Calorie Restriction
A few weeks ago, the Sunday SF Chronicle had an article on people who practice calorie restriction as a way of life. I’m sure you’ve read the hypothesis by now…scientists have found that if they feed lab mice 25% fewer calories than their recommended daily intake, the mice live longer. In people who practice calorie restriction, also consuming 25% fewer calories than their recommended daily intake, the health benefits are evident: lower bad cholesterol, higher good cholesterol, healthier arteries, and lower levels of triglycerides. Other benefits include very low blood sugar levels and a very high response to insulin, indicating a very low risk for diabetes.
So, if we take away many of the risk factors for death…heart attack, stroke, diabetes, etc., then there is a good chance that we will live longer, right?
So far, this pretty much just works on paper, but there aren’t enough people practicing, and they haven’t been practicing long enough, to know if it works in real life. The joke, of course, is that it only FEELS like you’re living longer, because you’re so miserable, due to being hungry all of the time.
The article interviewed several people in the Bay Area who practice this diet, which they call CRON – Calorie Restriction Optimal Nutrition, because if you’re eating 25% fewer calories every day, then every calorie you do eat has to really, really work for you. So no junk food would be allowed, clearly, and also no alcohol or other empty calories. Some proponents of the diet claimed to have increased energy, while others admitted to being hungry all of the time. So, the benefits were listed, above…what are the problems? According to one follower of CRON, they included the following:
Lowered libido, cold hands and feet, not being able to lift as much or work as vigorously in the garden (CR people debate the value of exercise, whether it adds to the need for calories and defeats the purpose of tricking the body into starvation mode), so little body fat that his mattress seems hard and his limbs go numb, blood pressure so low that he sometimes feels dizzy when he stands up suddenly.
The article mentions that about 80% of the people who practice CRON are men, and that, like any dieter, they think about food, nay, obsess about food, much of the time. Critics say that this is an eating disorder practiced in the open, which CRON proponents say is a major distinction. Eating disorders are about shame and hiding, while their practice is in the open, and is about being healthy.
I wonder…is tricking your body into starvation mode somehow ‘healthy’? It doesn’t SOUND healthy, does it? But perhaps the fact that until very recently, and to this day in much of the world, humans have had periods of feast and famine, has predisposed our bodies to perform optimally under such conditions? Could we have evolved to do well on fewer calories than are recommended? Or would the fact that humans are turning out taller than ever before say that we have adjusted quite well to having enough food?
One of the men interviewed said that he used to practice CRON, but eventually went onto a modified version of the diet, because he wanted to set a ‘healthy eating example’ for his kids, and because he enjoys being active and exercising, which he couldn’t do on the diet.
This whole thing seems crazy to me. It reeks of nothing so much as an eating disorder, albeit one that is conducted in the open. To force your body into starvation mode once in awhile might perhaps be acceptable (if you accept the premise that our ancestors lived that way, and perhaps there is a cleansing quality to the occasional fast, as many cultures and religions do), but to live that way constantly doesn’t seem to be healthy in the least. If you can’t be active and exercise, and you admit that it’s not setting a healthy eating example for your kids? If your limbs go numb when you’re sleeping, and your mattress feels too hard because you’re so thin? That doesn’t sound healthy to me at all.
12 Comments
ML
Doesn’t sound that way to me either. Eat well-balanced, healthy meals, have a treat once in a while, exercise, take your vitamins and all will be well.
Seems a lot of people want to anything else but eat right and exercise such as taking pills, starve, etc.
Gina
I think it is an eating disorder, where, as you said, food is obsessed over. Supposedly they use these little scales to weigh all of their food, and it just sounds too over the top for me.
Moderation in all things.
Py Korry
I know Indians of the Northeast used to practice something called “starving time” during the winter, but that was borne out of the fact that there wasn’t too much food around in the 1600s. But to do this all the time? Man oh man, “ED” (as in “Eating Disorder)…big time ED going on there.
lalunas
Also when you are underweight you are more suspectable to every cold and flu bug out there.
Beenzzz
I’m so sick of diets that require you to deprive yourself. WTF is up with that? Do I look like I come from the middle ages? I mean what next? Self flagellation in order to lose weight? UGH! I agree that everything in moderation is the key.
kookiejar
I’m dubious of the whole notion that there is one fixed number of calories that everyone needs to attain daily. Everybody is different physically and have different lifestyles and recently I’ve read that not all calories are exactly the same, either. It just all seems so random. It’s really no wonder that people are so screwed up about food.
Maya's Granny
This is shear nonsense. People who are considered overweight by the BMI tables live longer than people who aren’t, and even longer than people who are lower. Fat protects you when you get sick. People are getting fatter and they are living longer — and there is a connection.
According to Sandy Szwarc of Junkfood Science, “The protective effect of body fat is even seen among people with hypertension, said Dr. Ernsberger, with most studies reporting lower mortality in fat hypertensives than in lean ones. As much as five times difference. The hypertension seen in fat people differs in several says from ordinary essential hypertensin, he said. “Plasma volume and cardiac output are increased while total peripheral resistance is unchanged, in marked contrast to the contracted plasma volume and elevated peripheral resistance characteristic of nonobese essential hypertension.†They have normal stroke volumes and don’t have the elevated peripheral resistance of thinner hypertensives, which compromises blood flow to vital organs such as the kidneys. These differences may be part of the reason why fat people appear to have improved survival of cardiovascular disease.”
If there is a difference in what hypertension means to a fat and a thin body, it may be the same with all the other measures as well. And, elsewhere Sandy has said that the common risk-factors have not been proven to be causitive. Perhaps these people are depriving themselves like this in order to die earlier of something they could easily have survived had they not done it.
Starshine
If your diet doesn’t allow you enough energy to be active or exercise, that’s not healthy at all!
Cherry
A lifestyle which lowers your libido?
How is that good?
and “he sometimes feels dizzy when he stands up suddenly” Where is the benefit again?
I’m not saying that I have great eating habits so I don’t have much room to talk, but to deprive yourself of feeling strong isn’t healthy.
Jess
I remember reading about this phenomenon. “That sounds neat,” I thought, shoveling Doritos into my mouth.
All kidding aside, this sounds like a hell-on-earth diet. Sure you might live longer, but that just means you’ll be MISERABLE that much longer, too, daydreaming about panini sandwiches and baklava, having dizzy spells whenever you get up, wearing ugly heated slippers, having the sex drive of a roll of tape…no thanks.
sognatrice
I actually think this is a pretty bad thing to encourage. For those who already don’t eat enough, it gives them some scientific proof to back them up–and for those who could stand to eat less (but not be hungry all the time) it makes it seem that much harder.
I think I’d be willing to sacrifice a few years of “life” to not be hungry all the time (and I’m sure I’d be one of those)!
ally bean
This is very weird and warped. Voluntarily starving yourself to death– whether it is in the open or in private– is not healthy. Very strange.