Starvation mode is a dieting myth ?

J

jodieleah

New member
hiya

i just read on a post that Starvation mode is a dieting myth ?
now i allways thought if u did not eat enough in the day then your body would not lose fat ....so if i miss breakfast and then eat dinner (i know not a good thing but at times i am just so busy) does my body burn fat all the time and not just from the time i start eating in the day if u get me ?
just learning in all of this....would love your opinions please :)

jodie x
 
It is a myth.

There is such a thing as metabolic adaptation, where your body adapts to conserve energy as you start eating less, but your body will never adapt to the point where you stop losing weight entirely. Think about it - did anyone ever come out of a concentration camp fat? Of course not. People die of anorexia. They die of starvation in countries where there is no food supply. If the "starvation mode" really existed, then none of those people would die, right?

If you are eating less than you're burning you WILL lose weight. It's a simple law of physics that can't be avoided.

Skipping breakfast is not going to "stall" your metabolism. Eating 6 times a day is not going to boost your metabolism. Studies have proven that.

So yes, "starvation mode" is a myth. It doesn't exist.
 
Your body is always burning energy. It either gets energy from the food you eat or from your body itself. There is never a 'stop' period.
 
aww thanks

aww thanks guys x

i am finding this site so fab for info .

you see i have been trying to eat 5 small meals or more a day to keep my body burning fat ! now i can chill out with it a bit and eat when i want to gosh to think i have been thinking like this for years every time i have gone to diet

thanks again
jodie x
 
I think that the 5 times a day thing is more about not getting to the stage where you are very hungry, as it's then that you are more likely to make bad choices and overeat.
 
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eyckmans is correct that for SOME PEOPLE, eating smaller meals frequently can help control hunger. That is the only reason that you should consider eating 5-6x a day. The concept that eating smaller meals more often stimulates metbolism has been thoroughly debunked.
 
hi

hiya

thanks so much all of you for the info it helps so much this site is a god send,like i say i allways felt it was hard to eat lots of small meals a day so now can just make a routine that is best for me
thanks again
jodie xx
 
put it like this. I tell you I am going to give you 100 dollars to spend in one day. Some people might spend it all in large hunks. Some might get alot of little things but in the end, everyone still spends the same amount. It's the same with calories. The body really doesn't care one way or the other if it gets all the calories in one shot or spread out. In 24 hours, it's going to burn X calories one way or another.

EDIT: Clarification..the analogy was really more about total calories as opposed to the myth that you have to eat in smaller meals. I don't want to suggest if you eat it all in one meal. Doctors still push forward eating breakfast while three a day is the norm but do what works for you as far as amounts.
 
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hi

hi

yes silly of me realy jerico not to see it that way i guess i just stuck my head in the sand and didnt look for this advice.
thank you so much thou all this does help to make sence of it all :)

jodieleah x
 
No need to feel bad over it. To be honest, it's a very well known and followed dieting myth cause for a long time, it was thought to be true. Doctors would suggest it. Lord know the dieting community suggested it. It isn't until recent studies shown there is no advantage that we stopped pushing it. It makes sense when you step back but with people believing in starvation modes, metabolism myths and food falsehoods, it is easy for anyone to get turned around.

Hell, Kara and I fight tooth and nail over the whole organic thing.
 
Jericho said:
put it like this. I tell you I am going to give you 100 dollars to spend in one day. Some people might spend it all in large hunks. Some might get alot of little things but in the end, everyone still spends the same amount. It's the same with calories. The body really doesn't care one way or the other if it gets all the calories in one shot or spread out. In 24 hours, it's going to burn X calories one way or another.
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Wow. Sorry Jerico, but I don't know where you get your information from. If you look at it from what you said, it makes sense, but you are forgetting way too many factors. The body is not black & white like that. If it were so straight forward, then why do athletes eat all day?? If that were true, they could just pack up all their calories at night and have them useful the next day ... or eat all in the weekend and have it available all week. See the problem in your theory?

a) your body doesn't burn a set amount of calories a day. Your body adjust based on the energy stores you have and your bodies natural balance. Your body will slow down if it does not have an abundance of calories for easy burning - which is why skipping breakfast throws off your metabolism for the whole day - you are trying to do stuff without energy ()
b) your body does not burn fat by default as it is not a readily available energy source. Muscle is much more accessible as energy than fat, so if you let all your food turn to fat, then you will be burning muscle. Why do you think the "fat burning zone" is at a much lower heart rate then the cardio zone? Because when are working hard, then the body goes for other sources of energy before fat.
c) - goes with b - if you ate all your calories in 1 meal, your body would end up storing most of it as fat because it is not needed all at once. It's similar a similar concept of water. You could drink all your daily water intake in once sitting, but where does most of it go? You piss it out because it isn't all needed at once. Well, your body stores the access food as fat instead of keeping the calories available to burn - this is why carbs at night are bad.
 
All of what you posted above has been debunked.

See the following sources:

As long as total caloric and nutrient intake stays the same, then metabolism, at the end of the day, should stay the same as well. One study that carefully demonstrated this, published in 2009 in The British Journal of Nutrition, involved groups of overweight men and women who were randomly assigned to very strict low-calorie diets and followed for eight weeks. Each subject consumed the same number of calories per day, but one group took in three meals a day and the other six.

