April's CR Diary

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October 31, 2006

How Many Calories?

Katherine (one of my favorite names, because Kieffer's wife was Katherine the Cat! She was a gorgeous tuxedo cat, who passed away two years ago due to feline diabetes. We miss her!) poses an important and difficult to answer question:

What caloric intake would you recommend for a 5'6" 18 year old? I understand the ratios between proteins, carbs, fats, and all that, but everyone's diet is individually tailored and i'm just a bit confused how you arrive at your ultimate calorie restrictions.

Now, let me just take a moment to be jealous of Katherine because a) she is starting CR young, so she is likely to get more benefits than those of us who started ten years older b) she is younger than we are, so she is more likely to see the dawn of radical anti-aging biotech c) she is young enough that is she is so inclined, she might well eventually date my CR little brother Matt, who is soooooo cute, but too young for me! Now don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy with my 35 year old skinny boy, but you have to admit, Matt is way, way cute. And check out those gorgeous blue eyes! (He's from the UK and is no doubt crawling under a piece of furniture in horror right now... we Americans are so over the top, aren't we?)

Anyhow, Katherine poses one of the age old questions of CR: how do we decide how many calories to eat?

First, let me tell you what not to do. Please, please, do not do what New York Magazine reporter Julian Dibbell (who seems to be otherwise a quite rational fellow) and set an arbitrary calorie level, and stick to it no matter what happens. That's nutty, and not in the unsaturated fat sense!

Second, be aware of the fact that most people have no idea how many calories they're eating. It's well documented that human beings under report their calorie intake. Just ask the nearest dietician, she'll tell you. So don't listen to folks who say they eat 1400 calories a day and run five miles... they're full of unpleasant objects.

There is no recommended calorie level for CR because we are all so different, and we really don't have the data. So here's what I suggest you do:

Take a week, and measure exactly what you eat. Yes, use a scale. Read food labels. Record it. Monitor your weight daily because if you're eating less than usual (trying to be "good" -- we all do this when we're being watched, but you've got to be careful because you need a realistic assessment) you'll lose weight. Find what calorie level keeps your weight stable for a week (keeping in mind that you will have some water weight fluctuations, especially if you are female.) Then cut 100 off that, cutting mainly from empty calories like bread or sugar. Meanwhile, begin analyzing your data in nutritional software. You'll see what you can easily cut and what you need to improve.

Watch your weight. If you're starting slim, please do not lose more than a half a pound a week. If you're starting overweight, you can lose a pound or two a week. If you can lose a half pound a week cutting 100 calories, and you're feeling good (by this time you should have improved your nutrition, so chances are you're feeling great!) then try cutting another 100. But if you start to drop weight like a hot cauliflower (that's the CR alternative to a hot potato!), add 50 calories in the form of unsaturated fat, like nuts.

If you feel dizzy, lightheaded, insane with hunger, or really unhappy, you need to eat more. There is no harm in cutting calories more gradually... there is only danger in cutting back too quickly. So take your time. If you're eighteen, you've got a whole lot of time!

Calorie levels vary tremendously between people. This whole process is easier if you can carefully track your calories, especially in the beginning. You'll notice that the more you improve your nutrition, the better you'll feel... and less hungry too!

Always put the focus on nutrition first, and lower your calories as you feel comfortable. Your body will adjust, and chances are, you'll feel better than you ever have.

Posted by april at 10:43 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Happy Hallo-Tatta!

It's our second Halloween together, and I'm making another special Halloween dinner for MR. This year I'm making a Hallo-tatta, which is an orange fritatta. I make a CR friendly fritatta (which is a quiche without crust) but using eggwhites and nonfat yogurt instead of eggs and cream. Then I add vegetables and spices. The veggies cook inside the tatta and release all their flavors, which get caught in the eggs. It's a great formula, one I use for at least one of MR's dinners per week. Today I'm making it orange by including carrots, and spicing with curry and paprika. I'm serving brussels sprouts on the side, which aren't really Halloween themed, excpet that some people find them scary! I'll top them with fresh lemon and olive oil. Then for dessert, it's a pumpkin perfect parfait, with 1/2 cup pumpkin stirred with 1/4 cup nonfat ricotta, sweetened with sucralose and topped with a teaspoon hazelnut oil, a bunch of hazelnuts, and some Walden Farms calorie free caramel sauce.

For the kids, we've gotten some non-candy treats because we don't feel like adding to the epidemic of childhood obesity. I know this will get a whole lot of negative comments, but we really don't see the point in filling kids with sugar and transfats on Halloween. To us, it's just like giving kids cigarettes. Let responsible adults put crap in their bodies if they want to, but we're not participating in the collective poisoning of the next generation. So we're giving out:

Monster finger puppets
Glow in the dark snakes
Glow in the dark lizards
High bouncing balls
Shiny heart bracelets

The kids will get enough gak at other houses. At our house, they'll get toys they can play with, not junk they can shove in their faces. They won't be traumatized for life because we don't give them candy. They will be fine.

Posted by april at 5:17 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Quotidian Diet

A reader asks what a typical day for me might look like. Here's a repost of a former entry that includes a quick review. It is in fact hard to pack all the nutrients you need into a small caloric package. Here are a few tricks and tools I've picked up in my three years of CR'ing.

-- Low on B vitamins? Great sources (at low calorie cost) include mushrooms and brewers yeast. Lewis Labs is the only brand that tastes good! Add mushrooms to eggwhite scrambles/omlettes, stews, soups, faux pasta dishes (where you make a sauce and put it over yummy veggies instead of pointless pasta)

-- Having trouble getting calcium into your diet? Try nonfat plain yogurt (usually 40% of the RDA per cup) but flavor it with whatever you like. I like to add chopped bell peppers, fresh lemon, half-salt and garlic powder to make a vaguely Indian savory treat, as a topping for salad. It's also great with fruit and a touch of Splenda or sucralose. You can stir it into soups for a faux-cream effect.

-- Need more protein? EGGWHITES! Scramble them, omlette-ize them, microwave them and throw the chunks into soups and stews... the possibilities are endless, and the protein is high quality.

-- Coffee is a source of niacin. I am not making this up. I learned it from Mary.

-- Zinc is hard to get in a vegetarian diet, and a diet low in saturated fat is likely to be mostly vegetarian. Luckily, unlike a lot of vitamins and minerals, zinc is just as well absorbed in supplement form as in food. So take 15 mg of zinc (no more!) a day and stop worrying. Or just use zinc as an excuse to go pig out at a raw oyster bar. Hmmmm... raw oysters... hmmm...

-- Formerly fat-phobic? So was I! Start with nuts and progress to adding small amounts of oil. When you can bring yourself to do it, buy a bottle of flax oil, put it in the freezer, and put a teaspoon on your breakfast and a teaspoon on your dinner. Tastes great on veggies or fruits.
Especially blackberries!

It's not easy to get all your nutrition packed into a low calorie day, but it's essenatial to try, and come as close as possible. Besides, it's a fun game to see what good sources of vitamin this and mineral that you can find! Much more fun than watching baseball...

Posted by april at 3:53 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

CR and Exercise, comment response

A commenter asks for more info about CR vs. exercise. Alas, burning calories isn't the same as just never eating them. Lots of animal data to that effect, but I don't have time to dig it up just at this second. Will see if I can put my hands on something asap, but the CR Society archives aren't functioning that well these days, so it's harder than it used to be.

In the meantime, here is a good article that references the WUSTL study that a bunch of CR folks are in. It has helpful info on many aspects of the issue.

Posted by april at 8:50 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

A Short Note About Vanity...

A little comment war has erupted re: the topic of vanity. Loyal reader one suggests that I seem a bit vain, loyal reader two disputes this, loyal reader one writes back:

I am merely referring to April's 'bikini' comments she makes throughout her blog. I have no desire to lose weight - I am reclaiming my vitality!!
I think she does a great job, but a reality check never hurt anyone. No harm intended

No offense taken! Or at least, not much. :) And one thing you have to know about Istanbulwitch: she speaks her mind sharply. That's one of my favorite things about her, and believe me, she's said much nastier things about me than most! Sometimes she's wrong, but she's never wimpy!

As to the frequent "bikini" comments: I am very deliberate in my addressing of the body image issue. I am openly happy with my post-CR body for two reasons:

1) In a country where some 95% or more of women dislike their bodies, I think it's important, nay, essential, that someone, preferably someone healthy, provide a counterweight. There is enough body-bashing already among the female population. I spent 29 years of my life at various stages of unhappiness with my body, and I'm done. I hope that by setting an example as a woman who dealt with weight issues (admittedly not obesity, but weight issues are painful at any degree) all her life, but has come to a place of happiness and peace through *healthy* means, not the latest fad diet or some sort of acceptance of fat and ill health, I can encourage other women to do the same.

By refusing to celebrate our bodies (as well as other aspects of our lives) we women play into the culture that degrades every thing we are and do. Let's stand up for ourselves a bit, eh? Whether that means being proud of our career successes, proud of how we parent our children, proud of how we take care of our bodies and the results, or proud of our ability to in-line skate down the highway at high speeds, I believe we should rejoice, openly, in who we are.

