April's CR Diary

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December 31, 2006

His and Hers Portions?

One of the first things I realized when I started monitoring my own calories and nutrition and trying to figure out what calorie level would be right for me was how very different calorie requirements are for women than for men. We women are usually smaller, carry more body fat on a percentage basis (all the good stuff, including the brain, is mostly fat!) and we tend to be shorter. Calorie needs depend on so many factors: age, activity level, body fat percentage, long and short term goals, number of times per day you have to lift a giant tabby cat, etc. But there's just no question that most women need fewer calories than most men. That's why I find it unsurprising that most of my female friends gain weight when they a) start eating out a lot b) get into a relationship with a man.

Portion sizes in most restaurants are absurdly large, yet people usually eat the entire serving. I am so grateful that my mother never forced me to clean my plate, so I wasn't programmed to eat whatever is put in front of me whether I was hungry or not. But most people aren't so lucky, and will consume until the plate is empty. If portions are large, women are disproportionally overfed, since our calorie needs are lower to begin with. Even at the family dinner table, portions are often served that are roughly identical, even though the people at the table are far from the same in their calorie needs. This just strikes me as goofy. Why overfeed your womenfolk? In time of famine, this might be a gentlemanly gesture, but most of us are quite fat enough as it is.

When MR and I first started dating, we quickly realized that just taking his food and cutting it into smaller portions wouldn't work. His diet was optimized to suit his nutritional needs in a calorie package that fits his calorie requirements. But for my much lower calorie requirements (I am ten inches shorter than he is and a much higher body fat percentage) it takes more precision to pack all the RDAs into three meals. The RDAs don't change when you drop your calories -- you still have to get all your nutritients. (BTW, Artifex, to answer your question, check out CRON-O-Meter, the best nutritional software on the planet. It was written by a real live CR practitioner, Aaron, and it is absolutely free!) So a girl diet has to be more carefully constructed than a boy diet.

As anyone who has been following the blog for very long knows, I simply adore playing around with my nutritional software. I never played video games, but I seem to have developed the same fascination for nutritional software that some folks had with Tetris. As a result of my nutritional explorations, I favor foods that very nutrient dense. For example, I traded in my nonfat cottage cheese for nonfat plain yogurt, which has 40% of the RDA of calcium per cup at 75 calories (that's my Butterworks Farm nonfat plain organic yougurt, aka "Magic Yogurt" because it has fewer cals per cup than most other yogurts) my cottage cheese was 16% of the RDA for 160 cals in a cup. That's just a bad deal. Sure, I still enjoy cottage cheese sometimes, but on a day to day basis, I get more calcium for my calories in the yogurt, and I enjoy it just as much. MR has more calories to play with, so he eats more vegetables, going way over the RDAs of C, A and K, and still having plenty of room for calcium containing kefir and whey protein, bean stews with rice protein powder, and other foods that I either don't like or find too high calorie to fit into my everyday diet while still touching all my nutritional bases.

It would be interesting to see if restaurants would begin serving his and hers portions. You wouldn't have to label it that way, of course, you could just have size small and size large. But imagine a restaurant where my 4'11" friend and her 6'10" husband could go, order, and be served dishes that more closely corresponded to their actual calorie needs. There could even be a menu of "Just for Her" tiny, low calorie side dishes like calcium-packed yogurt treats. Men could order off the women's menu, and women could order off the men's menu, but there would be a basic understanding that men and women come in different sizes and a one size fits all approach doesn't work.

We already accept the idea of kids' menus in restaurants, but unfortunately, the kids menus often contain the worst of the food. Imagine a world where kids' menus contained the most healthy food, in kid-sized portions, served in appetizing, fun ways. And women's menus contained woman-sized portions, so we don't turn out weighing what men should weigh. Wouldn't that be fun?

Women's food has for too long been crappy diet food... meal replacement bars and shakes, salads with iceberg lettuce and no protein, and super processed junk like Snackwells. What if woman food came to mean super nutrient dense, low calorie food, full of the protein, vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids that we need to stay healthy, slim and cheerful? Can you imagine a world where young women see their adult female role models happily consuming grilled turkey topped with steamed vegetables, olive oil and fresh lemon and just a bit of pepper with nonfat organic yogurt and hazelnuts for dessert? Eating like an adult woman could cease to mean either a) consuming large amounts of chocolate because we're all supposed to have chocolate cravings that we can't control b) eschewing real food in favor or diet bars and meal replacement shakes. "Girly drinks" could be smoothies that contain nonfat milk or yogurt, cause we chicks sure do need to pack in our calcium!

Interestingly enough, McDonalds is starting to market certain products to women. The fruit and walnut salad, for instance (300 calories, same as an Egg McMuffin) is targeted to women in their radio advertisements. Their line of grilled chicken salads, which actually are quite decent calorie-wise as long as you pick the low cal dressings, are, I suspect, aimed at moms who bring their kids to McDonald's for a Happy Meal but want to eat something lower calorie themselves. I'm sure the clever folks in marketing at McDonald's have figured out that drawing mom in with a healthier choice will still guarantee a revenue stream from kids eating the high cal happy meals. But even if it's a cynical move on the part of the chain, those of us who want to eat low cal, protein packed food can still take advantage of the options.

Maybe my wine and tomato bar will offer his and hers portions. The kids menu will have tons of fun tomato foods, like low carb whole wheat no transfats tortilla pizzas decorated with faces made out of vegetables. You can pop in for your morning megamuffin and coffee (lattes made only with organic skim milk, and a small side of nuts free with every latte purchase to help slow the blood sugar spike) and grab a to-go box for lunch in 300, 400, 500, or 600 calorie sizes. To-go desserts will be various combos of fruit, yogurt, and nuts. Come back at happy hour for a pint of grape tomatoes, straight up, with a five ounce glass of pinot noir. Stay for dinner and enjoy a tomato fritatta with organic eggwhites and six varieties of fresh tomatoes baked in to release the lycopene and guarantee juicy tomato goodness, covered with my fresh homemade tomatillo salsa. "Cream" of leek and shiitake mushroom soup as an appetizer (all my cream soups are made with yogurt or nonfat milk, always organic so don't start whining at me about hormones in milk, and I sneak in brewers yeast to up some of the B vitamins and other hard to find nutrients) Side dish of brussels sprouts with lemon and olive oil. Fruit salad topped with non-fat plain organic yogurt sweetened with just the smallest amount of creme de cassis and drizzled with hazelnut oil for dessert. Seems like a lot of food? Don't worry, I already figured out your calorie budget for the day and it fits perfectly.

In a food environment like that, you'd have to fight to gain weight. Eating healthy would come naturally. Now, serious CR practitioners would still have to work at getting everything right. But for the normal person whose goal was maintaining a healthy weight to reduce risk of disease, feel great, and love what they see in the mirror, eating would just not be an issue anymore. If people were bombarded with healthy, delicious, attractively presented choices that are affordable and convenient, they'd find it much easier to achieve their health goals.

I know, I know, don't quit my day job. But a girl can dream. And when you sit in traffic as much as I do, you've got to dream.

Posted by april at 6:44 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

December 28, 2006

Your Revolution Is Ready

I heard him for the first time on WHYY's Radio Times. It was mid-October on one of the extremely rare days when my work schedule allowed me to be home in the morning. I was listening to NPR when a show about the New York City ban on transfats came on (I can't get the link to work directly, but enter Kelly Brownell into the search engine and it will take your right there.) On one side of the debate was a libertarian who kept ranting on about how people should have the right to be buy poisoned food if they care to. On the other side was Yale professor Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Eating Disorders and Obesity. I was vaguely familiar with the name from earlier encounters with the literature of eating disorders, and I feel certain that at some point we ran into each other at Yale. But I’d never read any of his work or given him a second thought until I heard him on Radio Times. I was very impressed with his performance: the way he quickly and gracefully sliced apart all of the arguments against regulation on harmful substances; how he injected just enough humor into his answers to make it clear that he was in no way rattled by his opponent, and how he presented a clear and concise perspective on how government can improve public health with rational and sane legislation. I jumped on Google, found his email address, and emailed him a quick note saying something along the lines of, “You’re awesome! Keep up the good fight!”

He wrote me back instantaneously thanking me and saying he would try to do as well in the rest of the program.

I jumped up and down like a cheerleader at a football game throughout the rest of the show as he did, in fact, do well, and I went off through the rest of my day happily replaying the best parts of the program in my head. A few days later when it hit the podcast, I listened to it two or three more times while I was working or doing chores around the house. I resolved to pick up his book, Food Fight, and told MR of this intention.

“I have that book in one of these boxes, I’ll dig out my copy for you,” said MR. Great, thought I. But the book wasn’t immediately findable (we had just moved into the new house and most of our stuff was still in boxes) and MR was down to the wire on his own book deadline, so I didn’t want to bug him about it. So I didn’t get the book, even though I desperately wanted it.

Then the New York Magazine article was published, and the giant media frenzy surrounding it, including that awful, snarky article in Salon.com, hit me like a jar of stale gummy worms. Between media appearances, an upturn in my work, and my mother’s illness, thoughts of finding a new book to read were put on the back burner.

During the time when I was so upset about the unfair, sometimes downright inaccurate press we were getting, I took a few minutes to Google Dr. Brownell. I was shocked at the level of personal attacks on him from front groups for the food industry. Unable to justify their positions on rational grounds, they resort to ad hominem attacks, calling Dr. Brownell, and other public health experts who demand responsibility from the food industry, nannys and Nazis who want to control the behavior of others. As I read the vicious attacks on KB, I started to think the press MR and I were getting was pretty mild. It cheered me up, a bit, to imagine KB writing his books, testifying before Congress, and taking on the food industry while these idiots made fools of themselves with their irrational personal attacks.

Then my mother got sick. While I was in the hospital with her, I watched most of the patients in the rooms around her suffer from complications of obesity: heart attacks, strokes, diabetes. The woman in the bed next to her demanded a bag of potato chips as soon as she was admitted to the hospital! I saw the families of patients crowded around their hospital beds, praying for a recovery, all the while feeding their own children the same kinds of foods that landed their parents in the ICU in the first place. I wanted to walk up to them and ask, “What the hell are you thinking? You’d snatch a cigarette or a fifth of whiskey out of your child’s hand, yet you’re buying her chicken nuggets and French fries in the hospital cafeteria while your father is dying of heart disease?”

