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

51–60 of 101 posts

Re: A year without food (2012)

#51

Post by pyre »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #38

"Potassium is essential for the proper working of the heart, and when his potassium levels got a little low around the 100-day mark, he was given potassium tablets for about 70 days. " This is why fasting is out of the question unless you have constant medical supervision. You need a prescription to get potassium supplements that actually meet the daily requirement.

Well, I assume that if you were intending a fast that didn't approach a 100-day mark, you could probably not worry too much about it.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#52

Post by lostlogin »

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.

I remember reading somewhere how easily victims of prolonged starvation die from relatively non-serious trauma. It related to the loss of fat from around organs such as the heart. Quite low impact accidents were killing people. This was based on holocaust survivors I believe.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#53

Post by IvyMike »

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

I think the fat cells in your body have a ratio skewed much more towards fat, and are an exception to the "your body is 2/3rds water" rule-of-thumb.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#54

Post by darrickwiebe »

aantix wrote: post #33
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…

Fascinating, did you do anything special with liquids other than plain old water? Lemon water?

No, I only drank water. A lot of water. Even on my regular diet I drink more water than most people, but when fasting, I'm sure I drank 2-3x more water than normal. I would typically have a bottle or glass of water on hand all the time.

Once I did experiment with either lemon water or weak tea (can't recall now) but that caused an unpleasant case of acid reflux, which was very unusual for me.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#55

Post by westicle »

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

Also note that he was consuming nutritional yeast & vitamins which may have offset a small part of his energy use.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#56

Post by cup »

Its auspicious that this post came up towards the end of Ramadan, when Muslims fast for thirty days or so. That being said, they break their fast each night so its not a continual solid fast. They do go without food and water though, interesting.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#57

Post by solarmist »

spdub wrote: post #49
solarmist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course not, but catastrophic results make exciting "news".

Re: A year without food (2012)

#58

Post by k__ »

beagle3 wrote: post #48
neltnerb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? I thought the feeling I get, when I didn't eat for >10h was hunger. It's an ugly feeling, which comes with borborygmus.

Appetite is a feeling I would describe more psychological. I'm smelling something delicious and suddenly want to eat it.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#59

Post by tessierashpool »

I've had good experiences with fasting and I'd recommend it to anyone. My longest fast so far was 7 days. No food, just water. I lost about 20 pounds.

I worked from a book by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and have since undertaken a few more fasts, with phone guidance from another doctor at Dr. Fuhrman's office.

When I fast, I rest the whole time. The first few days of my 7-day fast, I hung out with a friend, did a bunch of reading, and watched some TV, but by the end of the fast, my energy level was so low that even trying to watch TV was too demanding for me.

Caveats: I am not a doctor, but the book I was working from placed a "safe fasting" limit of around 40 days, with 30-35 being the real practical limit in nearly all cases, iirc. The book also recommends medical supervision for anything more than a 7-day fast. My doctor said the same thing.

Re: A year without food (2012)

#60

Post by beagle3 »

k__ wrote: post #58
beagle3 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? I thought the feeling I get, when I didn't eat for >10h was hunger. It's an ugly feeling, which comes with borborygmus. Appetite is a feeling I would describe more psychological. I'm smelling something delicious and suddenly want to eat it.

> Appetite is a feeling I would describe more psychological. I'm smelling something delicious and suddenly want to eat it.

It is psycho-physiological addiction. (smell is not psychology, it is physiological). It is like cigarette addiction. But it isn't a physiological need.

Post reply on HN