Starvation Mode
Many people believe that if they eat too little, their body will go into a starvation mode and they won’t be able to lose weight.
These people often claim that they cannot lose weight despite eating very few calories and doing a ton of exercise. Because they struggle to lose weight, they assume they are in a starvation mode and need to increase their daily food intake to lose weight.
However, their thinking and approach is misguided.
Is Starvation Mode Real?
Actually, starvation mode is not real. Sadly, you cannot rewrite the laws of thermodynamics.
If you eat too little, you will lose more weight. You are not overweight because you eat too little. You are overweight because you eat too much. If you think you can’t lose weight despite low calories and high exercise, you either miscalculated the amount of food you eat, the calories you burn or both.
Starvation vs. Starvation Mode
While starvation mode is not real, starvation is real.
If starvation mode were real, people who had anorexia and people without access to food in third world countries would stop losing weight.
However, people continue to lose weight on a low calorie diet and can eventually die from starvation. Everyone knows someone who has died due to an eating disorder or has at least heard of someone dying from starvation in the third world.
If starvation mode were real, these people would be able to gain weight or stop losing weight despite low food intake. Yet, they still lose weight.
What Happens During a Diet?
During a low calorie diet, your metabolic rate can decline slightly. You may feel less energetic so you move less and burn fewer calories throughout the day. Or, you might lose muscle mass which means your metabolic rate will decline.
Alternatively, you may eventually require fewer calories to sustain your weight because you have lost 30 or 40 pounds.
However, you won’t go into “starvation mode” and stop losing fat because you eat too little. Your body can’t compensate totally for your decreased food intake.
Instead, you will continue to lose weight in a calorie deficit. If you stopped losing weight, that means you eat too much to sustain your current weight.
Even severely starved people continue to lose weight despite really low food intake. Participants in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment continued to lose weight despite eating only about half of their daily energy needs.
Their metabolic rate did slow down some, due to decreases in muscle mass, thyroid hormone function and decrease in testosterone. Most of the decrease in metabolic rate was expected due to a loss of body weight.
Still,, they never entered a starvation mode. Instead, they continued to lose weight despite hormonal down-regulation and loss of muscle tissue.
When they regained the weight, their metabolic rate did recover to the expected level.
These people were severely starved, and yet they still continued to lose weight. If they continued to lose weight despite facing true starvation, what makes you think that a normal or overweight person would stop losing fat if they reduced their calorie intake, even drastically?
(Keep in mind that I don’t recommend starving yourself. I used the Minnesota Starvation Experiment to prove a point only.)
Why Am I Not Losing Weight?
If your weight loss has stalled, it’s because you consume too many calories. Stalled weight loss is not due to eating too little or your body entering a starvation mode. Remember that starvation mode is a fictional state.
If your weight loss has stalled, I would recommend reducing your food intake, tracking your food intake more accurately using food scales, tracking your daily activity with pedometers or watches, and continuing to strength train.
Final Thoughts
It’s preposterous to think that a person could be overweight or obese due to eating too little. Starvation mode just does not exist.
If you struggle with your weight loss, you should track your dietary intake more closely to make sure you have created a calorie deficit.
Your body cannot conspire against weight loss and create weight gain because you eat too little. If you gain weight or stop losing weight, you eat too much.
It might suck to hear the truth, but eventually, the truth will set you free.