Then I got sick. I wasn’t sick for very long (just a day, thanks to my CR-revved up immune system) but I was very sick while I was sick. While I lay in bed at my mother’s house, too weak to move and unable to keep down any food or liquid, I had some time to do serious thinking. I was still suffering from the worst of that post-Salon article funk, and as a chronically happy person, I was quite disturbed at my inability to shake the negative feelings. The nasty and sometimes threatening letters that we had received, both at Salon and on the blog, were getting to me to the point where I considered ceasing to do media appearances. I mean, I don’t try to convert people to CR. Is the one in a million person who might get the information and decide to do his or her own research and give CR a try really worth me going through this kind of personal attack on a regular basis?

Yet whenever I considered backing down I would think about KB’s appearance on Radio Times and remember how he calmly and seemingly effortlessly (though I’m sure it’s the result of years of practice) faced down his critics with humor and cold hard facts. I listened to the podcast again. It made me so freakin’ happy that I forgot my post-Traister emotional funk and started bouncing around again like usual. Finally the day came, as I always knew it would. I told MR that I was on my way to Barnes and Noble to buy Food Fight unless he dug it out of its alleged box within twenty-four hours.

The book was on my shelf when I got home from work. I should have threatened earlier.

It was a Thursday night when I sat down in my bed with my nineteen year old calico cat and a four ounce glass of excellent French red wine to begin to read Food Fight. Hard to believe it was just over a week ago, since I have now read the book cover to cover twice. Within a few minutes, MR heard screams coming from the bedroom.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” he said as he rushed in from his office.

“I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!” I yelled, upsetting the nineteen year old calico who is pretty deaf but can feel the vibrations of my voice when she’s lying on my chest.

“That’s great! Why are you screaming?”

“Because I love this book, and it makes me want to run off and join the public health circus! Obesity is the biggest health crisis facing this country, and Kelly Brownell has a plan to do something about it! I want to help him! I can’t just sit here when there’s work to be done!”

Of course I had to sit there because there was a calico cat lying on my chest. But the book was captivating, and it was hard to pull myself away to do things like make dinner and go to work.

We discussed the book more over the days that followed, as I read more and got more excited and added my ideas onto those outlined by KB and his co-author, Katherine Battle Horgen (Let us never forget co-authors. As my partner is the co-author to a famous scientist, I have a special place in my heart for these folks.) I sat in McDonald’s waiting for nurses to show up for 7:30 am meetings, reading Food Fight and dreaming of a world where kids’ meals consist of lean meats, veggies, non-fat yogurt and nuts, with fruit for dessert. Kinda like a bento box for American children. While I sat in traffic for hours every day on my way to and fro RN meetings, I began to construct elaborate fantasies of taking Amtrak to New Haven to interview KB for the blog. I’d bring him a thermos of our fancy Japanese green tea and a megamuffin. If he liked the megamuffin, I’d make him a whole batch. That, as any of you know who’ve read the recipe or tried to make them, is serious.

As I read Food Fight, I found that my outlook improved. I no longer regretted my media appearances, and I started to see the irrational, mean attacks on us as evidence that our message has hit a nerve. Eating doesn’t have to be about consuming whatever the food industry tells you to consume, no matter what the effects on your health. Obesity, heart disease and diabetes are not predetermined outcomes of the natural aging process, but the result of years of suboptimal eating. People can change, and people can work together to change the environment that virtually guarantees that the majority of Americans will be overweight or obese and sick.

There is so much in the book that I found enlightening and inspiring, and I don’t want to summarize it because a) I want you to order it now and read it immediately (your book report is due at the end of January) b) I won’t put it as well as KB and Katherine Battle Horgen did. But there were several points that gripped me and pulled me in like a magnet or a black hole or my super-strong Dyson vacuum.

On page seven, in the very first chapter of the book, KB and KBH talk about how a child might view the culture that (unless he is very lucky) led him to become obese. Fast food and sugary soft drinks in school… television and computer games instead of physical activity… Type II diabetes, possibly a heart attack before age 30.

“Why do you let this happen to me?” asks the hypothetical child.

When I read that line, I thought of the nurses I work with everyday. I have lamented many times in the blog that while we make such huge strides in working conditions and compensation, including winning decent pensions and health care benefits, the nurses’ eating habits will either kill them or incapacitate them before they have time to enjoy a secure retirement. Their lives are typical of the American middle class: too many work hours for not enough money, health care benefits that pay for treatment but not prevention, and a culture that glorifies unhealthy eating and guarantees that working parents will not have time to cook healthy meals or engage in physical activity. They frequently work twelve hour shifts with no time for a bathroom break, much less a lunch or dinner break. Then when they leave work, they’re confronted with convenience and drive-thru foods that are packed with saturated fats, sugar and calories. Like the rats in Michael Tordoff’s landmark studies (which I learned about in Food Fight, pages 25 – 26) when given access to large amounts of high sugar and high fat foods after twelve hour periods of forced fasting, they eat much, much more than needed to maintain a healthy weight. The body, used to reacting to a lack of food by eating as many calories as possible as soon as food becomes available, overconsumes when the calorie dense, possibly addictive foods are plentiful.

My nurses are being set up for obesity and all the diseases that come with it. They work twelve hour shifts (that often stretch to 13 or even 16 hours) under incredible stress with few or no breaks for food, followed by immediate, unlimited access to high sugar and high fat foods. At least three days a week, due to work hours, exercise is almost impossible. Their homes are inhabited by children who demand high sugar and high saturated fat snacks because that’s what the food industry markets to kids.

Why do we let this happen? My nurses live every day with the consequences of unhealthy eating and obesity. They care for the heart bypass post-ops. They bandage the wounds of diabetics who lose their limbs. They do permanent damage to their backs when they lift obese patients, often without proper lift equipment because hospitals won’t spend the money to get the right devices. My nurses know that obesity is a major risk factor for the diseases that land their patients in the hospital, yet the pace of their lives, combined with the easy access to junk food and the difficulty of finding or preparing healthy foods, virtually dooms them to develop the same diseases that they treat every day at work.

Kelly Brownell’s attention to the plight of poor and working class Americans warms my union organizer’s heart. In the chapter “The Inexorable Economic March to Obesity,” he and KBH take on the food supply structure that makes unhealthy foods easy and cheap, while healthy foods are more expensive and take more time to prepare. The WIC (Women and Infant Children) and Food Stamps food programs make it difficult to purchase fresh produce in amounts that can be consumed by a family before they go bad. Subsidies for baby formula, plus a need to return to work too early after giving birth, create a disincentive for women to breast feed, even though it’s well documented that breast feeding both leads to better long term health for the children and to weight loss for mothers. Grocery stores are rarely located in inner city low income areas, leaving residents without cars to get their food from fast food restaurants or convenience stores, unless they have both the time and the money to take public transportation long distances to supermarkets, then to haul home large bags of groceries. I remember when I lived in New Haven, the only grocery store in walking distance was an awful place called Gran Central that had less than fresh produce and crowded aisles full of processed foods. To get to a good grocery store, you had to have a car. Inner city residents have few options and very little time in which to pursue them.

Remembering New Haven and that sad inner city grocery store made me wonder about what would had happened had I done more than just meet Kelly Brownell in passing at some point during my undergraduate career. He became Master of Silliman College (one of Yale's twelve residential colleges, where undergrads sleep, eat and do all sorts of other things, including occasional studying, during their time at Yale) in 1994, my junior year. What if instead of being randomly assigned to Jonathan Edwards College (which is prettier and closer to the center of campus) I had been in Silliman? I can imagine the 20 year old me chatting with the 43 year old Master Brownell over dinner in the Silliman dining hall, exchanging eating disorder stories (while I am grateful to have been spared the horrors of anorexia, many of my close friends from high school at Interlochen, including the anorexic cult figure Marya Hornbacher, suffered and nearly died) and tossing around the ideas that would later become Food Fight. Under the influence of someone like KB, I might have fulfilled my father's dream of seeing me go to grad school. Instead of knocking on factory workers' doors all over the South in 1996 and 97, talking to them about the union in a place where organizers get guns pulled on us, I could have been reading scientific articles and designing studies and struggling through statistics class. Instead of sitting in diners all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania at all hours of the day and night, meeting with nurses who desperately want to improve conditions for themselves and their patients but are scared that they'll lose their jobs if they try to organize, from the year 1998 on up until the present, I could have been running to Pub Med to look up references for KB and sending back and forth drafts of book chapters. I could have been text messaging with him in those Congressional hearings! (I recognize that they don't allow cell phones in most legislative chambers, but just go along with the thought experiment, okay?)

I started to experience serious co-author envy. I wanted to be the person who wrote Food Fight with Kelly Brownell! And if it hadn't been for the ridiculous accident of fate that landed me in JE and him in Silliman, I could have been! Sitting in traffic on the Schuylkill (an experience that lends itself to feelings of helplessness and frustration) on my way to a 7 am meeting with nurses, I imagined the life I might have had, the passion I would feel for my work, the delicious, low calorie, nutrient-packed meals I would have made for Dr. Brownell and all our colleagues at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

Then I got to my meeting, and heard again the stories of the crisis in healthcare that forces nurses to organize to protect themselves and their patients. I listened, as I have for the last ten years, to workers talk about their very difficult daily lives, including the schedules that make it nearly impossible for them to stay healthy in a toxic food environment. And as the meeting went on, I outlined for them a blueprint of how they could, by joining together and taking collective action, not only improve their own economic well-being and working conditions, but guarantee standards of safe staffing that would allow them to give their patients the care they deserve.

Even though I have seen it a million times in the last ten years, that moment when a nurse realizes that she, together with her co-workers, has the power to take back her work place and make a difference still sometimes brings tears to my eyes. Showing people that they have power, and providing them with a difficult but workable strategy for making change is what being an organizer is all about. It's what makes the long, long hours, the intense emotional stress, and the occasional physical danger of my job worthwhile. It's why I can live with the fact that, as yet, I have not written a book or exchanged even one text message with Kelly Brownell.

