April's CR Diary

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June 5, 2006

Precision Isn't A Disorder Either

It's rare that Mary and I disagree on much of anything, but every once in awhile I take issue with something she writes in her excellent blog.

In her blog over the weekend, she wrote:

Do you have to be OCD to do CR?

No. You don't. But you need to have a lot of self-discipline and objective - so perhaps quasi-OCD. For those wondering what OCD is, it's obsessive compulsive disorder. While I thought the CNN piece on CR was pretty good, and tall MR and April were as cute a couple as ever, I still don't like the idea that it portrays CR as something that require weighing every component of your dinner and recording on your laptops in the kitchen as you cook. Pretty alienating.

Realistically, though, CR requires a lot thought and attention to be successful. On the other hand, most people eat gak and are walking around fat and unhealthy because of it, so bad CR would hardly be worse. I hate to discourage people from trying it because it looks too hard to do. I loved the food that April cooked for CNN, it was wonderful. But, they did focus on the recording and the laptops. If those had been out of the picture, it would have been more powerfully focused on the wonderful food.

First... thanks! Glad the Little MR thinks both we and the food are cute!

But alas, second. I really object to the characterization of weighing and measuring food as having anything to do with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, a serious psychological condition that ruins a lot of people's lives. The whole problem with OCD is that it causes people to do things that are irrational: refusing to walk on the cracks in the pavement, engaging in elaborate and unnecessary cleaning routines, etc. These behaviors don't help the person accomplish a carefully chosen goal (such as extending life through CR) -- they make the person feel "safe" because the disorder causes extreme anxiety and fear if the routines are violated. Discipline and purpose have nothing whatsoever to do with OCD.

Weighing and measuring food help us determine exactly what we're eating so that we can a) keep our calories consistent b) keep them as low as possible. Most people have no idea how much they're eating until they measure it, in terms of volume, calories, or nutrients. CR does not work if it's not accompanied by ON, or optimal nutrition. Of this we are quite certain. CR also does not work if you think you're eating a whole lot fewer calories than you are actually eating. People on the list report absurdly low calorie levels, then report BMIs that just don't make any sense with those calorie levels, no matter how much you adjust for metabolism differences. Very few people have the sense of spatial relationships necessary to evaluate the difference between 10 grams and 15 grams, and while this is less of a calorie difference when you're talking about celery, it's huge when you're dealing in calorie-dense foods like almonds that people can eat all day if given the chance. MR can achieve a very CR'd level of CR without feeling hungry (except right before meals) because he keeps his calories and macronutrients very consistent. That works much better for him than guessing. It is perfectly consistent with his goals, which are not just taking off a few pounds or eating "healthier," but actually slowing his biological aging process through the only intervention known to do that in mammals.

In terms of making CR look easy and accessible in the media: I think that comes down to a fundamental difference in what we think we're trying to accomplish here. CR is not a weight loss diet, and while cutting a few calories (which would be, technically, calorie restriction of a very modest amount) will probably help most of the 83% of American adults who are overweight or obese be healthier, that's not what we're doing. We're not even doing "moderate" CR to look and feel better and decrease our chances of *pre-mature* death from heart disease, stroke or diabetes. What MR and I are trying to do (and him more successfully than me!) is to actually extend our lifespan. That is not easy, and it will not result from small decreases in calorie intake. It certainly won't work if we're malnourished, so we are very, very careful.

I think it would be misleading to have a national television program talk about actually living longer, extending human lifespans, and then neglect to show the tools that can help you do that. Nutritional software is a must! Little MR first called my attention to the hideous gaps in my diet when I was not yet using software. I fixed those with the help of DWIDP, and without it, I would never be able to maintain a low calorie level without leaving out important nutrients here and there. Consistency is a powerful tool in keeping calories low without hunger, and knowing how much you're eating is essential to keeping calories consistent.

I find the public health aspects of nutrition absolutely riveting. I am frequently gripped with a desire to run off and go to Public Health school and become a full-time advocate for nutritional approaches to solving our nation's health crisis. I love that stuff so much that I have to chain myself to my desk and repeat "I love organizing" over and over again until the urge to run away and join the public health circus passes! But that's not what I'm doing with my CR. CR is way beyond what any "normal" person would even want to do. Mild reductions in calories combined with large improvements in nutrition would greatly benefit most overfed, undernourished North Americans. But that's not CR. That's not going to *extend* life -- it will at best cut back on pre-mature death.

If we are to hope to get any longevity benefits whatsoever (beyond avoiding *pre-mature* death by heart diesease, etc.) we must do more than merely eating healthy and cutting calories a little. When you start cutting calories a lot, getting all the nutrition you need becomes a more difficult task, one that (unless you are able to memorize the entire USDA database, or you just want to eat the same thing every day) requires nutritional software. When you want to cut your calories well below what the body *thinks* it needs, but you don't want to be hungry all the time, it's going to be much easier if you keep calories consistent. It's hard to do that without weighing and measuring food. Our goals are different from the goals of the average person who just wants to lose a little weight and feel healthy. So the tools we use to accomplish our goals are different.

There's a lot of talk within the CRS about how weird it is to weigh and measure food. I find that odd and disturbing... do these people have any idea what they're eating, or if they're getting adequate nutrition? Very few people are good at guessing portion sizes (there is tons of research to document this) and most of the people who have that kind of accurate perception of spatial relationships can also parallel park an eighteen wheeler in San Francisco. It's not easy!

No one says it's OCD when someone baking a cake carefully measures out cups or teaspoons of flour, baking powder, sugar, and butter. You don't just throw "a few" eggs and "some" water into cake batter -- you measure it, otherwise the cake would fall. Gourmet cooks and even those normal people who just follow recipes measure their food. They often use cups and spoons rather than scales (and we use cups and spoons too!), but they're doing the same thing. When the goal is creating a delicious cake that won't fall in the oven, nobody calls it OCD, freakish or weird. Why is it any different when the goal is creating a healthy body that has a chance of outliving its "normal" lifespan?

Posted by april at June 5, 2006 6:17 AM

Comments

Posted by: Lindsay at June 5, 2006 2:43 PM

Posted by: jj at June 5, 2006 4:37 PM

Posted by: Little MR at June 6, 2006 9:07 PM

Posted by: Miss Tenacity at June 17, 2006 7:57 PM

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