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CR dieting

Suezoled

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S
Joined
Sep 20, 2003
Messages
4,477
Calorie Restriction:

It's the new diet: 1200 calories a day for a full grown man. I guess one way you know it's working? You're hungry all the time. But it's supposedly supposed to extend your life, or at least you feel like you're living longer.

Rats that were fed a restricted calorie diet, on average, lived longer than a rat fed a regular diet.
Other points:
exercise is supposedly bad for a CR dieter.
increased depression episodes are known to occur
lower energy levels

We're all back to counting calories then? CR's do advocate fruits and veggies, though, not just a Big Mac a day.
 
Suezoled said:
Calorie Restriction:

It's the new diet: 1200 calories a day for a full grown man. I guess one way you know it's working? You're hungry all the time. But it's supposedly supposed to extend your life, or at least you feel like you're living longer.

Rats that were fed a restricted calorie diet, on average, lived longer than a rat fed a regular diet.
Other points:
exercise is supposedly bad for a CR dieter.
increased depression episodes are known to occur
lower energy levels
Click to expand...

These are funny points. Yes, I suspect exercise is bad. You aren't getting enough food, best conserve energy by sitting around doing nothing. If you are exercising without getting food, you are really taxing the bod.

Increased depression? Probably from the hunger pains.

Lower energy levels? No sh!t.
 
Diogenes said:
Isn't this how all effective weight reduction diets work?
Click to expand...

True, but this diet is not about reducing weight. Based on animal studies, it is proposed that people on this diet will live substantially longer than people on higher calorie diets. But it has not been proven, and there are "quality of life" concerns as well. No one knows if there are other health concerns from long term use of such a diet. Nevertheless, there are people who have committed to such a regimine. Time will tell...
 
I'd far rather live for a shorter time, enjoy my food and be generally happy!

edited for obviously stupid mistake!
 
IIRC, experiments in primates have corroborated the rodent results.
 
You might want to look into The Hacker's Diet. It uses careful monitoring of Calorie-intake and Calorie burning [by tracking weight] to let you balance them. I'm kind of wary of that flat 1200 Cal/day figure, because I remember it from this. You can roughly cut your intake to half of your burn rate and not expect to, you know, /die/. The remainder is made up from your internal stores. So if you're an adult male burning 2400 Cal/day, you can live off of 1200.
The part I'd like clarification on is, can you still live off 1200 Cal/day once you've used up all your fat reserves? I can't imagine your burn rate suddenly dropping to have, so the only thing I can imagine is that you'd start turning into WW2-prisoners-of-war, slowly /almost/ starving to death as your body feeds off itself.
Wouldn't it be better to get down to almost-no body fat, and then just keep your intake/outgo balanced? Or does a 'restricted Calorie diet' actually mean forcing your body to burn fewer Calories than it would if you were well fed?
 
Heart failure has also been an unfortunate side effect of CR dieting if you don't know how to do so properly.
 
(S) said:
Or does a 'restricted Calorie diet' actually mean forcing your body to burn fewer Calories than it would if you were well fed?
Click to expand...

Yes, Basal Metabolic Rate drops significantly if you cut calories more than about 1000 below maintenance. You have to drop your BMR by eating really low calories for a few weeks and then eat at maintenance. And here lies the whole idea: you burn fewer calories -> fewer free radicals & other byproducts -> slower aging.
 
Can you build & maintain any significant muscle mass while restricting your calories, or do you basically have to choose between being a sexay 180-lb slab of muscle and a 98-lb guy who might live to 110 or 120?
 
(S) said:
Can you build & maintain any significant muscle mass while restricting your calories, or do you basically have to choose between being a sexay 180-lb slab of muscle and a 98-lb guy who might live to 110 or 120?
Click to expand...

From what little I have seen so far, a successful CR dieter looks like a clothes hanger being worn by clothing, not the other way around.
 
(S) said:
Can you build & maintain any significant muscle mass while restricting your calories, or do you basically have to choose between being a sexay 180-lb slab of muscle and a 98-lb guy who might live to 110 or 120?
Click to expand...

You can't, because building and maintaining muscle above your genetic default requires the exact opposite: To increase your metabolism.

If you're going for life extension you will not necessarily be a 98-lb guy, you may be a naturally muscular person on maintenance. Depends on a lot of things.
 
Meh, I think I'll stick to non-reduced diets. I like having extra Calories to throw around. But to all you scientists in medical-related fields, I expect you to make significant progress in clinical immortality in the next fifty years.
 
1200 CALS------Thats just about what's in ONE of those little pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. That's supposed to be 4 servings----but nobody really does that.

I'll take the shortened life span......................
 
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