Update: 3/7/2012

[The post I wrote below has been getting a lot of hits today. Enough hits that I had to rouse myself from hibernation to actually post on this blog. I no longer write about losing weight because I've lost 130 pounds and don't think of it anymore, so I don't have anything to write about.

There seems to be some confusion about what I wrote so I want to clarify some things. I think part of the problem is that we use the term "starving" so loosely. One guy is "starving" because he missed his post-breakfast, pre-lunch snack. And another guy is starving because he's been in a Japanese prisoner of war camp for 2 years. These are two very different cases. Yes, if a person is of normal weight, or underweight, and they go on an extended fast or period of very low calorie eating their body will eventually make metabolic adjustments so they'll lose weight slower. But I was not writing this post for normal weight or underweight people. I was writing it for fat people. 

If you are an obese person you can eat very few calories a day and it's not going to put you into "starvation mode." This is not my opinion, it's just physics and biochemistry.  I don't think it's a good way to lose weight, because I don't think it teaches you anything about moderating your eating habits.

If you aren't seriously overweight you definitely shouldn't starve yourself or eat a very low calorie diet for extended periods of time. And that's not because starvation mode is going to kick in and you'll stop losing weight. It's because you're going to fucking kill yourself eventually.]

I want to start off this post by saying that I don’t think you should starve yourself to lose weight. I think it’s unhealthy and unsustainable. You learn nothing about managing your food intake if you starve yourself. If you’ve read anything I’ve written about how I’m going about losing weight you’ll understand that. But, that being said I don’t like the idea of a group of people (dieters) collectively deluding themselves about something that doesn’t exist, to wit, starvation mode.

I’ve never used the expression “to wit” before, I don’t think I ever will again.

Case in point, 50 Cent.

You may have read the news story last week that 50 Cent lost 54 pounds in 9 weeks to play a cancer patient. Here’s a before and after shot (except the other way around.)

How did he do it? He went on an all liquid diet and got on the treadmill 3 hours a day.

Shouldn’t his body have gone into “starvation mode”? Shouldn’t it have shut down and stopped burning calories? This is what many diet books and your fat aunt will tell you. But this just isn’t how things work in real life. And we know this because we can look at people who actually starved. Ever seen a picture of the holocaust? Or a guy who has been adrift at sea for a few months? Magically everyone who actually starves somehow resists the mysterious starvation mode. Was Elie Wiesel’s metabolism less than yours? Well, yes, but that’s what happens when you get down to about 70 pounds.

Here’s your basic biology lesson. Your fat is stored calories. Let’s say you need 2800 calories to function throughout the day. You can either eat your 2800 calories, or you can eat 1400 and your body can burn 1400 stored calories, or you can eat nothing and your body can burn 2800 stored calories. Your body still gets the calories, it just gets them from your stored fat. So when people say, “Don’t go under [some arbitrary number] of calories, because your body needs that just to survive.” What they’re not understanding is that your body still gets that number of calories it just gets them by burning your fat instead of the food you ate. This is all weight loss is.

But starvation mode must exist, right? I mean you hear so much about it. It can’t all be bullshit, can it?

Well, kind of.

Let’s clarify some things.

Yes, eating will raise your metabolism. But it doesn’t ever raise it enough to make up for the influx of calories you take in by eating.

Yes, your metabolism will lower as you lose weight. But that’s just how things work. It takes a lot less gas to move a Mini-Cooper 100 miles than it does to move a Hummer 100 miles. Your metabolic rate is, essentially, how much “fuel” you need to get you through the day. So, of course, it’s going to decrease as you get smaller.

Yes, starvation mode exists. But it’s not something that happens to you as you try to lose weight. Starvation mode is what your body goes into once all the expendable fat is burned. It’s your body using your muscle and internal organs for fuel because it doesn’t have anything else  to use. You can’t be fat and in starvation mode. It’s like saying, “I have a lot of expendable income. And I’m bankrupt.”

Listen, I’m not a doctor… or am I? (I’m not.) But I’m completely capable of reading the scientific studies about calorie reduction and metabolism and I can’t find a study that shows anything about the existence of “starvation mode” as people use the term in the dieting industry.

Again, I’m not suggesting you starve yourself thin. That’s for adolescent girls who are too stupid to do anything else. You’ll deprive yourself of nutrients to keep you healthy and you’ll likely feel like shit too. But I’m against the idea of perpetrating the myth of starvation mode because it needlessly complicates the issue of losing weight, and people are confused enough already.

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