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The short answer is no. 

The long answer is quite complicated and involves many studies which can be found on google scholar. I will go into 2 briefly below in layman terms later.

If we take what happens to the body when actually clinically starving you will see why you are not in starvation mode.

Your body will start to increase lipolysis, or breaking down fat to release fatty acids for energy. You’ll break down protein reserves, usually muscle, for another energy source. Symptoms of all of this can include weakness, apathy, memory lapses, and muscle cramps. As you can see you will still continue to lose weight, at an accelerated rate as your body tries to keep you alive.

Most studies on starvation mode (in an average Joe trying to loose weight sense) put people in 2 categories to compare people that have lost weight and people that haven’t. These categories are “reduced obese” and “control"

Reduced obese will be people that are a certain weight, lets say 70kg, but used to be heavier and recently lost weight. “Control” will be people that have been 70kg for a long time and not categorised as obese.

When comparing the 2 groups Martins et al [1] found that the difference in resting metabolic rates were minimal between the groups even when the reduced obese groups lost a lot of weight consuming only 800 kcals per day.

Weinsier et al [2] found that after weight loss had occurred and a weight maintenance period started (slight increase in calories to slow/stop weight loss) there was not a significant difference in how many calories burned per day between reduced obese and control individuals. "Failure to establish energy balance after weight loss gives the misleading impression that weight-reduced persons are energy conservative and predisposed to weight regain.”

There are quite a few new studies from 2019 and 2020 that come to the same conclusion. As long as there is an  assessment of calorific intake and a transfer to a maintenance amount of calories after weight loss there will not be a weight increase. 


Send me a message if you have any questions about starvation mode, diet or nutrition.

1. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ajcn/nqaa086/5835207?redirectedFrom=fulltext
2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11063433/

 Looking to burn calories during lockdown? Here are 5 super easy tips to help you out
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1.   Maximise what you are already doing. Use a backpack to increase calorie burn throughout the day. Simply fill up a backpack and wear it while you do your daily physical tasks such as cleaning and cooking. According to the Compendium of Physical Activities you can more than double your calorific output while walking around by carrying 10kg of weight. 

2.   That same backpack can be used as a kettlebell for swings(I can send you a video if you need), or wear it while you are doing squats/lunges and push ups to add resistance. 

3.   Another useful household item for exercise are towels. They can be used to maintain and even build overall strength. Simply stand on a towel, gather up one end and with deadlift form try to pull the towel straight up from underneath your feet. Nothing will move and you can put maximum effort. Perfect for a home setting with limited space. This exercises uses Isometric pulling which is a very old strength building exercise used by strong men like George Hackenschmidt (Previous strongest man in the world and all time wrestling great) and martial artists like Bruce Lee. 

4.   Use water bottles as dumbbells. Yes they may be too light but you can increase the difficulty with some minor adjustments. Take the bicep curl. Simply move the elbows slightly in front of you. Now the biceps have to work harder to perform a repetition. Most people can get a solid bicep workout with a 5L bottle of water. 

5.   Bed sheets. This is a simple one. You can replicate a TRx suspension trainer easily by tying a knot in a bedsheet and closing that knot in the top of a door. You can then hand from the bedsheet to do Pull ups, lean back while holding it to do rows and use it for stability and assistance to squat or pistol squat. Almost any suspension trainer exercise can be emulated using a bedsheet shaving you £££ and no waiting for home delivery.

HORMONES

Your brain makes decisions on when and how you need to eat throughout the day and it processes multiple different types of information to make an informed decision.

Many of the most important signals to the brain are hormones that change in response to eating habits.
A higher protein intake actually increases levels of the satiety (appetite-reducing) hormones cholecystokinin, GLP-1, and peptide YY, while reducing your levels of the hormone ghrelin which is used by the body to tell your brain you are hungry. 

By switching carbohydrates and fat with protein, you reduce the hunger hormone and boost several hormones that tell you that you are full and consumed enough nutrients.

This leads to a huge reduction in hunger and is the main reason protein helps you lose weight. It can make you eat fewer calories in the future by making you feel fuller and satiated for longer.

