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March 27, 2005
Happy Easter, If Applicable
One of my Mprize brothers points out that the Mouse has no ideology, and certainly the Mouse has no religion. So Happy Easter to you from April, who celebrates Easter, but happy not Easter to you if you do not. Chloe definitely has no religion, nor is she an athiest. She's too busy thinking of important things like macronutrient ratios to be bothered with questions of higher beings. So the mouse has no religion, and nothing I am about to write should be taken as an endorsement by the Mouse of any particular religion or religion at all. However, religious images often make good metaphors, much like fables, and Christian imagery is deeply embedded in my cognitive structure. Bear with me: I don't have much food to write about because it's before lunch and you already know what I had for breakfast. Happy Sunday, if you believe in the existence of Sunday.
It has not escaped me that my CR birthday fell out this year on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. This strikes me as significant because CR is something that people often begin during an especially dark time in their lives: a health crisis, a realization that their lifestyle is going to kill them, even a change in personal relationships like a divorce that allows them to consider structuring their social eating in a different pattern. Starting CR is a giant leap of faith: faith that a) CR will work b) you personally will be able to do CR. I find that as a non-scientist, it's not too hard for me to believe that CR will work because it makes a certain amount of "common sense" and I can't be troubled to really understand all the arguments against (though I did read your weather article seven times, Aubrey, and my cat ate large chunks of it.) But the leap of faith that I personally would be able to do CR was a giant one.
I didn't exactly begin CR during a health crisis, but at a time when it was clear to me that my lifestyle was unhealthy, and wasn't making me happy. I didn't feel good, I was unable to sleep, I didn't like my body, and I was starting to see the first signs of aging. I had always had in my head that I would not allow myself to age like the people I saw around me, and I had a vague notion from reading a Ray Kurzweil book (_The Ten Percent Solution for a Healthy Life_) that I would someday embrace CR. March 26, 2004 seemed like as good a time as any. I found the CR Society list, which I had begun reading on March 8, extremely motivating. But when I took the plunge, I had been unsuccessful on other "diets," and I had lots of reason to doubt that I could adopt a long term low calorie lifestyle.
I had been relatively thin all of my adult life: sometimes 120, sometimes 115, up to 130 twice and down to 110 twice, but never too fat or all that skinny. But in 2004 when I gained up to 137, I knew things had to change. I mean, I couldn't exactly allow myself to age and die like my neighbors when the co-worker with whom I spent the most time was a gorgeous 23 year old, now could I??? I feel sorry for people who are naturally skinny and therefore lack the attractiveness motivation to deal with their eating habits. If I had always been a thin girl, I might have missed the kick I needed to say "Enough!"
Changing my focus from weight loss to slowing aging changed my attitude toward my body and toward food. No longer was I looking for gimics: lose weight quick schemes or weird one food diets. I was embarking on a very long term project that would slow down my rate of biological aging. I couldn't lose weight too fast -- that screws up the CR effect! And I couldn't eat low cal crap because optimal nutrition is essential. So I started to address both my calories and the nutritional content of my diet, and the results were dramatic. My giant leap of faith quickly turned into a mountain of evidence that I not only *could* do CR, but that I *loved* doing CR!
Everyone knows that CR doesn't reverse aging, but it does make you healthier, and that combined with being thinner has made me look much younger. I get carded much of the time now (I'm careful to get my glasses of pinot noir out at nice Philadelphia wine bars often in order to test this -- purely scientific experiment, of course.)
I'm glad I made that leap of faith. There are a lot of readers out there who have made the leap of faith with me, and to very good results. I just now learned where to read the comments so I'm just now saying thank you to all my commenters -- it sounds like everyone is doing very well. If I can do CR, you can too. The power is all in the deciding.
Posted by april at March 27, 2005 10:49 AM