Question: I have been told that when I eat too little, my body goes into starvation mode to protect itself, and that it will slow down my weight loss. Is this true and how can I avoid starvation mode?
Answer: Many weight loss coaches use the term “starvation mode” to describe your body’s natural response to protect itself when you don’t eat enough for extended periods. When you regularly eat too little food to provide your body with the necessary nutrients, it perceives itself to be in danger from starvation. Since your body is wonderfully designed to protect you, it will slow down your metabolism to conserve energy so it can keep vital organs such as the brain and the heart going for as long as possible in the face of the perceived threat. While it will burn fat for fuel, it will also start burning lean muscle mass for fuel, which will slow down your metabolism even further. People on starvation diets invariably find that they regain all the weight they’ve lost (and then some) very quickly as soon as they start eating again.
While a starvation diet may help you lose weight quite fast in the short term, you will pay a heavy price because you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of weight problems. Your metabolism gets progressively slower with each day you remain on a starvation diet. This resultant slower metabolism needs less fuel, so you consistently have to eat less and less to lose weight! As your metabolism slows down even further and your lean muscle mass dwindles you will also find that you become more and more tired. This in turn means you will get less exercise, which leaves you with less lean muscle, and an even slower metabolism. It really is a vicious cycle. The importance of protecting your lean muscle mass to boost your metabolism can not be stressed enough.
The question arises: when does your body go into starvation mode? As with anything that involves the human body, there is no one single answer that will be true for everyone. The levels at which starvation mode kicks in vary from person to person. What we can do though, is understand how it gets triggered so we can avoid getting our bodies in that state. Your decision of how much to eat should be based on your individual Total Daily Energy Requirements, which takes into account a variety of factors including height, weight, age, gender and activity levels. If you want to lose weight safely, without setting off the alarm bells in your body; aim to eat approximately 300 – 500 calories less than your total daily requirements. This will provide your body with enough fuel to keep it going comfortably, but will still create a sufficient caloric deficit to ensure that you lose weight. To protect your metabolism even further, make sure your diet contains enough protein and that you maintain / increase your activity levels.
Note. You will find that many experts advise you not to eat less than 1 200 calories per day to prevent starvation mode. This is just a general rule of thumb to provide advice in the absence of enough information. To be safe, get your individual Total Daily Energy Requirements calculated, and follow the advice above.
I agree with you 100%. I’ve been telling people that for years.
ok, so say you’re already in this ’starvation mode’ because really, you have spent years with a poor regular eating pattern to where you dont typically eat breakfast, you have coffee, or you sleep right through it… you eat a low fat bread/sandwich of turkey and swiss for lunch, and at dinner you have a small piece of chicken and some broccoli.. you’re eating, but obviously not enough and you’re in starvation mode.. you decide to eat even less, and yet you’re not able to lose weight. You’re not much for going to the gym but you certainly are no couch potato.. you are constantly on the go, cleaning the house, parenting your children and well.. you’re about 20 lbs heavier than you were 7 years ago when you were 37. What do you supplement yourself with (naturally) that will help you shed the extra weight you’ve seen creeping up around the hips thighs, backs of arm, and tummy? – no, you’re not obese, you would just look a heck of a lot better at age 45 if you were about 20 to 25 lbs less in weight? People in their 20’s and 30’s say, you, at some point, need to just ‘accept it’ .. boy oh boy, I cannot wait til these same people reach 44, go into a menopausal state, and, then I’d be interested in hearing what they have to say for the perfect remedy.
LOL – “wanting to know” – I enjoyed your post so much! I am right there with you early in my forties and I can tell you – I am also waiting for some of these well-meaning folks to get to our age. I’ve also been on the low fat bandwagon for many years now, and like you, ended up having to eat less and less just to maintain. Gradually I gained weight until I was about 30 lbs overweight. I gained weight just by looking at a muffin, never mind eating it. I tried many of these so-called supplements and believe me – it does not work, with the exception of CLA, and then it only helps if you exercise. The only thing that is actually starting to work for me is exercise with a more balanced diet. I now eat more avos, nuts and use olive oil in my food – so low fat is out as far as I am concerned. Still on lean meat though. Lots of fruit and veggies and lower on the carbs. I took up yoga, social tennis and walking and now, about three months in it seems to be starting to pay off – guess the lean muscle mass is coming back. The yoga also helps with many other little problems I’ve been experiencing such as headaches etc. I am working full time so I am limited in how much exercise I can do – but it really helps. Good luck and hope to read some of your posts again!
Hi I hope someone can answer this ? that I have. I have been eating around 900 – 1000 calories a day while walking between 20 min – an hour a day on the tread mill which says I am burning between 100 – 300 calories a day. I believe that I am in stvation mode cause I have not lost a thing for around 3 weeks now. I have uped my calories to 1200 – 1400 a day for the last couple of days and I am starting to gain weight. Is this normall if a person is coming out of starvation mode.
Thanks For Any and All Replies
Hi Richard, yes its normal, but the only way to get out of this cycle and rev up your metabolism is to increae your caloried, like you’ve done, space it out (small meals through out the day) and continue with exercise. The best and most accurate thing to do is to get a calorie counter such as the one available for free on this site (myOBW) that will tell you how much calories you consumed.