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July 23, 2005
The Challenge Is to Make People Want to Hear What They Need to Know
The headline of today's post floated out of the radio this morning as I was listening to NPR and contemplating how very heavy my nineteen pound cat is when he jumps on my lap at five am. It reminded me of a debate that is ongoing in the CR world about the best way to educate others about the benefits of CR.
There's a lot of debate about how best to approach the topic. Some people feel like we should emphasize that even moderate CR has benefits, and choose "normal" people to be in the media as much as possible, staying away from the hardcore practitioners who some feel might scare the general public away. Others think it's good to show a diversity of CR styles, from so moderate as to be barely noticable to super-skinny seriousness. Some people think it's a waste of time to try to educate the public at large about CR at all.
As a CR blogger, I feel like I have a responsibility to tell you as much as I know, as honestly as I can. As one of the more normal-seeming CR practitioners who fits CR into a very active social life, complete with dinners out and work functions that involve food, I can make CR seem very accessible, managable, and even easy. I hope that by following my struggles to take my calories lower you are learning that while moderate CR has many benefits, it's not the only option out there. And that if you want maximum lifespan extension benefits, you're going to have to do more.
It's always a problem to balance wanting to appeal to the maximum number of people with being honest. People don't want to hear that their "healthy" diets are really crap. They don't want to hear that this isn't easy, that it requires unusual self-discipline and a willingness to be perceived as weird at times. CR has side-effects, and while mine have been overwhelmingly positive, many CR practitioners experience side-effects that most people wouldn't want to put up with.
I have always resented public health "authorities" who try to tell us what we want to hear, instead of what they know is true. I'd prefer that someone tell me the truth, and then leave me to decide what to do with it, than to be manipulated by those who think we're not strong enough to make our own decisions. That's what first drew me to MR's writing: the unflinching confrontation with the evidence, even when it says you're going to have to adopt a lifestyle in which you may be cold, hungry, freakishly skinny, have social struggles and... well, you get the idea. He had no idea at the time that I happen to like cold hungry freakishly skinny guys who have social struggles: he didn't even know I existed, so he clearly wasn't trying to impress me.
What if I had never read him, and had gone merrily about my then-very-moderate brand of CR, looking cute somewhere in the 110's and dropping dead at the same time as everyone else? I would have been denied the opportunity to make my own choices about what's right for my life.
Some people, though, think he's way too harsh. While he can be a bit sharp at times when pointing out that someone is being silly, (and I'd have to admit that I take a very un-evolved pleasure in that: *My* mate can beat up all the other males with his scientific knowledge... and he can protect me from the advancing hordes of saber-toothed french fries! My mate is the most desirable male in the tribe! So there!) he spends most of his on-list time educating people about what it will take to even have the hope of extending our lifespans. That is not always good news. Wouldn't it be easier to tell everyone that we can just eat "healthy" and everything would be fine?
The quest to make CR accessible without watering down the truth is a never-ending struggle for me. Remember how I used to be afraid that if I became a hardcore CR practitioner you would stop reading me cause I'd just eat the same thing every day? Well lately I've been pretty hardcore, sticking to my basics and writing about other stuff, and you keep showing up. I guess the blog didn't get all that boring...
People are always telling us to "lighten up" when we precisely measure our food or refuse "just one bite" of this or that. I don't quite get that. I mean, I frequently do have a little bite of this or that, and I go out to restaurants where my food is not precisely measured. But I don't consider that a positive character trait; if anything, I consider it a character flaw that I am not always as consistent in pursuit of my CR goals as my Orange One. While I can understand that it would be quite destructive to get all upset everytime I have a piece of cheese at a wedding reception, I don't see the point in having the piece of cheese just to placate the gods of moderation. If your goal is to live as long as possible, there are steps that we are fairly sure will help you achieve that goal. What, then, is fanatical, crazy or obsessive-compulsive about taking those steps, consistently and without diverging from the path? After all, if you were on your way to the wine store, no one would call you crazy for going straight there without stopping at the roller skating rink. You aren't criticizing those who perfer to roller skate, you're just trying to pick up some wine.
I think CR folks appear nutty because we live in a society where food has come to mean everything *but* a substance that we use to nourish our bodies so we can continue living in health. Food is a status symbol, a pain killer, a substitute for love, a distraction, a whip to beat ourselves with, but rarely is it seen as life-giving energy on a plate. If it were, the way CR practitioners eat would be boringly normal. We choose the foods that are best for us and then we eat them. As much as we need, and no more. How radical. How completely bizarre.