THERMIC EFFECT OF FOOD

After eating your body will use some calories to digest your food. Most calorie counting apps factor this in to their calculations but you can get a small head start on your weight loss by making your body work harder to digest your food. Below you can see that of the food types protein uses the most calories to break down.
* Carbohydrates: 5 to 15% of the energy consumed
* Protein: 20 to 35%
* Fats: at most 5 to 15%
The more you allot your daily calorie allowance to protein the less calories are actually absorbed, while also filling your stomach up.

FEELING FULL

The amount of time it takes your body to digest food is also affected by the amount of time certain foodstuffs stay in your stomach. The shortest time is simple and refined sugars, with some being absorbed in the mouth and passing out of the stomach to be absorbed quick sharp. The longest to stay in the stomach, up to 12 hours are fats and protein especially from animal sources.

CONCLUSIONS

Try to switch up your diet wherever possible to include more protein. It will help you feel fuller, burn more calories and  trick your brain into thinking you don’t need to eat as much or earlier so you will be less inclined to snack. GO PROTEIN!

My weight loss clients often ask why we train bum or gluteal muscles regularly in the form or banded exercises, cable machines or good old fashioned squats. Below I explain why we do.

1. Injury
PreventionOne of the biggest reasons people stop training in the gym on their own, especially if its a newbie is injury.
If your glutes are not functioning correctly you can increase injury risk in other parts of the body. As your Glutes do most of the controlling of the hips every other muscle around them has to take over. Most commonly under active glutes lead to injuries in the lower back, knees, hamstrings and the groin. Pretty much anything attached to the hips, which is a lot of things.

2. Posture
If you are trying to lose weight especially around the stomach, correcting prevalent lordosis (inward curvature in the lower back) can go a long way to making you look thinner. Strengthening the glutes allows you to control the hips and eventually it will happen passively. Improved posture is also related to feeling more confident, and multiple health benefits such as improved blood pressure, digestion and reduced occurrence of migraines.

3. Lower Back Pain
Another byproduct of other muscles taking over the positioning of the pelvis is lower back pain and sciatica. The piriformis is a small muscle located deep in the buttock, behind the gluteus maximus and it passes over the sciatic nerve which at that point is as thick as your thumb. If the piriformis is over used it can aggravate the sciatic nerve and cause sciatica from the lower back down to the toes. Lots of lower back pain is actually caused by the dysfunctional muscles in the bum.

4. Athleticism
Any client that has any athletic aims or wishes to start taking part in sport recreationally will perform better at jumping, running and even throwing with strong glutes. They will also be more accurate in the movements they are performing as through training the proprioceptive capabilities of muscles increase (They report back to the brain with more info about their position and how they are moving)

Overall we aim to make our clients as fit, healthy and injury resistant as possible while also reducing body fat.

Cortisol is a stress hormone, produced as part of the fight or flight response to help increase glucose levels in the blood. This is what helps the body fight or run from a dangerous situation!

As your body produces cortisol responding to a threat, it shuts down less critical functions like reproduction and immunity allowing the body to concentrate on surviving the immediate threat. Although this can be useful when triggered during physical activity, a modern lifestyle that involves high levels of stress, especially in the sedentary corporate environment, may lead to excessive amounts of cortisol in your system. Regular exercise can help reduce your cortisol and stress levels.
With stress being slowly built, the body believes it is constantly under threat, with no crescendo to announce the danger has passed so cortisol levels keep rising.

An early evening high intensity workout or heavy deadlifting session can be the crescendo your body needs to flick the switch on cortisol. You should view your workout as therapy for your body!

“View your workout as therapy for your body!”

Too much cortisol for too long can have a multitude of negative effects. One of the most noticeable is weight gain as your body tries to fight fatigue you will crave more sugary foods. It also reduces protein synthesis which can reduce muscle mass. It also curbs levels of human growth hormone and sex hormones, which can reduce libido and fertility in both males and females. Furthermore the increase in weight and long term elevated sugar levels in the blood increase the chances of developing diabetes over the very long term.

It is all reversible if the right steps are taken. Change of the stressful environment is number one and actually more important that exercise in this situation. Exercise can help manage stress levels but should not be a long term solution to 

If you would like to learn how to de-stress and use exercise for therapy of your body contact me now for a free consultation.