Basic Principles

From CRSWiki

The basic principle of calorie restriction (CR) is to reduce the total number of calories consumed, while continuing to get all of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients which the body needs. CR practitioners believe that this will slow down the aging process, dramatically increase their lifespan, and improve their physical and mental health as they age.

CR does increase the lifespan of laboratory animals. These animals exhibit better cognitive function than fully fed animals in old age, and they are less prone to cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. As of this writing, no other therapy is known to produce a comparable increase in the lifespan of higher animals.

Dr. Roy Walford (author of "beyond the 120 year diet", etc.) recommends starting a CR diet when a person is fully grown, and when not pregnant or nursing. Calories must be reduced gradually, over a long period of months or years. If calories are reduced suddenly, the CR effect will not take place.

In order to get full nutrition with reduced calories, practitioners concentrate on foods which are “nutrient dense”, which means foods that pack a lot of nutrients in a small number of calories. In practice, this usually means eating a lot of vegetables. Practitioners strive to eliminate “empty calories”, foods like sugar and white bread which have little nutritive value.

Most practitioners use a computer program to track all of their nutrients, and their caloric intake. Several such programs are available free of charge. One can be found at http://www.nutritiondata.com/ .