I once pledged to only consume 12-15 glasses of lemon-cayenne pepper-Maple syrup water for a week. I lasted 4 days. During those four days I went from "no problem" to "biggest dick on th planet" to "I'm loosing my marbles and can't think" to " give me something to eat dammit!" If work and life didn't demand sharp focus, I would do it again because beyond the fuzziness and stomach aches is a clarity. Also, craziest shits I've ever had.
When I was younger (15), I did an intermittent fasting sort of thing. Some days, sometimes multiple days in a row, I wouldn't eat anything, and other days I would eat less than my previous normal amount of food. I did this over a period of a couple months, and after that I just restricted myself to a very strict diet. This whole time I was keeping up with a daily exercise of a few miles of biking. At the end of six months I had gone from 210 pounds to 138 pounds.
I once read an article about how fasting would not only increase one's lifespan, but that it would increase the intellect as well. The reasoning was that human's intelligence is a product of our physical disadvantages and our craftiness in procuring food. So, 20 year-old me began to fast. I did however, keep drinking booze as well as water. I realize that beer is a food. I was drinking whiskey. I was also in the middle of my degree in creative writing, which consists mostly of writing on one's own time and then presenting copies of one's work to a workshop-format class. Essentially, one passes out the work, the other students take it home and do their best to destroy it by legitimate means, that is, they can't say for example, "your unicorn story sucks because I hate unicorns." Anyway, I did become more creative, but all I was writing about was food. I wrote a story about what it would be like in a post-bird flu world where there were no longer any birds and people had to adapt time-honored recipes with substitutions, mostly involving different preparations of bugs and algae. I stopped when someone accused me of being anorexic. I don't know about youse guys, but I don't know any anorexic creative geniuses. Plus, I like eating.
They went on a hike in the alps four days into a no food fast? That seems to be incredibly dangerous to me. I know I feel faint if I don't put a good meal in me early on in the day before exercising. I can't imagine I wouldn't keel over if I was in their position.
I actually dot think it is as dangerous as it sounds. In high school I was on the wrestling team and learned to fast for about 3 or 4 days of the week depending on my target weight. We would have practice every day after school (anyone that has wrestled can tell you how hard it is) and felt completely fine. So I guess, for me at least, fasting want anything special. Its was something I needed to learn how to do. I guess that's the reason why I don't like this post - a week of fasting doesn't give the body enough time to acclimate to the situation. What I find weird about the whole fasting thing is how it sticks with you later on in life. Maybe this is just me and one of the reasons why I am weird, but I catch myself not eating for a day or two at a time. I don't force myself not to eat, I'm just not hungry I guess. I have always thought that it was because I had learned how to fast properly and had become used to not eating, but I'm not really sure. Does anyone else find themselves 'forgetting' to eat, or does anyone have an experience that is similar to mine?