Mark Wahlberg lived on liquids + nuts for 6 months. What was your most extreme diet?

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Christian Bale's diet for The Machinist was horrific. One apple and one can of Tuna a day, about 250 calories. Now, imagine that for even two or three days, how ferocious the hunger would be

I've done some fasts in the past and the worst day for hunger is the first. After two days it's pretty much gone. It does come back of course. IMH few enough people these days experience actual hunger(in western societies of course). What they're feeling are blood sugar drops and/or thirst. And habit with it. That's a biggie IMH. Going on a major diet would be harder for the rigid three meals a day type than the graze when hungry type. It would also be my humble that someone with extra padding that feels hungry every three hours has other things going on. They should have plenty in reserve.

Donegal Dan wrote: »

Holy moly! 21 miles a day? How is that even possible on so little calories? Doesnt a man need on average of 2,500 calories a day?

Depends on the man, his energy requirements and depends on the quality of the calories. So me being skinny would require less than a well built man with more muscle than me and less than a man who is running marathons. As for the quality of the calories. The life extension CRON diet can have people running at 600 calories a day but with full nutrition. Not recommended mind you. Causes other issues like loss of libido. Eh no. The intermittent fasting where people take say the weekend to cut right down on food intake, even fast, has the same benefits but with far fewer risks and side effects.

Toots wrote:

Worst diet I ever did was atkins.

Again a good example of how folks can vary. The Atkins style diet is a breeze for me(though I wouldn't go full extreme on a daily basis). Feel good on it and no issues in the loo dept. either. Twice a day regular as clockwork. However I went veggie once for six months and it was a personal hell and I started to feel like crap after the first week on it(and the loo situation was not pleasant). It crept up on me so just thought I was generally under the weather, but the major bounce back after I started getting the eggs meat and fish into me again was unreal.

I've long been of the notion that an individuals gut bacterial makeup which can vary a lot has a big effect on their diet. Indeed this very day on the BBC they had this report. Where a woman who had bowel problems got a bacterial "transfusion" from her daughter. Cleared up the problem, but the side effect being she became obese in short order. Put on 16 kilos, or if you're watching this in black and white, two and half stones in a year. Her daughter was obese so it seems the different bacteria have a role to play there. Though the thought did occur that maybe the woman was the weight she was because of bad absorption and when that cleared up the calories that with otherwise have been lost went to making her fatter? Then again animal studies of this have shown similar so it's hard to know.

IIRC and someone may help me out here, aren't there bacteria that can trigger a craving for carbs in the host? I'd very rarely have a carb craving, so I must have few enough of those lads. My guys like blood dripping steak if given a choice.

And that's before we get to gender diffs in what diets may work or not.