Last Updated on April 12, 2024 by Fasting Planet
The hunger you feel when fasting can soon become all you think about. Sometimes you get so ravenous you wonder if you’re on the brink of starvation. Could that be the case? Is there a difference between fasting and starving?
The main difference between starving and fasting is that fasting is intentional whereas starvation might not necessarily be. Also, someone who fasts knows when they plan to stop. Starvation can be prolonged with no defined end date, sometimes to the point of death.
In this article, we’ll explain in much more detail the above differences. We’ll also talk about how to toe the line between fasting and starvation so you can make smart decisions for your health.
What Does It Mean to Starve?
Before we delve deeper into the differences between fasting and starving, let’s clearly define both. This will make the differences section that much clearer.
Starving oneself or starvation is when you limit the calories you consume past the point where it’s sustainable. It’s a level of malnutrition–in which you lack nutrients through your diet–but the most severe kind.
By doing nothing to cease starving, you could cause organ damage and even perish. Before that, it’s possible to develop a kwashiorkor, which is the official name of the stomach bloating that occurs in malnourished, starving people.
There are many reasons a person may starve. Let’s examine these more now.
Poverty
If someone lives below the poverty line, money is hard to come by, sometimes even impossible. They may not be able to afford to feed themselves and their family, so they starve.
Famine
Famine, in which food is not widely available, is another reason starvation can occur. Governmental policies, imbalances in the population, crop failure, inflation, war, and disease can all lead to famine.
Depression
The clinically depressed may have such severe symptoms they discard care for their wellbeing. This can include skipping meals, which can lead to weight loss and even starving if it’s prolonged.
Diseases and Conditions
Having been diagnosed with certain diseases or medical conditions can also make it hard for a person to eat or keep food down. Some of these are digestive disease, diabetes mellitus, celiac disease, and coma.
Eating Disorder
Bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and other eating disorders can trigger body dysmorphia, where a person’s self-view is distorted. This hatred of their size can lead to periods of binging and purging or starving outright to lose weight.
Torture
Unfortunately, starvation can also be used as a form of torture.
What Does It Mean to Fast?
Next, let’s define fasting. This is a period where a person refrains from eating and/or drinking. That period can be anywhere from a few hours to several days. When you cyclically go between fasting and eating, this is known as intermittent fasting.
There are several types of intermittent fasts. They include the 5:2 diet, the alternate-day fast, the 16/8 method, water fasting, and dry fasting. All allow you different periods to eat, except for water fasts, where you can only drink. Also, dry fasts omit food and water.
Many reasons exist for fasting, so let’s get into these more now.
Weight Loss
Among the most popular reason to intentionally refrain from consuming food and sometimes even drink is to lose weight. Weight loss can only occur when your body burns more calories than what you eat. Through intermittent fasting, restricted calorie intake and even zero calorie intake will cause the pounds to disappear.
This weight loss can come from different sources, such as body fat, muscle mass, and even water weight. It’s important to maintain a nutritious, balanced diet after the fast to keep up with the weight loss until the next fast.
System Reset
It’s been proven through a myriad of studies (many of which you can read on our blog), that intermittent fasting can act as a reset button for your health. Your digestive system gets a break, giving it a chance to work even better the next time you begin eating. Your immune system can be strengthened by the production of new white blood cells, keeping you safer from illness.
Also, on a cellular level, you’re healthier and stronger, too. The process of autophagy, where healthy cells eat old and damaged ones, wards off disease and could even lead to a longer life.
Medical Testing
If you’re scheduled to receive these tests, you may need to fast:
- Ultrasound
- Renal function panel
- Basic metabolic panel
- Low-density lipoprotein or high-density lipoprotein level test
- Triglyceride level test
- Cholesterol test
- Liver function test
- Blood glucose test
How long you may have to fast will be at the discretion of your doctor. For most tests, it’s six to 12 hours, most of which you can spend asleep. Once you’re done with your medical testing, there’s no need to fast again unless you want to.
