Max: Starve To Live, Don't Live To Starve
The Extreme Calorie Restricted Diet
I’ve been starving for the past two months, actually, and that’s precisely what the party is about: My dinner guests—five successful urban professionals who for years have subsisted on a caloric intake the average sub-Saharan African would find austere—have been at it much, much longer, and I’ve invited them here to show me how it’s done. They are master practitioners of Calorie Restriction, a diet whose central, radical premise is that the less you eat, the longer you’ll live. Having taken this diet for a nine-week test drive, I’m hoping now for an up-close glimpse of what it means to go all the way. I want to find out what it looks, feels, and tastes like to commit to the ultimate in dietary trade-offs: a lifetime lived as close to the brink of starvation as your body can stand, in exchange for the promise of a life span longer than any human has ever known.
I’ve been starving for the past two months, actually, and that’s precisely what the party is about: My dinner guests—five successful urban professionals who for years have subsisted on a caloric intake the average sub-Saharan African would find austere—have been at it much, much longer, and I’ve invited them here to show me how it’s done. They are master practitioners of Calorie Restriction, a diet whose central, radical premise is that the less you eat, the longer you’ll live. Having taken this diet for a nine-week test drive, I’m hoping now for an up-close glimpse of what it means to go all the way. I want to find out what it looks, feels, and tastes like to commit to the ultimate in dietary trade-offs: a lifetime lived as close to the brink of starvation as your body can stand, in exchange for the promise of a life span longer than any human has ever known.
posted by Max Dobberstein at 10/24/2006 03:17:00 PM
2 Comments:
I've heard about this kind of thing in passing. It seems like an interesting idea.
The problem with this article is that the writer went to dinner with the front line fighters. In any revolution, the people on the cutting edge are, in a word, insane. They are extremeists, zealots. Be it computers, politics or health - the vanguard has to be completely devoted to their cause, thus a bit nutty.
Dr. Adkins was thought to be a total wack. Many still think he is, but millions of people have at least tried his diet, many have succeeded with it and just about everyone has heard about it. It took thirty years for Dr. Adkins to go from lunatic to leader in the eyes of the public.
CR has staying power, this is at least the third time I've heard about it in five years. It will eventually catch on at least with a portion of the population. I mean, after low-carb, what else can you do? Oh yeah! Throw out all your food!
I'm torn on this point. I have never had a healthy relationship with food. Frankly, I'd say I'm a food addict. At 475, and medical results after my recent albeit needless cardiac scare aside, most would agree I'm a tragic death waiting to happen.
I fear death, probably more than average, it's one of my few phobias and it began early in life. I frankly would do anything, kill anyone, take any risk, if I could be promised immortality. Sell my soul? Sign me up!
So, here is the opportunity. Reduce my caloric intake, get the biggest bang for my caloric buck, shed the pounds and live much longer. Now all I have to do to accomplish that is ignore all of my internal food related programing and break my food addicition - sigh ...
Many people feel that medical science is right around the corner from figuring it all out and allowing for human potential to finally flourish. Is the word "transhuman" new to you? Well, the funny thing is that if you are the average American, most Transhumanists would say that you are already transhuman. To be transhuman, you must be a combination of human and technology, leading a better life because of the technology you have implanted within you. You say you don't have technology implants? You aren't some kind of cyborg, right? Well .... ever had that laser eye surgery, or an artificial joint or implanted birth control (many Transhumanists say birth control in general) or, and here's the one that gets most of us, a vaccine? Then you have implanted technology! Welcome to the 19th century, Transhuman!
If the human race reaches the point of living longer, even cheating death, because of technology, it won't be just around the corner. It's probably too late for anyone out of their 20's. I'd like to kid myself and say I might have a shot, but seeing that my current lifestyle has me headed for the grave within the next 20 years, I'm doubting it. Walk into an old folks home, look at the few males, damned few of them are overweight.
Hmmm, carrots and kale and flax seed oil ... eternal life with bad food. I dunno ....
Give me good dinners and an average life span. To give up the normalcy of shared meals, and heaven forbid, food for energy, for 50 more years of unnatural deprivation is not the least bit tempting. We average 70+ years. That's not too shabby if we can be somewhat healthy and vibrant. If you can't take care of your business by then, you're probably not going to. Let's not be greedy. Fear of death aside, how much longer do you really want to live than everyone else you know and love.
And there's probably no chocolate, so to hell with them and their spooky willowy men!
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