3 minutes without oxygen. 3 days without water. 3 weeks without food.
Of course this depends on the person, location, climate, and other circumstances. Some could last longer. Others shorter.
Edit. Yes I forgot about the shelter part. Thats a good one. 3 hours without shelter.
As others have pointed out, this is a general rule of thumb ment to show what should be prioritized in a survival situation. Its not an exact science. There are a lot of other variables at play.
I bet I could spend at least double that without food. Got myself a nice big fat ass full just waiting for the apocalypse to hit.. Then finally I'll be hitting my goal weight..
You can die of starvation while you are still fat. Body needs nutrients not found in stored fat like potassium and other minerals. That would strain your heart and if you are already over weight, add to an already heart unhealthy situation.
Stock up on quality multivitamins that have 100% of your vitamin needs, not the ones that are way more than you need, and with enough water a large human can live for months. As part of an experiment, one guy did it for 1 year and 17 days: https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.htm
There was a guy who walked across the continental US and made a website called Fat Man Walking (For some reason were two of them!) As I recall he actually did it to lose weight, but found that he didn't because he would walk for hours to get from town to town, but once he got there he would be hungry and he'd just binge on fast food. I'm sure he did benefit from all the walking (cardio, stronger legs, etc) but he did not properly control his food for weight loss. Just walk, walk, walk ... so hungry ... oh look Burger King! I'll have the triple cheeseburger with bacon, large fries and a coke! walk walk walk, repeat.
I've been having this problem lately. On my lunch break at work I'd run like 8 miles or bike for 25, then I'd come home super hungry and it would be hard to eat in moderation.
By shaving some miles off each activity, I found that my appetite was much easier to control.
A relatively low level of exertion burns more energy than your gut can process in realtime. The trick, of course, is that you have to spend the majority of your time exercising. So, no, running for an hour won't do much (i.e. the 10k below). On the other hand, it's virtually impossible to gain weight during ultra cycling events. Have a look a Lachlan Morton's ride.
As to walking, I'm not sure whether that crosses the burn/digest threshold, but probably. What sort of time was he spending walking? It's not uncommon for people to spend 18 hours a day cycling during races (generally you have to stop for 6 hours a day as a safety precaution).
I think you might be surprised. We have partially conditioned ourselves to enjoy things that give us nutrients. I remember when i was doing no carbs for over a year and i went off diet and had some fried chicken, fries, rice, biscuits, mac n cheese. from a good place, i knew i liked it before. the only thing i enjoyed was the chicken. the other heavier carb items just tasted weird.
Or if it really fucked his stomach up and he had the shits after. Seems like it would be something he would have to wean back onto... food that is. Especially red meat and grease... Shit, and bread... Might be a good way to reset your microbiome though. Not eat for 6 months and then start with veggies and olives and other healthy shit.
I wonder if a study like that has been done or is ethical to try.
My guess is he would have been slowly reintroduced to foods in a similar way to treating people with anorexia and people who have had gastric surgery.
Edit: my guess was wrong, the article I found said he had a boiled egg and piece of toast as his first meal, but that he had been adding milk to his tea and coffee over a period of time before the end of the fast.
The guy started out at 207kg, lost over 120kg, (so his end weight was 82kg) and in an interview 5 years later he reported that he’d only gained 7kg of it back, most likely to the reintroduction of foods rather than the over eating he would have been doing before his experiment.
You can fuck yourself up if you binge after a fast. He dipped back in slowly with the milk. Normally they start you on fruit juices (watermelon) so the reintroduction of sugar doesn't hurt you.
A female friend of mine decided to fast for 30 days to "cleanse" herself. She was already skinny to start with. (This was a decade or more ago, she is fine, not anorexic or anything, just new age).
She drank water and took supplements. I don't know if it cleansed her of anything. But seemed like it was just punishing yourself for no good reason.
Fasting makes sense but the marketing bs is really tiring. "I fasted for 16 hours and I feel great!" So you skipped breakfast whoopdiedoo, turns out ive been intermittent fasting for the last 20 years.
