Thread: calories

Starvation mode is a state in which the body is responding to prolonged periods of low caloric intake levels. During short periods of caloric abstinence, the human body will burn primarily free fatty acids from body fat stores. After prolonged periods of starvation the body has depleted its body fat and becomes begins to burn lean tissue and muscle as a fuel source.[1]
Ordinarily, the body responds to reduced caloric intake by burning fat reserves first, and only consumes muscle and other tissues when those reserves are exhausted.[2] Specifically, the body burns fat after first exhausting the contents of the digestive tract along with glycogen reserves stored in muscle and liver cells.[3] After prolonged periods of starvation, the body will utilize the proteins within muscle tissue as a fuel source. People who practice fasting on a regular basis, such as those adhering to caloric restricted diets, can prime their bodies to abstain from food without burning lean tissue.[4]. Resistance training (such as weight lifting) can also prevent the loss of muscle mass while a person is caloric restricted.


Starvation mode - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes I would definitely say she's not eating quite enough. Maybe not off by much ,but still off some. She also seems to have reached a plateau which can be broke. So look at this thread and read some of the information.
How do I beat my Plateau

thanks for that, i've suggested she eats a little more about 1500-1600 its been like this for about 2 months and in that time she has lost literally a few pounds? But with SO much exercise and so little calories i guess the body must have jsut lowered its metabolism to compensate for the lack of energy?

Yes, a lot of people fail at dieting by eating too little thinking it's for the best. All that does is shut your metabolism down ,and then when you start eating even half way regular without your metabolism there to help you burn some of those calories you just get the weight back plus more because most likely you will just lose motivation and eat like crazy. If she would like I can help make a diet, then get it looked at by some of the pros on here and a workout plan done the same way.

i've advised her to go for a low gi diet? so its complex carb avoiding simple carbs a fairly high protein intake and a good helping of vegfruit with some good oils? 3 meals and 2 snacks, and no carbs after evening meal time?

I'd recommend getting her to sign up for this forum. Although you should be applauded for helping her and she should be applauded for her current progress, it can be difficult to go through an intermediary at times.

In the meantime, it sounds like she can use a diet break, especially if she's been in deficit for the last two years. I'd recommend that you tell her to go back to eating at maintenance for a few weeks. She needs some time to allow a variety of hormones to normalize.

last year she had a blood test as she had another mega plateau that eventually did shift all by itself, but all the blood test levels were normal, except testosterone which was slightly elevated, the doc said this could be due to the amount of exercise she was doing. She asked about PCOS but he said that another hormone was in the right range so it was unlikely as this is normally outside the normal range as well as testosterone. Have other people heard of similar people doing loads of exercise but not losing any weight? Was this due to them eating to little?

Yea it's not uncommon that a lot of cardio on low calories tends to result in a slow down of progress. I'm not sure on the mechanism, but anecdotally, it seems to happen often.

When was the last time your friend took a break?

don't think she has ever really taken a break as such? from my reading, the body tends to see it as the body is starving so lowers its metabolism to match the now low calories and at all costs keeps its fat stores just in case things get worse so it has that for energy if it becomes desperate

Yea, that's not a bad general idea. And above where I mentioned the anecdotal slow down in progress, I meant to add that individuals coming off of breaks tend to see substantial losses in fat when they return to their diet. Lyle McDonald refers to that phenomenon as the "Whoosh Effect" and that is the mechanism that I meant to say isn't necessarily understood.

I think you should push the break idea onto her. Let her have two weeks or so of eating at maintenance. She can probably use the psychological break as well.