If you can really 'eat too little' to lose weight, then why do people on the jabs lose weight?

[GinnyPiggie]

Just that really!

There's often advice on here that people are 'eating too little' to lose weight and going into some sort of fasting mode. I've often thought this sounds like bollocks.

So - If you can really 'eat too little' to lose weight, then why do people on the jabs lose weight? Half of them seem to be surviving on very little food indeed.

Does this disprove the theory that you can 'eat too little' to lose weight?

Because the people that tout the theory of 'starvation mode' dont know what they're talking about.

I don’t understand it because otherwise how could there be any anorexic people? Maybe there’s some science/proof I haven’t heard about so I just don’t understand how it works but it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Of course it doesnt make sense, if you eat less than your body physically requires then you will lose weight, its as simple as that

Unfortunately there are lots of things that make eating what your body requires or doesnt require very difficult, hormonal urges and genetic make up, tiredness, medications which make you hungry, a low metabolism which means needing to eat very little and therefore getting very hungry. Animals eat when they are hungry so that is what we do

We're also subject to a food culture which has taught us we musnt be hungry and overeating is normal and fun.

Because starvation theory is bollocks.

Because it's a load of rubbish!

The reason eating too little doesn't lead to weight loss really is being it's not sustainable, most people start and then end up binging or just thinking screw it ill start again next week. Of course there are health reasons as to why too few calories is not recommended and not good, but you'll lose weight.

Your TDEE will go down if you restrict food, probably not by enough to compensate for the entire reduction of calories though. There are studies showing that when starving people naturally fidget less. Also you will loose lean mass which means that your body will require fewer calories in the future to maintain itself.

A slow steady weight loss is always best for long term sustainability and this applies to loss on the drugs as well as those reducing calories without the drugs.

Well I think there's a misunderstanding. If you can keep eating a tiny amount and no more, you will lose weight (and hair and energy and muscle mass and the ability to function) but our bodies are designed to fight really hard against allowing that to happen.

So as your body realises it's in a calorie deficit - especially if you have a long history of yoyo dieting - it does its best to conserve energy as much as it can. Your metabolism does slow, and a lot of dieting over your lifetime does make it slower overall than someone who has never dieted. Bodies are really clever at adapting. It will become more efficient, it will make you more tired and find little ways to keep you sedentary as much as it can. You will, eating too little to sustain yourself, be very tired and very hungry and your body will ramp that up to motivate you to eat. Bodies really do not want to lose weight and they really want to regain it once lost as an incredibly powerful and primal survival mechanism that it's almost impossible to resist.

So yes, your body learns to survive off fewer calories while storing as much energy as it can and that means long-term dieters have to drive down their calorie intake to unsustainable levels to keep losing. They also regain much, much faster the more often they diet.

Even on the injections, people experience stalls and plateaus. Anyone who has ever embarked on weight loss is familiar with this. It's your body adapting and fighting the weight loss. It's very easy to see this on the jabs because you aren't giving in to hunger like you might on a normal diet - the hunger isn't there so it's not like you 'cheat' or give in. But still, the loss will slow and stop on that small intake and t will take a frustrating time to start up again.

If our bodies worked in a simple, predictable way where calories in and out worked perfectly all the time, no one would experience stalls - even gains! - on the jabs but anyone taking them knows this happens. It is anecdotally true that upping your calories for a few days can sometimes restart the loss. I don't know about calling it 'starvation mode' because true starvation will waste someone away until they die. But it is some kind of survival mode, where the body fights really hard against the calorie restriction. Of course, you break through it if you can keep going - the jabs help people to keep going, it's part of their function. But calorie restriction does trigger resistance to weight loss and cause those stops and starts to take place.

Mounjaro, Wegovy and Saxenda act on areas of the brain which are involved in regulating your appetite. They increase feelings of fullness, reduce feelings of hunger and reduce the preference for high-fat foods.

So people using these drugs lose weight because they are eating less of the bad foods, and eating less in general.

Just like people lose weight by eating less through other means, like calorie counting.

@TakeMeToFlorida excellent post. I'm so used to reading crap advice on here and it's refreshing to see someone who knows how this works and can explain it (better than I could!). Thank you.

So, the accepted wisdom is if I eat 500kcal less a day, I will lose a pound a week. By this rationale a 120lb woman would then evaporate into thin air if she kept up a 500kcal deficit for two years. Or her body would adapt at some point to the lower intake to stay alive.