2) Whenever CR is discussed, the question is posed: "How is this different from anorexia?" I think Julian had one of the best treatments of this topic that I've ever seen in popular press, or come to think of it, anywhere. One profound difference between CR and anorexia: CR is based in self-love, anorexia is based in self-hatred. The anorexic looks in the mirror and hates her body. The CR folk are either not that concerned with appearance (MR has always been skinny and gave up on bulking up a long time ago) or look in the mirror and are pleased with their slim, healthy appearance. It's an important distinction, and one I want to make sure comes out very clearly in the blog.

Watching my closest friends be hospitalized for anorexia was enough of a reality check for me. I'd much rather be accused of being vain than be searching the mirror for imaginiary flaws.
If my example can encourage other women to celebrate their bodies openly, instead of constantly looking for that which needs fixing, I think the world will be a better place. And if not, at least no one will have to deal with one more girl asking, "Do I look fat?"

As to those who don't want to lose weight (and I love the phrase "reclaiming my vitality" - perfect!) I am now enjoying being among you! There are new challenges to becoming even healthier, and I love learning from you as we navigate all this. Robin's story the other day was instructive, I thought, about how others react to our efforts. Because I know so many of my readers come here looking for advice not so much on how to live longer but on how to slim down and feel better, I address that topic a great deal. I hope you'll bear with me, just like the folks who aren't interested in serious CR or in age-reversing medical technology skim over those parts to get to the diet advice. We all have different concerns and priorities, but we usually get along pretty well.

Besides, I spent so much of this summer working that I never got a vacation, so I never wore my bikini anyway. :( Let's hope there will be many more "next years."

Posted by april at 5:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 30, 2006

CR On Front Page Of New York Times Online

Check it out here.

Posted by april at 10:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

quick note re: supplements, with more answers to questions later!

F asks a question that is fairly quick for me to answer, while other excellent questions will take more time (but I will get to them soon, and thanks so much for visiting and commenting!)

Here's a post I wrote re: the supplements I take and why.

Here's an older one that goes into detail. Remember, my supplement needs are not your supplement needs. To find out what you need, we would need an inventory of your diet, lifestyle, health concerns, and whether or not you can swallow pills (AOR makes a powdered multi that goes great in yougurt for those who can't!) My supplement program has evolved since this entry, most notably to include Vegetarian Booster by MR for AOR, which takes care of quite a few of the different pills I was taking before.

Here's an even earlier entry that I wrote back before I was taking supplements at all. To me, it was pretty obvious that I was hitting on MR, but he didn't get it. "Hey baby, I need some help with my... supplements." Nope, totally went over his cute little red head. Science boys. What can you do?

Posted by april at 8:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 29, 2006

Tofu Night Chez L'Orange

Tonight was tofu night in the monument to Orange-ness that is our kitchen. I have a tomato tofu dish that I almost always make on our tofu nights because it is so yummy. It comes to me care of my ex-boyfriend Bill Beckler, who used to be a vegan back when I was a vegan. Here 'tis:

Boil up some veggie broth. To it, add some grape tomatoes (or you could use regular). I used 200 grams in MR's dish, 100 in mine. Allow to boil till the skins turn wrinkly and you can pop them if you want.

Add about 50 g scallions. We have these gargantuan scallions growing wild in our back yard. They were so huge that I measured them with a tape measure. 32 inches. Two and a half feet of scallion. I am not making this up. I feel like we should mount one on the living room wall like a giant trophy fish or something. They're blank-ing huge! Anyhow, chop em up and put em in the broth, at a low boil.

Add tofu. I put 3/5 of a block into MR's and 2/5 into mine. I bumped up the protein in his with 150 g eggwhites to hit Zone ratios.

Allow to oooze together, adding a dash of garlic powder, between two and three teaspoons of low sodium soy sauce, and fresh ground pepper (a few cranks of the pepper mill.) Remove from heat. Add one teaspoon flax oil or olive oil. Serve hot.

As a side dish, I made a salad of steamed asparagus over baby bok choi with avocado, dressed in a soy, lime and ginger dressing. Basically I steamed 155 g asparagus, chopped into bite sized pieces, for two minutes. Then I covered the asparagi with a "head" of baby bok choi, and topped with diced avocado. Threw on a little less than a teaspoon of soy sauce, then a teaspoon of fresh lime juice, then a dash of ginger powder. Followed by a teaspoon olive oil. It turned out great... a whole CR Asian fusion meal.

Stay tuned for tilapia night...

Posted by april at 5:12 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

When It Comes To Food, People Are Nuts

Alas, I don't mean that people are delicious, crunchy sources of unsaturated fats that can add substance to your meal and make you feel satisfied for hours to come. No, I mean that when it comes to that ever-so-emotional issue of food, people are downright irrational.

It took me 32 years to figure this out???

Okay, I've actually known it for a long time. But there's nothing like a CR-related media appearance to bring out the nuttiness in lots of people I don't know. My favorites so far have been the comments on this post on Slashfood.

I'm all for paring down and living more frugally and responsibly, but this is just an example of how privileged we are: we can *choose* to starve and we can do it in such a way that it doesn't kill us as it does so many people. It should make you pretty angry if you think about it.

Huh? I am confused by this one. Am I to infer that because other people are starving, I should consume more food? Hmmm.... how will that help the starving children in Africa? Besides, worldwide there are now more overweight people than starving people. That's one public health problem I'm not making worse. And when it comes to this country, so many Americans are getting sick from obesity induced illnesses like diabetes and heart disease that it's destroying our already over-taxed health care system. Not to mention that all these large patients are causing my nurses back injuries! Ask them... they'll tell you. At least if I end up in the hospital, my nurse will be able to lift me with relatively little effort.

Here's another interesting one:

Here's the real question: why would you want to increase your lifespan by doing this? What possible reason, other than an irrational fear of death and the unknown, could you have for torturing yourself into a longer stay in the physical realm?

I say, go eat a cheeseburger. You could be dead tonight due to unfortunate circumstances.

And your house could be struck by lightening tonight... but you wouldn't let that stop you from fixing the roof, now would you? Why would I want to eat a cheeseburger when I can make delicious, healthy food at home that makes me feel good, look good, and hopefully live longer? Can't figure it out, but maybe I've just never had a really good cheeseburger.

What amazes me is how, in spite of extensive discussion in the New York Magazine article of how happy we are, people insist on insisting that anyone who controls his or her appetites for food must be miserable. Whassup with that? Julian went into great detail about how happy we all seem... and how much we enjoy our food. Yet somehow, that idea is just too much for most folks to bear. It's like, if these people can control their appetites, favor healthy food over junk, and still be happy... well, there must be something else wrong with them!

Let's be clear: most people do not want to put sufficient priority on extending life to explore serious CR. That's cool... I don't want to put sufficient priority on the Red Sox to figure out what's going in a baseball game. To each his or her own. I don't tell my friends or family how to eat unless they ask me, and even then, I counsel improved nutrition, but not serious CR unless someone is a life-extensionist and has a whole lot of discipline. I'd love to see Americans as a whole adopt healthier eating, but I don't expect more than about ten people to take up CR. So why does it seem to bother people that we CR practitioners make different, unusual choices about our food and health? We're not hurting anyone. If anything, we consume fewer resources because we eat less, need less health care, and get better gas mileage in cars and planes.

Fact is, my CR practice doesn't cost anyone else much of anything. My friends have gotten used to it, and even like my food! My family has benefitted from our CR practice by taking some of our techniques and turning them into healthy weight loss. The people on the train into Philly benefit because I don't take up much space in the crowded seats.

So why are people so bugged out by the concept of CR? Is our ability to control our eating an implicit condemnation of others who make different choices? Is that why people get so darned defensive? If so, I'm going to have to live with it, because I'm not willing to shortchange my own health to please others. Been there, done that, got the extra forty pounds, lost it.

I guess at some point I decided that if the price of life and health is that some people will say I'm weird, I'm willing to pay it. And if the price of letting other people know that they have options, that their life, health, and aging process are not entirely beyond their control, is the occasional insult to my cooking, I can deal with it. :-) My CR baby brother Matt had a great take on it here.

Besides, I meet some really interesting people this way.

Posted by april at 1:48 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Debtorexia

This is a bit off topic, but I thought I should post it because you may have friends or family members who are suffering from a dangerous disorder that I just found out about.

Apparently, it starts out as a desire to pay the bills on time. Sometimes there's a triggering event: losing a job, bankruptcy, or just a bad experience with a late fee. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere. Most people who exhibit symptoms later in life had some warning signs earlier, though it can develop in a person who has always seemed to have normal spending/borrowing habits. It seems to hit the hardest among people in their fifties, no doubt as fear of a penniless retirement starts to consume their every waking thought.

Here are some clues that you, or someone you love, may have debtorexia:

-- Do you plan what you're going to spend in advance (ie, make a budget?) Do you sometimes plan out your spending weeks, even months in advance?

-- Do you deny yourself pleasures, like a new pair of shoes, because they "don't fit into your budget?"

-- Do you refuse, month after month, to carry a balance on your credit card? Do you pay your credit cards (and other bills) compulsively by the due date every single month?

-- Do you know your bank balance, your credit card balance, and how much is in your retirement accounts, down to the dollar, without even looking at your statement?

-- Have you read books or magazines about how to increase your financial security?

-- Do you sometimes put money into your "savings account" when you want to spend it on other things?

-- Does fear of debt cause you to put off pleasure, like eating in an expensive restaurant or going on a travel vacation because you don't want to owe anybody money or pay interest?

