[CRS_META] declined: crsociety - addressed off-list

[Tim C.]

This was forwarded to Bob off-list.
-Tim C.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Margie Goodstein" <m.goodstein at snet.net>
To: "The CR Society Main Discussion List" <cr at lists.calorierestriction.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: [CR] Newbie could use advice.


Hi Bob,

I am also new to this board.  Would you send me the excel spreadsheet?  I so
enjoyed reading your philosophy on CR.

Thanks so much.

-------Original Message-------

From: phillips at kcnet.com
Date: 04/18/07 15:59:44
To: cr at lists.calorierestriction.org
Subject: Re: [CR] Newbie could use advice.

Hi Kamilche,

First of all, welcome to CR!

I am a no-longer-overweight 59 year old male.  I switched to CR 3 years
ago and think it is the best way to eat there is. I intend to always
follow it.

>From Kamilche
> So - What I'm asking your help on, is devising a low calorie diet that
> will give me enough fat to keep my skin nice, but not the 'bad fats'
> that clog up your arteries. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

I have lots of suggestions.  I expect others will chime in also.  There
are an infinite number of approaches to CR because the only two rules say
nothing about what food you choose to eat:

Rule 1: get all your nutrition
Rule 2: cut your calories

Like you, I eat little meat, but there are others on this list on all of
the diets you have tried and others, but modified to meet the above two
rules.

I believe the most important thing to do at the start is to begin
following rule 1.  You should start tracking exactly what you eat and how
much of it.  I carry a scrap of paper around and shortly after I eat
something, I write it down.  At home, I generally weigh foods and note
that down.  At night, I enter the results in an Excel spreadsheet I have
programmed (be glad to send you a copy if you have a PC and are
comfortable with Excel).  There is also software available, including the
free Chron-O-Meter software

http://spaz.ca/cronometer/

Entering data takes about 15 minutes a day, but can be fascinating.

The software will tell you what % of your daily requirement you are
getting of your nutrients.  You will almost certainly find you are
abysmally low on some of them.

FINDING GOOD, NUTRITIOUS FOOD THAT YOU LIKE

If you are low in a nutrient(s), the following website has a great search
engine where you can enter nutrient(s) and it will list food that is high
in those nutrients for the calories:

www.nutritiondata.com

the search page is at:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/tools/nutrient-search

When you click on one of the foods and scroll down, you will find a
massive amount of info.  This is where you can find the foods that give
you what you need, and fit your preferences.  Since anything goes, it is
not a big deal to find something you like.

SUPPLEMENTS

Some, many actually, on this list are very comfortable with taking
supplements to make up for deficiencies.  I am not.  I believe you should
get as much of your nutrition as you possibly can from the food, not from
pills.  The reason I believe that is because humans are still largely
ignorant of what nutrients we actually need.  If you get the known
nutrients from pills, that is all you get, but if you get them from food,
then you also get unknown nutrients.

Having said that, if I am low in some nutrient - calcium, and Vitamin D in
the winter - I take a supplement to make up for it.  Those are the only
two I find myself low in. If you want/need supplements of any type, post
it to this list and I think some people know of some good deals.

The other food opinion I have which many on CR do not share is that you
should avoid all the artificial sweeteners.

>
> A final note - it's easier for me to skip meals entirely (or drink a
> canned meal like Slim Fast) than to have something unappetizing. I have
> a lot of willpower, but not much self control when my favorite foods are
> around. It's impossible for me to make a tasty dinner for my family and
> not have any myself.

We are alike on this.  One reason I like the spreadsheet is that it gives
me the average daily nutrition for the week.  I start anew each Saturday
morning and my goal is to have on average at least 90+% of required
nutrition for all vitamins and minerals by Friday night.  And to do this
on 1750 to 1850 calories a day.  When I am losing weight, I drop that to
1450 - 1550 calories a day.

BINGING FOR FUN

This averaging gives enormous flexibility, including the flexibility to
binge myself nearly to death.  For example, I made the mistake of going to
Wild Oats this last Saturday and shoveling from bulk into bags dried figs,
apricots, and pitted dates, which are my real weakness.  Then I ate them.

My calorie intake by the end of Saturday was 3,980 calories for the one
day.  I also ate baked sweet potato, spinach, broccoli, kippers, shiitake
Napa cabbage soup, Finlandia low fat Swiss cheese slices on 7 grain bread,
etc.

The difference between this binge and ones I might have taken before CR is
that the food I ate was all good for me nutritionally (although dried
fruit is not all that nutrient dense).  No artificial sweeteners, no high
fructose corn syrup, no garbage at all.

The other difference was that I knew exactly what I had eaten and how much
nutrition I had had.  So over the course of the next few days, I made sure
I cut calories way back and also ate those foods that were dense in
nutrients I needed.

As of today (Wednesday), I am at 1810 calories average for the week and
90+% nutrients across the board.  My average weight for the week is 131 (I
keep it between 130 and 135), but has varied from 129.4 to 133.8 this
week.

HOW MANY CALORIES TO EAT STARTING OUT

There are various formulas for this, but I don't buy into any of them,
other than as interesting to compare with my own experiences.

What I did when I began was to cut calories from around 2500 to 3000 back
to around 1400 to 1500.  Then I tracked my weight each day.  I averaged it
over the week, then did that from then on.  If my average weight fell more
than 2 lbs in a week, I upped the calories so that it fell less than 2 lbs
in a week.  When I had dropped 30 lbs from 160 to 130, I kept raising
calories until my weight stabilized, which turns out to be for me between
1750 and 1850 calories.  Although I walk, run, and exercise, I do not
bother at all with trying to take that into account when setting calorie
intake.  All I do is measure calories, nutrition, and weight, the rest
takes care of itself.

HEART DISEASE AND FAT

You mentioned concern about heart disease.  I recently read a book by
Esselstyn on preventing/curing heart disease, which argues for a 10% fat
diet.  His results matched Ornish's - people suffering from severe heart
disease showed major improvement upon switching to the low fat diet.  The
results were published in peer reviewed journals and I found them
persuasive.  But the studies were limited to less than 100 people total,
Esselstyn did not have control subjects, and Ornish included meditation,
stress reduction, and exercise as compounding factors.  On the other hand,
I have found studies what so ever that contradict their results that a
very low fat diet is the only known intervention to actually reverse heart
disease.

Perhaps some of the problems you had when you cut out fats was lack of
some other nutrients.

An example of why CR is so great - I had the information to immediately
modify my diet to get it down to 10% fat.  I also took the advice of those
on this list to make sure I was getting plenty of Omega 3.  On the other
hand, there are people on this list who are perfectly comfortable with up
to 50% fat in their diet.

None of us knows.

Except we all know that CR has more science behind it that any other diet
and really does make you healthier in very short order.

Welcome again to CR, best of luck,
Bob Phillips
Kansas
http://www.nbrhd.net/CR/CR.htm


>
> --Kamilche

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