Two and a half days. Also how I came to really understand how abusive my mother is. I needed surgery for a knee injury. I wasn’t allowed to eat since the evening before. I went in, had surgery and my parents took me home to “take care of me”. I was so hungry after the surgery because it was like 2 pm and I hadn’t eaten since maybe 4 pm the day before, so I asked if we can stop for food. I was told no, we have food at home. “Home” was an hour by car away.
So we come home, I somehow manage to get into bed and ask for food. My mother exploded, yelled at me to not be a lazy good-for-nothing that slouches around on the bed and that the only way I was getting any food was by getting up and sitting at the dining table like a normal person. I really don’t know why I thought they’d treat me better this time. I guess I thought they’d know it’s a legit surgery (unlike non-legit things like flu and fever that has never been an excuse to stay in bed). Anyway, I had my bottle of water with me but no food. Probably not enough water either. On the evening of my second day there my leg was feeling good enough for me to hobble into the kitchen and grab some snacks.
On the bright side, I learned that the stuff I’ve been telling myself like “Yeah they’re assholes but will be there for me when I need them” was a lie.
Willingly: 2 weeks, fasting. I was really sick and desperately trying to find something, anything, to make me feel better.
Unwillingly: 4 days. No money for food.
2 days. I had hemorrhoid surgery and pooping was so painful that I fasted for two days just so I could rest for 1 day.
A week, massively depressed, no food or water, by day 3 I decided to conciously continue the fast in hope of death. by day 6 I was feeling normal, by day 7 was completely ok, had energy, no headaches no hungry or thirsty.
got so upset that I’m apparently immortal I gave up on that scheme.
37 days. One day I took a look in the mirror and I didn’t like what I saw. So I changed it. Honestly it’s not at all difficult after the fourth or fifth day, it just gets really hard to sleep. I was in my early twenties and I still had the willpower for that (and probably the metabolism) but I don’t anymore.
Edit to be clear: I don’t recommend this. It was a harsh decision born out of a lot of depression and other issues. I drank a lot of water and took multivitamins. It worked but I was probably just lucky I didn’t end up in the hospital.
7 days. It was the only way I found to be listened at this time. It worked.
Four weeks. I have Crohn’s disease and had perforated my bowel roughly 15 years ago. I wasn’t allowed anything by mouth and was on a saline drip for 3 weeks. After my surgery I was on TPN for another week before I was allowed to eat anything. I went from 185lbs to 130lbs and it took about 6 months to get back up to 160lbs.
Removed by mod
A little over 24 hours. Nothing fancy, I had started a keto diet and at one point I realized that my previous meal had been lunch the day before, hadn’t had dinner nor breakfast since and it was lunch time again.
About a week, just to see how it would feel after doing keto for a long time.
It was alright, after day 3 I didn’t think much about it, but I decided to start eating again to avoid having to do a complicated refeeding later
About 3 days. Because I was extremely ill. I didn’t exactly starve myself you can go ages without food you just feel bad.
2 days. I was involved in a stupid cult for a while and thought that starving myself would make god love me or some dumb shit like that
12 days. Only had water and some black coffee. Wanted to do 14. Just wanted to know what it was like. Couldn’t make it. It was really not fun, suffering the entire time. Very interesting though. Great as an experience, it did change my relationship with food. Everybody should try it. 14 days is a great goal and there are no adverse effects (if you’re otherwise healthy).
Like 40 hours I guess, ate lunch on a Thursday and then breakfast on the Saturday. Needed to make a weigh in on the Saturday morning that for some reason I can’t remember I was unprepared for–I think it was early in the season. That practice on Friday wasn’t much fun though.
Going to bed hungry isn’t nearly as distracting as trying to sleep when you’re thirsty though.
100 hours, for a fast. I just wanted to see what it was like and how my body responded.
