The degree to which you guys advocate a calorie being a calorie is new to me. I've always thought that overall, if you are at a caloric deficit you'll drop but it's crazy how little it matters what it is ftmp vis a vis dropping weight.

Question: If you operate at a large enough deficit for a long enough period of time (whatever would be applicable as X here) is your metabolism slowing down and going into 'starvation mode' a legit thing?

Do you have to find a happy balance or is it similarly simple to calories in +/- calories out and the metabolism stays basically constant dependent almost exclusively on activity level?

Dodger,

I guess the simple answer is yes. The metabolism stays basically constant dependent upon lean body mass and activity level.

I'll tell you what I learned from dieting.

There is a difference in how the macros of foods affect the body's nutrient absorption and distribution, so in that sense a calorie is not a calorie, but the effect you'd derive from worrying about such things is insignificant for most of the population. For example, you would worry about that level of precision if you were a high level bodybuilder prepping for competition.

Starvation mode occurs at such an extended state of literal starvation--think what Holocaust prisoners suffered, where your body literally has nothing left to break down in order to feed itself--that no one in the developed world is going to experience this. The body doesn't enter starvation mode simply by eating at a deficit. If you change nothing else--no change in activity, muscle gained, etc.--your daily energy expenditure will drop as you lose weight, but that's not due to any metabolic damage. That's because you need fewer calories to sustain a body at 180lbs than at 220lbs.

Body Recomposition is a great site to learn more about this if you want to go into greater detail.

I think metabolic slow down might be real (even Lyle et al suggest some refeeds to raise leptin levels and such), but for most it's pretty exaggerated.

Likely what happens is:

1. As you shrink it costs less calories to move around.
2. Lower calories means less energy, and that can lead to LOWER non-exercise moving around. Less walking, less fidgeting, etc.

So it would be a correlation and not causation situation.

The old hypothesis elsewhere used to be that cheat meals (with some proponents of cheat days) would throw your metabolism off so it couldn't get too efficient at expending the minimum calories needed, thus preventing starvation mode. I have no idea the degree to which it's broscience tho.

It is similar to the idea behind interval training.

I just want to make sure I'm not doing anything counter-productive while cutting. I can have wicked willpower when stoked.

Oh I passed over 'refeeds' - obv that's speaking to my post.

Thank you for the reply Busto. I'm not a beginner in the normal sense of the word so I understand how you need to recalibrate along the way and the like.

I'm re-immersing myself in all this stuff like a little less than a decade after I did it before though so appreciate the link.

Ok ya, so if no one that bothers looking at this has any counters:

https://authoritynutrition.com/starvation-mode/

Nothing's changed from what I knew before.

I agree with that article. But, cue thremp.

I think the main problem when people are discussing something like "metabolic slow-down". People can often be referring to one of two things, and often conflate the two, which leads to confusion. IMO, here are the two kinds

1. Legitimate reduction in BMR. As previously explained, when you lose weight you lose metabolically active tissue. You will lose some muscle and some fat. Muscle is more metabolically active, but even adipose tissue has some minimal caloric requirements. When you lose weight, you lose this tissue and so one's daily maintenance caloric requirement is less. There is no serious debate about this.

2. Other questionable stuff. This is mostly the stuff KC alludes to in his post above. Some people believe that when the body is in a deficit, it will trigger additional mechanisms to further slow the metabolic rate beyond the mere loss of metabolically active tissue.

In my opinion, most of the things in this second category are little more than guesses that people have based on some knowledge of physiology and are supported by very little evidence. Of course, no one has really proven that they are untrue, because proving a negative is hard especially if the effect is minimal. I'd say at best, even if this stuff really happens, the effect is likely small enough that the vast majority of people can ignore it and achieve their goals.

I agree with KC and Melkerson, especially that final point. The effect of any metabolic slowdown is insignificant enough that for most people, it's not worth paying attention to. I realize as I type this that I am at least in part preemptively trying to defuse the kind of faulty self-evaluations that are easily disproven, such as, "I eat next to nothing and am still fat. My body must be in starvation mode."

This is a little embarrassing, but I can't do lunges. Whenever I try to do lunges I can never step forward/back the right length, I can't keep my balance, and I have to keep adjusting my feet to get tham in the right place.

