What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without eating?
Conversely, who has never fasted 24 hours in their life? Who is the most regular eater?
I’m going to say anything less than 10 calories total does not break the fast (i.e. a cup of tea or a diet coke, or unlimited plain water is ok)
I have gone 48 hours consuming only water. It is harder then I thought it would be, my plan was to make it to 72 hours.
I fasted for three days with a friend’s bible group as a teen (OK, it was a sleepover without food).
I’ve done the 30 Hour Famine four times. You raise a certain amount of money, then you get to go to a school sleepover (at least, that’s how it worked at our school). I was never hungry during the night, but during the school day, watching everyone eat their lunches and smelling the delicious greasy food, it got a bit difficult. And it usually ended up being more than 30 hours, because it officially started at 1 AM or something and finished at 7 AM the next day, so I was rarely awake to eat anything at 12:59. We were usually still awake at 7 AM, though! We were allowed juice and water, stuff like that (I brought tea), so it really wasn’t too hard once the sleepover actually started. I did it more for the overnight at the school than for the charity aspect, as did most people, but we still raised a bunch of money due to a minimum amount being required to attend the sleepover. Ah, I miss highschool.
I’ve never fasted 24 hours. It’s not really too good for me. I have an incredibly high metabolism. If I go too long without eating, I tend to feel nauseated/headachey. (And then I feel too sick to eat, so it’s a vicious cycle.) It’s nice to be thin, but I know that I’d be the first to have gone in a time of starvation in the past.
It’s been quite a while, but I’ve completed a 25-30 hour total fast (no food or beverage of any kind) several times. Tended to get a bit of a headache after about 18 hours and was seriously ready to eat by 24.
Jammer
Once in college, in my one crazy summer on campus, I accidentally went 24 hours without eating. I didn’t intend to, it just happened.
I grew up as a Mormon, so I’ve fasted 24 hours at a time. Can’t say that I really miss it.
What… about illness? Yesterday I ate around 1, I got really sick later on, and by night time I couldn’t even stomach water. I only really got around to eating real food by around 5 or 6 today, when I felt my hunger was making my stomach weirder than illness.
Not sure. A day, two at most (when I was poor, so I didn’t eat much at all… one meal of ramen a day, if I could choke it down).
Did one of those famine things once, but I flaked out and they fed me a half sandwich before the official end of it.
I can’t remember ever missing two meals in succession. Maximum is probably under 20 hours - missed breakfast followed by late lunch.
Most is probably 2 and a half days. My clique in high school was all about being too skinny and we were all wanna be anorexics. So we’d have not eating contests.
Now days, I often go 24 hours on the weekends if I’m not working out. I don’t keep much food in the house and I’m often too lazy on Sundays to go get food until quite late.
Three days. Other than the weakness, I actually felt better after the first day and a half or so.
I’ve fasted 26ish hours for religion. I also did 19 days from sunrise to sunset a few years which was even harder because I had to go to school and watch people eat.
There have been a couple of times I’ve been quite unwell and didn’t eat for 36 hours as I suffered through the fever.
Once I was on a saline drip and didn’t eat for 48 hours, but I suppose it could be argued that that doesn’t count.
Probably when I had a bad flu my senior year in college. I know I went over 24 hours, but after the worst day I was able to keep down some toast, so maybe 30 hours? But it was completely unintentional, and I’ve never intentionally tried to fast, and would say at best I’ve missed a couple meals by accident, so maybe 20 hours?
Having gone the eating disorder route, I’ve gone a week at a time without eating, and longer than that on a rule of 300 calories or less a day (meaning like, 10 egg whites, maybe an apple, a pair of rice cakes). I can testify to the idea that the first couple of days are very hard but, after three, you feel very euphoric and full of energy. The main problem is standing up quickly after lying down, because I’d come very close to fainting. I would also drink tons and tons of water every time I felt the urge to eat, so I constantly had to pee. The euphoria then, after a few days, wears off into a strong fatigue- not sleepy, but your whole body feels weak. I would go for weeks with absolutely no bowel movements, only peeing, because I wasn’t eating enough to produce any. It’s hard to sleep and, when you do, you generally dream about eating. I also got a lot of muscle cramps and charliehorses, probably from lack of potassium.
Six days on nothing but water. It was for “religious” reasons but not anything condoned by a church. The real short version is that someone I cared about went missing and I prayed and decided to fast until I had news that she was safe.
2007 Jophiel would punch 1995 Jophiel in the head for being stupid but 1995 Jophiel probably would have listened anyway.
Oh, and after the third day, I just stopped being hungry.
Norwalk virus: about 3 days. But I can, and do, commonly go for ~ 24 hours without eating: usually on weekends.
You don’t get dizzy, light-headed, nauseated, or feel weak?