Now and then I’ll read comments on keto discussion forums that gloat about being able to eat anything if they’re just sure to stay below 50 grams of carbs a day. I’ll be direct here and say this is the wrong way to do keto. Unfortunately, many people get overzealous about macro counts and lose sight of the bigger picture. Reaching ketosis is never the end goal. You want health, energy, vitality. How you get there matters.
It’s true that the ketogenic diet uses a macronutrient framework that looks roughly like this:
Carbohydrates below 50 grams per day (around 5-10% of total caloric intake)
Protein sufficient to meet physiological needs and goals (generally 15-25% caloric intake)
The rest from healthy fats
Within that framework, there is generous room to fulfill your body’s nutrient requirements and include ample vegetable—and even some fruit—intake.
My hope is that this guide will leave you feeling you have an incredibly vast array of appetizing, nutritious options. The truth is you CAN create an effective keto diet from an expansive range of whole, nutrient-dense foods.
Healthy Fats
Because we want to increase our healthy fat intake on a ketogenic plan, I’m starting with fats.
First and foremost, avoid industrial seed oils. Steer clear of anything hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated. Choosing the right fats to keep your fatty acids in balance is important, but it’s not something to get overly stressed about.
Use fats appropriately at temperatures and in storage conditions that maintain their stability and nutrient value.
Here are some healthy fat options:
Saturated and monounsaturated fats:Great for higher temp cooking and for making fat bombs.
Bacon fat—actually a mix of saturated and monounsaturated, but surprisingly high in monounsaturated fat; great for sautéed vegetables
Duck fat—also a mix of saturated and monounsaturated, but surprisingly high in monounsaturated fat)
Macadamia nut oil—very low in PUFAs
Polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs): Know the difference. Some should be completely off the menu, like over-processed vegetable oils (corn and canola), but others can have a regular place at the ketogenic table.
Most seed-based oils are high in polyunsaturated fats. Unfortunately, seed oils are typically extracted in ways that can destroy the nutrients. Be sure to look for cold-pressed versions, and don’t heat these oils.
Hemp oil
Flax oil
Chia oil
Vegetables and Fruits
Many people falsely assume they have to forgo the benefits of vegetables and especially fruit with a keto diet. The best source of vegetables are above-ground varieties, which are nutrient-dense yet low in carbohydrates. Dark leafy greens and cruciferous veggies are excellent options.
Take time to learn how many carbs are in each kind of produce. I recommend carefully limiting root vegetables and tubers, as well as most fruits, during keto phases. These don’t deliver the best bang for your buck in terms of getting the most nutrient-dense food for the fewest carbs. If you’re an endurance athlete or you participate in a physically demanding sport or other activity, you can incorporate more starchy vegetables around the window of your workout to refuel as truly needed.
Here are some lower carb vegetable and fruit options:
Leafy greens: spinach, arugula, Swiss chard, various lettuces like romaine and iceberg, purslane, dandelion greens, watercress, mustard plant, beet greens, and endive
Protein offers a high satiety factor and is needed to build and maintain lean mass. Enjoy a variety of meat, fowl, seafood, and eggs. Organs are some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, so be sure to include them in your diet! Limit cured meats to those that don’t contain sugar or nitrates.
Here are some great meat/protein options:
Small, oily fish (salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, herring)
Other wild-caught fish and other seafood (some farmed are okay, too)
Bivalves (oysters, mussels, clams, scallops)
Fowl: chicken, turkey, duck, goose, Cornish hen
Lamb
Grass-fed beef
Pasture-raised eggs (chicken and duck)
Organ meats: liver, heart, kidney, sweetbreads
Bacon (look for brands without sugar added)
Pasture-raised pork
Dairy
For the best nutrition, look for full-fat, pastured dairy. (I don’t eat low-fat or fat-free dairy whether or not I’m doing keto.) Dairy has natural sugars, even if there are no added sweeteners, so be mindful about your intake. Here are some of the best options for those who choose to include dairy within a ketogenic eating plan.
Raw hard cheeses (best bet: rich in K2, low in carbs, high in nutrients)
Raw soft cheeses
Full-fat plain Greek yogurt
Full-fat milk and cream
Fermented drinks like kefir (plain and full fat, but still watch carb content on these!)
Herbs and Spices
Herbs and spices can add new levels of flavor to vegetables, meats, and sauces. Use them generously. Here are some of my staples, but any herbs and spices are on the menu.
