We live in latitudes of prosperity, abundance, and excessive consumption, where planned periods of hunger are the result of choice rather than coercion. What's more, they are also a determinant of awareness of the body's own needs. Autophagy is the result of not eating food for a certain period of time. Why would anyone do this to themselves?
The Intermittent Fasting (IF) nutritional philosophy and its spectacular health benefits - documented by dozens of studies - have become an important part of the health optimization culture. Its assumptions, however, contradict the guidelines so well known from books on human nutrition.
We have been socially programmed to provide the body with at least 3 meals a day (ideally 5 if you are stuck in the old school of bodybuilding) because food is important for the body to regenerate.
The scientific evidence shows otherwise, however. Real regeneration - the one you should care about the most - does not come from stuffing your stomach with food. It is the result of a controlled, timed lack of food, which leads to the emergence of a very interesting mechanism of autophagy - eating one's own body