4 ms·

Starving for hours and ignoring your body's warning signals? Whatever happened to "don't eat less, eat better" -- "don't reduce quantity, increase quality"? If

• sliverstorm 15y ago
  I'm not saying it's the right way to do things. I don't think that starving myself is GOOD. A hungry stomach just doesn't bother me anymore, so I have to proactively think about food. That may seem nonsensical to you if you are still deeply in touch with your sense of hunger, but take me at my word. I didn't choose for it to be this way, I just didn't have much money for a while.
  • olliesaunders 15y ago
    You didn’t have enough money to eat? That must have been tough. I hope things are better for you now.
    • sliverstorm 15y ago
      At least, not enough to eat properly. It's ok though- that was years ago, and I learned a lot from those times.
  • guelo 15y ago
    Actually it might be the right way to do things. Scientists have found that the most effective way to make monkeys live longer is by starving them their whole lives.
    • dualogy 15y ago
      It wasn't scientists who tried that on humans (I hope) but unlike monkeys, famines and malnutrition seems to never have had similarly good results in humans. Snark aside, that's interesting but I wonder what degree of starving produces such good effects -- clearly, no-food kills us so learning just how much or how little to "starve" is healthiest would help.
  • Natsu 15y ago
    > A hungry stomach just doesn't bother me anymore, so I have to proactively think about food. I know what you mean. I drive people crazy when they realize that I can work through lunch and simply not miss it.
• Estragon 15y ago
  This is actually a common eating regime for Buddhist mmonks, who have been doing it by the millions for millenia, because the Buddha is believed to have eaten that way, and recommended it as conducive to health and longevity. I've done it a few times for about a month at a stretch each time. It is quite feasible.
• beagle3 15y ago
  I've gone between 10 and 30 days without eating several times before. It really is good for you if you are relatively healthy to start with. The first two days are key; You will go crazy if you are unprepared. Remedies for the craziness are drinking lemon water (freshly squeezed lemon in water, possibly with some sweetener but you'll need much less if it is unsweetened), and doing 5-10 minutes of exercise every time you feel the need to eat. Another option is to start when you've lost appetite due to some illness or mild depression - that makes the first two days pass easily. And then something magical happens - you stop caring about food. For a long time. The smells don't matter, the sight doesn't matter. (Although if you force yourself to eat, it will stat mattering again in a few hours). A few days or weeks later, you will feel hunger - and realize it is the first time ever you have felt hunger -- everything you felt before you _thought_ was hunger, was just plain appetite. hunger feels different, and it also cannot be suppressed by reading an interesting article or playing a video game. There are also health benefits, but I highly recommend it just for the psychological experience.
  • gwern 15y ago
    I've only done this for 5 days max, but your experience tracks with mine. It's fascinating from a psychological point of view; I'd agree it's one of those things one ought to try at least once, like skydiving (which comes to mind since I skydived for the first time yesterday).
• sunchild 15y ago
  At this point, the "science" of nutrition is so muddled and tainted by commercial interests as to be essentially without any credibility whatsoever. Pop science articles like the the OP NYT.com link only add to the mess – using absurd metaphors like muscle fatigue for willpower, and talking about self-control as an exhaustible "resource" based on some no-doubt extremely qualitative and subjective study. Health information in western cultures is very low signal to noise.