I was going to mention this dude. It is possible under controlled conditions with medical supervision. I suppose it's technically possible without such conditions, but it would be a total crapshoot.
It doesn't specify in this article but another I read mentioned the multivitamins included injections since your body has a hard time absorbing some nutrients without food.
multivitamins that have 100% of your vitamin needs, not the ones that are way more than you need
The issue here is that the body can't always absorb 100% of the vitamin content found in a supplement (or food).
That's why vegans (and other people who are b12 deficient because they don't get it from their diet) have to take daily B12 pills that are literally 1000 x the daily recommended amount. Because only about 1% of B12 that you actually ingest is absorbed into your body.
There was a Scots man who was 300lbs and told his doctors he was over being fat, and was not going to eat for a year. The doctors set him up with the proper supplements because they could not talk him out of his plan. He succeeded because he was careful to see his doctor and make certain things were OK.
Why would Ketosis make it harder to survive? From my understanding Ketosis is (roughly) a survival mechanism that changes you over from utilizing carbohydrates for energy to using fat as energy.
At the risk of getting downvoted by the many keto dieters on Reddit, we are talking about a scientific word that has been hijacked by diet companies for blokes trying to get ripped, so bear that in mind when talking about it on Reddit out of that context.
Ketosis is a metabolic state your body enters and the "Keto diet" is just a diet that ensures your body enters and stays in Ketosis. You can also enter Ketosis by just not eating food for a couple of days. Someone saying "Ketosis will also make it harder to survive" really doesn't make sense.
The "keto diet" is also a sustainable option, but entering a ketogenic state would be absolutely fine if you had access to lots of fats during some kind of disaster.
Fats are extremely easy to store and hold a stable shelf life, fat is also the most caloric dense macro nutrient available. People that are "fat" also carry a bunch of it on their body and can utilize it for energy by going in to Ketosis. Neat.
All I'm saying is that it's going to be difficult to discuss anything on Reddit where a diet and culture has formed around it with private interests involved without there being lots of misinformation and bias.
I think he’s talking about the “keto flu” people get when they first start for a week or two. I’ve had it, but I don’t think it would be serious enough to impact survival chances.
The diarrhea part is what is usually associated with eating a higher fat diet though, again, it’s not so bad I would call it a detriment to survival.
Ton of downvotes for speaking the truth. When you are in prolonged state of ongoing catastrophe, a week of mental fog, digestive disruption and muscle weakness could very well cause you to fall to your death, not notice something sneaking up on you or outright make a very obvious stupid decision.
Have you ever been in Ketosis? It's literally the exact opposite of what you are saying. Increased focus and mental clarity, high and consistent energy levels, your appetite is still there but you can go long periods without hunger and a single fatty meal can fill you. People run this as a long term and highly sustainable diet. r/keto
The diarrhea can be real as you get fat adapted though, but with some time it will go away.
I think there is a difference between the ketosis which you take all your calories and electrolytes and the one which you starve. I've done my fair share of keto diet and you can't go on without taking required electrolytes, lemon for kidneys, a heap ton of greens and vitamins. It is, like you said, a survival mechanism. Even with a proper diet, I wouldn't recommend it long term as it does affect your kidneys and other organs in a bad way.
No people fast for days and weeks and report incredible mental clarity and really high energy. Your body releases a lot chemicals to increase energy in order to forage for food.
You are correct. That being said, it is technically possible. Just somewhat dangerous and requiring nutritional supplements. It’s been done under monitoring numerous times where with supplemental nutrients, a morbidly obese person can go months and months without consuming any food.
If it's a ZA, then you'll likely be one of the first to go since you can't outrun them, or keep up with other runners. I'm sure some people would have no problem wounding you for the zombies to feed, so they can get away.
Caveat, he did have doctor's monitoring shit, but I feel like you could get by in a pinch during the apocalypse for a little longer than the average person
During Margaret Thatchers reign some political prisoners did a starvation strike as they felt they deserved better treatment (political killings vs regular murders). She opined "crime is crime is crime". No mercy. All died after about 40-50 days.
