Fasting: Reversing These Times Of Plenty
Imagine having to do absolutely nothing and in return you’ll improve your health, feel better and in all probability live longer.
I don’t know of a better investment return, financially or otherwise.
Well, that’s basically the deal with fasting and/or caloric restriction.
Here’s the short story.
Go for long periods without eating anything.
It’s as simple as that.
What’s long?
For some it might be pushing breakfast back till 9am. For others it’s going a planned 24hrs without food once a week. And some enjoy eating in particular ‘windows’ each day. For example, between midday and 8pm, that’s 8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting within a 24hr cycle. Ultimately it depends on you and what you feel works best.
When we have a sudden reduction in calories or cut our food intake, at thing called ‘autophagy’ ramps up.
Autophagy is the natural, regulated, destructive mechanism of the cell that allows the orderly degradation and recycling of damaged and dysfunctional cellular components (1).
Essentially it’s our body’s way of ridding the buildup of cellular waste. The more often we can do this the better.
It’s that simple.
Now, for anyone not ready to part with regular mastication (which is another word for chewing your food. Get your mind out of the gutter people!) But still want the benefits of calorie restriction/fasting, there’s a solution.
Actually, there are two of them.
The first, making an adjustment in your diet, via taking in nutrients that ramp up autophagy (and yes there’s more to it than just this. Reducing the enzyme mTOR predominance is a huge factor, but this blog is about picking the fruits rather than a study of the roots, as the late Jim Rohn said). These nutrients are found in, you guessed it fruits and vegetables.
The specific nutrients include resveratrol, quercetin, curcumin, selenium, alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) and vitamin D among others.
Adjusting the nutrients we take in from food combined with the daily use of a high quality nutritional supplement that contain these nutrients (and more), can dramatically shifts our body into house cleaning mode.
The second is exercise.
The stress of exercise acts like a mirror to calorie restriction. For anyone who’s not interested in eating less, the physiological stress of exercise inhibits mTOR activity and increases autophagy (2).
It’s win-win!
The ultimate is combining all three long term. However, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
What will yours be?
UPDATE: Since posting this general overview on fasting, Dr Andrew Huberman recorded a great podcast with valuable detail. Check it out here.
References:
1. MacWilliam, Lyle. Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements 6th Edition, page 59.
2. Morita M et al. mTOR coordinates protein synthesis, mitochondrial activity and proliferation. Cell Cycle 2015;14:473-48
