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Comment by ellyagg | Hacker News Reader

At least for some people, urgent hunger passes after a few days. My brother has done a few full fasts and after a week he didn't feel hungry anymore. YMMV.

There was another incident, a case study in the early 70s, where a very obese man went on a full fast under researcher supervision and lost all his excess weight in a year or so.

https://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/49/569/203.full.pdf

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There's plenty of writen testimonies from former gulag prisoners and plenty of them say that hunger subsides after few days of not eating. You just become incredibly lethargic, but as long as you are given water, you won't actually die for weeks - people were thrown in isolation cells for weeks without food and have survived.

Hunger is definitely worst when you are in the habit of of eating frequently. I’ve been having serious problems with eating for years and especially this year, and I’m amazed at how I can still function while eating so little. Eventually you run out of certain critical nutrients, though. I almost died from lack of potassium last month, a possibility that had never occurred to me.

Yep. I've done a few of these and it takes me about 3 days before I no longer feel the need to eat. I'm also the type of person who frequently forgets to eat lunch and breakfast.

Obligatory: The guy who did it did an AMA and says you should absolutely not do it ever and it was a bad idea.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1o5ndh/iama_guy_who_w...

He does agree with you though, says he stopped feeling hungry after a few weeks.

I think that's a different case than the one Ellyagg was talking about. I can't find a link, but that fellow spent most of a year living in a hospital, under daily medical supervision, with a careful ration of vitamin and protein supplements and maybe small portions of gruel or other minimal food, I forget.

It sounds like the guy in your link was just straight-up starving himself at home, which seems like a much worse idea. It's an interesting story, though, so thanks for sharing it!

That paper is fascinating. But I wonder how his mental and cognitive states were during the fast?

Also 37-48 days between bowel movements O_O

If you don’t eat any fiber, there’s really nothing happening in your bowels. I’ve been on a mainly liquid diet at times this year with tiny bowel movements about once a week, just because there is nothing being put in there. I haven’t experienced any apparent problems related to that.

Mental and cognitive states while slowly starving: not that good

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