Anyone here doing calorie restriction? What are your thoughts / experience with it? What about intermittent fasting? Same or greater potential benefits without the weight loss? I know there are people who practice CR -- is there anyone who does IF though? One potential difficulty with IF and raw food could be that it would be difficult to get in enough calories on the free-feeding days.

Experiences, thoughts, latest research would be appreciated.

[en.wikipedia.org]

Thanks.

Do a board search on Fontana to see the diffs between CR and raw food.

There hasn't been as much attention in the lit for intermittent fasting.

But I suppose you could combine any two of the three for better benefits: meet your RDAs for all vitamins, minerals, essential fats, and essential aminos on high raw while practicing either mild CR or intermittent fasting. Exercise is also beneficial.

I do about 80% raw and about 20% CR (if BMI 22 is the baseline for ad lib). But, nobody knows how to calculate percent of CR in humans yet. BMI is only a very crude estimate.

I think intermittent fasting would be very hard to do with certain types of jobs. It's too difficult for me: I love to eat.

I think CR is an awesome concept. It takes tremendous discipline though, more so than it takes to be raw (for me anyway).

I will get more into CR at some point, the point when it starts feeling natural and I find a system for maintaining happiness and body weight while eating less.

Probably most people doing CR wouldn't be posting on a board like this. By the point I feel ready to do such a thing I will probably have lost most interest in nutrition (having found a system that works well for me) and will be focusing on more important things in life.

If you're a somewhat lost person (I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean it as in - you are still searching, not stable, not settled) I think it will be more difficult. If you are more focused and secure in yourself and disciplined and driven it will be much, much easier. On days where I am focused on more important things it is much easier to eat less and eat more balanced.

>It takes tremendous discipline though,

No, it doesn't. It wouldn't be that hard for you if you could force yourself to eat more plant matter (leaves, specifically). You can download the free cron-o-meter and play with it for about two days and you'll see which foods contain what. And then it will be stuck in your head. Try to get as much as you can from foods, supplement with the rest.

[spaz.ca]

It uses the USDA nutrient database. It's really easy to use.

You will also need java to use it.

[www.java.com]

You don't have to starve yourself, either, no BMI of 16 or any of that nonsense. That is not good for your bones or your mental health.

Mild methionine restriction works pretty well, too, and it might even work as well as calorie restriction and be easier to stick with, but that's more of a vegan thing, not even intentionally, because the highest methionine source foods tend to be the ones that come from animals.

For most people, arugla, it takes a lot of discipline. I'd imagine 90% of the folks here or more had to get at least somewhat sick before making dietary changes or even being interested in them. Unless of course, they had health food freak parents.

I think discipline is only really needed when there is little or no desire.

Funnily enough, I'm often told I "must have lots of discipline", but truth be told I don't, I don't like discipline and generally avoid anything that requires discipline. But with patients and desire, anything can be done.

The 90% of the folks you imagine here who didn't make diet changes until after they saw health degradation or sickness, they did make the changes when got the desire to. Everybody's different of course, somethings that didn't work for you might work very well of others.

Love,
Ian.