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Now, about how necessary that water you mix with your AG1 is…
It’s time to lose that quarantine fifteen - or so!
You’re scanning the internet, looking for the latest diets.
This “All Radishes” diet doesn’t sound very appealing, so you move on to the next
one and - wait, what’s this?
Lose a ton of weight on the no-water diet?
Well, that sounds easy!
What could go wrong?
Maybe you’ll just go for a run instead.
But what would actually happen if you stopped drinking water for a week?
For one thing, water is in a lot of things.
You might think dropping water from your diet is easy - but it’s probably the first ingredient
in anything you’re going to drink.
So you’re essentially going on a no-liquids diet - which makes you thirsty just thinking
about it.
But going without water for a week is more than just uncomfortable - it can be dangerous,
and depending on the circumstances even fatal.
Day One:
You don’t have to do anything too extreme to find out about this one - you might have
even gotten most of the way there.
You know those hot days when you’re busy and running around, and there’s just no
time for self-care with all the errands you have to run?
The next thing you know, it’s 3PM and you haven’t drunk anything since you left the
house, and suddenly you feel woozy?
A full bottle of Snapple later, and you’re ready to take on the world again.
That was your body telling you to drink - and it knows how to make itself know.
Anyone who doesn’t drink and feels the signs of dehydration will likely experience excess
sweating, a dry mouth, a headache, possible nausea and fatigue, and maybe even dizziness
if it gets bad enough.
These symptoms aren’t too dangerous - unless they distract you when you’re driving or
handling heavy machinery.
And the odds are anyone who feels them will take the hint.
But this isn’t true in all cases.
What is it like to go twenty-four hours without food or drink?
A lot of people do it pretty regularly.
Most intermittent fasters do drink during the fast, but that’s not the case for certain
religions.
Jewish people in particular have several fast days a year where they go from one sunset
to another without eating or drinking, but at least they get to sleep eight of those
hours away before the hunger and thirst settles in.
If you asked most of them how it makes them feel, they’d probably say - grumpy.
The symptoms of the first day are more unpleasant than anything.
Suddenly, everything takes more effort.
You just want to lie down and sleep until you can eat and drink again - although many
spend the entire day of Yom Kippur in the temple praying, which is another way to distract
yourself.
But the odds are you’ll get past one day without drinking without too many ill effects.
But that may not be the case if you keep at it.
Day Two:
For most people who fast and abstain from water for a day, the end of that day is a
huge relief and they immediately down the nearest liquid.
But if you kept going, things would get unpleasant in a hurry.
Those symptoms that made the previous day miserable?
They’re sticking around and only getting worse.
The odds are someone on their second day without water would wake up with a splitting headache
- and forget about coffee to wake you up.
Staggering to the bathroom, they would likely notice something startling - their urine would
be a darker shade of yellow.
This happens when the urine concentrates, a result of the body not taking in enough
water for it to process waste.
A day without water would speed up this process - and is a sign that your kidneys are working
overtime.
While the odds of kidney failure aren’t high yet, this does put you at a much higher
risk for painful kidney stones.
And these can ruin your day in a hurry.
This is also the part of your no-water adventure where you’re going to feel fatigue take
a real toll.
At this point, the dry mouth has become a constant companion, and you may feel like
the rest of your body is drying out as well.
It’s pretty common for people who don’t drink water for an extended period to report
their eyes feeling dry, but it’s not clear if this is related or a psychological effect.
The odds are you’ll be feeling pretty dizzy as well - especially if you’re not eating.
Many common food items have a lot of water in them, especially most fruits and vegetables,
so that can alleviate the symptoms of dehydration - but it’s also sort of defeating the point
of seeing exactly what would happen if you abstain from water for a week.
However, some food items can also have the opposite effect.
If you’ve ever eaten salty or spicy foods, you know - they only make you want to drink
more.
So stay away from those potato chips!
But some people might be able to go without drinking at all.
Those foods that are packed with fluids are often also packed with nutrients.
Some people believe it’s healthier to get their water from these fruits and vegetables
and not tax their body by drinking too much water.
Is this actually true?
There’s no evidence that drinking water is less healthy - but doctors agree that people
can stay hydrated without water.
Just make sure you keep on top of that water intake from your favorite produce.
The fruits and vegetables with the highest water content include watermelon, strawberries,
cantaloupe, peaches, oranges, cucumbers, and lettuce.
The question is, how long can you actually go?
This is sort of a choose-your-own-adventure path, because how you behave during your no-water
fast is going to play a big role in how long you can hold out.
Your body consumes the water it has stored up to keep itself running, but it doesn’t
always consume it at the same rate.
