Is "starvation mode" a meme? To what extent?

Is "starvation mode" a meme? To what extent?

I'm on my first cut and I've been sustaining a good 2lbs lost per week, so around a 1000 cal deficit. But I know the sticky says that if you do more than a 500 cal deficit, you go into this "starvation mode" where you lose muscle before fat.

So far my lifts actually got some gains from the "noob gains", and then tapered out to a nice plateau. I don't feel like I'm losing any muscle mass doing this, so I don't see why this isn't sustainable. Is it just to early to tell?

Really, this 1000 cal deficit is exactly what I'm eating to normal satiety. The only reason I got fat was because of 2 years of alcoholism that I just ended before the cut, amounting to about 1000 calories of booze a night. I was a really light eater to begin with, and trying to eat more is surprisingly difficult. Replacing all the fast food with real food made it even tougher in that my satiety calories were at 1100 calories a day until I started forcing it to 1500.

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>"starvation mode"

It is a meme yes. This shit appears when you basicly have absoluty nothing on your body. Not fat, not muscle and aswell no food.

I don't know why this myth is still there

Makes your breath stink since you eat less

I'm not 100% sure, but...

I've heard that if you eat a very low calorie diet that is less than what your body basically needs to keep itself alive, it will slow down some. What your body absolutely needs might be maybe somewhere in the 1000-1200 calories a day range, that's why people freak out if you go below that. Your body will try to conserve calories, so you'll burn a bit less, but obviously it still needs to burn some energy still. You can fix this by eating normally again, and it will eventually go back to normal. It's like your body has a built-in battery conservation mode to help you out during a famine.

Obviously if you see a 400 lb whale on Tumblr claiming she starved herself to 300 calories a day and now her body is in starvation mode and won't burn a single calorie, it's bullshit. But yes, after not eating enough for your body to function long-term, it'll slow down some.

If you're eating at least 1100 calories a day, you're probably fine and starvation mode probably won't happen to you. Plus, if you were starving yourself, you'd feel the effects of hunger and feel horrible. If you feel fine, you probably are fine.

And before someone yells at me, this is just what I've read or heard from other people. No personal experience with this whatsoever, so take it with a grain of salt.

your body does prioritize keeping fat stores in case of starvation, meaning it will eat the muscles first.

you're right

the stores that literally function specifically to supply food in starvation situations will be spared in order to catabolize muscle as a priority.

>starvation mode
>cocoon mode
>nofap
You guys come up with the stupidest shit ever I swear

As long as you are eating enough protein and lifting regularly then you shouldn't see much muscle loss

not really look into psmf or rapid fat loss, "starvation mode" becomes a thing at low or very low body fat

thisis the actual answer

starvation mode can reduce your metabolism by up to 40%

This sounds like alot but to reach that point takes a long time and you will have lost a shitload of weight by then

basically you shouldnt worry about it

You're dead without those fat stores and simply DYEL mode without muscle. So yes, he is exactly right. Fat will be the last thing to be used.

literal fasting is good for you if you're on a cut. i fast 36h a week (eat last meal friday night then break fast on sunday morning with fruit).

Yes

The thing that is used as superfluous fuel will be used last.

Priority #1 is muscle or brain tissue.

Guess which it is in your case.

tried that the other day.. hunger wise I almost made it but i couldn't sleep due to the physical sensation in my stomach so ate about 2am after failing to fall asleep.. do you just fall asleep no problem?

This happens to me, desu. Can't go to bed feeling my stomach that empty.

Starvation mode is a thing, but not what most people think. On a sustained low calorie diet your metabolism will slow by ~300cal/day. This takes the form of conservation of movement and loss of thermal regulation. That's how you'll know you're in it, you'll be cold all the time. But it's winter now so who the fuck knows.

You can get out of it by simply upping your calories to maintenance for a while. Or you can force through it by dropping calories even further. That has the chance of making the metabolic slowdown permanent. Which will suck for future cuts. To reduce the risk of permanency, make sure you're on a high protein cut rather than a high carb cut.

uhhhhh i mean realistically starvation mode has only ever been shown to occur in 2 circumstances

1. putting people in camps and starving them while forcing them to labour rigorously every day.

2. army rangers being starved while still training.

both circumstances they were starved under 10% bodyfat while maintaining absurdly high energy expenditure.

keep in mind the average Veeky Forumsizen is not under 10% and not under death camp conditions, therefore the likelihood of "metabolic slowdown" is incredibly unlikely.

people attempt to extrapolate this data WAY too far.

i.e. hey guys I'm 350lbs and I wanna cut at -1000 calories will I into starvation mode????

Do you know the difference between visceral fat, subcutaneous fat, and intramuscular triglycerides? Do you know the mechanisms which control how those different stores of fat are burned? When they kick in? How you can control it manually?

You're talking about the study done by Friedl. And you're wrong. The studies done in the 70s on VLCD show what the Minnesota Starvation Experiment showed, metabolic fatigue can occur at any time on a low calorie diet. Friedl showed that canibalizing of the muscles for fuel doesn't occur until

err frankly if this were true we'd be inundated with data showing the exact same thing.

it's not hard to measure TDEE of an individual with exact precision.

except nobody has come out with data showing metabolic slow down for a typical diet.

the only times we get data is in these exact circumstances.

starved and over-exerted individuals under 10%.