If you answered yes to all or most of these questions, chances are, you have a problem.

It's all well and good to be financially healthy and pay the electric bill before the lights get turned off, but the fact is, the majority of Americans are in some amount of consumer debt. It's natural to carry a balance on your credit card! Without the ability to spend money, life isn't worth living. Sure, interest payments can be a pain, but they're just a fact of life that you need to accept. Don't think of it as owing someone money -- think of it as the freedom to spend as you wish!

I can't imagine what it must be like to live with this disorder. Life just wouldn't be fun without the freedom to go on a little spending spree here and there. Where's the spontaneity in these people's sad existence? And how do they have time for all that budgeting, balancing the checkbook, and watching where their investments are going? Get a life!

Picture this: two women at a shoe store. One (the normal, healthy one) sees a pair of cute boots on sale. Of course she buys them. Her friend (the debtorexic) likes the boots too, and can understand that they're on sale, but she has a psychological block that prevents her from just throwing the things on her credit card. "It doesn't fit into my budget," she says. "We're saving up for new kitchen cabinets, and I don't want to spend money that I could be saving."

Her friend shakes her head sadly. The shoes are only $40, marked down from $120! The debtorexic is missing the shoe bargain of a lifetime (or at least of the month) but refusing to spend what is a perfectly reasonable amount of money on a healthy purchase. Women need shoes! Without them, our feet would wear out from pounding the pavement!

Jackie, our sample debtorexic, has a good friend who tries to reason with her. "Now Jackie, everyone knows that budgets don't work. 95% of people who get out of credit card debt just go back into it within five years. Put it on the plastic! Every month that you pay off your balance in full, we're getting more and more concerned about you. It was fine when it was just a passing phase, but now it seems like paying your bills on time and refusing to carry a balance on your card is becoming a way of life. How much time are you spending balancing your checkbook? Don't you have better things to do?"

Jackie is recalcitrant. She's been in debt before, and she loves the feeling of paying every last cent on that credit card every month... watching the interest column read 0... owning her car free and clear... having student loans paid off. She even got a 20 year mortgage on her house instead of a 30! She's paying money into her house that she doesn't have to... at the expense of things she could be BUYING!

Friend tries again. (Keep in mind that at any moment some saner, healthier woman might snatch up this pair of sale shoes while Jackie is standing there having some sort of problem.)

"What's the point of all this 'financial security' anyway? Tomorrow,your savings could be wiped out by a bank could collapse, or you could be hit by another Enron, or your house could burn down, and you'd be destitute anyway!"

The things is, you can't reason with these people. They're so obsessed with not having debt, with "financial security," that there is no room for impulse purchasing in their lives. It all has to fit within the budget. And if they don't have the money, they don't spend it. Never mind that civilization has evolved to the point where credit is available almost instantly to almost anyone... even college students can buy on credit! These people want to take us back to the stoneage where everyone bought only in cash, and where sometimes, people couldn't buy what they wanted because they didn't actually have the money.

I don't think we need to worry that these pathetic people will have much influence on society... most Americans are way too grounded in reality to adopt such a lifestyle of deprivation. I'm not worried that the Debt Police are going to come to my house and shred my Visa card. But I do feel sorry for the individual sufferers, locked up in their homes at night, balancing their checkbooks and writing out next month's budget.

If you know someone whose fear of going into debt, or worse, not having any savings, prevents him or her from spending in a normal, healthy fashion, please, please encourage him or her to get help.

PS Oh dear, it must not be clear that I am in fact being sarcastic in an attempt to illustrate a point that has been kicking around my head for awhile now. This commenter definitely did not get it, and understandably so on his or her first visit to the blog. Sorry you walked in at an awkward moment, and welcome! I totally agree that it would be nutty if I were a life-extensionist who didn't believe in saving for the future!

Here's the comment/question:

"This is my first visit to this blog - are you trying to be sarcastic or what? How can a life-extensionist defend a viewpoint that the long-term does not matter? I don't get it. Your goal should be to get financially independent by the time you're 75 or so at the latest, which means that you should have assetts at least in the low 7-figures, and not be in debt! Besides, investing is way more fun than buying new shoes - try it!"

Now, first, take a moment to imagine what kind of flak I would get if I took the same tone with an obese person that this person took with me when he or she thought I was a person in debt. "Besides, eating healthy food is way more fun than being fat!" But moving on, here's my response (formerly its own entry but moved here for clarity.)

Dudes, time to chill. OF COURSE I'M BEING SARCASTIC.

I completely agree with Lindsay. I'm Jackie, the girl who has no debt and is lovin it! No new shoes for me, but every month, I really enjoy paying my bills in full. Paid off my car, paid off my loans, paid off all credit cards, pay everything every month. No matter what. Can't afford it on the budget... don't buy it!

Just like extra weight and unhealthy eating habits, consumer debt is "normal" but bad! Dangerous, horrible, will ruin your life!

And yet, if you compare the habits of the financially healthy, they have a lot in common with the habits of those who do CR. Attention to detail, delayed gratification, putting your future ahead of what you might have a passing impulse to buy/shove in your mouth.

Everyone (or most people, I hope!) recognizes that consumer debt is bad, and that investment and planning make are good when it comes to money. Yet, that same kind of attention to detail in what you put into your body is mocked at best, pathologized at worst. Just do a quick google search for "orthoexia" and see what I mean. Or read any of the popular press about CR. Folks who balance their checkbooks, save money, and refuse to buy crap they don't need are considered wise, sane, and reasonable. Yet those of us who treat our bodies with the same respect that financially healthy people treat their bank accounts are self-involved, obsessed, and weird.

Get it?

I love being financially healthy. I've been in debt and I've been debt free, and let me tell you, debt-free is better. I've also been fat and I've been thin, and thin is a whole lot more fun. I've been unhealthy and I've been healthy, and the later is more work, but is more than worth it.

Nothing tastes as good as being alive feels.

Posted by april at 7:15 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 28, 2006

Exercise and CR

A new commenter, Matthew, posed a question about CR and physical activity, so I'm reposting an excerpt from an old entry where I addressed the question. First, here's Matthew's comment (welcome Matthew!)

Hello Hello,

I have inadvertantly caught many different media sources talking about this new "live forever diet". I couldnt help but grab "The New Yorker" or whatever it was called off the shelves and read the article in its entirety. Thank goodness some people just don't put things back where they belong, or I would never have read it (I found it where snowboarder magazine should have been). I'm just curious, everything sounds great except for, it seems that there isn't much room for physical activity (it was a vague article mind you). I don't want to post anything really negative but I would really like to read a discussion on this or even be a part of one. The article posed a very interesting view but one I am really striving to get a mental grasp on because it spoke of loosing muscle and bone. I remain interested but for now it seems a totally mechanical and foreign idea. This rigorous control in your life day in and out seems contradictive to fun.

Don't worry folks, I'll address the last sentence later on, but in the meantime, here's a basic illustration re: exercise and CR, pulled from an entry last January.

Let's say that we have a hypothetical person who is interested in healthy life-extension. Let's call her Beth. Beth is 20, she's full grown to whatever height she's going to be, and she's having so much fun that she wants to live as long as she possibly can. So she's making some decisions about her life.

She finds out about CR. She decides to do it. Slowly over a period of a year or two, she loses weight very gradually and uses nutritional software and a postal scale to weigh and measure her food exactly. She continues to lower her calories while keeping up an exercise regimen of running about twenty minutes a day and some weight lifting for bone health. She eventually hits amenorrhea due to low body fat or whatever, and she doesn't mind because she doesn't want kids anyway so not being able to get pregnant at this particular moment is actually a plus. She has sex every day because she read in GQ, a most reliable source on the topic, that having sex every day adds eight years to your lifespan. Her partner, while skeptical of the scientific validity of the study in question, is happy to go along with the program.

Beth's trainer at the gym suggests that she train for a weight lifting competition, and Beth says, sure, why not? So she begins to train, but quickly realizes that if she's going to build more muscle and burn more calories, both through the exercise itself and because muscles burn more calories just hanging about, she's going to have to eat more.

Beth's main goal is the longest, healthiest lifespan possible. She started young. She is religious about her very low, carefully monitored calorie intake and nutrition. She rarely skips a day of having sex, and if she does due to travel or whatever, she is careful to make up for it the next day.

Beth decides to stick with her good-enough-for-bone-and-cardio-health exercise routine, but not to go for the power lifting competition. Cause she'd have to eat more Calories, and in the end, lower calories, not bigger muscles, are what seem to be causing the lifespan extension.

Now I'd just like to make it clear that I am not Beth, and Beth is not me, no matter how similar we may appear to be on the surface. Beth, like Cindy, the made-up protein guzzling ad lib woman from a few months back, is a fictional character, created to prove a point.

The point is, if life-extension, that is, living as long as possible, is your goal, you must exercise enough to make your bones and your heart happy, but beyond that, you're wasting your calories.

Now I personally find plenty of ways to consume more calories than I really need to without exercising a ton, and skipping a power lifting competition is no sacrifice for me. But for some CR practitioners, like Kenton the CR'd surfer boy, it's a serious concern. We all have a variety of goals, and sometimes our goals are in competition with each other. My struggles are a little less heroic: Goal 1: Live as long as possible. Goal 2: Create a low carb margarita. Compromise!

