My Foodie Ways

I noticed over the 5+ years of restricting my calories/fasting that the more specific I am about goals for CR, like meeting a definite number of calories per day, the more I overly focus on CR and, paradoxically, I stop finding it easy to do and fail to reach my usual target. Instead, I have a range of calories that I'm comfortable with with no real specific target. If I eat more than my comfortable range though, I mentally calculate the next day about how much I should eat to get the calories to even out (even out to what though? I usually calculate to a 1400 calorie average). The amazing thing about doing it this way is that it's not a mistake, it's an opportunity, because extra lean days seem to have way more health benefits than eating the same number of calories every day than averaging that amount over two days, with one day being as close to fasting as possible. This upregulates several important genetic pathways that make the brain resistant to excitotoxic stress and other toxic damage. It also gives your body a break from glucose and insulin. The only thing I have a problem with is making sure my glucose doesn't go too low; hypoglycemia can cause excitotoxic neuronal death! I haven't been as vigilant as a I should about this. I believe all CRONies should invest in a blood glucose monitor, and that it should even be a higher priority than a food scale.

I love that I used to consider feast-famine days as a way to correct my mistake, when in fact it ended up an even more desirable behavior in terms of health benefits! Sometimes life surprises you with good news.... So now I don't stress about calorie numbers whatsoever. I eat anywhere from 1300-1550 calories a day, though a bit less than that range the day after I eat more than 1450.

Since my CR is flexible, I don't spend much time thinking about food as a result, and I'm not ever disappointed with how a day "went" in terms of food, because it's always an opportunity to do an extra-low calorie day tomorrow, or even a fast.

Probably the only inflexible thing about my culinary life is that I don't eat animal protein if I can help it, a habit that luckily preceded the research showing that the majority of CR's benefit is in restricting that one macronutrient group. For protein, I eat legumes, nuts, and sometimes seeds. I also try to avoid excess vitamin A, copper, and manganese, while maximizing folate and other B vitamins, though I don't obsess over micronutrient intake. I do my best to eat a variety of foods, with an emphasis on veggies, whole grains, and legumes.

I noticed that the more fruit I eat, the hungrier I get and the more sweet stuff I want (most likely due to the effects fructose has on leptin, which can induce a temporary insulin-resistant state), so I try to save the fruit for later in the day when it can't influence all my food choices at other meals. This also has the benefit of minimizing AGEs, or advanced glycation end products, which fructose can induce.