Q: Does eating too little block, stop or slow weight loss?
A: No. “Starvation mode” is on par with “the earth is flat” for pseudoscientific nonsense.
Reducing your food intake causes weight loss. Weight loss reduces the number of calories you burn at rest and at work because your body is smaller and lighter. There is less of you to carry around, so everything you do takes less work (fewer calories). There is no way around this.
At some point the calorie reduction + the reduced energy costs of a smaller body will mean that weight loss stops, but this is math not the mythical “starvation mode.”
You can mitigate this reduced calorie burn of being lighter by (1) Strength training + adequate protein intake, which are most important, and (2) wearing a weight vest when you walk to make yourself temporarily heavier.
Where Did “Starvation Mode” Come From?
The “starvation mode” is a re-brand of James V Neel’s debunked “thrifty gene hypothesis” from 1962. Neel speculated that humans must have a “thrifty gene” that makes us prone to obesity and diabetes in modern environments of unlimited food and unlimited rest. He said that this gene must make our metabolisms slow down disproportionately when we eat less (“famine”) and simultaneously super charge our fat storing abilities.
In 1989 Neel admitted that in 27 years of intensive searching he could not find any evidence to support his “thrifty gene hypothesis.” In short: he debunked himself – the obvious culprit is that we eat more and we move much, much less.
Ironic factoid: Neel was focused on type 2 diabetes when he was proposing his “thrifty gene hypothesis” that has been used to trick people into a fear of eating less. The irony is that Professor Roy Taylor has been using eating less to cure type 2 diabetes since at least 2011.
Common Sense
If eating less caused us to either stop losing weight or to gain weight, then how could anyone have ever died of starvation? Why did those liberated from Hitler’s concentration camps look like skeletons covered in skin? Why do the hostages still held by Hamas also look like skeletons covered in skin? When central planning underfed the people of the Ukraine in 1932, why did 5 million of them die if under-eating activates our fat storage capacity?
Bottom Line
“Starvation mode” is a myth that needs to die. Tricking people into thinking that the very thing required to lose weight (reducing intake) will cause them to gain weight is wrong.
When we eat less, we lose weight. When our bodies are lighter they cost less energy (calories) to maintain at rest, and they cost less to move because they are lighter. This isn’t a “thrifty gene,” but, rather it’s just basic physics – the heavier an object the more energy it takes to move, and vice versa.
Strength training + adequate protein will be your best weapons to minimize the slowing of your RMR (resting metabolic rate, or the number of calories you burn at rest). Besides exercise, increasing your daily step count and wearing a weight vest when you walk will help increase your daily burn.
Josef Brandenburg, best selling author, is the co-owner and a coach at True 180 Personal Training, Charlotte’s most effective personal training studio for women since 2016. With decades of experience and multiple certifications, he shares his expertise with you including Should my knees stay behind my toes? Our head coach is Gregory Clifton who has been training at T180 since 2016 and also has over 25years of expertise. Please let us know what other questions you have about exercise and health.