The reason a lot of people believe in starvation mode is because they starve themselves like idiots, give up and gorge themselves, then put on weight because their starvation caused them to overindulge without realising it. So they think their body just piled on extra fat out of nowhere.

Maintaining muscle requires a lot of energy, maintaining fat does not. Catabolising muscle greatly reduces your daily energy needs, and thus ensures your fat stores will spread further, enabling you to survive longer.

great logic

except here's one problem

fat is literally on the body to be utilised during restriction.

it's easily liberated, it's plentiful, it's calorie dense, and its supplies last awhile.

muscle is high investment, doesn't break down to anything substantial, and a portion of it is lost just during the conversion from amino -> glucose.

hence, the body tends to liberate glycogen first, fat second, and protein as a last resort.

hence why the partitioning of liberated stores is always heavily in favour of glycogen/fat instead of heavily in favour of breaking down muscle.

yes, it is a meme. Intermittent fasting proves that

and because glycogen is stored in the muscles, it seems like you're losing muscle, when actually, you're basically just losing your pump. Which is why natties look "flat" when they get lean.

There are plenty of studies showing this.

>Major, et. al.Clinical significance of adaptive thermogenesis. International Journal of Obesity. 2007 Feb;31(2):204-12. PUBMED

>Jason, et al. Chronic fatigue syndrome versus neuroendocrineimmune dysfunction syndrome:differential attributions. Journal of Health & Social Policy 2003;18(1):43-55. PUBMED

>Muller, et. al. Adaptive thermogenesis with weight loss in humans. Obesity. Feb;21(2):218-228. PUBMED
Rosenbaum, et. al. Long-term persistence of adaptive thermogenesis in subjects who have maintained a reduced body weight. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2008;88(4): 906-912. nutrition.org

>Camps, et. al. Weight loss, weight maintenance, and adaptive thermogenesis. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2013;97(5):990-994. PUBMED

>Tremblay, et. al Adaptive reduction in thermogenesis and resistance to lose fat in obese men. British Journal of Nutrition. 2009;102(4):488-492. PUBMED

>Labayen, et. al. Role of baseline leptin and ghrelin levels on body weight and fat mass changes after an energy-restricted diet intervention in obese women: effects on energy metabolism. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 2011;96(6):E996-1000. PUBMED

>Miller, et. al. Resistance to slimming: adaptation or illusion? Lancet. 1975;1(7910):773-775. PUBMED
Winsier, et. al. Do adaptive changes in metabolic rate favor weight regain in weight-reduced individuals? An examination of the set-point theory. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2000;72(5):1088-94. PUBMED

>Rosenbaum, et. al.
oy vey goyim starve yourselves like I did 6 times in Auschwitz when Hitler personally took my food away

Nice quads.

Also I found severe caloric restriction and going straight up bulimic worked pretty well for me.

>inb4 lel you're fucking up your esophagus m8

I'd rather have some acidity issues and have grills mirin than be a fatass with a stellar esophagus no one gives a shit about.

"Pump" is not the same as glycogen stores. Pump is fluid engorgement, lymph and blood. Your pump will dissipate in a matter of hours. Glycogen is locally stored, short term fuel. When you stop working out in a manner which promotes glycogen stores, they'll naturally dissipate in 2~6 weeks.

Cool story bro. Go on a deficit without lifting for a few weeks and see how that works out for you.

The muscle volume will decrease, but not the muscle fibers themselves. This is due to loss of glycogen stores. For each glycogen molecule used, four molecules of water is used. Water is a large molecule, the volume of your muscle decreases, but the fibers are still there unless they atrophy due to complete disuse. Like say, if you're in a cast.

i mean this is basic physiology

you're mainly regurgitating shit I'm assuming you read on the misc or here.

its categorically wrong.

you also seem to think you're going to see significant muscle wastage by dieting for 4 weeks, which only highlights how confused you are on the subject.

"cool story bro" sweet meme bro.

anyway.

I can kinda vouch for the"if you feel fine you are fine" thing. I was about 250 and just cut cold turkey to a maximum of 800 calories a day and would usually eat less than that. I would have some day s I'd eat normally but for the most part would be at 500-800. I've lost 75 pounds since around mid June and still have another 45 to go til goal weight. I was fine on that diet and there were times when I would notice less weight loss and just ate more for a couple weeks.
People say it's starving yourself and I was hungry for the first couple weeks but I kinda got used to the hungryness and it really wasn't too hard to not eat.

It is a meme.
But, still you will loose more muscle on 1000 deficit than on 500.
That doesn't mean you will go down to skeleton again, it just means you will end up your cut with 300 grams of muscle less than you had when you finished your bulk or started cutting. (this is just an example)

Even if your point is more scientifically sound, it is irrelevant as far as practicality. As I said, go ahead and see if you're still as big and strong after a no-lifting deficit. You won't be. And that's what matters here.

bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/another-look-at-metabolic-damage.html/

easily one of the dumbest statements i've ever read on Veeky Forums

> i'm wrong, I know it, science agrees with you, but I'm still not going to concede the point because I've lifted 6 months so I know some things.

