What Happens To Your Body When You Stop Eating

Here s what happens to your body if you don t eat for a day.

Once the fats are broken down your body turns to breaking down protein in muscles essentially wasting away your muscles. This means your body literally cannibalises itself and eats away at your muscle tissue just to stay alive. So how exactly do you die from hunger. At this point your brain s requirement for glucose will have dropped from 120 grams per day to only 30 grams.

The rough part happens after 72 hours of no eating this is the stage of autophagy. We ll let the asapscience boys explain that in the video above. If you don t eat at this point the break down of your body will continue and death can occur as little as three weeks after you stop eating if you don t get sick from a lack of immune system essential vitamins and minerals first. However between six and 72 hours after eating brain function becomes impaired.

The body continues as normal 6 hours after you eat as it has sufficient levels of glycogen to convert into glucose. 72 hours beyond 72 hours your body is basically cannibalising itself.