# Longest you've gone without food/calories
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 2, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867 "2011-12-02T18:20:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/1 "2011-12-02T18:20:35Z")
What’s the longest you’ve gone without eating or drinking anything besides water? Why?
For me - I once went 72 hours without eating in college. I don’t even remember why, except to prove to my roommate that I could. Due to bad planning, all that was available when the 72 hours expired was generic-brand individually wrapped American “cheese” slices, which I ate about a pound of. The next day was not good.
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### Author:  [@Acorns.but\_not\_Bacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acorns.but_not_Bacon)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/2 "2011-12-02T18:29:08Z")
Over a week, it was actually just over four weeks, I had terrible food poisoning. I wasn’t overweight to start with and by the end I just looked really sunken in the face and was quite boney.
Really not fun.
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### Author:  [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/3 "2011-12-02T18:33:26Z")
I did a couple of sponsored “40-hour famine” events when I was at school, so chose 24 - 48 hours.
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### Author:  [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/4 "2011-12-02T18:34:00Z")
I find this so hard to believe now but I used to FORGET to eat. It wasn’t unusual for me to go more than 24 hours without eating although I did drink full octane Coke at the time. There was a summer that it was so bad I started scheduling meals with friends to ensure that I would take the time to eat.
Even having lived through it I find it hard now to imagine it happening again. I just didn’t get hungry then. I didn’t have any particular issues though, when I did eat I ate well 🙂
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### Author:  [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/5 "2011-12-02T18:42:00Z")
I was not allowed food for a while after gallbladder surgery. I wasn’t hungry, though, either.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/6 "2011-12-02T19:42:44Z")
That one summer in college when I crammed in all the fun I hadn’t had in high school… that summer there was a 24-hour period when I didn’t eat. I realized there was a problem when someone handed me a drink and my hand was shaking so badly the liquid flew out of the cup.
I don’t do well with fasting.
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### Author:  [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/7 "2011-12-02T20:08:00Z")
I voted 4-7 days, but it may have been longer. I truly don’t know. In college, I had mono. During the first stages, I recall crawling to the bathroom a handful of times, and drinking a few sips from the sink. I was too exhausted to get to the kitchen. After some timespan that I can’t define, my roommate realized that things weren’t so good. At some points, he literally pinched my nose to force me to open my mouth, and forced soup, juice, and ginger ale down my gullet. In all likelihood, he saved my life, but I never want to eat another bowl of Campbell’s chicken and anything soup again.
By the end of that ordeal (3 weeks to even get out of bed to watch TV, two more before I could manage to drive down the block to the bank and grocery,) I had dropped from 140 pounds to 105. Not good.
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/8 "2011-12-02T20:09:27Z")
I’ve gone a full day, only because I had to, before a medical procedure.
I feel like SHIT when I don’t have a regular calorie intake, this has been true my entire life. I have problems with hypoglycemia (as well as reactive hypoglycemia). Blood sugar fluctuations are the main cause of my migraines, so fasting beyond 12 hours or so gives me a migraine 100% of the time. Eeew.
I’ve never been so sick I didn’t eat. It may feel like knives going down my throat and I may throw right back up, but when I am ill I keep right on stuffing my face. The penalty is feeling even worse.
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### Author:  [@Teacake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teacake)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/9 "2011-12-02T20:18:19Z")
I voted 2-4 days. Giardia. I have no idea how much weight I lost, and I was pretty thin to start off with (those were the days!), but you can see the difference in photos of me taken the day before it started and the day it started going away. It was bad. Do not recommend.
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### Author:  [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/10 "2011-12-02T23:03:38Z")
Food poisoning here as well - I had dysentery once and went several days (I don’t think over four though) without eating a single thing. Even a single ice chip made me heave violently. Nasty. I didn’t feel right for quite a long time and became absolutely gaunt.
I made some half-hearted stabs at fasting when I was much younger but I don’t think I ever made it more than a day. That was when I believed in such things as “detox” and “cleansing” and luckily I am over that now. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/11 "2011-12-02T23:05:53Z")
About 5 days - and that includes no water as well as no food. It was a really bad case of norovirus that inflamed pretty much my whole intestinal system. I was on IV’s to stay hydrated as I couldn’t even keep water down, much less anything else.
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/12 "2011-12-02T23:17:31Z")
I don’t know – 36-4n hours. I used to alternate-day fast for a few months, or maybe a bit less, and I know I exceeded the 24 hours a few times probably from forgetting to eat. Probably a few days on water, 48 hours total, don’t know. Liked the way it made me feel – like a vampire, senses more alert, hungry, leaner, and ready to kill that Caesar motherfucker.
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### Author:  [@Petrichord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrichord)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/13 "2011-12-02T23:57:07Z")
Three days. It feels silly to report this next to all the illness-related reasons on this thread, but my mother’s church, of which I was once an inwilling teenage member, holds 3-day fasts\* every once in a while. No food, no water? Pfft. who needs those when you’ve got prayer for nourishment?
