Hunger: The Key To A Better Life?

Discover why deciding to fast may actually be beneficial for us in the long run

Author

Noah Heim
May 12, 2023

I used to think that my Muslim friends were absolutely nuts for their Ramadan fasts.

Outside of them, I didn’t know anyone else who deliberately didn’t eat food for periods of time.

After all, we've been told all our lives that we're not supposed to skip meals, right?

A simple Google search of "Why shouldn't I skip a meal?" gave me over 20 million results.

Searching "Why should I fast?" gave me a quarter of the results.

So surely not eating for 3-5 days would be horrendous?

I got intrigued - I'm that one guy that questions everything.

I started reading scientific articles and watching YouTube videos to try to learn more.

Then I finally decided to stop learning about it and just try it.

A life-changing experience is an understatement.

There are many anecdotes that I could add to what I've written below, but I won't get into too much detail right now.

Before beginning to research what science has to say about fasting, the most I had heard about it was from stories from long ago.

So let's start there.

Looking into the past

Our ancestors

In case you didn't know, humans used to be hunter-gatherers.

We moved where the food was, and sometimes we didn't know where that was going to be or when that was going to come.

Long story short, we ate when food was available.

And situations like these are exactly why we (and other animals) have fat.

Fat is quite literally just stored calories that your body can use when you haven't had a meal in awhile.

If our ancestors didn't have fat and didn't have their next meal lined up, we wouldn't be here today. They would have run out of usable energy and died.

In today’s age, we rarely get into our stored calories because there’s always a McDonald’s or Starbucks around the corner when we get hungry.

Religion

Since biblical times, deliberate refusal of food has been pretty common - at least in religion.

Jesus did it, Muslims do it, Hindus practice it, as do Buddhists, and more.

There's a common, underlying theme here: putting aside our human desires can help us connect with a higher power.

Our human desires are not always ones we should act on. Most of our instincts are meant to keep us alive - not thrive.

There's power and stillness that come with going against your lizard brain, and there are lasting benefits that come with that.

These religions and cultures noticed that and incorporated it into their practices.

We live in a world where our basic needs can be met in a matter of seconds. It can be massively beneficial to focus on something else for a bit.

And just from the looks, fasting is more widely practiced in the east, but that's a topic for another day.

So What Happens When You Stop Eating?

Thankfully, science has been as interested in fasting as I am, and there is a plethora of data to look at.

Some of it I didn't even know before researching for this newsletter.

Unfortunately, there is more than I could get into in just one letter, but I'll be sharing some of the highlights.

So let's dive in.

Overall Well-Being

Most people who have fasted will tell you that they feel oddly good after getting over the initial hump.

I remember feeling amazing about 65 hours into my last fast, even though I slept horribly the night before.

In a study of 1400+ people who were fasting for 2–20 days, participants reported that they felt better both emotionally and physically while fasted.

The longer the participants fasted, the higher their reported well-being scores were.

Most added 1.5-2 points from where they started on a scale of 1-10 scale.

That's 15-20% in just a few days - nothing to sneeze at.

"How could I feel better when all I can think about is how hungry I am?"

A good question, but something that you probably don't need to worry about.

Hunger completely disappeared in 93% of the fasters. It seemingly vanished around the 42 hour mark of my last fast.

Ketosis

Glucose, a basic sugar, is our body's main fuel source.

That glucose is broken down from the carbs that you eat. Some is used right away, and some is stored in the liver (as glycogen) for later use.

When your blood glucose begins to drop, your liver will convert that glycogen back into glucose, and things carry on as normal.

However, your liver can only store about 10-14 hours worth of glycogen, depending on how active you are.

So wouldn't that mean that when those 10-14 hours are up, you'd run out of energy?

This is when our bodies do something pretty cool.

Our cells will start to release fat, and those fats will make their way to the liver, where they'll be turned into something called ketones.

Ketones are a great source of usable energy - especially for our brains.

There's evidence that our brain may even prefer using ketones as fuel.

This is what the "keto diet" is based around - eating low carbs so that your body's only option is to stay in ketosis.

Autophagy

Autophagy is a fancy title for the process your body undergoes to reuse damaged or old cell parts.

Think of it as your body's recycling system. Parts you no longer need will be disposed of, and parts that are still working will be reused.

This is a very important process.

Your cells get decluttered, and the tissue they're part of becomes more efficient since it's not pulling as much dead weight.

Getting rid of the faulty cells before they get a chance to cause problems is the perfect defense.

Here is the kicker though:

You might think that you might need to be fed to do this because it sounds like a lot of effort for your body.

Autophagy only happens when you and your cells are deprived of nutrients, aka fasting.

84% of the participants with pre-existing health conditions in the last study I mentioned saw an improvement in those conditions.

Autophagy plays a part in that. After all, disease is caused by a malfunction somewhere in our cells (if it's not caused by an outside agent).

It's even been thought to prevent cancer. Cancer is, simply put, an accumulation of normal cells that have gone rogue.

This process allows your body to swing at the problem and create more healthy cells - possibly strengthening the fight against disease.

Thank you so much for reading, friends.

I’ve been so excited to learn about the benefits of fasting and share them all with you.

Like many people, I used to think that skipping a meal was bad, but there are always two sides to a coin.

If anything, this newsletter has taught me and given me a reason to explore both sides of the coin.

If there’s one thing that stays with you today, it might not even be that fasting is beneficial for you body - it’s to question everything.

I’ve found a lot of joy in this process - nothing is ever as it really seems.

Anyways, thank you again.

Until next time, with love,

Noah

 

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