Religious Observances
Many religions require you to fast, such as Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Catholicism, Christianity, Buddhism, and the Baha’i faith. Taoism, Sikhism, Judaism, Jainism, Islam, Hinduism, Pentecostalism, Lutheran, and Methodism religions also ask followers to fast.
One of the religious observances known for its long, strict fasting is Ramadan, an Islam occasion. From the moment the sun rises until it goes down, those participating in Ramadan cannot eat or drink. This can go on for about a month.
What Are the Differences Between Starving and Fasting?
Now that we’ve clearly explained what fasting and starving are, we can highlight the differences between them that we covered in the intro.
Fasting Is by Choice, Starving Is Not Necessarily
The first difference is one of the most important. Fasting is a choice you make. You decide you want to go on an intermittent fast, you choose the type of fast, and then you get started. It’s all a conscious decision, where with starvation, that choice is not necessarily one anyone gets to make.
For example, there’s starvation during times of famine or poverty. People in those situations don’t have the luxury of choosing when and even if they eat. An eating disorder is a conscious choice to a point, until those behaviors become so ingrained that they’re now just part of everyday life.
Extreme fasting can veer into starvation much as an eating disorder can. This is when someone fasts for longer than recommended to the point where they’re hurting rather than helping their body. Otherwise, fasting is always up to the person doing it. They’re the ones in control.
Fasting Is Temporary, Starving Can Be Prolonged
If you decided to go on an alternate-day fast, then there’s a very reasonable timetable to follow. You’d spend 24 hours fasting and then another 24 hours eating, and so on and so forth. These periods don’t necessarily have to be midnight to midnight, but rather, whatever is most convenient for you.
Should you want to start fasting at 10 a.m., you can. If you want to begin your fast at eight o’clock at night, that’s also your option. Either way, you know that when 24 hours pass, you stop fasting.
If you’re in a situation where you’re starving, you may not know how many hours or days it will be until your next meal. You might not have access to food or money that can buy you food. You may not even have an interest in eating. It happens when it happens if it does, and if not, then death is a strong possibility.
Fasting Is Done to Help One’s Health, Whereas Starving Rarely Is
As we talked about in the last section, fasting can be advantageous for your health in a myriad of ways. Besides losing weight and cleansing your system, here are a few more benefits of intermittent fasting:
- Less inflammation
- More fat burning
- Healthier blood cholesterol
- More human growth hormone production for the brain (only during the fast)
- Energy increase
- Longer life
- Warding off Alzheimer’s disease
- Avoiding cancer
- Preventing heart disease
- Lower chance of getting type 2 diabetes
The above benefits are not guaranteed, but many studies done prove they’re possible through intermittent fasting.
Starvation, which is not the same as fasting, lacks the above benefits. All you’re doing by going so long without food is damaging your organs, such as the testes, ovaries, lungs, and heart. You could even inadvertently end up dead.
Should You Fast or Starve Yourself?
If the benefits we’ve described throughout this article have intrigued you, we want to once again reiterate that you’d want to go on an intermittent fast rather than starve yourself. Fasting, a willful choice, is done for limited periods, such as 24 to 72 hours, or on and off to support your survival.
Should you decide an intermittent fast is right for you, we’d recommend starting with an easy one. If you’re not quite ready to go a whole 24 hours without food, the 16:8 method or 5:2 diet are good ones to try. Under the 16:8 method, you consume food over eight hours and then go 16 hours without.
The 5:2 method is even more generous. You can still eat, but twice a week, you’re cutting your calories down to 25 percent of what they usually are. That’s between 500 and 600 calories a day. The other five days of the week, you’d eat as you usually do.
Even if you’re in relatively good health, it’s always best to see your doctor before intermittent fasting, especially for the first time.
Conclusion
Fasting and starving are not interchangeable terms. When you fast, you decide when you start and when you stop. You’re also making a good choice for your health, whereas with starvation, the choice is often out of a person’s hands. Starving is also not good for health and could lead to death.
Now that you know more about intermittent fasting, you just might feel inclined to give it a try. Your body will certainly thank you!