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November 16, 2007

How To Start CR

This is a repost of an entry I made several years ago... I thought it might be helpful to those who are just discovering CR and the blog!

[DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional, a scientist, or anyone who has every handled a live mouse. This advice is based purely on my own experience and what I have learned from others in the CR Society and what has helped my friends work CR into their lifestyles. There is no one way to do CR -- you have to find what works for you. But if you're a girl and you're starting out, this might help you get on the right track.]

I get a lot of questions about how to start CR, and I've come up with a basic set of principles that helped me, but that took me for darned ever to figure out. So maybe if I write them down, you can use them as a shortcut, adapting and fitting them into your lifestyle so that your very own CR practice evolves over time. This advice will be of the most use to women, especially women who start CR with a few pounds to lose, and who are serious about life-extension. But if you're just a guy who likes eggwhites, this might work for you too.

BEFORE YOU TRY TO START CR:

1. Buy yourself some nutritional software. You can get it at http://www.walford.com, at http://www.nutribase.com, for free at http://www.nutritiondata.com. You can also get some useful info at http://www.myfoodbuddy.com, including calorie counts. Use the nutritional software to figure out (honestly!) how many calories you're eating now.

2. Buy yourself a good food scale, accurate to the gram, and a good people scale. Some people say that they don't need to track their calories anymore, or that they track by body weight. I suppose this is possible, but these people have for the most part been practicing CR for a very long time, or they eat almost the same thing every day. Remember, it's total calories, not weight, not BMI, not macronutrient ratios, that seem to cause the mammals to live longer when on CR. So you can't just exercise to make up for extra calories and expect to get any life extension benefits. Lots of people are naturally skinny -- that doesn't mean they'll live to be over 100 looking fabulous. Lots of marathon runners die of heart attacks. So track your calories as carefully as you can, I'd say for at least a year. One thing I've found is that the CR practitioners who track their calories very closely are almost all reporting higher calories than those who don't -- but at much lower weights and BMI's. That tells me that people who don't very carefully track -- especially those who eat out at all -- are grossly underestimating their calories. So buy yourself a scale and use it with your nutritional software to find out how many calories you're eating and what nutrients you're missing.

3. You probably think that hunger is going to be the biggest challenge you face on CR. Almost everyone on CR finds that, especially for the first few months to a year, hunger really isn't that big a deal if your nutrition is well-managed. No, the biggest problem you'll have will be stress with social situations: going out for meals, holiday dinners, work events that involve food, or even just food around your house.

Be ready for this. Sit down with the people who are most important in your life, especially anyone you eat with regularly, and explain CR to them. Don't expect them to think it's a good idea or join you in it, but explain to them that it's very important to you, and that you need their support. You may want to provide them with the link to the CR Society webpage or a good book or article about CR. One of my favorite articles that offers a good introduction (yes it is by MR) is here in AOR's magazine.

This was one of the most critical steps for me. Enlisting the help of those closest to me helped me get through tough stages early on when I felt weird eating differently from how I had before.

4. Don't set any artificial weight goals. CR is not about weight. You can be really skinny and not be CR'd at all (see my college boyfriend Andrew who ate crap all the time and weighed 118 pounds at 5'10"... yes, I have always liked skinny guys, even pre-CR.) I don't look particularly skinny, yet pre-CR I weighed 32 pounds more, so we can assume that ad lib, I eat a whole lot more!

WHEN YOU'RE READY TO START:

I think Walford is wrong about "Clean up your diet first, then cut calories." That's boring for most people, and doesn't get you the kind of visible dramatic results that motivate you to stay on CR. I'm not just talking about weight loss, though if you start CR overweight and are looking forward to that side effect you'll like it. I mean an immediate improvement in how you feel. My advice is to clean up your diet and cut calories at the same time, but cut calories gradually, so that you don't lose more than one to two pounds a week. If you're not feeling good, something's wrong. Most of us feel almost euphoric at the start of CR, especially those of us with weight to lose. If you're feeling bad: tired, lightheaded, starvingly hungry, then try these two things: eat more protein, eat a little more fat, just plain eat more, but don't add carbs.

Here's what I say to do: this advice applies only to women.

