Metabolic Autophagy

by Siim Land

  It’s also easy to get hypnotized by the fancy numbers on labels – just one tablet gives you all the essential amino acids and vitamins, and minerals your body needs…IN 10x TIMES!!! Just taking a pill with over 9000% of your daily RDAs doesn’t mean you’ll end up absorbing all of it.

  The thing is that while the body catabolizes itself, you mobilize a lot of the nutrients that are already there. Micronutrient deficiencies are mostly caused by poor dietary choices overall not by inadequate supplementation.

  There’s also the fear that if you miss out on your daily recommended dose of vitamins for a day you’ll turn into a raisin and die. This kind of thinking is already based on a false understanding of how the human physiology works. Skipping certain vitamins and minerals for a short period of time can actually promote the absorption rate of those nutrients if you follow it up with adequate nutrition. It’s another example of a hormetic response. For instance, if you’re slightly deficient in a specific nutrient, like vitamin K2 or B12, then your body will absorb them more effectively because it’s craving for them. Likewise, insulin sensitivity and protein sensitivity increase if you’re doing intermittent fasting. Why would mineral absorption be any different?

  Taking a multivitamin while fasting is also not necessary if you’re fasting for less than 10 days as most of the minerals are stored in your bones and the demand for other vitamins decreases thanks to the hormetic response of fasting. The longest recorded fast lasted for 382 days and the guy survived on just a multivitamin and some brewer’s yeast. His plasma electrolyte concentrations all remained relatively the same and he lost 276 pounds

  You definitely don’t have to worry about micronutrient deficiencies while fasting for just 16-24 hours. Honestly, anything less than 24 hours isn’t actual fasting because you’re not triggering the deepest metabolic adaptations.

  Iron and electrolyte deficiencies happen usually because of dehydration and excessive excretion of your body’s salts. The most common reason is coffee and tea consumption. You can drink coffee while fasting but hot liquids and beverages may make you absorb less of the micronutrients. The tannins and caffeine in coffee and teas can lower the absorption rate of your supplements. They can also make you excrete more of the other electrolytes and minerals through urine, so you have to be careful with not taking your supplements together with these drinks. Otherwise, you’re simply pissing them out and wasting your money.

  But what about specific medications while fasting? Should you take prescription drugs during an extended fast? There are so many prescription drugs out there that it all depends on what particular disease you have and what kind of medicine it requires.

  If you’re fasting for just 16-24 hours, then take your medication with food to make sure you absorb it. That short period of abstinence won’t make you sicker because most of the drugs are already bullsh#t.

  If you’re fasting for several days, then consult your doctor and ask what are the absorption implications and what ingredients the drug has. Most medications have additional filler ingredients like corn starch, dextrose, and other compounds that may potentially inhibit the autophagy effects of a fast.

  But honestly…Doing strict fasting for several days is much more effective and healthier for you than taking medicine. The majority of diseases can already be fixed with fasting.

  Your body already knows how to heal itself but it won’t be able to do it if you keep it in a constant state of anabolism and feeding. You need to lower your insulin, lower your blood sugar and allow your cells to take out the trash for you. If I got diabetes or I get diagnosed with some sort of other metabolic diseases, then I’d immediately start fasting until I’m well and then eat a very strict ketogenic diet, rather than take prescription drugs. But then again…this is not professional medical advice.

  In general, if you only need to supplement the vitamins and minerals if you’re actually deficient in them. More micronutrients are not definitely better, as in the example of zinc and iron absorption.

  Giving your body an overabundant supply of all the nutrients isn’t a good idea either because it will have conflicting reactions and may cause some other issues. It’s definitely a waste of money.

  Before supplementing any specific vitamin, you’d be better off by first focusing on eating real food, getting your nutrients from that, taking blood tests to see your deficiencies, and then taking those supplements you need with food.

  While fasting, you’re much better off by getting your electrolytes and not worrying about the other micronutrients. You won’t become deficient, you’ll promote the mobilization of your already existent mineral stores, you’ll elicit a beneficial hormetic response, and you’ll maintain your sensitivity to those nutrients while you’re actually consuming food.

  Chapter XVII

  Metabolic Autophagy in Practice

  “Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach their goals

  if they are able to think, if they are able to wait, if they are able to fast.”

  Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

  We’ve covered a whole lot but there are still some specifics that need to be gone through. This chapter is about the different types of intermittent fasting and how to do them. I’m also going to go into more depth of the Targeted Intermittent Fasting protocol I talked about earlier in Anabolic Fasting.

  There’s nothing innovative about intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding – it’s been practiced for thousands of years by different religions and people. That’s why you should be careful which gurus you listen to on social media, especially those who don’t really understand the underlying mechanisms of what’s happening with the body.

  It’s simple – you just stop eating – but for optimal results, you’d want to pay attention. For Metabolic Autophagy there are some additional principles that I’ll share with you as well. Here are a few of the other renown ways of doing IF:

  24-Hour Fast. - This is the most basic way. It doesn’t even have to mean that you actually go through a day without eating. Simply have dinner in the evening, fast throughout the next day and eat dinner again. This one is also prescribed by the author of Eat Stop Eat Brad Pilon. The frequency of these fasts depends on the person but once or twice a week should be the golden standard. An active person who trains hard should do it less often than a sedentary person. The leaner you are the less you have to fast, but that doesn’t mean you can’t gain all of the other physiological enhancements from occasional abstinence.

