How long can you not eat for?

[Andsoitbegins3]

Hi

this is going to sound a bit daft but I thought I’d ask here since it’s anonymous. How long can you go without eating without being unwell/fainting/not being well?

the reason I ask is NOT because I have an eating disorder etc, it’s just I get really badly upset stomachs (IBS) and the only way I can stop the cramps, discomfort and pain is to fast and only drink water. Sometimes doing it for a day is long enough to let my stomach settle but other times it has to be for a few days, the longest I’ve had was 3 of 4. If I eat ANYTHING in this time I’ll get the most horrendous cramps so I completely lose my appetite and don’t even want to eat. Fasting seems to let my stomach reset itself and go back to normal. I don’t have any issues with my weight and I’m not trying to lose weight, but I’m worried about not eating for several days in case it makes me unwell etc, as I thought if you didn’t eat for a few days you would feel sick/faint but actually that hasn’t happened so presumably it’s fine? It’s the only way I’ve been able to stop the cramps and when I’m nervous I completely lose my appetite altogether, so presumably it’s fine as long as I’m still drinking which I am, and as long as I’m not unwell, which I’m not? Usually I feel slightly hungry for a day after starting the fast and then it subsides by day 2 and I can start trying to introduce food again. I just don’t want to make myself unwell/ faint/ be more sick by fasting when I’m doing it in the first place to stop myself feeling unwell, but presumably it’s ok if I haven’t been unwell so far and it’s only occasionally that it’s up to 3/4 days? If it ever lasted more than 4 days I would obviously go to the doctor because I know that’s too long to fast

TIA x

I was listening to a podcast with Dr Mindy Pelz about fasting. Apparently 3 days fasting occasionally is really good for the gut microbiome.

I listened and understood but I've never brought myself to do it, I would be worried about making mistakes at work/driving.

I've done, 3 days, 7 days and 9 days.

Didn't exercise, but did go to my fairly sedentary job.

People who've had ED's are projecting? I've always had a very healthy appetite and attitude towards food. I'm pretty much the only woman I know my age that's not been a yo yo dieter.

I decided to do it after doing a tonne of reading around the subject.

You're conflating hungry and fainting, and arguing 'fainting' against someone who said hunger.

This is logic-free!

Feeling faint if you've not eaten for a few hours isn't healthy, It might be normal for a lot of people, but that's a sign that a lot of people are unhealthy. It doesn't happen to people who don't eat carbohydrates every few hours, so I guess you're arguing that those people are healthier?

Personally I need to eat regularly, but I'm sure that's more a comfort thing than anything drastic would happen if I went a period of time without food.

If you look at it from an evolutionary point of view we're designed to go for days without food. There wasn't always an asda down the road and you'd have to wait for the hunting party to come home or the berries to ripen. We're made to feast and fast.

Nobody's asking you to believe them, @Milkkbottles . We've all got our opinions. Your arguments are flawed though.

And if your doctor says you're fine, great. Happy for you. I regularly fast, don't get faint if I skip a meal or two, and my doctor says I'm in great shape. What's your point? That you feel faint more than me, so that means you're healthier?

I don't think sipping water and avoiding solid food is OK I have a bowel condition I know what triggers it and avoid those food. Op you are barely eating to avoid intense bowel movements have you been to your GP? Yes threads about not eating will always bring out non eaters with their "reasons" that they don't eat and wrap it up as fasting for health benefits.

Evening, everyone. Just a note to let you know that we've moved this thread over to our General Health board.

To get my blood sugar under control, and for autophagy benefits. I used to do regular fasts.

@Milkkbottles

You seem to think your body and your 'normal' has some relevance, and, ironically, it does. To demonstrate my point.

And yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking. What does 'unhealthier' mean?

I only eat once a day and it is fine for me

@Milkkbottles

Wow, a direct insult and some passive aggression.

Let's leave it there.

Sorry for the derail, all.

@amylou8

If you look at it from an evolutionary point of view we're designed to go for days without food. There wasn't always an asda down the road and you'd have to wait for the hunting party to come home or the berries to ripen. We're made to feast and fast

This is true. I wonder how people think the human race has succeeded, or even survived, if the constancy of 3 meals a day is so important. There has always been fasting until very very recently, in evolutionary terms.

Further to the point of this, a lot of modern diet is based on the back breaking labour that used to be involved with agriculture before machinery and factory farming was widespread. People had to eat more often when expected to toil in the fields for twelve hours a day, and the food that they are wasn't anywhere near as processed. Meaning that is was much harder to digest and extract calories from. If your 3 meals a day consisted of turnips, beats and cabbage it would be a world of difference from breakfast cereals, white bread, crisp etc no matter how much salad you plonk on the side.

