Yep, you definitely also made the right call.

Hitting your physical max isn’t fun. Eleven years ago was my first and only trip where I didn’t have enough food, and that has engrained into my brain a particular understanding of scarcity that I never would have otherwise (having not grown up in poverty, of course).

I can’t in good faith recommend that kind of extreme to anyone, but once you’ve at least approached your limits, you have a much better sense of when to stop and rest, how much food you need, or how long that last litre of water is going to last you.