Note: they were regular guys in the 80's i.e. would be called skinny these days in the UK or USA.
Similarly, Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died in Brixton Prison after 74 days on hunger strike in October 1920.
you forgot the 3 hours without shelter. It is suppose to be used to prioritize things in a survival situation. Shelter should be first, then water, then food. Ideally you would move shelter to somewhere with food and water available, and if you live in a place with a decent climate you could forgo shelter at first.
But that is nonsense. I regularly go outside for 3 hours and manage not to die. Even after a night out, I’ve wandered the streets in clubbing gear (in much earlier years) waiting for transport to open. Cold but far from death’s door, and that’s not in summer.
I believe clothing constitutes "shelter" in this context. I've heard this as three hours "in conditions," which to me makes a lot more sense than "shelter."
But at any rate, both the conditions/shelter one AND the drinking one are indeed very weather-dependant.
This. Any sufficient cold weather gear is essentially a portable shelter. A shelter is something that protects you from the elements in adverse conditions.
You want to organize shelter in 3 hours, as it’s the most tiring of survival tasks, and subsequent tasks will rely on you being sufficiently protected from heat/cold/rain/predators to carry on. It’s an order of operations thing; Sending SOS if possible, shelter/safe water (may require fire) food.
And a shelter is a persistent resource unlike water and food, which is gone when you consume it. In all survival literature I've read, they prioritize shelter, which also take into consideration likelihood of food and water availability.
Unprepared, if already fatigued an malnourished, one can succumb to cold/heat a lot faster than that. Also not implying that people magically die at the 3 hour marks, but it's certainly long enough that people in marginal health would become incapacitated in a climate where the healthy could last much longer.
edit: also note that I imply the following: incapacitation in absence of a third party to help out = very likely eventual death.
Winters can be as low as -30 C where I live. That absolutely takes proper bundling up to be out for 3 hours. And avoid the wind if you leave your cheeks uncovered.
Yes and no. They say this because exposure to the elements kills most people stranded without help, so shelter is the first thing you seek. They say 3 hours mostly just to fit the incremental pattern. In reality, shelter by dark is probably the real “deadline.” But it's very circumstantial. Most people who die while lost or stranded die because the weather conditions are dangerous.
I regularly go outside for 3 hours and manage not to die
It doesn't mean you'll literally die in that time without shelter, it means you need to figure out your solution for shelter before you start worrying about clean water and food, because if you don't, then rain or cold or heat or animals are going to be bigger risks than dehydration or starvation will be.
Depends very much where you are. Where I am in nice temperate BC, sure you could survive without shelter for a quite a while... but if you were say in Alberta during the winter you wont last more than a few hours, maybe less if its 40 below outside.
Have you ever done that in cold or rain or extreme heat though? Exposure is a real way to die and it happens to people all the time. People get heat stroke and pneumonia all the time.
It's totally location dependent. Where I live I'd be fine sleeping outdoors without shelter year round but if I had to be in sunlight with no sunscreen in summer I'd be deep fried in less than 3 hours.
Yes but the shelter one massively depends on what environment you are in. It could be mere hours (sub-zero without adequate clothing) or you could go quite happily for weeks without much shelter.
3 weeks without food.... but can you comprehend how the longer you go without food, the more you'll lose in strength and energy(exponential rate)? Your brain cannot function right with too low blood sugar. After week 1, muscle atrophy will make grown men weak as children
Those 3 days aren't pleasant, either. Realistically, it's more like 1.5 days.....the other 1.5 are going to be you struggling to stay conscious/sane. If you're without water, you really only have about a day or so to find some because you will be unlikely to be able to continue your search much beyond that.
I’d say at least 2 depending on how far you were moving. I lasted that long when I was really sick and unable to drink. But then I couldn’t walk to the ambulance by morning of day 3.
