forgetting to eat while fixated on something

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Something I've seen described a lot is people forgetting to eat while they're fixated on something.

A few days ago, I was playing a game, and didn't eat the whole day. But after thinking carefully about it, I didn't "forget" to eat. I noticed that I was hungry and looked at the clock and saw that it was lunchtime. Then I made a conscious decision to keep playing and eat later. Repeat that a couple times and eventually the entire day had gone by and I hadn't eaten anything.

I had made the decisions to not eat so quickly and automatically that I didn't fully realize I was doing it. If I wasn't thinking about it carefully, I might have said that just forgot to eat.

Does anyone else have that experience?

Rats have starved to death, pressing a button for brain stimulation, and game designers try to be just as compelling. In general, though, skipping meals tells your body that there is no food around, and that it has to sharpen its senses, even if you are not actually looking for food.

It's great to know you'll never bore anyone updating them on your diet because it happens automatically. I enjoy the dizzy spell that happens around 2pm and usually push on through till around 4 if I'm busy. I like the feeling of being dehydrated too but it's a really bad idea.

^^ Getting dehydrated is another way to focus on a task, but I have learned to monitor my water intake and get over 2 l per day. If I get behind, I can easily be depressed and useless all day, too stupid to figure out that I'm just dry. 80% of the people admitted to hospital through the Emergency room are clinically dehydrated. My guess is that a simple lack of water causes a lot of accidents.

Yeah, Ive been known to do that too. I hear the stomach growl, but if I'm absorbed enough inthe task, the stomach gets ignored. I'm not stressing that much these days, I put on a few pounds during covid. I could stand to skip a meal now and then.

Thanks for the comments. What I'm wondering is what's going on in people's heads when they get fixated on something. Recently, I've been trying to better understand my autistic self, so I've been looking into other people's experiences.

It's not just games I'll get stuck on like that. It can be some project I'm working on or even just researching a particular topic. It's not uncommon for me to forgo basic human needs because I'm in the zone and don't want to stop whatever it is I'm doing. I usually see others describe it as "forgetting to eat", but that's not really what's happening with me. So I was wondering what others thought.

If I get super fixated I can do that, i can ignore pain, hunger, etc. It's not that I don't experience them I do, They just aren't a part of the focus. Nothing else is a part of my focus except me and my fixation. This is probably the reason i'm so prone to repetitive strain injuries. But i'm sure genetics have something to do with it as well. But to be fair i have a hard enough time drinking or eating without that and have had chronic dehydration for most of my life. Not to the point where it's severe enough to be dangerous although. I can ignore hunger incredibly easily anyway. I haven't ate since I woke up at 7pm. I've never really ate lunch. I never ate lunch for most of my time at public school. It's not that I don't realize time passing either, I do it's just kinda muted.

I like a Foxtrot cartoon where the gaming kid is called to dinner, and replies not to worry, there's a food vendor in the next village.
What goes on in my head when I'm fixated is total absorbtion in the problem. All my short-term memory is full of factors to juggle. I've done all-day sorting projects when the subject is fascinating. The best work I've ever done was on full-focus, when I taught myself programming and then used it to push the envelope on engineering, also self-taught. I was glad not to have unneeded lessons in my head for that.
Since becoming aware of the emotional minefield of NTs, which I'd not disturbed for 34 years, I have never had all my short-term memory available for technical problems, and begun to make errors.