Thank you for clarifying this for me.

Well it's resolved. Finally. After 3+ hours, my water has reached yellow value. That is crazy. I can't believe they loosened the strictness of eating and drinking that much. I'm honestly disappointed. I can't say it isn't realistic but still.. I used to have to keep a close eye on drinking and eating. Made survival that much more tense, now seems like I won't even notice either. That's a shame.

Do you mean it takes twice as much energy to get a full apple icon as of this update? Before the update, I would watch the food and water meter rise and fall every 5 minutes or so without fail. I just played for another hour and haven't ate or drank a bit, still at 3/4 on both food and water. I've been sprinting all around too. This has to be a bug. I really liked keeping both icons full. I'm just afraid it may be draining in the background but not showing. I guess I'll find out, but it would honestly be worse if it's actually stuck.

Same for me, After the update my Character was not there on the main start screen. I thought sure it was gone. However, once I started on the last used server I spawned as my saved character.