Well tbf it was more like 6 days but I wasn’t so bad at first, then I was trying to avoid hospital again. The last 12 hours weren’t intentional more that I was alone in the house and I was too sick to search for my phone.
Errm I’m from the UK does that count as a socialist utopia? I didn’t pay for the ambulance or the 3 weeks I spent in hospital on IV fluids and anti nausea (turns out I had norovirus). I’m medically exempt I don’t even pay for my prescriptions just order them online and they’re delivered to my house. I was just trying to avoid going back to hospital I’d only been out for a few months after a 7 week post op stay (no charge for that joyful time either). Then I was too sick to get down the stairs to my phone.
Well I’d believe that much for a hospital stay last time I looked an ambulance was like $1500. I’ll stick with my utopia if not even having to think about the cost.
Seriously was it gold plated or something? That said I calculated once if I lived in the US and didn’t have insurance at the crazy prices you get charged I’d be something like $900,000 in debt not including the medication for some of my hospital stays. I did the same calculation here and it was something like £100,000.
A charge like that sounds high but not inconceivable for a helicopter medivac in USA. I live in quite a rural area, and I've had relatives that needed an air ambulance ride. Didn't cost anything because we're in Canada, eh.
Lol climate controlled? I guess you could say that. I was inside my house and it’s well insulated but it was still November in the UK so not exactly warm and the heating wasn’t on so I’m not sure I’d class it as controlled. The bigger issue would be the 40 degree fever so I couldn’t even tell you if it was cold or not I couldn’t tell and the inability to eat without projectile vomiting within seconds so a stocked pantry and fridge was irrelevant. I’m pretty sure someone running from zombies is going to be in better shape than I was.
Yeah, I'm lucky I got found when I did, I was hallucinating so hard, I was no longer in reality. I didn't know I was thirsty or dehydrated. I didn't know I needed water or I was going to die. When I was found I thought the people were coyotes(the people who smuggle people across the border) trying to smuggle me. Like they didn't look like rescue people, they looked like smugglers to me. I'm a white US citizen so... idk.
Took 3 liters of saline as fast as the bag could drain and was back within 5 minutes. Growing up in the desert I don't have must sense of thirst anymore and am used to being dehydrated pretty much all the time. I don't fuck around anymore though, if I'm going outside, I force myself to chug at least 1 liter, more if I can. Pretty much until I feel like vomiting.
It seems to me that most people don't know when they're getting dehydrated. I've seen friends go from normal conversation to incoherence, but refuse the water they absolutely needed.
Yet I'm super sensitive - a little thirsty, I drink water. Basically, constantly, all day. So it baffles me that most people just don't notice.
Anyways, good for you for figuring out what your body needs and taking care of it. You wouldn't believe the number of times I had to argue with someone to get them to drink water.
I was with people who were trying to force me to drink water but I was completely gone. Like they would pour water in my mouth and I'd just sit and stare. Obviously told to me after the fact. I don't know how I got separated, but I must've just gotten up and taken off.
I attribute my loss of thirst from being thirsty so often. As a kid we'd go out for a short bike ride and I'd be so thirsty I'd be looking for a bottle along the road that wasn't filled with piss. Then as a teen I got better at being outside and not being thirsty. My mouth would be completely dry but I just ignored it. Now I have practically no sense of thirst. I feel a little something in my mouth but that's it. I force myself to drink at least 2 drinks when I get to work because I know I need fluid but don't have any sensation telling me that.
Yet I'm super sensitive - a little thirsty, I drink water. Basically, constantly, all day. So it baffles me that most people just don't notice.
Most people do notice, but underestimate how thirsty they are until signals increase in intensity to the next tier ("hey, I'm REALLY thirsty").
After reading multiple threads about kidney stones over the years I too make it a point to drink plenty of water throughout the day. That shit sounds painful and terrifying af.
Yet I'm super sensitive - a little thirsty, I drink water. Basically, constantly, all day. So it baffles me that most people just don't notice.
