April's CR Diary

Enjoyed our dinner. Turkey and hot dog relish was great as was the wine. The nap was a clear highlight.

I've always had a problem swallowing any pills, more psychological than anything. It probably started because I nearly choked on an ice cube when I was younger... So ever since it's either been using liquid form, small tablets or chewables... Haven't really tried taking capsules in quite a while :S

1500-1600k/cal

I try and nearly always succeed in keeping within this limit of food intake unless I had eating too much or too little the previous day. I've heard so many times that at some point calorie Restriction does get hard at a certain point... Right now I'm comfortable and my meals are very filling! I could easily take my calories lower than I have right now because even at around 1500k/cal it feels like I've had quite a bit of food that day (stomach shrunk !?)LoL

On a good day I can easily handle a lower calorie count but I don't know how it would be for a more extended period!

+ Adapting to my new weight +

This is probably the hardest part about calorie restriction for me personally. It's not the low calorie count or any other reported side effects that may come with CR such as hunger. My weight is 112.6 lb's and It feels quite scary being such a low weight, I feel so light on my feet (I hope I can keep my feet on the ground during winter gales... Don't want to blow away! =/ )

So being super skinny itself is scary and quite hard but atleast I now have all my family off my back commenting on how super skinny I am. I think they got the message that I haven't got some sort of eating disorder when I eat my amazingly huge but low calorie salads or dinner at the table while they have quite a small dinner but a huge amount of calories.

I would never ever let myself get into some eating disorder. it's completely the opposite to what I want to achieve, I want life not death! This is the simple fact that people need to understand about CR. Although I do believe there have probably been people that did develop an eating disorder while on CR... It wont be me.

anyway so that problem is sorted out. Now I have just got to adjust to my body size / weight.

Sorry for my rambling on...

Matt

LOVE the new look of your site! The smaller font size is perfect. JD

Hi there, I'm definitely not on CR, I just like to comment how disappointing it is to scan the Google news section for "vegan" to find yet another story misrepresenting vegan nutrition as malnutrition.

These psychology based defamations are obvious as such, however I'm wondering why people would continue to use them, now that the position paper of American Dietic Association presents scientific proof that vegan nutrition is viable for any stage of life.

Why claim something is bad for you (and makes you lack things) when there is overwhelming scientific proof that it isn't?

It's established FACT, that vegan nutrition can supply all required nutrients. It can. It doesn't say it automatically does. Somebody who lives on coke (the drink) and potato chips is bound to get in trouble. When I did a month of dietary analyses on nutritiondata.com I saw that even on 1500cal it's possible to meet requirements. My average caloric intake is between 2400 and 3000 though.

Naturally, those of us who oppose of the culture of animal violation get sad when vegan nutrition is lied about, because anytime someone is motivated to continue to eat non-vegan, beings get abused and killed.

I think it's particularly cynical to obsessively worry about the extension about ones own life, while using products which shorten, in the most horrific way imaginable, the lives of others.

Those who now usually go on claiming that their only consume "organic" products, please hold you breath. If everyone who says they're consuming organic products actually *was* consuming them, we'd need 7 more planets just provide the space these animals need to walk around. Besides, those who distort the nutritional validity of the vegan diet are hardly credible sources for such claims... Also, in countries like the U.S. the label isn't even protected and standardized, so it is meaningless anyway. And those who indeed to consume only "organic" animal violations, how do you deal with the fact that these animals are still confined and get murdered? "Dairy" still implies confinement, rape, and murder of the offspring which get produced in the process. "Eggs" still implies the confinement and genetic distortion of birds who would naturally only menstruate 3-5 eggs *a year*, plus all male chicks get gassed or ground up alive in wood choppers, "organic" or not. You did know that eggs are a menstruation product, did you?

And this is why coming across such anti vegan attitude on a site which caters for people who do express the ability to modify their diet is particularly repugnant, because for *no one* of the animal violators would it be easier to complete the transition to an ethically viable alternative to SAD (Standard American Diet).

Please also note that a byproduct of the dairy digestion is an opium like substance, so if you're "addicted" to cheese and dairy you might as well be, literally addicted to cheese and dairy.

Lastly, I want to address some comments made about supplementation which I think were made in reference to vegan nutrition. Vegans integrate a cultured form of B12 in their diet, which isn't surprising since vegans not only have access to 30.000 edible plants, but also stuff like mushrooms, water, yeast products, algae, air, bacteriologically fermented foods all of which aren't plants. That's why the vegan diet is correctly called plant based. But I digress.

Given that the biggest buyer worldwide of this B12 is the animal feed industry, non-vegans who assume that their source is "natural" consume the same source of B12 as vegans. With the avoidable difference of violated animals. I'm not sure why animal feed is supplemented with B12, but I think since they have to grow the most rapid way possible, the animals own B12 metabolism is distorted as the they rely on special energy dense food to support this sort of growth. But this is speculation.

B12 is not produced by animals, it is produced by bacteria inside the animals gut. These same bacteria can be produced in a culture similar to bakers yeast, which is the source of B12 vegans utilize. I've recently found out that B12 can also cultured from yeasts as well. Humans also harbor these bacteria in their guts, unfortunately this is in the lower intestines from where it can't be absorbed into the blood stream. Absorption happens in the higher intestines, however there, conditions are almost sterile so no bacteria of the B12 sort are present. In cows, the bacteria are present much higher up in one of the stomachs, so any B12 they produce is absorbed readily. However like I mentioned before, I suspect that since animals are not fed grass but high caloric, energy dense food which passes fast, there may not be the environment left which these bacteria like, which may be the reason why cultured B12 is added to the animal feed.

Since vegans avoid insects too (a source of B12 for the otherwise vegan gorillas who accidentally consume insects with plant matter), we integrate cultured B12 the same way non-vegans integrate iodine in countries where this is low in the soil. A word on iodine: If you want to avoid chemical iodine or consume little salt, Hijikii algae, dried and ground up used like a spice will add ocean iodine to your food. 100 grams / 3.5 oz will provide enough iodine for a year. If using Kelp algae, only 15 grams / 0.5 oz a year will be enough. There is excellent information on iodine and other issues on http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/iodine.php

The fact of vegans integrating the cultured form B12 is often used by animal violators to discredit the diet. However, what could be more unnatural than the torture and avoidable death of an animal? Besides, it's silly using a selective naturality as a criterion, even sending this message onto an electronic network of connected machines. If a bacteriologically cultured version is unnatural to you, what *are* you doing on the internet? Besides, there are those vegans like me who argue that there is nothing unnatural about a procedure which is like making bakers yeast. And even if you're entirely closed to ethics (impossible), but lets say you're entirely closed to vegan ethics and don't care at all for the animals that are killed and abused on your instruction, consider all the medication, growth hormones, artificial feeds and so on which are injected into the animals. Not to mention the additional herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertilizers that are dumped onto to fields to grow the food for farmed animals. Vegans require only a third of the agricultural surface, since it takes up to 14 plant calories to produce on animal calorie.

So no matter how you argue for animal consumption, you always end up as a hypocrite.

This goes on endlessly, the advantages of veganism spread into so many areas.

And if your motivation is to extend your life it's especially confusing as to why you would opt to continue using "animal products". There is enough scientific _human_ evidence about the health advantages of vegan nutrition. CR however, only bases on mice tortured by vivisectionists. And as we know, animal experiments aren't transferable to humans.

Something which extends the life of mice, may not extend the life of humans. So calorie restrictionists may not only be responsible for the violation of animals their lifestyle is based on, and the violation of animals whose products they consume, but also the violation which CR itself may constitute of the human system.