Fatmanonice
Banned via Warnings
Link to original post: [drupal=3523]The Four Day Fast: a Hunger Experiment[/drupal]
Last Tuesday, I made the decision to go through with an experiment. I had just finished watching the movie “Gandhi” from 1982 that detailed his life from his triumphs in South Africa as a young lawyer to the day of his assassination. In the movie, it depicts the two hunger strikes that Gandhi went on during his life. The longest time he went without food was about four weeks. I then decided that if he could do four weeks, I could do four days.
The premise was simple enough; I would go four days without food with only room temperature water to drink. I went through with this for several reasons. The first was because I can’t recall a single day in my life that I went without food. Even on days where just the smallest amount of food make me throw up violently I still managed to force something down. I love food and take a lot of my pride in my cooking but these were things I needed to put aside for a few days. The second was because I wanted to know what it felt like. I had been on mission trips and helped in soup kitchens and had seen what hunger looks like but I couldn’t empathize with those that felt hunger on a regular basis. The third was because I wanted to know if I had a strong enough will to see it through. If I want to help other people, I need to be able to stay strong even in dire situations and to let go of the side of myself that says I deserve luxuries above other people.
I prepared for the experiment two days in advance. The first day was mainly dedicated to research about hunger. The average person can last about 40 days without food but the organs start to shut down, one by one, after about 14-16 days. To be honest, I was scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen. Would I get sick? Would I be in a lot of pain? What if my stupidly high metabolism didn’t shut off and it continued to eat me alive? I’m already about 50 pounds underweight so I believe my concerns were plausible.
The second day involved me going to an all-you-can-eat buffet with my mother and grandmother. I purposely ate until I felt sick, something I haven’t done since an incident in middle school. As you might have expected, I ended up throwing up when I got back to my apartment. I only did it once but I still felt disgusting. This was the opposite of hunger, this was gluttony. This was forcing food down my face until my body literally couldn’t handle anymore. I wanted to remember what this felt like because simply “being full” is something that a lot of people don’t even get to experience during their lifetime. About five hours later at midnight on Friday night, the experiment began.
The first day started off normally enough. I woke up and instinctively wanted breakfast but I held myself to my promise. The day carried on as usual and at about noon things started to change. I began to think obsessively about food. It had been about 17 hours since I last ate and the absence of food seemed to make my body go into a mild panic attack. “WHEN’S LUNCH?!” my stomach said angrily. I was sweating and I could slightly feel my heart beat in my stomach. Things continued on and I settled down at around 4PM. That was when I started to pee like a race horse. I’d drink some water and five minutes later I had to go. Because of my high metabolism, my body goes through the whole digestive cycle in just a fraction of the time of most people. It was never really something that I had thought of before. My body took things in and quickly shot them back out while eagerly awaiting what I’d give to it next. That’s what it expected and that’s what it always knew up to that point.
The second day I woke up at about 8 AM with a nasty case of cottonmouth. I downed close to half of my water shortly afterwards. I tried to think about food but I couldn’t think of very much. I could only think of simple foods like rice, potatoes, and bread. Everything else kind of just drifted into my mind and then disappeared or somehow transformed into an oversimplified version of itself. When I tried to think about pizza, I could only think of pizza dough. When I tried to think about spaghetti, I could only think of the noodles. When I tried to think about chicken or beef, I could only think of the words and I had to strain myself to think of anything specific.
The next major thing I noticed that day was that I started to wobble when I walked. When walking, I would find myself accidently drifting in one direction and then I would try to steer myself straight. I also lost my train of thought all too easily. I have ADD so this is a problem I’m more than familiar with but this time it was different. It was different because I was continuously doing it and only able to say what I was thinking right there and then. When I tried to think more in depth about what I was going to say, I felt myself stumble over my thoughts clumsily until the entire sentence became a train wreck of words. No matter what I was doing, I felt tired but not exhausted. I felt sleepy but I didn’t want to sleep despite the fact that when sitting and standing up I found myself shutting my eyes and dozing off for a few seconds.
That night, despite feeling tired all day, I couldn’t sleep. I was kept awake by thoughts of food. Again, nothing specific aside from rice, bread, and potatoes. Maybe that was my body’s way of saying that it was craving carbs something fierce because I can’t recall a time when I just thought of such plain food. I wasn’t in pain but the way I felt made me think of people who probably went to bed night after night without food. Staring at the ceiling, obsessively thinking about food that barely has any flavor to it and the next time you’re going to eat again, kept awake by your own thoughts that you can’t silence no matter how hard you try. Over a long period of time, I could easily see it as a form of torture and the gateway to insanity. It’s estimated that 850 million people in the world go through this routine night after night after night after night, falling asleep only from exhaustion because their bodies refuse to forgive them for circumstances they can’t control.