Sea salt or Himalayan pink salt
Black pepper
Cinnamon
Turmeric
Cayenne
Cumin
Cilantro
Basil
Oregano
Dill
Rosemary
Parsley
Chili powder
Saffron
Cardamon
Nuts and Seeds
Nuts and seeds make for great snacking options in moderation. They offer healthy fats and essential minerals, but they also contain varying amounts of carbohydrates.
The best low-carb/high-fat nut options are:
Macadamia nuts
Brazil nuts
Pecans
Hazelnuts
Some of the higher-carb nut options (to be more mindful of consuming) are:
Pistachios
Cashews
Almonds
Walnuts
Sauces and Condiments
Your best bet is to make your own sauces and condiments, or purchase them from a Primal source that does not use sugar in the ingredients. (PRIMAL KITCHEN® mayos, dressings and oils fit the bill perfectly.) This is the best way to avoid hidden sugars and sweeteners, yet still get the creaminess you crave! Here are some sauces and condiments that can complement a ketogenic plan (again, keep in mind the carb content of each):
Salad dressings (made with yogurt or avocado oil and without sugar or sweeteners)
Sweeteners
Sometimes we want a little added sweetness. When choosing a sweetener, avoid anything that will spike insulin or knock you out of ketosis. Some artificial sweeteners may not affect insulin but can compromise gut biome health. Stevia and monk fruit are two natural sweeteners that have no or low glycemic impact.
Of course, there is no need for sweeteners on keto, so if you feel like you can do without them, by all means!
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Exclusive unpublished commentary about new research, trends, discussions and observations about the ketogenic diet
“In response to taking a break from all the luxuries is one of my favorite luxuries and.
Getting outdoors, no cell service….who cares. The comfort of my hammock and cozy sleeping bag, a warm bonfire, book, and hot pour over coffee as the sun rises wherever I happen to be. Hear the coyotes, an owl or crickets, and the wind in the trees.
Luxury comes in many forms.
I truly enjoy a hot shower on my return and my big bed.
Training outdoors is one of the classic human traditions. Almost every workout I do is outside, whether it’s weights at the outdoor gym, sprints on the beach, hikes, fat tire cycling on the beach, paddling in the ocean, pickle ball on the court or Ultimate on the grass. Being outside in the sun while you train and play means better results, more vitamin D, a bigger pump (from nitric oxide production from said sunlight), a stronger connection to the earth through barefooted grounding, exposure to all the benefits of nature, and it’s just more enjoyable. However, you can’t always train outside. Sometimes you need to bring the outside indoors. Sometimes you need indoor exercises.
What are some of the best indoor exercises?
Treadmill Uphill Ruck
One of the best overall exercises for building strength, endurance, and “grit” is the uphill ruck. You strap on a heavy pack (or weight vest) and go walking through hills. It’s easy on the joints, hard on the muscles, and is incredibly demanding of your cardiovascular system without forcing you to go fast. Uphill rucking is a great way for anyone whose joints won’t allow them to run or who simply doesn’t like running to still get great aerobic work in. But there aren’t any hills indoors.
A good indoor replacement is to use the treadmill on max incline. You pump the incline up to 15, strap on your pack, and go. Pick a speed that’s manageable but challenging. It’s arguably better in some ways than the real hills because you’re able to constantly climb and eliminate the flat portions. I’m not a huge fan of rucking on flat ground—it doesn’t feel terribly helpful.
The one thing it can’t replicate is the downhill portion, a vital part of the ruck session because the eccentric loading of the knee helps strengthen connective tissue and trains the muscle to “lower” the weight. Following up the treadmill ruck with some high rep VMO squats while wearing the pack or carrying weights is a decent approximation.
Treadmill Hill Sprints
You know the drill. Hill sprints are bar none the best sprints around. They’re harder, because you’re fighting even more gravity. They’re easier on the joints, because your feet aren’t “falling” as far. They’re more efficient than flat sprints, so you don’t need to spend as much time doing them.
Flat sprints on a treadmill have always felt off to me. For one thing, flat treadmill ambulation isn’t the same as flat ground ambulation. A 2013 study found major differences between accelerating on the treadmill and accelerating on the ground.1 Runners on the ground accelerate and modify their biomechanics to accommodate the acceleration, increasing hip joint power and reducing knee joint power. On the treadmill, the ground accelerates instead and the runner maintains the same “kinesiological mechanics.”
