They do lose some weight but not a lot.
They go inactive during this period - they make a burrow in their substrate and stay their.

Without warmth, they can not digest food - it would rot in their belly but they probably wouldn't eat it anyway.

In the wild sometimes they look really emaciated when they first come out - my female looked a lot healthier than the wild ones did.

I woke my reptiles in late Feb because that's when the wild reptiles started to emerge up here, including alligator lizards. Interestingly - some locations had tons of fence lizards out in late feb while other locations within a mile had none for a few weeks. It's neat to find fence lizards when they just emerge because they are often caked in mud.

But basically yes - you cool them for a few months w/o food. Always make sure they have fresh water available because they don't actually hibernate, they brumate - reduced activity but still respond to stimuli and still occasionally will want to drink.

But the reduced temperature slows the metabolism way down, and they don't really starve - they lose some weight, but they are fine. Within a few weeks of food they are back to normal weight again - even the severely emaciated looking ones in the wild.

This is the first one I found in the wild this year:

http://www.naherp.com/viewrecord.php?r_id=1704

Feb 17 - that's when I started to wake my herps up.

You can see she is emaciated (though not that badly actually).
Mine looked better than that when she awoke.
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3.6 L. getula californiae - 16 eggs (Cal. King)
1.1 L. getula nigrita (MBK)
1.0 Pantherophis guttatus guttatus (Corn)
0.1 Pituophis catenifer catenifer (Pacific gopher)
3.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata - 14 eggs (Cal. Alligator Lizard)

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