Oh, I don't think its a farce at all! I just don't think the calories mentioned above go low enough to induce it. Even in DANDR, Dr. A talked about the plans that worked best in the studies were 1,000 calorie diets at 90% protein, and even better 1,000 calories with 90% fat.

Starvation mode can kick in when a person consumes less than 50% of what their body needs in a day....(takes more than a day or two for it to happen, although not much longer). So a 200 lb. woman who is between the ages of 30 and 60 and only does light activities has a caloric requirement of approximately 2,115 calories. If this person consumes 2,115 calories per day, they should maintain their weight. To lose one pound per week, they would need to eat approximately 1615 calories per day.
To lose two pounds per week, they would need to eat approximately 1115 calories per day. They should eat at least 1,000 calories per day, to meet their nutritional needs.

So a 200 lb. woman would not go into starvation mode at 1,000 calories per day. Then again, these figures aren't taking into account the metobolic advantage, or the nutrient dense veggies that people are supposed to be eating on this plan.

Anyway...my statement was not to dispute that starvation mode exists (obviously it does and there are a lot of people in the world who *are* starving), but rather that the OP is not likely to go into starvation mode at her weight by eating 1200 calories.

Just my opinion

L

Hey! I resemble that remark

My basic menu is around 850 cals a day, everything weighed and measured, with 2 cheat meals per week. The cheat meal days bring my calories up closer to the 1800-2000 range. I'm FINALLY losing weight again after being stall thanks to thyroid issues for 9+ months. I eat primarily lean protein, veggies and very little added fat (if any). I'm losing about 2.5lbs a week this way. I don't think starvation mode has set in

Does Starvation Mode exist? Maybe... but right now I'm pretty good proof that you can eat less than 1000 calories a day and lose weight. And losing weight is something I wasn't able to do eating 1500-1800 cals a day and exercising like a demon!

I would be one of them and I average losing about 3 pounds a week consistantly.

I don't buy into the "starvation mode" theory very much and I don't think it fits very well for everyone. Some people who are fat (me ) never ate really above 1500 calories when they were morbidly obese- I most definitely was not starving then, and I'm not now, either. On a "high cal" day, I could get up to maybe 1700, but I was STUFFED. I've never ate much, I just ate the wrong foods and I'm insulin resistant.

When I was 270 and ate 1500-1700 calories, I should have lost weight according to conventional wisdom, right? I mean, I wasn't eating many calories... So how did I GAIN weight? I was eating the wrong things in the wrong times.

I have It doesn't work that way for me... I can eat all the way down to 700 calories a day and still lose pretty consistently, although at that point it goes down to about 2 pounds a week instead of 3.

I suppose if I restricted to maybe 300-400 it would prove your theory, but why would I WANT to do that?

Most days I eat comfortably between 800-1000 and lose very well.

In the bodybuilding world I found, when I started 'dieting' and exercising, the hard core information on how to grow muscle and (what I was looking for) how to loose fat.

There the receipt is very simple and I never found anyone arguing with that: If you use less than 500 cal below your daily usage of calories the body starts burning muscle instead of fat 'to survive' the assumed hunger period.

This is what is called starvation mode, essential tissues of your healthy body are burned instead of the fat we all want to loose.

Calculators on the net will give you an estimate of your daily needs.

There is nothing more concrete than the iron they move, the muscles they grow and the fat they burn.

For the ladies I normally advise the 300 cal. less which is the least amount of cal. a man should use less than his daily need.

Total myth.

#1 Starvation isn't a "mode".
Yes, your body conserves energy when you restrict food. This change is a gradient, it is not an on off switch. Eat less, conserve more. It works in reverse too - eat more, and you'll store a lower percentage of energy as fat. The body tries to keep equilibrium with it's stores, but the bottom line is eating less makes your body burn more fat, eating more makes your body store more fat. Tehse little changes in how the body uses energy are insignificant compared to total energy consumption (since it is this which dictates the former).

#2 Energy conservation (I refuse to say "starvation mode") is not permanent, therefore it is nothing to fear.
Your body very quickly recovers from/adapts to changes in energy intake. Eat more, your body burns more energy and conserves less, eat less, your body conserves more and burns less. This is influenced by hormones that are affected by the previous days eating/lifestyle trends. Watch and see for yourself; gorge at a buffet, then eat nothing the next day. You will hardly feel hungry and you won't feel spectacularly lethargic (or at least far less hungry than you would have if you hadn't gorged at hte buffet before). Try to fast for a few days in a row, though, and watch as hunger slowly climbs and your body starts conserving fantastically (you will feel cold, listless, dead). It's a very rapid, and impermanent change.
The only time this will prove false is if one is a great deal above or below their "set point". IF below set point tremendously, eating "normally" will make the body rebuild fat rapidly, simply because the body is too depleted of fat. If tremendously above setpoint, making huge caloric deficits will not trigger adaption as intensely as it would if it was thinner. AGain, I don't mean to say it's a "modality", like binary, on or off... it's a gradient. The further you are away from normal in body fat levels, the more extreme the conservation (or liberal usage of body fat, whichever is applicable).

