During starvation, the body begins to atrophy and it is said the body is digesting itself for sustenance. What is actually happening cellularly to digest your muscles for energy?
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The protein in your body is constantly being broken down and reformed – the vast majority of proteins in your body last <7 days before they’re broken down. Most only last a few hours.
Proteins are broken down into their component amino acids. If energy is available, those amino acids will almost immediately be remade into a different protein. If energy is not available, the amino acids are converted into glucose and ammonia. The glucose is used for energy, while the ammonia is converted to urea, which you pee out.
The reason that you pee out urea is because this isn’t a perfectly efficient process and your body will still convert about 20-30 grams of protein into urea each day, even if you’re eating at a calorie surplus.
The rate at which your body breaks down protein is basically constant, but the rate at which is creates new protein is dependent upon available energy. During starvation, protein breakdown into amino acids continues but synthesis of amino acids to new protein slows. Since there is only two things your body can do with amino acids – turn them into protein or glucose/urea – if your body isn’t turning amino acids into protein it turns them into glucose and urea instead.
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