The week before last Ellen and I did a 5-day autophagy diet. We began on Sunday afternoon and ended with breakfast the following Saturday. For those five and a half days we ate no protein, no carbs or sugars, and very little fat. The idea is to eat just fiber with a little fat to kick the body into deep cleaning mode for a few days. That deep cleaning mode, called autophagy, peaks after about 3 days and slowly loses steam after that. We had prepared for this process by getting well into ketosis for the week before we started the autophagy diet. We eliminated carbs from our diet for the whole week before starting the autophagy diet. That switched our body over to burning just fats for energy which lowers our insulin hormone production to the point that autophagy can engage. Three things are needed to start major autophagy: low insulin, no dietary protein (that carries the amino acid leucine in it), and low calories (below 600 calories per day.)
Why would we want to do such a crazy thing? The full story can be found in my previous article on autophagy found here. But the highlights are that autophagy is what makes us literally younger. Cells in our body age and become senile. More than that they become a grumpy kind of senile, like that old man that rocks in a chair on his porch and cusses at everyone that walks by. On a cellular level that looks like old senile cells that spew out toxic proteins that trigger inflammation throughout the body. The body is supposed to send garbage truck macrophage cells that bag up and eat these grumpy cells. However, their action is inhibited by high insulin and protein in the bloodstream. There is a little bit of macrophage action all the time, but it increases 10-fold when you remove the insulin, protein, and calories.
Okay, that makes a good health reason to do a 5-day autophagy diet. While bad health is certainly something we want to avoid, I don’t find most people are motivated by the search for good health. Good health requires sacrificing too many other things we want. So what would be something else we want to motivate us? How about eliminating loose skin and wrinkles? Ahh, that catches some people’s attention. Have you noticed that when people have bariatric surgery for weight loss, they lose the weight but end up with all these flaps of loose skin? Any rapid weight loss will end up with this. This is because using up the stored fat on the body does nothing to remove the excess skin that used to cover that fat. That happens through autophagy. Loose skin is not a problem when you lose weight through starvation. Check pictures of starved prisoners of war – not a speck of loose skin. That is because starvation is what triggers autophagy. Regular dieting still includes enough protein and carbs to suppress autophagy. The secondary purpose of autophagy is to scavenge the body for cells unnecessary for survival to recycle the protein in them to keep the brain and heart working. Excess skin, old scars, senescent cells, muscles, and connective tissue, all become targets for macrophages to eat up and recycle their protein to keep more essential cells functioning.
Now we are talking – autophagy dieting to stay young-looking! When you cycle autophagy dieting with high-quality protein afterward, you build new replacement cells for the old damaged ones you’ve removed. You don’t just look younger, you are replacing old grumpy cells with young new vigorous cells. Autophagy is the built-in Fountain of Youth inside our body when combined with really healthy high protein eating between autophagy cycles. Going back to eating the standard American crap diet will only build crap cells, not healthy ones. Our body is made of protein, fats, water, and minerals. We are not made from carbs or sugars at all. So no, you can not be healthy eating nothing but carbs and sugars (read vegetables and fruits.) You must have proteins, at least 100 grams of protein a day – some authorities say much more than that.
So, what did our version of an autophagy diet look like? For us, I created a cocoa drink to sustain us throughout the day, plus three meals a day of mostly cruciferous vegetables, jicama, and konjac noodles. I rotated between fried cabbage, steamed cauliflower mash, broccoli, and fried konjac noodles. I could have used salads of leafy greens with no calorie dressings, but they did not feel good to our tummies. To flavor our veggies and noodles, I used grass-fed butter, real sour cream, fish sauce, coconut aminos, salt, and pepper. For dessert at the end of the day, we would have a few fresh or frozen berries with allulose on them.
