Can you go into "starvation mode" on a good diet?

rubadub

We all (hopefully) know starving yourself is no way to diet. It reduces your metabolism so you end up putting on weight easily if you go back to eating what your basal metabolism was before the diet. Also a lack of food means a lack of nutrients for the body.
Say your basal metabolism was 2500kcal,
Now say you ate 2500kcal, yet burnt off 2000kcal per day with 3-4 hours of exercise. So in effect you are only getting 500kcal per day would be a deficit of 2000kcal per day, 14000kcal per week which would be 4lb weight loss per week.

Most recommend only loosing 1-2lb per week, but would doing the above cause your metabolism go into "starvation mode". No doubt it would be better than only eating 500kcal per day.

Hanley

I can see this being somewhat of a moot point but I'll chime in with my thoughts... As always, I could be totally off base with what I say.

Point 1
I think the recommended amount of weight loss per week theory is a bit unreliable. It's very hard to track ACTUAL fat loss without using calipers or more advanced methods, a scales jsut doesn't do the job. Things like hydration levels and the amount of food in your stomach (or poo in your bum!) can skew the results one way or another.

Point 2
Is it even possible to do 3/4 hours of exercise a day? That's roughly 500kcal/hr which translate to a failry intense training load. While this might be possible once in a while, I highly doubt it's sustainable over long periods. Breaking it up throughout the day might work, but even at that it's a big ask of your body to expect it to perform that hard 3/4x a day and 3x a week. Elite athletes can do it (because they spent their whole lives training for it, and are basically genetically suited.) I would suspect the average person could not.

Point 3
The law of diminishing reutrns applies here. As you become more proficient at exercising (and I presume we're talking about cardio here because I don't think you could burn that much in a day thru resistance training) you'll require a smaller amount of effort to maintain the level your at. The simple solution's obviously train harder (be it faster, or longer) but the problem now is that the body can only do so much before it hits an overtraining state. Injuries, sickness and most definately diminished performance will usually ensue.

Point 4
This ties in with points 1 and 2. If you do somehow manage to do 3/4 hours of intense exercise 3x a week, then you can be sure there'll be some (a lot??) of muscle wastage. I just don't think the bodies energy systems are set up to function that way without canablising muscle tissue for energy. While this might take your scale reading down, it doesn't mean you're gonna look better. In fact it'll probably cause more problems than anything because muscle wasteage = slower metabolism. And once that slows down so does your weight loss. Not only that but youll get to the "skinny-fat" look that long distance athletes tend to have.

Point 5
There is no point 5, but 4 jsut looks wrong when you're listing things.

I would think that in all likely hood, that the factors above would contribute to you entering starvation mode. The body is much smarter than we are and it has an innate desire to protect its self. I don't know how the starvation mode would manifest itself, tho I could see it happening thru injuries or sickness, but I know that something would happen to prevent you from contiunally running yourself into the ground.

Wibbs

rubadub wrote:

We all (hopefully) know starving yourself is no way to diet. It reduces your metabolism so you end up putting on weight easily if you go back to eating what your basal metabolism was before the diet. Also a lack of food means a lack of nutrients for the body.

I know it's a little different to where you're going with this, but it would depend on what you define as starving yourself. You could have a very low calorie diet which provided the full nutrient level of a higher calorie diet. Indeed given that many people have some level of deficiency in their diet I suspect it may be quite easy to do. Study after study has shown calorie restriction as the only proven way to extend life in higher mammals(without gene therapy). It doubles the lifespan of rats and they look better for longer. They don't go grey for a start.:D Tests on primates have so far shown very good results with regard to the common age markers. The small human studies have shown some pretty strong results too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

I would suspect any actual training on such a low calorie diet would be difficult if not impossible to achieve. I actually tried the diet for a few months and found it quite difficult. Mainly because you have to be very careful you get the full spectrum of nutrients in the right amounts. The hunger aspect wasn't as troublesome as I would have thought, but I've a low hunger state anyway.

You would lose weight on it though, that's for sure. Though surprisingly not as much as would think. I'm not sure it's for this forum though. Do less, eat less and yet live longer? Smacks too much of laziness and sloth for the healthy committed types around here.