I think the most important thing is that we pursue our goals with as much knowledge as possible. We can get tremendous support and advice from each other, even when our goals are different. For example, MR has helped me improve my diet and supplement plan, and he isn't in the slightest bit interested in a low carb margarita. We compromise.

Posted by april at 6:33 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 27, 2006

CRON-O-METER is the best... and works on the Mac!

A warm hug to all my commenters who asked about software! (Especially Laura... so glad to have you back! Missed you!) I think the best of all programs is Aaron's CRON-O-Meter, which can be found at Aaron's site. Aaron and his wife Christine are serious CR practitioners and life-extensionists, and also some of the most fun people I know. I knew both of them pre-CR, and they were gorgeous then, but now they are both just incredibly breath-takingly beautiful, with health oozing out of every pore. Especially Christine. :)

For those of you who use Macs, be aware that you are in good company... my angel MR is a dyed in the wool Mac person! He uses CRON-O-Meter and loves it. I think you will too. It really is an easy, flexible program. Enjoy!

Posted by april at 10:07 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

Polar Bear In The Dessert

Many thanks to my public health expert friend Emma for pointing out my spelling error in a recent post. Her second grade teacher taught the difference between desert and dessert by pointing out that the second "s" in "dessert" was like how you might want a second helping of dessert after dinner.

The fact is, when you put polar bears in the dessert, you have to season them extremely carefully. Polar bears are notoriously fatty, so you can make a sort of foie gras pate out of them, but if you're going to have it for dessert I'd say you need to add a great deal of cinnamon, cardamom, and a heaping quarter teaspoon of sucralose. If you're someone who likes nutmeg, you could add nutmeg, but I wouldn't go too crazy on the pumpkin pie type spices, else people will think they're eating a polar pumpkin pie.

If you're going to have a polar bear in the dessert, I strongly suggest that you enjoy it with a small glass of the finest port you can afford.

Posted by april at 9:21 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

With A Few Exceptions

It occurs to me that there have been a few, but very few, exceptions to my "I want everyone to eat healthy, but I don't want to convert anyone to real, serious CR."

Exception 1: Luke. I remember the night I met him walking back from the coffee shop where we did his first interview and talking about some media appearance I had scheduled re: CR. He was very interested in the topic, and said a few things about trying a fast, being into healthy eating, etc. Having just spent three hours determining that this guy was one of the best organizers I would ever meet (and consuming loads of green tea), I decided that the would would be a much better place if he were alive indefinitely. Since he expressed interest, I thought there might be hope.

He does eat healthy food, like the delicious veggies that he and Christine grow in their garden. But he's still eating pasta and all sorts of crap. His priorities are in other places right now, and I understand that, so I don't say anything much. But he knows that if he ever develops an interest in life-extension, I'm right around on the other side of his office door.

BTW, he doesn't like Quorn either. But he loves my scallops and cilantro dish.

Exception 2: My mom. She's probably already too old to hit actuarial escape velocity, but I'd really like to squeeze as many years of life, health, and mango shrimp with pinot grigio out of her as possible. And the woman who got two PhD's while working full time and raising a child as a single parent has the discipline to do CR. She's already lost 70 pounds on Weight Watchers, and has been stable in her eating for awhile. We'll see if she decides to take the next step.

Exception 3: A close friend of mine from high school whom I've lost touch with, but who was and probably still is the most beautiful woman I've ever met. In addition to wanting to freeze her beauty in time, I remember her as a fellow-traveller down paths that other people find too challenging to tackle. And she's absolutely brilliant. I have no idea what's up with her, but Kathleen Hurley, if you're out there, write me! :)

Exception 4: Fellow life-extensionists, especially anyone who has been doing something ineffective, like megadosing on supplements, in an attempt to live longer. For people who are already quite excited about the possibility of age-reversing biotech and are highly motivated to see it, CR falls into the "if you're trying to get a nail into the wall, how using a hammer instead of your shoe" category. We still might not make it, but much more so than a person who is not particularly concerned with aging or the future, CR makes sense for those who have already invested intellectual energy in the prospect of a reduced-aging future.

There are lots of my friends and family who I sure wish would be around longer, but I've long since accepted that unless age reversing biotech comes out a whole lot faster than anyone thinks it will, it's too late for most of the people I know. Either they're already too old and have damaged their bodies too much, or I just know that their prioities in life lie elsewhere. It's none of my business to tell them how to spend their energy or how to think about their future, and I'm grateful for how respectful they are of my rather unusual choices and goals (and the unusual color of my kitchen.) I still love it when a friend or family member takes steps in the direction of healthy eating. Those steps often include modest calorie reductions, but that's far off from serious CR.

There was another exception, but that's a whole other blog entry... stay tuned.

Posted by april at 7:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 26, 2006

Should We Try To Convert People to CR?

Interesting question comes up from time to time within the CR Society about how much should our mission be to actively convince other people to take up the practice of calorie restriction for longer life.

My answer may surprise you. I say no.

Now make no mistake about it, I would like to convert the masses of people out there suffering with diet induced illness and unhappiness to basic healthy eating. That tends to look a lot like moderate CR, since it involves cutting out empty calories in favor of more nutritious foods, and decreasing the total calories is almost always a result of getting away from junk food and into foods that actually give your body what it needs. Many of the tricks and tools that one learns from practicing CR can be applied, with less rigor and intensity, to eating healthy, maintaining a low but not extremely low body weight, and reducing risk of obesity related illnesses. I'd love to see everyone in the world take up that kind of healthy eating... it should would lower health care costs. And while I have no delusions that great numbers of people will abandon their Big Macs in favor of mangoes and kale, I do hope that the information I provide in this blog will help some people transition to heathier living.

However, I don't expect many people at all to take up the real practice of CR, which involves lowering calories beyond what your body thinks it needs in order to actually slow the aging process. That's just too much effort, too much going against the grain of biology and social pressure, for the vast majority of people. It's a very individual thing, to put such a high priority on living longer and remaining healthy that you're willing to give up other things to get there.

Sometimes I wonder if all this talk about CR is a distraction from the real issue. The fact is, CR won't and never will reverse the damage of aging. Only biotechnology that is in process but far from complete can hope to deliver on that. That's why I'm a supporter of the Mprize, and why I spend volunteer time fundraising for the Methuselah Foundation and SENS research. What you choose to eat on a daily basis doesn't do anything to extend my lifespan, though I sure do get excited when I find that someone has used the tips in the blog to improve his or her own health. But if you choose to donate to the Mprize, or fund a graduate student to work on SENS related projects, or write your legislators to ask them to prioritize research on ending aging, then you're doing something that might help me too.

Let's face it: it's a whole lot easier to give money than to give up french fries. I often think that I should stop doing these media appearances re: CR and just focus my energy on SENS. But the fact is, I love talking about CR, and I find that giving people something they can do here and now is very satisfying. Still, the moderate CR/healthy living that most anyone who reads the blog might adopt may lower their risks of obesity induced diseases, but it won't add much time to their lifespan. We're not even sure that serious calorie restriction will work in humans, though we have every reason to believe it will. Those of us who are willing to eat our veggies and take our chances are betting that it will give us enough extra life and health to get to the point where better things will become available. We could be wrong, but it's a chance we're willing to take. I would never try to convince someone else to take that chance, but I do want to make the information available to the one in a million who is motivated to take advantage of it.

In the meantime, I'd love it if my work on CR influences people to take up healthier eating. It will make them happier, and it will make their doctors happier. But there are very few people who are willing to commit to the kind of dramatic change in lifestyle that we think will be necessary to actually add to lifespan. For the few out there, welcome aboard the weird orange ship. For the rest of you, pick what you find helpful from the buffet of tools, techniques and recipes we make available. Either way, I hope you enjoy the ride!

Posted by april at 6:30 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 25, 2006

have we all been lied to about how much food we need to live healthy?

I took the headline of today's post from a comment by Joseph, one of our new readers (welcome!!!)

Here's the comment in full:

Hi. I read the New Yorker article, of course. I am very interested in the CR diet. I recently lost about 35 pounds by just giving up on eating. I had not heard of CR but having been a practicing vegetarian for years knew for years that I was still eating more than I needed and the wrong kind of food. Old guru's of southeast asia have always recommended not eating after 12:00 noon and eating about 1/3 of what you would normally eat as a working peasant. So I just started eating way less and after a while I began to feel much better and then had to go out and buy new clothes.

It has begun to seem almost weird how little food I actually needed to eat to remain healthy and energetic. I think your regimen is just the thing to tweak my diet so that I know I am getting the correct nutrients. Still I can't help wondering how low can I go? ...and have we all been lied to about how much food we need to live healthy? What a waste! and all down the toilet?!

Posted by: Joseph at October 24, 2006 8:31 PM

Yes, Joseph, we have all been lied to about how much food we need to live healthy.

We've been lied to by family members who just want us to be happy but don't understand that eating a second helping of pasta won't accomplish that.

We've been lied to by a food industry that turns poisons into profits.

We've been lied to by the USDA, which is more beholden to industry and agriculture than to science.

And finally, we've been lied to by our own bodies, which (through no fault of their own!) are adapted to survive famines, make as many babies as possible as quickly as possible, and insulate us for winters.

