re: Do people still believe: dieting, starvation mode, body hold onto fat.

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When you skip breakfast, remember you're coming off of 8ish+ hrs of no calorie intake. All you're setting yourself up to do is overcompensate with the next meal. Your body will go into "starvation mode" to an extent because you still need energy and you haven't taken anything in 16 hours. You're better off eating breakfast. Taking in less than you burn will cause you to lose weight, but there are healthier ways of doing it.

The most important part of losing weight is burning off calories. You can only healthily cut so much out on the intake side before you start depriving yourself of necessary amounts of vitamins, essential AAs, essential FA, etc.


I think you're trying to explain things you don't understand

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I highly disagree with you. Especially the first paragraph. Why is 8ish hours of no intake ok? but not 16?
I do agree that extremely cutting caloric intake will only set you up for failure in the long run. But what if I skip breakfast while not cutting my caloric intake extremely? As in getting my calories in during my 8 hour window of eating?

I'm just saying I haven't eaten breakfast in 8 months and only eat 3 big meals between then times of 1-9pm. Other than that, I'm not eating. I'm training hard 3 days a week. I've lost 20 lbs of fat (which I'm pretty sure I'm sub 10% right now), and put on muscle mass and gained strength throughout the entire process. I also know of hundreds of others who have done and do the same thing.
Read this: LINK

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Myth: Fasting tricks the body into "starvation mode".


Truth

Efficient adaptation to famine was important for survival during rough times in our evolution. Lowering metabolic rate during starvation allowed us to live longer, increasing the possibility that we might come across something to eat. Starvation literally means starvation. It doesn't mean skipping a meal not eating for 24 hours. Or not eating for three days even. The belief that meal skipping or short-term fasting causes "starvation mode" is so completely ridiculous and absurd that it makes me want to jump out the window.

Looking at the numerous studies I've read, the earliest evidence for lowered metabolic rate in response to fasting occurred after 60 hours (-8% in resting metabolic rate). Other studies show metabolic rate is not impacted until 72-96 hours have passed (George Cahill has contributed a lot on this topic).

Seemingly paradoxical, metabolic rate is actually increased in short-term fasting. For some concrete numbers, studies have shown an increase of 3.6% - 10% after 36-48 hours (Mansell PI, et al, and Zauner C, et al). This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline/noradrenaline) sharpens the mind and makes us want to move around. Desirable traits that encouraged us to seek for food, or for the hunter to kill his prey, increasing survival. At some point, after several days of no eating, this benefit would confer no benefit to survival and probably would have done more harm than good; instead, an adaptation that favored conservation of energy turned out to be advantageous. Thus metabolic rate is increased in short-term fasting (up to 60 hours).

Again, I have choosen extreme examples to show how absurd the myth of "starvation mode" is - especially when you consider that the exact opposite is true in the context of how the term is thrown around.

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