The third day I woke up at around the same time, forced myself back to sleep, and woke up at noon. It’s a nice luxury to have to actually be able to sleep in. I don’t have to wake at dawn to walk miles simply to get water for the day or go work in the fields to produce sickly looking plants that will take months to grow to a size that fights off hunger, if only for a day. It’s hard to think of being so tired, then working yourself to the bone, only to receive nothing in return and then repeat it over and over again as your condition gets worse with each passing day.
Every time I stood up that day, the blood rushed to my head, my vision would fuzz out, and I’d almost fall back down. Another thing I noticed that day was that, despite hardily doing anything the past three days, my wrists and ankles began to ache and crack whenever I moved them in the slightest. I also couldn’t stand up straight without tilting in one direction or the other for more than a few seconds. That night was more of the same as I stayed up, thinking about food. I went to bed at about 11 PM but couldn’t get to sleep until around 3 AM when I finally passed out.
The fourth day started with me waking up at 7AM, forcing myself to sleep, waking up at 9AM, forcing myself back to sleep again, and then waking up at noon. My ankles hurt. It was a familiar feeling because they felt this way when I had spent a whole day walking like when I go to the zoo except I had barely walked all that much yesterday. I did some pacing while talking to my dad on the phone and I had walked to my apartment’s club house to play some pool. My joints pop every time I moved them. I noticed that my fingernails were losing color and that my skin was becoming paler too.
One of my roommate’s friends came over and I ended up making potato soup for the both of them for lunch. While I was boiling the potatoes, I put a piece of one in my mouth without even thinking about it. Despite being just a small piece of potato, it tasted amazing. The flavor covered my whole tongue and it tasted as rich as a chocolate bar. Realizing what I was doing, I ended up spitting it out… I wasn’t supposed to eat anything for the next seven hours. My roommate and his friend heavily complimented my soup as I laid on the couch, shutting my eyes for a few moments, listening to how slow my heart beat and how deep my breaths had become.
At about two hours till midnight, I started preparing the first meal that I would have in four days. It was a pot of beef vegetable soup from scratch and the time crawled slowly… it crawled slowly the entire time I went without eating. Every pain, every headache, every ache, every hour I couldn’t sleep dragged out to where the whole experience felt like two weeks.
The timer I had set on the microwave went off at 12:01 AM Tuesday morning. I pushed myself off the couch and onto my feet. My vision went blurry again and I just about tripped walking to the kitchen. The pot was sitting on stove where it had been simmering for over an hour. I walked up to it and stood looking into the pot for a few moments. I felt tears well up in my eyes but I choked them back. I had to smile over how emotional I was getting over a pot of soup. I prepared myself a bowl and went back to the couch in the living room. My hand shook under the weight of the bowl and I had to set it down for a moment. Again, I felt a lump in my throat and closed my eyes in thanks for the food that I had. After that, I dug in, picking apart every flavor and texture that I had put into it: hamburger, carrots, peas, green beans, corn, black beans, potatoes, garlic, onions, green onions, tomato soup, milk, beef stock, butter, olive oil, red wine, white wine, salt, pepper, paprika, deli mustard, hot sauce, ginger, parsley, sage, and worcestershire sauce. Three bowls later, I was satisfied and I filled three Tupperware containers with the remaining soup and put them in the freezer. I then put my dishes away, walked to my bed, and fell asleep in only about ten minutes.
This will be an experience that I’ll never forget. Although it wasn’t for that long of a time frame and I only felt a fraction of the aches and pains that nearly 1/5th of the world experiences almost their entire lives, I now have a newfound perspective on and appreciation for something that I had long taken for granted. Even if the food is bland, it still has taste. Even if it only a small amount of food, it still nourishes. A single bowl of soup can just about bring a man to tears. A single bowl of soup can create joy and hope. Appreciate the food you have but be mindful to how not everyone has it. Food is good.
Fatmanonice, July 13th 2010
"Isn't the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and to not ignore your own flesh [and blood]?" -Isaiah 58:6-7, NIV version
“There is no fire like passion, no crime like hatred, no sorrow like separation, no sickness like hunger, and no joy like the joy of freedom. Health, contentment and trust are your greatest possessions, and freedom your greatest joy.” -15 (Joy), the Dhammapada
“Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Ascent is! It is to free a slave and to feed in the day of hunger an orphan near of kin or some poor wretch in misery and to be of those who believe and exort one another to perseverance and exhort one another to pity.” -90:12-17, the Koran
Last Tuesday, I made the decision to go through with an experiment. I had just finished watching the movie “Gandhi” from 1982 that detailed his life from his triumphs in South Africa as a young lawyer to the day of his assassination. In the movie, it depicts the two hunger strikes that Gandhi went on during his life. The longest time he went without food was about four weeks. I then decided that if he could do four weeks, I could do four days.
