eli5: why is it so difficult to go a week without eating when we have 10s of thousands of calories worth of body fat?

Question

eli5: why is it so difficult to go a week without eating when we have 10s of thousands of calories worth of body fat?

In: 89

Answer 1

You probably wouldn’t starve to death in a week, but evolution has 500 million years of practice telling your ancestors “go eat you idiot, you need it to survive”. Of course it’s hard to go against your most basic instincts.

By the way, you shouldn’t try to do this, just because you are likely not going to starve to death doesn’t mean it’s good for your health. If this is some sort of “weight loss experts hate this one trick” then doubly so you shouldn’t try this. Rather take up exercise, seriously and every single day, it’ll be both easier and much more effective than starving yourself.