If you’re staying at home in an air conditioned room and watch Netflix, your body isn’t
exerting much energy and it won’t consume too much fluid.
However, if you’re trying to go about your daily life on a hot summer day, running from
place to place, that lack of water is going to catch up to you very quickly.
But by day three, the odds are you’ll be feeling the pain no matter what.
Day Three:
How important can water be to the body anyway?
Try this fact on for size - a majority of our body weight is water.
Water makes up around sixty percent of the average person’s body weight.
In children, it’s up to three-fourths!
And your body is going to start using that water up fast.
That’s why people who go on crash diets combined with heavy workouts wind up losing
a lot of weight very quickly - their body is losing water weight at a speed that isn’t
sustainable long-term.
Your body is constantly shedding water through sweating and urinating, and that doesn’t
stop now.
The odds are that on your third day without water, you’ll be too exhausted to do much
- unless you’re scarfing fruits and vegetables, in which case you might not notice much at
all.
But while the standard external symptoms might seem stable, that’s not the case for what’s
happening inside your body.
Because the damage that’s happening now is largely invisible.
Your body has been adapting to the lack of water in a less than healthy way since the
start.
As your body dries up, you sweat less because your body is conserving moisture.
This means your body can’t regulate heat as well - and your temperature starts rising.
This is why people who dehydrate in hot desert climates tend to struggle much more, because
their bodies quickly reach the critical mass where their organs start to shut down from
overheating.
If that’s the case, day three might be the end of the road as you die from a dehydration-induced
fever and organ failure.
But that wouldn’t make a very interesting video - so there’s still a long way to go,
and a lot more nasty effects to experience.
The lack of moisture in the body starts to affect everything - including your blood.
It’s going to start getting thicker and circulating less - meaning you have less oxygen
in your system.
And to make up for that, your heart starts beating faster.
And that’s rarely a good thing.
You might even feel a slight surge of energy at this point, making you feel like you’re
out of the woods.
People who have been dehydrating for several days often report feeling less thirst after
a while - although the surface symptoms like dry mouth remain.
But this is actually where the lack of water starts becoming the most dangerous.
As your drying-out continues, you’ll have lost roughly four percent or more of your
body weight from water alone.
This will result in intense blood concentration, and your blood pressure will drop.
You know that lightheaded feeling?
You’re very vulnerable to fainting at this point, which means that any risky activity
- driving, operating machinery, riding a bicycle, or even walking down a flight of stairs - might
come with an increased risk of this experiment coming to a sudden and violent end.
Not that you’re likely to have the energy to any of those things anyway.
You’ll have stopped sweating almost completely without rehydrating, which means even slight
exertion will make you overheat quickly.
At this point, people might start feeling very sick - and any doctor would tell you
to hit the abort button.
Because from here, it might get a lot rougher.
Someone who goes three days without drinking and then rehydrates would likely feel a lot
of residual weakness until they build that water weight back up.
But that first drink of water is going to be the sweetest thing you’ve ever tasted,
and you’ll probably be running back and forth to the bathroom for much of the day.
You’ll likely see all body functions return to normal - including the color of your pee
- within a few days, but the same can’t be said for those who proceed to the back
half of this challenge.
Because your body is entering the point of no return.
Day Four:
You know how you sometimes have to make some tough budgeting decisions?
Hours got cut back at work, so it’s necessary to decide what’s more important - the vegetable
budget for the month, or that copy of Elden Ring.
Well, that’s an easy decision!
But it’s nothing compared to the decisions your body will have to make once you reach
day four without water.
Moisture is necessary to survive, and the body doesn’t have enough energy to maintain
blood pressure at a level where you’ll stay conscious.
So it’s necessary to shift what remains to the places that matter most - mainly, the
heart, the lungs, and the brain.
After all, if your body keeps breathing and the brain keeps working, maybe you can make
your way out of this.
But that means non-essential organs start losing function - and that doesn’t just
include truly non-essential organs like the appendix or gall bladder.
It means that some of your body’s most important systems start to shut down.
Your kidneys have been struggling for a while, as that dark urine made very clear.
Your body isn’t able to successfully process and flush out all the waste matter, and this
leads to cellular buildup on the kidneys.
Not only will your urine quickly become darker and urinating might become painful, but the
lack of successful elimination can make you sick.
Millions of people around the world suffer from kidney failure, needing a transplant
or dialysis to flush out their systems.
And anyone who doesn’t give their kidneys the tools they need to do their work might
find themselves at risk of blood poisoning.
And that’s just the start of organ failure.
Another area of water deprivation that can be a massive pain in the butt - literally
- is what it does to your digestive system.
You might notice that when you don’t drink enough, you become constipated.
