with this. Its not the eating back the calories that poses the problem, Its the fact that people (and MFP for me at least) incorrectly calculate the calories they actually burn during exercise and therefore over eat. This coupled with the fact doing a lot of cardio does make you hungry (again it does for me at least) and I find I grossly overeat any calories burned after doing such activities

I said the same thing on another thread and got CRUCIFIED FOR IT. I said most people on MFP greatly overestimate calorie burn.

And I was crucified. THat's why i don't even put down my actual workout because if I see MFP telling me I "earned" more cals to eat..I WILL! So I just don't give myself that option.

Crucifixion sounds painful! Glad you survived it though.

I agree with you. MFP misleads by saying ' you earned 200 calories' then you go and eat 200 when in fact you only burned 50 walking to shop that took 10 mins.

There obviously needs to be common sense but the HR monitors are pretty good, There is also a calculation on the livestrong website that gives much more accuracy and takes into account age, weight and hr etc. Both of which always give me lower values for calories burned than MFP.

I wrote myself an excel spreadsheet based on the livestrong calculation which I now use a lot!

I have a polar FT60 but I rarely use it nowadays. I really could care less how much I burn now. But back when I was wearing it religiously the Ft 60 would tell me I burned 100 calories, the machine would tell me I burned 300!

I am going to guess that most MFP people are relying on what the machines are telling them. If they are it's no surprise why they aren't losing weight.

Another surprising thing is the BETTER I got at exercising the less I burned where I just stopped doing hardly ANY cardio. PERIOD.

When I started running, I'd burn about 100 cals a mile(per my FT60). Now? I am lucky if I burn 50. (although now if I throw it in there every now and then I will see that I might burn 60 or 70 now that I don't run almost every darn day..)

Seeing how i got so darn efficient...I decided to lower my caloric intake.

Sometimes below 1200!!!

Didn't starve.

Lost weight. Built muscle.

Now off to a thread about why cardio is overrated for weightloss...night all!

You people are confusing the hell out of me........mfp needs a panel of nutritionists to jump in here and unscramble my brains.
I guess the only real way to loose is trial and error. If one don't work do the other.

eat less, move more generally works :laugh:

weight watchers does the same thing. You can earn points to eat more, thru exercise. That part of it did not work for me.

I think the problem everyone is missing about eating back calories is that MFP uses your BMR and minus deficate calories off that. When trully your deficate should be subtracted from your Total Daily Energy Expendenture (TDEE) calories. So because MFP uses BMR your need to eat your calories back from exercise because you are already way under on calories needed before you even started exercising.

BMR calories are like others said is the approx. minimum your body needs to function doing absolutlly nothing all day.

TDEE is your BMR multiplied by your normal activity level per day.

Multiplier = My Description or Alternative Description

1.2 = Desk job with little exercise or Little to no exercise
1.375 = 1-3 hrs/wk of light exercise or Light exercise (1–3 days per week)
1.55 = 3-5 hrs/wk of moderate exercise or Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week)
1.725 = 5-6 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise or Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week)
1.9 = 7-21 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise/work or Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts)

My current BMR is 2280 cal/day
My current TDEE is 2736 cal/day
if I want to loss weight of 2 lbs/week my calories based on my TDEE would only be 1736 cal/day but my body needs a minimum 2280 cal/day to function so trully my my healthy cal/day should not go under 2280 cal. Also if I where to exercise My calories eaten should always be my bmr plus my exercise calories to insure that my organs and muscles have enough energy to fuction.

MFP took my BMR of 2280 cal/day and minused 1000 cal/day (2lbs/week) making my goal 1280 cal/day. now if I where to do 1280 calories of work out in 1 day it would put me at 0 cal/day which means I could of just not even eaten that day and acheived the same goal hense why it is a absolute must to eat your exercise calories back.

good site to calculate your BMR, TDEE and daily calorie goal is: http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

I don't know if this has already been mentioned, but a lot of people say they never heard of eating back exercise before.

Weight Watchers does this. When I was on their plan, I could earn extra points through exercise. Same concept,

In case I haven't posted it yet on this page, WW 'eating back' is optional and maxes at half your exercise calories. It's a little different from MFP's "eat ALL your exercise calories or risk starvation mode".

National Institute of Health--


Food Intake and Starvation Induce Metabolic Changes

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22414/

Did you post this as part of the discussion about what brains use for fuel or about starvation? I think they're talking about starvation effects from 0 intake in this article, aren't they?