This is my 48-hour-fast strategy to boost autophagy. The day before you don’t eat anything have a very low amount of both carbohydrates and proteins (no more than 10 grams for each). Then comes the day without food. The following day, do the same thing with carbohydrates and proteins — no more than 10 grams each.

The average male needs 56 grams of protein for basic metabolic functions. Over the course of the above 3 days, you’ve have supplied only 20 grams of protein when the body has required 168 grams. So the body will have had to scavenge for 148 grams of protein — that’s what boosts autophagy.

That you have only digested 20 grams of carbohydrates means that you will stay in ketosis. Exiting ketosis would halt autophagy — the opposite of what you want to have happen.

Use cronometer.com to come up with what you can eat to reduce carbohydrates and proteins to this extent. As an “almost vegan”, I use avocado, walnuts, pecans, brazil nut, and olives.

Caveat: On that third day, given the fact that you have eaten so little carbohydrates and so your glycogen stores are now running very low, you will feel fatigue in your arms and legs. You won’t get to restore the glycogen until the fourth day, but that meal is something to really look forward to.

What this strategy does for you are multiple things. First, on the very first day, given the fact that you have had only 10 grams of carbohydrates and protein, you will get into ketosis and autophagy sooner on that very first day — not just the second, food-less day — and second, given the fact that you do the same thing on the third day, just 10 grams of carbohydrates and protein, there will be continued ketosis and autophagy into the fourth day.

New Fruit for Me

The consensus among scientists seems to be that you have to go from 48 to 72 hours fasting to induce serious autophagy, and from there it just escalates the longer you go.

But here’s the issue. They know that eating protein is counterproductive for autophagy, which is logical since cell regeneration requires ammo acids, so if you provide ammo acids in your food, then the body doesn’t have to scalp for them in senescent cells.

But then one should consider the opposite. What if one severely restricts the grams of protein one eats in one’s diet? Would that severe restriction induce the start of serious autophagy sooner than the 48 hours commonly believed to be the earliest threshold?

I’ve read that the body needs approximately 300 grams of protein for its daily recycling of cells throughout the body. Assuming that one eats 100 grams of protein in one’s diet, that would mean that the body takes 200 grams from it ammo acid pool — makes up the difference that way.

But what if one restricts the daily protein from food to only 15 grams — 85 grams less that what one usually eats? Would that restriction induce a faster autophagy, as now the body needs to find 285 grams, not just 200 grams, within itself for the daily recycling? Would not the additional 85 grams required induce sooner autophagy? Seems logical.

And what if one were to continue to restrict to only 15 grams of protein in subsequent days. Would that continued severe restriction escalate the autophagy faster?

These all seem to be logical assumptions, but I’m not sure anyone has explored any of these ideas on humans in actual experiments to prove these possibilities with autophagy one way or the other.

Extending Ketosis