Longevity Diet: Discover Calorie Restriction--the Only Proven Way to Slow the Aging Process and Maintain Peak Vitality
by: Delaney and Walford
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Reviews:
This book complements Doctor Roy Walford's books very nicely. The basic idea is that, by designing a diet which is lower in calories, but adequate in vitamins, minerals, etc., you can live a lot longer. Dr. Walfords books introduce the idea, explain the evidence for believing that it will work, and tell you how to get started on such a diet. His books tend to be a bit technical, though very well written. You should at least read "The Anti-Aging Plan" by Roy and Lisa Walford before jumping into "The Longevity Diet." "The Longevity Diet" isn't just a rehash of Dr. Walford's work. The authors' discuss the human, nontechnical side of the plan. How do you change your eating habits? How do you deal with cravings for ice cream, or social situations where you are expected to feast with others? One of the recommendations involves keeping a diary of what you eat, and what situations make you over-eat, so that you can plan strategies to overcome them. You also use the food diary to count your calories, and nutrition. They cover a number of other topics, introducing some recent developments, such as the ORAC index of foods, which tells you which foods are the best anti-oxidants (Blueberries), and the idea of energy density, which has to do with eating foods which have few calories in a large volume of food. Other topics include Exercise, Relaxation techniques, major Theories of Aging, and the balance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. For those who don't know, here's a synopsis of the CR (Calorie Restriction) movement: In the 1930's, some researchers at Cornell discovered, by accident, that if you feed mice less than the normal amount, they live A LOT longer. Further research indicated that if you feed them a diet very low in calories, but with complete nutrition (vitamins, minerals, etc.), the mice can live EVEN LONGER. In the most extreme situations, they can almost double the life span of mice. Later, scientist started looking for a way to make a pill (or something) which would allow people to live longer. The only known way of making something live longer was to restrict it's calories, so they began to study caloric restriction. The idea was to make a pill which has effects similar to calroic restriction. This accomplished nothing fast. Along comes Roy Walford of UCLA. Walford thinks the life extending pill is a great idea, but he's pretty sure it isn't going to be developed in our lifetime. Having a keen sense of the obvious, Walford recommends that people start practicing caloric restriction themselves. It works on every other species for which it has been tried, and it has the same biological effects on human cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. as it has on other species. WHY NOT???
I've been looking for a book like this for a long time. Calorie restriction - which the authors are also referring to as "the longevity diet" - is the only way of slowing the aging process and becoming more youthful (at least so far!). I had been hearing about the diet for a long time, but it always seemed too extreme. CBS had a special calling it The Starvation Diet: "it will help you live 30-40 more years, but would you really want to?" But Walford and Delaney explain that the diet can be followed in less extreme forms, and they present a lot of evidence (without blinding me with science) that milder versions of the diet have extraordinary benefits as well. The second section of the book explains how the diet works in practice. I've already tried some of the recipes and suggestions. The "CR" phenomenon really isn't that complicated. The book explains how you can sort of "ease into" the diet, taking it to whatever level you want. There are no weird quantities of fat or protein, no complicated supplements or seaweed from distant parts of the planet: just common sense eating informed by science. My only disappointment was that there wasn't more discussion of non-dietary findings in anti-aging research. They explain the science of CR so lucidly, I'd want to see more from their pens about related matters. Maybe that will come in the next book. I'm already losing weight and feeling better. I probably won't take the diet to an extreme, but having the book around keeps my motivated.
I had been hearing about this "CR" Diet for several on the news, but never really understood what it was about. After reading this book, I think I finally do. I do not believe that any diet can make me live to be 150 years old but after reading this book, I believe I have to tools to maintain my youth and my mind much longer than I otherwise might have. Whether I actually stick with it is a different question....
I also bought Beyond the 120-Year Diet, which is an excellent book, but Roy Walford seems too much like a True Believer. What I liked about The Longevity Diet is that it seems more realistic. It gives a lot of evidence for this diet being able to improve health, even if in mild forms the diet won't add another five decades to your life. Roy Walford focused on people who wanted to take the diet to an extreme. Delaney and Lisa Walford focus on more normal people.
But the main thing I liked about the book is that, after reading it, I had new motivation to think about what I eat: my health. And the simple, but fairly thorough explanation of nutrition somehow "stuck," and made it easy not to buy the container of ice cream on my way home from dinner. Having in my head this clear, simple explanation of excess Calories and their effect on health is changing my life. Not a huge amount, but enough to make me feel much better.
The one minor criticism I have is that the Resources section had only a few entries. But maybe they'll use the Web link they give to provide more resources. If the authors are reading this, I'd like to say: please use the Web link to provide more resources!! (Or write another book!) I'd like to learn more.
I bought the book when it first became available almost a month ago (don't know why it says "June 9" here--it was available earlier) and it has been extraordinarily helpful to me. I'm not one of these "life extenders" who follow the diet to an extreme. I don't want to live to be 140 years old. I want to be healthy and trim. Other reviewers have talked about how the extremely clear explanations of some basic nutritional principles "stick" in a powerful way that helps you make more sensible food choices. I have definitely found that to be the case. You "feel" the harm a half pint of ice cream will do to your cells, and it's easy to say No. It's only been a month so we'll see how long the positive effects last... but right I can say I feel much better and I don't feel I'm making any kind of "sacrifice", and I assume this will continue indefinitely. The personal stories were also very helpful. (I wish there had been more. That would be my only negative comment about the book.) I just saw one of the coauthors on Good Morning America a couple hours ago, who actually looked WAY too thin. It's too bad ABC didn't show the people following milder versions of the diet like Delaney the other coauthor since they actually look great. Maybe some people on this diet get obsessed with extreme health or extreme skinniness and that's what ABC wanted to focus on to make this sensationalistic. It's a pity because the extremists actually look almost scary. But for people who start out overweight (like moi), this diet is perfect.