I find myself engaging in knee-jerk defensiveness about my CR when confronted with "normal" people asking questions. "Oh, I still go out to restaurants and drink wine and stuff," I hastily pipe up. When people find out that MR and I have never gone out to eat at a restaurant together, they can't seem to understand that we don't feel deprived at all. The experience of feeding each other yummy parcels of lifeforce at our own table is infinitely more satisfying than paying someone else to poison us. "But it's just not normal!" Well, hello, neither is living past 90! Neither is being thin after thirty! Neither is having perfectly pedicured toes at all times!
My CR brother Dean used to say that I was a postergirl for CR'd normality. The blog illustrates ways that I fit CR into a "normal" life. But I don't want to mislead you into thinking that living the way I have for the last year will get the same kind of life-extension benefits as the way MR or Kenton or any of the hardcore brothers eat. It doesn't make me a bad person that I still eat more than I absolutely have to, including the occasional slice of pizza. But it does speed up my aging process. So every day I make choices, and I try to make them with the best available information. I wouldn't want someone to tell me that I'm doing all I can when I know I'm not. As Billy Joel so famously said:
I don't want some pretty face
To tell me pretty lies
All I want is someone to believe.
Billy Joel, as always, has a point there.
I am hoping, in the months and years that follow, to pull-off the seemingly impossible task of being a very normal, very hardcore CR practitioner. I plan to make beautiful delicious meals for my lover, just like any young woman would do, except that mine will be low calorie and nutritionally perfect. I expect to enjoy the experience of my lover making delicious food for me, except that unlike Liz' Italian men, he will be making low calorie and nutritious food for me. And he will not spend seventeen hours cooking! When we cook for our friends together, we will trick them into eating healthy foods by making dishes so yummy that they won't want to go back to eating gak! I plan to continue going out with my friends, but making good choices when I do go out and balancing out the calories when I eat too much. This week has been a week of accidental hardcore CR, and so far so good. I've stayed down below 1000 all week, then yesterday I went out and ate a touch more, but not much. For lunch, my friend and I went out to the Gypsy Saloon, where I ate the cobb salad, minus the bacon, just vinegar on the side.
I hope that if I can figure out how to do this, I can teach you too. You can choose what parts of my CR practice you want to adopt, and throw out what doesn't work for you. Maybe you don't want to get all that skinny, or you don't want to give up rich dinners out with your partner. Maybe you have kids and they will burn down your house if you try to feed them healthy food. Maybe you hate eggwhites. It's up to you.
Won't I won't ever do is lie to you. If you don't like what I have to say you have the option to tune out. You could read the Victoria's Secret online catalog instead of me. You could check the weather. I hope that I am entertaining enough that you will keep coming back.
Besides, where else are you going to find recipes for fake feta cheese made of eggwhites?
Posted by april at July 23, 2005 3:53 AM
Comments
Hey April!
For me, the most interesting part about your blog is not what you eat, it's how you combine CR with a social life (and a love life :)). So, same breakfast every day or not, your blog is still fun to read.
"I think CR folks appear nutty because we live in a society where food has come to mean everything *but* a substance that we use to nourish our bodies so we can continue living in health."
Beautifully put.
"People are always telling us to 'lighten up' when we precisely measure our food or refuse 'just one bite' of this or that. I don't quite get that."
I *get* it, I just don't *like* it. Perhaps I'm just mincing words here and that's what you're saying too. But I think it's quite natural for people to feel uncomfortable around any sort of unusual behavior.
Whether the unusual behavior is positive and health-giving is probably irrelevant to the emotion. Wierd is wierd. Uncomfortable is uncomfortable. And as much as I wish I didn't, I get wierded out sometimes too.
The real problem is, when people get wierded out, they tend to mitigate the situation either by making the "offender" stop being wierd, or by asking lots of probing question to get to the bottom of it.
Recently, for example, I had a guest at my place, and he spotted my kitchen scale. He asked, "What do you use *that* for?" I responded, to measure ingredients. After a couple more admittedly harmless but increasing probing questions, I started to get restless with the whole thing.
So I said, with a grin, "Hey! I'm an engineer! You know I like measuring things! Gimme a break!" He smiled and the conversation was over. But, wow, felt like I was on trial for "unauthorized kitchen device" for a second, there.
Posted by: Dan at July 23, 2005 4:45 PM