Stalls and plateaus are not really a real thing, they are a construct of what you see on the scales. Weight loss is never going to be consistent, predictable linear every single week or month. This is why people think their body is 'adapting', its just normal fluctuations of the body. The way the body compensates for eating less is just not significant enough to override weight loss, otherwise people on the inejections or having had WLS just wouldnt lose weight in the way they do

Anyone not losing weight and just weighing themselves daily or weekly would see very much the same thing.

Because it's bollocks. Perpetuated by secret eaters.

That's really not true. Stalls and plateaus beyond normal fluctuations are an inescapable part of weight loss. They don't last forever, obviously, but they absolutely happen and they are the body's adaptation to calorie restriction to give us the best chance of surviving food shortage.

This is actually the foundation of the Why We Eat Too Much book, which is about metabology and how the body tries to regulate weight gain and weight loss and how your BMR adapts to try to keep things consistent.

They actually use the opposite example: the average excess calories an American person eats and why the entire population isn't more obese than they actually are, because the simple calories in/calories out thing doesn't make sense with what we know about how much excess calories they are taking in.

It's a very interesting book.

Well hope that clears it up for you op!!

Were you looking to trash the injections?

Don't most people plateau on Ozempic etc after 18 months?

eating too little to sustain yourself, be very tired and very hungry and your body will ramp that up to motivate you to eat

This, with knobs on. I think that's what starvation mode really is - when your body sends you practically out of your mind with boredom and tiredness and frustration so you give in and eat more calories - which promptly takes you out of your calorie deficit.

Also set weight point theory talks about metabolism slowing when someone deviates from their body's 'set weight', so slows down weight loss for example when someone goes on a crash diet.

I found this quite interesting:

'The weight set-point theory, plus negative feedback to control your weight at that set-point, fits in with both sensible biological models and with what patients tell us of their experiences with obesity. They feel trapped, not in control. They can lose weight but will always regain it as the subconscious brain wins the battle of wills. If, by losing weight on a diet, you send signals of probable future famine to the brain, then not only will you regain the weight you lost, but invariably your set-point will edge upwards and you will end up heavier than before you started dieting.'

The Vermont Prison Feast experiment showed this kind of theory (metabolic rate adjusting). When they overfed inmates with the amount of calories calculated to result in a 25% body weight increase, they rapidly gained weight at first but then they stopped gaining weight. They ended up having to eat something like 8000-10000 calories to put on weight. When they measured metabolic rate at the end, they found it had increased considerably. So your body can increase or reduce metabolism to try to regulate intake.

I never understood why eating 1200 calories a day meant I didn't lose weight. Totally lied to myself about the weekends off, the Friday wine, the occasional croissant or pastry when out with friends, the birthday cake, the bag of nuts in the car!

They're not really because all the while the scales might not show loss, or linear loss, your body is getting smaller, I have lived through this believe me.

I work on calories in vs calories out. I also think that eating in an 8 hour window makes sense.
I can eat few calories if I need to lose weight because I am female and short. I lose weight on 1000 cals a day. Maintain on 1400 ish and gain if I eat more.
I am doing weigh loss injections. This gets rid of the hunger and enables me to stick to 1000 cals a day, day in day out.
It is not a shortcut. I have lost 18lb in 10 weeks. I still have 3 stone to go though.
I did SW and was told I was not eating enough to lose weight. It makes no sense.
What I have learned is that my weight plateaus every 3 weeks or so, before I start losing again. SW never told me that, so I'd stick to it for weeks, lose a lb and give up.

I'm currently on Mounjaro and having great success. But in the past I've been easily able to lose weight by low carbing, I just can't sustain that weight loss long term as I have ADHD. Really hoping that these jabs help me.

I have never believed in "starvation mode". But I do believe in plateaus. If I am low carbing and go through a stall, experience has taught me that the best thing I can do is eat something I wouldn't normally eat. Like a piece of cake or a bar of chocolate. For some reason this kick starts something and I will start losing weight again within 24 hours. I occasionally swap it up so instead of low carb high fat, I will calorie count and eat carbs for 24 hours then go back to low carb. Or fast for 24 hours. This normally works.

the only thing that could make sense is that eating with a big deficit can lead to binges if you are not careful.

Read The obesity code.

It details all the diet fads, advice and studies from the last century.
Very informative.

But your experience is not universal and plenty of other people report differently