Wilderness Survival Guide 59 Like thirst, hunger can affect your judgement and undermine your will to survive. During the first 24 to 48 hour period, your stomach will experience strong hunger pangs as the body begins to use its carbohydrate and fat reserves. Despite this, if you are healthy, uninjured, and limit your physical activity, your body can function without food for up to 30 days. Physical exertion and the surrounding temperature affect your feelings of hunger. Extreme heat, which decreases the quantity of fuel needed to keep the body going, discourages hunger. Cold on the other hand, stimulates it, because the body needs more fuel to offset heat loss in a cold environment. Generally, the body registers hunger when there is a physical need for food. Most people are conditioned to eat at certain times of the day, and their bodies produce the appropriate feelings on schedule. The best ways to defeat hunger pangs are to keep your mind busy on the task at hand, sleep or drink water. However, you must be cautious not to drink large quantities of water, as it will dilute the salt reserves in your body, resulting in stomach cramps or inducing vomiting, which will only increase your risk of dehydration. If you do eat, your stomach and intestines will require water for digestion. If none is available, your body will draw the needed water from your blood, causing it to thicken. This will slow the circulation in your fine blood vessels, reducing warmth to your extremities, thereby increasing the risk of shock as well as the risk of hypothermia and frostbite during cold weather. Consequently, a shortage of water will require you to limit the amount of food you eat. If you do have any food, DO NOT eat it on the first day of survival. Instead, wait for the next day and then only eat small amounts slowly to get the greatest benefit from it. Another threat is hypoglycemia; that is, the abnormal decrease of sugar in the blood, where it is used as a very important source of energy. Anyone, especially children who have been subjected to extreme physical exertion or complete abstinence from food for twelve to thirty-six hours, can become very unresponsive or mentally dull. Failure to replace the body’s depleted stores of sugar (glycogen) may lead to vomiting, twitching, convulsions, or coma. Food or plain sugar is the best way to treat hypoglycemia. In a survival situation, it is unlikely you will have ready access to either, so prevention is your only option. Think before you act, to conserve your strength, and never overexert yourself! Conservation of your body’s heat, water supply and strength are your primary concerns. If food is available, limit your consumption to a minimum to help prevent hypoglycemia. HUNGER & HYPOGLYCEMIA www.adventuresmart.ca
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0NTk1OA==