Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Autophagy Explained: How This Natural Cleaning Process Benefits Your Health - With Siim Land

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts, go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep142/. To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership, go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com/. This episode is about the nuances of autophagy and the body's incredible healing response.  Siim Land is a best-selling author, public speaker, high-performance coach, content creator, and professional biohacker. He creates content about optimizing health, performance, longevity, and well-being with different biohacking techniques. The overall term he likes to use is Body Mind Empowerment which refers to physical and mental development. Siim Land is from Estonia, and he has a degree in anthropology. Ever since college, he's been writing his blog www.siimland.com which includes articles and tutorials about intermittent fasting, ketogenic dieting, meditation, cold thermogenesis, taking saunas, self-discipline, morning routines, and everything related to becoming a high-performing individual. At the moment, Siim Land is involved with writing books, doing public speaking, creating content on social media, working with coaching clients, running a podcast, and much more. Please see our medical disclaimer.

It becomes more important to eat more protein the older you get. So young, you can, yeah, get away with less protein, but the older, you generally need more protein. And in the elderly, in like 70s or 80-year-olds, then higher protein, these are better for them. Resetters, Dr. Mindy here. And I am on a mission to teach you just how powerful your body was built to be. This podcast is about giving you the power back and helping you believe in yourself again. Let's jump in. On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I bring you Simland.

So I hope you all know who he is. If you don't, I hope you go and follow his content because he has got some great information on fasting and autophagy, which is what we're going to talk about in this episode. We have, by the way, I have very few episodes that are specifically dedicated to the healing mechanisms that happen in fasting. And many of you have asked me for them. So I brought you Simland. He has an incredible YouTube channel.

So the first thing I want to let you know is he's a fellow YouTuber and you should go check out his YouTube channel. Second thing I want you all to know is that I really wanted to die. into all the nuances of autophagy. And let me tell you why. So if you're not familiar with the concept of autophagy, it is your cell's ability to heal themselves. And everything I teach and talk about here on the Resetter podcast is about giving you

the healing power back. So much of our world, we have given the power to doctors. We have given the power to medication or even to supplements or even now to biohacks. But honestly, you're the power. And when we go and we look at autophagy, we and study it and we see that our brilliant, intelligent body has this inner repair system, all of a sudden we become an awe of ourself. And so every question that has been asked, or the main questions I should say, that have

been asked about atophagy, I wanted to dive into here with Sim. And a large part of why I chose him was because he knows the science. and he applies it himself. And he also has tied in some really interesting thoughts around exercise in autophagy and nutrients in autophagy. So if you're curious about this incredible healing response that lives within the trillion of cells in your body, this is your episode. And let me tell you a little bit about the specificity of what we talked about.

So many of you have asked, collagen in my coffee. Does that pull me out of autophagy? Amino acids in a drink during my fasting window. Does that pull up me out of atopathy? How much protein pulls me out of autophagy? When do I go into atopathy? What kind of herbs are going to help me in and out of atopathy? I love in here he talks about we need to look at atopathy as like wax on, wax on, wax off.

You go into atopathy, you come out of it and you do this periodically throughout the day. So it's a really deep conversation on a miraculous healing process. And I'm so excited for you all to geek out with me on it. Of course, as always, if you have questions, please leave them for us. If you love this episode, please share it with the world. What I love about itophagy is we can heal ourselves. That's what that word means to me. And the more we understand about how powerful we are, the more we can line up our health

habits with our own healing power. So Simland, atopathy, all your questions, excited to bring this one to you. So I just want to thank you for being here. As a fellow YouTuber, you probably know that videos on autophagy are very popular. People really want to know about autophagy. So can we start with what autophagy is and why does it fascinate you so much? Why do you think, and every, Why do you think everybody's so fascinated by it? Yeah, well, I think the reason why it has become popular was, you know, in maybe 2018, 2019, where it started mostly primarily after the, you know, I don't know, recognition of this one of the Nobel Prize winners, Japanese researcher.

And he pretty much showed that, you know, Talaji is important for many things and affects like lifespan. and longevity as well. And I think that's when people started to make, probably there was like a few viral videos talking about the Nobel Prize. And from there on, I personally, you know, Stamother pointed myself as well

and I started to, yeah, connected with fasting. I was doing fasting already before that. And that's where, okay, this is actually an additional benefits of fasting that you get this increased in Atavaji. And for those who don't know, then, yeah,

Atavagia is this intracellular process of cell turnover is, you know, like fundamentally what it is, but yeah, it helps to recycle different components in the cells and eliminate like debris and the junk material. But beyond that, the Tadavage is also, you know, involved with eliminating of pathogens and bacteria and, yeah, like even viruses in some cases. And yeah, it's involved in the brain. It's involved in the muscles and the gut. Yeah, it's like a very fundamental process of just the way your body operates and cleans itself. But, yeah, the benefits are kind of multifolds that just alluded to. Yeah, 100%.

I always think of it like a self-cleaning oven. Like when you stimulate it, you turn it on and the cells clean themselves. I feel like the word on the street around autophagy is everybody thinks of it as detox. But if you actually look at it, it's not completely analogous with detox. Do you feel like we can use detox as another way to look at atopagy? Or is that giving it not enough credit? Yeah, I think autophagy goes beyond detox. Yeah.