That’s probably going to start early on in your no-water diet, although how noticeable
it’ll be depends on how much you’re eating during this whole ordeal.
The less you eat, the less work your system has to do - but that also speeds up the malnutrition
and lack of energy for your body.
It’s also likely that a no-water diet might result in blockages in the digestive tract.
Some might resolve themselves with rehydration, but others might even require surgery to get
the bowels moving again.
And without moisture, the tissue of the intestines might start dying just like the kidneys - leading
to permanent damage.
This is probably the last chance to turn back…
Day Five:
Anyone who’s made it to this point on a no-water diet and isn’t rehydrating through
other means has likely caused serious damage to their body.
Most people who do this are either those on extreme hunger strikes for political causes,
or those who don’t have any choice!
And those who find themselves in extreme situations - being stranded on an island or in the middle
of the desert - often resort to extreme solutions.
Some may actually make things worse - like drinking sea water.
While this may look refreshing, it’s loaded with salt and actually makes the dehydration
worse.
The human body can’t process liquid with such a high salt content, and it’ll lead
to your body losing more water than it takes in.
Another solution may be gross - but it saves lives.
Urine is around 95% water, and doesn’t have the high salt content of seawater - at first.
That’s allowed people who are stranded with no water source to keep themselves hydrated
long enough to find rescue or another water source.
But it doesn’t work indefinitely.
As time goes on, the urine becomes more and more concentrated, and it’ll have less of
an effect.
You’ll be ingesting the toxins your body is trying to expel, and that’ll eventually
take its toll on the body.
But in some circumstances, it might be the lesser of two evils to get you through to
the hope of rescue.
But you’ll need to do that a lot earlier than day five.
By now, you won’t be in good shape at all, and the dehydration will be taking its toll
both inside and out.
Your body will be conserving energy wherever it can, and that includes drawing moisture
from the skin.
Your skin is likely to become dry and shriveled as you continue to lose unhealthy amounts
of water weight.
You’ll have stopped peeing entirely at this point as your kidneys are too weak and damaged
to produce urine.
Your muscles will be suffering from lack of energy and moisture, and you’ll likely be
dealing with extreme cramps and spasms.
If you’re in a hot environment that’s sapping moisture quickly, you’ll likely
be dead already - but if you’re in a relatively stable situation, the odds are you’re still
alive but in rough shape.
Anyone who’s starved themselves of water for five days will likely be too weak and
in too much pain to take more than a few steps, and will likely be drifting in and out of
consciousness.
And your own body is will also be working against you.
If you’re too exhausted to move and you’re in an air-conditioned location, at least your
body won’t be using up too much moisture, right?
You might think you’re essentially in a holding pattern at this point, but there’s
one massive factor that’s going to cause you to keep losing those few remaining drops.
You know how when you exhale in cold weather, you see all that moisture collect on the glass?
Hehe, you just wrote a swear word in it.
Fun times.
That’s because every time you breathe, you’re exhaling moisture - and that adds up quickly.
This is why it’s so important to keep drinking constantly - because you’re depleting your
body’s stores even when you don’t notice.
That’s a big part of why you keep waking up with a dry mouth and feeling like you need
to drink in a hurry - your body loses moisture every time you breathe, and you never stop
breathing.
At least, not yet - but that’s not going to stay the same for long.
Day Six:
Still with us?
Good, but things are getting pretty rough.
If someone made it to day six without refueling on water, the odds are they’re on their
last legs.
A person in this condition couldn’t really just decide to start drinking again and be
fine - their body has suffered serious damage and would need a process of intravenous rehydration
over an extended period for their body to start repairing the damage.
There would likely be more serious damage to multiple organs that might require surgery
or transplants to repair, but the body is still desperately trying to conserve whatever
moisture it has left - and that means dangers in some unexpected areas.
But it might be hard to see them.
Having trouble seeing properly?
That’s because your eyes are heavily water-based, and your body has started to draw on them.
The eyes of someone who has been starving themselves of water will likely be sunken
back into their skull, shrinking and giving them a skeleton-like appearance.
This won’t result in blindness at this stage, but it may seriously impair vision - not that
it’ll be easy to keep your eyes open.
Or call for help, as the extreme dry mouth has had another unpleasant effect.
As people die of thirst, their tongues start to swell up.
Not only does this make it harder to talk, but it can actually sabotage the person’s
survival - making it challenging to swallow water properly if someone comes upon it in
the desert!
And that’s nothing compared to the most dangerous point of failure.
Your brain is probably the most complex part of the body, a bundle of countless nerves
all firing constantly, and a little disruption in it can ruin the whole machine.
But like every other part of your body, it requires moisture to keep running.
As the body runs out, the brain begins to shrink within the skull and sustain damage
from the dehydration.
