Starvation mode—you may have heard of this phrase if you have ever tried to diet and stopped losing weight after some time. You hit a plateau and it stays there seemingly forever. Your coach or your gym trainer will say things like your metabolism has shut down, you are into starvation mode, you have a broken or damaged metabolism, and so on.

But does 'starvation mode' actually exist? Does your metabolism ever get broken? Let's find out.

Let us look at the most infamous (as per the ethical standards) study known as the 'Minnesota Starvation Experiment' and its findings. It was a study conducted by Dr. Ancel Keys and his colleagues in 1945. The study was conducted on 32 men where they were semi-starved at a mind-boggling 55% caloric deficit for a rash 24 weeks. To add a bit of context to the harshness of the deficit here, I usually put my clients on a 10 to 25% caloric deficit based on their goals and lifestyle.

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In the study, the average maintenance calories of the group were around 3400 kcals and to induce a 55% deficit, their intake was dropped to 1500 kcals for five and a half months straight.

At the end of the study, the researches found that NONE of the subjects entered the so-called 'starvation mode' and stopped losing weight. Instead, on an average, they dropped around 24.5% of their body weight and continued losing so in the caloric deficit. For example, a 100-kilo guy would weigh around 75 kilos by the end of this study.

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Most of these men dropped to an average of 5% body fat during this experiment. As you can see in the image above, how some of the subjects ended up looking towards the end of the study. One thing that did happen in the study was that the metabolic rate of these individuals slowed down by 40% on average during the course. This does happen when you diet and something known as 'adaptive thermogenesis' kicks in as a defense mechanism.

Of this 40% drop, 25% was associated with the drop in body weight alone. Meaning, the lesser body tissue you have, the lesser calories it will burn. The other 15% was due to adaptive thermogenesis.

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Irrespective of the drop, the subjects got to 5% body fat and the 15% drop in metabolic rate was the highest drop at those lean levels. And yes, the thing to note here is that the 15% drop was not sufficient enough to stop them from losing body fat. The main takeaway from this study would be that there is nothing known as a metabolic shutdown or broken metabolism or starvation mode in reality and if you are struggling to lose weight, this definitely is not the reason for it.

The answer to “does your metabolism shut down” in a single word would be a resounding NO.

This study, though a very severe and a harsh one, does answer a lot of questions and without a doubt, no ethics board would sanction such a study in today's world.

Author bio:

Pratik Thakkar is the co-founder and director of GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company. He is regarded as someone who will make it easy for you to understand the process by putting things in the right context and providing science-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding. You can reach out to him at pratik@getsetgo.fitness and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.