Because, you know, with atavage, you can also remove these broken mitochondria, which is called mitophagy or mitochondrial autophagy. another thing that happens with a detox or like regular detoxification practices, it doesn't happen. And you can also like see autology happening in the brain and clearing out tack and debris material there. So yeah, I think the authority goes beyond just that detoxification. And yeah, like when it comes to, let's say longevity and lifespan, then there's, yeah, multiple animal studies at least showing that atavagia is linked to like aging pathways as well and like blocking atavagy or not seeing adequate amount of autology accelerates the aging of different mice and like especially if they're

like genetically mutated that they don't express autophagy that's where they see that they don't live longer even if they are under color restriction which is kind of interesting so that kind of shows that it's not only always the color restriction that is important but also like the different pathways that get activated during that time, especially like atavagy. And more so, we can also tell you that, okay, how can we mimic those effects without necessarily, you know, doing certain activities, like whether that be severe calorie restriction or maybe prolonged fasting in some cases. So how can we like, you know, bicep them to a certain extent and still gain those

the benefits? You know, this, you bring up a really good point. And I, because, you know, I love to fast. I feel like it's the easiest thing you can do to stimulate atopathy. but there are a lot of other ways that we can stimulate atophani. I don't feel like there is good based off of what I am seen in the research. I feel like fasting is your best path towards autophagy. Would you agree or disagree with that?

Well, I do think that it's one of the easiest ways or like you don't have to really do anything. And I mean, it's hard to also think, you know, we don't know how much at how much you need and how much is good. like, you know, there are also like a lot of negative side effects to at salvage. Like, it can for sure, you know, you know, for first of all, you can like fast too much that you start to lose muscle, et cetera. And there's also like harmful for longevity. And there's some instances where autology can also promote like metastasis of some viruses, et cetera. Not directly that autology is bad, but just because of the, you know, the energy that's created during that process of usavagy is also like just high. or, you know, the energy is kind of stolen by these other viruses or something else.

So there are, like, you know, reasons to not have too much at avagy, and we don't know how much is too much. So, yeah, I'd much rather look at, yeah, the activities that do increase hodavagy and their associations with longevity. So fasting is, yeah, for sure, for thousands of years, and many cultures have used fasting, and I do think that it is secured enough of evidence to suggest that it has a lot of benefits. But to answer your question, then, more directly than I would say that, you know, the fastest way to actually activate atalage is probably like exercise. So, uh, oh, interesting.

Because, yeah, there are studies so that even like 30 minutes of high intensity exercise can increase autology as well. And we also know that exercise is also good for longevity and one of the like cornerstones or cornerstones of being healthier overall. So I do think that you kind of need to do both to do some form of fasting, but also to exercise for sure, because, you know, exercise increases. atavagy, but it also does a lot of other things that are good for the brain and cardiovascular health and, yeah, you see, like, fasting mimics some aspects of exercise. Like, it mimics the aspects of improved incidence and sensitivity and reduced blood sugar levels and lower blood pressure and the activation of all these other longevity pathways. But with exercise, you do also see this increased fitness so that you have, like, more muscle mass and more VO2 max and those kind of things.

So is it a specific type of exercise? And is it the, to the, to the, to the, the same degree because one of the things that has come up in my community a lot is how do we measure atophagy? How do we know? I love what you're saying like we don't we don't have enough information to know how often we should be stimulating it. We just know that it's this incredible self-repair system that we haven't been talking enough about. So there's no way to really know if you're doing too much or too little as far as I've seen. And when it comes to exercise, what I've seen is that it's a specific type of exercise that increases autophagy. Is that correct?

Well, I think that actually both will do, like resistance training as well as cardio exercise, both will do it. I think, yeah, like the difference is like how fast are they going to do it. So what is going to basically determine, you know, like, yeah, like the autotagy isn't like this on and off switch. There is something happening all the time. It's just that at a certain point, it accelerates. more and that time gate at which it happens is determined by your liver glycogen status.

So your liver glycogen regulates the energy and nutrient sensing pathways in the body like AMPK and MTOR. So once your liver glycogen is low, which happens when you're fasting or when you're exercising a lot, then after that you activate the AMPK pathway, which is like this ketotic pathway that promotes ketosis and fat oxidation and atavagy and catabolism, essentially. And yeah, that's where it happens. With fasting, you see that the liver glycogen stores tend to deplete within like 16 hours or 24 hours.

They're going to be probably depleted completely. With exercise, you know, it depends on how long you exercise and what type of exercise it is. if you're doing cardio vascular exercise, then, yeah, it may take like an hour or something, I think, or also depends on like if you do it in a fastest state or if we do it in a, if you're already in ketosis, then it's probably going to take a shorter time, whereas compared to doing the cardio after having eaten like 500 grams of carbs or something like that. So it depends on those things. And yeah, I think what I like to think about these exercise is just accelerating the process of going into atavagia, whereas fasting is kind of, you know, you can't exercise for, you know, five hours a day.

You're going to have to take a break, whereas you could fast for, you know, even three days in a row without any problems. So, yeah, you know, I think it's, yeah, for sure good to do is this time-machine eating and at fast at least 16 hours or maybe 14 hours at least per day. And to deplete the liver glycogen and go into some aspects of autophagia and ketosis. and then at like certain time points use exercise as well as like a gas pedal or something to accelerate it more. So like stacking them together and would be enhance autophagy. What I'm curious on is that if glycogen is, we see glycogen stores in the liver, we also see it in the muscles, right? So when you're exercising, you're actually going after the muscle glycogen.

