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Comment by ryanworl | Hacker News Reader

Drinking only water for only 24 hours or even 36 hours is not that difficult if you have decent self-control and no medical problems.

Personally, I stop being hungry after about 18 hours and it only returns after about 36, which is as far as I've ever gone.

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I did the 72 hours fasting 3 times, just to see if I was able to do it and because I read that 3 days it's something like a reboot of the inmune system.

I do this every week: last meal on sunday night, next meal on tuesday night, next meal on thursday night, next meal on friday night and on saturdays and sundays I eat all I want whenever I want. During fasting I only drink water or tea.

I've been doing this for a year, I feel great :)

That's also certainly a way to cut down on ones grocery bill. I'm amazed at self control of some People.

Personally, I find absolutes like "I will not eat period" or "I will eat only pre-packaged x, y, and z for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, respectively, every day" much easier to follow than more vague calorie-counting rules.

So during week days(Mon to Friday) you eat only 3 times?

Yes, that's correct. On those 3 times I eat whatever I want, imagine that I have plenty of time to plan that meals :)

Yeah that self control bit is the hardest part. Kudos for being able to go 36 hours.

There seems to be a barrier you cross when you start getting hungry after N hours after your last meal (when it would be your next one), but suddenly you're not hungry anymore

For me it goes in waves. Hunger stops for a few hours, then comes back. To be honest, social life is the hardest part for me, I'm not going to watch my family eat and not partake!

Social is the hardest for me as well.

I can forget coffee when I am alone but I'm almost never alone.

When I was younger I used to be able to go a few days without food. I think my record was sunday after dinner to friday sometime.

Starting by skipping the local evening meal made it easy to skip breakfast and once I had skipped those the rest was easy.

I'd cheat a bit by drinking a glass of juice at breakfast and/or lunch but thinking back it might have been easier without.

I start being hungry after 24 hours :)

But I'm convinced it's only ghrelin. I've numerous times changed my eating schedule, and my hunger adapts after at most two weeks, usually much faster.

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