One of my favorite people, Dr. David Katz, whom I saw speak at my 10th college reunion, gives a great talk about how modern Western folk are like polar bears in a dessert: we're not designed for our environment! Our bodies are made for the environment they lived in for most of human history, where food was scarce, populations were small, and people had to fight to stay fed and warm. We store food really, really well... that's how our genes got naturally selected above those of others of our ancestors who didn't make it through periodic food shortages so well. If you're a woman who tends towards gaining weight like me, then you're really at the top of the evolutionary chain! Back before CR, I had stored enough body fat from eating nachos and drinking margaritas that I was ready to carry triplets through a famine.

Alas, that's not helpful in our current environment. Food is not scarce, but the food industry has figured out how to manipulate our biological programming to get us to buy buy buy, and eat more and more. We're programmed to crave fat and sugar: they're great sources of large numbers of calories. When more and more sugar and more and more fat (often in the most toxic of forms, transfats) are packed into smaller and smaller packages, we're going to eat them. And then, because we're not getting the nutrition we need from those sugar laden empty calorie foods, we're still going to be hungry.

Unless, of course, through education and conscious application of will (one of those things that humans, as opposed to other animals, are famous for) we break out of paradigm and create a new relationship with food.

Evolution wants us to make babies, even if that means carrying them through famines. The food industry wants to make profits, even if that means feeding us foods that will harm us. Our friends and families want to make us happy, but they don't always understand that the short term satisfaction of a calorie-dense meal is less pleasurable for us than the long term satisfaction of healthy, nutrient-dense food that not only satisfies our deepest cravings for the vitamins and minerals our bodies need to live, but also helps us live longer in youthful bodies.

So yes, we have been lied to. And it takes work, a whole lot of work, to get behind the curtain and create a life for yourself that is healthy.

My new commenters, Joseph and Lauren (hi Lauren!) are already on their way. Now both are interested in incorporating some CR principles into their lives to go even further down the path of health.

So how do you start CR if you're not overweight and you're already living in many ways a very healthy lifestyle?

Well, about the same way you start CR if you're overweight and freaking out on the nachos at Happy Hour. First, you take an inventory.

For those of you who are already at a weight you're happy with (the bad news is, you're probably going to lose weight, and you might not love it at first the way us formerly fat chicks do), you really want to cut calories gradually. Get your software (DWIDP, Nutribase, Nutrition Data) and plug in each day what you eat for about a week. You'll see the trends. You'll see what nutrients you're missing and how many calories you're eating. It's very helpful, if you're not already doing it, to weigh or measure most of your food with either a scale or measuring cups/spoons. This is not about being anal and compulsive, this is about equipping yourself with the tools for the task you've said you want to complete. If you saw someone trying to put a nail in a wall to hang a picture, but using her hand to attempt to pound the nail in, you'd offer her a hammer. If she insisted on bruising her hand, or maybe taking off her shoe and using her heel to whack the thing while refusing your hammer, you'd wonder what the hell her problem was. That's my reaction to people who say they want to do CR, be as healthy as they can be, and eat diets complete with optimal nutrition, but who refuse to use software. It's goofy! Grab the hammer!

As you record everything you eat, you will see places where you are eating calories that just aren't helping you that much. I did some informal diet coaching today with a friend who just wants to lose a few pounds. We identified several places in her diet where she could easily and painlessly cut calories. Almost everyone eats more empty carbs than necessary, either in processed foods, mixed drinks, desserts, fruit juices, of refined grains like bagels, pasta, and rice. Most folks find that eliminating some of all of these foods from their diet will result in a significant reduction in calories with very little sacrifice in terms of flavor, feelings of fullness, or social enjoyment.

Now that you've taken some stuff out, put some good things in! I don't know about you, but I was FAT PHOBIC before I started CR. I came of age as a cook (I know that at least one editor at NY Magazine hates my cooking, but most people, CR'd and not, actually like it...) while reading Dean Ornish, John McDougall, and other notorious prophets of the lowfat vegetarian apocalypse. I didn't know how to fry in butter, but I also had no idea what to do with oil besides ask someone to put it in my car at Jiffy Lube. And nuts? Talk about fear and trembling. I had been taught that those things make you fat! And sure enough, they do, if you eat a whole bag! But if measured and included in a low calorie, nutrient-dense diet, they are great sources of unsaturated fat and the essential fatty acids the body needs to function. Not to mention that eating sufficient fat makes your skin beautiful, even in winter! So while you're taking empty calories out of your diet, add some healthy unsaturated fats. My favorites are: flax oil for Omega 3's, 2 teaspoons per day; almonds and hazelnuts; hazelnut oil, and really good French or Australian olive oil. Avocadoes also rock my world. With fat sources, you have to be sure to measure so you don't pack too many calories in. But enjoy healthy fats and all the fun things you can do with them! Flax oil over fresh blackberries... good olive oil on green veggies with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice... almonds mixed into nonfat organic vanilla yogurt... hazelnut oil on fresh fall apples with cinnamon.

As to cutting calories, cut calories slowly. First cut 100, then see how you feel. If you're starting slim, don't lose more than 2 pounds a month (though if you're a woman, don't freak out about daily and monthly water weight fluctuations. Watch the pattern, not just the day to day.) Focus on nutrition.

If you're starting slim, you won't have the fun of going from overweight to normal to thin. I'm sorry! That's one of the most fun parts! But you'll still get the CR-induced euphoria, the invincible immune system, the beautiful healthy skin tone, the shiny healthy hair (you've got to eat fat to get the good hair, so don't even think of skimping!) and the people telling you that you look younger. You'll also get the increased energy, less need for sleep, and greater interest in events that might occur 70 years from now.

Some great books to read (even though I disagree with some of the nutritional recommendations -- I think Walford is too lowfat/high carb):

Dr. Roy Walford's _The Beyond 120 Year Diet_

my good friend and president of the CR Society, Brian Delaney, and Lisa Walford's (Roy's daugher) book _The Longevity Diet_

Barry Sears, _The Zone_

Another of my favorites, while it might seem a bit odd, is Why French Women Don't Get Fat. Though this book does not mention CR, I feel like Guiliano really forwards a philosophy of food that is very counter to the eat fast, get fat fast, turn your money and your will over to the food industry paradigm that seems to dominate American eating. The emphasis on fresh food, enjoyed with family and friends, in a beautiful setting, etc. really appeals to me. It's how I like to cook, how I like to eat, how I like to nurture the people I love. And she recommends drinking champagne with lunch! A girl after my own heart.

For so many Americans, food causes pain. People are dying from diet-induced illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. People are suffering with obesity and all the consequences thereof. People are feeling guilty about what they ate, yet craving more and more in an attempt to get the nutrition their bodies need. When you change your relationship with food and make eating an experience that about loving yourself and those you cook for, the pain goes away. Those of you who are already well down the path towards a healthy lifestyle have an advantage. I hope you enjoy the next step, and please let me know if there's anything I can do to assist you along the journey!

Posted by april at 8:57 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 24, 2006

Sliding Scale CR?

Welcome to all our new commenters! It's so exciting to wake up to comments! And yes, Kathy, you get your free copy!

Meanwhile, Josh asks an excellent question:

Hi April, I just finished reading the article in NY Magazine. I found it extremely fascinating. I've been dieting and trying to lose weight for 3 years now. I started at 200 pounds (I'm 5' 8") and am now at around 154. I've lost it very slowly and had some set backs. I did it by gradually restricting my calories and lots of exercise. I've been hearing about this CR longevity diet for a couple of years now and may eventually try. My question is are there degrees of the CR diet? Will being on the CR diet for 5 days a week have some benefits? Or do you have to do this every day to get any benefit from the diet?

Josh, the short answer to your question is: it seems that people and animals get health benefits from mild calorie restriction all the way up to serious, as long as adequate (and preferably optimal, though we argue about what that means) nutrition is preserved. Decreased risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes all come with moderate calorie restriction. There appears to be a sliding scale of benefits. The animals who were more severely calorie restricted lived longer than those who are less so. Of course there's a limit -- if you eat too little, you disappear! But if you're monitoring your nutrition and if your aim really is health, you are likely to find your own bottom line, where you're happy with every aspect of your food life, long before you'd get too low on calories. Beware however: lots of people go too low in the beginning, at risk to their health and detriment to the evolution of a sustainable CR program. Start slow, focus on nutrition while lowering calories gradually, and then decide where you want to go.

There are as many ways to practice CR as there are CR practitioners, and different people's practice evolves over time. For instance, when I first started, I very carefully measured my calories five days a week and then basically forgot about it on weekends. I lost twenty pounds that way with what felt to me like very little effort, and I had more energy, could bound up the stairs to my office instead of dragging myself upstairs, and loved the way I looked. But as I read more about CR, I started to realize that if slowing my aging process was what I was really after, I'd better do more. So I cut back my "forget about it" meals to more like once a week, and often more like twice a month. Even those I've gradually cut back in calorie content. While in the beginning I might have had a pasta dish with goopy sauce and bread on a meal out, I am now more likely to have a salad with chicken or a fish dish. But I still eat desserts, drink wine, and enjoy the occasional slice of pizza... I just do it a whole lot less often, and I balance it out with lower calorie days.

