I’ve been doing the One Meal A Day thing for about a month. I’ve had several people, on hearing this, clutch their mid-sections with a pained expression, like it hurt and they empathize. For years, I used to do a 3-day fast, and while I was aware of being hungry (the first day or two), it never hurt. Does it for anyone, in that short a period?
I’ve been hungry for short periods - it has never hurt, other than a moderate headache that goes away. I’ve never been hungry for a long time.
Go look at pictures when you’re hungry. I learned that from Hemingway in A Movable Feast,
Yes, it actually physically hurts. Between about L1 vertebra, as I see from a quick check of a spine diagram, and maybe just under the lungs. It’s actually a little difficult to distinguish hunger pains from backache, which I also get at around that area. I have to eat something and see if the pain goes away.
I feel the pain higher than if I’ve got an actual stomachache, but I think that’s just an indication that what we normally call ‘stomach’-ache is actually ‘lower intestine’-ache - I think my hunger pains are a lot closer to the actual stomach.
This is apart from wooziness, general grumpiness, and occasionally nausea (that would be … if I skip lunch on a PMT day). My body reacts really badly to foodlessness.