From the CR Soc. Archives: On CR by the fasting method
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 16:50:45 +1000 (EST)
From: Peter Merel
Message-Id: <199504290650.QAA26496@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>
Subject: Re: All-you-can-eat CR
To: crsociety@chunks.csn.net
Brian Delaney writes,
>Pete- Hope everything's going well w/your every-other-day
>(approx'ly) eating.
So far, very good. I'm feeling sturdy, not very hungry on
the non-eating days, and generally in the pink. I've lost maybe
20 pounds over the last six months, but I attribute that to descending
a little too quickly - I seem to be maintaining my weight now while still
lowering my calorie intake.
>When I was doing my fasting-every-three-days method of CR, I
>would eat a total of around 120 Cals/day on the "fasting"
>days, usually in the form of a rice cake (~50-60 Cals) and a
>gulp or two of soymilk. This got me a bit of fiber, some
>essential FAs (maybe too high an n-6:n-3 ratio, but that's
>no prob from the "global" standpoint -- FAs "hang around"
>for a while), etc. But it's probably easier to bring a few
>peanuts to work in the morning....
Yes, and the salt makes them rather more satisfying than a rice cake. I also
find that it is pretty good to keep my stomach empty for as long as I can on
a fasting day - once I eat something with significant fibre my stomach seems
to remember what it's there for, and then I get very hungry.
>But, as far as health goes (i.e., the gnawing hunger issue
>aside), I think the important thing would be supplements,
>esp. mineral supplements.
On the fasting days I'm using two or three tablets of BioGlan's "Organic
Mineral Formula", each of which contains the following according to the
wrapper:
100mg Calcium Orotate (10mg elemental calcium)
100mg Calcium Amino Acid Chelate (20mg elemental calcium)
100mg Magnesium Amino Acid Chelate (20mg elemental magnesium)
80mg Potassium Amino Acid Complex (16mg elemental potassium)
25mg Zinc amino acid chelate (5mg elemental zinc)
25mg Manganese amino acid chelate (2.5mg elemental manganese)
250ug Chromium amino acid chelate (5ug elemental chromium)
52ug Potassium Iodide (40ug elemental iodine)
467ug Sodium Molybdate (214ug elemental Molybdenum)
In addition to this, every day I take a multivitamin (Macro M) that is
supposed to contain the following minerals:
5mg Iron (as ferrous fumarate)
40mg Calcium
5mg Zinc
5mg Potassium
6mg Magnesium
0.15mg Iodine
1mg copper
1mg manganese
I also hit the green tea pretty hard ...
>I've said this before, but: keep in mind that CR via fasting
>every 2, 3 or 4 days hasn't been researched nearly as
>thoroughly as the "standard" CR method. I still think it's a
>safe bet (and it has its advantages in terms of
>hunger-control, as we discussed on Sci.life-extension), but
>you might want to give the standard CR a try before relying
>on fasting.
My reason for doing this by fasting is that I wouldn't be willing to do it
the usual way. I enjoy rich food and plentiful food - I'd rather lose 30 years
than do without it. However this way I can both have my cake and not eat it :-)
>Maybe you have already? Also, "ease into" the
>fasting -- there was one study that showed that a sudden
>switch to periodic fasting in adulthood _shortened_ life
>span (no surprise -- it's probably just like suddenly
>switching to the normal CR in adulthood, which we know can
>be detrimental), at least for one species in the study.
I'm trying to descend into it over about a year. I started last november, and
six months later I'm down to 10 peanuts and a vegetarian dinner on non-eating
days. Over the next six months I intend to scale the dinner down to a couple
more peanuts.
>Pete, if you got some biomarkers tested before starting CR,
>you could at least get some rough sense-- quite easily -- of
>whether your method of CR iw working for you. Even w/o
>pre-CR stats, you could just go in and do a quick fasting
>glucose test, or a glucose tolerance test. It's not too
>expensive, and it might be helpful. Just compare your
>numbers w/normal stats (or do it again in a year, etc..) It
>wouldn't say whether some "bad" things weren't happening,
>but it would say whether a "good" thing was happening. Try
>doing it on a fasting day, and again on an eating day (the
>morning after a fast, and the morning after a "feed" --
>you'll be fasting overnight either way).
I'll ask my GP about it. I'm a little reticent to discuss CR with him, because
I suspect he'll dismiss it out of hand, so maybe I'll go hit medline before I
approach him ...
Pete.
