One Starving ?

When one, with let’s say 20% body fat, stops eating( NO food at all, only water) until he dies is he going to have any fat left on the corpse?

I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion?

[quote]JuicyLucy wrote:
When one, with let’s say 20% body fat, stops eating( NO food at all, only water) until he dies is he going to have any fat left on the corpse?

I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion? [/quote]

Starving people lose both fat and muscle.

By the time death occurs they will look like walking skeletons.

Take a look at pictures of Holocaust victims. They have almost no fat on them. Almost no muscle either. The same applies for anorexics. You starve for long enough, your body will use whatever fuel source it can to keep it alive.

You’ll burn through all your fat and muscle. The body definitely does meets its energy by using its fat stores. That’s why you lose fat on a diet in the first place. It just also uses muscle tissue because muscle tissue is metabolically costly and takes a lot of energy to support.

Lifting heavy and an appropriate caloric deficit helps prevent this and keep the body using fat as its energy source when dieting. I hope this question is purely out of academic interest.

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Take a look at pictures of Holocaust victims. They have almost no fat on them. Almost no muscle either. The same applies for anorexics. You starve for long enough, your body will use whatever fuel source it can to keep it alive.
[/quote]
I’m talking about someone who doesn’t eat at all. NOTHING!

So you’re saying that the amount of fat lost while not eating enough is the same as when eating at slight deficit??

[quote]JuicyLucy wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Take a look at pictures of Holocaust victims. They have almost no fat on them. Almost no muscle either. The same applies for anorexics. You starve for long enough, your body will use whatever fuel source it can to keep it alive.

I’m talking about someone who doesn’t eat at all. NOTHING!

[/quote]

I’m sure he was using the example of Holocaust victims because that’s one of the best known examples of massive starvation in history and most people have seen at least one picture of a Holocaust victim in a history class or something.

I’m sure the results of someone eating very little (Holocaust victim or an anorexic) is very similar to someone eating nothing such as in your (hopefully) hypothetical question.

Either way, assuming in your situation the person died of starvation rather than disease (as was often the case in Holocaust victims) they would die with very little muscle and/or fat on their bodies.

[quote]JuicyLucy wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Take a look at pictures of Holocaust victims. They have almost no fat on them. Almost no muscle either. The same applies for anorexics. You starve for long enough, your body will use whatever fuel source it can to keep it alive.

I’m talking about someone who doesn’t eat at all. NOTHING! [/quote]

So was he.

[quote]JuicyLucy wrote:
I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion? [/quote]

There is no confusion unless you’re so ignorant of biological processes that you see the world as being full of either-or propositions. The body doesn’t burn all muscle or all fat. It burns both.

[quote]BigAlSwede wrote:

I’m sure the results of someone eating very little (Holocaust victim or an anorexic) is very similar to someone eating nothing such as in your (hopefully) hypothetical question.

[/quote]
I’m only curious about it. Don’t worry I’m not starving myself in any way;))

[quote]CaliforniaLaw wrote:
JuicyLucy wrote:
I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion?

There is no confusion unless you’re so ignorant of biological processes that you see the world as being full of either-or propositions. The body doesn’t burn all muscle or all fat. It burns both. [/quote]

Let me put it this way:
Someone really fat dies of starvation BEFORE or AFTER all his LBM is gone?

And stop calling me ignorant. Otherwise I get mad and chop your head offff.

Ahh, but what about muscle memory???

If I starved, and ate away most of my fat and muscle, couldn’t I just start eating “right” after the fact, and get most of my muscle back?

At least that used to be my logic after learning about muscle memory.

I think that would severely damage one’s metabolism, and take much longer to fix than better dieting/lifting choices.

[quote]JuicyLucy wrote:
CaliforniaLaw wrote:
JuicyLucy wrote:
I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion?

There is no confusion unless you’re so ignorant of biological processes that you see the world as being full of either-or propositions. The body doesn’t burn all muscle or all fat. It burns both.

