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What is the difference between starvation and fasting?
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<blockquote data-quote="Brunneria" data-source="post: 2177968" data-attributes="member: 41816"><p>Historically, when individuals or whole communities starve, they do so with stress, worry and concern that they may starve to death. Harvests failing. Seiges. Blockades. Existing food supplies rationed into small portions, then rationed into smaller portions. Food hoarded and hidden. Looting. Theft. Misery. And, if it goes on long enough, death.</p><p></p><p>In societies with abundant food supplies, this can still happen due to poverty, but it is more common that people put themselves on calorie restricted diets in an attempt to lose weight. To the body, it often feels like starvation, even though the individual can choose to end the starvation (low calorie) diet whenever they like. Often by just walking into the next room and opening the fridge.</p><p></p><p>There is an unfortunate consequence of a person spending an extended length of time on a starvation diet (reduced, rationed calorie intake), which is that the body realises that food is inadequate, and that starvation is ongoing, and it ekes out its reserves, eventually learning to do more and more with fewer resources => metabolic slowdown.</p><p>It effectively learns to survuve on less food, and gets better and better at storing what little food is eaten.</p><p></p><p>the nasty knock on effect is that then when the person starts to eat adequate nutrition again, the poor starved body goes into storage mode, ready for the next bad harvest - and the weight piles back on - even if the food intake is no greater than before the ‘starvation diet’</p><p></p><p>Clearly this is a VERY different experience from making a conscious choice to skip breakfast and/or lunch (intermittent fasting) then having a good nutritious dinner. Or from making the deliberate choice to not eat for the next 5 days (extended fasting), then revert to normal, healthy intake with full nutrition.</p><p></p><p>Throughout history and across many different societies, fasting has been widely accepted on social and religious grounds. Cleansing fasts. Spiritual fasts. Political protests... each one comes from a completely different mindset. Even fasts that go in for weeks trigger different physical responses than ‘starvation diets’, because the body responds differently to zero food than from a pittance of reduced calorie food. All this is discussed in details, with references and evidence, in the Jason Fung book mentioned above.</p><p></p><p>So yes, there is a vast difference between starvation and deliberate, conscious fasting for a chosen fixed period.</p><p>But if anxiety prevents you from going into a fast with a positive mindset, then that is fine. Fasting isn’t for everyone.</p><p></p><p>i have, in the past done a range of fasts (longest 10 days), and found from experience that <strong><em>for</em></strong> <strong><em>me</em></strong> overnight fasts longer than 24hrs tend to cause night time hypos, bad dreams, and other Stuff (including anxiety, since hypos are never fun, and going to sleep knowing a hypo is iminent is even less fun), so nowadays I no longer do the extended fasts and usually just skip 1 or 2 meals a day, and eat in the evening.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Brunneria, post: 2177968, member: 41816"] Historically, when individuals or whole communities starve, they do so with stress, worry and concern that they may starve to death. Harvests failing. Seiges. Blockades. Existing food supplies rationed into small portions, then rationed into smaller portions. Food hoarded and hidden. Looting. Theft. Misery. And, if it goes on long enough, death. In societies with abundant food supplies, this can still happen due to poverty, but it is more common that people put themselves on calorie restricted diets in an attempt to lose weight. To the body, it often feels like starvation, even though the individual can choose to end the starvation (low calorie) diet whenever they like. Often by just walking into the next room and opening the fridge. There is an unfortunate consequence of a person spending an extended length of time on a starvation diet (reduced, rationed calorie intake), which is that the body realises that food is inadequate, and that starvation is ongoing, and it ekes out its reserves, eventually learning to do more and more with fewer resources => metabolic slowdown. It effectively learns to survuve on less food, and gets better and better at storing what little food is eaten. the nasty knock on effect is that then when the person starts to eat adequate nutrition again, the poor starved body goes into storage mode, ready for the next bad harvest - and the weight piles back on - even if the food intake is no greater than before the ‘starvation diet’ Clearly this is a VERY different experience from making a conscious choice to skip breakfast and/or lunch (intermittent fasting) then having a good nutritious dinner. Or from making the deliberate choice to not eat for the next 5 days (extended fasting), then revert to normal, healthy intake with full nutrition. Throughout history and across many different societies, fasting has been widely accepted on social and religious grounds. Cleansing fasts. Spiritual fasts. Political protests... each one comes from a completely different mindset. Even fasts that go in for weeks trigger different physical responses than ‘starvation diets’, because the body responds differently to zero food than from a pittance of reduced calorie food. All this is discussed in details, with references and evidence, in the Jason Fung book mentioned above. So yes, there is a vast difference between starvation and deliberate, conscious fasting for a chosen fixed period. But if anxiety prevents you from going into a fast with a positive mindset, then that is fine. Fasting isn’t for everyone. i have, in the past done a range of fasts (longest 10 days), and found from experience that [B][I]for[/I][/B] [B][I]me[/I][/B] overnight fasts longer than 24hrs tend to cause night time hypos, bad dreams, and other Stuff (including anxiety, since hypos are never fun, and going to sleep knowing a hypo is iminent is even less fun), so nowadays I no longer do the extended fasts and usually just skip 1 or 2 meals a day, and eat in the evening. [/QUOTE]
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