If I had not become an organizer, I might never have learned how to break through the layers of fear and despair that surround most people when confronted with a situation like the crisis in healthcare, or the obesity epidemic, or their own issues with food and health. By thinking like an organizer, I learned how to break down problems and motivate people to take the small steps that lead to big victories. I learned what really moves people to take bold new action (hope, love, and a strategy that makes sense) and what does not (guilt and fear of punishment)
And by spending my entire adult life working with regular working class people, I learned firsthand what Americans are up against when we try to defy the capitalist food pushing culture and live a healthy lifestyle.

Towards the end of the book, KB and KBH describe the social movement that will be necessary to bring about real food change in this country and the world:

If there is any possiblity for major social action and policy change, scientists cannot force it and health leaders can hnot mandate it. The public must demand it. Grassroots calls for change can then join with efforts from the health community, elected officials, and business leaders. For such a movement to occur, people must care.

Caring occurs when something strikes an emotional nerve and we feel sad, bothered, outraged or frustrated. Our heart is moved, and we feel driven to act.

Emotions come from human experience, not statistics or numbers on health care costs. They come from seeing people suffer. As our mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters suffer strokes, lose limbs to diabetes, die from heart disease, and have painful deaths due to cancer, and we recognize that poor diet and inactivity are major reasons, we are touched as human beings. We want to see the suffering stop.

I'd like to add to that. People take action when they want to see the suffering stop, but only if they believe that they have the power to make change. When they are presented with a concrete plan for action that sounds like it will work, they are more likely to act than when they see suffering (or feel it in their own bodies) but feel helpless to stop it.

Those of us who have taken control of our life and health by forging a healthy relationship with food know that we have the power to make change. Going from being overweight and sick to living in a body that is well-nourished and vibrant with energy is a radicalizing experience. When you stop accepting what the food industry wants to feed you and start feeding your body what it really needs (see that RDA magic diet!) your perspective changes. No longer are weight gain, heart disease and diabetes acceptable as a "natural" consequence of aging. You don't have to be a CR practitioner to experience this shift: most of my readers are either healthy eaters now or moving in that direction, but are not practicing CR for life-extension. Yet most of us believe that something must be done to make the changes we've made in our own lives easier for others to make, and that means changing the current toxic food environment to an environment that supplies and supports healthy choices. While I certainly would never try to convert masses of people to CR, I think that the CR toolbox provides excellent tricks and techniques for beating the obesity epidemic in an obesogenic food environment. As a short term measure for those of us who can't wait for political change, it's a roadmap for losing weight and regaining health. But it's not a prescription for massive public health improvement: the public's health will only improve when the environment supports healthier choices.

Those of us who have already made the change have felt the revolution in our own bodies. We were in pain before, and now we're not. We were suffering before, and now we know that the suffering caused by obesity is not inevitable. (Loving our bodies instead of engaging in constant negative self-talk and fad diets also frees up a lot of time in which we can do more productive activities!) If we can give people the right tools: information about what they're eating and how it affects their health, better, saner choices in supermarkets and restaurants, and time and incentives for exercise, we can go a long way towards preventing the health care apocalypse that lies just a few years in the future if we don't address the ill health of our nation. We are ready. What we need to do now is to organize.

All around the country, people dissatisfied with their own health, or frightened for the health of a loved one, or angry about the poison that is peddled to children masquerading as food, are ready to take action. We vote, some of us know how to organize legislative and public relations campaigns, some of us know how to cook really good healthy food. We can organize to demand healthier choices from the places where we eat, and we can reward food merchants who provide us with the food we want by spending our money there. Already, parents are moving to get sugary soft drinks and junk food out of schools. People are organizing to get rid of transfats in restaurants, just like they organized to get rid of secondhand smoke in places where we choose to breathe. We can do more, but we need a comprehensive strategy that will work.

I've been working on that strategy. I figure that the best way to get rid of my co-author envy is to imagine a world in which Kelly Brownell writes his next book with me. To save him time and energy, I've already come up with the subtitle: Blueprint for a Social Movement to Take Back Our Health. It's about the next steps in creating a grassroots movement powerful enough to take on the food industry. The little amazon.com blurb can read something like this:

Influential public health expert Kelly Brownell teams up with veteran union organizer April Smith to write this practical, straightforward guide for the activist who wants to do something about the obesity epidemic. They envision a network of ordinary people working together to demand greater responsibility and transparency from the food industry. Through pressure on local governments, campaigns against restaurant industry giants who refuse to come clean about what's in the food, organized funnelling of consumer dollars to food merchants who provide healthy choices, parent initiatives to get soft drinks and junk food out of schools, and labor pressure on employers to provide time for and access to exercise, real people can make real change in the toxic food environment that has led 65% of Americans to become either overweight or obese. You'll learn how to train local activists, how to inoculate politicians against food industry propaganda, and how to work with legislative, business and labor leaders to make positive change. If you're ready to do something about the biggest public health crisis facing the United States, this is the book for you.

I know it's just a fantasy, but as anyone who has ever sat on the Roosevelt Boulevard headed south toward the Schuylkill at morning rush hour can tell you, sometimes a fantasy is all you need.

Of course, when we advocate for changes in the American diet, we become a target for food industry front groups. As I mentioned near the beginning of this entry, I was horrified by the level of personal, nasty attacks aimed at KB by people who claim to respect personal freedom. Clearly, the freedom of activists to speak out is not among the protected liberties in their book. In Food Fight, you'll learn about the sugar industry's attempts to intimidate Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, into silence. You'll also read about their "shoot the messenger" strategy to undermine the credibility of anyone who dares question their actions. I've barely even started, and I'm already receiving threatening messages! Here's my favorite so far:

DAMN, am I tired of the "soccer-mommy" generation attempting to ban adults from enjoying what they like, whether it's fatty foods or cigarettes or porn, FOR DA CHEEEELDRUNNNNNN.

Die in a fire, and do it soon, before you get "very very involved" in helping Philly pass the same Health Nazi laws that NYC did.

This posted by someone who identifies him or herself as "Soccer Mommies Suck."

When you challenge something that makes a profit, especially when it makes a profit at the expense of others' health, you are going to get a reaction.

In the chapter about the outrageous growth in portion sizes in the last few decades, KB and KBH have a chapter heading that I found hilarious:

"Nelson, Party of Four: Your Muffin Is Ready."

If a serving size is a fourth of a muffin, and each muffin is filled with enough calories for four people to eat as a snack, then we should have four people, not one, eating every muffin.

To win the fight against obesity, it will take a whole lot more than one person. It's time for all of us who have felt the revolution in our own bodies to step up to change our food environment so that others can experience the change that has already transformed our lives. Kelly Brownell is amazing, but he can't do it all by himself (or even with his wonderful co-author!) He needs us, all of us, to take action.

I'll be there.

Dr. Brownell, your revolution is ready.

Posted by april at 9:26 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

December 27, 2006

My Fad Diet

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have observed that Americans love fad diets.

No fat, no carb, no non-meat foods, no non-plant foods, no eating at this time or that, no eating white foods, no eating until after consuming a shot of oil or eight glasses of water or a cup of soup or a grapefruit. There are a zillion strange formulas for weight loss, and most of them work, at least at first, if you do them right (which most people don't) because almost all of them involve cutting calories.

Many of these diets teach a valuable lesson or two that can be incorporated into the long-term healthy lifestyle tool box. For instance, the low fat people taught us to eat higher volumes of low calorie veggies, so that we get more food for our calories. The low carb folk taught us to avoid sugar and nutrient-less carbs like bagels and pasta, while making sure we get enough protein and fat to make us feel full and provide our bodies with the building blocks of lean body mass and the essential fatty acids we require. We learned how to avoid blood sugar spikes and how to make a low calorie meal satisfying by including high-volume, low cal foods.

I find that even the strangest sounding fads can have some merit. For instance, if you start your meal with the fat source (like when I eat my almonds in my lunch before consuming the yogurt or salad) it really does minimize the blood sugar spike, leading to less hunger later. Or when you eat a low calorie, high water content soup, it slows down your eating process enough that you actually feel satisfied before you've consumed quite so many excess calories.

But the fact is, fad diets appeal to people because they offer a quick and easy solution to a problem that most people find intractable. The real truth: weight loss comes from lower calorie intake and/or increased calorie output, just isn't tons of fun. And the truth about what constitutes good nutrition, those pesky RDA's, just isn't as exciting as claiming that one miracle food, be it fish oil or grapefruit or beef, will solve all of our problems.

Many, many people who start CR, whether they're aiming for moderate or hardcore, find that for the first time, they lose weight fairly effortlessly with very little of the hunger and discomfort that they experienced on previous diets. The answer seems simple enough: when lower calories, you lose weight. And when you pay such careful attention to those pesky RDA's that you give your body what it really needs, most cravings go away. No wonder so many CR folk who had failed or gone wiggy on fad diets lose weight and feel great with a healthy CR program!

I've decided to take my CR toolbox and repackage it as a fad diet. I don't have time to write a book (though if I could write a best seller I might be able to pay someone to clean the house, which would be really nice!) so I'll just give it away for free.

I think I'll call it "The RDA Magic Diet."

Here's the basic idea: get your RDAs of every essential nutrient every day.

From food.

Get at least 70 g protein a day if you are a women, more if you're a man (though I don't have a good number for men, and they vary in size a lot, which I always found troubling since you get used to kissing someone at one height, then you break up and get another and have to get used to kissing at another height and it's very confusing. That's why I decided to settle down with one CR'd six foot tall male who is likely to live a very long time. I don't mind standing on my toes to kiss him, or making him bend down, or better yet, moving the entire encounter to a place where one can lie down. As they say, everyone is the same height in bed.)

Get at least 25% of calories from unsaturated fat sources, including one teaspoon of flax oil morning and one teaspoon night (to balance your omega 3's and 6's the easy way.) Okay, I borrowed it from the Zone, but keep in mind that I'm saying unsaturated, not meat fat.

