Your body learns how to fast, just like it learns how to run. If you fast regularly, you body switches into "fasting" mode quickly, and you feel much less of an impact cognitively or physically, than if you've never fasted before (or haven't fasted for a long time).
If it comes down to who can just survive the longest with zero calories, someone weighing 300 pounds is probably going to out-last me. But if there's any level of physical or mental activity required to survive and/or actually acquire calories, I'm going to have a big advantage.
EDIT And if, as another commenter mentioned, it comes down to making a low number of calories last a long time -- again I'll have a big advantage.
Absolutely! A lot of is is psychological, too. I try not to bring up the topic of fasting too much around people, but when I do, people think it's nuts to even just eat one meal a day! Of course, I would have thought that's nuts years ago. But after trying it myself, even if I don't continue to fast regularly, I know that I could do it if I needed to and that it wouldn't be a big deal.
It's so weird -- people say, "Oh I could never do that, I get SUUUPER hungry." Um, do you think I don't get super hungry? But it's not linear. People are 1 hour late for a meal and they're a little hungry; 2 hours late and they get quite hungry, 3 hours and they're super hungry. They extrapolate, and think that after 24 hours they'll be writhing in agony or something. That's not how it works.
If it comes down to who can just survive the longest with zero calories, someone weighing 300 pounds is probably going to out-last me. But if there's any level of physical or mental activity required to survive and/or actually acquire calories, I'm going to have a big advantage.
EDIT And if, as another commenter mentioned, it comes down to making a low number of calories last a long time -- again I'll have a big advantage.
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