Let me put it this way:
Someone really fat dies of starvation BEFORE or AFTER all his LBM is gone?

And stop calling me ignorant. Otherwise I get mad and chop your head offff.[/quote]

Someone that’s really fat will probably die before they ever get skinny. They’ll lose a boatload of fat and muscle before they do.

Thanks a lot guys.

[quote]Irish Muscle wrote:
JuicyLucy wrote:
When one, with let’s say 20% body fat, stops eating( NO food at all, only water) until he dies is he going to have any fat left on the corpse?

I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion?

Basicly, the electron is accelerated from the cathode to the anode. When it hits a flourescent screen, it gives off a flash of light. But don’t you dare worry about resistance from other atoms/molecules on the electrons journey to the anode, its in a vacuume tube.

So to answere your question, yes, electrons can act as a wave and as a particle. Its amazing really
if they couldnt then how does one explain “particle accelerators”?

so to sum up, i would be inclined to say that fat will be used as energy until the bodyfat levels approach an unhealthy level, then muscle is used until the bodies muscle level approaches a low unhealthy level, then they both decreases about the same rate after that.

the body wont burn all its fat first because it needs fat to line the nerves and for hormone production or sperm production or something. Kind of like particle accelerators and leptons
[/quote]

I fucking hate particle accelerators… I just had a passage on that on a practice MCAT… !!!

Biology of Human Starvation by Ancel Keys

All your questions will be answered… mostly.

[quote]Irish Muscle wrote:
JuicyLucy wrote:
When one, with let’s say 20% body fat, stops eating( NO food at all, only water) until he dies is he going to have any fat left on the corpse?

I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion?

Basicly, the electron is accelerated from the cathode to the anode. When it hits a flourescent screen, it gives off a flash of light. But don’t you dare worry about resistance from other atoms/molecules on the electrons journey to the anode, its in a vacuume tube.

So to answere your question, yes, electrons can act as a wave and as a particle. Its amazing really
if they couldnt then how does one explain “particle accelerators”?

so to sum up, i would be inclined to say that fat will be used as energy until the bodyfat levels approach an unhealthy level, then muscle is used until the bodies muscle level approaches a low unhealthy level, then they both decreases about the same rate after that.

the body wont burn all its fat first because it needs fat to line the nerves and for hormone production or sperm production or something. Kind of like particle accelerators and leptons
[/quote]
Thanks! it makes sense.

[quote]conorh wrote:
Biology of Human Starvation by Ancel Keys

All your questions will be answered… mostly.

[/quote]

Perfect! I’ll look into it.

If you’re curious about finding cases of total starvation, backed up with pictures that document the entire process and “lifestyle” just read up on the Muselmann from the Concentration Camps during the height of WWII in Nazi Germany.

Scary shit.

[b]Agamben reserves the category of ?muselmann? for that which is ?untestifiable,? and located at a threshold between the human and the inhuman (Ibid, p. 41). Indeed, it is within the region of the ?the living dead? that the muselmann appears. Agamben?s account of the muselmann calls upon Levi?s description of ?an emaciated man, with head dropped and shoulders curved, on whose face and in whose eyes not a trace of thought is to be seen? (Ibid., p. 44).

Ascribing a ?limit situation? to the figure of the muselmann, Agamben places him in ?the non-place in which all disciplinary barriers are destroyed and all embankments flooded? (Ibid., p. 48). The move is significant, since it renders the muselmann fundamentally ?indefinite.? As indefinite, the muselmann comes to occupy the image of the camp as a void.

Yet it is a void which is at the centre of the space of the event: ?The entire population of the camp is, indeed, nothing other than an immense whirlpool obsessively spinning around a faceless centre? (Ibid., p. 52). Obsessive because the muselmann articulates the fear that motivates a resistance against the indefinite void.