Almost anything you do to improve your nutrition and lower your calories will improve your health. What I see people doing way too often when they first attempt to start CR is cutting calories too low, then throwing themselves into such calorie deficit that they get too hungry, lose weight too fast, and give up on the whole project. It's much better to start with modest reductions in calories. Combine that with big improvements in nutrition, and you'll be amazed at how good you feel.

If you're looking at adapting some of the things you've read about to your life, I strongly advise you to get a good inventory of what you're eating now. You're without a doubt consuming more calories than you think you are because people notoriously underestimate. Take a few days worth of representative diet and measure your food (This is so easy to do just by reading food labels. Half a bag of frozen veggies -- read the label and divide it in half. You might want to weigh a few meat portions if you eat meat so you can get a sense of how many calories and how much protein you're consuming.) Be sure that when you're counting your pre-CR calories, you're not eating less than usual. Then gradually replace any empty calories you find (like bread, pasta, anything sugary) with more nutrient dense choices like low calorie vegetables, lean protein, and unsaturated fat sources like olive oil and almonds. Plug your diet into any of the easily available nutritional software programs and you'll be shocked at what nutrients you're missing. Including sources of those nutrients in your diet will improve how you feel on a daily basis. It will also make your hair grow longer with fewer split ends (okay, I have no scientific evidence for that, just anecdotal, but it's still pretty cool!)

Cut your calories only very slowly, and monitor your weight. If you're starting out overweight, you might lose five pounds a month and be fine. If you're starting slim, you don't want to lose more than two pounds a month. Eventually you stabilize at a calorie level that works for you, but it takes awhile to find the balance that fits you just right. It's great to experiment -- that's fun! Just don't compromise nutrition. None of this works if you're malnourished. It takes some work to get good nutrition, but it beats the alternatives!

Posted by april at 5:24 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

October 23, 2006

Short Term, Long Term

Greetings to Yvonne, our new reader who found out about the blog from the NY Mag article, and welcome! Here's her question for those of you who didn't read the comments on the last entry:

I found your blog as a result of reading the New York Magazine article. After reading that article and some of your posts, I went to the Calorie Restriction Society website. I saw a list of the potential down-sides of CR (increased sensitivity to cold, less stamina for vigorous activity, fewer "reserves," slower wound healing).

I wondered how a regimen with these potential drawbacks could possibly have aided the survival of mice and monkeys.

And then it hit me.

Did these animals live in a lab? In other words--was their food and shelter already taken care of? It seems to me that CR could only be an advantage to animals under lab conditions, i.e. animals which did not have to compete with other animals for resources or mates or face any uncertainty as to their (small) food supply.

In the wild, a CR animal wouldn't be a CR animal at all--he'd be a failing animal, and good luck to him if he had to outrun a predator or fight off a rival or recover from wounds afterwards, or endure an extra long time without food.

Humans don't have to race across the tundra after our prey, but we do compete (sometimes in subtle ways--will an employer prefer a buff man or one who appears too thin?), and we do face a certain degree of uncertainty. CR-ers might be gaining *long* term advantages (although it will be a long time before we find out), but it looks like they may be sacrificing some potentially important *short* term advantages. And those are meaningful to survival too.

Everything's a trade-off. If having some 'extra' muscle and fat (i.e. a normal BMI) disqualifies you from living to 150, well--as our current crop of centenarians proves, you might still make it to 100, and in the meantime, it's entirely possible that the padding which disqualifies you from 150 was--without your knowledge--responsible for saving your life one day at 68 when you got caught in a huge New York crowd at New Year's and spent the whole night freezing in the crowd, waiting for the street to clear so you could get home.

So: as a CR person, do you feel like you may be over-emphasizing long-term survival advantages at the expense of equally-important short-term survival advantages?

Posted by: Yvonne at October 23, 2006 6:45 PM

In terms of short term advantages vs. long term, my personal experience with CR has been that the short term benefits are so great that I don't find it a trade off. Everyone's experience is different, but for example, you mentioned being more sensitive to cold. I find that I am slightly more cold sensitive, but the compensation is that I have way more heat tolerance. This is just wonderful in the hot sticky Philly summers when I'm working, often standing outside in the sun for long hours (with tons of sunscreen, I assure you!) in the blistering heat. I can handle the heat much, much longer and more comfortably than my co-workers. So while in winter I might be the first to trot out the winter coat or throw on a scarf, in the summer, I have the advantage. This could be a survival advantage too -- scientists first discovered that CR'd animals have greater tolerance for heat when the air-conditioning broke in the lab and all the non-CR'd rodents died while the CR'd among them made it.

I find that other short term benefits of CR are also very useful to me in my profession and lifestyle. I have an extremely stressful career, one that calls for physical and emotional endurance under lots of pressure. Because I have more energy on CR than I did before, I can handle long hours, lack of sleep, and general physical exhaustion much better. Because my job requires mental, not physical, heavy lifting, the kind of long-running energy that CR gives me is a perfect fit. If I were a construction worker or a marathon runner, I would probably find CR to be unworkable, but I'm not.

It's no big secret that in our society, it's an advantage for a woman to be thin. Because I am one of the lucky ones who tended to be overweight when eating ad lib (that's eating all you want of whatever, for those of you who are just joining us) but I tend to be slim-but-not-skinny on CR, I definitely find my post-CR look to be a benefit, not a problem. There is one funny instance in which it's a problem though: sometimes I now look too young! When I weighed forty pounds more, I looked older, more grown-up, and more like a *normal* person (remember that average in this country is now overweight.) Once I lost the weight, I started getting questions about my age and experienc again! Luckily, I was already at a point in my profession where I had the credentials and didn't need to rely on looking older to prove myself. But it was a bit jarring to get the same "Are you old enough to be doing this?" at 31 that I used to get at 21!

CR has also resulted in a much strong immune system. This is a side effect that almost every CR practitioner reports. We hardly ever get sick. We can't take our sick days because people know we don't get sick! I've had one sick day since I started CR. Being able to work a zillion hours and stay healthy is a definite advantage.

Again, my experience is just that -- mine. Others may differ. For me, CR has yielded a great many short term benefits. The worst side effect of CR for me is that occasionally people who for some reason don't approve of CR say nasty things about me! But as a union organizer, I was already used to being called nasty names. You develop a thick skin, even if you don't have a thick layer of subcutaneous fat.

In the modern world, we are much more likely to die of heart disease, diabetes, or any of the other lifestyle related diseases than we are to freeze to death or be eaten by a faster predator. If a hungry bear comes after me, I'm toast! But the fact is, if a bear came after me pre-CR, I would have been toast too. I avoid areas where there are known to be bears, and I bundle up in winter. You can't avoid all risks, but you can definitely take an active part in choosing what risks you expose yourself to. I feel good about my decisions, and all I would wish for my readers is that they would have the information to make decisions that they too can feel good about.

Meanwhile, welcome to all new readers! I hope you enjoy the blog, and maybe occasionally try a new recipe or learn something that you can use.

PS I love comments, so keep 'em coming!

Posted by april at 9:26 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

New York Magazine Hates My Cooking...

The New York Magazine article is out. Good article, overall, though apparently they didn't like the food. You can read it here.

The article was overall quite good, though there was some obligatory nastiness about the food in the end. Makes me sad because I thought everyone had a really good time. Oh well! No accounting for taste!

The food, I'd have to say, looks great. Doron Gild is an excellent photographer, and a nice guy at that.

Posted by april at 6:20 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

October 20, 2006

Using The CR Toolbox To Achieve Healthy Weight Loss

CRON is not for everyone. The goal of extending your healthy lifespan through a method that while tried and true in many mammals, is not proven in humans, and requires careful planning and some sacrifice, is just not what most people want to do. I never try to "convert" people to CR, because it would be pointless. People should decide what their goals are, and what price they're willing to pay. For most, even the thought of looking and feeling younger for many years to come and even adding some time onto their lifespan is not worth the effort.

But for most people in our rapidly expanding nation, losing weight and feeling better is a goal. Every year people make New Year's resolutions to lose weight, but too often they fail because they lack the tools for healthy weight loss. CR folks have discovered a powerful toolbox of techniques that enable one to lose weight while dramatically improving health and minimizing inconvenient things like hunger. Weight loss is just a side effect of CR, and many CR practitioners were perfectly happy with how they looked before CR. In fact, quite a few of the men preferred to be heavier! But for us, the priority of slowing aging trumps concerns about being perceived as "too skinny." Still, we've learned some things about how weight loss really works. These techniques aren't tricks -- they aren't gimmicky shortcuts like counting fat grams or eating a grapefruit with every meal (though that sounds yummy... I love grapefruit!) They're tools that really work.

I had two occasions to contemplate this concept this week. First, hanging out with MR's mom, who has lost 38 pounds using the tools she learned from MR and the blog, has been a lot of fun. The way she cooks -- not weighing everything but measuring amounts, focusing on fresh veggies and very lean protein (she taught me how to cook tilapia night before last!) without bread or pasta or any of those big empty calorie starches that so many people think they need to feel full, and serving reasonable portions that make everyone feel satisfied without being stuffed -- shows very clearly how she and her husband lost weight slowly, healthfully and without hunger or stress. They aren't interested in hardcore CR, they just want to look and feel good. And it's worked!

Then I got an email from a friend for whom I did a bit of informal weight loss coaching two years ago. She had gained some weight due to tremendous work stress and long hours, and now she's implementing the things we talked about two years ago and losing weight. Yea!

