A Mumbai-based CEO chose an unusual way to mark his birthday this year. Instead of a celebration centred around food, Abhishek Agarwal said he spent almost four days without eating, taking on what he described as a personal test of hunger, discipline and willpower. Agarwal shared his experience in a LinkedIn post, saying he completed a 90-hour fast as part of his yearly effort to set himself a difficult personal challenge. According to his account, the fast meant going without food for nearly four days. “I did a 90-hour fast to celebrate my birthday!! Yes, no food for almost 4 days,” Agarwal wrote. His post quickly drew attention online, with some people praising his discipline while others pointed to the importance of understanding the difference between mental endurance and the body’s actual needs.
A birthday challenge built around hunger and willpower
Agarwal said he has made it a practice to challenge himself on his birthday by attempting something that pushes him outside his comfort zone. This year, he decided to make hunger the challenge. Explaining his thinking, he wrote, “We live in a world where food arrives in 10 minutes. We scroll for 10 hours straight. Everything’s instant. So I wanted to see if I can fast for ~4days…what will happen?” The first day, according to Agarwal, did not feel particularly difficult. He said the challenge initially seemed “easy”, but his experience changed as the hours passed. He summed up the four days in a series of short observations.“Day 2: WHY did I do this; missed Zomato. Day 3: silence. Day 4: birthday + the clearest mind I’d had in months.” The description reflects how the experience became as much a mental challenge for him as a physical one. Rather than treating the fast simply as a dietary exercise, Agarwal framed it as an experiment to understand how much discomfort he could tolerate.
‘I felt stronger, powerful & like a super hero’
By the time the 90 hours were over, Agarwal said the experience had changed how he viewed his own limits. “90 hours later, I realised we, humans, are probably capable of tolerating way more discomfort than our 10-minute-delivery brains would have us believe. I felt stronger, powerful & like a super hero in my own way,” he wrote. He went on to describe the experience as a lesson in challenging the assumptions people make about their own abilities. “And trust me, once you prove your brain wrong once, you start questioning its other limits; nothing feels unachievable anymore!” Agarwal added. Pictures shared alongside the post showed him eating a meal as well as doing yoga or exercising, giving followers a glimpse of his routine around the challenge.However, prolonged fasting is not something that should automatically be viewed as a test everyone can safely undertake. Going without food for an extended period can affect people differently, and factors such as existing health conditions, medications, hydration and individual nutritional needs can matter. Anyone considering prolonged fasting should seek appropriate medical advice rather than treating another person’s experience as a health recommendation.
Social media debates the idea of pushing personal limits
Agarwal’s post also prompted a discussion about endurance, discipline and knowing when a challenge may go too far. One person compared his experience with a story about a cave diver who survived for an extended period without food, writing, “Wonderful stories of human endurance and, in your case, a voluntary one.” Another commenter offered a more cautious perspective, saying, “Pushing your limits can teach you a lot about yourself, but I feel the real challenge is knowing the difference between discomfort that helps you grow and what your body actually needs.”Others focused on the mindset behind the challenge. One person called it a “Strong mindset lesson”, while another said they had recently completed a 36-hour fast and were considering attempting a longer one. For Agarwal, however, the central takeaway appeared to be less about food and more about testing the limits he had set for himself. His birthday experiment has since turned into a wider conversation online about discipline, discomfort and how far people should push themselves to discover what they are capable of.
