AUTOPHAGY IS THE BODY’S RECYCLING SYSTEM

Think of the two states of the body as a construction state or a demolition state. The fed state exists in the demolition state. The fasted state is the construction state.

A demolition state is when the bodies are in breakdown mode, starting with what you’re eating and then swallowing to your stomach, then the intestines, then into your system, each step breaking down the food you’re eating and further. The body turns this system on in response to food and the hormonal stimulus that comes from it from insulin and other factors. When your body turns, this mode on demolition mode activates the entire body, not just your mouth, stomach, intestines, or anywhere else.

While in the demolition mode, your body will also break down tissues and different components within us simultaneously.

We break down the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates from our food as we eat it but also in your body, your body will break them down too and take them from different parts, namely muscle for protein and triglycerides for fat. Since we have so much glucose coming in, the body doesn’t liberate any glucose while we are eating because insulin is activated. When insulin is on, the signal to circulating more glucose from our stores is off.

The construction mode is the opposite of the demolition mode phase in our body. This happens in our fasted state.

The fasted state exists when we are not eating for a period. During the construction phase, we start to take inventory and mark what needs to come out and be replaced or recycled within our body. Part of this process includes restarting different cells’ time clocks. A cell has a natural time clock, and when it gets stressed or has damage done to it can lose its ability to run on that clock. What ends up happening is they stay past their retirement age and then continue to work, causing more damage due to the inefficient ability of that cell to do its job.

During the construction phase, as the blueprints are being drawn up for what’s to come, these cells that are past the retirement get informed that they can now take their retirement happily. Any broken parts, misfolded proteins, advanced glycation end products, or ages are tagged and recycled. Although cells that are past their time on the job do retire, this process doesn’t kill any of our cells. So, many people’s ideas or explanations that we eat ourselves while we fast are not that accurate.

We recycle ourselves during a fast.

This balance of demolition and construction needs to happen continuously for us to operate our inner cellular mechanisms and maintain a level of health and healing. If they are out of balance or if we find ourselves in one state too long, we can have problems. However, you want to look at these two phases of the fasting, and the Fed states or the repair and fed state are both 100% vitally crucial to survival. That doesn’t mean that they are 50-50 partners. The balance that produces health, healing, and longevity is having a little bit of fed state and a lot of repair and destruction. A little bit of demolition and a lot of construction. That’s the natural cycle of things, and that’s the balance that we need to maintain if we expect to heal or enjoy the expression of optimal health and vitality.

That brings us to the next topic of cellular junk and debris. The byproducts of daily life and energy use within the cell and our body produce a good amount of cellular junk or debris called biomass. Biomass can get into the inner workings and nooks and crannies of our cells and interfere with the normal function of cellular energy use, repair, and healing. As this cellular biomass accumulates due to the insufficient amount of recycling occurring in our body from being stuck in the fed state and not allowing the repair state or the recycling state to kick in.

Do you ever wonder where tumors get the raw materials to build their fortresses in our bodies?

Cancer cells will use the biomass to produce the tumors by using our cellular junk as raw materials and internally builds their fortress from our junkyards. Cancer is not something that happens to us rather it is something that we allow to take hold and manifest as we give it the materials, the state or environment it needs, and the fuel to do its dirty work.

Thomas Seyfried, the author of the medical textbook, Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, stated that seven-day water fast would eliminate over 97% of new cancers. He’s talking about shutting down the Fed state and the demolition process in our body and allowing for construction to occur through the repair state. If that wasn’t motivation enough to stop eating once in a while and try to support that recycling system, then I don’t know what is.

In my program, the pinnacle of the six months is a seven-day fast. By the time people get there, even the early doubters who were convinced they would never be able to do one day, never mind seven days of fasting, get through it and are always surprised by how comfortable it is. I’ll never say it’s easy because it’s not, but it can be much more comfortable and manageable than what you see online and in the groups about fasting. The goal isn’t the seven days. The goal is to become metabolically flexible to go in and out burning sugar or fat anytime you like, even multiple times a day.

When you get to this point of metabolic flexibility, your entire relationship with food and yourself will change. You can gain the freedom that most Americans who are very proud of their independence will never attain or even know exists—the freedom from hunger. The freedom from the drive or need to eat sensations that dictate many of our eating and dietary actions. You can experience what we call curiosity eating, where you can see something that looks good and try it and not have to eat the whole thing, never mind the entire pie or the entire bag or box. 

You can live your life without the charge that makes us impulsively eat when food inevitably shows up. Emotional eating frequently is a symptom of a metabolically inflexible body and results in the suffering and label of emotional eating. When you get to the other side and become metabolically flexible, you’ll be surprised how many of those emotional eating issues are no longer there. That’s just a tiny part of what this process can be for you.

There are no shortcuts, hacks only hurt, and you have to be willing to put in the effort.

If you are, then there is a whole new metabolic world out there for you and an entirely different response and relationship with food.

We can do better!

Dr. Don