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