  16/8 Leangains Protocol - This is one the most popular strategies, popularized by Martin Berkhan of Leangains. You fast for 16 hours and have a feeding window of 8. Simply skip breakfast and have it during lunch instead. In my opinion, this should be the minimum fasting length for everyone. You don’t need to eat any earlier than that and the abstinence has many benefits. It doesn’t even have to be that strict. Instead of following 16/8 we can do 14/10, 18/6, 20/4 or whatever fits the situation. The idea is to simply reduce the amount of time we spend in a fed state and to be fasting the majority of the day.

  The Warrior Diet is a fasting protocol created by Ori Hofmekler. The entire concept is based around ancient warrior nations, such as the Spartans and Romans, who would be physically active throughout the day and eat mostly in the evening. At daylight, they would only get a few bites here and there and would consume a lot of calories with dinner. This diet follows the 20/4 timeframe with one massive meal eaten at dinner.

  One Meal a Day (OMAD) – It’s the simplest way of eating – just eat once a day. Usually, you fast for about 22 hours and eat your food within a 1-2 hour timeframe. This works best for weight loss because you’ll be quite full and thus can effortlessly stay at a caloric deficit. If you do it with proper keto-adaptation, then you’ll also preserve more muscle. However, this may not be ideal for muscle growth because of the limited protein synthesis and anabolism. Instead, the Targeted Intermittent Fasting Protocol I’m going to share with you shortly is the enhanced version of OMAD.

&n
bsp; 36-Hour Fasts - In this case, you abstain from eating anything for 1 entire day + 12 hours. It’s not actually difficult at all. You simply have dinner the previous night, don’t eat anything in the morning, lunch nor evening, go to bed in a fasted state, wake up the next day, fast a few hours more and start eating again. Going to bed hungry sounds scary but that’s what most of the world’s population is doing daily. It makes you think more deeply about one’s own fortune.

  48+ Hour Fasts – These ones will make you enter into deeper autophagy and burn a ton of body fat. In my opinion, the fastest and healthiest fat loss strategy would be to cycle between 3-5 day fasts with OMAD refeeds. You want to lose the fat as fast as possible and extended fasts are the quickest way of doing it. The next chapter will also talk about how to fast for days and days.

  Alternate Day Fasting - There are also approaches like The 5:2 Diet and Alternate Day Fasting, which include fasting but allow the consumption of about 500 calories on days of abstention. The Fasting Mimicking Diet falls into the same camp. Those small amount of calories are only for increasing compliance. I wouldn’t recommend this, because caloric restriction won’t allow all of the physiological benefits of fasting to kick in. You want to shock the body and go straight to zero for the greatest effects. Complete abstinence is a much more effective strategy for both your physiology and psychology. Eating something would neglect the entire idea behind fasting, which is to abstain and reset.

  Dry Fasting – Not drinking liquids is also said to have autophagic benefits although there aren’t many studies putting this theory to the test. One day of dry fasting is thought to equal 3 days of water fasting. The idea is that if you deprive yourself of water, your body will start to produce its own by converting the triglycerides from the adipose tissue into metabolic water. Hydrogen gets released as a by-product of beta-oxidation. Dry fasting has been practiced in certain religious and healing practices. In general, you don’t want to become dehydrated for too long. However, daily time-restricted dry fasting of 12-16 hours can be another thing to do if you need deeper autophagy. At your own risk, of course. The next chapter will talk about dry fasting a bit more.

  After having done intermittent fasting since high school, I wish I started sooner, and I don’t really plan to ever return to the high-frequency style of eating. It doesn’t really matter what kind of IF you do as long as you do it in some shape or form. As long as you stick to one of these from the list, you’ll be getting about 80% of the benefits.

  However, the optimal balance between performance and longevity, in my opinion, can be accomplished with Targeted Intermittent Fasting. It’s what the Metabolic Autophagy Protocol actually centers around.

  Targeted Intermittent Fasting

  Like with many things in life, there’s the right time and place to do anything, especially in nutrition. There’s also the optimal amount for fasting and building muscle. These two – anabolism and catabolism – cannot co-exist in the exact moment. When you fast, you’re breaking down. When you eat, you’re building up.

  To overcome the challenging situation of wanting to spend more time in a fasted state while still being able to train hard I like to use targeted intermittent fasting. Here’s what it looks like:

  Fast for the majority of the day as long as you can before working out.

  Consume only water and zero calorie teas or coffee all the way up until 18-20 hours of fasting.

  You can even add a window of dry fasting for 12-16 hours into it before introducing liquids and calories.

  When starting to workout at 18-20 hours, consume a protein shake with 20-30 grams protein. You can even stay within 15-20 grams. It’s preferable to drink it during the actual workout and use quality protein powders that don’t have artificial sweeteners or other additives.

  For even greater performance you can use a bit of D-ribose, exogenous ketones, or some beta-alanine.

