A year without food (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: A year without food (2012)

#41

Post by js2 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:20 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #36

ucha wrote: post #35

Something is suspicious here. He lost 125kg of which roughly a third might be fat and two thirds water. A gram of fat burns into 9 kcal. He fasted 382 days. This means that he burned about 980 kcal per day which sounds very low even for someone that is not doing any exercise

You'd be amazed at how much your metabolism can slow down when you fast. When in college I saw a presentation at the medical school where they showed the effect of low calorie diets. It's not unusual for people on low calorie diets to see a 30-40% drop in their basal metabolic rates. And those are diet where the person is getting some food. I agree that 980 kcal/day is pretty low, especially for someone of his size,…

It will apparently also go the other direction, speeding up to consume excess calories in order to maintain your "normal" weight - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHQshbJATVQ - skip to about 49 minutes. One of the guys in this experiment, where they doubled their caloric intake for about 6 weeks, had his metabolic rate go up 30% to compensate.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#42

Post by jcampbell1 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:25 AM UTC

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?

Shit is brown because red-blood cells are constantly recycled and replaced and they come out in your poo. He had to shit out his old dead blood at some point.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#43

Post by edmond_dantes » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:31 AM UTC

I've went 6 days without eating; I was playing Halo on my PC and was really into it. Lost eight pounds (much of it probably water weight).

Re: A year without food (2012)

#44

Post by nshunter » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 4:39 AM UTC

gasull wrote: post #32

When I've tried to fast into the night, I wake up in the middle of the night and have to eat something otherwise I can't sleep. Does this happen to anyone else?

Happens to me. Distraction is the first cure, I fall asleep all the time with the tv on. A good book or something else to take your mind off it will help.

The second is melatonin. Help yourself sleep. It'll replace that feeling of full and satiation you normally have. After a few days, you'll be used to it.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#45

Post by vacri » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:08 AM UTC

jacquesc wrote: post #26

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).

That qualifier should be included more prominently - this wasn't a strict fast, because he was still taking on nutrients. It's still a surprising feat, but it solves the questions of 'how did his muscles survive?' and similar.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#46

Post by jfoutz » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:09 AM UTC

alphaoverlord wrote: post #3

There are significant risks to such an experiment, and it's a shame that there isn't any record of what happened to him after the fact or his long term health. There is a significant body of literature suggests that in addition to risks during starvation, there is significant harm and danger in trying to eat again [1]. The GI tract atrophies (much like when we don't use a muscle or a limb for a long time with a neuro…

I wonder if it's easier on people under constant medical supervision than it is for prisoners of war.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#47

Post by vacri » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:12 AM UTC

darrickwiebe wrote: post #13

Harpers Magazine published a much better written article that discusses this same Scotsman along with an American who achieved some slight fame for his fasting around the beginning of the 20th century. In addition, the author writes about his own fairly significant fasts. http://www.scribd.com/doc/95722979/Starving-Your-Way-to-Vigo... After reading that article and doing a little bit of further research online, I tri…

If you eat a lot and then go on a diet, remember that for the first little while a part of your weight loss is simply a reduction of gut content. If you go back to your old dietary volume, part of the weight you regain is simply the gut 'filling up' again.

Of course, it also depends on the kind of foods you eat and how slowly they move through the gut, but it's just something to keep in mind when considering weight changes around dietary boundaries.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#48

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:18 AM UTC

neltnerb wrote: post #40

reinhardt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I find that there are two distinct sensations that I have to call hunger. They seem to get confused. The first is what I think people in modern society call hunger, because it's the only kind they've experienced. It's a craving for food, or even just a sensation of not being full. We call "not full" "hungry" when they aren't really necessarily the same. The second kind comes after you've fasted for quite a while. It'…

The first one is appetite. The real hunger comes around after a few weeks of fasting - and unlike appetite, it doesn't go away when you do something interesting.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#49

Post by spdub » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:54 AM UTC

solarmist wrote: post #11

alphaoverlord wrote: post #3

There are significant risks to such an experiment, and it's a shame that there isn't any record of what happened to him after the fact or his long term health. There is a significant body of literature suggests that in addition to risks during starvation, there is significant harm and danger in trying to eat again [1]. The GI tract atrophies (much like when we don't use a muscle or a limb for a long time with a neuro…

They mention "Some five years later, he had regained only 7 kilograms", so it seems they had a least one follow up and I assume if he were permanently harmed by this they would've mentioned it as a caution.

Although I agree with you, this is hardly a scientistic journal.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#50

Post by pyre » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:58 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #12

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?

Have you see what a new born baby produces? That liver is still ticking along...

To be fair, a new born baby has a full digestive tract. They have been 'eating' and 'defecating' during the last leg of the pregnancy while in the womb. That stuff has to empties out of their system when they are born.