Starvation mode: how do you know if you are in it?

Xavier Savage
Dec 3, 2018
2 min read

Saying that starvation mode is a myth is like saying, being prediabetic is a myth – DR. Jade Teta

What are the stages of starvation mode?

Essentially it’s a 3 stage process.

Metabolic compensation
Metabolic resistance
Metabolic damage

There is a strong belief that the starvation mode, when can enter into when trying to diet and exercise is a myth, but I’ve seen body builders and personal trainers exhibit the symptoms, and even be diagnosed with it.

What is metabolic compensation?

This can best be describes as follows:

When you start a diet and with in a week or so hunger increases, your energy falls. From here you find yourself either bailing on your diet.

Or you find yourself going through intense cravings for sweet, salty or fattening foods.

If you manage to fight the cravings this is where a few symptoms can begin to occur.

Fat loss stops, or slows down.

You may double down on your efforts, cut more calories and workout harder, things may get better and than a few weeks later come to a halt again.

This move you into metabolic resistance.

What is metabolic resistance?

At this point we can say you truly entered the starvation mode. Symptoms include:

Some foods and supplements upsetting your stomach.
Nausea, gas, bloating, water retention etc.
Men’s libido can decrease or stop completely.
Women can have cycles stop or become irregular.

Sleep, eating more and exercising more, or eating less and exercising less, are the only things that can help you. You have to do something to decrease the stress on your metabolism.

These symptoms can last and move you to metabolic damage.

What is metabolic damage ?

This is where you will have to put a hard core priority on sleeping, eating and exercising more.

Most of the time a regular doctor and even personal trainers will tell you to either:

Eat more and work out to the same capacity which, which may cause weight gain.
Or eat less, which may cause the symptoms to persist.

Seek a specialist, or a primary care physician who has a background in nutrition or endocrinology. Getting general advice from a doctor who is not a specialist will result in more symptoms or unnecessary medication.

How to troubleshoot the starvation mode

Focus on fun stress relief activities. Emphasis eating more and exercising more of you find it stress relieving. Or eating less and exercising less. Which ever method seems more therapeutic, and alleviating.

Some people eat more and exercise more and they feel like they’re staying on task, while others may opt to workout and eat less, because that keeps them from stressing out.

It may take 1-3 months to recover, seeing a specialist is also key to ensuring a fast recovery.