I tried giving up eating for a week and it was a fascinating experience: if you are curious, try it. It won't kill you and it probably won't harm you unless you are already ill. It gives you an interesting insight into ancient man and how well our bodies are made to cope with hunger and starvation.

The first day-and-a-half was the hardest I felt really hungry. Then suddenly the hunger stopped and I felt great: really alive and full of energy. This feeling remained for the rest of the week.

Originally I had intended to drink fruit juice but it gave me a terrible stomach upset and I switched to water only (although I did have an occasional glass of wine).

Somewhere around day two my fat started to melt and began to coat my mouth and skin. I grew some huge spots (edit: pimples).

Day three I felt a little light-headed at times but was never tired: I had read about the dangers of muscle-loss so I chose to visit the gym each night and was swimming for up to an hour, too.

By day 5 I could have kept going without problem: I'm a big guy and could easily do 40 days without food. I stopped only because I had a family celebration to attend (and I'm not sure my mother would have approved).

I can't say I noticed much in the way of weight loss. I had read that you normally lose about a pound a day (which may have been true). I'd been drinking plenty of liquid so I didn't lose water.

The evening when I went back onto food was also interesting: the food tasted different — more intense and satisfying.

The following days I felt great and had meant to repeat the exercise for a longer period, but as I yet I haven't. No matter what anyone says, that first day-and-a-half does not get any easier.

Some of the reported upsides that I cannot confirm from such a short diet are: your digestive system shuts down very early and so it gets a rest for repair (something that modern humans never manage but ancient humans probably did); your gut flora also gets a chance to die-off a bit and regrow — we are a forest of yeast and bacteria and some people think the occasional prune-and-regrowth is healthy; your fat (especially your internal fat) starts to melt and be burned up as fuel (this is a surprisingly kludgy process: it seems to all go liquid at once all over your body). I can surmise that given a longer period of time it would be beneficial to get rid of the stored fat (and other chemicals stored in it—fat in animals stores feed flavours after-all). There are reports that stopping, clearing out and restarting your digestive/fat/fat storage/liver system can have other surprising health benefits most notably with Type 2 diabetes; there are also reports of benefits to allergies and food intolerances (again I can't verify).

My father has been discussing doing something similar with his doctor in the hope of curing his Type 2 diabetes.

So, in summary, I found the experiment interesting, informative and fun and would recommend it to anyone (with sufficient fat store) who would like to see what it is like (and can get through the initial wall).

If you do: keep exercising so you don't lose muscle; don't eat anything as then you will become hungry again; don't operate heavy machinery (and probably avoid driving) as you do get light headed; don't expect to lose a large amount of weight in such a short amount of time; avoid fruit juice; don't expect your world-view to change or for it to make you a stronger/wiser/more spiritual person; do expect it to give you newfound respect for ancient man and those forced to starve through drought and war.