By increasing the incline, you can almost recreate the effect of running on real ground. According to one study, a 1% incline is enough to make running on a treadmill very similar to running on the ground.2
Bear Crawl
Most bear crawling happens on the grass or in the sand.
You can just as easily bear crawl around the house or the gym. In fact, whenever I remember to do it, I’ll spend 5-10 minutes crawling around my house. Upstairs, downstairs, into the kitchen, the bathroom. It’s a fun way to get around, it’s very good for shoulder mobility, and it’s actually a nice way to warm up before an upper body day. Try to keep your torso relatively level—parallel with the floor—and get most of your movement through the shoulder girdle.
To make this a real workout, you can crawl 10 paces, do 10 pushups, crawl 10 paces, do 10 close-grip pushups, and repeat indefinitely. Easy way to blast the upper body.
Balance Beams
Balancing as you walk along narrow surfaces is a fun way to train and challenge your balance and vestibular systems, and it usually happens outdoors in nature. Logs across streams, fallen trees jutting out over a ravine with a 50 foot drop below, slippery backs of park benches, tree root systems with enough exposure you can traverse them,
While they aren’t as exciting as balancing on real surfaces outside, long pieces of lumber are relatively inexpensive balance beams that work great indoors. Just lay the pieces directly on the ground in whatever configurations you want. It’s also safer, since you’re not falling more than an inch or two if you mess up.
2×4 if you’re not very comfortable on a balance beam
2×3 if you are
1×2 if you really want to learn to balance
You can also use them for crawling—bear crawls along a 2×4 is a great exercise and surprisingly difficult.
Jumping “Rocks”
Although I don’t do it so much anymore—the risk to reward ratio is too high for me and a fall would be dangerous—I used to love bounding from rock to rock down at the many creeks and rivers during my childhood in Maine. It’s a mix of explosive strength (you have to jump far and high), balance (you’re landing on and taking off from often unstable or narrow rocks), accuracy (you have to aim for a specific spot in the world and land there), and textural navigation (it could be slippery or wobbly or rough or slick or mossy). It also takes a bit of daring. And it’s fun.
To do these indoors, you can place weights, benches, boxes, and Bosu balls all over the floor and jump from spot to spot. Using a mix is best, as this provides different heights and stabilities. If you’re using weights, the Olympic weights work best. In a pinch, furniture can work too. Even a throw blanket or pillow on the floor can be a “jumping rock” (just be careful if it’s on hardwood). The important thing is having a target to aim for.
Kettlebell Complex
Once again, kettlebell workouts are best outside, but they also work well indoors. Why?
Kettlebells are compact. They take up almost no space, and the actual movement pattern of a kettlebell workout is also quite constrained. If you really wanted to, you could get a good KB workout in a large closet. Kettlebells are versatile. With just a single kettlebell, you can work every major muscle group. You can get a total body workout in about ten minutes.
Here’s a sample kettlebell complex:
10 goblet squats (legs, glutes, torso)
10 bent over rows, each arm (biceps, back)
10 swings (hamstrings, glutes, lower back)
10 overhead presses, each arm (shoulders, triceps)
Repeat 5 times.
You’ll be done in 10-15 minutes. You’ll be breathing hard. You’ll feel like you got a good workout, and you will have gotten a good workout.
It’s ideal to train outside, but we can’t always make it work. These indoor exercises are the next best thing to being outside in the sun.
As the number of people living with cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and other health scourges continues to skyrocket, so too does the demand for safe, effective treatments. People don’t just want to pop pills that mask symptoms and make it possible to “live with” a disease. And as much as we know that diet and lifestyle changes—being less sedentary, sleeping more, reducing stress—are needed to make real, sweeping public health impacts, implementation is a huge challenge. In the meantime, people need remedies that get to the root causes of their chronic health woes—ideally without a laundry list of possible side effects.
Enter berberine, an alkaloid compound found in various plants. This is a textbook example of modern science confirming ancient wisdom. Chinese and ayurvedic medicine have valued berberine-containing plants like barberry, goldenseal, and tree turmeric for hundreds of years, using them to treat everything from gout to indigestion to hemorrhoids to skin infections to cancer. Now, research is uncovering exactly how berberine works—and it turns out to be quite a remarkable little substance.
To date, there is pretty good evidence that berberine is useful for two applications in particular, and there are hints that it might serve other purposes as well. Let’s dive in.
