April's CR Diary

Tell MR I said, "Happy Birthday!" Since our b-days are two days apart, I'd better start being more serious about CR or he's going to start looking young enough to be my little brother or something!

LOL! I hope you survived your encounter with the gummy worm and none the worse for it. So, while all of NYC is flapping their arms about how inflexible CR is, you are showing the human side of any eating plan -- flexibility and the use of your will.

Sure, if the only goal is life-extension and as CR is the only method that probably works to some degree at the moment, I guess one must make secrifices. To me using the body is almost essential to feeling "young". Life without dance, motion, etc. just seems so old to me - I can and will be less mobile once I'm old, but I'm young now! Do I want to live like a 60-year old in order to become 100-year old? Probably not, so I would have to avoid CR for now as I don't want to become any weaker or skinnier at the moment.

Hmmmm... I would hardly describe my life as living like a 60 year old... at least not in the derogatory way in which I suspect F meant it. I work 60 + hours a week (often 80+), enjoy tons of hobbies (including cooking) and friends, and have three times as much sex as your average Canadian, according to McClean's magazine. While I know some 60 year olds who do the exact same thing, they don't feel old either! And I hope to at 60 be feeling just as great as I do now. So my workouts are 45 minuts, not 2 hours? No big loss, IMO.

If energy and strength for sports are a concern, I would recommend lots of attention to nutrition. Cutting empty calories and replacing them with nutritious foods will help just about anyone improve his or her performance.
a

Well, I'd also like to feel as young at 60 as I feel now, but realistically there are hobbies and things at which I'm better now than when I'm hit 60, and sex is also probably one of those things, even though there are wonderful chemical interventions in the pharmacy now and surely even better ones exist when I'm older. I think I should try to profit from my more athletic years and still strive to eat healthy and supplement wisely. I'll do my best but CR is probably too extreme for me :-)

Ever since you were attacked with people curious about CR, after that NYT Magazine thingy, your posts started to suffer from repetition, lack of creativity and negligence. They ceased being as interesting as they once were. What's up? You write much better than that, I know that and many people know that. Are you fed up? Do you need a rescue?

Chipping in with a response to F:

I haven't been doing CR very long, so I haven't restricted my calories very far yet (although I plan to keep cutting for a ways!). But one thing I noticed when I first started to restrict was that -- as you fear -- my energy went WAY down and it was difficult for me to do my daily 1 hour of martial arts plus walking, running for public transport, etc. Like you, I couldn't stand that. I've always been a person who'd rather stand than sit, rather run than walk, rather dance than stand still, and if I had to sacrifice that, CR would have had to go. But I want the CR health benefits! So I did some research.

Turns out that I'd had a sub-optimal protein / carbs / fat ratio. Since BEFORE I started doing CR -- in fact for a couple of years before -- I'd been on a protein kick, believing that I wasn't getting enough through my fish-etarian diet, and that I needed more to keep my muscles strong. So I was ad libbing something like 70-80 g protein a day (and I'm a small woman). Had plenty of energy... but it turns out that that was only because I ALSO ad-libbed tons of carbs (don't even want to think about that total in grams or calories). When I started CRring, what did I cut? Yeah... all those "useless" carbs. And my energy went with them.

The light went on when I read some sports medicine research on "the protein controversy." I don't have the links to hand, but basically the deal is that athletes with the possible exception of bodybuilders need LOTS of carbs and VERY LITTLE protein. The ratio I'm on now is: 65% carbs, 20% fat, 15% protein. I'm steadily restricting my calories, and yet my energy is pretty much back to where it's always been. (I say "pretty much" because I'm still finetuning this thing, and resigned to a slight loss of stamina while I work the kinks out and get used to a lower level of total calories.)

Anyway, I don't know if this would work for you -- everyone's body is different -- but it works for me. The timing is important, too: a small amount of carbs before my workout, and LOTS of carbs after my workout, when my muscles are crying out to be nourished.

FS

First of all I don't think one should be on CR if what they enjoy is endurance sports, but saying that I'll give you my experience.

I've been playing sports for almost 10 years now, but recently cut down not because I couldn't hack it anymore, but because it just burned too many calories and would likely result in further weight loss.

For example, my BMI is 16.7 as of today and I can still compete competitively without any difference from when I had a BMI of 18.5. Just a few months ago I was over the local park playing 'many' football (soccer) matches and I must have played for over 6 hours on that day.

I know that I can run faster though... lol

Hey, if you're into endurance sports and don't want to do CR, maybe you should just take resveratrol. Here's yet another story on the beneficial effects of this substance in mice:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/health/17drug.html?ref=us

Of course, a mouse isn't quite the same as a human but the results of these studies really do seem miraculous.

The resveratrol-dose was huge by human standards, and not to mention expensive. Anyway, off-piste skiing is one of my passions, when I was a teenager I seriously thought that it was better than sex and I'm not still quite convinced I was wrong back then :-)

I have an unrelated question -- you use brewer's yeast as opposed to nutritional yeast, right? Can you tell me or point me to one of your posts where you explain why? Thanks.

OK Ideas for discussion... What are your thoughts on orthorexia? Do you think you have it?

In response to Wookie, re: orthoexia:

Back in the Victorian era, they called women who wanted an existence outside the narrow confines of being a wife and mother hysterical. These women were diagnosed as hysterics. These days, we call these women normal, and often we call them primary breadwinners and contributors to the economy.

Fact is, some of us just don't feel the compulsion to eat crap. IMO, the people who do feel the need to eat things they know aren't good for them have a disorder. That was the point of my entry on "debtorexia." We all agree that debt is bad... yet the majority of Americans have credit card debt. We all agree that obesity is bad, yet the majority of Americans are overweight. I don't get it. You know it's nuts to spend money on things you can't afford. Don't you also know that it's nuts to eat things that damage your health?

When someone starves themself to death in the name of health, that person has anorexia. It's not about health, because health requires that you both take in enough calories to maintain function, and take in enough nutrition to meet the body's needs. Considering that most folks who eat ad lib don't get the nutrition they need, it should be no big shock that CR people pay more attention to our nutrition than average. That's not a disorder... that's being sane!

Those who find that they are not taking care of themselves, and giving their bodies and minds what they need to feel great, I encourage to get help! Everyone deserves the best of health, and that's achievable for most people, with the right tools, information, and support.

People need to take responsibility for their own choices. If eating in restaurants makes you happy, then go for it! Enjoy! But if you're happier eating at your own home or the houses of your friends and family, then do so! Why not? Do we need to prove that we're "normal," even if it makes us unhappy and less healthy than we would be otherwise?

The norm in North America is to be overweight and prone to heart disease and diabetes. If you're not, then by definition, you are not normal. You are not average. You can't prioritize your health and cling to the idea of being normal. It's your choice. Take responsibility, and own your own decision. Then you can be happy in your own life, regardless of what others think.

Enjoy!

a

Aprilita,
wake up and say something meaningful on thanksgiving, otherwise people are using it as an excuse to overstuff on turkey.
They don't even know the origins of thanksgiving. poor souls.
Do you? I bet that you do. Can you explain it to me?