I hope you find a good way to manage your condition well, OP.

Put me down as maximum 18 hours before I'm going demented with food need, in ordinary life. I'm wildly healthier than most MNers I reckon. I imagine I could go 5-7 days before collapsing in a national emergency refugee terrible disaster situation.

I understand people’s concerns about this thread but I fast for autophagy, blood sugar control and inflammation reduction. There is an increasing body of scientific research that indicates that fasting can be beneficial. Obviously people should exercise common sense and see their doctor if they have medical concerns.

I posted about the extended fasting I did simply to say to the OP that several days of not eating is not necessarily a problem. Obviously if her condition is not improving then she needs to see her GP.

Some of the comments seeming to link fasting to eating disorders are ignoring the fact that many religions and cultures have practiced fasting for centuries. DH is Muslim so all his family have kept Ramadan for their adult lives (along with additional voluntary fasting days).

Some of the comments seeming to link fasting to eating disorders are ignoring the fact that many religions and cultures have practiced fasting for centuries. DH is Muslim so all his family have kept Ramadan for their adult lives (along with additional voluntary fasting days).

I used to have an ED (at one point was expected to die from anorexia) but I never fasted. even then MN would have probably been appalled at my carb intake

However both things can be true. The OP clearly states they are fasting to try to manage a medical condition. Others might be doing it for religious reasons, but from reading various threads I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people on here with ED. I'm annoyed at myself that even after recovery a title like that draws me in.

Also are you not allowed to eat after sunset during Ramadan....its not a 30 day continuous fast...is it...?

Treating your IBS this way isn't healthy. You need to seek advice from a doctor or dietician

I got into low-carbing through MN threads and really lost weight. Coming from years of trying low calorie, low fat diets, it felt great to be eating plenty of food (including oil and butter and full fat Greek yoghurt!) and to get to and maintain a healthy BMI for the first time in my adult life without resorting to dangerous ED behaviour as I had fallen into in the past.

At some point, the low carb threads became competitive fasting and all anyone seemed to post about was the miracle of never, ever feeling hungry while eating low carb. Posters going for three days on a single boiled egg and raving about how energetic and clear headed they were.

I started to feel like a freak - a greedy, deficient glutton - for feeling hungry for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Even though low carb was working for me, it became yet another stick to beat myself with. Why do I feel hungry at mealtimes? Why can't I concentrate on work while fasting? Why do I get tired and weaker at the gym when I haven't eaten all day? Why can't I skip meals? Why is my stupid body so pathetic that it wants fuel at regular intervals? That was a familiar soundtrack of thoughts in my head - I remembered them well from some very dark days.

In short, fasting isn't and never has been for me. I can't do it and I don't want to. I left the threads because there was so much evangelical praise for not eating - and I'd thought the joy of low carb was that you can eat! No one ever admitted to finding fasting hard; it was always apparently so easy for them from the get go. I felt as ashamed of wanting to eat as I'd ever done on a traditional diet, as faulty and broken as any other example of diet culture had made me feel. Somehow when you get down to it, the ideal always seems to be to eat as little and as infrequently as possible, however the diet or 'way of eating' or 'lifestyle change' is dressed up. And it only ever escalates and gets more extreme.

I'm always reassured to see there are other posters who find it normal to eat meals. Sometimes on MN you can come away feeling like you're the oddity for wanting to eat at all.

Sorry OP because I know this has got wildly off topic. But on this website, I really think you get quite skewed responses when it comes to food and eating and fasting that might not be helpful from a medical perspective.

Well said, Million. There is no point trying to reason with ED, it’s literally not possible, it’s one of the defining characteristics of ED. and I say that as someone who had a pretty serious ED linked to ballet etc. Of course fasting is healthy sometimes, and also part of culture, but that’s often not what’s going on in these discussions. Fasting might help the OP, but OP needs a fully integrated approach rather than people boasting about how long they can abstain from eating. A note on athletics and endurance, no point shooting books and links at me, athletics has moved away from a higher protein diet and gone back to building glycogen in muscles with carbs. There’s something called ‘the bonk’, it’s where you hit a wall and cannot carry on at pace, your performance is over basically. It’s when your muscles run out of glycogen, and you have to refuel them in advance of hitting the wall. The refuelling is done with carbs, yes it is, and it has to be in advance of hitting a wall.

Whether or not it's healthy is irrelevant - it's about finding the best way to manage flare-ups when they are happening. When I have an IBD flare-up the last thing on my mind is whether or not the actions I'm taking are "healthy", all I care about is calming the inflammation and symptoms, and basically just getting through it. The fact is, the symptoms of IBS and IBD are reduced for many people when you fast. OP has made it clear she's had numerous tests and seen several different kinds of medical practitioners.