Fortunately I did end up working out how to stop the body going into survival/starvation mode. I will cover this issue in more details in the series I am going to do, but happy to give a brief overview.

Basically the body is used to receiving a certain amount of calories a day to maintain its normal body functions. This is usually referred to as the metabolic rate, and the amount of calories burnt through this process will vary depending on age, activity etc. If the metabolic rate drops too quickly, the body assumes you are going to starve, so it will begin to slow the metabolism to protect you from starvation. This effect is why some people find losing weight slows down after the first few weeks if their calorie decline is too large.

The best way to avoid the body going into survival/starvation mode is to ensure to consume your metabolic rate in calories, then burn a calorie deficit through regular cardio. E.g. Say your normal metabolic rate is -4000 daily calories, if you eat +4000 calories in that day and then perform some cardio and burn -500 calories, you are now deficit -500 calories for the day as you have burnt a total of -4500 calories and only consumed +4000.

If you did this every day, you would begin to lose weight given the deficit calorie count.

You do not want to get into a deficit of more that -500 calories a day as the body will look to protect you again.

Losing weights is simply about energy consumed and energy burnt, simple maths.

Cheers Darren