Limit saturated fat to 10 g a day. That means that you'll get your calcium from non-fat dairy and plant sources, adding in your fat from nice olive oil, flax oil, and nuts. Or if it makes it easier for you to eat a meal or two out by consuming a salad with grilled chicken, save up your sat fat grams for those days.

Eat a no-carb breakfast. I especially like this cause it's very faddish sounding. Just protein and unsaturated fat. You know what that means: EGGWHITES! With flax oil. For those who are less carb sensitive in the morning, a whey protein shake would do fine, but I find that keeping carbs out of my breakfast keeps me less hungry and more mentally focused (not to mention less anxious) all day.

Count your calories. Just observe them. You'll start to see what's a waste and what's a good expenditure. The simple act of watching calories add up, while you're trying to get all your RDA's, will teach volumes about what is healthy food and what is not.

How's that for a fad? The magic of the RDAs is that they make cravings go away. So many people overeat, yet they're malnourished. They eat empty foods that shoot the blood sugar sky high, then they wonder whey they're hungry two hours later.

The other factor in RDA magic is that a focus on nutrition, not weight, almost immediately leads to the kind of positive attitude change that is necessary for long-term weight loss. I've found that people who lose weight successfully do so when they stop thinking of themselves as bad, lazy or lacking in discipline and create a self-image of being healthy and in control of their choices. It's hard to change your self-image when you're overweight if you focus on weight because you're constantly confronted with the mirror or the scale, reminding you that even if you had a great food day today, you're still fat. But if you focus on getting those RDAs, you very quickly start to think of yourself as a nutrition whiz, rattling off those percentages and scouring the super-market and the USDA database for better nutrients per calorie deals. You can be a success at eating nutritious food long before the weight has come off. In fact, if you get to love playing with nutritional software like I do, you'll find you have a lot less time to engage in negative self-talk! You're just too busy looking for that source of vitamin B 12...

RDA Magic is tricky because while it claims to be a weight-loss diet, it's really a healthy lifestyle that is highly addictive. Once you start giving your body what it truly needs, you'll find that your body wants to have that all the time. We lure you in with the promise of painless weight loss, but once you've started down the healthy path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

And if you won't turn to the dark side -- the dark, leafy green vegetable side, that is -- perhaps someone even more valuable to the cause will...

Posted by april at 12:49 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

Good Time Girl

One of my favorite Bruce Hornsby songs is "Stranded on Easy Street" from the Night on the Town album (yes, I know they're CDs now, but I still think of them as albums.) As with most pop songs, I identified with the male narrator of the song and mentally gender-bended the lyrics to fit my circumstances. "Stranded on Easy Street" always reminded me of my first couple of years at Yale, when as a sweet Southern girl from a well-educated but certainly not well-off family, I suddenly found myself surrounded by children of tremendous wealth and priviledge. While much of the Yale student body is now financial aid kids like I was, the upperclass is still well-represented. I remember going out with boys who could afford to buy expensive dinners at the fanciest restaurants in town... attending my first toasting session at Mory's, the legendary private club that turns out to be the only union restaurant in New Haven... getting dressed up to debate national political figures in front of hundreds on the floor of the Yale Political Union. I was working in the dining hall at a union job to pay my bills and looking forward to ten years of student loan payments (that's in addition to the 2/3 of tuition that Yale just gave me in financial aid), but I was hanging out with a lot of kids who never had to wonder how they would pay for their books or if they could afford to go out for pizza. My experience as a union member in my dining hall job was what led me to become a student activist during the strike of 1996 and a union organizer upon graduation. But back in my first couple of years, I was just trying to fit in with the rich kids. I was also very excited that my cute southern accent and my ability to take on political figures on the floor of the YPU (Did I ever tell you about the time Randall Terry of Operation Rescue called me a harlot on national TV? That was a fun day!) won me the attention of some extremely attractive and intelligent boys whose backgrounds were far different from mine.

I didn't get stranded on easy street... I became a union organizer, and after eleven years and more career success than I ever could have hoped for, I'm still committed to making sure that everyone, regardless of family income, has a shot at the good life. But I still love the song, and as I was listening to it last week on my way to one of my 7 am meetings, it occurred to me that in contrast to the media reports about how CR folk are austere, ascetic, and miserable, I could much more accurately be described as a "good time girl," like the girl in the song. My best friend describes us as "work hard/play hard" people, and that's pretty accurate. I love my work and I log an incredible number of emotionally and physically draining hours at it, but when I'm not working, I am all about having a good time.

I find it both entertaining and frustrating that many people assume that CR folk must be miserable people who lack pleasure in life, or even get pleasure out of depriving themselves. It's just not the case, at least not for anyone I've ever met who practices CR. We have somewhat changed our definitions of pleasure, to be sure. For example, most of us enjoy vegetables a great deal, and many of us no longer care for high-sugar foods as much as we might have pre-CR. But we enjoy our food tremendously, and we spend much of our time reveling in the pleasures of good health, vibrant energy, and a lust for life that makes our pre-CR existence seems rather dull and boring.

My CR practice has given me a greater ability to choose my pleasures, and to enjoy them thorougly without the guilt that used to plague me when I was overweight and unhealthy. What I eat isn't about being "good" or "bad," it's about taking a well-considered action to achieve a much desired result. Most days, I eat a very low calorie, extremely nutrient dense set of meals that I enjoy very much. Some days, I go out and eat foods that I no longer include as part of my regular meals. For instance, last night we had our office holiday party at a great restaurant in Philly. I had a goat cheese and beet salad, baked tilapia over veggies as an entree, and peanut butter ice cream for dessert. I also had generous bites of my friend's mashed potatoes and crab cake. We drank excellent red wine, everyone had a good time, and since I had been saving calories by eating less all day (and quite a bit less last week in preparation for the holiday run of celebrations) I wasn't worried about long term damage to my CR. I can eat a high calorie meal out without worrying that I'll relapse into my pre-CR eating habits because I've learned the tools for staying healthy and happy with low calories and extremely nutritious foods. I'm not anxious about food anymore. It frees up a lot of time to do other things.

In thinking about taking my CR to the next level, from moderate to more serious, I take my good time girl nature into consideration. I doubt that there will ever come a time when I will want to give up eating in really good restaurants. I have friends who just love to go out and consume great food and wine, and I like to go with them. In fact, I often lead the charge. So it becomes a matter of limiting the frequency with which I go out, and making sure that every other day is low calorie and RDA perfect.

My CR has always involved averages -- more calories once or twice a week, very low calories on the other days. But as I go lower, I always find that consistency is important. So here's my plan: I'm going to start by setting my quotidian calorie level at 1200 - 1250, with non-quotidian days cut back to only once or at most twice a month. If I go out for a big dinner, I tend to lower calories in advance and skip breakfast the next day, which evens out the calories a bit. But I've been eating a lower calorie quotidian diet, then going out more like twice a week, pushing my average up above 1300. Just one or two restaurant meals can really do you in, even if you think you're eating healthy. To go lower, I'm actually going higher on regular days to make sure that I don't get too hungry, lose weight too fast, or miss out on essential nutrients. But by cutting back on those meals out, I can save calories without throwing my body into distracting hunger.

I really enjoy my meals out at very nice restaurants, but so many of my meals out over the last year or so have been work lunches where I didn't really love the food and ate more of it than I needed. Or worse yet, nibbling at the leftovers from a meeting with nurses. That's not eating intentionally in harmony with my long and short term goals -- that's more like the mindless eating that makes you a victim of the obesogenic environment. I'd much rather eat a consistent, healthy diet 29 days a month and eat out only once or twice, assuming that my meal out is an excellent one, filled with good food, wine and the pleasure of my good friends' company.

What about when work lunches happen that I have to attend? Well, there are a few possibilities:

1. Steer the gathering to the Ruby Tuesday's, where I can get a dish off the calorie controlled menu, or a great salad.

2. Eat my megamuffin beforehand and just eat a green salad or something virtually no calorie.

3. If my friend Jon the lawyer is taking us out somewhere good, make that my designated meal out. If it's lunch, I can skip dinner afterwards (which I usually do anyway if I'm stuffed -- I don't eat when I'm not hungry.) Then I can make it a two-fancy-meal-out month.

That seems fairly straightforward, and is actually the way I was living last fall when I was very on-target with my CR. A series of destabilizing and stressful events knocked me off course a bit, but I've been back on in the last few months, and I'm ready to go to the next level.

Anyone who has ever been to one of my dinner parties can vouch for the fact that I am a good time girl. Food abounds (low calorie, nutritious food, but a lot of it!) the wine is always excellent (assuming that you like Frenchy reds) and everyone has a lot of fun. I've lived outside of the south for my entire adult life, but I still think of myself as a Southern hostess. CR, for me, is about maximizing my total pleasure in life, not just today but for many years to come.
If it's not fun, I won't be doing it. But I've found that I enjoy my life more, in total, when I'm eating the foods that nourish my body in amounts that are a lot less than what is normal in our overweight country. It's not fun to be aging any faster than you absolutely have to. Whenever I've dipped my toe into the hardcore pool, I've felt better than I do even as a happy-go-lucky moderate. I can only assume that more good times lie ahead.

Well she said she was
A good time girl
Laughing laughing a bit too loud...

Posted by april at 12:10 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

December 26, 2006

Jack Daniels In My Hair

Hmmmm... an unusual blog title for a CR practitioner, I'm sure you're thinking.

This morning when we woke up, MR kissed my head, as is traditional, and said, "Your hair smells delicious but odd."

"It's the Jack Daniels," I replied. We've done this before: I make my CR version of my Tennessee native step-mother's Jack Daniels sweet potatoes, and somehow, the stuff gets in my hair. The next day, my hair has the sweet smell of Tennessee whiskey.