The premise was simple enough; I would go four days without food with only room temperature water to drink. I went through with this for several reasons. The first was because I can’t recall a single day in my life that I went without food. Even on days where just the smallest amount of food make me throw up violently I still managed to force something down. I love food and take a lot of my pride in my cooking but these were things I needed to put aside for a few days. The second was because I wanted to know what it felt like. I had been on mission trips and helped in soup kitchens and had seen what hunger looks like but I couldn’t empathize with those that felt hunger on a regular basis. The third was because I wanted to know if I had a strong enough will to see it through. If I want to help other people, I need to be able to stay strong even in dire situations and to let go of the side of myself that says I deserve luxuries above other people.
I prepared for the experiment two days in advance. The first day was mainly dedicated to research about hunger. The average person can last about 40 days without food but the organs start to shut down, one by one, after about 14-16 days. To be honest, I was scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen. Would I get sick? Would I be in a lot of pain? What if my stupidly high metabolism didn’t shut off and it continued to eat me alive? I’m already about 50 pounds underweight so I believe my concerns were plausible.
The second day involved me going to an all-you-can-eat buffet with my mother and grandmother. I purposely ate until I felt sick, something I haven’t done since an incident in middle school. As you might have expected, I ended up throwing up when I got back to my apartment. I only did it once but I still felt disgusting. This was the opposite of hunger, this was gluttony. This was forcing food down my face until my body literally couldn’t handle anymore. I wanted to remember what this felt like because simply “being full” is something that a lot of people don’t even get to experience during their lifetime. About five hours later at midnight on Friday night, the experiment began.
The first day started off normally enough. I woke up and instinctively wanted breakfast but I held myself to my promise. The day carried on as usual and at about noon things started to change. I began to think obsessively about food. It had been about 17 hours since I last ate and the absence of food seemed to make my body go into a mild panic attack. “WHEN’S LUNCH?!” my stomach said angrily. I was sweating and I could slightly feel my heart beat in my stomach. Things continued on and I settled down at around 4PM. That was when I started to pee like a race horse. I’d drink some water and five minutes later I had to go. Because of my high metabolism, my body goes through the whole digestive cycle in just a fraction of the time of most people. It was never really something that I had thought of before. My body took things in and quickly shot them back out while eagerly awaiting what I’d give to it next. That’s what it expected and that’s what it always knew up to that point.
The second day I woke up at about 8 AM with a nasty case of cottonmouth. I downed close to half of my water shortly afterwards. I tried to think about food but I couldn’t think of very much. I could only think of simple foods like rice, potatoes, and bread. Everything else kind of just drifted into my mind and then disappeared or somehow transformed into an oversimplified version of itself. When I tried to think about pizza, I could only think of pizza dough. When I tried to think about spaghetti, I could only think of the noodles. When I tried to think about chicken or beef, I could only think of the words and I had to strain myself to think of anything specific.
The next major thing I noticed that day was that I started to wobble when I walked. When walking, I would find myself accidently drifting in one direction and then I would try to steer myself straight. I also lost my train of thought all too easily. I have ADD so this is a problem I’m more than familiar with but this time it was different. It was different because I was continuously doing it and only able to say what I was thinking right there and then. When I tried to think more in depth about what I was going to say, I felt myself stumble over my thoughts clumsily until the entire sentence became a train wreck of words. No matter what I was doing, I felt tired but not exhausted. I felt sleepy but I didn’t want to sleep despite the fact that when sitting and standing up I found myself shutting my eyes and dozing off for a few seconds.
That night, despite feeling tired all day, I couldn’t sleep. I was kept awake by thoughts of food. Again, nothing specific aside from rice, bread, and potatoes. Maybe that was my body’s way of saying that it was craving carbs something fierce because I can’t recall a time when I just thought of such plain food. I wasn’t in pain but the way I felt made me think of people who probably went to bed night after night without food. Staring at the ceiling, obsessively thinking about food that barely has any flavor to it and the next time you’re going to eat again, kept awake by your own thoughts that you can’t silence no matter how hard you try. Over a long period of time, I could easily see it as a form of torture and the gateway to insanity. It’s estimated that 850 million people in the world go through this routine night after night after night after night, falling asleep only from exhaustion because their bodies refuse to forgive them for circumstances they can’t control.
