There's another pitfall of starvation mode that goes beyond just slowing the metabolism.

Your metabolic rate works on a set-point mechanism, and it's amazingly adaptive. It's built into our survival "genes". Anyway, during prolonged periods of insufficient energy intake (too few calories) the body adapts by slowing down the metabolism. It thinks, "hey, we're not getting enough fuel to run at full speed, we're only getting enough to run at 3/4 speed". So, it slows down, and adapts to the reduced fuel supply. Of course, the frustrated dieter hits a plateau at this point, and decides to drop the calories even further ... the metabolism responds eventually by slowing again ... and so on. But that's not all --- the bigger problem is that once the metabolism slows, the body "forgets" that it was ever running at a higher rate. Basically, you're stuck at this reduced level, and will gain weight when you try to eat more.

How you can eat so much fat with low-carbing and not gain fat weight because of it is .... fat requires INSULIN in order to be stored in the fat cells. As long you keep blood sugar and insulin levels low and stable with a low-carb diet, and are consuming adequate calories in the form of protein and fat ... then any excess will either be used as fuel (ketones) or will be converted to waste material and eliminated from the body ..

Doreen