Likely Benefits of Berberine
For Managing Blood Sugar, Insulin, and Type 2 Diabetes
In type 2 diabetics, berberine seems to lower fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin, decrease HbA1c (a three-month blood glucose average), and improve insulin sensitivity.1
Some studies even suggest that berberine can be as effective as the drugs that are currently considered standard of care, notably metformin. There is also an additive benefit: administering metformin with berberine seems to be more effective than metformin alone.2 However, as the authors of one review pointed out, studies comparing the two tend to be of less-than-ideal quality.3 Shockingly, drug companies aren’t exactly falling all over themselves to fund research to see if an herb can replace one of their lucrative products.
Nevertheless, this is a big deal. Insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and the resulting inflammation are the common threads connecting numerous chronic diseases. It’s possible, even likely, that berberine could be used as a primary or adjunct therapy for many diseases that run rampant today. Take PCOS as an example. Insulin resistance is a hallmark of PCOS, and metformin is often prescribed to manage symptoms and encourage ovulation. In one study, 150 women received berberine, metformin, or a placebo before undergoing IVF. Women in both treatment groups showed similar improvements in metabolic health (lower BMI, less insulin resistance, lower fasting glucose and insulin), but 18 of those who took berberine had a successful pregnancy, compared to 14 in the metformin group and 7 in the placebo group.4
For Blood Lipids
Studies in rodents and humans with high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes pretty consistently find that berberine lowers LDL-C and triglycerides, usually while boosting HDL.56 It may also lower ApoB.7 ApoB is a lipoprotein that many cardiovascular disease experts now recognize is a more accurate marker of atherosclerotic disease risk than LDL or total cholesterol. In animal studies, berberine has been shown to decrease the severity of the plaques that characterize atherosclerosis.8
Setting aside questions about the value of lowering LDL across the board, berberine could be a viable option for people who don’t want to or are unable to take statins. For example, researchers conducted a study on type 2 diabetics with high cholesterol who were “statin intolerant,” meaning they experienced unsafe side effects when taking a statin.9 Participants were either still taking low-dose statins, a different a non-statin drug used to lower LDL, or nothing. Everyone took around 500 mg of berberine a day—either alone or alongside the drug they were already taking—combined with silymarin (aka milk thistle), which boosts berberine’s bioavailability. After one year, all three groups had lower LDL and total cholesterol, with nonsignificant changes in HDL and triglycerides. They also had lower fasting glucose and HbA1c. Of note, berberine alone was as effective as berberine plus one of the drugs. The berberine-alone group also experienced fewer side effects.
For folks who are already taking statins, adding berberine can increase the drugs’ lipid-lowering effects.10 Anecdotally, some folks use berberine to taper off of statins altogether.
Other Possible Benefits of Berberine
As is often the case with more niche supplements, the available research on berberine tends to be somewhat limited in terms of volume and quality, especially when we’re talking about studies done in humans. Given what we currently know, the following applications are worth noting but far from definitive:
Cancer. A large number of in vitro (cell) studies have found that berberine has anti-cancer properties, but this has yet to be shown in actual cancer patients.11
Depression: Berberine supplementation may be useful in alleviating depression.12 However, so far this finding has only been demonstrated in rodents (yes, rats can be depressed).
Memory: Berberine may enhance memory, especially counteracting memory deficits associated with diabetes and inflammation in the brain.13
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: The progression of NAFLD is strongly related to insulin resistance, and some studies have already shown that berberine can improve glycemic control and insulin sensitivity in folks with NAFLD.14 More generally, berberine may support liver health.
Microbiome: Researchers postulate that one of the ways berberine is able to exert its many effects is by improving gut health and function by modulating the microbiome.15 Berberine is also used to treatH. pyloriinfections.16
Longevity: Berberine delays cellular senescence—the loss of the ability to replicate, which is one of the things that defines the aging process—in isolated cells, fruit flies, and mice.1718 Direct anti-aging effects have yet to be demonstrated in humans, though, and one study in yeast actually found that it shortened lifespan.19
How Does Berberine Do All This?
First and foremost, berberine activates AMPK. AMPK, you may remember, is an enzyme that is central to metabolic regulation at the cellular level. Its basic function is to ensure that cells have enough energy. AMPK has all sorts of health- and longevity-promoting effects, including activating insulin pathways, increasing glucose uptake, regulating blood lipids, inhibiting tumor growth, reducing inflammation and oxidative stress, and stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis andautophagy. Many of the behaviors we consider “healthy”—exercise, fasting,heat stress—are beneficial in large part because they affect AMPK signaling.