"Because the science doesn’t support it in any way shape or form. No study in humans in 50 years has ever shown the claimed phenomenon. I mean not ever. Not a single study showing truly stopped fat loss in the face of a controlled deficit much less fat regain. And with plenty of other mechanisms (like water retention) to explain the “apparent” lack of fat loss that make more logical sense"

Your entire contribution to this thread has just been an ego stroking "actuallyyyyyy..."
It's irrelevant.

honest question how old are you & what is your level of education?

49 years young and a clown college graduate

ok i'll make it easier for you

have you graduated highschool yet

you lose strength not necessarily muscles

You're only making yourself look more pretentious by going down this road, you know. You already know I'm not going to go with it.

My honest question, how is anything you've said ITT remotely relevant to Veeky Forums beyond being a QI-tier tidbit? How does it have any impact in terms of fitness goals and the practical means of attaining them?

no i am genuinely curious

your counter argument is

> facts are stupid, you're stupid for using facts about the human body, you should just be guessing.

also

> by not guessing like me you're a nerd

> using facts won't even help you muscle is magic so you should just guess it'll work better.

i'm genuinely interested in your level of education & any info you can provide about your upbringing

this is crazy for me because it's like seeing a genuine dark ages peasant come back to life to lecture me on how god causes everything.

please continue.

You're not that stupid. I'll buy you're this much of a pill, but you're not that stupid.

yeah look i don't really care about your commentary on this Veeky Forums stuff anymore you've already proven u know fuck all

all i wanna hear is your age and level of education because I'm trying to picture who could be this fucking stupid.

thanks.

12 and what is this.

what this guy said is correct, look no further, fpbp

this is also correct, most everything else is bullshit regurgitated by stupid people

Is it Ramadan already, Haji?

Are refeeds a meme?

...

>It's like your body has a built-in battery conservation mode to help you out during a famine.

So that old adage about it being too late to conserve when you've reached the dregs of the wine doesn't apply for the body.

You're wrong. Very wrong.

Fat is there to be burned. That's it's function. Muscle only gets burned when the body runs out of fat to burn you shitposting Fatass. :^)

fpbp

>being right is irrelevant you hurt my feelings by proving me wrong

Female detected.

>Is "starvation mode" a meme? To what extent?
Everyone cutting too hard will know what you mean.

So no, it's not.

You've been BTFO at every turn. You have literally nothing to argue with, yet now that you're admitting you were wrong, you still insist you're right. Are you retarded or delusional?

>BTFO
What a curious way to write "My cherry picked studies of questionable origin disagree with you".

Your body burns muscle when:
1. It needs amino acids not available in the stomach
2. It has run out of any other source of calories (i.e. fat)

It will not burn muscle first unless you aren't eating enough protein as muscle is the only real amino acid sink in your body. I say this surprisingly often on Veeky Forums - you're lucky your body isn't as stupid as you.

>Is "starvation mode" a meme?

Nope. Starving makes you fat. That's why all those dying africans are land whales.

1. There's no such thing as starvation mode. It's a myth. Don't even know where it comes from.

2. Aim for no more than losing 1-2% of your bodyweight per week. If you do, studies have shown you'll loose muscle mass as well

3. Fat burning and protein synthesis are independent bodily functions. You can gain strength and muscle mass on a calorie deficit but in practice

That was my first post here. It may come as a shock to someone as stupid as you, but more than one person can respond to your comments.

But that's not entirely true. With that kind of logic the body would not break down muscle at all if you kept at a sufficient proteinrich diet, but yet at a high caloric deficit.

Let's say you only ate egg wites. So 1500g of that would yield you like 165g of protein but only 765kcals.

Are you saying that in such a scenario, you would retain all muscle mass?

I wouldn't extrapolate what happens generally to extremes like that. I have no idea what would happen in that scenario.

>all these scientifically illiterate tards ITT thinking that the body will use muscle before fat in caloric ally restricted scenarios

Fat is at least 3500 kcal per pound, and very easy for your body to make. Muscle is 600-800 kcal per pound, and takes months and a ton of energy, effort, and food to create, but isn't much more energy intensive to maintain compared to fat tissue. Even if you don't understand the biology in play here (which anyone buying into the starvation meme doesnt), common sense would dictate that the human body would have adapted to use fat as a priority. It's entire purpose is to provide you energy.

There is some truth to the notion that on a massive calorie deficit (i.e. usually MORE than 1000 for most people) your metabolism will slow down, lowering your TDEE.

The "meme" portion of it is when fatties actually believe that doing so will literally REVERSE your metabolism, causing you to actually GAIN weight. This of course violates the laws of physics, but it makes them feel better about failing to lose weight.

So, in short, while there is a "diminishing returns" effect to a large calorie deficit, there is no "starvation mode" that completely negates said deficit as described by fatties.

>Fatties thinking that not eating will make you gain weight

Tumblr is always good for a laugh.