Glucagon

In Aajonus's explanation, when the body takes in protein from meat, eggs, or other animal sources, it breaks that protein down and forms a sugar called pyruvate. Pyruvate is a protein sugar, distinct in chemistry from carbohydrate-derived sugars. The body then uses glucagon to convert that pyruvate into glycogen, the storable, usable sugar that powers the brain, nervous system, blood, and lymphatic system. This is the sequence he described repeatedly: protein becomes pyruvate, glucagon acts on pyruvate, and the result is glycogen that the nervous system can use as fuel.

He described this pathway as producing a glycogen that is functionally equivalent to carbohydrate-derived glycogen for the purposes of running the brain and nervous system, but profoundly different in the amount of waste it leaves behind. The glucagon-pyruvate route generates only 7 to 8 percent advanced glycation end product as a byproduct of the glycogen being manufactured and utilized. In some people this figure reaches 12 percent. Aajonus stated that the human body can handle approximately 12 percent AGE production per day, which means that when glycogen is made via glucagon from pyruvate, the body is producing waste at or below its own clearance threshold, resulting in no net accumulation of AGEs in the blood, neurological fluid, or lymph.

Aajonus placed his entire discussion of glucagon against the backdrop of what happens when glycogen is made from carbohydrates instead. When the body uses dietary carbohydrates, whether from fruit, grains, root vegetables, nuts, or other high-sugar sources, it produces glycogen through the insulin pathway managed by the pancreas. The byproduct of using that carbohydrate-derived glycogen is advanced glycation end product at a rate of 70 to 90 percent. In a healthy body, Columbia University's research (which Aajonus cited repeatedly) found storage at 70 percent. In people with kidney problems, diabetes, or hypoglycemia, the storage rate reaches 90 percent. That stored AGE does not leave the body. It remains in the blood, neurological fluids, and lymphatic system for a lifetime, accumulating with every carbohydrate-containing meal eaten across decades.

The difference Aajonus emphasized is not marginal. He was describing 7 to 8 percent waste production through glucagon versus 70 to 90 percent waste production through the carbohydrate route, roughly a ten-to-one ratio. He framed this contrast in terms anyone could grasp: the body can handle 12 percent per day, so the glucagon-pyruvate pathway stays well under the threshold while the carbohydrate pathway floods the system with waste at five to seven times the rate the body can clear.

Aajonus identified pyruvate as a protein sugar, meaning it is formed from protein rather than from carbohydrate. He described egg white as a particularly rich source of pyruvate, noting that the body makes a lot of pyruvate from egg white. Meat in general was presented as the primary dietary source that the body would convert into pyruvate, which glucagon would then use to make glycogen. He described this as the cleanest carbohydrate the body can form, because it arises from a protein source rather than from dietary sugar.

The distinction matters because pyruvate is not itself a carbohydrate sugar in the conventional sense. It is produced through a metabolic pathway that begins with protein digestion, passes through pyruvate as an intermediate, and then relies on glucagon to complete the transformation into usable glycogen. The waste produced at each step in this chain is minimal compared to the carbohydrate pathway, which is why Aajonus consistently returned to the instruction to eat meat early in the day and avoid fruit and high-carbohydrate foods during the critical first six to seven hours of waking.

Aajonus taught that the body manufactures most of its glycogen for the entire day during the first six to seven hours after waking from a long sleep. Whatever substrate is available during that window is what the body will use to build its glycogen supply. If high-carbohydrate food is eaten in that window, the body builds glycogen from carbohydrate, produces 70 to 90 percent AGEs as byproduct, and the brain and nervous system spend the rest of the day operating in sticky, AGE-contaminated fluid. If high-carbohydrate food is avoided during that window and protein and fat are eaten instead, the body turns to pyruvate as its substrate and uses glucagon to build clean glycogen, producing only 7 to 8 percent AGE byproduct, which is below the 12 percent threshold the body can clear without accumulation.

He described the practical protocol this way: wake up, wait about an hour, then eat a meat meal. With that first meat meal, the body makes most of its glycogen. Because that glycogen is made via glucagon from protein-derived pyruvate, the AGE byproduct is at most 8 percent, which is under the daily clearance threshold, meaning not one molecule of advanced glycation end product is stored. He also noted that following the meat meal with a milkshake containing no fruit, or with butter and eggs, keeps the body from switching into carbohydrate-glycogen production.

He extended the window to a full seven hours, saying that for the first seven hours awake, no high-carbohydrate food should be consumed. This includes fruit, carrot juice, beet juice, or any other food with significant carbohydrate concentration. He made a specific exception for celery, noting that celery has a negative carbohydrate value, meaning the body requires more carbohydrate energy to digest celery than celery provides. He also noted that when a juice contains predominantly celery and cucumber with only a small percentage of carrot or other high-carbohydrate ingredient (5 to 10 percent of the total), the celery's effect neutralizes the carbohydrate load and the body does not shift to carbohydrate-glycogen production.

Aajonus described the consequences of bypassing glucagon and pyruvate in vivid physiological terms. When carbohydrate-derived glycogen fills the brain and nervous system, the AGE byproduct makes all three major fluid systems sticky: the blood, the neurological fluid, and the lymph. Synapse firing during neural transmission is supposed to travel cleanly along axons and ganglia, bouncing off walls and other electrical conductors in precise directions. When the neurological fluid is sticky with AGEs, the synapse can stick to the wall of the axon, skid in the wrong direction, reflect incorrectly, or fail to complete its path at all. The result is lost thoughts, an inability to recall words or names, unclear focus, slowed mental processing, and what Aajonus described as scattered, unfocused thinking.