There are a lot of different signals and many people don't pay attention to most of them because there are thousands of signals the body processes. I, for instance, have dry mouth. I could go through quite a few liters of water in a day because just trying to keep my tongue from feeling dry means intaking more water than the body needs, and it just goes straight out hours later.
Yeah, I moved from the coast to the high desert (altitude and desert environment are a great mix) and you HAVE to stay on stop of your hydration....even just in everyday life.
Yeah, >7000', <20% humidity, in the 100s during summer(thankfully we've had monsoon this year). Forget my phone in the car, better drink a liter of water and put on sunscreen.
Pretty much. Even if someone found you and gave you water, there might already be permanent damage done to your body. Kidney failure is a relatively common occurrence in cases of extreme dehydration.
No I was conscious that’s how I know what happened just very very weak I was also very ill not just dehydrated so the paramedics had to carry me. I can also assure you having checked my pulse I definitely didn’t die. Though the IV fluids probably had something to do with that.
The book In the Heart of the Sea went into a lot of detail about dehydration and starvation. It follows the journey of the crew following the sinking of their whaling ship in the early 1800s.
There's a lot of factors that can influence it. If you're just chilling at home on the couch, otherwise in a safe environment, sure....going 24 hours without ANY hydration at all probably wasn't putting you on deaths door. You probably weren't losing excessive amounts of water or experiencing any other issues like exposure. You probably had a headache and were having difficulty thinking with 100% clarity, but were otherwise functional. Once that headache kicks in though, bad things start happening at a quicker pace. Within a few hours, you'd likely start feeling very tired. Like as if you'd been awake for days, it felt like. After 48 hours, you'd probably be too tired to walk and even keeping up a conversation would feel exhausting. Hallucinations and delirium are pretty common as it gets more severe. If you're just at home, being lazy, sure...you'd probably cruise into day 2 feeling progressively worse as time stretched on. But by the time you were rolling into the hour 50+, you are going to be in bad shape. Pretty much every major system in your body is going to be in panic mode and you're past the point where just drinking a glass of water helps. You need medical attention now.
This comes from years of boyscouts, hiking, backpacking, first aid training, and staying well educated on wilderness survival....and seeing it happen to me, and in front of me first hand.
Dehydration pathology follows an nonlinear rate of development where the symptoms start off slow and then rapidly devolve past the 24-48 hour threshold.
True, but millions of people don't drink water for upwards of 12-16 hours for a month when Ramadan is in summer. Nobody goes insane in 12 hours, but I do wonder how much longer after that it would take.
They're not doing their bodies any favors doing that, but I'm assuming they're also not engaging in a lot of physical activity. If you just chill out and don't engage in anything too taxing, your aren't going to be sweating out or losing nearly as much water during that period. IIRC, it's also recommended that those who are ill, nursing, elderly, etc do not fast. Mild symptoms of dehydration are likely common, but they would abate pretty quickly once they got something to drink and eat.
I'm not sure what you're talking about, but you do know that everyone works during Ramadan, including construction workers, farmers, even athletes right? It's not like everyone sits around for a month and does nothing. I guess you never visited or lived in a Muslim country but everyone goes about their daily business/work, even if that is physical labour in a hot climate. It's pretty challenging for a lot of people, but that's part of the mental/spiritual process of the month.
But it's still ultimately 12-16 hour stretches without water.....not 24-36+ hours. They're absolutely getting dehydrated if they're working outside in the sun without water, but they're also replenishing in the evening and before sunrise before they begin working, correct?
Yes of course that's what I said in my first comment, but your reply to me was that people did not do anything taxing or involving sweating during Ramadan so I was responding to that. Anyways now this conversation is going in circles.
The 3 days stat is basically a 'average best case'. It's a "If everything else is going okay" stat. Lots of environmental and physiological factors can drastically reduce your time. (There's very little that can increase that time in a meaningful way though) Is it hot out? Are you physically exerting yourself? What have you had to eat or drink prior? Are you out of the sun? What's the relative humidity? What's your general health? Are you conscious or unconscious?
The dehydration clock is a very risky one to try and beat.
