“[Starvation mode] occurs in people that are severely, severely malnourished and that have burned all their fat away,” she explained.
“But like I said, for most of us, it’s very, very unlikely we would be putting our body into that type of state. It’s a very, very extreme situation.”
The now infamous Minnesota Experiment makes this clear: It saw 36 male conscientious objectors during World War Two volunteer to take part in a semi-starvation study where their calories were dropped to around 1,800 for six months (following three months at 3,200 calories), and they were asked to expend 3,000 a day.
It wasn’t until the men reached extreme levels of leanness with body fat levels of about 5% that they stopped losing weight, because they would have died if they lost any more.
“There’s never been a prisoner of war who came out of being a prisoner overweight,” Syatt said.