The third day I woke up at around the same time, forced myself back to sleep, and woke up at noon. It’s a nice luxury to have to actually be able to sleep in. I don’t have to wake at dawn to walk miles simply to get water for the day or go work in the fields to produce sickly looking plants that will take months to grow to a size that fights off hunger, if only for a day. It’s hard to think of being so tired, then working yourself to the bone, only to receive nothing in return and then repeat it over and over again as your condition gets worse with each passing day.
Every time I stood up that day, the blood rushed to my head, my vision would fuzz out, and I’d almost fall back down. Another thing I noticed that day was that, despite hardily doing anything the past three days, my wrists and ankles began to ache and crack whenever I moved them in the slightest. I also couldn’t stand up straight without tilting in one direction or the other for more than a few seconds. That night was more of the same as I stayed up, thinking about food. I went to bed at about 11 PM but couldn’t get to sleep until around 3 AM when I finally passed out.
The fourth day started with me waking up at 7AM, forcing myself to sleep, waking up at 9AM, forcing myself back to sleep again, and then waking up at noon. My ankles hurt. It was a familiar feeling because they felt this way when I had spent a whole day walking like when I go to the zoo except I had barely walked all that much yesterday. I did some pacing while talking to my dad on the phone and I had walked to my apartment’s club house to play some pool. My joints pop every time I moved them. I noticed that my fingernails were losing color and that my skin was becoming paler too.
One of my roommate’s friends came over and I ended up making potato soup for the both of them for lunch. While I was boiling the potatoes, I put a piece of one in my mouth without even thinking about it. Despite being just a small piece of potato, it tasted amazing. The flavor covered my whole tongue and it tasted as rich as a chocolate bar. Realizing what I was doing, I ended up spitting it out… I wasn’t supposed to eat anything for the next seven hours. My roommate and his friend heavily complimented my soup as I laid on the couch, shutting my eyes for a few moments, listening to how slow my heart beat and how deep my breaths had become.
At about two hours till midnight, I started preparing the first meal that I would have in four days. It was a pot of beef vegetable soup from scratch and the time crawled slowly… it crawled slowly the entire time I went without eating. Every pain, every headache, every ache, every hour I couldn’t sleep dragged out to where the whole experience felt like two weeks.
The timer I had set on the microwave went off at 12:01 AM Tuesday morning. I pushed myself off the couch and onto my feet. My vision went blurry again and I just about tripped walking to the kitchen. The pot was sitting on stove where it had been simmering for over an hour. I walked up to it and stood looking into the pot for a few moments. I felt tears well up in my eyes but I choked them back. I had to smile over how emotional I was getting over a pot of soup. I prepared myself a bowl and went back to the couch in the living room. My hand shook under the weight of the bowl and I had to set it down for a moment. Again, I felt a lump in my throat and closed my eyes in thanks for the food that I had. After that, I dug in, picking apart every flavor and texture that I had put into it: hamburger, carrots, peas, green beans, corn, black beans, potatoes, garlic, onions, green onions, tomato soup, milk, beef stock, butter, olive oil, red wine, white wine, salt, pepper, paprika, deli mustard, hot sauce, ginger, parsley, sage, and worcestershire sauce. Three bowls later, I was satisfied and I filled three Tupperware containers with the remaining soup and put them in the freezer. I then put my dishes away, walked to my bed, and fell asleep in only about ten minutes.
This will be an experience that I’ll never forget. Although it wasn’t for that long of a time frame and I only felt a fraction of the aches and pains that nearly 1/5th of the world experiences almost their entire lives, I now have a newfound perspective on and appreciation for something that I had long taken for granted. Even if the food is bland, it still has taste. Even if it only a small amount of food, it still nourishes. A single bowl of soup can just about bring a man to tears. A single bowl of soup can create joy and hope. Appreciate the food you have but be mindful to how not everyone has it. Food is good.
Fatmanonice, July 13th 2010
"Isn't the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and to not ignore your own flesh [and blood]?" -Isaiah 58:6-7, NIV version
“There is no fire like passion, no crime like hatred, no sorrow like separation, no sickness like hunger, and no joy like the joy of freedom. Health, contentment and trust are your greatest possessions, and freedom your greatest joy.” -15 (Joy), the Dhammapada
“Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Ascent is! It is to free a slave and to feed in the day of hunger an orphan near of kin or some poor wretch in misery and to be of those who believe and exort one another to perseverance and exhort one another to pity.” -90:12-17, the Koran