#3 the "1200 cal rule" is a complete and total fabrication.
Myth. Fantasy. No basis in reality. It's some supposed "minimum" but in reality it's useless because our metabolic needs are so different. A man burns way more calories than a woman. A woman who runs every day burns way more energy than a sedentary one. Even if we assume there is a "minimum" calorie threshold before you start conserving quote "too much" (in reality this does not exist, it is a slow build of restriction until you get to that point, if ever, and it almost never gets to the point where you are maintaining on very few calories since the body cannot STOP weight loss since the body depends on energy to run... at best it can make it a little harder to lose). ... it would be impossible to quantify that "threshold" in some one size fits all minimum of 1200 cals. Ironically 1200 cals is not the minimum, it is simply popular because it sounds nice. It allows enough wiggle room for overestimating intake (which most people do) and still losing, plus almost EVERYONE will lose weight at that calorie level unless they are already thin (in which case they don't need to lose anyway ).

It always irks me when people force themselves to eat more. We are so quick to condemn trying to eat less, but this is considered "ok" for some reason.

If you are uncomfortable eating as little as you are, then I would suggest raising carbs slightly so that your appetite comes back a bit. However, please be aware this may adversely affect your rate of loss, since eating more food gives the body more energy from diet. This will usually interfere with how quickly your body catabolizes fat tissue for fuel. I wouldn't recommend doing it until you're ready to slow things down and prepare for maintenance (or alternately if you feel too unwell on your diet, or you are worried it's not healthy to lose so fast, if you are losing fast... both are valid concerns).

Watcher16,

I completely agree with you.

Tom

It is, however, a pretty good rule for people who believe in calorie theory. If you don't believe in metabolism, you've got to have a calorie-level backup.

It depends on what you use for fuel. I can point you to large piles of information about how a high protein, low calorie diet spares muscle mass during weight loss. And it is peer-reviewed, published stuff, not garbage from fitness magazines and web sites.

I don't know if this relates at all, but I don't have an issue with my metabolism dropping nearly so much low carbing than low fat.
And for me I slow down after only 2-3 days my doctor says that bigger people have that issue (I'm around 300) What happens to a thinner person I have no idea. I did have tests to comfirm only my own experiences. I think the reason low carb works better than low fat in not slowing my metabolism is that when you are low fat, you burn off carbs for fuel which go quickly. If you are low carb, you burn off fat, which in my case, I have plenty of.

LOL...Ah, I'm inferring that you're suggesting "fitness magazines" and "web sites" contain predominantly anecdotal claims backed with only a scintilla of empirical scientific evidence?

I couldn't argue one way or the other about starvation mode. I do have a friend that went on a doctor supervised liquid protein fast of 400cal/day. She lost over 100lbs and has kept it off 4 years. The program that she did was very involved with counseling, exercise and maintenance.

Well, when you're writing for an audience of trained professionals you have to answer to your critics who are at least as smart and educated as you are. When you're a writer writing for magazines you can make all sorts of claims to back up your prejudice simply by cherry picking which studies to cite or by choosing to misread them, or just saying "experts say" over and over. Your audience won't care or even know any better.

There was an interesting article from a former Women's magazine "science writer" who confessed to the crimes in the magazine industry when it comes to reporting on health, science and all that sort of stuff.

So on a credibility scale, I'd put magazines way, way down there. Most web sites at about the same place as well.

I agree with you.

Ever notice that on a subject in which you are an expert in--such as your chosen profession--any magazine article on the subject is at best simplistic, rudimentary, and contains only the most basic facts? I often read these articles wondering if it they were written by children. In these cases, more often than not, the writer reaches conclusions that are just simply untrue.

Only experts in a given field harbor enough knowledge to decipher all the differences and nuances which seperates true fact from fiction.

I actually think lay people can get pretty informed on things themselves, but it takes a lot of study and dedication. And if they think they can disprove Einstein's theory without having attended any physics class, they're probably deluding themselves.

And I also don't necessarily believe "experts". There are things that experts believed were true that were only found to be untrue later on.

So we've got to canoe these murky waters the best we can and hope that we'll find the truth or at least get close to it.