I'm starting a tea fast soon, anyone want to join me?

I'm in! I miss fasting I'm in a different time zone so message me when your fast starts

4. Myth: Fasting tricks the body into "starvation mode".

<snip>

Seemingly paradoxical, metabolic rate is actually increased in short-term fasting. For some concrete numbers, studies have shown an increase of 3.6% - 10% after 36-48 hours (Mansell PI, et al, and Zauner C, et al). This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Epinephrine and norepinephrine (adrenaline/noradrenaline) sharpens the mind and makes us want to move around. Desirable traits that encouraged us to seek for food, or for the hunter to kill his prey, increasing survival. At some point, after several days of no eating, this benefit would confer no benefit to survival and probably would have done more harm than good; instead, an adaptation that favored conservation of energy turned out to be advantageous. Thus metabolic rate is increased in short-term fasting (up to 60 hours).

OK found the two studies referenced, one from 13 years ago one from 23 years ago

"Enhanced thermogenic response to epinephrine after 48-h starvation in humans.
Mansell PI, Fellows IW, Macdonald IA. (1990)

The effects of 48-h starvation on the physiological responses to a 30-min infusion of epinephrine at 25 ng.min-1.kg body wt-1 were studied in 11 normal-weight healthy young subjects. Starvation led to considerable alterations in basal metabolism including a significant (mean 3.6%) increase in resting metabolic rate. During the infusions, plasma epinephrine concentration rose less in the starved state (+1.47 nmol/l) than in the normally fed state (+1.73 nmol/l) (SE 0.06 nmol/l; P less than 0.05). The maximum increments (mean +/- SE) in heart rate induced by epinephrine were 11.9 +/- 1.3 beats/min in the normally fed state and 20.1 +/- 2.0 beats/min in the starved state (P less than 0.001); the corresponding mean increments in blood glycerol concentration were 0.07 and 0.14 mmol/l (SE 0.01 mmol/l; P less than 0.01). The increase in the metabolic rate above base line during the final 10 min of the epinephrine infusion was 0.58 +/- 0.18 kJ/min in the normally fed state and 0.78 +/- 0.14 kJ/min in the starved state (P less than 0.01). The chronotropic, lipolytic, and thermogenic effects of infused epinephrine were therefore enhanced by prior starvation, despite the lower plasma epinephrine levels."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2405717


"Resting energy expenditure in short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in serum norepinephrine.
Zauner C, Schneeweiss B, Kranz A, Madl C, Ratheiser K, Kramer L, Roth E, Schneider B, Lenz K. (2000)

The effects of food restriction on energy metabolism have been under investigation for more than a century. Data obtained are conflicting and research has failed to provide conclusive results.
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that in lean subjects under normal living conditions, short-term starvation leads to an increase in serum concentrations of catecholamines and thus to an increase in resting energy expenditure.
DESIGN:
Resting energy expenditure, measured by indirect calorimetry, and hormone and substrate concentrations were measured in 11 healthy, lean subjects on days 1, 2, 3, and 4 of an 84-h starvation period.
RESULTS:
Resting energy expenditure increased significantly from 3.97 +/- 0.9 kJ/min on day 1 to 4.53 +/- 0.9 kJ/min on day 3 (P < 0.05). The increase in resting energy expenditure was associated with an increase in the norepinephrine concentration from 1716. +/- 574 pmol/L on day 1 to 3728 +/- 1636 pmol/L on day 4 (P < 0.05). Serum glucose decreased from 4.9 +/- 0.5 to 3.5 +/- 0.5 mmol/L (P < 0.05), whereas insulin did not change significantly.
CONCLUSIONS:
Resting energy expenditure increases in early starvation, accompanied by an increase in plasma norepinephrine. This increase in norepinephrine seems to be due to a decline in serum glucose and may be the initial signal for metabolic changes in early starvation."
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/71/6/1511.long


Note the tiny number of participants, the description of the same (lean, healthy, young etc), and the references to stress hormones. Haven't stated it explicitly on this thread but have in many others on fasting/ famines/ very low calorie diets/ detoxes - these put the body into a state of stress which few would claim is healthier than the body not being in a state of stress. I could spend more time being sarky about drawing firm conclusions from such limited research but I don't actually think that is necessary.

Everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their body as long as they don't hurt other people. Isn't this a free country the United States of America? Don't we have a first Amendment that protects freedom of speech, religious and philosophical beliefs?

Everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their body as long as they don't hurt other people. Isn't this a free country the United States of America? Don't we have a first Amendment that protects freedom of speech, religious and philosophical beliefs?

Um no this is cyberspace, people are on this forum from all over the world. MFP has it's own rules it doesn't run according to your constitution.

Everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their body as long as they don't hurt other people. Isn't this a free country the United States of America? Don't we have a first Amendment that protects freedom of speech, religious and philosophical beliefs?

Um no this is cyberspace, people are on this forum from all over the world. MFP has it's own rules it doesn't run according to your constitution.

Well I'm sorry to hear you live somewhere without freedom of speech.

If you feel sick or can't function because you haven't eaten in awhile I'd be worried -- that's not how your body should respond to a lack of food.

That is EXACTLY how your body should (and does) respond to a lack of food.

WTH.

People be cray cray.

And I'm really thinking that there should be a common sense test to get a license to have children before people are allowed to have them. There's clearly a lack of it among many parents.