41 replies to this topic

[lunarsolarpower]

If anything, these posts make me wanna lower my thyroid hormone so that I can keep more weight on with less calories! I don't want to be at ultra low weights -- I can't control if I am unlucky enough to get sick, and I'd like some muscle mass and fat weight to support me if I do.

Interesting idea, when do the monkey trials start?

[VespeneGas]

The whole idea of this thread does not address the simple point of caloric restriction. Calories matter no matter what ending weight you are. If you are 6'5 and have and have an ultra lean 3% body fat percentage on 2400 calories a day, a person who is 4'10 with 110 pounds and 10% body fat with a diet of 1600 calories a day is absolutely experiencing less metabolic stress. These figures are not exact, I am just trying to show an example of what I'm talking about. Whatever supposed benefits come from the 1st persons CRON activities, the 2nd person is in a better position to live longer regardless of what you think about CRON.

If anything, these posts make me wanna lower my thyroid hormone so that I can keep more weight on with less calories! I don't want to be at ultra low weights -- I can't control if I am unlucky enough to get sick, and I'd like some muscle mass and fat weight to support me if I do. This doesn't mean I can eat whatever I want, or be fat, you have to keep your membranes saturated and sugar intake extremely low (to live longer).

I don't think this is true. This would mean that if your 4'10" individual started eating above their daily caloric requirements, lets say 2200 kcals/day, and achieved a 25% body fat percentage, they would be under "less metabolic stress" than your 2400 kcal/day tall CR practitioner, and live longer. This of course isn't true; the short person would probably get type II diabetes and heart disease, dying prematurely, while your CR practitioner, with low inflammation, low LDL, high HDL, etc etc would probably live to a ripe old age.

IIRC what matters is the percent reduction in calories from ad libitum intake. By extension then, if both of those hypothetical individuals individuals were eating ad libitum at 3% and 10% bf respectively, the 10% short person could safely reduce their calories, while the tall person could not, so naturally high body fat does act as a buffer allowing deeper CR.

[Matt]

you know, the fatter the CR mouse, the longer it lives?

[ajnast4r]

1% is too lean IMO. 3% is ideal.

3% is dangerously low and no health person would wanna be very close to that

[HaloTeK]

The whole idea of this thread does not address the simple point of caloric restriction. Calories matter no matter what ending weight you are. If you are 6'5 and have and have an ultra lean 3% body fat percentage on 2400 calories a day, a person who is 4'10 with 110 pounds and 10% body fat with a diet of 1600 calories a day is absolutely experiencing less metabolic stress. These figures are not exact, I am just trying to show an example of what I'm talking about. Whatever supposed benefits come from the 1st persons CRON activities, the 2nd person is in a better position to live longer regardless of what you think about CRON.

If anything, these posts make me wanna lower my thyroid hormone so that I can keep more weight on with less calories! I don't want to be at ultra low weights -- I can't control if I am unlucky enough to get sick, and I'd like some muscle mass and fat weight to support me if I do. This doesn't mean I can eat whatever I want, or be fat, you have to keep your membranes saturated and sugar intake extremely low (to live longer).

I don't think this is true. This would mean that if your 4'10" individual started eating above their daily caloric requirements, lets say 2200 kcals/day, and achieved a 25% body fat percentage, they would be under "less metabolic stress" than your 2400 kcal/day tall CR practitioner, and live longer. This of course isn't true; the short person would probably get type II diabetes and heart disease, dying prematurely, while your CR practitioner, with low inflammation, low LDL, high HDL, etc etc would probably live to a ripe old age.

IIRC what matters is the percent reduction in calories from ad libitum intake. By extension then, if both of those hypothetical individuals individuals were eating ad libitum at 3% and 10% bf respectively, the 10% short person could safely reduce their calories, while the tall person could not, so naturally high body fat does act as a buffer allowing deeper CR.

OK, i disagree with you too. Of course i'm not talking about someone who is overweight -- so as long as the person who is 4'10 is not overweight or exhibiting signs of metabolic dysfunction, if they eat less calories than the guy who is ultra ripped -- overall, I feel the person who eats less calories has the advantage no matter the difference is body fat percentage.

I'd like someone to prove me wrong. I think that what I am saying is usually grossly overlooked by many CR enthusiasts.

Edited by HaloTeK, 19 December 2009 - 02:34 AM.

[niner]

I'd like someone to prove me wrong. I think that what I am saying is usually grossly overlooked by many CR enthusiasts.