1. Up your protein to 70 grams or more a day. There's a forumla that says to eat 1/2 to 3/4 of a gram of protein for each pound of body weight. I find this totally misleading because if you're overweight, that's going to tell you to eat more than you really need. And besides, I find it optimal for my mood and hunger control to eat a lot more protein than the forumla says I should. So I ignore the forumla and do what's right for me. Give a shot at 70+ g protein per day and see what happens to you. Try to get most of that protein through non-meat lowfat sources. Some of my favorites are: eggwhites, non-fat or lowfat cottage cheese, non-fat or lowfat yogurt, skim milk, shrimp, scallops, whey protein powder. Eating more protein will make you less hungry, combat carb cravings, and make you less likely to call vegan ex-boyfriends. You'll thank me for this someday.

2. Never leave the house in the morning without at least 25 grams of protein in you. For me, that's one cup of eggwhites scrambled, 125 cals, 29 g of protein, every morning. Whey shakes work well too. Protein loading in the morning makes you less likely to have carb cravings later in the day, and I find it has a very beneficial effect on my mood. I am less anxious, more calm, etc.

3. Cut out all grains. No bagels, pasta, rice, etc. Just stop. Stop putting sugar in your coffee -- if you must have something sweet, use Splenda. If you are addicted to chocolate, find the most expensive, fabulous chocolate you can afford, and eat a small piece when you really, really want it. Count the calories and enter them into your nutritional software.

4. Try out the "weekdays on, weekends less strict" or "five days on, one day less on" strategy at first. I started out CR by dropping my calories from probably 1800 a day to 1200 a day on weekdays. Then when I would go out on weekends with friends, I would eat restaurant food and not worry about it too much. That way, I didn't feel deprived, I got to socialize in food-centered situations, and I got stuffed sometimes. You *will* underestimate the calories you eat in restaurants -- it's amazing how many calories they pack into restaurant food. But most people find that if you try to stop going out all together, you'll be sad and feel deprived and be tempted to eat gak. So go out -- just plan around it by keeping your calories low and tracking your calories and nutrition most days.

5. Drop your calories on "weekdays" to just enough so that you're very, very hungry right before meals and pleasantly satisfied but not stuffed after meals. Eat your protein and as many veggies as you can. We'll deal with the rest in step two. Monitor with your nutritional software how many calories that is. Set your calorie goal for normal weekdays at just below that. I mean just below. Like fifty calories below. If you start to get freaky with hunger, throw a little more protein and a little more fat into your diet. Fat keeps you from going wiggy. I don't know why, I just know it does.

6. Find an unsaturated fat source you can deal with. If you're a refugee from the lowfat diet days, this may feel really bizarre. Nuts? Olive oil on your salads? Measure it. Eat a little fat. Note that lightning does not strike you, and Dean Ornish does not show up on a cloud of thunder and wisk you off to the nearest ICU. Unsaturated fat is good.

6. Figure out what you're not willing to give up. Is it chocolate? Popcorn at movie dates? For me, it was red wine. At first, I resolved to give up all alcohol other than red wine (bye bye margaritas!) I eventually loosened up a bit, but not until about thirty pounds later.

STEP TWO:

By this time, you should be losing weight. Don't lose too fast: if you're already thin, try not to lose more than a pound every two weeks or so. If you're starting on the heavier side (I was!) up to five or six pounds a month is fine.

If you're a woman, don't expect your weight loss to be linear. I can show 105 in the morning on the scale and 111 in the afternoon, after eating lunch. Women have tremendous water weight fluctuations based on salt intake, time of the month, food intake, time of day, and many other factors that I never quite understand. Weigh yourself first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Don't pay attention to zig zags -- it's the total picture you're looking at. If you can, graph your weight. You know you look good in your new jeans. Take a moment to feel sorry for the CR brothers, who are always whining that they are too skinny.

It's important during this phase to measure your calories as carefully as possible. Use your scale when you're at home -- don't guestimate. When you go out, you will have no clue how much you're eating. So be sure on regular days.

Tasks for this phase (about a month in):

1. Balance your omega 3's and omega 6's. These are fats and if you get them in balance, you'll feel a whole lot better. Flax oil is a great source of omega 3's -- I eat one teaspoon at breakfast with my eggwhites and one teaspoon at lunch mixed with one teaspoon of olive oil on my salad.