Here are the most effective tools that the normal person can take out the CR toolbox:

1) Know what you're eating.

You don't have to weigh and measure every morsel for the rest of time to familiarize yourself with the calorie content of the foods you normally eat and learn to choose lower calorie choices and sensible portions. Just a few weeks of reading food labels, weighing your meat and fish and looking up their calorie content on any number of free online programs, and consulting the nutrition information on the websites of any fast food restaurant you might patronize will show you where your calories are going. When I figured out how many calories that Dunkin Donuts bagel with cream cheese was costing me, I decided to dump it once and for all. However, I discovered the amazing Subway Club salad, at 150 calories and a ton of lean turkey protein. If you educate yourself as to what you're really consuming, you'll almost automatically make lower calorie choices. That's why it would be so good if restaurants published their calorie counts... but more on that soon!

2) Think nutrition first.

This is no joke. People who are desperate to lose weight will tell you that they don't want to worry about nutrition until they lose the weight. This is a self-defeating belief because one of the keys to hunger management and food satisfaction is getting the nutrients you need! Ask any CR person who discovered nutritional software and improved his or her diet -- when you get the nutrition you need, you don't feel the need to consume excess calories. However, if you're filling up on empty, fake, nutrient-less "diet food," you'll still be hungry because you're malnourished.

Not only does nutrition make a difference in hunger, it makes an incredible difference in how you look. I've lost weight before during times of extreme stress (though never as much weight as I lost doing CR), and at 110 I would look like a pale, sick ghost. Now at 104 I look vibrant and healthy, and I'm five years older! Skin tone, eye brightness, even hair health seem to be effected by nutrition. This is just common sense, but it still came as a surprise to me. Even my hairstylist has noticed that I can grow my hair much longer now, and it looks healthier at lengths where before it would have had split ends and looked like a rat had been nibbling on it. Nutrition even makes a difference in how weight is distributed, or at least so it seems from anecdotal evidence. I'd love to consult an expert to find out what's really going on, but it is certainly my perception and that of other CR'd women who had tried every diet in the book before that with good nutrition, weight comes off where you want it to, with much less sacrifice in the areas where you actually want some fat.

3) Slow and steady wins the race.

In the rodent studies, rats whose calorie level was dropped fast didn't get the longevity benefits of those whose calories were reduced gradually. Losing weight slowly is essential for health, and also seems to help keep the weight off, a big priority for normal folks who want to lose weight and maintain.

4) Focus on health, not weight.

CR folks are all about health. We don't just limit our calories, we eat extremely nutritious diets, plus we take care of our health in other ways. Almost every CR person I know has some kind of exercise routine, and most of us also engage in meditation or yoga or stress reduction practice of some kind. We wear our seatbelts, avoid secondhand smoke (obviously we do not smoke) and hold hands with a responsible adult when crossing the street (maybe that's just me -- I used to be terrible at crossing the street and have more than once been grabbed and jerked back to prevent me from walking out in front of a car while not paying attention. I really miss those New Haven pedestrian only crossing signals. All traffic stops for pedestrians. It's excellent.)

Lots of us report that focusing on health allowed us to get out of that negative self-talk loop that seems to run continually in the heads of many dieters. When the focus is on weight, you say to yourself, "I'm so fat. I have to get thin." Then you are so busy convincing yourself that you're fat that you act in ways that keep you fat, even as you mentally beat yourself up. When you forget for the moment about your weight and focus on your health, you start to think of yourself as a health-conscious person. That makes it a lot more likely that in every choice you make, you'll choose the healthier of the options. Before you know it, the weight is coming off by itself. I practically blinked and missed the first twenty pounds I lost on CR because I was so obsessed with designing the nutritionally perfect diet and reading scientific articles that I stopped obsessing about my weight. It caught up with me when a trusted colleague pointed out that I was coming to work looking like a kid playing dress up in my mother's clothes, that's how big my old clothes were becoming. When I bought a bunch of clothes that fit, I realized how profoundly my body had changed. All while I wasn't really thinking about the weight. I didn't even own a scale back then... I only bought one when some CR sisters pointed out that I might be losing weight too fast, and I knew I had to monitor so as to slow my weight loss! Very different from the diet mentality, and very good for long term health.

As MR once said, CR works because it makes you healthy. But CR isn't an all-or-nothing, zero sum game. Even modest reductions in calories (assuming you maintain or achieve adequate nutrition -- remember, most people who are eating ad lib aren't getting all the nutrients they need on a daily basis, so don't take shortcuts, get nutritional software!) can result in dramatic health benefits. And for those who want or need to lose weight, the CR toolbox can make the difference between success and failure.

And by all means, please stop eating cereal for breakfast. Take a carton of eggwhites, pour it into a measuring cup and measure out 1 cup (1.5 or 2 if you're a man, depending on your size and how big a breakfast you like,) put it in a pan and scramble it. Add some veggies like green peppers or mushrooms if you have the energy. Throw on a slice of nonfat cheese if you feel like it. Top with salsa, hot sauce, or a dash of salt substitute and fresh ground pepper. Now matter what you do, eat it with a little fat, preferably a teaspoon of flax oil but olive oil will do, or about 11 grams of nuts. Now eat. That's your breakfast. I promise, and it sounds like a gimmick but it's not, that if you throw out your high carb breakfast and substitute a big shot of protein in the form of eggwhites (no saturated fat there!) plus some fat, you will lose weight. Just try it. Really. Tell me how it goes.

Posted by april at 9:07 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

October 18, 2006

Even Your Cat Wants You To Eat More Protein

Yesterday Luke had an afternoon meeting down at the hospital so I saw Christine long before I saw him. I asked about their new kitten (they adopted a baby boy cat about four weeks ago) and she said that he had just killed a large squirrel. It was probably as big as the cat!

"Aren't you proud?" I said. I mean, cats are hunters, and he is obviously very accomplished at an early age. They were a little bit concerned, as they discovered this Monday night when returning home at about 9:30 pm from the office where we were phonebanking till 9. Luckily, by morning, the corpse was gone, no doubt eaten by a neighbor, beast or otherwise.

I suggested that at the rate he's going, the kitten will soon be bringing home food for the entire family.

Over breakfast this morning I mused that Luke would get more protein if he ate the squirrel. Of course it would take awhile to get the meat off, but then they could make a nice Brunswick Stew, a favorite in my native North Carolina. These days, they often make Brunswick stew without the squirrel, but it is a mainstay of covered-dish suppers, which is what we call potlucks in the South.

Of course, Luke would not eat the Brunswick stew because he is a vegetarian. And there are many good ways to get protein as a vegetarian... the mighty eggwhite being my favorite. I think it is clear, however, that the kitten is worried about his adopted father's protein intake, therefore he is going to keep bringing home meat. Isn't that sweet?

Kieffer must know that I eat at least seventy grams of protein a day. He hasn't killed a mouse in ages.

Posted by april at 7:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 16, 2006

We Might All Do Well To Take A Cue From The Iguanas

Annec writes:

"Iguanas are cute! I had a friend who had one, and we (my boyfriend and I) would feed him when she was out of town. I remember thinking that the stuff we were feeding the iguana (which included kale and collard and other greens) looked pretty tasty. It's funny, a lot of people don't see such greenery as "people food" at all, but we all might do well to take a cue from the iguanas..."

It is sad how many people don't see yummy greens as people food. In fact, vegetables in general are often not considered appropriate for human consumption, unless cooked to death. Think of what happens if you're munching on a salad while everyone else is eating cheesesteak -- someone asks why you're eating rabbit food. Are you on a diet? Grrr...

Eggwhites aren't exactly rabbit food, but they are my CR friendly breakfast. MR's parents have gone to see New York for a few days, so I'll have a couple of days of quotidian diet. I've tweaked my diet a bit as of late, so here it is the updated sketch. I don't eat the exact same thing everyday by any means, but I do have a few foods that I find easy and convenient ways to get the nutrition I need while keeping my calories low.

Breakfast: 6:30 am
1 cup eggwhites, scrambled, with 1 tablespoon Lewis Labs brewers yeast, 1 fat free cheddar single, 1 teaspoon flax oil, and a drizzle of Whole Foods Organic Hot Sauce
1 teaspoon wheat bran, soaked and drained
20 g shiitake mushrooms, scrambled into eggies
Coffee

Mid-morning snack: (approx 10 am)
1 carton Dannon Light and Fit Nonfat yogurt (60 cals)
40 cals almonds or hazelnuts

Lunch: (approx noon)
Salad of kale, napa cabbage, tomatoes, green pepper
50 g turkey (62 calories)
1 cup Trader Joes Nonfat Cottage Cheese (140 Cals)
60 calories almonds or hazelnuts

Dinner: (approx 7, though varies with work schedule)
Brewers yeast soup: organic veggie mix with broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, totaling 40 calories, cooked in 1 half cube no salt veggie broth (organic) with 1 teaspoon flax oil (added after removing from heat)
1 Quorn Dog (80 cals, loaded with Zinc)
Nuts or another teaspoon of olive oil
6 ounce glass of red wine: 150 cals

I end up eating a piece of fruit or a fruit salad about every other day, either a fruit salad if I go out to a restaurant with a salad bar, or an apple, pear, plum, whatever on other days.

I might need to figure out a way to get some citrus into this thing. Hmmm... perhaps I will eat a grapefruit. I love grapefruit.

