[ExI] Effects of low/no calorie diets, was Re: bug eating again

[SR Ballard]

> On May 27, 2017, at 11:22, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------you will gain insights on why so many
> 
> weight-loss programs fail.  Your instinct will overpower your will power.  spike
> -------
> Now Spike, you are right, of course.  But consider:  obese Ss were put on a starvation diet.  Hunger went away and stayed away after three days.  Hard to do?  Yes.  Impossible?  Not at all.  If you can outlast a headache you can outlast hunger.  It does go away after a while.
> Will power is another term that defies definition.
> 
> 
> 
> bill w
> 

I think that hunger going away after the third day is greatly exaggerated. Hunger pangs and physical hunger go away, more or less, but the psychological aspects of hunger intensify. And it is the psychological component that tends to make people obese or morbidly obese.

If you are interested in some of the effects, psychologically speaking, of that mental hunger, I can very easily point you in the direction of quite informative, detailed, online discussions of the topic from laypersons engaging in this behavior. 

But if you've not experienced it very acutely recently, let me give a brief view: restlessness and distractability. A light, euphoric floating feeling like you are quite drunk that can easily turn to viscous irritation. An impulse to somewhat claw at the throat or mouth, as well as cupboards and the outside of fridges. Searching for photos of food or looking at and touching it but not eating. Imagining "food pornography" which is to say vividly imagining buying, cooking, playing, and consuming foods. Your sense of smell is drastically improved to the point you can sometimes tell when someone a long way off is eating or has recently eaten. Trouble sleeping. Tiredness. 

Now the increased sense of smell maybe a physical response, but all the others are probably primarily psychological, as if someone knows they will not be eating for a period of time, they can show up extremely quickly (think just 2-3 hours) whereas a person often needs longer than that to become hungry.

So sure, physical hunger may disappate, but psychological hunger becomes a driving fixation.

Beyond that, a fast, after the initial water and fecal weight is lost, in many people is about 1lb per day (more if extremely overweight). So a very heavy person would need to fast for quite a long time, which introduces many possible issues, such as: blood sugar, blood salts, ketones, blood pressure drops (fainting/partial black outs), anemia, etc.

Also, breaking a long fast like this by gorging on high-fat foods is a recipient for disaster. First of all, gorging is an appropriate term for how some will eat, consuming (possibly) mind boggling amounts of food. It is physically possible to bust your stomach from doing this, though not likely in a one time event. Secondly, you've been starving yourself, and your digestive system has quietly been shutting down shop. Eating a high volume of complex food is going to introduce extreme gastrointestinal distress, including but not limited to: vomiting, swelling of the abdomen, delayed gastric emptying, constipation/diarrhea, and flatulence, as well as cramping, which can be excruciating. 

But, more worryingly than that (which can be so serious that it can lead to hospitalization, and in extreme/rare cases even death), this obese person may have already had a messed up relationship with food, and have now been exposed to a very eating-disordered pattern (fasting and subsequent binging). Developing a full-blown eating disorder like bulimia would be much more detrimental to their health than being even moderately obese ever could have been.

-Sophia
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