  In the post-workout scenario eat the rest of your calories within 2-3 hours or in a single meal. Make sure you still get enough protein after training.

  This enables you to minimize the time spent in a fed state while still gaining the benefits of a deep fasted state. Is it rational? Would it be better if you just ate real food a few hours earlier and then trained? Maybe…maybe not…The idea is to simply still eat once a day but to supplement some of the protein you’d benefit from prior to working out.

  The limiting factor of intermittent fasting is that you won’t be able to train as hard as you potentially could. Of course, you’ll have more energy to push yourself and get stronger if you ate something before that. However, that protein supplementation minimizes the length of how long before you have to do it.

  You don’t need to be consuming any calories all the way up until the point you’re about to do resistance traininsg. At that moment, you’d want to have some protein and amino acids to protect you against excessive catabolism. The protein shake contains amino acids and other building blocks that will help with performance. Thanks to having fasted for about 18-20 hours before that, your body will utilize that protein quite rapidly and it’s not going to cause any issues. Before lifting weights you’ll be in deep ketosis and you don’t need any exogenous nutrients to fuel your daily low-intensity activities.

  Targeted Intermittent Fasting should be done only with intense resistance training that depletes muscle glycogen and damages muscle fibers. It’s not necessary for cardio, yoga, or something else like that because your body isn’t under such demanding conditions. Also, it’s not advisable to be doing TIF continuously every day throughout the year. You want to use it during periods of more physical activity and anabolism but not when prioritizing autophagy.

  The same principles apply to the targeted ketogenic diet – you’re going to pull the trigger only when it’s beneficial and yields a positive response. That’s why you don’t always want to be zero carb and sometimes it’s better to time your calories more specifically.

  It doesn’t even matter how long you fast for – you can still do this type of targeted fasting and working out fasted. You simply fast all the way up until the workout, then you drink a protein shake during the workout, continue to fast until your post-workout meal, and then finish eating for the rest of the day. It’s generally best to combine TIF with OMAD because a lower eating frequency is still more beneficial. On 16/8 it’s not necessary because you haven’t been fasting for that long.

  When doing this type of targeted fasting, you should be careful with what kind of protein you use. Definitely avoid the generic supplements with artificial sweeteners, colorings, and other questionable flavorings because they promote insulin resistance and gut problems. Instead, you’d want to find a quality brand with natural ingredients and zero fillers. Also, for the best anabolic effect, you’d benefit most from either whey or rice protein. Whey is more anabolic whereas rice is slightly less. Other plant-based proteins like hemp or pea are also okay but they may lack the complete amino acid profile and they may be too high in fiber. The 20-30 grams of protein in the shake is taken to reach peak muscle protein synthesis activation. On easier workouts, you can stay within 15-20 grams and gain the same effect.

  Taking BCAAs in conjunction with the protein shake isn’t necessary although not detrimental either. A quality whey protein would already have enough aminos, which makes the additional BCAAs an overkill. Also, BCAAs are quite expensive as well and would work only if you’re not getting adequate amounts of protein from your diet. If you’re nourishing yourself with good nutritious foods during refeeds then you have nothing to worry about.

  Other ingredients you can add to the TIF shake include creatine, beta-alanine, cordyceps, and D-ribose. If you’re planning on having a real killer workout, then maybe taking some target keto carbs from dextrose or a banana can also be good. At that point, you simply have to know what the purpose of your training is. I myself simply stick to protein and creatine – it’s all you really need. In total, it would include about 100-150 calories, which is very low com
pared to the amount of work you’ll be still able to produce.

  After the TIF workout, you should wait about 1-2 hours before having the post-workout meal. This will lower your cortisol and promotes proper digestion. To trigger additional MPS, you’d want to be eating complete proteins high in leucine, such as eggs. Honestly, eggs are the best post-workout muscle building food because the cholesterol is going to promote healing and the leucine will stimulate MPS. If you’d like to really build muscle, then taking 2-3 grams of leucine powder can also work. Next to that, meat, fish, and some veggies sounds like a good meal. If you’re eating carbs like potatoes or rice, then you’d want to avoid these fattier cuts of meat and eggs. Instead, combine them with lean proteins like white fish and chicken breast.

  Figure 86 How to Do Targeted Intermittent Fasting

  You want to avoid autophagy boosting and anti-inflammatory compounds after resistance training. The reason is that they can block some of the adaptations you’re body’s going through. You shouldn’t take a cold shower or an ice bath after lifting weights either – they can blunt the hormetic response. Instead of taking a bunch of turmeric and medicinal herbs, you should relish more with the anabolic foods.

  Honestly, the targeted intermittent fasting should be the default way of eating whatever diet you follow. Here’s why:

  You want to be in a fasted state relatively often. At least with low blood sugar and ketosis

  You only really need to eat if you’re doing something physical. Most of the day doesn’t require eating if you already ate within the last 24-48 hours.

  You would want to have some protein before doing resistance training for performance and recovery. Taking the protein during the workout will be digested quite rapidly and it won’t even feel like you’ve fasted prior to that. It’ll also prime muscle growth faster.