Do you feel bombarded by the amount of diets and other weight loss plans out there? I do. Perhaps even more annoying than hearing about the endless diets is the constant reminder of the real problem: the obsession with being thin, a ridiculous media-driven standard that few can reach. Personally, weight issues are something that I have struggled with and still affect me today. When mealtime rolls around I weigh my options for what’s healthy, fast and not going to leave me hungry. Unfortunately, the hunger issue is what plagues me the most.
I feel good making healthy choices, but I find myself drinking bottle after bottle of water to fill me up. Why? Because I’m constantly hungry! It may be a form of self-torture, but I find myself doing this day after day in a somewhat successful battle to fight the bulge.
I know what you’re thinking. Eat enough food so that you’re not hungry; just work it off! Look at Michael Phelps who eats around 10,000 calories a day. Without rigorous physical activity, he’d probably be morbidly obese, yet the laps in the pool keep him more ripped than ever.
You’d be right. Exercise is the best answer for most, but there is a relatively small number of people out there that wish to maintain a very low calorie diet for a different reason: life extension.
Recently, when doing research on longevity, I came across an interesting body of data on what is called the ‘CR or Calorie Restriction Diet.’
What is that? It means what it sounds like (reducing your calorie intake), but it’s not for the reason you might think. CR is a diet that aims to improve health and slow the aging process by limiting dietary energy intake (calories).
The CR Diet’s goals lay in extending life, not shedding pounds. However, losing weight is a result when you ascribe to this dietary regime. After pages of repetitive information, I found myself at the homepage for the ‘Calorie Restriction Society.’ Initially, I was intrigued that this type of lifestyle existed and they were organized! The website is user friendly and provides bite-sized information for guests to swallow, but there was not real meat to the argument.
Calorie restriction has been proven to extend life in mice and rats….but humans? Currently, there is no real substantive evidence that convinces me that it will work for people or will do any good to people’s well-being.
I don’t want to discredit the society or group of data they have collected, because it could work. However, whether it’s true or not it sounds awfully similar to anorexia nervosa. Although the goals differ, the means seem to be the same:. It would be very interesting to see if data does come up that proves this to be a healthy way to live, but it really just sounds like a society of hungry people. The CR diet sounded promising at first sight, but it only reminded me of my own dieting practices and how they make me feel ravenous and miserable. Maybe the answer is to just live life as best we can and…well…..eat something.
Brent Paxton is a senior international relations and political science double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
