A fast fast

[Alinestra Covelia]

Well, hour 48 came and went without any ill effects. Still drinking just water, although I took a three hour break from reading to play some Rise of Nations.

I'm kipping down for bed. Depending on what time they go eat tomorrow night, I might (outside chance) make the 72 hour mark.

[SlowwHand]

You won't be able to eat much. Eat right.

[Cort Haus]

What's the point of all this - losing weight? I expect losing the hat will have encouraged the scales to give a lower reading for starters.

[SlowwHand]

The hat is on it's own agenda. Not her problem. It can call it water retention all it wants to.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Okay, up in the morning. Definitely feeling slower. Every morning when I wake up there's some eye-adjusting to light, etc. Today it lasted much longer than usual.

Weight, unsurprisingly, still the same. Three days isn't enough time to lose much weight, especially when the faster is sedentary in front of a laptop with a load of books around. At least I am doing the reading - that probably burns a baseline amount of calories just thinking.

An interesting question: if I'm doing mental work like reading law, does that burn more calories than doing mental play like playing Rise of Nations?

Alas, the hat has deserted me. Left shaking its fist and saying something about hygiene... Sheesh, you would have thought at least that would register as a weight loss

The night I slept after the 24 hour mark, my heart rate was slower than usual. Normally as I bed down I become aware of my heart rate, and as far as I can tell usually it's going at more than 60 per minute. That first night my heart beat was extremely slow, which was interesting.

The second night (last night) after the 48 hour mark, my heart rate was back to normal as far as I could tell.

Still no biological waste except urine.

Depending on how my mental functions are going, I'll have to look at my notes later and see if they count as "intellectual" waste.

[Proteus_MST]

One thing that very probably will happen is, that you will grow tired much easier.
Like having more strong urges of going to bed after few hours of learning (or doing other work) than usual. Your body (well, more specific the subconscious neural processes within your brain) knows that it has to conserve energies and sleeping is the best thing it can do with this goal in mind

But you can probably counteract this by drinking things that contain lots of sugar (well, coke would be an example )

[Alinestra Covelia]

So far the only thing that's gone into my system is water. No sugar, no calories.

It's 11:12 a.m. on Saturday as I type this, which is 62 hours after I started the fast. Hunger pangs are much rarer now - I'll only get one pang, and it will last about ten seconds if that long. It's also far less acute than the previous ones (and those were pretty easy to ignore too). More of a rolling feeling in the stomach.

(And no, I'm not pregnant. So don't go there.)

I'm about to take an hour long drive to Washington D.C.

I'll go at about 50 mph. This will involve carrying a backpack with a laptop and books. Once I get to my friend's place I'll see how I feel. If I'm hungry or woozy I'll have some fruit.

[Alinestra Covelia]

At 3:30 p.m. I stopped the fast. I was at my friend's house outlining for law school and he had dinner plans for 8 p.m., so I decided to prepare the stomach.

I had a banana. It's been 10 minutes. We'll see how it goes. The person next to me is farting a storm at the table, so I might have to join in.

[SlowwHand]

Join in farting?

[Proteus_MST]

Well, from what?

Doesn´t sound like you have anything gas producing in your stomach.
I wouldn´t want to be near you however, if your first complete meal after your fast contains beans or the like

[SlowwHand]

How many calories does farting burn? Does attempt at suppression burn more; or are the good long rippers the real burners?

[Blake]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
How many calories does farting burn? Does attempt at suppression burn more; or are the good long rippers the real burners?

Suppression burns more, of course. Farts basically recirculate until released (they um, "go back up" for a bit). You're going to fart them out sooner or later and until then, you make your body work harder by not farting. So fart suppression burns more calories.

[SlowwHand]

There you have it, Alinestra Covelia. The definitive answer from Blake. Sit on it.

[Alinestra Covelia]

I've been thinking long and hard about this question, which is related to the farting discussion. The last time I started a thread on this back in 2001, the thread got deleted. So I'm going to try to sneak this one in, silently and balanced on one haunch perhaps, under the radar.

Fart gas is lighter than air, I think - it has a fair bit of methane and other organic gases that evolve from the breakdown of your intestinal contents.

So if you fart, you're expelling something lighter-than-air from your body.

Now picture this. You're standing on a scales which is very sensitive and is able to detect minute changes of weight. You feel one coming and you tell your friends to observe a moment of silence as you grab your arse cheeks and let 'er rip.

After a few minutes' applause, followed by fanning and opening windows, you check the scales.

Would the reading go down or go up? Would you have lost weight (by ejecting gaseous material from your body) or would you have gained weight (by jettisoning lighter-than-air material from your body)?

This is going to keep me up all night, I can tell.

[Adrian Hon]

If it's lighter-than-air, you've gained weight.