Recipe for the cocoa drink:
1 quart of good water
¼ cup allulose
1 tbsp cocoa powder – non Dutched
½ tsp glucomannan powder
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 drops caramel flavoring
~ Blend thoroughly then add
½ cup heavy cream or coconut milk
stevia to taste
Why these ingredients? The allulose stimulates the GLP-1 hormone to reduce hunger as well as reducing inflammation. For more on allulose see here. Non Dutched cocoa powder is full of flavones that support a healthy gut microbiome plus it has theobromine which stimulates metabolism. Glucomannan is a microbiome-feeding fiber for good guy bacteria. Vanilla is a rich antioxidant, appetite suppressant, and supports heart health. Caramel flavoring is because I like it. Heavy cream is an important source of stearic acid necessary for properly burning fats, and it triggers bile release from the gallbladder necessary for gut motility so you don’t get constipated.
The veggies on this diet are chosen both because of their lack of protein and carbohydrates as well as their lack of gut-reactive defense chemicals called lectins. They provide fibers to keep the gut microbiome happy and well-fed so that you will have something to capture toxins flushed out by your liver into the bile and out through your bowels to the toilet. Konjac noodles perform the same function as the veggies as these noodles are made entirely of fiber. All through the day you want to slowly drink your cacao beverage and use a tablespoon of butter at each meal to cook your veggies with. The only additional thing we consumed was green tea sweetened with more allulose.
Ellen and I have done versions of this 5-day autophagy diet in the past, but this time it was very easy. I believe it was the addition of the allulose that made the difference. It really does cut out the appetite. It is funny how little you need to eat when you are not hungry. The diet kept our bowels regular, our gut happy, our minds extra clear, and our energy up. I did cut down on my regular workout on Wednesday to focus just on the range of motion and circulation, as the absence of ingested protein would make any muscle-building impossible. Even with that precaution, I was still very pooped out for a couple of hours after the workout as my body was not ramped up to produce the extra energy needed for the workout.
Can you do shorter versions of this diet? Certainly. Be sure to already be in dietary ketosis before you start, then you can benefit from something as short as a 40-hour diet. I like to do those beginning on a Thursday afternoon and ending on Saturday morning. I followed that protocol for at least 20 years fasting every Friday. I am thinking of trying out a 2-day program of Wednesday afternoon to Saturday morning to see how I like that.
This may seem to some of you to be a pretty extreme cleansing out protocol. But historically our ancestors regularly faced many days in a row with nothing to eat. This is normal for our physiology. This program takes the discomfort out of the whole challenge leaving only the adventurous spirit to take over.
Take care,
David
Ellen
Every so often Ellen and I like to do real world checking to see how the experiments we do with our diet affect our bodies. That means lab work. A little blood draw every now and then gives us the feedback we need to see what is working and what is not. It is too easy to simply believe we know what we are doing, when in fact we are guessing. Our bodies are far to complex for us to truly know anything, so we test.
Protein Pacing
A fascinating diet study looked at comparing traditional calorie restriction dieting with weekly cycling 5 days of eating 4 meals a day 4 hours apart with at least 25 grams of protein in each meal plus 2 days of eating only 550 calories. Both groups consumed the same total (about 9000) calories each week. After 8 weeks the protein cycling group lost almost 9% of their body weight while the simple calorie restriction group only lost 5%. More than that, the cycling group lost 33% visceral fat compared to 14% for calorie restriction. Gut microbiome was also better and inflammation was reduced.
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“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
~e.e. cummings
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Nutrient for lowering aggression
Violent behavior is a major problem in every society. Dozens of studies examining the impact of diet on both reactive and proactive planned aggression have consistently found that the addition of omega 3 essential fatty acids (fish oil) reduces aggression around 30%. Most of these studies were done on prisoners, but this is also targeted for children. Omega 3 directly affects the function of the brain positively.
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“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
~e.e. cummings
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Tooth-regrowing drug
This one has been on the horizon for some time, but human trials will be starting this September for a drug that will stimulate the growth of missing teeth. This sounds totally cool to me. No more root canals?
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“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
~e.e. cummings