I don't think I can prove you wrong, but I might be able to explain it in a way that makes sense. The thing that makes CR work is having the body in a "simulated starvation" state. If the 4'10" guy doesn't trick his metabolism into thinking he is starving, but the tall guy does, then the tall guy is doing CR and will get the benefits and the short guy will not. This will be the case regardless of the actual number of calories it takes to put them in the simulated starvation state. It's not that more Calories = more stress, or at least that's not the most important factor; it's tricking your metabolism into thinking that food is scarce that is the important thing.

[HaloTeK]

I'd like someone to prove me wrong. I think that what I am saying is usually grossly overlooked by many CR enthusiasts.

I don't think I can prove you wrong, but I might be able to explain it in a way that makes sense. The thing that makes CR work is having the body in a "simulated starvation" state. If the 4'10" guy doesn't trick his metabolism into thinking he is starving, but the tall guy does, then the tall guy is doing CR and will get the benefits and the short guy will not. This will be the case regardless of the actual number of calories it takes to put them in the simulated starvation state. It's not that more Calories = more stress, or at least that's not the most important factor; it's tricking your metabolism into thinking that food is scarce that is the important thing.

What i am saying is -- i don't believe the CR effect is as important as calories here. That's what I wanted to be proved wrong about -- I don't think you have to be significantly stressed to benefit from lesser calories.

It's hard to determine what I am saying from looking at animals -- almost all anabolic hormones would be different no matter what for the 4'10 vs 6'4 person. Most monkeys are about the same size.

[niner]

What i am saying is -- i don't believe the CR effect is as important as calories here.

Why not? If, for the sake of argument, you have persons A and B, and B is 50% larger than A, and all his organs are 50% larger, what difference does it make if he eats 50% more calories? Where does the harm come from? On the other hand, CR is all about simulated starvation. Without that, it's not CR, and there will not be a CR benefit. That is solid science; no one that I know of questions that.

[Saintor]

Munzer

For the record, the link that you put say; "Münzer died of complications due to the enormous number and combinations of weight training supplements he used while competing. After months of stomach pains, he was admitted to a hospital on the morning of March 12. By 7 pm, doctors had decided to operate to stop bleeding in his stomach, but shortly afterwards his liver and kidneys failed. Münzer refused a blood transfusion, and died on the morning of March 13 at the age of 31."

Not necessarily because of low body fat, we can conclude

[1kgcoffee]

I don't understand why this thread is rated so low. The OP makes a very good point. Physiological changes start to happen after body composition improves and you become leaner. If you're fat in dangerous areas and start CRON (or some other health kick), you'll improve slowly, but it'll take time, probably years, before you notice consistently higher functioning. Fat needs to be redistributed, the chemistry needs to balance, cells need to be replaced and the body needs to rejuvenate itself and adapt. I'm not sure exactly what happens or how it happens, but I know from my own health journey that you don't go from feeling like crap to feeling amazing after just one month.

I'm at 12%bf right now, but body composition is much better than when I was at 8%, and so is health. I think the location of the fat is just as important as how much. Too little in the wrong places can be very negative.

[Brain_Ischemia]

Your fat mouse so-called counterexample was interesting Michael when applied to laboratory evolved rodents but was unremarkable when applied to human physiology.

Thanks for pointing that out. Seems a double-standard considering Michael's comments in the past about the "worthlessness" of studies done on rodents with induced tumorigenesis and racked with cancers.

Nobody's immune to cherry-picking to support their own long-standing conclusions, no matter how well-founded those conclusions might otherwise be.

There's plenty of cherry-picking (almost to the point of evoking 19th century medicine show style pseudoscience) by some of the most prominent members of this forum....though, to be clear, the vast majority of that cherry-picking seems to come from the high-protein/high-Saturated Fats/high-meat Paleo crowd and not the CR crowd....at least that's what it looks like from where I'm standing...

BTW,
A general tip for those new to CR who might be perusing the forums:
It's tough to sift through the bias here but it's usually not a good idea to believe what you read in a post if that post has completely unsubstantiated declarative statements made with the CAPSLOCK key on and no links to any published medical research whatsoever.

Edited by Xanthus, 12 February 2010 - 08:01 PM.

[neue regel]

3% and 5% are nuts. Except if you are Bruce Lee.

But seriously, 10-12% is the most ideal case for me.

Simple fact for the 2%-3% nutcases :

Just think that your brain is 70% fat, which about 1 kg,
so about 1.2-2% in most people. And this is just for the brain.

Also consider fat as a heat insulator, if you live about 50 degrees latitude.

DHA & EPA ftw!!

Edited by neue regel, 20 February 2010 - 01:49 PM.