Yup, just wait until the next day to respawn. You can leave your computer at the respawn confirmation prompt for 10-20 minutes and time will continue to progress in-game.
Not optimal, I am aware, and that's something I plan to address in the future, but that's the workaround for now, while maintaining a serious death penalty that discourages abuse.
BTW: If you're hitting hungry status first day you're likely expending much too much energy. Try cutting down on jumping or swimming if possible. Barring something super unfortunate happening, dying on the very first day is not usually at all hard to avoid.
BBTW: I believe you should still at least be able to damage animals with a club when hungry.
I'm not very good at not-dying and keep re-spawning in one of two mega-jungles which happen to be obstacles back to the spawn point. So, I have decided to wage war against the blasted spiders and burn their homeland down!
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I read on other forum posts the spiders only spawn on leaves so I'm hoping to be rid of them if I remove all the leaves. If not then at least it will be cathartic. :D