Last night we did the big Christmas dinner at MR's mom's house. I made Jack Daniels sweet potatoes and ginger cranberry relish. MR's brother and mom roasted a fantastic free range organic turkey. MR made mashed cauliflower and pumpkin flan. MR's step-dad served his homemade wine. MR and I ate our own low cal gravy while MR's mom made regular gravy and stuffing for the rest of the folks. My mom steamed broccolli with lemon on the side. I constructed a 500 calorie dinner for myself, skipping the pumpkin pie because I hate nutmeg but leaving room in my daily budget for an extra glass of wine (on top of the 500 cals of delicious food -- I did this by saving up earlier in the day.) MR had 639 calories, as always.

We've had a wonderful holiday in Canada with MR's mom, step-father, dad, step-mother, brother, sister-in-law, their two kids (Who are soooooo smart and fun! One of them is a D&D playing mini-MR, possibly a candidate for CR after he's 21 and his brain is fully developed) and my mom. My mom and I are flying home tonight, since I have to be at work tomorrow morning at nine. MR is staying till Friday.

I had a taco salad with chicken in the airport at a Mexican place with a salsa bar. We're getting in late and I'm already tired since we all stayed up late last night, but I woke up at 5 am and have been up ever since. It's going to be hard to go back to work after such a nice holiday, but I'm looking forward to seeing the kitties!

Here's how you make the Jack Daniels sweet potatoes in a CR-friendly way:

Serves 6 as a side dish:
489 g sweet potatoes
300 g pumpkin
100 mLs Jack Daniels
the juice of one tangerine

Steam the sweet potatoes in the microwave in a container with a lid until they're squishy. Mash with the pumpkin and Jack until smooth. Heat in a pot on the stove and add the tangerine juice. Allow to simmer for about half an hour, stirring frequently to make sure it doesn't burn to the bottom of the pot and remains smooth. Serve piping hot! You can vary the amounts of pumpkin and sweet potato to taste and nutritional requirement. Using some pumpkin dramatically reduces the total calories, and there is no need for sugar, sweetener or butter.

Cranberry ginger relish:

Boil two to three bags of cranberries in water till they pop and are oozing liquid. Add about a tablespoon minced fresh ginger and the juice of two tangerines (you could use a sweet mandarin orange.) Sweeten to taste with sucralose/Splenda. Chill and serve in a pretty glass dish.

Wow, we've had a lot of holidays this year. Canadian Thanksgiving, American Thanksgiving, and now two Christmases. I may have to make a big feast for MLK Day in January just to keep the festival going!

Gotta go... time to get on a plane!

Posted by april at 7:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Special D&D Food

My sister-in-grace (that's MR's brother's wife) told us a story that I thought the blog readers would enjoy.

Her two sons (who are brilliant and adoreable) play Dungeons and Dragons (just like their father and his brother did at their age) and they have a group that comes over to play at their house. One week, she didn't have time to go out and buy traditional "kid food" like chips or cookies, so she took some fruit and chopped it up and set it in front of the kids at D&D group. They scarfed up the fruit and loved it. The next week, same thing happened.

Then the next week, one of the other children's parents called her and asked, "What is the special D&D food?" Apparently this parent (I think it was a mom) had offered to feed the child lunch before they left for D&D group, but the child insisted that he couldn't eat lunch because he was waiting to eat the "special D&D food." So this parent was wondering exactly what said special food was.

Jimena reported that the special food is just cut up fruit.

I wonder if fresh fruit endows the players of role playing games with special powers, making them better spell casters, lizard slayers, or whatever. If so, someone should tell Julian Dibbell. As the backup singer in J-Lo's "Jenny From the Block" reminds us, "Everyone's got to make a living."

Posted by april at 12:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 24, 2006

Happy Holidays to All

I'm sorry I've been unable to write... between travelling to Calgary all day Friday and doing family events with MR's family, there just hasn't been time. Thanks to all for your wonderful recent comments, I promise I'll answer your questions soon!

Wishing you a happy and healthy holiday!

Posted by april at 10:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 21, 2006

When You Focus On Nutrition, You Make The Right Choice

One of the new CR Society members, Heather, wrote an inspiring story to the list today. I republish it with her permission (the spacing is a bit off but I don't have time to fix it!):

Visions of Calories Dancing In My Head

I just had an amazing experience …

There are still many calories to cut … still many foods to be removed
from my diet … still many pounds to shed … still a long way to go before I can
truly say that I have reached my goal and achieved true CRON status.

However, this holiday season is proving to me that the changes I have made thus
far are working and that my way of thinking about food is inherently changing.

We had our office holiday party yesterday, luckily there were tons of
healthy foods to choose from and I ate well and wise. There were lots
of cookies, cakes, pies, etc. but the desert table was out of view from
where I sat and I didn't even see them. This morning however, before I even
went into the kitchen, my boss told me that all of the snacks were already
out on the tables (at 7:15 am!?!?!) … I headed to the kitchen prepared to be
tempted by all the chocolate, and cookies, and cheesecakes that I have
always loved and enjoyed – prepared to battle the desires that I knew would
arise …

But when I got to the kitchen and looked at all the cookies, cakes,
etc. I had a vision. My mind flashed to the Cron-O-Meter and I saw the
little bars at the bottom of the screen; and as I watched the calorie bar
filled up quickly, turned that dark, over your limit color, and the numbers
before the percent sign kept rising and rising – all the while the vitamin and
mineral bars remained empty … and when the vision passed I found that I
didn't even want anything on the table!!!

I don't even know who I am anymore … ~LoL~ :D

Posted by april at 10:23 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

December 19, 2006

Holiday Treats For Co-Workers

For the holidays I give out decorative dried fruit and nut mixes in pretty jars. It's a nice alternative to the cookies and candy that attack every office at holiday time.

This year, I mixed up dried apples, cranberries, and bananas with raw almonds and pecans. I put them in pretty jars and shake them all up. They make nice snacks for normal people who would otherwise be eating chocolate or cookies. For the CR'd person, dried fruit isn't a great deal calorie-wise and the nuts need to be eaten in small amounts, but for the people in my office, it's an improvement. They're pretty jars to have on the desk and snack on instead of junk food, and the fruit is sweet enough to appeal to the normal person's taste.

When they're done with the mix, I take the jars back and re-use them the next year, so they're also a wrapping-free, environmentally sound alternative.

And they're a lot cheaper than giving everyone a bottle of wine. :)

Posted by april at 6:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

December 17, 2006

Obesity Avoidance vs. CR

Mary wrote an entry recently in which she wondered if we are biologically wired against CR.

Of course we are. Against real CR, that is.

I agree that we are culturally brainwashed to eat many unhealthy foods. Sure, our bodies are adapted to feast on and store fat and sugar when it is plentiful in order to save up for times of famine. But our obesogenic environment in which fat and sugar in huge amounts are constantly available, especially to the poorest of our citizens, is not natural. And in truth, it's not that hard to adapt to a diet that replaces unhealthy foods with healthy, lower calorie, higher nutrient foods. It's also not that hard, with with the right information and support, to adapt to a diet where you eat "80% full" as the Okinawans like to say, and you maintain a body weight that is unusually low for our overweight society.

But that's not CR. That's what most folks who are doing "moderate CR" are doing, and while there's not question that they will gain benefits in terms of lower risk of diseases, I seriously doubt that they are slowing their actual rate of biological aging by that much. A bit, yes, and every bit counts. But I strongly suspect that the calorie intake that most folks practicing moderate CR are enjoying is an obesity avoidance level, not CR in the lab animal sense of the word.

In the lab, they limit the diets of the control animals because they know that given unlimited access to food, all animals will eat themselves into pre-mature death. The controls are normal, "healthy" weights. People on moderate CR, the kind where they look younger than their overweight contemporaries and feel great and never really get hungry are probably closer to control group rats than to CR'd rats.

I bring this up because I've been re-evaluating my diet and lifestyle lately, largely in light of some spiritual growth brought on by the unpleasant media experiences of the last few months. I've been very happy in my CR journey so far, and I sure am a lot healthier at 102 pounds than I was at 137, or at 106 for that matter. But I'm starting to suspect that I'm really just at the low end of my obesity avoidance range, and that serious CR, the life-extending kind, for me, is a lower calorie level.

One can never be sure of course. There is no exact science that tells us what calorie level will yield what level of life-extension, and there are so many intervening factors that we just don't know. But I know that I'm not going even nearly as low as I could. I still have many days when I eat suboptimally, when I pig out in restaurants, when I have more wine than I need. None of this is consistent with my goals of living as long as possible as healthy as I can. Yet I've made a series of compromises to fit in, and to satisfy my own biological compulsions to eat more and store more calories.

It's so easy to let the biological rule the rational. Sometimes, that's a lot of fun... like when it's Sunday afternoon and you feel like mating. But it's not much fun when you're long term health is on the line, and I'm young enough to have a choice to make. If I go farther in my CR, now, I am probably young enough to benefit greatly. If I choose to remain a moderate, I will no doubt avoid early heart attack, diabetes, stroke, and maybe even cancer. But I won't look and feel forty at sixty.

I got into this to feel forty at sixty. The short term benefits are a tremendous blessing, but they're not nearly enough for me. And I have the tools (information) and the support (MR and a wonderful friend and family network) to go farther. I know what it's like to confront hunger when in calorie deficit, and I know it's not that big a deal. You just focus on the goal and enjoy your next meal even more than usual! Experienced CR practitioners tell me that once the initial weight loss is over and weight stabilizes at a consistent calorie level, the hunger goes away, except for right before a meal when we all enjoy feeling hungry in anticipation of a meal to be enjoyed. Consistency and getting the right nutrition becomes even more important than before, as getting good nutrition for the most part makes food cravings go away.

Obesity avoidance is great, and on a public health level, I'd love for everyone to convert to the kinds of habits that turned me from a 137 pound unhealthy person to a 104 pound bouncing bundle of happiness. It could save our health care system if more and more people were to change their diets in small, easy ways that result in big long term health improvements. I'm all for that. I can teach you how to do that. I can honestly say that it's not that hard. With the info and support, anyone can do it. Yes, it would be better if the environment were more supportive, and I pledge to do everything I can to improve it. But the individual can make changes, and I'm willing to help.

