[brandall10]

Hunger, like cold exposure, is an uncomfortable but transient signal. In many cases it peaks and subsides without requiring immediate action, especially once the body adapts.

Anecdotally, my first 72-hour fast was revealing. Around the 48-hour mark my body aggressively signaled hunger, esp. for sugary foods. By the third day, however, hunger largely subsided, and at break I wasn’t hungry at all. For the following week the usual sugary suspects in my life went untouched. Subsequent 72-hour fasts were far more manageable, suggesting at least some component of adaptation.

My understanding is that this ability to adapt exists because intermittent hunger and cold were regular aspects of human life for much of our history, particularly in environments without reliable food access (pre-agrarian) or thermal protection.

[ricardonunez]

I have similar findings. I fast regularly and take cold showers. Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times. You don’t even think about food which is harder if you have two to three meals per day.

Edit: for those wanting to try this lifestyle, everybody is different. do your own research before jumping into regular fasting or even cold showers. Max time without food I did was 6 days, since then t it he max is 72 hours. Do blood work regularly and if you drink coffee be aware that caffeine withdraws are painful.

[gametorch]

> Another thing is one meal days are far easier after you do it couple of times.

It's mind-boggling to me that multiple "one meal" days don't incidentally happen to everyone over the course of a year.

I would think most people have those days where they skip breakfast and lunch due to some or other exigency and only get to eat dinner.

[SoftTalker]

I only eat breakfast intentionally, as I am not really hungry in the mornings. But as I understand it, it's better to get your calories earlier in the day than late, so I make myself eat in the morning.

[ricardonunez]

I am testing it at the moment. I read that cortisol levels raise after 14 hours or so of no food. So I decided to eat breakfast about 13 hours to see if there's any changes on my mood. I do find it that I get less cranky. Another thing, this year during mother's day I had a huge brunch, so I didn't eat anything else that day, and it worked fine for 24 hours, the problem is that I felt in comma after eating that much which is one of the reason I stopped eating lunch, I don't like to crash; what to eat solves that partially, but I still fine some slow down after eating breakfast.

[anonzzzies]

When calory restricting I do this too: I am actually never hungry before 11 am while I get up at 5 am always but I force myself (at 8) and don't need anything else the rest of the day because of it.

[hyperman1]

You scare me. After life dishing out one of its lessens, I decided to get some fundamentals in order, and for me that includes 3 meals a day, with the family. Things have to get really disastrous to not get breakfast, and I don't think my kid skipped breakfast ever. Each his own, of course, but I wonder what happens in your life that this is semi normal?

[gametorch]

I have a morning routine. Usually I go for a walk and read for an hour before doing anything else. But I almost never eat breakfast. I'm just not hungry in the morning.

By midday I'm on an adventure. Some days, it takes me in a direction where it makes more sense to skip lunch than to stop and have it.

When I'm hungry and it's convenient, I eat. When I'm not, I don't.

It's almost never the case that I'm hungry for a meal three times a day.

[robocat]

> if you drink coffee be aware that caffeine withdraws are painful.

I've successfully used caffeine pills (e.g. some NoDoz brand products) for coffee replacement to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Specifically I used caffeine pills to give up coffee. I found it easy to taper down caffeine usage to zero by using a standardised dose size.

Additionally pills are a habit change which helps me stick with a plan. I have tapered down using instant coffee but I found that was a little harder to police myself.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I cannot work when I don't eat, I'm unable to think properly. I'm not sure how people manage fasting

[adrian_b]

When you do not eat, you are not permanently hungry, at least not when you are accustomed to this. This is similarly like when you feel that you must immediately use the restroom, but when that not happens the sensation disappears and it may come back only one hour or two later.

What is funny is that, at least for me, the sensation of hunger is strongly conditioned by whether there really exists a possibility to satisfy it.

I eat 2 meals per day and during the time between them I am not hungry, and if I were hungry that would be futile, because I intentionally do not keep in my home any kind of food that can be eaten instantly, but only raw ingredients that I must cook before eating.

After I cook my next meal, I have to be patient and wait some time for the food to cool down. During that time, I become suddenly very hungry and like you say, I find it difficult to continue to work at the computer or at whatever I was doing, as my thought shifts to the food I am waiting to eat.

In the past, when I kept food that could be eaten at any time, without preparation, I became frequently hungry and it was hard to resist to the temptation of having a snack.

[_yb2s]

Some people never seem to be able to think clearly or focus while fasting, independently of any feelings of hunger. There is likely some biological variability here, but it could also be due to metabolic problems that are making it hard to provide the brain with energy during a fast. In some cases the fasting itself can help treat that, and it may get better over time.

[_yb2s]

People respond differently to fasting, some are never able to do focused knowledge work during a fast, others can’t at first but can once their bodies get used to fasting. Others can immediately focus better right from the beginning. There is a lot of individual variation.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I literally cannot sleep if hungry. I wake up in the middle of the night if I had dinner and went to bed at midnight. My trick is to eat one apple right before sleep, then I wake up not hungry and can sleep well.

[sowbug]

If you can handle the body's switchover to ketosis, the rest of the fast is relatively easy.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I did that before, my breath becomes horrible when that happens, but it's way more manageable. Is there a way to activate ketosis before starting the fasting? That seems like it could solve my problem

[sowbug]

Ketosis is your body using fat as an energy source when glucose isn't readily available. So if you deprive yourself of dietary glucose (carbs, simple sugars, etc), but keep eating fat and protein, you'll enter ketosis while eating as much sustenance as you want. Use ketone strips to tell when it happens.

The breath thing is unavoidable as far as I know.

[_yb2s]

Apologies in advance for the pedantic response, but the human body can generally make enough glucose from protein to keep you out of ketosis. You usually have to restrict both protein and fat to reliably induce ketosis. You can confirm this for yourself with ketone test strips. Most dieters on so called ketogenic diets are not actually in ketosis.

Even more surprising is that fermentable fibers get converted into short chain fats by bacteria in the gut that are ultimately metabolized as ketones, so a diet high in those can induce ketosis even with a high carb diet. Some herbivore animals are always in ketosis, and some carnivores are almost never in ketosis unless they are starving and can’t find protein.

[_yb2s]

Ultimately, regardless of how one feels, you need to (will) maintain calorie balance in the long term, and cold exposure requires a higher calorie intake.

[brandall10]

For sure, but my point is that increased hunger doesn’t automatically negate the benefit via overeating; people often adapt through modest adjustment instead.

More generally, it seems inconsistent to assume someone can voluntarily tolerate significant cold discomfort while being unable to manage similar degrees of hunger discomfort.

[louthy]

I also found that after my first 3 day fast I was able to deal with hunger much better. I used to get irritable when hungry and now I realise I can just tolerate it without any real downside — even years after my last fast.

It’s like my brain has retrained itself to ‘just get over it’. It was quite something

[deepsun]

I read blockade survivors diaries, they all say it's easy to get used to hunger, but not to cold.

[anonzzzies]

After about 24 hours I don't notice anymore. I just finished a 2 week fast on only water, tea and supplements. I hardly notice when I focus on something else (work/hobby). When I stop focusing I get sleepy instead of hungry. Cold I have not managed; I come from a cold country and I really really hate any type of cold; I like 30C+ high humidity as a baseline, under that, I am cold and uncomfortable. I did try to view them the same and tried to meditate through it, but, unlike fasting, I cannot ignore the continues suffering that is cold while fasting is almost pleasant (makes me sharper).