And when you're fasting, you're going after liver in the most concise way I can explain that. So if you're fasted, and the liver glycogen's coming down and you're going into a cardio workout, you're bringing skeletal muscle glycogen down because it has to use that glucose to be able to perform its duties. Would that be of benefit if like somebody wants to lose weight, somebody wants to get fit, somebody wants to get healthy, would you recommend coming at these different glycogen stores and stimulating them together like that in a stacking form? Yeah, I mean, doing them combined is for sure, I think, more optimal than doing one alone. And with cardio, I think, depends on the intensity of the cardio that you're doing.

Right. So you will start to burn the muscle glycogen with cardio as well if you exceed the VO2 threshold, V2 max threshold, which is like when you start to switch into the anaerobic state. And usually it's like 65% of your V-O-2 max is where you start to burn muscle glycogen, but below that you burn primarily fat and liver glycogen. So any kind of this low-intensity cardio is where you burn the liver glycogen more. And when you do like hit cardio or sprints and that kind of thing,

that's where you start to burn muscle glycogen. I don't think muscle glycogen directly affects autophagin because it doesn't affect ketosis either. like you can have full muscle glycogen and still being ketosis. So the liver glycogen is probably where the energy measurement or where your body detects the energy status and the muscle glycogen is only used like as a backup fuel to do high intensity activities.

But still like there's also like studies showing that the resistance training which is like an anaerobic activity that also activates atavagia and probably the reason for that is because of this like high amount of energy stress. So, yeah, any kind of physiological stress still promotes autology as well by activating the ANPK pathway. So AMPK is also not only linked to the liver glycogen, but it's also like this physiological stressor detector almost.

And you see that with saunas, for example, saunas also help with autology, cold exposure, and, I mean, even like, you know, coffee, which is also like this calorie restriction pneumatic technically by turning on these a pathway. and having an autophagy effect. And do you think, I did a recent video on the different types of atophagy throughout the body.

Like we have, like you mentioned my topogy. I recently did some research on the endocrine system. They have a label for that. They call it crinophagy. I was like, oh my God,

I didn't even know there's a whole set of atophagy mechanisms within the endocrine system. Is it the same concept? It's just, can we just look at atopogy as it's just cleaning, these cells up so that they work more efficiently. And we give them fancy names, but really at the

base of what autophagy is, it's just self-repair. Would you agree? Or do we need to look at these, the endocrine system uses the stimulates autophagy different than the mitochondria? Yeah, I think, yeah, it's probably much easier and, yeah, more effective to look at it as the umbrella term atopagy. Because yeah, I've also looked at it and there's maybe the ones I find, I didn't hear about the endocrine system autophagy, but I found like, yeah, maybe like dozen other names like wirophagy, viruses, immunophagy, agrafagy, pexophagy, glycophaegy, so yeah, like there's a, yeah, different maybe organs and different parts of the body that go through that process.

But yeah, generally there's, there's, you know, main, there's three like main types, which is like macroatophagy, microatophagy, and chaperone mediated atopalus. but they're all like you know tawaji essentially right and macro it'savagis the describes this cell cleanup and there's no way to like you can't like go into a workout and be like I'm going to clean up my endocrine system right now like your body decides where it needs the most cleanup is that we just apply the techniques and the body is so intelligent it figures it out is that we'd look at it like I think so yeah I mean I don't have like or we don't have any like measure or waste measures that I know of, but I think that's how probably it would work.

Because that's how the like exercise side also works. Yeah. Yeah. And on the measurement thing, why don't we have any measurement? Is it too hard to measure? And I don't know if you know Annette Boz. She also has a popular YouTube channel. She, she has a Boz ratio where she looks at glucose over ketones and divides that if it's

under like 40, you're in a pretty good amount. of autophagy. Do you feel like we can use a measurement like that to kind of get into the door in or do we just not know? Technically, yes, like it can be, what I've used and heard is the glucose ketone index, which is, I think, similar. But at least the glucose ketone index would show how deep of a ketosis you are. And I think that generally, if you are in ketosis, then most likely there will also be increased pathology.

Right. Because they are regulated by the same pathways of this liver glycogen depletion and AMPK. With the only caveat to that would be that you can still, let's say, eat a large steak and like a ton of butter and be in ketosis and with a low glucose ketone index. but I don't think that in that scenario, you're probably not in like super deep pathology. Right.

So it's probably like, you know, if you're in a fastest state and you look at the glucose ketone index, then, yeah, and probably tell you something. But if you, yeah, just ate or something, then it's a bit, yeah, hard to tell. Like I don't, yeah, I think it's going to happen. Yeah, this is something that comes up in our community all the time.

People are confused. They're like, but I'm in ketosis. So shouldn't I be in a toxin? And to your point, like, you can go on the carnivore diet. You can get into some deep, deep ketosis, but you are definitely not stimulating atopagy because of the influx of protein and amino acids. So one of the nuances with atophanes that I see isn't expressed enough is that it's stimulated not only from glucose coming down, but it's also stimulated from nutrients

coming down, specifically amino acids. Would you agree with that statement? Is there something else we need to think about that might pull us? out of atopathy other than protein? Yeah, protein is, I think protein could even be like a bigger inhibitor of atavaggio than glucose. Oh, interesting. Because, you know, protein directly will stimulate protein synthesis and mTOR, which is kind of the antagonist of atavagy.

