Metabolic rate response to dieting? - Alan?

[NeilC]

I see people on fitness forums commonly say that if you cut your cals you risk common up against "the starvation response" where you simply won't lose weight even on a low cal diet as your body tries to hang onto calories. The way it's spoken of is as if there is a trigger point were a specific response kicks in.

I've been reading around on this subject and it seems that the body tends to react to calorie deficit, reduction in overall mass and reduction in lean mass all by reducing RMR. Exercise doesn't seem to increase RMR directly.

I'm hoping some of the more expert folk here might be able to help me with a few questions:

I've not see much evidence for a specific trigger point of a starvation response. Is there one?

Is RMR reduction essentially proportional to calorie restriction?

Can people's advice along the lines of "if you want to lose fat you need to eat MORE" ever be correct?

Will a suppressed RMR return to pre-diet levels given a period of maintenance calories?

If there are any papers or other sources you can point me to that address this issue I'd be grateful too.
Thanks

[JoshDunn]

Originally Posted by NeilC

Can people's advice along the lines of "if you want to lose fat you need to eat MORE" ever be correct?

Thats a good question. Interested in the answer.

[Espi]

There's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence of esp females reporting better wt loss when they eat more calories, esp more protein. Apparently for them that's just enough calories to be in a deficit, but not so few calories that their metabolism slows down.

Other methods are to keep calories low on diet days , but refeed frequently.

How much your metabolism will slow down is not just depedent on calorie intake, but esp on your genetic make-up (and of course bf%). Some can lose just fine w/o refeeds and others at the same bf% , same activity level & same calorie intake will stall.
However, from starvation studies it appears that the slow down cannot be more than 40 (did I get that # right?) so cutting back 45% would still yield wt loss..

Two caveats: the Minnesota study was on men! Women tend to stall easier... esp when overexercising. Plus, apparently rumor has it there were a few anomalies, viz. men who didn't lose much (nor steal food) and those were sent away... yeah, good way to improve on results!