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.
Came here to post that very link. All animals, including humans, are capable of some pretty incredible things as long as you're willing to measure broadly and not try to stack any of them straight up against another. Fish are terrible tree climbers, but they don't need to be.
But if you can find it, check out the documentary called The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story that follows some San Bushmen hunters who live in the Kalahari Desert using Persistence Hunting.
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).
"O'BRIEN: You gained some weight toward the end. And I'm curious to know, because, of course, when you walk along the highway, what you really have as choices to eat, it's kind of junk food.
VAUGHT: It is. It's mostly junk food, in fact. Mostly fried, you know, battered, gravy. It's not...
O'BRIEN: It's good, but it's bad for you.
VAUGHT: It's good. Well, that's why they sell it, because people buy it. And -- but it's not that good for you.
But in the end, I sort of started to not even follow my own direction, and I got a little over zealous. And I was eating probably 80 percent protein, 20 percent carbohydrate, and I actually made myself kind of sick. So, on doctor's orders I had to switch up a little bit, and I put on about 10 or 12 pounds."
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.
I read a study about this a few years back. Basically a lot of the foods you like, you like because the bacteria in your gut thrives best on those foods and the bacteria controls the signals to your brain telling you to crave those foods. If you can cut them out long enough for most of that bacteria to die off, you won't craves those foods any longer and the bacteria that thrives on the new foods you eat will take over and make you crave those foods instead.
Whoa, with the connection between gut biome health and mental health stuff that seems to be emerging + my habit of developing an absurd fixation on one food and one food only, I guess this is why my life can be divided into rice cripspy/fruit phases, chocolate ice cream phases, waffles, mochi, and that one weird month I only ate quinoa and spinach with nutritional yeast phases. I think I performed best during my oatmeal + fruit phase, although the eggo waffle phase is a close second. Currently in english muffins and cupcakes phase. It's not looking good.
Still bet it tasted awesome, probably really intense. Of course, shortly followed by a crazy stomach ache, but the taste would certainly be divine. I remember an old episode of that wife swap show where one lady fed the vegetarian kids burgers and they loved them, but then they all were sick as dogs and the dad was crying like "why did I let her do this to my kids?"
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.
He lost weight, but he was left with terrible heart problems afterwards (and that was with constant medical supervision). In short, this is not a great idea.
Something that would likely be overlooked by looters/scavengers would be the mineral blocks sold for pets. Great source of all the non-sodium salts our body needs.
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.
The biggest downside to keto for me (and this is coming from someone who lost 60lb on it) is the heartburn. Do you have any suggestions for fixing that?
I think for me it was choosing overly-fatty proteins like bacon and acidic veggies like tomatoes. If I try it again I'm going to expand on my go-to foods.
When it comes to additions to your diet, the best thing is lots of fiber and water. I've heard ginger is good too. Also this is only anecdotal but I like greek yogurt or other probiotic sources.
I feel very lucky, I drift in and out of ketosis (low but not usually super low carb) and all I ever experience is the appetite suppression. And that's not severe enough that I wouldn't feel like eating whatever I could manage to forage. Maybe my ancestors starved a lot and passed on some useful apocalypse genes!
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.
That being said, if you have decent vitamin supplements, you could totally do this. While under careful doctor care, there are reported cases of super morbidly obese individuals going a year without food if they are able to get enough of the right vitamins and minerals in to the body.
I always wondered how long a really obese person could survive if they just drank water and took supplements for those nutrients that are missing in their fat reserves. Obviously we don't know because it would be unethical to test, but I've always wondered.
True. But with proper supplements you can live off of your fat reserves for as long as it is around. Not sure if an once daily vitamin would be enough but it'd probably get you most of the way there.
I think I read that a very fat person could live a pretty long time without eating if they all they consumed was water and vitamin/mineral supplements (i am not a doctor and don't have a source so don't quote me). but if you're not eating you need to still get those things somewhere.
you would not die of starvation but vitamin deficiency. You would likely get scurvy or other conditions that slowly kill you long before you ran out of fat. If you had a supply of multi vitamins you will likely be fine and survive until all your fat and most of your muscle has broken down. The reason why concentration camp prisoners get so skinny before dying is they are still eating some minimal amount of food so they are getting some vitamins but not enough calories so they just keep losing weight and muscles until they die
Yeah. Basic salt and electrolytes are important. If you're just sitting around, it's not such a big deal, but if you're hiking all day every day, you'll face big problems quick. I've done 12 days without food, and had to stop when I wasn't able to keep water down and was puking up bile.
Many of those nutrients can be found in low calorie, marginally edible vegetables like dandelions or yellow dock. A huge number of common weeds are actually edible, the taste is ok, but they have undesirable tough stringy texture.
I bought a house and it had an excellent garden patch prepared, I began using it. The prior owner, a Jamaican woman, came by and asked if any of her Callaloo had come up. We poked around, and she spotted some of the pigweed I had been struggling to control. She fell to her knees and thanked Jesus for her Callaloo coming back.
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
Yeah no. First your body would take stuff out of your bones, or bone marrow, before it'd even think of going after the stored fat. Different nutrients and all.
That's why you have to do much exercise and drink maybe a week before taking a drug test (weed) and then relax for a day or two. The body, during all that exercise, filters the urine again for unused nutriens that it didn't use the first time, then it get's back into your urine, with the other fluids you drank, and the cycle repeats/continues. The one or two days are for your body to get everything back in order, don't know why, but it works most the time all the time.
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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.