Hi Whoa
Can I ask you some questions about yourself, your diet and your lifestyle?

1) What is your average caloric intake? Even though I am not an official CR, I have been eating a CR diet for weight control for 3 years now and likely will have to for the rest of my life. My maintenance calories are significantly below what the average person eats (since the average person is overweight and eats a high calorie diet). I was wondering how low you have to go before you can consider yourself eating CR.

2) You listed a lot of ways you feel better; has CR caused any side effects?

Back when my diet was more calorie restricted I experienced numerous side effects.
My heart rate was "slow/sluggish", I often would not be able to breathe well when laying down and I got palpitations whenever heart rate would change up fast. I imagine it was an adaptation to consistent low energy intake, from what I've read and the fact it has since went away now that I eat a lot more.
I experienced hypotension; often got dizzy when standing up (NEVER happens now).
Was chronically tired, like physical movement was an effort.
Psychologically I became very depressed and "obsessive compulsive". Other symptoms I experienced was very dry skin/hair loss, poor quality nails, worse fertility (I became amenorrhetic and my libido was non-existent).
I was cold *all the time*.
Sitting hurt because of thinness.
My joints often hurt too.
Even though I wasn't extremely hungry, I was obsessed with food and very paranoid about it... like I would be obsessively controlling with what I ate and have to portion everything exactly stuff like that.

When I experienced these symptoms I was eating about 1100ish cals per day average and I was a low weight (so that intake was not like a sudden drop for a big person). I ate healthy food specifically, my eating was very structured. So I don't know; to me CR seems less healthy than eating more but making sure what you eat is healthy (low carb). Why do you think I might have had such an unfavorable experience, and, do you think an unfavorable experience is common?


3) Is intermittent bouts of generous eating followed by fasting/semi fasting an appropriate way to CRON? I notice you said if you over eat you restrict more later; does it really not matter how concentrated your cals are just as long as they absolutely stay low over a continuum of time?


4) I imagine the reason CR "works" is because metabolism produces toxic byproducts that cause aging, correct? Under eating and living in a metabolically suppressed state would then increase lifespan, like keeping a car in the garage most of the time instead of driving it every day in snow storms (SAD) or even a sunny days (a lower carb healthy but high calorie diet).
So then do CR people also tend to avoid physical activity and exercise? I imagine that if the goal is to decrease metabolism & metabolic activity that all exercises and physical activity would be counterproductive to goal of keeping metabolism low.

If so, do you think this is a reason that athletes and runners tend to have such short life spans? It seems every other day you are hearing about such fit people keeling over in their 50s. Exercising so much = lotta energy = lotta eating = lower lifespan?


Those are a few questions I've had, I appreciate your presence on our forum and taking the time to educate us on CRON.

Speaking personally I think restricting calories is an important part of being healthy. As lovely as it would be that only carbs caused metabolic problems and poor health, in truth calories are an additional factor that cause many of the same problems carbohydrate does. I would think someone who eats an extremely high calorie low carb diet is not going to be as healthy as someone who eats a lower calorie higher carb diet. Of course both are better than SAD (high carb and high cal) but my point is both carbs and energy affect metabolism in similar, negative ways.

I just am not sure that eating an extremely calorie restricted diet is the way to go about things. Less is not always more. Probably, all that's necessary is restricting calories to obtain a low but normal weight (assuming otherwise good health e.g. no untreated metabolic problems that might cause weight loss resistance). Emaciating yourself and eating very low calorie relative to metabolic need is probably counterproductive, as this would induce a stress state that would not be good for health physically or psychologically.

Rosebud,
First I would like to point out that LC is not mutually exclusive with CR; in fact the majority of successful LC maintainers on our forum are also CR. So it is not appropriate for you to act like LC and CR are at odds when in fact they often segue together (CR people probably LC to increase nutrient density and decrease hunger.... those who start out LC are likely to eventually CR to improve health and/or weight status).

Doing weight watchers (or grapefruit diet, etc etc) is not doing CRON. Not that I support either weight watchers or CRON, just pointing out that restricting calories does not necessarily mean you were CRONing. The last 2 letters stand for optimal nutrition. If your weight watchers councilor was misinformed and told you that rice cakes and potatoes and pasta and puffed wheat were optimal nutrition, she was mistaken (and it may have contributed to your unfavorable experience with CR). CRing eating lots of high sugar/calorie but low nutrient (fat, protein, minerals & vitamins) food is going to be miserable for sure.

