Starvation mode….true or false?

If you eat too few calories does your body go into starvation mode and start storing body fat?

Short answer…. No.

Think about it logically, there are people literally starving in this world. If starvation mode was a ‘thing’ then there would be no starvation. It’s a bit like saying I’m not going to put any money in my savings account and it should grow…

If you are in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. If you think you’re eating 800 calories a day and not losing, the chances are you are not eating 800 calories per day. Maybe you are for a couple of days a week but not every single day.

Try tracking your food in an app like myfitnesspal which is free to use and you can see what you’re eating each day. This includes oils, sauces, milk, sugar, drinks, everything you eat and drink.

Now although starvation mode isn’t a ‘thing’, there is something called metabolic adaptation which is where starvation mode has come from. Let me explain….

As you lose weight, your maintenance calories will decrease because you weigh less (maintenance calories are your calories you need to maintain your weight). Your body adapts to the lower calories by subconsciously making you move less, fidget less because your body doesn’t like losing weight, it’s a threat, a survival instinct and your body will start to conserve your energy output so you can conserve as much energy as possible.

So your calories you need have decreased, you’re moving less (even if you don’t realise it) and your body has adapted to these new calories, this means you need to change something e.g. decrease calories and/or increase energy output and then be consistent with it.

The problem I see is many people stick to a strict and restrictive diet for a few weeks maybe 6-8 weeks and then at the end they will binge and eat way over their calories again, and then put the weight all back on and more. The problem with this is, your body has adapted to those lower calories and when you drastically increase them again and binge and can’t stop eating your body hasn’t got a chance to catch up to these calories so your maintenance calories are still low and you’re eating way into a surplus resulting in a large weight gain. But you’re then in a worse position than when you started because you’ve lost muscle being on a restrictive diet and then you’ve gained all the weight back but it’s from body fat. These means each time you do this it gets harder and harder to lose weight. Then what happens? You lose motivation and end up hating your body, thinking there is something ‘wrong’ with you.

This is so common so please don’t feel you’ve done anything wrong, there are so many fad diets which promise the quick fix. I’ll always tell you the truth and I never put anyone on a restrictive diet, it’s not good to lose weight quickly, we don’t want that. It’s also very beneficial to go onto a reverse diet where we increase calories slowly in line with progress in your training in the gym.

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Feel free to also email me if you have questions tara@tarahallfitness.com