Aside from its impact on AMPK, researchers are discovering that berberine has an extensive array of actions throughout the body. Here are a handful of note:
Berberine metabolites increase the expression of LDL receptors in liver cells, which helps pull LDL from the bloodstream, accounting for some of the lipid lowering effects.2021
Promotes the expression of genes that decrease lipogenesis (fat formation) and increase mitochondrial uncoupling.22 The latter causes cells to burn more energy for heat, increasing metabolic rate and possibly promoting fat loss. Mitochondrial uncoupling is why brown fat is more metabolically active than white fat.
Inhibits PCSK9, a protein that binds with LDL receptors and prevents LDL from being removed from the bloodstream.23 PCSK9-inhibiting drugs are sometimes prescribed to patients with high LDL, especially folks with familial hypercholesterolemia.
GLP-1 is a peptide that plays an important role in insulin secretion. GLP-1 response is impaired in diabetics. Berberine apparently binds with an enzyme called DPP IV that normally breaks down GLP-1. Basically, berberine prevents DPP IV from doing its job, allowing more GLP-1 to stay in the system.24
Can cross the blood brain barrier and influence the action of neurotransmitters like noradrenaline and serotonin.25
Has antibacterial and antiprotozoal effects.
Finally, some of the metabolic benefits might be chalked up to weight loss as some, but not all, studies find that taking berberine leads to lower waist circumference and BMI. I tend to see these as concomitant effects—metabolic health and body composition improving in concert with one another, creating a positive feedback loop.
Any Downsides?
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, even with “natural” remedies. Overall, berberine has a pretty good reputation for safety, and studies consistently note that berberine is better tolerated and leads to fewer adverse events than the drugs it might replace (or complement). However, you should not take berberine if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, as it’s unsafe for newborns and infants. Kids shouldn’t start it without medical supervision.
Since berberine affects liver metabolism, it can affect how certain medications are broken down and absorbed, so do your due diligence here if you’re on any prescription meds.
Berberine – Yes or No?
Here’s where it stands for now: berberine looks quite promising for many aspects of metabolic health, but there’s still more research to be done, especially in humans.If you’re already taking metformin, a PCSK9 inhibitor, or a statin, or your doctor is pressuring you to do so, it is worth looking into. For blood sugar control, insulin sensitivity, lowering triglycerides, improving your TG:HDL ratio, your frontline strategies should always be diet and lifestyle, but there is certainly a case for exploring berberine in addition to these other strategies, especially when your best efforts still aren’t delivering the desired results. A dose of 1000-1500 mg per day is pretty standard. It’s not clear if this is optimal for every use case, but this is an active area of research, so stay tuned.
Have you experimented with berberine? If so, why, and what were your results? Let me know in the comments.
“Methane suppressants for cows to curb climate change.
Hmm… Would it stop farting in humans? It could be the blockbuster pill of the decade. Imagine teenagers beating a path to your door with $15 each for a pack of pills to stop farting before a big date night. Early retirement for whoever markets that. Dumber stuff has made people rich.“
“I would say power is the most important attribute – the ability to make good use of the strength you have. It’s the middle ground between strength and endurance, and it feeds the training for both. Powerful movement is what separates elite athletes from ordinary competitors.“
-Power definitely leaves us as we age unless we do our best to hold on to it. We can still be strong but lose the ability to generate as much power with that strength..
Biological systems are self-maintaining. They have to be. Your cells are little factories, performing tasks crucial to maintaining this thing we call life. And just like in factories, machinery (organelles) break down. Waste (metabolic byproducts) must be managed. Security teams need to be in place to keep intruders (bacteria and viruses) from disrupting operations.
For life to sustain itself, cells must perform this crucial work themselves. It’s not like we can send in microscopic maintenance workers, mechanics, and security details to handle the dirty work from the outside. Not really, not yet anyway. One of the most important types of biological maintenance is a process called autophagy.
Not that long ago, nobody except the most hard-core biohackers talked about autophagy. It has become a hot topic, though, as scientists have made considerable progress toward understanding the ins and outs of autophagy in the past few decades. Now, anyone with a passing interest in longevity or intermittent fasting tosses the word around in casual conversation.