As to the testimonial attributes of the muselmann, Agamben?s analysis of the Gorgon, the ?anti-face,? reveals a symmetry between the ?impossibility of seeing? and a transformation which turns ?human being into a non-human? (Ibid., p. 54). It is with this symmetry that the expulsion of dignity becomes necessary to the possibility of testimony. Testimony thus emerges as what remains to be said precisely through what cannot be articulated.

To render this testimony dignified would be to efface an event in which ?the shipwreck of dignity? precludes a complicity with language. Instead, ?the non-place of articulation? coincides with the disjunction between ?the living being and language? (Ibid., p. 130).

Testimony is thus coexistent with the survival of the subject who has experienced the capacity ?to survive the muselmann, the non-human? (Ibid., p. 133). In a passage toward the end of the book, Agamben states the position clearly: ?The subject of testimony is constitutively fractured; it has no other consistence than disjunction and dislocation?and yet it is nevertheless irreducible to them? (Ibid., p. 151).

The bind between disjunction, impossibility, and ruination forms the thematic link between event and witness. As such, where testimony becomes possible, then Agamben argues that it is to be understood not in terms of truth contained (then preserved), ?but rather its unarchivability, its exteriority with respect to the archive [so that] it escapes both memory and forgetting? (Ibid., p. 158).

The final image of the muselmann, then, is fundamentally paradoxical. As both human and non-human, and living and dead simultaneously, the muselmann (dis)embodies the remnant between the drowned and the saved (Ibid., p. 164). Agamben?s presentation of the term ?remnant? does not entail what is deposited, but refers to a ?theologico-messianic concept? (Ibid., p. 162).

More precisely, the remnant is relational, thus a mediator, insofar as it forms ?a series of caesuras? from and to the event, so fulfilling ?the non-coincidence of the whole and the part? (Ibid., p. 164).[/b]

[quote]BoxBabaX wrote:
Irish Muscle wrote:
JuicyLucy wrote:
When one, with let’s say 20% body fat, stops eating( NO food at all, only water) until he dies is he going to have any fat left on the corpse?

I’ve always wandered about that because there’re people who say that body can’t live on fat = it “eats” muscle. In that case if you stop eating until you die you’re going to have fat left on you.
And others who say quite the opposite.

Can anyone clear this confusion?

Basicly, the electron is accelerated from the cathode to the anode. When it hits a flourescent screen, it gives off a flash of light. But don’t you dare worry about resistance from other atoms/molecules on the electrons journey to the anode, its in a vacuume tube.

So to answere your question, yes, electrons can act as a wave and as a particle. Its amazing really
if they couldnt then how does one explain “particle accelerators”?

so to sum up, i would be inclined to say that fat will be used as energy until the bodyfat levels approach an unhealthy level, then muscle is used until the bodies muscle level approaches a low unhealthy level, then they both decreases about the same rate after that.

the body wont burn all its fat first because it needs fat to line the nerves and for hormone production or sperm production or something. Kind of like particle accelerators and leptons

I fucking hate particle accelerators… I just had a passage on that on a practice MCAT… !!![/quote]

Yeah well when I took my mcat they should have called the “reading comprehension section” “nuclear fuckin physics section” It sucked. If you’re studying already though you should be fine.

[quote]dhuge67 wrote:
If you’re curious about finding cases of total starvation, backed up with pictures that document the entire process and “lifestyle” just read up on the Muselmann from the Concentration Camps during the height of WWII in Nazi Germany. [/quote]

Your quotes sound a lot like Langer. Postmodernist deconstruction of the holocaust by Literature professors seems very distasteful to me. If you’re going to read up on it, I think it’s better to stick to historical accounts.

[quote]nephorm wrote:
dhuge67 wrote:
If you’re curious about finding cases of total starvation, backed up with pictures that document the entire process and “lifestyle” just read up on the Muselmann from the Concentration Camps during the height of WWII in Nazi Germany.

Your quotes sound a lot like Langer. Postmodernist deconstruction of the holocaust by Literature professors seems very distasteful to me. If you’re going to read up on it, I think it’s better to stick to historical accounts.[/quote]

Agreed.