April's CR Diary

Darling I have a problem:
Aside from the dishes you consume on the road like Subway, all the rest sounds like really non-tasty, ugly food to me. I wonder, do you even care for taste?
Mary cares for taste, Willy cared for taste, but I don't think you care much for taste.
That's why your meals were not appreciated enough for NYT. You care more about crunching shit than for taste.
Start caring for taste. You'll see the difference.

Hi April! I am a 16 year old girl who has been practicing CR for about 3 months now. Weight has never been an issue for me. I am 5'3.5 and 105 pounds, but I'd just like to say that I read your journal every night and it really assists me in my CR goals.
As for this entry I thought it was so cool that you eat the Trader Joes low carb tortilla. I honestly thought I was one of the only people who ate them. I thought it was like my "little secret" haha. But they do rock!
One more thing, I was in the library and I saw you in a magazine article about CR - cover news, and I was so amazed and happy. Well thanks for being my CR inspiration and have a good CR day tomorrow!

A warm thank you to all recent commenters! It's great to hear from you! Just a quick note to Gabi... since you are so young, you need to wait before you start cutting back calories. You may well be full grown, and you're already quite tall compared to me :) but it's important to be careful, since in the animal studies, animals that are CR'd before they reach full adulthood are smaller than the ones who start later. Also, even if you're full grown in height, you brain is still growing, and may be doing so until you're 21. You don't want to do anything to damage your brain growth, so hold steady at your currrent weight while focusing on nutrition till you hit 21. It's wonderful to learn to pay attention to nutrition at a young age -- I sure wish I had! Your teens are a great time to make sure you're getting all the calcium you need. Your bones will be so grateful!

I think a lot of people would look at a young woman who is interested CR and assume she's anorexic. I think that's shallow and absurd, gender/age profiling. While the calorie cutting side should wait till full maturity, it's never too early to learn optimal nutrition. (It's also never too late!) As long as the focus is on health, not weight, and the body is getting everything it needs to grow, an interest in nutrition is a very healthy thing indeed.

There are a few more considerations, though, that someone young might want to factor into his or her long term health and longevity plan:

-- To make sure that both your body and brain reach their full grown potential, you should to continue with your nutritional monitoring and making sure your diet is optimal, but wait to cut calories until you're 21, when we can be quite sure you're done growing both in body and in brain. If you've created a diet that is nutritionally stellar, you'll then be able to take your calorie level wherever you want it to be with no problem. Even then, since you're starting thin, you will want to cut calories very, very slowly, and in the end probably not very much. You'll see where you feel best, and hopefully we'll learn more and more about the optimal level of restriction for maximum slowing of aging.

-- Even more than with older people who have already damaged their bodies, you'll want to make sure you're avoiding toxins and taking care of yourself in every possible way. Getting the calcium, B vitamins, protein and unsaturated fat you need at this early age will serve you well as you age. Also, it's a great time to do bone building exercise like moderate weight lifting. I so wish I had taken better care of my bones in my teens.

-- Make sure you're getting plenty of fat in your diet for brain growth. Balancing your omega 3's and omega 6's is important, and at your age, even some saturated fat and cholesterol (in moderation) are fine. Don't cheat your brain! Have you tried flax oil yet?

-- Social struggles, my dear, will be worse for you thanks to our society's hysteria about food and weight. If you go through life as a slim, healthy woman, glowing with energy and vitality from a healthy diet and lifestyle, you will get lots of criticism. It's worth it. Set an example for the women around you who are crash dieting and starving themselves by eating healthy foods, never compromising nutrition, and refusing to buy into the latest fads. Maybe a few will catch on, but if not, you've saved yourself. Never, ever give in to the temptation to short cut nutrition. When you realize how young women cheat themselves out of healthy brain development when they crash diet or go on ultra low fat diets, it's scary and sad. Hopefully some of you peers will learn from your example and pick up the hazelnut or the olive oil instead of the latest diet book.

I'd love to know how you're structuring your plan and goals, especially how you're getting along with software and finding calcium sources. Write me off blog if you want... april at mprize dot org.

And yes, those low carb tortillas rock. :) Have you made my hazelnut pear dessert pizza with them yet?

New to CR and am wondering how many minutes/hours per day each of you spends preparing (weighing, cooking, etc) food.

Right now I buy loads of prepared and semi-prepared foods from Whole Foods (grilled tofu, grape leaves, cheeses) and am hesitant to up my time in the kitchen from 60.

Can you let me know how much time each of you dedicates to food prep and how to minimize this time?

many thanks.

April, I'm one of the newbies that found you through the NYr article (that was mentioned on some blog I read - don't even remember where, now!). I read through the article and thought that your diet sounds very much like the way we already eat, so wouldn't it be a good idea to check nutrition. Thanks for everything you do to promote health.

Both of us are not overweight: my husband is an athletics nut and has maintained less than 10% body fat most of his life through an unconscious CR-like diet, though since he's hit his forties, he's noticed he can't pile his plate as high as he used to, and still fit in his highschool jeans! I have a set point of 150 at 5'-7", 31 years old, and appear slim due to muscle mass, but I know my history, and I'm curious if paying careful attention to getting a proper nutrient balance will put me back to that lighter level I was in my early twenties. Not to mention the energy boost!

And particularly, I really appreciate your return to basics and modeling the lifestyle this week. It's very helpful to me as I convert my thinking (good fats = good, not bad).

Good luck in Scranton (I'm from PA)! No matter the outcome of the election, I am always deligthed and euphoric the moment I switch that lever.