He described blood becoming sticky and slow, lymph becoming even more congested than usual (lymph already being the slowest-moving of the three fluids), and white blood cells clumping together and failing to function properly because they are surrounded by a thick, sugary medium. Neurological symptoms he associated with high-carbohydrate glycogen and AGE accumulation included depression, nausea, anorexia, irritability, slow mentality, difficulty concentrating, manic-depressive swings, and ADHD. He attributed many of these states not to psychological causes but to the literal physical stickiness in the fluids surrounding the brain and nervous system.

By contrast, when the body uses glucagon to build glycogen from pyruvate, the neurological fluid remains clean and fluid, synapse firing travels in the correct directions, focus is sustained, and thinking is rapid and clear. Aajonus offered himself as the example, describing how he can speak at length, move through complex subjects, hold long threads of reasoning, and return to earlier points hours later, all because he eats in a pattern that keeps glucagon and pyruvate as the primary glycogen-manufacturing pathway throughout the day.

Aajonus stated the human body can handle approximately 12 percent advanced glycation end product per day, with some variation across individuals. He sometimes cited the range as 12 to 15 percent as the handling capacity. When the glucagon-pyruvate pathway produces only 7 to 8 percent, the body is comfortably within its clearance capacity and stores nothing. When carbohydrate-derived glycogen produces 70 to 90 percent AGEs, the body stores 70 to 90 percent of that for a lifetime, because it cannot process and eliminate waste at that rate.

He described this cumulative storage in terms of what builds up across decades: every piece of fruit eaten, every grain consumed, every carrot or beet or other high-carbohydrate food consumed over a lifetime contributes 70 to 90 percent of its glycation byproduct to a permanent deposit in the body's tissues. The stored AGEs behave like Coca-Cola, as an acid that over time dissolves tissue, causes skin to sag, contributes to muscle deterioration, and creates an environment in which cancer can grow, because cancer thrives in high-sugar environments. He also associated high AGE accumulation with yeast infections, candida, fungal conditions, and gangrene.

The glucagon pathway avoids this accumulation entirely, not by producing zero waste, but by producing waste at a rate below what the body clears daily. The result, in his framework, is that a person eating primarily meat, fat, and eggs without high-carbohydrate foods in the first hours of the day will never accumulate AGEs from their glycogen production, regardless of how long they live on that diet.

Aajonus noted that conventional medicine teaches the pancreas as the organ that converts carbohydrates into storable glycogen via insulin. He questioned this framing by pointing to the Maasai tribe, among whom eating fruit was illegal, who ate no carbohydrates whatsoever, yet still had functional pancreases. In those populations the pancreas was two and a half times smaller than in carbohydrate-eating populations. He used this as evidence that the pancreas was not primarily designed for carbohydrate processing, because populations that never ate carbohydrates still needed and had a pancreas.

In his framework, the pancreas has a broader architectural role in the body, managing many enzymatic and hormonal signals, with insulin production being a relatively minor function that became overloaded only when humans began eating large quantities of carbohydrates. The glucagon-pyruvate pathway, by contrast, does not require the pancreas to produce large quantities of insulin and does not trigger the cascade of overproduction, fat storage, and glycogen accumulation that high-carbohydrate diets create. When the body runs on protein-derived pyruvate converted by glucagon, the entire metabolic burden on the pancreas is reduced.

Aajonus specifically noted that honey does not count in the same category as other high-carbohydrate foods for the purposes of disrupting the glucagon-pyruvate glycogen pathway. He stated this without extensive elaboration in the passages, but the implication is that honey's particular chemistry does not trigger the same carbohydrate-glycogen manufacturing sequence that fruits, grains, and other concentrated carbohydrate sources do. He recommended eating cheese and honey approximately 30 minutes after a meat meal to supply minerals, and he did not characterize this as interfering with the glucagon pathway that the meat meal initiates.

The entire morning eating protocol Aajonus described is built around maximizing the glucagon-pyruvate glycogen pathway during the critical first six to seven hours of waking. After waking, he recommended waiting approximately one hour before eating, then having a meat meal with fat (butter, avocado, eggs, or another fat source). The fat is included specifically to ensure the body does not try to convert the protein from the meat into a fat source via acetone or acetate; instead the dietary fat handles that role and the protein is freed to become pyruvate for glucagon to convert into glycogen.

He recommended a milkshake after the meat meal, made without fruit. He sometimes described a lubrication formula or moisturizing formula alongside the meat meal. Approximately 30 minutes after that, cheese and honey to supply minerals. With this sequence complete, he said "my brain is set for the day," referring to the fact that the body has now manufactured its entire daily glycogen supply via the glucagon-pyruvate route, and as long as no high-carbohydrate foods are eaten for the remaining hours of the seven-hour window, the body will not switch to carbohydrate-derived glycogen production.

He noted that if a person then eats a full plate of fruit at any point later in the day, the body will create carbohydrate-derived glycogen from it, everything will become sticky again, focus will scatter, and the benefit of the morning protein-based glycogen production will be partially undone. When high-carbohydrate foods such as fruit are eaten later in the day, he recommended always eating them with fat to slow the carbohydrate absorption and direct the sugar toward muscle fuel rather than brain and nervous system fuel.