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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 October 24, 2006 5:24 AM
Comments
Aprilita I think the guy who wrote the NYT article must be a moron. He got no inside to the practice of CRON even after trying it for 2 months himself. Hell, I understand it more than he does. Also, judging from what he consumed afterwards (McDonalds and Katz, yuck!) and that he relied on his friend's lame taste to judge the food, and the fact that he doesn't like scallops and cilantro, I can only assume that he doesn't have a very developed sense of taste. They should have given the assignment to someone who is a gourmet and who writes professionally about food, not to someone whose idea of taste is McDonald's quarter pounders.
And you look very good in the picture.
Posted by: istanbulwitchy at October 24, 2006 12:03 PM
Hi April,
I was wondering about your opinion on whey protein. I've been tweaking my diet from the optimal nutrition standpoint for a while now (I'm happy with my weight at 5'3" at 105 for a 25 year old female). I've found I really like having a protein shake in the morning to get going. Is whey an optimally nutritive way (no pun intended) of getting protein?
Posted by: Rachel at October 24, 2006 12:58 PM
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 wierd 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
Right on, Zeynep! JD :-)
Posted by: Judith at October 24, 2006 9:25 PM
Hi April
I'm emailing from a women's weekly magazine in the UK. We'd love to do a profile piece on you. Please can you get in contact asap?
Kind regards, Kate
Posted by: kate at October 25, 2006 5:27 AM
April,
I was hoping you would write an entry about getting started on the CR diet - aimed at people who are already healthy and fit. Just to tell you a bit about me, I am five foot one inch and weigh 108 - that is my setpoint. I am a breast cancer survivor - I had it more than four years when I was 36. I'm 40 now, with two school age kids and am in menopause (had my ovaries removed) with some signs of osteoporosis. Other than that, fit as a fiddle. I practice Ashtanga yoga daily - which is very rigorous, so I burn a lot of calories per day beyond the bare minimum (I'm guessing about 350-400). So, that's me, but I would love to hear how one gets started with the CR way of life. Thanks,
Lauren
Posted by: Lauren at October 25, 2006 9:00 AM