Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A year without food (2012)

abc.net.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 101 posts

Re: A year without food (2012)

#21

Post by ctdonath »

reinhardt wrote: post #7
smoyer wrote: post #4

I fasted entirely for lent one year (40 days) and after the first week, the hardest part was indeed that I was missing the social aspect of eating meals with friends and family. I took vitamins, and drank more water than I normally would but was quite happy. I should also mention that I stopped running so hard during this period and took a multivitamin each day. I've fasted for shorter durations and it's amazing how…

Does the feeling of hunger go away by itself or you repress it somehow?

It goes away. I went without food for 2 weeks (saline IV only), felt no hunger, but did watch a ridiculous number of cooking shows.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#22

Post by whoop »

mingabunga wrote: post #20

I've been eating once a day since May last year, I eat only at dinner time and eat what I want and quite a lot. I don't get hungry until about 4pm, but then I go and do exercise. It's helped a lot with alertness, thinking is much clearer during the day, and I've always done a lot of sport and been quite slim, but I've really cut up since doing this (I'm 40 now, no fat around my middle). It's had no negative effect on…

Right on brother!

Re: A year without food (2012)

#23

Post by JacobSkyler »

reinhardt wrote: post #7
smoyer wrote: post #4

I fasted entirely for lent one year (40 days) and after the first week, the hardest part was indeed that I was missing the social aspect of eating meals with friends and family. I took vitamins, and drank more water than I normally would but was quite happy. I should also mention that I stopped running so hard during this period and took a multivitamin each day. I've fasted for shorter durations and it's amazing how…

Does the feeling of hunger go away by itself or you repress it somehow?

I usually try to fast at least once a week, the longest I've fasted for is 5 days.

The first few days I get hunger pangs around my usual meal times, but they go away soon enough.

Around the fourth day I get the 'real hunger' feeling where it's your whole body aches for food, but the hunger pangs go away. But that had lessened by the end of my fast.

Even if you're not religious I think it's still worth giving fasting a shot, just because it teaches you about hunger. Most people in developed countries will never understand it.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#24

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

Starving people die from lack of protein, not low body fat. Not having read all the details, I I don't buy the story that the guy didn't eat for a year. You can't survive without eating protein for an extended period.

You die of starvation when your body runs out of amino acids to renew cardiac tissue. Calories and stored fat have little to do with it. A fat person will die of starvation before a muscular person.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#26

Post by jacquesc »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #24

Starving people die from lack of protein, not low body fat. Not having read all the details, I I don't buy the story that the guy didn't eat for a year. You can't survive without eating protein for an extended period. You die of starvation when your body runs out of amino acids to renew cardiac tissue. Calories and stored fat have little to do with it. A fat person will die of starvation before a muscular person.

They gave him this for 10mo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritional_yeast not too many calories, but enough protein to keep all the levels in check

No one should ever try this without constant medical supervison (which this guy had).

Re: A year without food (2012)

#27

Post by D9u »

cupcake-unicorn wrote: post #6

Thanks for this article - I've often wondered how long one could live by fasting if they were quite overweight, and this helped answer it. I feel like a 2 year old asking this, but, "He defaecated infrequently, roughly every 40 to 50 days." How does that work if he wasn't eating any food?

Technically, he was eating something.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6131711

Re: A year without food (2012)

#28

Post by eupharis »

Something I didn't know:

"A very small part of your energy comes from breaking down your muscles — but you can avoid this by doing some resistance training, otherwise known as pumping iron. The majority of your energy comes from breaking down fat."

I thought fasting would always cause your muscles to weaken. But this makes more sense for evolution. If your muscles are being used, the body takes energy from all other sources first. The preserved muscle could make all the difference between eating and not eating.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#29

Post by D9u »

mingabunga wrote: post #20

I've been eating once a day since May last year, I eat only at dinner time and eat what I want and quite a lot. I don't get hungry until about 4pm, but then I go and do exercise. It's helped a lot with alertness, thinking is much clearer during the day, and I've always done a lot of sport and been quite slim, but I've really cut up since doing this (I'm 40 now, no fat around my middle). It's had no negative effect on…

I also often eat only one meal per day, have never been overweight, have always (until recently) been extremely active, and as I near my 50th year I am still not carrying around a lot of extra fat.

Once in awhile, maybe every month or two, I'll go three or four days with absolutely no food but plenty of water.

I've been in better physical condition, but my doctors are happy with my current BMI.

That said, I've always felt better when I ate less food more often.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#30

Post by wyager »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #24

Starving people die from lack of protein, not low body fat. Not having read all the details, I I don't buy the story that the guy didn't eat for a year. You can't survive without eating protein for an extended period. You die of starvation when your body runs out of amino acids to renew cardiac tissue. Calories and stored fat have little to do with it. A fat person will die of starvation before a muscular person.

>Starving people die from lack of protein, not low body fat. [...] Calories and stored fat have little to do with it. A fat person will die of starvation before a muscular person.

Don't be ridiculous. If you use up your glycogen reserves, and then your fat reserves, you are dead. You need energy to live, and it has to come from somewhere. You can die of protein deficiency, but it's definitely not the sole cause of death by starvation, and I doubt it's even the leading cause of death by starvation.

Post reply on HN