But for all the popular interest in autophagy, I’m willing to bet that the average person doesn’t understand it all that well. They probably believe that autophagy is desirable, and they may know that intermittent fasting will net them more of it, but that’s about it. So today I’m going to answer some autophagy FAQs—what it is, how to induce it, and where you may need to be cautious.
What Is Autophagy?
Autophagy: the word comes from the Greek for “self-eating,” and that’s a very accurate description. There are several different types of autophagy. The one that we generally mean when we say “autophagy” involves organelles within the cell called lysosomes “eating”—or rather, using enzymes to degrade—parts of the cell that are damaged or malfunctioning.
The overarching goal of autophagy is to maintain homeostasis within the cell—to keep the factory running smoothly. It’s a type of cellular recycling process, allowing organelles, proteins, and other structures to be broken down and reused by the cell for energy or building new components. Lysosomes can also degrade pathogens that threaten the integrity of the cell.
What Activates Autophagy in the Cells?
Autophagy is operating all the time to manage the basic cellular housekeeping, but anything that threatens homeostasis in the cell will ramp it up. Oxygen deprivation (hypoxia), DNA damage, infection, or cellular damage due to factors like oxidative stress can all trigger a rise in autophagy. The trigger we talk about most is nutrient deprivation.
Your cells are exquisitely tuned in to how much energy is available. They have multiple systems in place to sense if energy supplies are adequate and to flag when they are low. When energy is abundant, autophagy operates in the background; but when your cells sense that energy is low, they go into conservation mode, and autophagy really kicks in. You can understand why this would be. In lean times, your cells must be more frugal, using what they already have on hand. Breaking down damaged proteins and organelles for firewood and parts to build new machines, so to speak, just makes sense.
Some of the signals that indicate low energy availability and dial up autophagy are low glucose, low insulin, low mTOR signaling, high AMPK, and high glucagon. Not coincidentally, these are the same biological markers that characterize a fasted metabolic state.
The reverse is also true, when glucose, insulin, and mTOR signaling are high, and AMPK and glucagon are low, autophagy is inhibited. (This, by the way, is why we say that protein intakebreaks a fast. Because when you eat protein, especially the amino acid leucine, you activate the mTOR pathway and downregulate autophagy.)
What Roles Does It Play in the Body?
By maintaining homeostasis and preventing cell damage, autophagy contributes to the health of all your tissues and organs. Its specific effects depend somewhat on where the cells in question are located.
In the liver, autophagy kicks in during fasting to degrade proteins into amino acids that can be used for energy production, thus maintaining whole body energy levels even in the absence of incoming food.1
In the muscles, autophagy enables the building of strength and endurance when we exercise. Muscle damage is a hallmark of exercise and is crucial to the adaptation process, but without autophagy, muscles couldn’t recover from said damage.23
In the brain, autophagy helps clear out the waste and debris that would otherwise accumulate in neurons and lead to cognitive decline. Scientists are actively working on developing strategies to upregulate autophagy in the brain as a means to stave off and treat neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons—devastating conditions for which existing treatments have proven largely ineffective.4
So Autophagy Is Always Desirable, Right?
Not so fast. I see a lot of people out there undertaking extreme fasting regimens or other biohacking strategies in the name of maximizing autophagy. This seems ill-advised given that we don’t know if more autophagy is necessarily better. In fact, we know there are times when it is not.
There’s the fact that unchecked autophagy can increase existing cancer in some cases. There’s the fact that too much autophagy in the wrong place might be bad. There’s the fact that most things in nature follow the Goldilocks principle: too much is bad, and too little is bad. The “just right” amount is somewhere in the middle.
At this point, we simply don’t know what “optimal autophagy” looks like. We know it’s important, but scientists are still working to decipher when it’s good (most of the time, probably) and when, and under what circumstances, it becomes problematic.
When Does Autophagy Start? What Are the Signs That It’s Taking Place?
The biggest conundrum for those who are interested in optimizing autophagy is that we can’t really measure it. Scientists have identified various biomarkers that signal that autophagy is taking place, but they aren’t the kinds of things we can see in real time in a person walking around in a fasted state. There are no continuous autophagy monitors to slap on the backs of our arms that will tell us how much autophagy is happening in our cells—yet.
In lieu of that, probably the best proxies we have right now are metabolic markers that our bodies are in a fasted state—low glucose, low insulin, high ketones, high glucagon. But here we have the measurement problem again. With the exception of glucose, we can’t continuously monitor these variables. And even if we could—and I do expect that continuous ketone and insulin monitors are coming soon—we still don’t know what exactly we’re aiming for.