I am surprised it's not used more as a way to reduce weight and insulin tolerance in people(among other things). Apparently some studies have shown you can get the same effects if you only eat normally (with good nutrient intake of course) every second day.

davyjose

I was watching a documentary a while back about two guys rowing across the atlantic. In it they claimed they had to consume 9000kCals a day to prevent weight-loss, so I'm sure burning 2000kCals daily is very possible, if inadvisable.

brianthebard

Just a thought, but if you are in a position where you want/need to burn 2000cals a day and only consume 2500 then that is not a very good diet for your situation. Diet should reflect needs-less calories when you need to lose weight, more when you are doing strenuous exercise, etc, etc. Having a clean balanced diet is only half of the equation really.

davyjose

Bit of confusion, most adults burn at least 2000kCals a day, so really, I think your saying, is how high can the Calorific deficit be before it becomes a problem.

cowzerp

davyjose wrote:

is how high can the Calorific deficit be before it becomes a problem.

Exactly. and the answer would be over 1000 kcal's as guidelines say you should only lose 1-2 pounds pf weight a week-thats a deficit of 500-1000 kcal's a day, if done right this should mainly come from fat..

rubadub

Study after study has shown calorie restriction as the only proven way to extend life in higher mammals(without gene therapy)

Yes, in another thread I was talking about people lowering their metabolism on purpose. People talk about it as though having an efficient fuel consuming body is a bad thing, yet value highly efficient cars etc.

If you were doing a labouring job 8 hours a day you could easily use up an additional 2000kcal above your basal metabolism.

What I forgot to mention was obese people. There are lots of programs on these days with morbidly obese people on diets of 1500-2000kcal per day. They are exercising too, so maybe burning 500kcal in addition to their basal requirments. BUT their basal requirements are huge since they are so big, so really they have massive calorie deficits.

On most of these programs they are loosing well over 2lb a week. So maybe the figure should not be 1-2lb, but rather a % of your fat weight or overall weight.

I am not planning on doing this BTW, I am just wondering if there is a safe way for slightly overweight people to loose 4lb a week in a safe manner, since it seems obese people can do it approved by doctors. But maybe the negative effect of being that obese outweighs the negative effect of such fast weight loss.

Dragan

I can see a lot of conjecture and stuff floating around this thread, which is always good! , so thought I would stick my beak it.

With regard to the "lose 2lbs safely a week" , this is a pretty basic rule and should be applied to most trainees. Why? You energy levels will not dip that much, you won't need to work out excessively, you won't need to severely restrict your food and you'll be pretty much able to recover from the work you are doing.

Rubadub - would you eat 500 calories a day and lie on the couch to lose weight? Would you consider this to be undereating? I would. You can't live on 500 calories a day. Your body needs more than that to function right, so whether you exercise a lot or a little you still need to be within a certain distance of Basal levels to function properly. It doesn't matter if you missing the margin by loads due to just plain undereating or because you are training WAY too hard, missing the mark and eating that small a fraction of your required calories is painfully silly.

With regard to the "eat small, live long" thing. I don't want to live to be 130 and look like a bird and feel old and crap. I want to live to be 60 and still have a six pack and a 500 lbs deadlift and THEN decide to pack in the gym and retire to a nudist beach somewhere with my 20 year old blonde big boobied wife who loves me for my money that I made while eating cheeseburgers on Ana days.

I shall finally die at 90, in a classic "Death by Sex" moment as my hip gives out just as I try my "wardrobe jump entry".

At my funeral everyone will wear party hats and dance to cool music and drink Jack Daniels and Coke in my memory while they talk about how much food I ate and how great I looked because they all have energy from eating too and don't look like birds.

Okay, so I went off topic a lot there but come on , it's casual Friday, right?

tunney

Hanley wrote:

Point 2
Is it even possible to do 3/4 hours of exercise a day? That's roughly 500kcal/hr which translate to a failry intense training load. While this might be possible once in a while, I highly doubt it's sustainable over long periods. Breaking it up throughout the day might work, but even at that it's a big ask of your body to expect it to perform that hard 3/4x a day and 3x a week. Elite athletes can do it (because they spent their whole lives training for it, and are basically genetically suited.) I would suspect the average person could not.

LOL - you'd be surprised at the number of "average people" that do 3-4 hours of exercise 6 days a week. There's no reason its not sustrainable if its done right.

