Question

[christina801]

How long can a person go without eating???

[Hippy]

At the risk of being shot down in flames, I think the old 40 days and 40 nights for a fast is a realistic an non-life threatening time. However, you will die pretty quickly if you don't drink water. The inmates in Nazi concentration camps lasted through amazing cruelty and denial of nourishment for, in some cases, years. However their bodies were forever changed by the experience, and many lived on hope and determination to the point of liberation and then soon expired as they were unable to restart their metabolisms.

If you just stop eating then your body will soon spot this and change into starvation mode. This means that it will conserve every scrap of energy bearing tissue and material to keep you going. First of all the sub-cutaneous fat gets used up then muscle gets turned into energy. Your brain tells you to sleep lots and not move around much and you experience delirium making rational thought more difficult. Those that have experienced this tell me that the hunger lasts only a short while and once the body goes into starvation mode hunger is absent and even the general desire for food goes away.

Needless to say, no-one should consider starving themself, in this country there is no reason for this and it is NOT a quick way to loose weight or girth. Weight loss can only be achieved in a healthy way by gradually reducing food intake whilst maintaining proper nourishment and gradually increasing exercise, and being prepared to change these habits for the remainder of your life.

[christina801]

I wasnt trying to starve myself, I cant even skip a meal. lol. I was wondering because i saw that magician guy (i think his name is david blaine, or something) and he did that one trick where he lived in the clear box without eating, because with the length of time that he went without eating i wouldve thought he'd be dead.

[bluedolphin]

Im afraid to answer this one cos it might be someone wanting to lose too much weight....could u let us know why u ask such a Q?

[apricot]

Until you die

[bluedolphin]

ok...so during wwII the americans knew that there were people starving in the concentration camps and so they asked for volunteers to starve under medical supervision (I think a lot of conscience objectors were involved). this was to enable the docs to find out the best way to renourish the people when they liberated the camps...there is a scene it the tv drama Band of Brothers where some GI's liberate a camp and one of them starts to give food out but his superior tells him to take it back as it was not the right way to bring the poor souls back....if u hunt the web u can find the report. Fascinating reading. that might satisfy ur curiosity....as for the guy in the box ....hmmm....very iffy imho!

[worder]

hippy is right. a healthy adult can go without eating for a month or longer, but he has to drink at least 2 quarts of water a day. 11 days at a temp of 60F is the longest recorded time a human survived without water. if you lose 12% of your body weight in sweat you die, and if you lose 20% of your weight in water, that's imminent death. a personal note- i had my jaws wired for at least a month, it was ages ago, so i don't remember exactly how long; was living on milk and ensure, it's an adult formula, donnow if you folks have it in England, and i lost about 20 pounds, i'm only 105. i was a skeleton. so, i do beleive that you can go on for the month on water only.

[bernardo]

David Blaine was in his box without food for 44 days. For comparison, the ten IRA hunger-strikers in 1981 who starved themselves to death in prison survived without food before they died for periods varying from 59 days to 73 days (except one who died suddenly on the 45th day).

[Amster222]

I think that you could probably go about a month or so, cause in the movie The Ring it says seven days, but thats w/o food or water. Plus she's in a well so yeah lol! I'm also like you and can't skip a meal! I think that your body would slowly eat away at you fat and then move on to other sources such as muscle to keep on going. After a while you probably will get very very weak and eventually die. Oh by the way, thanks 4 answerin my question about the black and pink!

[redmug100]

The ira hunger strikers took sodium & potasium supliments to keep themselves alive as long as possible. Without these electralites the heart does not have enough electrical energy to keep beating. N.B. Potasium supliments should only be taken under medical supervision.

[zeus]

I ONCE LASTED WITHOUT FOOD FROM DINNERTIME UNTIL TEA TIME WHICH WAS VERY HARD AND A BIG ACHIEVEMENT. WHY NOT EAT?? EATTING IS THE BEST THING EVER! OH NO SORRY, EATING WHILST HAVING SEX IS BETTER.