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Recently didn't eat for 40 days and didn't notice this. Suspect there's some issues by putting the mice on calorie restriction vs fasting. Ie "the researchers f

Recently didn't eat for 40 days and didn't notice this. Suspect there's some issues by putting the mice on calorie restriction vs fasting. Ie "the researchers fed the mice right before the experiments" - if you're in a fasted state and do introduce food you're going to create an insulin spike - if you were also previously calorie deprived you could go hypoglycemic right after. Going back as far as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment it appears in certain survival instances calorie restriction is worse than no calories. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen...

Retric 4y ago
Be careful, it’s believed ~40 days without food can kill you if you don’t take supplements. People have gone for much longer while taking supplements including salt.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Excluding salt would surely be insane, you piss and sweat out a lot of salt and that needs to be replenished. I don't see any way around that.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Of course, but someone is going to take a multivitamin and assume that’s enough.
- cf141q5325 4y ago
  This isnt a matter of believe. There are lots of prisoners who went on hunger strikes and perished from it. With them starting with a background of a normal western diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike 45-73 days till death with most lasting 60 days. Holger Meins lasted 58 days despite forced feeding. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins List is obviously a lot longer but they offer a great dataset
hrkucuk 4y ago
My speculation is that the brain activates the low-power mode when it really believes that the food is scarce. However a voluntary fasting, no matter how long, would not trigger a low-power mode since your mood is still very positive and self controlled.
number6 4y ago
Ok. How did you not eat for 40 days and why? I heard you can go without food for 30 days. My longest fast was 3 days and while I liked it, I function much better with food.
- keewee7 4y ago
  >My longest fast was 3 days and while I liked it, I function much better with food. Three days is the longest people should go for if they haven't tried fasting before and don't have experience with gradual refeeding. Any longer than five days and you risk running into the refeeding syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome
  - paulgerhardt 4y ago
    There's a lot of people overindexing on the dangers of refeeding. It is important to factor in after a week (honestly more like 15+ days) but also trivially addressed.
  - alecst 4y ago
    This is something I hear repeated without hard evidence. Plenty of people do 10+ day fasts and don’t get refeeding syndrome. I have never heard of it happening. While I can’t prove it doesn’t happen to some sensitive people in rare cases, my tendency is to think this is an urban myth. We’re not talking about holocaust victims or hunger strikers.
    - paulgerhardt 4y ago
      If you’ve practiced a normal diet and do a seven day fast you’re going to be fine. If you’re anorexic, fast for 40 days, and don’t supplement with salts (particularly potassium) you’re going to have refeeding syndrome. If one’s worried about it, just get ones blood work done before one starts eating again. It takes about an hour and will show you exactly what you are low on what to supplement to get to baseline. To the extent people are advising one not to do an extended fast without medical supervision - eh - basically the extent of the medical supervision is "let's run a panel every few days and see if anything is dangerously out of whack" - and maybe confine you to a hospital for the duration - but if you're not outside and walking a normal amount and say confined to a room you absolutely will lose a large amount of muscle.
jeremyjh 4y ago
In this study that you did on yourself, did you rigorously test your visual acuity at regular intervals?
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
That's risky, even if it helped you lose weight. I had a former colleague who had a long fast, he ended up losing hair and he had serious joint issues for a long while after that - it caused damage, and I'm not sure he made a full recovery.

Retric 4y ago

Be careful, it’s believed ~40 days without food can kill you if you don’t take supplements. People have gone for much longer while taking supplements including salt.

robonerd 4y ago
Excluding salt would surely be insane, you piss and sweat out a lot of salt and that needs to be replenished. I don't see any way around that.
- Retric 4y ago
  Of course, but someone is going to take a multivitamin and assume that’s enough.
cf141q5325 4y ago
This isnt a matter of believe. There are lots of prisoners who went on hunger strikes and perished from it. With them starting with a background of a normal western diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike 45-73 days till death with most lasting 60 days. Holger Meins lasted 58 days despite forced feeding. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins List is obviously a lot longer but they offer a great dataset

hrkucuk 4y ago

My speculation is that the brain activates the low-power mode when it really believes that the food is scarce. However a voluntary fasting, no matter how long, would not trigger a low-power mode since your mood is still very positive and self controlled.

number6 4y ago

Ok. How did you not eat for 40 days and why? I heard you can go without food for 30 days. My longest fast was 3 days and while I liked it, I function much better with food.

keewee7 4y ago
>My longest fast was 3 days and while I liked it, I function much better with food. Three days is the longest people should go for if they haven't tried fasting before and don't have experience with gradual refeeding. Any longer than five days and you risk running into the refeeding syndrome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome
- paulgerhardt 4y ago
  There's a lot of people overindexing on the dangers of refeeding. It is important to factor in after a week (honestly more like 15+ days) but also trivially addressed.
- alecst 4y ago
  This is something I hear repeated without hard evidence. Plenty of people do 10+ day fasts and don’t get refeeding syndrome. I have never heard of it happening. While I can’t prove it doesn’t happen to some sensitive people in rare cases, my tendency is to think this is an urban myth. We’re not talking about holocaust victims or hunger strikers.
  - paulgerhardt 4y ago
    If you’ve practiced a normal diet and do a seven day fast you’re going to be fine. If you’re anorexic, fast for 40 days, and don’t supplement with salts (particularly potassium) you’re going to have refeeding syndrome. If one’s worried about it, just get ones blood work done before one starts eating again. It takes about an hour and will show you exactly what you are low on what to supplement to get to baseline. To the extent people are advising one not to do an extended fast without medical supervision - eh - basically the extent of the medical supervision is "let's run a panel every few days and see if anything is dangerously out of whack" - and maybe confine you to a hospital for the duration - but if you're not outside and walking a normal amount and say confined to a room you absolutely will lose a large amount of muscle.

jeremyjh 4y ago

In this study that you did on yourself, did you rigorously test your visual acuity at regular intervals?

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

That's risky, even if it helped you lose weight. I had a former colleague who had a long fast, he ended up losing hair and he had serious joint issues for a long while after that - it caused damage, and I'm not sure he made a full recovery.