What If You Don't Eat (Day by Day)

Hunger striking is a difficult task. You vow not to eat for days or even weeks, but the reality is that as each day goes by things will become worse and worse. Eventually, you reach the end where you’ll be a skeleton. The best part about hunger striking is that once you stop eating, it will be the last food you'll consume for a while! When swallowing food, your throat muscles contract and push it down into your stomach. This action is called peristalsis--and it happens even when you're upside down!

Your body breaks down food in your stomach and the waste is then poop out to be absorbed into the bloodstream. This can take hours to complete, so once you stop eating you won't feel the effects of starvation for some time. 6 hours after you stop eating your body has now broken down all of the food from your last meal. Some of the nutrients are still in your bloodstream but in lower numbers than they were while your food was still being digested. However, the glucose from that meal is almost completely used up and this is when your brain starts sending signals to your body that make you feel hungry. Hunger is your body telling you it needs more glucose to make energy. But since you've decided to stop eating altogether, these signals go unanswered and so you might start to become irritable or what's known as hangry. Many people have a shift in their mood when they get hungry, especially when they've been fasting for a while. Your brain is signaling your stomach to make hormones such as ghrelin which stimulates the feelings of hunger.

Ghrelin can also make you feel anxious, which is one of the reasons you become irritable and grouchy when you are hungry. After several hours of not eating, people will no longer want to be around you. You might have a short temper, experience mood swings, and heightened emotions due to low blood sugar levels, all because your body is craving more glucose. 1 day after you stop eating biological changes have started to occur within your body and people may feel like they have more energy now than they did the day before despite not having eaten anything since the previous day. While you slept, your body tried conserve energy and so now that you're awake, it pulls whatever glucose is left out of your bloodstream to keep yourself going. It has been a full 24 hours since your last meal and so your body quickly goes from feeling good to sluggish and miserable despite conserving energy. The energy that was conserved slowly begins to be sapped from you by drinking lots of water while constantly staying hydrated because even without food dehydration would kill you within days. You've sworn off juices and soda so as not to refill with glucose from those sources; however water only quenches thirst and never provides what the body needs for sustained energy.

The faster your heart is beating, the more energy you are using. The quicker you deplete your glucose levels, the sooner your body will start consuming itself to generate the energy it needs to keep you alive. Your body is using the least amount of energy while you are sleeping, so resting is your best course of action to extend the amount of time you can go without food. The bottom line is that if you have the choice between eating or going on a hunger strike, it’s best to just keep eating. Starvation can have long-term effects that you may never recover from.