Most church members, my mother included, stayed home to conserve energy during those fasts. I remember choosing instead to follow my regular schedule, which drew some awe from the other members. Course, I didn’t tell them it was to avoid having to join my mother in _praying every waking moment of the goddamn day_. Even if it means I’m starving in a high school full of kids stuffing their faces, I’ll take my hours of freedom, thanks.
(I don’t remember ever cheating, though. I don’t know why. It would have been easy to grab something to eat at school.)
\*I don’t think I could ever begin to describe the complex mess that is my opinion of that organization. They had a 7-day fast a couple of years ago, and apparently even the ridiculously aged people – 90+ years – still joined in. Up until then I wasn’t even aware that people could _survive_ that long without water.
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/14 "2011-12-03T00:06:13Z")
> [@Petrichord](#):
>
> \*I don’t think I could ever begin to describe the complex mess that is my opinion of that organization. They had a 7-day fast a couple of years ago, and apparently even the ridiculously aged people – 90+ years – still joined in. Up until then I wasn’t even aware that people could _survive_ that long without water.
Well, religion aside, that does sound pretty badass – and not as insane as snake-handling or whatever.
New project for me: seven day fast! Sounds awesome (and probably not that healthy, but still badass).
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### Author:  [@Petrichord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrichord)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/15 "2011-12-03T00:22:06Z")
> [@Jaledin](#):
>
> New project for me: seven day fast! Sounds awesome (and probably not that healthy, but still badass).
I’ll risk being a stick in the mud and say that I sincerely hope that’s a humorous whoosh over my head. Please don’t. All badassery aside, I’m pretty sure it could kill you, and I’m very sure it would seriously screw with your system.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/16 "2011-12-03T00:25:07Z")
Almost 2 months- I had a mystery bug that bounced me in 1982. They kept testing me trying to prove it was mono, but every time I got tested it was negative. It started out with a sore throat, so I stopped eating anything except soup, then after about 2 weeks I ended up with nausea that kept me puking anything except plain boring tea and I could occasionally manage a couple crackers. Then I couldn’t even keep down crackers with phenergan, so I was hied off to hospital and I stuck with water and tea and IV feeding. Finally around Christmas I actually smelled my roomies dinner, and it didn’t nauseate me, so the Doc tried me on chicken noodle soup and it stayed down. Took me about 2 more weeks til I could eat normally again. They never did figure out what I had, just some babble about ‘well there are a number of viruses going around, we can’t figure out which one it is’ :smack:
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/17 "2011-12-03T01:07:46Z")
> [@Petrichord](#):
>
> I’ll risk being a stick in the mud and say that I sincerely hope that’s a humorous whoosh over my head. Please don’t. All badassery aside, I’m pretty sure it could kill you, and I’m very sure it would seriously screw with your system.
That wasn’t a whoosh – it does sound cool. I’m about 20-30 lbs overweight and pretty sure I’d live, even though my GP, when I told him about my alternate-day fasting and asked him if it was good, responded in his typically dry humor “Probably not,” would disagree. I’m sure it’s not good for you, but it does genuinely sound kind of like a cool experience to me, like going in those deprivation tanks or fucking a dolphin or whatever people do.
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### Author:  [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/18 "2011-12-03T01:15:56Z")
Summer of 2010 I had a throat infection that the first round of antibiotics didn’t work on. Commence worsening pain and two more days without eating or drinking - I only drank enough to get the abo pills down. When I went back to the ER they gave me IV fluids, IV morphine and IV steroids for the pain and swelling and CT scan to check for abscesses/tumors or whatnot.
That afternoon after they sent me home, I ate a whole pizza. I had gone three days without food and was sent home with vicodin. Amazing what 9 hours of treatment can do for a person.
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### Author:  [@The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lovely_Margo_Lane)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/19 "2011-12-03T01:24:14Z")
About 36 or 48 hours, can’t remember exactly but it was well over a day. I was in college and got sick about halfway through the spring semester of Senior year. Some kind of stomach virus or food poisoning, I couldn’t keep anything down or in and kinda laid there on the couch in delirium. I did start drinking super watered down juice after 18 hours to keep my electrolytes in balance and was able to keep that down, but couldn’t have ingested more than 100 calories that way.
It may well have been an illusion due to illness and fatigue, but I swear by the end I could feel the emptiness all the way through my digestive tract. I wasn’t hungry, I felt like I was glowing inside and thought to myself “this must be what anorexics are chasing” because it was euphoric. Not interested in feeling it again though. I’m hypoglycemic and feel the emotional and physical rollercoaster of crashing blood sugar if I go more than 5-6 hours without eating under normal, non couch-bound circumstances.
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### Author:  [@EllyaX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllyaX)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/longest-youve-gone-without-food-calories/604867/20 "2011-12-03T01:24:31Z")
Longest I went in one stretch was seven days. But before then I hadn’t had more than 300 calories a day in months. Anorexia sucks
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