Question about starvation mode

I'm a little confused by 'starvation mode'.

Does it happen if you eat less than the 1200 (for women) calories per day? Or if your deficit is more than 1000?  Or if you go too long between meals?  Or is it some combination of these things?

If anyone knows the answers to this, please help!! 

Thanks!

I'd say off hand it probably takes most people a week to a month to actually fall into a starvation mode.

Consuming at least 1200 *net* calories for a woman is what keeps your body from thinking it's starving.

So what does net mean?  If I ate 1200 calories today, and burned off 300 calories at the gym, I'm only consuming 900 *net* calories.  Make sure you eat back what you burn.

Most women can't have a deficit over 500 without being under 1200 a day.  Usually only tall, obese people can safely acheve a healthy deficit of 800+.


I'm 5'7" 149 lbs, my sedentary burn is 1800, I can safely have a 600 deficit.

yeah! what she said :)

This article should answer your question. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/core_march_8. htm

BG

nocturne spelled it out pretty clearly

You should have atleast 1200 calories PLUS what calories you lost when working out... and that's just at minimum and assuming you are sitting around most of the day and not in a very active moving around type of job.   In that case you'd need around 150 extra calories or something.

hmmm, I'm not sure that I agree...  

Let's say

• you burn 1,700 calories (including 2 hours of exercise for 200 calories).  and
• you ate only 1,200 calories. 
• This would be ok... You would have a 500 calorie deficit (1,700 - 1,200) and
• you would not need to eat an extra 200 calories to eat back your exercise burned calories bringing you to a deficit of 300....
• i *think* you only need to start increasing calories when your deficit gets too large (like over 1,000 for the day)

I *think* from what I have read and understand is that 1,200 calories is the generally recommended minimum adult women should eat when "dieting", although most should eat more...  because your body needs these calories to function well (to feed body organs, tissue, brain, etc)


starvation mode ~ describes what happens when you aren't eating enough over a period of time (more than a day or 2 or 3) and your body thinks it is starving so it slows down metabolism and consquently, weight loss slows... although it does continue... but may even stop...

 

yes if you consume less than 1200 calories for a long period of time you will become like me overweight and frustrated!! i'm 173 5'11 and i've bee ntrying to go on crash diets for years now to lose just to lose a simple tenpounds jsut recently i found out why i cant lose ten pounds even thoug i've been eating 700-1000 cals a day for the past 4 years..and avid runner at that!! my metabolosm sucks.. jsut recently i started eating 1400 calories a day starting to do the diting thing the right way and gained 5 lbs last night and still going up.. very scary for someone who is already upset with their weight but i'm going to have to hang on for a few more weeks hopefull not that many mor of the scale going up but kinda ignorethe scale for a awile!! sigh!!