The caloric intake for the Minnesota Starvation was 1500-1600 calories a day for adult male. With 40 hours of largely sedentary activity/work (that is, working in a lab and taking class) and a combined 6-7 hours a WEEK of walking for about 22 miles.
You know what we call a diet where you eat 1,600 calories and do an average of 1 hour of mild aerobic activity to go along your largely sedentary job? Lenient. As in, if like a lot of obese people you've been trying to do a stricter version of the Minnesota Starvation Version for not just three months, but FOREVER but not losing significant weight then you just need to stop being such a slothful piggy and stop lying about your caloric intake/activity levels.
What was considered starvation then is now considered a normal long-term weight loss plan (one that's supposed to span for months if not years). What exactly changed between then and now? Why, despite diet advice being significantly more restrictive NOW than the advice THEN, were people skinnier then?
They were allowed 1200 calories, I believe. Isn't that quite a lot of calories, and the recommended amount for people? How can someone be starving if they are allowed to have 1200 calories per day? I think even on reddit there is a sub where there are many people who only eat 1200 calories?
Are you sure living on a minimum number of calories is going to work out well? Are you interested in learning what happened to conscientious objectors during WWII who volunteered to find out just what would happen when the number of calories was drastically reduced?
every time i see someone new and they’re like “there was a study-“ i’m just like i KNOW i know
I'm not sure if anyone here has come across the Minnesota Starvation Experiment before, or if it's been brought up in this sub before. A quick search doesn't bring up anything.
For anyone unfamiliar with it, I think much of what the participants of the experiment experienced has some parallels to the FA experience, but for food and eating disorders rather than for affection or love.
Basically, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment occurred in November 1944, where 36 men volunteered to be starved on the brink of death for nearly half a year, to determine the physiological and psychological consequences of severe dietary restriction and the ways to rehabilitate individuals afterwards. The rationale was to simulate the effects of famine, and to provide some information to help develop strategies for famine relief after WWII ended.
There's a lot of academic papers that mention this experiment and even more pop psych websites that talk about it as well, I'll link to this particular article as a reference cause it contains some salient paragraphs.
The way that the participants reacted to what little food they had access to, reminds me of the way I cherish and almost obsess small, far and few between interactions with women that would be otherwise inconsequential to normal people:
>"They would coddle [the food] like a baby or handle it and look over it as they would some gold. They played with it like kids making mud pies," wrote one subject. As the months went on, eating became an even more ritualized and often grotesque affair. Plate-licking was commonplace as the men sought out ways to extend mealtime and or feel fuller. They diluted potatoes with water, held bites in their mouths for a long time without swallowing, or labored over combining the food on their plate, "making weird and seemingly distasteful concoctions," the researchers reported.
A general obsession with food developed among many of the participants:
>Food became the sole source of fascination and motivation. Many men began obsessively collecting recipes ("Stayed up until 5 a.m. last night studying cookbooks," wrote one). They found themselves distracted by constant daydreams of food. Some sublimated their cravings by purchasing or stealing food; one man began stealing cups from coffee shops.
The effect on their day to day life in other domains were also effected:
>Meanwhile, all other elements of life seemed to fad
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I am conflicted. I do believe that fasting can provide major health benefits and I've recently been really wanting to complete an extended water fast.
However I've also been doing an equal amount of research and studying on the effects of starvation both mentally and physically. I've recently been dealing with what I thought to be binge eating disorder, which has inspired me to water fast to "control my condition" and the puffy inflammatory state it has caused me to assume compared to my previously lean self. Upon further research I've concluded by "binge eating" is more of a physiological response from the past 3 years of gym obsession and calorie restriction- and as a result my hormones and body are craving nourishment and calories to heal the damage caused by my restricted life style. (Before this I've never had a self control issue I've always been very type A mind over matter logic over emotion)
I have not been able to find evidence that water fasting would not harm the body in the same way- in fact many health advocates on YouTube have been speaking out against it lately due to the effects on metabolism and the rebound effect that will cause your body to want to binge until you are 10% higher in body fat percentage than you were before your fast.
Opinions? Thoughts? Experience?
No rudeness please, factual responses only. Thank you.
I've looked everywhere and haven't found any info on the exercise/activity levels of the groups. Wouldn't this information be vital to report on? yet there is no info on it. The participants were subject to 1600 calories daily during the "starvation" period and the pictures of the participants at the end of the study (those I've found online) certainly show very gaunt and underweight people but I don't see how 1600 daily calories could lead to those results unless the participants were exerting themselves.
If anyone can find any info on this I would really appreciate it
This was the name of an actual scientific experiment carried out on U.S. conscientious objectors during WW2. But it would also work for an emo band made up of anoretics named Olaf, Inga, and Lars.
They ate 1800 kcal/d (almost all carbohydrate), walked 22 miles/wk, with 3000 kcal/day total energy expenditure. I am matching this almost exactly - energy in, energy out, and distance - with none of the ill-effects noted in the experiment, including obsessions with food, extreme hunger, physical weakness, as detailed in interviews with the original participants documented here. I thought this was very interesting. My usual macros are 70% fat, 25% protein, 5% carb.
