The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Out*With*The*Old]

STARVATION MODE: Fact or Fiction?!?

OK, so I know we’ve ALL heard of the dreaded ‘Starvation Mode’. To be honest, I’ve never given it THAT much thought until the scale stalls for people and people talk of possible starvation mode and not eating enough, etc.

Yesterday I happened upon a picture of the remaining Survivor China contestants on the net. Several of the girls looked incredibly thin - - on one I could see her ribs above her breasts almost as well as I could see her clavicles. She was thin to begin with but OBVIOUSLY has lost a good bit of weight while consuming her few bowl fulls of rice a day.

So, I wondered, why do these people not go into ‘Starvation Mode’? Is it in deed a fact……or is it fiction?

I’m sure many of you have your thoughts/facts/experiences so lets hear them :-)

FYI: Before you slam me – NO, I am not thinking of starving. I enjoy eating too much or I wouldn’t be here, lol. It just made me ponder the whole ‘starvation mode’ debate and I thought I would open it up here for what I presume will be lots of in-depth thoughts. So, is it real? And if so, why aren’t the Survivors stuck in ‘the scale won’t move cause I am eating too little’ mode?

Have fun!

[jskm]

I'm sure that done over a long enough period of time with few enough calories, then yes one would eventually lose weight in spite of "starvation mode." Obviously, Survivior (and anorexia for that matter) supports this. Remember these people are also getting some forced level of activity too, with the physical challenges they do and stuff. That could be a contributing factor, I don't know.

However, it's *my opinion* that in most cases the average person wouldn't be consuming few enough calories and/or over a long enough period of time to overcome the stall that (has been my recent personal experience) does indeed happen in starvation mode. Then again I was/am very sedentary, which could also have been a factor in my scale stall, again I don't know.

JMHO though.

[lifelovinaries]

IMHO, I think starvation mode is a fact. We have to keep in mind that on Survivor, they are still extremely active. Starvation mode isn't saying that our bodies will stop losing weight completely, it goes through a confusion period. In the beginning our bodies drop the weight quickly, then once the body realizes that not very much is coming in, it tends to hold on to every little bit it can with ALL (or lack thereof) that it is given. This is not to say that weight will not be lost, it will, it just means that our bodies will be confused as to what to do. In the case of true starvation, the body has NO CHOICE but to begin burning the fat and muscle if nothing is being taken in (in the way of nutrition) so therefore, weight is still dropping. Looking at a case here, someone was not able to eat for a period of time (simply had no appetite) so the body began to hold on to what it had left, had she continued not eating, weight would have eventually started to fall off because physically it would have to, the body needs something to burn. Since she started eating again, her body decided to "hold on" to what she was putting into it "just in case" it was to go through another starvation period, it would have more to burn. Once we let our bodies know that the calorie consumption is steady, the body believes it is ok to drop the weight again. Kind of goes back to caveman days when food was scarce, bodies took on a "feast or famine" type of thing. When they would eat, the body would hold on to what was consumed, assuming that it would be quite a while before the next meal. Hey mike, the science guy, i hope you chime in here...maybe i am assuming too much, sorry, i don't know what kind of science you teach!

[Mike]

Good explanation. Anyone who has listened to Dr. Anderesen's It's Not Your Fault come to understand this. Out bodies are built to store fat. 10000 years ago we were foragers. Food wasn't always so readily available and when we got some meat or berries or whatever, we ate it all and stored it.
Today, for most of us, food is available and we have to be careful to not overeat as our bodies are designed to store what we don't need that day.
The starvation mode is for when we aren't taking in enough to keep our metabolism going in a regular process.

Someone described it as follows: We don't need to keep our gas tanks on full all of the time, we just need to keep adding just enough to keep us going. Examples like those on Survivor are people who are getting food, not necessarily proper nutrition, but they are also active... thus using what they eat and then using what is on their bodies.
The problem also is that they are probably using muscle mass along with it... not healthy, but a price they will pay for a chance at $1 million.

These are my 2 cents (more maybe more... )

[DogMa]

Also remember that, at least on Survivor (but not in the case of anorexics), they aren't going without food for THAT long. The people there the longest are there for 39 days. Courtney has been there just over 30 right now, I think (and she actually HAS eaten some; when they've won challenges, she has crammed in cheeseburgers or whatever along with the rest of them).

But sure, I think it's real. I've had trouble losing weight whenever my calories get too low for too long. Would I keep losing weight if I cut them down even further and ate, say, 300 calories a day? I'm sure I would, but it's not something I'm willing to try.