2. Learn to eat new greens: kale, arugula, amaranth greens, various Chinese greens -- give it a try. Make big salads. If you don't like salads, forget I said anything about it. If you're getting your RDA's (which you know because you use nutritional software) then eat whatever you want. I just happen to really like raw kale, and I never would have known it had I not eaten it first at MR's house. So try raw kale and see what you think.

3. Try to get 30% fat in your diet, almost all of it unsaturated. That means olive oil, flax oil, nuts. Find a nut you like, but measure them -- they're very high calorie!!!

4. Check in with your friends/family and see how they're doing with your progress. Are they starting to hate you because you're losing weight and feeling fantastic? Do they think your diet is a big pain? Are they supportive because you're happier and healthier?

4. Take this time to remember that it's your life. You and only you live with the consequences of your decisions.

5. Find someone you can talk to about CR, even if it's a friend you make over the CR Society email list (you're more likely to make friends on the Community list, where the cynical old curmudgeons like MR rarely venture. Read about both lists here.) Someone who isn't bored with talking about food and science and someone who won't be jealous of you when you lose weight and live longer. Well, chances are, your jealous friends will be dead long before you.

6. Figure out what nutritients you're usually missing. Most people don't eat a very big variety of foods, and we're consistently missing this or that. Use your nutritional software to figure out what you're usually low on, and to find the foods that will help you correct this deficiency.

STEP THREE: THE LONG DROP

Depending on where you start, you may be in weight loss phase for awhile. This is a good time to start figuring out what your CR personaility is. Do you enjoy keeping a consistent calorie level every day? Do you like eating very little, getting hungry, and then eating more all at once? Do you need volume to be satisfied, and therefore gravitate towards massive salads and stir-fries of low-calorie vegetables? Is eating on the go important to you? Is eating out at restaurants a problem?

Play with your CR style. Try hitting a consistent calorie level for about ten days, skipping your going out meals. See how you feel. Are you happily buzzing along, or are you going wiggy with boredom and hunger? There's no one way to do CR -- you might be an every other day faster! I like to eat three meals a day, keep my calories very low, and then on about the fifth or sixth day go out for a bigger meal. When I do go out, I skip the grains and focus on the protein foods.

Start to think about your designer diet. If you were to make up your daily or weekly menu plan, what you would eat when you were working as usual, what would it be? Put 70 g of protein or more in there, put your omega 3's and your omega 6's in there, and some generous servings of veggies. Make sure you have room for that thing you don't want to give up. Do you want a glass of wine with dinner? A piece of chocolate on Friday afternoon? Pancakes at Sunday breakfast with your family? Find out how many calories it has and put it in, but make up for it elsewhere. You can eat ANYTHING you want on CR -- in the right amounts. You just have to control your total Calories. Deal with your nutritional deficiencies. Is there a food you can eat maybe once a week to make up for something your missing in your regular diet pattern? For example, I tend to be low on zinc, so I eat oysters when I go out to make up for it.

No matter what, don't stop tracking.

Most of us find that CR is a lot easier when we develop a list of things we eat on a regular basis. The fact is, most people do that whether they're on CR or not. Most people just don't have much variety in their diets, so it's important to make sure that what you do eat, you're getting maximal nutrition out of.

My CR is an ever-evolving practice, and I imagine yours will be to. The social struggles, the weirdness of being thin (some of us love it, some of us hate it, mostly breaks down on gender lines.) The change in how you relate to food. Lots of things about CR change over time, and I expect my CR style to keep on changing. If you're interested in trying CR, I hope these concrete instructions are of some use to you. If you don't like them, throw them in the recycle bin and find your own way... there's no one way to do CR! My way works for me, but let me know what you do and I can learn something from you too!

And don't call your vegan ex-boyfriend. Eat some eggwhites instead. Trust me. It works every time.

Posted by april at November 16, 2007 10:15 AM

Comments

Posted by: Sam at November 16, 2007 11:16 PM

Posted by: april at November 17, 2007 12:20 AM

Posted by: Jamie at November 17, 2007 3:27 PM

Posted by: matt - uk at November 17, 2007 9:02 PM

Posted by: Jay at November 18, 2007 12:20 PM

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