I'm still tweaking the nutrition on the software... it seems I haven't properly entered the nutrition info for Quorn dogs, so my zinc is all messed up. Grrr!

I'm coming in with about 1204 calories, which is below my average but I've eaten out quite a bit lately so a few weeks of below average would balance that out. I monitor my weight every day and if I start losing fast, I increase my calories.

Will post the nutrition info once I have time to fix it in DWIDP. I'm actually transitioning to Aaron's Cron-O-Meter, which is a much better program. So maybe I'll do the whole thing in COM and post it. It's about time to make the leap.

A few nutritional notes:

It's hard to get 100% of the RDA of calcium from food, but I try and usually come close. All my milk products are nonfat organic, with the exception of the Danon which is only a recent addition, as in the last few days. I may stop eating it soon, but it's so low cal that it's hard to give up.

B vitamins seem hard to find, so I increase them with mushrooms and Lewis Labs.

My iron level in my diet is low, but my blood tests consistenly show my iron level to be just right, so I'm not too worried about it.

My zinc is low but I supplement.

My protein is very high 38% which I find helps control both mood and hunger.

I love Quorn dogs, and you should try them!

All for now... must go run some errands before work.

Posted by april at 6:46 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 15, 2006

You Must Have An Iguana

MR used to have to go to great lengths to buy turnip greens. He likes to eat them in his salads, as they're very nutritious, but they weren't in every store in the Canadian city where he used to live, so he would take a long bus ride across town to the only store that carried them. He took to calling in advance to make sure the turnip greens were there so he wouldn't waste half a day on a journey and come home empty-handed.

The produce guy at the store got used to Saturday morning phone calls from turnip green man. One day, upon confirming that turnip greens were in stock, he said to MR, "You must have an iguana."

Now that seemed like a non-sequitur.

"Uh, no..."

"Then what do you do with the turnip greens?"

"I eat them. In salads."

Apparently this option had never occurred to the produce guy. His main turnip green customers are people who have iguanas, because turnip greens are very well suited to iguanas' unusual nutritional needs.

I tried to use this entire interaction as proof that we should get an iguana. They're so cute!

MR is not convinced. The image of sharing a large turnip green leaf, Lady and the Tramp style, with a pet iguana, is not appealing to him.

But he still loves his turnip greens.

Posted by april at 5:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 14, 2006

Yes, That Skinny Woman Is You

MR's mom has been losing weight -- lots of it. 38 pounds in a healthy 20 months (that's just under 2 pounds a month -- remember, losing weight slowing is the only way to lose way to lose weight healthfully.) She looks fabulous. When we went to the King of Prussia Mall, we bought her a whole bunch of new clothes at Ann Taylor, and she had the moment that all of us have when we lose weight. You girls who've done it know the moment I'm talking about: the moment when you look in a mirror and realize that the person who is much skinnier than you imagine yourself is you. I had the very same moment in the very same Ann Taylor store when I put on a pair of size 0 petite pants and they fit. It's been so much fun to watch someone else go through the process... the first year of weight loss really is the most fun. I almost feel sorry for people who never get fat because they don't get to have the fun of losing weight. The shock when you realize that the mirror isn't lying, that you're wearing clothes that fit, and that yes, you really look like that, is quite a revolutionary moment.

We had a delicious lunch at the California Cafe, where I had the Country Salad, MR's mom had the chicken spring rolls, and MR's step-father had the crab melt, then we went shopping more. Eventually we ended up at home for my CR-friendly lasagna, this time made with cauliflower stems (the leafy parts that look like celery) as the dividers between the layers. They loved the lasagna.

Today we did the Whole Foods and Trader Joes shop, followed by brunch at the Cresheim Cottage Cafe. We shared an amazing dip trio, then MR's parents had appetizer size tiger shrimp and lump crab cakes, and I had an eggwhite omlette with arugula and sundried tomatoes. We all had baby green salads on the side.

Tonight, MR's mother made her favorite mango shrimp dish, which was excellent. Apparently this recipe was my idea, though I had never made it since MR eats seafood only once a month and I usually make scallops on that day. It has shrimp, frozen mangos, mango salsa, green and red peppers and asparagus, all mixed together and cooked in a shallow pan, served hot and topped with a teaspoon of flax oil. I served some baby kiwis on the side for dessert, and everyone loved their food.

We're tired now so to bed, but more soon!

Posted by april at 9:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 12, 2006

Canadian Invasion

Yes, you hear right. Canada has invaded the US. Any day now, you'll learn that you get free health insurance, decent labor laws, and excellent Maple syrup. We are becoming a colony of Canada, and things are definitely looking up.

Sorry to disappoint, but it's just four of MR's parents come to visit. My father dubbed it the Canadian invasion, and it stuck. So no free health care, but lots of good food and fun. MR's parents are tons of fun, all of them, and they get along with each other beautifully (in fact, I think they probably have even more fun without the kids!) We've had a lovely time so far... MR took them all sight seeing on Wednesday, and Wednesday night we made a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner! Turkey, gravy, low carb cauliflower "stuffing" (which turned out a bit squishy but tasted really good), cranberry relish, cauliflower mashed "potatoes," pumpkin flan. All the food was great, and I ate a heaping healping as I had been saving cals all day.

Tonight I made a fairly simple pumpkin-quorn curry with baby corn (both Quorn and corn!), with a side dish of bell peppers stuffed with ricotta, basil, tomato, cooked in wine. Tomorrow I'm taking the day off so I can take MR's parents to the King of Prussia Mall, followed by the art museum. We'll be touring the museum and then heading to the main lobby for the Art After Five jazz concert, complete with wine. Then home to eat a low key dinner of lasagnish that I've already put together and thrown in the fridge, plus a light salad.

More soon...

Posted by april at 11:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 10, 2006

80/20

It seems that I and everyone else at one point read/heard/intuited that there are some things you should do 80%. Like you're very good 80% of the time, and you don't try so hard 20%. I think that was some kind of diet advice, to help people who get discouraged when they fall off their plan accept slippage as part of the plan, not a derailing disaster. I'd say I'm about like that with my CR: I'm hardcore 80% of the time, and 20% I'm not. That makes me a moderate CR practitioner. When I'm doing very well, it's more like 90/10, and eventually I'd like to get to 95/5, but I don't think I'd ever want to go 100% hardcore, everything counted every day, like MR. I'd miss my Philly restaurants and wine bars too much to give them up forever. So a balance, where I'm very strict most days and then can allow for some flexibility on other days, works pretty well for me.

I thought about the 80/20 balance today when, of all things, I was vacuuming the stairs. You see, we have carpet in our new house, and while I had tried out my fancy new vacuum that MR bought me, a giant purple monster named "Animal" that is designed to rid the atmosphere of animal allergens, on the regular carpets, I hadn't yet hit the stairs. We've had contractors clomping up and down the stairs most days up until yesterday afternoon, so there didn't seem to be much point in vacuuming the stairs when the workmen would be right back to trash them the next day. The fact is, the whole carpet needs a steam clean after all the construction, but that's beside the point for now. I enlisted MR's help in doing the stairs because I needed someone to carry Animal's body along behind me while I vacuumed with Animal's turbo mini fur removing attachment head. Then we got to the top and I switched to the crevice wand to clean out all those pesky between the steps spaces that are impossible to reach with a regular vacuum attachment.

Immediately, I became infatuated with the wand. It is so powerful, so exact, so sharp. The magic wand of suction slurpped up cat fur and contractor boot dirt, and I kept going over the spaces again and again until they were really, really clean.

MR, holding the vacuum body behind me, was not so infatuated with the crevice wand. "Perhaps we could apply the 80/20 rule to vacuuming the stairs?" he asked.

I turned around with a demonic gleam in my eye, I'm sure. "Aha! So the perfectionist is not such a perfectionist!"

"Not when it comes to vacuuming the stairs!" he said.

You see, MR doesn't find vacuuming the stairs to be the deep, fulfilling, joyful experience that I find it to be. Even though he appreciates the results: pretty stairs, fewer animal allergens in the air, he doesn't want to spend all day holding the vacuum cleaner.

It's all about priorities. In some things, it's worth going all the way to 100%. In others, just 80% perfect will do quite well. We all have to make decisions about what matters to us most in life.

But I really, really love my new vacuum, and it's so satisfying to have clean stairs.

Posted by april at 8:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 9, 2006

Very Good Photo Shoot

Wow, that was fun.

At first we were a little tense. It had been a tense day of running around (including getting lost at Ikea... they do that on purpose!) and MR had spent much of the day putting together recalcitrant furniture while I spent much of the day scrubbing floors. We were pretty exhausted, but our photographer was excellent and cheered us right up.

New York Magazine send a photographer named Doron Gild, and his assistant Lizzie whose last name I didn't catch. They were great! You can check out Doron's work here. I really liked the way the pictures came out, including a few with Kieffer! Doron mostly photographs real people, and from working with him and looking at his pictures of others, I definitely get the sense that he knows how to make people look like who they are, not just how they look.

Our diner booth in our kitchen (it's a weird retro fifties diner booth and table that the seller left for us, and I love it!) looked adoreable, and the food was gorgeous. Here's what we made:

Curried pumpkin soup in the pretty vegetable mugs (corn and carrot) that my mom bo