Both groups lost significant and equivalent amounts of weight. There was no difference between them in fat loss, appetite control or measurements of hormones that signal hunger and satiety. Other studies have had similar results.
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Say we have two people, both eating the same 3000 calories per day from identical macronutrients. One eats 6 meals of 500 calories/meal while the other eats 3 meals of 1000 calories/meal and we’ll assume a TEF of 10%. So the first will have a TEF of 50 calories (10% of 500) 6 times/day. The second will have a TEF of 100 calories (10% of 1000 calories) 3 times/day. Well, 6X50 = 300 calories/day and 3X100 = 300 calories/day. There’s no difference.
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We conclude that the epidemiological evidence is at best very weak, and almost certainly represents an artefact. A detailed review of the possible mechanistic explanations for a metabolic advantage of nibbling meal patterns failed to reveal significant benefits in respect of energy expenditure. Although some short-term studies suggest that the thermic effect of feeding is higher when an isoenergetic test load is divided into multiple small meals, other studies refute this, and most are neutral.
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However, research supporting this claim is limited. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant relationship existed between preprandial (before eating) resting metabolic rate (RMR) and meal frequency or eating sessions in healthy adult females. Twenty-two women ages 18 to 74 (M=30, SD=15) volunteered as participants. Each woman kept a detailed diet diary for seven days. At the end of seven days each woman had her preprandial RMR measured by using indirect calorimetry. Results indicated no significant relationships between RMR or METS and mean daily energy intake frequencies. The results also revealed no significant relationship between RMR and eating sessions.
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There are a dozen more sources documented in the above articles and by doing a Google search.
 
what are you talking about? did I say 6 meals? I'm arguing against his $100 argument, as it implies that you could have 1 meal / day with the same results, effectively skipping meals - hence my reference. Debunk that skipping meals is bad ... that's the topic of this thread. Nice sources though ... wasted energy, however. The "starvation mode" applies when you skip meals. If you eat right (which includes protein at breakfast), then you can get between meals without entering "starvation mode".

However, with increased work schedules and poor eating habits, 6-meals is more attractive because it reduces the likely-hood of entering this phase, as well as keeps your body more "content" instead of ever feeling hungry. When people feel hungry, they often overeat because they eat too fast and don't properly chew their food, which leads to poor digestion ... which leads to more problems than just obesity.
 
What if the person ate 3 meals a day?

4?


6?


12?


At what number does dividing up your calories for the day makes a difference? Why does 3 meals mean less than 4 or less than 12? If you eat 2000 calories a day and you require 3500 a day to maintain, you are going to lose an average of 3 pounds that week right? They debunked the myth that smaller/more frequent meals are better than 3 meals a day.

I just don't know if I agree with you here based on recent studies.

but you are right, this is about skipping meals. They strongly suggest eating breakfast but after breakfast, do you believe it makes a difference to eat lunch? What about dinner? What snack? When? What time? This is where I am starting to question the idea.
 
Debunk that skipping meals is bad ... that's the topic of this thread. Nice sources though ... wasted energy, however. The "starvation mode" applies when you skip meals. If you eat right (which includes protein at breakfast), then you can get between meals without entering "starvation mode".
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What about IF then?
 
MAR1984 said:
What about IF then?
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Yea, that's a good point.

Let's define starvation mode before moving on.

Sean, you're saying higher meal frequencies... at least if you eat protein frequently, will keep you out of "starvation mode." Can you elaborate a bit?

From the research I've seen paired with the anecdotal stuff we're seeing out of camps such as the intermittent fasting crowd... I'd say we're really splitting hairs if we're comparing equal calories and nutrients spread across 3 vs. 6 meals in terms of metabolic rate, body composition, etc.

Now keep in mind... some folks will definitely fair better with higher meal frequencies... but this has more to do with their individual hunger mechanisms, psychologies, etc. and not much to do with starvation mode.

But I say that hesitantly since I'm not sure how you're defining starvation mode.
 
Jericho said:
What if the person ate 3 meals a day?

4?


6?


12?


At what number does dividing up your calories for the day makes a difference? Why does 3 meals mean less than 4 or less than 12? If you eat 2000 calories a day and you require 3500 a day to maintain, you are going to lose an average of 3 pounds that week right? They debunked the myth that smaller/more frequent meals are better than 3 meals a day.

I just don't know if I agree with you here based on recent studies.

but you are right, this is about skipping meals. They strongly suggest eating breakfast but after breakfast, do you believe it makes a difference to eat lunch? What about dinner? What snack? When? What time? This is where I am starting to question the idea.
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Jeri - i'm not arguing with you about 3 or more meals ... i think we're on the same page. I'm just arguing against your analogy because that assumes you can do less than 3 meal. If your body enters starvation mode, you won't be burning the same amount of calories as you would normally. You now have another variable that needs to be added into the equation.

i believe the magic number is 5 hours. You should never go (during waking hours) more than 5 hours without eating. This can easily be accomplished with 3 meals ... or more. Not with less. I prefer 5-6 meals / day, but that's easy for me because I work at home. I think it has helped me maintain my weight, but I'm not going to argue hard for it over 3-meals / day because, if you eat at good times and properly, it doesn't make a difference.

edit: yes, my girlfriend told me that if you go for more than 5 hours, you can run into problems and is one of the main causes of obesity ... especially skipping breakfast.

K, let me try to define "starvation mode". It's a bit tricky ... basically your metabolism slows down below it's normal baseline. So, when you introduce more calories, the body will store them as fat as it assumes it will not get fed soon. This is really bad if you are consuming your normal calories.
The catch however, is that if your normal diet is currently a low calorie diet to lose weight (i believe the maximum is 50% below your recommended intake), this will slow your progress, but you will still lose weight. The big problem with a low-caloric diet is that your metabolism is slowed (a study showed 40% decrease in metabolic rate at 50% reduced calories) is that if you eat a larger meal, at any time, you are drastically hurting your weight loss goals because those calories won't be burned like they would with a normal caloric diet.
 
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hey guys

i was just wanting a bit of info thats all ,being as i am new to the site ana all....its all gone a bit crazy:rolleyes:.

but hey thanks for all ur diffrent point,s guys .

jodie x
 
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