Like Lisa said, even if we DO assume there is no collective benefit to living longer (there is), it is in our personal best interest to live a longer life. We're here to be happy, ultimately, right? As long as my personal happiness does not impede what's best for us collectively, how is persuing it a wrong or wasteful goal?

You might say it's pointless narcissistic vanity but then again so are a lot of things. I would compare it to working out at the gym or weight loss dieting. You might say those things are not comparable because they improve reproductive status which is good for the collective, but then again is it not true that CRONing while of reproductive age could provide incentive to push harder DURING the "years that count" (because you see your life as more meaningful now that you perceive you have control over lifespan)?

Also, CRONers are likely to increase productivity. People who CR are likely to be among the higher echelons of humanity, since it takes both education and a high capacity to plan, self control, comittment & dedication to CRON for an appreciable amount of time. It would benefit us as a species to have our better members around longer, to create & produce more.

One thing I think is interesting is a lot of people seem to be saying "Why CR, just LC" as if the two were mutually exclusive diametrically opposed positions.

As I said earlier in the thread, LC often induces or provides a gateway for CR. In fact, the LC lifestyle itself is more often than not also a CR lifestyle, and virtually every member of this thread is practicing some form of CR by beginning their LC diet even if they never counted a calorie. Very very few people who start the LC lifestyle eat more calories than before, most of us eat less on LC and lose weight.

I think the real point of contention here is about the way the message is presented. The real issue is deprivation, and whether or not you perceive yourself as eating plentifully. LC says "eat eat eat" all you want of these few foods; and CR says "go ahead... if you wanna die early" . At the end of the day the LC group might be eating less calls than the person specifically CRing, ironically enough.
It's in the packaging of the message, how it's presented. I watched this thing on public television last night, about marketing. This guy came on and talked about how he got the estate tax removed, simply by convincing his rich buddies to rename it the death tax. He explained that when it was called the estate tax NO ONE wanted to get rid of it because it was associated with wealth (lets tax those rich bastards with estates!). However, once it was called the DEATH tax, suddenly everyone was overwhelmingly in favor of getting rid of this horrible thing.

I think we've got a similar thing going on in this thread. "Low carbohydrate high fat diets" conjure images of stuffing yourself with macadamia nuts, steaks, avocados, eating allll you want. "Calorie restriction" conjures images of a tiny plate with 3 leaves and someone very very hungry. In reality we're probably eating similar amounts, and our satiety levels (if CRON is done appropriately) are likely similar.

Another issue is how appropriate it is to credit the carbohydrate restriction specifically for our improvement in health. We've already established LC diets are also CR diets (MOST of the time). Sure many of the benefits are from reducing carbs... but maybe some are just from eating lower calorie? I know when I was eating much lower calorie my blood lipids were fantastic; in fact from personal observation I've noticed LCers who seem to be the healthiest lab test wise are usually the ones who are eating pretty low cal diets.
How can we tell which of our personal health benefits are from calorie restriction, and which are from carbohydrate restriction?
A related point, maybe calorie restriction is the reason those of us who get thin become so healthy... it's not so much a weight thing but a food intake thing? Thin people who are naturally thin (e.g. eating lots) aren't as healthy as those of us "unnaturally" thin (e.g. eating controlled amounts of less food).

Thats quite a bit to respond to, i'll make sure that I definitly post after I have some sleep! Thanks for contributing to the discussion! whatever view you have

Whoa, I'm curious to know what weight range you'd consider optimal for your height, age, activity level, etc. As you will see from my previous posts, I am not questioning your desire to follow the CRON program -- in fact, I admire your discipline and feel strongly that if one stays healthy, and is on the thin side of normal, it can increase longevity AND quality of life. (gory details in my previous posts)

But I know you've mentioned thinking you need to put back on a little weight (and I'd agree with this) so I wonder how someone following CRON does this. Do you strive for a certain BMI? Ideal body weight? These are, of course, simply medical calculations, and are used more for dosing purposes and calculating renal function, etc. But they are a good point of departure, I think. I know that I am using my IBW (which is 125) as a goal, and then I'll reassess when I get there.