Hanley

tunney wrote:

LOL - you'd be surprised at the number of "average people" that do 3-4 hours of exercise 6 days a week. There's no reason its not sustrainable if its done right.

Yes, but are they doing it an intense enough level to burn 500kcal/hr??

cowzerp

No-its not a good diet if you go into starvation mode..

Hanley

The more I think about this, the more I realise the entire concept is flawed.

The amount of kcals you consume is not inherntly "good" or "bad". It's relative to your training regime. A "good" diet is one which allows you to train maximally and dervie the greatest benefit and results from whatever you're doing. A "Bad" diet is one which fails to meet your requirements, regardless of macro breakdown and the foods eaten.

Thus, it is not possible to go into starvation mode on a good diet, simply because a good diet parrallels and complements your training.

Wibbs

Dragan wrote:

With regard to the "eat small, live long" thing. I don't want to live to be 130 and look like a bird and feel old and crap.

Funny enough and that's the thing, you would look and feel younger for longer. It actually reverses aging at the cellular level, even in older mammals. Judging by the primate studies if you started young enough, you would look at 90 the way most look in their mid fifties.

I shall finally die at 90, in a classic "Death by Sex" moment as my hip gives out just as I try my "wardrobe jump entry".

At my funeral everyone will wear party hats and dance to cool music and drink Jack Daniels and Coke in my memory while they talk about how much food I ate and how great I looked because they all have energy from eating too and don't look like birds.

Okay, so I went off topic a lot there but come on , it's casual Friday, right?

brianthebard

Wibbs wrote:

Funny enough and that's the thing, you would look and feel younger for longer. It actually reverses aging at the cellular level, even in older mammals. Judging by the primate studies if you started young enough, you would look at 90 the way most look in their mid fifties.

Are there any articles you can link to? there was something similar in national geographic last year on living long and had examples of communities in Japan, sicily and seventh day adventists in California. The key to all was moderation and activity. Can't find a link to it now but will try again later.

Wibbs

brianthebard wrote:

Are there any articles you can link to?

Well the wiki I posted earlier in the thread might be start. There's a lot of strange stuff out there thou.

there was something similar in national geographic last year on living long and had examples of communities in Japan, sicily and seventh day adventists in California. The key to all was moderation and activity. Can't find a link to it now but will try again later.

Yes I've read a couple of those kind of studies. AFAIR The Okinawan's have the highest longevity of any studied group. The traditional diet in that particular group is high nutrient low calorie. Not quite the same as the calorie restriction diet, but somewhat similar. They don't tend to eat the same amount of empty calories as other groups.

Exercise in the longest lived groups tends to be of the long duration low impact type. Walking, working in the fields kind of thing. Long distance walking seems to be a big indicator. Strong family, religious and societial ties seem to be a big factor too. Stress levels by comparison to western levels are also low. They tend to be lighter muscled too.

There are many factors. Some results are apparently contradictory. EG the Japanese have a very high smoking rate yet as a country have the highest longevity and much lower lung cancer rates than in other parts of the world(the Greeks also show a similar contradictory trend). The Maasai have a diet almost exclusively based on high animal fats, yet show little arterial damage as they age.

Something like the caloric restriction diet is just a marker that shows big results in other mammals. The only proven way to increase longevity at the moment.

All I took from it is that I tend to eat low glycemic foods that are high in nutrients, way more than I would eat foods that are essentially empty calories. Then again I don't do hard physical exercise so that makes a diff. I also learned from it that most people, myself included, don't actually know what hunger is. They usually respond to a drop in blood sugar or common thirst. Put it this way, if I was in a situation where I had to not eat for 3 days, it wouldn't unduly stress me like it would have before.

It's interesting to read up on some of this stuff though.

brianthebard

I think the common factor in almost all those examples is that the modern western diet is not good. I've been thinking about the western lifestyle and it in adequacies for a while now and it seems to me that we have become detached from nature, which causes many or most of the problems of modern life. But this is completely ot so I'll just say that in all the cases that you've mentioned, when those people (eg japanese, sicilian farmers, etc) start to convert to the western diet there is a drop in life expectancy and a rise in the number of occurances of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and other icky things. (this was covered in the NG article....)