But this comes with a more immediate threat.
As it pulls away from the skull, there’s a chance that this will cause areas of the
brain to tear and cause a fatal brain bleed - which will bring an abrupt end to the no-water
experiment before the final stage.
So at this point, someone who has gone without water for six days is in constant pain, their
organs are failing, their senses are going, and they’ll need serious medical intervention
if they’re to survive.
So what’s coming on day seven?
Surprise, surprise - it’s nothing good.
Day Seven:
Will everyone who goes without water for seven days die on day seven?
Unlikely.
Your body doesn’t govern itself by time, it just knows how much water it’s lost - and
ten percent of your body weight is the limit in most cases.
This can be reached in five days under most circumstances, but can be extended to seven
or more days under controlled circumstances with minimal exertion.
On the other hand, this milestone can easily be reached in two days in hot conditions - or
as little as eleven hours if you’re running in hot weather without rehydrating.
But at this point, the question isn’t if something is going to kill you - it’s which
organ will do the dirty deed first.
Let’s look at the most likely suspects.
Suspect #1 - the kidneys.
These organs are among the first to fail when your body starts rationing moisture, because
they take a while to kill you after they fail.
Well, that bill’s coming due.
Ever since they stopped working and you stopped urinating a few days ago, your body has been
retaining waste products.
Toxic sludge has been slowly building up in your body, and it’s reaching critical mass.
If it goes on untreated, the unfortunate person who has abstained from drinking for a whole
week will likely die of the ill effects of these toxins.
But sometimes, the rest of your body will get you first.
Your body is completely unable to regulate temperature at this point, which means you’re
extremely vulnerable to high temperatures.
Your body is essentially running a high fever at all times, and that leads to organ damage.
The liver is one of the most essential organs in the body, functioning as a processing center
for your blood.
It’s unable to filter it if it doesn’t have the moisture needed to function, and
if it starts failing, you’ll likely die of blood poisoning very quickly.
The heart and lungs are likely the last to go, and anyone who’s gotten this far is
likely to die of something else before these get them.
Sounds like the no-water diet is probably a pretty bad idea, to put it mildly.
But that raises the question - how long can someone actually go?
Assuming someone goes without any nutrients - no food and no water - it’s estimated
that eight days is probably the maximum length for survival in most circumstances.
But some cases have lasted as long as twenty-one days.
Are these people medical miracles?
Quite the opposite - these people are usually dying already.
They’re often people in hopeless conditions, either with a terminal illness or extreme
brain damage with no hope of recovery.
Depending on the laws, it is sometimes possible for the person or their next of kin to request
all nutrition and hydration to be withdrawn to allow them to pass more peacefully.
This was the case in the controversial case of the brain-damaged Terri Schiavo.
These people often last longer than most cases without water because they expend extremely
little energy from the start - usually just lying in bed and breathing due to their condition.
Meanwhile, a person finding themselves dying of thirst in a desert would likely be desperate
to get out of this situation, and work themselves to death in a hurry.
But water, when consumed, is nothing short of a miracle worker.
Hunger strikes without water usually only end one way - and are pretty short.
But other cases of hunger strikers have gone on much longer, as long as people stay hydrated.
A study in the British Medical Journal says hunger strikers should be able to survive
longer if they drink a liter and a half of water per day.
They recommend adding a half-teaspoon of salt to replace lost sodium, but keeping your body
hydrated does most of the work of keeping this machine running.
Does every liquid work the same way?
Pure water is going to have the best impact, because sweet drinks can actually make you
feel thirsty again in a shorter time.
They can also lead to your body becoming addicted to the empty calories they provide.
But drinks like herbal tea or juice have a very high water content, and other drinks
like vegetable juice can actually provide essential nutrients to those on a liquid diet.
But keep an eye on the ingredients - you want to find ones without salt, because adding
sodium to your liquid can dehydrate you pretty quickly.
So can any drink with caffeine.
And it might look refreshing, but that tall frosty mug of beer isn’t going to be a substitute
for water.
Alcohol is a diuretic and makes your body remove liquid from your body more quickly.
It’s the worst thing a dehydrated person can drink save sea water.
The good news is, the body lets you know when you’re getting short on moisture.
Headaches, increased sweating, and a dry mouth are probably the first signs, but dizziness
will come soon after.
If it gets to the point of muscle aches, you need to get drinking in a hurry.
The good news is, for most of us, water and all sorts of food with a high water content
are readily available.
Maybe that all-radishes diet wasn’t the worst idea on the list…
Check out “What Would Happen To Your Body If You Lived In The Ocean”, or “What Would
Happen To Your Body In Space” for more bizarre experiments.