So mTOR is kind of the growth switch in the body that, yeah, when your body is growing, then it's not really recycling and repairing itself. So they can coexist evolutionarily. It's hard to allocate resources to do that. And that's why the body will detect the energy sensors and switches, like AMPK and EMTOR, okay, which one is inhibited, which one is turned on. Then I'm going to either grow, build muscle, or basically go through self-recycling. So protein and amino acids specifically will stimulate mTOR.

and at least in that time will also inhibit azavage. But the same applies to carbs and glucose and incident. So even on a vegan diet, you can still, even if you're like, let's say, low in animal protein, you can still inhibit atavagy by consuming too many carbohydrates and spiking incident. Other things that could inhibit atavagy would be like, I think diabetes can also be something that,

like even if your fasting can inhibit the autology process because mTOR detects also high blood sugar levels so you have diabetes then chances are like your blood sugar levels will you'll stay elevated to a point where you're under the stimulation of mTOR all the time and that's going to have like a slow down effect on the process of atology as well so but from a food side yeah I mean proteins especially like lucine which is the main amino acid for protein synthesis but there are like other amino acids that may not do so like collagen is one of those protein sources that doesn't have like a lot of these BCAs and essential amino acids so it has only like you know hydroxyproline and proline and glycine which don't spike or they don't raise mTOR they are yeah like more neutral in that sense and I don't think

that they probably don't inhibit autology either. So that brings up the million-dollar question of, what do you drink in your fasting window? Like, what is, you know, I'm sure you get this question all the time. So, you know, when buttered coffee became so popular, Dave brought it to the world, you know, everybody was using that as a crutch in their fasting window. And then it kind of morphed into collagen.

People are putting collagen powder. I can tell you in our community, a lot of people are curious if they take amino acid powder and they put it in water. Does all of that pull you out of autophagy? What do we need to know about what we drink in that window? Mineral packets. I know you wrote a book on minerals.

Are those in the fasting window going to impair atophagy? Yeah, I wish I knew. Or, you know, theoretically I can say that, you know, things that won't stop atavagy are all these, you know, zero-calorie drinks like coffee, tea, mineral water. even like if the thing has like artificial sweeteners like this may be electrolyte powders or something like stevia or something I don't think they will affect atavagia because there's still no like calories in that so I think those are

safe amino acid powders like BCAs or essential amino acids yeah I think those will probably stop the ad halvajou process but how long will it stay suppressed is hard to tell. And it also varies greatly between individuals. So the way I actually look at it is, you know, you have to look at your body's energy status in that moment when you consume something. So you could theoretically, yeah, even consume some sugar and still being ketosis in autology if that sugar like clears your bloodstream super fast.

Like if it goes into muscle cells or if you're just under that much calorie restriction or energy stress that the body just, you know, absorbs it super fast. So, like, if you exercise, let's say, before, and you are, let's say, fasted already 12 or 16 hours, 24 hours, then, yeah, you can even probably drink, like, some sort of sports drink and still be in autophagy because you're under, like, you've been exercising. So the AMPK pathway is already activated so much, and you're in already deep ketosis. So it probably may not have, like, a significant impact on autology or ketosis even, where someone who is, like, sedentary in the morning they drink even like you know milk in their coffee then maybe even that small amount of amino acids and sugar could you know in that short time frame could inhibit

at avage as well because their their energy status is kind of lower or it's not under that much energy stress so they haven't exercised they they're maybe like overweight a little bit or you know they ate a lot of food yesterday as well so their body's energy demands are much smaller in that's in that scenario. So in that case, it could be that it does inhibit at a lot. It's hard to tell. It depends on the person. That's interesting.

So this actually brings me to a video that you did about what's the best fasting window for autophagy. And based off what you just said, I'm thinking, gosh, you know, if you eat dinner earlier, I don't know what the window is, so I'm curious to hear what you're going to say. But if you ate dinner earlier and then the next morning you're going to fast, let's say, till 2 o'clock, then your energy reserves are going to be a little lower when you wake up because dinner was the nutrients that went into your body happened at an earlier time. So what's the best fasting window for autophagy? Let's start there. And I'm curious if it lines up with what I just mentioned.

Yeah. So you're correct in that sense that if you go to bed with a slightly empty your stomach or like earlier dinner. then in the morning you will already be in deeper autosalagia and ketosis compared to having like a late dinner. And that's also coincidentally like I think from the aspect of like what's the most optimal window for autophagy and overall longevity probably. Then like some aspect of like early or time or sheet eating where you have maybe like a late lunch or like a very early dinner is probably better than like, you know, having like a super late dinner and skipping most meals of the day in the other end. Because first of all, there is like some research also showing that this early time seeing is beneficial.

And also because a lot of the like autophagy gets processed during sleep together with the other anti-aging hormones like melatonin and growth hormone and NAD recycling happens mostly during sleep. So like your body will try to do everything together in your sleep where you're repairing itself. And having like a bunch of food probably in your system may, you know, inhibit some of those processes. So it's, yeah, probably smarter to, you know, I think you don't need to be having like this like a 3 p.m. dinner or something like that. You like maybe like 6 p.m. is good enough and wait at least like three or four hours before you go to bed to finish your last meal. And that's, already probably gives you like all the kind of optimal results.

But yeah, generally like an earlier time you're eating is better. You don't need to eat like breakfast, but you definitely, yeah, like so having like an earlier dinner is better is more important than having breakfast, I think. So there's no like real magic to the breakfast. I think the magic is that you skip the dinner or have like an earlier dinner. Yeah, yeah. I feel like every, I mean, every all hormonal intercellular. repair is like pointing at eat dinner earlier.

It's definitely better because to your point when you sleep, your autophagy happens when you sleep. So if you can double stack that, triple stack that. That's amazing. Going back to the diabetes person, this one's interesting to me, what you mentioned a couple of minutes ago. So when we go into a fasted state,

we often see, especially if somebody's wearing like a continuous glucose monitor, we often see blood sugar go up. and because the body's releasing that stored glucose. Is that pulling us out of autophagy? Like when we go back to like the person with diabetes, maybe they have more stored sugar. So when they fast, that sugar comes out.

And now they're left with a rise in glucose that pulls them out of autophagy, even though they haven't had any food. So if we see that blood sugar spike in a fasted state, is that pulling us out? yeah well it's almost similar to like these studies where people look at a piece of cake and they raise their incident because of like salivating over the cake right so you know I don't I don't know even if it does I don't think that it has like any real significant effect maybe it only stops for a brief moment and then you probably go back faster so I don't think yeah like that the this con misconception that

this on and off switch that you know even if you have this rising blood sugar then you need to fast again for 20 hours to go back into autology i don't think that's the case like yeah you may maybe it decreases a little bit but then you're you know going back into it faster um after the fact so yeah i think that uh these probably uh small ups and downs of the blood sugar don't have like any real effect because i mean exercise also raises blood sugar and exercise activates autology more so um So, yeah, I don't think that it's going to be, you know, any real. Any problem.

Any problem, yeah. You know what I always say is that I look at atopathy like a dimmer switch. Like sometimes it comes on a lot. Sometimes it comes on very little. Sometimes it's completely off. So to your switch analogy, it really is like more of a gradual process, which also leads me to a topic that never, I don't feel like it's enough discussion in the world of atopathy,

which is what happens when you turn that intelligence on and it decides, hey, this cell is going to go rogue. This is a bad cell. I need to kill it. And it creates cellular death, which we know is called apoptosis. When that happens, what we're seeing in our community is a lot of detox reaction. People are getting like, you know, fuzzy brain. They may get some rashes. You know, what do we need to know about apoptosis?

And is it a good thing? Should we prevent it? you know, with things like heavy metals, if there's cellular death, do those metals get redistributed into the system? These are some deep questions I have seen just in so many people fasting. I've been curious about it. Yeah, well, I guess from the directly apoptosis side, then, yeah, I mean, apoptosis can be good, apoptosis can be also bad. You can kill good cells and you can kill that cells. I don't think you can decide,

but in I think most cases, the body will choose to remove the unhealthy cells and cell parts first for sure. And when it does happen, there could be, yeah, like some detox symptoms or some toxins are released into the bloodstream. There are ways to, you know, bind to those toxins like the different binders,

Chlorella and spyrina and maybe activated charcoal, milk this, all those things can help to bind to those and eliminate some of the detox symptoms. But there's also like some people, like Dr. Mercola has created his own like a fasting protocol where he, if I'm not mistaken, then it's similar to the fasting mimicking diet and basically like eating very low calories per day, like I only have 500 calories or something for a few days, and that in theory in his eyes would help to, yeah, prevent some of the severe detox symptoms

so that you're not really going into that deep. But you're still getting some of these longevity benefits through the severe calorie restriction. So eating, you know, calorie restriction is also increasing autology. just eating less. And if you are eating only 500 calories, then you are growing in a very, like, semi-fast state, and you're practically fasting, even if you are eating.

So in that case, yeah, like, you can, for people who may struggle with those issues or if they struggle with hunger issues and they physically can't fast for, let's say, three days or two days even, then for them, even like a fasting mimicine diet of eating only, like, you know, three or 500 calories, I think it's still, worthwhile because that calorie shouldn't already is a pretty potent stimulator of autology and this long-year-based. You would just need to make sure the protein is not high in that 3-500 calories. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you want to be pretty much eating, like, you know, vegetables and maybe like some bone broth and, yeah, collagen, those kind of things, some healthy fats. What do you think of the number that gets thrown around a lot is keep your protein under 20 grams? Do you feel like that that's still a good marker if we want to stay in autophagy just to make sure that our protein doesn't go over 20 grams? Per meal or per day? I've heard per day, but the longer I've thought about this, the more I'm going back to the dimmer switch, I'm like, well, just make sure it's not per meal because what you're trying not to do is take the body out of this repair phase. So if you break that 20 grams up into little chunks over, or you eat, you do 20 grams and then three hours later you do 20 more grams, or let's say you do 19. So you don't kick yourself out.

I think it's more about not triggering the body to go into mTOR, basically. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I get it. So, well, first of all, I mean, there are benefits of turning on EMTOR as well. And there are benefits. Yeah. So sometimes you actually want to eat, yeah, like even 30 or 40 grams of protein to turn on the protein synthesis and repair your muscle tissue and help with the recovery. But from the autology side, then I think that depends on your age as well.

So younger people need less protein basically to turn on EMTOR, and it's also easier for them to build muscle tissue. So older people, they become more like this anabolic resistant, which means that it's harder for them to turn on protein synthesis, and they need a higher amount of protein to achieve that. So for regular adults and younger people, you only need like maybe two grams of leucine, which you can get, yeah, like from 20 grams of protein,

25 grams maybe to turn on mTOR and muscle protein synthesis. Whereas for the elderly above 50 or above 60, they may need maybe even three or four grams, so like almost double, to achieve that same effect. Yeah, interesting. And in that case, yeah, per meal, yeah, I mean, you can still get away with some protein, so it's not that even like one gram of protein is going to stop autology or something.

I think, yeah, like even if you have, I mean, vegetables have protein and they don't stop atavaggio directly. And yeah, I guess maybe like maybe 10, 10 grams or 20 grams is probably something that could keep you in some aspects of atalya. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of how I feel too. like as long as we don't trigger that sensor to kick it out, then, then you know, you're playing, it's like a chemistry experiment you're creating in your body, which is why I love it.

You know, a question that comes up for us a lot is how much time should you spend an atopathy and how much time should you spend an mTOR? And I think I'd be curious your thoughts on that. And then I'd also be curious your thoughts on we don't want to villainize mTOR. Emtor. To your point is growth. It's muscle growth. We know now that muscle is the organ of long.

longevity. So what do you think about how we move in and out of mTOR and autophagy? Is there an art to doing that? Well, for sure. I mean, it can become an art and it's definitely a science at the same time. So among it still depends a lot on the goals of the individual and how much muscle they want. So like a bodybuilder, they probably or they definitely need more mTOR stimulation than once or twice a day. Your research suggests that for natural athletes, the optimal amount is four times per day of consuming around 30 grams of protein four times a day to spread out the protein intake and spike the mTOR multiple times a day for maximum muscle growth for, let's say,

females and people who aren't necessarily super or they don't want to build a ton of muscle, then, you know, you can still build muscle with twice a day or one meal a day as well. It's just the difference is a bit like the speed at which you can do it. So, you know, the less frequently you spike the mTOR, then the slower you're going to build muscle, but it doesn't mean that you're going to lose muscle, and it doesn't mean that you can't build muscle either. It's just kind of be like a slower process. And, you know, fasting in Atahagia can also have, like, actually protective effects against sarcopenia. or tawaji, you know, by eliminating this dysfunctional mitochondria in the muscles,

it actually makes the muscle more like resilient against aging and more robust against this kind of catabolic stressors. So you want to do, you know, some aspects of time sheet eating still and exercise. And for most people, I think, you know, maybe like, you know, two meals is kind of a good balance, I think, two or three meals. Most people don't need to do one meal a day or I think that there wouldn't be like any real or significant advantage to one meal a day over two meals a day. I think it's already within the 24-hour cycle, it's already very similar or the time differences are so small in the 24-hour cycle. So it's not a huge difference. So maybe two meals, two to the three meals. maybe on some days you can want to do one meal day.

That's also good. But yeah, on a regular basis, two meals and still to turn on the EMTOR, then you want to have like some protein. And you turn on EMTOR and to also activate muscle protein synthesis, which will then maintain your muscle tissue to, you know, first of all, help with your metabolic health and metabolic rate, even to have more muscle, lean muscle tissue, as well as make it easier to lose fat.

And from the longevity side, yeah, like muscle mass is associated with some longevity. Muscle strength is more than muscle mass. But, I mean, you need to have some muscle mass as well to have muscle strength. So they do generally go hand in hand. Yeah. So per meal, you still want to have, like, you know, for most people, most people may under eat protein a little bit, and they should get at least, you know, depends on their body weight,

but at least, you know, 30 grams of protein or 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal. And, yeah. Does the type of protein matter? Because there's a lot of controversy as well as vegan, carnivore. And some of the experts are saying if you're a vegan, you just can't get the vast amount of amino acids that you need to build muscle. And some people say that vegans just need to supplement. Do you feel like there's a difference when we look at that eating,

window, we want to stimulate mTOR, we want to come in every couple of hours with 30 grams of protein. What if I do that with plant protein? Is that going to have the same effect as a grass-fed steak? Well, animal protein is considered complete protein, so it has all the essential amino acids, and plant proteins generally are not complete, or they don't have all the essential amino acids. and yeah like animal protein will you can get the same effect on muscle protein synthesis and mTOR stimulation from less grams of protein so let's say for example to maximize the mTOR with animal protein you maybe need only 30 grams of protein for meat or on a plant-based protein like beans or legumes or you know chickpeas or whatever then

to reach that same effect, then you may need like, you know, 50 or 60 grams of protein, which is still a lot more calories and a lot more beans as well compared to fake. But it's still, you know, possible technically, although the plant-based proteins are less complete. If you get sufficient amounts of protein, then it becomes less important. So if you're eating 160 grams of protein, even if it's all plant-based, then you can still technically get all the amino acids that you need. it's just that you need more protein to achieve that. Whereas you, 160 grams of plant-based protein,

you can get the same effect for maybe 100 grams of animal protein or 90 grams of animal protein. It's higher quality. And if you're doing an innovative fasting schedule, then you need to be more on point with, yeah, the meal quality or the nutrient density of that meal. So because you're eating less often, so to not miss out on the opportunity of getting the nutrients and the calories,

then those meals have to be like slightly more. optimized from the micronutrient and macro standpoint. That's such a good point. What do you think of if you go into an exercise state in autophagy? Let's say you do a hit workout, so now you're double hitting autophagy, and then you come out of your exercise and you do, you get that amino acid trigger that triggers mTOR, so you break your fast with 30 grams of protein. What I've seen as a 52-year-old woman is that's a heck of a way to be.

build muscle because you're leaning everything out, but then you come in with mTOR and you're powering everything back up. Do you feel like, and as women, I mean, women break down muscle as they start to age and they lose hormones, they lose neurotransmitters. But do you think that's a good strategy if we want to keep a lean fit look, still build muscles, still stimulate atopathy? Do we just need to backfill in with protein? Yeah, I mean, it does, you know, it's almost like, this wax on, wax off approach that you need to deplete and you also need to replenish. If you're like fasting all the time and you're not recovering your calorie restricting and your restrictive protein, but you're not eating back, then eventually you will just,

you know, become frail and, you know, maybe get a hip fracture or something like that. So, yeah, you do. It is very important, especially after 50s to take, yeah, like the training and exercise side important and it becomes more important to eat more protein the older you get. So, you know, young you can, yeah, get away with less protein, but the older, the, you generally need more protein. And research suggests also that, you know, in the elderly, in like 70s or 80 years old, then higher protein, days are better for them. They are recommended to consume more protein by the authorities as well.

So I think that it's very important to replenish after the workout. And at that point, you don't have to worry about or am I stopping autopilogy by consuming this protein or carbs or whatever because you've already done the work or you've already given your body the signal that it needs to turn all these pathways. And it's not going to, yeah, I don't think it's going to like, you know, revert or reverse the work that you did. Like it's not going to take it back. It's kind of still stick around.

Well, and why I always like to highlight it is I feel like in the fasting community, there's a lot of criticism of muscle breakdown. And the way that I teach fasting, the way I know you teach it is like, yeah, you fast and then you eat. Like this is not about like calorie restriction all day long. This is about to your point, I love the wax on, wax off. That's a beautiful analogy. So, but as we age, we're losing sight of the empower of protein. So I think it's really, that was really well said. The other one that I've thought about with research is, I don't know if you saw this study.

I mean, you read a whole book on immunity, so you probably did. But when a cell is in a state of autophagy, the viruses can't replicate inside that cell. Did you, and that was actually a study specifically done on COVID, that if the COVID virus, if it had came into a cell that was a sugar burner with lots of glucose, it would go in there, it would munch on glucose, and it would gain power and replicate. Whereas if the COVID virus came into a cell in autophagy, it actually shut the replication down. Do you know about that study? And the way my brain went was, well, gosh, let's get everybody fasting during the pandemic.

And we just shut. That's like a great antiviral that lives within us. What are your thoughts on that? I haven't seen that particular study. But, yeah, like from a physiology side, it is a. congruent or it does fit the idea of how autology works. And yeah, I think that in a lot of cases, yeah, like it's harder or it's easier to, you know, prevent the onset of viralification in the beginning or, you know, compared to doing it

later. Like it's harder to like catch up on a virus if it's already spread around a lot compared to, you know, preventing it or stopping it from getting in the first place. So I do think that, yeah, it's probably if your body is, quote, unquote, like, you know, in this energy depleted state or there isn't a lot of energy around your body is like very self-sufficient. It's cleaning everything up. It doesn't have like a surplus of energy in the bloodstream and in the cells. Then, yeah, it makes sense that there is, you know, there's not a lot of grip for anything to kind of catch on. Yeah.

I actually played with it a little bit. I got when I got COVID. I was like, well, let me fast and see how I feel. And then the next day, I was like, let me eat and see how I feel. For sure, the day that I fasted, I felt so much better. Like, I felt like my body was just the immune system was working so much more efficiently. By the end of the day, I was like, I think I'm, you know, I only had symptoms for about five days and they were really minor. But then if the day I ate, I was like, oh, man, I don't feel as good.

So it's an interesting thing to think about when we're dealing with the time. when all these weird viruses are appearing, that we have our own internal mechanisms that we can tap into. So I'll send you the study because I geeked out on it for a while. I was like, why doesn't everybody know this? Everybody should know this. Yeah. Fasting is definitely very important against bacteria.

And even like animals, they stop eating when they're under some bacterial infection. And yeah, I think it's the scientific term for that. is infection-induced anorexia. So you get less hungry if you're sick generally. It needs to be infection-induced autophagy. Anorexia has a little bit of a negative stigmatism to it. Talk about some herbs that, you know, we've heard spermidine, you know, can enhance atopathy.

I know that coffee can enhance autophagy. What do you think of all those supplements that are out there claiming to, to enhance atopathy. Are they worth looking at? And which ones are they? Yeah. Well, I think some of the more natural supplements or compounds beyond just, you know, green tea and coffee would be curcumin and ginger are very like natural food substances

that also like activate ENPK and have anti-inflammatory effects and boost autology. there's cayenne pepper that does it as well and all these different herbs and spices rosemary thyme they probably have that effect as well and yeah probably the reason because of like this polyphenol content so yeah polyphenols generally do it as well

like in different vegetables and you know dark skins of berries and these polyphenols stimulate atology or help to boost it as well or cruciferous vegetables as well. Would it be as simple as if I take a turmeric supplement? I'm just throwing that one out there. In my fasting window, now I'm amping up, possibly amping up the autophagy effect of my cells. Can we look at it, is it that one-to-one of a relationship?

Potentially, I mean, yeah, I mean, cumin can be pretty powerful. It depends on, like, how you take it, like a supplement, like 500 milligrams or something. something that probably will. If you take it like just a teaspoon or something, maybe that's not like a big enough of a dose to get it. But I think it still will have like some effects. And, you know, optimally would also want to get something that has fats to absorb the turmeric better.

So maybe like the most like, you know, autophagic fat or most ketotic fat would be MCT oil because it boost ketones and doesn't raise a blood sugar. those kind of things. So yeah, MCBOL or coconut would be maybe good to take with that like fat-soluble supplement. Yeah, yeah. And that's where I feel like it's like the wild, wild west of atophagy out there. Like, you know, everybody wants to know once they discover how cool this cellular healing process is. It's like, well, what's my fastest path there? How do I get there? And let me accelerate it. And then you've got all these supplements that are coming out. So. Yeah. There is like, I mean, the most like, you know, powerful,

autophagic supplement or a drug would be like rapamycin or metformin probably because they just suppress emmthor and insulin which will then automatically turn on autophagia as well pretty potently like if there is like an exercise in a pill then that would be it or as close as it we could get but i mean they also have a lot of side effects i was just going to say yeah i don't think that you know they're worth it to take but yeah they do similarly at halveji as well and i mean there's many other compounds like sulfurine and NMN and Reservatrol, even like glucosamine does it. So, yeah, there are like plenty of supplements that help to boost it.

Interesting. Talk a little bit about when we first started. You said there's some new science on autophagy. Do you have anything new that we're learning about atophagy in general right now? I feel like the curiosity about around autophagy is at a peak. People want to know about it. They want to understand it. Is there anything that is new and innovative way of looking at autophagy that we haven't discussed here?

Well, one very new study that I saw was in August 29, and it was actually about rapamycin that in fruit flies and the mice, using rapamycin for only three months was giving pretty much the exact lifespan extension effects as giving the rapamycin throughout their lifetime. So like just a three month period was enough to see like a lifelong benefit on that. And the mechanism by which it was, it was through like gut atavadi as well. So the rapamycin suppressing mTOR and then the gut atavage was kind of the, they explained it to be the reason why these,

mice and flies live the longer. Of course, three months in mice and flies is like the equivalent of, I don't know, 10 years in humans or something like that. Right. And it's still like another really practical thing. But yeah, that's just an interesting, interesting study indicating that, yeah, it has benefits. And actually, like, another study about NMN also show that NMN helped with gut at how much as well.

So, yeah, gut stuff is maybe popping up. It all comes back to the gut, right? I feel like we go down these rabbit holes of science and then we always realize, oh, wait, we got to think about the microbes. We got to come back to what their effect is on our human cells. So what's your personal fasting regime? Like, do you have a, do you fast every day? Do you vary your fast? I'm curious how you approach fasting.

Yeah. So usually I eat like one meal, day in the dinner and do. During the daytime, I will have, like, you know, coffee or some other tea, something else. I may add, like, a bit of milk to the coffee, but not, like, a large amount. And during my workout in the afternoon, I'll consume, like, a protein shake to help with the workout. So I'm getting, like, maybe, like, one and a half meals per day. But most of the calories come in the dinner. Yeah. So yeah, so you have like one main meal and a few little snacky. Yeah, that's that's actually my go-to as well. I like to when I break my fast, I usually kind of gradually go into it and then I eat my big meal at dinner. So yeah, I absolutely agree. So okay, to finish this up, and this is, thank you, by the way, for having this discussion with me. You know, you probably get thousands of questions on your YouTube channel as do we. And the questions I just asked you, I feel like,

Like we keep getting over and over again. And it's such a cool concept that people really should grab this. We should not forget how powerful our bodies are. So I appreciate that. Here's my last question for you. And it has nothing to do with the topogy. What do you have a gratitude practice? Like, do you have something you do every day for gratitude?

I've been working on spreading more gratitude to the world. And if so, what is it? And is there something in 2020? that you're incredibly grateful for. Because we just came out of a time where everybody didn't like what was going on. And now there's a lot of good happening. Is there something this year that you're really grateful for?

Well, this year I'm grateful for my wife, who we actually recently got married last week. Last week? Oh, my God. Congrats. That's awesome. Thanks. And, yeah, I mean, just, you know,

it just makes me grateful. Yeah, I bet. I bet. And do you have a daily gratitude practice that you do? Do you meditate? Do you get out in nature? You have anything in particular that you do? Not every day, but yeah, sometimes I just have like maybe a few moments where I'm just thinking

about, yeah, things to be grateful for usually in relation to like, you know, other, I don't know, events going on in the world. and just like a brief moment of gratitude. Yeah, agreed, agreed. Well, okay, you have some really cool books that I want people to know about, really good ones, one on minerals, one on immunity. But you talked a little bit about how you have a book on autophagy, an e-book. Is that correct? Or is it an actual soft cover?

Yeah, I mean, it's an e-book as well as a paperback, and it's called Metabolic Cotology, which, yeah, goes into a lot of the, like, pathways that regulate both Imtor and Alabaji and AMBK, as well as giving more practical tips of how to do it. And yeah, I have it. You can get it on Amazon as well, but on my website, you can get it for free if you just pay for the shipping. It's on seamland.com.

Beautiful. Okay. Well, we'll leave that link in there because our audience is a very inquisitive audience, and I love that they want to geek out on this stuff. So that's an incredible resource. So thank you. Where else can people find you? You have a great YouTube channel.

I follow you on Instagram. There are other places that people can go learn from you. Yeah, I mean YouTube and Instagram are the main channels. So it's a seamland on both of them. Perfect, perfect. Well, thank you. I appreciate you entertaining my autophagy brain and going down this path with me. And like you, I just want people to believe in their own healing power.

And nothing will tell you that your body can repair itself. understanding autophagy. So just really appreciate you and I hope our paths crossed live one day. Are you coming to any conferences in America to speak at all? Not this year, but maybe next we'll see. But yeah, it was a great, really appreciate being invited and yeah, enjoy it talking. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it,

so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.