The bottom line is, we can only infer that autophagy is happening because we are subjecting our bodies, and hence our cells, to desirable, adaptive stressors. That’s about what we have to go on.
How to Induce Autophagy
I just got done telling you that we can’t monitor autophagy and that it’s not always good—but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to induce it. We do. We must. And the way we do it is by engaging in the types of behaviors that we talk about here all the time. Fasting and exercise—both high- and low-intensity—are two of the most prominent, butthere are others. Anything that stresses the cell will likely induce autophagy.
What to Do with This Information
This can’t be underscored enough: Autophagy is a long game, a lifelong pursuit attained by regular doses of exercise and not overeating every time you sit down to a meal. Doing epic seven-day fasts every month, making sure you end every day with fully depleted liver glycogen, never going over 20 grams of carbs in a day—these strategies might be “effective,” but obsessively trying to hit some “perfect” level of constant autophagy isn’t the point and is likely to activate or trigger neurotic behavior.
Autophagy happens largely when you just live a healthy lifestyle.Be active. Go hard every now and then. Sleep deeply. Recover well. Don’t eat carbohydrates you don’t need. Reach ketosis sometimes. Don’t eat more food than you need.
Start with those basics. Once you have them nailed, and all caveats aside, I see the utility in doing a big “autophagy session” a few times a year. Here’s how mine looks:
Do a big training session incorporating strength training and sprints. Lots of intense bursts. This will trigger autophagy.
Fast for a couple days. This will push autophagy even further.
Stay busy throughout the fast. Take as many walks as possible. This will really ramp up the fat burning and get you quickly into ketosis, another autophagy trigger.
Drink coffee throughout the fast. Coffee is a nice boost to autophagy. Decaf is fine.
I know people are often skeptical of using “Grok logic,” but it’s likely that most human ancestors experienced similar perfect storms of deprivation-induced autophagy on occasion. They tracked an animal for a couple days and came up short. They nibbled on various stimulants plucked from the land along the way. They walked a ton, sprinted some, and lifted heavy things. And then they ate.
If you find yourself aging well, you’re on the right track. If you’re not progressing from insulin resistance to diabetes, if you’re maintaining and even building your muscle despite qualifying for the blue plate special, if you’re thinking clearly, I wouldn’t worry.
That’s it for today, folks. If you have any more questions about autophagy, leave them down below and I’ll try to get to all of them in future posts.
Now and then I’ll read comments on keto discussion forums that gloat about being able to eat anything if they’re just sure to stay below 50 grams of carbs a day. I’ll be direct here and say this is the wrong way to do keto. Unfortunately, many people get overzealous about macro counts and lose sight of the bigger picture. Reaching ketosis is never the end goal. You want health, energy, vitality. How you get there matters.
Training outdoors is one of the classic human traditions. Almost every workout I do is outside, whether it’s weights at the outdoor gym, sprints on the beach, hikes, fat tire cycling on the beach, paddling in the ocean, pickle ball on the court or Ultimate on the grass. Being outside in the sun while you train and play means better results, more vitamin D, a bigger pump (from nitric oxide production from said sunlight), a stronger connection to the earth through 
As the number of people living with cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, cancer, and other health scourges continues to skyrocket, so too does the demand for safe, effective treatments. People don’t just want to pop pills that mask symptoms and make it possible to “live with” a disease. And as much as we know that diet and lifestyle changes—being less sedentary, sleeping more, reducing stress—are needed to make real, sweeping public health impacts, implementation is a huge challenge. In the meantime, people need remedies that get to the root causes of their chronic health woes—ideally without a laundry list of possible side effects. 
Biological systems are self-maintaining. They have to be. Your cells are little factories, performing tasks crucial to maintaining this thing we call life. And just like in factories, machinery (organelles) break down. Waste (metabolic byproducts) must be managed. Security teams need to be in place to keep intruders (bacteria and viruses) from disrupting operations. 
Getting outdoors, no cell service….who cares. The comfort of my hammock and cozy sleeping bag, a warm bonfire, book, and hot pour over coffee as the sun rises wherever I happen to be. Hear the coyotes, an owl or crickets, and the wind in the trees.
Luxury comes in many forms.
I truly enjoy a hot shower on my return and my big bed.
It is all how you frame it.“