Starvation mode: real or myth?

If you have ever tried to lose weight before, you have undoubtedly heard about starvation mode.

Doesn’t ring a bell? Here’s a summary if you have not heard of it.

You decrease your calories in an attempt to lose weight.

Initially, weight is coming off. Then weight loss plateaus.

You restrict calories more but your weight doesn’t budge. You continue to restrict yet the weight doesn’t move still.

The prevailing wisdom is that you have reached starvation mode. This is where your calories are so low that your body decides to stop losing weight and will hold on to body fat with self-preservation in mind.

The idea is that the body will thwart your attempts to lose weight. It will literally thumb its nose at you and your silly attempts to outsmart it.

Can that really be true?

Not exactly.

Our bodies are smart and do adapt to what we do. This is happening on a daily basis.

So if starvation mode isn’t a real thing, what is going on?

Let’s first discuss actual starvation and an interesting study on it.

THE MINNESOTA STARVATION EXPERIMENT.

Back in November of 1944, 36 men joined a study in conjunction with the University of Minnesota [1].

It was going to be a 24-week starvation diet.

• Those individuals started out eating 1,560 calories per day, and over the course of the 24 weeks, their caloric intake was lowered to ensure that weight loss kept happening.

• These men were also expected to walk or run 22 miles every week.

• In the end, this meant that most of these individuals were placed in a calorie deficit that equated to about a 50% drop in total caloric needs on a daily basis.

General guidelines for even the most aggressive fat loss protocols are 20-25% of a caloric reduction; this was twice that amount.

All the men lost about 25% of their total body weight and ended up around 5% body fat.

Pardon the grainy photo…it’s an old pic.

The photos show that these men did not hit any kind of starvation mode and their bodies kept dropping muscle, fat and overall weight.

If starvation mode was a real thing, at least some of these men should have hit that point where their weight loss halted and their bodies just held on for dear life.

That did not happen to any of the men.

Oh, and food became an obsession for the participants. One of the men remembered the often complex processes the men developed for eating the little food that was provided: “… eating became a ritual.

Severe or chronic caloric restriction has psychological effects on people as well.

And if starvation mode is real then why do around 9 million people die of hunger every year? [3,4]

MINDLESS EATING AND ADAPTIVE THERMOGENESIS

So, if starvation mode isn’t a real thing, what is going on, and why is weight loss so hard to get and maintain?

I think there are two main issues but they both are linked together.

We don’t pay enough attention to what we are doing.

Adaptive thermogenesis.

You may be thinking, “What’s up with all the fancy words?”

Simmer down, youngster. I am going to explain.

Generally speaking, people eat most of their food mindlessly. We are always doing something else while we are eating.

Because of this, we have lost touch with our hunger and fullness cues.

We eat when we are not hungry and we eat more than we need.

Our bodies get used to eating more food than our bodies need. When we start to eat less, our body freaks out and sends out some hunger signals and we mindlessly go grab something to satisfy that hunger even though we do not need those calories.

We never take the time to assess whether or not we are truly hungry or just used to eating.

And, when you focus on hardcore restriction as your nutrition plan, you will undoubtedly start to crave all the foods you tell yourself you can’t have.

You will be able to fight that off for a bit. But when that levee breaks, it breaks hard and you end up face-first into all of those forbidden foods for weeks and months on end.

As I mentioned earlier, our bodies are always adapting especially when you start to lose or gain weight.

Weight loss plateaus can also be this time of recalibration. Your body needs time to adjust your metabolism and overall calorie burning to your new weight.

This is NOT a time to drop calories. Maintain your intake instead.

Give your body some time. Weight loss will resume if you stay consistent.

Because of adaptive thermogenesis, counting calories becomes as useful as pissing in the wind.

Never tried it? Don’t bother. It doesn’t work either.

INTENSE RESTRICTION, CHRONIC DOWN-REGULATION

Restricting calories can have lasting impacts on the number of calories your body will burn.

6 years following participation in The Biggest Loser, RMR (calories burned at rest) remained suppressed at the same average level as at the end of the weight-loss competition.

The average RMR after 6 years was ~500 kcal/d lower than expected based on the measured body composition changes and the increased age of the subjects [2].

This makes it easy to overeat when you are basing your calorie counting on faulty numbers.

If you can’t seem to lose weight consistently, you are still eating more than you think and this is why your progress has stalled. It’s not starvation mode.

Spend more time on HOW and WHY you are eating and slowly change WHAT you are eating. But do it in that order.

EBM’s Nutrition Program focuses more on the HOW and the WHY and helps you become more aware of your habits around your nutrition.

Click below to learn more.

Until next time,

Dr. Tom

References:

[1] Leah M. Kalm, Richard D. Semba, They Starved So That Others Be Better Fed: Remembering Ancel Keys and the Minnesota Experiment, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 135, Issue 6, June 2005, Pages 1347–1352, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/135.6.1347

(https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/135/6/1347/4663828).

[2] Fothergill, E., Guo, J., Howard, L., Kerns, J. C., Knuth, N. D., Brychta, R., … & Hall, K. D. (2016). Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after “The Biggest Loser” competition. Obesity, 24(8), 1612-1619. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/

[3] https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/quick-facts-global-hunger

[4] https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/hunger-and-obesity/how-many-people-die-from-hunger-each-year/story