Seems exactly the same to me, am I the only one?
What are the main bodily differences between someone say in NYC voluntarily choosing to fast for 60 days, only drinking water, versus someone who hypothetically is stranded on a desert island with no food sources and only enough water to survive for 60 days.
When does fasting become malnutrition and starvation? And why is it considered so healthy yet malnutrition and starvation are the exact opposite and almost always lead to death?
Help me understand this, thanks Reddit.
In: Biology
This is one of those cases where it’s important to define fasting and understand the context.
I assume you are reffering to cases like in buddhist texts where people have fasted for extremely long periods of time.
As well as the religious aspect likely having some exaggerations, so lengths of time may not be accurate; in those kind of long-term religious fasts, you are permitted to eat. There is written record of lights soups and bread, for instance, or only subsisting on what you’re gifted, and only eating during certain parts of the day.
It’s less a fast in what we think of the word, and more an extended period of time with substantially lessened caloric intake. Similar to an extreme diet.
At the core, however, it is the same process of starving. Not consuming enough calories to sustain your weight.
You cannot fast for sixty days. You will begin to starve, and you will die of it at around the three-week mark.
The key thing to understand is that you’re fasting a lot more often than you think you are, and the truth of that is in a word you probably don’t think about all that in depth: *breakfast.* If you split the word apart, it becomes “break fast,” and that’s literally accurate: you’re breaking your fast over the previous night. Fasting is time-restricted, and usually regulated.
When fasting, you have the caloric reserves to maintain optimal function. You can slip into malnutrition very easily: you might be in a state of malnutrition right now and not even know it. Starvation sets in when you no longer have the caloric reserves to sustain life.
Fasting for 60 days is dangerous under any circumstances. I practice intermittent fasting and have only gone about 37 hours before. Most days I fast for 18 hours. When I do eat, I pay close attention to my macro nutrients and make sure my diet is healthy. In 60 days, you’re not just losing fat, you’re losing muscle and other nutrients your body needs.
Physiologically, there are no differences between the two situations you describe, except possibly that someone on a desert island would need more calories because they need to do all the other stuff necessary to survival in the wild.
The key difference is intention. Someone who is fasting is *intentionally* not eating food. Presumably, they have some plan for doing this in a way that won’t seriously hurt or kill them. They can also stop if it becomes truly dangerous. Someone who is stranded without access to food has no such safety net.
Some people promote “intermittent fasting” as a weight loss technique, but this involves fasting periods of only 1 to 2 days. There are a few examples of more sustained fasts for rapid weight loss, but this is only safe under close medical supervision. Most extended fasts were never intended to be “healthy” but instead meant as some sort of protest or statement, like a hunger strike, artistic performance, or religious devotion.
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