One of the biggest challenges for anyone following a weight loss program is what to do when you get to your goal weight. "Maintenance" programs are tricky for me. It usually involves opening Pandora's box just slightly, and that's a tough proposition, whether it means adding more carbs (for those following a LC regimen) or adding more calories, or what have you. Sometimes strict programs are easier, at least in the short term. I do wonder what CRONers do at the point that they determine they are too thin, and either don't want to lose anymore, or actively want to put weight back on. Let me know what you think. Thanks much!

I think we low-carbers are hoping this is the real mojo behind CRON. My suspicion is it is a lot of the mojo, but not entirely.

This is called 'stacking the deck'. If you want your plan to look fabulous, compare it against the worst possible diet known. Whoa...anything would look good compared against the standard American diet.
OTOH, I'd really like to see how it stacks up against a low carb plan. I'd be willing to bet that the differences would be very slim, if any.



Of the 3 people I spoke of, none were smokers and one IS a doctor. All were healthy by any standards their whole lives and ate a diet that is far from what we see now...home grown produce, no junk food other than the occasional home baked cookie and plenty of exercise. They all lived to be older than average, but the quality of life once past that average lifespan diminished quicky. Sorry, Joan...I remain unconvinced that CR or living at the lower end of normal weight range is going to confer any particular protection to me against diseases of aging in my old age based on what I have observed. If you get the best of health care in combination with CR, then how do you determine which helped you live longer?

Then we'll agree to disagree, Lisa. I too have done a lot of observing, both in my own universe and in my clinical work, and I am very confident that chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis, HTN, dyslipidemia, heart disease, and type 2 DM are all worsened by being overweight. While I don't plan to become underweight (as per my earlier entries, I'd have to be <110 pounds for this to be true!) I do plan to be thin. And I plan to take very good care of this body of mine. That way, I can say I did everything I could to be healthy. Whether I'm healthy because I'm thin or I'm healthy because I have access to good health care will be irrelevant at that point. Living well is the goal. How we get there is up to us. I'm very happy and confident with my decisions. I feel GREAT since I've gotten thinner. No joint pain, HTN is gone, dyslipidemia gone, heart rate is down, don't get winded easily, fit in airplane seats, can shop anywhere for clothes...the list is endless. Yup, being thin is a very good thing indeed!!

I actually could see a play-off here between:

Team 1: CRON
Team 2: Low-carb, no grains/no dairy
Team 3: Generic Low Carb
Team 4: Standard American Diet

I think Team 1 would win, Team 2 would place 2nd and Team 3 would be 3rd and Team 4 would have been pushing up daisies for a long, long time.

1) My average calorie intake now is around 1800 calories a day, it was around 1600 but this is way too low for me and it will mean losing more weight if I kept on at that CR level. To get significant benefits a person would have to restrict their calories by 20% but even 10% is healthy. For the best results a man would have to eat around 1540k/cal a day and for a women 1,120 Calories, this is 30% Calorie Restriction but is also quite dangerous if you don’t get it right and long term data on humans isn’t available.

2)Side effects do come on more if I don’t exercise or if I have little sleep, but I feel that this is down to anxiety and so does my doctor. I’ve had anxiety since I was a kid. Recently I went for a temporary night job and I never seen daylight for almost 3weeks and had very little sleep because I also had college. This made me feel a bit down and have some anxiety including palpitations, which I’ve experienced even before CR. Since finishing the job I’ve got back onto my routine again and am feeling much better already and palpitations have gone.

Low Cholesterol and Anxiety link has been mentioned here and is this because people under stress don’t eat a lot and have poor diet? But if you eat healthy, get all required nutrients especially Omega 3, exercise and have low cholesterol, you will be fine? I don’t know… but I don’t think it’s as simple as earlier studies found. I also noticed that taking fish oil rather than flax oil improves my mood a lot! I did change to flax but it didn’t work that well, so am back on fish oil.

I sometimes get a bit dizzy if I get up too quickly, my blood pressure is usually around 95/60 which could be the cause.

My body temperature when I wake up is around 35.5 degrees Celsius consistently and never really goes above 36.6 after I eat. I do feel the cold more but it hasn’t really bothered me as I just turn up the heating  In the summer I should be able to handle the heat much better than before though (better heat tolerance).