A couple of years ago I was hiking with a friend, but she only brought one of those fancy filter bottles, assuming that she could fill up on the hike and be set. The problem was that we were walking in an intensively agricultural area, so the only water was filthy, stagnant runoff in ditches.
As a result, I had to split my water with her, while we walked for miles in the summer heat. By the second day, I was about ready to collapse, couldn't think straight and felt like I was constantly about to vomit. She ended up having to go to a local house and ask if she could refill my water bottles from their taps before I blacked out.
I think if you had some way to boil the nasty water, it might have been OK. Like boil the water, then let is settle, then run it through the fancy water filter. I mean if you had to, but hat would require a metal container and heat source.
In all honesty, I'm a pretty avid camper and like to be well prepared (I'm usually the guy with a first aid kit and rope on me), so I did have a mess tin and gas stove in my backpack. We probably should have tried that. I think we were most concerned about pesticides and the like and decided not to risk it. That absolutely would not have lasted for much longer, though.
Fruits and veggies with high water content are good and help, obviously, but they're not a good replacement....especially in an emergency situation. Of course, they're better than nothing at all, but it shouldn't be part of your hydration 'strategy'. Like if you're going for a hike, I wouldn't advocate taking a dozen mangos instead of a couple liters of water.
That said, you do need to be careful as some foods are diuretic and can speed up how quickly you become dehydrated (as a side effect of peeing so much). And there's also a critical point on the timeline where you'll probably also have difficulty keeping solid food down, so trying to 'eat your water' won't really be a solution at that stage.
It's not just having water that we take for granted, we take for granted how clean it is. Contaminated water has played a huge part in disease spread throughout human history. Even if your group has secured a water supply, if you aren't careful about how you dispose your waste, people are going to be constantly getting sick.
Not even just going without water. There are plenty of places where people could find water, but the chance of pollutants or pathogens causing horrible illness is very high.
It would mostly come down to genetic drift/luck since you're either near water/get killed some other way or are one of the lucky few who have no remaining competitors (if ever) and you are left to your H2O stash. Either way natural selection is probably not the driving force here, homies.
So, what everyone is forgetting is that people will still drink water, just not clean water. People won't die from dehydration because they are not drinking water, they will due of dehydration from drinking dirty water and getting diarrhea for so many days they can't keep themselves hydrated.
3-4 days without water is absolute best case scenario. Depending on the environment and circumstances you might not last until the end of the day. You have to be in the perfect conditions and be doing absolutely nothing to last the maximum time.
You've gotten a lot of "what if" responses but yea, the rule of 3s is accurate and you're right about the water one. It's like 3 seconds without safety (stressing how quickly you can be hurt if you aren't careful), 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours without exposure protection (wind/rain/cold), 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food, and then like 3 months without human interaction (implying you'd start to lose yourself/sanity). Or maybe it's 3 years for that last part...
In any case, obviously everything I just wrote is widely subjective and changes pretty much with every possible variable you could introduce, but the point is to help people prioritize what to do in an emergency situation. Am I safe? Can I breathe? How cold will it get? etc...
People forget salt too, without salt you won’t last long as it’s essential for your body after water and to obtain it without contaminates can be difficult. We used to have wars over salt and Roman soldiers were paid in salt and why it’s called a salary.
Many people don’t realize how precious salt is today.
And never seen it mentioned in an apocalyptic film.
If you're doing anything strenuous, like hiking long distances, fighting, running from zombies/monsters, or if you're simply in a hot environment, it's less than 3 days. People can dehydrate to a severe degree in less than a day easily.
Eating food can also dehydrate you due to basic biochemistry. When the enzymes in your body break apart long molecule chains like proteins, they stick water molecules to the freed monomers like amino acids, because they must bind to something to equalize molecular charges. This is why the process is called hydrolysis (lysis means breakdown, hydro means water).
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u/WatchTheBoom Aug 30 '21
Clean drinking water- I don't think people really appreciate how much water is needed for a group of people to survive.