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 body will start by burning body fat. Most of the body tissues can burn fat directly. There are two exceptions. The red blood cells only burn glucose, and that is made by the liver from the glycerol that is left over when fat is burned. The brain burns some of that glucose as well but there’s not enough available, so the liver starts burning fat, converts the byproduct into ketones, and releases those into the blood to power the brain. That’s what being ketosis is.
If the body gets low body fat, it will start tearing down muscles. The protein is broken down into amino acid, some of which are converted to glucose, some of which are converted to ketones, and some of which are utilized by being burned directly.
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