That kind of change isn't enough for me. I want to live as long as I can in a healthy body and mind, and as of now, CR is the only intervention that has a prayer of extending my healthspan. I no longer think that eating out a lot or fitting in with family or friends or satisfying a craving for gak are good reasons (for me) to compromise my health future.

So I'm thinking of going lower. A lot lower. And that will come with a price.

My averaging has worked really well when it was 1300 - 1400 and those 1000-1200 days were quickly balanced out by a big restaurant meal. But if I want to go lower, those restaurant meals need to be very few and very far between.

I look pretty darn normal now, just thin and younger than I am. But I might eventually actually get skinny. And if MR doesn't like it, I'll beat him with a steamed carrot!

When I was in calorie deficit for quite awhile last fall, I experienced hunger like I never had before. And it was weird, distracting. It took awhile to get used to focusing my brain in another direction. Yet at the same time, I found it brought things into perspective. I was less neurotic than usual. Things seemed less pressing. I thought to myself, as a co-worker brought a crisis to my office, "I'd love to join you in your hysteria, but I am too busy contemplating my next cup of cottage cheese to truly freak out about your so-called emergency."

It was a good thing. I had a greater sense of balance. I loved my food, loved my work, loved my family and friends, but felt an almost Zen-like calm. A calm that goes away at about 1350 calories a day.

I am thinking of going lower, and of leaving some familiar things behind. Like frequent lunches out. Like the ongoing protest, "But I'm a moderate! I'm normal! Look at me... I eat out!"

I want to live my life according to my own priorities and goals, my true will, if you will, not according to unconsidered and unquestioned biological compulsions, and not according to what will please others.

So I have some decisions to make. It's almost January, and it's a good time for change.

But right now it's bedtime, and I have to be out the door at 6:45 am, so enough change for tonight.

Posted by april at 9:54 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack

December 16, 2006

Healthy Kids

I'm at my dad's for our traditional "Christmas before Christmas" weekend. Because my step-brother and I have always spent Christmas with our other parent, we have always done our Christmas the weekend before. MR is at home having a boy's weekend (which for him means uninterrupted quiet time to sit at his computer and read medical studies and write. But as he mentioned in response to Gregg's comment requesting a CR Boys' Weekend -- come to the CRS Conference! It's bascially an all-male CR weekend. Now there are a few more women than before, but I was the only single woman over 21 at my first CRS Conf!) So I'm here in beautiful western North Carolina with my dad and step-mother and my step-brother and his wife, plus their two little snugglebunnies, Madeline (age 2.5) and Jack (age 5 months.) Jessica, my sister-in-law, stays home with them and also takes care of two other kids who are almost exactly their age, her best friend's children.

Jessica is serious about feeding her kids right and bringing them up with healthy food habits. This morning while Madeline played with my new Hello Kitty stuffed animal we discussed the perils of raising kids in this obesogenic environment.

"At Wal-mart," Jessica told me, "They have play food, but it's all McDonald's food! And they even have play drive-thrus where you can 'drive thru' and get your plastic food!"

I remarked that the plastic food closely resembles the stuff you'd get at the drive thru anyway.

She pointed out that Wendy's has some non-fried options for kids' meals. A turkey and cheese sandwich and a fruit cup, for example. And McDonald's now lets you substitute apple dippers for fries in the kids' meal. But the majority of kids are still eating the fried junk, I'm sure.

Jessica and John are trying to raise their kids differently. They are fortunate that they can afford for Jessica to stay home, so they don't have to face the perils of daycare food. She's growing veggies in the garden, and Madeline is already eating blueberries and raspberries in large amounts as she sits on the kitchen counter watching us cook. They don't let the kids watch much television, and they try to limit TV to shows that don't have commercials.

For Christmas, (in addition to the fancy velvet dress that MR's Mom sent for her, which she LOVED!) I gave her a set of plush vegetables with happy faces. I think they're the Veggie Tales series. We have happy corn, celery, broccoli, mushroom, tomato, and a potato in a straw hat. They are so cute! Jessica was happy to see vegetables among Madeline's gifts. Hopefully they'll be just one more subtle message that veggies are cool!

I've been reading the most amazing book, whose name I won't even mention before I am done and sit down to write an entry about it. It talks a lot about childhood obesity, the role of the schools, marketing to children, and how darned hard it is to be a parent in this environment. Jessica and John have a lot of advantages: they're well-educated, can afford for her to stay home, live in a place where there's room for a garden and access to excellent grocery stores, and they both have fairly healthy habits themselves. But even they will be fighting an uphill battle against the forces that will attack these kids as they get older.

I so admire parents. My mother, of course, was the best mother on earth, so it would be impossible for anyone else (past, present or future) to equal her. But I know lots of great moms and dads and grandparents and guardians of all sorts who are doing their best to raise healthy, happy, non-axe murderer kids. And it's so hard! Kids have become little consumers, and so few people and institutions are standing up to the industries that market to them. Will the health of an entire generation be sacrificed at the altar of capitalism?

Gina writes about wanting to get involved to do something about it. Me too!!! My city, the beautiful Philadelphia, is about to begin the process of banning transfats just like NYC did. I know it'll be a fight. I plan to get very, very involved.

Thank heaven, there are people fighting the good fight... more on that soon. (You know how I love to let the suspense build up. Don't worry, I'm not quitting my job or leaving MR.) And there are ways we ordinary folks can get involved.

In the meantime, I hope you're all enjoying the holiday season, not too stressed out, and not too stuffed from holiday parties. Congrats to Kelly on your progress! Hold the sweets, bring on the diamonds... I love it! Be sure that the little one is getting plenty of fat in her diet... growing brains desperately need fat for development. In small, measured amounts, olive oil, flax oil, and nuts like hazelnuts and almonds are great, essential foods. A lot of health conscious parents don't realize that kids need quite a bit of fat for brain and other development, so I try to remind folks of this a lot. You need healthy fat too, so don't leave it out in an attempt to cut calories! Remember, no one should CR until they're at least 21, so replace unhealthy foods with healthy ones, but make sure all little people get plenty to eat. Also, it's my understanding (though I'm certainly no expert) that it's quite normal for kid's weights to fluctuate a lot as they're going through different growing stages. I know mine did. I was sometimes light, sometimes a little chunkier. Never super-skinny like some kids (MR and his brother, for example!) but at times heavier than others. It wasn't till I got to college and discovered every french fry serving establishment in New Haven that I really started to gain weight. It's a minefield for parents to navigate instilling healthy eating habits without making kids feel bad about their weight, and especially with girls, it's so hard to strike a balance. I am glad I have only cats... I don't think I could handle the stress! Lots of love to all you parents out there who are struggling with these issues every day.

I ate a lot at the Christmas feast last night... my flight was crazy delayed so I barely had lunch (a few bites of a turkey wrap that I grabbed while waiting for an update on the Philly fog situation) and by the time we finally ate, I was starving. Predictably, I'm not hungry at all today, so I probably won't eat till later on in the day. I rarely skip meals (my normal day is breakfast, lunch and dinner... weird, I know :) but I also refuse to feed myself if I'm not genuinely hungry, and today I feel like a snake digesting a large mouse.

At least I'm done with my Christmas shopping.

Posted by april at 7:38 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

December 14, 2006

Fire Roasted Tomato Vegetable Soup

For the fans of the pick your own protein feast, here's a quick and easy weeknight recipe you can throw together in ten minutes flat with whatever you have lying around.

All you need is a cube of veggie boullion, a can of Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes (don't whine about the price, you know you're saving money by putting this hearty stew on the stove instead of going out, grabbing takeout, or using prepared or frozen foods) and whatever vegetables you have in the house. Add to that your protein of choice and a fat source (olive oil, flax oil, cashews, avocado, you pick!)

Tonight I'm using a cup and a half of the tomatoes, plus 87 grams of asparagi that are about to go bad, 60 grams of kale stems, and 163 grams of brussels sprouts. To that I'm adding my easy protein source, cooked eggwhites cubes, and after removing from heat, I'll put in olive oil, flax oil, and avocado.

It's an easy one dish supper, hot on a cold night and filling but packed with healthy veggies and a fire-roasted taste that's unusual and exciting. I love this dish.

It's also good with Quorn dogs!

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December 13, 2006

Soy Ginger Eggplant With Cauliflower

This is another one of those "choose your own protein" dishes.

Dice eggplant, salt lightly with "half salt," leave out to dry.

Dice cauliflower.

Boil veggie or chicken broth. Add eggplant and cauliflower. Steam until soft.

Stir in protein source (I used eggwhites, you could use chicken, turkey, Quorn, shrimp, scallops, salmon, tofu, seitan, or black beans with rice protein powder. It's a pick your own protein recipe.)

Add to taste:

garlic powder
oregano
powdered ginger
low sodium soy sauce

Serve piping hot with a teaspoon of flax or olive oil.

I served this with a dessert of fresh organic Granny Smith apples with hazelnuts, flax oil and Walden Farms Caramel Sauce. I suspect that any fruit dessert would be excellent. You could also add a salad.

This dish started out heading in an Italian-esque direction, until I realized we were out of tomato paste. So I took it in an Asian-esque direction, and it was delicious. I made the whole dinner in twenty minutes. Who says CR has to be time-consuming and expensive? Shake some ginger on it and call it a night. Life is too short to fret about recipes. Eat and enjoy!

Posted by april at 9:26 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 12, 2006

The Preventable Apocalypse

The other day at a staff meeting for my union, we were discussing the crisis in health care.

Of course, all of the solutions forwarded involved single-payer health care, health insurance for all, and taking the advertising and profit dollars out of the system, turning those funds into better nurse staffing, free health care for every citizen, and prescription drugs as determined by medical neccessity, not by the ability to pay.

I'm for all that. Of course I am. It really is better in Canada! We already put up with huge waits in the hospital as it is. My mom was at an excellent suburban hospital, but even there, she spent six hours waiting in the emergency room before the test was run that determined that she had a terrible infection. During that wait, the infection migrated into her bloodstream, forcing her doctor to prescribe IV antibiotics, causing her terror and suffering, and extending her hospital stay by days. If she could have been seen earlier, the infection could have been stopped in its tracks. That's in the USA, for a woman with fully paid, execellent health insurance. Imagine what happens to those who no insurance! At least she could go to the hospital!