You mention that you had dry skin/hair loss, poor quality nails. This is common among those with Zinc deficiency. You see when people lose weight or go on a low calorie diet they usually have impaired Calcium, Zinc, Iron absorption. On the Calorie Restriction Society Lists someone mentioned about some of these problems you experienced and it was found to be linked with a zinc deficiency, which was quickly alleviated by supplementing 15mg of zinc a day. A few people said they seen huge improvements in skin and nails within days. I have always supplemented, I’ll show you my daily supplement list below.

Sitting hurt because of thinness. I can live with this, I spend a few hours at the computer at home doing my work, online gaming or whatever, but luckily I paid 200 pound for a good quality chair! LoL. Seats without cushioning is annoying now

I was obsessed with food and very paranoid about it... well I don’t know how to read this properly. I wouldn’t say that I am paranoid about calories but I make sure that I don’t go below. I’ve never actually gone above the calorie limit I have set that often, and usually always fall short, so I have to get in the rest of the calories before the end of the day.

I think that it is important to have good ratios of Fat for absorption of nutrients, Protein to maintain muscle and decrease hunger and complex Carbs to keep me going. So I did buy expensive scales to weigh the food that I eat and input how much I eat into the program, one of the main reasons is to ensure that I am getting good nutrition and am not killing myself with all sorts of nutrient deficiencies. So to an extent I have to worry about the quality of my food, if I do happen to go over one day I don’t worry about it too much and I think that if it’s causing you physiological distress then that’s not good. Preparing meals now takes less than half hour for me.



As you might have noticed, some of the things associated with CR might be associated with an eating disorder, but CR is no eating disorder. People that do it are genuinely looking to improve health not make themselves suffer. A lot of people in CR have quite a relaxed approach and it doesn’t take over their lives too much. I still go out with friends to eat sometimes, not that I eat crap but because I eat so healthily I’m not too worried.

Is doing CR always a bad experience? Well the majority of people that I know who does CR enjoy the life style and its benefits. I know people that have been doing it for 2 years to 15 years and they are feeling good. I don’t know why you would have had a bad experience really, it’s hard to say. More people that do CR are eating low carb too. CR is about total calories and nothing to do with how much carbs you eat. You can have 60% of your calories coming from carbs and still end up with the same benefits in life extension and health.

So then do CR people also tend to avoid physical activity and exercise?Definitely not, most people doing CR do have some exercise but just limit it. One of the people on the lists is 6ft tall and weighs 115 lb’s and that is a BMI of 15.5? He started off skinny and like me is very much below the Recommended healthy BMI, but he’s been there for 9 years I think and hasn’t had any bad experiences, he also hasn’t been ill at all. He always gets a lot of blood taken to check that he is ok. He runs about 20 minutes every day and eats around 1800 calories a day!

I imagine the reason CR "works" is because metabolism produces toxic byproducts that cause aging, correct ? We still don’t know why calorie restriction works but we do know that the body goes into a survival state and certain genes turn on and some genes don’t get expressed etc.. but the body seems to put up it’s defenses against all sorts of diseases. Check out the cancer rates among CR’d Mice below:



In the end one must appreciate that CR is the only method to improve health and extend life in every animal tested. No other diet is proven to extend life, the simple fact is, it’s all about calories. I think doing low carb is good but the reason I don’t follow this is because it doesn’t extend life, which is what I’m going for. I’m confident that LC will increase average life span, but until it proves to extend maximum life span, I’ll stick to what 70 years of science says.

Low calorie would induce a stress state that would not be good for health physically or psychologically It’s thought that when an organism is under mild stress which is what CR does it toughens up the cells. Some of the latest research shows a little stress seems to be good for the body and mind.

How I ensure that I maintain good nutrition I take the following:

I take 50% of ESSENTIAL MIX

VITAMINS
Vitamin A
Retinol (Palmitate) ....................................150 mcg 500 IU 16.70%
Beta-carotene (natural (D. salina)) ...............6 mg 9990 IU 3330%
Vitamin B Complex
B1 (Thiamine) ............................................12 mg 1000%
B2 (Riboflavin) ...........................................13 mg 1000%
B3 (Niacin (as 63 mg Inositol Hexanicotinate))..50 mg 313%
B5 (d-Ca Pantothenate) ..............................100 mg 2000%
B6 (Pyridoxine) ..........................................17 mg 1000%
B12 (Cyanocobalamin) ................................24 mcg 1000%
Folic Acid .................................................. 800 mcg 400%
Biotin ....................................................... 300 mcg 1000%
Choline (from Bitartrate) ................................ 500 mg 36%
Inositol ...................................................... 100 mg
Vitamin C (as Magnesium Ascorbate) ................. 450 mg 500%
Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) .............................. 25 mcg 1000 IU 167%
Vitamin E Complex .......................................... 100 mg *
Tocopherols: .................................................. 90 mg
alpha-tocopherol ........................................... 15 mg 22 IU 186%
beta-tocopherol ........................................... 1.5 mg *
gamma-tocopherol ......................................... 52 mg *
delta-tocopherol ........................................... 22 mg *
Tocotrienols: .................................................. 10 mg
alpha-tocotrienol ............................................ 3 mg *
beta-tocotrienol ........................................... 0.1 mg *
gamma-tocotrienol .......................................... 6 mg *
delta-tocotrienol .......................................... 1.3 mg *
Phylloquinone ................................................ 80 mcg 67%

MINERALS
Boron (Citrate) .............................................. 1.8 mg *
Calcium (Citrate-Malate) ................................. 540 mg 54%
Chromium (Picolinate) ................................... 100 mcg *
Copper (Citrate) ............................................... 1 mg 111%
Iodine (Potassium Iodide) .............................. 150 mcg 100%
Magnesium (Aspartate, Oxide, Ascorbate) .......... 210 mg 50%
Manganese (Glycinate) ................................... 2.3 mg 100%
Molybdenum (Na Molybdate) ........................... 45 mcg 100%
Potassium (Chloride) ........................................ 99 mg *
Selenium (Se-Methylselenocysteine) ............... 200 mcg 364%
Silicon (Na Metasilicate) .................................. 50 mg *
Vanadium (Citrate) ........................................ 18 mcg *
Zinc (Citrate) ................................................ 11 mg 100%

Every other day I have Zinc/Copper Balance 15mg Zinc + 2mg Copper

Everyday:

Green Tea Extract 2 caps a day
Fish Oil
EPA Concentrate
Calcium and Vitamin D3 Supplement
500mg Vitamin C
Vinpocetine - Nootropic, protects the brain from free radicals and enhances memory and mood

I do enjoy your postings Whoa! Its very interesting stuff!

I feel that an optimal BMI would be a BMI of around 18 and that would be 115lb's for me. I did drop further than 110lb's to 107 where I thought that this is too much and I feel it is dangerous for me to go this low considering we don't have any long term data. So I did put up my calories and am aiming for around 112-115lb's which would put me at a bmi of 17.5 to 18 which I feel is safe.

I only run about 15-20 minutes 3x a week and go to gym on a sunday for 1hour to do weight bearing and resistance training. Just by doing short amounts of excersise keeps my fitness level to a good level.




For a person doing CR that is already skinny resuls in ultra skinniness unfortunatly, I know a person that never started off so skinnny and now two years later she still does CR and has a bmi of 19 and holding it with about 1200 calories a day. Originally I wanted to become huge with lots of weight training and stuff but then I educated myself in nutrition a bit and found CR. This changed my mind, for me its not about body image, it's about being healthy and doing CR is definitly going to mean I will be underweight with a bmi of probably around 17-18. I am scared to push it to far to be honest.

I do wonder what CRONers do at the point that they determine they are too thin, and either don't want to lose anymore, or actively want to put weight back on. Let me know what you think. Thanks much!

There are plenty of people on the CR list that feel they went to far and are trying to put weight back on, but slowly. When a person becomes really skinny they get the wrong perceptions from people, usually when people see a person that is really skinny and on CR, they believe he/she is sick. People in my family think I look ill but all tests show that I'm in very good health.

It's usually family that convinces more extreme CR'd people to gain more weight. Obviously because they are very worried, as my family are.


Matt

This is really close in calories to what I eat, which doesn't seem all that restrictive to me (today, I had sausage for breakfast, cheese soup and a roast beef & cheddar salad for lunch, some cashews as a snack, and ground beef in low carb tortillas for dinner). I can get that in at around 2000 kcal.

I keep a fitday journal, and there are days I get 1500 and others when I get 2200 or so, but the average is perhaps a smidge higher than yours. More of my calories come from fat than any other source, from protein secondarily, and a miniscule amount from carbs.

Thanks for the information. It doesn't seem like these two ways of eating are all that different, other than in the ratios. I have different goals than you -- to lose weight for now -- so the carb restricted approach works for that better than a straight reduction would.