By: Kennedy Shelley
We want to make our bodies as efficient as possible. We want it to be flexible in its fuel source, so we can run off of our fat stores when we don’t have time to eat, or quickly use the food we eat.
But one of the problems of eating a Standard American Diet (SAD) is we create what is known as Metabolic Syndrome where we become insulin resistant and we lose this flexibility.
When this happens, the body starts holding onto fat, especially around our vital organs, creating more stress on our bodies, which creates even more metabolic syndrome.
The question is how do you break this cycle? How do you get your body back to where it is metabolically efficient?
One way is to induce autophagy.
Autophagy is where the body eats its cells. Specifically eating up the old cells that are wearing out.
This is a vital process that was discovered by Dr. Yoshinori Ohumi who received the Nobel Prize in 2016 for his work in this area.
It holds tremendous promise for combatting type 2 diabetes as well as various forms of cancer.
It works by getting rid of the old inefficient cells, stimulating human growth hormone and getting the body to create new stem cells.
If we had a drug that could induce autophagy it would be worth billions.
Thankfully, you don’t need to spend any money on a new drug, as a matter of fact, you don’t need to spend a cent…you just don’t eat.
Fasting or spacing out your meals to only eat a few hours during the day (known as intermittent fasting) creates autophagy in the body.
If you want to speed up the process even further, working out while you are in what is called a “fasted” state works.
There has been a bunch of discussion amongst athletes about whether you want to work out after a big training meal, or when you have nothing in your stomach, and the science is leaning toward the latter.
Think of your best window to work out like when you go get your blood work done. You don’t eat after you had dinner.
This seems to get you the most energy, a better workout and increased autophagy.
The evolutionary theory is that before we had refrigeration our ancestors would get hungry, and go off to hunt in a fasted state, but those who survived had the most energy when it was do or die time when hunting time started.
The same holds true today.
Your body will utilize its fat stores, utilize the nutrients you fed it the day before and wipe out old cells.
Your body becomes more stress resistant and efficient. Strangely you will have more energy because your body’s cells will become stronger.
Technically this is called getting rid of a senescent cell.
These are the older cells that need to go away. Without autophagy they will hang around too long (like a guest that doesn’t know the party is over and it’s time to go home).
If you don’t get rid of these cells, they start to run the body off of sugar and not fat, making you feel more lethargic.
To learn more about fasting and boosting autophagy, see this article in Freedom Health News.
Try going to the gym before breakfast and let us know if you have a better workout.
We still cannot tell what our autophagy level is, but more and more research shows that skipping a meal not only lowers our weight, but helps our bodies get rid of the cells that need to go.
To understand autophagy better, this short video explains it well:
