Autophagy

Autophagy, or voluntary fasting, is a metabolic process by which cells break down and recycle their own components, thereby providing the body with energy and promoting the process of cell renewal. Through autophagy, cells remove damaged proteins and organelles. You can expect an excellent tool against ageing, insulin resistance and diabetes, autoimmune diseases and many more health benefits... If you want more detail about autophagy, there are many more educated and eloquent people on the internet who will explain it in detail (you can also search under the term intermittent fasting). Today I will share with you some ideas on how you can make the best use of autophagy alongside your training, and your training alongside autophagy.

How does training affect autophagy?

One hour that you spend training in the state of autophagy counts as 3 hours at rest or 5 hours of sleep. When experts talk about autophagy, they roughly cite the time at which it will kick in, say from 12 or 13 hours onwards. The point is that the speed of the metabolism affects the timing. By speeding up your metabolism through training, you reduce the time it takes for autophagy to start. And if you want to defend yourself against “hunger attacks”, you can also use training as a means. The training process will release energy from fat and your blood sugar level will become optimal.

When to train during autophagy!?

If you want to lose weight, it would be best to place your training before breakfast, and if you want to increase muscle mass, then it is best to place your training 2 to 3 hours after breakfast. Training will certainly contribute to your autophagy and autophagy will certainly contribute to your training - in any variant they go together excellently!

How autophagy affects the muscles

Honestly, your muscles will not be happy about autophagy. If you want to increase muscle mass, you should have a frequent intake of protein, which is contradictory to autophagy. To keep the loss of muscle mass to a minimum, my advice would be to finish your meals with a protein-rich meal. A meal containing fats and proteins will make you feel full for longer, and then your insulin level is more likely to drop and the effect will be faster and of better quality. This is why autophagy is often recommended alongside the popular “keto” diets.

If you are an athlete or simply want to preserve or even increase muscle mass, I recommend autophagy of 16 hours of fasting, no more. It can give you equally useful benefits for your health, perhaps even better, but in that case it is important that you are consistent and that you create continuity in the process.

Hydration!

Take care of your hydration during autophagy. The process itself will work better if you take in enough water, because water is what “washes away” the products of metabolic waste, and by speeding up circulation the process will be of better quality; and when you are in the training process, your water needs increase many times over.

Spelta Vita products and autophagy

All Spelta Vita products can be easily and readily incorporated into any diet, including autophagy. Green spelt and barley juices provide more energy, speed up the body's detoxification, strengthen immunity and have a beneficial effect on the nervous system. All our products based on barley juice help the regeneration and relaxation of the muscles and reduce inflammatory processes.

Spelta Vita, training and autophagy will help you slow down ageing while speeding up your metabolism.

Author: Vladimir Danilović, graduate sports teacher