I always knew my legs were kinda uncoordinated (I'm terrible at soccer and any kind of dancing) but **** me this is ridic. Anyone have some ideas how I can learn to not feel like I have cerebral palsy in my legs?

Well my wife's had to recover from a lot of deficits in her legs (as did I after the spinal fusion); most of the strategies center around trying to practice skill just slightly beyond your comfort zone in order to get the nervous system motivated enough to expand your capabilities. Basically you want your brain to allocate more hp to this function. To use dancing as an example, start with something simple at a slow speed that you can do, then repeat a little faster until you struggle a bit. Stop there and come back tomorrow and try to surpass that speed until challenged again. Daily practice works best. You want a balance of not being too frustrated but also not too comfortable.

For lunges you might try practicing only the footwork--unweighted, looking directly at your feet, looking in a mirror, holding a barre, etc. Then gradually take those training wheels off. You might try it with your eyes closed--try to guage how far "off" you are from perfect placement before opening your eyes to check. This is all about proprioception or knowing where your limbs are in space, and it's a sense that can be improved. If that's still too hard you can do lunges in the shallow end of a pool or learn visualization and just do it perfectly in your head.

Also, in yoga sometimes we are just throwing our legs around instead of diliberately moving under control and using the core--just focusing on the movement can help. FWIW I'd recommend doing a long-term foot-skill activity like dancing or yoga or a barre class instead of just lunge practice due to eventual "boredom". You don't need to be a good dancer to do lunges but you probably won't find a good dancer who can't do lunges sort of thing.

good info thx

how do you strengthen your wrist mine are so weak i train alot too but theyre stil very weak anything specifically i should do maybe more dumbbell variants of exercises instad of barbell?

Thoughts on planking? I have been trying to build up to 2:00 and not sure how safe it is for my back. I know sit-ups and crunches are not that great for you.

What do you mean by weak? Do they just hurt or are they collapsing or something?

The wrist is a joint complex, there isn't anything to "strengthen" in the wrist per se.

You need to work on your grip strength. The forearm flexors (palm side) and forearm extensors.

Farmers Walks and holds, Trap bar walks. Static deadlift holds. Wrist Curlers.

The only way in which planks are bad for your back is if your core musculature in the first place is weak and you've got an obvious arch up or down going on, in which case you aren't even making 30s before things start shaking/hurting.

If you've already passed 1 minute hold, that's pretty much it. 2 min is a fine goal but once you pass 1 min you can start modifying it. Long lever planks or RKC planks for example.

whenever i go heavy on dumbbell bench press i just cant control the weight and then it collapses.

What's the go to program for aesthetics these days? I need something I can just follow or I skip all the boring stuff

Look into PHAT or one of its variations maybe

Curious if anyone can diagnose this:

Have a pain, just to the right of my sternum, above my right pec. I would say it's inside, where it's more bone than muscle. It doesn't hurt most of the time, but when I do overhead presses, or pullups, anything that stretches my arms way up or to the side, it hurts. Also, when I sneeze I get a sharper pain that lasts about five seconds. Bench pressing seems fine. It's not an injury I felt right after a lift, it sneaked up on me, and has gotten a little worse over the last few days. I'm thinking about just doing squats, DL, row, maybe curls to see if that helps, and if not, stopping all lifting and seeing an ortho.

Anyone had anything similar happen?

See a doctor.

It's possibly (probably?) just a pec strain. Some of the insertions are in that area. I've had similar pains that just go away over time.

"Above your pec" but your probably not thinking about the pec minor

Can anyone point me in the direction of any resources displaying a no-frills approach to mobility work? Specifically, something other than Kelly Starrett. I feel like he's the L. Ron Hubbard of fitness. Whether he knows his **** or not, he can't help coming across as a snake oil salesman.

I'm also not interested in anything having to do with alternative medicine, i.e. ART, foam rolling, chiro etc. Where is the Starting Strength of mobility? Should more time be spent stretching short muscles or strengthening their antagonists? Stuff like that.

https://www.t-nation.com/training/defranco-agile-8

https://www.t-nation.com/training/es...obility-drills

http://phraktured.net/starting-stretching.html

http://phraktured.net/molding-mobility.html