I’m new to fasting and I’ve often wondered if you were already past the 18 hours and in autophagy, but you have a lemon water and it’s enough to break your fast, does it take another 18 hours to re-enter autophagy? In other words, if the liver is already in glycogen depletion, how long would it take to deplete the glycogen once again?
I’m no expert, but I believe autophagy is happening constantly. Eating/snacking nonstop and activating mTor decreases expression of autophagy.
However, at the 72 hour mark of clean fasting, the expression of autophagy is increased to about 30%.
Clean fasting obviously increases expression of autophagy the most.
But calorie restriction, exercise, and ketogenic diets all increase expression of autophagy somewhat.
Autophagy is a constant process and it’s my understanding that it just ramps up us we go becoming more and more effective the longer the fast. Small amounts of calories and /or sugars will bring it back down and you need to ramp it up again but I’m not sure by how much and whether it’s a full reset back to your base
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If (a big if) it’s anything like ketosis, you’ll get back in more quickly because your body doesn’t have actual stores to work through but I don’t know this for sure
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That said, you can also jump-start things with exercise since that induces higher levels of autophagy, too. I’m not sure on the science here, but apple cider vinegar and green tea can also boost autophagy levels apparently. So you could use those things to push you further along