As we discussed the ongoing and worsening crisis in health care, one thought weighed heavily on my brain: the only solution to this problem is for fewer people to get sick. The numbers are just too huge. 65 percent of Americans are overweight, and half of those are obese. Childhood obesity rates are soaring. These people are going to get very, very sick. We know that obesity is a serious risk factor for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. But all of these people don't have to get sick. Heart disease, stroke and diabetes can for the most part be prevented with a sane, sensible diet.

There are a few voices crying in the wilderness, for example, my idol Kelly Brownell at Yale, standing up for the NY ban on transfats and calorie labeling on menus. He is constantly attacked in the press for being the "food police," as though people really want to eat poison. If you think the attacks on me were bizarre and hostile, you should check out the attacks on him!

I have often said that I am not interested in "converting" people to CR, and that's true: there are only about four people I've ever met whom I've actually tried to get to move towards CR. For most folks, the rigor isn't possible. But here is something possible and desirable: everyone can and should eat a healthy diet and achieve a healthy weight, one that will minimize their risk of that trinity of killers mentioned above: heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

I recognize that most people are overweight. I was too, before I discovered the powerful effects of good nutrition. I battled my weight for my entire adult life, but I found that once I gave my body the nutrients it needs, it was no longer even an effort to maintain a below-normal weight. I'm not starving -- I'm having a great time! Anyone can do this! CR, real CR, the kind of calorie restriction the defies biological urges and might actually slow the aging process requires software, strict attention to nutrition, and iron self-discipline, not to metion social support and a commitment to long term goals. But just eating right and maintaining a healthy weight doesn't require much effort at all. Just the right information, and some incentives.

Most people lack the right information. They've been told that nutrition is too complicated for them to understand, so they ought to just give up. Or they've bought the low fat gospel, or the low carb heresy. Simple calorie counting, plus adding up RDA's till you get to 100 percent, isn't even mentioned in popular diet books. Yet it's the easiest thing in the world. Most people put more effort into balancing their checkbooks than they put into balancing their diets.

What I did to lose weight was easy. Cut empty carbs (no more bread or pasta or rice, no sugar, no non-red wine alcohol), increase protein (hello eggwhites!), find nonfat, organic sources of calcium (all that cottage cheese and yogurt) and search for hard to find nutrients in small calorie packages (Lewis Labs Brewers Yeast.) It took some time because I had to do the research for myself. But I can make all that information available to you, and you can run with it. My readers have lost 10, 20, 50 pounds, while enjoying their food and having fun with their families and friends. Eating healthy isn't about self-denial -- it's about giving yourself what you truly need. When you satisfy those deep internal cravings for nutrrients you've been lacking, those surface, fake cravings disappear. Now you might still have a PMS craving for chocolate (I know I do -- once a month, I eat M and M's. I don't worry about it... it's the PMS craving, it only comes once a month, and it's satisfied with a handfull of cheap chocolate!) But you won't have that constant feeling of gnawing in the stomach. You won't need to overeat to feed your body what it truly craves.

People who knew me forty pounds ago always ask what I did to lose weight. The answer is simple and non-glamourous: I ate fewer calories and got better nutrition. I didn't follow a fad diet, I didn't become a Buddhist or go on a retreat, I didn't take diet drugs. I just ate fewer calories and higher quality food. I got sick of how I looked and felt and decided to change.

What I did was easy, yet most of the people I see are suffering with overweight and obesity, and many of them with the early stages of obesity-induced disease. They've tried diets, but they feel like they've failed. Their environments do not support healthy living. They will end up costing millions of dollars in prescription drugs, medical treatments and surgery. And they will lose what could be the best years of their lives to ill health.

It's not fair, it's not right, and it can be stopped. Here's what I want to see happen:

1. Calorie labeling on menus in all chain restaurants. McDonalds does it -- so can everyone. Give the people the information, so they can make informed decisions.

2. Economic incentives for maintaining healthy weight. Employer programs where for every week when an employee loses a pound or maintains a healthy weight, that employee gets paid more. The money saved in health insurance will more than make up the difference. If there's one thing I've learned from organizing workers, it's that when money that could take care of the family is involved, workers are willing to change. They'll work double shifts for incentive pay, why not eat healthy and exercise for incentive pay? If it could mean a better Christmas for the kids, or getting out of debt, workers will do it. I would love to work with hospitals to put together nurse-friendly health programs because I know how hard nurses work, and how very difficult it is to maintain sanity, much less health when you're taking care of critically ill human beings for twelve hours without so much as a bathroom break. These women (and guys!) take care of their patients, then they go home and take care of spouses, kids, elderly parents, and their communities. The last person they have time to take care of is themselves. But if they knew they would get more money in their paychecks for losing weight, it might be worth spending the time it takes to pack a healthy lunch. They'd start demanding healthier options in the hospital cafeteria. Money talks -- its power could work for health, instead of lining the pockets of the poison merchants who claim they are just giving people what they want.

3. Tax credits for families that meet health benchmarks. If you and your kids are a healthy weight, you get to pay less in taxes. Sure, this will help those who are "naturally skinny," but no one is naturally obese. Weight is controllable -- people need incentives to put their time into controlling it.

4. Free, easy, accessible weight management counseling and support. New Jersey has a free quit smoking health program. People who want to quit can get the help they need. The same should be government funded for weight management. No one should have to go this alone. The information and support should be free and accessible to all, not just the rich.

5. A consumer movement to demand healthier choices in grocery stores and restaurants. When the consumers demand it, the producers will provide it. If McDonalds can put together a few healthy meals (Grilled Chicken Caesar salad with lowfat balsamic dressing, fruit and yogurt parfait) then any restaurant can do it. The day when I can walk into a McDonalds and order an eggwhite omlette with tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms and onions topped with salsa will be the day I know we've won.

None of this is far-fetched. Many employers, including the state of Pennsylvania, are already offering economic incentives for healthy living. We can define achievable benchmarks: BMI, weight, cholesterol, a combination thereof, that the vast majority of people can reach without drugs or surgery. Weight isn't determined by genetics -- it's determined by what you eat and how much you exercise! Sure, there are some genetic factors, but no one was born to be obese and die early of heart disease. Right now, we live in an obesogenic enviroment: it's hard to eat healthy because there aren't a lot of quick and easy choices available. But it's not that hard, with the proper information, and as more and more people find it an economically advantageous proposition to lose weight, it will become easier.

People who defend the food industry like to talk about personal freedom. Well, I want to talk about real freedom. Freedom from illness and disease. Freedom from the daily self-loathing that comes with looking in the mirror and seeing a much fatter person than one wants to be. Freedom to dash up the stairs, or work a sixteen hour day without exhaustion, or run and play with the kids, or buy a dress in a normal store instead of a plus size boutique. No one wants to be fat and unhealthy. How about providing people with the tools they need to get healthy, and the incentives to make it a priority?

Sure, it will cost a lot. But the upcoming apocalypse will cost a whole lot more. Paying for the 65 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese to get health care as they age will cost a lot more than paying for them to get healthy. Paying for children who get type 2 diabetes as teenagers to have medical treatment their entire lives will cost more than it would cost to help them lose weight and conquer diabetes.

Back in 1999, I worked on an organizing campaign at a large hospital in New Jersey. Management put out a flyer that said: "You can stop it! Make it stop!" They referred to organizers calling nurses to urge them to talk to their co-workers. It was a bizarre flyer that was good for many laughs over the years, as the nurses voted overwhelmingly to organize the union, and thanked the organizers profusely for our role in helping them get a voice on their job. But the flyer became my favorite anti-union flyer of all time, since the message was so simple. I think it fits our context much better than it ever fit its original purpose.

You can stop it. Make it stop.

Obesity is curable. Obesity-induced diseases are preventable. The information is not glamourous, and the cure takes work, but it is a hell of a lot easier than CR, and the payoff is amazing.

Eggwhites. Olive oil and flax oil. Low calorie, high nutrient vegetables. Fresh, whole fruits. Nuts. Low calorie, protein rich meats (turkey, seafood.) Legumes. Non-fat, organic dairy.

I lost thirty-five pounds on a food budget smaller than what I spend for food for my cats. It's a lot cheaper than grabbing takeout.

When are people going to get serious about losing weight and getting healthy? I suspect it will only happen when the economic incentives line up to make it more advantageous than living overweight.

Until then, I will continue to be the left wing. The extremists who make room for the moderates. The Greenpeace to the Sierra Club of non-CR'd, healthy eating. So far, the urgings fo the USDA, the Mayo Clinic, the Harvard Nurses' Study, and everyone's grandmother pushing moderation, balanced eating and healthy weight have prompted the American public to do precisely nothing. Yet many of you who say that you don't want to do "extreme" CR have used the examples and information and recipes you've gotten here to improve your own diets and get healthy. The media isn't interested in "normal" people eating a healthy diet, but they're interested in skinny freaks who think they can live longer by refusing to give into the culture of "EAT EAT EAT!" And that media interest, snarky as it often is, has brought many of you here.

Welcome. Let's work together to end the preventable suffering that threatens not only our health and happiness but the economic foundations of our nation. Each of us has a part to play, and there is nothing more important than putting healthy meals on the table for your own family. My highest respect to all the parents out there who provide healthy meals for their kids and defy the take out culture to raise children who will know what real food is. I know you're busy, I know what you're up against, and I worship the ground you walk on. You are saving the next generation -- stop by our house for a nice dinner and a glass of pinot noir!

We all have our parts to play, and we should just expect to get some flack for it. People who
make money off of unhealthy eating, or aren't prepared to face their own unhealthy habits, are going to attack us. As Zeynep says, we can't let these idiots get us down. In the world of healthy eating, there really is such a thing as the last laugh.

As the president of the CR Society, Brian Delaney, likes to say:

Onward!

Posted by april at 7:57 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

December 11, 2006

Wine and Tomato Bar

For about a year now, I have had this fantasy of opening an establishment around my two favorite substances: wine and tomatoes.

Like any good wine bar, it would offer carefully measured five ounce pours of wine, or flights of three three ounce pours if you'd prefer. Since this bar would be CR friendly, you could order your wine by amount and pay by the ounce. 3 ounces would be an "MR." Sorta like a Starbucks "Tall."

The food would be tomatoes. Fresh, ripe, delicious tomatoes, some served plain, some served in salads, with oil, even in soups. A standard order might be a five ounce glass of wine and a "pint," which at this bar would be a pint of grape tomatoes, straight up, no oil, no salt, not peeled, just fresh, pop-em-in-yer-mouth tomato majesty.

Let's say it's a hot summer day and you and your friends drop into the bar in the late afternoon. You order a pint to start, and while you're popping those fresh grape tomatoes into your mouth by the handfull, you sip a light, slightly tart glass of pinot grigio.

Then you decide to go for a little protein, so you order the tomato, basil and scallop salad, drizzled with fine Australian olive oil and served over arugula. With your salad, you enjoy a more meaty glass of cabernet.

Now it's time for dessert, so you order the plum tomatoes and strawberries marinated in cinnamon balsamic vinegar and served over nonfat vanilla yogurt drizzled with hazelnut oil. On the side you enjoy a German riesling.

Or it's a cold winter's night and you just want something to warm your body and soul. You start with a cup of the fire-roasted tomato soup and a glass of champagne. Then you follow it with the winter chili: green and red tomatoes slow cooked with chickpeas, bell peppers, turkey, carrots, celery, okra, and all the spices (chili powder, cumin, chipoltle pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, a little salt and black pepper.) You drink a glass of a hearty Spanish red. For dessert, it's super sweet cherry tomatoes halved and baked with pears, drizzled with caramel and port.

At lunch there's a tomato buffet: every kind of tomato, nude, with serveral varieties of oils to drizzle and fresh chopped herbs to top with. There's also a build your own meal option, where you pick your protein (chicken, turkey, tofu, Quorn, eggwhites, shrimp or crab) and then pick your tomato variety, plus five other veggies, and a sauce (Asian, Italian, Southwestern, or olive oil and garlic.) Your stir-fry is personalized for your lunchtime enjoyment.

The decor is simple, a bit modern. Soft lights, a bar with soft barstools to accomodate the skinny CR'd butt, low couches in the corner for those of us who need to cuddle over wine and tomatoes. A few tables big enough to seat the happy hour crowd. Pictures of vineyards and tomato plants grace the walls.

There's an English ale on the menu, but it's reserved only for Aubrey de Grey.

The cocktail waitresses all wear shades of red, gold and purple, same as the wine and tomatoes. For instance, I will wear a deep cabernet short dress with stockings the color of champagne and nails the color of a beefsteak tomato in Jersey in July. The bartender will wear a tie that celebrates tomatoes, and will make the best Bloody Mary in the world.

Do I have any investors? Okay, maybe I shouldn't quit my day job, but you have to admit, a wine and tomato bar could be extremely CR friendly and fun. I know I'd spend way too much money there. How better to worship these vehicles of the joy of man upon the earth?

Well, I'm off to finish my glass of pinot noir and a pint of grape tomatoes...

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December 9, 2006

CR and the Future?

Gina poses an excellent question:

Well, one could certainly ask why we bother with medicines that extend life, couldn't we? I mean, why should we allow diabetics to inject insulin? What are they going to do for the world with their extended lives? This is just an example of how a CRONer could turn the arguments around to look at the science of medicine -- medicine that trades one problem for another. Statins lowers cholesterol with negative side effects to the muscules (and the heart is a muscle!) and the liver!

I think a valid question to pose re: CRON would be a question about the future of the planet if there was a fullscale CRON movement amongst the youth of our nation. How would this effect jobs, social security, healthcare, etc.? Again, I state that I am not CRON; I am not being negative, but in light of the idiotic questions and comments to which you have been subjected, I would like to see a few that actually encourage real thought about the future of the economy, etc. if a large percentage of future generations were CRON.

Thanks, Gina, for the excellent points and thought-provoking question.

I honestly hope that mine is the last generation that would consider doing CR for life-extension purposes. That's because I hope that biotech will be developed that will actually reverse aging, not just slow it down a little. Even if CR were to get us to 120 (which I think is overly optimistic, btw), I would rather see therapies developed that will get us more than that, and will be available to people outside of that small subset of people willing to make the sacrifices that hardcore CR entails. Aubrey de Grey's website explains the engineering approach to reversing aging and is very readable for the non-scientist. He also addresses some of the social implications you raise here. I think Aubrey does a better job than I could of handling those issues, so I'll let him have the last word.

In this piece, I explain the Methuselah Mouse Prize, and why I think it's a good tool for encouraging research into the fundamental problem of aging. Both MR and I contribute a substantial percentage of our income to the Methuselah Foundation, and MR contributes his entire work life to helping Aubrey de Grey. We're definitely not putting all of our eggs in the CR basket, since we know that even CR'd eggs will rot eventually (Wow, that was a metaphor out of control. I plead stress and exhaustion... please forgive me!) I also spend volunteer time coordinating events for the Methuselah Foundation (I think I have the official title of "events coordinator" now. It's a nice break from my real job.) If you'd like to join the fight, check out the Mprize website and donate now!

I think Gina's earlier points make a lot of sense in the context of age-reversing biotech, just like they make sense when referring to CR. We already have tons of medical interventions that extend life: antibiotics (my new best friends, now that they've saved my mom's life), cancer treatments, sanitation. We're constantly looking for new ways to extend life and minimize suffering. The logical outgrowth of that is looking to extend life indefinitely by addressing the underlying causes of aging, not just the diseases that people tend to get as they age. Research into the former will no doubt have beneficial effects on the later, but it's a tough proposition to get scientists to do research on aging because so many consider to be inevitable, natural, and somehow good --- that is, until it's you or your loved one lying in the hospital bed.

I believe I am optimistic when I hope to make it to the point where some anti-aging technology is available. Feeling more youthful and healthier for as many years as CR will buy me would still be worth the trouble, especially since I don't find CR to be all that much trouble, and I enjoy the short-term side-effects. But if more intense CR can preserve me in a state of health where I might be able to take advantage of that first biotech wave... well, then I'll be very glad that I took my CR to a more serious level instead of hanging out in moderate land where I began. The chances aren't great, but to me, it's worth a try.

I used to say that I'd have to live to at least 100 to see any sort of political change in this country. I started CR in 2004, when things looked pretty grim indeed. My British and Canadian friends are always shocked at how few rights workers have in this country, and how far to the right the discourse in our politics really is. I used to lament that I missed the sixties, and wonder if I would live to see a time when once again people would think about civil rights, equality, justice and all that. Things are looking up a bit this year, but I still think there's a long way to go. I'd like to be around, not just to see the future, but to be an active participant in making it better. For now, CR is all we have in the way of interventions that actually extend maximum lifespan in mammals. But I hope for, donate to, and work towards interventions that will be much, much better.

Will we make it? Nobody knows. As people seem to like to point out, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. But I'd rather do all I can to maximize my chances, meanwhile enjoying more energy, a stronger immune system, decreased risk of disease, and the love of my life (I guess he can't be classified as a side-effect of CR, but I did meet him through the CR Society!) We eat our kale and we take our chances. For me, it's a win-win.

If you're interested in further information, I strongly recommend Ray Kurzweil's Fantastic Voyage. Ray does a great job of explaining the various avenues to extended life and health. He's also an extremely nice guy with a super cool collection of cat figurines and a dedication the the music of Alanis Morrissette that rivals my own. Another great source for breaking news is the Longevity Meme and Fight Aging, maintained by core Mprize volunteer Reason.

Posted by april at 10:33 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

December 2, 2006

Cause We're All Just Finding Our Way

Jen asks a very sensible question:

I wonder what your goals are when you agree to be a part of a CRON article featured in a magazine? Are you trying to encourage others that might be interested to try CRON? If that is your goal you might want to hightlight the aspects of it that won't turn people away from it. Find the middle ground. I think everyone appreciates excellent food. Why not have a chef prepare the meal or consult with a chef about how to prepare meals in a CRON way that are highly appetizing? I think CR would really benefit from the expertise of chefs helping us CRONers develop some really wonderful recipes. I, for example, much prefer to eat at restaurants that hire chefs as opposed to those that just hire cooks. These aren't even very upscale restaurants but the difference in food taste and preparation is striking between these two groups of restuarants. Secondly, it might be a good idea not to focus so much on weighing food. I know you think this is very important but admit it, does it really matter if you eat 30 or 40 grams of arugula? Since you've been weighing food for awhile I bet you could come pretty close to getting the weight right. Most people don't want to adopt an eating plan that would require such constant monitoring and again if you've weighed food enough before a person could get pretty good at guessing weights. And maybe MR could be persuaded not to lick his plate clean during a visit with the media. Will the 10 calorie difference in intake really matter that much? Just some thoughts. Keep up the really wonderful blog.

Thanks Jen! I appreciate your thoughtful comments, and will answer them in a moment.

Robin answers (and says what I would if I were here):

I believe it would be wrong of April and MR to invite a journalist to dinner to see what the CRON lifestyle is like and then hire a chef to cook some exotic dinner and start acting differently than they normally do. It would just be completely dishonest. If they normally prepare their own meals, weigh their food and lick their plates, that's what they should do when a reporter is present. Otherwise, they're lying to the world. And suppose the reporter found out that they normally do things differently? (In fact, April has already written in her blog that they weigh their food and lick their plates). He would conclude, I'm sure, that April and MR were embarrassed or ashamed of the way they normally live, and I would venture to guess that that's the last thing they would want anyone to think about them.

So we're all wondering: why the heck do I do these media appearances?

Well, first, because people ask me to. Julian Dibbell called me up on July fourth weekend when I was out of my mind with exhaustion from work and asked me to do an interview. I could tell from talking with him that he was serious in his intention to learn about CR. I was happy to help, even though I didn't really have time. (Incidentally,I told him, when we first talked about two weeks before the dinner party, that he was eating too few calories and should start eating more.) I liked J